Exercise and Holly = Carnage

As I am writing this post, my lovely daughter Holly is working out to a children's yoga DVD.

I did intend to write about something else but this has just been way too funny not to share.

On this particular DVD, an older lady, accompanied by small kids, show you the moves.  So as you can imagine, it is quite gentle exercise.  Easy for most kids but we are talking about a girl who can't even do a roly poly for fear that she might break her neck!  Did I fail to mention that not only is my girl a hypochondriac but she also is a total "paranoid Annie", so much so that I reckon it makes up at least 50% of her DNA.

She is also very tall, has been from an early age and so probably was quite justified really in worrying about doing anything gymnastic related, after all, most gymnasts are short, making it easier for them to flip their body around. But honestly, Holly is not in the least bit athletic.

At her first sports day, aged 5, she was in the sack race and I nearly fell off my seat, I was laughing so hard when she was jumping like a crazy frog and getting nowhere.  The reason?  She hadn't realised that she was supposed to jump forward so all she was doing was jumping up and down on the spot!  Her wee face was puce with the effort and you could tell by the confused look she had, that she couldn't understand why she was never getting any closer to the finish line. One of her little friends shouted "Come on Holly" and then all the parents started chanting her name to encourage her. The Headmaster, realising if he didn't intervene, we would be here all day, ran behind her, picked her up and sprinted to the finish line. The crowd went nuts and were all like "aww how cute" and I could barely see for the tears of laughter running down my face!  Bad bad mum.

Anyway  back in the present,  she is ten minutes into just the warm up and there are lots of mutterings and moans and groans. You would actually think she is being tortured! Little does she know, there is at least another 20 minutes of this before the end.

I am trying to concentrate on writing when I look up and she is in what looks like the "downward dog" position and she is talking to the lady on the screen while she is upside down saying "oh this is an easy one" but after a minute "oh my god, my arms!  This isn't natural you know and how are you managing it, you're an old lady!".  When it's time to get out of that position Holly slumps to the floor giving it "aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh, this is NOT normal, why would you want to get into that position anyway?"

I am trying really hard not to laugh but believe me it's not easy cos she looks so so funny.  Instead I try to encourage her and soon she is getting into it and it is getting easier so I go back to my writing cos she's not entertaining me any more............boring!

I am so engrossed in reading other peoples blogs that it takes a while for the moans of pain to penetrate my brain.  I look up to see Holly lying on her back with her legs up and thrown over her body, feet touching the floor just above her head.  There is a lot of "oh my gods" and "aaaaaaahhhhhhs" going on and finally she is forced to straighten out her body.  When she does, there is an almighty crack and she screeches " I think I have broken a vertebrae!".  Wtf?  Only a hypochondriac would even know where the hell that was I'm thinking, so I calmly said "nah it sounded more like one of your ribs!"

She was only joking, so when I said that, her head whipped round and out came Hypochondriac Girl and she's panic stricken saying "eh, you think, oh my god, I've broken a rib!!!!" I, being totally sympathetic, start laughing, especially when she tries to get up and fails dismally cos her back has now locked.  As she is lying there trying to roll onto her side I cannot help for I am bent double with mirth and then she shouts "stop laughing, at this rate, you will have two children in wheelchairs" which then tips me over the edge and I am now rolling about in hysterics on the sofa.

Finally she manages to get up, with the help of the leg of Jack's hoist and she slumps down into a chair.  Then her face crumples and she says in this very defeated voice "oh no, my water is over there and I just can't get up, this sucks" and she looks over at me for help but I am still wetting myself laughing!  So up she gets, with great difficulty and just after she is about to take her second swig of the water, I make her laugh and she snorts and a big glob of snot comes out of her nose at great speed into her glass! She is crushed and I am once again helpless with laughter.

Are your kids meant to be this entertaining?  Or is it just me?  I have a feeling you are gonna say it's just me!

So suffice to say, sporty is not really a word that should be associated with Holly.  Things never really got better after the sack race trauma and over the years she began to dread sports day and so did I cos I knew how much she hated it. I did eventually come up with a way to encourage her, I suggested that she get a small prize from me for every race that she didn't come LAST.  She took me at my word and every June for about  3 years running, she fleeced me for all I was worth and I think it was karma for laughing at her sack racing début.

Yeah, well they say that "revenge is a dish best served cold" don't they.

An ipod is a dangerous weapon!

I'm used to Jack scaring me on a regular basis what with the constant seizures and now with the problems with his chest. After a while, what is so scary, becomes the norm so you get used to it.

Holly scaring me is something I don't think I will ever get used to! Holly you ask? but she doesn't have any health issues!

No she doesn't but she does have an ipod and headphones and believe me she is lethal with them.

I know, I know, you now think I have lost the plot don't ya but I most definitely have not.

My lovely daughter is music mad, just like her mum and just like me at that age, she is regularly plugged into her music. In my day it was a Sony Walkman and you could tell that a person was plugged in cos the headphones were quite big and so was the cd player.


These days, it's tiny mp3 players with tiny headphones so it's hard to tell, when someone has their back to you, whether or not they are plugged in or just plain ignoring you.

Holly often shuts herself in the kitchen, playing her music and dancing around. Usually I can hear the music cos she plays it so loud that I can't hear myself think. Other times, she just disappears into the kitchen and there is total silence which usually means she is plugged into her ipod.

This is when I literally take my life in my hands cos often I have to get into the kitchen to get stuff for Jack or make myself a cup of tea.

So I open the door and Holly is in her own wee world, dancing round the kitchen. I make big movements so that she can see me cos she definitely can't HEAR me. Movements such as jumping up and down, waving my hands to attract her attention accompanied by loud yelling cos you just never know she might just hear me after all. ( I hasten to add that jumping up and down is already a high risk factor for someone with big boobs, concussion springs to mind).

This goes on for a couple of seconds or even as long as a minute, then she will catch sight of me out of the corner of her eye and she looks at me, and I think it's ok, she's seen me but then she lets out a shriek that would not be out of place in a horror movie and I nearly jump outta my skin!

She is clutching her heart and near to tears cos I have scared her and I'm like wtf??? as my heart is trying to jump outta my chest and I have just lost another of my 9 lives!!! There then follows a conversation in "high tones" where she is upset and I am angry cos she has scared the bejesus outta me but it's my own fault don't you know cos she was plugged in and didn't see or hear me!

By the time we have both calmed down, I have forgotten why I went into the kitchen in the first place and she's taken on the persona of one of the seven dwarfs, usually Grumpy with a bit of Dopey thrown in!!!

I have tried just opening the door and just waiting for her to see me with no wild movements but no she still screams! Even with the door left open, if I were to just walk past the door and she catches sight of me, she screams! It's getting to the point that I am having to think twice about venturing anywhere near her cos even my mere presence whilst she is plugged in can invoke a blood curling scream as she seems to go off onto a different planet whilst listening to her ipod.

I have had a good long look in the mirror and believe me, I know I can look a bit scary first thing in the morning but after an hour or so I start to look semi decent. Honest!!!

There are times, I haven't even gone into the kitchen, just yelled for her help cos maybe Jack is having a bad seizure and as I am in the middle of changing him, I can't reach the magnet. Usually on these occasions she is not plugged in but playing her music really loud. By the time she hears me, I am hoarse and she is upset cos I gave her a fright cos I yelled so loud!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I cannot win!

Usually we end up laughing cos hey it is quite funny really.......yeah if it was happening to someone else!

Like this morning for instance, there was no ipod to blame just her opening the living room door just as I got to it but she was still trying to watch the TV so she was turned away. Trying not to scare her I just spoke, saying something totally random like "where are you going?" and she let out this blood curdling scream and I nearly shit myself, I jest you not!

Her first words to me after she calmed down was "what kinda question was that? where did you think I was going, to get my breakfast...duh!" Then we both exploded with laughter cos well what can I say to that. Not only am I scary but I am a bit of a numpty too! Cheers Holly. I'm really not getting a complex or anything!

I thought things might improve when she bought herself a set of huge headphones, the old fashioned kind. At least then I know to avoid her like the plague when she has them on. That's ok when you can see her but when she is in her bedroom with the door shut and you are yelling like a banshee til you're blue in the face, so are then forced to stomp up the stairs, throw open the door looking wild and snarling, yes you would expect her to scream.

Yet still I jump about 6ft and she is totally traumatised by this angry, snarling lady who is now clutching her heart, using expletives that I know I shouldn't repeat!!!!

So I have come to the conclusion that my kids are trying to kill me! Jack with his many weird and scary seizures and Holly with her really dangerous weapon, the IPOD!!!! lol :-)

The Hypochondriac

Last night, as we were heading off to bed, bout 11.20pm, Holly decides that she should have oil in her ears before going to bed! I'm like " wtf? We are flying in two days, don't ya think you're a bit late for putting oil in your ears? When did they start to hurt?"

Holly shouted "they aren't" as she disappeared into Jack's room for a syringe. So I started to boil the kettle, get the oil out of the cupboard and all the while muttering under my breath bout how "this was a bit like shutting the gate after the horse had bolted so what was the point huh?".

Back she comes complete with syringe and cotton wool balls and asked what I was muttering about. I was holding the teaspoon of oil over the steam coming from the kettle so I couldn't turn around and give her my undivided attention. Thinking she was in the bad books, when I turned around she had such a forlorn look on her face that I started laughing.

I was carefully drawing up the oil into the syringe when she started laughing at me and I was like, "you'd better not be sniggering about how short I am or you're for it!" After getting herself together she commented that she was laughing cos I had just said "there are not many mothers that would do this at this time of night don't you know!" and I said so "what's funny about that then?"

At which point, she laughingly pointed out that most mothers would do exactly this when their poor child was sick and would stroke their cheek and say "awww sweetheart, can I bring you a warm drink, do you need an extra blanket, can I make you some soup, you should probably stay off school etc, it's only you that doesn't do that!"

I fell about laughing and the two of us were hanging onto each other in hysterics cos that is so so true!

In my defence, my daughter is the biggest hypochondriac I know. She can watch Embarrassing Bodies on TV and within 5 minutes of watching she starts to have the symptoms of the person in the programme. It is hilarious to watch and I really get a kick out of watching her start to frown and feel about the offending area that is being talked about on TV. I have even timed her to see how quick she will say something to me and you know she never lets me down and gets most pissed off when I roll about on the sofa laughing!

She has also pretended to be ill so many times and gotten to stay off school more days than I care to mention that now of course I don't believe her when she is genuinely ill. As she puts it, she would need to be nearly dying before I believed her! Well not quite but near as damn it :-)

Her speciality is the moaning, dying duck routine. This is would be ok if she would just die quietly but no such luck! I am treated to hours of moaning, winging and writhing on the sofa complete with throwing off the aforementioned blanket so there is only so much one person can take.

The legacy of these years of "crying wolf" is that my poor girl gets very little sympathy from me when she is ill and it's only when she takes to her bed or goes off her food that she gets the cheek stroking, extra blankets and warm drink. But soup? Wtf? I am no earth mother me, so unless that is on the menu that night then you can forget it. Canned soup or nothing. But hey you've gone off your food so nae soup for you!

My lovely daughter and I are even on first name terms with the school nurse and he has told her that he is scared to phone me cos I'm like "awwww WHAT NOW??!!!" as soon as I hear his voice. lol That poor man but really he should try living with her.

These days, she has calmed down a bit but of course my attitude to her "illnesses" has not changed and so although I know I should be chilling about it a bit more, years of being "had" have taken their toll.

At least we can laugh about it now like last night, I was crying with laughter cos I know that to an outsider it would seem that she is so hard done by and I am a heartless bitch but it is so not true. Don't believe me? Well the only way you will know is if you get sick around me. Are you willing to take that chance? No I didn't think so!!!

I'll never be a nurse!

Holly has a bit of a trapped nerve. It plays up once in a while and this week is no exception.

Thursday night, after coming home from her boyfriend's house, she did her usual, grabbed the TV remote and threw herself onto the sofa for a bit of chill time. Meanwhile I was busy setting up Jack's feed and getting his stuff ready for the next day so left her to it.

About 10.45 I shouted on her to put the TV off as it was time for bed. As I walked past the living room after locking the doors, switching off lights etc, she let out this almighty yelp and started hopping about the room like a demented frog!

Off course I am used to Holly's little dramas so by now I am half way up the stairs and I'm like WTF? "You were all right a minute ago! What's wrong with ya?" Meanwhile, Holly is doing some weird kinda dance, yelping and muttering how much it hurts. Eventually she says "you'll have to help me up the stairs, you'll have to let me lean on you".

So, like the dutiful parent that I am, I stomp back downstairs and hold out my arm for her to lean on. So she grabs my hand, leans on my arm and we do this sort of shimmy to the living room door by which point, I am now seriously in pain cos she is gripping my hand so blinkin' tight and leaning so hard on me that I have lost about a foot in height and if I hadn't leant against the wall when I did, she would have knocked me off my feet and fallen on top of me.

By this point, I am laughing hysterically cos there is no way that I am gonna get her upstairs like this. I am 5ft 3 for god's sake and she is about 5ft 9, we'll never get as far as the first step before she knocks me over!

Poor Holly is getting seriously pissed off at the fact that I am in hysterics so she gets down on all fours and attempts to crawl up the stairs with me following slowly behind. The going was slow and at times I thought she was gonna fall and we would both land in a heap at the bottom of the stairs!

She was wearing a skirt as she been to her boyfriend's house for dinner as it was his 16th Birthday. So half way up the stairs, I burst out laughing cos suddenly the skirt had ridden up and I was faced with her butt, which just so happened to be purple at the time cos she was wearing purple tights. She was most unimpressed by my humour once I explained what I was laughing at and muttered under her breath bout how unsympathetic I was then she let out a cry of "and I bet you put this on your blog!" which made us both laugh cos ya just know that is a foregone conclusion!

Finally we were at the top of the stairs and I had to help her to the toilet and we WONT go THERE, I owe her that much. I'm not that cruel......snigger snigger! Then I had to run around switching on her lights, taking orders from her and even had to go back down stairs to get her a drink! WTF? Milking it or what? I could hear her laughing as I was in the kitchen, she is not her mother's daughter for nothing.

The drink was dutifully brought up and then we were on the home straight. As I walked back into her bedroom she was lying on the bed fully clothed saying, "you'll have to help me take my clothes off!" The look on my face sent her into fits of giggles especially as she was lying on her back with her knees drawn up, just like a baby, all ready for me to start!

As I am hauling off her tights I am muttering that "Ok, one child with a disability is bad enough but two is seriously taking the piss and someone up there is having a laugh, and she'd better not be unable to walk tomorrow don't ya know!!!" This gave us both an attack of the giggles and we were lying on her bed laughing uncontrollably, tears running down our faces.

Eventually I got her bottom half changed and thank god she was able to do her top half herself! Then I massaged her hip and helped to get her further up the bed and tucked her all in.

I was still laughing as I fell into my own bed at the vision of her purple butt, it reminded me of a giant plum with legs!

I think it is fair to say, that I don't have what it takes to be a nurse, my lovely daughter can definitely vouch for that but I could be a doctor cos after all isn't laughter the best medicine?

The Midnight Beast

OMG I am so so excited cos The Midnight Beast are coming to Glasgow!

Holly got me into them after having to constantly watch them on You Tube. Not only is their music brilliant but their videos are really really funny. As Holly has them on her Ipod,. we have their music playing constantly.

There isn't a song that I don't like but my FAVOURITE track is the All I Want For Christmas parody. The first time I saw it, I couldn't stop laughing and now I know all the words. It's brilliant to play it full blast in the car, with the windows down, when we are driving past groups of people. Holly and I fall about laughing when we see their reaction to the words! Who is the child here huh??? God I really should grow up! lol

One of the tracks is called Daddy and Holly reckons it is Jack's song. It's about the band member Drew's dad, who went out for milk one day and ran off with a foreigner! Hilarious.

Holly and I, every time we buy a new CD, always choose a song that is most relevant to each of us at the time. Jack gets one too. Even though he can't choose for himself, we don't leave him out and we make sure he knows his songs.

Holly's favourite is Les Be Friends and Booty Call. We are such huge fans that Holly and Jack even have TMB t-shirts. Nothing to do with the fact that Holly has the hots for Stefan. I have to admit he is pretty cute though.

So next time your on You Tube, look them up, they have it all.........looks, talent and the comedy factor......what more can a girl ask for?