There were three in the car and the little one said...

"PULL OVER! There's a fucking MOTH in here!!!!!!!!"

We never did find it. But it's the reason we got home at 2am instead of 1.30am.

What a whirlwind of a trip that was. Here are a few highlights to indulge the very few who are keen to know:

• If we coulda stayed more days we woulda.

This is Lolly being "funny" because she's sitting in the car next to her usual carseat. Hi-laaarious good times. Just ask her.

Suck it up. Ok, yep, we're all a bit over it now.
Driving since 2.45am on Day 1, we were just outside Sydney at about 2pm when Steve took this.

Lolly does her Missy Piggy impersonation

• Night 1: I honestly thought we had broken the LGBB for good, such was the screaming like I've never heard her scream. Nobody could soothe her, not Marley, not Cutie Pie (a new little soft-dolly fave friend), not Mummy doing the usual distractions like blowing her hair (met with a "get the F out of my FACE and stop BLOWING on me" from her) or pretending to bite off her toes (similarly met with screeching an octave higher than that heard by dogs).
At that point, my own resolve completely shattered, all I could do was speedily snap up those goddamn snaps (who the hell can put one of those suits on a kicking, convulsing, desperately tired baby??) and put a boob in her mouth - sorry Paul, if you're reading, for the visual. And the feed didn't calm her like it normally would either. There's a bedtime story that has now become part of her nightly ritual. It's called Say Goodnight and it's four pages long, contains about 20 words and big faced babies having a play before falling sound asleep. The LGBB looooooves it. And when overtired, as I discovered, instead of not wanting to read it, she just turns the pages angrily, like a baby possessed. It's so bloody funny. But I daren't laugh, oh no. She's frightening in those moments when I am between her and her dummy and sleep. Far out *takes short shallow breaths*
So before I could leave her "holiday bedroom" (for everything we saw and encountered was prefaced with the word "holiday" so she could understand what the biiiiig drive in the car had been for), I had to first read Say Goodnight. Three times. I'm unsure if I needed to read it more than once. But she kept groping at the pages so I kept reading. Like the obedient girl I am. And then, God bless 'er, I tucked her in, said "Night-night" and turned around for one last look.. and she'd fallen into a coma within the three paces I'd taken to get to the door.

"Forget the damn merry go round, this plant is SOOOOO exciting!" (for some reason this bush caused shrill squeals of delight from the LGBB)

• After that first night, sleep times were again easy-breezy Covergirl. She is SO like me in that regard: anywhere strange, you get yourself to sleep pronto lest the resident boogyman come and scratch your eyes out. No. I'm sure that in her case it was more that she was knackered from all the new sights and sounds than any deep-seated fear of the dark like yours truly.

Being silly with the camera, having lunch and waiting for Daddy.

• Our land ladies were anything but ladies. But oh, how they were very hospitable and in love with their investment (it was indeed a gorgeous apartment with an even nicer outlook - ocean and lake entrance, both kinds!). This place was stocked with everything. And clean? As a whistle.

• Why do places along the Hume have such strange names?

• I met up with someone I've known for a few years now but never met in person, who is truly. Wonderful. You know those people you meet sometimes and you just cannot believe your "luck" that they are in your life? And equally, that they are in it by their choice (as much as yours)? I want to say something syrupy like, I wish she was part of my family or some similar sucky thing. Except... it's better than that. She is part of my family. My spiritual one. Which somehow is the more real to me these days? (and that's not to say my blood relatives are not part of that family of choice either, it's just very refreshing to make a selection in order to surround oneself with people who give and take in equal amounts). It's the one that has become my reward for the place I have come to for now, and not merely the one bestowed on me at birth.
Each encounter I have with her is like turning another page in this amazing book. And of course, I was ashamedly unprepared (as I mostly am when people see me in person, I never have the words I want to say, I get stage fright and shy in equal amounts) yet came away wishing I could have spent so many more hours with her. It was the icing on the trip.

And thanks for the socks, again, by the way. SO gorgeous.
Lolly is rapt with them.
Especially the box they came in.

• What the hell is going on with Pizza Huts around the country?? Do the youth of today have no respect for the black, red and white? I saw a gutted, graffitti'd, very sorry-looking old Pizza Hut of yesteryear as we were leaving Gosford (another lovely bit of the world up the coast there) and I swear, I could have been back here at home looking at the one just over the hill from us - literally and figuratively - shaking my head at the disrespec' of the hoodlums who have vandalised what was once a very, if not healthy, mouth-wateringly smelling establishment. Remember? Oh surely you all have memories of birthday parties or at least family outings, sitting in those red padded seat booths, with the sticky tables, the watery "Coke", the pizzas dripping grease down your arm?

• It seems a huntsman thinks nothing of being on the 7th floor. For the entire. Five. Days. Outside our door. Oh and yes, there was another one on the car. A pretty grey and white striped one. Bless.

"I can see through tiiime!" The LGBB thinks she's going at warp speed

• There was this man we saw sporadically while we were there and DAMN I didn't get to take a photo because I wasn't fast enough. He was impossibly tanned, a retiree we guessed, on a motorised cart. But not any old cart. Oh no, this was like a Rolls Royce of motorised carts. I swear, I reckon it had a better engine under the hood than the Tardis. And he had one of those plastic expressions, it didn't change. I decided his name was Bernie. And he had probably died about a week ago but his friends had tied him to his sweet ride and put it in gear and let him go off, in order to stay at his beach house. But the funniest part was, aside from the tinted glasses, the George Hamilton tan, the old-man bling (you know, watch, strange gold chain around neck, etc etc), he had this slicked-back white hairdo that, I swear, looked like he was clocking about 180kmh. His hair belied the fact that he was actually gadding about doing roughly 2kmh.

Bootiful. And the view in the background's not bad either. Boom-tish.

• If I never take another photo of the LGBB again (get off the floor, stop rolling about, it wasn't that funny), I am satisfied with the shots I got of her at the beach. Oh my. I think my heart exploded.

"I'd tell you if I liked the beach, Mother, but you've done this chin strap so tight I can't actually open my mouth"

"Ahh! Lolly Miyagi know trick or two about Karaté, Danyo-san"

"Mmmm, yes, that was a good summer. Must do my nails when I get home."

"And then I clapped and the sand went eeeeeeverywhere!"

"Ah, yes, Daddy, but if I go like.... THIS... really suddenly, can you stop me from falling in?"

• Sometime around midnight driving home, the only car on the Hume surrounded on all sides by trucks, is when the madness kicked in. We started musing about whether truckies' wives insist on them being "safe" by ensuring the cabins of their trucks are adorned with every fairylight they can get their hands on. These were known to us as the Party Trucks on the way up (you could see them from miles away and some of them had all the colours of the 'bow on them) but on the way back, they were past contestants on "Bulb My Ride" - a new reality show not unlike Pimp My Ride, for truckies to turn over their tungsten-challenged rigs into glowing princesses of the highway.

• I told you we went mad.

Somewhere around Benalla, just after midnight, still two hours from home.

Cap in hand, farewell friends

NOOOOO!

The last Gilmore Girls aired in the US on the 15th May. I am gutted. Through the power of technology and a caring and sharing global audience, I watched the ep just now.

I feel ripped off that I didn't realise until the final credits that I had actually just seen the last of the people of Stars Hollow (shuddup, they're real if you've been following them for 7 years - hell, many of my past friendships haven't lasted that long).

I feel like I should... I dunno, mourn or something. So much of the relationship I watched between Lorelai and Rory (mum and daughter) really deeply affected me in the months after we lost Ella. Steve and I would both sit here crying over it, often. And it's a funny show (is it pertinent here to also confess I even shed tears when Izzy from Neighbours lost her baby back in '04 though? That's when I knew I had to back away, I was becoming too dependent on it to distract me and oh my God I just managed to admit to you all that I actually watched Neighbours to help fend off depression... little wonder it didn't really cut the mustard).

Ok, but anyway, where was I? Oh that's right. Crying. Over shows that reminded us of Ellanor. Or at least, rather, the potential of what could have been that would never become. Yeah. It's more than an important show for me. It became like a strange sort of extension of my family. It's no secret I love Lorelai (Lauren Graham) to the ends of the earth. I want to be her friend. Why can't I live there? Why isn't it real? Why isn't there a Luke's I can walk to for coffee (and a Luke), where's my Suki, the witty reparté, all of it? Oh and of course... the clothes and hair. Never saw so many good looking, well groomed people in the one small town. BUT that's not the point.

The point is... it's gone. Finished. Whatever will I do?

She poops, she scores

I ask you, could the LGBB get it any more *juuuuust* off the mats? Frankly, I'm impressed with her aim.

(For those of you with the constitution, click on the image for the enlarged version of Mr Hanky hanging with Lolly just to her left.)

Another piece of trivia for those playing along at home

Don't worry, this is not another entry where I divulge yet another lusty crush on some scary actor (sorry Dani, I know you're faint of heart about these things).

No. This is the post where I excitedly share the soundwave I just came across in our exhaustive iTunes library. It's a TV show theme tune which we used to play all the time in order to send our new puppy, Jazz, mad. We'd while away the hours, as couples awaiting the arrival of their children often do, sending her crazy and spinning in circles, desperate to hunt out what was making the zany-whacky-crazy-hyper noise.

I must try it out on the LGBB. Because actually, if there was a theme for our house, I think this'd be it.

People, I give you....

Happy Tree Friends

Holiday Road

Five days out from our pending First Family Fun Trip to sunny somewhere in Oz (don't worry, we know where we're going, even if we don't know where we've been)* I surprise myself at the lax approach I have to packing.

Step 1: Six weeks out, start to fret when you get it into your head that you have to take just about every toy that the LGBB looks at in the past month, just in case she has a hankering for it while we're away.
Step 2: Consider telling Steve we should fly. WITH the portacot AND the highchair AND Lolly's three suitcases of toys and stuffed animals. Because you don't think you can stand hearing That Noise** she makes for more than an hour.
Step 3: Three weeks out, booking made at Apartment Of Choice, console yourself with the fact that, as you have done away with the notion of flying (because what if her ears don't pop or your ears don't pop or she hates it or you hate it or Steve wants to sit somewhere other than next to you because you're bleating on about the fact that you don't know if the LGBB's ears have popped), decide that the most important things only must come with, because despite having the roomy Tardis as your transporter there really isn't room for the playgym and the pram and her cot. And your vodka.
Step 4: So, having made your way through steps 1-3, at T-5 days swan about in your pj's, procrastinate as much as you can, live in denial that you're going to get in that car and not get out again for a very. Long. Time. And remind yourself to remind Steve that if he dares do a man-sneeze*** within the confines of the Tardis, his life just may not be worth living anymore.

We're gonna have a ball!


* thank ewe, Talking Heads.
** this surely has been The Noise of a bored, frustrated baby through the sands of time - you know that one, it's whingey and whiney and any mother/female close to the child actually feels physical pain stabbing in her chest if it goes on long enough.
*** possibly the loudest sound in the world, usually carried out when a baby is asleep.

Today's random thoughts

• I thought Gene Wilder had died. When I saw him on The View recently, I saw apparently he was not. I don't know why I thought he had died. It's like There was an old lady who swallowed a fly... "I don't know why she swallowed a fly" (and if I have made that stick in your head for the next two hours, over and over and over, then you can welcome yourself to my world today).
• Saw that old clip, Telephone Booth, today. Ian *Mossy* Moss was as attractive as my adolescent glasses assumed him to be. Amoir, Sparker's Daughter, shut your traps.
• Yes. I once had a crush on Ian Moss from Cold Chisel. And Diesel. And Gene Wilder. Guess the odd one out and no, I am not making a word of this up.
• A Stevie Wonder film clip came on just as we were getting the LGBB ready for her bath. Steve mused out loud that he reckoned the gig to do any of Stevie's film clips had to be the best in the world. "He wouldn't know what it looked like, you could say 'Yeah, yeah, it looks good Stevie', 'yep, it's got the whizzing, flashing lights you asked for', 'now that'll be $2 million thanks'." Steve is such a simple bloke when it comes to cause and effect.
• Did the actor who plays the (apparently single solitary) policeman on Neighbours finally get his big break recently? He's been given much more of a storyline than I've ever seen. Over the years, we've dipped in and out of keeping abreast of the goings on at Ramsay Street. This copper pops up in any scene that requires the hand of the law to be present and accounted for. But now he's shagging that Timmins woman.

Oh God. Did I just say that out loud?

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.

See what I have to put up with?

Last night, devoid of any other ideas for entertainment in the extra hour of time we'd gained with daylight savings finishing, I said to Steve, "Tell me something to Google and I'll Google it."

After a moment's pause from both of us and a smirk tripping across his face, I confirmed with a withered look that, yes, I knew he knows everything and there was nothing he would need to Google but could we just do it for amusement's sake anyway. Maybe he could pretend not to know the answer to something. Just to humour me.

So he says "Ok, Google this: does Steve know everything", not that he's not modest or anything *cough from silent crowd* He obviously just wanted to ensure Google was up to speed with his vast knowledge of.... well, shit, basically.

So I did. And here was the single, solitary search result on an otherwise blank page:


Naturally, he found this hysterically funny. I told him I wasn't playing anymore.

Getting her fix

Try as she might*, the LGBB just cannot kick the habit. And now, today, photo evidence that her addiction is increasing.

Yes, that's right. I caught her trying to shove two dummies in her mouth at once. And I nearly melted right on the spot.












*er... she hasn't tried at all yet and I'm not in a hurry to make her, but that's a minor detail

Four X moment

You can get it singing a song

You can get it sitting by a dog (or two)

You can get it blowing a ras'


Matter of fact....

I've got it now.

G'night.

To all you Intuitive Mothers (and mothers in the making)

Do you ever read something, like a book or an article, and think, "Hang on.... did I write this for myself and forget?"

I have found the Mother *boom-tish* of all such books. I am only wishing I'd found it when LGBB was about 7 weeks old and I was going through the motions with a fake smile plastered on my face, I was that worn down by sleep deprivation and had been hung upside down (or so it felt) for so long that to find right way up seemed so impossible that I was quite happy to just hang there and wallow, thankyou very much all the same, kind Sir.

I have found it, for me personally, to be one of those nuggets that speaks to your core. That inner you whom you know, maybe very well but more often perhaps not so intimately - the authoress herself professes to not really know where the book came from and I find that fascinating as much as it is affirming that it comes from a divine and pure source, devoid of much of the ego you find in other books of its kind. I know exactly what she means because there have often been times where I will write something and go back and read it later, to find I feel like I'm reading it for the very first time. Ella's Parallel Story was written like that. In fact, both the stories about her that I wrote for her pages came from thin air (not to say they're not completely factual, it's just that I sat down, put my fingers to the keyboard, got up and went away and there they remain, unedited bar a few spelling errors, no reworking or the likes).

This book, Intuitive Mothering, has given me the fodder I really needed at a time I really needed it to stand taller and realise I don't need peripheral parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, friends, professionals... ANYONE... to give me the proverbial pat on the back I thought I needed from an outside source. Mind you, the irony isn't lost on me that a book (in itself an "outside source") has led me to this conclusion. Hmmm. No, I think the difference is that I feel far more empowered by seeing the book on the shelf (the slimmest paperback spine in amongst the other Parenting manuals, just leaping out and going "Pick ME! PICK MEEE!", having the follow-through to purchase it (I was on a "date" with Steve at the time and we'd just meandered in to a large bookstore and sauntered to our favourite sections - he Quantum something-or-other, me Parenting) and then realising what a pearler it actually is right from the first page.

It shines a truth. It speaks to my innermost mother instinct. Reminds me to trust what I feel is right, for me and the LGBB. It goes and sits and has a yarn with that real deep knowledge we all have that, without all the assvice and interference and uncertainty that builds up in you when you defer to others to tell you if you're heading in the right direction, you most certainly ARE doing exceptionally well for YOUR baby and everything is going right (despite what any general book or MCHN tries to tell you).

Just yesterday, I had a nightmare day: went for the LGBB's 8mth check. Was told I was sitting her too much and "that's why her legs are bent like a frog, if you keep doing it she'll have problems and need physio" and rah de rah de rah. It made sense, there were no "that doesn't sound right" alarms ringing in my head. I simply went "Ok" and began doing more tummy exercises with L from the time we got home. Don't think it's a coincidence that the poor kid had the most miserable afternoon - she cried and cried almost non-stop, big sorry-for-herself sobbing - and by the time she got to bed last night we were both exhausted. By the time I went to bed, I'd realised (again) that I'd allowed someone else to tell me what was best for my child. It resulted in an extremely uncomfortable day for both of us.

I always vow I'll never do it again, that I'll be more aware of it next time.... and I always slip! I'm not hard on myself for that, I am realistic about it and the fact that by my very nature, I aim to please/do right/do it well. But when I walk past that book on my end table, it snaps me back - the pendulum might get out of whack but if it swings back to centre, all is not lost.

I don't profess that the book has ALL the answers or that it is for everyone, merely it is a bloody useful tool now for me to dip into - full of reminders I could have written to myself, but so nice to see it in print, published, as if anything written in a book is fact and "right".... except this time, with this book, intuitively, I know that for me, it IS right. Because it speaks to my truth. The comforting thing about that is, if it has been written by someone else, and yet it is full of what my deeper wisdom would have written had I not buried her with fear, cynicism, loathing and the best of intentions, then surely it is going to also make someone else's soul squeal with delight.

So therefore, I feel it my duty to pass on to anyone who considers it might be something they'd like to source.

I give you Intuitive Mothering by Lyn McPherson, published by newholland.com.au, ISBN 174110352-5, available in all good bookstores... or maybe none because the authoress says now they are rather difficult to come by (makes my finding my copy so much more special to me). We have been in communication with each other by email a few times now, she contacted me personally out of the blue after I posted a private comment on her site just to thank her for her work in making this happen. She's one amazing and lovely person.

Some small exerpts from:

The better we look and the tidier our house is does not reflect how well we are coping.

"Things" are not important to your child, but you are. If you are happy and around and interacting with your child, that will mean more to them than anything you could ever buy them.

Confronting and releasing expectations: Make what we "should" do what we "want" to do.. or don't do it. Another barrier to tunin in to your child lies in expectations. They are everywhere, from mothers to friends to doctors - and especially the expectations you heap on yourself. The key to liberating yourself from expectations is to take the word "Should" out of your vocabulary. Every time you hear yourself thinking you "should" do something, ask "Is this really something I want to do? I it the right thing for me and my child?" If you are able to say "yes", that is great - it has now become your choice - not something done because it is expected. If your answer is "no", choose not to do it. (If I had remembered this yesterday, my Bullfrog-Legged baby and I would have had a much happier afternoon, wouldn't we! I didn't listen to my instincts until last night, and I couldn't wait until this morning to make it up to her when she got up for the day)

Be proud of your decisions and choices. If you feel the need to reassess one of your choices, do so for you, not for others. Avoid the bombardment of influences out there..... Throughout your journey with your child, just be who you are. Do not expect to feel anything, just let yourself feel. Let it all flow. Neither of you have ever done this before - it's a new relationship for you and your baby. Every woman is beautiful and unique. If we were all the same, life would be very boring. Every child is also beautiful and unique and every mother is beautifully equipped in her own unique way to understand, nurture and raise her children. See the beauty and the mystery of the discovery, and the true freedom brought about by feeling rather than thinking.

'Intuitive Mothering' is more than another baby care book. It is a warm and friendly tool for the new parent negotiating the maze of apparently conflicting, prescriptive advice about parenting styles and approaches - Dr Bronwyn Gould, Chair, National Assoc. for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.

Oh and..... if you go to the Links page on her website you might just see something from Yours Truly....

Lolly. In the Round

Michael Flatley eat yer heart out, t'be sure t'be sure

Any requests?

Hmmmmmm, I don't know that one.

The great Matchbox Heist of '82

I had the most bizarre day yesterday.

I went to a really old friend's parents' place for lunch - meaning, we've been friends a long, long time (24 years to be perfectly accurate), not my friend herself is really old - and it was such a spinout to go back to the home where I'd spent much of my youth, after school, on weekends, looking after their animals when they went away, etc.

And despite the fact that her 2 year old son and the LGBB were there, I could have been 10 again, just yearning for her older sister to say she was going riding on her horse and would I like to go *swoons* They have 6 acres there and the girls, frankly, were living my fantasy life.

I watched as she pulled out some Matchbox cars from a container to give to her son.... and there they were. Three of my old cars. I sat up a bit straighter, unsure then if I only remembered them because I'd played with hers so often. But they were so familiar! The green VW Golf with the roofrack and prized orange-tinted windows. The convertible orange Mercedes (sans convertible roof, mind you). The cool metallic blue Mustang. Oh, surely they were mine!! I kept the conversation light and casual as I grabbed first one, then the other, then the other and deftly flipped them upside down, looking for my mother's tell-tale nail polish daub on the underside.*

Nothing!

Still, that didn't mean much, I mean maybe these ones had been herded from the rest of my stash before The Big Fight that caused the once-and-for-all division of cars with my little bro.

Anyway. Whomever they belonged to, they were still being well loved (she says, with a tic in her eye that won't go away because she'll never know or be able to ask if they were STOLEN from me at some point of our childhood, before we stopped playing cars, that is, and started talking about boys).

And then, to spin me right out, when I got home I flicked on the telly and they're playing reruns of Family Ties on TV1 at the very after-school time that I used to watch them as a kid. It was an absent-minded after-thought, and we never usually have these in the house, but before I plonked myself onto the couch to watch it while folding baby clothes and nappies, I grabbed a mini packet of Doritos from the pantry.

I felt like I was sneaking them because I didn't ask mum if I could.

*My brother and I fought to face-scratching point once over who had the better cars, caravans, trailers, ambulance, fire engine, you name it. We would fight over every last little roof-dented, wheel-buckled shit box we had. So mum, fed up no doubt long before the face-scratching day, finally bellowed that she'd put an end to this once and for all. She sat like a mediator at a summit, all the cars belly-up in front of her, while Timmy and I negotiated our way through whose were really whose. And then she put a daub of pink nail polish on the underside of all mine so there were no further arguments. I was mortified that I had to have the pink brand on mine (I fought so hard against anything girly and pink for the first decade+ of my life).

A clever idea, just quietly. But don't ever tell 'er that.

The great Matchbox Heist of '82

I had the most bizarre day yesterday.

I went to a really old friend's parents' place for lunch - meaning, we've been friends a long, long time (24 years to be perfectly accurate), not my friend herself is really old - and it was such a spinout to go back to the home where I'd spent much of my youth, after school, on weekends, looking after their animals when they went away, etc.

And despite the fact that her 2 year old son and the LGBB were there, I could have been 10 again, just yearning for her older sister to say she was going riding on her horse and would I like to go *swoons* They have 6 acres there and the girls, frankly, were living my fantasy life.

I watched as she pulled out some Matchbox cars from a container to give to her son.... and there they were. Three of my old cars. I sat up a bit straighter, unsure then if I only remembered them because I'd played with hers so often. But they were so familiar! The green VW Gold with the roofrack and prized orange-tinted windows. The convertible orange Mercedes (sans convertible roof, mind you). The cool metallic blue Mustang. Oh, surely they were mine!! I kept the conversation light and casual as I grabbed first one, then the other, then the other and deftly flipped them upside down, looking for my mother's tell-tale nail polish daub on the underside.*

Nothing!

Still, that didn't mean much, I mean maybe these ones had been herded from the rest of my stash before The Big Fight that caused the once-and-for-all division of cars with my little bro.

Anyway. Whomever they belonged to, they were still being well loved (she says, with a tic in her eye that won't go away because she'll never know or be able to ask if they were STOLEN from me at some point of our childhood, before we stopped playing cars, that is, and started talking about boys).

And then, to spin me right out, when I got home I flicked on the telly and they're playing reruns of Family Ties on TV1 at the very after-school time that I used to watch them as a kid. It was an absent-minded after-thought, and we never usually have these in the house, but before I plonked myself onto the couch to watch it while folding baby clothes and nappies, I grabbed a mini packet of Doritos from the pantry.

I felt like I was sneaking them because I didn't ask mum if I could.

*My brother and I fought to face-scratching point once over who had the better cars, caravans, trailers, ambulance, fire engine, you name it. We would fight over every last little roof-dented, wheel-buckled shit box we had. So mum, fed up no doubt long before the face-scratching day, finally bellowed that she'd put an end to this once and for all. She sat like a mediator at a summit, all the cars belly-up in front of her, while Timmy and I negotiated our way through whose were really whose. And then she put a daub of pink nail polish on the underside of all mine so there were no further arguments. I was mortified that I had to have the pink brand on mine (I fought so hard against anything girly and pink for the first decade+ of my life).

A clever idea, just quietly. But don't ever tell 'er that.

Good one, window-licker

Standing at the kitchen window, Jazz seized her opportunity to stand up at it from outside and get as close as doggily possible to me.

I was dropping toast in to the toaster, absent-mindedly watching her face and thinking how cute she is - really (I mean, despite wanting to get that cute boof-head of hers and flatten it when she makes me crazy) - when I realised she was studiously watching my every move.

Smart dog, what a clever girl, I gushed to myself. She's a handsome dog and she's brainy. Dropped the toast into the toaster. Clang, clang.

It was then that old Brainiac dropped her gaze down with her head cocked. She was looking for the dropped bread. Outside.

What a genius.

With or without you

Who was I kidding?

I forgot that I miss you until I finally said the words.

Is it really like in that book? Can you show me?
I feel like I should know. In a maternal way, I want to ensure where you are is comfortable. Not lonely. I wanted you to myself and it happened so quickly, so suddenly, that I had to share you out to the world. I barely had time to know you myself in those brief moments you were right here in front of us. And then you were gone. And there was no more pilgrimage to make every day.

The void was filled eventually. I suppose. Did I start filling it in too quickly? No, I don't think so either. I do wish sometimes that I had had more time to stop. But to stop at that time would have been to die. Strange, I didn't have thoughts of wanting to die to be with you. But rather, thoughts of wanting to swap my life for yours - that if there was a way I could have died so you could be here, to live a life - your life - I know I gladly would have.

I never entertained the thought that we would live our lives together. But... are we anyway? Is the only difference that I can't actually see you?

I have often thought of you, Ellanor. Often. In the first months, the first year, I wondered what you were doing and where you were. I would say to people and to your Dad that it felt like you were just away on some trip somewhere. I likened the feeling I had, still have, to a mother wondering and a little concerned about her worldly child off travelling the wilds of Africa, the mountains of Tibet, the streets of Rome.

I feel like you are just a postcard away.

With friends like these...

Question:

If your baby is a grubby grot, getting over a cold and therefore still spitting and snotting and dribbling everywhere, would you take that baby to your friend's house and let your baby do said spitting and snotting and dribbling all over her baby's toys and rugs?

I know I wouldn't.

Would also let your baby eat on the floor and crawl around with dirty face and hands, rubbing stuff into your friend's carpet and touching all the furniture (table legs, licking table legs, grotty hands on couch)? Would you pretend you didn't see it or would you do what my friend did and laugh at each thing and say "Ooops you got some dribble on the toys"? And then, to top it off, would you get your friend's baby's big teddy bear and snuggle it into your baby's dirty yoghurt and fruit covered face? I'm not talking a bit in the corner of the baby's mouth, I'm talking a full face of food.

And would you make it so your friend feels she doesn't have any recourse because, after all, you've come over for the half day to be with your friend who you think isn't coping well (and press her to go onto anti-depressants)?

I am seething, more for the fact that after she's left, I have MORE work to do. I will have to clean all of the LGBB's toys. I am so angry that I could cry. There was no point pointing it out, my friend lives a far different life to me and I can see that when I go to her house. I am by NO means the cleanest person, but I don't see how you cannot see your child is slobbing all over someone else's fucking house. Fair enough, let your child do that at your place but I know for a fact that you'd not willingly allow your child to go crawling about with food in their hands and on their face.

I've never come across this before, mainly because this is the first visit from this friend since her baby has been mobile. I am shellshocked at her disregard for my home. She's a good friend, which makes this so much worse.

What is ridiculous, though, is that I am not assertive enough to even say anything. That apparently, it's easier for me to (once again) allow someone to do as they please thinking that I think it's ok when underneath I am thinking "Just get through this next half hour then they'll go and you can start cleaning, it's nothing that can't be fixed/cleaned". When really, I planned to do work this afternoon but I feel like I can't work because I have to clean before things/food/snotty spots set all over the place. Add to that that Lolly has just woken and I have very limited things to give her and places to put her to play until I do clean, even if I did decide to put off the cleaning.

GOD I'm cross! I think I'm mostly angry at myself for being so timid - the fear of being told I'm too pedantic or that it's funny to see me flustered over something like this is far greater to me than the inconvenience this friend has just created for me.

I'd love thoughts from any mums on this. Whether this is considered usual behaviour or not, as I sure as hell KNOW that my daughter would not be allowed to do that at someone else's house, regardless of how comfortable I was with the friend (in fact, in many respects, the closer I was to a person would just insure that I didn't allow it). It doesn't take much to wipe your baby's face and hands, surely??

Keep the cork in it

Who says you need vodka to have fun?

I just spent a most joyous afternoon in my backyard. Just me, the LGBB, Jazz and a bottle of bubbles. Not alcy-holic bubbles. Oh no. The $1.20 teddy bear-shaped cannister blowing-bubbles kind of bubbles.

Steve and I discovered on the weekend the amusement that is perching your daughter in her cot and blowing bubbles in her direction. What added to that particular brand of fun was the new bottle o' bubbles I had purchased the day before on an impulse. The only logic I had was, "It's bear-shaped, it'll be a hit with the LGBB" (who is dead keen on bears, just quietly). I hadn't factored in that they were obviously trying to shift their shipment of bear-shaped bubble blowers because they were in any way defective, hence the bargain price.

So Steve started first. That is, after he'd screwed back on the bubble shaper bit that I'd pulled off, thinking you had to pull out the stick from whence the bubbles come. I actually pulled the top off it and after much deliberation, we worked out that you squeezed the bear/cannister to make the bubble head appear out the top. It's fixed to the bottom, see. So you squeeze, then blow and the bubbles will form and spill out, as is the usual custom.

I was doubled over in fits at Steve's first attempt. You have to picture it though (and maybe, even then, it still doesn't do the visual justice): a grown man sitting laxidasically in my breastfeeding rocker chair in the LGBB's room, both of us looking on eagerly at him and on his first blow.... nuttin'. A big fat fizzer. No bubble. Second blow, same thing. What made it funnier was the action of having to squeeze the bear to make the bubble blower head come out. And then Steve's deadpan face as he did it. Over. And over. And over. The guy should be on stage.

So today, I took said bear outside with me, the LGBB and nature. The breeze picked up only after I started to try and blow. As Murphy's Law dicated. And then..... oh my God. The invention worked. Some little bloke in some far away Taiwanese factory high-fived as bubble after bubble came out in quick succession. And the LGBB's face lit up as they whizzed past her pram. She was leaning forward eagerly, trying to grab them (many moments too late, don't you love that about babies' developing spatial ability?). And then the piece de resistance: Jazz. And her big boof head, trying to bite the strange balls that were floating through the air.

Oh my God. I thought I was going to let go my pelvic floors laughing. Ok, we're amongst friends - maybe I actually did, just a little. Thanks to Lolly 7 months ago.... So here we were, outside, the LGBB looking all confused and a little pissed at not being able to grab a weird floaty thing coming from Mummy. Mummy doubled over pissing her pants laughing at the dog who was indignantly trying to stop the strange floating balls from invading her space in the backyard. Oh, and then there was poor old lady, Pep. So out of it by this stage in her life that she sat next to me, ever next to me the darling, blinking and confused when they popped in her face.

I thought the afternoon couldn't be topped off. That was until I took the LGBB inside to "finish her off" (that final few minutes of play that insures a sound afternoon sleep... is the plan, anyway). I gave her her stacking ring toy. All the rings were separated from the main stem. And she was grumpy! Oh boy, was she in a snoot. She was wrestling the rings off me as I attempted to chuck them over the top of the stem. The largest ring got caught on her arm and she tried to grab the next one as I flung it, but the big one up her arm got in the way.

Bwaaaahahahahahaha.

It was like watching some crazed and deranged spoilt starlet trying to fit on all her bangles. Like seeing Elizabeth Taylor being pompous over the diamond jewellery and swatting away her minders. I was in fits. And each time she looked up at me gruffly, I had to stare off into the middle distance and pretend I was laughing at something else.

But oh, how I was laughing at her beautiful, sweet, silly, sick self. The poor darling.

A different spin on the same old number

Well, when I created the pages about Ellanor and expanded on them as the demand became apparent, I never expected to receive a request to use her story as inspiration for a young girl's interpretive dance number.

But that is exactly what we received today.

In part, she wrote

i would jsut like to say that what you have done is beautiful, and im sure people say this all the time but i guarantee you that your website and contribution is helping people every day. I am only a young adult so have never had a child or lost a child for that matter, so i cannot even begin to think about what that would be like.

And nor do you really want to, my dear.

my other reason for writing to you is because i am a dancer at university and am currently in a project of choreographing a dance piece. The idea that i have chosen to explore is a mother losing a child. I know that i haven't ever felt the pain of a mother who has gone through this, but it is something that i want to explore because i feel it is such a tragic subject that people (both men and women) can be faced with and at times is totally unexpected. As teenagers and young adults we often think about what our families will be like in the future and how our children will be, yet we never really think about what it would be like to actually lose one of these children. I want to explore my feelings on this and put them towards others.
I found your website to be very inspirational and as i have not experienced motherhood yet, i would like to use your stories and poems etc as inspiration for my piece, in terms of your loss, your grief and also ellanor's gift.

What this has done is drop a penny in my head. A long time ago, I wanted to touch children. No wait.... that sounds SO wrong. I wanted to reach children. That's better. I wanted to reach them, reach out to them, not necessarily open them up to things but more... keep them open? If that makes any sense? My father has said to me on more than one occasion, 'We are born coming into this world knowing all'. It's the other way around to that which we are conditioned to think. I believe this thoroughly. Although, I am guilty of falling into the same trap with the LGBB; because those motor skills prevent her, we have to nurture her to the point of doing things for herself. But the underlying knowledge, it's there in every one of us. How many times have we heard "S/he's been here before" or "s/he has an 'old' face" when talking about newborns? It's not coincidental, I believe, but rather we're seeing echoes of what they have come in with, before it's gradually lost and they begin to wake up from where they've been and come into who they are now.

When this girl wrote to us today, I realised that all those times I've yearned to be a primary school teacher, a child care worker, a kindergarten teacher, I was looking for that hook. The powerpoint, if you like, that would enable me to plug in somewhere and experience that awesome time when children come into their own. And to be a contributor to the shaping of our future world. But I never realised any of those vocations. None of them sat well. It seemed futile, because my whole aim was to create awareness of how brilliant and fascinating they were - of, for lack of a better expression, touching them in such a way that they grew up full of pride in themselves, having a well developed understanding of their role in the bigger picture, how they can make a difference to the world and the way everybody lives. To take the blinkers off, I suppose.

But it just seemed such an exhaustive task and I let it go. Now, I am becoming wise to the prospect that if I want to truly help change, turn the juggernaut around, join the growing tide of people who are chipping away at making a difference, I can't do it myself. Not me, personally. But through people like this young girl. What better place to encourage young children to retain their innocence and awareness in order to heal the Earth than in the home?! From their parents? And even better, young adults who are yet to become parents. What a boon! For Mother Earth!

Little by little, awarenesses may begin to open up just that bit more. The possibility to name just one example that, hey yes, as absolutely crazy as it sounds, I did have conversations with my daughter before her conception and after her death. And that was only made possible because I was open to it. People she flitted to and dove in to open awareness that bit more were also only able to hear her because they too were open (if you want to read more on what I'm talking about, read Little Ella ... and take a box of tissues with you). The reason I use this as a good example is that that message, her message, was about expanding forgiveness in the self. Opening up others' compassion and consideration for others. In essence, not unlike that obscenely cheesy movie, Pay It Forward.

It's fascinating to me. And I am being gently pushed towards something that's forming in the outer reaches of my mind. I can feel it, but I can't tell what it is yet. It's bugging me! Not unlike a mozzie trapped in my bedclothes.

The bed bugs bit

Well, what a successful binge fest one lucky mozzie had last night, dining on my feet.

I hope he's pulled up sore this morning, little fat bastard. I have three bites on one little toe (excuse me, would you like a little toe with your mosquito bite, madam?), two on both big toes - right on the knuckles too, conveniently(not) for scratching - various others around my general feet area and one in the centre of my foot which, after a morning of scratching, now looks like a big red Play button.

And I'm going out of my FREAKING mind with the itching. I look like a mangey dog, scraping my feet along the carpet as I walk. Anything to tickle the itch away.

Oi said pet, oi said darl, oi said puh-LOISE

The LGBB tells it straight to the camera.

Perks of the job

Tell me what other kind of job in the WORLD has a clause that says:

"You will oft times be prioritising and in such demand that taking a dump will become a luxury."

Just wondering.

Harnessing her inner logic

Please Sir...

I want some more.

We're moving. Yes, I'd care to make it official

If only I could convince Steve that 16 baby huntsmen in one day (and waking not 5 minutes ago this morning to the big granddaddy of them all on my side of the bed half way down the wall near my head) is grounds for moving.

They may well be as nervous about approaching thunderstorms as me and turn indoors to escape the heat. But they should have built their own bigger houses if they wanted something to protect them from the goddamn weather. Coming in uninvited and unwelcome is just rude.

EEEEEUUUUGHHHHH!!

The baker's dozen

Twelve plus one.

Thirteen.

Baby huntsman spiders, all over the LGBB's bathroom.

A nest has exploded somewhere and my skin is crawling, people. Can I come over and sleep at your house?

I'm so hungy I could eat a sandwich from a gas station

Not unlike the scene from Vacation where Clarke Griswold is trying to find where to fill up the new family truckster with gas, I have just spent an infuriating few minutes pawing at the outside of the smart little arsed black box known as the video camera.

I turned it over and over and over. Like you'd do when you were a kid with those bloody annoying Rubiks cubes (c'mon, hands up who unstuck the coloured squares and restuck them perfectly in colour sequence then proudly declared you'd solved it? Just me?). I could not for the life of me where to stick the power cord to recharge the damn thing. And it had lost battery power right in the middle of the most delightful little "golly-golly-golly"ing by the LGBB. A moment, never to be captured again! Bastard technology! Damn thee to hellll.

I started trying to make the little jack fit in to various similarly sized holes, even the ones underneath that were so clearly not the power outlets, not unlike when Clarke is tapping down the side of his car with the gas nozzle in case there's some sort of hidden opening that will magically open sesame. So when I finally found the hidden flap, more secret than 'arry Potter's Chamber of Secrets, I heard Ellen in my head saying "Oh... Clarke? Isn't this the gas tank?"

Too smart for its own good, stupid video camera. Golly, golly, golly.

My drinking problem

"I need a drink, Roz. I'm takin' the rest of the day off." Best line of Nine To Five if you ask me. So fitting. I use it a lot.

An entire weekend of pets heads falling off is still in effect. Even though it's now Monday.

• Odd job that should have taken, well, as long as it takes to find and purchase a new appliance including delivery that's now turned into full blown structural renovations - tick.
• The "quick duck down to Bunnings" resulting in a huge renovation in itself - of the LGBB's
nappy, in the boot of the car - tick.
• Feeling like I'm living in squalor because I have an old washing machine, an old fridge, a clothes horse, a vacuum cleaner and the dryer all sitting in my living room (along with all the usual furniture, oh plus some stuff I need to sell on Ebay) - tick.

And now it seems I can't even take a swig of my water bottle without the contents going everywhere but my mouth. Stoopid damn drinking problem.

The Gods Must Be Crazy

And I don't mean in a Botswanian kinda way (you'd have to see the movie to believe me).

First off, for the past fortnight, Steve and I have been.... well I don't know where. Having decided we are going to move (for the first time since we built this place ten years ago), we've been up to *here* in house plans and land possibilities. Trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

At the crucial point, night before The Big Bank Appointment and going down to sign on our first dotted line, Steve came home from a quick duck up to the local shops and declared, "It's too hard, it's not feeling right, so it's not the right time to move. We're not going anywhere." It was music to my ears. And I felt relief. Joy! So weird, as I had been keen on moving, getting away, having a fresh start (hey if a caterpillar can choose to metamorphose in front of me - show off - I thought it was a good sign that our itchy feet were moving in the right direction). But hearing him say that and take charge - it was almost as if my higher conscious went "Pheeeeeeeew that was close! Thank God one of you came to your senses at the 11th hour."

We just can't leave this house. Literally. I've wanted to. Plenty of times. With and without him, let me tell you *thumbs over shoulder at the husband* We've gone through a lot here. But even having the market appraisals done by the estate agents was a bit of a wake-up call. We have here not just a house (to quote Darryl Kerrigan), but a home. All that we want and need is right here at the moment. It's a nice feeling and I don't quite know why I got so worked up about having to move, but the urge that was quite forceful two weeks ago has simply vanished.

It happened once before, when I was pregnant with Ellanor. Remember clearly sitting at the kitchen table with some other real estate agent, saying we were just signing papers on a block of land (and we were and we did, we just never moved there after everything that ended up happening with Ella). And the upshot of that was creating the water feature in her memory and what we poured our efforts and emotions into at the time.

Now we've decided to stay, we have rolled up our sleeves and said there are certain things we're sick of pointing to and saying One day we've godda change that. Soooo, not wanting to miss riding the crest of this new impetus, we've upended the laundry. Actually, we didn't mean it to be a big job. It was fine as it was. But, uh.... seeing's we've purchased a new washing machine (comes tomorrow) and wanting a change of scene, Steve's ripped up half the floor already. He suddenly got all gung-ho (in his stripey "these must never leave the house with you in them" shorts, my request not his) and got tucked in to lifting the flooring and preparing it for a brand new 'do. He'll kill me for showing you (his shorts), but until he sees this here's the photo evidence. And the mould and grime (and grease and guts off the rod) we found on moving out the old appliances presented a previously unthought of bit o' extra work - a new skirting board to replace the one that's been rotting away merrily for the past 10 years. Ooops, that'd be my fault for overflowing the washing machine a few times and warping the floor, etc. Still, it's been a good "just as well then" excuse to get the new washer.

I was horrified, no make that absolutely mortified, at the state of the laundry. Particularly behind the washing machine. When we moved it out, we were taking a breather at the door with the back of the machine facing the tv (which was paused in the middle of something he'd been watching) and Steve said "Do you think Leo McGarry's just seen our washing machine?" I was furiously searching my mental names database for a Leo and coming up blank, until he pointed over at the telly. "Leo" is John Spencer's character from The West Wing and the screen was stilled on a rather unfortunate expression which did look for all the world like poor Leo had just seen a most disgraceful sight.

Other things have been happening during these past weeks. I don't know where to put all the work I've been getting (need to get a bottom drawer happening - an old co-worker who ended up being "let go" left behind an entire bottom drawer of unlodged paperwork that had been costing the company's clients thousands of dollars, whoopsy daisies, and ever since then it's been known as "The Bottom Drawer" policy around these parts).

And better yet, the LGBB is tucking right into her solids (and getting lovelier and funnier by the day). Tonight, she even smooshed a broccoli floret happily against her gums. And ear. And chest. Carrots can go bite the big one, but we're working on it.

She has also started gabbing on. Gabbin' with Lol. It would make a cute talk show. Mind you, don't get within a metre of her when she is "talking" or you'll cop a spray of baby spit in the face. Oi, milky-broccoli-breath, say it don't spray it. There are more "th"s in her sentences than Sylvester (the cat, not the Stallone... although....). Tonight, I was feeding her before bed in her room. Dimly lit by her teddy bear nightlight. She seemed to think that it was a spotlight. On her. As she stood at the mic.

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, she stops feeding, looks up at the light and does this straight-legged, wide-eyed, slapstick jerk, at the same time going "Dth! DTHTHTH! Duh-th-th-thbth!!", each "th!" punctuated with a sudden jerky stiff-bodied movement. She knew exactly what she was doing and that she had an audience (of one, stifling giggles in the back of her throat) 'Twas, I am sure, the first of one of many moments I shall have to bite down hard to avoid giggling and thereby encouraging her. As it turns out, she's our daughter alright. I am absolutely certain she was all smoke and mirrors up top, in the vain hopes of detracting from the business going on in her fat nappy. A regular Kenny Craig if ever I saw one - I even caught photo evidence of it one day (see for yourself, that goatee's a dead give-away if you ask me). After a few moments of this oh-so-cute-and-riveting comedy routine, the stuccato rumblings from deep within the folds of the bamboo fibres covering her bot-bot could not be mistaken. Cheeky minx.

None of this stopped me from crying big hot silent tears of happiness mere minutes later. I sat her up to burp her and the undeniable realisation that I was in the presence of her experience of being loved and enjoying herself was so strong that I started to cry while I watched her upturned face to that nightlight. While I poured tears, she blew raspberries and "chattered" away to her ted, then left her tongue out and turned into my cheek. Blergh! A mixture of sloppy kisses and salty tears on both our cheeks, I knew I was so lucky to have her here with us.

We commemorate tomorrow the third anniversary of the day Ellanor left us. And I know she's around here somewhere. It just dawned on me that it's no coincidence my deeper story of my experience with Ella is called 'The Parallel Story', because more and more I wonder if there is some sort of parallel plane where she walks alongside us and her sister.

I wonder a lot.

Lions and tigers and bears, oh my

We just had an interruption to our power service and it arked up the Foxtel IQ box.

He: *scrolling through Foxtel planner* Ahh, shit, it missed recording Fucking In Africa
Me: What the hell kind of program is that????
He: *ignoring me* All my favourite shows, see? It always stuffs up my shows.
Me: *picturing lerve Serengheti-style ... eww how gritty* What's it about? Is it a documentary? ... Comedy ...?

Then I caught a glimpse of the actual show title. That'd be Battlestar Galactica.

Note to self: if you're not going to pay full attention, don't listen at all.

Things I've learned in the last 24 hours

• There is a very over-dancing, over-acting, over-annoying blonde male (in the red jacket) on The Wiggles sometimes, with a lovely perfect row of pearly whites, who looks like a frustrated backup dancer for The Boy From Oz.
• When presented with the opportunity by way of ricotta and zucchini mash, the LGBB will choose gagging over breathing - hands down.
• I can move surprisingly fast when required (see previous point).
• A mug of skinny latte is sometimes not so skinny.
• Murray Wiggle's cartoon caricature is far better looking than the man himself.
• He needs to eat a burger.
• A mug of not so skinny latte and a slice of pear-and-something tart do not mix.
• It is not wise to attempt to make it home if you hear clunks and shudders that you aren't sure are coming from your nether region or from the lift you're standing in to get back to your car.
• Even if all cross-checks have been made to ensure all sphincters are air-tight. Just trust me.
• I say again, I can move surprisingly fast when required (see previous point).
• Don't blame the LGBB for any noises emitting from your person. Steve will always find you out.
• My mind may actually go places deemed sick - point in case, on Creature Features this morning (a kids show, and sorry Sparkcat, I couldn't get to the tv fast enough to change channels), they were showing how to care for hampsters. The next time I came back in the room, I saw a plate with a slice of some unidentified meat and three veg. Immediately my mind went straight to "Fuck, they slaughtered one of them, that's bit harsh for young kiddies!" I won't deny I'm a bit scared of what I think sometimes.
• The LGBB lurrrrrrves the cat from Creature Features and talks and squeals to him. Now I have a dilemma! (sorry again, Sparkcat, I've failed the 487th rule of early childhood parenting: never let your child grow attached to a snide, talk-it-up character they can learn bad manners from)