Crafty For A Cause

Well, I'm a month late (because I usually do this on Ella's birthday), but the cot sheets for donation to the NICU she called home are all ready to go.

This is something I have adored "giving back" and although I missed a couple of years in the past six, I daresay I will find it a very hard habit to break. When I was in the NICU, the day I had - as mother hoping desperately this nightmare of drugs and needles and doctors' orders would end very soon - was often dependent on whether someone had at least used "baby girl colours" for her humidy crib setup. The fact was, beggars couldn't be choosers and with the amount of soiling that went on, it was first in, best dressed when selecting cot sheets out of the massive clean laundry bins. Sometimes I got to go and choose, but most often, of course, it was a nurse's job. And I would often hear them mention to parents that they'd tried their best to "get her something pink" or "get him something to suit a little boy."

I remember asking more than once, "Where do these cute ones come from?" because they were fairly few and far between, the really nice ones. The reply I received was that they were mostly donated and that they used to have better ones but with the amount of washing they endured, the supply changed fairly often and was only as good as what had been freshly donated. Of course, at that point I couldn't have known that I would be pitching in to ensure they got new sheets if from nowhere else then from me. But I do remember watching pilled and frayed-edged sheets being unravelled from the better ones and thrown out.

So here we are. My 4th or 5th (I can't remember) contribution. Unless you have been in the Special Care Nursery or NICU with your tiny baby, you can't know what a difference it makes to have linen with baby prints on them. Not just any old curtain-fabric looking stuff. But the sort of cuddly patterns that you might have in your own nursery, on their own cots, if only they were home.

If ever you have wanted to do something useful and EASY.... I would highly recommend going to your local fabric store and picking out some lovely polycottons. Check with your local hospital first, but that's easy to do, and I can assure you they'll probably be very glad to accept new sheets! Run your machine around each edge to finish them, so the final size is about 90x75cm (no less) - they are tiny beds, after all! - and they will also be used for making "nests" and for draping over the top of the isolettes to reduce light for sleeping bubbas. Very handy. Vital. Such a lovely gift for a parent as they watch over their little one if they can see some cheerful colours.

I absolutely adore the fabrics I found this time. Then again, I tend to say that to myself every time. I actually picked these fabrics up months ago, but what with our house renovations/extension and the parents inlaw staying for two months at the end of last year... yada yada, I just didn't get the chance to get these ready to take to the hospital any sooner.

So. I plan to take them tomorrow with the LGBB, after dancing. I hope to see some of the familiar faces I haven't seen in over a year since we last went in, but that will really just be icing on the cake.

Dear Plato

I decided to link up to Maxabella's "I'm grateful for..." today with my latest post. I am grateful, although at first glance (or if you don't know me well) you may think there is nothing to bring cheer in this post or the circumstances surrounding it. There is. If nothing else, there is always that. Gratefulness.

“Tuesday 10th February, 2004:

I’m not sure about today. It feels a little unsettled. Our girl is still breathing very fast, around 100, and I’m just not comfortable."

Ellanor Ruby ~ snoozing comfortably in Daddy's arms, 10 days old, in a rare moment without CPAP.

That's all I wrote. My final diary entry. A diary that had lasted a mere month, one that was meant to chronicle Ellanor's early start so that she could one day read it.

Each day, I had written pages of details about the NICU. Copious descriptions of what it was like to sit and gaze at my child through a perspex screen, my arms aching while I had to consciously force my hands to stay in my lap. I was told not to touch her too often by a registrar one day. Can you imagine being told not to touch your baby "too often"?? Just pause and have a think about that.....

Today is the straddle day. The day between me having an inkling something was NQR on the 10th and her sudden death on the 12th. I think about what I was doing, seven years ago, on the 11th of February and am still dumbfounded at the clear memories I have. I was, of course, oblivious to what horrors tomorrow would bring and I had shaken off my mother's instinct of not feeling comfortable about her turn for the worse the day before. It was part and parcel of life in the NICU, where each hour can bring joy or heartache in stomach-lurching peaks and troughs, so I thought this was just one of the troughs I was waiting to come out of. I had brought in Ella's first grow suit to wear. It was size 00000. It literally swam on her. But she was out in an open-air cot. And things were feeling slightly more normal. We still held great trepidation about the heart operation she was scheduled to have sometime in the coming week or two, when she reached 2.2kg. She was teetering at 2kg. And that's how much she weighed when the virus (and my hell) struck.

That child, the child who slipped back out of my reach. She still cloaks me. Even though I don't take her to school of a morning - she would be in grade 2 now, well ensconced in school life - I still ferry her around with me day to day.

I was told off this week by the LGBB, when she asked me where exactly Ella was. I replied, "Well, I don't know. But I think she is far, far away..." "No, she's not!" Lolly snapped at me, adamant that her sister wasn't too far away at all. I stood corrected. I really don't know at the moment where she is. Sometimes I can feel her close in, sometimes not. It doesn't seem to correlate anymore with how much I am thinking about her, she flits in and out of my awareness as she pleases and it doesn't matter if I have been obsessing about her for hours or not. I used to be able to reel her in with a simple, "Are you there?" But not anymore. Not since she was born, actually, have I been able to command her reply.

I've long since stopped explaining myself to people when I talk like that. I say how it has been for me. Many simply give me a "If that's what you believe, then that's nice" patronising reply. So be it. And then, one day while I was browsing online, I found something written by Plato. One of the most important and influential philosophers in documented history. And I was riveted by the accuracy of what "this guy" wrote, so very long ago, and how much it resonated with what I had always felt. About Ellanor.

So thank you, Plato. I'll let you say it for me.

“The souls of people, on their way to Earth-life, pass through a room full of lights; each takes a taper, often only a spark, to guide it in the dim country of this world. But some souls, by rare fortune, are detained longer and have time to grasp a handful of tapers, which they weave into a torch. These are the torch-bearers of humanity, its poets, seers and saints, who lead and lift the race out of darkness, toward the light. They are the law-givers and saviors, the light-bringers, way-showers and truth-tellers and without them, humanity would lose its way in the dark.”

- Plato 

You only ruin it for yourself

Insolence!

Bloody dog!

Jazz is very worried about the circus Channel 7 has made over the Tony Abbott interview

This dog. She drives me insane some days. I try and let her in, do something nice for her, and she comes straight in, dines on the cat litter box, snuffles up whatever she can find and cleans out the cat food as well, ignores me to finish off the delicacies she's finding and then tries to rub her snout on my leg affectionately to butter me up. Not bloody likely! So straight back outside she goes. She ruins it. For. Herself. Daily.

Besides her name, said usually "JAZZ!", Jazz most often hears "Libby" (short for Liberty-taker) and if we're being affectionate, "Stinky", which refers more to her demeanour than her odour.

If there is one thing this dog does well, it's drive me batty. She is the most self-indulgent dog I've ever come across (and I've owned/lived with a few in my life). Not until this puppy came along - six years ago now - did I truly appreciate what a stately, gracious and deeply loyal dog Pepper had always been.

Navigating Jazz's back end inside is no easy task, either. She has the most horribly waggy tail. It goes beyond joyous, happy wagging. This is maiming. Pepper has actually been heard to yelp when it hits her, she is so frail now and Jazz's kangaroo-strength tail is like a vicious whip (to all of us, not just Pep). So we have to quieten her down when she comes inside. We have a little 'foyer' outside the laundry. It works really well for having dogs, as it can be shut off on all sides and creates a small room for them if they need to be inside but we don't want them in the rest of the house while they dry off/cool down. This room suddenly becomes the size of a pin-head if you factor Jazz and The Tail in. Most of the fight is in trying to get her to "SIT!" because if she doesn't, she can hit you so hard in the legs that it actually causes blood vessels to burst. No really, look what happened this one time. And it's not the first time she's done it to me, the horror-head tail.

Now that Pep is unsteady on her feet we have to carefully herd her in and outdoors, ensuring she is not bowled over by Jazz and her over-exuberance to be "First! YES! I got in first! I win, I'm the winner, yeahhhh!" I can almost see the thoughts run through her brain, she is that predictable. Such a little turd, she is, always taking liberties and taking/doing as she pleases.

Jazz is highly intelligent. She knows what is expected of her. She knows what's right and wrong, in accordance to what we have consistently taught her over the past six years, and she goes right ahead and takes any advantage she can anyway. She is, quite simply, a little shit. It's lucky for her she is so darn joyful and gorgeous, or she'd be despised. She is a handful. A 28 kilo-full handful.

Oh the humanity. Dress-up Day. For dogs.

Despite all this, I love her. She is gorgeous. She is exceedingly good with the LGBB and they are firm friends. Funnily enough, she gets down low on the floor to play with the LGBB and there has not been one "tail accident" in 4 1/2 years. Jazz is also, quite simply, the most consistently happy thing to have been in my life. Pepper has always been rather an Eeyore type, dewey-eyed and both sympathetic/seeking sympathy with said eyes, she's a real feeler and has always been strongly connected to how I am, so she has had a huge job on her hands and I am ever so thankful to have had her around for the past sixteen years. Sixteen years! She turns 18 this year, good Lord.

But I digress. Jazz. Spazz. Libby. Mrs Babar (thanks to the line from Fletch, in the doctor's office, where the doc tells Fletch to "Just relax, Mr. Babar"... we are constantly trying to get our "Mrs Babar" to "just relax", so that's where this particular moniker comes from - oh yeah, I know, it's confusing living here, huh!?).  She is just crazy. Constantly hopped up on the joy of being alive. Half her luck, 'eh? I'd love to see how peppy she'd be if she had to go to a boring life-force-sucking office job, day in, day out. See how jolly she'd be then.

Harumph.


So come on, make me feel better. What do your pets do to wind you up? Tell me about the bad habits of your devillish hound (or cat, who must be obeyed at all times...).

Tangled over Tangled

The LGBB went and saw this movie yesterday with her dad and me. We all thoroughly enjoyed it.

However.... I have a niggle. Just one. Okay, maybe two. Come on, this is me you're reading here. You know it's going to involve something deep. Sorry 'bout that *sheepish grin*


The story is about Rapunzel, of course, and it's quite entertaining. Certainly watchable. Funny. And a bit scary for the kids in places. All good. But what I am not comfortable with in these movies - Toy Story 3 did it, disappointingly, as well - is this focus on death. Moreso, the use of fear of imminent death being upon the hero/es of the story as a means of high drama or thrill factor.

Why am I uncomfortable with it? I haven't looked at it too deeply, so I don't know for sure. But I can bet it is something to do with our children being taught from such a young age to fear death. To even be vengeful over the death of another. In movies as far back (and further) as Snow White, death or the threat of it has been used as a pivotal plot point. And I could go the way of the majority and say I was raised on it. It hasn't affected me. Sniff. Except, has it?

I don't want my child desensitised to violence, aggression towards others, personal safety, death and destruction. There are few movies of this modern age for children that allow this. Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Rescue was one that had bare little drama by way of villain at all (unless you count the cat, but it was minor compared to the likes of all three in the Toy Story trilogy) and I take my hat off to the makers for producing something I am happy for my child to have in her movie library.

Look, I'm not saying I want to cocoon children from these things. The LGBB watches many of these hero-villain-subtle violence movies - Lion King and Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs to name just two of her all-time faves - and I know it is all part of her integrating into society as it stands today.

But when it comes to death scenes like the one that is in Tangled - SPOILER ALERT! ha ha - then I think we're going a bit too far. Basically, the hero/friend of Rapunzel dies and is brought back to life by her tears falling on his cheek. On the surface, a lovely, magical happy ending that exudes all the hope and imagination of young kids.

On the other hand, they've mixed a fundamental truth with fantasy and I'm not comfortable with these movies pushing these boundaries more and more. Death is real. It is a concept that so many children have to encounter, too early in their lives. If I want my child exposed to death, then I'll do the teaching, thanks. The reality is, my daughter is already too familiar with what it means to die. Through her sister, she has realised her own mortality. In a real sense. It's really bloody scary as a concept and doesn't need to be added to by this fear of death factor in otherwise fun, entertaining childhood romps through fantasy land (all of which I'm very happy for her to have, as an escape for a while). Start mixing it with fantasy, or playing it down, and that's when the danger begins, in my opinion. Besides, this scene didn't teach anything constructive about death, it incorrectly conditioned: If someone you love dies, your tears will bring them back if you're magical enough, basically.

I sat in that cinema feeling really unnerved by what the little minds around me were absorbing. I know it's simplistic and children have a way of working these things through in their minds. But I had to wonder... How do they know - and how responsible do they care to be, as movie makers - how a child will react or what scenarios those children are going through? Do they consult with child psychologists around the world to ensure they are constructing something within that responsibility? What if a child just lost an aunty to breast cancer, for instance? Is he/she learning that their tears could have brought her back? Or that their tears were obviously not enough because she didn't come back to life? What line of questioning have their parents now been subjected to?

Some would say it is up to the parent/s to decide. But is it? I had no idea that scene/premise was in this movie. The LGBB has seen it now and fallen in love with the "girl with the long, long, long hair". She'll see it again. On the scale of movies of this type, it's a very good one, all said and done.

But why this focus on death? In Toy Story 3, the toys joined hands and faced their impending doom as they were being engulfed by the fire. NOT something I want my child to have to confront at the age of four, thank you! And so I have not allowed Lolly to see that one again. It's too much. I don't want her desensitised to that - accepting her fate when it is evident. I don't care what last-minute life-saver appears. Ludicrous storyline, if you ask me!

What are your views? Are the animated movies coming out of Hollywood starting to go too far? What other concepts are you uncomfortable with? Or are your views the complete flip-side? Do share in the comments, I'd love to learn from you.

Here's me, getting going

This is not a Flamers Invitational. Not intentionally, anyway. But I am speaking to them, particularly after reading this. If you are squirmy in your chair as you read this...... then it could be time for you to assume some responsibility. Ready? Then read on!


You know, at first I wasn't going to write "to" this. But then, as the replies in my head that I wanted to write in various comments sections on several blogs amounted to post-size, I felt compelled to put it here (if for no other reason than to save other blogs' commenters from having to scroll so far to get past mine).

I'm sure whatever blog you read, in whichever community, you are going to identify with the scenario of death or similarly game-plan-changing event impacting a blogger's life so immensely that they do what they've always done:  they write about it. They write through it. In fact, they're compelled to write because they were born to write and as they have their blog already at their disposal, sometimes it's the only method of expression that does two things when they need to get it off their chest in doses: -

1) It puts a protective buffer between the writer and the receiver, mostly protecting the writer (as it SHOULD - it is, after all, their blog).
Case in point: It can be incredibly uncomfortable, for instance, for the mother of a dead baby to speak about the events surrounding the day her child died - they are captured forever on the movie reel in her mind like photographs that never fade, filed under "Archive Until The End Of Time" in her cellular memory, so it becomes sort of almost normal for her to describe the images her head and heart won't let her forget. Even though for her it is cathartic and healing to hear her own voice tenderly describing the final moments of her baby here on Earth, it can leave the person she's telling literally squirming in their seat or wanting to run out the door. Now, if the mother has reached a point where she notices this is almost always the reaction she is going to receive while she is doing her damnedest to heal (by communicating, as that is what comes naturally to her) and does not want to see the pain in another's face when they're hearing what she has to say, she'd rather just write it. From there, whomever chooses to read the blog has a choice (and a personal responsibility) to read or not.

2) It gives them a personal timeline through their (sometimes cruelly slow) stages of bewilderment out the other side to something resembling a normal life again. Some might say, "well, a journal on their bedside table will do that just as well, why blog about such morose stuff?"
Case in point:
There is no more isolating a place than in grief. Even when standing alongside someone who has lost equally to you (again, in my own situation I am just one half of the couple who parented a now deceased child so my partner lost just as much as me), the aloneness you feel is stifling. It creeps up and threatens to choke the life out of you. There is no happy. There is sometimes moments of laughter, but they are followed by "Oh SHIT, how could I ever laugh again?" moments, that seem to last months on end. Years, sometimes. It's a process that cannot be rushed. There is no time limit to this. But so many well-meaning people - who have NEVER lost what you have, nor the way you have - assume responsibility (incorrectly, I might add) to tell you and coax you, coach you, through your grief. Their impatience with you is harmful. And they don't even know it. When you tell them, they are defensive. This will never do. Writing in a journal just highlights the loneliness. But connecting with nameless, faceless others? Who have boundless capacity to support?  It is fucking PRICELESS, let there be no mistake. To me, it is better than the best therapist (although I hasten to add that the two in conjunction were what saw me through in various stages through my first 5 years from losing my daughter).


You know, what's next? Sueing a blogger because of personal injury or loss of life? Because apparently "sticks and stones will break my bones... and words too on your blog, you should have been more editorial on your own aching, bereft ass"??????

I don't think so. Come on, people. Get responsible. The world hurts. It doesn't stop hurting simply because a mother stops being real with her audience. If that is what she's always done, death and/or the destruction of her world as she knew it is not going to alter the nature of her bear-all soul. Why would it? Where would the tremendous gift be to everyone, including herself, in avoiding the hard stuff on her blog?

When I was down there myself, in that pit, so devoid of any will to live that I felt no pain, there were no tears, I had no rage, and certainly no thought of follow-through effects on my loved ones - I actually, honestly believed I would be doing them a great service by removing myself from their lives, seriously thought without a shadow of a doubt that I would not be as missed as my alarmed and terrified husband told me I would be, when I advised him quietly "I'll just be going now" - I would safely bet everything I own today on the fact that no blog in the blogosphere that had been writing about suicide, for instance, would have been the decider that brought me to do it if it had already been on my mind. In fact, it would have served to do the complete opposite.

I'm not sure I remember what snapped me out of suiciding in 2004. I think it was just a gradual incline out of that hollow hole. If a blog like Lori's had been around - I didn't get into blogging until I started my own in late 2005, and was a complete novice to such things as online support groups until a full year after Ellanor died and left me here to live what I hoped one day would be a very short life without her - I know without a doubt that it would have helped beyond any measure I have today, able-bodied and far removed from that scary pit of no-worth, no-pain, no-nothing to keep me anchored here. Even reading her words this week on those final moments for her dearly beloved husband, I have been snapped up straight. That was me. That could have been me. And him. My dearly beloved. Except I would have been the one he found. It makes my head spin... How close. How close I was. So accepting that I knew without any doubt what I had to do to make things right for everyone, least of all me.

So, what am I saying?

I'm saying, cut the crap and call yourself out on the masks you wear. If you feel compelled to write something that is genuinely intended to be compassionate and "just looking out for everyone" or however you have justified it in your own reality, I'd hope before you do write a comment that you have a water-tight reason/case. Simply sprouting off half-baked prophecies on how readers could be "triggered to do bad things to themselves or others" because of what they read is, in fact, incredibly irresponsible. It's not to say there is no validity at all, I won't go that far - mostly because I don't assume to know, either way - but it needs to be pointed out that all we have in this life sometimes (particularly when extremely, lower than low, low) is choice. If you have self-checked your reasons for meddling in such a fashion in someone's healing (for that is what it is), then why not also ask yourself these questions:  Have I got any power, let alone right, to alter the course of a stranger's life?  What am I really offering here that is useful? Is it just sensationalist of me and, if I think it's not, am I really being truthful with myself? Is there any possible way that this comment of mine could cause hurt?

And the big one: Would I honestly be willing to say this, with compassion and heartfelt care, to the person directly if they were right in front of me? I don't think many of these "do-gooding" (for I'm sure that's how they see themselves) anonymous angels of slightly-tinged malice would really be able to say what they seem so willing to do under the cloak of anonymity, if they were physically in front of someone already down there in the trenches of their grief.

Mind you.... I have met a couple in my time who have no Self-Edit button. So I wouldn't willingly suggest this as an exercise, not unless the bereaved had a cheer squad of clear-thinking supporters behind them to help them reason a case. For that is how it can be with blinding grief; it can render a previously level-headed adult to their knees, not know which god forsaken way is up. Despite their protests otherwise, sometimes they bloody well do need help and support and care around them. Hmmmm. Anonymous dissenters don't really fit that job description.


On the other hand, I'd like to change focus just finally. Let's not forget that whilst online it's easy to pass them off as "just trolls" or "flamers", saying all manner of hate-filled 'they can suck it's back at them in retaliation, we just feed the vortex. The lack of genuine care. From the outside looking in, we know they don't really care even when they have convinced themselves quite firmly probably that they do. I'm sure most of the comments of this nature, on personal blogs, are not done for fun or to inflame. They are done because they think it's clever they've thought of this twist that nobody else has mentioned yet. And I would also hazard a guess they'd be the first to feel shock and hurt (and tell you too, given half the opportunity) that you could have taken them "that way" and turn it all back around on you for calling them out on this when they were "only trying to help" or "think of other people" (where you obviously weren't... oh, shame on you for grieving so honestly, you dirty girl).

The crux of it, for me, is this - retaliation with venom is not how I prefer to do it. I'm not a hater. Even on the haters. It takes an inordinate amount of loathing for me to be moved to say I "hate" and even then, it will always be something not someone. Saint? Me? No fucking way. Seeker of truth? Yes. Believer in everyone's good? Yes, that too. Hopeful that delusions can give way to real, honest, soul-connected living? NOW you're on the money!

Look, call me naive but the only way to minimise this sort of pain - and it's been an incredibly painful lesson in family estrangement, etc., for me to learn - is to work on our own selves. Our own social masks and insecurities (there are plenty of them to choose from to start working on, privately). I'm a big supporter of lashing out when in pain, I really am. I advocate it and recommend it highly. Done it for years, myself, and not just quietly most of the time. I did it blindly once or twice and that's all it took for great offence (to me and the truth I had to speak about, as I saw it) to blow my life even wider apart. And all I had then, and now still, is my own truth and behaviours to work with - ie. I couldn't then and don't try now, to control or silence others (even though at the time I felt that was the obvious solution: they should just have shut UP ALREADY about how we were going about our grieving). But it'd be too easy for me to retaliate angrily. I've tried that one on in my early years, trust me, and it didn't sit well with me. To each their own, but I need to implore here that there are other ways than reacting with impulsive and sometimes (if I'm honest when I've done it myself) equally hidden motives, even if these are so hidden that they are hidden to me too - in my opinion, the best thing here is to say nothing in those times. Otherwise, if you're not sure where the depth/boundaries of whatever view you're expressing lie within you, chances are you're going to emotionally maim someone with it. So .... shuddup! Until you know better why you're saying it.

But there does come a point where the pain dissipates and you don't feel the need - and when that time comes, we're still just back to our living, breathing selves. Much better for the self if you hold true to your truth - that great sword of truth - without actually cutting swathes with the sword. If it is truly your truth, you don't have to go brandishing it about. It will act in genuine accordance with who you are: a brightly shining light standing as a beacon to others who haven't found theirs yet and who are too scared to look at your light.

Is this my (very long-winded) pageant wish for World Peace? Wonder if I'd be booed off stage if I were on one. Nothing like standing stark nekid in the light of your own truth. Far King scary, have no doubt!

So go gently, those of you who are writing through your rage and pain, whatever your situation and however well-read your blog is. But do keep going. And to those of you who are too afraid to stand in your own truth for fear of being cut down: Just do it. Speak it, live it. It is never wrong if you are really, genuinely speaking your truth from a correct stance (and not intentionally wishing to attract harm to yourself or others).

Cloudy with a chance of cyclone

A live stream weathercam in Townsville that is (so far) online and working.

Facing south. Watch those clouds race by! I cannot imagine being in it. Mighty Mother Nature, 'eh? It is palpable and exhausting sitting this far away and just gnashing my teeth about everyone [and some family who have decided to evacuate NORTH just past Cairns.... Er, I thought SOUTH might have been better ??????? What would I know, though, I'm just a Victorian and don't know tropical weather at all - if I lived there and saw swirly stuff on the radar, I'd be so far out of there I'd be well into another state by now *shrug*].

I just pray it doesn't end up as catastrophic as it seems. But.... yanno. It kinda doesn't look good. Not to mention how it's looking for the poor darling wildlife and the animals who can't go with their humans. I could cry. And I probably will before this event is over.



Video chat rooms at Ustream

Looking ENE towards Castle Hill.

Look up in the sky!

I'll admit I have been a tad concerned for our Queensland friends - namely, my two step brothers and their young families who are right in the path of this monster Yasi - and have had the national radar loop screen up more than once today.

The LGBB had a little friend over earlier. They played in the pool and then set about being superheroes, running around the house with their hooded towels on as their 'capes'. I left them to it. At least I wasn't getting roped in to be imaginative.

The friend went home, I went about getting dinner on and took a glance at the radar image again. And Lolly, flashing past me, requested that I look on the radar for Super Bunny.

"Oooooookay," I said, not clicking at first, distracted by what I was going to cook. So I went over to the computer and searched the skies for Super Bunny. Behind me, I heard strange and exotic "whoosh"-ing and "zschooom"-ing sounds. Lolly was no longer in the house. But strangely, at the same time I started to spot flashes of pink (towel... or was it cape?) on the radar! Super Bunny zoomed this way and that, from Western Australia, across to do loops around Tassie, then up north to the Gulf.

"I'm gon-toooo saaaave the worrrrld!" Super Bunny cried as she whooshed past. No doubt, I think to myself. It's no surprise this little bunny has called herself to action again, if the recent floods and the strange illness that befell her for the crucial period of time is anything to go by.

NO idea where Super Bunny came from, nor the desire to be a super hero. It's all new to me. In this house, it's usually pink sparkle, fairy glitter, Tinkerbell-my-little-pony World. But not today. Today, Super Bunny was on a mission, apparently.

And then, almost as suddenly as she disappeared, the LGBB reappeared. Freshly "uncaped" (at the floor by her feet) and with a nonchalant "hello, Mum", she positioned herself beside me and asked flippantly what I was looking at on the radar. I tried to tell her about Super Bunny but she wouldn't hear of it.

God, I love this kid. Have I ever mentioned?

p.s. There's a new one over at the private one....