family

Dear Jess. Tippi writes a letter to her best friend after her big holiday.

/ Lexyvale / Leave a comment

Dear Jess,

Hello, it’s Tippi! I can’t wait to see you in Sydney at your birthday party next week. I wish I were turning 6 too – it’s not fair that you always get to have a birthday before me. But it’s ok, I love you anyway.

We got back from our holiday in the UK and the South of France yesterday morning. It was a very long flight from London, and we flew in to Sydney so early in the morning it was still dark. I didn’t sleep much on the flight – Mummy kept asking me to go to sleep but I wasn’t tired. Mummy mustn’t have been tired either, because whenever her eyes closed, I would ask her for a cuddle and she stayed awake too.

I have had a mazing holiday. On our first day there, Mummy and Daddy made me walk all over London. I was very tired and it was a bit boring, but I did it and it made Mummy and Daddy very happy. London has these wonderful shops everywhere full of useful stuff with English flags on them – money boxes, pens, cuddly toys, t-shirts and loads more. I love love love those shops! Mummy calls them souvenir shops and says they are full of overpriced crap. I’m not sure what that means – maybe that they’re lovely – but she did start to get her cross-face on whenever I asked to go to one. I got a Big Ben statue that broke that very same day, here is a picture;


I told Mummy that it doesn’t matter, we can just buy another one. She got cross-face again and I wasn’t allowed another one.

Then we went to my cousins house in a place called West Sussex. My first tooth fell out! I wrote the tooth fairy a letter and left it and my tooth under my pillow. The next morning the tooth fairy had left me one pound, but did not reply to my letter and I was a little sad. I wanted to know what they did with all those teeth. Mummy says maybe she was too busy that night to write back, and she might write next time. Now I have another wobbly tooth and cant stop wobbling it.

We went to France where everyone speaks funny and I don’t understand what they were saying at all. It was super hot, I was very sweaty all the time. But we were close to the sea and we were able to swim lots and lots. I swam in really deep water with my Mummy and Daddy, and could look down and see all the way down to the bottom. I learned to use a snorkel and saws loads of fish. We even went out on a boat one day.

Best of all, I played with my cousins who are English. They are three girls, Stella, Rosie and Hattie, and their big brother Charlie. Charlie is a teenager and I was scared of him at first, but it turns out he is really nice and funny. My girl cousins played and played and played with me. I got a bit sad when they went off and played big girls things that I couldn’t do like long swims out to sea, and playing cards. Mummy says that she was the little one once and also got sad when her sisters wouldn’t play with her, but that one day suddenly she was big enough to join in. I was still sad and didn’t like being the littlest.  But soon they would come back and we would play again or watch my new favourite show Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse. We even did a show for the grown ups and I got to be Queen Elsa.

Now we are home and we picked up our dog Pepper on the way. It was still early in the morning when we got home and Mummy wanted me to have a sleep but I still didn’t want to. But then I did fall asleep for hours and hours. Mummy tried to make me wake up in the afternoon. She said that if I didn’t wake up in the day, I would be up during the night but I was so tired I didn’t care I just stayed asleep whenever they weren’t looking. Then I did wake up and had dinner and because I’d slept all day I didn’t want to go to bed. Eventually Mummy got really cross and went to bed and Daddy lay with me till I went to sleep. I woke up first and it was still very dark – Mummy says it was 2 o’clock in the morning. I was really hungry and finally got to have a midnight feast! It is morning now and Mummy wants me to have a sleep but I’m not tired, really I’m not. She says that there’s no way on this earth am I allowed to sleep this afternoon, and I promise I wont. She says that stopping me from sleeping will be like holding back the tide, like it was yesterday. She often says things that I don’t really understand.

I didn’t eat much while we were away. All the food tasted different and the food on the aeroplane is yuck yuck yuck. I really only liked the bread and croissants. Now I keep asking Mummy for food and she gets me some, but when she gives it to me I don’t really feel hungry anymore so I take one bite to be polite and leave the rest. Then in a little while I feel hungry again, or maybe just bored I don’t know, so I ask for more food. Mummy says to eat the food she put out for me before, but I want something else so she gets me something else. When she gives it to me I find I only want one bite of it again. She is sighing a lot, I wonder why?

I have to go now. Mummy seems a little cranky so to cheer her up I am running around the house singing “fly birdy fly” over and over again at the top of my voice but she just wants to type on her computer. I think I’ll have a little nap after lunch, I’m starting to feel a little tired. I wonder what’s for lunch.

Love,

Tippi xxxx

How long do I have to pander to my kids’ fears ?

/ Lexyvale / 4 Comments
Scared

Scared

It’s a loooong time ago that I started kindy, so long that I cant even face working out what year it was. Somewhere in the mid 70s I’m guessing. Around 40 years ago, so I cant profess to remember the whole experience, but I do remember snippets clearly and have an overall feel for how it went.

We went to school. Full stop. No clinging, no crying, no begging Mummy not to leave. We were dropped off and went inside and got on with it. I don’t remember it even occurring to me to cling or cry even when I was scared or uncertain. Granted I had two sisters there, but the very last thing they were going to do was look after me. I barely got a grunt out of them until we all got home after school.

In fact, I don’t actually remember being dropped off at school. In Sydney we caught the bus. When we moved to Perth, I was 8 and we rode our bikes to school.

I know, I know, I’m doing the “in my day” thing. Ugh. Sorry. But it’s relevant.

Tippi has always been a nervous, shy kid. She’s always stayed close to me, she’s not the kid that gets lost in the shopping mall, she’s not a risk taker. Which has served me well over time as kids who wander are harder work, but it means she misses out on experiences. As she’s grown in age she’s grown in confidence, which has been frankly a big relief, but not that much confidence. At least 3 days a week, there’s some kind of clinging when I take her to school – it might be as mild as needing a few cuddles, or right up to the full blown Beg and Cling dance. Yep, she’s that kid. You’ve all seen them.

And then there’s the night fears that appeared a couple of years ago. I know, I GET that! I was terrified of the dark as a kid thanks to my two older sisters’ constant torment (cue evil Russian accent): “Dracula is coming to suck your blooooood”. Teeth time, story time, snuggle time, ‘night, love you’, dark…… ARGGGHHHHHHHH! Terrifying. The dark was so so scary for me right up until adulthood and then some.

But I had to suck it up. The hall light was left on while I was falling asleep and that was it. No parent checking on me, no staying with me, no lullabies. It was goodnight, get myself to sleep. I remember lying there in a sweat sometimes, trembling. But I went to sleep eventually and now I can live on a remote farm with no other adult in the house and all lights off and sleep soundly all night.

Tippi has the door open, the hall lights on, lullabies playing softly, a 2 minute check, 5 minutes, 8 minutes etc until asleep which doesn’t usually take long but jeeeez it is interminable when has started, it’s the end of the day, couch is beckoning.

So here’s the thing. I want Tippi to grow into a person who is independent, resilient, brave, fierce, adventurous, confident, able to take risks, living life to its fullest, and every other cliche I can think of. I don’t know for sure, but I strongly believe my parents did that for me, with a little help from my big sisters.

I confess, I’m over pandering to her fears whether they’re real or imagined. Surely by doing so, I’m fueling them, aren’t I? By hugging her 10 times at school drop off, hanging around, waving, encouraging, maybe I’m being nice and loving, but it’s not helping her to learn independence. By staying with her in her room when she’s scared at night might be a motherly thing to do, but doesn’t it confirm that if I’m not there, monsters might come in?

I’ve toughened up lately. I walk away at school after just a couple of hugs. I speak sternly if she follows me out, and I don’t look back. Actually this week I did look back and she was skipping happily back into school which tells me she’s playing me. I don’t stay in her room after lights out.

Then on the flipside… she’s 5, that little teary face breaks my heart into a million pieces.

Oh FFS, no it doesn’t, it’s infuriating, I have other things to get on with and this kid needs to learn resilience.

So tell me, how loving and patient do I have to be to these fears without cementing them for her, and how tough do I have to be without traumatising her?

Parenting Dilemma #5078.

Do you have a fearful child? How do you manage it?

Bananas in Pyjamas: How do I Loathe Thee, Let Me Count the Ways

/ Lexyvale / Leave a comment

One of the very few downsides of having a four year old is that when ABC4Kids comes on late afternoon (usually a godsend), Bananas in Pyjamas come with it, and in our open plan kitchen/living room they are hard to avoid.

Here we have 2 co-dependant buffoons who can barely count to 10, meddling and messing up everywhere they go. They dress the same, speak the same, think the same. They do stupid shit all the time, and never learn from their mistakes. Their ever patient (and somewhat condescending) teddy bear friends are forever trying to figure out just what the hell they have got themselves into (“Ooh Bananas!” said in unison), and getting them out of it.

And then there’s Rat in the Hat. All at Cuddle Town remain steadfastly loyal to Rat, who is no more than a lying, thieving fraudster, out to rip off his loyal friends wherever he can. “Oh that Rat!” they laugh as they realise that yet again, they’ve been duped by this lowlife criminal.

So they set out to teach Rat a lesson (i.e. get revenge) and with two wrongs making a right, at the end they all have a good laugh and Rat invites them over for morning tea.

Then the very next day, Rat fucks them over with another dirty deed, stealing whatever he can get from these unquestioning morons. Or the BinP’s again stick their nose in to someone else’s business with not an ounce of comic intelligence, just infuriating  adversity brought on by bad decisions (WHY would anyone hide JELLY under the cushions on the couch, or behind the books on the bookshelf FFS?).

The message to our kids? Be friends with everyone, even when they consistently lie to you and steal from you and trick you, it’s all just in good fun. Don’t bother to learn from your mistakes, always play the fool – it’s ok to have people laughing at your stupidity. Trust everyone, no matter what they do to you or how much they speak down to you. Oh, and forget individuality and independent thought – they’re overrated anyway.

ABC have just announced some rescheduling of the 5pm time slot on ABC4Kids. I for one am praying to the TV gods that the Bananas and their Pyjamas are once and for all put out to pasture – or better yet put in the hands of the Taronga Zoo monkeys to deal with.

Just change the channel, you say? Don’t be silly – then I’d have to actually play with my daughter!

 

 

Is Katy Perry a Caterpillar?

/ Lexyvale / Leave a comment

Tippi chef

“Mummy”, Tippi said on the way to preschool this morning, “Is Katy Perry a caterpillar?”

“No, she’s a person who sings, why do you think she’s a caterpillar?”

“She just feels like a caterpillar, a purple one.”

“In what way, darling?”

“Well, she sounds like a caterpillar.”

Katy Perry…. caterpillar…. I can see where she’s coming from.

Housewife Product Review; iRobot Roomba 780

/ Lexyvale / 2 Comments

20140610-193624-70584835.jpg

This, of course, is an unsponsored post, all my own words, merely inspired by me to pass on my opinion of this product, and to be useful in my posts now and then rather than just be all about me, me, me.

Hubby bought this little baby a few weeks ago. It was entirely his doing; he likes to be barefoot at home, hates the feel of sand and dirt on his feet and realised that hell would freeze over before I was going to start vacuuming every day, or even every week for that matter.

So he researched and shelled out around $800ish, which really is a lot for a tiny vacuum. So is it worth it?

It arrived during the week, meaning hubby was away for the great unveiling and maiden voyage. Not really having paid any attention to the whole research/purchase process, I didn’t really have a clue what it was supposed to do or how it works. I pulled it out of the box, put it down, pressed clean and it was away!

Simple, simple to run, tick that box. Although it has started speaking to me in German lately.

For a cleaning appliance, it rates high on the entertainment factor with almost compelling viewing, I could watch it for hours, just daring it to get stuck somewhere – like under a couch – and sometimes it looks like it might, but almost always this baby gets itself out and carries on. Both child and puppy are driven insane by it – child because she’s convinced it will gobble her up, puppy because…. who knows? Maybe it looks like her sister or something.

Does it clean? Yes. Yes it does. It really does. And comes with the added bonus that it forces me to keep the floor tidy, so we not only have a cleaner house, it’s a tidier one too. Although husband and my actual, (wonderful, delightful and ever patient) human cleaners might dispute that. After its run, it docks itself to recharge, you can set it on a timer or just hit Clean when you leave the house. It senses stairs and bumps or changes from carpet to tile/floorboards etc.

It does have one downside to be prepared for; it has to be emptied out after every use, and a thorough clean out at least once a week depending on how often you run it.  Because it runs on rollers, hair gets caught around them and you have to pull it out. But really, it’s a whole lot easier than getting the big vacuum cleaner out of the cupboard, which I don’t really do, and it goes under the couches and beds, so those areas have been cleaned for the first time since we moved in.

Housewife love-o-meter rating: Four Stars.

I am very fond of our Roomba 780, even though I was totally disinterested in buying it, it has won my heart as much as a gadget can, and as soon as it starts speaking English to me once again it’ll be love.

(PS. Watch out for the 880 model which is now available in Australia and according to the website has solved the problem of the hair tangles which I guess might be worth the extra couple of hundred dollars… appliance heaven)

 

 

That’s My Girl, Doing Us Proud

/ Lexyvale / Leave a comment

I’ve always been a bit miffed that our only child  is so her father. From the moment she popped out, her lips, her tall, slim body, everything is him. Put a baby pic of them both together, they are the same baby. There is nothing, NOTHING of me in her.

I hoped that maybe she’d be left handed like me. No. She’s not, no matter how hard I cane her hand as she practices her letters.

Then she walked me through this drawing she did at preschool:

261

“So that’s Maddie, and Evie, and Evie’s Mummy, and Evie’s Daddy with a MASSIVE PENIS! BAHAHAHAHAHAH!”

Oh dear, maybe there’s a bit of me in her after all….

 

 

 

 

 

Escaping, The Build and The Kid

/ Lexyvale / 1 Comment

 

photo

Yesterday was overcast and rainy all day, then suddenly the sun popped out for a few minutes in the afternoon and threw out an amazing light, the whole place was literally luminous. In the country, there is always something interesting and beautiful happening in the sky.

Escaping

I think it’s essential that primary parents or care givers get some time out now and then, it makes them a better parent. I had my turn on the weekend when I drove solo to Sydney to have lunch at China Doll at the Woolloomooloo finger wharf with 2 girlfriends. We’ve been lunching together three times a year for over 20 years. Our lives are quite different, so it’s pretty much the only time we spend together, yet we know each other’s lives in detail including all our secrets. This time, we hadn’t caught up for over a year, and I don’t think we drew breathe for the 5 hours we were together. It was also heaven to eat Chinese – we tend not to with a peanut allergy child – and China Doll is bloody yum and the people watching is second to none as well.

I like my wine too much to then drive 2 hours home, so invited myself to stay at another girlfriends house for the night. Three of us – school friends from the 80s – drank more wine, devoured a cheese platter and shared the familiar banter that 30-something year old friendships allow.

The Build

slab

The slab is down – the first milestone reached. Apparently there’s a lull now while the steel gets fabricated, and we should have a frame in a few weeks.

Mum

Thinking about Mum a lot. She had her routine, post chemo blood test which showed an increase in cancer cells, dammit. Then a full body scan shows something sinister lurking in her spleen. She has no symptoms, so no treatment required just yet, but the doctors advised them to bring their trip to Europe forwards, as symptoms (and therefore more chemo) are probably only 2 months away. So next week they are off to England to see their 4 grandchildren, and my sister and BIL for 6 weeks, and all the time Mum has to try not to be thinking “shit, I’ve got cancer”, and not be terrified any time she gets a bit of indigestion.

The Kid

Speaking of Chinese, am nervous about 2 firsts happening this week with Tippi our 4 year old child with severe allergy to peanuts, and what was once a severe allergy to egg that now seems to be diminishing.

A couple of weeks ago, Tippi’s preschool teacher called me aside to tell me they were looking at Chinese culture, and wanted to take the kids to the local Chinese restaurant for lunch. For most people with a peanut allergy, Chinese is unthinkable. I would never consider it, and when the teacher raised it my heart started racing, and tears sprung to my eyes as I thought of Tippi’s devastation at missing out. She just loves eating out, we do it quite regularly and to eat out with her friends would be a dream. In that moment, I decided I would have to take the day off work and keep her home so that she was not left at the preschool when all her friends were playing grown ups at the restaurant.

As it turns out, the owner of the restaurant has a peanut allergy child, so I was willing to listen, and long story short have decided she can go, and I will go too. Tippi is so excited. Me? I’m shitting myself. This is FAR from comfortable. But various things I wont bore you with have lead me to allow it – I will be there with 4 epipens in my handbag, and my stomach in my mouth. I’m cross with the preschool – at which Tippi has been since she was 1 – for putting us in this position, however I do acknowledge that they are incredibly careful with allergies, there’s not been once incident in over 3 years and they wouldn’t do it if they weren’t completely comfortable. The preschool director goes to this restaurant with her nut allergy son.

On the upside – maybe we’ve found a safe Chinese restaurant, not something I ever thought I’d find, certainly not in the Southern Highlands.

And then, next weekend Andy and I are both leaving Tippi with my mum and dad for 2 nights as we go to the Yarra Valley for a weekend of frivolity with old, old friends most of whom I’ve known since we were kids. This is the first time in her 4 years she’ll be waking up without either of us, she’ll deal with that, although will no doubt kick up a little fuss.

It’s the food thing that worries me – Mum is careful but has made mistakes in the past (that have been caught just in time, so no disasters) and is pretty terrified of the epipen. We’ll be doing a full training session on epipen use for the 1034th time, and after that it’s up to Mum. Outings will be the hardest part – they cant stay home for 3 days, and Mum isn’t used to ordering for Tippi when out. Pack her food, mum, I will be requesting.

Anyhoo, I’m determined to go, trust, and have a wonderful time with my husband and lifelong friends whom I see only every few years these days. Kids are left with their grandparents all the time, Tippi adores hers and at the ripe old age of 4, she’ll cope. Wont she???

So I tentatively step in to this week of fearful firsts and tell myself that it will all be fine, and it’s worth it. Don’t make a liar of me please Universe

How do you go leaving your kids? Have you been able to escape lately?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fireweed and burnin’ shit

/ Lexyvale / Leave a comment

IMG_2612IMG_2613

I don’t participate much in the physical running of the farm, it frankly doesn’t interest me, but autumn brings what is becoming a family tradition – the picking of the fireweed. Although it looks kind of pretty with it’s bright yellow flowers, fireweed is dangerous for cattle and if left can spread over an entire paddock in a very short space of time. Some of the properties around us haven’t kept on top of it, so it inevitably spreads to us.

IMG_2615
So every autumn when the fireweed begins to show, we all head out to the paddocks to fill big hessian bags full of the stuff. Tippi has fun because it feels like picking flowers, and what little girl doesn’t love that. So we walk, and pick and chat in the cool, afternoon sun.

I’ve learned a few things on these fireweed missions:

1. We have paddocks in Australia, not fields. They are never to be referred to as fields.

2. Baby cows are NOT calfies. They are calves. No exceptions.

3. It is apparently not funny or cute to refer to alpacas as llamas, its irritating. Which is funny, don’t you think? Farmer Andy doesn’t seem to think so.  And no, we can’t have one for a pet.

4. Blackberry bushes are also a weed, even if they do make good pies, so they all got ripped out and now I wish we had just one.

5. We also can’t have geese, or a peacock, or goats for pets, although I haven’t given up on some of those yet. Peacocks eat baby snakes. I want a peacock.

6. A heifer is a girl cow, a steer is a boy cow that’s had his privates removed. Actually I’m not sure if I’ve got that right.

At this time of year, there’s massive moths – or are they bats – as big as my hand fluttering at the glass doors at night trying to get in to the light and scare the crap out of me. But at least the snakes have gone to bed for the winter. Although, does the unseasonably warm weather we’ve been having mean they might still be up?

IMG_1744

And it’s bonfire season. Still, clear nights spent outside in big, warm coats eating sausages in buns, talking shit, burning shit, stars like you’ve never seen them before. Pass me the red, will you?

 

 

That Moment When

/ Lexyvale / 1 Comment

20140508-215020.jpg

 

Last year late afternoon in June I was at my friends house bundling our 3 year old girls into my car. I was taking her Miss R to our place for a sleepover, my poor friend was heavily pregnant and having a shocker in and out of hospital.

My phone rang, and normally with two 3 year olds heading towards the end of the day I’d leave it, but a glance at the phone told me it was my mum, and I wanted to talk to her as I knew she was getting test results that day. Not that I was worried, I wasn’t. She’d had some persistent abdominal pain, more annoying than anything else. No loss of appetite, nothing to worry about.

“I have cancer.”

Jesus. Of the nasty kind? We didn’t know yet, more tests, urgent ones.

I’ll never forget that drive home, done in autopilot. The delightful Miss R chitty chatting from the back seat all the way home. “Lexy!” she’d yell if she sensed I wasn’t listening, “Lexy!”

I wasn’t listening (I’m sorry Miss R I wasn’t but I’ll make it up to you). The oceans were pounding in my head as I drove into the orange sun. My mum has cancer. My mum has cancer. My mum has cancer.

As a family, we’ve all been smug in our absence of cancer and heart disease. Rolling our eyes at our inevitable longevity as all the oldies got to their 90s before dying of…. well of old age.

So there we were. Yep serious, but treatable and surgery straight away please, oh and don’t go Googling it because it’s unhelpful and it’ll only tell you that peritoneal or ovarian cancer is known as the “silent killer”and knowing the survival rate is just not helpful. Unfortunately, by the time I agreed with that advice, I’d googled and googled and I’d seen.

My mum, my amazing beautiful mum has been extraordinary in this journey. So strong, so inspiring.

She went through 2 hell surgeries, damn near died with blood clots travelling through her heart, lost god knows how much weight. Chemo, hair loss, some weird foot injury requiring more surgery and delayed chemo, then more chemo.

In all that time, mum has stayed so positive, so strong. She refused to get sick, she got on with her life. Once she’d recovered from the awful awful surgeries, we almost forgot she was in chemo. She got on with it. She has chosen to believe the doctors who tell her things are looking good. She believes them, so I do too.

She just hates her lost hair. I think she’s looking like Judy Dench now it’s growing back.

Cancer – which I’d always sympathised with but never really considered as an issue for me – not only touched us, it grabbed us by the neck, picked us up till our feet were dangling and shook us into submission.

So this Mothers Day, which I usually acknowledge with a phone call if I remember, I am thinking about my mum. Not because I don’t think she’ll be here next year, I know she will. But for the extraordinary inspiration she is, for the wonderful, tireless mum, wife, sister and grandma she is.

And the friendship her and I have grown since I became an adult.

And so much more.

Mumma, I treasure you now and for the next 20 years you’ll be around and forever.

To those individuals and families who have been touched by cancer (‘touched’ being the polite word) I’m thinking of you too. With love xx

FIFO Wife, FIFO life. It’s Great, and it Sucks.

/ Lexyvale / 2 Comments

 

 

Image

Last year, on a hot Australia Day weekend, Andy and I got married on a lawn overlooking a sparkling blue Sydney Harbour. Then we had a party, a big, noisy, boozy party. We loved it, then followed it up 2 days later with a lawn party at our farm. It was a wonderful, exhausting, perfect weekend. And we were married.

A few weeks before that, Andy dipped his toe into the FIFO world, and there he has been ever since. For the uninitiated, FIFO stands for Fly In Fly Out. The term originated – and is still mostly connected with – those who work in the mines in remote places, but now refers to anyone who flies to their job, then home for breaks. FIFOs work in any number of “swings” – 3/1 (3 weeks on, 1 off), 2/1 (2 weeks on, 1 off), 7/3 (7 days on 3 off) and so on.

The day after our party weekend, a partied out newlywed flew off to the Pilbara for 3 weeks and oops, we forgot to consummate. Now I know most couples who get married after having been together for a while don’t get around to too much loving’ on the night, but 3 weeks! Ah well, needless to say we got there in the end. Enough said!

Now Andy works closer – Melbourne, Brisbane – and flies out pre-dawn Monday morning and home Friday night (5/2), but still, in the 1 and a bit years that we’ve been married, he’s been away for most of it, adding “FIFO wife” to my list of credentials

I get “I don’t know how you do it” (because I have to)  or  “you’re amazing ” (thank you!)  or “don’t you get scared” (sometimes, not often) or “why do you let him do it” (money).

So what’s it like? Good and bad, of course. ..

The Good

– The money

– Downton Abbey, MKR, The Bachelor/ette and all the other mindless and crap TV that comes with having total control of the remote.

– The money

– No one is snoring anywhere near me.

– The money

– Limited time to annoy or be annoyed by another

The Bad

– Sole parenting (hats off to you single parents – at least I get some form of relief on the weekend)

– Winter; home in the dark, freezing, 3 wet dogs jumping up demanding dinner, light fire, tend to four year old; dinner, bath, stories, bed. Collapse on couch, hello wine.

– Bin night – there’s a 100m walk from our house to the road. In the dark, and rain, and freezing cold. I fucking hate bin night, especially in winter.

– Lonely, and sometimes a little scary

But probably the hardest of all is the impact on our relationship. There is no doubt it takes its toll.  I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is that causes the strain.

It’s not the routine being interrupted – our daughter is 4 now and she’s easy, routines aren’t too important. It’s not handing over the remote on the weekends – I’d rather a marriage than a TV. It’s not the snoring – I’m one of the lucky ones who can sleep through it.

I think….. I think it’s the fact that we are losing that closeness that couples have. There’s a distance between us, we don’t laugh together as much as we used to. We’re not always friends. We are living separate lives, weekends are short – too short to nurture our relationship to any extent – there’s a farm to run, wood to chop, a daughter to raise, a new house to design and build.

Yes, that’s the worst part.

So, we work at it. Go on dates (not often enough admittedly), be respectful to each other, keep up the contact when we’re apart, cuddle a lot when we’re together and throw in a little “fake it till we make it”. There’s no lack of love between us – it just takes work to direct it the right way.

Is FIFO worth it? We think so for now, for maybe another 3 years. The FIFO life either works for families or it doesn’t. The money is getting our dream home built far earlier than we expected. We’ll make it work. We have to. We WANT to. One day, Andy will have a local job, we’ll have a lovely house and this will be a distant memory. And we’ll laugh together again.