Job available: Mother of three

In a departure from my usual ramblings I write to advertise a newly opened job opportunity. Yes I am stepping down from my 23 years as Mother of Three and would be pleased for the post to be picked up by – well anyone else. The role also involves being wife to one and custodian of a kelpie dog.

There is no payment involved for this role but you do get the pleasure of managing an unrealistic schedule of activities, interruptions to find things and performing thankless tasks which include toilet and shower cleaning and dog feeding. Oh yes and working full-time and ensuring that all money earned is passed in toto to these five or to their creditors for Myki cards, birthday parties, festivals, seeing pictures with friends and miscellany.

It’s not that the aforementioned three are in anyway intolerable, obnoxious or criminal. No they are all totally wonderful, intelligent, engaging and creative human beings. Nor are the husband of one and Kelpie dog a source of grief. One religiously brings me a reasonable breakfast in bed most days and the other exuberantly follows and adores my every move.

The main problem is that the three tend to fall off things or demand forms of medical treatment which has become truly overly taxing. So I am advertising this role as I’m not sure how many more days of my life I can spend sitting in a chair in A&E waiting for the results of an MRI scan while one of the little poppets lies whimpering in a neck brace.

Yes – I now have had the trifecta and I didn’t think to put any money on this happening with William Hill et al or to write a George  RR Martin Epic based on one family’s seemingly improbable run of bad luck.

Some years ago the middle one was luckily saved by her thick jumper which caught enough air in its sails as she swan dived off a ladder while I watched her descent from above like some awful slow motion dream.

A couple of weeks ago the oldest managed to scuff the front of her motorbike helmet as she somersaulted over the handlebars but very luckily she didn’t scuff much else.

Then yesterday beloved youngest son decides to jump off a haystack in such a way that the ground hit him in the face.

Monash

The Alfred

The youngest practically started his life in intensive care and in between the ladder fall and the motorbike accident there have been two or maybe three long months spent in hospitals and innumerable trips in and out for everything from toys stuck up noses to broken collarbones.

However I don’t want to put the new incumbent off by this medical history.

There is great deal to be recommended in Melbourne’s health services, in particular the cafés within walking distance of emergency facilities have picked up enormously. There are so many cafés in the Royal Children’s Hospital you can put on weight just by walking through the superb atrium and – as I discovered most thankfully today – the Monash Medical Centre has cakes to rival Brunswick St, Fitzroy.

The cakes at Monash Medical Centre rival Brunswick St, Fitzroy

If you do take on the job I wouldn’t recommend the Alfred on a late night stint in between helicopter landings, nor the John Radcliffe in Oxford or the Reading Hospital unless they have had a good run through with a pressure washer recently.

But what I can assure the new incumbent is that spending a long time with any one of these three marvellous people in a hospital surrounded by other parents and their children as they cope with lumbar punctures and whooping cough and drug addiction and mental illness and hydrocephalus and septicaemia is definitely a good way of counting your blessings – (just like our Prime Minister, Mr Turnball does when he looks at his bank account).

So thanks to everyone, including Mr Turnball, who have taken steps to keep the hospitals in Australia funded for everyone – we appreciate everything they do for all of us. And if anyone out there wants to take on the roll of Mother of Three just leave your details in the comments below: