Having babies is a competitive sport.
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Now usually it is generally held that, out of the genders, the male of the species is the most competitive. Not so. Hang around any primary school before the bell goes for home time and you will get the latest scores on who has the most kids, who had the longest labour/shortest labour/most difficult labour, worst kids, best kids, biggest bump, most nightmarish hospital stories, the quickest time for potty training etc etc.

A case in point: heavily pregnant mum at school last week due on the Thursday. I saw her on Monday this week, still undelivered. Didn't see her Tuesday, but saw her yesterday which was WEDNESDAY with a new little baby all swaddled up. Now that's just showing off. But it's a new school record!! Oh, and this is baby number five, too. No doubt by next week she will be svelte and wearing lycra and booking her cover girl shoot with Women's Weekly. Or maybe she'll manage to squeeze it in for this Friday.


Now, if she holds the shortest record for confinement, then I am sure I hold the longest ! Yes, dear readers, if there was an Olympic event for women-who-stayed-in-hospital-after-birth-though-nothing-was
-wrong-with-them-and-just-because-it-was-the-closest-thing-to
-a-holiday-they-were-likely-to-have-for-a-long-time-and-besides
-they-really-thought-the-food-was-great-since-someone-else
-cooked-it-and-waited-on-them, then I'd be the winner! Seven days of resort lifestyle! Ahh the bliss. I love those bendy straws! (But those nurses could have been a bit more helpful with the sun tan oil.)

Now I wonder, do you ever get the feeling that the competition is in overdrive for celebrities? Who is winning at the moment: Mia Farrow, Madonna or Angelina Jolie?? I've lost track. Think it's still Mia - but are all her adopted kids from the same place or does she have an international variety because that counts. Of course, speaking of Angelina, she is actually doing quite well in all the stakes since now she is having twins - which is worth bonus points and narrows the field to an elite group of contenders. But I definitely think Posh still holds the cup for Most Gaunt Most Soon After Birth, though Nicole Richie runs a close second (No, Angie you are disqualified from that one at the moment, remember?). And Mrs Mel Gibson holds the biological numbers record with seven (and all from one marriage which is certain to be another record in Hollywood!) Robyn Gibson is like one of those Olympic Athletes at the end of the Games with a multitude of medals thick around her neck.

Sigh*

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Well, I have my own bronze, silver and gold and before fights start, let me just say that those places are interchangeable and everyone gets a turn!

Where's a nurse when you need her?

I need help with the banana lounge.

Errrrrrrrrr.. ,,,, death to all lemon trees.

There was lemon-flavoured carnage at my house an hour or so after midnight last night. "Whack! Whack! Whack!" only a bit of gyprock, R3 insulation and western red cedar separated the pounding blows of the lemons from my temples. Oh why didn't I prune that bloody tree when I could have? A bit of wind and a bit of rain and a non-brick house is all it takes to turn fruit into wrecking balls. Poor ol' InstantJim got up and voluntarily went out into the howling wind and rain and darkness with the chompers for citric destruction. In his slippers. And jammies. Despite the boogey man. How noble is that?!

(Just as well Little Pig No. 3 had gone on poo-patrol earlier that afternoon when it was fine. It's amazing the output of two Irish Setters. I think it exceeds the input. Professor Julius Sumner Miller probably had a formula for it.)


So today we are all trying to see past the bloodshot capillaries in our eyes, which is not good since Little Pig No. 1 has her final mid-year exam this morning. Poor kid. I know! I'll do what I did last time and sit in a circle with the dogs in the lounge room and send her our collective brainwaves! That'll work.

Ommmmmmmm.

Why is it so?

I dunno.

And now for some light entertainment:





Sorry, that's a Sumner Miller joke.

Blame the lemon.