Threats, lies and bribery: parenting a threenager

I never wanted to be ‘that’ parent. The one who yells. The one who loses her temper. The one who hisses “Shut up! Shut up!” in the middle of the night. The one who gets so frustrated she needs to scream into a pillow to release some of the tension.

But it’s happening. It’s happened. The threenager is winning.

The threenager is displeased with something

She is manipulative. She is stubborn.

She is doing my head in…

I know she doesn’t really understand what she’s doing. I know she’s testing boundaries, and learning where the line is. And yes, I know she’s just being three. But for FFS she is hard work!

Flying with an 18 month old AKA the Flight from Hell

The one and only cute moment of our journey

So I don’t know if I jinxed myself by being so worried about flying with my toddlers, or if it was just always destined to be an horrendous experience. As it turns out, I was completely justified in my pre-flight concern because the entire journey was a freaking NIGHTMARE!

The Secret Diary of an Australian Threenager

Dear Diary

Little Miss a.k.a the Boss

The Mother has been looking far too confident and relaxed lately, I need to do something to remind her who’s actually in charge around here. No more Little Miss Nice. It’s time to take her down a peg or two.

I’ve got my battle plan all worked out…

Phase 1 of my attack is Rude Awakening, which will see me wake up really early (I find around 5:45am is best for maximum parental torture) and really grumpy, and refuse to do anything she asks me to do.

Get dressed? Nope. Eat breakfast? No way Jose. Drink some milk? I don’t think so woman, not in that colour cup anyway. Don’t you know I want the red one?? No, not THAT red one! The other red one! The one that I lost at the park last week! Jeez! (Insert massive eye roll).

Nature vs Nurture

I see a lot of families where the kids look like carbon copies of each other; they share the same face shape, or hair, or specific features, and you can just tell that they’re related. My kids couldn’t be more different from each other, they look nothing alike. Little Miss is the spit of her dad, and was born with a shock of dark, almost-black hair, that spiked up in a trendy ‘do’, just like D’s hair. That dark hair fell out around the three month mark, and she grew beautiful thick, sandy blonde hair, which is gradually going darker now, and is almost down to her The Stuntman was born with no hair at all (including no eyebrows), and didn’t really get much to speak of until about 12 months. He looks more like me, especially around the eyes. He’s now got some (very blonde) hair on top, but still not very much, not even as much as Little Miss had at birth. He does, however, have a lovely little rat’s tail that seems to be growing faster than the rest of his hair, so we might have to do something about that. Teamed with the fact that he has no hair at all on the sides of his head, the rat’s tail gives him an Eastern European footballer look that I’m not too keen on. He did grow some eyebrows though, so thank goodness for small mercies.

The Stuntman is a happy-go-lucky kind of chappie; he’ll smile at anyone and everyone, and will happily have a chat with all of the little old ladies that come up to talk to us (and there are quite a few). He loves other kids, and will run up to other little ones in the park and try to play with them, uninvited. Little Miss is much more reserved; she’ll hide her face in her hands when a new person approaches, or hide behind me, saying “I’m a bit shy”. She over-analyses and over-thinks everything, whereas the Stuntman is more of a do first, think later (if at all) kind of kid. He’ll launch himself off a slippery dip without a moment’s hesitation, where Little Miss will sit at the top thinking about it for ages, often changing her mind about going down altogether. Funny how two kids brought up in the exact same way are so completely different.

This weekend I was reminded again of just how different my kids are, when we went to our first swimming lesson. Now I know I should have started Little Miss earlier, but it just never happened. I was pregnant with the Stuntman by the time she turned 1, and I had no intention of splashing around in a swimming costume with my pregnant belly in front of a whole bunch of fit surfie dads (have you noticed that it’s mainly dads doing the swimming lessons?? Go dads!). So anyway, she’s now 3, so she’s too old for the class where the kid goes in with mum or dad, and she has to go in with an instructor. A stranger. A very friendly stranger mind you, who’s obviously been well trained in working with children, but a stranger nonetheless, and one wearing a swimming cap and goggles. So it was always going to be a struggle to get her into the pool, but hey, we live in Australia, so they have to learn to swim. I figured she’d see how much fun the other kids were having and want to join in.

I volunteered to do the class with the Stuntman, as he’s going through a super-clingy-only-wants-mummy phase (just for the past 15 months), and we figured it would just be easier if I went in with him. I was pleasantly surprised to see that all the other parents (read: ‘dads’) in the class were standing in the pool with the water right up to their armpits – I’d had visions of standing around in waist-deep water with everything on display, which had caused me more than a few moments of panic. But this was all OK; the water was nice and warm, and the Stuntman soon got the hang of things and was splashing about and kicking his little legs with the best of them. Big smiles all round.

Unfortunately, D and Little Miss weren’t faring so well. During the middle of a round of aquatic ‘wheels on the bus’, I heard a blood-curdling howl coming from the other end of the pool. Recognising that primal scream, I knew straight away that my poor Little Miss was not having a good time at all. I could just make out her little figure sitting on the top step of the pool, hiding her face in her hands, shoulders shuddering, with D bent over her trying to calm her down. I could see the instructor backing away from her towards the two other toddlers in the class, and a pool staff member rushing over from the front desk to see what was going on. The parents poolside were rubbernecking to see who was so distraught, and why. I was gesturing wildly to D, “Does she need me? Should I come down?”, but she calmed herself quite quickly, really. 

Some kids learning to swim
(not Little Miss)

She then spent the rest of the 30 minute class sitting on the top step of the pool, playing with some toys and point blank refusing to even look at the instructor, let alone go for a lap of the pool with him (which is what had initiated the howling in the first place). Quite an expensive sit on the side of the pool, that was. Plus we had to sign up for the whole month, so now we’ve either got to try again next weekend, or lose thousands of dollars (not really thousands, but bloody hell it’s expensive for what it is!). 

So I’ll spend the week talking to her, telling her how much fun it will be, and talking up the benefits of being able to swim (not drowning being the main one). And then we’ll do it all again next weekend. 

Something to look forward to!!

Stuck in a Westfield with two

“Well I don’t know why I came here tonight… I gotta feeling that somethin’ ain’t right…”

Trust your instincts when you drive into a shopping centre car park and feel an urge to drive straight out again. This week I decided, for some unknown reason, to take both kids to our local Westfield, which is currently undergoing major renovations. Last time I was there I vowed never to return, so I really don’t understand what possessed me to try again. But I did.

Trolleys: never around when you need one!

Being a Monday morning, and the first day that this centre had introduced paid parking (after three hours free), I assumed that the place would be relatively quiet and hassle free. I imagined that all the commuters that used to use the car park for free all day would have to park somewhere else, and there would be loads of spaces nice and close to the shop entrance for us. First mistake.

The place was mobbed. We drove around in circles looking for a park for about 15 minutes, and ended up parking on the rooftop car park, quite a walk away from the lifts down to the shops. Now I knew I needed to get groceries, so I really didn’t want to take a pram. I’ll just put the kids in a trolley when I get inside, I thought. Second mistake. After trudging about 400 metres from the car to the lifts, with the Stuntman on one hip, nappy bag slung over my neck, shopping bags around my elbow and holding Little Miss by the hand, we were faced with a sheepish looking security guard who quietly mumbled that there was a problem with the lift and that it would be two or three minutes. And when it did come, another security guard would have to press the buttons as they weren’t working. A nagging voice in my head said “turn around, go somewhere else, LEAVE NOW!”, but sadly, I ignored it. It’ll be OK, I thought. Two or three minutes I can handle. I really needed to catch my breath anyway. So we waited for the lift (about 10 minutes in reality), and then piled in with the 20 or so other shoppers who’d turned up in the meantime.

We finally got down into the shopping centre, and the Stuntman started his wriggly-limp-noodle act (where he goes limp, puts his arms up over his head, and basically wriggles out of my arms), and Little Miss promptly ran off. Here we go, I thought. Quick, find somewhere to buy them a treat, STAT. But first we had to walk past the ABC Shop, which is a trial on the best of days. Usually I’ll have at least one of them restrained in a pram or trolley, but this time they were both ‘free range’ and on the loose.

“Mumma, Mumma, look Peppa, it’s Peppa, it’s PEPPA!!!!” screamed Little Miss.  Yes darling.

“Uh! Ooh ooh!” exclaimed the Stuntman, excitedly.

“Mumma, Mumma, Peter Rabbit, Peter Rabbit, it’s Peter RABBIT! LOOK! LOOK!!!” Smile and nod, keep your cool woman. The Stuntman grabs a Tombliboo off the shelf and the whole display topples over. Oh shit.

“Come on, let's go, I can see an ice cream shop over there,” I scoop up the Stuntman over my right shoulder, and somehow lift Little Miss onto my other hip, bags still in tow. I’m now carrying an extra 27 or so wriggly, unwilling kilos, and trying to gracefully maneuvre my way out of the shop without knocking anything else over. This is relatively successful (i.e. we didn’t actually break anything), so once we are a safe distance away from the shop entrance I breathe a sigh of relief and let the kids down.

We now find one of those horrid shopping centre ‘rides’ (a Wiggles car in this case), which occupies them for a few minutes while I try to get my bearings. I have no idea where the supermarket has moved to – I don’t know which way I’m facing, there’s no natural light in the centre, no clocks. It’s like a giant casino, without any booze. I guess they hope that people will just lose track of time and spend hours and hours in there, handing over wads of cash at every turn. It’s horrendous, I hate it.

After a minor screaming match to get Little Miss off the Wiggles car, we finally make it to the supermarket. Hooray, a trolley! I wrestle the Stuntman into the trolley seat and strap him in as tight as the belt will go, grab Little Miss’ hand and start cruising the aisles. Everything is going smoothly now – the Stuntman is secure and entertained, talking to all the old people in the shop, Little Miss is having a good time grabbing things off the shelves and dumping them into the trolley, and I’m checking things off my list. We get to the checkout without incident and I’m feeling so pleased with us all that I suggest we go and have some sushi for lunch. Cheers all round; both the kids love sushi, so off we go to the sushi train. Lunch is also incident-free, and by this stage I’m wondering what I was so stressed about earlier. 

This parenting thing is easy really, just keep everybody happy! Don’t stress! Don’t yell! Offer treats and bribes! Chill out mum!

I now decide to tempt fate by swinging into a different supermarket just to check if they have any coffee pods (which were out of stock at the other place). I know I’m pushing it here, the kids are now fed and it is dangerously close to their sleep time. But I’m a glutton for punishment (and desperate for coffee) so we do a quick lap of the second supermarket (out of stock here too!), and then head to the lift to get back to our car.

“I’m sorry madam, this lift is out of order, you can’t get in, the stairs are just over there.” Umm, what? But I need to get to the rooftop car park on level 5. That’s on the roof. I’m on level 1. I have two very sleepy and almost-grumpy children and four heavy bags of groceries in my trolley. What am I supposed to do?

“Can you call someone to help you madam?” Umm, what?? Who the fuck am I supposed to call at lunchtime on a Monday to come and rescue me from this suburban shopping centre/hell? 

Steam is coming out of my ears by this stage, but I’m trying to hold it together and not swear at the man, if only for the sake of the kids.

Then this dickhead of a security guard sends me up to the next set of lifts up the other end of the centre, assuring me I can access the rooftop car park from that end, so off we trudge another 17kms or so (I may be exaggerating here, but it felt like a VERY LONG WAY!), to the lifts at the other end.

Of course, being the only effing lift working in the whole effing centre, there is a line of people waiting to get in that actually snakes past several shops and doubles back on itself. We wait in the queue for an eternity; Little Miss is almost falling asleep in the trolley, and the Stuntman is doing his best Houdini impression trying to escape from the trolley seat. While I have my back turned sharing an exasperated eye-roll with another mum he actually manages to get his legs out of the straps; as I turn around he is standing up in the trolley seat, reaching out for me. FUCK! I catch him just as he tries to step forward into thin air. 

There is no way I’m going to be able to get him back in the trolley seat . I’m now trying to steer a trolley with a sleepy toddler and four heavy bags of groceries with one arm, and holding a wriggly, writhing slightly smaller toddler with the other arm. Just for kicks, he decides now would be the perfect time for a breastfeed, and tries to help himself down my top. To keep the peace I'm now stand-up-breastfeeding holding him in one arm, pushing the trolley with the other. 'Awkward' is an understatement.

We finally get into the lift, and ride all the way up to the roof. But, as I had suspected, this roof doesn’t connect with the other roof, the one where our car is. I’m almost crying by this point, and take a few moments to try and calm down. I walk to the edge of the roof (no, I’m not considering jumping), and try to look down to see where the two towers of the car park connect. I *think* it’s level 3, so we go back to the lift and wait another 15 minutes or so for the lift to return, and get us down to level 3. Fortunately I’ve managed to get the Stuntman back into the trolley by this stage, so at least I’ve got two hands to control the trolley. I’m in a definite no-pedestrian zone here – running the gauntlet of frazzled shoppers backing out of car parks to get home for their lunch. But my goal is now in sight – I can see the giant giraffe head that my car is parked under. It just happens to be up on the next level, and the only way up is a steep, curved ramp that has two-way traffic and no pedestrian access. With no other way up, I position the trolley in the middle of the ramp (i.e. between the two lanes of traffic) so that we are as visible as possible to cars coming in both directions, and take the ramp at a run. Several people drive past, shaking their heads at me, looking disgusted. If I had a spare hand I would give them the finger, but it’s taking everything I’ve got to get this bloody trolley and my precious cargo up the ramp. We make it! OMG, I nearly cry with relief. 

Our car is just ahead, beckoning us home. I strap the kids into their seats, give them each a biscuit in the hope that it will keep them awake on the way home, and make our way to the exit. As we get to the exit barrier, the fancy new number plate recognition system tells me that I have overstayed the free three hours by 20 minutes, and I now owe $4. I’m pretty sure I burst a blood vessel in my neck at this point. I reach out to press the ‘help’ button, ready to explode, but the boom gate just lifts and we’re allowed to leave. Relief washes over me, tinged with disappointment that I didn’t get to yell at anybody.

Unsurprisingly, both kids fall asleep in the car before we get home. Surprisingly though, I’m able to transfer both sleeping children into their beds without them waking. Finally, a good result.

No more shopping centres for us for a while!

What about you? Do you love or loathe those big centres?

My mortifying brush with fame

I had a rather humiliating experience yesterday, care of my Little Miss. We were hanging out in the parents’ room at our local Westfield (as you do); the Stuntman needed a fresh nappy, and I knew Little Miss would be happy to play in the dingy ‘playroom’ in there for a while. I heard the door open behind me, but didn’t think much of it, until my delightfully erudite daughter started screaming, “No, not YOU boy, this is MY playroom, NOT YOURS,” at the top of her little lungs.

Embarrassed and feeling myself start to blush, I turned around only to be met with the very well-developed frame and surprisingly kind eyes of 'The Commando' from the Biggest Loser, who was standing outside the playroom with his cute little boy.

As I recognised him I had an involuntary intake of breath (ok ok, I gasped audibly if you must know), and I felt my face go an even brighter shade of red. Not just because he was famous and intimidating, but because of how ridiculously good-looking he is in real life, and the overall absurdity of the situation. Little Miss was by now holding on to the gate of the playroom, still yelling, refusing entry to Commando Jnr, who was waiting patiently with the same helpless look on his face as his dad. She’ll make a good bouncer one day for sure.

So now I was in a pickle – the Stuntman was still pants-down on the change table, and, as his nickname implies, he is not one to be left unsupervised on high surfaces.  I had to quickly turn back to him and finish getting him dressed, then wrestle him back into the pram (no easy feat in itself), all the while trying to use my most soothing voice on Little Miss to try and get her to calm the fuck down, and open the damn gate.

“It’s OK darling, the playroom is for everyone to share, there’s plenty of things to play with in there, you can share with the little boy,” this in my most lilting, sing-song voice.

“Just open the gate sweetheart, you can play over the other side, you need to share the room now please,” this as my voice grew slightly louder and more frantic, and not quite so soothing.

“LET GO OF THE GATE WE ARE GOING HOME RIGHT NOW!” this with gritted teeth as I swooped into the playroom, picked her up and eventually pried her tiny vice-like fingers free of the gate.

“Oh gosh, I’m so sorry, she really needs a sleep, we’ve had a long morning,” I said, apologetically, to The Commando, who was still standing patiently with his son. He smiled at me, with what looked like understanding, but could just as easily have been pity.

“Come on darling, let’s go home and have some lovely fresh watermelon,” I said, in my brightest Mary Poppins voice. She looked at me as if to say “WTF? Watermelon?” – we both knew full well that I’d be breaking out my emergency bag of tiny teddies as soon as we got back to the car. 

But The Commando didn't need to know about my bribery-with-sweets parenting style, so I kept up appearances all the way down the hall, talking about the juicy watermelon we were going to have, and even busting out a few lines of the watermelon song. Quality parenting.