Breaking the rules

Well, I'm a naughty Mummy. I've broken so many rules.

• I have no idea how many times a night Midget feeds. When she first wakes up she comes into bed with us. When my legs get stiff I wake up and roll over a bit, when I realise she's been on one side a long time I roll her over.
• I have no idea how many times a day Midget feeds. When she gets grizzly?
• Her naps are all over the place. Poor little thing fits in with whatever is happening. The first one tends to be very early - she only makes it about 1 1/2 hours after getting up, which usually means we've just finished breakfast - but the second one happens whenever.
• Mummy's magic sleeping potion is the only way to get her to sleep, except occasionally in the car if she's exhausted.

• Widget seems to be terrified of monsters. I'm not really sure how scared she is - she says she is and sort of looks like she is, but it also looks like she's playing.
• She gets a drink whenever we go shopping. It may be bribery, but I figure a drink a couple of times a week is ok in the larger scheme of things.
• She's still breastfeeding, and in fact is at the point where she will organise Daddy to look after Midget before she even asks me.
• She loves 'writing' both on the computer and paper, but doesn't know any letters. She loves counting for games like hide and seek and likes numbers, but she doesn't actually count things. This is an interesting one - I have a strong educational belief in kids learning these things when they are ready and teaching all the pre-reading and numeracy behaviours and concepts, rather than letters and numbers. But when everyone else's kid knows their letters and numbers ... Plus I get to the point of wondering if she wants to know them and am I holding her back.

Sensitive little sponges - very scary

DH and I had a massive fight last night. No yelling or shouting, just lots of tension and avoiding each other until after the girls were in bed, then crying.

Widget woke up in the middle of the night and wouldn't go back to sleep for hours, she kept calling for both of us and asking me if I was there. I ended up putting her in the bed with DH because Midget woke up, so she and I spent the night in Widget's bed (which was really uncomfortable amongst the menagerie of stuffed animals).

Then today both of them have been disturbed. Midget grizzled every time she was put down and Widget re-discovered every annoying habit she's ever had, from climbing over the lounge to screaming, whinging and even hitting Midget. We had lots of good times too, but they were on edge.

DH came home at lunchtime to talk and Widget insisted on sitting on both of us. Luckily we did manage to sort things out so we're OK, but she wouldn't eat lunch and continued the behaviour. Luckily it was cool in the evening and we took them outside and had a good play and run around and they went to bed fairly easily and happily.

It's really scary how it affected them. We did our best not to show them and I would have said we acted normally with them, but they picked it up anyway. And of course I was exhausted and upset today, so I wasn't up to dealing with them the best. It makes me really sad for kids who come from tense homes long term - we've had maybe 2 fights in 3 years and work really hard to keep communication open and look what it did to them. Imagine poor little kids who are around that all the time.

To care or not to care

I'm tossing up trying to get Widget a spot at daycare for one morning a week.

She's just had a wonderful time while we've been away playing with her brother, cousins and random children she adopted at the park. She's definitely past the parallel play stage and wants to play with other children. She's great with Midget and plays with me a lot, but I think she needs more variety.

We do playgroup once a week and it can be a bit hit and miss - one day there are two babies, the next week there are 20 children up to 4. Unfortunately there is only one other child her age and he just wants to play with his big brother. There is a little girl she really likes, but she is only 2 and not up to playing with Widget. There are several older kids but they don't really know how to play with someone younger - as the littlest she doesn't understand what they are doing and they don't know how to include her.

I just don't like the idea of not being with her. While we are at play group she will ignore me for long stretches of time, but if she needs me I'm there.

In some ways the solution is having other kids over or visiting. I know there are other kids her age in town, but I don't know them because they don't come to playgroup. I think most of them are at daycare! So if she went there she could meet some of them and then we could look at visiting. But visiting is hard for me. I'm a loner, I don't know how to make friends and socialise and I don't even particularly want to.

Sometimes I think wistfully of what it would be like to have a friend to talk to, but what do you talk about? You have to have something in common! My life at the moment is my children and my nappies, and I love talking about sewing, science, maths and education. But there aren't that many others out there who are into those things. I suppose with other mothers we could talk about our children, but I'm really wary of that because I don't want to get into comparing. I have an incredibly competetive family and I'm insecure enough about my kids and my parenting as it is. It's ridiculous, because I don't seem to have any middle ground. If my kids are "behind" in some way, I get worried and think everyone notices and thinks I'm a bad mother. But at the same time I'm (not so) secretly convinced that they are advanced, and I don't want to make other Mums feel bad. And of course if they are the same as other kids I'm disappointed that they're not advanced.

Widget's speech delay has been a huge trial to me. It was the one milestone I really cared about because speech is linked to intelligence. She was way ahead on most of the physical milestones, and who knows where that came from because my family is completely unco-ordinated and can trip over thin air. But I didn't care about how mobile she was, I wanted her to talk. OK that doesn't sound right. Obviously I thought she was wonderful and clever when she started crawling and walking and doing all those things, and I loved every minute of it. But it wouldn't have worried me if she had taken longer. Not talking really worried me, and I'm so glad we seem to be dealing with that. It turned out that it's not actually a language problem it's a speech production problem, she has all the concepts she should but has difficulties in physically saying things. Midget's going the same way - meeting all the physical milestones early, so I'm making sure I do all the right things with her speech!

But I digress. The other problem, and to be honest the big stumbling block, is the house. It's just such a mess I would be embarrassed to have other people here. And I don't want to put that pressure on someone else if their house is like this! I suppose we could meet at the park, and it's not getting too hot yet. A group of us used to go swimming but it's too cold for the kids for a couple more weeks. (It's ridiculous, there are only a couple of weeks that it's pleasant outside and we still don't have a cover over the play equipment.)

What it comes down to is that I'm really aware that Widget needs more people. It's that whole village thing - I think she needs more than me and Midget all week and I see how happy she is whenever she gets to interact with other people. The easiest thing for me is daycare, if I can get over leaving her which is a huge problem. It would also give me some one on one time with Midget, which she's never had because Widget doesn't sleep, and possibly even a break if Midget would actually sleep in the cot. I suspect the best thing for Widget would be playdates, but then I would have to interact with other people and clean the house. Both things that are good for me, but sort of like brussel sprouts. And I just don't know if I could cope with anything more on my plate right now. Of course it could be easier - less time I have to think about activities for Widget, and she does enjoy helping to clean.

While I've been tossing all this up one Mum who has a younger girl is pregnant, which is very exciting. She is the closest I have to a friend here and she might like the idea of getting meetings going now so she can have a bit of time out when the baby comes. And someone else I like but don't know very well is back, it turns out they haven't moved they were visiting family for a few months. So after all that ramble I might suggest to these two that we go to the park or something, ease into it gradually. I've been thinking about this on and off for months, this ramble really helped sort it out.

Two days on the new regime ...

I let the TV, and to be honest pretty much everything, get a bit out of control while learning to cope with two children. So being back from a holiday seems like a good time to get a new routine happening and have a bit of a makeover. In the last two days:

• Widget has slept in!!! I had to wake her up at 9am yesterday. This has been good because it means no TV in the morning, we've had breakfast as a picnic on the mat or outside.
• We've filled the line twice and still haven't finished the washing. Actually the room looks like a bomb's hit it because I'm trying to sort the girls' clothes and put away the ones that are too small or the winter clothes.
• I've cleaned the shower head with CLR so the water can get out and washed the vanity and sink. We've been in this house for almost 2 years and DH didn't realise one of the taps leaks.
• I've got the dining table cleared. Unfortunately eating there is a bit difficult because Midget tends to have a feed and nap around dinner time, so we'll have to do a bit of rearranging.
• Widget and I took the highchair outside and gave it a good scrub. So when we work out how to eat at the table Midget has somewhere to sit.
• Widget is only watching DVDs when I'm feeding Midget to sleep, and she has another activity happening too.
• I've got some new clothes and I'm wearing them rather than the old Bali shorts, I look darn good 2 sizes smaller :)
• I'm getting photos of Widget doing different activities. The idea is to make a book or poster showing her doing lots of different things so she can choose activities to do rather than what I think of at the time or the same things over and over.
• I'm really concentrating on getting her attention first and having her follow instructions straight away, rather than asking lots of times and getting frustrated.
• When we went shopping I planned several meals in advance, including different things to have for snacks rather than fruit and toast. I got lots of fresh veges for crudites and I'm going to make some guacamole and dips and do a roast and carve the leftover meat.

Things I need to do:

• Work out how to rig a hanging rack at Widget's height, the girls both have lots of nice dresses that are forgotten because they are hanging up in the wardrobe.
• Get the clothes sorted and either put away, ready to sell or throw out.
• Get the craft gear and books re-organised (again, I seem to do this regularly).
• Get the clam shells out of the shed, it's getting warm enough for swimming here.
• Rotate the toys.
• Finish the hand sewing on the shirt I've almost finished for Widget.
• Get my orders finished.
• Get the side-snap pattern finished.
• I'm sure there's lots more!

People are really nice

Well we're home. DH was in Darwin and I was in Perth with the girls, so we flew to Alice Springs and met up there. I was a bit nervous about flying on my own with the two girls, but people were so nice and the girls were fantastic.

On the plane one of the stewards took Midget for a few minutes while we were eating, I didn't actually try to eat then I just cut everything up and dealt with Widget, when he gave her back I could eat it all one-handed :) Then when I went to change her nappy someone in the toilet queue offered to let us go first in case it was a toddler emergency, but we were fine. Midget was her usual happy self and talked and smiled at everyone, when we were leaving I could hear someone saying how she had been flirting with him.

At Alice they helped me get the carrier and backpack on, then someone leapt up the stairs and carried Widget down. On our way to the baggage claim two older people who'd been on the plane actually came over to tell me what lovely children I had! After we had the baggage we realised DH's plane was delayed an hour and a half (on a two hour flight) so we started playing. When there were no people it was actually a great place to play, all that open space around the baggage carousel meant Widget could run around to her heart's content. Midget and I were chasing her and we jumped on the carpet designs and played hide and seek. Widget chatted to anyone who walked past and everyone was lovely to her.

After we'd been there a while the airport police came to check if we had a lift organised, and had a little chat with Widget when she explained that Daddy's plane was late so we had to wait. I did get frustrated with her a couple of times, once when Midget was throwing up everywhere (don't feed the baby cardboard) and she wouldn't give me the nappy, and then she took off when Midget had just fallen asleep in my arms. When I went after her she was on her way back and told me that she was very clever because she was going to the toilet all by herself and the lady told her off. Which would make sense if you were 3. The very kind lady who was keeping an eye on her thought it was hilarious. We had a little discussion about how it was great when we were at home but she needed to tell me if we were anywhere else, and that night at the motel she was very careful to come and tell me every time she wanted to go to the toilet!

It was a really good day, the girls were amazing, and it was reassuring to see how caring people in general can be of our little ones.

OMG! Midget looks like me!

It's so strange. Widget definitely had her father's colouring so I was a blonde, blue-eyed mumma with a black-haired, brown-eyed baby. It was really funny, especially because once she lost the real baby look she wasn't much like him at all but everyone said she was because the colouring was so unlike me. Now she is very much herself, her hair is brown and getting lighter although she still has the most gorgeous brown eyes (DHs are actually a fairly light hazel, so who knows where they came from). She is lucky she has his skin like leather, which helps when she runs around naked all the time.


Midget started with dark hair, but it lightened very quickly. It is now a light brown with a bit of a reddish tinge. I could always see features that were like my family - she has our eyes, blue with a yellow ring around the pupil, and the square jaw (somewhere under the rolls). Now we are seeing lots of people down here and everyone keeps saying she looks like me. The other day I was rolling around on the bed with her without my glasses and suddenly there it was - my own little face staring back at me.


I remember watching Widget trying to work out where her features came from, mainly the curiosity of a human biologist but also trying to see what I had passed on. I was a bit sad because it looked like all my recessive features were going to disappear under DH's dominants, especially given that both his boys look like him too. But they all seem to have come out in Midget, which is nice. It's almost like we've got one each. I don't think it will actually make a difference, I certainly don't have a different relationship with Widget because she has brown eyes, but it will be interesting to see how their personalities develop. Given how placid and happy Midget is so far, she may have got my looks but the inside is definitely not me!

Royal Show

Woohoo! I haven't been to the show for about 15 years, but we're in Perth and Widget's getting old enough so we went.


I had a great time, I think everyone else did too. Widget was amazing, she walked for miles. Once she got tired and went in the pram she said she was cold, so DH got her a blanket and she slept for two hours!!! This is the child who hasn't napped for a year. Midget was too busy taking it all in, she had a few quick naps in people's arms.

DH's eldest son and his girlfriend came as well, it was great to spend some time with them and he spent lots of time holding Midget and showing Widget the animals. We saw the baby animals and the regional displays, plus a couple of pavilions of general stalls and produce. Widget went on a helicopter ride (like in shops, not a real helicopter) and thought she was the best, steering it and waving to us as she came around.

We got the show bags while she was asleep, she got a Dora one and Fifi (and the flowertops). We got her a Freddo bag as well and have already had one major tantrum over the rationing on that, but she'll learn. We also got ourselves some big people bags, I got a King Island Dairy cheese bag and some dried fruits that are amazing - plums and nectarines, I loooove stone fruit. I also got my Dad a beer bag. When we were going to the show as kids he always used to say he was looking for a beer bag, and now I found him one. I got some finger puppets, which I've been after for ages, and some fun textas.

Some bits have changed a lot since I was a kid but others are the same. It was beautiful and clean, the displays were great, and we didn't have any trouble getting seats or with long queues (although the fact that the weather was miserable probably had something to do with it). Isn't it nice when you can take out some memories and find they are still good.