"A few Home Truths: A Lecture in Reality" by Child 4

Child 4 here, Ladies.

My mother seems to have you all believing she's something she's not. She's no grandiose home maker, let me tell you!

Let's look at a few "home truths" shall we? Let's cut straight to it ... I hope you're reading this, Child 5 of Annie 'cause you could probably relate.

House -
We don't live in a Hacienda! We live in an old Queenslander! Hoity-toity Mother refuses to acknowledge its architectural importance to the area.

Mothering Skills A -
Are extremely wanting, I'm afraid.

Example - Mother knows that I have my daily 'nappy constitutional' between 6am to 7am. The other morning when I summonsed her at 5:30am, she dutifully gave me a bottle in her bed, as it is much wamer than mine. Despite noticing my nappy was sodden, she returned me to my fortressed bed-cubicle-apparatus, and she returned to her comfortable large bed where she has Father to chat to.

I have no one to chat to but Miffy and Dolly and Japanese Miffy-imposter and Curtain.

When Mother returned to me at 6:30am she, deservedly, discovered a veritable "poo explosion" in my Huggies.

A biological weapon had literally gone off in my pants and, the predictible result was, there were severe casualties down the inside of both my pyjama legs. You should have heard Mother scream like a banshee when she got poo on her fingers.

At least I scored a nice warm bath out of it.

Mothering Skills B -
Mother lets us watch lots of television because she says it keeps us out of trouble and out of her way.

She even watches it herself.

Her favourite programme is Captain Mack. She comes running when she hears the theme tune. And when it's on she laughs like a hyena and says, "Shush! Shush! I can't hear what Captain Mack's saying!" And then when it's finished she marches off and tells us to "Turn that television down!"

Her Motherly 'Look':
Mother dresses like a frump. All the Mummies at school pick-up are pretty, with lipstick on and lovely shoes. They all smile a lot and kiss their children with their sticky lipsticky-lips.

Mother frowns a lot, wears old sandshoes and says, "Hurry up! Hurry up! Captain Mack's on in 15 minutes!"

Motherly food preparation:
This was last night's dinner. Mother calls it "Chicken Nuggets and Potatoes and If You Don't Eat It There's Nothing Else".

Not a green vegetable in sight! Even then, she made Father prepare it earlier because she was carrying-on about being home alone with the 4xChilds at dinnertime while Father was at work.

Often she doesn't even give me a plate. She serves my lunch straight on my plastic-straitchair-contraption.

So I do this ...

And this! So there, Mother!

Sloppy Motherly Housework: Mother whines about the amount of washing she has to fold ... she'd be on top of it if she didn't sit at her computer all day ... waiting for the five comments she eventually gets on her 'blog', which always has the same sort of pictures ... and then she snickers all day at the stupidity that she writes. She fails to tell you she needs my help with spelling and grammar and punctuation.

Can't think for her Motherly-self: See, she carries me around all the time, telling people that I can't walk. She carries me around because she needs my advice on everything! Here I am telling her to 'Do some washing up, lady!'

Motherly Sewing: Mother thinks she can sew! She can't. She sews the same simple things over-and-over-and-over-and-over.

How many more bloomers can she make me? Am I to wear large, frilly floral underpants for the rest of my life? Why has someone who can't sew got three sewing machines? She only breaks them.

Rubbish Motherly furniture: Mother likes to convince herself that she has nice furniture. Much of it comes from Grandma and Grandad.

She tells herself this is a good Hardoy Chair! It's nothing of the sort ... she found it at the side of the road. And it's a Target Hardoy-chair rip-off! Hasn't she heard of Space Furniture? Or upholsterers?

Mean to animals with Mothers: Mother threw half a cucumber at a Buzzard the other day.

Then she said something that sounded like "cup cakes" when the Buzzard started to peck at the cucumber.

See ladies? Mother's not what you think ... she lives in a fantasy world, when in reality it's ME that's struggling to keep things together.

I don't know what she did before I was born!