Over A Cuppa

The Broom Closet

2010-04-18T15:24:00.008+07:00

Isn’t it a wonder, despite the known fact that human beings are primarily social creatures who would go insane if kept in solitary confinement for too long, still go to great lengths to find a solitary place to ‘get away from the world’?

Life, for the most part, is chaotic at best, regardless of the countless times we attempt to keep our world in check. Amidst the tumult of dis-array from this fallen, degenerate world we live in, we have ingrained in us by our Creator, an unquenchable desire to maintain orderliness.

Nevertheless, many of us are in denial stating that we like the mess we live under; others give up and ‘turn a blind eye’ or ‘shut the door on it’. Others say they find order ‘boring’ and that mess ‘gives them something to do’, or even defines who they are!

We can define clutter in two basic ways:

1. JUNK
2. CHARACTER

We can define mess as:

1. JUST PLAIN MESS!!

so if mess defines you, then there is something seriously wrong because....

However, whatever category we may place it, getting back to point in hand, it is still categorizing. In other words, we can’t help ourselves but to compartmentalize, categorize and conceptualize.

Therefore, we all have an insatiable need to find that ‘private space’ away from all the mayhem. Take our bedrooms for example. Many claim that as their safe haven. Signs of Skull and Crossbone ‘Keep Out’ blaring on some teenage room doors, or more demurely “……’s Room”, or perhaps, God forbid in my opinion, parent’s retreats at the other end of the house.

Let’s consider also the bathroom…..it is supposed to be a private place. Some have posters or timetables up on back of the toilet door; others, a stack of magazines or comic books or even a novel. (Just how much time can one spend on the toilet!) But then mothers, on the other hand are considered a different breed when it comes to bathrooms, a foreign species that cannot be thought of as human because the moment you walk in the door and lock it behind you, there is a little voice bellowing past the wooden barrier – “Mummy” “Mum” “Mummy”!!! More often than not, the conversation has no relation whatsoever to the use of the bathroom. It is like some sort of conspiracy where kids wait until you get yourself a moment’s respite then they rob you of it. Argggh.

In highly populated societies, personal space is virtually non-existent though the need deep down is still there. This is where innovation at its best comes in, in surprisingly simple means, such as a hand-towel or blanket thrown over the head shutting out the world around you even with it merely an inch from you in reality. The younger generation opts for an IPOD, video game or GameBoy. Others a good book, a good DVD, computers, Facebook; or even their mobile phones! Others snuggle up in bed, and yet for some it is writing a blog. In movies, of all places, it is the broom closet!

Whatever it takes to transport us to a world beyond reality, a world of our own, where we can tune out from the stresses of life, somewhere we can't be found by anyone - like a toddler who hides his face with his hands and thinks no one else can see him – our very own, bona fide, custom-made, just for us Broom Closet.

Copyright 2010. Rebecca Laklem.

The Time Capsule

2009-10-30T14:52:00.004+07:00

As a child grows, he/she begins to conceptualise the family tree and where grandparents and other extended family members fit into the whole scheme of life. The fact that grandparents are the mother and father of your mother or father is a lot to process in a child’s mind, especially with the subtle differences that evolve in relationships due to your maturing in age. Master 6 and Miss 9 were no exception. 0n a recent visit with my parents, the children discovered that their maternal grandparents were in fact my Mummy and Daddy.

One day, during this time, we had pulled out the family photo albums. There, spread out in front of us were many photos of my growing years, baby photos, family portraits, birthday celebrations, old school photos etc. With much exclamation bearing every photo being passed around, I explained each one to my children….This is Mummy when I was a newborn; this is Mummy when I was just 4 etc. Much to my disappointment, Master 6 showed little to no interest.

A short time later, out in a shopping mall together with me and his grandparents, Master 6 asked his grandmother, “Will you allow Mummy to come play with me in the playground please?” Taken by surprise at the question, we nevertheless were amused at the image that must have conjured in my young son’s mind as he said those words….an image, no doubt, of me as a child sporting pigtails and freckles, no bigger than himself. With my mother’s response of “Yes, she may” coupled with merriment in her eyes towards me, Master 6 took me firmly by the hand and off we went……with me stifling the sudden urge to “skip” J

In the days that immediately followed, Master 6 apparently acquired a heightened respect for my mother within this new perspective. He was constantly heard asking his grandmother for permission in his interactions with me. “Can I speak to Mummy?” he’d ask and so forth.

Miss 9, on the other hand, had begun to get increasingly aware that she is getting older. Having just turned 9, she is no longer a baby, nor is she a little kid like her brother Master 6. With 2 teen-aged and 2 young adult sisters, her interests have taken a dramatic turn from the child’s play she once reveled in. She no longer considers her younger brother’s boyish games as fun, evident in the continuous whine of her brother, “Mum, (Miss 9) won’t play with me!!” At many of the places we frequent that my youngest son enjoys, mostly playgrounds and game places like Time Zone, I was startled to see that Miss 9 was ‘too embarrassed’ to be seen having fun playing games, despite the fact there were youngsters of various ages on into their teen years all around her.

In an effort to make her realise there was no wrong in enjoying these pastimes, I endeavoured to participate myself. The look of amazement on the faces of my children was undeniable. “I didn’t know you could do that Mummy!” Master 6 was unperturbed by this sudden revelation however, as he proceeded to ‘teach’ me how it was done. As my grandmother once said to me – you are as old as you feel.

From generation to generation characteristics and traits, stories and wiles are passed down from our great-great grandparents to our great-grandparents to our grandparents to our parents to us and then on to our children. Relics are locked away in attics or storage – photos, diaries, books, antiques, and family heirlooms. In each one a wealth of knowledge and mystery of times gone by - your link to the past and to what lies before you for the next generation. Your own treasure cove in a time capsule.

Copyright 2009. Rebecca Laklem.

What Makes a Superhero a Superhero?

2009-06-06T18:42:00.004+07:00

Master Five is typical of boys his age. He has an unfaltering interest in all superheroes whether they be Superman, Spiderman, Batman, Power Rangers or some other made up human-creature such as Wolverine, or the Incredible Hulk.

So what does a man who wears his underpants on the outside, sporting a cape and disguises himself with a mere pair of specs; a guy who was bitten by a radioactive spider and suddenly becomes one; a caped crusader who does nothing much except hides away in a cave and behind a mask; a bunch of idiots dressed up in bug-like suits who can’t even fight properly; a man who endures torture resulting in metal ‘claws’ coming out of his hands; and last but not least a big green giant who looks like some alien creature and who is in desperate need of anger management, have to entice young ones like my son to want to mimic them I wonder?

Do these make-believe characters really enhance children’s imaginations? I am inclined to think not. To me it appears that it teaches them downright stupidity at best.

The result, the kid starts wearing the same outfit for weeks on end; climbs all over the furniture, some being dangerously high; jumps down the stairs several steps at a time; thinks he can fly because he can leap from the dresser to the bed; running at break-neck speed through the house or down the hallway. My brother when he was my son’s age even attempted to jump from the garage roof to see if his caped crusader’s cape could really make him fly – of course it didn’t.

As safety-conscious parents who genuinely don’t want their child to get hurt, we respond in a common-sense like manner to the mere stupidity as: Setting new rules – “You are only allowed to be SUPERMAN on the ground floor, upstairs you are CLARK KENT understood?” You lock all upstairs balcony doors. You keep a watchful vigil on your little man when he nears the stairwell and banisters; and you try to convince your child he can only really fly in an aeroplane. Now who’s the fool here?

While the TVs, supermarkets, newsagencies, bookstores and movie theatres are blaring with these fanciful, intelligence- insulting bimbos there still hails unsung heroes like police officers, fire fighters, doctors, nurses, teachers, airline pilots, soldiers, naval officers, pastors and humanitarian workers….the list is endless…. even their own Mums and Dads. Whatever happened to “My Daddy is better than your Daddy” “My Daddy is…..My Daddy can.” My Mummy is….My Mummy can”.

Anyone who loves, protects and provides in the best interests of their families and goes that extra mile to help others are in my books, heroes. Here’s to SuperMum and SuperDad! And to all those other real heroes out there…..Cheers!

Copyright 2009. Rebecca Laklem.

CLIMBING JACOB'S LADDER

2007-11-04T23:01:00.002+07:00

Once we become parents, it becomes increasingly apparent that children learn things about life a lot earlier than the adult-world lets on. I’m talking Corporate Ladder stuff here. Yes, you heard me. Children learn from a very early age all about levels of authority.

Mum, he won’t come in when I tell him – “Then tell him, ‘Mum said’. The child learns Mum’s word carries an authority above his own.

Being the youngest of 7, Master 4 was quick to come into that knowledge. Usually a very obedient child, Master 4 had always obeyed me, until one day, I asked him to do something he really did not want to do. His response was “But Dad said….” (yet, I knew full well that Dad hadn’t said, and I told him as much). Point taken, he had learned that Daddy, as head of our home and family, has the last say on almost everything, the important stuff anyway.

As it goes, Master 4 had been fighting his daytime nap for sometime now. “I don’t want to go to sleep, it’s not nighttime yet”. (For the record…if no nap then we have a very upset, frustrated and cranky little man). It so happened not so long ago, Master 4 had been summoned by his father to take a nap. Amidst much protest, his father always won out and I would find him 'out like a light' a few minutes later sleeping peacefully. This occurred a few times, but one day, after being summoned, Master 4, was determined yet again not to take a nap. You could tell he was in deep thought and his mind was processing and churning. If Dad’s authority is higher than Mum’s then whose would be higher than Dad’s? He finally retorted: “But GOD said….we do not sleep in the daytime”.

Now who could beat that?

My husband’s response, “But God also says…. children must obey their parents, I’m your father, you are my son, now SLEEP” Less than a minute later, our little prophet was fast asleep.

Copyright 2007. Rebecca Laklem.

Birthdays, Cakes and Milestones

2007-07-26T22:10:00.000+07:00

A few days ago, it was my birthday. Having gone ‘over the hill’ and sliding down the other side some already, this year was no big deal. I was quite happy to have it go unnoticed, since Hubby and the 2 older kids were not home anyway. Yet, still I felt as if it were a significant one, until my mother stated that the ‘milestone’ birthday was NEXT year.

I have discovered through the numerous birthdays I have already experienced, our tastes in celebrations grow, or more accurately, mature with each milestone in our life. With each and every milestone we pass, the stone gets a little more worn at the edges.

Our 3 year old son, greeted me that special morning with singing “Happy Birthday, Mum”, and “Are we going to Carrefour “? (his favourite shopping mall that sports a Children’s Play area, complete with coin rides, playland, mini car race, educational computer games, video games etc….a place that drives you insane with monotonous tunes especially designed to lure children playing all at the same time and just plain NOISE!!) His face lit up at the chocolate brownie cake, my 16 year old daughter had made, despite the lack of candles. (We had decided not to put any candles as the amount of candles needed would not fit onto the topside of the cake.) With eyes sparkling with great expectation, he insisted he was not going to miss out on anything and made sure I knew I had to share it all with him, all the while being told his birthday was coming very soon. How is it, that although a birthday celebration is about having a special day for the person whose birthday it is, the conversation is mainly about everyone else’s birthday? Anyway, that’s how it is in our household. Is it like that in yours?

It is interesting what gifts are given too, this birthday, I received a card saying, ‘Although you may have a few gray hairs coming on, you are still young at heart’….that’s not all…..all the gifts were as if there was some conspiracy to ‘doll’ me up. :-) Let the gifts speak for themselves: A beautiful Thai silk jacket from my Mum and Dad; a bath towel skirt, lipstick, lip-liner and a beautiful choker necklace from the kids. I tried on the lipstick and Master 3 exclaimed, “Look at Mummy….Ha Ha Ha”. (Now it’s hard to explain my little son’s laugh in words, it is not a giggle, nor even a snigger, it literally is Ha Ha Ha”). Really, had I let myself go that much?

Despite the many choices I had of the type of celebration I wanted, and it was my choice, I opted for a nice DVD to watch at home with the family topped with Mr Donut’s donuts and last but not least, Starbucks coffee. Nice and quiet. No balloons, no clowns, no party food, no candles to blow out, no loud fanfare noises of playland. We will have that in 10 days time!

With all the birthdays and anniversaries in our immediate family and beyond to grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, and sister-in-law – we fill every month of the year.

That said, next month is THE celebration month in our family….we have our youngest son’s birthday, our 21st wedding anniversary, 2 of our daughters’ birthdays a week apart and a cousin/niece’s birthday in- between. Doing my math here, that would be 5 celebrations in 17 days. Believe me, when it comes to birthdays, I have tried to combine them (especially the 3 girls’) but have since been told that it was not deemed fair as someone always missed out having a celebration on their actual birthday. That was quickly brought to a halt. So yes, we have 5 celebrations in a month.

If we include friends of the family as well, not to mention Christmas with one daughter’s birthday 3 days before, we may as well celebrate all year long. To say it all, we celebrate LIFE, every minute of every day, of every week, every month, 365 days a year, with a few balloons, cakes, presents, tinsel and lights thrown in here and there. Not bad eh! Not bad at all. LET’S CELEBRATE!!!

Copyright 2007. Rebecca Laklem.

Let There Be Light

2007-05-08T02:33:00.001+07:00

Isn’t it a quirk of human nature, that we don’t really appreciate what we have until it is suddenly not there any more? Here in Thailand, you can get most of the mod cons, not like 40 so years ago when it still had traces of the old Siam. One of those timeless things is frequent blackouts during monsoon/rainy season. It rains all day, constantly non-stop except for small gaps of perhaps half an hour, wherein, if you are fortunate, you might get your clothes about half dry in that quick smile of the sun. Suddenly there is the distant rumble of thunder – the power blacks out.

You would think that, with this being a frequent occurence, we would be well prepared. Well, we do have flashlights/torches (and batteries); candles and matches; hurricane lamps etc. Yet, nothing prepares you for being in sudden blackness, the void of light enveloping you.

Immediately I become like a mother hen, ‘clucking’ and ‘gathering her chicks in’. Mustering a calm voice I call the younger ones names urging them to come carefully towards the sound of my voice, reaching out and grasping whatever limb or body part I first make contact with, be it hair, nose, ear, hand or foot. After finding one, I don’t let go, but continue groping and calling till all bodies are accounted for during all the “who turned the lights off” and “oh no I was just in the middle of….” Or “The computers … Pull the plugs!” “I’m scared!!” Amidst all this, I am trying to quench the little ones’ fear of the notorious dark…”It’s ok, it’s only a blackout, the house is still the same, nothing’s changed, there is nothing that is going to hurt you….just be calm and patient.” The teenagers and young adults of course, answer to the ‘roll call’, a necessity with a large family - you can’t just ‘count heads’ in a blackout can you?! Besides, rumour has it that ‘counting heads’ is not such an accurate calculator under any circumstance. (Have you ever seen ‘Home Alone’?)

Now, a blackout can last from as little as a few minutes to as long as several hours. With my ‘chicks’ all hemmed in, and while waiting for Hubby or one of the older kids to find the emergency lighting , and to the sound of drawers and cupboards opening and closing, I have become quite a pro at conjuring activities and games to play when you can’t even see your own hand in front of your face.

It all depends on the length of the blackout. The first being the counting game, counting until the lights come on, though this usually stops after we count up to about 500. The next one, figuring out who is sitting near us by ‘feeling’ their face if it can be found (it’s a glorified version of ‘blind-man’s bluff” and “pin the tail on the donkey” rolled into one). Next is the ‘discussion group’ talking about cause and effect; about who is able to get the power back on; what we would do once the power came back on etc. Believe me this can lead to a ‘million’ other topics. Great for teaching….you undoubtedly hold a captive audience here!

Once you have exhausted all of the above, you realize you are in for the long haul. Hubby then steps in with his famous ‘Sleep’ order. Everyone settles in for a hot and clammy night. With me and Hubby on ‘night watch’ keeping the hand fans going and sponging sweaty heads, all of us nodding off eventually and then, at some odd hour of the early morning we are rudely awakened by a dazzle of light in our faces, the TV blaring, and the hum of machinery warming up – the power is back on at last. Yay!!!

The shortest blackout I have come to experience is when I looked up towards my Lord and prayed: “I wish I could say “Let there be light….”. The lights instantly turned on! I could feel His Smile. Today looking back, it seems I was allowed that liberty only the once, but it brings a smile to my face whenever a blackout happens along. A candle glows in my heart that will never go out.

Rebecca Laklem. Copyright 2007.

YOU KNOW IT'S TOO MUCH WHEN.....

2007-04-16T18:33:00.000+07:00

You know your kids are watching too much TV when:

1. Your 3 year old is having a conversation with you when he starts quoting some line from a movie but he can’t say the word just right.

2. Your 6 year old is lip-syncing the whole DVD – in perfect timing.

3. Your 3 year old can recite by heart every single ad on TV without looking.

4. Your 3 year old starts repeatedly jumping off the bed yelling “I’m flying”

5. Your 3 year old sees a girl in a bikini and states "that ‘dusting"(disgusting).!!!

6. Your 6 year old starts lying in front of the fan acting like Ariel.

7. You start wondering if the remote control in fact does have legs.

8. The only DVDs you ever see in the player are from Walt Disney Pictures.

9. You have the theme song of ‘Lady and the Tramp’ or ‘Toy Story’ stuck in your head all night and you can't sleep.

10. You start lip-syncing Walt Disney Picture DVDs – in perfect timing.

11. You start answering the voice wafting from the other room and then realize there is no one there.

12. You start wondering if you are truly sane.

Copyright 2007. Rebecca Laklem.

Burning the Midnight Oil

2007-04-01T20:29:00.000+07:00

Our 3 year old made his statement, when asked to take his nap, "I don't want to sleep! It's not nighttime yet". Needless to say, naps during the day have taken a fast backseat for our youngest son. Come nightfall though, weird things occur. Nightfall does weird things to people, people of all shapes and sizes. It is like when the natural lights turn off outside, another switch turns on, it is literally like pressing the fast-forward button, or a battery-operated toy that just won't turn off.

Our 6 year old is doing perfect cartwheels across the floor (she'd make it into the Olympics, if not for her skill, then for her record-breaking for sure), the 3 year old doing well with forward rolls. He has his own version of cartwheels which he himself aptly calls 'broken wheels'.

Jumping on our big king-sized bed is a firm favourite, though forbidden fruit, everyday the law goes out but to no avail at this twilight hour. Perhaps teaching them to read, will get them to see that 'bed' and 'trampoline' have absolutely nothing in common and that 'bed' actually looks like a bed.

Usually, our ten year old is the first to sleep, then the older girls, (our elder son has his own time frame) but our dynamic duo (Miss 6 and Master 3) are burning the candle at both ends, still expending the last of their energy stores, and boy - do they have energy to spare!! 9:30pm comes and Mum (that's me) climbs into bed. Then the jumping on the bed switches to jumping on me. Master 3 decides to do a workout schedule using my legs as the apparatus, my arms and legs doing umpteen weight-lifts and push-ups, then, there are the piggybacks and horsey-rides.

On very rare occasions, it gets the better of even the main players in this whole charade. After taking his evening bath one night, Master 3 throws himself a fit of a tantrum! Big sister marches him in, in front of me with a look of 'Do something about it Mum' in her eyes. Tantrums are definite no-nos and normally after a firm reprimand, he corrects himself, but this was monster-sized and nothing was working. Finally having to raise my voice above the crescendo, I ordered him to go straight to bed. He climbs into bed still making a ruckus of noise and then he suddenly says: 'I'm sorry, Mummy', amid "aahh haaaa"s. (Funny creatures 3 year olds, aren't they?! God certainly has a sense of humour and throws the humour in at the mostly unlikely times). I stroked his hair and lay down beside him, ‘It's time to calm down little man’, I said. Within a few seconds, he was asleep.

With 7 kids down the track, you’d think I would have a bedtime routine down to pat, but no, even when my 16 year old was only 2, I never dreamed that it would succumb to the ‘old car-ride around the block’ routine but with her it was either that,or bed at after midnight.

But one thing that continues to amaze me and puzzle me at the same time, is that my husband has this knack of just saying the word ‘sleep’ and they are out like a light immediately. Now just how does he do it?!!

That’s just the kids, now the husband….We both work long hours and are constantly at the beck and call of others (no it is not just the kids either). It appears the only time that we are undisturbed is in the early hours of the morning. Somehow God designed our body clocks to awaken at precisely the same time, at 4am!! Usually it is for a middle of the night visit to the toilet, but many-a-time woe to me if hubby sees I am awake, he will take the 'opportunity' to dictate some letters with me in the still of the night.

Despite burning the midnight oil most nights, I still manage to get up at my usual 5:45am wake up call, - besides, a woman needs her ‘quiet’ time too.

Copyright 2007. Rebecca Laklem.

All's Fair That Ends Fair

2007-02-23T23:33:00.001+07:00

No matter how diligent you are at your parenting skills and with training your children to uphold your principles and values, there are ‘those’ times, we must all admit when there is a sudden lapse in heeding to our instruction.

Unfortunately, these rare moments always occur right in full view of the public eye and we are forced to confront the offending forgetfulness as if ‘staging a premiere’ in front of critics, whilst the words that are racing through your mind are: “Why now? Why here of all places, when all eyes are on you? “

Is this the time when you are supposed to ‘grin and bear it’? Well, I certainly couldn’t help but grin this time.

My parents treated me and the kids to iced chocolate and coffee at Starbucks the other day. Since the drinks were quite large, I ordered one iced chocolate and one caramel milkshake to share between the 4 younger kids that were accompanying me on this occasion. I, of course, if anyone knows me well enough, ordered a mug of Starbucks coffee. (It is only THE best coffee, beyond comparison, in my opinion (to-date that is) – I’m sure all real coffee drinkers out there would agree!).

I had paired Miss 6 and Master 3 with the iced chocolate, the older girls had the caramel.

Watching the 2 younger ones, I observed that Master 3 was dominating the cup, so I wizened up and promptly produced 2 drinking straws. With a straw each, Master 3 came to realize that he had no way out of sharing. He was not to be duped. When Miss 6 went for another sip, he yanked her straw from her mouth, his straw still in his. Being reminded to share a second time, he devised yet another ploy. Referring to Miss 6, he directed his voice to his two older sisters, and matter-of-factly stated “You share with her”. Hoping, of course, that he would then get to have the iced chocolate all to himself.

While marveling at his clever thinking, I went on to reprimand him for being so greedy.

Knowing now, that he wasn’t going to get his way, he turned sullen and stubborn leaving the iced chocolate well alone. By this stage, he had already had his fair share, so when Miss 6 happily sets in to finally drinking some, it was even-steven.

Within minutes we had finished and were getting up to leave the table, when Master 3 pipes up, “Mum, can I go to the playground? Can (Miss 6) come too?” The chocolate incident, by now, well and truly forgotten. That’s my boy.

All’s fair that ends fair, I guess.

In Your Shadow

2006-11-24T03:36:00.000+07:00

A Tribute to My Brother David
1962-2006

Caught red-handed yes we were
At least your hands were red – with jam
Mine were more the colour of yam.

I followed you to the heights
To look down gave us a fright
Once at the top you gave way to me
Oh so gentle-man-ly
Going first was for the ladies
To show our skill as water-babies

Perched on the top of the car roof
So proud you were that you could prove
You were bigger and older and wiser you see
To open the car door for me
I opened the door without a thought
Surprised at the response it had brought
Shut the door – you’re spoiling it!
So I did as you had bid
I was puzzled at your distraught
Till discovering your toes were caught

As the years went on I’d follow you
In everything you would do
Tolerating so graciously
Your little sister – Hey, that’s me
In everything we would share
People even called us a pigeon-pair

There is no better place here on earth
Than in your shadow I rather be
For more than precious gold it’s worth
With all my love, big brother – from me.

Copyright 2006. Rebecca Laklem

Post it Note from Bec

2006-11-03T18:07:00.000+07:00

Re: Google Ads

Disclaimer: Ads advertised by Google are random and although some can be quite helpful they do not always portray my personal beliefs, please use at your own discretion. I will not accept any responsibility if you choose to click on them.

- REBECCA LAKLEM.

Romancing the Stone

2006-11-02T14:46:00.000+07:00

A friend of mine just recently got engaged to be married. She had come over to my house at my bidding. When asked whether her beau had made his intentions known, she was puzzled as to how I knew (she had been trying hard not to show the sparkling jewel on her finger! – she had wanted to see if anyone would “notice”) Yet, I still knew – how? “How could I not!” I said, “It is written all over your face.” Her smile being as broad as could possibly be and her face glowing as a woman in love. I congratulated her and asked to see her ring. It was a beautiful ruby set in gold, nothing really fancy but a lovely ring all the same. It shone with a brilliance that only engagement rings can illuminate. It’s almost like magic.

New love is like magic. You have eyes only for each other. He’s the perfect man for you, he possesses absolutely no flaws, and if you do see some, they are to you endearing.

There’s flowers and candle-lit dinners; walks in the moonlight; dances to ‘your’ song and the list is endless.

Then the inevitable question came from my friend and also from my 3 teenage daughters (that is after all the squealing and jumping up and down had subsided from the onset of the news), with me being a veteran at marriage having now passed 20 years - ‘Is it still as romantic now as it was when you got engaged?’

‘Yes…I said, after pondering a bit…but it is different…it’s not a jumping up and down squealing kind of feeling or pacing the floor not knowing what to do with yourself until he gets home from work kind of feeling….it matures (and it is not just the age!)….it’s a comfortable with each other feeling, a secure feeling….a knowing with not needing to utter a word kind of feeling.

20 years down the track – when you get to that ‘comfortable, secure’ place. It is easy to take each other for granted.

Hubby calls up to say he is on the way home and asks me to ‘make yourself beautiful for me’ Awww… (How I wish!).

Right at that moment, you are slaving away at the hot stove rushing to get dinner on the table before he arrives home. Or, you are taking out the garbage. Or, you are on your hands and knees sweating it out wiping up chocolate milk that had seeped its way across the kitchen counter, down the cutlery drawers, and onto the floor. (This can happen in a matter of seconds with a 3 year old and 6 year old!)

I looked out my window this morning to see our 3 year old son pouring the entire bottle of dog shampoo over our pet bulldog! Giving him 3 baths in one day, because somehow he had discovered a mud-pit in our grounds, or our 6 year old wanting to make Mum a cup of coffee, resulting in sticky wet coffee (no hot water added mind you) syrupy mess all over the kitchen floor!

Your 12 year old is on an emotional hormonal rollercoaster and the whole day has been a ‘crisis’. Your 19 year old, wants to talk to you for ‘a minute’ – 2 hours later, your conversation is just now coming to an end. Your 16 year old daughter, has hardly said boo to you all day, and it is bothering you more than it is her. Your 17 year old son decides he wants to solve the whole world’s problems in one day and is determined to tell you how it must be done. Your 10 year old and 6 year old are at loggerheads with each other and you’re the referee. Your 3 year old has started to get cranky because he has missed his afternoon nap. You had not long finished sending off what seems like a hundred individual emails, typed up the petty cash, taught your daily session at the Bible school and, amidst all this, supervised your children’s schooling.

You hear the sound of tires crunching across the gravel of the driveway as hubby’s car pulls up in front of the house. You gasp ‘Oh no’ as you glance hurriedly in the mirror, seeing yourself somewhat disheveled.

Having no choice but to greet your husband in your current state, you open the door – at least with as cheery a disposition as you can muster, suddenly remembering you had forgotten to put your false front teeth in, now brandishing a lovely toothless smile! (My 3 year old had finally knocked them out several months ago after one-too-many head-butts….yes, ouch…but that’s another story).

This is the part where Hubby graciously ‘Romances the Stone’ by putting on imaginary rose-coloured glasses, remembering you as you were on your wedding day, with your hair meticulously done up, and make-up, hands beautifully manicured and a delicate perfume wafting in the air….

True love, sometimes has to be blind, holding fast through ‘the better and the worse’.

In fact, it grows stronger as the years go by. LOVE – it IS magic.

There's A Fly in My Soup

2006-08-10T10:11:00.000+07:00

Not so long ago before we moved back to Thailand, I was seriously considering packing up everything and moving into a motor-home. 7 kids and all! Absurd you say. Most likely, but it was tempting, since I found I spent more time in the family vehicle than we did at home, so it seemed.

I would not so much as get my foot in the door after dropping the kids off to school, than I would need to run and pay bills, do the grocery shopping, come home and unpack the goods, stash the cold items in the freezer, when it was time to pick the kids up from school again. (On not so busy days, I might have been able to throw in a couple of hours of housework). Then home in time for one of the kids to change for hockey. I would stay in the car, as it took just as much time to pile all the kiddies out of the car and back in again before needing to take my daughter to her hour-long hockey practice and games. There was no use in going home, it was 15 minute drive there and 15 minutes back home, not to mention the time it takes to get the kids out of the car. I was fortunate if I had but a little more than 15 minutes respite before having to repeat the whole procedure to pick her up again. Then there was volleyball, soccer, youth meetings, sleepovers, even early morning bus excursions…”Don’t mind me, I’ll just stay in the car.”

On some days, I would manage to get home with just enough time to cook dinner (20 minute dinners), turn off the gas, then head out the door for pickup. Yet on others, when the schedule was tight…. Remember the kids had “a life” and there are 7 of them, well 4 that had extra-curricular activities. My “life”, was taxi-driver/cum everything decent under the sun! (Now, we did occasionally arrange lifts/rides with friends etc, but other parents also had their own schedules to keep to). Other days, it was more practical to grab dinner at the hockey centre or sports-ground canteen if they had one.

When you are on the roads that much, yes, like I said, we did have a house and home, but we barely got as much as to sleep in it, - there comes the question of meals. The only available food on the road it seemed was fast-food outlets. Food in the supermarkets seemed only catered for cooking. There are very little healthy foods that are not processed with heaps of additives, pre-packaged and ready to eat. Fruit and raw vegetables you say….well remember my five year old and two year old don’t as much as take 2-3 bites out of an apple or a carrot. They love eating them but never finish them – short of bring a chopping board and paring knife into the car with me, that is not a practical outcome – which brings me back to my original temptation of in fact, bringing the whole kitchen and the kitchen sink, oh lets throw in the bed, bathroom, and t.v. as well, for effect, into the car! Not only that, to get food from the supermarket you need to pile all the kids in and out of the car because it just isn’t safe to leave your kids in the car, sometimes this is just for 1-2 items, such as milk and bread. When you have 7 kids, this is no small feat, car-seats and all, especially if the 2 little ones are taking a nap.

Once, whilst at the mall doing my usual grocery-shopping, (since grocery-shopping took most of the day, I would treat myself and the little kids to lunch at the mall.) I was determined to set healthy eating habits for the kids, I was not going to take them to the quick and easy child-enticing fast-food outlets, but to a coffee shop where they could order soup and whole-meal sandwiches instead of the notorious hot chips/French fries and fatty chicken nuggets.

I enter one coffee shop and it was full so I waited, finally a table was free and I seated the children and myself promptly at the table, disregarding the fact there was no highchair. I waited and waited, the children getting increasingly impatient, finally the waitress came to take our order – but just then I had to make a hasty withdrawl as the little one had lost patience and started making loud protests, resulting in several customers frowning their disapproval in my direction.

We headed for another coffee shop, the waiter didn’t come at all, yet another coffee shop, the prices were twice as much. The next stop, when we just made ourselves comfortable, the kids wanted to go to the toilets, up we got again and sure enough upon our return, we had lost our table and there was no other.

By this time, the kids were desperately hungry, me, I was longing to just sit down with a cuppa, franticly combing the whole mall for another coffee shop, there flashing “welcome” was the fast-food outlets and the donut shops. Battle-weary and tired, I succumbed.

No wonder the voculabury of today’s 2 year old consists of:

The name of their favourite fast food outlet.

Hot chips/French fries

Coke

Ice-cream

Hamburger

Chicken Nuggets

To School or Not to School

2006-07-29T12:11:00.000+07:00

“School is stupid!” The outburst had erupted from my daughter in Year 7. “What’s the point of it anyway? “Why do we have to have this stupidness? You are just learning all this stuff you will never use in life.”

The ‘stupidness’ of school is the ongoing debate in our home at present.

Point to consider. Ok how much do you use from your years of general schooling?

Apart from learning to read and write and do sums? I was rattling my brain to come up with a decent answer, as I am a strong believer in education. Coming from a family history of journalists, I was automatically editing my daughter’s statement of outburst - correct grammar, spelling and punctuation are vital, that’s for sure. “Stupidness” though grammatically incorrect, does in fact have a certain descriptive impact, that it should be considered perhaps, to be entered into the dictionary.

But reflecting on her statement, maybe she does have a point. Rheams and rheams of information, week upon week, month upon month, year upon year, your head buried in books hours on end, cramming your brain with so much information that there is no room for imagination.

I love finding out details about people and their lives. I love discovering new things about the world around me. I wonder at the intricate detail of the different markings of fish, birds, and insects, even amphibians and reptiles (as long as I don't have to touch one :-)). I love to read, it is a means of escapism for me at times, yet I wouldn’t read an encyclopedia or dictionary front to back like a book, though I have known some, such as my own brother, who have done just that. If they enjoy doing it, it’s fine by me. That’s the whole point here - Love, enjoyment.

Learning about the world, people and life around you should be enjoyed. Cramming information should be a choice not compulsory. Children need room for imagination.

“You’re daydreaming again!” Sound familiar?

Have you ever watched a baby sit, crawl, stand, and walk? The sheer excitement of parents and the wonder of achievement on the little one’s face, that’s how it should be with everything in our life. Learning should be natural, enjoyable, a part of the life around us, instead of your head buried so far in information that you might as well be an ostrich!

As parents, we are automatically teaching our children about the life around us. Making beds, cleaning house, cooking, baking, mending, repairing, taking care of equipment, and animals. Have you ever thought of all the maths, reading, writing, science and social studies that is required for those everyday things? Who needs a bunch of ink on paper for that! A toddler can’t read an instruction manual, yet he knows how to operate the DVD player or the TV, or how to change over to satellite or cable.

Look around you, what do you see? Can you see the trees, the birds, the flowers, the children playing in the yard or the parks? Or, do you have to shut your eyes from the 4 walls, a computer and desk, and pile of papers that need to be completed by 5pm this evening, take a deep breath, and enter a daydream to see the beauty of the world around you? How can you dream if you have never seen it?

Children need to dream, to imagine, and to live reality. Yes, I said it correctly, reality. If reality is being buried in a pile of paperwork, deadlines, meetings, phone calls, stress, insomnia, have we not created a prison around us? We might as well be planning our funeral! To me, reality is seeing God’s creation, and in it we can see the Creator Himself. That’s what is real, that’s what is alive. Show me a rainbow any day, and colour my world.

´Look what I drew, Mum’ I smile………………

Copyright 2006. Rebecca Laklem.

In the Attic

2006-06-06T03:18:00.000+07:00

Blowing off the dust, putting a broom to the cobwebs and discovering the occasional snakeskin (can’t begin to describe the reaction that brought!) I was clearing out our stuff that had been stored for over 10 years. It wasn’t an attic upstairs, or a cupboard under the stairwell, for me it was a corner of space, a pile of stuff against a wall in a back room. Since moving back to Thailand, I had a lot of catching up to do, putting the ‘woman’s touch’ to things again.

Memories. The cot (crib) in which each of our children, as babies, had taken their turn in sleeping, now full of boxes upon boxes of photos and videos. My husband being a keen photographer always had the camera ready. Ironically, I, myself, am very camera-shy, camera, videos, you name it. I hate having my photo taken. But I do love looking at photos. How I love looking at photos, photos of the kids, photos of family, photos of friends, and not just my own either, other people's photos too. I find them so intriguing, some mysterious, some often telling a whole story; the faces - some happy, some sad; the smiles - some genuine and others just a façade. A photo can say a lot about people.

I pick one up out of the box on my lap….for a minute I am transported back in time. A photo catches a moment in your life that you can never get back again, your thoughts, your feelings. Pictures speak a thousand words, they say. “When I find a spare moment, I should put them all in albums; scrapbooks made with tender care” I mutter to myself. ("How they are kept says a lot about a person too, I chided.")

My bubble pops…the kids had filtered in one by one and had gathered around, peering over my shoulders and discovering their various baby and toddler photos, the noise of teasing and sniggering rising to a crescendo.

“Look at you! As a baby! Awww”. Someone grabs their baby photo and makes a run for it, threatening to ‘tear it up’ for sheer embarrassment. “Oh no you don’t!”, I ordered, rescuing it from its doom. They’re mine to keep.

Another photo….“Hey, Mum, you were so skinny back then, with goggle-eyed glasses too!” “Was that what you and Dad used to wear??” Now it was my turn to turn red.

This started a wave of questions of what it was like in my day. The kids were kind of a century or two out with their estimates. "Yes, I was a teenager once. No, not in the 50’s, or the 60’s either; it was the 70’s. No, I didn’t have an afro that was a foot high and two feet wide! "

After what seemed like a million questions later, the novelty wore off and I found myself alone once more. I straightened up the loose photos, placing them carefully in the box and closing the lid, I put it back in its place in storage, safe and sound, perhaps to gather dust just a little while longer…that is until I find the time to make those scrapbooks…whenever that would be...hopefully not another 10 years from now.

With my 2 year old, now out of nappies/diapers, suddenly becoming fiercely independent and wanting to do things ‘not your help, Mummy’ - time is flying by all too quickly. I let out a little sigh.

Grand-children, you say? I’m not ready for that just yet! :-)

Copyright 2006. Rebecca Laklem.

The 'Out of the Box' Mum

2006-06-01T07:44:00.000+07:00

It is in the polls whether or not working mothers should get priority in the day-care centres. As a work-at-home-mum or now commonly known as WAHM, I can sympathize with all mums.

The stereotypes of Mums (presented mostly by television) are often misconstrued. Take the SAHM (Stay-At-Home-Mum), it is often pictured – a mum in curlers and dressing gown, vacuuming and cleaning and ironing in whirlwind time then spending the majority of her time, lazing about watching soap-operas and gossiping over a cup of tea and cakes.

Then the WAHM (Work-at-Home-Mum), we visualize – a mum constantly on the phone, and at her computer with her desk stacked with papers, trying to find a space that does not have peanut butter smears or chocolate milk spills, in-between yells of ‘Johnny, don’t touch that! Or she is chasing the kid around the dining room table to wrestle the precious office document out of his hands.

Next is the WAOM (Work-at-Office-Mum), on canvas we see – a mum rushing out the door for work, leaving notes of instructions on the fridge for the husband and kids, on the phone making arrangements for who is going to pick the kids up from school or daycare and coming home to a house already in order and the kids neatly tucked into bed fast asleep.

The fact of the matter is, there are no stereotypes, in this day and age, the gift Mums have of multi-tasking is stretched to the limit. Imagine how many costumes us ‘Super Mums’ have to change into:

Live in house-keeper. No matter how hard Mums work in the ‘real’ workforce, they still carry the main load of keeping home too.

Group organizer. Arranging and rearranging the whole family’s appointments and extra-curricular/ or after-hours activities into some form of workable order.

Nutritionist. Planning the meals and balancing the daily diet into a healthy eating plan for several often finicky eaters.

Errand runner. Shuffles to pay the household bills while out doing the grocery shopping or going to that PTA meeting.

Negotiator. A major role with ‘how much allowance’ and ‘exceptions to the rule’.

Cheer-leader. Come wind, sun, rain or shine; Mum is always in the cheer line.

The list goes on and on…..Supervisor, Life-guard, Bodyguard, Referee, Teacher, Peacemaker, Entertainer, Chef, Party-planner, School Project Manager, Fund-raiser, Secretary, Phone-Operator, Counsellor, Sports and Exercise coach, Laundry lady, Personal Development Motivator, Nurse, Finance Manager, Court Judge, and Mentor….just to name a few.

So, if Mums are Super-Heroes then who are our Side-Kicks? Our ‘support-system’ of course - whether it be the hubby and kids all doing their ‘two-bits’ or extended family lending a hand; or for some it is the day-care centres and after-hours school care.

So the question remains you say, who should take priority in the day-care centres? – The mums who have no other ‘side-kick’ to turn to – of course. No more, no less.

I know some of you Dads maybe be protesting here. Whether it be Mums or Dads, whose role is it anyway? It’s a crazy mixed up world we live in.

For me, why not turn back the clocks to the ‘Golden Days’; the ‘Pleasantville’ society where roles were clearly divided. Just being pancake making, apple-pie baking, roast dinner cooking Mum with Dad, after working hard at the office, walking in with a ‘Honey, I’m home’. That ‘box’ would suit me just fine. In plain old black and white. :-)

Copyright 2006. Rebecca Laklem.

Mothers Day

2006-05-20T19:42:00.000+07:00

Mothers Day…starts differently for all of us. For some, it’s waiting in bed, faining sleep, whilst you can hear the pots and pans banging around in the kitchen, the smoke alarm going off with the waft of burnt toast filling the air, and your imagination going wild as to what is actually going on in there; and what awaits you afterwards! For others, it may be dinner out in a nice restaurant with roses and soft music. For some, a family picnic in the nearby park…or the hush of kid’s voices whispering the ‘surprise’, as they work hard on their hand-made cards and gifts, with ‘don’t look Mum’ and Mum trying hard not to ‘notice’ with a hidden smile on her face. Whichever way it is for us Mums, the sentiment is the same for all the mothers around the world…it’s the thought that counts.

I like Mothers Day better than my birthday, because I have a lot of kids, and as age is not a factor, no matter how old I get I will still be Mum. It's not the presents I receive that I like the most. It’s the chance to have all the kids gathered around and the sense of being appreciated. What I like also are the various expressions of this appreciation. It puts a smile on my face because each and every one from eldest to youngest, expresses it in their own unique and individual way.

My eldest daughter (18) writes a deep, meaningful letter 'reminding' me that I am appreciated and loved.

My eldest son (17) man of few words: Love ya Mum.

My second daughter (15) our ‘matter of fact – no nonsense’ teenager says:
Hey, Mum - Happy Mothers Day.

My third daughter (12) our artistic dramatist writes me a poem:

Mothers Day

Mothers are like angels that guide our way
Watching over us night and day
Her hugs are so tight, so we pull in the love
Her love is a gift from Heaven above
Her wings are like blankets that keep us warm
And has loved us all since we were born
Thank you Mum for being so great
And loving us all each and every day

My fourth daughter (10) is the all-inclusive one - she says:

Mothers Day

God made mothers to take care of their kids.
God made mothers ‘cause He loves them.
We all love our parents because they give us TLC.
God bless you Mum for we love you so much.
Happy Mothers Day to you and all the mothers in the world.
Love you.

My fifth daughter (5) painstakingly writes her name in her best handwriting, draws a love-heart and makes a card smothered in glitter, feathers and cotton balls.

Even, my toddler son (2) does his bit....a line with 3 swirly circles on it. A Wheel flower, I think. My little son loves wheels.

Thank you kids, for being YOU. I love you heaps.

And the chocolates, ah the chocolates!..... and coffee too, with hugs all round - now that’s Mothers Day. :-)

Copyright 2006. Rebecca Laklem.

Where's the Moon, Honey?

2006-05-20T10:39:00.000+07:00

As newly-weds we arrived at our honeymoon hotel. Our friends had pooled together to give us a generous wedding gift – an all-expenses paid, one week stay at the newly opened Sheraton Hotel in Darwin. We checked in and went to go up to our room, on route we spied the restaurant and my husband suggested we check out the menu. Glancing through, I noticed the rice section, my husband being Asian, I exclaimed “Look, here’s rice, honey” But on closer inspection, all they had to offer was rice salad. “Oh boy!” was my husband’s response. We continued on to where our room was. It was the second best room in the hotel (the honeymoon suite was already taken). The room was decorated in delicate rose hues, the bed soft and ‘romantic’. Sweet.

We began to settle in for the night and when we were ready to climb into bed, we paused to pray together. This was nothing out of the ordinary for me, raised a Pastor’s daughter and a staunch Christian myself, I was glad to start this new stage of my life in prayer together with my husband. We held hands and bowed our heads, my husband, also a Pastor, then prayed. I was in full agreement with everything he said, but just as he was finishing he ‘announced’ that he was going to fast.

Now, fasting also was nothing new, but somehow fasting on my honeymoon wasn’t going down with me too well, besides it was a time of celebration, a time for feasting and enjoying yourself, right? - so, I too began to pray silently in my thoughts, asking God to make me at least willing to fast. If my husband was spiritual enough to fast at such a time, then as his wife I should too.

So fast we did.

The next morning, my husband made another ‘announcement’. He was going to sleep on the floor tonight, he had found the bed too soft and couldn’t sleep. I, on the other hand, could sleep in the bed but he was going to sleep on the floor. I was aware that my husband was accustomed to sleeping on the floor, but there was no way I was going to spend my honeymoon sleeping in the bed alone! I declared if he was to sleep on the floor, I would too – we ended up in the bed.

After 3 days of fasting and praying, we had run out of things to pray for and boredom had set in, so we resorted to staring out the window of the hotel.

“Why don’t we go out to the mall or something.”? I suggested

“Been there already.” he replied.

“How about fishing?” I continued.

“Done that” he said, already bronzed from 3 weeks of fishing on and off prior to our wedding.

After a few other ideas were tossed in with the same response, we both stared blankly out the window.

My husband broke the silence a few minutes later, “Why do we need to stay here? he asked. “It’s our honeymoon” I answered matter-of-factly.

Not knowing the tradition of honeymoons, he asked what a honeymoon was. I patiently explained, the best I knew how, why I thought it was called a honeymoon. I described a couple sitting on a park bench, in each other’s embrace, gazing up at the moon and whispering sweet nothings in each other’s ear.

There was a long pause. He was in deep thought. He glanced up at the night sky outside and said:

“Where’s the Moon, Honey?

Needless to say, we checked out the next day.

Three years down the track, I was to discover, the reason for the fast was not for ‘spiritual’ reasons at all – he just didn’t like the food. J

Copyright 2006. Rebecca Laklem.

Travel With Seasoning

2006-05-05T05:15:00.000+07:00

I am a seasoned traveler. I have traveled on hundreds of aeroplanes, buses, and trains in the course of my lifetime so far, so much so, that I have actually stopped counting. In addition, over nearly 20 years of marriage I have also traveled quite a bit with children in tow. Filling out numerous immigration cards, I have almost memorized all the passport details. Memorising birthdates of 7 children plus that of your spouse and yourself is no easy feat for some, but from pure practice and perhaps a ‘gifting’, I now rattle it off in a breath, or more realistically two or three.

Nevertheless, travel unless totally alone and with minimal hand luggage only, is never stress-free. Bearing that in mind, on the whole, airline companies do their utmost to make your journey as comfortable as possible as it is beneficial for business.

Well, the most recent flight left me with pleading for it to be my last! I was traveling to Thailand to join my husband and 3 of our children who had gone on ahead. With me on this flight were our other 4 children, 2 being the youngest ages 5 and 2. We had 9 pieces of luggage, plus hand luggage. We checked through our check-in luggage and we still made the quota ok, without being overweight. So, I sighed with a sigh of relief but too soon to my chagrin – the check-in person asked me to weigh the hand luggage too! Never, in all of the times I have flown have I needed to weigh the hand luggage, so I hadn’t given it much thought. My yard-stick for weighing hand luggage was - if I could carry it up and down the hallway a couple of times, with toddler in arms and not bending half over when I carried it - then it wasn’t too heavy. Well, my computer bag perhaps was a bit on the ‘heavy’ side, but that was my laptop computer – an exception in this day and age surely. As it turns out the computer bag met the criteria for one person, but the check-in person said it had to be in 2 separate bags. You can’t ‘separate’ the contents of a computer bag. But insist she did. Then each of the hand luggage had to be weighed. They were all a bit over (perhaps I am not all fat after all, but there is muscle there after lifting toddlers all these years!). In the end, I had to check through all the hand luggage and leave some of the other bags in the care of family. I still had to figure out how I was to ‘separate’ the contents of my computer bag. At this point, I was near ‘losing’ it in panic. We were running late. We still had to fill out our immigration cards, to go through immigration, and find our gate in time for boarding.

We managed to do all the above and reached our gate just as people were starting to board. The little kids were hot, thirsty, hungry and tired. No time to stop for snacks, I handed over our boarding passes and the man apprehended me! Is there a problem sir? I asked. ‘We have been notified to check the weight of your hand luggage’. He checked and seeing there was no reason for concern, let us on board.

I found our seats at the very rear of the economy class cabin. They were near the toilets, (handy for the little ones, I thought optimistically). By this time, our 2 year old son, was asking for milk to drink. “We will have some as soon as the plane takes off” I assured him. The plane sat there and sat there, it was late departing. Meanwhile to add to everything, the air-conditioning in our part of the cabin wasn’t working! I called to the stewardess to perhaps allow us to have milk for the Master 2, while we were still stationary. The steward responded to my call, so I politely asked. “You will have to wait until after take-off Madam” He replied curtly. “But can’t you make an exception? My little boy is hot and thirsty, the air-conditioning is not working, the plane is late…..”. Sorry, Madam it is regulations. I try my best to soothe my child. Then the seatbelt lights come on, Master 2 is in my lap, finally content in my arms. The steward arrives at my seat “Seatbelts Madam”. “Could I please have a child belt to latch onto my own?” Your son is 2 and has his own seat. He has to be belted in his own seat”. “My son is fearful of the takeoff. Can’t I just use the child-belt?” He replied in a tone that made me feel I was criminally intent or a terrorist or something. “No, it is against regulations” I obediently but reluctantly placed my young son in the seat next to me, amidst his loud protests – ever try putting a seatbelt on a toddler who is struggling to get out of the seat?

I start making motions of an aeroplane with my hands, to bring the attention of my young son to the fact, the takeoff was not such a bad thing. His grandparents had bought him a little model aeroplane to bring with him, so he starting mimicking me. We finally took off! The crew started serving the meals. Our faithful travel agent assured me when I picked up our tickets that she had ordered 2 children’s meals. As it turned out the airline only had one left. I immediately brought it to their attention that I had ordered 2. (How can you possibly give one child a tray with special kid’s goodies on it and the other sitting right next to them not?) The steward by this stage, I’m sure, was ready to ‘turn me in’ as a threat to society! The stewardess, on the other hand, was more sympathetic, and assured me that she would try making up a tray the best she could to suit a child. I gave her a look of sheer relief and thanked her profusely. Maybe I will not be deemed a ‘terrorist’ after all!

After eating, I settled in for a long night of no sleep, ever-watching that the children did not thrash their legs and arms onto the person next to them, or cause any other disturbance. My two older children are in the row behind me, content with watching TV or listening to the funnies, or to music. (I had hoped we would be all seated in the same row, but the flights were packed and we were fortunate to get the seats we were given.)

I was tired, emotions raw. I took a deep breath. It had been a long day.

Upon landing, we had to wait until nearly all the passengers had got off before leaving our seats. It takes a bit to waken little ones and get them ready for disembarking.

We are off the plane! Yeah!

We walk the long stretch to the customs and immigration, down to the baggage conveyor belt and took our luggage one by one. One bag is missing. This was just “The icing on the cake.” Yet another incident to add to my notorious list of: How to have the worst flight ever. We wait. Still no bag, so, we then notify the airline staff, give descriptions, our address, sign papers. (We did receive our bag a few days later.)

We finally make it through the doors to the meeting point. Seeing my husband’s and our other children's smiling faces made it all worthwhile.

I’m grateful I don’t have to make another trip on a plane again for a while. I have always enjoyed traveling, but some of the ‘seasoning’ I could certainly do without. :-)

Copyright 2006. Rebecca Laklem.

A Pot of Gold

2006-03-21T19:08:00.000+07:00

When I spring-cleaned the house not so long ago, I kept discovering 5 cent pieces all over the house, not to mention, a number of apples with only one bite in them! And pens, the ones you repeatedly put in a specific place in front of the phone but mysteriously disappear! Now there were several of them. After, going out and buying a whole bunch, thinking surely you won’t run out of pens this time, when the next thing you know, you are searching for that wretched pen, just when you have a person left suspended on the other end of the phone line, who can only spare a minute or two. Someone get me a pen!! A ‘someone’ (after you actually mention a name) begins searching, you are waiting with bated breath, hopes rising, when he/she returns with “I can’t find one, Mum”. You are rummaging through the junk drawer, your hands land on a pen, ok you’re ready, so you think, only to discover to your horror that the pen has no ink. You hurriedly tell the person on the other end that you will have to call them back, and then realize the information you were meaning to write down was in fact their phone number! You ask him for it, hoping your memory skills will serve you in your time of need. He rattles it off at break-neck speed, and you are frantically repeating the number over and over in your head, hoping you won’t forget it. As you put the handset down, you spy a marker pen, and now for paper…..where’s some paper? Now in a state of panic, you write it on your hand instead, hoping the kids wouldn’t notice that you are doing what you have told them not to do a million times over, knowing full well you will be wearing that number for 2-3 days - the marker is a permanent one. Anyone have a handy tip for getting permanent marker off skin? (Like the time, my 5 year old decided to put the toilet freshener in the toilet all by herself, Blue Loo, it was called. It was certainly BLUE, a deep, dark, hard blue! It took me days of baths and scrubbing soap, to get the blue off her stomach, hands, chin, and from under her nose. Immediately after which she had to get her passport photo taken, her upper-lip sporting a shade of pale blue. Surprisingly it didn’t show on the photo….Phew!!).

As for the coins, I kept slipping them into my pocket, and after some time my pocket was somewhat bulging, so I transferred them to a jar. At the end of the day, I inspected my findings…. a jar half-full of 5 cent pieces, 10 pens of assorted colours, paperclips and a handful of hair-ties, several game pieces, a die, and chocolate wrappers. There was a bunch of oddities thrown in as well, that to this day, I cannot put my finger on to what they were. They were thingy-a-me-bobbies. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”?

The coins added up to $4.50 – Just enough for a good cup of coffee and a jam-filled donut. After a long day of cleaning the house, I had struck my pot of gold.

Copyright 2006. Rebecca Laklem.

How Much Is That Doggy In The Window?

2006-01-30T18:51:00.000+07:00

One of my childrens’ favourite pastimes when at the mall, is to visit the local pet shop. Amidst the Ooo’s and Ahh’s you can hear a broken-record droning… ‘We are just looking, no! For the umpteenth time, we are not getting another pet!

‘But he’s sooo cute!!’

It has not been long since Christmas, tell me honestly how many parents have fallen in the trap of buying a cute puppy for their kids?! Don’t get me wrong here now, I love animals, truly I do, the toilet-trained, child-trained, parent-trained, obedient, no hassle kind. How many of us have thought: “We want to teach our children to be responsible” - so the most common practice on the face of the earth to fulfill this purpose, is to buy your child a pet.

You bring the little fella home, all warm, cuddly, helplessly and irresistibly cute – yes,
The kids squabble over who is going to hold him; lavishing oodles of love and care, almost smothering the poor puppy to death with their eagerness.

All the way home in the car, you are reminding your children that a puppy is not a toy but a responsibility – you will need to take real good care of it – feed it everyday; give it water everyday; give it a bath; clean up any messes it makes – the lecture goes on endlessly. Yes, yes, of course we will they chorus.

Then there is the naming ceremony, each family member giving their brainstorm of different names. You wouldn’t believe the kind of names kids come up with! You finally settle on a name that at least won’t turn your face beetroot-red every time you say it or having every poodle and mutt running in your direction when you call the family pet.

The first few days go by just fine, the nights on the other hand, bring you back in time to when you brought your first child home from the hospital, only this time its whimpering and howling at you. Barely a week passes and the novelty begins to wear off. The puppy makes a mess, the big poopy stinking kind. You remind your daughter to clean it up. EWWW!!! I’m not doing THAT!!!! You insist… so she reluctantly begins to clean it up using a whole roll of toilet tissue (remember to add that to your ‘How much it costs to have a Dog’ list). Your daughter then holds it at arms-length with her face screwed up in utter disgust and promptly disposes of it while dramatizing for several minutes afterwards as to how absolutely ‘gross’ and disgusting it all is.

Most often than not, you the parents are the ones who end up cleaning all the messes, usually being the first ones to wake up, you are greeted with dozens of little ‘landmines’ all over the floor, more likely having already stepped on one on route to the bathroom! When you’ve had 18 years of wiping dirty bottoms and a toddler still in nappies/diapers, who needs puppy mess to add to your endless list of responsibilities?

Then comes training time, the mad rush and panic when the puppy starts making circles on your favourite rug making a beeline for the door, whilst the puppy is dropping ‘bombs’ everywhere you are the one holding it at arms length this time….You are teaching the puppy to respond to your commands, with a hundred echoes of ‘sit’ ‘stay’ ‘come here’. When teaching the dog its name, the puppy ends up chasing its tail with all the confusion of its name being called from all different directions.

When your kids go out to a youth meeting with their friends, who is left to ‘baby-sit’ the pets? Mum and Dad of course, who else! In this one incidence, I was home alone with our 5 year old, 2 year old, the 2 puppies and the baby goat. I ended up literally wrestling both dogs and goat, trying to keep them off each other. Imagine a tangle of legs, arms, and hooves trying to keep the animals out and the littlies in! And the kids (not the goat kind) wonder why, when they finally get home, they see a very frazzled Mum muttering under her breath…Never again…no more pets….arggh.

You pass the window of the local pet shop.

Aww!! Aren’t they cute!!!!

Copyright 2006. Rebecca Laklem.

Reflections and Resolutions

2006-01-02T00:18:00.000+07:00

The Countdown….10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1…. Happy New Year!!!!

We enjoyed watching the fireworks display on the Sydney Harbour Bridge on TV. They try to outdo themselves each and every year - it gets more and more spectacular. It certainly was a sight to see.

We pick up the phone to call the ‘rellies’ (Aussie talk for family and relatives) wishing them a Happy New Year in the cheeriest and loudest voices we could muster which is not as easy when your voices have already gone to sleep on you! After those first few minutes, the kids went straight to sleep, settling down as if it were just another day. I had yet to wait until 4am before I could give my New Year’s wishes to my husband in Thailand. (We are 4 hours ahead). I climbed into bed to catch a few winks, and shortly after, find myself stumbling out of bed to make that special call…this time my voice was really asleep! I was still asleep!

It’s New Year! I’m up at my usual time at 6:00am. The house is quiet. It’s my favorite time of the day, when I can sit peacefully sipping a cup of coffee or two, my quiet time, planning the day.

New Year for me always brings that tingling feeling that I used to get, as a child, on the morning of my birthday, or at Christmas, the wondrous feeling of joyous anticipation. There is a fresh crispness in the air, a new awareness of life. Yes, we are at yet another turn of a new lap in the course of our lives. What lies ahead? A chance to ‘turn another leaf’…..Reflecting…..what would you change if you were to ‘start over’?

New Year’s Resolutions are merely a wish list, but it’s a good start:

I am going to devote more personal time with God.
I am not going to ‘pull my hair and scream’ at every antic my 5 year old pulls on me.
I am going to be calm and collected – no more ‘panic attacks’. No more stress.
I am going to plan my time better; be more organized.
I am going to have more quality time with my husband and kids.
I am going to stop and smell the flowers and savour every moment.

New Year’s Day is quiet, peaceful, no responsibilities pending because all the shops, banks, and post office are closed. The kids are sleeping late. (If the New Year falls on the weekend like this year, you are blessed with another day of pure bliss.) “What better time to start afresh?” you muse. I glance around the room, the housework still needs to be done, meals to prepare. After the New Year break, the cars are back out on the street, traffic congesting, bills needing to be paid, errands to run, grocery shopping to do, taxi-ing of kids to ‘hang outs’….the busyness of life starts crowding you in. You grit your teeth in determination. If only I had a moment to breathe!!

Then I remember…

It only takes a moment… to smile.
It only takes a moment… to sniff a flower.
It only takes a moment…to whisper a prayer.
It only takes a moment to say the words… ‘I love you”.
It only takes a moment …to show someone you care.

Go ahead and savour ‘the moments’ and let it truly be a year that brings you joy and fulfilment.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Copyright 2006. Rebecca Laklem.

You Speaka My Language?

2006-01-01T03:01:00.000+07:00

Everyone knows that teenagers try to create a code of language all for themselves. But as every parent also knows - this is nothing new. The codes are easily hacked into, if the parent has the mind to take note.

In some cases, there is no code to break; a black-hole, a vacuum, a nothing-ness. My 15 year old daughter has this knack of driving me to the point of panic due to lack of detailed information about hanging out with her friends. Make sure, parents, that you get ALL the information. Is a responsible adult supervising? If so, who - and when you drop her off, do make sure that person actually exists!! Going to a friend’s house? Which friend, which house, what number, what street? Turn the tables and drive your teenagers up the wall if you have to.

Your daughter has told you – you are to drive her to a ‘meeting place’. She needs to be there by 1:30. It takes 30 minutes to get to your destination, so you agree to leave at 1pm at the latest. After piling all the younger siblings in the car along with your teenager, it is 1:05pm, that’s ok, fairly good timing.

You set off down the end of your street and start to turn the corner, there it begins….Miss 15 informs you that you are to give her friend a lift, her friend lives in the other direction, 5 minutes out of your way! ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ I asked….’I did” was her reply. (Not!) 15 minutes later you are back on route again. Now she tells you to ‘hurry or we’ll be late’ and proceeds to tell you how to drive as well. At every traffic light it’s “Green light Mum, green light”, even before your feet have a chance to change from brake to accelerator or your hand can change the gear.

You arrive at the suburb, but discover your daughter doesn’t know the address, or where it is exactly! “It’s somewhere around here”, she says…..yes, I gathered that (eyes rolling)….but left or right?....which side of the road? Then she spots it, and sure enough it just had to be on the opposite side of the road and there is a barrier in the middle of the road. “Here, here…You’ve missed it Mum, you have to turn around”. The next turn is a no U-Turn sign. So you venture further down the road to find a suitable place to turn. “Why didn’t you turn here Mum”, she says exasperated (the turn was a driveway, but to turn into it you have to cross a double line and the oncoming traffic is busy – this was no back road!)

Finally after another 10 minutes you arrive at the desired destination. Your daughter and friends pile out with their feet running as they hit the ground, with mumbled ‘Thanks’. You wind the window down and yell “What time do I pick you up? “I’ll message you” she shouts back. I insist on a time and confirm I will meet you back here!!

I go all the way home again. When I arrive through the door of our house, piling a 5 year old and 2 year old out of the car and everyone else in tow, I glance at my watch to discover I have but 10 minutes before I have to leave to go back and pick Miss 15 and friends up once again. I pile the kiddies back in the car (sometimes I am fortunate to have the foresight to check my watch before I get out of the car, in which I just rev up the car engine and take off – this at least saves getting the kiddies in and out!).

Teenage boys….well…. their ‘language’ is mostly monosyllobic, more like pre-historic grunts. But it is pretty simple to communicate with them really. Just ask your questions so to require only a ‘yes or no’ answer or a variation of the same such as ‘ugh’ ‘eh’; ‘mm’ ‘ngh’. (For complete understanding - Do bear in mind the tonal implications!)

Teenage vocabulary is an interesting one. To their understanding it is totally different and new. Some words are new to the dictionary, but most are doing a full cycle. Same words - different meanings.

The latest fad of teenage vocabulary is saying something and meaning the exact opposite. How original is that?

Cool, Rad, Unreal, Hot, In, Out, Bad, Good, Wicked, Awesome. Make sure you understand the meaning of each. It is not the same today as it was 20 or so years back down the track.

Communication in its many forms and ways is the fabric of our society, magnificently varied, a tapestry of life. Life was never meant to be dull.

Copyright 2005. Rebecca Laklem.

Over 40s Exercise Regime

2005-12-24T13:12:00.001+07:00

It has been rumoured that mums over 40 don't exercise enough, it also has been publicly encouraged that mums over 40 should have a good exercise regime to keep healthy and to assist in losing those excess kilos/pounds that many of us have found silently creeping on after each child comes into the world.

My husband's idea of exercise is jogging up and down on the spot, doing jumping jacks and sit-ups, jogging around the block or playing soccer (football) and or volleyball. That's great for him but not so for me....

I have my own version. With 7 kids in the house, my daily exercise regime starts with a sprint down the hallway to the bathroom before anyone else bags it; then a ramming of the bathroom door when someone's taking too long in the shower amid 'warcries' of 'it's my turn' 'she's taking too long' 'Mum, I'm going to be late for school if she doesn't hurry up'. (I'm sure looking forward to when we can get a house with more than one bathroom and extra toilet at the back). I manage to reach the laundry dodging an obstacle course of toys, shoes, furniture and heaven knows what, to pile in a load of dirty washing into the washing machine. While the first load is in, I then proceed to make breakfast with several intervals of dashing to the bedrooms of various sleepyheads who need a prodding to get out of bed. Finding a lost sock or shoe often requires reaching under beds or desks. How many pairs of shoes I have lined up along the hallway wall that have lost their partners, I've lost count!

After breakfast, finds me often on my hands and knees mopping up the spills and messes of the little ones. I pile out the now wet clean laundry into a laundry basket and carry the heavy basket to the dryer at the other end of the laundry (have you noticed that laundry baskets were not designed to fit through doors without some clever manuevering) and proceed to load the dryer.

The older kids are now rushing out the door for their ride to school (our eldest daughter now driving). With the last one out the door waving their goodbyes, I close the door with a sigh of relief and turn around to start picking up stray items off the floor. Armed with basket in hand (or more like on my hip) I gather all the bits and pieces that have found themselves in strange places returning each item to its rightful room as I go along the hallway. I vacuum the carpeted floors, moving furniture as I go. With that done, I proceed to the kitchen and stack the dishes, crossing the floor several times in this exercise. Dishes done, I get down on my hands and knees once more to pick up a piece of fruit with one bite in it - several of these I find scattered throughout the house, this is no mystery, it's my 5 year old. Need I say more?

The bathroom is next on my agenda.....horrors (envision "The Scream"by Edvard Munch - thats what my face looked like)....the bathroom is seeping with a foul-stench. My 5 year old has used too much toilet paper, blocking the toilet to overflowing. Just minutes ago it was fully functional and in proper order, now this!! A half an hour later, I removed the peg from my nose with satisfaction that it is now as it should be. How many muscles were used to perform that task is a list long. Now those who dare say we don't get any exercise.....hmm.

The above scenario is one of many that I can share that happen during the course of a day. More often than not these incidents that happen with my preschooler and toddler form most of my exercise regime - every few minutes in fact, and the time between - attempting to keep house and do my work on the computer. Often after I make the bed and tidy a room, I go to my next task when moments later, I find the blankets have been pulled off the bed to make a cubby house in the lounge room. Or the clothes I had folded neatly in the drawers, scattered helter-skelter all over the floor as my 5 year old insists on dressing and redressing herself several times over. My preschooler then attempts to make herself a cup of cold Milo. She comes into the lounge room where I am now finally seated at my computer. On looking up, one glance tells me I am needed in the kitchen. I run to kitchen to behold Milo all over the floor, down the cupboards and spilling into the drawers and under the microwave! I grit my teeth and brand myself with a cleaning cloth and all-purpose kitchen spray. Where on earth did they get the phrase "No use crying over spilt milk"?!

Before you jump to any conclusions, may I remind you that these 'incidents' are happening minutes apart. I barely get down the hallway and into the lounge room when I rush back to clean up yet another mess. Mind you, the kiddies do have times they are watching tv or taking a nap, or having a outing with mum, but apart from sleeping they are never still.

Lunch and then yet another clean up of the kitchen.

The kiddies are now watching a bit of TV, as my preschooler does cartwheels across the lounge room floor. They dance and sing to the songs of their favourite Hi 5 and Wiggles shows. The little one climbs onto my lap and cuddles up close. Fast asleep, I take him to bed and lay him down.
My 5 year old on the other hand, is busy making another cubby house, cutting paper and 'writing letters'. Stuff scattered all over the floor. I smile a feeble smile and praise her for her wonderful creativity, while inwardly chiding at yet another clean up.

At this very moment, the older kids arrive home from school to behold the aftermath of a 'little tornado' rippling through the house undoing, in her wake, all the hard work I had done that day and me slumped in the cosy chair. I haven't had a lazy day, I tell them. The look of disbelief on their faces!

When our 2 year old awakes, he runs to me to be picked up. Did I mention 'lifting weights' was also part of my daily exercise regime? Yes, a 16 kilo/35lbs toddler. For your information: 1 medium sack of rice is 15kilos; my son is one and a half times as heavy as my husband's car care tool box; and he is the same weight as 4 large bags of potatoes you find in the grocery store. Now try to imagine carrying any of the above mentioned items, wiggling and squirming, kicking and fussing!!

A favourite pastime of my toddler is to ride 'the horse' on my legs. Forget the gym and all their fancy apparatus. I have a 2 year old as my gym coach.

We had a cat once when I was a teenager, when you picked him up, he would stretch and we would proceed to 'gather' him up into our arms. He would then sit in your arms cosy-like, purring contently. Try that with a toddler who is uncooperative about going to bed - yes he stretches....but the rest of him doesn't 'gather'! Short of dragging him....(ever been in a race at a picnic, where you have a sack, one sits on it while you pull?).... yes, that's it.

Now you have it....my daily exercise regime (and a variable one at that!). Just wish it would work on those excess kilos.....an exercise regime? - Nah! I think I'll stick with a healthy eating plan thank you.

By the way, our 5 year old starts school early next year.

Copyright 2005. Rebecca Laklem.

All Things Bright and Beautiful

2005-12-23T16:44:00.000+07:00

Every so often it will come up in current affairs or the news about the battle that mothers have with the confectionery aisle and their kids. From day one, kids are known to like bright and colourful things, from the mobile hanging from the ceiling, the clown rattle, the multi-coloured lego blocks, to wrapping paper on birthday gifts.

Have you noticed from as young as 3, children can 'smell' out chocolate and lollies from a mile away?! If it so happens that she has small change, our 18 year old daughter, more often that not, will sneak a bar of chocolate in with the grocery items I had listed for her to buy. She has 'secret' hiding places for her precious chocolate - a 'must-have' for any teenage girl so they say. Our 5 year old will hunt down the chocolate or lollies hidden in unthinkable and seemingly unreachable places, yet find them she will.

You go to great pains to avoid the confectionery aisle when doing your usual grocery shopping, only to turn the corner and find chocolate eggs 'blinking' out at you in front of the baked beans and canned veges; or you would be strolling down the aisle furthest from the chocolates and party goods, only to glance back and see the dreaded hypo-energetic, sugar-loaded culprit grasped firmly in your preschooler's hands, a big beam on her face forming into a wide 'pleeese' accompanied with a huge 'who can resist this smile' smile.

By this stage, you are tired from an hour or so of pushing a heavy shopping trolley up and down the aisles, sometimes back-tracking because you just can't seem to remember which aisle the garbage bags are in, or whether it is at this end of the aisle or the other end. (Supermarket signs on each end only read half of the aisle, if you haven't already noticed).

Your toddler is growing tired of sitting in a hard metal seat getting swamped under an overflow of grocery items that can't quite fit into the trolley basket and is attempting to climb out into your arms for a cuddle. Your preschooler has been standing on the wheel-brim at the front of the trolley, going from getting down then up again, then down again, meanwhile you are concentrating hard on not 'running her over'; or she is sprinting across the aisle grabbing things off the shelves and placing them in your trolley and within moments you are putting it back as you continue on - trying to get the shopping over and done with, a constant drone coming from your lips "Don't touch that, put it back, we don't need it, leave it alone - NO! "

Your focus tunes back onto your child's beaming, pleading, conniving face, you have a decision to make, if you cave in to the pleading, melt to that irresistable smile and say that she can have the chocolate eggs, ensuring you a fairly non-eventful exit through the checkout, while you have a vision of guilt before you at your child's next dentist visit "Don't give her chocolate and lollies" he says with a look that makes you feel as if you are the only mother in the whole world who would do such a thing!

- or say NO and have a whinge-ing, non-cooperative, sullen child (God forbid if she throws a tantrum!) whom you need to keep in check with one eye and hand, whilst unloading the groceries onto the conveyor belt with the other hand and with the other remaining eye on the checkout operator making sure he doesn't double-scan an item, furthermore you are most likely cradling a tired, cranky, lead-heavy toddler on your hip at the same time.

If you do so much as get to the checkout counter without the unleasing of little people's emotions, beware your preschooler is smart - there's the chocolate and lollies display at the checkout right within her reach beckoning her to just try her hand at sneaking it out without Mum noticing. (The times I have had to return the 'stolen goods' or worse still fork out the cost of a half-eaten chocolate with the remainder smeared over face, hands and clothing)....and all this with just the first trolley-load of groceries. I have to brave it out at least one more time round and through the checkout again before I'm finished with my usual grocery shop for the family.

Mind you, I can get more in one trolley with the older kids (making it only 2 trolleys at most) but if I do, all of them have to come along. I then have SEVEN voices vying for my attention all at the same time 'helping' me shop with 'we need this and that' and a certainty of a 'panic attack' when I see the price tally running considerably higher than I budgeted due to items added to the trolley I hadn't counted on.

If my eldest daughter goes solo with the grocery shopping - close encounters of the chocolate kind!

The battle of the 'Confectionery War' is lost for yet another time.

Confectionery marketers and supermarket managers - have a heart! Let chocolates be what they are meant to be - an 'occasion'al treat and give us Mums a break - make them less enticing - no more 'Bright and Beautiful'. PLEEEESE!!!! (accompanied by a 'who can resist this smile' smile).

Copyright 2005 Rebecca Laklem.