Nutty health

One of my greatest issues this past month has been kids and sickness. We were catapulted into this with Mack having his first anaphylactic reaction ever in response to scoffing my hidden chocolate stash of rocky road. After a mad ambulance dash, chaotic hospital stay (where there were no private rooms and the woman opposite me was charged with child endangerment), skin prick tests, action plan implementation, epi pen training, briefing for child care, and cleaning out of every trace of nuts in the house we returned to a relatively normal life again for about 2 seconds. It turns out he's allergic to nuts to the point of having an anaphylactic reaction when touching them. Perfect! Aside from Bella and Mack both coming down with colds this week, I now have a new health issue to deal with. I have two medical opinions about Bella and the official diagnosis of failure to thrive for her. Just great! She tracked along nicely on the percentile chart for weight until she was about 3yrs and then she just took a deep skydive off into the realm of a flat 0 percentile skimming under this when she’s sick. It never gets any easier. She doesn’t like any vegetables except corn or broccoli though she’s never tried most of the others, so I’m not sure how she knows that. The only meat she’ll eat is sausages, beef and lamb on a stick (cutlets). Aside from butter, salt (which she tries to plaster on everything like a snow storm) and chocolate, she refuses to try anything with flavor. Hot dogs without the bread, pasta with no sauce, sausages with no bits in them. She is, to put it nicely, a pain in the bum!! So what to feed her? If it were up to her, she’d live on pasta with butter, and I refuse to let her live on that and that alone. Now that she has been diagnosed with failure to thrive the need for her to eat a more diverse and healthy assortment of foods feels more urgent to me than it did a few month’s ago. And while I try not to vilify any food groups it would be nice if she had some other foods to fall back on, especially when she gets sick and drops below the 0 percentile. So what to do? I’m not willing to make two different meals every night. I’ve been there and done that, and I’m over it. I deconstruct a meal for her when it’s possible - for example, if I make spaghetti pasta, I’ll leave out the mince and add in butter for her. But I’m starting to think that maybe tough love is the way to go. As in, if I roast a chicken, she’s going to eat it, and if she doesn’t like it, well…tough. Of course, I wouldn’t stick a plate of anything really outrageous in front of her, like chopped liver or super spicy Indian food, but I’m kind of finished with indulging her. After almost two year’s of being nice and open-minded, I still have a kid who won’t eat anything, and I end up frustrated and angry at every meal. My heart also dives when I see her rail thin body after a bath or when getting dressed. She’s sooooo skinny it makes me cringe.. Last time we dealt with this they told us it was her adenoids and tonsils and they had to come out. We had to fatten her up for the operation and were given a special powder to add calories to her food. She could detect this supposedly flavourless stuff a mile away and we ended up stuffing her with Maccas 4 days straight before the operation. I’m tempted to do this now but it will have ramifications for the other kids…. They were obviously wrong and it makes me cranky to see her fade away….. The problem is cranky, and maybe a bit nutty, seems to be who I’ve become. I just don't have the energy to deal with this kind of stuff at the moment. This morning when Lakeisha (who just turned 7) belted her rail thin stick insect sister when Bella beat her to be first at the door I lost it. I HATE it when one kid belts another and even more so when the strong one picks on the weak one. It made me cranky, mad and upset and then when I got to work and shared how chaotic getting out the door was this morning a mum who sits opposite me told me her kids were 15 and 17 and had the same fight this morning about who got to sit in the front seat. OMG! So am I over-reacting? Where do I draw the line? How do I get more sleep? How do I find time to enjoy my kids more? How do I worry less? Is this just a never ending uphill battle that will drain me until I become a crotchety lonely older mother whose kids hate her? I think I'm going nuts.....

Holiday time...

It’s really only struck me recently that 3 kids under 6 yo, 1 x 17 year old grumpy cat, 1 x blind foster dog and a fabulous au pair constitutes a reasonably large family. We have lurched from mini issue to mini issue, and then into the fire with extended family major ailments, and then back again to the daily routine of mini issue to mini issue. It’s holiday time. We’re only one weekend into the holidays and 2 hours into the weekday and the holidays have already picked me up by my feet, swung me around their head, and flung me into a bin. The one with all the dirty nappies. It all came to a crashing halt in bed this morning when I woke up and couldn't breathe or straighten out my fingers on either hand, my limbs paralysed with anxiety. I don't know if it has to do with having 3 kids and the fatigue of getting them to this point. Sometimes it pokes through everything that I'm doing to squash it, and the room starts to spin and I feel like my heart is going to explode or crawl up and out of my throat. Those times are usually set off by little things that I have let build up over time, and suddenly I'm in the kitchen thinking about everything - and I'm suddenly overcome with the urge to chuck. Except that's one more thing I'd have to clean up. There is no reason at all whatsoever to freak out about stuff, but when you let sleep deprivation creep up on you, or certain other parts of your life start to spin out of control, those little things can seem like elephants. And then you just have to laugh at the ludicrousness of it - I mean most of it is all rather trivial and silly and you just need to get on with it. Mark has a mantra of GSD. Just 'get shit done' and I tend to agree with him but for the record and to dump everything out of my head so I can clear it, here's a list that contributed to my mini freeze this morning. I worry about Lakeisha’s friendships, Bella’s tendency to overeat and then jump around and vomit and then her not wanting to eat for days, oh and the cat racing over to eat her vomit (and the poor au pair trying not to vomit on the cat), Mack’s extreme reaction to teething and his desire to sit on Mummy’s hip 24/7 or scream his lungs out (and Mummy only has one good hip so it’s rather exhausting), the blind dog’s garbage stench farting and tendency to sneak onto my shag pile rug as it’s comfy and warm and then it starts to smell like dog, who is going to take a blind dog and what do we do with her when we are in Fiji, Mark’s dad having overnight surgery for kidney stones on the weekend, Mark’s dad being told he might have early dementia, that the good sleep fairy hates us – see email below……. what in the hell I get Mark for his birthday from the kids and I have less than 24 hopurs to decide (they want to buy him a beer T-shirt but methinks he won’t like that), the fact that I’m off to Fiji in a few week’s but I’m 10kgs overweight since my last tropical holiday so I have no clothes, the need to do some shopping for a caveman diet so I can drop off all the weight before Fiji – or at least a baby elephant portion of it, designing a holiday program for the kids so they don’t get bored, I need to send Irene’s birthday presents to Italy which I’ve bought but they've been sitting in a bag for over a week now, letting my 98 year old Grandma know she’s on the waiting list for care in Canberra and then the worry about having to deal with her possessions etc when she gets a place, extended family politics, wrapping up La Bella properly for the EOFY, one of my team being sick …………….. Right now…. I'm focusing on today, this hour, this word. I try not to think about tomorrow or the day after that because sometimes when I lift my eyes and stare straight ahead I see miles and miles of fire. Flames stretching so far that they hide the entire sky. I see waves of terrifying, oppressive heat spilling out across every inch of ground in front of me. And then panic swells in my lungs, that old familiar rush of anxiety and dread and certainty that the world is going to fall apart. So I look back down at my hands, at this word. And this word. And this one. And everything is okay. And then I smile when I think about the small things in life like Mack pulling Bella's hair, Bella's queries about real live princesses and why Prince Edward isn't a King when he's married to a Queen, or Lakeisha making up her first joke. Q) Why did the toilet paper roll down the hill? A) To get to the bottom.. Breathe............... ------------------------------- I would like to register an issue with an accommodation experience I have which has been bothering me for the last 24 hours. On Saturday night my husband and I stayed at Crowne Plaza in Canberra on a celebratory package. The package was to celebrate his birthday and his gift was a full night’s sleep (as we have 3 children under 6 that have been waking in the night – 13 month old is teething – 4 year has been sick – 6 year old wakes with the 4 yo). We live in Canberra and we stayed in the Hotel which is less than 10 minutes from our home. We are so desperate for a sleep through that this seemed like a good idea and Grandma volunteered to babysit overnight. Except that we were woken at 2.15am by the intercom denoting a possible fire evacuation. 15 minutes later this was followed by evacuation noises and then the intercom stating we could go back to sleep. In that 15 minutes we were woken and were working out what to take and where to go in case of an evacuation. It took us ages to get back to sleep. This does not constitute a sleep through and I feel like the bad sleep fairy followed us! In return we were offered a late checkout but we had family commitments and could not take up the offer. I would like to stress how disappointed we are. Especially in that the alarm procedures were rather irregular and contributed to the angst. Up until this experience the staff had been wonderful and our stay appeared to augur well. The next morning no-one really cared that we lost sleep and it was a ‘too bad – so sad’ attitude. I was told that some people were smoking in their room. I would like to make sure that you pursue fining these people or banning them from future Crowne plaza hotels and that someone somewhere empathises that our stay was in vain.

Memorable moments

The last few weeks have been hard with my nanna dying, many of us being sick and lots of little issues. There's a picture from my Nanna laying a wreath at Anzac Day a few year's ago, plus some of us commemorating her on this Anzac Day and then a cute one of Bella's angry face. Yesterday I worked a 14 hour day which is NOT ideal. My beautiful family keeps me sane in the chaos. The most memorable positive moments have been: a)Bella telling me my lovely new perfume smelled like vomit b)My step mother in law trying to offload a new granny bra onto me and then poor Kelly when I rejected it c)Bella loudly telling my Indian friend with her 5 month old baby that she had a baby at home just like hers, but ours was white and not brown d)Bella afterwards in the car asking me why my friend didn’t wash her baby e)Trying to answer questions like “How much does the sky weigh” and “why do people tease each other”? f)Lakeisha getting bullied by a little boy at the school with incident reports highlighting he was the protagonist and physically hurting her and then a few day’s later being told by the school that she wrote “x is a fuckwit’ in the sandpit. How can I possibly tell her off when her spelling is so good and she used her brain and not her fists for revenge! g)Kelly joining our team and being absolutely lovely h)Lakeisha insisting I have a flower in my hair for the school Mothers' Day event and her insisting a shark be in our mother and daughter collage i)Bella's angry face cracks me up....

Attitude disability - ponderings.

I came across the term attitude disability recently and I like it. We all know people with an attitude disability! Sometimes these can be toxic!

Having three beautiful small children and an ultra busy life working at the University and for the consultancy firm, I barely have time to remember to do my hair or match my shoes before I dive out the door every morning. I love that I met up with one of my close friends recently and she had mismatching black boots on and they were different heel levels. This is what I relate to! I love it. Her attitude was gold and her life is obviously just as chaotic as mine.

Conversations when at home or with the kids these days consist of answering questions about what animals lay eggs, and whether eggs come from cows, and then answering how yoghurt, milk and butter can all come from cows. Having these conversations are important and I simply have to prioritise my energy into these over people with an attitude disability.

Last night I had to cut another family link when people started attacking each other with stuff like “x said y was z”! I simply have no capacity for people like this who obviously have an attitude disability.

It’s sad but I’ve become quite good at creating new boundaries and cutting these people out completely. Every now again one raises it’s ugly head and I have to slash and burn. It’s quite cathartic really and means I have more time to spend on those that genuinely support those around them. It’s just sad to see how toxic one side of my family can be to each other. They thrive on other’s misfortunes and love nothing more than gossiping about each other. It’s almost like they transfer negativity onto someone else and then they feel unburdened and free.

The poor person they transfer the bad attitude crap stuff onto are usually skipping through their day, happy as can be and then BAM – they get blindsided by the attitudinally disabled. Or like me, they are groaning under the weight of trying to find accommodation for another ailing relative, juggling two jobs, organizing class rep functions, dealing with a child’s bullying issue at school, and a sick husband amongst the minutiae of daily life and then BAM – someone very close to me gets blindsided and needs support.

I don’t believe there is really an in between. People either have an attitude disability (usually toxic) or they don’t. I simply do not have time to waiver in the middle and give them the chance to prove otherwise! The complicating factor is when these people are extended family members as sometimes you just have to encounter them at mutual family members events.

They are usually the types of adults who make school yard crazy accusations. I know that this is just how some people deal with life. They can’t verbalise in any other way except to show their attitude disability has sharp teeth when things get tough for them.

Fortunately for me I’m now comfortable enough with me and I know how precious my time is so I can much more easily cut these people out of my life and call them on the behaviour as I see it. I don’t see that you can change their behaviour – but you can change your response to it and cut yourself free from having to be around them. I can also bring my children up to recognize such behaviour and be savvy enough and comfortable enough not to let these people get their claws into them.

For the last few years I’ve been avoiding most extended family functions and consolidating strong circles of support and new traditions with people of my choosing - limiting my interaction with toxic family members. I’ve had fun with this. It’s been a great strategy and I can look at the extended family shenanigans from the periphery and muse that one day – just one day they might all take a breather and actually try to build each other up and play nice – but nah I can’t see it in my lifetime!

There are a few golden shiny bright beautiful people in my extended family but the problem is the only time they can usually get together without the others it’s to discuss their last blindsiding! I’m guilty of it myself. That’s not healthy either and then it has the danger of descending into a parody.

I’ll keep plodding along with my strong support circles of my choosing including some really lovely women I went to Uni with almost 20 year’s ago, my international ‘sisters’, some golden family members and my more recent positive friendships of the last few years who always build me up, build each other up and seek to get through this crazy life keeping each other in one piece – with as much laughter and positivity as we can inject into each other (of course not literally)!

Military Mummy

I spent 10 years in the Army Reserve where I met my husband, Mark.

I wonder sometimes if the influence has been greater than I thought. I have a cold this weekend and to get through the Easter weekend in one piece and to make sure I had 'me' time I organised the roster below.

Mark was fine with no 'me' time as he regards a sleep in and doing the tax as enough relaxation. hmmm... Anyway: I wonder how many other mums organise their long weekends like this? My friend asked me if we coudl catch up and I said Saturday afternoon with the kids was the only available timeslot and she looked at me a bit weirdly - like how do you know that's the only time you have free..... Well, um, yes I KNOW. See below.

Friday
Kylie to sleep in (until 8.30)
Kylie to tackle the garage and look after La & Bella at same time (9-12.30)
Mark looks after Mack and works during his sleep time (awake time – 12.30)
Family lunch
1.30-2.30 – Mark watches all 3 kids while I do a bit more on garage
3pm-4.30pm Easter Egg hunt with the kids – Kylie to take all of them
Mark to do the tax (2.30-5pm)
5pm – Kylie to get on exercise bike while Mark looks after the kids

Saturday

Mark to sleep in
Kylie to get work paperwork and baptism invitations sorted (10-12.30)
Mark has all 3 kids (10-12.30) – take them for a walk out of the house if he can or movies while I watch Mack (Mack sleeps for 2 hours)
Family lunch
Mark to do tax/buy net nanny software/sync iphone/ipads done etc (2-5)
Kylie to look after all 3 kids (2-5)
Call Atholl

Sunday
Lakeisha has the birthday party at the zoo in the morning – 10 until 12ish (check time)
Mark to drop her off and work on laptop while waiting for her in the cafe (10-11.30)
Call Dad
Kylie has Mack and Bella – Kylie to try and tackle garage with the kids
Lunch – family
Kylie to get nails done/jewellery repairs/neurofen kids/pick up photos 2-4ish
Mark has kids 2-5.30ish
Kylie gets on exercise bike at 4.30pm

Monday
Mark to do RPL paperwork 10-12.30
Lunch: Family suburban walk – take prams and baby bjorn or have an Xbox party if it's bad weather
2-6 Grandma comes - yay- & looks after kids - Kylie tries to have a rest, Mark does RPL

The pics from this weekend so far are great in that they show how much Mack is adored by his sisters. The poor thing gets no space when they're around but look he pleased with himself he is for being able to walk with an aide. He refuses to crawl but seems to be almost walking. I never used to think this was really possible but he's got his own way of learning and I just have to watch and let him choose walking over crawling!

Moral and medical chaos....

We’ve had an interesting last few days full of moral dilemmas, medical issues and laughter.

I realised just how different my morals are to Marks. I have always looked for the easiest way to do something and as long as it’s legal and not hurting someone – hey it’s okay! For example, I love to cheat at board games and I remember my great friend Renata and I having massive fun fights as we realised we both do it and would end up play fighting with pieces going everywhere when someone went too far. Mark used to be completely bemused by this – he just didn’t understand (and he still doesn’t understand why you’d want to cheat). You can imagine then how proud he was when I told him how I was trying to teach Lakeisha to cheat in her homework this week and she refused to do it - telling me off. She wanted to do it properly! It involved writing her 10 spelling words out 4 times on the computer but once we were through the 3rd time (which took a painstaking 40 minutes as she’s not familiar with the keyboard yet) I figured she’d practised enough, dinner time was looming and I was bored so I showed her how to copy and past the words instead. OMG! She reacted like I’d taken her favourite teddy and torn off his leg. Dinner was late that night....... And she made me delete my cheat.

Now we come to dinner...... it’s chaos at our house most nights at dinner time. We always turn off the TV and use the time to catch up on our day with everyone at the kitchen table including the baby. Last night it was simply triple chaos. Everyone had an exciting day, we were all were talking over the top of each other and even the baby wanted to chuck in his two bob’s worth. I ducked away from the table for a millisecond to get more apple juice and came back to find Mark happily eating his dinner with his super duper army issued noise cancelling headphones on! Yes – it was funny, but I was more jealous than anything. I want a pair as well.

Then after dinner our lovely interim au pair takes me aside and tells me she allowed Lakeisha to use her laptop after school and when our au pair looked Lakeisha was on Google typing in the word penis. Oh dear! Time to get special kiddy barrier software. We think it's on her radar as her 9 month old brother has discovered his new toy and is making change time hard as he won't leave his appendage alone!

Then this morning Lakeisha asked me what the rocks in my bathroom were. Intrigued I followed her in to discover she’s pulled out every single little pill in my contraceptive pills case and re-aligned them on the floor. We keep a locked medical cabinet for everything except the pill (as there is no way I’m going to forget to take it and create a 4th addition to our house). I had to very carefully question her about whether she took any and she appears to have not realised they were pills. Phew! Mark and I had a big discussion about whether I should call the poisons line but decided it was probably fine. Nevertheless I took her to school this morning to monitor her and told her teacher just in case she did take one and had a delayed reaction – the teacher who is of course male and the brother of someone I went to school with. Very embarrassing!

I dropped off Lakeisha and then dropped off Bella to pre-school. As I’m waiting for Bella to apply her sunscreen I look at the kid’s drawings and there is a statement from Keirabella with a drawing of a sad face “I don’t like it when my sister hurts me but I like it when Mummy gives me a cuddle’. Oh crap. I register Lakeisha and I (the sister in question) need to have a talk and then I curiously look at some others which were “I hate it when daddy gives me a big smack’ and “I get scared when I get smacked...”. OMG!! I know it’s awful ‘poor kids!’, but I had to smile to myself. As bad as you think you are and as chaotic as it is, there’s always someone else with bigger issues!

In the midst of all of this I had to come home early from work this week as I was falling asleep at my computer. Mack is still sick with bronchitis and not sleeping, and the school easter egg hunt seems more difficult to organise than the construction of a new building. Sigh!!

Tantrumy thoughts mixed with evil ones...

I know a mother whose children do not, and have not, ever thrown tantrums (and who has no issues, and has never had issues, with either of them sleeping through the night). I’m serious! She’s not someone I’ve made up – she actually exists!
 
It’s funny but I never seem to be able to bond with this woman. EVER... I should be able to bond with her. Our kids are friends, we are professional working mums, we both drive safe boring cars, she lives in the next suburb so our kids could have play-dates, she seems smart and she likes shoes but...... every now and again I forget why I don’t like speaking with her and I accidentally find myself in a conversation with her.
 
Big mistake Kylie: I always walk away feeling like an icky, stinking, bad ass mother!
 
Let’s call her Stephanie.
 
Stephanie always smiles sweetly and tries ever so hard to understand problems of other mothers. Last week’s comments at a mummy coffee catch-up the comments were: “My sister in law rang me the other day asking for my advice on how to deal with a tantrum and I had to say that I’m so sorry but I just can’t help you - my kids have never thrown a tantrum and I wouldn’t know what to do”.
 
AND people listen to her and smile...... WTF?
 
This is not something I’ve made up. It’s actually a claim repeatedly made by her. Every time I go to school and see this woman there my heart sinks and I just know I have to avoid her or get a reputation for being a complete biatch because one day I’m not going to be able to keep quiet.
 
What I find amazing is that when my friend who was sitting next to her at the coffee catch-up was told this about tantrums (or the lack of) she did not react to this like it was a statement from an alien with green goop dropping from her nose, or ask the perfect mother what drugs she used. My friend is such an emotionally gifted person she accepted this fact very graciously while it took every inch of me NOT to jump in and query Stephanie further about her witchcraft skills and what nights she dances with the devil to achieve such almost impossible black magic night after night, day after day. It also took every inch of me not to pull evil faces behind her back and accidentally shove sugar sticks up her nose.
 
My crazy, hectic, juggling act of motherhood does not compute the absence of tantrums. In fact very soon I think I might be next to tantrum on the list.......
 
In the last few days we not only had to cope with Bella, our 4 year old, chucking her first major banshee tantrum in 12 months over the fact she didn’t want a glass of milk – an Oscar winner for over dramatisation if ever I saw one, but she then bit a friend’s 9 year old boy yesterday full on the stomach. The most perfectly round deep horrible bite I’ve ever seen. What I love is that my friend made a joke about being thankful it wasn’t lower and smiled at me – even though she was probably thinking I am never going anywhere with that family and that horrid evil banshee ever again.

Bella embarrassed me further by refusing to sit in the naughty corner and then trying to reason with me that she’d said sorry so why was I still fussing? OMG – she just did not ‘get it’ that her biting was UNACCEPTABLE. She also knew she was in public with at least 100 observers watching Mummy surreptitiously behind their meal to judge my reaction and she knew she could push me and there was no way I was going to react badly and embarrass us. My only option was to leave so I could tell her exactly what I thought privately of her behaviour in the car – which is exactly what she wanted in the first place - to leave!
 
Bella was once so bad that my best friend banned her from her house in case she taught her own toddler son how to tantrum like an animal. I think it’s even more frustrating in that I thought she’d grown out of this evil, horrible stage and that she was the world’s cutest, most adorable child. Up until the last 2 weeks she’s been a dream child. But..... Tonight the teacher sent home a note that we need to talk as she's become rebellious.. My child? Never!!
 
I won’t even start with Stephanie's absence of issues with her children sleeping except to say that she must have shares in a pharmaceuticAl company, and that our 9 month old Mack slept through last night for the first time in months. Yay!!
 
On the upside..... I only have the next 11 years to avoid Stephanie at school. Oh crap! Maybe it's Mummy's time to tantrum.....

Baking evil thoughts....

Today I will try to just think evil thoughts and not say them out loud.

I couldn’t help buy a card that said this today after being chided again on a closed internet forum for my comments.

The forum is like car crash television for me. I know I shouldn’t indulge in it and I know it’s bad for me but I can’t help sneaking a peek. This one is a step worse than car crash TV as it can also attack back! Those of you that know me well know I have a quirky sense of humour for the ridiculous that most people ‘get’ in person – for example when one of my students asked for advice on her uni program and she was a bit stressed I told her to chuck it all in and find a Sugar Daddy. The reaction was confusion and then hilarity. Of course I didn’t mean she should do it but I sensed that this was a big issue for her keeping her awake at night and the comment was designed to flip the stress on it’s head and give her perspective. I can usually judge the audience correctly. It usually works. And it did.

My kids are very familiar with terminology like eating caterpillar vomit (avocado), squashed flies (sultanas) and saying butterfly poo instead of the s word.

So what did I say on this closed forum that was so bad? Actually in this case, it wasn’t the sublimely ridiculous. I was being serious but making it light hearted and recognising my shortcomings as the issue has had quite an impact on my kitchen habits. In a discussion about the Women’s Weekly cookbook and people posting up pictures of their wonderful creations, I noted that when I was a kid one of my friends lost his fingers in the mixer while baking (true and gruesome). Some of you that I grew up with will know the incident. I suppose in my own way I like to throw in the ridiculous and it's not the direction I think people thought the conversation would take! But I have to say that when I think of baking a cold hard stab of fear possesses me. I don't usually share why this is with people but hey - it's interesting in a forum with mostly strangers I feel it's okay to tell them my insecurities. Most people know I outsource birthday cakes etc and now they know why. In my mind I connect baking with blood and panic.

I said and here is my evil comment.... “I’m a Nazi with the mixer. Absolutely no-one else is allowed to touch it. I know it’s extreme ..”.

You should have seen the offence one woman in particular took to my use of the word Nazi and then she posted an independent post about my reference to the work nazi and..... I’m instantly a baddie! I called myself a Nazi in regards to baking and recognised my need to get over my extreme reaction to the trauma – perspective here sweetie. Is her reaction so overzealous that it’s a parody?

I know the solution is NOT to look at this forum again or not to post, but.... it’s hard for someone like me who loves people and who loves to interact to just butt out. 85% of the time I feel supported, loved, and receive great advice. I like to think I give good advice too, but I’ve realised a fault I have that I never thought was an issue. I am super sensitive to written criticism and I really need to toughen up.

This happened once before on this forum and friends asked me not to leave but ........... I have a self imposed ban for a few day’s and then I’ll probably accidentally say the wrong thing again. It’s funny as I never have this issue in person with people – so the written word really can be misinterpreted and people seem to be nastier online than they are in person.

I think some sort of guidelines need to be in place for closed forums but I’m too scared to suggest it! I hope the investigation into that defence closed forum creates some kind of national guidance. I once suggested on the forum that we only say constructive, supportive things when people started attacking each other and they turned on me.

Maybe I should just watch more of Jerseylicious or Keeping up with the Kardashians – at least they don’t bite back! Maybe I could have some fun with this and just completely and utterly not censor anything???

I certainly know that I will never enter another closed forum ever again.

Bye Bye La Bella....

My family based business La Bella Creations will cease to trade from 31 March this year. Until then products will be on sale. www.labellaonline.com

It's been a difficult decision to make as La Bella has won awards, has a great fan-base, I've been able to run it flexibly and spend more time with my kids and we've made a profit in our second year of operation. I'm told this isn't normal and most businesses take longer than this to pay themselves and make $ - so I'm happy!

However, while I've been running La Bella I've also been teaching at university part time, helping my husband with his property business, running Mumpreneur Online and consulting for a global company. Oh and all the other things you do like being parent rep for the school and charity work in running balls to raise $ for cancer, Red cross, hospital helicopter services etc - and raise 3 kids all under 6 with a baby of 8 months.

This morning in an information session for year 1 - as the school requested parent reps my friend leant over to me and said a firm No! This reflects my general approach to 2012. I'm going to try and slow down and centralise my energy and business acumen a little more.

That's the thing. I'm doing so much in the world of business and it's all been quite successful and enjoyable that I'm not sure what I should really do when I grow up. I'm 40 year's old in a year so I should probably have worked it out by then!!

I've made the decision to close La Bella based on the fact that I make more money for my family helping my husband with his property business than I do with La Bella (as profit margins per necklace are $1 compared to $100,000 + per property) and he and I will be able to do it together and therefore see each other more often. I also make a lot more money consulting which is also flexible and it can help fund the property business, when needed. I've asked not to go face to face for teaching as it's lots of work and I'm instead running a university intern placement program for third years (some of who I've taught before so it's nice to help them transition to the workforce) - hopefully 2012 will be less busy!

In regards to my team, Bianca is now working with another exciting firm and we keep in touch and Misty has picked up work as a virtual assistant and can still help with the property business. The property work is also a lot less intensive than having to pack orders every day and deal with daily customer enquiries. Most of the work is based on knowing about strata titles, DA approvals and going through paperwork processes so it's less urgent and higher instant profits.

It makes sense to reduce my workloads, and it also means that my husband and I can cover up and double for each other whereas that's not happening with La Bella as he's swamped with his business and I'm swamped with mine. I'm not sure what else I will stop. This is my first step but I'll probably stop teaching at University in 2013 and I'm not going to sit on any ball committees this year - I'll just go along and enjoy the party instead. As much as I love it - I love doing lots of things and I can't do everything I love!

I'm not going to sell La Bella as I own the international rights for people/businesses not to copy the idea of tug proof jewellery around babies and it's worth quite a bit now and into the future. I'll simply cease trading and when my kids are older I'll decide then whether to sell La Bella, or start it back up again...

Slowing down and reducing my commitments means I can spend even more time with my family and with my husband on his business. It's saying yes to my family which feels right!

For now there is 50% off for me to clear stock and get the stock room back!!! I'm a little sad but mostly I feel free as I know I csn run an successful online business from home and now I need to integrate and consolidate my efforts with my husband so we can achieve great things together.

Baby weight gripe.....

Mack is almost 7 month’s old so I only have 2 month’s left to use the excuse that I’m 10kgs overweight because I just had a baby.

Mark bought me a set of weigh scales for Christmas that syncs with my ipad and tracks my weight loss- he’s a very brave man! After the initial shock and me wanting to dong him on the head with it – I quite liked it. Of course I threw a tantie over the fact that it was hard to set up and I pretended not to like it much – but secretly I love it. It has little charts and graphs and hey it must be working as the little arrow on the graph is pointing down….. for today anyway.

I was at the baby clinic yesterday for Mack’s vaccinations and I ran into an acquaintance who had her first baby 4 month's ago. She looked like a celebrity that freakily bounces back as if they’ve spent 20 hours in the gym a day and who eat 1 brazil nut for breakfast and 2 snow peas for dinner with oxygen in between for snacks.

She was gasp..... SLIM!

I had to ask.... “How did you lose the bloody baby weight so quickly”?

I'm thinking... Don't tell me you lost the baby weight breast feeding, forgetting to eat because you are so busy, or that it just falls off from running after little 3 month old Oscar - who can't roll or crawl yet as that would be a porky pie lie. I KNOW better. I have 3 kids under 6. I am surrounded by tempting kiddy leftovers all day, I NEED to hit the calorie laden grog at night in excess, I don't believe you. Do I look stupid? - just freaking fess up so we can all enjoy the secret!

She tells me the worst response of all. It just sort of happened. She hadn’t noticed and it just kind of went. WTF?

How does it just go?

Baby weight: "hey sweetie I'm hitching a ride out of here as there's a mamma in the Whitsundays I need to visit".

Hrrrmmpphh...

I officially hate her! I want to be her! I want her genes! And I want to be able to fit in her jeans.

Oh and I’ve said this before - Miranda Kerr is an alien!! No-one looks that good in jeans (and on the catwalk) after a baby unless they have alien genes.