last needle

percy took her 18 month chicken pox vaccination needle very well on tuesday. this is the last needle until she is four years old. we'll all have forgotten about needles by then. i'm sure... i'm hoping...

we also conducted the usual statistical analysis- weight 11.7kgs, head circumference 40 something centimetres (see i forget this one all the time) and height 84cms. by some rule of thumb apparently a girls' height at 18 months is exactly half of what her full grown height will be. meaning percy will top the tape measure at 168cms. i find this very hard to believe. i'm 170cm, paul is taller than me while consistently generations have been getting taller. the generational change is attributed to improving health care and nutrition over the years. while these factors possibly can't increase forever i think they will continue to contribute. plus i just feel percy will be taller than me! that's all the scientific credibility i need!
she's a little over average for height and head circumference (75th percentile or so) and about in the middle for weight. all the questions asked by the doctor were answered in the affirmative except whether she is jumping. she knows the word, can say it and tries to jump- bends her knees and 'bops' up but her feet don't actually leave the ground. the conclusion was she is progressing well.

a particularly cute body part name percy has learned is "eyebrow." she points to either her own or ours and says in her adorable voice 'eye-bow', occasionally she'll add the "r." bellies and belly-buttons are still the favourite.

percy also really enjoyed a visit from her opa over monday and tuesday nites. they had lots of tickles and fun pulling a little toy dog on a string up and down the living room. sadly on wednesday morning opa went home and i had to repeat to her all day long that opa had gone back to his own home as she continued to ask "opa?"

temporary hiccup

from last week thursday, thru friday and saturday nights percy was in our bed. oh god that's hard. she woke each nite, after happily falling asleep at her usual bed time, between 8pm and 10pm. each nite she came into our bed, twice deposing paul to the lounge. the thing with her now coming into our bed, even tho she is not wailing and thrashing she isn't sleeping calmly. she wiggles, wriggles, turns, sits up, kneels up, bumps her head into the head board, elbows me in the eye (ouch!) talks, kicks, rolls..... uuuurrghhh. saturday nite was the worst. i gave up on the evening and went to bed with her at 8pm. paul followed suit not longer after. she slept to 10pm but then kicked paul so vigourously he left. unfortunately she didn't settle into immoving sleep until 5am!! then she woke for the day at 6:45am. f*#@!!

as i was moping about trying to get her dressed and breakfasted paul asked if i wanted the day off. normally i'd hesitate... not this time! 'yes, i want the bloody day off!' okay, he replied, i'll take her to wollongong to visit my parents. they were out the door at 8:30am and i was back in bed at 8:35am.

i'm sure this is a temporary sleep hiccup as she slept last nite in her own bed, all the way thru 12 hours, without a peep from 6:45pm to 6:45am. we had noticed over the weekend that she had a rash all over her much like the one she had when she had hand foot and mouth disease. it was milder this time and i didn't think she had any blisters on her hands and feet, perhaps one on her lip. perhaps it was just heat rash. i don't think heat rashes last three days tho. added to which she wasn't over dressed or over-blanketed at nite.
i think she has recovered today as i saw no rash. which is good because i took her to day care anyways. yay for the miracle of immunisation. if it was hfm, she threw it off a lot faster and with less fuss this time 'round than her first dose.

the day with gran and grandad went very well too apparently. percy loved playing her grandparents dogs dee and ti, throwing balls for them, having hot chips for lunch (oh dear) and walking on the beach. perhaps such a tuckering out day contributed to her sleeping well too.
whatever it was i don't care- i got to sleep without elbows in my eyes, feet in my stomach, hair in my mouth and hands tangled in my hair. aaaahhhh...

Spring

on tuesday night as i was brushing my hair before bed a leaf fell from it's captured spot to the floor. this lovely twirling fall made me smile so much.
earlier that day i'd taken percy to haberfield, ostensibly to visit a shoe shop that has opened there recently but also so i could spend some time in a suburb that i've travelled thru so many times but never dawdled about in.
we did buy two pairs of shoes (see previous post on the expense of childrens' shoes- gasp, gasp, hand me a paper bag!), and a pair of trousers for percy.

our season had definately turned that day. the sun was warm and strong. our afternoon tea stop in a little local park turned into a chase and tickle game across the springy grass. it's been many months since we've been able to enjoy the out-of-doors in this fashion. i've missed it badly. i so look forward now to being outside with percy as she can run, jump, tumble and turn for herself. her high giggle and huge smile as she tears away or into my arms catches my breath in my throat while i find my ribs too constrictnig for my heart.

of course chase and tickle naturally involves lots of rolling about on the ground too. hence how i captured a leaf in my hair, to later brush out and cherish the day it came from and the promise it delivers for future days. one little leaf of spring.

the mastery of parents or "can we fix it!?"

when i was little i could always go to either my mum or dad to get them to fix, repair, untangle, make good or otherwise return subject item to said purpose and use. it's the unshakeable belief of kids that their parents are able to do anything. untangle a ribbon or a shoelace- done, bike chain come off- back on, button fell off- sewn on, tree house needs a roof- built, walk on water- easy!

not only that the repairs could be made (space shuttle got a clonking noise? send it over!) but that they could be done immediately. or at least immediately enough that my memory says it was done that way. there was always time to address my and my brother's demands.

these magical feats of ability are a part of raising percy that i'm not looking forward to. i'm not terribly handy with a needle and thread or a hammer and nail, nor paint, nor hair elastics, nor any crafty, creative thing really. will my near god-like position be in tatters when percy comes to me with a some busted toy or heaven forfend- animal, and expect me to fix it, only to experience failure?
i'm not familiar, beyond the catch phrase, with the child entertainment juggernaut of "bob the builder." however i did work as a town planner while bob carr was nsw premier. the title was affixed to him too. so i know this idea of building and fixing. i'm also a wanna-be inner west dwelling environmentalist so the message of re-use, re-cycle is firmly in my firmament.
will i struggle gamely with busted arsed whatever it is? patching and plastering, to hand back to my sceptical off-spring with a smiling "ta-da!" only to find my handiwork stuffed down the back of the lounge months later because she knew it was busted arse and no amount of "ta-da!" was going to change that, yet she was too sweet and polite to tell me to my face. so she hid it, hoping we'd both forget that miserable attempt. (unfortunately i do get around to cleaning behind the lounge at least once every six months.)

but not yet! not yet to face the humilation of defeat and the tumble from mount olympus! percy presented me this morning with a book that has pieces one can pull and push to make animals move. she'd deftly amputated some tails and legs. even in my compromised state of being only dressed in a towel with a toothbrush in my mouth i re-attached those tails and legs, perhaps a little sideways, such that animals could once again hop and bounce and wag and run for her pleasure.
i am parent, hear me roar!

too good to be true?

with brilliant timing, tho in many ways months and months too late, percy clicked on to the "sleeping thru the nite" gig a fortnite ago- just in time for when i started my new job. so finally at 17 months and 4 days of age for percy, everyone slept all thru the dark hours in their own beds. and continued to do so! i haven't written anything about it because i was sure that would jinx the whole deal, sending cock-sure me back to the abyss of hell.

ok, that's a little exaggeration. the large-ish pit of exhaustion and frustration would be fair.

until last nite. percy woke at 10pm, not returning to sleep, in our bed while paul decamped to the lounge, until 12:45am. oh dear. i'm going to put it down to the extremely stimulating day she had yesterday, including a mucked up bedtime routine. the day went like this- 2nd breakfast out at a cafe, into the city for a burl thru the australian museum (thanx for the tip on that sarah g, it was very good), home for a nap, drive to glenwood (past castle hill) for cousin austen's 7th birthday, eat lots of sugary food, play and go crazy with the big kids then change nappy and clothes and into sleeping bag and car for the hour drive home at 7pm.
we figured she'd zonk it within seconds of being in the car but not to be. possibly she had so much to process she stayed awake until the last 15 minutes talking and singing and doing the actions with her arms. the actions to what i can't really say! paul finally got her to sleep with some 'shushing' and rubbing her arm. she transferred to her cot easily. unfortunately waking with a cough at 10pm kept her up.
i'm hoping getting back to the usual routine today will get us back on track to our eleven hours thru the nite. (please!)

two pairs of hands make light work

percy is an adorable little helper much of the time. trying to do usual household tasks while a little girl is sooking or wrapped around your legs is nigh on impossible. getting her involved is the trick.
yes, putting clothes in the washing machine one by one, or cutlery out of the dishwasher and into the drawer one by one, or picking up spilled cotton tips one by one is slow labour. however, compared to not getting it done at all taking twice the time is better.

last nite percy helped me unload the dishwasher, take some clothes off the drying rack, put her nappies in the dryer, take her nappies out the dryer (i often put them thru for five minutes to soften and fluff them up; they come off the line a bit like cardboard!) wipe the table and floor after dinner spills and most interestingly feed the cats! she hasn't fed the cats before. she eagerly forked out some tinned food and then reached into the dry food bag for handful after handful. very cute. unfortunately she hasn't got the idea that the dry food could be dropped from a few centimetres above the cats' food bowls. instead she mashed her handfuls right into the tinned food. oh well, a thorough washing of hands fixed that mess.

i think we can attribute much of her helpfulness to music class. huh? yes, music class. you see, at the end of every activity or song that requires instruments or other artefacts our delightful teacher tina sings "now it's time to pack away, pack away, now it's time to pack away, pack away." percy immediately leaps up and takes the instrument, ball, scarf whatever, over to the box or bag tina has ready. she'll also take the items from the other kids in class to pack them away too. this is both a good thing and bad thing. she's the biggest in class at the moment, next term (october) she'll move to the next age group class. so she's easily capable of snatching things from little babies that can't do anything about it. most of the time she's gentle or the babies mums are already handing things to her to pack away. i have had to slow her down a few times when she's been too fast/ eager/ rough/ dedicated to packing away.

we've taken up the "pack away" refrain at home. it's working great. generally in the evenings before bath and bed routine we are all on the lounge room floor together. paul and i will start singing and packing and percy enthusiastically joins in. it's a good prompt to let her know the bedtime routine is beginning, while making a game of putting her toys and books away. we haven't had any protests or tantrums to stay playing- yet! (cross fingers)

let's hope we get years and years of cooperation and fun out of household chores. ha ha ha ha ha....

clay horse update

since percys' interest waned in the clay horse making endeavour, paul took over and had the brain wave of making a horse shoe instead!
we left it out for collection last friday. let's hope it fires ok.

(p.s the t-shirt was a gift from one of the kiev programers. it says in cyrillic text russian for "thank god i'm not a muscovite", or something like that.)

father's day

yesterday was father's day. i expect most of you know that. i'm not much on these sorts of days. call me humbug but i think they're largely marketing companies "rub-hands-with-glee" days. another excuse to sell us shit we don't need.
you might recall my entry on father's day from kiev last year when i was peeved that paul worked 14 hours. and my promise to make it better this year. well it was better in that he didn't work and got to spend the whole day with percy but aside from that there was no extraneous effort or spending.

i'm quite happy to have mother's day, st valentine's day and my birthday ignored too. i'm pretty impartial on christmas too; being the aethiest i am. easter's just an excuse to eat chocolate for a whole long weekend. -see! the marketing worked on me. what other public holidays or 'special' days can i be ambivalent about? sorry, drawing a blank.

nevertheless we did enjoy sunday by taking percy to fairfield city farm. she very much liked patting and feeding the animals. she likes to rub her face against the soft hair of animals. she did this to a couple of baby goats, smiling a lot. i was impressed that she let a huge clydesdale horse eat from her little out-stretched hand. the horse's head alone was bigger than her!
was very nice to catch up with orion and daniel with baby zac and emma and david with jack and baby oliver too.
(sorry, no photos, forgot the camera.)

you know you're old...

...when you increase the document size on your computer screen to 125%, when there's more grey in your hair than you can count in half an hour, or worst, when a colleague at work says "in 1998 i was eleven" what!! how can we both be working at the same time? eleven in 1998?!!

ah me...

potty time!

last nite percy hovered over her potty saying "pee", "pee."
we pulled her pants down.
she then tugged on her nappy, clearly indicating she wanted it off.
off it came.
she sat on her potty and did a pee!!

of course we made no big deal about this. no clapping of hands, no words of praise, no explanation and showing of how we then empty the potty in the toilet and flush the pee away... no, we did none of this. big deal, the kid pees in a potty.
yeah, right!! (celebrations went on well into the nite.... or for five minutes, take your pick.)

clay horse

most of the homes in erskineville were given some clay a week or so ago. the accompanying flyer asked us to mold our clay into a small horse. this would later be collected, fired and become part of a public art, public participation display. apparently to celebrate the extensive use of horses in the suburb once upon a time.
yesterday afternoon percy and i sat down to form our little horse. she's not a clay sculpteress yet. (is that a word?) however she did enjoy rolling, squishing and dividing the clay. no horse eventuated as her attention waned after 15 or so minutes, plus i wouldn't let her eat it!