Rocked by her lyric logic…

Violet and I had some ‘us’ time in the car this week – not that it was all quality time.  In fact, by the week’s end we will have clocked up three 100km round trips into town – anyone who knows me knows that I try to avoid this kind of schedule like the plague.  But anyone who knows Violet knows that things are never too boring whenever she is around.

We had had a big weekend with trips to campdrafting and polocrosse events. These passed relatively smoothly (if you don’t count leaving my handbag – and all access to funds – at home. Thank goodness I live in the bush where people know me and I am good for credit!).

We socialised with friends and family (Violet is pictured with her cousin M here – the pair are just one month apart in age and like twins!).  Things went downhill on Monday however.  Both Dash and Violet were sent home from school – Dash was very tired after a restless night with a bit of a fever the previous night, and Violet was clearly in the throes of a rising temperature when I arrived to pick them up at lunchtime.

We ended up with our first whirlwind trip into our little local town that night, as our daughter’s escalating fever caused some violent vomiting (alliteration for a terrible time!).  Dash and Mr Incredible stayed home (Dash had his NAPLAN exams starting the next day so needed an early night).  After a remarkably hurl-free trip for the 40 minute drive in, we were lucky enough to catch the doctor actually AT the hospital (sometimes one can spend hours and hours waiting around for one to arrive).  Looking quite wan, our daughter  proceeded to summon up the energy for a quiet flirt with the young male GP.  He diagnosed the tonsilitis quickly but decided against any antibiotics (suspecting viral rather bacterial infection) and prescribed lots of Panadol and ice-cream.  Violet dimpled at this suggestion and then vomited on cue.  Thankfully I had had the forethought to pick up one of those collapsable cone vomit catchers they seem to keep on hand in hospitals and we did the whole thing rather gracefully.

The GP proceeded to draw up a syringe and ruined all his work getting into Violet’s good graces by giving her injection of anti-vomit stuff (Phenergan?).  She gave an outraged howl and glared (something along the lines of this look), inhaled, realised it wasn’t as bad as she had anticipated, and demanded we go home.

The following three days have been less than fun.  While she is valiantly fighting off the virus that has caused her tonsils to engorge so angrily, my daughter is no an easy patient.  Not (in fact) patient at all.  Each medication is preceeded with a close inspection and sniff of the medicine measure, demands to see the bottle from which it came, some outright refusals, lots of ‘encouragement’ on her mother’s part (okay, so that lack of patience may PARTLY be in my genetic line) and the dramatics… held noses, pulled faces, calls for applause and medals upon the final swallow.  It’s exhausting.  And unless things are dramatically better by tomorrow, we have another date with the GP. Which will add up to our third in 5 days. Yay.

But let’s focus on our second trip into town yesterday.  Violet had been feeling a little perkier, and we had arranged a visit to Nana while I did my chores.  And as we drove along that familiar dusty red dirt road, we sang . (It’s the only way with me in a car, I’m afraid.  I have a notoriously terrible singing voice which I allow in NO WAY to deter me from turning the Prado into a Karaoke machine.  And if you don’t want to hear it, you must sing along! )

We have an ipod which provides music for our car stereo – no CD player lasts the distance on our roads (and we have tried a few) so we finally invested in one of these little wonders of modern technology.  I worked out (okay, my husband worked out) how to put music onto the thing, and then I worked out (okay, okay…) how to add our OWN CDs onto it.  And among the little collection I down/uploaded was this one:

I know, I know… HOUSEWORK songs. Really, could anything be less appropriate for THIS particular consumer?  I have certainly NEVER felt like doing whatever the heck this chick is doing with a mop.  But Lord knows I need all the incentive to mop and dust that I can muster.  Heh.

HOWEVER… some of the songs on this CD are sublime… disc two is particularly fun.  (And parts of it are a little bit hideous.) The one’s I (and the kids) love:

• Abba’s Mamma Mia
• The Jacksons Blame It On The Boogie (imagine Dash doing some seated Michael Jackson moves here)
• Billy Ocean Love Really Hurts Without You (Oh, Oh, Oh BABY…me at my worst karaoke I’m afraid)
  
• Dolly Parton’s 9 To 5 (my all-time favourite song line of “…poured myself a cup of ambition” which for the longest time I thought was “…a cup of Vambigen” – I assumed it was an American brand of instant coffee. Silly me)
  
• Tom Jones’  Help Yourself (and yes, you can wiggle your hips as you drive. Probably not legal, but a girl’s gotta dance when this one is on!)

but… 

• Sadie the Cleaning Lady (John Farnham, what WERE you thinking?) I am incapable of listening to.  There is no excuse.

But enough album analysis. This post is about Violet.  Sooo… halfway through the second song of the album, during yesterday’s trip to do ‘normal town stuff’, Violet called out to me:

“Mum, what’s ‘hard-et’ mean?”

I glanced in the mirror and asked her to repeat herself… all that Billy Ocean Karaoke makes one hard of hearing apparently.

“HARD-et… you know … you KNOW… HARD-ET!”  An exasperated tone entered her five-year-old, slightly raspy voice.  I explained (patiently) that perhaps it meant as something went from soft to hard, like glue.  (Anything to get back to the karaoke). Violet rolled her eyes…

“NO… YOU KNOW!”

No. Apparently I did not.  And she was sooo not impressed with my NOT KNOWING.  In fact, she was almost beside herself.

“It’s in the song. PLAY THE SONG!”

The eye rolling was now accompanied by an enormous sigh of disbelief at my thick-headedness.

“THE ABBA SONG MUM!”

Right.  Muttering about repercussions for allowing too much leeway for sick children, and muttering about manners, and patience… I replayed Mama Mia.  Violet shook her little finger in time with the song, ready to let me know when the wayward word came up… and singing in a voice as exactly tone-deaf as her own Mama.

“….JUST HOW MUCH I MISSED YA!

…THERE’s SOMETHING BROKE – AND – HARD -ET…”

Aha! Broken hearted… a whole new conversation coming up there… I began to explain when she loudly belted out the rest of the verse:

“OOOOOH …

SINCE THE DAY WE FARTED….”

I never DID get to explain broken-hearted.