Thinking positive

On the advice of a dear inlaw who really knows what they're talking about, I'm practising the art of looking at the upside of everything.

Take today, for example. Spending 20 minutes vacuuming thoroughly in one neglected corner of the living room is not cause for berating oneself about the lack of attention to housework. Instead, it's cause for high praise due to having increased the size of the room because now we're not afraid to go into it.

There.

This is easy.

Boogie Wonderland

If ever I was doubting that the LGBB was anything like me, this past fortnight I have taken comfort in the knowledge (although some amongst us would not advise I take comfort, as such, rather accept condolences) that she apparently has at least some of my taste in what constitutes foot-tapping music.

I was becoming excited to watch her burgeoning musical fancies, seeing her all-over-body unstoppable jiggle-wiggles, replete with the cutest Walk Like An Egyptian-style neck wobble. That was until I started to pay attention to exactly what kinds of sounds were causing this newfound desire to move.

The first sign that she was indeed her mother's daggy sentimental daughter was during the Top 100 Aussie Rock countdown on Music Max....

• Tuckers Daughter
• My Baby
• Great Southern Land

and countless similar others of the same era all got a rating of Too Hard Not To Groove Along from the LGBB. And then, in the days that followed, a plethora of vastly different others:

• Follow You, Follow Me (Genesis, while never that popular to admit to liking, remains a staunch fallback in this house for "stuff to play when you can't be bothered putting any effort into what you want to listen to" and it looks like the LGBB has caught that bug)
• Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go
• Voulez-Vouz
• Magic Carpet Ride
• Sweet Child O' Mine (don't even ASK how I feel about Steve announcing he wishes he had that album because he'd love to hear it again)
• the tinkly music on her musicbox (never fails to entice the inner desire to boogie)
• Closing credits of The Simpsons (that's our girl)

...still all gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside to see her shimmying uncontrollably. She was shaping up to like what I like!

And then, as Steve swept out the garage a few days ago and the LGBB was in her swing just outside, I caught her boogying along like a mad thing to the "tune" of Daddy beating cobwebs off the inside of the garage door with a broom. The beat, and not necessarily rhythmic, of the sweeping was enough to set her off apparently.

So it looks like my little Dancing Queen isn't so discerning (yet) after all. Though I will hold firm to anyone who challenges me, that there is definitely a leaning towards the rockier of the rock tunes. Oh, well, that and *very sheepish tiny writing* for some reason she has a penchant for The Pussycat Dolls (which I can assure you she only hears by absolute accident if I haven't raced for the remote fast enough during Video Hits).

Somewhere tonight, heads are bowed in mourning

I was out having a "picnic" with the LGBB today, a thing of daily ritual now as her grizzling periods have escalated to incorporate much of the daylight hours.

I did as I normally do: spread out the plastic dropsheet, layered the next plush blankie layer, topped that with a colourful baby quilt, followed by a permanently borrowed kylie from the sleep school I went to last year (shhhh they're bloody handy for nappy-free time, 'kay?). Propped it on all sides with pillows in case Melady did her typical flamboyant "I shan't be sitting any longer, m'mah, I am swooning with the exhaustion of it all" and flailed backwards onto the waiting concrete.

Then I sat her down and proceeded to shoo away all the pests. Namely, Jazz, various late-season bugs. And ants. Scads of ants. Scurrying for cover from the pending rain, no doubt. I swatted, I scraped, I batted. And not just the dog. In the midst of my windmill arms (it sounds like we have an insect plague, the way I'm describing it, but really it was just a steady stream of militant ants), I happened to glance down and notice just as I flicked, a double ant.

A double ant?

Rather, two ants on top of each other. I thought, in that millisecond before my unmanicured nail* flicked it off the drop sheet, "What the hell kind of hump-backed ant is that?" And then my finger had projectile flung the offending ant, who was headed straight for Lolly, I saw him rooly trooly, clean off the rug and into .... somewhere over there.

When I looked down, I was truly humbled. There, lifeless on the clean white blanket, was the body of the fallen ant that the Catapulted One had been carrying home. For an honorary burial, I imagined, replete with National Ant Flag and weeping widow and President. Ooops. A big, Bill Murray a.k.a. Carl from Caddyshack creeping away after the gopher hole sprinkler system incident oops.

Seriously though, I felt so bad! Me, a big scary oaf like a Gorg from Fraggle Rock, swatting away a tinsy little ant. And now their Homecoming was marred all because of me.

I did console myself with the conclusion that that ant was actually carrying back a body that it was going to feast on. Not a mate it was going to bury respectfully.

*ever notice how in novels, it's always a manicured nail? Do writers use this description to imply the woman is kept? A floosy? Flamboyant? Well.... seeing as I'm none of these *unladylike sniff* I felt the need to clarify. Most definitely. Not. Manicured nail.

Where are you going, my little one, little one?

Where are you going my little one, little one
Where are you going my baby my own
Turn around and you're two, turn around and you're four
Turn around and you're a young girl going out of the door

Turn around (turn around)
Turn around (turn around)
Turn around and you're a young girl goin' out of the door

Where are you going my little one, little one
*Dirndls* and petticoats, where have you gone
Turn around and you're tiny, turn around and you're grown
Turn around and you're a young wife with babes of your own

Turn around (turn around)
Turn around (turn around)
Turn around and you're a young wife with babes of your own

Where are you going my little one, little one
Where are you going my baby my own
Turn around and you're two, turn around and you're four
Turn around and you're a young girl going out of my door

Note: *dirndl*--a full-skirted dress with a tight bodice. Diminutive of Old High
German “Dirne”-girl. Pronounced “DEERN-dull” in English.


This song always made me snivel thinking about when my Dad sang it to me. Not because he couldn't sing, but because it's so nice. I found myself softly humming it to the LGBB the other night as I was getting her ready for bed after a bath. She lay there grinning at the sentimental fool swaying along in her own little world.

I was thinking of all the things the LGBB has started doing in the past three weeks alone. To name a few:

• She learned how to do the peek-a-boo thing on her own - it's her first major cause and effect, over and over, achievement and boy, does she think her shit doesn't stink when she does it (I can attest that it does, in fact, still pong to high heaven) - it's adorable. In fact, if she does nothing else ever again, I've been satisfied by her cuteness. Sheets, teddies, rugs, hell even just her arms go above her head - that little straight-armed movement - and then she brings them down just far enough to poke her eyes over the top to see me. And sometimes it's not even her eyes, it's just her comical eyebrows.
• She's now very vocal. Her vocabulary has increased at the end of March from "thuh-thuh-thuh", "u-juh, u-juh" and "duh duh" to include "bvvvvf bvvvf" and some "k" and "r" sounds as well, with the odd "thhh! Thhhhh!" thrown in, very excitedly. This week, she started some almost discernible sentences of garbled noises and she looks so earnest that I find it difficult not to appear patronising and try to take her seriously so as to appear all respectful-like.
• During a particularly long set of speeches at my brother's recent wedding (they went for over half an hour), she amazed me by clapping. Copied what the crowd was doing and just started clapping for herself. Because I was holding her, I couldn't make the massive deal out of it that I wanted, and perhaps that more than anything gave her the space to do it for herself. She has now, of course, perfected the move and does it all the time. Spontaneously clapping so that it looks as if we've created a show pony, when in fact, as I discovered and was starting to worry, Steve and I aren't "clappers".... we weren't that big on clapping our approval to her, so it's either a natural progression thing or we've done it just often enough for the LGBB to pick up that it's a good thing, this clapping. Whatever the case, she loves it. Of course.
• That same week, the appearance of the 8-month-old boogy (dance) made me and her aunty squeal with delight. She was in her high chair the first time she did it and mimicked Aunty K bobbing in the kitchen. And I have to say, she looked for all the world like one of those chickens being hypnotised by getting their bodies moved in a circular motion, you know how their heads stay still? That's what she looked like. Bloody fantastic and so sweet.
• I checked my baby book and I didn't crawl til 9.5 months, wasn't walking til 16 months. Steve about the same. So will tell my MCHN to stick it in her derriére (or kiss mine) once more with feeling at the 12mth appt, esp. if Laidback Lolly still isn't moving about, regarding her "this child sits too much and will get frog legs" warning.
• She is teething again, could feel another tooth coming through on the bottom a few weeks back and can't feel top ones but she's taken to rubbing her bath toys on her top gums every night. But they are definitely giving her grief on and off and sometimes, I look at her cheeks and they appear so red that they are actually more purple than anything else.
• Her bedtime ritual, each time she goes to bed, now includes having to be hoiked up to my shoulders so she can "pat" the duck and frog on the wall just inside her door. This would be fine if she actually patted them with a flat hand instead of scraping her nails down the wall. I can confirm that it sounds every bit like nails down a blackboard.
• She's been turning pages of books since she was 7 months and she is now very adept at it. The stories I read often to her, she readily turns the pages appearing to know when she's meant to.
• Last week, she finally started saying "mum-mum-mum". God how I wished I wasn't going to grow tired of it, but I know one day in the future I may just get resentful of the title from time to time, despite myself. I'nt it good to know you're "normal"?

And finally, I made a diary note on Easter Sunday that says "You've been learning new mouth sounds rapidly this past week. You wake up every day (almost) with a new one. Today was mastering the tongue-click. Tonight, feeding you before bed, you were very busy drinking away, then chatting to my fingers in whispers and laughing, saying "Dada". You think you're sooo funny. And you are."

Definitely something fishy going on

It's the week after Easter. All the hot cross buns have left the bakery shelves.

Today I go to buy more butter - Dairy Soft or something similar, as we don't normally justify butter, not even for hot cross buns - as the tub was practically squeezed out to gain every morsel we could from the container to spread on said buns.

And what do I find? Western Star Whipped Butter. The good stuff. On sale. $2.80 down from the usual $3.89.

I am telling you, people, it's a conspiracy. Like the petrol hike the day before Good Friday.

Points of view

The LGBB: See doggy. Point doggy. With my cruskit in my grip.
Jazz: She's got fooooooooooooooood!



The LGBB: Damn. Cruskit. Stuck. To. Hand.
Jazz: She's assumed the throw pozzy. Right, so if I sit, I'll get it. Fer sher.



The LGBB: *Struggling* Oh this bloody cruskit. Maybe if I use my ... other ... hand. Great, now they're both stuck to it. What a mess.
Jazz: She didn't throw it. She's messing with me. That's it, I'm standing to get closer, in case Pepper gets it.



The LGBB: Doggy, can you help me unstick this?
Jazz: Oh heck, I'll just eat it from your hand shall I? I know it's wrong, but it's oh so right *eyes glazing over*


Woe is the dog who is scolded for taking the food from a baby's hand and gets caught by Mummy.

Pardon me, but...

...has a chicken laid an egg under your nose?

Why, no. It's just a hormonal pimple.

Ahhhh, it's all pretty here in the House de Beauté when AF is imminent. And missing (did I misplace her under a chair, I wonder? I am bloating at an alarming rate, taking on water faster than the Titanic, I do declare. And no, before you all titter so, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that I might be what I can hear you thinking, o chart-obsessed audience among us)

How remiss of me

I noticed while driving long-haul* last Wednesday that it was International Shit-Merger Day.

Hint #1: on a busy 3-lane road, there was an old codger in a massive tank - one of those ones you see the drug dealers driving round Queens in those 70's US cop movies - drifting into my lane. Now, I always give old people the benefit of the doubt just in case they're in the middle of dying so I wait to see if they slump over the wheel before cursing them and their pitiful driving. I'm patient if nothing else. He didn't veer into the median and clutch his heart as I watched him continue his "merge" in my rear view mirror, but he very nearly missed the Tardis as I went sailing past (a little faster as I saw his whale edging onto my side of the road). No checking his mirrors or over his shoulder, certainly no indicator - and he used it later to turn off behind me so it was working. Without so much as a buy your leave, he just decided he needed to be in the right lane. Invitation accepted, sir. Apparently.

Hint #2: just..... don't pull out onto a busy freeway in a 110 zone if you see any cars in sight and don't think your car is up to setting a cracking pace. Okay? (and no, it wasn't me)

Hint #3: the oldie but the goodie - a sorry-arsed attempt at merging via an onramp to join freeway traffic. Isn't there always someone who either merges almost before the point where the bitumen of the onramp has melded with that of the emergency lane on the freeway, or alternately (but just as dangerous) the driver who runs out of onramp lane and hasn't yet matched any of the cars in the adjoining lane?
This day, I saw the latter. And what resulted was *almost* a bad and unnecessary accident. Oh there was horn blowing and car shaking. And that was just me, stupefied at what I was seeing.

So I hope it was a Happy Shit-Merge Day for you too. I trust you all recognised the day with a piss-poor merge into the thoroughfare yourselves, wherever you were.


* this to me is anything over 30 minutes these days and was in fact a 4+ hour return trip with the LGBB, replete with the grumbles, so it felt like 15 hours.

The Sherpa

I think the LGBB has learnt to perfect a forced "for the camera" smile. She only does this when the camera is on her. It's one of those ones you do when you're faking a cheesy grin. I want to take her aside and go "Psssssst, did you know that you actually laugh and smile already?" It's as if she doesn't know that she knows how to smile and thinks about it too much.

And this is the result.


Almost as entertaining as teasing a dog, by putting peanut butter on its nose and watching it go mad trying to lick it, is watching your daughter try to compute why her head doesn't feel right *yes, thank you to those in the stalls, it could also be because she's my daughter full stop* Sigh.

But when you've got little arms that don't actually reach to the top of your head to find out what's on it, you end up just flailing and not touching anything but air. Like this.

The Piker

When you ask an 8 month old to be an "honorary flowergirl", you have to expect that she's not going to
a) know why the hell she's getting dressed up
b) understand that it's not terribly FCUK of her to accessorise with a pink dummy
c) care about staying awake during just the most important day in your life to date
d) have the good grace to actually stay present and accounted for during the ceremony at all, in fact.

And when Mummy has to drive you around in your chariot of choice to catch some shut eye (the 3-wheel buggy with the mostest room to guarantee an itchy-scratchy flowergirl dress nap), you might as well go out in style with one last flash of your divine blue oceans into the lens.