April 2016Life Love and Hiccups: April 2016
Life Love and HiccupsLife Love and HiccupsLife Love and HiccupsLife Love and Hiccups

Monday 18 April 2016

Hell yes I play favourites!

Pin It

Flynn, my youngest squidlet asked me today "Which one of us is your favourite mum?"

It's a question he frequently throws out there, usually after he has either done something he's not supposed to do... like pinching a gum ball or ten from his brother's prized stash, or... he has done something exceptionally kind, like sharing his brother's prized stash of gum balls with the needy - AKA ALL the kids in the neighbourhood.

I refuse to be dragged into his childish interrogation... I mean he knows as well as his brothers do that my response will always be the same - "My favourite is whichever one of you is the best behaved"...
unless of cause they are all being turds and then I don't particularly like any of them all that much.

I can tell by the eye rolling that I get from my kids that my answer to the favourites question is so totally predictable... but really, what are we supposed to do when asked something that ridiculous? Lie and say "I don't have a favourite, you are all my favourites, or admit the simple truth which is that I have a genuine soft spot for the kid that is responsible for the least amount of damage to my sanity on any given day.

Favourites shmavourites.

Seriously, why do people think that playing favourites is such a parental crime?

I've been accused of favouritism by at least three out of three of my kids and I'm OK with it... I mean they have a choice... there's like a lot of stuff that they could do that would rig the rankings in their favour.

I know us mums are supposed to be neutral and like all of our offspring fairly and equally and all that, but come on...

Does anyone really stick to that rule?

I 'm pretty sure its is very un P.C and probably morally incorrect too to play favourites amongst your kids, but how could you possibly like the child who just burped like a hippo in the chemist in front of some lovely oldish people who only minutes earlier were smiling wistfully upon him, more than you like the one who is sitting quietly, picking his nose and not making a scene?

And how on earth could you ever be expected to pick the kid who just grabbed a handful of his brother's hair in front of a warehouse full of people who have arrived at your work for a lovely day of peaceful crafting?

And seriously, is it even remotely reasonable to expect that I like the teenager (who after rising at midday greeted me with nothing more than a bleary eyed grunt) more than the kid who is telling me how pretty I am whilst handing me my wallet?

What? He was complimentary and helpful. I'll take what I can get!

No... wait... correct that. He was my fave of the day before he just milked me of a tenner for pack of frozen prawns to feed the fish with.

OK OK, I do really love them all as much as each other, we all do about our kids right? But let's just accept the reality that even though we always love them, it doesn't necessarily mean we have to like them all the same all of the time too.

Right?

Right!

Anyone else have a child who cannot control their burps?
Have you been asked the favourite question?








Wednesday 13 April 2016

On The Edge Of The Shore At The Lake

Pin It

I had myself a bit of a 'moment' yesterday, not long after I arrived at the lake just before sunset to pick up Sammy who had spent the afternoon there fishing with a mate.

I'm not sure if it was brought on by the sight of him looking so cute in his bucket hat with his tackle box and bucket of bait by his side, or the beautiful background and the mirror like lake that spectacularly set a scene that reminded me of a book I read when I was a kid - Huckleberry Finn.


This is what I always pictured for my boys when they were small and squidgy and rugged up in their onesies.

I daydreamed about them one day doing the things that boys or even kids in general love to do - you know fishing and exploring and building forts in the park, and if I closed my eyes I was able to picture them in the future with scrappy knees, messy faces and muddy clothes - all signs of a happy life being milked for every bit of fun possible...

At least it was what I hoped for for them.

And so as I stood there behind him on the shore of the lake I had a moment... a perfectly excusable moment caused by an avalanche of emotion as the realisation that those dreams I once had for them have come to be,  collided with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for their good health and their freedom.

It was a moment of unbridled joy.

As my very own Huckleberry Finn packed up his rod to go home, he looked up and noticed my watery eyes and my embarrassingly goofy mum smile.

He quietly accepted my explanation of a bug in the eye... but I knew that he knew there was more to the watery eyes than just a rogue bug.

I hope with all my heart that one day when he is all grown up with kids of his own, he will understand why his mum sometimes watched him and his brothers with a goofy smile and watery eyes.

I hope that one day, he will be watching his own children do whatever it is that makes them happy and that he has the privilege of experiencing for himself - a moment - like the one I had yesterday on the edge of the shore at the lake.

Do you ever catch yourself getting teary when you are happy?
Tell me - what was the last thing that gave you happy tears? Go on, tell me and make me get all teary again!



Wednesday 6 April 2016

Are Regrets Reallly Such a Bad Thing to Have?

Pin It
This little dude reminds me of Yoda which is quite apt as this is a bit of a Yoda style post.

I think the word 'Regret' unfairly gets a bad rap... don't you?

I mean - in this day and age where so many of us seem to aspire to live a blissed out, free spirited and zen kind of enlightened life, I can't help but feel like we are led to believe that 'regret' is a dirty word and something to be ashamed of.

With all this talk of 'living with no regrets' we are unconsciously being conditioned to see regrets as some kind of scar that one bears, a scar that should only be discussed in whispered tones behind closed doors... because surely no truly happy person could possibly be holding on to any regrets.

Screw you Nike or whoever the hell slapped 'no regrets' onto T'shirts and made a motsa out of us regretful peeps.

Screw you for making a fortune out of something that was so bloody simple any one of us could have thought of it and we regret that we didn't because now we aren't the squillionaires we could have been.

Screw you for making me regret that I don't regret my regrets earlier.... or something like that.

Moving on because I am so just confusing myself now.

I've heard it all before and smacked eyes on a million and one inspo quotes that all tell me to 'live with no regrets', 'regrets are nothing but wasted thoughts' and here's a pearler - 'say what you feel, do what you think, give what you've got but never regret'.

All those quotes actually make me do is question if I am a normal human considering I do have regrets that I am neither ashamed to admit to nor embarrassed hang on the line for all the world to see.

What the hell's wrong with admitting we have a couple of regrets in life?

I have a closet full and in my humble opinion, thats not such a bad thing because every single one of those regrets I have stored away are lessons learnt.

Look at it this way - if you haven't experienced regret then how can you possibly know where you may have gone wrong along the way?

Surely, to have no regrets at all, zilch, nada, never had one yada yada - possibly questions the existence of a conscience?

I don't know... maybe I am totally off the mark here but I don't really see living with regrets as such a bad thing, especially if they are a reminder to me to make different choices in future.

My top three regrets in life lead me to ask - are regrets really such a bad thing?

Sure, what caused me to have the regret in the first place might evoke a pang when I think about it, but the changes I make as a result of that regret is in fact their value.

Let's use my top three regrets as an example.

1. Not dancing with my Dad at our wedding.

Oh man this one kills me because he was right there and we didn't have that dad / daughter slow dance moment I always imagined we would. The lesson in that for me, is to not ever let a precious moment pass me by. I'm gonna seize it whenever I can, whilst I can.

Thankfully, even those his legs would probably no longer allow him to dance, I can share other things with him and make other memories that will last me a lifetime.

2. Spending too long doing a job I didn't love.

Because I didn't believe enough in myself to leave the corporate world earlier than I did, I regret wasting a good 15 years doing something I didn't truly love.

But that's OK, because I am doing what I love now and the lesson I gained from that regret is to not waste time on things that don't make me happy.

Believe in myself.

Take more chances.

Trust that I can do it.

And finally...

3. Not travelling the world with my husband before we had kids.

But that's OK, because there is still time to do it and being a little older and wiser and more financial now than we were then means we will perhaps have the opportunity to see more and experience more than we could have afforded back then.

Maybe our kids can come with us... and their kids... and we can experience it all together. Maybe there was a sliding door reason we didn't travel back then....? Who knows?

One thing I do know is that the me that I was in my early twenties, probably wouldn't remember half of the experiences anyway because my memories would be clouded with hangovers.

Are regrets really just valuable lessons all wrapped up in an ugly word?

What do you think about regrets?
Is it really such a dirty word?
Do you have any regrets you care to share or are you truly free from any regret at all?

Tuesday 5 April 2016

The Premenstrual Ramblings of a Moody Unpredictable Mole

Pin It
You can actually knit this cranky uterus with instructions here

I'm pre-menstrual.

I just thought I had better lead with that so you know up front that it is very possible that I could turn from calm to stabby within the space of a paragraph.

I know that seems like a rather extreme range of emotions for such a short little blog post, but given one of my children so nicely put it to me this morning "geez mum, sometimes you are just so unpredictable", I figure I should probably come with a warning.

I like to think that he meant that I am unpredictably surprising - you know, in a fun and spontaneous kind of way and all that, but chance are I'm clutching at straws there since when he said this to me - I had just finished yelling "Get your darn shoes on already" and then in pretty much the same breath I yelled "Don't you even think about putting those muddy shoes on in the house".

Sighhhh

I was tempted to try and explain myself to him and give him the prepackaged spiel about the unfairness of being a female and having what feels like a billion little miners stabbing your uterus with picks and shovels for 2 or 3 days every month whilst the world plots against you... but I didn't, because that's the type of response they would have been expecting from me and so instead I shocked the shit out of them with some friendly ruffling of the vocal one's hair and doling out $2 bucks to each of them to buy iceblocks at school.

YEAH!

How you like that kids?

Who are YOU calling unpredictable?

Granted, I do often surprise even myself with how moody the premenstrual has become these days, and theoretically they aren't actually wrong in calling me "unpredictable"... in fact I think calling me unpredictable is a much nicer than hearing him yell "Everyone run, mum's turned into a cranky mole again."

Do you think it's an age thing?

Do you think our premenstrual fuse thingy gets shorter with every candle we add to the cake?

Is it possible that we can run out of fuse and therefor just spontaneously kind of combust with premenstrual rage?

I must admit, I even surprise myself at times with my scale of unpredictability and the supermarket is undoubtedly the number one place to test my limits.

It's like I have an outer body experience when I'm there. I kind of float above myself, watching my every move, nibbling my nails with nervous trepidation as I wait for what will possibly unfold.

I spot myself below, I'm cruising down the aisle with my wonky trolley and I stop in front of the packs of pasta to peruse my choices when suddenly... this woman walks directly in front of me and stands between me and the packets of pasta.

Shit, SHIT! This could go one of two ways...

The patient me could just wait for the pushy intruder to move on and then pick back up where I left off with the pasta or...

The 'unpredictable moody moley me' could stand there sighing heavily, stomping tapping my foot extra loud for added effect before finally declaring out loud "Geez lady, Whaddya think you're made of glass or something?!"

Ewwww, yes I confess that has actually come out of my mouth before, but in my defense I had the WORST cramps of my life, 3 misbehaving kids playing handball in the next aisle and.... well it was kind of rude of the insolent cow don't you think?

Sorry.

Probably not called for huh?

WHAT E .V. E. RRRRRRR

I'm not always that bad when my uterus is having spasms.

There was the time recently where I was particularly crampy and we had no food in the house, school the next day and I had NO CHOICE but to put society at risk and head to the supermarket.

It just so happened that this particular day, the checkout lady decided to let not one but TWO people go ahead of me in the queue because they only had a couple of items and I had a trolley so full I practically needed a second mortgage to pay for (note to self: do not shop when you are hormonal).

The cranky premenstrual moley me would have made a fuss and had a mini meltdown over the injustice of it all, but the unpredictable me not only smiled and waved them through, I even let a THIRD guy go ahead AND I helped him put his whole basket of stuff on the conveyor belt for him.

Bloody hell I even surprised myself with that one.

Sheesh, the kids might be on to something... I AM kind of unpredictable at this time of the month.

The only safe thing for me to do is sit in bed with a box of Frosty fruits and watch reality TV until this passes right?

RIGHT??????!!!!!!!!!

Are you a moody unpredictable mole at 'that time of the month' or are you pretty much even keeled?

Monday 4 April 2016

Why You Should Consider Snapchat (Asides from taking immature selfies)

Pin It

Hey you guys... I have officially gone to the dark side. 

No no, I've not donned a black helmet, started heavy breathing or started incinerating people with a light saber... no where I've gone is weirder than that...

I have gone and got myself addicted to Snapchat.

To be honest, I actually signed up some time earlier last year, but I never made it to the point where I actually figured out how it all works, let alone posted anything.

To be honest, I thought it would kind of just 'go away' like so many of the faddish social media platforms tend to do.

It seems I was wrong though, because over 200 million people are now signed up to Snapchat and at least 100 million of them are active on it which means they aren't just keeping the icon on their phone for appearances sake so that their kids think they are kind of cool... (yes Guilty! Whatever)

Nope, those 100 million active users are not just horny teenage kids sending pics to their school yard crushes, there are celebs, musicians, politicians, bloggers as well as us complete novices all on there and collectively we are uploading over 400 million Snapchat stories a day.

It would take you 10 years to view all the photos those 100 millions + users share on Snapchat in the last hour alone*.

Bloody hell that's like nirvana for a chronic voyeur or something right?

OK... I confess, I fell victim to a dose of social FOMO when I realised that so many people I know are all hanging over on Snapchat having big old Snapchat love fests and I was missing out.

I must also confess to loving myself a little sticky beak into people's lives too so it was a given that I would eventually fall to temptation and like so many before me - resort to asking / bribing / paying  my 14 year old kid to teach me how to use it.

Now please don't judge me or make fun of me... clearly my teenager has already been there and done that when he posted this Snapchat of me attempting to learn the ropes.

I know what many of you are probably saying... "Screw that, who's got the time for another app?" and believe me, I sort of get where you are coming from... except that I don't... because I'm now completely hooked and obviously in denial or something.

I mean what's not to love about face swapping with other people and using ridiculous filters to take drunk photos of yourself to send to your friends, filters that turn you into something that would completely freak your kids out or at the very least simply entertain you and them for a mindless few hours?

OK, apart from the selfie manipulation, I'm going to give it five of my best shots  to convince you to get on Snapchat... if you aren't already.

1. I know I said "aside from the selfie manipulation" but I have to tell you - those funny filter thingies are quite possibly the best baby sitters you could ever hope for. Dead set, if you are out to dinner and the kids are getting bored, just give them Snapchat to play with and I pretty much promise that you won't hear from them until well after you have hogged the last fortune cookie.

2. Follow your fave celebs and take a peek into their private live.  Marvel at their gorgeous homes, find solice in the video and photos of their messy lounge rooms and snigger at their make up free faces and the stupid things they do after one too many tequila shots. It's priceless I tell you and totally fair game -  I mean they signed up and decide what to share with us right?!

3. If there is a brand or brands you love - follow them and get to know the creators behind the products. See what inspires them and maybe even get a sneak peek of what they are working on as they take you behind the scenes of their design process and campaign location shoots etc.

4. If you are a blogger, well then Snapchat is an awesome way to continue to over share with your readers. I'm not even kidding - it's kind of like a vlog (video blog) and you can actually talk and show your readers things you love or things you are doing yada yada via short little unedited videos you upload.

5. If you make a total ass of yourself and post something when you are completely toasted, then you only have 24 hours before it disappears off your story feed and you can forget it ever happened... unless your kids screen shot it...which you should know is highly possible.

If you don't have a teenager you can con into showing you the ropes, here's a handy little Snapchat tutorial from Snapchat for Dummies to get you started.

If you too decide to come over to the dark side - look me up under LifeLoveHiccups. Or if you are already on there, leave me your profile in the comments below so I can check in on what you're up to.

 Are you on Snapchat or are you avoiding it at all costs?

Style Crushing & Velvet Flashbacks


*Snapchat facts from http://www.omnicoreagency.com/snapchat-statistics/