Shades of A and E
By hissychick | September 27, 2008
A is currently fixated with drawing and writing her name (forwards, and, rather intriguingly, backwards too). Happily this means that at the first sign of boredom all I have to do is whip out some paper and textas and away she goes.
We’ve had rainbows, spiders (!!), pictures of the family at the beach and a hot air balloon floating in the sky above a tree, all usually accompanied by an impressive, imgainative and expressive explanation. Very impressive for a three and a half year old if I do say so myself.
And then there’s been monsters of all shades and sizes and temperaments….
Me: A, that’s a lovely drawing, can you tell me about it?
A: It’s a scary monster.
Me: He’s can’t be too scary, he’s smiling. Does that mean he’s not going to eat me up?
A: No, he’s smiling BECAUSE he’s going to eat you up!
It almost makes up for the general shitty whiny defiant behaviour and refusing to go to sleep in one’s own bed that comes at this age. Almost.
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E is growing up in such a hurry. Words are coming thick and fast and in correct context. I am often brought my “Shuz” and entreated to put them on, If our littlest miss ever sees the camera she strikes a pose, says “Cheese!” and the “Look?” as she cranes her neck to see the preview screen (oh the children of today…).
She can follow simple directions if she wants to (”Throw the ball!“, “Oh for the love of god please get down from there“), knows where her nose and mouth are and uses a rather forceful combination of “Ta?” and hand grabbing motions when she spies something that she wants. The ensuing mini tantrum if she does not get her way is actually rather cute. For now.
Best of all is that she blows kisses and gives cuddles when asked, wrapping her little arms around your neck with such affection that I swear my heart could explode from the sheer joy. Especially when said cuddle is accompanied by a “Nigh nigh” and followed through with a two to three hour nap.
Oh, the bliss of the looong single daytime sleep. Almost gives you enough time to clean up from the aftermath of the morning full of stubborn “Noo!!s” and “What ‘dis?” and endless playing of dollies/horsey rides/rough housing/cooking/ climbing acts of breathtaking daring with the little human dynamo.
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As I referred to in my last post we took the girls to Featherdale Wildlife Park last Wednesday along with their nineteen month old cousin, and my sister and parents. All three little girls had an absolute ball, and so did we. E was enchanted by all of the animals, excitedly pointing out “Duck! Duck!” before squealing with delight and chasing whatever unfortunate bird she was referring to (brush turkey, actual duck, emu). Ducks are her current obsession, and she entreats us to sing the Five Little Ducks song whenever she is in the bath, attempting the hand gestures and all, and will excitedly point out ducks in various books too.
I digress.
A was thrilled to be able to feed the kangaroos, and took a more egalitarian approach than her younger sister by not stuffing the feed cup right into the face of whichever skippy took her fancy, rather she allowed each kangaroo she came across a small taste of food before declaring that it was time to share with someone else and moving on to the next one.
A also rather happily lapped up the besotted attention from her younger cousin, who is currently fixated with our oldest girl. To C’s delight, A let her hold hands for most of the day and even shared her chocolate ice cream, a first for my niece. At the end of the day we had to prise her out of our car where she had hopped into the back seat with our girls so that she could go home with her own mother! A told her tearful cousin “I will see you soon my darling“. Such adoration leads to such exemplary behaviour. Bless.
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Coming soon: a report on where we’re at with cloth for those of you that love all things fluffy.
Have a great weekend peoples inside the computer.
Topics: E is good, Threenager alert, hi ho A is on the go, hi ho E is on the go | 2 Comments »
Too pretty for prison
By hissychick | September 25, 2008
Mr hissychick, as transformed by miss A. Jewels from dress up box collection, rubber snake (unfortunately out of shot) from expedition to Featherdale Wildlife Park, eyebrow ring model’s own:
Topics: hi ho A is on the go, mr hissychick | 3 Comments »
Ok, I’ll admit it. They do take after me.
By hissychick | September 22, 2008
Topics: Mummy's little monsters, hi ho A is on the go, hi ho E is on the go | 6 Comments »
Iffy
By hissychick | September 16, 2008
I’ve been tagged by the lovely Kathie and here’s how today’s post is going to go down peoples:
5 “If”s that would have made your life somewhat different today.
Rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. List 5 things that could make your life very different should it come true.
3. Tag 5 other people.
If I had been the winner instead of the runner up for a dream PhD scholarship I would have been to Antarctica twice by now
Ten years ago, during my honours year at uni, I applied for a PhD scholarship based at the University of Tasmania studying the impacts of climate change on Antarctic lichen, a topic which would be considered rather sexy nowadays. Sure it would have involved moving to Tasmania but it also involved two trips to Antarctica, something I have always dreamed of doing. There was an international field of candidates and I didn’t think I had a hope in hell. And then I was shortlisted. I couldn’t believe it, the dream was almost, almost a reality.
Then the worst possible thing happened. I was second choice. Now if you have any idea what I’m like you’d know I don’t do second very well.
And so the dream, and the ‘Dr’ title, slipped out of reach.
Maybe someday……
If I had ignored that forwarded email (as I usually do) I would never have met mr hissychick
You may have wondered how mr hissychick and I met. As it happens, one day back in early 2000 a friend of mine sent an email containing a joke exam and the answers that someone had written for it as she reckoned it was so my sense of humour. It was a slow work day so instead of hitting delete I read on. And laughed myself stupid.
Intrigued, I emailed my friend as to who the author was. She replied that it was her cousin who had just moved to Sydney. On a whim I asked for his email address and then sent him a little note welcoming to our glitzy town and telling him that I thought his email had been rather funny.
To which I received a rambling reply staring with “You think I’m funny?” And then launching into this insane stream of consciousness, highlights of which included pointing out that he had nipples and most of which is unprintable here.
Needless to say I threw mr smartypants entirely when I sent a response back asking him to marry me.
Undeterred he sent me a pre nup which included such clauses as allowing him to watch the football uninterrupted and boasting to his mates about his prowess. And so on and so forth.
From there to our marriage is a little bit more complicated, but suffice to say I never did sign that prenup and it always amuses people that I was the one to initially propose.
If I had not taken a friend for a piggy back ride I would not be contemplating titanium teeth implants for my fortieth
A typical primary school playground, twenty three years ago. A young hissychick is horsing around with some friends. As she is the tallest by far, she decides to give one of her friends a piggyback ride for a laugh. All is going well until she trips into an unmarked ditch next to a new piece of pavement. Without free hands to break her fall, she lands face first with a sickening crunch, that crunch being her top two middle newly emerged adult incisors. So much blood, so much pain from the ripped and exposed nerves.
Foolishly the school nurse did not either attempt to place the teeth pieces back, nor did she make any attempt to preserve them before my parents arrived and rushed me to the doctor and dentist. This oversight resulted in the blackening of my remaining tooth fragments, two lots of root canal therapy by the time I was ten (and repeated at eighteen as the first attempt had not been thorough enough) and numerous invasive and painful procedures involving five zillion needles until I was finally able to get permanent crowns at eighteen and fully grown.
I am still rather self conscious about my front teeth, and hate the fact that a tiny section of one of my crowns has chipped away so that you can see some of the residual black tooth. Hence the reason I am looking into getting them ripped out and replaced with jaw implants when I am forty. You have your ways of celebrating and I have mine.
No I never did sue the school, funnily enough we used to have these things called ‘accidents’. And I am not scared of dentists one bit.
If I had not taken my cousin to the movies I might not have ended up as one of the one in four women who have been sexually assaulted during their life time
I was fifteen. I’d never been kissed. And this pathetic excuse for a human being decided that he would attempt to penetrate me with his fingers on an escalator the middle of a crowded shopping centre while my eleven year old cousin was at my side.
And when I, frozen with shock, didn’t say anything he did it again.
That’s when I got angry. I pursued my attacker and, shaking, quietly told him that he would never do that again or I would go to the police.
Why I did not scream or yell or go to the police….sadly I didn’t want to alert my cousin to what was happening, and sadder still I mistakenly thought that because I was wearing my favourite short summery dress that it was somehow my fault.
To this day I freak out if anyone attempts to touch my backside, even my husband.
This will never, ever happen to my girls. This I vow.
If I did not have five beautiful embryos in the freezer I might not be finding it so hard to give up on my conviction that a third child would complete our family
As I sit here typing I have my six monthly bill for embryp storage fees in front of me, and will soon pick up the phone to settle the account. The feelings this arouses only fellow IVFers will understand.
I know with all of my heart that a third child would complete our family. I love A and E so much, but to me it feels like someone is missing. It’s irrational. But I have never believed in something like I’ve believed in this.
When fertile myrtles contemplate the idea of adding to their family they don’t have the worry of being part way there. You can try your luck, you won’t know if you have successfully created an embryo or not until you see those two lines.
Our possible third child already exists.
Sure, to be technical, embryos are simply cells with the potential to become human only of they have a favourable uterine environment…but.
But.
I will agree to the donation of our embryos for research if it comes to that, seeing as it is through the generous gift of others before us that we have the technology that resulted in the miracles of A and E…but I don’t want it to come to that.
I want to meet in the flesh the little one who haunts my dreams.
Now it’s my turn to tag:
Topics: too much information | 6 Comments »
Seventh heaven
By hissychick | September 15, 2008
Seven years ago today mr hissychick and I became contractually obliged to love each other. And so far neither of us have sued for breach of promise!
Happy anniversary love of my life, my best friend and wonderful father of our two children. Here’s to many more magical years together. Hopefully this evening will be free of today’s antics, which thus far have included:
- A deciding that it would be fun to lift her top up over her head and do a dance as we waited in line for an ice cream, before exclaiming how disappointing (yep, four syllables, I kid you not) it was when we sat at a table in a quiet area with no one next to us.
- E managing to open the bathroom safety gate and me discovering her on top of the bathroom vanity, exclaiming “Door! Yay!”.
They so get it from you my darling husband.
Topics: hi ho A is on the go, hi ho E is on the go, mr hissychick | 8 Comments »
Wish me luck
By hissychick | September 9, 2008
Tomorrow I am taking the girls into the city to visit Daddy and have a yum cha lunch. I will also be popping into my work to extend my leave. Again.
So what? You say. This little outing involves a mere hour and a half trip to get there and the same on the return leg, not including A’s maddening procrastination when it comes to getting up, dressed and out the door and in fact any transition in activity or E’s massive tantrums at being strapped into any device that may impede her ability to dash up and or off anywhere she pleases.
If it all goes well it will be very very good, but if it doesn’t…well at least I will have my mother with me.
PS For those of you who are suffering through the trial by fire that is parenting a threenager, go and read this extremely well written post and find out that you are not alone. Now. I’m counting. Do. not. let. me. get. to. three…
Topics: Silly mummy | 3 Comments »
We’ve got ourselves a scarily smart one
By hissychick | September 8, 2008
Two comments of note from miss A this week, she who is all of three years and seven months old:
I can’t see my eyes, but I can see out of my eyes. You too Mummy, you can see out of your eyes but you can’t see your eyes….except in the mirror. Me too!
Some people have dark skin, some people have light skin. Some people have blue eyes, some people have hazel eyes. But it doesn’t matter Mummy, we’re all just people.
Here’s hoping she uses her burgeoning smarts for good and not evil.
Topics: Threenager alert, hi ho A is on the go | 6 Comments »
Cloth bottomed girls they make the rockin’ world go round
By hissychick | September 5, 2008
You may recall that I recently had a bit of a rant at the Huggies man. Well, after another couple of weeks where my nights were interrupted by more wake up calls due to saturated bottoms and beds than I care to remember I totally cracked it and became one of them. A mother who puts cloth nappies on their kids.
Combined with the extended breastfeeding and clearly I am nothing but a dirty hippy freak.
I have spent many an hour at the computer learning all the ins and outs of this modern cloth nappy (MCN) business, and have burned a serious hole in the credit card setting our new system up. Being the sook that I am I have taken the easiest option and have started with sized all in ones, pockets and snap in nappies for E and a couple of minky training pants and stuffable polyurethane laminate (PUL) pants for A. I won’t bore those of you that neither know nor care about the world and complex terminology of MCNs with further details or brands at this stage.
So far my trial has shown some reasonable success* and I am now awaiting a substantial amount of fluffy mail to complete my set up.
Heh, I said fluffy mail**.
Now I must retrieve E from her cot, she who is clearly indignant at the fact that I tricked her into having a nice long arvo nap.
Have a great weekend peoples.
* If by reasonable success for A you mean still wetting through in the minky pants but no worse than for Huggies, and at least these can be washed and reused . Waiting for the more absorbent pants to turn up. Apparently the hemp is for stuffing and not partaking, dammit.
Having a greater degree of success for E in our day time trials, with the exception of a poo blowout that I will regale you with some other time because I know you all love that kind of shite. And yes the pun was very much intended.
** Fluffy mail is the arrival of your latest package of nappies and accoutrements. Told you they were nut jobs.
Topics: cloth on, hippy freak | 4 Comments »
The natives are restless
By hissychick | September 4, 2008
Why is it that children always act up when their father is not home for the night and their mother, is, as per freaking usual, exhausted?
GO TO SLEEP A AND E. NOW.
Topics: Going bogue | 3 Comments »
Meaningful or meaningless?
By hissychick | September 2, 2008
Hi there? How’s things? Nice weather we’re having….
Um.
So I’ve been a whole lot of nutcase a little bit craazzy of late. I’d blame the French, except they’re not the ones still waking me up for a feed once or twice a night now that they are in their own room. No names mentioned, miss E I’m looking straight at you.
Anyway, I guess the only way out of this funk is to accept the ongoing sleep deprivation, embrace the broken nights because they are showing no signs of abating anytime soon. Either that or sink lower into a tired misery punctuated by a fixation on all things meaningless while I let the meaningful moments slide.
Examples? I have so wanted to come on here and tell you all about A’s amazingly elephantine memory and her ability to recall things from a year ago in perfect detail, snippets of conversations we have which show her burgeoning empathy and reasoning skills yet are still rather hilarious. Especially her emphatic “I KNOW that” whenever she is called up on her behaviour, before proceeding to do what she wanted to do anyway. Her secure satisfaction in knowing that she will always be my baby and that I love her to the moon and back. My girl’s excitement and pride reserved for physie, and the thrill of counting down the days until this weekend’s concert, where she will be wearing her “proper real physie shoes and leotard mummy“.
Her obsession with the story of Cinderella, and her father’s delight at my ambivalence to this most decidedly non feminist tale.
And then there’s been E’s language explosion, from the adorable way in which she will plop down her weary head and say ‘nigh nigh‘ whenever she is tired, her pleading ‘uhh! uhh!‘ as she tries to scramble up my legs and into my awaiting arms and her most exuberant “dip! dip!” as she is presented with a bowl of food or tub of yogurt that she must feed herself, and by dog she does a great job with a spoon already.
The new tooth, the exceptionally hair raising climbing skills and mastery of riding a slippery dip at the grand old age of fourteen months. Her love of animals, as evidenced by her cheery “woo!woo!” greeting to the neighbour’s dogs when we raise her bedroom blind in the morning, the constant searching for and pointing at “tweet! tweets!” as she climbs up onto the coffee table to gaze out at the birds in the bushland outside.
The squeals of delight as my girls play chaseys with each other all day long.
Mr hissychick’s landmark fortieth, and the horror/comedy of the day as detailed on his own blog, but excluding my sadness and embarrassment at his poorly hidden displeasure with my first choice of watch for his birthday present.
Instead I have been mooching around, paying half hearted attention to the kids and the state of the house as I focus my priorities on stupid things like trying to get a nappy cream stain out of a couple of MCNs….at 11pm at night. Typing and then deleting comments on your blogs, fearing my words are just inane crap.
Worrying myself sick about the fact that I have to put in another extension of leave form at work, even though I knew it was never going to be realistic for me to return before the end of the year. Wondering how it will even be possible to juggle the commute and my absolute opposition to formal child care for my children before they are two years old but fearing that if I don’t return to work that I will entirely lose my own identity, self esteem and independence.
I won’t get started on the whole I really want a third child even though it defies all common sense and ongoing resentment at the fact that even if mr hissychick magically changed his mind it wouldn’t happen the au natural way anyway.
And let’s not mention how much time has been wasted of late in the agonising grip of guilt. Guilt that my own shitty mood is directly affecting my kids, my relationship with my husband, and is probably the major cause of climate change and the one thing that is holding everyone back from achieving world peace.
I am way too self involved. So tell me, is the answer sleep, medication, sex, plucking my eyebrows? And what was the question anyway?
Gah.
Topics: Hello fiend, Rage against the machine, Silly mummy, hello i'm boring, hi ho A is on the go, hi ho E is on the go, hissyfit, moody blues | 7 Comments »