Alphabet Soup

by Melissa Doyle

  And John and I have made a promise to each other—not to feel guilty about being away. There’s no point in ringing home, hearing the background chaos and apologising for not being there. We say, enjoy the quiet, savour the meal and sleep like a starfish in the bed, because in no time the other one will be away doing exactly the same thing. Savouring the mini escape.

  Faking It

  On many a Sunday afternoon I make the kids a batch of cupcakes or a yummy slice to get them through a week of morning teas. It started off as my way to send them off to school with a little bit of mummy-love packed in their lunch boxes back when I didn’t see them in the mornings or cut their sandwiches. By then I was long gone, half my day done at work before they even woke up.

  Sometimes I bake from scratch, but most of the time I cheat and use a packet.

  A little cheating in the kitchen can go a long way. Bottled pasta sauce can become yours with a few fresh herbs from the garden. Frozen sausage rolls can look homemade if you coat them in egg yolk, sprinkle with sesame seeds and hide the box.

  Once Nick went to a friend’s for a play with the tastiest chocolate slice ever. Only a few hours earlier, our neighbour Lois had dropped by with some delicious slice for us. John saw it on the kitchen bench and presumed I had baked it fresh for him to take, so he bundled it up and proceeded to make a great impression.

  It was homemade . . . unfortunately, just not in my home.

  Depending on my week, the afternoon sport roster or what’s in the fridge, dinners can be anything from a roast chicken to two-minute noodles.

  If I’m organised enough on a weekend to plan a few meals for the week ahead and buy the ingredients, we can manage quite well. But if it’s one of those mangled weeks or we’re rushing in late from soccer training, then an omelette or even a barbecue chicken will have to do.

  Sometimes it’s time; sometimes it’s simply my lack of ability. Either way, I do my best to be a Domestic Goddess. But even the kids understand my limitations. Talia had a preschool party once and the kids got to nominate what special food they would bring in. They had listed everything from chips to cupcakes and orange segments, but Talia wanted Nutri-Grain bars cut into little pieces. Bless her! It was quick and easy.

  For class parties I’ve smeared homemade icing on store-bought biscuits, slathered jam on pikelets straight from the packet and decorated sponge fingers grabbed from the supermarket. Some days I simply need to take a shortcut because I still want the same outcome.

  I like cooking, baking and having fresh flowers in the home. I enjoy switching the kids’ bedside lamps on at night and turning down their beds in readiness. I rather like being a ‘homemaker’ and doing what I can to make our home cosy, comfortable and smell nice. The gentle vibe of our home makes me happy. Even if occasionally I can’t take all the credit!

  I always feel intimidated by those mums who arrive at someone’s place looking immaculate and pass around trays of cupcakes so perfect they look like bought ones.

  Now I take comfort, because maybe they are.

  Father’s Day

  I am a daddy’s girl.

  I was the little girl in blonde pigtails who very quickly realised she had her dad wrapped around her little finger—and still does.

  My dad has been one of the biggest influences in my life.

  He taught me honesty and kindness and the value of hard work, but he also taught me how to pitch a tent, change a tyre and recognise an Angus steer from a Hereford. He grew up in the bush and there was no way he was going to let me grow into one of those useless chicks afraid to break a nail or give anything a go.

  He took me to the footy, the ballet, cattle sales and shopping for clothes. He made me study, forbade me riding in cars with boys on their P plates and grounded me when I crossed the line.

  And he gave me his network of best friends, mates he’s had most of his life and certainly all of mine, who would have stepped in at any time as substitute fathers if I needed them.

  I am lucky to have such strong males in my life. My dad and my husband keep me grounded. If there is any risk of being dazzled by the bright lights of my industry, one or both of them will bring me back to earth with a thud.

  There is something so different about a bloke’s perspective. They don’t sugar coat things the way we women can. And sometimes that’s just what we need.

  So while I sing the joys and challenges of being a working mum, I want to sing the praises of my husband.

  He keeps me grounded, but also our kids. He seems to step in with just the right amount of strength when I’m at risk of mollycoddling them. When I weaken and let them off the hook, he holds his ground—for their sake as much as ours.

  In the next moment, he’ll take our daughter dress shopping and spoil her rotten, fall asleep on the couch with our son watching the footy, or head into the office wearing his Father’s Day cardboard tie.

  Favourites

  My then nine-year-old cornered me in the kitchen one day.

  ‘Am I your favourite child?’ Nick asked, point-blank, no warning.

  ‘No. I love you both equally. But you are special because you’re my firstborn.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ he concluded with his usual cheeky confidence, despite my arguing otherwise.

  So I asked him if he had a favourite parent.

  ‘Yes. Sometimes daddy really annoys me so then it’s you. Other days you annoy me so then it’s him.’

  Ah, to be so versatile, and honest, with your affections!

  It’s a complex thing trying to reconcile the different relationships you can have with your children. There is no doubt you love them equally, just as there is no doubt you can have different bonds with each. After all, they are individuals.

  And I know through life those bonds will be tested at different times. My daughter is a bit of a mummy’s girl, but fast-forward about five years and I imagine, like all young women, she’ll see daddy as a much better alternative to her daggy, bossy mother.

  At the moment, mummy has currency. I interview interesting people, bring home Katy Perry’s autograph and I’m recognised in the playground. When you’re in primary school that’s cool.

  Once they hit high school, though, I anticipate I’ll be told to pick them up around the corner and out of sight.

  My son is doing his best to teach me how to pitch, bowl and goal keep . . . and I love it that he sees my worth outside of the kitchen and the laundry! I’m not very good, but he’s ok with that. In fact, it gives him a bit of a laugh.

  Until I had my own kids I never knew you could love two little people from the same womb so much, yet so differently and genuinely have more than one favourite.

  Although Nick does sign every card and letter he writes to us ‘from your favourite child’. Got to love his certainty.

  Fire Truck

  I’m not much of a swearer, and certainly not in front of my kids. That’s not to say when I’ve sliced my finger cutting vegetables or smashed a glass on the floor I haven’t let the odd word spring forth in anger. But I regret it instantly and tell my kids to neither do nor say as I do.

  And being cut off in traffic can bring out the worst in me. But how do I tell my kids not to speak like that when they hear it almost everywhere they go? When they come home from school with the smile of a cherub and the language of a wharfie!

  I mean no disrespect to wharfies . . . but it’s one thing to have colourful language fly out of the mouth of a burly bloke throwing a rope; it’s another when those words fly out of the mouths of babes.

  We’ve already had to talk our way around those radio ads for nasal delivery technology and avoid explaining what a ‘two-minute man’ is.

  And we’ve had to contend with the times they come home from a play date having learnt something new from that very dependable fountain of knowledge, The Friend With Older Siblings.

  I really don’t want to sound like a prude, but we seem to be surrounded by swearing, innuendo and pop songs with beeps. An
d trying to maintain some sort of standard that my grandmother would deem reasonably acceptable is getting harder and harder.

  Nick is at the age where the moment we tell him not to do or say something he’ll give it a go anyway to try us out. He’s quickly finding out what words should only be sniggered behind his hand and out of earshot of his parents. And he thought it hilarious to teach his little sister that age-old gag: ‘What starts with “F” and ends with “UCK”?’

  I have a gorgeous girlfriend, the mother of two well-mannered daughters, who has a potty mouth. I know her well enough to tell her to zip it when my kids are with us. But what if you don’t know someone that well?

  We have a cross-and-tick chart on the fridge that covers a multitude of sins, and more crosses than ticks by the end of the week means footy training or ballet is off.

  So far so good, in terms of threats that work. Until I drop a jar of pasta sauce on my toe . . .

  Food

  When my kids were little, I drizzled honey on carrots to make them sweeter, slathered cauliflower with cheese and chopped zucchini so finely it was almost undetectable to the naked eye. I decorated the dinner plates, we ate by candlelight and even attempted to grow our own vegetables . . . all in an effort to entice my kids to eat a healthy meal.

  But it seemed the more time I spent planning and preparing a meal, the less likely they were to eat it. The more I’m keen to try something new in the kitchen, the less they’re keen to try it at the table.

  They would wolf down two-minute noodles but baulk at lasagne. Or, just as demoralising, they’d eat it, as long as it was drowned in tomato sauce.

  Sometimes I seriously wonder why I bother. But you can employ tricks.

  I know of one mum who sprinkles hundreds and thousands on the vegetables her kids don’t like and they gobble them up! Another sticky taped a jellybean to the middle of the plate and her toddler had to eat everything around it first.

  Neither option is nutritionally sound, I know, and probably even a little dodgy when you have the whole ‘to bribe or not to bribe’ debate, but sometimes a parent has to do what a parent has to do.

  And trust me, at times you’ll try anything.

  We’ve tried relabelling. ‘Fairy cloud’ sounds more appealing than plain old mashed potato; ‘pink fish’ way more exotic than salmon.

  I’ve also tried the mass-catering approach. My son loves cauliflower but hates peas. My daughter loves peas but hates cauliflower. So what if I have a few pots on the boil at once?

  The most frustrating has got to be when they refuse to eat my spaghetti, but then come home from a friend’s house raving about a new dish they loved: spaghetti.

  Maybe it’s just my cooking!

  My mum used to make me sit at the table until my plate was clean. Never mind I was sitting alone, the kitchen had been cleaned up and she was already in her nightie.

  We find the reward system works best in our house: if you don’t finish your dinner, you miss out on dessert.

  The older the kids get the more willing they are to try new foods. And at times I’ve employed the standover tactic. ‘At least try it,’ I tell them. ‘Spit it out if you hate it.’ So now my daughter loves prawns and scallops—an expensive palette that I may live to regret encouraging.

  But it was when I started working in the evenings and my husband took over the kitchen duties that things really changed. After twelve years of me turning out a daily meat-and-three-vege, it was clearly an exciting new chef and his exciting new menu that made the difference. Now I arrive home at night to the best smelling kitchen and two kids bragging about their crumbed barramundi.

  So I’ve taken over mornings. A poached egg on toast is my way of clawing back some kitchen credits, and I pack as much variety as I can into their lunch box—a sandwich, some fruit, cheese and a homemade treat. Sometimes half of it comes home, mushed up in the lunch box or forgotten, but I figure as long as they eat at least one or two things from each major food group each day, we’re doing ok. I do my best to keep processed food to a minimum, but I’m also realistic and busy. They may not like every vegetable, fruit or meat but they like some. So, until their tastes expand, I’ll stick to what works and just occasionally try something new.

  And I’ll keep the tomato sauce on standby, or tell them their dad cooked it.

  Friends

  Who would have thought two five-year-old girls could make so much mess? Those cute little pigtails can be deceiving. Like tornados in tutus, my daughter and her friend all but trashed her bedroom. The bed sheets were strewn on the floor, every single Barbie was in a state that would embarrass Ken, and pretty much all of her dresses had been pulled off their hangers and dumped on the ground.

  Now don’t get me wrong . . . I don’t for one moment live with the false illusion that my daughter is an angel or even particularly tidy for that matter. But rock star she isn’t. She had never made a mess quite like that.

  What do you do when they have a companion in crime with whom they wreak complete havoc in your home?

  My son has a mate who is as quick with his smart answers as he is with his charm. Nick loves him, but I dread when he comes to play. He’s cheeky, precocious, and after he leaves it always takes time for Nick to calm down and return to speaking nicely.

  So what do I do? How do I tell his friend that we don’t speak like that in our house, without becoming the cranky mum that other kids dread, or, worse still, embarrassing my own son? And can you discipline someone else’s child?

  You may have read The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas and seen how that scenario played out. Or you may remember the case in the UK in 2013 when the pharmacist smacked a three-year-old girl who knocked some items off a shelf. Her mother was quite rightly angry and eventually got a letter of apology from the chemist.

  What if the parent is there and you really want to step in? At a gymnastics class, my then five-year-old daughter was waiting in line to do a handstand when one of the little boys started digging his feet into her back, kicking and trying to shove her out of the way. His mum was talking to another mum and didn’t see so I bit my tongue. I was so tempted to step in—he’s notorious for doing his own thing—but I didn’t think it was my place. And to be honest I was too scared of how his mother might react. So I chickened out and moved Talia away instead.

  Do any of us have the right to discipline someone else’s child? Given we probably don’t, do we then have the right to influence who our kids spend time with?

  As adults we are hopefully a little wiser at choosing our friends, but I am torn on applying my knowledge and instinct to the crowd my kids hang around with.

  While I really want to have a say over the company they keep, I also know I shouldn’t stifle their independence. Some lessons need to be figured out alone. Mind you, I write this when they are twelve and ten years old. My opinions may do a complete about-face in another four years.

  I am sure I had, and still have, the odd friend my parents were less than happy with. But unless they were dragging me into illegal activities, I figured the company I kept was mine to determine.

  So without being so obvious as to tell them with whom they can and can’t play, I will subtly suggest they hang out a little more with the nice ones. I can plant the odd seed and hope it grows, encourage the good ones to come over a little more, and make excuses when they want to bring the scary ones home.

  After all, even Barbie needs looking out for sometimes.

  Gadgets

  I mowed the lawn last weekend. It was a mighty big effort, even if I say so myself.

  But before I get too carried away with my newfound macho-mum persona, I must admit it’s pretty rare. It’s only about the third time in my lawn’s history, in fact.

  My husband was busy digging up an old tree stump in the backyard, so, faced with two physically demanding jobs, I chose the one that at least involved a bit of machinery to lighten the load.

  Mind you, I then came inside and made the kids’ lunch, a fresh batc
h of biscuits and hung another load of washing on the line. Not sure if that was multi-tasking or washing away the testosterone, but it was satisfying, blooming tiring, and at least I didn’t stuff my back like my poor hubby.

  One thing I did get though (and I don’t think John ever has) was a few toots from cars passing by. Now why does the sight of a chick behind a mower call for such a response? I’m not sure if it was a good-on-you-luv type of toot, or a push-harder-there-luv toot. Either way, I waved and kept mowing.

  Who said it’s my husband’s domain to mow the lawns? Probably the same idiot who deemed it my responsibility to cook the meals: me.

  But at least we have some pretty nifty inventions on our side to make things a little easier. How my great-grandmother would gape if she saw me cook a meal in the microwave with a recipe displayed on my iPad, or do a load of dishes in one room and a load of dirty laundry in another, at the same time. Oh, and straighten my hair, steam my clothes, record a whole season of my favourite show with one button and fill the house with my own music playlist.

  Pity I still struggle to open a jar.

  The cooler the item, the keener we all are to get it. And hopefully in turn we will want to actually use it. On the back of MasterChef, I have started to buy my hubby the funkiest and handiest kitchen gadgets I can find. And he has started to cook the most elaborate weekend meals I can imagine. Seriously, a rolling garlic press? A mango cutter? A deep-fryer? He does love the coffee machine and has mastered a pretty mean espresso . . .

  I guess I don’t mind doing the lawns if it gets me out of the kitchen once in a while.

  Genes

  When my daughter surprised us all at the age of eight and enrolled in the school public-speaking competition, everyone smiled and said, ‘Just like your mother.’