School formal creative vision. 90s hair.

This time of year I am always transported back in time to those halcyon days at the end of your school life.  One of the girls across the road was out in the front yard on Friday night getting some pics taken before she headed off to her school formal, with an earnest looking young man at her elbow.  She was wearing a very elegant long navy number and I must say she looked pretty good.

My formal outfit was a little, um, unusual I suppose is the best word.  I wanted terribly badly to look different from everyone else.  I still think my dress was beautiful.  Mum found it in a local boutique, and it was made from this amazing hand painted orange silk.  I'm hoping that Mum has it somewhere because I don't.  My shoes were also totally amazing.  They were these sort of disco gold numbers with a stacked heel.  Mum and I bought them in Brisbane which was definitely the Big Smoke for me back in the day, and they cost a fortune (more than $100 I think which is pretty ridiculous).  I don't know where they are either, I hardly wore them.  So annoying.  I wish I had them now.

But it was the hair and makeup that crazied up the whole ensemble.  I had a creative vision that I found difficult to express.  The dress and shoes really were a sort of 1970s vibe and I think what I really wanted was for my hair to be a bit like Jerry Hall's in this picture, sort of crimpy/wavy.

[Source]

But the problem was that it was 1997, the Spice Girl star was rising and Gwen Stefani was on the up and up too so I also had this kind of hairstyle stuck in my head...

Baby Spice and her look in this pic was one of my muses [Source]

Interestingly this photo was captioned "Gwen Stefani - Bad Hair Day". Obviously I didn't think so at the time.  I think this photo is from the early 2000s but you get the idea of the weird 1990s hair vibe that was swishing round inside my brain at the time.  [Source]

I tried to convey this to the middle aged suburban hairdresser and this is what the end result was. Really she did a good job because she was probably thinking "What the hell is she going on about, why doesn't she just want a nice updo with curls at the side like all the other girls".

You can't see the full effect obviously but the makeup job really was the worst element.  I think the work experience girl got her mitts on me, and layered foundation on with a trowel, topping it all off with garish lipstick that was slightly unevenly drawn.  All I wanted was a noice nat-chur-al dewey ingenue look a la Jerry in the first photo but that ain't what happened.  Very disappointing.  The experience scarred me so much that I was determined to do my own hair and makeup for my wedding years later. Which I did.  And it looked excellent if I do say so myself.

Anyway people on the night were a bit surprised at the whole ensemble I think and kept wanting to touch my hair, so I went with it as a talking point and told everyone my creative pitch to the hairdresser had been "Spice Girl on Acid" and I think they just thought "God she's weird" and left it at that.

For years I have been embarrassed of the photos, but more recently I have decided that even though I looked like a clown next to all the surfy cool girls with their long slinky dresses and dead straight Gwyneth Paltrow hair, at least I get points for trying to look interesting.  

TV is crack for kids. Other kid stuff. Garden.

Don't read on if you hate people going on about their kids and child rearing stuff. OK.

I'm aware that I waffle on about kids TV quite a bit. You could be forgiven for thinking all P does all day is watch "ABC da Kids", as she likes to call it.

Well for the last 9 months, she has! It has been on ALL the time since B was born. It's been all TV, all the time!  And don't get me wrong,  it's been fantastic.  I haven't had regular family support this year and I am not ashamed to say the TV helped me through the first 6 months of B's life. When P stopped having a reliable day sleep, it was the only respite I got, and I used it to keep her out of B's room when I was getting him to sleep. And frankly the kids programs on ABC2 are about fifty million times more entertaining than any of the utter shit and tripe that plenty of adults watch. Give me Peppa Pig over X Factor any day.  I may have just alienated a few hundred thousand people with that statement, but that's me, always controversial and TELLING IT HOW IT IS!

EVERYBODY likes jumping in muddy puddles! [Source]

And yet. And yet.

The time has come for TV rehab. It's been great, but the carnival is over. Life is back to normal, we no longer have a newborn to juggle and I am feeling strong enough to break the TV habit! Our new rule is no TV until the afternoon, which means the part of the day when I'm getting dinner organised. Oh crikey it makes for a long day with a non-sleeping, spirited 3 year old who is awake before 5am and not in bed til 7pm.  6pm if we've really got it going on bedtime wise.  I was desperate for it yesterday morning when getting her ready for kindy - I used to plonk her in front of the TV to distract her while I brushed her hair.  So I had to chase her round the house while she wailed and screamed, "You are HURTING ME MUMMY!!! AAARGGGHHHHHH MUMMY IT HURTS, IT HUUURRRTTSSSSSSSS!"

Hopefully no-one was listening.  It wouldn't have sounded good, and what with the filth and mess on the floor that morning it would have painted a suspicious picture for any child protection worker types passing by.  Sometimes I watch that show Hoarders and get bloody paranoid that I will end up living surrounded by teetering piles of tins and newspapers and then I'll die and be buried in my own filth and the cats will eat me and no-one will know.....ahem. Sorry for that little visit into my psyche.  Not pretty is it?

Anyway, as I said to a very anti-TV mummy friend "It's like breaking someone of a crack habit!".
Unfortunately she looked completely horrified. Oops. Sometimes I need to keep my gob shut.  Look away, child protection people, nothing to see here, NO CRACK INVOLVED OTHER THAN A TODDLER'S PERPETUALLY NAKED BUM CRACK! Thank you.

In other parenting news, B can plank like a hardcore pilates guru. Check out his abs of steel.

Go, son!

Also, my wonderful friend J, who has just had her second baby, is obviously not busy and hasn't got a million newborn baby + toddler related things to do at all, because she just MADE ME A WHOLE LOT OF CLOTH NAPPIES.  She is very clever.  I've never gone down the cloth nappy route but I'm giving it a red hot go. So maybe I'll be buried alive Hoarders-style in dirty nappies instead, we'll have to wait and see.

Cute as!

I'm feeling glum at the moment because I'm eating like a total puritan and exercising daily but THE SCALES DID NOT BUDGE LAST WEEK.  I feel thinner, perhaps it is psychological.  So here's some nice pictures of the beautiful flowering gum tree in our front garden to cheer me up.

There's always lots of bees, of the bumble variety and also the native variety.  I feel good about this because one of the things I lose sleep about is the situation for bees at the moment.  Which isn't good.  I also worry about the polar bears and the whole melting ice cap thing.  I wake up in a cold sweat replaying the image of polar bears floundering around in the middle of the ocean like I saw on a documentary once.   

Lovely isn't it?  It's very festive I think.

Do you worry about bees?  Or something else?  Or nothing? Do you use cloth nappies?  For yourself maybe? This is a JUDGEMENT FREE ZONE my friends.

Dental bastardry. First world B.S.

I am deadset suspicious of dentists. I really do think they could tell you anything, and how do you know they are right? Like, one time, not long after moving to where we live now, I went to a new dentist, one closer and more convenient to my work in the city than my previous one. I got a recommendation from my boss at the time. I should have bloody well known he would be a dodgy fellow, because the aforementioned boss spent his whole LIFE at the dentist, forever shuffling his shambolic way back and forth from his office to the harbinger of dental doom. This was the same boss, who whilst being a very lovable and clever man, was also prone to sending round emails to us all warning about the lasers that were going to kill everyone when the earth changed polarity or something.  And is obviously also easy prey for Shylock-esque dentists.

I know, what was I thinking?

But I made an appointment anyway, and turned up, only to be told by Dr Death that my hitherto perfectly perfect pegs needed FIVE fillings! For an unholy amount of money. Still reeling from this news, he sent me in to see his minion (dental assistant) to have my teeth cleaned, which she did, all the while exclaiming " Five fillings! My goodness! How did you let THAT happen then, eh?" whilst I, rendered impotent by virtue of the instruments shoved in my gob, could merely maintain a dignified silence.

Being naturally untrusting, I made a second opinion appointment with my old dentist, where he told me I didn't need even a single one of those fillings. What a scam! This was more than five years ago but I am still SCARRED! The outrage.

Well if it isn't my old friend Mr McGreg, with a leg for an arm and an arm for a leg! [Source]

Last year I grudgingly went to see another dentist again, this time one down the road from us. I was heavily pregnant, and had sore wisdom teeth. This guy was nice but still put the fear of God into me and told me I had a number of cavities and needed my wisdom teeth out. Because my Extras cover only stretches so far, I told him to fill the worst two and leave the rest for next year, when my insurance would cover it again. He tut-tutted vociferously but was forced, against his will, to go along with my apparently hair-brained scheme and was washing his hands of me and the time bomb that is my snaggle-toothed mouth.

Anyway, last week I felt that enough time had elapsed, and since he had made such a jolly fuss about the bloody fillings I decided the time had come to revisit and get a couple more done.

I went in on Saturday and took P too, for her first checkup. I got two fillings, in my two front teeth. Appropriate really since we are inching ever closer to Christmas. It was the same guy as before. P was a very good girl, no toothy troubles for her.

Before I had my fillings done, the dentist said "So how come you are getting these two fillings done? They are very small holes. Were they hurting?"

What?! I thought. I wanted to say, hang on, the only reason I'm bloody getting them done is because YOU said to, lest my teeth explode and take down everyone around me!
But of course what I actually managed to get out was a strangled, "Nghg thug gug gurgle" as he'd already gone in for the kill, drills and needles akimbo.
At one point, I had to run mid-filling to the toilet with P, and got a glimpse at my mush in the mirror. Holy moly! Trout pout agogo.

 I looked like a disheveled Joan Rivers. If she had been inflated like a giant balloon. [Source]

Anyway I suppose ultimately that it's a good thing and will mean that my two front choppers won't suddenly implode or drop out of my head in the near future which I have to admit would not be a great look.

I was going to rant on and on about more self obsessed and fatuous first world woes but then I saw more on the news about Israel and Palestine and gave myself a metaphorical slap on the face. Harden up you soft Western, safe, pussy, pissweak whinger with a peaceful life and a house not in the middle of a warzone and with your children safe in their beds and no bombs blowing them to smithereens.