the mixed pot of posts - bad, slack, icky & useless

Greetings all,
A mixed pot post to start my week on a Tuesday, thanks to the Canberra Day long weekend. 

The bad - my ambitious middle girl, in happier times on Sunday . . .

 & again this morning, sporting cuts, bruises & a nasty open wound on her shoulder as she took a dive off her bike onto the road yesterday afternoon.  Her face is badly grazed & her torso looks like a bear attacked her, nasty & not fit for school today!!  You may remember this child from when she smashed her front teeth out coming off her scooter & splitting her chin open running down the hall.  Her greatest hits!!

 The slack - i loathe the tooth fairy tradition, it's exciting for your first child, but i believe our children are indulged enough.  Sweet story aside, our tooth fairy can take days to come & sometimes borrows coins from money boxes.  My 3rd grade son lost his first tooth, which promptly went missing after parading it around.  My children assume there is a 'no tooth, no fee' policy as our forgetful fairy often doesn't deliver, he did get same day payment . . . we'll see how long that keeps up.

 The icky - will not include any images thank you very much.  I was looking at our trailer today (as my lovely next door neighbour mowed my front lawns yesterday) & discovered . . . trailer really does equal trash.  I spied a used condom, in our trailer, parked in front of our house.  Ewww.  Worse, the wrapper was there too (just in case i was kidding myself it was a plastic bag) so i think someone had sex in our trailer, 50cm from our home.  I've already disinfected it, & the tyre iron used to remove it, revolting!!  FYI we live in the most dead boring family neighbourhood, i'll never look at that trailer the same way again.  Trashy trailer.

The Useless - we live in a suitable house provided by the Army at reduced market rate rent (no it's not free housing) & when things require maintence, we call Defence Housing & they organise a tradesman.  So when our under-the-sink pipes started dripping yesterday, i called them.  Naturally the 'public holiday' meant no plumber is poor enough to come out to fix my pipes, until the next business day (today).  By 11a.m., no plumber so i called again & wouldn't you know, it was never booked!!  It's scheduled & this is exactly what the plumber's receptionist said to me "i understand you have children to pick up from school so can you make yourself available between 1-4p.m.??"  Urgh!!  There are actual holes in the pipes, i'm not a plumber, it's not my house, i'm waiting for a professional, patiently, but when exactly do they think school finishes??  I've been expecting them all morning, so i have errands to run now. 

 In the mean time i have a washing machine filled with wet towels, sorry MARCS!!

Does incompetence make your blood boil??  I'm a really relaxed person, very patient & forgiving, however, it's so mind blowingly brain numbing that people get paid to do jobs that require common sense & time frames, yet they are lacking in both.  How are you spending your day??  I'm emptying buckets of water under my sink & re-disinfecting my trailer.  At least it's sunshiney!!  Blogging as therapy folks, thanks for listening.  Love Posie
EDIT: Plumber been & gone before 1p.m.  Ripley's Believe It Or Not/ Guiness Book of Records entrant here!!

social commentary Sunday 'do you lie to your children??'

Greetings all,
As a parent, i found the exciting anticipation of sharing my childhood memories - the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Santa Claus - as seen through my own children's eyes, as much fun as it was when i was the one checking for a coin in place of my tooth, an Easter Egg hunt & checking my Santa Stocking.
My mother still believes in all of the above, yes in her 70s & put up a good front to my father who loathed any praise going towards fairies, bunnies or Father Christmas in a passive aggressive fashion.  We ignored him, we kept up believing in the stories for our mother more than anything, it brought her such joy.  I get where Dad was coming from, once you've been up past midnight blowing up inflatable pool toys, construcing a trampoline & putting training wheels on new bikes with a torch in the dark of your garden, you kind of think, why should Santa get the credit??  My husband agrees & let's just say . . . Santa gives a token offering to our children . . . so like my father - my husband relishes in the glory of being an awesome gift giver.

So what's this 'lying' all about??  Sure my children have asked "is the Easter Bunny real??"  I say "i think it's a lovely story" & they're still happy with that.  To all of you with really little ones, beware, there is always some awful child at school with older siblings who'll take sheer delight in ruining your child's dreams.

I think it's a good lesson in children learning the subtle art of happy-white-lies & sweet-harmless-stories, they make you feel good. 
I never put too much thought into carrying on the tradition of the 'big three' until a mother at my eldest daughter's preschool (looong time ago) answered for her daughter - when i asked if she was excited about Santa coming (harmless small talk to 3 year olds in December) with "i don't lie to my children".  Oh wow, that was strong, harsh & blunt.  Fair enough, it's your child, but it did trigger my child to ask what a lie was & ask why Santa wasn't going to their house.  So in a way it opened up that "this is how we do things in our family" versus the differences in other families traditions, beliefs, religions & so on.
Anyway, food for thought, a conversation starter.  I promised myself to answer my children's questions as clearly & honestly as possible but still love these 'stories' even if the Tooth Fairy is sending us broke. 
Enjoy your chocolates, we went high quality/ low quantity this year as the children did request the Easter Bunny to stick to Lindt chocolate.  Sure, you get one egg each then + the mandatory Lindt bunny with a tiny egg hunt of those mini eggs.  Love Posie
EDIT: Thanks to Vanessa from NessaKnits for correcting my title where i had written 'like' instead of 'lie', which is a nice typo but wrong with a capital R.  Blame the chocolate & a speedy post effort in order to catch a gorgeous store across town before it closed this afternoon.  Shopping on Easter Sunday, i know, a gorgeous homewares store as religious as me, but i needed more oilcloth, it was an emergency.