Lulu Carter

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I have just got home after school drop off.This morning,as most mornings,I was sitting in my cafe across the road having a quick coffee and a friendly chat before racing home to organise costumes for the Halloween disco tonight.The hall is being decorated at 1pm and I have not much time before I have to go and pick up the key.So I thought I would do some quick sketches for the christmas concert costumes as well.This was the plan.

     Instead I have just got home after holding an umbrella over a fourteen year old girl while she lay where she fell after she spun off the bonnet of a car.She was running across the road with her friends dodging traffic but she was not fast enough.The lady driving to work, in the morning congestion,never had a chance at missing her.

     We all do it.I think the difference is in the way we do it?(I do not mean that to sound in anyway superior because we do all do it every day somewhere, so surely we do it differently) Kids are fast and in a hurry.They run out assuming you will stop.I see them do it every morning on their way down to the high school.I think we wait a little longer,checking for cars.If there are too many or it takes too long we wander down to the crossing.The crossing not even ten metres from where this child was hit this morning.The crossing ten metres from where we cross the road recklessly more mornings than not when we leave our school and head for coffee.

      There are some flight attendants amongst our parent group and thank heavens two of them were walking by.They remained calm and in control.A testament to their training but also to the personalities of these two women.

      Traffic stopped,people crowded around ( why do they do that????),many were trying to get hold of ambulance/family/police.These two mothers remained completely focused on this girl.When the ambulance arrived they calmly gave the required information and then turned their attention to the lady who had been driving.In the chaos,she had been a little forgotten albeit temporarily.

     The girl was initially knocked out but was then able to speak in a very little and shocked voice.She was placed on the stretcher and ,although complaining of lower back pain,was able to move slightly.She was taken away to the hospital where her mother and sister were probably waiting for her.

     People were still pausing to ask if someone had been hit and had anyone called her family yet.People with nothing whatsoever to do with the situation but who like to involve themselves.I will never understand it.I once saw so many people crowd around a woman hit by a car on a very busy street in another suburb, that they were the reason the ambulance could not get through!

     This little girl(and she was a little girl-somebodies baby)was very lucky today.Lucky that the morning traffic was a little slow,lucky that in the end she seemed to be more shocked and hurt than terribly injured.

     These things separate us from each other.Those that are able to focus on the situation ,take charge or assist,those who can do nothing but stare,and those who take it personally and get so distressed themselves that they are unable to do anything asked of them if it were needed.Affirmations that we are all wired a little differently.

     Teenagers think they are indestructible-I remember that feeling.It was amazing.It was dangerous.It used to frighten my parents.Probably because they remembered it too.

     Our children hold our hands for too short a time.The reckless superhero is just around the corner.I only hope that Georgia and her friends might slow down a bit.Even if it is just for the sanity of their parents.xx

sugar and spooks

Monsters for the little monsters!! 

My piping bag split and I ran out of green food colouring gel and the super fab lollies I found last year for eyeballs and rotten teeth seemed to have vanished this year.Also,Oliver decided he had to 'test' a lolly every time he came in to 'check' how I was getting on.

I said "Ollie that is the tenth lolly you have snuck".

"Nooooo.I had twenty of them....."!!

Still,cute little monsters shall make the teachers shudder tomorrow.Its a well known perfect match-children and sugar.I'm sure they'll thank me.........

Have a fabulously spooky Halloween! xx

no worries

There is a lovely book my mother bought for the boys earlier this year.It is called 'Silly Billy' and is about a boy finding a way to deal with all the things that worry him.Eventually he confides in his Grandmother and she tells him that she was just the same as a girl.She gives him some 'worry dolls' to take away his worries.Sweet Billy sleeps well but then get so worried about the stress he has given his "worry dolls' that he makes worry dolls for all of them too.

Oliver decided he wanted a worry doll.

"But what",I asked,"do you worry about"?

"T Rex" he told me.

Who am I to argue with that?!

xx

sweat and sandwiches

If I had asked them to "please help mummy dig up the back garden", it would have been met with"Ohhrgh..... can't we just play"????????.

Employing a little reverse psychology,(eg-leave two shovels lying around nearby as I mark out a pathway and completely ignore their curiosity-you know how it works-make it their idea......can think of another group this works particularly well for........ ) the mummy won hands down.I mean look at them-

And all I had to do was keep them supplied with avocado sandwiches and slices of watermelon!

And it took pretty much all day.Alot of that had to do with the brick transplanting that had to be done from the side path and then the weed planting/nurturing they embarked on in the dirt while their very dirty, and somewhat fed-up, mummy lugged the bricks back and forth and did her darnedest to level the sodding path that by then she was wondering why the hell she had decided she needed.We also wasted a good deal of time fashioning a coffee table out of the flooring of the old sandpit that had been dismantled and then we thought we should have tea and biscuits and sit under the umbrella!

We are aiming for rustic pretty on zero budget......always love a challenge!

 I can picture it .Easy to do if you have this book permanently open on the kitchen table.Do you do that with favourite books and inspiration pictures? I'm actually not sure its a sensible thing to do.You look at the page and go 'ahhhh" then you look up at what you actually have going on in that spot and go " grrrrrrrr".xx

happiness in a jar

There are reasons that some things are not allowed in the house.My complete lack of self control would be one of them.

Enough said.xx

mirror mirror on the wall

Who's the fairest of them all? Why you are darling.......

And when your perfect toes in your Jimmy Choos have grown weary,perch your fair being upon this and admire yourself from afar.xx

what makes a party a party?

We've had a change of plans.I know I said,during my christmas panic tirade,that our plans had changed but they have changed again and we are off to visit my little sister.We leave behind us hot sun that soaks in to your bones and school christmas concerts and Santa in board shorts.Reindeer that would much rather a nice cold drink than a bunch of 'bugs bunny' carrots and a sweltering traditional Christmas feast eaten in front of the air conditioner unit.

Thats just fine.Show me the plane and I'm buckling up -but hang on.....After the initial shock and delight that I had been booked on a flight(apparently it thrilled my sister and my husband to organise something without my say so-do they think ,for some obscure reason,that I am a control freak???I mean really!!),and a good while spent jumping around singing"I'm going to England",it suddenly hit me.No party.No big swish fabulous seventh birthday to plan for.No theme to agree on,no decorations to plan,craft to organise,menu to dream up,goodies for goody bags to hunt for.Nothing.Zip.Nada.And I thought "ohhhhhhh".

Now which human being in their right mind would mourn the stress of a children's party?Thats what you're thinking aren't you?Its ok.I totally get it.I have a serious problem and I am trying to get as much mileage as possible out of the young years because I have no burning desire to throw an adolescent /teenage party.See,get in early during the golden memory years and I'm done.Sort of.I know very well I will be folding coloured paper into all manner of shapes for a bunch of 13year olds to stick on the end of their blowers.Insanity at its most convincing and yet I know that so many of you reading this do the same things for your children parties.You enjoy the decorating ,the craft ,the baking,the designed mayhem.Its heaven.

Its not in me to throw a bunch of lollies into a plastic treat bag from the supermarket.I can't do it.I search like a woman possessed for theme appropriate goodies to go in the appropriate vessel for the kids to rip open before they get to the car.I spent weeks planning and hours executing the correct shades of green in crepe paper streamers to be strung around the garden as ' prehistoric jungle matter' and checked out the feet of my children's toy dinosaurs(Schleich because they seem quite correct in proportion) to make giant dinosaur footprints so that I could stick them through the house and the garden as though a hoard of prehistoric marvels had ravaged through our home.Destroyed by the time the final guest had arrived.

As was the 'safety zone' taped off sand pit that was full of salt dough dinosaur bones I had made the previous week and the paleontologist work station where dinosaur 'fossils' had been buried in dinosaur mud(recipe from an American museum-sorry I can't remember which one).

The papermache Stegosaurus pinata I had spent a week making, was beaten to death and trampled on by wild little boys in a frenzy.

The children wore dinosaur headbands and ate 'mud' and dinosaur sugar cookies amongst all manner of other things.It was a five year olds idea of heaven.My blossoms won't have a party any other way.

My friend who belongs to the Sea Princess was ragged at the end of her task.A task beautifully executed I might add,and having seen them in action,I do believe that little girls in mermaid outfits can really give little boys a run for their money.

Towards the end,her son went off to a joint birthday party.The mums did the logical thing of hiring a scientist.Fabulous-every six year olds dream.Accept that it wasn't.Boys went bananas,ate junk and ended up plugged in to a video for the sake of both the mums sanity.

Now,after discussing this,we somewhat agreed that that is not a memory maker.Is it? No decorations,no real food and no activity(well in theory there was but I picture the poor scientist shuddering inside his lab coat).Are we wrong to believe that unless you are in feotal position under a table somewhere, having exhausted your nerves and the champagne supply,you haven't really thrown a party?!Are we sadists??Are the parties really for us and our ideal childhood??Oh my that reclining chair is looking good.Toss me the 'no-doze' and the wine-I still have to hang the bunting and blow up the balloons.Not to mention poaching the chicken for the finger sandwiches(to go with the bubbles!)xx

underwater dreams

You know,I don't remember having a mermaid fantasy as a little girl.For me it was all about horses and decorating and dress-ups.Passions that waned over the years but never really left me.I still get all nuzzly with a friendly horse and I love nothing more than rearranging the furniture and bits and pieces in whichever place I am living in, on a regular basis.Not to mention the shopping for house goodies! And who doesn't like to frock up?!

Mermaids eluded me and yet throw an 'under the sea' themed party for a five year old girl ,as my friend did yesterday,and the blue sparkles arrive in droves.

The boys who had come dressed as sharks and various underwater divers (or an eel-Henry!),were a little overwhelmed by the sheer force of girl power that was going on! Interesting.......

I had been wanting to make the birthday girl ( The Sea Princess) a doll of sorts and it seemed, in the end,that the most appropriate thing to do was make her a mermaid.So I did.And she was fun!

awake mermaid....

asleep mermaid....

she even has a shimmery tail(but not in this photo : (  )

And the Sea Princess appropriately named her Coral.Perfect.xx

its a tough life.....

I really feel for this little guy.All safely tucked up in his box in the toy shop and then,adopted out to a nice calm family with two very quiet little boys.It should have been a fairytale....

"They warned me about this and thats ok.Its what I'm here for"

"Oh. Well thats different..."

"Hey!! Thats not right.Nobody mentioned kicking.And he's smiling!!!"

"I feel that this is where I should let you know that I feel a little dizzy.Its all I'm saying"

"heyyyyy!!!Get me back dooowwwwwnnnnnnn......."

"i don't feel well.a little giddy.oh my breakfast is moving around now....."

"land!!!yippee"

"not again...."

"i wannagobacktotheshopandiwantmymummy........."

Have a wonderful weekend!xx

pre christmas clear out

Hello lovelies! Not a real post here.Just a blab that I have dropped 30% off what is left in my etsy shop.I've been in a rut and I am starting afresh so these little creatures need homes to make room for hopefully a burst of creativity.Fingers crossed.xx