The Bald and The Beautiful

On the weekend, my Mother in Law lost all her hair. Not through any type of misadventure or ill health, thank goodness ... she simply had her head shaved.

It was done for a good cause, as part of the Leukaemia Foundation's "World's Greatest Shave" fundraiser.

Willing participants are sponsored to have their hair shaved off or coloured, to raise money for research into blood cancers and their treatments.

We are all very proud of Grandma for raising money for such an important cause - and the new 'hairstyle' is pretty terrific too.  Even the kids think it's great. In fact, the Littlest Caveman, who had been insisting lately that he didn't ever want a haircut again, actually asked me yesterday if he could have his head shaved 'like Grandma's'.

Considering the last trim I gave him was a sneaky one while he was asleep (to save arguments), I didn't need a second invitation! I had the hair clippers in my hand and a cape around his neck before he had a chance to change his mind and now his hair matches his big brother's short style. Okay, it's not quite as short as his Grandma's, but he's happy with it.

He even told me this morning, when I complained about the heat, that I should shave my head as well ... 'It's a lot cooler, Mum.'  He then pointed out that, aside from myself and the Cavegirl, most of the family has really short hair now - himself, his Grandma, his brother and father.  I frowned at that comment.  'Your Dad hasn't had his head shaved recently.'

'No,' he answered, in the knowledgeable tone of a six-year-old, 'but Dad had that bunch of hair on top that's never come back.'

My poor Caveman ... if he didn't already feel self conscious about his bald patch, that comment would definitely have done it.

Cut off from the World

After a hectic few weeks, we are finally settled in at our new house and loving it!

I had ideas for my blog running through my head the whole time - every time something amusing happened, or we had a new problem to worry about, I thought 'I could make this into a blog'.

There are lots of funny or stressful moments associated with moving, such as trying to remember where specific items were packed (why were the littlest Caveman's socks NOT packed with the rest of his clothes?), or completing all the relevant paperwork with the real estate agents. Not to mention the fact that life in general doesn't stop just because you happen to be moving house ... school assignments still have to be in on time, appointments need to be attended, bills paid, etc.

Of course, I had no energy to actually sit and complete a blog post anyway, so in the end I decided to leave the whole thing until after the move was over.

I could have posted about how we are now renting a house directly across the road from one that we used to own (and that my husband grew up in!). It is a little unusual, looking out at the neighbour's place and knowing that we were responsible for the colour of the house and what is planted in the gardens. But no, it is someone else's house now, so it doesn't feel right to me to make a big deal out of that.

As it turns out, the funniest part of the whole move for me was when we discovered that the phone line at the new house needed fixing. It's a nuisance when you can't make or receive calls (we had to divert them to our mobile phone), but the funny part came when the older kids discovered that until the phone line was fixed, we had NO internet. No Facebook, or Instagram, or any other form of social media was available to them until further notice. There wasn't even any warning, no chance for them to let people know that they would be offline for a few days. They came home from school one day to be informed that their connection to cyberspace was gone and we didn't know when we would get it back.

I wish I'd thought to have the camera handy to capture the looks on their faces when they were told. I've never seen two jaws drop open so fast. 'Stunned' would not be too strong a word for their expressions. It made me want to laugh. In fact, being the loving Mum that I am, I think I did let out a giggle. It may be why I got sulky looks from them for the rest of that afternoon.

I'm pleased to say I coped better with the situation than my kids did. I didn't miss Facebook, or emails, or reading the news online as much as I expected to. Over the next few days, the bigger kids helped us get some unpacking done and had proper conversations with each other while they were doing it. They even shared jokes - they are 12 and 14, difficult ages where sometimes they can't stand each other, so it was lovely to see them getting along better. Not that I'm blaming technology for their usual relationship - it's fairly typical for them to have issues with each other at their ages, so peace was probably only a temporary state anyway.

We felt a bit disconnected from the world, but it was nice. I would actually recommend it to anyone who has just moved house - cutting yourself off from everything for a bit can be very refreshing and a great way to recover somewhat from the upheaval.

And, while the kids are glad to have their social media back now, I'm sure they enjoyed the break too.