Admission. It's the first step.

After many long months of denial, I have finally had acknowledgement. I don't know how often I've enquired and received a flat-out fib in return.

But tonight... tonight I got the confirmation I had been waiting for.

The LGBB admitted she was pushing poo.

Sorry, people, but this is a very big moment. A lunar leap for us. In this house, apparently the obvious red watery eyes, the holding of the breath, my questions of whether she was filling her nappy receiving a breathless, strained and horrified response of "NNNNOOO!" were not enough evidence. She would attempt to convince me, even in the midst of it all, that she was not. Adamantly refuse. Then turn her face away, thus signalling her need for privacy. So I would keep a respectful distance... and move to the other end of the couch. And avoid eye contact.

But now, out of nowhere, tonight during a game of "twains" - just the latest obsession, a little wooden train set - the announcement was suddenly declared to her father and me.

"Doin' poo."

It was as if the town crier had spoken.

A day in the life

Is she still behind me?

Where mischief lives: Behind those eyes

Pond killer!

In the interests of sharing the weird and wonderful when I come across it on the internet, I give you this fantastic entry.

Hold the phone!

Righteo, okay then. Trust me to make a bold statement like in my last post. I should have known it wouldn't take long for my silliness to spill over into here again. How many minutes did I last that time, peeps?

*waaaaails* I lost my Gold Class Sex and the City tickets

The buddy whose ticket I had also bought (on her behalf) also went missing. I called her this morning to confess. I have to go now, was all she said as she went to hang up. We were both forlorn. Shit! I had a plan. I was going to go down to the cinemas, Visa bill in hand, to prove I had bought tickets for seat numbers 20 and 21. See? But that means waiting for the Visa bill to come in before I can do that and we're due to go in two weeks. It might be tight.

I went through every single pair of pants I own, even though I know I was wearing jeans. WHY do I have so many pairs of jeans????? Who wears through denim thereby necessitating backup pairs?

As I stood at my side of the closet, frantically but very deliberately checking every inch of fabric inside every back pocket - I know I put them "safely" in my back pocket, I know I did - my nose tingled with the familiar onset of a tear springing to my eye as I imagined how disappointed Steve would be. How many times have I called him to say, Hold everything.... I've lost my credit card..... How many times have I misplaced my wallet? My keys? My mobile? (my friends probably all know I lose my mobile on a very regular basis, thus oblivious to missed calls or sms's until it occurs to me to look in the console of the car for it after four days)

And then I saw the pants that brought back the memory of last Saturday's outfit. I hadn't worn my jeans. Any of them. I had been wearing my cargo's. I remember now!

Like a kid hyperventilating on Christmas morning in anticipation, I stuck my grubby fist in and came out with the golden tickets.

Be still my beating heart.

Is this what's known as jumping the shark?

Life feels so full at the moment. In good and not so great ways. There feels like less and less time to be spontaneously "creative" and post an entry on here. My link to my inspiration seems to have been severed for a few weeks now, but was really brought about by The Great Gastro of '08.

Since then, I have realised that much of my creative time and energy is being poured into places where it ought: the LGBB and the book (which is symbolic to me of Ella, of course). Today we spent the morning in the garden, an exercise still somewhat tedious (because the LGBB is still not walking on her own and so therefore clings to me and whines if her hand so much as touches dew-drenched grass) but we had a lovely time and really enjoyed looking for ants and little flowers and moss, while I fended off Jazz and Pep who were desperate to plant doggy kisses on a willing toddler recipient. Yesterday we walked up to the mobile "truck library", which was a joy on wheels to behold, apparently (if you ask Lolly).

I've been reorganising my (paid) working life in the past month as well. I've taken on a new customer service auditing contract, which means I only have as much or as little as I go out and seek. It's working perfectly for my shift in focus. I really do feel like things are being changed for me in order that I have no more excuses to get on with my etheric responsibilities on an ongoing and less sporadic basis. I know they're waiting. And they're so, so, so patient with me that it makes me very humble.

What's left over of my time is spent diligently sitting still. Yes. It is that hard for me to give myself time out - not by way of a call to friends or going for a walk or actively doing anything at all - but I really do need it.

I keep forgetting that I am doing a great deal of work even without realising it. Yesterday I went and did Violet Ray - "the Vibrational Physican: Active spiritual strength of body, mind and energy" - and it just expanded my awareness to a whole new level. I'm learning to heal myself through this work, I can genuinely say now six months in to the year, in order to turn it outside of myself and give it back out. Anyone can do this, although I've come to see that it takes great dedication to take it on and incorporate it into my life (I've not been so good at doing any of the practices or exercises I've been learning each month and I really am working at creating space - out of that still time with myself - to get it happening). Everyone's take on this work/methodology/practice is going to be different, which is what makes it so interesting to me. I sit each month next to a girl who's been seeing people who have no idea they've died. I've met people who feel animals in pain and can find them in the bush, who have dreams about murder victims asking them for assistance, who can communicate with guides and other teachers but have no idea how to channel it so they stop being "harassed" by these entities, to name a few. It's fascinating but it goes beyond that. This is not a place of fantasising what these people are experiencing or creating a "WOW!" factor from it all or sensationalising their experiences in any way. It's a place to learn how to effectively place what's happening to them in a context within their lives that makes sense and works for the good of everyone - the "All", Earth.

So I wonder 'where to from here' with my blog, for the first time since I started making entries, I am actually beginning to run out of steam. It's almost as if, instead of writing about what's happening in my life, I seek the peripheral things always. There needs to be a redressing of the balance now. I don't actually have the time at the moment to think of things to say, for the sake of keeping the blog going. So it seems to me that the wisest and most logical (but scary, for me) thing to do is to just share this other side of my purpose. It's going to take some practice to do it - reason being, I don't necessarily want to typecast myself or paint a picture of someone who's all one thing; I don't want to alienate anyone or cause discomfort through what I choose to write about. Hah... I suppose this will just be more practice for what I can expect once I start actively putting my book out, because it's turning out to be not what you (or I, for that matter) might have thought it'd be about.

As far as healing tools and outlets go, this blog has been one of the big, pivotal ones for me and it will probably continue to be so. I'm not about to let it go or stop contributing to what I've built here. But I think, just as I warned in November last year when I went through an initiation of sorts (regarding what's really at work here in my specific calling) and worked with Ellanor for the first time with a mother who almost lost her life during childbirth, I have to once again warn...

This is going to start getting trippy, I suspect, from here on in. As long as I can maintain the guts and push away the fear to share what I experience. Read (or not) as you will. But I think I'm being given a fair rap on the knuckles for not sticking with my job.

Addagirrrl

Bottom burps. Letting Fluffy off the chain. My Granddad called them trumps (as in, trumpet/bugle sounding, I guess).

Whatever you call 'em, we all do 'em. Farts. I went through a phase where I just had to claim they were better out than in, during pregnancy, for it wreaked too much havoc on what little room my intestines had to share the space with all that hot air. Steve, at the time, resorted to calling me Tootie.

I am pleased rather ashamed to say, I have been known over the course of her life so far to occasionally let one go around the LGBB. Up until a couple of months ago, I was able to get away with it pretty much, with a cursory, "Mummy dropped something!" exclamation if she looked around. I thought it was a good decoy. Steve thought it was immoral. Now, though, I get a very (parodied) alarmed "Wha'wazzAT??!!" from her if she hears me. My days of blowing my own bugle in her presence are finished.

Despite all this, I'll have you know I don't encourage either mouth or bottom burps without a form of pardon. Tonight at the dinner table, the LGBB made the most raucous sound in her nappy. Wide-eyed, her father and I gazed down at our little wondrous creation to see what she would offer as a "Whoops, did that noise come out of me? I do beg your pardon, kind sirs."

Instead, our daughter met our stares, a slow grin spreading across her cheeky chops. "Pardon?" I requested. And you know what she did? Without a word, beaming from ear to ear, she gave me the thumbs up. And then for good measure, she turned to her proud father and gave him a thumbs-up too. Just one more thing we have absolutely NO idea where she got it from.

My heart swells.

Nothing says "I'm carefree" like a man on a bike with a sandwich

A thought occurred to me today, that every time I've seen a grown man moseying on a bike (you know what I mean when I say "mosey" - I mean that slow-pedalling, blasé, weaving, single-handed steering method of riding), they look to me as if they don't have a care in the world.

O! to have a bike to ride as if I don't have a care in the world.

Today, this look was topped by a guy I saw in the local Safeway carpark. Doing The Mosey thing. Beanie atop his hair, unshaven face, grubby khaki's and a bomber jacket flapping behind him lazily. And when he swivelled in my direction (to avoid a reversing car that probably got sick of waiting for him to saunter past), I saw he was riding one-handed for a reason. He had a sandwich in the other hand.

Did he make the sandwich? Did his mum make it for him? Did he buy it? What's a grown man doing with a sanger? He looked more like a meat pie kinda guy. Wherever he got it from, anyway, he looked blissed out. At ten past nine on a frosty 4º Tuesday morning in Melbourne town, could it get any better for this bloke? It certainly didn't look it.