NOTE TO READERS:

Unless you are a Kiwi (or an Aussie who understands Kiwi slang), some of this post may sound like a load of gibberish! This wasn’t intentional, it’s just the way it worked out. Hence I have now added a list of Kiwi Slang to the bottom of this post to enlighten you. Or amuse you. Or confuse you. This may be particularly helpful to my UK and US readers! But first, here is the original post …

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I’ve had the weirdest feeling of déjà vu lately with certain moments or things sending me on a trip down memory lane.

Silly little things, like taking my jandals off while wearing a long skirt in order to drive. This takes me way back to the early 90’s as it’s something my mum used to do all the time and something I’ve found myself just starting to do. Sometimes I feel like I’m having a weird out of body experience and I have actually become her! It’s such a strange sensation.

Other things that have given me a sense of nostalgia lately are:

Rainy school days:

On afternoons that were bucketing down with rain my mum used to collect us from school and on those days (and those rainy days only!) we were allowed to have a Milo and toast with Marmite so I have fond memories of rain pattering on the roof while my sister and I would sit at the dining room table enjoying our aftrenoon snack. This is something I fully intend to do with my boys when they’re older (on the days I happen to be home at school pick up time anyway!).

Mince Pies:

I had severe asthma as a child and spent a whole lot of time in hospital and every time I was discharged it became a tradition to get a mince pie from a bakery on the way home. And sometimes a cream doughnut (cream filled bun coated in icing sugar and often with a dollop of jam, not a round donut like Homer favours on The Simpsons!). A mince pie and tomato sauce are still a favourite that certainly remind me of those early childhood years in and out of hospital wards.

Coke:

Coke reminds me of my mum and step dads wedding when I was 5. Why? Because I wasn’t allowed one at the reception! Mum was afraid I would spill it on my very white bridesmaid dress but my new step sister was allowed (she was 8). Much to my disdain of course!

American Idol:

Mum and I started watching this together when she was sick (the 2nd season). This being the final season and all, the looking back has brought with it intense nostalgia – those clips of footage just seen so old fashioned which makes me realise just how long she has been gone (and how far reality TV has come in it’s presentation!).

My local dairy:

Our local hasn’t changed a bit and totally reminds me of childhood trips to pick up milk with my mum who was driving in bare feet after having removed her jandals. Much like I do now! Nothing much has changed except instead of two little girls in the backseat I have two little boys causing a ruckus!

Were you sweet as in understanding all that? Yeah, nah?

You may think it was pretty hard case that we go to the dairy for our milk. Or you may be a little suss that a dairy isn’t what you have in mind! Below are some translations for you to make some sense of this post. So go and take a squizz! It’s not as dodgy as it all sounds.

Quick Guide to Kiwi Slang

(and a few product descriptions for the outside of Oz folk)

Kiwi = New Zealander. A Kiwi is a NZ Native flightless bird. Not a fruit! In NZ a Kiwi (as in the fruit) is actually called a Kiwifruit!
Jandals = Flip Flops / Thongs
Thongs = G-string style underwear
Togs = Swimsuit
Marmite = An alternative to the disgusting Vegemite spread *ducks for cover* – not to be mistaken for the sticky mess that is English marmite!
Chilly Bin = One of those bins that keep everything cold! Eskie I think you call it in Oz.
Milo = Chocolate malt drink (Aussie’s know this one)
Dairy = Corner store/convenience store. NOT a dairy farm with cows. Think Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy!
Yeah, nah = No
Tomato Sauce = Ketchup
Knackered = Exhausted
Flannel = Face Cloth
Hard Case = A way of describing someone we think is funny
Mate = Friend
Wop Wops = The middle of nowhere ‘I’m stuck in the wop wops’
Piss = ‘I’m on the piss’ would mean I’m drinking alcohol
Squizz = Take a look at something ‘Let me have a squizz?’
Munted = Broken
She’ll be ‘right = Don’t worry, it will all work out fine
Bach = Holiday home
Chocka = Full (as in ‘the bus was chocka with passengers’)
Half Pie = Pronounced ‘Ha-pie’ it means doing something half heartedly
Tramping = Hiking
Ta = Thank you
Duvet = Doona / stuffed blanket on bed covered in a duvet cover (ha!)
Tiki Tour = Means driving with no destination in mind or taking the long way to go somewhere
Dodgy = Something or someone looks suss (suspicious!) or for example a rope swing tied to a tree may look too dodgy to swing on because it looks as though it would break
Stoked = Pleased / happy
Sweet = ‘Cool’ or ‘All good’. ‘Sweet as’ is a common phrase when agreeing to do something. It is not a description of something that tastes sweet!
Fizzy Drink = Soda (Coke/Lemonade etc)
Choice = Awesome
Bugger All = Doing nothing ‘I’m doing bugger all today, should we meet up?’

Do you have the same trip down memory lane sometimes? Something innocuous that jumps out to bite you with nostalgia?

Which is your favourite Kiwi slang word or phrase?

Linking up with: #IBOT @ Essentially Jess

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You’re probably reading the title of this blog post and wondering what it means. Does it mean I’ll cry happy tears or sad tears?

Why would someone cry on their birthday?

You’ve probably been ingrained to think that for someone who had lost their mum, Mother’s Day would the hardest day of the year to get through (if you’d given it much thought at all). Or their birthday. Maybe Christmas. Most people would assume that our birthday wouldn’t really be up there on the radar of the ‘hard to deal with’ days of the calendar year but for me it’s always been the most difficult day of the year to deal with the loss of mine.

Why?

Who makes the biggest deal of birthdays in your family? Think back to when you were younger and perhaps now as a parent. What do you remember about your birthdays? Was it your mum making you feel special with a lovely pile of presents and a planned celebration? Chances are it probably was. If you are a parent, you’ll know that your little one’s birthday is made particularly special for them because as a mum you make it so. Sure, dads also put in some effort but there is something to be said about mums and birthday celebrations and the ability to make it such a special day for their child.

Take that aspect of birthdays away and it can be a very hard day to get through without a few tears and the feeling of loss that can come and suffocate you at any time of the year but chooses what should be one of the happier days to do so.

After 13 years I do feel like I’m in a better place than I have been in the past. Two little men who make it clear that they adore me (plus an older one!) and I’m spoilt rotten in the love department and quite frankly, I’m so busy that it’s very easy to force it to the recess of my mind until something happens that reminds me of her or when life has become particularly challenging.

However, on my birthday it’s almost as if the flood gates open up wide and I’m reminded again of what I lost.

I remember birthdays being made to be so special. I’d wake up in the morning to presents all laid out for me, wrapped in beautiful wrapping papers that she had put almost as much thought into purchasing and lovingly wrapping as she had in what she had bought me, and trust me, she was an exquisite gift buyer. She loved things of beauty and that was reflected in every gift she ever bought anyone. Every birthday she would take the day off work and we would do something together before she would cook our favourite meal or we would go out somewhere for dinner.

Once I started working we would meet in the city for lunch (I particularly remember salmon and cream cheese croissants, cappucinos and something decadent, usually chocolate that we would share for dessert). This tradition happened every year, right up to my last birthday which happened to be my 21st and mum had organised a private event at my favourite restaurant. A 21st birthday is always a special event and milestone but it was made even more so by the fact that she had been sick for so long by this point (over 2 years off and on) but seemed to be in remission and was in good spirits, her hair having just grown back into a bob of dark curls that suited her even more than the blond Shona I had always known.

Little did we know at the time that she had only 4 months left to live.

This was the last photo ever taken of us.

And these are the last words she wrote to me, imprinted forever in my birthday book that was left that evening for the guests to sign and which she was the last to do so:

Dear Haidee,

You are everything a mother could ever want in a daughter and more. Not only that, but in your nature is an unconditional love that never changes. You’ve shared your life with me, we’ve hung out, shopped till I’ve dropped and drunk coffee, laughed and commiserated with each other. You never thought it was ‘uncool’ to be with your mum, or to have a cuddle or say ‘I love you’.

The comments in this book and the speeches made at Lone Star must surely convince you once and for all how loved and respected you are, by both friends and family. You have that ‘Wow’ factor too, that is a gift. Use it to pursue your dreams no matter what else happens. People who have let you down in the past don’t count. It’s the good people and the good things that you thank God for and keep close to you. One day there will be a very lucky man ( or two) who’ll appreciate you fully, quirks and all, simply because you’re ‘Haidee’.

It goes without saying that I love you and I’m very proud of you.

All my love,

Mum

This. This is what I lost when she died and gives you a rare insight into our relationship.

This is why I cry every birthday at least once, usually at night when the house has settled and everyone else is sleeping soundly in their beds and I’m alone with my thoughts.

This is what I miss.

This is why today is my birthday but I’ll cry before the day is done.

This.

Post Word:

Of course my entire birthday is not a sad affair! Birthdays for motherless children and adults can exacerbate the loss they feel and bring up all sorts of emotion which is what this post is about but past that, I have wonderful moments and appreciate all the birthday love that’s given to me.

And in memory I still indulge in a decadent sweet treat for morning tea, I just get to eat the whole thing myself!

The post It’s My Birthday (And I’ll Cry Before The Day Is Done) appeared first on Maybe Baby Brothers.

To be completely honest I never gave too much thought to the fact I didn’t know who my biological father was.

The thought would certainly fleet through now and again in the recess of my mind but most of the time it didn’t occupy much space and I could go years without even thinking about it at all.

The fact that you live overseas and you don’t know I exist has always made the challenge of trying to find you just too hard. My mum told me a name once. Literally. I asked and she cried and I never asked again because I was too scared to upset her. I’m not sure why she cried. If she was overwhelmed by the question or whether it was a painful memory. It was always shrouded in such secrecy that I never knew quite what to think.

Did you know she never told anyone who you were? Not her mum, sisters or best friend.

She came home to New Zealand at the tender age of 20, pregnant and alone. I can certainly understand how that would have been embarrassing for someone who was as proud as my mother was, who left with such big dreams of the life she was going to lead and then had that vision turned completely upside down.

The one piece of information I garnered from her was a name: James Maxwell. And that he was English. And the bus driver on the tour she was on.

Is that you?

She says she never told you as by the time she found out she was too far along and it was too hard to try and track you down.

I wondered in later years if that was true or she was trying to protect me from the knowledge that you weren’t interested in being a father. A young Kiwi woman on a working holiday back in 1981, I imagine young unwed mothers were not quite as accepted as they are today. Perhaps it was all just too hard. Or perhaps she really didn’t tell you, the way she never told anyone else.

I tend to believe the latter.

I spent today scouring old albums in search of a clue. They were old scrapbooks that she had painstakingly put together with cut out letters from magazines to spell the names of the places she had visited on her travels. She was young and ambitious and just bursting to break free of New Zealand and experience the world, chasing her dreams and passions of life in the big city of London.

I couldn’t tell from the albums anything but the fact that in the time period I was conceived she was likely on a Contiki tour through Scandinavia. Was this the tour you were a bus driver for? This was in May/June of 1981.

The albums are now falling apart, the scrapbook itself held steady but the photos and postcards are all falling out as the double-sided tape no longer has a hold to keep them in place. Some of the photos have things written on the back but nothing that was of any use to me. I find myself frustrated that she didn’t just tell me the truth before she died. She kept it a secret all her life and took that secret to her grave. Why?

33 years later I have finally decided it is time to try and find you. To piece together the story. Who are you? What nationality are you? What is my heritage? Do I have any half siblings out there? Did you know about me? Are you really my father or is it someone else entirely? Perhaps this name is even made up!

Today sitting in my dining room with the broken down albums and a letter all I had to go by, I questioned my memory and what I know. It’s so little to go on. Do I even remember the name correctly or has it warped with time? I’m pretty sure it’s correct but other tidbits of information I have learnt over the years could not be corroborated in the written word. I thought I learnt them in a diary but perhaps it’s some figment of my imagination or a long forgotten memory of a conversation that has grown withered with time until I can’t quite figure out where it came from.

I will begin my search today.

I don’t have high hopes but I feel like I am being urged to try, some kind of instinctual feeling I can’t explain.

So far I have spoken to a number of people and the story just becomes more sordid and complicated!

From what I have learnt I am inclined to believe that she wasn’t entirely sure which of her suitors at the time was the father. I believe she told one man, Per was his name, that I was his before retracting and saying she wasn’t sure and releasing him from any responsibility. Was THAT you? It would certainly explain the blue eyes my boys have, perhaps some throwback to the Swedish ancestry I don’t even know I have.

Or were you the Englishman she told me, James … or neither. Perhaps there was someone else she met on some sultry evening in the haze of romance and the sights of Scandinavia. She was certainly beautiful enough to catch many a mans eye.

How do you search for someone when you don’t know who to search for or even where to start?

I guess the best place to begin would be to trust. Trust that even though I was just a young girl at the time, that she was truthful in the name that she told me. That having seen me grow and develop into the child I turned out to be, she had seen something in me that gave her the confidence to name you as the father.

James Maxwell.

I will start there.

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At the end of this story I asked for some help on social media to track him down and my post on Facebook was shared over 300 times and seen by 34,000 people all over the world! Thank you so much for all your help! Click here to read an update on what happened …

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