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Friday 11 March 2011

THE LURGY


Germ warfare has begun in my house. The King - as cute and cuddly as he is - has clearly established himself as a illness magnet. It is quite astonishing really considering his size, but to my complete amazement, he is able to bring home just about any illness going at the moment and does so about once a week. Which of course means that in due course mommy, that’s me, is struck down like a dog and must battle right alongside him. Obviously the kid has sharing down to a fine art. I of course take this as a sign of his profound love for me.

The funny thing is, whatever he catches seems to strike me four times harder. I attribute this to my fatigue, age and the fact that I’ve always had an immune system like John Travolta in that plastic bubble movie (for those of you that have not seen this 70s classic, oh you must. The hilarity!!)  Case in point, yesterday just as my son projectile vomited all over himself, the rug, his toys etc, what does he do? He smiles, reaches for his vomit soaked toy and resumes playing. Meanwhile, I was horizontal, clutching onto the toilet base crying out for the bad man to stop. Shows you who is the baby out of the two of us. Just to truly show me who has the balls in the family, he even threw up all over the bed last night and managed to sleep through until the morning. Now that is one hell of a determined sleeper. For those of you thinking my parenting skills need work, when we checked on him he was vomit free, we’re not totally sadistic.

The thing that baffles me is how one is supposed to take care of a little seven month old squirming, vomiting, squawking blob – and I say that with the utmost of endearment – when one is turning three shades of green herself. It is not an easy task, I can assure you and of course further proves the amazing power of women (who am I kidding, I cried like a baby and called in for reinforcements!) There is a lot of horizontal play where I have my head on the floor while the King laughs at me and throws things at my head; and then of course there are the many distractions that one is warned against but throws themselves headlong into when the situation arises – yes, I’m talking about the good ol TV. God bless you television and DVD player, cause when the gastro strikes, the idiot box is just about the only thing going to buy you that precious fifteen minutes of carpet dozing.

My sister gently explained to me that the next two years of my life with the King is going to be awash in vomit, snot, coughs, snifflles and every germ from here to Guam. So in short, I better prepare myself. In light of this, I think I may have to go get one of those bubble things installed in the house – for me of course, not the King.

Tuesday 8 March 2011

SEND THIS ON TO 7 PEOPLE. GO ON THAT'S AN ORDER.


Do you ever get those chain emails that say if you send the email on to eight people within four hours you are going to receive a huge lump of money? Or those that boast that if you send the email on to so many people, you will be destined for good luck and success in your job and personal life and your whole life will fall into place and be super peachy keen cause you chose well…on the internet.

The short of it is, you won't. I repeat, NO money, no Brad Pitt walking thru the door, no triple promotion at work. Unless of course it’s all a coincidence and you’re just a very lucky person – [I’d definitely not count on the Brad thing happening cause he lives in France apparently and I'm thinking Angelina needs a lot of help with all those kids]. And why won’t any of this happen for you even though you followed the rules of the email to the letter and even sent it to people you barely speak to any more just to make the numbers up, CAUSE IT’S AN EMAIL! Until they prove otherwise, sending chain emails won't do squat except annoy the crap out of the people who receive them. 

I loathe chain emails. Yes you heard it here first, so anyone who sends them to me, you're not improving our relationship. It’s not just for the fact that they sit in my in box until the guilt forces me to either send them out to torture another batch of individuals (I know no longer do this of course) or as I do now, throw them into the bin without a second glance. It’s also for the sheer nature of them, the promises of what will follow - either blessings or curses and accidents that are going to come your way or else - and the sheer stupidity of the promise that the internet will bring this to you. Seriously, think about it, if you haven’t received money from a long lost aunt who just keeled over, it’s very unlikely it’s going to happen cause you sent an email to seven people you met at summer camp.

It is also of course the fear mongering I resent. You know how I feel about that kind of thing anyway. The ‘if you don’t send this email on, you’re not going to have a good week.’ Well thanks a lot, I was doing just fine before you decided to infect my inbox with this negative tripe. And note to all, putting, “I’m so sorry, I just had to do this,” in the subject line before you send it out to your friends is still not going to erase the act itself. They will still mutter under their breath, ‘damn you Jenny’ (or whatever your name is) stop sending me this crap!! The point is you don’t have to send it out to anyone [unless you want to cause you really don't like the recipients and are trying to drive them nuts]. Be strong, when you get one of those emails, go up to the delete button, stay the course, and press the clicker until the email vanishes. Trust me, you’ll feel better, and you may even start hearing from your friends again….and the lawyer that handles the estate of your third cousin removed telling you that you've inherited a boat load of money.

Sunday 6 March 2011

HUCKLEBERRY KNOW IT ALL


A politician named Mike Huckabee has made the news round the world for coming out and claiming that Natalie Portman (actress, Black Swan) is responsible for the decline of America’s moral fiber for getting pregnant out of wedlock. I’m paraphrasing of course, cause to be honest, I can’t keep up with whom [according to those convinced they know everything] is contributing to the decline of western civilization. My vote of course falls upon bad parenting and the scum-sucking greedy white men running our financial institutions, but that’s just me.

For those of you not in the know on such matters, Mike Huckabee is an uber conservative, anti gay, anti-choice, pro gun Southern Baptist - so in short, a real open-minded guy. Oh, he also was still recently claiming that President Obama was not born in Hawaii, cause he is super stubborn and intelligent like that and apparently a birth certificate is not good enough for old Mikey boy. Just so you know with whom we’re dealing.

So, according to Huckabee, Natalie Portman is not only glamorizing having children out of wedlock, but she is making it look easy and downright dandy to have a kid without a ring on your finger. This of course is distorting how it really is, according to Huckabee, and will mislead young girls around the world into unplanned pregnancies. Cause well, if Natalie is having a kid with a hot French choreographer, everyone is going to want to.

So let me see if I can break this down even further – Natalie Portman, a rich, highly educated, gainfully employed adult has chosen to have a child with an equally stable and employed adult and apparently there is something wrong with this? How about it simply distorts how easy it is to land a good man that can do a pirouette, look good in tights and speak French! And more importantly, last time I checked the statistics of teen and young adult pregnancies out of wedlock, things were in pretty dire shape before Natalie Portman came along. In fact, I don’t think the young women of America give a flying fig (I’m trying to be polite here) what Miss Portman is doing. They’re out having unsafe sex with god knows whom because they can, and apparently no one - meaning their Mom and Pops - reinforced that this was not a good idea.

So, Mike, how about we start there. How about you go back to the drawing board and concentrate on telling people how to be more informed parents to their children – cause we KNOW that you have to tell someone how to do something. I don’t know, let’s see, the new slogan could be something like… “Raising a child on your own is hard as hell. In fact, plan to never sleep, sit down, go out or eat a meal that lasts longer than four minutes, AGAIN.” "Oh, and it’s expensive and you will have to forgo that pair of boots you saw at the mall cause your kid will need a ton of diapers, not to mention every other contraption under the sun to keep him or her quiet, entertained and well cared for." 

I’m thinking that this may be more of a deterrent than yelling at Natalie Portman.


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