Night time wanderings of trainee humans.

Of course it has been a while since my last post, it always is. I have been very busy trying to retrain to be incompetent in a completely new arena, and have been delighting in savagely bi-polar behaviour from the Nazgul. The resulting stress levels have been spectacular and I have indulged in such hobbies as forgetting to turn the gas stove-top off for 6 hours, drawing very odd characters such as "Kevin the Ant thief", "Ralph the King of the Purple Lizards" and "Jack the BAD frog" for the children, completely forgetting then getting disturbed when I find the pictures. Fun times indeed.

Things wouldn't be so dire if the Nazgul hadn't started a new hobby, where between 9pm and 2 am is WAKE TIME. This mainly involves her laying in bed yelling "My Mummy. I want my Mummy" then when I go in, tenderly stroking my face saying "My Mummy. I wake my Mummy up" and then demonically laughing for ages. In a fit of desperation the other night, I hurled There's a Hippopotamus on the Roof Eating Cake at her and said "Just read this in bed" and stumbled off into a wall. I was so sleepy I had forgotten her reading that book just involves her sitting there shouting "HOMO" at every page, so the sounds coming through the monitor from her room sounded more like a group of bogans on train platform, than a toddler reading session.

Anyway, I am not alone in this. I am actually comparatively lucky, it seems the new craze sweeping the nation's 2.5 yr olds is waking up in the middle of the night and running amok through the house. Many of my friends seem to have discovered they have tiny little Keith Richards' rampaging through their homes any time sleep is attempted. There has been a lot of buzz on the inter-webs that "this too shall pass", "it is a developmental stage", "you just have to stay consistent" blah blah blah, bottom line being that it will improve and you just have to wait for their developing brains to finish this particularly phase of rewiring. All I can say is BULLSHIT. I have developed a fool proof strategy for getting the little bastards to stay in bed (and this is heaps better than my other ideas of getting Brian Blessed to do Jane Austen audio books, roller pants, and us changing our surname to Eastwood). I have written a meditative story to read to young children, with a clear subtext that they can relate to their own existence and therefore be aided in developing new strategies around sleep.

Night-time Meditations for Naughty Little Boys.

Are you snuggled comfy under your covers? Ok now, Mummy will read you one story and then it’s time for lights off and time for sleep.

Once upon a time, not as long ago as you might think, there was a little boy/girl who used to get out of bed every night. Every night their Mummy would tuck them in, kiss them good night but they just wouldn’t stay in bed. Their Mummy was so beautiful and worked so hard but was so sad because their little boy/girl was so horrible.

One night, the little child was EVEN worse than before, he/she jumped out of bed so HARD that he/she woke up SLICER-BEASTIE.

Slicer Beastie, has metal teeth and lives under the beds of children. When children get up when they are not allowed, Slicer Beastie wakes up and drags them by their ankles under the bed and eats their little faces off.

Now, Good night Sunny/Erin/Rachel/Lucy/Orion/Elijah/Fern/Amber. Sweet dreams. Mummy will come in and check that you are still alive. Love you poppet. 

The End

Now, off to work towards my dream of being a developmental psychologist.

Danger Words

This morning as the Nazgul force fed me a grape of indeterminable vintage, I got to thinking about how being alerted to imminent danger has changed. In the past, the warning of potential hazards and unsafe situations was pretty standard "Fire", "Run" and "Last Drinks" being the most notable. While the word gravity is now positively sinister, it is more of a slow creep than one that immediately freezes the bowels and makes legs twitch.

It has become accepted around Crap Headquarters that the word "igh-ees" (rough English translation: eyes), is usually immediately followed by a sharp poke in the eye and corneas scratched by sharp, dirty little fingernails and shrieks of delight from the Nazgul. In a similar vein, hearing the mutterings of "busybee, busybee, biz biz, busybee" is pretty much a sign to head for the fallout shelter, it is the signal that the Nazgul is rampaging through the house destroying then coating the debris in sunscreen or moisturizer. Recently I was trying to send a text message when I heard the dreaded mutterings to look up and see the Busy Bee sculling soy milk (football hooligan style) while attempting to key the glass doors. Busy Bee also has a penchant for throwing things into the bath (particularly electrical goods), putting popcorn in the toilet and ramming herself into the protective barriers we have placed around everything until she can get close enough to the TV to attempt to key that. I am not sure where she got the idea that a Bee is a vandalising serial killer but it has caused me to add one of those suits that police dog trainers wear to my birthday wish list.

The Busy Bee is not the Nazgul's only alter-ego. We often have prolonged assaults from "The Little Cat", who plays the sociopath to the busy bees psychopathology. The warning bell for the appearance of the Little Cat, is the Nazgul crawling up to you on all fours going "Ahhh Ahhh", then crash tackling you in a head butting frenzy of over enthusiastic kisses, cuddles and general unbalanced love, the Nazgul cuts an elegant figure with the body shape of a front row forward so this little game always ends with a shriek and an agonised "GENTLE, WE DON'T HURT MUMMY". Unfortunately, the main characteristic of the little cat is that is doesn't heed any advice, instruction or pleas for mercy. In the past fortnight alone, she has attempted to decapitate me with the broom on three occasions, attempted to tear my earrings from my ears daily and I suspect has caused life long damage to my septum with the kisses.

The reinterpretation of danger words is not the Nazgul's doing alone, Rainman has the superhuman ability to make a noise that can instantly induce rage in the listener. I am sure some sinister military agency will one day synthesise this sound to play at enemy insurgents - a modern version of the fabled 'brown note". This noise is usually an indication that you will turn around to find Rainman punching his own shoes, pulling at chunks of his hair or biting his own trousers leaving you on the verge of the parenting faux pas of screaming "What the fuck is wrong with your brain?". This is not the most dangerous or most psychically damaging of Rain Man's sounds, as soon as he utters the words "Pokemon", "Munchkin" (some overly complicated imaginary game he plays with his friends) or spies, you know that you are in for a 3-4 hr monologue which eventually degenerates into a nonsensical diatribe or argument (recently he claimed he had already completed some spy training as he had medical knowledge and went into a rant about 'clerics' and healing, when I gently mentioned he was talking about something made up from a role playing game, he had a fit that he was talking about the real world not a game and became so frustrated he was almost frothing at the mouth).


Similarly, I am alerted to danger from My First Husband when he says "Hi, I am home", but that is another post entirely.....

***The Crap Housewife would like to apologise for the delay in posting, she has been under constant terrorist attack in the form of an imaginary bee and kitten and has not emerged unscathed from the encounters. However she makes no apologies for the spelling and grammatical errors, she just can't be arsed***