Super Sonic   +  weWISHyouamerryxmas

Thirteen Days and Counting

In case you missed it yesterday on Twitter, I have some very, very bad news.

George the kitten, may he rest in peace, was found squashed and mangled roadside not far from the TonyTrainHouse, in the same place Scarlette the Staffie bickered with a car, and lost. The 'other' cat, Mr Dim Sum, is understandably distressed.

I happened to find that out (thanks to my neighbor for letting me know, rather than discover the poor little grey bundle myself) on the morning of the Chop’s fifth birthday. My long standing record of honesty can get f*cked– unless he asks, this can wait a day or two. In fact, unless he asks, I just may not broach the subject at all.

Because, really, the child is just five years old.

I'm so pissed off I could scream. I'm so disgusted with the universe in general, I can't even write about it. (You... owe... us. God or whoever is up there, you owe my children, big time. Really. And if you don't pay up I may just come after you to exact my revenge).


Poor George. He didn't even make it six months old.
One thing, I'm sure of– no more cats. No cats, no dogs, nothing that can possibly escape and get skittled in the dark by someone not paying attention to the big red and white 60 speed signs they passed half a kilometer ago.

A ferret, maybe. Or a mouse or a rat or a guinea pig or a rabbit. Or a bird or a lizard or a couple of goddamn goldfish.

I can't imagine having all this awesome backyard and no animal friends to share it with. But, considering what became of Ethel and Lucy the chickens...

Maybe my safe house is just not as safe as I thought.

***

Christmas and New Years and big school and the mourning season and the beginning of Year Zero Minus Three are rushing up way to quickly, rolling in like thigh–high waves I've turned my back on for a split second too long, waiting to knock my legs from underneath me with a tinsel–decked ferocity.

I have another wooden logic puzzle– otherwise known as a flat–packed dollhouse– stored away in a cupboard, that I need to assemble for the Bumpy thing sometime soon. The Chop– over indulged child, a birthday and Christmas within a fortnight of one another– is set on TrashGang dudes (which the Bump has taken to unapologetically gnawing the heads off) and the inescapable SkyLanders. (I can audibly hear hundreds of mothers of young boys nodding, right now). SkyLanders are the Christmas present for boys in 2012. And, proving I'm maybe not as old and uncool as I think I am, I actually totally get why. Not only does the Chop use them on the PS3, he actually plays real, imagination–type games with the figures. Who woulda thunk.

Which, somehow, brings me to my least favorite kid’s toy of 2012... Lego. Godforsaken unholy tiny misplacable foot–stabbing chunks of plastic that take hours to construct and mere seconds for the Bump to destroy. Consider this fair warning– if you buy my son Lego for Christmas, we quite possibly will not be friends again. Ever. You know who you are, SuperMummy Courtney B.

I happened to be chatting to another mum with kids the same age as mine last week, both of us lamenting how we now understood the phrase 'time poor' in a way that just wasn't possible before we had kids. It's the constantness of it, we agreed– at the end of every day, your To Do list is actually longer than it what it was the day before. And the festive season only serves to exasperate that. It's around mid–December that the adreneline really kicks in and you find yourself fighting frenzied panic attacks that stem from a multitude of unwrapped, unbought and as yet unplanned objects, events and activities.

Thirteen days and counting, lady bugs and jellybeans. I think most parents will get it when I say– just keep hanging on by the skin of your very fingernails, eyes shut tight. Do all the things... but probably only when they reach the status of ’desperate’. And I promise, it will be over soon.