What happened to the fired-up, earnest blogger writing posts about feelings, and cancer, and racism and cancer, and pets, and chiko rolls and miscarriage and let’s not forget, equality? Writing regularly, nearly always doing a post every weekend and publishing it on a Monday – the blogger loving interacting with her readers and feeling so bloody high on the feeling of having her words out there, floating free?

Well, she’s been touched by the hand of fete. Fete, with an e. For better or worse, I put my hand up to be the convenor of my boy’s school fete, and for the next couple of months until Saturday, August 20 rolls around, pretty much every spare moment of my day is given over to thinking, talking and doing about the fete.

Dave and I are pretty staunch supporters of public education. We are both products of the public system, and both now work in the system in different ways – Dave as a teacher in a state school, and me in a government-funded university. Our ideological principles mean that we chose for our son to attend the local public primary school, where he has been happily flourishing both academically and socially for the past few years. Hugh has had such positive experiences in our state school, thanks to wonderful, engaged and engaging teachers, committed support and specialist staff and forward-thinking school management.

The fact is, though, that public schools across Australia are underfunded. There are not always enough support or specialist staff, the facilities are often raggedy and old, and things that fall into the ‘would like to have’ basket stay there because there is only enough money to fund the stuff in the ‘must have’ basket. I find it irksome – in the extreme, actually – that private schools are funded from the public purse – that essentially our ‘would like to have’ basket remains full to overflowing with no hope of being emptied because government funding is paying for private school kids to get lots of ‘would like to have’ type stuff. I would have much less issue with public funding of private schools if public schools had all the resources that they need and want, but they do not, so I remain irked.

It’s all well and good to be irked, but it doesn’t actually lead to anything changing. So apart from supporting the public school system by working in it, using it, and voting for those who support it, there is one other thing I am doing to support free, quality education in Australia. Last year, I joined the P&C Association at my son’s school, and was immediately elected Vice-President, not just because of my impressive resume in people and resource management and my can-do attitude, but also because I was the only one who nominated. Our school is blessed to have a small group of highly motivated parents forming the P&C, and we decided late last year that we needed to undertake a single, large fundraiser to fill our coffers, which were (happily) depleted by assisting the school to put in two new multipurpose courts for the kids to play tennis, basketball, netball and volleyball.

As soon as the words ‘large fundraiser’ were uttered, I knew there had to be a fete, and as soon as I uttered the words ‘there has to be a fete’ I knew that I was going to be running it. Because the first rule of P&C:

So, instead of spending my lunch breaks and evenings and weekends contemplating my navel and crafting blog posts about how hard my navel was to find or how much my navel has changed since cancer or how neither chiko rolls nor dogs have navels, I am organising the school fete. My head is full of fun ideas like rides and cake stalls and dunk the teacher, and the not so fun stuff like asking for sponsors and learning about event insurance.

It has been a learning curve for me, finding out about how much hard work volunteering can be, but also how rewarding. People in our community are being very generous in their support of our school, but there is no doubt that fundraising for the type of money needed to make a significant difference in a large school is complex and challenging. But I’m determined, as are the other parents working on this Fete, that our kids will get some big-ticket ‘like to have’ things at their school to help them explore their interest in computer programming, or their love playing the double-bass or their aptitude for tennis. And to that end, we’ll continue to work our butts off in every spare moment to make this fete a rip-roaring success.

So, to those of you who had gotten used to at least semi-regular posting, apologies for what is likely to be intermittent action over the coming months. If you’re looking for me, I’ll be the one-boobed woman madly cross-checking a bunch of spreadsheets, door-knocking businesses and bossing about other unsuspecting other parents.  In the meantime, if you’re an old hand at this fete gig, please, leave me a comment or send me a message with your tips and tricks. Oh, and if you happen to have a business local to Toowoomba and want a sweet deal on the sponsorship of a wonderful community event, step right this way … rssfete@gmail.com

Sam, it took you four long years to get pregnant. Actually, maybe not all those years were long. The first one was probably not so bad, those initial few months you were probably thinking all the books were right and within six months you’d get there. You were young, fit, healthy, doing all the right things. It’d happen. Surely. Surely. But as the months turned into a year and a year into two, surely ceased to be a statement and started to be paired with a question mark. Surely? Surely?

It took so bloody long and my god, it was so hard. It seems unfair because it is. It seems like punishment, like torture and you wrack your brain trying to work out what it was you did wrong, what you can change, what you should try next. You think about stopping, giving up, you know people do, they have to, or else they’ll go mad with the longing. You talk about stopping, moving on, embracing all that you already have. Those words are heavy with grief and yet hollow and empty. You cannot fathom how you could mean them, and yet, probably, you must.

And now, here you are. With no rhyme nor reason, after all the interventions failed and you had spoken those heavy, empty words, it happened. In 11 days time, you’ll meet your baby girl, and every moment of grief and anger and frustration and despair will seem somehow purposeful. You won’t forget how long you waited and how hard it was; rather that time will become the preface to your daughter’s story – the context of the beginning of her life.

As you count down these last days before her birth, my miracle is turning eight. I cannot accurately put into words what his life has meant to mine. I am still the person I was before, yet completely changed. I knew love before him; yet the love I have for this child, the one I longed for and almost gave up hope of having, is like nothing else. It is sure and true and endless. It has made me fight when I felt like giving up and made me give up things so I could continue the fight. I am explaining it poorly, but that doesn’t matter now, because very soon, you’ll know. We’ll catch each other’s eyes over the top of our children’s heads, and our exchanged glances will say it all.

Motherhood is the great unknown.  In eight years I have found within it such joy, sustenance, challenge and peace. I wish all this for you, too. I don’t know if motherhood is sweeter when it’s been a long time coming, but I suspect for those of us who struggled with infertility and loss, motherhood is more intense in those early weeks, when you struggle with tiredness and feel so completely out of your depth, yet remind yourself how much you wanted this and how grateful you should be. I suspect the exquisite pain of mothering is sharper when you know, really know, that you may never have experienced it. If you can, in amongst the glorious chaos of those first weeks with your baby girl, take time to acknowledge all those feelings. I never did, and it’s probably taken me most of the eight years of my boy’s life to acknowledge that I earned my stripes as a mother well before my son was born.

Here’s to you Sam, and to me, and to our babies. Here’s to every other woman who’s struggled to become a mother, to the babies born, and to those who will forever remain as dreams.

Here’s to life. We made it.

A couple of weeks ago, I read an opinion piece in The Guardian, wherein the author shared her thoughts about pet ownership, arguing that humans don’t have the right to own other animals, and deriding the suggestion that domesticated animals and humans may have special bonds.

At the time I read the article, it was the middle of a work day but I was lying in my dimmed bedroom having just chugged a handful of painkillers to try to stave off some fairly horrendous joint pain. I took this photo, intending to send it to the author of the article, to show her what companionship with animals looks like, but then decided there was no point. You either get it, or you don’t.

You either get the feeling of contentment that comes from having dozey dog’s nosed shoved in the crook of your arm, or you don’t.

You either get a rush of love when you see your cat decadently spread out on the arm of a chair, or you don’t.

You either get that a dog can smile, and that his smile can bring you joy even on your most desperate days, or you don’t.

You either get that you can mourn an animal like you would a person, and then still feel teary when you think of them two years later, or you don’t.

I’ve used this quote before, but it bears repeating.

Until one has loved an animal a part of one’s soul remains unawakened. – Anatole France

To those of you who get it, please post pictures of your furry friends here or on my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/boobinabox/ – nothing better than a screen full of beloved pets to make my day. And to those of you who don’t get it – you have my sympathies.

As a primary school kid in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I distinctly remember that after each school holidays, our teachers would routinely ask us to write a story about what we’d done during our vacation time. I’m pretty sure that the majority of those What I Did on My Holiday stories were made up, because I went to a primary school in what was then a very low socio-economic area which was attended by kids from working, or not working at all, class families. I was no exception. Neither of my parents had finished high school – or gotten even close – and Dad worked on commission and Mum casually in a lowly paid blue-collar job.

Put simply, we were poor, and we didn’t go on away holidays, except for the one time that my Dad won some money on a horse race (another reason we were poor) and we had a week at the Gold Coast. I was seven years old at the time, but almost 40 years later I have the most vivid memories of that holiday – how the old Queenslander style house was just across the road from the beach, how each afternoon we were given money to walk to the shop and buy whatever we wanted, and how amazingly glamorous my bed on the enclosed verandah was with its purple chenille bedspread. So apart from the glorious tale I had to write about for my year 2 teacher Mr Trott, I had no experience of holidays until I was a young adult earning a wage which afforded me holidays away with my friends.

My seven-year old son has had more holidays in his life so far than I’d had by the time I hit 21. He’s been overseas twice, visited three Australian states and one territory, seen beaches, rivers, lakes, zoos, museums, theatres, giant bananas, big statues and overly large pineapples. He’s been sailing, canoeing and snorkelling and ridden in planes, trains, buses and tuktuks. He is the product of my parents’ – particularly my mother’s – insistence that higher education is the key to escaping drudgery. I may have missed out on holidays, but my mother ensured that I got a university education, which resulted in successful career that has enabled my son to experience so many things at such a tender age. He is utterly spoilt in terms of what he’s seen and done in his life so far, and I make no apology for that, in fact I am proud that he has been exposed to so many sights, sounds and experiences. It is an intergenerational gift.

Our most recent holiday was a first for us – we went on a cruise with two other families, aboard one of the giant ocean liners. It was luxurious, with unending food, and drinks, and music, and swimming, and parties, and a day on gorgeous Hamilton Island. And I feel so torn, with my seven-year old self looking over my shoulder, when I say that I really disliked it and couldn’t wait for it to be over. But the fact is, I really disliked it and couldn’t wait for it to be over. For me, and the other adults in our group, it was like being trapped on a floating caravan park that had been combined with a suburban RSL club.  But for the kids, well, it was sheer bliss. Being together, swimming, hanging out, making up silly stories, playing games, running around,  having your own table at dinner and slurping spaghetti straight from the bowl (I pretended I didn’t see it) – it’s the stuff of which What I Did on My Holiday stories are made.

Of course times have changed, and rather than an essay, I think my boy will likely give a PowerPoint presentation to his class next week. I suspect it will look a little something like this:

On my holiday I swam in this pool:

And this pool:

And this other pool:

I played with my best friend:

And then when on a catamaran ride with my best friend and my Dad:

And then I played with my best friend some more:

Meanwhile, my Mum had a case of what my Dad called Bitchy Cruise Face:

So he bought her a lot of these drinks called cocktails:

And after that she thought everything, especially this giant pepper grinder, was funny:

I think cruises are awesome and I would like to live on a cruise boat. My Mum said she didn’t like it, but I told her that on our next cruise, she just needs to have more cocktails.

Being a blogger has its perks. I’m not talking about money, freebies, travel or fame – although I am certainly open to offers and if past history is anything to go by, I am only second to labradors in my willingness to be bribed with food. The perks I’m talking about are meeting fabulous people, and one of them is Samantha from a blog called The Annoyed Thyroid. She has a regular series on her blog where she interviews women she thinks are inspiring, and somehow (I suspect she may have been drunk) I sneaked past her vetting process and got interviewed anyway. Go on over to her blog and have a read about just how much like a poster of a kitten hanging by one claw from a branch with ‘Hang in there’ written on it I actually am – She’s So Inspiring.

My boy is almost eight years old. Growing so tall, his head up to my chest, his adult teeth jockeying for space in his mouth, and his already skilful use of sarcasm giving us an acerbic taste of things to come.

Somehow, over the last couple of months, he’s discovered the music of AC/DC, and so now every trip in the car involves TNT or Long Way to the Top or Jailbreak being turned up loud, whilst much lip-synching and air guitar takes place in the back seat. He has even talked his piano teacher into giving him singing lessons, which involve them practising one song that she chooses (You’ve Got a Friend in Me from Toy Story) and one that he chooses (Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap from the album of the same name). Apparently the boy who has his lesson after Hugh has started arriving early so he can do air drum accompaniment to Acca Dacca.

Yesterday, when I picked him up after school, he jumped into the car and immediately said ‘Mum, can you put one of my songs on?’ I can almost smell the teenage years from this vantage point, but at that moment I was transported directly back to the time when my boy was still a baby.

When I was pregnant with Hugh, we bought a musical cot mobile, which we would turn on every time our newborn was put down for a sleep. It stayed attached to the cot and was turned on every night, through those early months, into young babyhood, and through to the toddler years, when one of his first words was ‘songson’ – because each night as part of bedtime routine, I would say ‘let’s put your songs on’. If I ever forgot, I was reminded by my boy ‘songson, Mummy, songson’ and with the press of a button he would roll onto his preferred side, hug his teddy and sigh a deep, contented sigh. Songson meant all was right in his world.

When he transitioned into a bed at 2.5, the slowly rotating arm which had toy frogs and birds swinging off it was put away in the cupboard, but the music box was firmly attached to the head of the bed. Now able to switch it on himself, he showed a clear preference for Beethoven, with the red button always pushed first as he lay himself down for sleep. Sometimes in the early hours of the morning, I would hear the familiar lilting sounds as he woke too early and sought to soothe himself back to sleep with songson.

Today, almost eight years from the day it was purchased in anticipation of our baby boy’s arrival, that music box is still firmly attached to the head of his bed. It’s now surrounded by Star Wars stickers, and his bedside table is stacked with books filled with fart jokes and tales about treehouses, but every single night, without fail, the red button is pushed and he is lulled to sleep by the gentle tinkle of Beethoven, Mozart and Bach.

I know that one day, he’ll take that music box down and put it in the cupboard with the rotating arm and toys. But at the moment, by day we may be riding down the highway going to a show, however by night, every night, we are still listening to the soothing lullaby of Beethoven, Bach and Mozart.

Songson, Mummy, songson.

Do you know pain? The creeping, dark fingers, that start with a twinging, almost delicate touch and gradually, over an hour or  a day or a week, grasp and claw and grab so tight and so hard that the imprints will never leave you?

Do you know pain? The sudden lightning bolt of agony that stops you, right in your tracks, and leaves you clinging, hanging on for dear life, to the back of a chair, the wall, the bathroom sink, thin air?

Do you know pain? The beast that lives in your pocket, hangs round your neck, drags behind you like Linus’ blanket, always there, reminding you, even though you’re incapable of forgetting?

Do you know pain? The attack on your body which in turn becomes an attack on your mind, turning headache into heartache, inflammation into preoccupation, agony into anger?

Me too.

In 2014, I was invited to join an online cancer support group which had been loosely formed when some members of a parenting forum realised they all had one very shitty thing in common. Cancer.

We are all women, all young, all in the midst of normal when cancer came calling. We decided to call ourselves the Cancer Clique, to make a mockery of being a member of a select, secret group which nobody actually ever wants to join.

The conversations we have, well there are no words to explain those words. Awful, sad, desperate, painful, agonising conversations; so raw. Mostly punctuated with the most exquisite black humour, debauched jokes, inappropriate memes and self-deprecation that often had us punctuating our cries of pain with tears of laughter.  Sitting in our lounge rooms and bedrooms, on verandahs and in cars and hospital wards, on beaches and up mountains, across Australia and the world, we cry, laugh, cry some more.

Despite the fact that our group’s reason for being was cancer, I never expected any of us to die. To my mind, it was as if the camaraderie and shared experience would buoy us, carry us all above the waves of death, and see us safely landed on the shore of complete remission. But cancer is heavy, hefty, an anchor to stark reality.

Deb. February 2015.

Amelia. May 2015.

Jen. June 2015.

Emma. June 2015.

Nat. January 2016.

The unexpected has happened. Over and over. I have learned so much, things I never wanted to know, but that now see me richer for the knowing. I’ve seen so much of death, but so much more significantly, of lives lived, bold and bright, right up until the very last moment.

I am a witness. The privilege is mine.

It’s currently awards season in Hollywood, with all the famous (and in some cases infamous) folk lining up in ridiculously beautiful (and in some cases just ridiculous) outfits to give and receive Golden Globes, Emmys, BAFTAs and Oscars. The only saving grace of the vacuousness of these shows are hosts like Ricky Gervais and Amy Schumer who show no fear in making jokes about – and of – the arseholes, divas, hypocrites and egomaniacs.

Speaking of egomaniacs, this week I was nominated for a blogging award. Yes, another one. Look I’m not really counting or anything, but you’re probably curious to know so I’ll humbly mention that it’s actually my third nomination in the past year. I’d like to thank you, my readers for recognising just how bloody awesome I am, my family for supporting me in sharing my prodigious talent with the world, and finally, I’d like to thank cancer. Without cancer, I’d be nothing but a healthy person living my life without ongoing physical pain and the fear of recurrence, writing about totally uninspirational stuff like rainbows and unicorns. Oh cancer, you saucy minx of juxtaposition.

So the award I was nominated for is called the One Lovely Blog Award.

Nominations are chosen by fellow bloggers for newer or up-and-coming bloggers. I was nominated by Mandy from The Mandy Diaries (hi and thank you Mandy!). The goal of the award is to help give recognition and to also help the new blogger reach more viewers.

In order to accept the award the nominated blogger must share seven facts/or things about him/herself and nominate 15 bloggers you admire and inform nominees by commenting on their blog.

So, seven facts about me …

1. I cannot eat poultry (chicken, duck, turkey etc) of any kind because of a food allergy (actually, technically speaking an intolerance). People find this freakish and fascinating. I find it tedious, especially as my husband and son both worship at the Altar of Chook.
2. I used to play volleyball. One day I was playing in a game, and on the next court over there was a very serious mens A grade game going on. Our ball rolled onto their court, so I ran over with the intention of stopping it with my foot and picking it up, and getting off their court as quickly as possible. Things didn’t quite go to plan and I tripped over the ball and ended up sprawled in the middle of their court. Play had to be halted on their court while I was reinstated to an upright position, and on our court because my team-mates where pissing themselves laughing.
3. My uterus is the wrong shape – normal ones are shaped like an upside-down pear, mine is shaped like a love heart. The love heart thing would be cute if it didn’t cause failure to conceive, recurrent miscarriage, and premature birth.
4. I must have a huggy pillow in order to sleep. A huggy pillow is just a normal pillow which I clasp to my chest whilst sleeping. If I am in circumstances where a spare pillow is not available, I will fashion one from whatever is at hand, such as a towel, item of clothing, or my son’s panda toy. Things can get a little awkward when he wakes up and asks for it back.
5. I love animals and find it very difficult to relate to people who don’t feel the same.
6. Writing a Mills and Boon type romance novel has been a life-long goal of mine. I just need to come up with a catchy title, and the rest should be a cinch.
   

   So I’m thinking something like … Singly Titted, Prosthetically Fitted??

7. I am now waiting on a call from Mills and Boon.

As for new and up-and-coming bloggers I admire, there are many, but to be honest, I can’t list 15 here because I simply don’t have the time to read that many blogs. The whole making a living, being a mother and wife, having friends thing tends to get in the way of my desire to endlessly read stuff on the Internet, so I’ll have to cheat a little here and list fewer than 15. What this list lacks in numbers, it makes up for in quality:

Puddleducklane – beautiful photos, fabulous food and amazing craft.

Shitty Tittie Bang Bang – breast cancer – same, same but different.

Kiz B Kool – a really useful blog for those of us with kids who are into all things technomological.

Pickles and Pords – all about kids and reading, two of my favourite things!

Good Food Week – some great recipes here.

Right, now over to you Kanye.