Mama Lesson: The Car Keys

This post is in collaboration with Land Rover

If you've been reading along here for a while you might remember that one time that I left my phone on the roof of the car. And I learned a valuable lesson.

Last week saw me learn another, and far more important lesson when it comes to cars.

I left work cheerily on Wednesday afternoon excited for my Easter weekend to have started {one of the many benefits of working part-time}and a school night outing with Katy to the launch of a local monthly magazine.

I drove to mum and dad's and when I arrived, as I often do, I left the car keys in the driver side door pocket while I went inside to get Ned and Rocky.*

{insert hindsight moment number one here}

Ned was hastily strapped in to his car seat while Rocky jumped in excitedly. Doors were shut and I walked around to the driver side door to hop in and get home to prepare for my night out. Except the door wouldn't open.

Cue panic station. 

Rocky had stepped on a button near the gearstick which I didn't even know existed and locked himself, Ned and the keys inside. Surprisingly I didn't completely flip out and took a deep breath to think, what now? Dad raced out to his shed to grab old school breaking into car equipment {i.e. screwdriver and wire} whilst I searched for mobile locksmiths. While he was attempting to jimmy the door open I rang multiple businesses without much luck - either there weren't automobile locksmiths or they were unavailable for the next few hours. None of the men I talked to seemed too bothered that a baby was locked in the car which really surprised me.

We also only have the one set of keys and didn't bother getting a second set when we bought the car because we didn't want to outlay the $300ish it costs.

{insert hindsight moment number two here}

After about half an hour of no luck with either method and Ned's stress levels increasing I bit the bullet and rang RACQ as a non-member. The lady who answered the call took my request very seriously {read, emergency} and had two crews on the job. Given it was 5;00pm, traffic was a bit of an issue and it took approximately 20 minutes for the man to get to my parent's house. Just as he arrived, Rocky miraculously stepped on the unlock button and the car was open. Fifty-five minutes post Rocky stepping on the lock button.

I KID YOU NOT.

Cue multiple oh my god, oh my god, OH MY GOD cries/cheers!

The guy from across the road knew the RACQ driver and I think I escaped without having to pay a call out fee.

Has this mama learned another lesson? No. She's learned two.

1) Purchase a second {and maybe even third} set of keys
2) Never leave the keys in the car EVER again

The day after this happened to me, a similar thing happened to Mez of Domestic Divinity. It's crazy how within the space of 24 hours my ideas that keys could not get locked inside a modern car were proven not once but twice!

Have you got a similar or related story? What sort of car do you drive, and what is your dream car? {Black Range Rover sport for me!}

* Grandparent care is a package deal for mum and dad - they get Ned and the dog.

The Painful Truth

Shit is about to get real here folks. 

Literally.

Still here? Okay, here goes. 

No one could have ever prepared me for the horrible and so, so, SO daunting first poo, post birth. I gave birth naturally with the assistance of a beautiful epidural and a vacuum which resulted in a second degree tear {read my birth story here}. I witnessed many women flitting about the ward with no apparent post-birth discomfort in the couple of days I was in hospital. Boy was I jealous of them. I was also envious of the women who shared my room who got enough sleep that they were actually snoring, rendering them ignorant to their baby’s cry. Me? I was reminiscent of a waddling elephant with a stick up its bum who hadn’t slept in days.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand.

My twin sister had given me some indication of the bad experience that might ensue when the time came that my body needed to do its thang after Ned had made his exit. Even thinking about that first poo now makes me cringe. My body’s excretory system was in overdrive in those first few days of Ned’s life but my brain would not let it perform. Each visit I made to the toilet got progressively worse. The hospital had posters on the wall with quite detailed instructions and diagrams illustrating correct pooing technique but that only made it harder to relax. Honestly, I thought my entire insides would fall out if I even strained just a little bit. But I needed to go. Desperately.

Eventually I asked one of the midwives for some tips and the husband darted off to the shops in search of pear juice, prunes and Metamucil. At the time I thought asking a stranger how I was going to do my business was embarrassing and I don’t really know why I was ashamed to ask, as all dignity had been lost a day or so earlier when I gave birth. Oh, that, and my MIL in law asking if I knew to apply pressure down there {I think she actually used the term perineum}. I nodded politely not wanting to get into a discussion with my MIL about pooing. That shit {pun definitely intended} is limited to my immediate family and poo-talk loving friends, usually over the dinner table.

The embarrassing moment was to come a number of weeks later.

At Ned’s six week check-up my GP advised that we needed to do a pap smear. I thought it was a good a time as any to let her know how much trouble I was having pooing. That basically every time I went to do a number two I nearly cried, almost always bled and was avoiding the toilet for as long as humanely possible. This post pretty much sums up my experience and the sentence ‘In fact, I shit glass for 6 weeks straight before I finally went to the doctor’ was so me.

My appointment was scheduled for a couple of days later and my GP, who had never ever seen my bits pre-pregnancy now got to see them all, in one horrible 30 minute appointment. I could have died.

The reason for the excruciating pain? An anal fissure. Basically I split my bum pooing.

Childbirth is so liberating and beautiful, isn’t it?

Visit Kate Baer’s {very well written} post for more cringe-worthy traumatic labour stories. 

Pic by the beautiful Jane Gilbey Photography

Things Mamas Do: Poo

I was down at the local shopping centre for a couple of hours this afternoon and so many people commented on how placid and well behaved Ned was. In hindsight, he was too quiet.

As I pulled him out of the pram to get in the car I noticed his back was quite wet {assuming he was just sweaty} but also that recognisable stench which meant a trip back inside to the Myer parents room was necessary. 

As I lay Ned down on the change mat I noticed the poo on his new pants from Katy which wasn't a total disaster ... That sort of shit {pun intended} happens all the time. Only when I undid the buttons of his onesie did I see a little more of the story. It was the poo from hell. Seriously, the most epic poo I've ever encountered.

Not only had it escaped the confines of the nappy, it had escaped the general bum area and travelled far, far north. Ned's whole back was flooded with poo {and to be descriptive, think corn, passionfruit and sultanas} and some had even managed to smear his ear, and unluckily for me, my neck and {not that I noticed till much later}, cheek.

I had only taken the bare minimum with me being wipes and a nappy {clearly clueless about what was I was about to face} so was completely unprepared. I had even left my phone in the car so couldn't capture anything for this post. I had to strip Ned off to survey the damage and considering I only had about half a packet of wipes, which wouldn't have been enough, my only option was to give Ned a bath in the sink. Yep, at Myer. Without a towel. 

Luckily no one came in to witness my full use of the facilities including using hand wash as body wash, my hand as a washer and paper towel for towel. Ned had a great time! The mirror revealed a
large amount of poo had planted itself on my top and I just wanted to get out of there. So I walked out of myer to the lift with a baby in just a nappy with poo on my face {which I didn't realise till later}
and top, I felt I had to explain and apologise for the smell when a couple joined me in the lift on my way to the car. 

I was in desperate need of a coffee so pulled in to my local to grab a coffee and share the poo story with my coffee man. He didn't seem that impressed. Perhaps he was just trying to figure out how to tell me there was poo on my cheek. #awkward

C'mon, tell me, do you have a similar poo story?

Things Mamas Do: Human Snot Rag

Do you remember how your jumper or skivvy sleeve in primary school also doubled as the perfect hanky/tissue/snot rag? It kind of made the wrist to elbow section of your sleeve look like a snail had used your sleeve as a runway ready for take-off. Eventually your mum probably convinced you to stop wiping your snotty nose with your sleeve and be a little more grown up/civilized and actually use a hanky and those days were forgotten about.

Until you had kids. They do say things go full circle {including some hideous trends from the 90s} and this snot wiping habit has returned to my life. Except this time, it does not involve skivvy sleeves - instead, it's my dear old hand.

Yep, as a mum to a kid who seems to forever be blessed with a runny or snotty nose {and is affectionately known as snot monster}, the closest and easiest option is to wipe or pick the mucus from his dear little nose and rub it on his shirt, or mine, or even my leg for that matter. Yep, I'm keeping it real here folks.

Perhaps it has some good moisturiser type qualities?

Linking up with Jess for IBOT

Mama Lesson: The Car Roof

I am writing this feeling like a lost puppy. Or one of those five little ducks that went swimming one day and didn't come back. You see, I am without phone. Without my third hand. Without life ... Okay, that is taking it a bit too far.

This morning in my kerfuffle to get out of the house, I took the sleeping {and snoring} baby out of his cot, and bundled him and the dog into the car to drop them both over to my parents house. I placed my phone on the roof of the car whilst clipping Ned in and thought I'll get that off as soon as Ned has been buckled in. 

Then I promptly completely forgot about said phone. 

The twelve minute drive to mum and dads house was without incident. I was running a little late but stuck around for ten minutes before returning to the car to find my phone for mum to take some outfit photos for me {priorities, clearly}. I rang it three times and heard it vibrating but couldn't find it but thought I better hit the road and I'd go back to the car to find it once I had got into the office. Man, WHAT IF I would have taken the time to find the effing vibrating electronic item, I would not have been writing this post right now. 

The route from mum and dad's place to the Bruce Highway can be windy in parts but I was just cruising along like normal. I approached the highway and accelerated up to the speed of 110kms and then heard and felt like something fell out of the car. 

Light bulb moment > SHIT, FUCK, SHIT. That was my phone flying through the air into multiple pieces and about to be run over by a gazillion people travelling to work. 

Immediately I punched the steering wheel and then almost burst into tears thinking of the photos I had not yet backed up, and before you ask, NO, I don't have icloud {but will promptly be investigating said safety measure}.

Funny thing is, trainee daddy left his laptop on his bonnet yesterday but clearly I forgot about it only hours after the story was told. His story ended much better than mine though - apparently it flew over the windscreen, hit another car and was run over by another five cars but was still recoverable. 

Sometimes I wonder how I/we got to this point to be so reliant on our phones. I got my first phone - a Nokia 51-10 in 2000 {grade 12} and we used to pass it under the desk in Science class taking turns to play snake. That's about the coolest thing you could do on it - and of course you could ring and SMS. 

Fast forward 14 years {wow, feeling old now} and my phone is almost permanently attached to me. I'm a bit addicted you could say and rarely go an hour without seeing what is happening in one of multiple email accounts, instagram, facebook and of course trainee mama. Oh, and I can't forget taking ridiculous amounts of photos of Ned each and every day. 

My last computer sync was about 3 months ago so I've lost 3 months of original photos. Luckily I'm a serial instagrammer and obviously share quite a few photos on the trainee mama facebook so all is not lost. There are way worse things happening to some people around me so perhaps this is an opportunity to spend less time on my phone and spend more time celebrating life. 

Trainee Mama Lesson II: do not EVER put ANYTHING on the roof of the car EVER