Hoki Hubby

There is a low mist as evening falls. Or is it cloud? I don’t really know. Apparently there is a difference, between cloud, mist and fog.

Cloud stands alone I guess. Above us, not around, not surrounding. Not cloaking.

Mist and fog can both do that, envelope you. So the one that doesn’t touch the ground, there is the difference, is not the other. I just don’t know which is which. Confused? Me too.

I can take the time to ponder on this weighty subject because I have stuck the pudgy little legs of my wee man into some pants, pushed him back in to the arms of his eldest sister and sent them out the door, accompanied by the other two.

It is okay. I can’t see them from here. But I can hear them. One in particular. I can never not hear her. I affectionately call her E-Bomb, a W.M.I…Weapon of Mass Interruption.

As a quartet they have trotted off with dogs old and new in tow. Our shift here to the Hokianga has meant I can do that, with our southern bred children…push them out the door late in the afternoon, on the winter solstice even, and not worry about jumpers or jerseys or jackets. Great, and with a bit of luck they will all trundle back in by the time it is dark. A bit more luck and there won’t be any tears or blood or bickering.

There will be mud. We can handle that. A tap on the deck means the worst of it will not dragged onto the rented, white carpet.

Twenty years ago  I would have been out there with them. Well, that is bollocks isn’t it. Twenty years ago I was approaching my mid-twenties and I wouldn’t have had ‘them’. Plus, I would have had better things to do. I still have better things to do, but now I have ‘them’.

I am injured anyway. My bung knee is bung-er. So I have an excuse and Kenny, the oldest, is far more suited than me. They sound happy. I can’t see any sprays of blood spurting from torn arteries so I am going to assume all is good and continue to sit here and do this…whatever this is.

I am 44. Forty-god-damned-four. At times I feel every bit of it and the whole home hubby thing can compound that feeling. You try being a middle-aged, dilapidated,  broken man running around after a three-nager and her 10 month old toddler brother! In a two story house at the bottom of a step drive on a soggy section right on the water’s edge!!!

Okay, not right on the water. There is a mess of Pampas and Elephant Grass clogging up the native bush. Ugly stuff that makes a mess of the view. I’ll get to that. Maybe when the knee is better and the sun is out. I should at least hear the kids as they are drowning, if not before. And despite my sluggish, broken old body, I may even make it time to save one or both of them. Maybe.

Forty-four and until now I have not actively resisted the digital age, so much as actively avoided it. Well here I am people and you had better get used to it, because SHE told me to and therefore it must be done.

A blog. I have no idea what it will bring, where it will lead and what it will all entail. I might pose some question, I hope to make you smile, I might challenge or enlighten or inform. I might just burble. Doesn’t everyone suffer a case of the blah blahs every now and then? If i get political or philosophical or wax lyrical, sing out and I assure you I will put a stop to it.

The reality is, this is an extended bit of piffle related to my whanau (family). It is cathartic, I hope, therapeutic probably. If I had a therapist they would probably approve, if I hadn’t frightened him or her off already. Here, there will be tales of poo, of snot and other bodily fluids many of which I will struggle to identify. I might swear and curse, I probably will. I might shock but hey, let’s be real. You have all been there so you get it, right?

If you haven’t, but are planning to, don’t let me put you off.

I have a done a lot with my life while achieving very little. The greatest achievements by far are aged 12, 9, 3 and 10 months. Three girls and a boy…patience and Claire’s compliance was worth it, finally a son! I am full of tales of hard work, quite possibly the hardest I have ever done. I have as many tales of all the real and genuine joy, those heart felt moments that just can not be obtained anywhere else, any other way. Parenting. Parenthood.

Get into it.