Countdown

God, I am so contrary. As soon as I declare that I won’t do something, I instantly want to do it. Cue the desire to blog. I am also bored. Am sitting around at the moment waiting for my parents to come home for Jehsah, having laid the table out, brought out the booze, incense and candles, I have nothing left to do. I know my dad is going to laugh at my table laying efforts, because I always do it wrong. I put out all the food and arrange it to look pretty, but apparently there are ‘rules’ for what goes where, and I never remember them.

I also just want to state here and now, if I haven’t stated it before- my family is nuts. Truly freaking nuts. Even the more normal members of our family have a couple of sanity issues, which is mostly remarkable because from the outside, we would seem to be perfectly functional human beings, if a tad boisterous when we’re placed all together in a room. Which is why I’m approaching the next couple of months with caution:

All members of the family are undertaking a countdown- in exactly six weeks everybody will be in Australia. Both my sisters, their husbands, their daughters, and my brother will be back in the country for Chinese New Year, and I’ll be moving back home while they’re here. This is pretty darn exciting for us, as hanging out for the holidays in Melbourne has always been so much fun. I can’t tell you how much we look forward to this every year. It is even more exciting, because even though individually we’ve gone to visit each other, we haven’t ALL been together for a couple of years now, mainly due to the all the popping out of babies.

This is new territory however. We have never had four kids running around (all under the age of four mind you) at the same time. There are the usual problems involved- diapers, strollers, car seats (argh- two in each car- and we’ll definitely need to rent a car also), night time baths, night time bedding rituals, feeding schedules, eating preferences, volatile baby temperments, potty issues (there are ALWAYS potty issues, even the trained ones)- these are all manageable to a degree. But four all at once? If one kid wakes up crying in the middle of the night (not an unusual occurence) then you have potentially three others to deal with. Same goes for putting them to bed, having one of them wake up early in the morning- add to that the potential for them getting jealous of the others, having to share a limited amount of toys etc. and it’s a rather precarious situation. I’m telling you these are “good” kids, but the best of kids, are just that- kids. No matter how angelic they and good tempered they are- throw in the fact they’re in a new hectic environment with other children, and it’s a catalyst for disaster, especially in the heat.

And not only with the kids- have I mentioned that my family is crazy? This is the breeding ground for really bringing out the full nature of their nuttiness. I’m telling you. Fireworks are coming. Case in point, I was talking to one of my sister’s recently and she said:

“So Jenny, you do realise that Sis S and I going to have a huge blowup, it’s going to get really awkward, you’re going to be stuck in the middle, and then you’re going to sit there and judge us for the rest of trip. I’m just telling you, be prepared.”

To which I could only reply, “what makes you think I don’t judge you now?” If there is one thing I can say for my family, it’s that you can’t say that they’re not self aware…

Even so, I SO excited, I am literally counting the sleeps. Damn them, even with the crazy I love them to bits (it helps that they’re accompanied by the cutest children EVER).