Mum & Dad

These two shared a night of passion 39 years ago, and obviously had a careless attitude to contraception, and as a result..... ME!

They were married for a short time before going on to remarry far more suitable partners, my lovely step-parents, who can far better deal with these firecracker personalities than they can each other.

They say like attracts like, and for a while that was true. The terrible twosome, the life of the party, the loud, funny whirlwinds that they were. The reasons they split is not my story to tell, but over the following years they rebuilt their relationship to the point that they can call each other friends.

And I think that is fucking awesome and something that I am forever grateful for.

Yesterday they came to Grandparents day. I always feel a bit funny when I say "Mum and Dad." in the same sentences. But when I yelled at them yesterday...

"For Christ's sake Mum and Dad, we need to go now. You can chat later...." I realised how lucky I was.

So many separations end in such bitterness that can never be resolved.

They sat in the hall, packed with grey heads, front row. They watched Jack perform in his dance group and took about 100 photos. And the end of his performance, Mum could not help herself and screamed out "Go Jack!" before they compared photos.

It is a tale of forgiveness, rebuilding connections, recognising the importance of family and a fondness for a good wine, a belly laugh and moving on.

It is a gift, much like the forgotten prophylactic circa late 1972.

Are your parents divorced?

What is the current state of play in that situation?

Or maybe you might be the one trying to rebuild?

How are you finding it?

The Mother of all Hosts is my Mum.

An actual example of what my Mum knocks together each Christmas.

All species covered.

She is fully saintly when it comes to hosting.

I have 3 sisters and one brother. All but one has a partner. There are 7 grandkids involved. There is Mum and my beautiful StepDad. That is 19 people altogether. And this year we are all under the one roof at the Parentals. We are having the mother of all sleepovers.

Brace yourselves. We are a-coming!

They live just far away enough not to drive back home,  and to be honest when we get together there is no way anyone should be having a set of car keys on them, if you catch my drift.

My sister Mrs Ryan actually lives around the corner from Mum but they bought a totally beautiful dump a while back and all thoughts of being in their new place by Christmas was abandoned long ago. So they have moved in with the oldies in the interim, bringing along with them 2 dogs, 2 cats and I cannot remember how many guinea pigs. Mum has two dogs as well. That is a LOT of dogshit for the kids to tramp through the house. Lucky they live on a few acres.

AND (shhh I have not told Mum yet) I only just rang up to book our menagerie into the boarding kennels and the lady laughed and laughed at me,  so add another cat and two more guinea pigs to the list.

So with that many people under one roof,  and the weather set to piss down rain for the day, I have devised a plan than will most certainly see a repeat of the year my sisters and I did some table top dancing to "Hey Big Spender" complete with full body shimmers and top hats.

You will need one, two,three a few bottles of Vodka O. I use Vodka O as it is the least likely to give me a headache the next day. You will also need to gather lime cordial, mint leaves, ice, soda and fresh limes.

Oh and a cocktail shaker,  but if you do not have one (and I have been caught out in the past) you can use a clean tin and the end of a rolling pin to smash up your core ingredients. So into the shaker place ice, a decent slosh of vodka, lime cordial (we use the diet version as we are trying to be healthy) a roughly chopped lime or two and fresh torn mint leaves. Then pop the lid on and shake the shit out of it,  making sure that the ice pulverises the limes and mint so that it really infuses the vodka.

Pour this concentrate over ice it a long glass. Top with super fizzy soda. I bought Mr Woog a Soda Stream a few years back (always a romantic gift - the gift of gas) so we always have it on hand.



Now the trick to maintaining this buzz all afternoon is to drink your Cocktail and keep topping it up with soda, to ensure continued hydration and to stop you from getting too messy and picking a fight with one of your siblings who may be behaving like a fuckwit.

And with that handy tip, I truly wish you and yours a happy and safe Christmas.

Thanks for the laughs this year, and by that I mean laughing AT me, not WITH me.

Love Mrs Woog

Is Your Christmas all Donna Hay-ish and Dom Perignon?

Or are you more of a Donna Kebab and Bundy Family.....

As we head towards Xmas, my thoughts turn to packing for a few days away, to hang out with our families.

My Aunty Pat's Tips on Staying Young.

Inspiring no?

How My Mum came to be a Buddhist

No blog post today because I am busy chasing my tail like a puppy on crack. So I invite you instead to click over to my little sister's blog to discover why our Mum is a Buddhist. Click the picture.

(Mum is third from the left in the back row.)

Why we will never be the perfect family.

Easter Long weekend started off totally shit house.

Me and my 4 siblings were supposed to converge on Mum and (step) Dad's place to indulge in some shits and giggles, wine and food, song and slanging matches. All your traditional holiday past-times.

Then the day before, we got some terrible news that sent us reeling. My younger sister Little Miss Lawyer suddenly lost her beloved Mother in Law due to complications following her latest round of chemotherapy. This woman was a wonderful, warm, family-centric lady with a fondness for whiskey and a laugh that drew people around her. Her family and ours are devastated and it has left me wondering how the family unit can unite and move forward without the matriarchal glue that she provided.

We all gathered together anyway to kick on with our own family Easter Festivus without Little Miss Lizzy, Geoff and their kids. It felt strange and I had them in my mind for the entire weekend.

On Saturday my sister Mrs Ryan and I decided to check out the sales at Penrith. Penrith is not my usual shopping destination of choice because, well, it is Penrith. And it took all my urges not to go and get a tattoo and eat Krispy Kreme donuts. Or have 4 more kids. And before you jump down my throat for extreme generalisations, go and spend the morning there. If you are feeling really bad about yourself, take a tour through the food court and you will come out of it feeling on top of the world. I have a westie pedigree so I can get away with saying shit like that. And coke is still in baby bottles there. No baby teeth means they cannot rot yet.

My sister is not known for her taste in shoes. Her clothes are getting better but I still tease her about wearing Double Denim to a Camilla Franks runway show I took her to last year. And not in the cool way magazines suggest.

So I was delighted when she found these and purchased them all on her own. On sale at Sportsgirl. (When did Sportsgirl get good again?)

They make a nice change from her usual shoe of choice......
And shit all over her weekend shoe selection.

I treated myself to a new scarf. Jag. Yum.

And a totally plain but practical cardi which I might lend to Mrs Ryan to wear with her Kumfs.

We celebrated by eating a Kebab and heading back to Mum's place where a feast awaited.

Now my mum can cook. Man she can cook. Without a recipe. She is the type that can cook an incredible meal for 20 people while half drunk. On the menu was Figs stuffed with goats cheese, wrapped in prosciutto then baked, Oven roasted basil tomatoes, Roasted Beef with her famous horseradish gravy, 2 stuffed and roasted chickens that literally melted in your mouth, beans and a huge platter of roasted veggies. It was sublime. And I ate like it was my last meal. Mr Woog did not speak during the entire dinner as his mouth was too busy being stuffed with all the goodness. It felt weird not having Little Miss Lawyer and her crew there.

After dinner Jazz Hands Jack turned dinner into Dinner and A Show and did a poncy camp version of Bruno Mars I Think I Wanna Marry You, if that song could get any poncier.......

Then dessert came which was streamed caramel pudding. Oh. My. God.

I have failed to mention the ten thousand bottles of wine that we washed all the glorious food down with, because that seems to paint us in an unflattering light and I have already mentioned the trip to Penrith plus the kebab.

Oh who am I kidding! Those chooks were not the only thing that were roasted. We sat around the fire, drank wine and watched the rugby. At the end of the game we all had a nip of whisky in a toast to Little Miss Lawyers wonderful mother in law. The Reds won in case you are interested. I did not care last night and I care even less today.

Mrs Ryan was having problems trying to speak and focus at the same time. Mum then thought a few Cointreau on ices might help her hydrate. I opted for sleep.

This morning screamed around all too quickly and before I knew it the Catholic Ryans were back from church and ready for the Easter egg hunt. When one of her kids suggested he was hungry, Mrs Ryan was quick to quip "For god's sake, you have already eaten the body of Christ today." which was both appallingly inappropriate and highly amusing. The Easter egg hunt was an ungraceful frenzy of snatchy grabby behaviour and mum gave me a packet of Darrel Lea Caramel snows which went well with my slight hangover. But I needed a bit of grease.

My sister's fauxmance Tim started up the BBQ while seedy Mrs Ryan and I sat and watched him with our coffees and yelled at him. "Dance motherfucker dance!" until mum came out of the kitchen and told us to stop swearing.

Cue the bacon and egg rolls.

The kids were not present during this time because they were having their way with their chocolate haul. A fact that came to light at the end of our hour long journey back to the city where on arrival Harry chundered chocolate chunks.

We will never be that perfect family. That perfectly dressed, appropriately behaved bunch who are considerate and polite. We struggle to keep our opinions to ourselves so there are wonderful and colourful exchanges at each gathering. Last nights was no exception.

We will never be that perfect family, but my family is perfect for me.

Brother from another Mother?

I sometimes wonder if my boys have the same father. They are like chalk and cheese. I am pretty sure they share the same genes though. But unless there was a mix up at the hospital, they are true brothers. And the both share traits from there parents that are undeniable.

Allow me to explain.

Harry has a "whatever"streak that stems from my attitude to most things. His weekend footwear of choice is one croc and one thong, simply because he cannot find either matching pair. He has a propensity to over indulge in the culinary stakes, a trait directly stemming from Mr Woog and myself. He always looks a bit scrappy. He is addicted to iphones and ipads like me. He is obsessed with Dr Chris Brown, like me. He is the class clown and will do anything for a laugh..... like me. He is prone to sudden outbursts and mood swings. Like me.

He lost his drink bottle on the first day of school so now he is resigned to the fact that he is a bubbler boy for a while. But he does not care. Sometimes he wears undies to school. Sometimes he does not. Yesterday he bought home some other kids lunch box.

And on Wednesday, I did the kiss and drop school run and Harry had left his bag at home. I am all like "Harry you need to be more responsible" and gave him a lecture. I later drove back up to the school to drop it in, only to discover once I had parked that I too had left the bloody bag at home.

Jack gets up at 6.30am and gets dressed from head to toe in the correct school uniform, only adding variation when he wishes to wear a headband. When I ask them to get in the car each morning, he is sitting upright with belt fastened before I have finished the sentence while Harry starts looking for his school shoes. He loves rules and routines and shrieks in horror if he discovers someone violating them.

He is all over the school rules. He wants to be the best he can be. I am quite often scalded by him in the afternoon when I pick him up, for not waiting in the right spot. He observes unjust treatment and reports it in at regular intervals. He wears his backpack with pride and always with the hip belt done up. When he gets home, he unpacks the correct lunchboxes and places them on the sink before enquiring after afternoon tea.

Harry is a scientist and Jack is an entertainer.

Mr Woog's genetic influence can also be found in each of them. Like Harry, he shares a love of motorbikes, food and outdoor pursuits. They are both built the same way.

Mr Woog and Jack share the same love of routine and rules. Perhaps it can be classified as a mild case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Mr Woog comes home, has a shower, sniffs around the kitchen looking for something to eat and cracks open a beer. He unpacks his man bag, checks his phone and takes the kids outside for some manly time. You could almost set your clock by Mr Woog. At 6pm they are all in the kitchen where Jack likes to set the table each night, complete with a fresh picked bunch of flowers.

Depending on everyone's state of mind after dinner, we sometimes embark on a game of UNO which generally brings out the worst character traits in everyone. Mr Woog almost always wins as he is a strategic thinker. I usually just want the game to end asap. If Jack wins he screams with delight and yells "In Your Face!" and if he loses he retires for the evening sobbing in his bed. Harry is all like "whatever, can I have dessert?". I am not sure why I continue to torture myself suggesting this game. It just always seems like a good idea a the time.

And there are rare glimpses of similarities. As they grow older I can see that opposites can attract. I was delighted and surprised to see them playing with lego in the back yard this week. I almost fell over when I spotted them sharing the ipad nicely on the couch and this morning, I almost shed a tear when I saw Harry take Jack's hand and walk him into school.

But as I looked back over family photos with them this week after Nagy's funeral, pointing out all their relative (26 in our immediate family) I realised that you cannot choose your family, but I am dead proud of the ones that I made.

Mrs Woog's Dad Guest Posts

Handing over the reins of WoogsWorld today to my Dad. Enjoy!

Who am I?

As today's guest, I am referred to in Mrs Woog's 50 Random Facts from the Woog File in numbers 4 ,6, and 26

I have been "rostered on" in Bali this week.

I am married to the WSM (The Wicked Stepmother - a self designated description)

Now you know.

I am Mrs Woog's Dad.

I am fully responsible for the maiden surname.

I am (partly) responsible for Mrs Woog being on this earth.

Mrs Woog is a hard act to follow in the writing and creative stakes!

I am trying to come to grips with what could possibly be of interest from me to Mrs Woog's dominant demographic, which I perceive to be Yummy Mummies.

For example, in terms of product endorsement, there's not much a 66-year-old can offer this demographic that would be of interest to advertisers (Zimmer Frames, Retirement Homes, Adult Diapers etc).

On the other hand, I could strongly endorse Bintang Pilsener and Deus Ex Machina.

I shall restrict myself to some reflections which may relate to your own dads:

• I take great pleasure in watching my beautiful grandchildren grow up and experience life's vagaries.
• I chuckle at the characteristics the grandkids display - eerily similar to those displayed by their parents at similar ages.
• I marvel at the patience and sacrifice Mrs Woog and Mrs Ryan and their husbands demonstrate towards their children.
• I look forward to my son enjoying fatherhood some day.
• I weep at the grandkids' misfortunes and rejoice and brag about their achievements.
• I am honoured to be included among my children's' expanded families and circles of friends.
• I am amused to observe Mr Woog and Mr Ryan deal with my feisty daughters.
• I am in awe of nature and mankind, and how it all evolves so logically - nowhere better proven than in families.
• I am inspired by my family to avoid becoming a conniptive curmudgeon (to save all you YM's going to the Macquarie Dictionary, it means "disagreeable Old Man!)
• I suspect that I am going to learn much more from all the people mentioned above in the remainder of my life than I ever taught them.

Thank you for letting me share your day, and remember, the only thing you get by looking back in life is a sore neck!

Dad of Mrs Woog