Hitler VS Superman
And that’s a glass table.
This is Louisette’s first Easter Egg hunt:
Hey, guess what? It turns out moving house is, like, all complicated and stuff. I keep thinking of thoughtful, fascinating things to write here, and then forgetting them utterly. This is the point where I say, “Here they are!” …or it would be, but I did say “utterly”. Here’s some other random gibberish.
First, some pics! Here’s Louisette three seconds after climbing on to one of our dining room tables for the first time (I grabbed the camera, turned around, and found this):
I quite often work a twelve-hour day without breaks – especially on Wednesdays. I get up at 6:30 to get dressed and have breakfast, and usually have a few small urgent jobs (putting dishes away, coordinating babysitting for some upcoming event, doing yet another change of address form). Louisette wakes at 7 (last night she woke twice during the night too, but that’s unusual), and I’m generally still getting ready for work so CJ gives her the milk and breakfast I’ve prepared. She and I leave at 7:25am for work. From 8am until 6pm I mind Louisette, an 18-month old, and a 4-year old. It’s ten hours, and there’s no-one but me. Lately, Louisette is the only one who naps (which today involved two and a half hours of screaming because she is teething/picking up on family moving stress/adjusting to different sleeping arrangements).
I get home at 6:30pm – eleven hours after leaving for work, and eleven hours since the last moment I had thirty seconds to myself (Louisette often screams during the drive – luckily we’re moving closer to my workplace AND it looks like they’re happy for me to work from home!) The good news about today (other than earning $200 – which is more than I’ve earned in a fortnight for most of the last decade) is that, although the kids were extra-mucusy and certainly not at their best behaviour-wise, I was looking forward to home time. . . . but NOT panicking and not getting angry. Miserable but not insane – on an eleven-hour day? I couldn’t do it every day, but I CAN do it every week. The last tortuous month has taught me how consistently strong I am.
(My normal 12-hour day is 7am-7pm with Louisette and an hour or two of other jobs to do with Louisette in tow. On a bad day I beg CJ to be home at 6:30, and I leave him to feed Louisette upstairs while I hide from the mess and screaming in our room.) Oh! And I forgot to mention that while I was at work today our lawyer called and said our settlement date for the house might get changed. The thought is so appalling I don’t think it’s even registered yet.
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In extremely exciting news, I’ve just found out about a combined school and childcare centre that is super close to our new house AND involves several acquaintances of mine (that I like) AND is Christian. So first of all, the future question of Lousiette’s school is now solved, no question. But I may also have just found a career! This development is only a few days old so it’s possible I’m crazy, but here’s the plan:
Pre-1 (which has been firmly on the table for about a year now): Get more qualifications. Yep that’s right, I’m going back to school. I’ll be doing online TAFE courses, and challenging myself to finish them in the fastest possible time (pending the epiphany that studying, working, and mum-ing is a lot to do at once).
1. Get job at childcare centre that fits in with my current job time-wise. This is the hard part, but I do have a shot. The boss is actually a former boss of mine, and we’re already talking about a job for me BUT I’m certainly not qualified yet.
2. Enrol Lousiette in childcare centre on the same two days I’m there.
3. Get pregnant sometime next year. Make the most of sickness and maternity leave (woo! a real job!!) – but if I’m as sick as last time, leave Louisette in a comfortable safe environment while I languish at home (and call in the grandparental troops for other days).
4. When Puggle (future kid) is old enough, enrol him/her into the childcare centre on the same days.
5. When the respective times come, Louisette and Puggle transition to big school.
6. When I’m no longer in the carer-of-an-under-five-year-old lifestyle category, I get a job teaching Indonesian (which I’ve done before for the same people – I quit because of mental illness, not that I knew it was mental illness at the time). By then I should know my capabilities very well, and I’ll choose my hours accordingly.
Sounds pretty good, non?
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In other news, as I was driving home I realised one of my knee-length skirts (which fortunately I can’t fit into and thus haven’t worn for years) is, in fact, a petticoat. I’ve owned that skirt for at least eight years (I know because I remember wearing it often when I worked at Questacon) and worn it hundreds of times. D’oh!
On the up side, when it comes to wearing underwear on the outside, me and Superman have heaps in common.
You may have heard and/or noticed that every argument in the Western World eventually, somehow, results in someone bringing up Hitler. (Everything from “Hitler was a vegetarian” to “. . . and that’s why Obama is just like Hitler.”) After mentally writing the above paragraph, I was watching TV and Superman was brought up. That’s when it struck me: Why can’t we shake up the world just a teensy bit so every argument ends with SUPERMAN instead?
It’s up to you, my peeps. Go find a series of comments somewhere online that have veered wildly off track (that should take you about five seconds) and bring the thread back to superman – no matter what it takes.
Felicity Banks 
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