If you’ve been following the story, Ian had been asked to do a sperm sample for the fertility clinic.  To achieve optimum sperm, he was asked to abstain from sexual activity for 5 days and not to smoke or drink alcohol during this period.  If anyone knows Ian personally, they would know this was a big ask! He loves his after-work beer and he was going to give up smoking when Mia was born…she is about to turn five. So evidently it’s a difficult habit for him to kick!

After being grumpier than usual all week, and I swear Oscar the Grouch is Ian’s twin, he arranged to finish work at 3pm on Friday.  He went home and “did his thing” and drove to the Toowoomba branch of QFG to drop off his sample, as we had checked the day before and it clearly stated it closed at 4pm.  At 3:34pm I received the following photo and text:

“What a fucking waste!”

Oh dear.  To say he was fuming was an understatement.  He still hasn’t seen the funny side and will probably not appreciate this blog, but seeing as he doesn’t really read them and remarked that “I was no Constance Hall” the other night, you can have the full story!  In disgust at the whole situation, Ian took himself off to drink copious amounts of alcohol with his work mates and we can’t try again next week as we will be on the Coast, but will be back to the drawing board the week after…hopefully!  Maybe the universe really doesn’t want us to have another baby!

It had been a fairly uneventful week up until that point.  It was end of month assessment deadlines at work, Wednesday was my last full day of the week and I started the day with 15 assessments and a 25 assessment target, so had a lot of work to do.  This however coincided with a ridiculous number of students in my class having some kind of personal crisis which meant they had to leave early (oh the stories they tell you!), so I had to enforce a “you can leave my room once you’ve handed in an assessment” policy!  One student managed to delete his entire double unit assessment from his memory stick so we couldn’t recover it and one student dropped his phone on my bare foot from a great height, which meant I was hobbling around like the kind of old beggar woman you see in a Disney film.  Who knew the corner of a mobile phone could inflict so much pain?!  I stayed up until the early hours marking and then dragged Mia into work the next day, but I eventually made my target!  Can’t wait to do it all again next month!?

Mia had also been having an uneventful, well-behaved week up until Thursday, so naturally she had to have the mother of all meltdowns to make up for the serenity!  At the local shopping centre, they had a virtual reality snowball game activity running for the school holidays.  Mia had begged me to have a go over lunch and both her and her little friend were so excited lining up.  However as soon as the helper tried to put the helmet on her, she started screaming that it was scary and refused to wear it.  This would have been fine, if she hadn’t also refused to come out and give someone else a turn! So we did a ridiculous to-ing and fro-ing dance of “I want to do it!”  “NO!!!! It’s too scary!” for way too long while an ever-expanding queue of people looked on at the crazy sideshow!?Meanwhile her little friend was patiently waiting to start the game. With her helmet on I might add!

In the end, I had to drag her out screaming and crying as I had to get home for tutoring.  She wailed at the top of her lungs all the way to the car, which is especially great when you have parked on the rooftop level and are currently on the Ground floor!? I finally managed to get her to stop crying in the car by saying “Why don’t you play with your new Happy meal toy?!” (Nice work Mum, I was thinking.) “Where is it?” she asked.  “Well where did you put it?” I asked her.  “Back in the box.” she replied.  “And where did you put the box?” (I knew the answer before the question was out of my mouth!) “In the bin!” 3….2….1….”WAAAAH!!!!!!!! This is the WORST. DAY. EVER!!!!!!”  Cue renewed crying the whole drive home!?

When I received the sperm-gate text from Ian on Friday, I was actually at the hair salon.  I was trying a new place as I had a voucher and you can’t pass up an opportunity to save a few pennies, can you?! I had called up a week prior and booked in for a colour and cut, bought Mia a new magazine to keep her quiet and arrived 5 minutes early feeling all smug and organised for the first time in too long!  I had been shown to a seat, when one of the employees came over and asked for my name again.  She went off and reappeared and then said they didn’t have me down….I was only in the wrong hair salon, wasn’t I?! I had gone to Westridge when I should have been at the Ridge.  Well they will all have similar names, won’t they?! And it was a chain in my defence!  Luckily a few phone calls, a 5 minute drive and a bit of a run through a shopping centre and it was all fixed! Unfortunately the running and changing had Mia way too hyper and she was dancing about the salon floor like it was her stage, so we tried to bribe her to sit down by promising her braids if she was good.  Then the stylist made the rookie mistake of telling a loyal Elsa fan that her braids could be just like Anna’s! “NOOOO! I don’t like Anna! She has poo poo brown hair!!!” she yelled indignantly! In a room full of brunettes might I add!???? “MIA!!!” I scolded.  Mortified that everyone might think that I had promoted this irrational attack on brown hair by getting my hair coloured blonde, I attempted to vindicate myself, by announcing “I would like pink hair today please!”  I hadn’t actually planned on having that when I walked in, I was just going to freshen up my roots, but I just needed to deflect the attention away from Mia’s statement!  So I walked out with pink hair and Mia walked out with ELSA braids, but we were both happy, so all’s well that ends well! Phew!

Pink hair, not blonde or poo poo brown!

Elsa, not Anna, braids!

At the weekend we were in Brisbane for Frozen On Ice, which I had purchased as an early birthday present for Mia.  I hadn’t told her, so when I laid out her Elsa costume on the bed, she was obviously full of questions.  Trying to build up the excitement, I just said we were going somewhere very special and all would be revealed shortly.  As we sat in the queue to enter the car park, I thought I would film her reaction as I did the big reveal.  You know those really cute videos that you see where the parent reveals the surprise and the child is so overwhelmed that they weep with happiness?  Well ours was nothing like that.  “You know how we went to see Disney on Ice last year and you loved it?!” “Yeah.” “Well you know how you’re dressed as Elsa? We’re going to a special Frozen on Ice which is all about Frozen!!!” “…oh.”  What?!?! I’d paid extra for VIP tickets for that reaction?!?! “Aren’t you excited?!?!” I asked incredulously.  “But I’ve already been to the ice.”  “Yes, but this is a different show all about Frozen!” “…Oh.” “You loved Disney on Ice last year, didn’t you?!” “…yeah?” she shrugged.  Needless to say that video was deleted!?

Luckily when she started seeing the crowds her excitement started to build and by the time we got to our seats, she was as enthusiastic as I was hoping she would be when I pressed record!  She was actually pretty star-struck to see the “real” Elsa and Anna and I turned to look at her at one point and she had her hand up straight in the air.  “What are you doing, Mia?!” I probed.  “Waiting to ask them a question!” she said.?

“I’m hungry!” Mia moaned, shortly before the interval.  Of course she was.  And of course in the rush to get here, I hadn’t packed our own snacks.  “What would you like?” “Candy floss please.” Pure sugar. What a great idea! Rather than queue up for a month at the kiosks, I spotted a young guy walking around selling candy floss so went up and asked for a bag.  “$17 please.”  What the actual?!?! I thought I must have misheard him, so asked for clarification. The guy looked a little sheepish, so was well aware of what a humongous rip-off this was.  “You do get a tiara and some stickers with it too.” he attempted to justify.  I considered walking away and going to the kiosk but figured the queues there would take too long, especially now we’d been faffing here and now she was expecting candy floss, there would probably be an almighty tantrum if she couldn’t have it.  So I stupidly paid it.  She did wear her tiara, which lessened the blow a smidgen.

“Remember you said I could pick a souvenir on the way out, Mummy!”  Why do they have such amazing memories when it benefits them?! After several unsuccessful attempts to steer her towards a cheaper alternative, she chose a light-up, spinning wand for, wait for it…$32!  Yep, almost identical to ones you can get at shows or Kmart for about $5, except they don’t say Frozen On Ice on them!  Already perturbed by the amount this outing had cost, my card decided to decline with a long queue of people behind me! I tried inserting and swiping but it flashed up as expired!!! Luckily I had a back up credit card, otherwise I would have been mortified!

Modelling ridiculously priced tiara and wand!?

We got back to our friends’ apartment and while we chatted/sorted dinner, the girls went off to play.  After realising they were suspiciously quiet, I shouted to ask what they were doing.  “Making a potion!”came the reply. Cue lots of giggling which tweaked my interest further.  “What are you using? Water?” “No, just your make-up!”??? I sprinted into the bathroom to be greeted by this:

The remnants of my foundation, toothpaste, moisturiser and eye cream

If it was any consolation, they had used my friend’s stuff as well, so I wasn’t being singled out.?

God, I needed a break!  Well we were off for some relaxation at the Coast the following day, so that would be just what the doctor ordered.  What could possibly go wrong?!