As for me, well I’ve been kind of busy.

Feel free to speculate on originator and circumstances in the comments section.

Hint: it wasn’t me, but it was fortunately enough fibre-filled, formed and still steaming when I discovered it smack-bang in the middle of my loungeroom.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have a big pile of shit to clean up, and I am not speaking figuratively this time.

I spent this morning cleaning.

Actually, since the above sentence makes it sound like I’ve gone all 50’s housewife and shall duly invite you all over for a dinner consisting of three courses, none of which I’ve fucked up in any way and at least one of which nessecitates competant use of my oven, I shall begin again.

I spent this morning scrubbing clean every damn millimetre of grout between every single tile in my entire house with the aid of something that has a cleaning action best described as somewhere between ‘paint stripper’ and ‘partial thickness burns’. With a toothbrush. Slowly.

Because that seems to be how I roll when I am under pressure.

Don’t worry, although I admit I was tempted, I used an old toothbrush and not one of LS’s.

Also, on the plus side and trying to see the silver lining in the fact that the skin on my hands is now so very dessicated that touching things sets my teeth on edge, if I do turn into the kind of apron-sprouting woman who knows how long to cook a roast without risking serving guests either meat so rare that a rapid combination of CPR and defibrillation may restore circulation to the departed beast in question, or alternately and more irretrievably a round lump of smoking charcoal…..well.

If I discover a hitherto deeply hidden talent with hair rollers and turn into one of those women who don’t drink their alcohol out of tumblers merely because the proper wine glasses are an utter bastard to fit in the dishwasher, and you do all come over to admire my table settings, I guess you better squeeze in a compliment on my grout as well.

No, that’s not an euphamism for anything, either.

Things are strange around these parts, and I’m not sure how best to describe the state of play.

LS and I talk perfectly civilly to one another. Mostly. I keep the swearing to under my breath.

I still want to rip his silly head off barehanded and slap him with the wet end when he admonishes one of the twins not to walk on the tiles lest they fall, hit their head and die.

We cuddle in bed before going to sleep at night. He still generally ruins the fragile peace by telling me I really need to shape up and work on the things that displease him.

I barely resist the urge to shove his head clean up his own bottom just so he can’t say any more stupid things. Mostly because he does try to say them nicely, I think.

In paranoid mode, I check his old text messages and read such pearlers as one from his best mate recommending he slip me a drug touted as a surefire way to have a wife in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom. Obviously he’s not been completely straight with best mate about the underpinnings of the sex drought around these parts.

Oh, and then there’s all the ones from someone interstate who I do not know in the least, but who sure seems to want to know how some of LS’s ‘talks’ with myself have gone down. They also seem to be of the  ’miss you’, ‘thinking of you’ and ‘wish you could be here’ persuasion when it comes to my husband.

With x’s.

Clearly I cannot interrogate LS on the matter since they were never mine to read in the first instance and I shall only come off as an untrusting nutbag if I let on I know. Besides, I have bigger things to worry about than some harlot who in all probability exists only in my worried mind and conveniently a very safe distance away.

I’m trying. He’s trying. We shall see.

He is the man who wept and roared with grief when we found out our first baby would invariably die.

If I close my eyes I can still see him rocking Saag and Naan not long after they were born, telling them how very glad he was to meet them at long last.

It’s hard, sweating the little things when I know the frame of the big picture is quite different. Now, if only I can hold onto that thought.

On the subject of doom and gloom, since I appear to be positively wallowing in figurative sh!t these days (and really should do something about that damn fan because I can’t resist throwing it in that general metaphorical direction), I have a question for you, oh wise Internet.

Well, a question for those of you who have had the misfortune to have joined the big club of poor thirty somethings with twins minus assets and minus spouses. Oh, and with a mortgage one can’t possibly pay solo.

It’s not if I will ever have s.e.x again should the current delicate state of affairs go tits up, because right now that sounds positively divine to me.

It’s not if I really will enjoy finding the toilet seat in the position I left it as much as I anticipate I would, because clearly I will be quietly delighted not to nearly fall down the blasted thing while stepping in a puddle of misdirected pee at 3am ever again.

It’s not if I shall ever regain my sense of humour, because that seems relatively intact, too.

It’s THIS.

Just how does this sort of thing actually go, anyway? Gory detail, please.

Will I be homeless, assetless, single and likely to stay that way on the grounds that, well, there ain’t no way in heck I am allowing anybody new to see my heavily used abdomen?

WIll I really have to crawl back to a parent’s house with my tail between my legs and in debt since the alternative shall truly be living in a box under some bridge somewhere? I love my folks, but pride dictates I plump for option ‘box’. When winter rolls around  that could be rather problematic.

Do I really have to bloody share the Indian Takeaways? I am not good at sharing things I hold dear to my heart with people that I am Not Getting On With, as mean-spirited and horrible as that makes me sound.

Also, should I feel as ashamed as I do, simply because this is the first time in my coddled life I have ever come close to properly screwing up and seriously belly-flopping failing at something?

I am pathetic and idle minds want to know.

I also want to know if anybody else would do me the honour of cross-pollinating in December? I can be persistant to the point of irritation about that sort of thing. Also, if you haven’t emailed me back when I emailed YOU, why I shall have to start stalking your blogs and gently checking.

I’m good at threats.

This is a post that I need to preface with a heavy sigh and a ‘what now?’

I’ve not been writing as much as is my wont of late. I could blame the twins, work, life and a sudden deep and time-consuming obsession with handwashing every single item of laundry individually in a misdirected attempt to get the dribble stains out, but it wouldn’t be true.

I could even tell you a funny story about how LS has, rather inappropriately, taught Naan to grab her euphemistic moneymaker when he says the magic word ‘flaps!’, but I don’t really feel like it.

I could tell you how Saag has taken a carpet-risking fancy to removing her own nappy and belting around the house at warp speed stark naked, collapsing in a foot stomping hissy-fit at all the Oppression By The (Wo)Man when I insist that babies to whom ’potty training’ is merely a nice collection of syllables must keep their leaky bits covered, thank-you-very-much. But I don’t want to do that either.

I could write this under password, but for now I won’t. Mostly because I am not really writing anything here that LS and I have not bashed out in person without any sensible resolution already. However, I will probably rethink the decision not to pwp at some sleepless 3am in the near future and change that in a blind panic.

More heavy sighing, please. You know there’s been a lot of friction Chez MII.

Here’s the thing.

We’re not okay.

We’re really not okay.

I could also write a big, hurt missive about all the banal and predictable things that make us so not okay, but I expect that you could guess most of them, anyway. Disputes about laughable complete ignorance of magically self maintaining house, unfair division of time, money, the fact that LS wouldn’t even know which energy companies we’re signed up with, let alone how to pay a sodding bill, work (I mean, the man independently got me a job six hours away by plane when the twins were three months old on the grounds that it would be ‘good’ for my career and was surprised when I declined), sleeping arrangements and the general whinges and whines of a card-carrying pissed off housewife.

See, predictable.

Oh, and then there’s his (what I maintain is about as non-normative as heading out in public clothed only in your socks) rabid anxiety about everything that pertains to Saag and Naan. I don’t know another parent who hovers so bleeping much and won’t even let their children walk on the tiles lest they fall over, bang their heads and die, but I live with this sort of thing.

Every. Single. Day.

It’s exhausting, and I admit I’m pathetically human. Having my buttons pushed so effectively all the time makes me cranky, snappy and judgemental. I suck. I admit it.

But.

I’m not the one who seems to think that the easy out is the way to go. I may not like LS very much a lot of the time at the moment, but we have history together and I love him. We made vows.

In summary, and to get to the point, I am not at all sure that he plans to keep them. Not anymore. Because last night he matter of factly gave me (and therefore US) until the end of the year to shape up before one of us had to leave.

The thing that really gets my goat is he objected to calling this a threat. I’m not sure what else you would call it, really.

More sighing.

Having multiples puts the kind of stress test on a relationship that all too many fail. The statistics bear that out. I simply don’t know whether being naughty or nice will change what I get for Christmas this year.

PS. In Keeping It Together mode, because there are still a few bloggers who have not replied to my sing-out, I must ask all of you who signed up to the great blog cross-pollination this year who haven’t checked your email lately, or haven’t received an email from me acknowledging your entry to check your email. Send me a line if you haven’t got one, or you haven’t replied as yet and you’d make me abjectly grateful.

I’m good at abject gratitude.

Sometimes I swear that teeny-tiny gremlins live inside my computer and widdle with barely concealed glee on my pretty, clean html whenever they get wind that I might be intending to share it with you all.

Or possibly I was innocently posting before being struck by  another vagrancy of WordPress…

Is it okay if you all nod and smile and agree on whichever of the above two scenarios you prefer, rather than the more likely story that I bolloxed something up, yet again?

Regardless.

The key point is that there was possibly (for about ten minutes until I idly checked the link myself and said some invigoratingly rude words) aforementioned hypothetical little green creatures piddle all over a key bit of html for the Cross Pollination button.

So many of you were ultra efficient and snaffled it before I had time to swear creatively and fix the problem that I’ve had several polite emails that all thus far delicately refrain from pointing out that I suck. You’re all quite nice, you know. Rightly enough, however, you do mention that I cleverly coded a button that links to a non-existant post.

I did briefly inadvertantly do precisely that.

I suspect that many of you are significantly quicker on the uptake than I, and merely sighed then fixed the link when you noticed what I staunchly maintain is Act Of WordPress balls-up.

Anyway, if you assumed that I would not post a screwed up bit of code, and haven’t checked, and yours is one of the terminally misdirected buttons, do have another metaphorical stab at it. As far as I can tell it seems to point in all the right directions from my end of things (by which I do NOT mean it comes straight out of my arse, although you may be forgiven for thinking THAT, too) so it should work much better for YOU if you are one of the Broken Button afflicted.

Also, you know, if you haven’t signed up, you really should.

If only to fix my wonky html skills for me? Please?

In the meantime, I am now going to go hide in shame and possibly email everybody who has been gracious enough to sign up this year. Just so you know that I didn’t get that bit wrong, too.

Oh, and since Saag has developed a real knack for running clean across a room and looking deceptively innocent at the mere hint of approaching maternal unit, despite all the milky-footprint evidence neatly tying her to the upside-down empty bottle scene of the crime, I also have quite a lot of floor to clean.

I don’t think I need to call in the services of CSI on that one, somehow. I might however resort to explaining that you can’t work on your bone density very well if you persist in feeding the carpets your milk in the mornings.

Now do remind me- sometime when my floor does not smell so distressingly like cheese (it is hot here)- to tell you how I scored some gorgeous flowers on my birthday from a man other than my husband, right in front of him. Not only did LS watch, but he didn’t even bat an eyelid.

Actually, I just made the whole thing sound far saucier than the reality. Sorry about that.

Once a year I gird my disorganised self into some semblence of organisation and I do my best to introduce new bloggers in the community to all of us by hosting the Great Blog Cross Pollination.

Except THIS year I inconveniently went and scheduled International! Travel! With! Three Children LS! and Twins! right when I should have been nagging you all to merrily swap entries for a day left, right and centre. 

Because I know full well my organisational limitations (you will note that I remain slightly disorientated to time and place despite having been home for, what?, several days now, although person has reassuringly remained rock-steady though all of my recent travels), I didn’t even try this year.

Yet.

So, here’s the deal.

Please, pretty please with a cherry on top participate in the Great Blog Cross Pollination this year.

It’s open to EVERYBODY in the ALI community, and divided into two groups of blogs, those that reference children (hereon known as ‘avec’) and those that do not (the ladies and gents of ’sans’). The idea is to swap posts for one day with a matched blogger so that you BOTH meet new bloggers and everybody finds new readers. Old blogs, new blogs, infertility, loss, pregnancy and parenting blogs (and anybody else I haven’t covered) are more than welcome.

Actually, having crossed into the dreaded muh-’ummy’ (or ‘ommy’) blog territory myself I especially welcome meeting new bloggers still in the trenches.

Here are the details, it really is easy. I do most of the work. Really.

1. Leave a comment here (ensuring that your blog url and email address are written the appropriate fields, you don’t have to write them in the comment itself and this stops spam filters eating your words, too).  In your comment, all I need to know is if you fit the AVEC or SANS group. You can write as many other nice things about me as you like (or not, I shan’t be offended), but the AVEC or SANS is handy to know.

2. This one bites me in the posterior every year- please make sure the email address you have entered is one you check, because I shall be in further contact with you about your match via that email address. Also, if you change your mind about participating, let me know. I’d never be offended because sometimes circumstances change, but it is hard for your match-ee on the day if you bail unexpectedly.

3. Periodically I shall send out an email acknowledging receiving your entry. Please reply so I know your email addy works (see above) Get cracking on that wonder post with which to bedazzle new eyes and introduce yourself to a new audience.

4. Closer to the date (at least a week beforehand) I shall email you with the name of your match. You then email each other your posts.

5. On the 9th december, you post the cross-pollinated entry WITHOUT SAYING WHO IT IS FROM, but WITH a ‘click here’ hyperlink to THEIR blog (so your own readers can find where YOU are hiding on that day). Just for fun, ask people to see if they can recognise the guest blogger in a different home in the comments section.

See? Easy.

I will keep a masterlist of participants here, so on the day, EVERYBODY can have fun clicking hyperlinks and guessing who posted what, and where. Hopefully along the way everybody shall make lovely new bloggy friends.

I really do adore hosting this, so please sign up. The more the merrier. It really is fun.

For those who like buttons on their sidebar, this is this year’s linked button. Feel free to grab the code and put it up on your own blog. Actually, that would positively fill me with delight.

Here is detailed instructions as to how to snaffle it, if you need a hand.

Now, please sign up? Pretty please?

May I utter the universal cry of truly browned-off women everywhere?

Men!

Humph.

Bloody silly creatures they are, really.

Honestly, I  actually happen to love LS, despite my many written allusions to possible acts of physical violence upon his person, really I do.

Most of the time, at least.

Even if  he dosen’t have the faintest idea just how it is his underwear drawer never runs out, or that the fridge is always full of food. Let alone a sensible understanding of how to hold a vacuum cleaner the right way up. I think he might do himself an injury if he turned the blasted thing on successfully, so it’s probably a good thing he doesn’t even know which cupboard it lives in.

It must be jolly nice living in a world where the sorting fairy, washing fairy, shopping fairy, cleaning fairy, dusting fairy and diary fairy keep your life neat and tidy all on your behalf behind the scenes like that. Really, it must.

Typing the above paragraph makes me wish I fancied the fairer sex, because surely a two woman household would run MUCH more smoothly.

Just think of all the loo seat  and piddle on the floor palaver I wouldn’t have to deal with.

But, anyway. My weekend point is the following belated observation.

Men come without and not in any way WITH the tact chip in the factory standard model, don’t they?

Because otherwise, I think mine has a broken one.

How else can I explain LS telling me that I am, and I quote ‘moody and grumpy’ before bidding me goodnight to retreat to my decidedly-separate-shall-not-be-poked-all-night bedroom and then being shocked when I tell him to get stuffed?

I mean, really?

What part of calling your spouse a cranky witch in those sort of circumstances doesn’t deserve cutting the crotch out of every single pair of jocks, simply as a warning shot?

I think I was quite restrained in the circumstances.

Dear Internet,

I am home, I have slept (although see below for further details on that one), I have been blissfully reunited with my mascara, deodarent and (praise-be-to-the-dental-gods) toothbrush, and now I have a question for you.

I do so hope you can help.

So, Internet, oh wise and all-knowing Internet.

Can you tell me something?

Because I really need to know the answer.

At what point in a marriage does a quirky trait in a spouse shift from endearing to more irritating than wearing sandpaper underpants horse riding? 

If I am alone in my dilemma and your own loving spouse never does anything to cause your eyelid to twitch convulsively, just where do I get a Husband 2.0 upgrade from? Should I try reading the user’s manual for the version I have again first?

Can I reboot the sucker?

Or am I simply an uncaring bitch?

Also, how do you make it goddam stop already?

Is electroshock therapy even legal?

Would it really be too juvenile to file for divorce on the grounds that your spouse irritates the living snot out of you?

Because something is REALLY chafing my bum and I am this close to, oh, I don’t know, probably simply fuming impotently between my own ears about how bloody pathetic LS is when it comes to his precious SLEEP, combined with a little gentle week-old-kipper fishwacking of the facial region the very next time he refuses to get his arse out of bed in the morning on accounts of how tired he is.

Like, say, tomorrow.

I can forecast this with complete-and-absolute 100% confidence on accounts of it happens every day. Every. Single. Morning. I get to hear how he is just exhausted and tired and has not slept a WINK all night.

I am possibly a small and petty person, but oh BOY and I fucking sick to the back teeth of hearing that whine.

I am also fornicatingly-unwell to the point of dental caries in my molars with the current status quo of picking up the slack, being almost literally drowned in baby shit solo before midday and making excuse after excuse to the universe at large when people ask about why husband almost never appears in public. Seriously, I have friends that don’t even know what he looks like.

So, what the flipping feck is wrong with LS and why the hell do I always end up the bad guy because I cannot remain forever sympathetic to his dozy plight?

After so many groundhog-day years of this rubbish every damn morning I just have this irresistable urge to kick his lazy arse until he gets it out of bed, is all.

Is that not perfectly understandable?

Send help at once, because I now refuse to even contemplate sleep in the same bedroom on accounts of I cannot take any more bleeping fingers poking me in the arm, chest, back and eyeball at random and all night, nor will I endure repeated nocturnal wake-ups and interrogations as to which position I may or may not be choosing to enjoy my repose.

Also, he turns the fucking light on to check I am telling the truth. If I don’t divorce him I may possibly kill him. With a blunt spoon. Slowly.

Seriously.

Mayday.

Or at least a supply of ready-matured old kippers, please.

Alternatively entitled ‘What I Did On My Holidays: The Extremely Edited Edition’.

Dear Internet,

Did you miss me?

I am HOME, praise-be-the-jetlag-that-permits-me-to-be-a-grizzelling-insomniac-in-my-OWN-bed, but I shall be brief.

Because, well.

I’ve just spent several days travelling with two small children. One of whom is now officially A Climber of anything not nailed down and, additionally, is a lover and not a fighter and thus half the plane have been snogged to loving death. The other requires a fairly hands-on approach for different reasons.

Jen can attest that I do not exaggerate when I make cracks and Saag and Naan’s temperaments. She’s now seen the evidence first-hand.

Regardless, coming back to the fact that we all inconveniently can’t have the same amount of night and day at once and the issues this may or may not cause the average frazzled thirty-something travelling with twins, because I think I had a point to make.

Ah. Got it.

I have indeed learned that it is true that relatively small and unobtrusive time zone changes, designed to be gentle to the smaller traveller, actually suck much MUCH harder than the big ones where you just suck it up, grit your teeth, and push on regardless until collapsing in a sleepy heap at the other end.

THIS version has had me trying to explain to two fifteen month olds that it is dark and not breakfast-time on accounts of it is THREE-Bleeping-AM ForTheLoveOfAllThatIsHolyAndWhyWon’tEitherOfYouSleep?

Also, my (and please note ONLY my) luggage did not make the last connecting flight and is due to arrive some time today in a more leisurely fashion. Presumably after enjoying a nice lie in, a cooked breakfast and taking in the local scenery. Unlike me.

I’m quietly convinced this means the universe hates me, because now I have to go and retrieve the blasted container of fresh underwear, toothbrushes, MAKEUP and clothing without having the prior benefit of access to the aforementioned items.

So, do excuse me.

In summary, I went to WALMART and I LIKED it.

Is that so very bad?

Discuss.

….to the land where you all talk funny and persist on driving on the wrong side of the road.

Could you all try the left for, say, the next two and a bit weeks? Thank-you in advance and all of that.

Also, I would like to request a few jargon amendments for you all:

The ‘bathroom’ shall temporarily be known as the ‘dunny’, or ‘can’, and in a pinch, possibly the ‘bog’.

‘Diapers’ are now ‘Nappies’. Don’t argue.

The plural of ‘You’ is now ‘Youse’. None of this ‘y’all’ business, okay?

Vowels will be returned to the words from which they have been stolen, for example ‘coloUr’ needs it’s ‘U’ returned immediately.

Also, psst, it’s al-ooo-min-eee-um. Try it on for size, because you always cut a bit out of that word. Refrain from any references to ‘Al-oo-min-um’, if you can.

Finally, ‘Thongs’ are something that goes on your feet. Also, in  reference to the item below, Naan likes to eat it. Consider your collective selves warned.

Any questions?