martedì, marzo 04, 2014

Starting to move again

I know there's been some pretty heavy mummy-blogging with all the potty this week so let's have an old-fashioned bitch of a travel blog sort of thing:

1. The three of us are heading to Thailand next month. Never been there before; all I've seen in Asia is lots of Shanghai and Singapore. It's not a big trip. A few days in Chiang Mai and a few days in Bangkok, with me working in Bangkok and the F-word celebrating his 40th. Man alive. His 40th. He was 24 or 25 when we met. I feel like he hasn't changed a bit, physically, and I don't think I've changed vastly either, but mentally and emotionally we might as well be different people altogether. And yet here we both are, two Ships of Theseus who passed in the night all those years ago and ended up sailing along together, the very harmony of the armada making a Godzilla erupt from the atomic seas (how many metaphors can I mix in one sentence? That many).

I'm getting excited. And I'm also glad we're heading to cities, silly as that may be given what I've heard about what a hot mess Bangkok is. I'm just not a beach person, as three years spent getting my tits bored off next to Byron Bay illustrated to me.

2. Godzilla and I are heading to Shanghai in June. Another work thing. I'm hoping to fly my niece out from Canada to help with Godzilla; failing that work will pay for a nanny. He's still nursing, and anyways I don't have the heart to go away from him for a week yet (I know, I know, I said travel blog rather than mummy blog, but mummies travel too). I'd initially asked to skip out of the Shanghai visit but I've decided I'm excited to go again. I'm very fond of Shanghai. It's so . . . I don't know . . . alive.

Godzilla is a bit of a Chinese Lady magnet and then they stick around to talk when they find out I know a few words of Mandarin, and the comment so many of them make about Melbourne and Australia is how boring it is. They're glad to be here, because it's not too polluted, because the traffic isn't too dangerous, the schools aren't too crowded, etc (all negative qualifiers, you'll note) but they're so fucking bored.

And I understand why. When I come back from German class around 9:30, 10 in the evening, it's like taking a train through the countryside - Melbourne is functionally dead by that time on a weeknight. But it's not as though you feel safe, because it's dark and because of Australia's drinking culture, which means the few cars that are about are being drag-raced by fucking rub-a-dubs and one is always looking over one's shoulder because even in heavily frequented areas women still get jumped.

In comparison, Shanghai - a city not known for its nightlife by Asian standards - is still buzzing at that time of the evening, and at least in the neighborhoods I was staying and working in, I felt absolutely and completely safe. It's just . . . I don't know. A lot less boring.

lunedì, marzo 03, 2014

Super pooper lights are going to find me

Godzilla is getting super good at pooping on the potty. This morning, when he decided to do two monster poos, was the first time he made it pretty clear that he is trying to hold it until he can get on his throne, and not just that I'm timing him getting on the throne efficiently and that the past week or so has just been some awesome fluke. So I know he's made the connection now. That's what I had been worried about, but he's getting to an age where he's smarter than I'm giving him credit for, and suprising me often in these sorts of ways. 

I'm trying not to get too excited, and trying to remember this is not going to be a linear process of him just pooping on a potty or toilet forever now, but this is pretty sweet. I've never found poopy diapers to be the hell on earth a lot of parents do, perhaps because of having a spray bidet fitted to the toilet or perhaps because the F-word is a competent co-parent so I don't have to take care of all of them. But there's no doubt life is a little easier without them, and I'm all about life being a little easier.

In retrospect I think this morning he may have been signalling a pee I missed at one stage, which would be awesome if it's true, because I haven't been doing a damn thing about the pee. I'm not even sure he has any degree of bladder control yet. And I guess I hoped that once he had fully figured out that pee comes from his willy he and his father could have a weekend of male bonding, preferably a snowy weekend, so he could learn to both control his pee and spell his name.

Man oh man . . . if I could get life so I only had to do laundry every other day instead of daily . . . nah, best not to even think of that yet.