A heads up for all Creative NMers located in Oz, to go sick your heads over at Creative Mums who are organising a Mum = Mum 2 competition.
A challenge to…. hmm, we’ll have to let them do all the talking because it’s not NMish in tongue.
Captain exits stage left with a goat and a banana that starts to moo.
~
Planning to purchase some big fat mangoes from Coles this summer? We’re urging our members to study the following photograph with great scrutiny!
We had a mum purchase this R2E2 (”Star Wars”) Mango [retailing at $3.48ea] last night, but it got scanned as a Large Kensington Pride for $2.48 at check-out.
When Auntie Helga asked the check-out to explain why the price was different to the one she saw displayed in the fruit section, we found out that the staff have a very tough job of trying to work out which bloody mango is which, because there’s 10 different varieties that are listed on the computer (and yet the supermarket is only displaying 2 varieties for people to purchase). This problem leaves far too much room for human error, so we thought it was important to let you all know about it.
Please study this photograph taken fresh from Aunt Helga’s succulent patch, so that you can learn how this R2E2 Star Wars Mango, looks nothing like a Kensington Pride during your next shopping trip. It could cost you and arm & leg (or gain some spare limbs even) if you’re buying in bulk with the incorrect scanning of the price.
To the women of Australia, you have been warned. Choose (mangoes) wisely, in this country!
Like, we hear they have the same problem with plums…
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3 Pure Breed Male Border Collies (from a litter of 6 - 3 females sold) for sale. $300.00 each. Vaccinated, wormed, de flead, and microchipped. Mother is a beautifully tempered and fantastic animal. Father is a working border collie with lovely tempermant. (No papers)
These pups are going fast and are a must see. GENIUNE ENQUIRES ONLY Puppies will only go to good homes!! Location - northern NSW (2404). Can be transported at buyers arrangement and cost. For more information, please use the Contact Us form.
Another comedic classic from the NM Times dating April 2006, providing useful tips for first-time mothers…
tCaptain’s Log on
A Benevolent Dictatorship, My Asshole?
Version 1.0
Oh – what a day. What a day. The referendum over a key issue that we wanted to get chiselled into the NM Constitution just closed on Australia Day.
100% of the 3400 omm ‘ers voted YES! :O
Who was it that said sorry gets paid up to $60k to host seminars on leadership? I might have to raise my own bloody consultation fee up to $120K at this rate.
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A wise person once said to me,
“Never put anything to vote!” – that one must learn how to become a benevolent dictator when it comes to running your own thing. I’ve got to admit, this guy had a really good point at the time and I knew what he was talking about.
I learnt this lesson so intimately, that it literally ended up going right up into my asshole, and nothing but sunshine was able to escape out of it ever since. A significant achievement for the group to put things to a bloody vote this round and watch the process of democracy being taken to a whole new level within the group.
Raising a virtual toast to celebrate the new legislation that’s going to be kicking in for NM and change our lives for-bloody-eva! *woot*
Can’t talk much now because my flight’s about to board for my special meeting with Captain Lifecruiser to go hunting for some more wickedly stupendous cakes in Sweden and I’m in desperate need of like-minded company… I’m quite sick to death of businesses contacting us that sound as if they’ve got a telegraph pole shoved up their asses atm!
ono
Au Revoir from the observation deck at Mascot ladies!
Like, of course it’s a bloody first class ticket. I would be letting everyone else down if it I had to put up with anything less! pfft tsk tsk tsk
ono ccc
Like, silence tells me, secretly - everything. Let, the sun shine! Let the sun shine ~ in.
omm bows
Sincerely,
Charlie Oskar
c/o NM
WARNING: This post could make you develop an extremely dangerous craving for chocolate. If you are on a diet to loose weight, or suffer from severe chocolate addiction – we strongly advise that you do not read this post at all.
The rigid standards of Posh Spice’s fat-burning regime post-childbirth, meant that she was only allowed to enjoy 6 plump sultanas for desert. NMers are clearly crafty when it comes to the cake department, so this is how we prefer to do deserts when we get together for a f2f meet!
This was the original home-made cheesecake, which was specially designed for us to enjoy during out F2F Easter Egg Hunt Meet in 2007 at the Everglades Gardens in Leura, but this cake was [erm… coughs…] …thouroughly consumed before the event took place – so we had to make another one for it that was even better…
Like, OMFG – it’s got more than 6 strawberries – but no guilt was endured during the consumption of this cake!
A parting shot of what the home-made cake looked like during NM’s 2nd birthday, which we morbidly celebrated at the beautiful grounds of the Newtown Cemetery in 2005. This might explain why the cake had a coffin-like vibe to it. If you think this cake is quite something, you should’ve heard the sounds of moaning from the mums when it was time to cut the bugger up.
We’re aware that people have experienced strong cravings for chocolate after seeing these pictures, so we’ll spare you the pain by not publishing pictures of what that white chocolate coconut cake, stuffed with cream & morello cherry mouse and crowned with a ring of dark chocolate maltesers looked like, during NM’s 4th birthday.
2008 will be NM’s 5th revolution around the sun. We don’t know what the cake will look like yet, but we do know that it will have to be something exceptionally bloody stupendous, celebrating the primary NM colours of Red + Black, amongst it’s complimentary sister-colours that fall within the spectrum of purple & magenta pink ~ somehow!
The most popular Unconventional Topic for The Week in 2007 was Vacuum Cleaners, which also ended up contributing to one of the classsic NM Quotes of the Year:
“I’m amazed at your ladies vacuuming prowess, consistency and the fact that you are blowing up motors.” LD
Godfrey’s Psychotic Vacuum Cleaner was voted as best sucker of the year. Another spoof via NM, dressed with it’s traditional brand of a bloody sense of humour again - to show you why…
Once upon a time in 2004, there was a very bitter secretary at a public school, who grew rather dogged-gone tired of parents asking the same questions about enrolment over and over again. Rather than invest in the creation of an automated FAQ that could inform parents about the boundaries of the catchment area, she chose to bark. For those who have an NMish Personality Type and need to obtain an enrollment form, we strongly advise that you keep a good set of tongs nearby.
Produced by Slaughterhouse in 1997, the following music video is a fellow NMer’s rockin’ hn to the industry that makes fat mothers feel ugly, along with the rest of the female population on this earth. We thank fat Britney and all the other fat celebrities for making the rest of us feel so bloody normal during the process of becoming a fucking huge cow mother.
Like, stay stay stay stay beautiful, beautiful! (and you’ll be completely guilt-free) And don’t forget to “scream like a girl” NMers!
Yes ladies, this is where that infamously reknowned NM phrase comes from. Thankin’ Ren & Stimpy for the inspiration way back in 1997 and I hope you enjoy that scream when Nad’s rips her daughter’s eyebrow off. What a liberating moment that was on Australian TV… Did anyone else go OMFG when Nad’s first came out?
Another blast from the past with one of our favourite editions of the NM Times, dating September 2006. The reason why childbirth has always been so painful for women is because they’ve been doing that perineal massage thing in the wrong way. We hope that the following expert advice coming direct from our very own Fanny, will finally shed some enlightenment for women…
On Newtown Mums - a woman’s power over a man, is in direct proportion to the cuteness of Lamb Chop’s ability to Come on John!
Peter Costello’s attempt to be a stand up comedian that night didn’t go down too well with many of the NMers.
This was our counter-response, dressed with our own bloody sense of humour.
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tCaptain’s Log on Sleep Deprivation
Version 2.0
Alright - i’m enduring the difficult process of transporting the old NM website into the new one, so this is the course that I’ve had to take during this process…
Here she is – this is the actual woman who started it all. Meet Zombiewomum. The sleep deprived miracle worker and domestic goddess. The one who made so many women in a suburb known as Newtown close to 5 year ago - finally realise how just not-alone they were on the whole sleep-deprivation front.
The Story of how Zombiewomum Evolved
When I started to draw Zombiewomum, the first thing that came to my mind was the old Ghosts’n'Goblins computer game on the Commodore64 that I used to play as a kid. My life was feeling exactly like those zombies coming out of the ground and walking aimlessly with their arms sticking out stiffly in front of them because of the chronic sleep deprivation that I had to endure for the first 8 months of my son’s life. I also enjoyed watching Buffy - The Vampire Slayer too. I was very angry that my body was resurrected after it had flatlined during childbirth, just like Buffy. Very pissed off with people because they wanted me to stay alive when i really should’ve reamined dead.
My brief encounter with death during childbirth truly screwed my brain up post-birth. The combined botched epidural followed by a liberal dose of general aneasthetic, and morphine via emergency C-section, paired with abusive & negligent staff like a friggin’ cherry on top of it all - was clearly not a fucking good combo for a “positive” entry into motherhood. It’s no wonder i was hallucinating about the end of the world upon giving birth to Armageddon.
Anywayz - back to the bloody zombie-ism that started it all. A snapshot of what the zombies looked like in the Ghosts’n’ Goblins game that i was thinking of when Zombiewomum’s body was being created:
Even the Ghosts’n'Goblins music (the macarbe & manic commodore 64 version composed by Rob Hubbard) was playing in the back of my brain during the time of drawing her too. Here’s a performance of the song by Press Play on Tape:
Please take note - this is not the song i attach to my own childbirth experience - but the song that gave birth to Zombiewomum. The loud slurring voice you hear at the end of the song, is the exact same style of comedic spirit that Zombiewomum was born with. Clearly, she was a character that grew up in the 80s and loved her metal to rock really hard as well.
As Zombiewomum was a mum, I had to give her more than two arms. One to hold the baby, and the other two to help her take care of the baby and getting on with her own other stuff at the same time.
My eyes were really sore with fried red veins, which felt like they were going to explode out of their sockets, so that’s why I had to make her eyes so big.
I’m very much a hardcore “gaming” mum, so the next computer game that came to my mind when drawing Zombiewomum was Duke Nukem. His “power-up” flame-thrower weapon in particular….
You could use this weapon to double-up as a jet-pack by shooting it downward. This would help you to hoist yourself up to platforms that couldn’t be reached with a regular humanoid jump.
Motherhood was very much like trying to reach impossibly high platforms. My life required the turbo-boosting power that was the equivalent of a rock-blasting jet-pack to reach them just like Duke Nukem did. Carrying my son in a Baby Bjorn carrier just seemed to make it very natural for Zombiewomum to wear her rocket-blaster as a jet-pack on her back.
The next game that entered my mind was Pitstop because becoming a mother felt like I was in the middle of a Formula 1 race.
Here’s a snapshot of the Pitstop game during the actual pit-stop scene.
The men on either sides of the car have to change the wheels. The man at the back has to shove the pipe into the car’s arse to give it more fuel. Then the man at the front with the flag is the guy who says,
“You have acknowledged to me that you are finished with repairing you car and are therefore ready to get back onto the racing track! Go! Go! Go!”
My life desperately needed an actual pitstop like that with this whole motherhood thing. A place for my body (the car), to check-in for repairs & maintenance so that it could continue run at optimum performance levels when it needs to gets back on to race track.
The problem with me was that I was so pre-occupied with reaching the finishing lines that I often forgot to stop and check-in for regular the pitstops. My wheels got too hot. They lost the ability to grip on the road properly so this compromised my ability to steer in a straight line, making my car spin out of control around the sharp corners and often crashing – brutally hard.
Being the mad-cow gaming mum that I am, I was very adept at still knowing how to push my vehicle beyond it’s normal limits.
The wheels are getting too hot, so what! I can still cut this corner by making my car skid to save myself more time and stil win.
I’ve crashed my car again, so what! The car can still move so I need to keep on racing because I have got to get to that finish line right now.
While you can get away with such acts of insanity in real life and still cross the finishing lines, it does all add up in the end and you do find yourself facing the same perils just like you do in the Pitstop game for failing to take the time to check-in for repairs. If you don’t change your tires, they will turn red and blow up with an explosion midfield leaving you stranded.
Game Over.
If you run out of fuel midfield, your car will stop working and you won’t be able to finish the race.
Game Over.
(Do insert the Tekken voice-over for “YOU LOOSE!” at this point if if you know what that sounds like on the PS2.)
I needed NM to be a place that could function like a pitstop for women like me to stop & re-fuel. That’s why Zombiewomum’s rocket blaster isn’t burning a big flame out of it’s ass. She’s just run out of gas and needs a pitstop.
I’ve never considered myself to be a nerd, perhaps more of an über-geek with slightly better fashion sense than Ugly Betty, so I that’s why Zombiewomum had to have some kind of book-wormy geek-factor by dressing her in a pair of glasses (erm no, they’re goggles to protect her eyes from the wind - really).
As for the high-heeled stilettos I put on Zombiewomum’s feet right at the very end of it, well that’s definitely not me at all. I put those very impractical “party shoes” on her feet just for the sake of making this whole motherhood thing look truly ridiculous, something insane. I was trying to find a way of making myself laugh in order to feel better about myself and it worked.
It was a torment to be surrounded by other new mums who had no idea of what acute sleep deprivation was like with my initial mother’s group, so out of that desperation of needing to make contact with at least one other female voice out there in my local community that could say to me;
“Hey, I’ve been through that bloody sleep-deprivation thing too!”
~ Zombiewomum was born.
Little did I realise at the time, that Zombiewomum would eventually introduce so many other women into my life who didn’t have things so different.
The Truth About Sleep Deprivation?
During the conception of NM, the perceived ideas of “normal” periods for babies beginning to sleep-through was something like 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 4 months. [yadda yadda] Well guess what?! …It’s BULLSHIT, according to our own experts (the Newtown Mums themselves).
The window of sanity beginning to emerge for some parents with their babies on NM, now officially stands at 8-11months. You hear that?! 8-11 months!! That’s a long time to remain sleep-deprived. This is the new “NORMAL”! Parents who’ve tried every endth degree of method or technique known to man that fails, will only start to see things **beginning** to improve at 8-11 months.
This new window of “normal”, could very well be wider - but it’s the current running average for members whom have struggled with kid’s not sleeping through in the history of the group. We will post updates if this trend changes with time.
For some parents, it can also take years. If you are in this boat, check in with the paediatrician to enquire about Melatonin - like, the real/pure Melatonin that’s only produced at a pharmacy located in Bondi Junction, Sydney - the only source of it in Australia (since last reports from a paed in Katoomba, NSW). Although you can purchase Melatonin from health food stores, it’s not the same thing. If your paed knows nothing about it, just contact us via the comments and we’ll put you in touch with one that does. It’s one method that definitely works well for some kids (and their parents, who can finally reclaim some kind of “couple time” or “me time” in the evenings). Some kids will not go down to bed on their own unless they gain a meaningful 5.5hrs of exercise in a single day. If you have a duracel bunny kid like that, check in for help.
We would like to issue an early warning to parents with kids who struggle with sleep. Do keep in touch with the doctors regularly in the 1-5yo bracket, at least 1-2 times a year, especially if there’s anything about your child’s development that concerns you. We’re noticing an early trend of sleep-problems being closely related to other things like autism/aspergers - the kind where the child is high-functioning, so it’s therefore harder for parents to detect it’s an issue which lives beyond “lack of discipline” or “lack of routine”. This sort of thing is usually detected in early chilcare places & preschools. Parents who opt for their kids to start something like school at the later ages (without preschool) or opt for homeschooling, will have less time for earlier intervention to take place.
We’ve seen post natal depression almost cured overnight when a mother is able to gain a single night of complete rest with unbroken sleep. How did we get so fooled by thinking that we could do such a job on our own, without help from other people to take up the load.
The real solution to sleep deprivation? It’s easy. You need a small village.
Sincerely,
The Captain
[aka The Queen of Armageddon]
Issue of the NM Times from January 2006. “Chops” was a significant addition to the NM Dictionary of Acronyms & Peculiar Jargon during this time. This euphemism evolved during a really whacky session of live chat with the mums. We can’t publicly reveal what “chops” it stands for but it obviously influenced which covergirl we ended up choosing for this issue of the magazine.
You will understand what this means, if you have experienced this yourself after childbirth… for some women, it is going to take quite a few years until they get there. You will have a higher chance of getting there much quicker, if you have enough good soul-friends in your life to help you get through it all. Our hearts are with you, if you happen to be one of them - especially if you are currently struggling in your journey to finally get “there”.
