Christchurch’s earthquake tally since 4th September: 2158.
Maggie’s WIP tally to date: 11 chapters.
Days until Christmas: 64.
Likelihood of Maggie keeping her grip on sanity beyond Christmas: low. Let’s face it, I’ve got too much to do on the writing front, too much to do on the Christmas front, and with a fresh quake or three upsetting the routine most days – it’s a foregone conclusion. The all-expenses-paid vacation (complete with minimalist soft-sided room) will be mine!
On the odd occasion – you know, like 90% of the time – when things seem as if they’re going from bad to worse, or from worse to desperate, it’s good to know I’ve got friends who’ll help get me through.
Take this week, for example. It wasn’t enough that my Beloved was working out of town. Little Miss 13-month-old (aka The Destroyer) decided this was a good week to come down with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease.
No, our ancestry does not include any cloven-hooved beasts. (Though I do have a devilish Read More…
So off we went. Our first tropical holiday in years. Our first ever as a family of four.
We coped with the 5am start. We mostly coped with the first six hours of our seven-and-a-half hour journey, thanks to drugs (for the baby, not us), an in-flight bassinette, and individual in-flight screens which Master Six loved.
Then the baby woke.
If you’re a parent, imagine your child at their very worst. Then imagine holding them in your Read More…
I blame the camping. Before camping I was functional. BC I was coping with life. BC I was zen mother and loving it. (Okay, maybe not the zen bit.)
And now? Now it ain’t pretty. Yummy Mummy? Hardly. Scrummy Mummy? Not at my place. Instead we have a Real Mummy scale, modelled on the richter scale with slightly less catastrophic results. And I can tell you right now that “scrummy” and “yummy” don’t feature (except in the Mummy’s-gorging-herself-on-food-again sense).
Here it is. The Real Mummy scale:
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1 DON’T be casual about departure time. Packing ALWAYS expands to take up all available time + twenty percent.
2 DON’T assume thick black clouds on horizon won’t come your way. They will. Thick black clouds = rain. Rain = misery for five-year-old over-excited campers.
3 DON’T assume swiftly-moving thick black clouds will bypass campsite. They won’t. They’ll just arrive fast. Swiftly-moving thick black clouds = wind + rain. Wind + rain = bad news if erecting tent and minding over-excited five-year-old and fretful baby simultaneously.
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