NSW Bushfires And Spring Fever
Without Prejudice
We have spring fever, badly and at the same time the hay fever arrives. Yvette and I are literally walking talking incubators of mucous. At the worst of times we are coughing it up, vomiting it up, sneezing it into tissues. I have it in the throat and sound like a ninety year old smoker, Yvette has the bone shattering cough, making the baby jump around inside her belly.
But every morning for the last 21 mornings we have arisen from beds, coughing, hacking, piled on the Vicks, sprayed various unguents up our noses, coated the inside of our noses with Vaseline, rubbed it on our eyelashes and lips to ward off pollen. I've tried the Claratyne, the ephedrine tablets of cold and flu that make you shake and not be able to sleep, nothing works.
Yvette at almost 7 months pregnant can hardly take anything and first thing in the morning comes in to my unit and rages and cries, coughs, hacks, spits and says fuck a lot. I insist she has some Robitussen after we have examined the label for effects on pregnant women. She is 41, looks 18 and is having her eighth child, a treasured girl after 7 treasured boys.
Poor Mother is overwhelmed at times by kids requests and decides to let the older boys live their own lives. She has been a single Mum for almost all of her life and has done her very best to make sure her boys have a good life. They are all polite, geeky type boys who would rather be at home than anywhere else.
One is sitting in low security jail boredom for another six weeks, thinking that bad friends and fast cars were the answer to his problems. He is so booooooorrrrrrrrrreeeeeeed and not happy he is there. But it's his fault, he knows it, and we don't indulge his bad behaviour as he knows better and we don't want his behaviour affecting the rest of the boys who do the right thing, always.
Zach wants to be a policeman and at 18 will be a great one. For now he works full time as an Abbatoir worker on good money and has almost completed twelve months. He bought an older car for cash, a Skyline nicknamed Lola and he lets no one else drive it. He also has the Tarago which he also loves, a gift to him for his 18th birthday from his Mother.
This weekend of terrible bush fires in NSW is also the Phillip Island races and Zach and a girl friend have gone off to stay there. She is a girl friend he states as in a girl and a friend but takes off in the prized Tarago leaving all his brothers behind. Hmmmmm. We have kept him away from girls till now as he is a gentle soul and could easily be hurt by tougher girls these days. A lot of them want a baby for the income and love and we don't want Zach tied up in a complicated situation like that.
They have not reacted well to change, the boys, my Mother always said,
"Fools and Bairns should not see things half done. "
We have had all the questions and at first none of the help we expected from such a big army of boys. Except they erected in one afternoon the trampoline for the five year olds birthday. We had not seen them work like that, ever !
They worried that the whole house was going to be pink. So we explained we were keeping pink to one room. Acer, the five year old wanted me to make him a blue room and I made him and his little brother one, twin beds, Foxtel, a big screen and heaps of toys.
We, Yvette and I have a plan, the house and garden are to look fabulous for us and the boys. We are willing to put in the work but they must help. My daughter tended to be a hoarder. A past with a dead beat Dad ex who us still a junkie at 40. The boys are kept away from him. He and Yvette had 5, beautiful men now, they choose not to see themselves. Aged 24, 18, 17, 15, and 10. The 10 year old
has only ever known his stepfather as Dad.
Yvette out of anxiety has kept everything that the boys ever had which is fabulous for hoarding the boys important memories but a pain in the arse for cleaning. She works alongside me and still can't believe I started with a teenage boys room, turfed him out and created a nursery that is a dream. I found the secret was to do the big stuff while they were out and make it unable to be changed back.
Talk about panic when they arrived home.
Couches were dragged back in, ugly old chairs when we had better ones, they went into meltdown. But Yvette and I stuck together against the sea of Testosterone. And refused to give in. Compromises had to be made or there was going to be all out war of the sexes. We were women on a mission and it began as I refused to allow her to have the baby in with her. The boys needed to understand we didn't care about them less because she's having a girl, she looked forward to their births just as much as this one.
And she lost a baby this year, a boy she tentatively named Knox. We marked what would have been his birthday, the 08.09.2013 and she gave me a box of mementoes to put away for him. A box of tiny clothes, toys, memories that would have been his had he come into being. Tied with a purple bow and stowed under my bed for safe keeping.
She lost him in a shock miscarriage that started within hours of her having to defend her children. Once again against the completely idiotic D.H.S. Even our family doctor hates them, he calls them "the dogs" as in "call in the dogs " he says they don't help in any real way and we also know that for a fact.
There was no need for her losing Knox it was awful, she nearly lost her life with the haemmorage she had. Four blood transfusions and an operation later. She came home the next day, demanding me to come and puck her up, angry, vengeful, hurt. She hated being a pin cushion. She was too tiny then this pregnancy she is huge, glowing, fat. And she loves the fat, so does her partner Peter.
She is a ship in a gale, proud, strong, content. She cried when she found out she was having a girl. She didn't tell me, I overheard her on the phone to a friend. She was in shock, still is. But in a homage to her bravery and strength I made her a room for a girl. Those famous last words of hers about taking the baby in with her galvanised me into action. I had stated at the beginning of this year my girls were old enough to live their own lives. I had done my job. It was going to be all about ME.
Reorganising a house was not my intention, I would do one room and one room only. I love decorating a room, I love decorating a house and work tirelessly to make it perfect, my Sis Jackie says I should do it for a living, after seeing my unit. My rich and wealthy brother in law said the same thing when he saw it.
We have spring fever, badly and at the same time the hay fever arrives. Yvette and I are literally walking talking incubators of mucous. At the worst of times we are coughing it up, vomiting it up, sneezing it into tissues. I have it in the throat and sound like a ninety year old smoker, Yvette has the bone shattering cough, making the baby jump around inside her belly.
But every morning for the last 21 mornings we have arisen from beds, coughing, hacking, piled on the Vicks, sprayed various unguents up our noses, coated the inside of our noses with Vaseline, rubbed it on our eyelashes and lips to ward off pollen. I've tried the Claratyne, the ephedrine tablets of cold and flu that make you shake and not be able to sleep, nothing works.
Yvette at almost 7 months pregnant can hardly take anything and first thing in the morning comes in to my unit and rages and cries, coughs, hacks, spits and says fuck a lot. I insist she has some Robitussen after we have examined the label for effects on pregnant women. She is 41, looks 18 and is having her eighth child, a treasured girl after 7 treasured boys.
Poor Mother is overwhelmed at times by kids requests and decides to let the older boys live their own lives. She has been a single Mum for almost all of her life and has done her very best to make sure her boys have a good life. They are all polite, geeky type boys who would rather be at home than anywhere else.
One is sitting in low security jail boredom for another six weeks, thinking that bad friends and fast cars were the answer to his problems. He is so booooooorrrrrrrrrreeeeeeed and not happy he is there. But it's his fault, he knows it, and we don't indulge his bad behaviour as he knows better and we don't want his behaviour affecting the rest of the boys who do the right thing, always.
Zach wants to be a policeman and at 18 will be a great one. For now he works full time as an Abbatoir worker on good money and has almost completed twelve months. He bought an older car for cash, a Skyline nicknamed Lola and he lets no one else drive it. He also has the Tarago which he also loves, a gift to him for his 18th birthday from his Mother.
This weekend of terrible bush fires in NSW is also the Phillip Island races and Zach and a girl friend have gone off to stay there. She is a girl friend he states as in a girl and a friend but takes off in the prized Tarago leaving all his brothers behind. Hmmmmm. We have kept him away from girls till now as he is a gentle soul and could easily be hurt by tougher girls these days. A lot of them want a baby for the income and love and we don't want Zach tied up in a complicated situation like that.
They have not reacted well to change, the boys, my Mother always said,
"Fools and Bairns should not see things half done. "
We have had all the questions and at first none of the help we expected from such a big army of boys. Except they erected in one afternoon the trampoline for the five year olds birthday. We had not seen them work like that, ever !
They worried that the whole house was going to be pink. So we explained we were keeping pink to one room. Acer, the five year old wanted me to make him a blue room and I made him and his little brother one, twin beds, Foxtel, a big screen and heaps of toys.
We, Yvette and I have a plan, the house and garden are to look fabulous for us and the boys. We are willing to put in the work but they must help. My daughter tended to be a hoarder. A past with a dead beat Dad ex who us still a junkie at 40. The boys are kept away from him. He and Yvette had 5, beautiful men now, they choose not to see themselves. Aged 24, 18, 17, 15, and 10. The 10 year old
has only ever known his stepfather as Dad.
Yvette out of anxiety has kept everything that the boys ever had which is fabulous for hoarding the boys important memories but a pain in the arse for cleaning. She works alongside me and still can't believe I started with a teenage boys room, turfed him out and created a nursery that is a dream. I found the secret was to do the big stuff while they were out and make it unable to be changed back.
Talk about panic when they arrived home.
Couches were dragged back in, ugly old chairs when we had better ones, they went into meltdown. But Yvette and I stuck together against the sea of Testosterone. And refused to give in. Compromises had to be made or there was going to be all out war of the sexes. We were women on a mission and it began as I refused to allow her to have the baby in with her. The boys needed to understand we didn't care about them less because she's having a girl, she looked forward to their births just as much as this one.
And she lost a baby this year, a boy she tentatively named Knox. We marked what would have been his birthday, the 08.09.2013 and she gave me a box of mementoes to put away for him. A box of tiny clothes, toys, memories that would have been his had he come into being. Tied with a purple bow and stowed under my bed for safe keeping.
She lost him in a shock miscarriage that started within hours of her having to defend her children. Once again against the completely idiotic D.H.S. Even our family doctor hates them, he calls them "the dogs" as in "call in the dogs " he says they don't help in any real way and we also know that for a fact.
There was no need for her losing Knox it was awful, she nearly lost her life with the haemmorage she had. Four blood transfusions and an operation later. She came home the next day, demanding me to come and puck her up, angry, vengeful, hurt. She hated being a pin cushion. She was too tiny then this pregnancy she is huge, glowing, fat. And she loves the fat, so does her partner Peter.
She is a ship in a gale, proud, strong, content. She cried when she found out she was having a girl. She didn't tell me, I overheard her on the phone to a friend. She was in shock, still is. But in a homage to her bravery and strength I made her a room for a girl. Those famous last words of hers about taking the baby in with her galvanised me into action. I had stated at the beginning of this year my girls were old enough to live their own lives. I had done my job. It was going to be all about ME.
Reorganising a house was not my intention, I would do one room and one room only. I love decorating a room, I love decorating a house and work tirelessly to make it perfect, my Sis Jackie says I should do it for a living, after seeing my unit. My rich and wealthy brother in law said the same thing when he saw it.
