Bringing Up Baby

Already?

2008-08-08T15:14:00.000+10:00

I thought that I was safe from this feeling for at least another nine or ten years. But no, it seems that I was wrong, and that heartache is mine already.

Last Sunday I went to the Sunday evening service at church. Now in the mornings Sweetpea goes to Sunday School and I go to the worship service, so the idea of having her sitting with me at the night service was one that I was actually looking forward to. All the way to church Sweetpea was chattering away in the back seat about how her Sunday school teacher is her best friend, and would she be there tonight? Obviously I had no idea and couldn’t answer her, so there was great rejoicing when she saw Rosita in the main hall before church started. There was numerous cuddles and telling Rosita what we had done during the day and then the question that felled me.

“Can I sit with you?”

Such an innocent question. I laughed, because I didn't really expect Sweetpea to want to sit with Rosita if I went to another area of the church to sit. I honestly thought that she would follow me (after a moment’s hesitation of course) and sit with me. I hate sitting in the crowded part of the church, I like to sit apart. Not because I don’t like people, but because I suffer dreadful claustrophobia and cannot stand the idea of being trapped. Heaven knows I've tried to sit with other people to try and make friends, but the panic rises in me in every growing waves and I cant breath, the world swims before my eyes and I end up biting my bottom lip until it bleeds in an effort to cope with my discomfort, and I hear absolutely nothing of the service. I thought that Sweetpea would follow me to the safety of my back row where I can escape if I need to and be happy. I was wrong. Sweetpea happily tripped after Rosita without giving me so much as a backward glance.

I spent the first ten minutes of the service feeling the hot salty sting in my eyes as I came to the realisation that my three and a half year old child would rather sit with her Sunday school teacher than me. That she is already exerting her independence. I felt ridiculous to be fighting back the tears... but there I was, none the less, begging God to stop me from crying, because I didn't want to make a scene or have anyone notice that I was crying. My biggest fear if someone had seen me cry was what would I say to their questioning? “My daughter *sniff* loves her Sunday school teacher *snuffle* more than me... boo-hoo-hooooooooooo!”? But I can’t tell you how it ripped my heart out to watch her talking with Rosita, swaying with the music and then cuddling into her during the sermon.

At one point Rosita sent Sweetpea to me and my heart soared to the heavens. Thoughts raced through my head as she ran along the back walkway to my open arms - she did love me, she missed me and wanted to sit with me after all. No. She needed to go to the toilet. And after taking her, she did not want to sit with me again. She sobbed when I tried to take her to my seat. Her little face scrunched up in a ball of grief and her eyes spilt tears of frustration. So with a heavy heart, I sent her off to go and sit with Rosita once again.

I have always known that one day she would spread her wings and fly. I've always known that if I do my job well, she will grow up confident in her abilities and want to fly the nest and it will be a sign of a job well done if she leaves me to go and forge relationships on her own terms. I just didn't expect it so soon.

First Embroidery Lesson

2008-06-30T15:38:00.003+10:00

In recent months Sweetpea has seen me stitching away with more passion than I have had for a few years. Actually I just cant imagine being able to stitch before a new child hits about the age of two and a half... it just seems too daunting to try and get all the needles and threads set up and then have to shove it out of the way to get up and attend to a crying child.

I digress. I've been getting back into my embroidery and Sweetpea often sits next to me and watches her TV shows and we chat and relax. I never really thought she was taking it in, but a few weeks ago I casually suggested when Sweetpea was older (thinking when she was five or six years of age) that I would teach her to embroider with me if she wanted. Her attitude was one of eager happiness.

So on Saturday, having had a quiet day (by my life standards) I thought I would ask if she wanted to have a go (what on earth was I thinking?) and boy oh boy did she respond positively. I cut out a piece of calico and threaded the largest needle I had with six strands of embroidery cotton, we sat down and blow me down if the child didn't sit there for 40 minutes concentrating, getting each stitch just right. I wish I could upload the video of her sitting there, legs crossed on the bed, staring intently at her work, and then asking if she had stitched a spider. Sure, why not I said,to which I was rewarded with a rendition of incy wincy spider. Pure joy I tell you, pure joy.

And after the hard work of embroidering was finished, Sweetpea followed me around the house, thanking me repeatedly;

"Thank you Mummah, thank you! Thank you for embroiderme."

I cannot believe that my three year old daughter is sewing, with real needles and thread. I always have suspected she was gifted, but now I know for sure!

So, So Much More....

2008-06-17T20:42:00.001+10:00

Whoever coined the phrase that “speech is silver but silence is golden” has probably never had the pleasure of being told by a child that they were loved. Listening to children learn to speak is a wonder, listening to my child learn to speak has been a privilege that has filled my head with memories that I want to cling to forever.

At first there are simple sounds that come out of a child with no rhyme or reason; just exploratory events and discovering the mastery control over the vocal box. Then comes the stage in which the child starts to imitate words that they hear around them. Often this stage is a parent only stage... as in, parents only will ever understand wheat the child is attempting to say, and they often have to act as translators to outsiders. Then comes the stage in which words become much clearer and the real art of communication can begin.

It goes without saying that I often whisper words of affection to Sweetpea, and over time, she has picked up the meaning of these words, and loves to voice them back to me now. I can’t begin to share with you the thrill, the sheer heartache of overwhelming gladness I feel when she wraps her small arms around my neck and says in that voice of hers that is thankfully devoid of saccharine, little girly sweetness,
“Mummah, I love you so, so much.”
And of course, it has been even more special to be able to return her vocal outpouring of love to reply with a river of adoration,
“And I love you so, so much more.”

The other night, as she was falling asleep, she repeated the statement several times. And because I was tired after a long day of being attentive to everyone around me, without thinking too much I simply replied that I loved her too, but still she persevered, until I realised that she was expecting the ‘correct’ answer.

“And I love you so, so much more Sweetpea.”

With the ever so slight hint of a giggle and a contented sigh she curled up in my arms and fell asleep. I'm not sure why God has chosen to bless me with this child, but I am grateful each and every day for her. Sometimes I fear that she will never fully know how much more I love her, but the love I feel for her is more encompassing than I ever imagined possible before I was a parent. I love her so, so much more than I ever thought possible.

Model in the Making

2008-04-10T22:40:00.004+10:00

I think I may have unleashed a monster today.

I don’t know how many times people have left me messages that they want to see photos of Sweetpea, and I know that its been an awful long time since I've put anything up – but believe me, its not for lack of trying. I cant count the number of times I've snuck the camera out of my bag, turned it on behind my back, lined up the shot – only to have Sweetpea scream hysterically at the last minute when she spies the camera out of the corner of her eye and realise that I'm about to – Oh.My.Gawd. – take her picture.I swear that Sweetpea is channelling the Indigenous peoples of this homeland, as she seems to think that having a photo taken is akin to stealing her spirit and she loses the plot each and every time I attempt to take her photo.

And I swear she has supersonic hearing ability. It’s the only explanation I can feasibly come up with to her ability to suss out when a camera is being trained on her. I can turn it on in the kitchen, with the Kenwood mix master going at maximum speed, with the T.V. blaring in the family room, and be attempting a conversation with Driving Miss Daisy, who, having not taken the time to get new batteries for her hearing aides, is pretty well deaf as a door post resulting in me repeating the same sentence five times in a row in steadily rising volume to an effort to get the sentence “weathers good today isn’t it?” or some other piece of importance and still, Sweetpea will know that the camera is whizzing through the air and being aimed in her general direction.

I have a 2 GIG card filled with photos of Sweetpea in various states of avoidance. Hands up in front of her face. Turning her head. Running out of the frame of the photo. Spinning her body around so that I have only her back. And let’s not forget the ever precious “Mummah is torturing me to death” wobble of the bottom lip and welling of tears in the eyes photos. Oh Lord, I could fill a photo album with such photographic misfits. And yet I find myself unable to hit the DELETE button, and for the record, its a very good reason. I want to prove to Sweetpea one day down the track when she is a sullen wretched teenager, who quite rightly believes that the world really is against her, challenges me as to why there is a gap in her photographic history from the age of 2 years 9 months to 3 years 2 months (so far). I will, with great flourish pull out the photos from this time frame and show her that it was HER behaviour and not my sudden lack of parental interest in recording her life that resulted in a complete and utter lack in pictures.

Today the kinder rang to remind me that it was photo day and did I want to bring Sweetpea down? With a pitiful laugh I shared the misery that is my photographic life at the moment, and that I didn’t think that it was worth the effort to dress her up for her to produce professional grade photos of her hands in front of her face, her head swinging away, her body swirling away from the lens or the ever popular crying in front of the camera. I got off the phone to Sweetpea sidling up to me and asking what the conversation was about.

“That was the kinder asking if I wanted your photo taken, but I said no.”
“Yes Mummah, photos. Yeah.”
“Really.....?,” I asked hesitantly, “You wont cry or be silly, you will let someone take your photos?”
“Yeah!” came the innocently pleasurable voice that only a three year old who is about to push her mother over the edge can produce.

The next 20 minutes were spent dressing, combing out hair (and ‘discussing’ which hair clips she should wear – her choice of the big, bold stars with three pink diamantes won over my choice of ribbon spirals) and racing down to the kinder.

“Now, are you sure, you really will let someone take your photo Sweetpea?” I asked for what must have been the umpteenth time.
“Yes Mummah!”

So the photographer comes in – and it was a man, which is not a good start, as Sweetpea isn’t all that fond of men, being that there is a rather large shortage of them in our household and life in general. He perseveres and takes a few shots, but Sweetpea refuses to smile, no matter what tricks the photographer and his assistant pull. They get really worried because there isn’t one usable photo in their minds so far. The very fact that Sweetpea is sitting still and they are capturing a photo image of her at all impresses the bejebbies out of me, so I'm not worried. She has the whole “Princess Di” deal of looking at the photographer through her eyelashes down pat; scarily. But in the end, sensing the growing despondency of the photographer, I take pity on him and resort to complete mothering trickery and as the guy snaps shots of Sweetpea sitting at a table, I lie down and tickle her legs and tummy, resulting in bright happy smiles on both the three year old and the photographer. I dare not contemplate what it must have looked like to the five teachers and the twenty other three year olds in the room to see my body rolling around on the floor. Some things are better left alone, I think you will agree.

By this stage the guy has proven he is nothing to be scared off and Sweetpea has warmed up to this game of photo taking. Then we go outside and take photos of Sweetpea riding a trike, complete with her throwing her head back with glee, laughing and, I swear to you, posing like a model with arms out in the air, fingers outstretched, legs off the ground that inspires people to think of movement, golden hair glistening in the sun. She plays in the sandpit, directing him to take photos of her from this side and that. He says ‘smile’ and she beams out a 240 watt smile that light up the whole playground.

And suddenly, it’s all over. Photographer man has at least three shots out of the 40 he must have taken that I'm going to want to buy and its time for him to move onto the other classroom. I take Sweetpea out to the car and as she gets into her car seat, she comes out with;

“More photos Mummah.”

Stunned I pull out my fabulous camera from my handbag and turn it on. She spies it and the little face turns from radiance to overcast in a fleeting moment.

“No Mummah, not you - him” she says, voice bleating, pointing in the general direction of the playground.

Even as I write this down, Sweetpea brings up the memory of the photos and I hopefully ask if I can take her photo.

“No!”
“Go away!” is my very mature, I'm the adult and I don’t take things of this nature too personally reply.

Say it with me peoples - I'm ready for my close up Mr. Deville.

Some Numbers

2008-03-08T17:02:00.002+11:00

Zero- the enthusiasm I feel towards my university work this semester

One – the number of red tomatoes that have ripened on my plants that I have grown from seedlings this season (thank goodness there is a spate of warm weather this week or I will be forced to look up a recipe for fried green tomatoes)

Two- times I've baked chocolate cup cakes with milk chocolate ganache icing (once for the kids at kinder to celebrate Sweetpea's birthday and once for my disabled aunts 53 birthday a few days later)

Two- the number of books I've bought in the last two weeks on French cookery: two called “The Food of France”, but as Driving Miss Daisy says, they’re French; they don’t have to worry about originality!

Three – is how many years I have had the incredible joy, privilege and responsibility of my daughter life on this planet, which I celebrated on Wednesday 27th February

Five – the average number of hours of sleep I'm getting to enjoy on a regular basis, which isn’t enough by far, but is better than four

Seven – is (somewhat surprisingly) the number of years since I started my diary at Open Diary

Ten – days until I have to complete an assignment which I have barely started, don’t fully understand the question let alone the content and I have to work out how to upload via a Powerpoint presentation

Thirty-Five – the number of cupcakes I wish I had the room in my tummy to eat in one day

Thirty-Three – the number of minutes I got to talk to a friend whose husband has just gone on record in a very prominent newspaper and revealed private medical records about her leaving her feeling exposed, blind sided and betrayed

Thirty-Eight – the number of cupcakes I can get out of one batch of batter

Sixty- the number of photos that the Fisher-Price camera takes that I bought Sweetpea for her birthday present

100’s & 1000’s – the name of the colourful sprinkles that I put on the cupcakes for decoration

Infinity and Beyond – the joy I feel inside when I think about how much I love being Sweetpea's Mummah

The Marching Onwards of Time

2007-11-24T01:34:00.000+11:00

Sweetpea has grown up. I keep hoping that I'm wrong, that time will stand still where she is concerned, but alas, she keeps growing faster than a weed. The other day I was cruising down the freeway, windows open, with music playing quietly in the background as I talked to Sweetpea about the different things we were seeing along the way.
Look! Mummah! A car.
What colour is the car precious girl?
Red.
What is that in French darling....? Rouge?
Rouge. Look... a cyclebike!
Is that what is making all that noise Sweetpea? You mean a motorcycle?
Yeah, a cyclebike.
Yes my darling, its a cyclebike.
Suddenly there is a commotion behind me, as Sweetpea states, “Music Mummah”. I don’t understand so she has to repeat herself several times.
Music Mummah.... music.
Oh darling, do you want me to turn up the music?
Yeah.
So I turn the radio up to hear James Blunt singing his song “1973”. But I watch in the rear vision mirror as she sways in time and I and turned the radio down again slightly to better hear Sweetpea singing along with James. Suddenly I knew that I had a little girl and not a baby in the back seat of my car.

What Should I Write About?

2007-10-29T00:52:00.000+11:00

So here I am with no university homework to do (I sent off my Journal and the Third assignment together on Friday) and I have free time and I cant think of anything interesting to write about.

I could share my latest quest in my attempt to win the “Worst Mother in the Whole World Award” in which I sit at the computer trying to re-enrol in university and allow my daughter to shut herself into the shower, turn on the hot water and start screaming because she couldn’t get the door open to get out again. The only reason I didn’t get top score for my score card on the Worst Mother judging system is that our hot water system is really slow to heat up and so by the time I reacted instantaneously (that was where I fouled up in the scoring obviously) to Sweetpea’s distressed cries for help (she was scared that she couldn’t get the door open) the hot water was just starting to come through and it was my arm that got burnt as I reached in to turn it off, and not her whole body. It was a close call to getting the highest score for the Worst Mother, because she was soaked to the skin along her left side. But I think if this story tells us anything, it’s that I have real potential to reach the dizzying heights of the Worst Mother in the Whole World.

I could tell you that in the last week I have spent around $100 on skin care stuff to try and stop the eczema that seems to cover Sweetpea’s every inch of skin. Bath oils, moisturisers, special creams and potions, and none of them seem to be working. I just started washing her hair for the first time since she was around 8 months old because the bottle of Mustela cleansing gel that Nurse Friend gave me some samples of (from a nursing round she did) doesn’t seem to dry out her skin and is leaving her hair shiny and curly. Until this point all I've been able to do is rinse her hair with bath water (with bath oil in it) because anything else (even baby shampoo) left her scalp covered in raised scabs and left her back (where the soap would run down her back) and any other part of her body it came into contact with covered in angry red welts. Its been really nice to see Sweetpea's hair all soft and shiny and smelling so yummy. I spent around two hours searching the interest to find a store that sells the stuff, but in the end had to buy some from an internet store because I am the world’s worst researcher on the internet. What makes its a little easier for me to justify all this spending is that it is lovely French stuff, so I'm being tre cosmopolitan!! I cant tell you the guilt I feel when I touch my daughters body and feel dry patches everywhere despite being slathered in skin lotion that the pharmacist recommend. And the grief I feel when she is covered in heat blister spots... and everyone tells me I'm doing everything I can. Yeah, I'm supposed to just let my little girl scratch herself to bleeding because her skin is dry and itchy and hurting her. Can I just say that doctors and pharmacists are full of shite and don’t give a damn about a child (and mother) in distress because its “not that major a condition now is it?”

But no, those two items seem like such boring things to write about that I think I will leave my blog un-updated and spend some more time thinking about what to write about.....

Long Overdue on Memories

2007-09-10T16:06:00.001+10:00

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That is Sweetpea’s contribution to this entry- and a mighty fine contribution it is. My only snarl at her is that she was doing it whilst I was out of the room. I will tear her limb from limb if she breaks my new computer, cheeky little bugger. She knows she isn’t allowed to touch the computer but she couldn’t help herself. Note to self: if you have another child, do not teach them to open doors to get into rooms by themselves, in fact, do not teach them anything. Let them lie quietly in a corner and only move when I move them! (How Fraudian is this, I typed “l”ove instead of “m”ove?)

The past week I had a stomach bug from hell, and better yet, the Matriach and my aunt had it at the same time. Seriously, as I hugged my big green bucket and hurled yet again, I thought that the pain in my gut I felt in labour was easier than what I was going through; the throwing up continued for 12 hours – a very long time, and I never throw up. I can be nauseated to all hell, but I never throw up. I started throwing up at 5am and I couldn’t hold water down until around 10:45pm. Now I’ve been sick and still had to look after Sweetpea before, but Tuesday was one out of the box. I lay in bed and hoped that I would die. I didn’t even really know what Sweetpea was getting up to – but I found out the day after. Whilst I was wishing my life away, Sweetpea was pulling out every item of clothing from her drawers, she was opening tubes of shoe polish and squeezing them over everything, she was pulling books apart, she was a nightmare. Lordy, I wanted to die on Tuesday, but I'm pretty sure it was Sweetpea who wanted to die on Wednesday, each and every time I discovered a new mess to clear up. Now I was still pretty iffy with my tummy on Wednesday, but the Matriarch and aunt were chowing down on KFC Wednesday night. I could hardly keep an apple down, and they were hoeing into burgers and wraps and chips and gaaaaag. Just the smell was enough to send me scurrying back to my big green bucket! It wasn’t until Saturday that I woke up and thought ‘Hey! I think I feel better!” Trust me when I tell you that you DONT want to catch the tummy bug that is going around. If you hear people saying anything about it, run away- fast!

But in the midst of dying on Tuesday something pretty amazing happened. Sweetpea was lying next to me and pointed to a photo I have of her on the wall. Then she pointed to herself and said “Seetpea”. She has started saying her name. OK. This might not sound like a big deal to you, but to me, it was magical. Its not that she doesn’t know her own name, but to hear her say it, “Seetpea” sent sighs of happiness all over me. She is starting to give me three word sentences now, her favourites being “I got it!” and “Mummy do it!” and the good old standby of “Me do!” can be heard all over the house still. She climbs into the bathtub and she can clamber up on the toilet to do peescor all by herself. I'm pretty sure that by summer she is going to be out of nappies.... yippie! She still snuggled up against me as she falls asleep at night and in the morning she will wiggle into my arms and suck on a bottle of milk contentedly. Yes, I know I should have broken her of the bottle by now, but she just loves it so, and I swear that if I take the bottles away she refuses to drink for the day. If I have the bottles around, she will drink out of cups, but take the bottles away, and wham! No drinkies for missy. And I figure that soon enough she will make the connection herself (like she has with the whole toilet training deal) that she doesn’t want to drink out of a bottle and that will be it. No more baby.

And speaking of no more baby, as Sweetpea sits on the toilet she has had ample time to really study my pink stripe of hair, to the point she was asking constantly “Pink please” as she pointed to her hair. So now guess whose child has her own stripe of pink? Of course,(leave out the O and you get curse) my mother was outraged and said that I was mad and a bad mother and that for someone who was so afraid of having her child snatched at the mall I was making her a prime target. By having pink hair? Yes, because that proves that I don’t take notice of my child and keep my eyes on her. I'm too worried about pink hair. “Yeah right, bullshite mother. “

Sweetpea, for the record, is very proud of her pink hair. And no, there was no bleach involved, what do you take me for? A bad mother?

Peescor

2007-08-29T01:10:00.000+10:00

I adore the way my daughters sense of humour is starting to reveal itself. This moment happened a few weeks ago, but with the insanity that is my mother’s health crisis right now, I really haven’t had a chance to write about it.

I was busy with loads of laundry and work that comes from being the general dogs body that I am in this household. Sweetpea started to eagerly tell me ‘peescor, peescor’. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, but there was no mistaking that walk. It was all too clear to me that she needed a nappy change.

“Do you need a nappy change Sweetpea?”

“Yeah! “ nodding her little head, she agreed immediately and raced off to our bedroom to grab a clean nappy and clamber up on the bed.

I opened the nappy and there it was in all its glory.

“Oh baby! Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww, what a mess... !”

“Peescor! Peescor!” she began to chorus again in a sweet singsong voice.

And then it all came back to me, with perfect clarity.

Flashback a few weeks when I was sitting in my Matriach’s family room with Sweetpea playing with her toys and my sharing too much information with The Matriach about how really full a particular bowel motion had been with Sweetpea.

“Matriach, I swear, you could see the peas and corn she ate for dinner last night.”

Peas and corn. That’s what my daughter was telling me so joyfully in the laundry to let me know it was full of merde!

I don’t mind telling you that I laughed myself silly as I realised her joke, clever thing that she is.

You Can Hire Me

2007-07-14T09:11:00.000+10:00

So the ultrasound results are in. Yes, its already the half way mark of SisterLaw’s pregnancy and today she and SpikyMan went to have the big ultrasound in which generally the doctors want to know the size and measurements of every internal organ in the body of the unborn child and generally the parents want to know what the sex of their child is.

It’s a girl.

It just about ripped my heart out. Until this point I've been so sure it was a boy and I could cope with my jealousy, because, well truthfully, I would love another daughter. And boys run strongly in SpikyMan’s family. We were all so sure it was going to be a boy, but it’s a girl. SisterLaw and SpikyMan are having a daughter. I did cry when The Matriarch mouthed the words “It’s a girl” and pointed to Sweetpea. I was so shocked. I was sure it was a boy.

But that wasn’t the last of the big news events for my sister today. Oh no.

My sister was offered a new job today and starts for a bigger law firm that came and head hunted her in four weeks time.

“What are you going to do with the baby? How long will you have for maternity leave?” I asked.

“Well the company has several mothers who work part time and they are more than happy for me to do the same.”

“Yes, but how long will you get with your baby?”

“Oh about four or five months. I guess I will have to look into childcare centres.”

“Oh no.” I replied, because, what else can you say in that situation?

I could hear a small quiver of sadness in her voice, but much like her, I understood that this company had made an incredible offer that really, wouldn’t come up again and she had to grab it with both hands. We talked about childcare for a few more minutes and I was sure of her hesitation about putting her child into care.

“You can hire me.” The words tumbled out of my mouth before I allowed my self-censoring to stop them.

“What?”

“You can hire me. You can hire me,” pause, “you can hire me.”

I cant even begin to tell you the courage that took to say, even though at first I said it in jest. Because with SpikyMan being a bit of a control freak, generally anything I suggest to SisterLaw is rejected by him and my offers to help with almost anything are rebuffed. But I forget that even though this child is only 20 weeks old, SisterLaw has already turned into a Mama Bear and a Wild Tiger ready to protect her young from any threat – even the threat of disapproval from a control freak.

“You can hire me. I could do with the extra money and you know that I would look after your daughter the same way that I look after Sweetpea, and you cant ever really be sure that in a child care centre they can give the one to one time that I could give her. And maybe on the days you don't work, you could look after Sweetpea and I could work a couple of days teaching. You could hire me.”

“Can I admit that I wanted to ask you that desperately, but I didn’t want to cross the line and I didn’t know when the right time would be to ask if you would look after my baby?”

“You can hire me.”

Of course, it’s a long way until April next year, so time will tell if this works out, but there it is. I have a niece.

In-Noo-Shook

2007-07-12T23:19:00.000+10:00

I have to tell you that this studying stuff is for the birds… the birds I tell you! I am exhausted from spending three hours studying solidly today. I am currently doing a post- graduate course for professional development (meh), so I can wax lyrical all about gifted education and definitions and things that are factors in the fairness of training or the discrimination of not having specialist teachers for gifted students. Yes, I just knew that would prick your ears up and having you positively panting for more! For the first assignment (reports on the first five weeks worth of work) that is due in four weeks, there is the minimum of 3000 words for the whole five weeks. For week one I wrote 2600 words and I could have said much more, but I decided I had to stop and start week two. I don't think that I will have any trouble fulfilling the word count portion of this course. In fact, I'm finding it really interesting so far, but of course, by week 10 I could be bitching and whinging and you will be able to say “I told you so’s” all over the place. Just remind me that when I'm whinging that at the end of week 12 I have two assignments due, shut up and get on it with!

There. Does that count as a blog update? Because I truly cannot think of anything entertaining to write about.

Do I really want to write about how damn hard it was to leave Sweatpea with my friend Nurse today so that I could go out and study? Hell no. I want to forget that darling little face, screwed up in grief. I really don't want to write about the wails of “Mummah! Mummah! Mine!” that broke my heart and had me driving away in tears as I walked out the door and Nurse having to cuddle Sweatpea in her arms to stop her from running after me. I do not know how mothers can leave their children every day to go to work. I can only imagine how much of an emotional drain it must be to leave your child every day in the care of someone else if or when the maternal instincts are kicking and screaming madly to go back, wrap your arms around your baby and never walk away again. I'm not saying that there is anything bad with women who do it, either because they have to for economic reasons or they really, purely enjoy their jobs and want to keep their careers on the up and up. I just can’t imagine how you deal with the leaving of the child when they clearly don't want you to go away. I'm just really glad that I don't have to do it, and despite the financial hardships, despite my career being screwed around, I'm glad I get to spend the next few years with Sweatpea. And my respect for mothers who work outside of the home has grown. As I said, I'm thankful that I can be a stay at home mother for now. Having said all that, I'm also glad that I can study part time at university so that when I'm ready to go back to work, I will have better qualifications. Of course, by the time I finish my courses (at one subject a semester!) I could be too old and ready to go onto the old age pension making my studies worthless, but it keeps my brain active, or shattered depending on how much study I've done for the day! :)

Seriously, there was nothing exciting that happened today, but I have to get back into the habit of writing here rather than the paper diary that I've been working on. Actually, its part of my life coaches homework for me. I have to write ‘morning pages’ every morning (fancy that!) and I am finding that after writing them (by hand no less) I have pretty much purged out most of my thoughts and have nothing left to rant and rave about here in the online diary. Not that that’s a bad thing. I would love to have this diary filled with things that are lot more upbeat, positive and happy. The morning pages come from a workbook that I fear is going to take me positively years to work through called “The Artists Way” by Julia Cameron. Its supposed to be a book on how to reconnect with the inner artist we each have inside us. At least, that is what the book suggests. All I know is that I really struggle to call myself a writer, I don't believe that I have any talent whatsoever and I don't value the talent and the gift that God has bestowed upon me with my writing. I'm not sharing this with you simply to solicit notes of “but you arrrrrrre deeply talented” in a Holly Golightly manner. I'm sharing this with you as a mental inukshuk, (meaning "image of a man's spirit" in the Canadian Inuit language of Inuktitut). of where I have been now so that in my future I can look back and see that I've moved forward. Now that was a truly profound sentence. But I will, in the interest of full disclosure, admit to you that the first word I wrote initially was illicit, rather than solicit. Talented wordsmith am I not?

More Diary than Blog - Meandering Thoughts

2007-06-14T02:01:00.001+10:00

Its strange what hits you emotionally sometimes. Tonight I realised that I had 6 white Christmas’ and that I wish I had treasured them more. I thought I was going to have the rest of my lifetime of white Christmas’, but I only had 6 and that realisation has reduced me to tears. I so desperately miss my life in Canada. Who would have thought that possible?

I got the official offer (and congratulations) letter from the university today – finally. The sad part is that I don't feel like opening the bottle of champagne to celebrate. I just want to curl up and cry a bit more. I'm exhausted just thinking about what subject(s) I am going to study the next semester. The subjects of offer are a wee bit (read extremely) boring but I have to get this fourth year out of the way. Ugh. I wish I hadn’t accepted that teaching job straight out of third year and opted instead to complete the forth year way back when dinosaurs walked the earth and I was in university for the first time.

I've been baking like a mad woman lately. All kinds of slices and biscuits to be exact, although I did make a flourless chocolate cake for one of mum’s friends who is allergic to wheat. I have discovered the most Devine chocy fudge biscuit that had over 500g (almost two pounds) of three different types of chocolate in it. Calorific or what? But totally worth it. I should take a photo of the biscuits they are that damn good. They have Cherry Ripes in them and I am thinking that Peppermint Crisp would work just as well. *drool*

Spoke to Game Boy for around 43 seconds last Sunday night. He said he was off to church, but it was 8am his time. I'm not sure that most churches are even open at that time let alone have a service then…. I think he was trying to blow me off. I have repeatedly asked him to get Sweetpea’s health records out to me because the Aussie doctors wont give her any immunisations without knowing what she had in Canada and she is now a year behind. He kept saying “Find somewhere for me to fax them to you” and I kept telling him it isn’t a option, snail mail them to me. I swear he repeated the fax issue three times in 28 seconds (in a 43 second conversation). I want to scream at him, “This is your daughters health you are wasting arguments on”, but what would it achieve? Nothing. All I can hope is that he gets the records to me. And yes, I have rung the health clinic personally, but it still didn’t come through. I think they are now demanding payment and Kathy (the receptionist for my doctor there) didn’t know it and the paediatrician is being stubborn. Either way, my daughter’s health is being compromised and when I go to enrol her at school I will be up poop creek because children here have to be immunised or go through a million hoops to prove why they aren’t. I still really like the idea of home schooling but I fear the government will stop my single parent pension and demand I go out and work to support my daughter and myself. Being a single, stay at home parent isn’t an option with this government, which puts an end to the home schooling option. That option is only for the super rich or the child lucky enough to have two parents.

Mum keeps telling me to cut Sweetpea's hair because its getting in her eyes. I have told her in no uncertain terms that I am NOT giving me child a mullet hair cut to get the hair out of her eyes. I suffered years with short (boy length) hair and I will not make my daughter suffer likewise. Mum swears it was to thicken my hair. Bullocks. You have as many hair follicles as you will ever have and you cant change anything but keeping the hair super short for years. It was only when people kept calling me a boy in front of her in shopping centres that she finally relented and allowed me to grow my hair long. I am simply wanting Sweetpea's hair to grow from the crown of her head to near the nape of her neck so that I can have to cut into a bob of sorts when she finally has enough hair for a first hair cut! Mums constant nagging has meant that now every morning I have to beg Sweetpea to let me put her hair up in a piggy tail to keep her face hair free, which, I have to tell you, she does not appreciate at all. We have fights (lord, she is only two!) of me saying “Pleeeeeeeeease Sweetpea?” and her saying “No!” repeatedly. All I can hope is that her hair grows quickly. When I look back on Good Friday photos her hair wasn’t as thick as it is now, so there is hope! I want to get my hair cut.

I watched the movie “The Family Stone” tonight. In words of a great Scottish lass I know around this OD joint, it sucked big hairy donkey balls. Boring doesn’t come close to describing it. Equally disappointing was the movie “Little Miss Sunshine”, which is really frustrating because I spent $16 on the damn thing. Barrrrrr-humbug. Which makes me miss the pawn shop that was a 15 minute walk from my home in Ottawa, which had DVD’s for $5. I miss my life in Ottawa.

My sister has officially popped at 15 weeks. It isn’t easy to always be happy for her. Its my own issue of overwhelming jealousy. I had to tell Mum that she was ripping my heart out every time to started to talk about how she hoped it was a girl and that I should be handing over all my stuff to Laywer Girl. I told her that if she knew my prayers were to have another child somehow, why would she ask me to give my stuff away. That you only give baby stuff away when you have finished having babies. I hope that she shuts up about it, because I am not ready to hand over any of my things (my memories and hopes) to Laywer Girl and BIL. I want to hang on to them for now.

Its become a routine that when I go into the shower and have my hair wet and plastered to my back Sweetpea opens the door and puckers up for a kiss. I think its really because she likes the fiant feeling of water showering over her, but it could also be because she wants to kiss me. I’ll take the second option.

Thrilling the Reader Within

2007-05-03T08:45:00.000+10:00

I think every writer is a person who wants to impress the reader within themselves. Anyone who wants to tell a story has been a person who has read other peoples tales and been filled with amazement at the magic simple black shapes on a page can form words that can alter a person forever.

By my own recollection, I have been a reader all my life. Some of the best Christmas presents my mother ever gave me were piles of books, tall misshapen packages, wrapped in decorative paper ready to be ripped open by my eager hands. There are pictures of me on birthday mornings celebrating another year of my life, engrossed in a new book. Weekly trips to the library punctate my memories. I love the smell, the feel of a new book in my hands. I love the promise a new book holds for a reader. Within the pages of a book, you can go on a journey to anywhere, at any time and learn any number of things. And from a young age, I too wanted to be part of the magic that I believed an author was part of when they wrote a book.

If a person writes words that nobody reads, can they still call themselves a writer?

Like all writer wannabes, I use my diary and my blog to practise the craft of writing. I may pretend that, to all intensive purposes, I really don't care whether people read my entries. I may pretend that I am writing a record of my life for me to enjoy in years to come. And to a certain extent, its true. I love going back over my diary to the start of my writing journey to see how far and what I have learnt from life so far. But there is another, possibly more selfish reason I write and put my words up on public display in cyber space. To deny this would be to lie. I put my words up for the world to see because I yearn for the encouragement from other people. I long to gain praise for the way I have strung words together to make my meaning clear to others. I want to be told that I do have a gift, that I'm not kidding myself that eventually, with perseverance and a thick skin, I too will see my name in print as a by line. That my stories will be written on thick creamy paper bound together in the wonderful tablet form of a book that will have my name on the spine.

But as naturally as writing appears to come to some, for me, the continual ease of writing often remains elusive. Certainly there are days when my fingers seem to fly over the keyboard, the words rise up out of my soul in the effortlessness of a bird in flight. There are days however, when pulling the words out of my head and getting my fingers to translate the thoughts onto the keys of the keyboard is much like watching a one year old child learning to feed themselves spaghetti. In their determination to do “me do”, you end up with noodles all over the family room floor, in their hair, down their clothes and (if your lucky) in the tummies of two ever hungry, helpful and happy to oblige dachshunds. My writing is messy, my thoughts jumbled and my ego battered as I come to the realisation that I still have a way to go in learning to fulfil the artistic call of my soul.

To this end I have, some would say finally, enrolled in my first writing workshop. I'm not sure what to expect exactly, but the mere fact I have put my hand up to a stranger in the real world and admitted that I too want to join the ranks of ‘writers’ has been a journey of discovering courage for me. I have finally acknowledged that what I really long to do is write and see my name in a library catalogue and a book shop shelf. This Sunday I will meet a real life author Cath Crowley who has two published books and a play accounted to her name.

I hope to learn (or even just catch a fragment or two) of her wisdom on how to turn ideas into actual chapters with characters that hold a reader spellbound. I want to learn how to get past the annoying 3000 word boundary that I strike so often, unsure of how to take my tale to the next place, despite knowing the story I want to weave. I want to walk away and believe that I too, can use the title writer and that the words I write will thrill the reader within me.

Money Well Spent?

2007-05-02T01:57:00.000+10:00

The great thing about living in a country with universal health care is that everyone, eventually gets access to all kinds of health practitioners. The down side to living in a country with universal health care is that the government places limits on how often you can access different areas of medical treatment, because of the need to keep total governmental spending down.

October last, when I first received the (tres classe) e-mail from Game Boy that he was ending our marriage, I confess to spiralling into kind of despair that would leave most people suicidal at best. Fully aware that I was the only stable parental figure in Sweetpea's life, I hotfooted it to the doctors to request counselling help. I was referred to a mental health specialist and informed that the government would pay for a grand total of six sessions for me to get my act together. Talk about putting a band aid over a open heart surgery wound.

In three weeks time I will have used my six sessions, and I have to say that I am fairly unimpressed with the whole system. Not that my psychologist isn’t caring; she truly is. But the whole time I have felt like she has had a list on her mental clip board of all my problems that she is duty bound to report as fixed to receive her government pay packet.

Insomnia – I sleep depending on my ability to keep fears at bay – check.
Midnight comfort eating – I haven’t eaten past 9pm in the last 8 weeks – check
Wanting to kill myself – I now want to kill him – check

Check. Check. Check. Its hard to not notice the small smile of self congratulations that plays on the psychologists lips as she sees that my presenting issues are resolved, in a manner of speaking. So has the money the Australian government poured into my health care been well spent? Have I really gotten anything out of the sessions I've spent with the psychologist? No.

Well to be really honest, that isn’t completely true. After four sessions with the psychologist I decided that the only way I was going to heal my heart and get my life back on track was to run back to the (often tough) loving arms of my life coach and take charge of things myself. Its thanks to my life coach that I have come so far in the course of four months. So maybe the government hasn’t wasted its money after all. After all, I'm now working with a Canadian life coach, and I'm not suicidal with grief. Its all good in the end. Now if I could work out of my system the murderous thoughts I harbour towards Game Boy I would sleep even better at night.

Changing Wardrobes.

2007-04-03T23:15:00.000+10:00

I spent the early part of the evening sorting out your clothes last night. The changing of the season signalled the reality that I could avoid the job no more. No longer could I dress you in several layers of summer clothes, hoping that your lips would not turn blue and that bare legs would not be frowned upon by supposedly superior beings when we went out in public. No, it was high time that I broke out the thicker clothes that I had stored up magpie like in plastic bags, bought over the past summer sales period that I hope will keep you warm during the autumn and winter seasons.

It was time, I knew in my heart, to sort out the clothes that were too small for you and pack them away. I had been dreading this task, as I knew that it was going to be hard sentimentally for me. For with each item I put aside as too small, an image of your father and I flashed before my eyes. The moment that he held up the pair of jeans that he had found with small love heart shaped pockets played out fully in my minds eye. My heart endured the surge of emotions of joy and fulfilment. I could hear his voice as he sighed with the pleasure of simply buying something cute and girly for you to wear. The day I found the cardigan with the multi-coloured strands of yarn which was followed by a simple lunch of burgers and chips where we talked and laughed and enjoyed the newly renovated shopping mall with the skylight roofing that allowed the thin winter sunshine to fill the atrium. The dress that I bought on a trip downtown to a store that no longer exists, that had hung on the canopy railings of our bed, that you were photographed in for a major daily newspaper article about an entrepreneurial exploit of mine.

This task was more than saying goodbye to old favourites of clothing simply to make room for items waiting to become the new favourites. This task made my heart ache because it was saying goodbye to the shared parenting times I had with your father. Officially, I have now been a single parent longer than I was a parent with a partner. Your well being, your upbringing has been primarily my job, my burden to carry. Burden because each and every day I second guess myself and worry that I am making bad decisions that will fundamentally change who you will become at the end of your journey to adulthood. I lie awake at night and wish I had another voice in the dark to whisper my fears to. I miss the camaraderie in sharing this parental load with your father on a daily basis. I know that your father supports me from across the distance and when prompted he will tell me that he trusts me completely with your life. But I long to hear comfort and confirmation that my best is enough and that you will be who you are meant to be despite my parenting attempts.

I put away the items that I had clung too in these recent months, because it was my last link with the man I had chosen to move to an adoptive homeland that I discover anew each day I am missing so desperately. The simple task of clothing your body is no longer a shared pleasure. Now we choose items alone for you and hope that the other will approve, or at least accept. Dealing with the certainty of your growth towards maturity has me crying still with a strange mixture of grief and pride. But as I went through your clothes last night, I put away another piece of my heart.

Is there a Doctor in the house?

2007-03-20T11:43:00.000+11:00

It often amazes me how much young children take in when you don't think they are aware of the situation at all. Its been several weeks since my mother was in hospital and one would think it was enough time to forget the things that Sweetpea saw and the people she came into contact with.

Not so. Just this week Sweetpea pulled out one of those tacky cereal box give away gifts that kids will see at the supermarket and nag you senselessly for three isles to have. It was a cheap blue plastic wallet with a Velcro strip to snap it shut. Somewhere out of the murky depths of her toy box Sweetpea unearthed this cheap and nasty give away and revealed to us her future.

Unwrapping the whole length of the wallet, she then went up to The Matriarch, pulled up the sleave of her shirt and then wrapped it around the top of her arm.

“Shhhh. Shhhh. Shhhhh” came the sound from my daughter’s pursed lips.

It dawned on my mother and I that Sweetpea was using the wallet as a blood pressure cuff and she was taking her grandmothers blood pressure, just as she had seen so many times in the hospital.

“Oh you good girl,” said my mother. “Are you going to be a nurse or a doctor?”

“Doc,or” came the certain reply.

My mother and I stared at each other open mouthed. Never had that word passed her lips before, but the resolve in her voice was firm. Of course, I laughed and joked to my mother about if only it were true. But then Sweetpea did something that nailed the coffin shut in my mind.

She took the blood pressure cuff off my mothers arm, opened it up and sternly said, “Money.”

“Oh yeah. You're a doctor alright.” I've been searching for a toy doctors kit ever since.

Who Me? So What!

2007-03-08T22:40:00.000+11:00

Nervously I walked into the building, clutching my daughter’s hand for courage, although I'm sure I'm supposed to say it was to comfort her. This was the first of many days that I knew from the very first moments I had held her, as a newborn child that would come into my life. Yet I had successfully ignored the reality of it for two years.

I signed the enrolment forms, paid the fees and after taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, took Sweetpea into her first Mainly Music playgroup. Of course, as the universe would have it, earlier that morning there had been a major accident on the freeway, so what would have been a perfectly timed journey had turned into a 20-minute late entry. Everyone was sitting in a circle on the floor, having been given homemade maracas filled with dried rice dyed blue studded with gold flecks of foil to shake to the beat of the song. Sweetpea wasn’t really into the maracas, bar clinging onto both hers and mine and refusing to do anything with them.

After a shared snack time of cut up cubes of the next-to-last fresh summer fruit of the season it was free play time. Those of us with toddlers and small children herded them outside to the playgroup shaded by giant eucalyptus trees and the shade sails that are so hugely popular in this country. Standing around making small talk with strangers is my idea of perfect torture. Still, I knew that if I was going to make this a regular part of my daughters educational opportunities, I was going to have to swallow my fears and talk to the other women that seemed so at ease with each other.

“So is this your first time here?”

“Yes, how can you tell? Is it the deer caught in the headlights look on my face that gives it away?” I replied.

Laughter followed, which I read to be a good sign.

“Is she your only child?”

“Yes, she is, and she is my pride and joy. How many children do you have?”

“Two here and one at school already” she replied, managing to drop the name of the exclusive boys school into the conversation.

Out of the corner of my eye I had been watching a group of three boys (‘da thugs’ as I christened them in the later retelling of the event to my mother) purposely refusing to allow Sweetpea to join in their games, even though she was truly innocent about what was going on. She had been standing outside a cubbyhouse, wanting desperately to join the little boys, and they had been shouting at her to go away, that there was no room for her. Oh how my heart ached. Yes, yes, yes, I understand that this is the law of the jungle and this is how children work and yadda yadda yah. I'm a school teacher. I know how it works. I've made a career for many years out of knowing how it works. But we are talking about my Sweetpea here, and all the protective passion of a mother lion wanting to guard her young cub came to the surface. Obviously, my face hides nothing well, as the mother I had been talking to jokingly shrieked,

“Look out! Over protective mother on the loose!”

It was like a knife to the heart. My already shaky self confidence in my parenting skills crumbled to the ground as if hit by a 6.8 Richter scale earthquake. Squaring my shoulders I went and redirected Sweetpea to another activity and kept my distance from the shrieking harpy as I had now named the ‘didn’t give a damn’ mother. But the words “over protective mother’ were burnt into my mind.

And several hours latter I was still considering them. I had sworn up and down as I underwent fertility treatment year after year that I wouldn’t wrap my child up in cotton wool if I was ever so lucky to be blessed with a child, I would allow my child to deal with the real world knocks and scraps and let her grow up to be free and strong. Could it be true that I was over protective? Was I holding Sweetpea back because of my own fears and inability to allow her to be roughed up a bit by the real world?

And then it dawned on me, bright and clear and the early morning rays of sunshine that banish the darkness of the night. Even if I was ‘over protective’ according to the views and opinions of some people, it was OK by me. Because if that mother had had her world pulled from under her as mine has been in the last year, left with nothing but three suitcases of holiday clothing and a small baby, I would be willing to bet my bottom dollar that she too would be a smidge over protective of her children. She would be desperate to hold onto what little she had left to provide some kind of stability for her child, she would do whatever it took to make sure that the most precious thing left to her – her child – was safe and happy. She would hover and worry and feel stupid for it all at the same time.

But its OK. I wont be this way forever, it isn’t a natural part of my personality and its not how I want to bring up Sweetpea. But this is a healing period in both our lives. This will be the first of ‘one step at a time’ experiences until it feels normal to be a single parent with my daughter. So tomorrow is Mainly Music playgroup day for Sweetpea and I. Want to join us be over protective and shake some maracas?

Making the Choice

2007-02-19T23:28:00.000+11:00

For better or worse, I have decided to live a part of my life open to public viewing by way of writing for a blog about my life as a newly single parent. Choosing to put my thoughts and choices on a public domain such as blogspot opens a Pandora’s box of possibilities – all of which are virtual. Being open about things I'm considering can leave me wide open to judgement and attack or applause and support according to personal whim. But as I choose what to reveal here and what I keep close to my heart, you only get a limited version of my life and if you don't know me personally, then the person who is the writer behind the internet page will always be hidden.

Writing has always been an effective method in helping me clarify my inner spirit. It has always been the most effective way to my soul. Writing has helped me come to serious decisions, work out problems and formulate plans for my future. Writing helps me work through the reflections of my heart and clarify what are true for me and what can be discarded as unimportant or unnecessary.

So here is a card I have held close to my chest. Here is something I've been mulling over in my heart for a long while. I'm still not completely sure that this is the right direction to take, I've decided that I have to at least try to push on the door to see if it will open. If the door doesn’t open I will assume that a window will open elsewhere for me. But here it is, in writing. This is as real as it gets for me.

I have a consultation with the Melbourne IVF group next month to see about the possibility of attempting to have a second child. The law in this state, being an ass, has made it so that a woman without a male partner has to prove that she is infertile before she can be accepted onto the program for IVF. As luck would have it, I was a patient for several years with my first husband, thus proving my infertility, so it has been relatively easy for me to get to this point of the journey. Most women in my position have to battle just to get here, but in a matter of weeks, if all goes as smoothly as everything has so far, I assume I will be doing through the counselling required for a single woman to choose donor sperm and attempt IVF.

Do I think that single parent families are the ideal? Who can say? I don't think that God really planned it this way, but for better or worse it’s a possibility for women now days. And for what its worth, I think that a lot of single women who choose parenthood do a fantastic job at it, because they want it so desperately. I don't want to have the regrets in later life that my mother has. She still talks about her desire to have had another child. She wishes that she had listened to her inner voice and tried her luck again instead of worrying about what others would say. I don't foresee the right man waltzing into my life in a timely fashion for me to attempt having another baby with him, so I have to make choices now. This is my choice.

Yes, I would much prefer to try to have a second child with a husband by my side. I still wish that my marriage was alive and that this whole IVF route was memory that made Sweetpea all the sweeter in my life. But its not an option. My husband has decided that we make better friends than spouses, and he doesn’t see a point in even attempting to work on what we had. In his mind, its over, so for me, there is no other option. I'm turning thirty-seven in a matter of months. The biological side of things wasn’t running smoothly to begin with, and now that my biological clock is chiming the midnight hour on my ability to have a child, I'm not sure I want to waste any more time wondering if it’s the right thing to do because I fear what some members of society will say about my choices. So there it is. Mine and mine alone - my choice.

Speech is Golden

2007-01-24T12:11:00.000+11:00

It only takes a look on a book shelf, a glance through website message boards on the internet or eavesdropping on a conversation between people surrounded by little children to know I'm not the only parent to second guess my parenting abilities and wonder silently to myself if I am doing a good enough job raising Sweetpea.

You know how it goes. In an effort to convince them that they are doing OK on the parenting issues, parents compare what one child is doing against another’s development. Not normally are such comparisons meant to be competitive, but there are times when you wonder if the parent telling you how fabulously advanced their child is, is really doing it for reassurance or if they are doing it to gain a feeling of superiority against other adults struggling with the same feelings of inability.

One issue that had been lying heavily on my heart was my fear that Sweetpea’s language development wasn’t what it should be. It seemed that so many children were far more highly developed than my daughter when it came to speaking that I honestly began to fear that my daughter was possibly autistic because of her apparent refusal to communicate with me. Rather, she would point to whatever she wanted and grunt. Up until 18 months of age this system worked wonderfully well. I knew exactly what Sweetpea wanted and there was hardly ever a breakdown in understanding.

But as her second birthday approaches and I heard people boasting of the words their two year old children were coming out with and the panic set in. Why wasn’t Sweetpea talking to me? What was I doing wrong? I had been speaking to her since her birth using full language; there was to be no baby talk for my little girl. I went as far as to purposely look fully into her face and asked her opinions on things I went shopping for at three weeks of age. Hadn’t I done what all the books, all the professionals exposing their wisdom, all my years at university studying the development of language in young children taught me? Why was there a absence of words falling from my child’s lips?

I started putting voice to my worries with other people, and the truth came surging forward like a tidal wave of proof against my fears. Sweetpea has been talking ten to the dozen – to everyone but me. Dozens of examples of words were given to me that she had been speaking. I was stunned, unable to take in what I was being told. Sweetpea was a chatterbox, not a mute. Upon hearing these testimonies, I decided to start writing down the words that I heard or that others told me about. In the space of one week, I had a list of 25 words. After reaching that number, I stopped worrying and decided that my ability to understand Sweetpea’s grunting was at a level so highly developed that she didn’t feel the need to use words with me. I chose to believe that we were so in harmony that words were unnecessary. I tried hard to not take it personally that other people got to hear her sweet voice saying words and all I got grunts.

But joyfully this week I got to witness Sweetpea’s language development first hand. This week Sweetpea started putting two word sentences together. The first was “Mummy look”. She was pointing to photo of us at the beach together and we talk just about every morning about the memories of that day as it is above our bed. I was so excited to hear this sentence, but I did wonder if it was a fluke, or if it was the beginning of something bigger and better. I had my answer within a couple of days. “Me up!” was said, as she demanded to be lifted onto the bed of my mother as we visited her in hospital. My sister was there, so that makes two witnesses to this new development.

I think that maybe I need to cut myself some slack, stop comparing my child to others and just enjoy the ride of growing up with her. Because without a doubt, Sweetpea is going to be all grown up and these precious childhood days will be but a cherished memory. And I don't want my memoirs to be of self doubt, but of enjoyment and pride of a job well done.

Self fastening tabs and toilet training.

2007-01-16T02:32:00.000+11:00

Don't get me wrong, I understand that on the large scale of things such as famine and disease in third world countries, environmental, poverty and human rights issues, this really isn’t a huge issue. But I dare you to find any mother of a child who uses nappies and ask her if she is calm when the self-fastening nappy tabs break. And at what point she will break and start to think wild thoughts of self destruction.

Nappy producers have paid marketing companies immense sums of money to make a big song and dance about the self-fastening tabs that encase a baby in said nappy. The ease of use and the ability to open and close a nappy several times in the never ending battle of keeping a baby’s bum clean, dry and inoffensive to the adult nose are high scoring issues. One company even calls its self-fastening tabs ‘koala grip tabs’. Ostensibly because they grip the fuzzy stuff at the front of the nappy with the determination only a koala who is being uprooted from its ancestral homeland to be moved 14kms west to better feeding grounds can grip. I bet the marketing whizzes never took into account that koalas snarl a lot, sleep most of the day and are, in fact, not that cuddly when they sat around that big meeting room table, brainstorming ways of selling more nappies to the choir that sings nappy praises in the first place. There is a marketing war being waged out there right now folks, over the size and width of the tabs used to keep a nappy attached to a child. But the war is being waged on the wrong battle front. I would pay $1 a nappy (which if you worked out how many nappies you use in a week would equal an awful lot of money) if I knew for sure that the tabs wouldn’t rip apart on me, rendering the nappy useless. Even gaffer tape, supposedly the most useful tape in the whole world cant keep a nappy on a baby with wandering hands and a fixation on her belly button like a self fastening tab can. Except when the tab rips off.

Let me paint a picture for you. Your child, whom you love and adore more than life itself starts to emit a noxious odour. You desperately pray its because they have simply broken into the bathroom cupboard and sprayed that hideous perfume that your great aunt Esmeralda gave you for Christmas but after a few moments you know that you are failing at hoodwinking yourself. One quick snatch of the child, lying then across your lap and check for excrement confirms that it is indeed nappy change time. Your child, however, has other plans. Lord knows what, but they are intent on doing anything but cooperating with you as you change the offending nappy. Heaving the child up and over your shoulder, you stagger (due to the proboscis being so close to the primary source of the lethal smell) to the room where the equipment required to change the nappy is stored. Opening the nappy and seeing the offending slush up close is enough to make strong men weep, but being a mother, you find a super human ability to wipe up the offending mess and wrap the used nappy up in a ball. You place the nice, clean nappy under the bottom of your child and grab one of those self gripping tabs and wrap it around your child, to attached the nappy to the body. And then you hear it. Riiiiiiiiiiiip. Actually, its doesn’t even take that long. Its more a Riiip and you are left with a tab in your hand and a child finally succeeding in their attempt to escape and do a nudie run through the house; which we all know will result in a puddle of pee-pee on the floor, somewhere in the house, to be found later. Hopefully only resulting in a foot needing to be washed, and not a full on slide and whump on the bum.

Today - today it happened to me again. I had almost managed to wrangle Sweetpea into her nappy when the tab ripped off. Amid much internal dialogue which alternated between cursing the nappy producers and praying that there was no yellow puddle being left somewhere in the house I made a decision. No more would I spend my day chasing a bare tushied baby around the house because of a broken tab. I was going to embark on one of parenting’s greatest joys: toilet training.

I even went as far as going to the store to buy a potty. When I was a young child, my potty was a pink thing (see, the pink fascination started even then) that served me well. Not that I recall my potty training all that vividly. But I still manage to sit on the toilet and pee and poop in the appropriate manner without embarrassing family or friends, so something must have worked. I honestly thought it would be a quick trip of walk in, grab potty, pay check out chick and go home. HA! Boy was I wrong. Did you know there are potties out there now that not only have flashing lights, but play different tunes to reward the child when they pee or poop? Think about it, as if its not traumatic enough for the child to see the most trusted people in the world (that would be the parents) throw their pee and poop into the toilet and flush it away, now they have lights and music giving away the exact moment they choose to pee and poop.

I ended up buying the bargain basement potty. After careful analysis of the whole topic, I realised that as Sweetpea's mother, it was my job to give her plenty of issues to talk about with the psychologist when she gets older. It might as well start with the fact that I didn’t buy her a $50 potty with lights and music. But in the cool calm of the evening, when I contemplate the actual teaching of peeing and pooping in the potty deal, I realise that I have set myself up for more of what I already have. Chasing of a nekkid bummed baby around the house and attempting to talk logic to a not quite two year old about the virtues of using a potty rather than just dumping and running from the scene of the crime. What the hell was I thinking? Do I really hate my life so much that I'm willing to engage in such insane activities?

Suddenly a broken self-fastening nappy tab doesn’t seem like such a big issue. Until the next time it rips off in my hand.

Cleaning Before the Cleaner Comes.

2007-01-08T23:25:00.000+11:00

“Ceylon, don't forget that the cleaner is coming tomorrow morning. The toilet and the bathroom need to cleaning. I don't want Karen to see them dirty.”

Do other people who use the services of cleaners do this too, this cleaning the rooms before the cleaner gets to them? Is it to avoid the possibility of the cleaner twigging to the fact that the rooms were, indeed, used during the past week by the very inhabitants living in the house they have been hired to clean? Can cleaners really be fooled so easily? Tidying up I understand, it makes a persons job much easier if they don't have to sweep up toys and fold piles of clothes left lying around; but cleaning the rooms, scrubbing hard to make porcelain sparkle, is that not just a wee bit irrational?

Is there, what amounts to literally a small army of people, who are hired as house cleaners in the world labouring under the false idea that really, houses (bathrooms and toilets especially) don't ever really get dirty? Do they not have bathrooms and toilets in their own homes they use, making dirty over the course of a week? Or do they secretly laugh to themselves as they drive in their cars and vans on their way to work, knowing that the night before someone has scurried around like a mad thing, cleaning the aforementioned rooms, under the heavy burden of fear of being found out to actually use the bathroom and toilet. On the other hand, do cleaners hire cleaners themselves, and on the eve of the hired help coming, find themselves manically cleaning the bathroom and toilet before their hired help comes to clean their homes?

The possibility of my thinking about this possibility is making me feel quite dizzy. So much so that I think I might go and clean a toilet and flush those spiralling thoughts away before Karen gets here. I wouldn’t want her to see that our toilet had been used this past week.

The Beginning of Empowerment.

2007-01-02T23:46:00.000+11:00

In the quest for personal independence, I finally sat down and looked at all my Superannuation paperwork. Which in actuality is envelopes stuffed with reports and balance sheets and reams of paper that would equal at least half a tree’s worth of waste. I'm not sure about you, but Superannuation is all about retirement, which is so far off in the future that I really don't think about it. I would have to sit down and mentally figure out when I would be eligible to retire…. 2030. I will be eligible to retire in 2030, and that’s so far away I don't think many people my age are thinking seriously about it at all. All this thought about retirement, superannuation and the future makes me feel as if it would be easier to put my hands over my ears and sing “La La La” off key and pretend that its not real.

But today I opened the many envelopes from the superannuation fund companies that have cluttered my desk with thoughts of ‘someday soon’, pulled out the balance sheets and really looked at the figures. I looked at the fees the management funds deducted from my account. I looked at the average growth of each fund and the returns on the money they had invested on my behalf. To my horror, I saw that one fund was so out of date with my identifying information that it had me with my former husband’s surname, that is, the husband I had before Game Boy. A name that I haven’t used since mid 2000. A quick phone call and now I know what I need to do to fix that minor oversight.

Sadly for me there isn’t a whole lot of money in the accounts that I do own. That’s the downside of being a casual teacher and having worked in a foreign country, not having a regular pay cheque to put towards my super. I also inwardly fume at the advice that the so called lawyer who handled my divorce from Pondscum told me, to forget about fighting for the superannuation from him, that it wouldn't be worth the fight. Nevertheless, I do have several small amounts that when rolled over into one account gain me around $1300. Over the course of one year, given the figures from the past year of 16% growth, that $1300 will grow to $1500. In ten years, that figure would be around $5700, and that isn’t so bad for money that I'm not allowed to touch under Australia law until I retire. That doesn’t factor in that in a few years when Sweetpea will be at school and I can return to the workforce and start really adding money to the mix.

One of my resolutions for the coming year was to start working towards true independence for myself. Today I took a step, albeit a small one, towards being responsible for my money: it feels empowering.

Taking My Home On the Road.... Maybe.

2006-12-29T12:05:00.000+11:00

I've been thinking, dreaming really. The idea that consumes my every waking moment (well that isn’t strictly true, but it sounds better in the writing) is the idea of packing up what little I have and whilst Sweetpea is young enough, go travelling around Australia.

Originally I thought if hiring a campervan for six months and just taking off. But hiring even from the cheapest, oldest, clapped out 1975 combivan dealership was going to cost me a small fortune, and lets not talk about if I wanted the luxury of a built in bed space! I was quoted prices that ranged from $6,000 to $12,000. Uh, yeah, sure right. I'm going to hire a van for six months for $12,000. BANG! Goes that dream.

Or so I thought. I started looking into buying my own little travelling home. Nothing flash of course, but a place that would give me some security on the road as I travel with Sweetpea and see this big beautiful land of mine. I would have preferred my first car to be a car, but if it turned out to be a snail-truck so I could follow an adventured filled life for a while, it wouldn’t be so bad would it?

Just thinking of the freedom of travelling where ever I wanted, staying as long as I wanted – or picking up and moving on sounds so appealing to me right now. I'm sure there will be people who will think I'm just running away from my reality, but so what if I am? What’s to stop me? Nothing but my own fears really.

All of this will have to wait until I work out what is happening with my life in Canada. I will be returning in a few weeks. I have to take my Citizenship test. I didn’t come this far with Immigration to loose that dream now. But if and when I return, the call to the gypsy life, will that be for me?

It will be her's one day....

2006-11-30T00:22:00.000+11:00

FINALLY went to see the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” yesterday. Whilst not the most scintillating movie to watch (Power Point demonstrations aplenty) the knowledge shared was justly intense. The whole time Al (Gore) was talking, I kept thinking, ‘what kind of world am I allowing, am I creating for Sweetpea’s children?’ Sobering thought indeed. The lifestyle that I think I'm entitled to is going to destroy the planet that my great grand-children are going to have to survive in and try to clean up. I don't think that I can be so selfish in my choices any more. And even if I'm not making a lot of bad choices, I cant be complacent and not try to make my voice heard by politicians. When I think about just one example – breakfast cereal – I have to wonder about the society I'm living in. Is it necessary for the cereal to be packed in a plastic bag and then put into a cardboard box? Wouldn’t the cereal keep just as well in the plastic bag without the box? Oooooh… but the cardboard box makes it easy to stock on the supermarket shelf, and the box can have all kinds of fun logos and pretty pictures and groovy fonts to make it more appealing, thus pushing up the financial gains of big multi corporations. Its just too bad that the planet is groaning under the pressures that we in the Western world are putting on it to make our lives easy to manage. Even though I was dead tired and it would have been the easy option, I chose to walk the 2 ½ km home from the train station rather than get my mum to use a toxic emission petrol car. Small steps make a big difference. The trick is to keep taking the small steps and not loose the faith that its making a difference.

Mirror, Mirror

2006-11-25T01:21:00.000+11:00

I really admire the way little children are free to admire themselves in the mirror with no shame and total rapture. I'm not sure who it was in my own past, but I distinctly remember one of my friends telling me that she didn’t have a mirror in her bedroom because that was a sign of vanity. I quickly gathered from her tone of voice and the look on her face that vanity was a bad thing indeed. Apparently, there was a mirror in the bathroom that everyone in her home had access to, but no other mirrors were to be found in the building. Even as a child, I thought it strange that a bedroom could exist without a mirror.

Sweetpea’s favourite game right now is to use our bed as a trampoline. As luck would have it the bed is situated directly in front of the dressing table that comes with a three piece mirror. The centre panel is huge with two smaller curved wings coming off the sides; it’s a fabulous piece to look at your self in. Sweetpea will spend minutes (we are talking about a 21 month old here!) jumping up and down, staring at her own perfectly mirrored reflection before her. She never ceases to be thrilled that there is a baby in the reflection each and every time she looks for it. She is amazed and enthralled at her own reflection. Pulling faces, watching herself laugh, twisting and turning as she jumps are all reasons to never shift her gaze from the mirror.

I have to confess that I certainly don't spend the time looking at myself in the mirror like my daughter does. And sadly for me, I don't seem to have the peace with myself to look with no other emotion other than acceptance. I will look at the lines that are starting to permanently etch themselves into my forehead and wonder what cream in a jar could magically erase them. I look and groan with misery every time I spy a grey hair among the dark auburn mop of curls that I am crowned with. And I know without a doubt that the first time I see distinct lines around my eyes is going to be reason enough to run to a psychologist and invest in some seriously deep therapy to deal with the reality of getting older.

What is it that happens to people as they get older that they generally don't spend hours looking at themselves in the mirror with complete acceptance and joy? What happens to us as we grow up into adulthood that loving our own face (and bodies) is something akin to climbing Mount Everest. Sure, there are a lot of people who have done it, but the majority – the vast majority- couldn’t even begin to imagine completing such a task, much less actually pulling it off. Now if you are in the ilk of Elle McPherson, then this piece isn’t going to mean a hell of a lot to you. But if you’re like me, then recalling the complete acceptance from your childhood of your face for what it is (a mirror to your soul) is an odd sensation.

Recently on television I watched a woman interviewed on the Oprah show that had been the victim of domestic violence. As with most women in abusive situations, she wasn’t blessed with a great deal of positive self esteem. One night her supposedly loving boyfriend in a fit of unwarranted jealous rage shot her at point blank range in the face. There was almost nothing left of her face, just a gapping hole where the features we expect to see were gone. Even the best plastic surgeons in the land are not going to be able to recreate what she had been blessed with naturally. She will never look the same again. What stuck me about this woman was her courage in finding the truth that Self isn’t made up only on what is visible to the outside, but that Self comes from the knowledge that we are what we think and do. But I bet there isn’t a day that goes by that she doesn’t wish that she could turn back time and have one more hour to look at her face and marvel at its beauty.

I'm sure that there will be people who will consider me a bad mother for allowing my child to gaze upon her reflection for as long as she desires and smiling my approval to her when she turns to me, but I don't care. There are plenty of people in the world who will love nothing better than to try and steal her joy at accepting herself away from her in times to come. But as long as possible, I am going to encourage my daughter to reveal in her own features, to see them as a fabulous gift and accept herself as perfectly and wonderfully made.