As a stay-at-home mum, I used to face the 10-week summer school holidays with equal parts dread (alone with my children 24-7) and exhilaration (I can sleep in).  This particular year, we were only day three of the school holidays and already I was not sure I could take it. Despite several trips to the barn to do chores and feed lambs, an expensive trip to the bookstore, another to McDonald's and the ice cream store, I am still battling a chorus of the "I'm boreds".  I can't even take off and leave the little sods behind, because Lindsay has my vehicle.    This one particular morning was a little livelier, when I hear a crash in the chimney and a starling flies out into the family room, where I am working. I start screeching a warning "Bird in the house, BIRD IN THE HOUSE", but no one comes running. Meanwhile the poor bird is hitting windows left, right and center, while I rush around opening doors and yelling for the kids.  I found out afterwards, they are all ignoring me because they think they are in trouble.  How "Bird in the house" translates to "You're in trouble" is beyond me. Not to mention, if they are in trouble, ignoring me is guaranteed not to improve their situation.     Finally, Grady ventures downstairs only to have the bird dive bomb his head as it flies upstairs.  He screams "Holy Crap!" and hits the deck, while I'm yelling at him to open the back door.  By the time I make it upstairs the girls have joined the fray and Sid, as useful as ever is calling out directions, but the bird can fly faster than she can speak, so by the time we get to the last known position, the bird has already moved on. I finally corner it in the window in the sun-room and with ninja like stealth I balance unsteadily between the settee and DVD stand and pounce.  Grady is in the background, yelling "Don't hurt the bird, don't hurt the bird". Sidney is screaming and the bog is barking. Lindsay has only just got up, so she isn't doing much of anything.  The only difference between me and the trapped bird is that he will soon be free!     The last time this happened (yes really, it has happened before), I made the mistake of hesitating while the kids took a closer look at the bird, and it took that opportunity to escape. I am wiser this time, and despite entreaties to the contrary, as soon as I got that bird in my hand, I headed straight for the back door and let it go.  All this on only one cup of coffee! 

     Have kids THEY said. It will be fun THEY said. THEY lied. Now that my children are all adults, they are fiercely protective of each other, mostly. However, it wasn't always that way, as this little ditty will illustrate.

      We get up one morning, and Sid complains about the chilly temperature. Not sure why as today is the warmest day to date in this hellish never ending frigid winter we have experienced, but she does. Particularly she grizzles her feet are cold. I suggest she don her slippers, so she skips back upstairs and is gone for some time. Finally, when she returns to the kitchen, she is wearing one reindeer slipper and one purple sequined slipper (don't ask). As a general rule I do not comment on what they wear, but I couldn't let this one pass, I was far too curious. "Pray tell" I asked, "Why are you wearing odd slippers?"  "They were the only ones I could find" Sid replies.  

As you read more of my blog, you will learn of our ongoing war on mice. This is just one such example.

   I had to feel sorry for my son when he was in grade school.  One week I received a call from his teacher, to inform me that Grady had bumped his head - on another child - and had a big lump on his forehead, but he was refusing to ice it. It didn't seem too bad, and she promised me she'd keep an eye on him. If he started acting or talking strangely, she told me she would call me back. I had to intervene at this point, explaining that as talking and acting strangely was something Grady did on a regular basis, it would require something much more dire before I hastened to his side. 

This goes out to Alison, a good friend and hair stylist extraordinaire. She is also the first person to comment on my new website (Thank you!!)  and also, the reason Grady has a pet python.  She has been a brave follower of my previous blog for several years. On one visit to her salon, she was extolling the virtues of my posts to another customer.  "At first," she began "You think she must be making some of these things up, but then you meet the family, and you understand" She's not wrong. 

Today a story about my youngest, Sidney. At only 7 years old she had proved to be the most challenging of our children. Whether she is beating the crap out of her brother, or giving herself a time out from her teacher, (yes really) she certainly requires the most creative parenting.

Can you call yourself a parent if you're not actively embarrassing your children?  This happened a few years ago when Lindsay was still an impressionable teenager.

A few years ago, when we had been feeding the lambs, one evening before we ventured up we received a slightly panicked call from Alyssia, the barn manager. It turned out that two of the ponies - Ludwig and Thistle - had broken out of the paddock and gained access to the barn. Once there, Thistle had managed to open the freezer where the grain is stored and the two of them had a feast. The only problem was, part of what they consumed was lamb grain - great for lambs, not so much for horses, as it could cause serious complications. Alyssia had rung her vet - who promptly put her on hold, no doubt to laugh at her latest in a long line of predicaments - but eventually gave her a list of signs to look out for, laboured breathing, unsteadiness, bloating, and so on. 

Disclaimer: Grady was a LOT younger when this event took place!!

Sometimes my ideas border on sheer genius, and then there are others that leave me shaking my head and wondering WTF was I thinking. Sometimes I just shouldn't - think that is. This was one of those times. 

By the time I got home - windows still open - Rob was close behind me, so I left the cat in the kennel cab. There was no way in her current state that I wanted her running through the house, especially as her favourite hiding spot was under our bed. 

So we arrive at the vets. It is as cold as a witches tit, to borrow a somewhat colourful expression from my grandmother, but all the windows are open in the van, in a futile effort to escape the toxic fumes from the cat carrier. There is no vacant parking spot, so I send Sid into the vet's with the cat, whilst I wait to park the van. Even after I have accomplished this, I seriously contemplate staying in the van, after all it's not like I'm actually needed. However common sense prevails and I venture in. I explain the issue to the receptionist, and then again to a technician, a third time to another technician, and finally to the vet himself. By now in a closed examination room, the smell is so bad that Sid is coughing and my eyes are watering. The vet palpates the cat's abdomen and determines the blockage is too far up for an enema to do any good, so he decides to take the cat out back for a rectal exam. Rather him than me, and we settle down to wait. He returns a few minutes later and proceeds to shove his gloved hand in front of my face. "Look at this" he says, as I desperately try to do anything but, "This is what I found in her rectum, fecal matter and blood". Seriously, you couldn't have just told me that, you had to show me as well ?? WTF ? Is this pay back because I'm making him shove a finger up my cat's arse, rather than spring $300 for an x-ray ? If at that point I had a concerned expression on my face, it wasn't out of concern for the cat, but instead that I might puke at any minute. I don't handle those sort of things very well, that is what my husband is for. The vet disappears to gather medication and one of the technicians returns with my cat, who now looks as pained as I do. They have administered fluids under her skin, and the technician was concerned because she was "leaking". "Don't worry" she reassures me "If the leaking starts again, just hug her close and it will stop it."  I look at her in abject horror. Does she seriously think I am going to clasp a shit covered, fluid leaking cat tight to my ample bosom, when I am wearing my new winter coat. "Uh huh" I manage to squeak out. "Sure I can do that". Over my cold dead body, I will.  The cat by now, has no fight left in her - and really who can blame her, and although I am expecting another fight with the kennel cab, she couldn't get in it enough. I get the instructions for the medication - pills and syringes - jolly good fun that will be, settle up the bill, which brings fresh tears to my eyes and then make tracks for home. Little did I know it then, but the fun was just about to begin.  

 AKA "The Constipated Cat" or "Fecally Challenged Feline", oh yes, this is shaping up to be a real humdinger.