How to start Smoking and Survive living in a Haunted house.

 

This is a true ghost story, but it is also a story of how we readily change our ethics to suit a situation and the excuses we make for it, because all addictions are crutches.

Like a lot of people from my generation, I started smoking in high school. It was cool to hang with the gang just outside the school gates, smoking cigarettes, especially those pilfered from an unattended parent pack.

Jump a generation into the future and it’s just not cool to smoke any more, period. The last handful of a soon to be extinct social group, smokers have descended to Leper status.

I gave up when I fell pregnant with my first child, completely out of duty. It never entered my head that one day in the future I would smoke once again. Completely impossible-Nada, never, no way!

18 years later, a day after New Year’s Eve, not long after my beloved father died, sitting somewhat lonely on the back step outside the most haunted house I would ever live in, I struck up a cigarette.

I had chosen a Winfield Blue from the array of packets before me. 6 of my friends had the night before held true to their resolutions and handed me their packets of unused cigarettes to dispose of. I was the most convicted non-smoker they knew. I never realised how much of a turncoat I truly was.

Really, all I wanted was an excuse not to go inside. I never believed in smoking indoors, in cars etc.

If I was smoking, I couldn’t go inside could I?

The light was fading, my head was spinning; deep breaths in and long breaths out, in between the coughing & spluttering, the bile of acid rose in my stomach to greet my windpipe with a punch. Ah! Still it was heaven, albeit, a long forgotten one.

The kids were at their dad’s for the weekend, and I alone except for the ‘others’, no one would know of my naughtiness. I had enough stash to keep me outside all night. 

I must have fallen asleep at some time.

As the first rays of light hit my face and my neck was stiff from leaning against the back door, I heard a crunching munching noise in front of me. One sticky eye opens to a rather large bull chomping on my marigolds a couple of metres away. He was staring right at me.

At that moment I was more scared of this massive beast than I was of the ghostly squatters that occupied the house with us.

I wasn’t to know that Henry, the neighbour’s bull, was rather tame - I was a city girl recently turned country.

I slid up the door ever so slowly, holding panic at bay, till I reached the handle and fell backwards into the house, kicking the door shut with my foot as I lay on the ground. My stash of cigarettes left behind on the doorstep. Damn!

A phone call revealed that my neighbour wasn’t home. Henry thought my backyard was a feast and wasn’t willing to leave anytime soon. If I hadn’t been smoking I would have cried at the devastation of the lost flowers, ripped out grass and the huge pats of steaming dung, but I was more concerned on how to get my precious smokes. 

No amount of shooing, booing and banging saucepan lids together from the sanctuary of the kitchen window would get Henry to move back to the paddocks.

Great, I have only been smoking for a few hours & I am already going through the anxiety of withdrawal.

An hour later as Henry finally turned his head from the direction of the back door step, I opened the door with slow motion stealth, crept down the step, bundled up the packets in my arms and started to crawl backwards keeping an eye on Henry at all times. I raced out to the front veranda and lit up, enjoying it like a treasure hunter finally finding his gold. There was even a euphoric high five jump in the air.

Dry mouthed, I hungered for a cup of tea, but it was such an enterprise to make one. The ‘others’ & I would play on/off tag over & over with the kettle, every time I switched it on, they switched it off.

The first time it happened I thought it was the kettle, so I purchased a new one. It took 4 days after moving in to realise it wasn’t a case of a faulty kettle. No wonder the house had been on the market for over 2 years, empty & hastily abandoned by its previous short- term owners.

Most days I remembered to put a saucepan of water on the stove to boil, which it seemed they didn’t have any control over. This particular morning I turned the kettle on. 2 seconds later it switched itself off. Sigh.

Smokers have a higher level of Serotonin, which induces more Dutch courage than a non-smoker, which is why, when this time the kettle clicked itself off, I let out a string of aggressive threats to my ethereal residents, frightening them into absolute silence & inactivity for 2 days, beginning with the kettle switching back on immediately!

Well! That’s more like it.

Mind you though, the threats only worked the one time. If I was thinking that screaming threats of laying rock salt on the floors and drenching the house in holy water would permanently evict the house of its ghostly tenants, I was sadly mistaken.

Ghosts are not like children; you can’t bluff them as easily.

From that day onwards, now that I had renewed my secret love affair with cigarettes again, I really wanted all the kids in bed by 8.30 so that I could have as much time as possible to spend with my little white cancer sticks. My days tragically changed to counting the hours down till we could meet again.

Smoking seemed to inject a shot of tenacious, enduring courage.

I no longer felt the fear of leaving the kids in my bedroom where we now all slept, shivering with angst as the footsteps of the unseen could be heard along the hallway, or the echoes of long ago conversations filtering through the house, or even when the hairy-backed man with woeful vocals took the liberty of sharing a shower with my 5 year old son.

So many nights I would hear his ear piercing scream “MUM HE’S IN THE SHOWER AGAIN” meant that I would have to stub out my half used cigarette, with a long drawn in breath in frustration. Once I called back having only just lit my smoke “Just close your eyes, I’ll be there in a minute!”

7.5 minutes later I walked into the bathroom finding my little son cowering in the corner sobbing under his wet towel. I could feel with horrible guilt the words ‘worlds worst mum’ being tattooed on my forehead with red-hot flames.

I certainly had my priorities wrong. From then on, I dutifully waited with him in the shower & until he had actually fallen asleep each night before sneaking off to my smoky tryst.

For the 6 months that we lived on the isolated property before I started to smoke again, I would have never, ever set foot outside once it became dark, and never near the granny flat where I had set up my fledgling business. Each afternoon I would lock the door as I walked towards the house and padlock the wrought iron gate heralding it’s entrance. Each night without fail we would hear footsteps stomping down the path, the gate squeak open and the banging of the granny flat door. Some nights, an eerie unexplainable blue light could be seen emanating from inside the workshop.

That area was also the only place that I could smoke undetected. Hiding my contraband under an upturned pot next to the house, I was well within the shadows to have a smoke or few each evening. The first few times, I had my back to the wall, my eyes darting sideways with a certain amount of apprehension, it seemed our ‘granny flat’ residents didn’t like the smell of smoke, as it was a very long time before we heard the nightly ritual again.

I wondered if I should do the same for the house. The risk of being caught smoking by the kids? Hmm, no way!  

Each weekend as the kids left to stay with their father, I moved my smoking spot to the back door step and late into the night, inside the house. The feral animals that moved around the peripheral edge of the bush scrub in the daytime would creep closer to the house late at night. A timid, petite woman alone was fair game.

Many a night I lay awake listening to the animals rummaging outside the house or the ghosts doing their own thing or dealing with the nocturnal animal problem themselves.

I swear one night, alone in the house shivering with terror under my blankets listening to what seemed to be a feral dog clawing at the back door, one of the male ghosts shouted out “Get out of here you f***ing mangy dog!” and possibly the sound of a gun shot thereafter. I sat bolt upright, not at all sure what I heard was real or not. I must have smoked the entire packet before dawn, but at least the house was ‘quiet’ for the remainder.

My weekends became a smoky sleepless affair.

There would come a time when the kids would find out. The stale ashtray smell hovering around my persona should have betrayed me much earlier or maybe the kids were in denial, that their mum was less than perfect.

One night, squished between 2 sleeping beauties, a snoring buffoon and a fecund farting arse, I just couldn’t sleep out of sheer discomfort. Leaving the jungle of 4 bodies behind, I headed for the kitchen.

On my way I passed a watery apparition in the hall. I took one look at it and snarled “Not now!”

The kitchen light was on, even though I had turned it off before bed, but that was nothing unusual. 

Down in one of the abandoned bedrooms I could hear a stereo softly playing, even though it wasn’t plugged in, but that was nothing unusual either. 

I chuckled when I recognised the tune “Keep on Moving” by a boy band called Five. I even found myself singing along.

I perched myself up on the bench, lit a smoke while waiting for the saucepan of water to boil when the shower in my bedroom ensuite started and the hairy backed man with the woeful vocals commenced his dreadful repertoire. 

All 4 kids came running out faster than superman, one after the other. Huey, Dewey, Louie & Moe stood before me with mouths agape, and I, mid puff. Oh crap, sprung.

Arguments arose from all 4 mouths that turned into a cacophony of sound, what no one realised was that the wannabe opera singer and the boy band down the other end of the house had completely stopped.

It took a great deal of convincing my offspring that by me smoking bought a few precious hours of peace each night. I was almost going to mention that by my sacrifice to a life of smoking, I would be protecting my darling loved ones from the perils of a supernatural force. I thought that might be going a little too far.

It wasn’t until I mentioned the very obvious fact that in ghost movies, it’s only the people that don’t have a smoke in their hands that get attacked. You never see anyone puffing away get done over by a ghost. The fact that considering our current living arrangement, our poverty meant we didn’t have a TV and even if we did, I wouldn’t allow them to watch horror ghost movies anyway, they logically believed me.

It took sensible daughter to question what was funding my vice? The then $8.95 packet of cigarettes would buy milk & bread for us for the week. We had a strict budget, I cringed, um, I had scrimped on other things?

The funny thing about addictions is that no matter how impoverished one is, there is always money to buy the addictive substance. I still can’t figure out how I managed it, being a single mum of 4 kids, a uni student and making only meagre portions of money to sustain us all, yet we survived.

We had everything money couldn’t buy – Poverty, Love, and a uniquely large collection of ghosts.

The locals, as they had done with all the previous tenants, laid down their bets as to how long we would stay. After a year they were left scratching their heads “Strewth! No one has lasted this long!”

As long as there wasn’t any strange red slime dripping down the walls, we were staying put.

We never indulged the locals how many times we packed the car ready to leave. The times we all sat quietly listening to ghostly conversations, ghostly sweet laughter of a once happy child, sharing showers with apparitions, how the lights would brutally flicker for long agonising moments. The list of so many other disturbing occurrences was so long it would take a month of blue Monday’s to read through.

The strange thing was when I met my future husband; whenever he visited the house it was completely quiet. He never once experienced anything, zip, zilch, nix!

“Are you sure this house is haunted?” questioning our experiences.

I asked him to move in.

The moment his belongings arrived the haunting completely ceased to exist.

The next 3 years, life became normal until our baby came along. Within the month after her birth the ghostly occupants became active again or returned home, even hubby’s dog Pollie experienced the bathroom ghost. Never saw the dog move so fast out of the house with her tail between her legs.

I’m not sure whether it was because we had both stopped smoking due to the baby, but hubby seriously suggested we move.

“I don’t know if the dog can take it much longer” cradling the whimpering large dog in his arms. I’m glad he didn’t call her Lionheart or something similar, which would have been rather embarrassing.

With that we packed up the family and moved to normality.

Out of revenge I chose the same realtor to act as leasing agent. She suggested a few times if I had considered using a new agent down the road. Letting her know with a large Cheshire smile, I had been so impressed with her previous service I couldn't think to use anyone else, she paled.

Filling out the forms, she automatically ticked non-smoking tenants. “Darling” I intervened, “I actually prefer smokers. The survival rate is higher” 

She gulped.

Postscript.

All families go through tough times at one stage or another. I'm quite sure just like my own family, there are many stories to tell, as diverse & as varied as there are people that walk this wonderful planet.

The most important relationships we have stem from the families we create. Families are the people that we gather around us, people that we share our lives with, related or not. Families are our real crutches in life, once that is acknowledged any addiction can be overcome.

Enjoy!

Another blog written smoke free by a Haunted House Survivor. All photo's have been gratefully sourced from Google Images

Should a man give a 'Push" Present or not - Um yeah!

The Rite of the Birthing Present or the Push present or how not to get hit in the head by a Frypan

When any men ask me about giving their wife or partner a ‘push or birthing’ present, I always advise ‘To stay out of the silent doghouse I would strongly recommend you show her some gold”.

Joe, another business owner in our complex, and I often share a ‘cuppa in the car park’ each morning. He was telling me the other day when his wife was pregnant for the first time, he sacrificed 2 beers a week to put away some money to buy his wife a ‘baby bauble’ gift.

“It was difficult but I managed the sacrifice but buying the gift was a painful labour of love” he quipped, cheekily adding that after a mammoth, complicated, scarring 27 hour experience (showing me where his wife gripped his arm so hard and left nail marks that after 10 years are still visible), he needed to buy her a bigger better gift. Something the size of a baby’s head in relative proportion he gathered.

In Europe the wonderful act of a father giving an heirloom gift, usually some form of jewellery, to the woman who just gave birth to his child is eons old. 

Here in Australia though it is still somewhat contentious.

When my grandmother was born in 1903, in a tiny bedroom just above where the cows were housed in a little farmhouse in rural Holland, my great grandfather presented my great grandmother a sapphire ring surrounded by 10 little diamonds. The 10 diamonds were to represent the amount of children he’d hoped to have. I wondered if he had to rethink that ring when the 17^th child was born many years later, well after my own mother was born.

In Holland, there is an unspoken rule that if a man fails to present his wife the obligatory ‘birthing present’ all the women in the community would line up armed with their frypans and clout the man into submission. Let’s say a few men over the course of history didn’t live to rectify their error.

The other rule is that when the mother passes over, the child inherits that heirloom so that they too can pass it down. That’s how I got to have my great gandmothers ring that I still wear today. Someday it will go to my oldest daughter, Missy Zip.

My mother was born on a very cold November day in 1930 in the heart of Amsterdam, as her mother lay in her bedroom, puffing & panting surrounded by her mother, sister and several female neighbours, the young male neighbour who lived directly above them was pounding his floor with a broom “hold up with the moaning already!” sending debris on top of the labouring group.

In Holland women give birth at home and except for small pockets of rural areas, everyone lives in apartments, packed in like sardines with paper-thin walls. Women of the block usually mind older kids and stand at the ready whilst the men are sent outside to play chess or mostly go to the cafes to drink Beer and smoke Drum tobacco, waiting for one of the messenger kids to tell of the good news.

Once my mother was finally born, her grandmother armed with the frypan from the kitchen marched upstairs and pounded on the door. When he opened, she greeted him with the frypan; she had walloped him that hard, it knocked him out cold. She left him on the floor where he fell.

He hid in his apartment for 4 days too scared to face the furore of women waiting outside, all armed with their frypans and unforgiving tempers.

Having watched the movie ‘Tangled’ last year, I have to wonder if the writer is in anyway Dutch?

My grandfather presented my grandmother a beautiful marquisette brooch to commemorate the birth of his first daughter. Hailing from a good Catholic Spanish descent Dutch family, the other tradition is the inheritance of the family first name; names that originally belong to the descendants. That’s why my mother has 17 Christian names and we her children, thankfully only got one.

I only remember the first 6 or so; Frederika Maria Teodora Fransica Margueritte Eugenie (pronounced OO-shon-ee, she was quite adamant about that) and when it came to filling in official forms that required her full name, she would look at the 10cm of line space and say “Well that sucks”.

On my first wedding day, mum presented me with her grandmother’s ring, her mother’s brooch. As I slid down the isle, I wore jewellery from 3 generations of women, women that I owed my very existence to.

As the last child in my family, unnaturally, I was the first to procreate, as my much older brothers were very good at shooting blanks. My son’s birth was a long awaited occasion, so my parents hit up his father as to what the ‘gift’ should be.

Being very young & just plain dumb, he naively replied “Huh? Nah, we don’t do that here”.

Unfortunately for him, that conversation took place in my parent’s kitchen. Mum pulled out the frying pan, tossing it around in her hand when my future ex-husband said,

“That’s a good idea, I’m pretty hungry after such a long night. What ya gonna cook Rika”

Dad suggested he run instead.

A few hours later with a noticeably large bump on his already receding forehead and a major headache to match, he emerged from the local jewellery store (in close escort of my tight lipped, narrow eyed, unhappy parents) with a lovely black onyx & cubic zirconia necklace & earring set.

At the hospital, I asked him what happened to his head.

“I had an argument with a frypan and lost”

When my parents suddenly left the room and echoes of their hysterical laughter filled the hallway, I assumed he had tried to cook something for himself, which he had never, ever done before. In that moment, I was so proud of his attempt I gushed with chick flick gooy-ness.

With the following 3 kids I managed to acquire a bracelet, diamond earrings and a watch. All very special, all very meaningful to me still to this day.

When I met Maurie and Little Miss Mischief was on her way, Maurie & my kids searched everywhere to find the elusive ‘gift’. Nothing seemed to be quite right, till Missy Zip spotted a ring in a bric- a- brac store. That was it.

They paid a pittance for it but it was perfect in everyway. Some years later a wedding band was crafted to fit in with it, as I never wanted to get engaged, because I never wanted another ring to replace it.

18 months ago, on a cold June Sunday, I was gardening when I noticed that my hands were bare. Panic erupted along with a tsunami of tears and unstoppable wailing on my part; everyone took to digging up the garden. Nothing.

The heartbreak took hold at times, as I had nothing to pass down to Little Miss Mischief other than my love and a portfolio of unsold artworks, which I’m pretty sure no one else wants either.

This Christmas just gone Maurie & little Miss Mischief, giving up the idea of finding my beautiful rings purchased a gold necklace with a pendant that says “I Love You’ instead.

That afternoon after the truckload of guests left, he asked if I had fed the guinea pigs yet. If looks could kill, I’d be organising a funeral right now.

The guinea pigs are such great lawn mowers, we haven’t physically mowed in months; we just move their bottomless cage around the yard every morning & night. With the Christmas frenzy they were left in the same spot for a few days and the result was a bare ground patch, completely devoid of grass and weeds, just their poop.

Maurie took out some carrots and celery sticks and came running back inside, in his hand was my wedding band!

I can just imagine the guinea pigs frustration - “Hey humans! We wanted 9 carrots not a 9 carat for Christmas!”

Two full days later and that area of the garden became to look like an excavation site, still nothing.

Maurie, the gem that he is and rather determined that we find my precious ring, ordered a metal detector.

It arrived this morning…......fingers crossed, here’s hoping hey?

Keep you posted.

Photo's are from personal files, my uncle Dolf Krugar and the rest greatfully sourced from Google images

Enjoy!

When a Pet Dies

I thought we'd share an email we were sent about a heart warming act of kindness by a stranger who helped a broken hearted child, when they beloved pet died. Children have such a strong bond with their pets, more than we can imagine at times, but when they die, the heartbreak is something as parents we need to help our children through.
One mother decided to help her 4 year old daughter write a letter to God to look after their dog Abbey. She never expected an answer!

So here's the email, you might need a tissue though!

Our 14 year old dog, Abbey, died  last month. The day after she died, my 4 year old daughter  Meredith was crying and talking about how much she missed Abbey.  She asked if we could write a letter to God so that when Abbey  got to heaven, God would recognize her. I told her that I  thought we could so she dictated these words: 

Dear  God, 
Will  you please take care of my dog? She died yesterday and is with  you in heaven. I miss her very much. I am happy that you let me  have her as my dog even though she got sick. 
I hope you will  play with her.. She likes to play with balls and to swim. I am  sending a picture of her so when you see her You will know that  she is my dog. I really miss her. 
Love,  Meredith 

We put the  letter in an envelope with a picture of Abbey and Meredith and  addressed it to God/Heaven. We put our return address on it..  Then Meredith pasted several stamps on the front of the envelope  because she said it would take lots of stamps to get the letter  all the way to heaven. That afternoon she dropped it into the  letter box at the post office. A few days later, she asked if  God had gotten the letter yet. I told her that I thought He  had. 

Yesterday,  there was a package wrapped in gold paper on our front porch  addressed, 'To Meredith' in an unfamiliar hand.. Meredith opened  it. Inside was a book by Mr. Rogers called, 'When a Pet Dies..'  Taped to the inside front cover was the letter we had written to  God in its opened envelope. On the opposite page was the picture  of Abbey & Meredith and this note: 


Dear  Meredith, 
Abbey arrived  safely in heaven. 

Having the  picture was a big help. I recognized Abbey right away. 
Abbey isn't sick  anymore. Her spirit is here with me just like it stays in your  heart. Abbey loved being your dog. Since we don't need our  bodies in heaven, I don't have any pockets to keep your picture  in, so I am sending it back to you in this little book for you  to keep and have something to remember Abbey by..

Thank  you for the beautiful letter and thank your mother for helping  you write it and sending it to me. What a wonderful mother you  have. I picked her especially for you. I send my blessings every  day and remember that I love you very much. By the way, I'm easy  to find, I am wherever there is love. 

Love, 
God 



Wow! how something kind of wonderful is that!, it blew me away reading this email, albeit with a tissue in hand. A stranger at the postal dead letter office went out of their way to ease a broken hearted child, a blessed soul!


We lost our faithful dog Pollie,  a grand dame  of 16 years nearly 2 years ago. A framed photo of Pollie is mounted on the wall next to Little Miss Mischief's bed. Each night she says 'good night' and plants a kiss on the photo. Last week when it was her dad's birthday, the restaurant had some helium balloons on the table as a centre piece. LMM took them home, which she wrote on one


"Dear God, please give this to Pollie, she loves balloons and I miss her so much"


We walked outside in the dark, holding a candle in one hand she let the balloon go in the other. The breeze took hold of it and it floated upwards, then seem to hover at one point, not moving further upward.
Under my breath I said with fingers crossed behind my back "please keep on moving......please" then whoosh! it flew away. Phew!.
LMM said "For a moment there I was worried that maybe God doesn't allow balloons Mum in heaven".
Then she asked the question that I think is long overdue
"Can I have a puppy for Christmas?"
I looked my treasured garden and gulped...............


Have you had a pet that has died? what did you find hard or how did you explain it to your children?

A Day in the life of a Supermum. Oh really!

How do Super Mum's live anyway?

Every morning at around 3.30am I wake up embracing the day, though it's still dark outside and the birds haven't started their morning song as of yet.

Drink a relishing tasty health tonic and escape into the shower.

Don my sport clothes for a 5km jog, travel another 2km power walk, add a 30 minute course of cardio aerobic exercise finishing with a dessert topping of a 4 lap swim.

Shaking my wet hair into a 'naturally dried, I don't need to do another thing to my hair because it's already awesome as it is'. Slip easily into my size 8, superlicious jeans, cup my boobs into a 10B bra and top that off with a stylish, 'you look yummy mummy hot' top.

With enthusiasm and gusto, make every one's lunches, pre-prepare tonight's gourmet dinner, unload and reload faithful dishwasher, clean an already clean looking house, lay out children's daily clothes, make son's power shake, hang out the laundry, pre-program the next load of washing, feed the pets, sit down with a cuppa to answer personal emails, answer online comments, finish social media strategy plan by the last drop of tea and head to work for morning start of 6.30 am.

SLAP!
Sorry about that, I was dreaming again.

Is life really that simple to traverse, yet we seem to think that other mums do.....the idealistic super-mum. The mums that seem to sail through life effortlessly, with beautiful well mannered children, vogue styled home, and an impressive income of her own. She has the Midas touch, everything is easy.

Last week, a friend asked me to watch a web-video on a 'Mogul Mum" who seemed to have it all, she is by all accounts on the surface a super-mum. Watching this well known personality speak about her success, I noticed her body language, her shoulders were hunched a little and her eyes, well, a little less than smiley.This is a woman with some personal troubles or just plain tired, but the talk was there, the hype was there, smacking of "Look at me, look at me, I am so successful". Oh really.

The last time I spoke at a parenting conference I was introduced as an inspirational super-mum, which took me back a little. Liking the compliment anyway, but I am as ordinary as the mum next door.

In reality, I wake up at around 3.30am with a groan. I'd love to meet 7am, I hear its a really good time.

Turn the light on, gasp at the state of the kitchen, make a cup of tea and turn the computer on.
Read emails. Lament at the still dark exterior......
Basically everything else above is the same minus the enthusiasm & gusto, the over achieving exercise routine, the size 8 body, preferred boob size, the hair and clothes thing too, but as soon as there is light, I do go for a 3km power walk and ho hum the joggers that zoom past me each morning. I wouldn't dare jog out of fear that my hefty cleavage will give me a set of black eyes. I'm still not trim.

Today's society expects all mothers to be superhuman, super trim and super good looking and super talented, super committed and super financially independent. No excuses.
Women everywhere are trying so hard to meet these standards and they are secretly killing themselves emotionally & physically to meet the demands.

I think about the generation of women that came before me, like my mum.
My mum's generation were the stay at home wives. Girls who worked in their youth to be typists, secretaries, check out chicks till they married and had kids.

The conversations that mum & her friends used have on their regular get togethers; the lounge room would be filled with ladies puffing away on their cigarettes, drinking their coffee and chatting about how stressful their lives were.
Guaranteed each mum in that lounge room spoke about their daily dose of Valium or diazepam (something that sounded like that), who's husband was having an affair, gossiping about who didn't clean their windows last week, what type of roast to make, the latest in knitting techniques and had anyone tried the latest craze, macrame yet.
No one spoke about their gym routine, because gyms didn't exist then.

It intrigued me as to why all of these women were on Valium or similar in the first place. Valium is a calmative, sedative, that was often prescribed to help the then modern mum through the day without breakdown.
Were children so hard to raise in those days?

The only hardship I can possibly think off for my mother was that I asked more questions than she could ever possible answer, but basically we were all kicked outside to have our own adventures till dinner time. It was great.

Fast forward to the now generation of mums, life is far more complex and convoluted, the demands so much higher, all striving to reach the super human everything, and we are doing it without the aid of Valium.

Conversations now centre around who has found the latest apps, their careers, latest business technology, cloud computing, dropbox, latest google find, FB updates, diet & exercise regime, websites, new retail stores and cafes, best new parties, music and sometimes if you listen very carefully or look at the body language, there is a little subtle hint of "I'm drowning in competition here".

Majority of mums work, so career paths are critical to reach supermum status rather than just jobs. One dear friend returned to work once her children started school as a 'check out chick' at a local supermarket, rather than her previous corporate role. "I love my job really, it's the school hours so I'm free to be mum to my boys, I dont have to worry about after school care. I leave without taking work home with me, it's ideal in every way but I'm embarrassed to mention what I do in the company of other women that have executive positions, because they look down their noses at me as if I'm not important".

In reality, women in front line roles such as retail & customer service are far more important to us on a daily level than one woman at CEO level of a major corporation that we would not normally affiliate with. Just imagine if there was no one working in the supermarkets, or no supermarkets at all, we'd be back to growing all of our own veges (which is fun), slaughtering our own chickens & cattle (which isn't fun) ourselves or standing in long, long queues.

Many mums have also become business owners. The new breed of mumpreneurs, have the added stress of single handedly building the entire infrastructure of their company from the ground up, continually pursuing business education. Elements outside the initial product or service, such as employees, marketing, social media expertise, presentations, meetings, sourcing, business & retail relationships; the list is endless.
Yet every week the benchmark lifts a little higher and the mumpreneur has to work yet harder.
Last week someone mentioned I wasn't on Pinterest. "Huh?"

No matter what society expects from us, as mother's we are still in charge of doing the same motherly duties of looking after our children and partners as our predecessor did plus a whole lot more.



Take the outside work mum, who has to get the kids up and ready, the partner too sometimes, so that she can get to work on time. I have watched mums struggle into the day care centre in our home street, holding a tearful baby in one arm whilst dragging a defiant, cantankerous toddler in the other, come back out brushing a tear a way or wait till they get in the car and thump their head on the steering wheel, taking deep breaths. Their stressful day started a while ago and they haven't even arrived at work yet.

As our children reach primary school age, there's the struggle to get them to school on time, only to have the little darlings say at the school gate "Mum did you get my bag?"

  
Not to mention the plethora of after school activities, when mum becomes the taxi service, circumnavigating afternoon traffic across a couple of suburbs if she has more than one child or maybe a few to cart around.

Juggle the taxi service in between the second most important meal of the day, which is also the most time consuming and complex meal to make - the evening dinner. Add a few rounds of homework supervision (or battle standoffs), the bath time, the kitchen cleaning, folding the laundry, the bedtime routine (or war), it's not surprising to find many an overwhelmed mum not yet out of their work clothes at 9pm, trying to make it all fit in.






Mums seem to push themselves at the expectation to perform at a top knot rate endlessly throughout their day & night in all areas, to prove 'I am woman, hear me roar! I am woman, I am invincible" as Helen Redding sang the song that inspired women to change their lives from that day forward.


In hindsight someone should have put gaffer tap over her mouth!!

Something has got to give? but what?



Aside from the the secret wishful thinking of a few hours of 'free me time', as mothers, we wouldn't trade our children for anything.

Weekends are lost on the catch up of domestic chores, leaving most working mums without the option of critical battery recharging that the kids and non helpful partners enjoy the abundance of.
We're supposed to do it with a smile to!



As we battle the 'must have clean nest' syndrome internally, we endeavour to make our lives easier; we look, we search, we share tips, ideas, suggestions. As women we do that well, we also set the benchmark, the standards, we compete, we show off, because that's what women do. We are our own most significant 'frenemy'.

A friends daughter will be turning 10 at the end of this month, so she was scouring the bowels of google, blogs, websites and Pinterest for fab ideas and came away completely disheartened, somewhat depressed, if not impressed with her finds.
Looking on one blog site, her eyes feasted, her creative juices flowed and her heart sank
"Is this the new standard for little girls parties" she groaned "I can't compete with that, now I feel lousy that I can't, not only do these things, didn't think of them in the first place and just don't have the energy to coordinate it all?" she sighs.
It seems that Mcdonalds parties are no longer acceptable for that age group.

So the hangup begins again...... 'why can't I be a better mum like that mum'.....or 'mums like that make mums like me look real bad'..

Honestly, children really don't care if their mum can't master cloud computing, spreadsheets, diverse applications or make fancy sugar iced dolly clothes for dolly cookies, they love mum for who she is; their mum.

All mums are awesome in their own right!

Laugh at the chaos,

Take a 'good' break weekly (locking yourself in the toilet for half an hour, counting to 10 over and over again isn't considered a good break)

Don't stress about having to make the beds before you go to work in the morning; an empty house doesn't care. I have never known a house to have a sign on its front door "My owner didn't make the beds today"

Baked beans on toast for dinner is more than perfectly acceptable, we just don't get enough legumes in our diet anyway.

Don't compare yourself to other mums, they are probably doing the same to you.

Toys and baby paraphernalia scattered around is a sign 'My Family lives here'

Have an FFYD (Fend For Yourself Dinner) night at least once a week if you can. I've started to partake in that great invention.

If your are totally overwhelmed (and who isn't at times) find another mum to talk with and get things off your chest. She might need it too.

Believe in yourself, your kids do.



and,

"No one ever says on their death bed, I should have spent more time in the office"

Enjoy!

ACCC is not an authority on safety - a must read!!

What if you are in the market for a new car. You've done the research, you've thought about it and came up with a decision on a particular car. What if you read an article from an authority you believe is an expert on all things car related. This authority, this car expert steers you away from your decision, saying it's a bad choice, don't go near it. You decide on another type of car from the findings of this expert. What if, a few months down the track you discover that this expert doesn't know the difference between a motorcycle, a truck or even a station wagon. How would you feel? ripped off? angry perhaps? annoyed about being lied too? steaming at the ears because your original choice would have been perfect to suit your needs. What would you do? speak up?

I spent over an hour 2 weeks ago speaking with Tony Mintura from the ACCC, who released to the media that cloth slings are dangerous and shouldn't be used. A sort of Armageddon type statement that smacked of innuendo that if you put your baby in a sling it will die, it will suffocate instantly.
Yet no baby actually has. The first one last year was the famous 'hang the baby on the door knob' case.

OK I warrant that it was a 'bag style sling' that had 2 layers, elasticised opening and the baby was strapped to the bottom of the sling and hung off the door knob so the parents dogs couldn't get at the baby. It might have sounded like a good idea at the time but it became a fatal one. The elasticised opening closed up as a natural reaction, the dual layers of fabric stopped airflow and the baby was at the bottom of the bag carrier breathing in stale air. A mistake that can never be repaired.
Infantino recalled all of it's bag style carriers for review, while most of the industry had again repeated what they all thought when it first appeared on the market.....WTF! We all still do.

The ACCC went into fight mode and the newspapers said that if the ACCC have their way, all slings will be banned. Shock waves hit the industry, contacting the ACCC was harder than a needle in a hay stack, so emails were written, phones calls - all unanswered.

I saw more than 15 years of hard work, research, study, testing, go running out the door faster than my family when I offer Brussels Sprout Pie is for dinner.

Only those who are fans, didn't read the article, or tish-toshed the ACCC antics away that we are still here today.

Looking at the photo's in this blog, it looks nearly impossible on how a baby can suffocate. Rule of thumb with any product, you must be able to see baby's mouth at all times.

With the death of a 2 day old newborn baby in SA worn under the mother's jumper, the ACCC is at it again, trying to blame the death on slings. Most people will agree carrying a baby under a jumper without visible access to baby's mouth is never a clever idea, regardless of being in a sling or not.

The coroner handed down the judgement that the death was indeterminable, but the ACCC once again tried to focus the blame on a sling. The point is that with any type of suffocation, there is clear forensic evidence, such as cell & tissue damage, explaining it simply. This was not evident in the baby's autopsy.
Again we approached the ACCC with a 'please explain & why are you scaremongering the public!"

No answer again until I decided to follow protocol and make a complaint about the ACCC as a jeopardising monopoly, which by the way is illegal. The only government body who can approach in times like this is the ACCC. So the ACCC had to follow mandatory protocol and investigate itself.
My outcome - result! A phone call from the man himself, Tony Mintura, the expert on sling safety, except he doesn't know the difference between any of the different types of carriers on the market.

I'm not joking!!!!!!!! this man who made the statements, the press releases, doesn't even know the difference between a hammock style carrier, a parachute style, a wrap style or the dreaded bag style (ok most of us in the industry want to see this style go, because we are all in the know). I had to spend some time explaining how the different styles operate, the benefits, the whole kit & caboodle. I also asked him if he had ever used one, though I suspected the answer - no, "I just doesn't like them" he said.
This is the man that is trying to govern what you are allowed to use, like the car expert who knows nothing of cars.
Our industry was ever grateful to Kidsafe who immediately got on TV to feature how safe slings are.


What or who is the ACCC anyway? What do they do?
The ACCC was formed as a watchdog to protect businesses and consumers from pricing & practise monopolies.
They are not an authority on product safety.

Mostly this organisation was established as an outcome from the insidious dealings of the building industry, then became a protective blanket for all industries.
As one example, in our industry, some years ago, a private organization called INPAA, aka Industry Nursery Products Australia Association was formed as a regulatory group to list safe products that had undergone or met high safety standards, including legislative, such as car seats or non-legislative products, such as baby carriers etc.
Initially this non-government body was an ethical group determined to make Australian babies & children's products safe, but with a changing of the board of directors over the years, an insidious practise started to emerge.
Around 5 years ago, Bubba Moe Slings was the first to achieve product liability for soft baby carriers within Australia. I approached INPAA to become 'certified', and was rejected without any comment. Numerous phone calls were never returned and we at Bubba Moe were left scratching our heads as to why?
It wasn't till we were at a baby expo in Melbourne we were told the truth by another sling competitor who also had trouble gaining any entry into this elusive organisation. Having done some research herself, she found that another competitor of ours was one of the board of directors of INPAA, therefore any other soft baby carrier company would not be allowed a certificate of approval. Of course INPAA approached retailers to become a part of their group (retailers paying a hefty annual fee to display a sticker in the window) and then telling the retailers to clear their shelves of any non-INPAA products. A monopoly formed.
Many retailers bucked at the cost and the loss of some of their favourite products. It was a pram manufacturer (who wishes to remain anonymous) who found that another board member was also a pram manufacturer, that contacted the ACCC. This is were the ACCC is an authority. The board members were sacked, a new practice protocol was put into place under the guidance of ACCC, and we in the industry sighed a hefty sigh of relief.

For the record, Australian Standards & Kidsafe have never been in any association with the ill-fated INPAA. Though INPAA is still trading (eyebrows raised) it doesn't have any clout or bearing and most people don't even know of its existence. The former board members who eagerly wished the demise of their competitors all went out of business themselves (karma always bites back)

The strange thing is that why is ACCC getting involved? They along with the ABA (Australian Breast Feeding Association) are trying to set a standard on baby carriers personally. I feel that this is INPAA revisited all over again. ABA themselves don't have a breastfeeding carrier except for their 'apron' style carrier that has been rated the worst carrier in history for it's tiny shoe string straps and no infant head support. They approached me around 2 years ago to redesign this carrier to be more supportive, user friendly and most importantly breast feeding friendly! I was eager until a change of staff (there's a lot of staff changes) left me dealing with their project manger........ in short -  I quit!!!!!!!!!!!
I, like all their previous staff wanted to hide on the Sahara side of Timbuktu.

In the Media industry, they are often referred to as the 'WHO', but these people have some clout.
Do you know why you never or very rarely see advertisements on bottles or dummies? The ABA is responsible for that. Whether you are a member or not, all new parents are under the wrath of the ABA, who themselves are creating a monopoly - which is illegal.



New parents are being denied access to knowledge of an item that they might or have to use. No parent should be made to feel ashamed for using a bottle, after all what is a bottle really? It's a drinking vessel, like a cup, glass, pop top etc, its just something to drink out of.

Our caricature (mascot) is a derivative of a photo of my 2nd son 'the Chef' & me when he was 5 months old. In the photo he is sitting in the sling chomping at the side of his mouth a dummy (great for teething instead of me) with me looking at him with motherly love. We cant use our mascot because of the dummy.
For me it's a homage to my son who made me start the business of Bubba Moe.

We were incredibly poor, faced with a moral dilemma when he sold his 4 rabbits to produce $20. Do I use the money to buy food or buy fabric to make some more money maybe? when I had my first non-family customer. It was he who said "If you do this, our lives will change"
The next week, when she paid for the sling, we bought something that we hadn't had in a very long while - ice cream.

help us choose a Mini Moe Logo and win one for the little mothers

The first time I made a 'Mini Moe' was when Missy Zip was 6 years old, she is now 21. 

The Baby Born doll was the biggest fad since the Barbie, and like all the other girls her age, high on the Christmas wish list. 

Month before Christmas, as the queue for the doll reached frantic level, I still needed to find tidbits like clothes & accessories for the doll, running out of time, I brought in the cavalry to stand in line, my mum. 

I left her with a look that smacked of "be nice" I went in search for the extras, surmising that it would be at least another half an hour

One hell of a ferocious person just by her look, mum never stood any line for anything very long. 

Mean mums come in handy for moments like these.

I was still gulping back the cost of the hefty priced outfits, which started at $48, and the Baby Born carrier was double that, when mum came up with the doll leaving behind a trail of curse mutterings from those still left in line. 

She demanded we leave real soon, or there might be a posse of irate mum's waiting for us in the car park.

"But I haven't got any clothes for the doll........"

With Troll, a then bub in the sling, it was mum who suggested or more like an inpatient scowl "make them yourself" as she pointed to the sling.

Looking past me, she said "Quick, give me the sling". I didn't need to turn around to know that there was a troop of angry shoppers with an agenda coming up behind us.

Transferring sleeping Troll in sling from me to mum was done in less then 30 seconds, she shoved me aside, pushed out her boobs, cracked her knuckles one at a time as she faced her self induced foe.

It worked every time, they slinked away.

Mum was as embarrassing as many times as she was right about things. 

I guess growing up in the slums of a European city ravaged by war & other atrocities, she came accustomed to casually stepping over fist fights in the street as she did stepping off a curb to cross a street.

That night I made Missy Zip and the Baby Born identical twirly floral dresses with matching flip up hats and a coordinating stripe Mini Moe dolly sling. I had to wait till she went to bed before commandeering The Chef's body as a guide for the Mini Moe dolly sling. Just 2 years older, he was used to being a live mannequin for all the Aster Moe Kidswear designs; boys & girls wear alike. 

Couple of years later it was a different story as I had to chase him around the house to get him to try on an outfit. "I'm not getting into a dress, FINAL!" he protested, hurdling couches, sliding across the kitchen bench island, as I pleaded in hot pursuit "I just need to check dimensions that's all. Honest it will be quick, pleeeaasse"

I couldn't wait till Christmas for missy Zip to have the Baby Born Doll and the various other outfits I ended up making. That doll was going to be the best dressed doll in town.

As with Missy Zip it was a hit as it was for our Aster Moe customers.

Mini Moe Dolls Clothes was born that Christmas and lived for another 10 years, selling at all the various markets we did.  All the designs were replicas of the of the Aster Moe range, many times the dolls clothes sold out before the children's clothes did. At Christmas time there would be queues of people, 4 -5 deep grabbing at the dolly clothes.  These days there is case of left over Mini Moe dolls clothes and a naked Baby Born, which has Texta makeup to rival the scariest clown in town in permanent non use under Little Miss Mischief's bed. I guess she didn't like Baby Born's as much as Missy Zip did.

 

The Mini Moe Dolly sling though, is in rampant use by little Miss Mischief & her BFF - Bailey. Sezah, her rabbit along with Snowy & Jasmine the resident guinea pigs all get daily rides as LMM lullaby's them with her own fairy & unicorn songs in the garden.

I'm thinking, singing lessons might not go astray in the new future..............

I have experimented with the Mini Moe Dolly slings for a long time, but kept coming back to our original version, thinking that maybe a ring sling version might give better sizing to accommodate different shapes & rapidly growing bodies. I experimented with parachute style versions, thinking that little kids could relate easier with that style, but there were already a few on the market and it seemed to contradict what we were about. Mostly parents spoke about their little toddlers grabbing the sling that was used for them and putting their teddies in, but it was too big; so back to the original once again.

Like a lot of things in our lives, we put a lot of projects to the back burner, due to life as we know it being so full as it is.

This time I did I got the legals in process before anyone saw the revised Mini Moe Dolly Sling; a little but very important thing called IP protection!!!!

Nothing is more heart braking than having your design that you have spent countless hours researching developing only to have it stolen away by the lack of an A4 sheet of paper. I've seen it happen to so many people in the past and it's not such a big process once you've don't it once.

We're really happy at the response we have had within our control groups, the retailers who have 'proof tested' the product and at Perth's PBC Expo last month a hit with the general public.

The product itself is finished, though we are still finalising the choices of logo's done by the fabulous Bec Marr from  RubyRuby designs and the marketing material such as packaging and other things that go with a new product......... so much to do! 

The staff & I just can't seem to settle on a favourite, so we thought it might be nice to have our fans & readers have an input in choosing the new logo for our Mini Moe Dolly Sling.

 As a reader of this blog, there's a chance to win a free Mini Moe Dolly Sling, from the following concepts, which logo would you choose? Post your answer in the comment section below. Who ever chooses the final design will get a Mini Moe of their choose, there's are 15 cute selections to choose from 

Love your Dad Today

With Fathers Day today, and just like every Fathers Day, it brings a tinge of sadness and excitement for our household.
I love spoiling my husband Maurie, he is such a great father not only to our own Little Miss Mischief but to his step children, 'my other 4'. I also think of my own dad, and Maurie's dad too, this is where the sadness comes in.
The one thing I wished I had done was tell Dad more times how much I loved him, I don't think I said it enough.

SO, if your Dad is around, love your Dad today!

I often think of my Dad, who was as soft as my mum was tough. Dad was an all round good guy, who loved to help anyone who needed a project completed, something built, something fixed. Wherever Dad went, so did his tools. Being an engineer, it suited him.

Dad was always around, helping us build our extension, building pathways, cubby houses, the pool etc. Everything in our home has a hand from Dad.

There wasn't a thing he wouldn't do for  me or his beloved grandchildren.
Have a problem - call Dad
Need a fix job - call Dad
Want something built - call Dad
Need some babysitting - call Dad
Help at the markets - call Dad
Build a spud cannon - Call Dad
Take kids to sport - Call Dad
Flat tyre - call Dad
Driving lessons - Call Dad
Frames for my art work - Call Dad
You name it, "who ya gonna call" - Dad


While I was heavily pregnant with #2 (the chef), I found it difficult to drive with such a big belly. Being short had a lot to do with it, with the seat set at the closest, my belly got in the way. Dad to the rescue again, constructed a set of pedal extensions, which I used in all of my cars, until our family car, a Nissan Nomad, dubbed the Freedom Van, died a premature death at the age 19.5 years. Vans are not designed for paddock bashing, the much older 'Chef' found out. I forgot until it was to late to retrieve the pedal extensions my Dad had lovingly made. A stab of pain hit my heart so hard, no longer possible to get on the phone "hey Dad....."

I remember at one stage when the boys were little I wouldn't let them watch South Park, an animated series, rather controversial and definitely not to my liking, definitely not to my approval. I had given strict orders to my parents that my children were not allowed to watch the show, which my parents didn't seem to know anything about. Having watched mostly documentaries & British sitcoms most of their lives, I felt confident that they wouldn't approve either.

Suddenly each Monday, Dad would religiously collect both the boys for a sleepover at Oma's & Opa's, under the guise "I'm helping them with their softball training", where I assumed that they would spoil the boys with chocolate & chips.

This went on for a few month's until I discovered that secretly my parents thought the show hysterical, that I was a stick- in- the- mud, and it was their weekly time together for silly fun. My rules didn't count when it was their time together and  besides, what I didn't know wouldn't hurt me.

Over the next few years mostly for my parents sake, in particular Dad who really enjoyed the charade, egged on by the boys, who thought it a real hoot to bypass their mum's rules, I kept the 'no South Park what-so-ever' a permanent rule. 

After they left each Monday, I would chuckle at the rebellious 4, Dad, Mum, Ry & the Chef indulging in their weekly cheeky dose of authority defiance.

After Dad passed away I did confess to the boys, that I knew the real Monday reason (softball my arse). We all laughed. The boys, now young men, even after 10 years still miss those Mondays.

The one thing I wished I had done was tell him more times how much I loved him, I don't think I said it enough.
SO, if your Dad is around, love your Dad today!