It's a sign...

And I am a blubbering mess.

No sooner had I completed my last blog entry than the truck rounded the corner. With our sign on it.

He's oblivious, the guy hammering it up to our picket fence. For all he knows, we're dying to get out of here or we could be regretting our decision to move. Either way, his job is to stick up a For Sale sign. He just drove off, admiring his handiwork. And I feel branded.

The view of the front garden from my office that I so adore - the garden that we created from the ground up and planted carefully for the birds to enjoy (there was a huge nectar foight foight foight! going on this morning between a wattle bird and a native honey eater in the magenta melaleuca you can see in the photo) now has a constant reminder to me that we are but caretakers. Of any place we call a home.

Yes, I'm sad. Very desperately sad. To be leaving here, all the familiar things we've made beautiful (only since having Ella, for before then it was quite the rental-feel property I must say). But then I can envisage Steve chasing Lauryn on her trike. On grass. Actual, real life honest injin grass. We don't have grass here. None that the dogs haven't claimed as their outdoor toilies anyway. And I know there is heaps I can do with the soil and creating garden magic at the new place. Give it a real going over and a lovin'. It's the sterile rose bush, cumquat-against-the-fence sensible introduced species garden in front and back right now and I have every intention of reintroducing the indigenous plants back to the place as soon as I am able (and given the nod that it's the right way).

Just, oh. Huge emotions. Big fat tears. And nobody to cry to today. Going to busy myself with more work and a cup of hot sugary tea before going to pick up the Lollster from her occ. care family.

What have I done?

I ask myself.

• You've just eaten a block of chocolate. All by yourself. In the middle of the afternoon. No amount of justification that you also won three Pilates dvd's on Ebay* will cancel it out either .
• You've bought a house on a whim. Did you even know what you were doing? Too late now. You saw it in the paper, liked the tree in the front yard, looked past the hideous green-paint sponging of every vertical surface in the photos, somehow managed to convince Steve it'd be a lark to go and look at it... and owned it within the week. Too easy? Or too stupid? 'Tis yet to be seen.
• You've managed to turn your daughter into a talk show junkie. Even though you don't watch these with any religious regularity. Why is it that she squeals and claps with glee every time Oprah's audience cheer and whoop appreciatively at the latest endorsement being plugged on the show?


* DVD's: Beginner - for days where you feel wussy, Intermediate - for days where you want to attempt it and beat yourself up that you USED to be able to do much better than this, and Advanced - for days where you want to flog yourself for failing to do the Beginners workout more frequently, otherwise you'd be able to do this Advanced one without stopping by now

Beats me, Officer

'scuse the barrage of Lolly photos of late. I had always heard it said but never actually realised how DAMN GORGEOUS this stage is we're heading into.

Exhibit A:

Butter wouldn't melt in my mouth

He's my Ted. I love 'im and I pet 'im and I stroke his purdy hayir.

AAAAAAAAAAAND ... then I HIT 'IM!

Nope. Wasn't me. He was like this when I found 'im.

Ah! I see your will is as strong as mine, Mummeh...

It starts out like any typical morning. And eventually resorts to a tantrum or several when I fail to determine what her heart's desires are. This morning I had to tell her to go get her drink herself (guessing that's what it was).



And after much adorable wailing and flailing and flinging, inevitably now because I don't waver and do my best to encourage (and adorable only because I'm in that tail end of the hormone surge, luckily for her and me), what we find is that on the other side of the irrational, not negotiable toddler is someone who just wanted her freakin' drink.

We crawled there together and back again - so she didn't get what she wanted but neither did I really. And then she sized me up with dewy eyes and forgave me.





This will take some challenging. She hasn't even hit her teenage years yet.

Oh phew, we have a good reason to move

S: Heyyyy.... you do realise that we'll actually have squeaky floorboards to blame now when we try and pass off a fart as the "damn floorboards"?

*cringe* And now you've officially heard it all. Given that we currently live in a house with a concrete slab, this remark should give you a fair indication (if you didn't have one already) of just where our private 'umour is pitched.

The littlest Thunderbird

Don't you think Lolly's hair looks like it's too old to be on a 15mo? There's something terribly..... grown up about the way it's growing. She'll be running rings around me before I ... hang on a minute, are those car keys?


Just as soon as I get this key thing sorted, escape is MINE.


Now.... she does something with ...... this thing.



Hmmmm, shift it into reverse...


Oh! I LOVE this song, I haven't heard it in donkeys!



Kids! Quiet in the back, I'm trying to concentrate on the road!


Yes, I'll have a large fries, frozen Coke and a McHappy Meal, ploise.

Blue Steel Steve-stylin'

Correct. They are chicken feet.

Reporting to you live from Whirlwind Central

Current observations are as follows:

• Have been madly cleaning off shelves and dusting and scrubbing and patching and painting. Most clearance (Clarence) has to be stored somewhere and seeing as we like to spread out our storage, we've had to store our stored.... stuff.... in a storage facility. To make room for the stuff we need to store. Away. If you know what I mean.
• When the hell did I think the Dawsons Creek soundtrack would be quite acceptable to pay money for? No wonder I found it stashed somewhere I didn't want to see it for a very long time.
• When decluttering your home in readiness for sale, there really are very few places to store your Grandfather's prized ceramic Clydesdale horse and gypsy caravan ornament (when you're talking, like, a half a metre long thing, but it may as well be a fecking life-size replica when you're trying to hide it)
• I may very well just have to smack my husband in the head. No reason really. Just the usual.
• We are GO for 'on the market'. And no, you can't see any pics (please cast your minds back to various stalkers, etc., who like to poke and prod - just don't have the emotional stamina right now to deflect the barbs).
• See previous point for reason why I cannot, until it's taken off the internet, show you photos of the new cute as a button little place we've nabbed. They will come though! Promise (sorry, Dan!).
• Sight you don't want to see when rushing about, heading out for swimming lesson and needing to be back in time for appointment with listing agent: both dogs standing looking rather forlorn over separate piles of (I can only assume) their own vomit. How they did it in unison, like some bizarre Virgin Suicides-style pact, absolutely beats me, but I'm impressed. Torn. Do I stay and clean? Or do I race off and attend later?
• Answer to previous point: they're dogs. They'll clean up after themselves. Especially (rather, only) when it's vomit. And if you have a Jazz-brand dog (ie. eats an-y-thing), she'll even lick the concrete clean for you too.
• We have our first open day in one week.
• The board goes up after next weekend (that'll get the neighbours going, although they have been sus on the flurry of activity out the front of our place since Friday, it's the longest time we've spent in front of our house in years).
• I have precisely two days before listing photos are taken. If it's not confronting enough that you have your home advertised (anyone who's sold would know that feeling), try being smacked in the face with it on a 10' high board on your front fence..... God I hope there's not a hair out of place. Oh... aren't I allowed to pose with apron 'just so', holding my copy of Home Beautiful? Dang.

Question from the front of the class

Does anybody in real life really moisturize their elbows? Or is it only women in movies? Usually with a luxurious wide-armed robe curled up on a gorgeous sofa. Either thinking wistfully or crying over a movie. Or plotting her husband's demise.

If ANY of you come back and say you do it regularly (er... the moisturizing bit, not the plotting), I will have to bow my head and slink off, taking my gritty elbows with me.

Oh my

Well, this does not bode well for smooth, well oiled cog-like working of me and Mr Steve over the coming week, just when we need it most.

We have one month before settlement on the new place and have to whip around this house to get it nto market-worthy shape. And pondering my more than usual snappiness, I've checked the calendar: Witchypoo is due next week.

Tell me, for I am interested to learn dear reader, have you become the byotch from hell around that time of the month (Paul you're excluded from this question) since having your wee treasure/s? I was NEVER your stereotypical angry hormonal Alanis Morrisett type (not from my cycle anyway).

Discuss.

Dad breaks it to the girls very gently...

"Now, I know it will be a big change. You're going to increase your run size by at least three times the space you have now. And you'll have new smells to smell. And new neighbours to bark at until you get used to all their noises. And you'll have to pack all your bones and toys. Because .... you're going to a better place. NO, Peppy, I meant we're moving. Yes, all of us. Yes of course, Jazz too."

We got the house. I think I actually may have wet my pants just a little.

Forgive me, Blogees, for I have sinned

It has been one week since my last proper post.

We have been thrown into a bit of a tizz and whilst I can't go into too many details here, obviously being because it's the internet and who knows who's reading whose business these days, I can now divulge this much:

We are on the precipice of a potentially major change, me and Steve. And Lol, by default.

We are about to put in an offer on a house. Nay, a home. A glorious place that, by its very facåde, looks like it wants to take you into its ample farm-wifey bosom and give you a big ol' hug. And then make you a mug of cocoa (blegh, no thanks, unless you put cream and/or ice cream in it and/or sugar) and sit you down by the warming fire while it washes your clothes for you.

Good grief, I am a right ball of heightened working order right now. We are pumped. At the ready. About to potentially move to a place we could own outright in next to no time. The financial relief is but a small portion of the appeal, though. It's a fizzer, really, in comparison to the commanding views from back and front yards of this place. Of its potential to be renovated (oh how Steve has wanted to get all crowbar on something's ass for such a long four years now). Of its uber-proximity to shops, station, primary school and hospital - all within 15 minutes' walk.

We have had two official valuers through our place, plus one very savvy friend in the know who has her finger on the pulse of property prices in the area, and it's unanimous: this li'l humble place we bought as fresh-faced, unpregnant, unwed 22 and 27 year-olds has surpassed our expectations in what it's now valued.

Who the F*** knew that would happen? And, dammit, why the hell shouldn't a break come our way anyway? It's a scary thing, though, and even more humbling to even consider that something you've tended for ten years and watched being built from the ground up could be worth so much to someone else who doesn't have the same sentimental, emotional pull as you do. It'll be mighty hard to leave here. Leave Ella's pond. Leave every single inch of this place behind. But if it happens this year or in five more years, it'll still be a wrench on my soul. So no time like the present, with a corker of a place to see yourself moving to, to stop putting off the inevitable, 'eh? (This is the part where you all say, "GO! LEAVE! Put in your highest HIIIIGHEST possible offer on the other place so you secure it outright!!!" please, so I don't lose my nerve)

Please oh please oh please let this all work out. I've wasted too many nights in a row of not relaxing fully on this one, instead redrawing floor plans (and quite deftly, if I do say so meself *lofty sniff*) and contemplating worst-case-scenarios with Mr Sensible CFO.

Man tells dog tells man

Miss Mena: But.... I don't WANNA wear it.

Master: But.... you gotta.

You know what I realised today?

As we sat being entertained by Our Maestro...








I noticed how incredibly much she still resembles Ella and how these flash across her face. So quick, the unobservant eye would probably overlook it.

But that familiar mouth. Chin. Nose. And those cheeks, of course. To me, Ellanor actually looks more like Lolly as a baby than Lolly did... as a baby.

None of it's lost on me. Reminds me just how very much we have had to say goodbye to. Perhaps for Lauryn herself to come as she is.

Nahhh, surely this was set up

Either that, or Ms Klein-Davis (the reporter) has an agenda.




From here

Ok, now you're just showing off

Today we had movement in a forward direction. First time ever, unaided. Don't let the lack of exclamations, bold, large text or flashing lights fool you ... I am giddy with glee, just not in the mood for adornments *yawn*

So it was more befitting for a GI Joe, but the LGBB commando crawled up and back across the living room floor this morning for Steve.

He came in to me as I was getting out of the shower and said, "I feel like I'm training a dog in there, but she's doing it."

Food and water (preferably my water bottle, the "thing of mys-ter-eeee" she always tries to get her hands on) appear to be her main enticements. Forget the interesting toy or book shit. That's for babies. But give the girl a trail of Cheerios and apparently, she'll shimmy there and back unaided.

Oh my God. I feel like my life just opened up another crack. Much like it does when you start dropping breastfeeds and all of a sudden you get *gasp* a whole three consecutive hours you're not physically needed at home!!! It's funny, because just the other night we were reminiscing how we used to tag team comforting Lolly to sleep as a newborn beside our bed, the other of us getting as decent a stretch of sleep as we could. And that decent stretch? Oh, a whole four hours. But it felt like absolute bliss to know you didn't have to attend to any gurgle, grizzle or fart - strange how the body could shut off to get that kip, just knowing someone else would worry about things.

She sits

Ladies and gentlemen... the LGBB now sits up on her own (when she roooolly troooolly wants to and don't you be trying to make her repeat it if she doesn't want to).

Since Saturday, we have whooped and cheered and egged her on the three times she's done it. Not that it took that her long... Of course now that her secret is out of the bag (for I have long harboured a sneaking suspicion that she was getting up and wandering over to the cd collection to have a browse and then hurrying back to her stuck-beetle-flailing-legged position before I came back in the room), I am not letting her off lightly. The gloves are off and it has been a battle of the wills.

Though I must go gently on her this week. Final 12-month shot on Wednesday (we staggered them so as not to interfere with this crucial stage in her gross motor development - did I mention how much we love Dr Paulo and will never stray to a local, run-o-the-mill GP ever again, lesson learned?). And the past two days we've had dawn to dusk whinges, culminating this afternoon in the first clear display of the LGBB trying to tell me her head felt like it was going to explode: she smacked her temples (gently) and put her head to the side, aww-fashion, doing a very pitiful pout to boot.

But I digress.

She sits! She sits!!

Signs of your past times

When you look down absent-mindedly at the list of client renewals you hastily scribbled several days back and now keep reading "dom. reg." (abbreviation for domain registration) as "down reg" and keep wondering why you've noted anything about your IVF cycle. And then snap into the present and go, "WTF? I'm not even doing IVF, why would I need to note down my down reg cycle"....

See, it never leaves. But I still amusedly chuckle. Much like remembering the scores of Number Plate Signs one gets when in the 2ww.

But wait, there's more

The LGBB's play date was besotted with "Baby Lauryn".

Erm....
Lolly doesn't give an inch, but threw Ellen a split-second smile
every so often to keep her keen.

When the ticket booker told Mummy their seats
were in a prime pozzy, Mummy could never
have imagined he was so spot on.
Justine practically flicked sweat on us twirling during "Hop Hippity Hop".

Ker-nackered

Her life is now complete

And I should not have worn mascara to the concert today. I thanked Justine for saving my life between months 7 and 12 (for her dvd and for being on Play School) and she obliged by taking Lolly and sitting her on her lap for this snap. The LGBB sat throughout the concert, stunned. Not so much that Justine was right in front of her - and when I mean right in front, we were third row centre could literally touch her on stage - but that so many other squealing kiddies were in Lolly's living room. Most unsettling for a little girl.

But, oh. What a gorgeous, gorgeous person she (Justine) is. I am a complete and utter convert.