Article 8: Diaries of a Haus Frau - You know you’re a Haus Frau when...

This article is really just to clarify, in a light hearted manner, exactly what it is that qualifies you as a Haus Frau and not just someone who has kids and works from home. You may not have experienced all of the following, but as long as you can relate to more than fifty precent of them, you’re a Haus Frau.

So, here we go. They all start with: You know you’re a Haus Frau when…

·         You’re stove is full of bubbling pots – one reheating left overs for lunch, one prepping food for dinner and one boiling the buggery out of your kitchen sponge to stop it being so slimy and extending its life.

·         You’ve emptied and loaded the dishwasher, hung out and put on another load of washing, made the kids breakfast and lunches, dressed them for school and gone to do the school run before you realise you’re still in your pyjamas.

·         You turn up at school in your pyjamas as you’d done all of the above on four hours sleep but had forgotten about your pyjamas.

·         You’ve got bicarbonate of soda on your shirt and smell like vinegar but have actually been doing the laundry not baking.

·         You’ve got bicarbonate of soda on your shirt, smell like vinegar and have bread dough under your nails as you’ve been doing the laundry AND baking.

·         You have several to do lists ranging from the basic “must be done today” through to the “it’d be nice to fix that ONE of these days before it falls apart completely”.

·         You may not be able to see the floor of your house for toys, books, papers and let’s just not look over in that corner too closely, but your kids are clean, fed, healthy, have clean clothes and still love you despite your repetitive stories of this mythical clean house you used to have.

·         Baking once a week with the kids is done not only to save money on the food budget by making it yourself, but to save money on their entertainment budget too.

·         You put up with glitter, glue and bits of paper engrained into your carpet as it just means the kids made you a homemade birthday present that you’ll love, not matter what.

·         You will often schedule your day around your youngest’s toilet training routine.

·         You’ve developed a special sixth sense that allows you to sense, seek out and discover said youngest from where they’re hiding to avoid the potty mistakes… most of the time.

·         When you have a few moments to yourself to sit down you can’t help but consider doing a bit of mending, knitting, meal planning or cookbook perusing.

·         You always try to ensure you utilise all items in your pantry so that food for the family doesn’t run out before the next payday.

·         You live by said payday rather than have the luxury to spend on anything at any time as all your money goes into the kids school fees (this one may just be me actually).

·         You have the ability to deal with morning traffic and trucks while holding three or more conversations, sing along to the radio and be mentally planning your daily Haus Frau chores.

·         Ops shops are treated more like clothes libraries where you borrow the clothes for a fee and return the good stuff back to them when the kids have outgrown them.

·         The garden may be a mess, but it’s snake free, your kids can still spend most of their afternoon out in it and return with all body parts they left with.

·         You have the ability to be cooking dinner, bringing in and folding the washing, keeping an eye/ear on kids outside (some peacekeeping visits may be required) and still have a warm bathroom and bath ready to dunk your mud ball children in when it’s time.

·         Know exactly which cloth and cleaning substance best suits the varied and colourful stains that magically appear to crop up around your house.

·         You have bottles of eucalyptus oil in the bathroom, kitchen and laundry for medicinal, cleaning, de-greasing and air freshening purposes.

·         You have the hard core oil of cloves and mould in your house knows you’re not afraid to use it.

·         Your bathroom gets flooded so much from the kids bath times, everything in there smells of oil of cloves just to ensure it doesn’t get mouldy.

·         You know the true usefulness of terry towelling squares beyond them being an old fashioned way of cladding your babies bottom.

So, how did you go? I wouldn’t be congratulating yourself just yet as you qualified. Re-read over it all again (you may want some chocolate) and consider yourself lucky. This is just the basic Haus Frauing lists for those of us lucky enough to have happy, healthy and intact kids. Think of all the Uber Haus Frau’s out there to have this and so much more to contend with.

And don’t feel sorry for yourself either. Leave your sympathy for all those poor women who don’t qualify as they just don’t realise exactly how fulfilling that nightmare list can really be and sillily avoid doing any and all of the above!