REALLY over being at the beck and call...

....of a three year-old.

Any/all of you reading who can cope with a single solitary child - one who has nobody else to entertain him/her except YOU day in, day out - who is sapping every second of your day, day after day, with no let-up in their pace, are my absolute, undying heroes. I think of myself as lucky, that for a few mornings a week, I ship the LGBB off to occasional care (3 year-old kindy from tomorrow, whoo hoo!) because at least I do something different with my brain then. But it's all still go-go-go, work-work-work at the moment!

My twitchy finger yearns to feel comfortable with parking her butt and eyes in front of the teev, but I just cannot do it. I feel like turning on the tv is caving. And I do cave. Most days, I cave and allow her to watch something, at some point. It mightn't be long, sometimes it's just one half-hour show, sometimes it's a 2 hour DVD - she enjoys it and Lord knows so do my nerves - but it's a break for the two of us. Well, for me, at least. I feel like her day is just one long carnival, which is how I love it to be on the one hand.... but at what cost to me, on the other?

There is a certain person here who has inherited more than a little of both her mother's and her father's independence and perseverance.... to put it as constructively as I can. Case in point: A lunch I serve yesterday, which was perfectly fine to eat yesterday, is apparently not okay to eat when I make it for her today. So after explaining rationally and simply that there will be no more food served until dinner time and that lunch needs to be eaten so tummies don't get hungry, and further warnings that the longer the lunch sits at her table, the yuckier it will taste, I find myself steeped in a battle of wills I don't want to be in. I don't want my kid to eat soggy cracker biscuits with now dried spread on them! But how can I back down? For they are like elephants, they remember something you promised them last Pancake Tuesday. And yet, allegedly, cannot recall the instruction you gave them 2 minutes ago. I refuse to cave, for I want the precedent to be - "if you decide to do X, the consequences will be Y and Z... it's up to you." She gets choices, with clear examples of what will happen depending on what choice she makes. It works perfectly and is nurturing this sense of independence she innately has - she is frustrated with smother mothering and determines to do pretty much everything for herself, and yet needs an audience to do these things - but sometimes, she tests me. It is usually around the thing that is most important to her. At this point in time, that thing is food.

So before long, I get the whingey and blantantly testing, "I'mmmmm hungreeeeeee" and I say, "Well, eat your lunch then." "But it's yuckyyyyy." Well, Toots, y'know what? That's too bad! This ain't The Ritz. I don't do a menu. Gurhhhh!!

I know I have no way to accurately compare - save for speaking to several other parents who have just the one child at home to care for - so I therefore won't even attempt, but I have to say I'm on the verge of Ballistic Alert here! And I'm not afraid to say it. People with more than one child who consider me lucky..... well, the shoe is on the other foot there, too, for they cannot possibly assume to know how it is in a house with an only child either and how that child behaves with no siblings. I yearn to throw another child into the mix, just to CHANGE it up already and perhaps introduce the word "others" into the LGBB's increasing vocabulary. But nature has so far had other plans for the three of us.

I will forever remember The Three's as equally the ever-lovelier and ever-more-belligerantly-demanding of ages.

My attention span has, once again (for I did lengthen it there somewhere between The Two's and Three's), been reduced to a mere 8 minutes [note: may or may not be an accurate representation of true attention span] largely due to the repetitive nature of the requests. She wants to do craft. I set it up. She devours it as I am setting it all up. She finishes as soon as I finish taking things out. She goes on to the next thing. I ask her to help me pack it all up. She says she hasn't finished yet. If I insist she pack it up with me, my afternoon is just one long 3 hour stint of unpacking, packing up, juggling phone calls in between from a client here, a tradie there.... heaven help the friend who phones because they are the ones I have to let go through to the machine lately.

A sane mummy surely cannot be made this way. If I had absolutely nothing else to do - if I had even one female on hand (mother, mother in-law, an aunt or a cousin even) to help me with menial tasks like dishes, folding washing.... ha-ha whatever that is, wiping benches and cleaning floors, I'd be more likely not to be at bursting point. I could cope with the requests and questions and demands and whining. The usual and very normal demands of any child. The LGBB is gorgeous, she is more beautiful every passing day. She is funnier, somehow, every morning when we wake up. I will be forever grateful - anyone who knows me knows this. Which is perhaps why I am beating myself up so hard.... I want to be thankful every waking moment. But it kinda gets blurred somewhere around 10am when I have been interrupted for the gazillionth time (when I have resorted to requesting "NO interruptions for just FIVE minutes!!" for the 999 bazillionth fecking time... okay, slight exaggeration, once again, but I use it to illustrate my deep frazzled frustrations!) from my housely duties which, if I don't get them done, just stack on day after dragging day. Even when I try to slice my weeks up, I cannot get the balance right.

And I am fully aware of the plights of others. Those without a child, those who have lost a child (or more). These people and their journeys weigh super-heavy on my mind and my heart. I do not feel, however, that it is realistic to be constantly in that place of gracious acceptance. I don't. Little flip-outs should be expected! We are, after all, human. So I just wanted to throw this post in, in case anyone reading is assuming I assert myself on some high-brow pedestal with all things parenting and Zen-ness. Ho-ho, I don't. And I have Steve's vouch for it.

I'm still drumming my fingers, waiting for it all to click into place. I don't know why I can't do it with one kid! Do people become more efficient the more children they have? I do not believe I would have any sanity or humour or dignity left at all if I had another child as demanding of my time and wit as this one.

And what the hell am I doing right now?

Procrastinating? Wasting time? Conserving some sense of self, however miniscule? Trying to forget all the housework is still there (I'm talking, obscene amounts of housework, not just a little bit - this is not a well-functioning house and has not been ever since we started building works.... in OCTOBER LAST YEAR!)?

Yep. You betcha. All of the above. I want to cry. But I think I'll just go and empty the dishwasher first. There's no time for heap-falling. And I really do, honestly, apologise for this whinge-fest in this current climate of loss and remembrance. I will gain my perspective back in due course. Right after I ... yes, unload that goddamn dishwasher and stack it again!!!!

Going...

I have to say...

I am just BESIDE MYSELF at how awesome these photos I took on the weekend turned out. They're for my darling SIL and her upgraded website/business identity (I did her one a couple of years back, hastily and half-hearted, though with lots of love, and it is time for a major snazzing-up of her 'joint' on the www). She is a naturopath extraordinnaire, specialising in - who knew - natural fertility education.

I feel very privileged to have this girl in my circle (or rather, to be so firmly placed in hers) and we all in this house love her dearly. On Saturday night, she, Steve and I all but snuggled up together on the couch - with laptops on laps and Steve in the middle with his iPhone, not wanting to be out-tech'ed - and we worked on some themes. The SIL decided on old school: Paint Shop. I laughed a maniacal, if not condescending, MOOOO-HAHAHAHAAAA and drummed my fingers on my key pad, whipping up some delights in Photoshop and Indesign.

But the stealer of the show, for mine, was the photography. Taken in my kitchen, in fading evening light, I painstakingly picked a dandelion to pieces, tweezering the last few and then taking to the underside with some nail scissors. The result needed no photo touching at all, bear in mind what is below is the real, raw deal, no cheaty-type flares or colour corrections added:


I took about 60 shots - amazing how carried away you get, especially when you've taken a while to set up. And then, inspired, I grabbed a HOME GROWN granny smith apple (awwww! so little!), skewered it and got Steve to hold it in front of our kitchen splashback. It looks very crisp and fertile, to me!...


All I have to do is blot out the skewer and we're apples! Heh!

A very productive weekend. We even made progress on the house. Which reminds me.... must update on that soon, it's been months!

With love for Livvie on her birthday

Here is a very special request from a little girl's grandfather (via her mum) who, heart wrenchingly, will be spending her 10th birthday this Sunday without her as guest of honour - it is the family's first without their gorgeous daughter, sister, granddaughter, cousin, friend. A life who has touched many, and many more since her passing.

Olivia passed away tragically in a car accident in January (last month). A shattering change of life that I could not bear to imagine happening to a family and, yet, does all to often.

Please, if you haven't already, acquaint yourself with this beautiful family via Kate's (Liv's mum) blog and show your solidarity for them by releasing a purple balloon, wherever you are in the world, in celebration of Liv on her birthday this Sunday. I will be lighting a candle for her.

Cute. Very cute.

Hey Alan, Alan, Alan, Alan, Alan - watch more funny videos

Supportive commenters a.k.a. I WOZ 'ERE

Now, here is a different kind of award. They're flying around all over the place at the moment, aren't they!? But I'm rather passionate about this one because it's a passionate subject of mine: the Blog Commenter.


My recognition of its receipt is long overdue, but I've been awarded a Supportive Commenter award by a relative newcomer to my bloggy world awareness, Kellyansapansa. I must say, the girl deserves this from me as well (being a regular commenter here already - cheers!) but she already has it from someone. So that'd be kind of a moot point. Anyway, thanks, Mrs..... Ansapan...sa? ;=P

I admit, I still find it slightly unnerving that I don't hear from the majority of people who regularly read my blog. It's probably something that is curious to many of us bloggers, right? when you can see how many people read compared to how many actually comment? It's a strange thing, I couldn't read about someone's life and then not say anything. Especially if I was making a point to come here daily, or sometimes more often than that.

I get anything from 30-60 readers every day, more if it strikes a cord (one never knows which posts will get the most attraction) - with a usual minimum of 40-something - which doesn't even count those who have it on their RSS feeds, but I rarely get more than a few comments. So while it's a leetle bit unnerving to think some of you guys read and don't ever stop to say hi.... to each their own, people have their reasons! *sniff-sob, no-that's-fine*

Anyway, I have decided to pass on this award to people who have been there to support and acknowledge and have been commenting here since the very beginning... It has never gone unnoticed and I deeply appreciate these people, in particular, for regularly commenting after they read and for doing so on all different posts (the mundane, the funny, the silly, the paranoid, the downright gut-wrenching). Thanks, bloggy friends, you have made all the difference to my experience as a blogger since 2005.


Charlene - the most dedicated foster parent I "know" and someone who inspires me to be open to all of life's individuals.
Alliecat - has become my bud! I can always count on her to add to/enhance my loss posts here, especially, and really look forward to reading what she has to say (which makes her blog a very enjoyable read, too).
Averil - probably less regular lately, with good reason ;) this blogger's comments always make me feel quite humble, as her readership is so vast yet she still takes the time to say something if she is so moved. A delectable blog, it's like my guilty pleasure of the Blog World.
Danni - another I feel very privileged to "know", who is always so supportive with her and ready to have a chuckle. Love your blog, Dan.
And with an honourable mention to K77 (whose blog isn't active anymore??? but I still hear from and have done, right from the beginning of this journey)


As soon as I post this, I'll bet I'll think of a few others and smack my forehead with the palm of my hand. But these are the ones who came to me instantly, sooooo...

I know I can always count on these core bloggers to comment and let me know they were here, which is very important and shows a mark of respect, especially if/when you put your heart and soul "out there"..... which I often do on this blog. So, thanks! Much appreciated.


And just a suggestion: if you do read a blog regularly (any blog) - or avidly check it for updates - it'd be SO cool and honourable to show your appreciation of the blogger you are following to actually make a comment, even once in a while. Don't you think? You don't have to have anything earth-shattering or witty to say. Even a "Hi, I'm reading!" would be appreciated, I'm sure.

Snow over Japan

My brother sent an eery looking photo this morning.

A night shot of his front yard in Kawasaki, Japan, taken last night at 11pm as 10cm had already fallen (and was still going, with no sign of a let-up).

Kanagawa, Japan, 10:45pm - The lights from the city reflected on the snow clouds always makes snowy nights bright.

You know you've had a lot of miscarriages when...

...your Obstetrician calls just to shoot the breeze and "see how you're doing". And apologises for not replying to your SMS sooner.

See? I've done it so often, I'm on a personal text message basis with my practitioner (who was so pleased for us and offered his excited congratulations this last time). He is an utter gem in my life. And he loves seeing "his" families grow. It's a humbling privilege of mine to watch, from the sidelines, this quiet-spoken soul for the past 6, almost 7, years as he attends to his calling.

Having found him in 2003, already three years in to our journey - and knowing the difference it has made, having a permanent, familiar backstop there who I can get answers from in quick-fire succession, as well as sympathy* - I'm never going to let him retire. Not until I reach menopause and the opportunity to conceive just isn't biologically there anymore. He knows that. I'm holding him to a promise....


* Did I ever tell you, he and his practice midwife took me out for lunch 3 days after Ella died? Just cos they care??? Now, that was a lunch - food and conversation - I didn't digest, it was all so surreal.