travels with percy

farewell

2009-04-27T17:17:00.000-07:00

i've decided to close down this blog. i have been thinking about it for some months now. surprisingly i've become very attached to this blog and see it as a wonderful archive of our travels with percy. however we are now also travelling with talvin. it suits me better to start afresh. additionally i want to write about more than our lives as they are focused on percy. our lives do encompass other things (sometimes!) i want to include talvin and paul as central characters, not just the cameos they've held to date. to stay true to "travelswithpercy" wouldn't allow that. it's time for a new story.

i thought initially i would stop here and start elsewhere at the beginning of this year, then at the 12 week pregnancy point, then at percy's second birthday, then at talvin's birth... for whatever reason most of these milestones have come and gone with no change. there is nothing particular about today. it's just time and i'm feeling brave enough to do it. i do almost feel that if this blog stops i will be forgetting and denying the amazing travels we've had over the past three years. i know that's not really the case but as i said above; i've become really attached to this blog. maybe i have blog withdrawal!

i hope anyone still reading has enjoyed filling a spare moment with our tale. it will continue, i'm just not sure where or in what form.

travel well... the sun on your face and a breeze at your back...

holding hands

2009-04-26T01:49:00.000-07:00

percy and rose walked to the park together yesterday morning. they, very sweetly, held hands during most of the walk...

last minute changes

2009-04-23T22:39:00.000-07:00

the manager at percy's day care centre called me today. whenever i see that name come up on my mobile my heart misses a beat as i anticipate bad news- percy's fallen and busted something, they've called an ambulance, can i meet them at the hospital, percy's gone missing, percy choked, percy beat the hell out of another kid... i think i think about it too much. in truth, only two or three of the telephone calls from day care have been negative, even then it's been she's got a cold and we should collect her as soon as possible, and one bang on the head that her gp gave the ok to.

back to today's call. you may recall as of next week we had planned to do a child care shuffle between day care, grandparents and me. well now we need not. yippee! a place has become available for percy to revert to her four day attendance (wednesday's at home) in her new room, from next week. i must say i am very pleased. i was not looking forward to driving 6 hours every week just so i could go to work for 8.

speaking of being in her new room, i think she is taking to it very well. her new primary teacher is very sweet and says that percy is a princess- or is she just being nice to us nervous "newbie" parents? percy has been saying these last two days "stay downstairs" and she hasn't been bothered that her usual routine of putting her nappies in the cupboard and raffles in bed has been abandoned. in her new room the beds are stacked up until they are needed, so it's impossible to tuck raffles in on arrival in the morning, as we had been doing upstairs where there is a dedicated sleep room and the beds and cots are left out.
this morning she took a deal of pleasure and importance in showing me where her new locker is and telling me where i should fold and hang her stroller up out of the way. she hasn't been very forthcoming about what she does all day, or who she played with- we ask her every evening, often over dinner, but i expect that will come with time.

singing and music

2009-04-21T18:02:00.001-07:00

percy loves to sing. she sings while walking to day care or the park, she sings in the car, she sings in the bath, she sings along with paul at nite instead of dropping off to sleep.
her drum kit comes with a headphones and microphone. the headphones are fake and the microphone is crap but she gives it her best shot...
on the topic of singing along with paul at bed time she now insists on her favourite version of words too eg. singing "i've got you under my skin", paul substitutes 'you' with 'percy' at one point. if he slips back to 'you' she will say, "no, pappa, it's percy, sing it properly!"

some weeks back we bought her a cheapo cd player. she has about 6 cds of kid songs and kindermusik class songs, as well as the very favoured "lah-lah" cd that she really enjoys putting in the player by herself. perhaps it's not a good thing but she knows how to turn the player on at the wall and then operate it all by herself. it is a good activity if we want to get other things done and can't keep on eye on her. particularly so because her interest is more in putting the cd's in and out, and in and out of their covers, than actually listening to the music. i believe we've heard the first eight seconds of every first song tens of times, but no more! she's a funny one.

changes this week

2009-04-19T19:48:00.000-07:00

today is percy's second last day in the baby's room at day care. on wednesday she will head downstairs to the "explorers" room which is predominantly for kids aged from two and half to three and half, meaning she'll technically be a little young for her new peers. however i don't think it will matter. she spent a day downstairs a week ago and by all reports enjoyed it immensely, including happily sleeping in a different room to her usual.
a number of the friends she has made in the baby's room are moving downstairs over these weeks too. she'll be able to play with them all day long now.

it will be a little odd that she'll attend five days this week (mon, tue upstairs, wed - fri downstairs) and then will revert to three days the following week. i'm sure she'll be fine. i'm positive she enjoys day care and loves the interaction with the other children; at home she's stuck with us boring grown ups!

we're not making much progress on stopping the whining when she wants something, or is upset. well, repeat, repeat, repeat! however she is constructing beautiful sentences some of the time. these involve a statement about something, an analysis of the situation and an expression of her desire. not a single example is coming to me at the moment- just trust me! on the hilarious but "bite-your-tongue" side of language here is a few examples of recent statements "jesus, paul!" (copying me), " bugger, bugger" (when she kicked her gum boot off) and "leftie commie" (copying paul.)

random recent photos

2009-04-14T13:38:00.000-07:00

with pappa's galsses on,
vaccuumming,
playing her eletronic drum kit, and
a very, very full bath

listening face

2009-04-14T13:32:00.001-07:00

paul was reading his uni assignment to percy last nite....

great girl, bad pain

2009-04-08T18:11:00.000-07:00

percy is fantastic. (der!) little wonderful things have prompted this effusion.

1.her telling paul to 'sing it properly', when he is singing her a song at bedtime and gets too enthusiastic. she means he's supposed to sing quiet, sleepy songs to put her to sleep,
2. her eating four, i kid you not, four helpings of dinner once this week,
3. her enthusiam for flowers and dogs,
4. her delight that pi cat now comes every evening to be patted and say good night to her,
5. her helping, kind and innovative nature. the teachers in her current day care room tell us all the time that she constantly helps the little kids; even replacing dummies by gently waiting for the babies to open their mouths and 'til they have gripped the dummy properly. plus she initiates new games and ways to interpret the spaces, toys and furniture to make play even more fun. we are told she will be missed when she goes to her new room at the end of the month.
6. her communication is changing. we've told her that we don't accept the whining any more. if she has a problem, request or opinion she must tell us about them in words. slowly progress is being made, and
7. she can jump properly now!

unrelated to percy, the dreaded SPD, or symphysis pubis disfunction, is making a come back for me. i've had some little twinges over the past couple of weeks but today it is with me constantly. rats! tho the odds apparently are if you had this problem/discomfort/debilitation during the first pregnancy it's likely to return for subsequent goes.
SPD is caused by the hormorne relaxin, which is released by a pregnant woman's body to do surprisingly what it sounds like- it relaxes muscles and ligaments to assist in the carrying and birthing of babies. for an unfortunate few the ligament that joins the front of the pubic bone, which generally has a give of 2-3mm, relaxes too much. a further 2-3mm is ok, when it gets up to 10 extra mm, which it can in extreme cases, the pain is unbearable. to get an idea of this pain, stand a little straddled and ask the biggest, muscliest person you know to take the best swing they can manage with a baseball bat at your pubic bone. (never mind the soft tissue damage!) just imagine that impact against your bone and ligament.

so far i'm just feeling a very light version, tho there is more than three months 'til birth date for the ligament to relax yet more, separating this nearly immovable joint...
only once or twice with percy was i actually incapacitated. climbing stairs, each foot on every step, is slow going, but better than not going at all.

zac's birthday party

2009-04-04T01:32:00.000-07:00

our friends orion and daniel's little boy zac celebrated his first birthday today. we went for a morning tea party at his house in rozelle. what an affair! i'm glad no-one expects big productions from me- at least i don't think they do. there is simply no way on earth i could "keep up with the jones's" in the birthday party stakes. despite percy being a guest she came away with little sandwiches cut in star, heart and flower shapes, a balloon, a bottle of bubble blowing mixture, a big bag of fruit and a box of baby carrots to plant at home. phew! it wasn't just percy, every kid, of which i estimate there would have been at least a dozen, got this jackpot of goodies. plus there was lots of food, balloons, a ball pit and slide, fresh fruit juice, real coffee and lines of cupcakes. perhaps percy will make up for my lackadasical efforts when she's twenty and old enough to organise her own parties.
while a good part of not organising massive affairs is my complete aversion to effort of most sorts, a part of it also rests with knowing full well that i'd never get it right with all members of our family so why try? without doubt i would leave out, offend, forget, tread on the toes of, dismiss or otherwise cause affront to someone. i'm not making this up; i've learnt from bitter experience.
take for instance the one time in all our lifetimes that my very small but widely spread family happen to be or very easily could be in sydney at the same time. i attempted to get them all in one room, for one hour, for a family portrait. that was two hundred dollars i should have just lit and watched burn- far less difficult or painful. this is not an isolated example.
i'm a whisker away from never trying to organise anything again. all occasions for gathering that require organisation or coordination with family can be done without me- just give me some notice and i'll do my best to be where and when you want me to be. but i'm not picking the place, the time or the activity again. (of course i might reserve my right to veto things on percy's behalf.)

anyways, saturday nites shouldn't be spent being resentful and alone.

it's 7:45am

2009-04-03T13:46:00.000-07:00

and percy is still asleep!! long may she snooze!
she went happily to bed and sleep about 7:30pm so we are clocking over 12 hours now. wow. without a peep.

'course i had to get up to fed the ravening belly monster but that's ok.

exciting but difficult news

2009-04-01T21:27:00.000-07:00

at the end of april percy is going to move into the next age group room at her day care centre! yippee! we've been hoping this would happen since the beginning of the year. it's just a matter of having a space available. and as everyone doing the day care dance knows space is at a premium.

we've been convinced that since january when lots of new babies, some as young as ten weeks, started in the 0-2 age group room with percy, she has started mimicking baby behaviour rather than continuing along her toddler trajectory. she will cry and whine rather than tell us what she might what done differently, or what is upsetting her. and we know she has the vocabulary to tell us, afterall she's done so in the past and occasionaly does so now.
we hope being in the 2-3 year age group will encourage her to behave more in line with her age. of course we could be wrong! perhaps she's in a crying, whining point of time anyways.

the difficult part of this move is that the place available is for the three days wed - fri. paul works a five day week and i a four day week. this means percy is a free agent for one day! actually paul's parents have very helpfully agreed to care for her on mondays. this of course means driving an hour and half to drop her off on sundays and again on tuesdays to pick her up. i tell myself that the 10 weeks that this will occur for, before i start my leave in july and she can stay home on mondays with me, will pass quickly and i won't miss her too much. i'm sure some bright spark will also point out that this means we will get two nites a week toddler free.

we are on the waiting list to pick up the fourth day again as soon as possible. who know's, maybe that fourth day will happen before july.

no more wednesday parents group get-together for me for those ten weeks either.

despite my hesitation this is a big, positive move for percy. more evidence that she is growing up!

2nd birthday weekend

2009-03-30T01:08:00.000-07:00

percy had a very active birthday weekend. on friday nite her granma and grandad visited for dinner and present giving, then saturday morning was spent in the park primarily getting soaked in the water sprayer over the sand pit, and sunday was a family trip to the zoo!
i particularly appreciated the friends that came to the park on saturday as i hadn't seen some of them for months or believe it or not years!
the zoo trip was interesting as we didn't anticipate percy's reaction to it at all. in the morning while getting dressed etc we told her we were off to the zoo to see lots of animals. she appeared excited to see crocodiles most of all. she's very into being a "snapping" crocodile at present, plus she likes elephants, lions, koalas, wombats, snakes and frogs. however the crocodiles were a huge disappointment as they lay mostly submerged without moving a muscle. we had doubts percy could even pick one out from the water. i think because animals are always so animated in books she didn't get that at the zoo they mostly just lie about. never mind we're sure to make more visits which she'll enjoy in other ways.
a big hit was the seals! she stood at the window where she could see them swimming excitedly exclaiming "pussy cats!" over and over. we did explain that despite them having whiskers these were definately not cats.
there is also a small wading pool that she enjoyed immensely- so much for rolling her trousers up, she was wet to the armpits in three minutes. she very much liked splashing back and forth with her cousins as they had joined us by this time. at home, after zonking out in the stroller on the way back to the car, and a big two hour sleep there was yet another present to open.
percy also got a perfectly lovely edition of winnie the pooh from her oma, who visited over the weekend. it's got a great binding and very sweet pictures all thru it.

p.s. we figure the lioness, havig come within two metres of the glass was quietly humming "enny meeny myni mo, catching a toddler by the toe..." to herself as she sized up the 15 or so specimens lined up in front of her.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PUNKY!

2009-03-26T17:22:00.000-07:00

paul got a sleepy percy out of bed this morning at 7am so we could sing her happy birthday before he went to work. i think she liked it, despite being mostly still asleep she smiled cutely. it was a good morning up until she closed her fingers in a drawer. no lasting damage and a close cuddle with kisses and 'more milk' made it all ok.
she was happy at day care this morning eating a big bowl of rice bubbles, that "are popping", when i left. she's going to have grandparent overload this evening. hopefully she sleeps in tomorrow so we can too, i'm feeling knackered this week.

first fight

2009-03-25T17:09:00.000-07:00

more of a clash of priorities would be a better way to describe it. last nite for the first time percy wilfully and gleefully thwarted me. sure, we've been at cross purposes before- when to leave the park, what to eat for dinner (whether to eat at all!), to wear or not to wear a nappy and innumerable other instances. last nite's incident was something a little more...

it was time to pack away the toys to prepare for a bath. we keep percy's lego in a big bag that has velcro strips on two sides that allow the bag to unfold down to a flat play mat. i was sticking the velcro together to make the bag and asking percy to help put the lego inside. instead she delighted in pulling the velcro apart resulting in the lego spilling out again. i asked her seven times not to do that and explained that it was bath time so we must pack away the toys to have some space for drying off and getting into jamies. she persisted, laughing the whole time. in response i picked her up, plonking her on the change mat (which you'll recall is on the floor) saying she was not helping and must stay there until i tell her she can get up. this just increased the hilarity! she was off the mat, across the floor and peeling the velcro before i could turn around. repeated replacements on the mat just made her laugh more. and i mean really laugh, she was cracking up in a way i've only heard her do when she is having the best fun, bar nothing. clearly my parenting techniques (make it up as i go) weren't up to this challenge. paul eventually came upstairs and held her while i finished the packing away. then i sat in front of her, holding her shoulders and explained again what i was unhappy about. i know she understood me. i asked her to say sorry to me to which she found many reasons not to; a book not packed away, a CD cover to open, pi coming into the room... she did eventually say 'sorry' tho i think she did not mean it. it was delivered in a loud, abrupt voice; as if she was acknowledging what i wanted and complying, but only for the sake of getting rid of me. i don't think she felt at all contrite.
we had a big hug and then got on with the evening ritual as per normal.

paul and i had a talk later about what happened and whether i was just after restorative justice from a toddler or whether this was laying the ground work for future tasks to be undertaken with mutual compliance for mutual benefit, ie. if we both pack away the toys it will go quicker and we can have a nice bath sooner.
not sure yet....

percy turns two tomorrow! is this our welcome to the terrible two's? ha ha ha

turning two

2009-03-24T01:19:00.000-07:00

holy doley! percy is turning two! haven't these couple of years flown by, and been full of adventures?

as seems to be the regime once one is on the procreating treadmill birthdays, and the associated parties are to be attended, or do i mean attended to? if i wasn't such a scrooge i'd even say i enjoy kids parties but in general i'm not sure i do. yeah, it's nice to see percy and other littlies racing around and having fun and eating too much sugar and food colouring. i do like her to be happy and exploring her world and learning to interact with people. it's not an occasion for parents to change their behaviour tho. well! i suppose that's why they are called kids parties.

last saturday our parents group held a morning party for all our about-to-be twos...
here's percy lined up the other culprits: percy, izzy, rose, will, finn, joe, cameron, and lola and max further down the line.
and a picture of percy that i think is her thinking "while pappa is looking the other way, i'll just finish this chocolate crackle..."

sleeping '09

2009-03-23T16:48:00.000-07:00

we've been experiencing some quite good sleeping from percy so far this year. (i realise by figuratively saying this out loud i've now jinxed it all to hell!) except when she was ill a couple of weeks back she's either been sleeping thru the nite or only requiring one, occasionally two visits, thru the nite to have a drink of water and to pull her blanket up. these visits are generally over in a matter of minutes as she doesn't need us to sit with her until she's dozed off fully.
the last two mornings i've even had to go into her after 7am to wake her so that we can all get to day care and work on time! hopefully we can convince her to sleep past 7am on weekends from now on too.
in the mornings percy often wakes with a dry nappy. we'll take her jamies off and the old but dry nappy and ask if she wants to sit on the potty. which she generally does, followed by a big pee that then gets tipped in the big toilet and flushed away. i'm hopeful this action is a good indication that toilet training will be a success when we eventually decide to tackle it. while she can tell us when she's pooing it's usually right now, too late to take clothes off and get the potty to her or her to the potty, she seems to pee without informing anyone. i can't tell by looking at her if she is. anyways, not an issue yet.
bring on lots of hours of uninterrupted sleep before august!

second and last

2009-03-19T17:16:00.000-07:00

it occured to me as i was re-tucking percy in around 1am this morning and sitting with her for a few minutes to listen to her breathing steadily drop to a deep whisper as sleep took her calmly to rest and dreams, that this second pregnancy of mine is most likely also to be my last. following on from such disrupted sleep over the past two years we don't feel we have the energy or the reserves to do this more than twice. i do believe that we are due a perfect sleeper this time, but even with that it's unlikely we'll be dipping into our genetic pool for a third time.

this makes me realise how precious each sensation and stage of this pregnancy is. every flutter of movement i feel should be cherished. my growing belly rubbed each nite with delicious oils, growing and steadily growing. even those effects i could skip straight over (constipation so bad i feared haemorrhoids could be the only possible result, chronic exhaustion, nausea, and if my pregnancy with percy is a prognostication then close-to-disabling symphysis pubis dysfunction is yet to come) are oddly special. these things won't be experienced again, positive or negative, ever. it's almost as if i must mourn the passing of my pregnancy time to feel happy about letting it go, knowing it won't happen again.
but that's ok, because now i feel a greater connection to my body, it's ability to carry and birth babies, and this little boy squirming around inside me.
second and last and really, really super!

she's a strange one alright

2009-03-14T18:45:00.000-07:00

percy has gone back to having baths. which makes little difference to us. one or the other of us occasionally hops in with her tho she's happy to bath, and "swim" by herself.
whenever i hop in with her she insists that i lie down, washes my tummy and then licks my belly button. go figure?! with the rounded tummy i now sport a little water pools in my belly button- does this taste good? i think she's just weird but we don't make an issue out of it; there's no harm in it; it just cracks us up.

really?!

2009-03-11T19:59:00.000-07:00

i've just read this story in the smh: www.smh.com.au/news/lifeandstyle/lifematters/cost-of-kids-not-so-high
and i've got to say the guy is a dickhead. a kid in nappies for a year can cost $1000 alone. a good quality double stroller will cost near $1000. child care costs us $80 a day. a private school education will be, and i'm being conservative, $10 000 a year, clothes, food, toys, swimming and ballet and karate lessons, trips to the doctor, health insurance, school excursions, incidentals, car seats, high chairs, petrol or bike tyres lugging the lovelies about, glasses, dentists, speech therapy, soccer boots, swimming goggles... the list is nearly endless. i really don't think 18 years of this and you'd get away with spending $55k.

yes, you don't have to send sprog to private school or to ballet lessons or do a myriad of other things, i still don't see that costing less than 55k over 18 years.

to be fair tho i will try to track down the actual research paper and see how badly smh reported it.

the lottery of life

2009-03-09T14:15:00.000-07:00

as i said in my post about last friday i had a few personal reasons for not mentioning this new pregnancy yet. here's the story of one of those reasons, as i wrote it down at the time:

"Wed 19th June 2006
hmmmm... reason for the gap? my last pregnancy ended in miscarriage 8 weeks in. i'm now 6 weeks along again. i can't get excited. i know what the stats are and i know the likelihood of another miscarriage is really low.
but there it is.
let me finish the last story properly.

everything seemed to be going fine. i was peeing all the time, hungry and tired.
we also couldn't help telling people. our parents, karl and sindy, emma and david and on a saturday nite at a party at their home in lilyfield; robyn and phillip.
we'd driven the jeep to rob and phils and when it was time to leave paul was too pissed to drive and i never drove the jeep so we caught a taxi home.
sunday morning we rode the bikes back to rob and phil's, me with the bike rack strapped to the pannier rack. as we rode along i felt a gathering 'moisture', like maybe 5mls of blood, in my knicks. rob and phil weren't home so we loaded up the bikes and went home. my feeling of moisture may have just been sweat as there was nothing there when i showered and changed.
we went to watch a movie in the afternoon. i don't remember which one. part way thru i developed a headache which was pounding by the time we left. i am prone to bad headaches and migraines however i know the usual triggers and i thought this was brought on by not hydrating enough in the morning during the bike ride. even tho it was a short ride and i went thru 2 bottles of water, and more at home.
i insisted we go straight home where i fell asleep on the lounge. i woke about 5:30pm and was bleeding moderatly. what now? is this normal? technically my period was due, if i hadn't had a baby growing inside me.
we rang dr beale's after hours number which just refers to opening hours and the hospital number. so we rang royal prince alfred hospital up the road in newtown/camperdown. i was put thru to maternity. a sympathetic lady spoke with me and after explaining what was happening to me she said it sounded very much like i was having a miscarriage. i then spoke to a doctor who repeated the same assessment. the doctor explained i could attend accident and emergency that evening or come in the morning to EPAS; early pregnancy assessment service. given the likely wait at A&E we opted for EPAS, i was also not in any particular pain. but what else do we do? i don't recall feeling that sad that evening. was the pregnancy real to begin with? wasn't a miscarraige something that happened to other people? what does this mean for our future chances?
god, do we have to tell everyone and what do we do with their reactions?
i slept surprisingly well that sunday nite. monday morning we were up and at EPAS on the dot of 8:30am as we'd been told this was when it opened. maybe this is when the doctors start! over three visits i learnt 7:30am is opening time.
we registered and waited 2 hours. paul called our works during this time to advise we weren't coming in.
i had both an external and vaginal ultrasound. the vaginal was not even uncomfortable, let alone painful as i have since heard it can be. we were advised that given the size of the fetus it had probably died around six weeks.
i am six weeks again right now.
i'm content just to wait. i'm not doing anything different and certainly nothing bad. are you still alive little baby? how can i know? what could i do anyways? i just want the time to pass....

we waited again after the ultrasounds. i was uncomfortable more because there were no pads at home and i had spent the last 20 or so hours with wads of toilet paper in my underpants. great.
finally a doctor spoke with us. he confirmed again that i was experiencing a miscarriage. we were given two options for what to do immediately. a dilation and curette under general anaesthetic or leave my body to expel all the material naturally. as i'm pretty healthy and my body seemed to be doing the job on its own i chose this option.
we left the hospital around 2:30/3pm. we did some shopping- ostensibly for what? easy guess.
paul returned to work and i returned to the lounge.

i bled out on tuesday. i filled 14 maxi pads. it was depressing and distressing. was this a normal amount? i had asked the doctoer yesterday what i could expect. "the usual amount" was the response. obviously he'd never had a miscarraige. what fucking answer is that?! normal! normal? yeah, i do this all the time. i know what normal is.
well, i didn't die, i didn't even faint or suffer much pain. my lower abdomen felt tight and uncomfortable but okay.
i stayed home on wednesday with a medium amount of bleeding. i returned to work on thursday with lighter bleeding but unfortunately painful cramps - maybe it was in the increase in moving and walking.
friday was a painful crampy day. saturday was amanda's birthday. i tried to go but ended up crying on the steps at redfern train station. i think i was hormonal and because the trains weren't running i was swamped and gave up.
2nd ultrasound on 7th march. arrived at 7:30am and got thru quicker. still not complete. maybe the ultrasound loosened things up. wednesday at work i passed some large clots and lots of blood. a bit alarming. i would have preferred to be at home. on friday i had drinks with the girls at the opera bar and on sunday was david and leannes wedding. finally by tues 14th march i stopped bleeding.
at the 3rd ultrasound on fri 17th the doctor pronounced the miscarriage complete.
the end.

except for the legacy."

that's what i wrote three years ago. i've had moments when i missed that little life. in this lottery we're doing ok.

march photos

2009-03-07T20:12:00.000-08:00

couple of piccies of percy enjoying a 'babycinno' and trying on my shoes...

music afficiando

2009-03-07T20:00:00.000-08:00

percy often gets sung to sleep in the evenings. paul does this six nites out of seven, which makes sense because my repertoire consists of the first verse of "my favourite things" and my made up song to "hush little baby don't you cry" (see entry some time back in mid 2007.) paul has a far expanded song list to call upon. a few weeks ago he told me afterwards he was running thru said collection when he hit upon "smells like teen spirit." percy really liked it! then again when he was asking her what she wanted to hear just a few nites back he went thru four or so options before asking "smells like teen spirit?" resounding "yes" answer and when he'd got the end of the song "that's a good song pappa."
talk about make us laugh! percy is clearly developing a fine muscial appreciation at a young age. ha ha ha ha...

my oh my oh my

2009-03-07T00:53:00.000-08:00

what a day we had yesterday! all's well that ends well tho, hey? isn't that what they say?

i woke yesterday morning fearing that i was leaking fluid and possibly experiencing contractions. i know, i have failed to mention that i am pregnant again so far on this blog. this was for a few personal reasons and that this blog really is supposed to be about percy. anyways, back to yesterday's tale of adventure...
i shared my concerns with paul and we thought about the best thing to do. tearing off to the emergency department at rpa didn't seem to be it. i even went so far to ask paul to smell the fluid i had wiped on a tissue- poor bastard!! i was trying to get a consensus that it was not urine but possibly amniotic fluid.
we decided to continue with the day as normal and i would call our doctor when they opened at 8:30am. this i did and left a message with the receptionist. all morning at work i was in a bit of a distracted state (ha ha) tho luckily i have some interesting research to do at the moment so that was able to keep my mind off my 18 week old fetus for short stretches.
finally around 12 noon the receptionist called me back and asked if i could come in rather than just talk to the doctor on the 'phone. gee, what do you think? yes! my manager at work is a lovely woman and even offered to drive me to the doctors, she certainly wasn't bothered that i wanted to leave work early.

so, doc did an internal examination, asked me about my health and how the pregnancy had been going, felt my tummy and tried to find the baby's heart beat. she only has the tiniest hand-held heart beat findy thing tho, resulting in no success. Everything really has been peachy except for a fall i took last weekend, landing on my hand and hip more than anywhere else. her conclusion was that all was fine; the liquid was determined to be some mucous-y stuff. a swab was taken just for extra checking. after a couple of telephone calls she also got me into an ultrasound place that afternoon! all those people who have previously booked ultrasounds absolutely aeons in advance just to get in at the right time know what a miracle this is.

we had 45 minutes to get from erko to bondi junction, get parked and find the office, to make my 3pm appointment. and guess what? we did it! the ultrasound showed our little baby happy and healthy- phew. we spent nearly an hour looking him over. yes, him! a little brother for percy! it was really nice to get such an intimate look at bub and see his heart beating strongly, all measurements normal and my cervix firmly closed.

there have been no more contraction/ crampy feelings and no more fluid. we celebrated with take away dinner (because we were too drained to cook, plus percy likes pizza), and our chosen poisons of beer and icecream.

sydney museum

2009-03-03T13:55:00.000-08:00

last sunday morning we made a family outing with sarah, chris, rose and tessa to the australia museum. after negotiating the steps at both erko and museum train stations with two stollers and four hot drinks we had a really lovely time. the older girls especially! they loved the dedicated play space and chasing each other around the dinosaur and australian animals exhibits. i'm not sure everyone else enjoyed seeing them tear around like maniacs and squealing at the top of their voices but watching percy calling out to "rosie-posie, where are you?" and running back and forth holding hands was just adorable.

wet weather

2009-03-03T13:51:00.000-08:00

a couple of weeks back when it was raining non-stop percy delighted in her new welly boots and matching rain coat. she's grown out of her first set of welly boots. we hope this set lasts her a while yet.

"all gone"

2009-03-01T19:45:00.001-08:00

it's been plagueing me for some time that i have failed to engage in any physical exercise for some time.

instead of walking up three flights of stairs without a care, i now feel my thighs protest after one! i remember when getting to work at least twice a week was an hour and half serious bike ride, one way. while i mightened have won any medals i had thighs we joked bullets would bounce off.
and what's this flabby, flobby stuff on the under side of my arm? my once-upon-a-time personal trainer said i had a stronger punch than many guys he knew (he was also a kickboxer pro.)
while i can still touch my toes with my legs straight my daily at home practice and once a week lesson of yoga is a distant memory. i fear many a pose is beyond my reach now.
how come my lungs burn after a slow jog, why does my heart pound just walking up a gentle slope?

the full extent of my exercise would be walking to the train and back, walking to local shops or parks a couple times a week and the very occasional ten minute bike ride.

what happened?
oh yeah, that's right- i had a baby. as she would say, all that fitness, flexibility, stamina and health is "all gone"; like an empty yoghurt tub.

the chicken's wing

2009-02-25T19:21:00.000-08:00

it has come to my attention, with personal disappointment, that mothers unanimously eat the wing or wings of a roast chook dinner. this is one of numerous examples of mothers putting their preferences, desires and even needs second to their families, particularly their children's.

as i was home yesterday afternoon and suspiciously had the time to get a chicken roasting that's what was on the menu last night. i remember when at my parents home a roast chicken appeared on the dining table my brother got the leg (or both legs as he grew up), my father and i divvied up the breast meat and mum got stuck with the wings. last night percy got the breast meat, paul was too sick to eat and yet i still, voluntarily (!) took a wing. which meant the remaining carcass was largely intact as percy doesn't eat enough to sustain a bird (pun slightly intended) and i filled up on vegies. this is probably a good thing as the more vegies for me the better.

i've read many articles about the second-place-getting of mothers, generally self-imposed. my example here is a light-hearted one, there are more serious cases particularly in situations of poverty or abuse. surely we all recognise that a healthy, happy mother contributes more to the well being of her family than anything else? i'm also pondering the australian governments' seeming back off from a national paid maternity leave scheme. i understand some of the intricacies of such a scheme and the difficulty that might be experienced by small employers, i still think it's immensely worthwhile and necessary.

i should make clear that i'm not a second-place getter in our family. if anything paul places me and insists i take first place more often than not. i think in general we three are equals. i just can't help boosting percy ahead of me! i think it's primal and instinctive.

no posts

2009-02-23T16:35:00.001-08:00

the reason being that i've been nursing a cold for coming onto a fortnite now. i'm not well enough, interested enough or able enough to write. besides which things are much the same in our lives at present, so nothing to write about.
one thing that is worth remarking on is percy's communication. she differentiates between "i", "your", "each", "percy's turn", "coming", "soon" and a couple more in that vein. it makes life more interesting having her talking so well. we still have to guess occasionally what she is on about but that changes every day.

St Valentine's Day

2009-02-15T19:44:00.000-08:00

scene 1:

muted lighting, deep red roses in perfect bloom highlighted in a cut crystal vase, warm timber surrounds, flickering long red candles, delicate bone china, crested silverware...
him dressed in bespoke evening tails, her dressed in midnight blue, figure hugging gown...
a meal of tempting flavours and creative presentation...
wine and the finest champagne...
hushed conversation sprinkled with in-the-know laughter...
curtain falls.

scene 2:

muted lighting, deep red roses in perfect bloom fitted into the only vase tall enough to take them, warm timber surrounds with washing draped all over it as it's been raining for a week, flickering long red candles, plain white, dishwasher and microwave proof crockery, stainless steel cutlery...
him dressed in the same t-shirt and cargo pants as he's been in all day, her dressed in cinched-at-the-waist, midnight blue, slightly tatty dressing gown...
a meal of tempting flavours and slapped on the plate...
beer and orange juice...
half asleep conversation with in-the-know-about-the-toddler's-pooey-nappy stories and laughter...
curtain falls.
half falls at least, then raises...

i'll let you guess which was the scene at our house on friday nite!

percy slept for half an hour, just enough time to dish up and gobble food before she woke crying. she's sick with something we can't blame her.

picture

2009-02-11T18:46:00.000-08:00

percy enjoying a party hat she scored two weekends back...

hip hip hooray!

2009-02-08T15:00:00.000-08:00

last nite the weather finally changed and became cool enough to bearably sleep. thank multiple dieties!

i am just not a hot weather person. neither seemingly is percy. she slept atrociously the nite before last- i was up every hour between 9pm and 1am to settle her. at 1:30am we gave up, set up the port-a-cot in our bedroom and brought her in to sleep with us. it's cooler in our room because that is where the air con system is. yes, we have been complete environmental vandals and run the air con over nite on several occasions now. it did work, she fell asleep pretty quickly, one little settle around 4am (which i was able to largely do; saying 'hush', while still lieing in my own bed) to wake around 7am.

by contrast percy slept a lovely 12 hours last nite from 6:30pm to 6:30am, with only one stir in the nite when i pulled up her blanket. yes, it was actually cool enough to need it!
she went to bed at 6:30pm because she had not napped like usual so we figured she needed it.
yesterday morning we drove to the beach and just before arriving little miss fell asleep in the car. she had a half hour nap and then nothing for the remainder of the day. a bit rough on us but manageable.
she also had a bath last nite for the first time in weeks. possibly only because it was towering with bubbles and i got in with her.

this morning, waiting on the platform for my train to work, i actually felt a bit cold. what bliss.

conjugating and counting update

2009-02-05T19:12:00.000-08:00

percy has mastered a number of conjugations now. mostly of the "ing" variety- patting, doing, going, climbing, swinging...
she also very cutely says "still chewing" if she is offered more food before she's ready. also she puts us off asking her to do something by telling us "no, percy busy." once tho, we asked her what she was doing and she replied in an evasive manner "nothing." if i really thought she'd already learnt about lies and evasiveness i'd worry more but i just can't see that being likely.

she can also count to ten. we started by putting our 'pointer finger up' and counting the cats in the slimky malinki books. she likes counting everything now. 'course she doesn't always get it right. for instance i have five eyebrows- she just went back and forth counting each one more than once. better than a mono brow i say!

"hello..."

2009-02-02T15:27:00.000-08:00

i keep forgetting to write this up but finally i've remembered while i'm in front of a computer and can steal some time to do so.
very short story from our impromptu new years stay in coffs harbour. out to dinner one evening i had ordered a super delicious dessert of crepes with strawberries and butterscotch sauce. percy had wormed her way onto my lap by this time. (after being a very well behaved miss all thru dinner, eating a reasonable amount and running many laps of our table.)

percy asked what was on the plate. upon being told she dipped her finger into a pool of butterscotch sauce and tasted it. she then said, in a very friendly, almost 'come hither' voice; "hello butterscotch." it was just hilarious, very much like she was saying "you and me, butterscotch, we are going to get on juuust fiiiine."

we haven't had anything butterscotchy since so i wonder if she remembers it, or whether she'll still be as friendly.

sentences II

2009-02-01T17:30:00.000-08:00

percy has progressed to six word sentences and the use of "i". her language just astonishes me. she said to me on the weekend. "pappa and mamma sleep in big bed", then; "i sleep in the little bed." so much for waiting for her third or fourth birthday.
we're not anticipating discussing philosophy with her any time soon. however getting day to day tasks and activities done with all parties understanding each other is bril.

oddly, when something isn't going her way or she's getting frustrated she reverts to whining and crying. things like a puzzle piece she can't get in, or a closed door she can't open, or something too heavy for her to pick up; she'll cry and whine instead of telling us what the problem is. which is frustrating because i know she can say things like "open door", "can't reach", "can't do it", "help", "mamma/pappa come", "finished" and the like. we're working on it.
we've also started, with some success, the practice of taking a deep breath when getting upset and then talking about it. i usually sit in front of her on the floor when she's heading into a full-blown tantrum, and say "take a deep breath", then do it myself for her to mimic. more often than not she follows along with me and after three or four breaths is in control again enough to tell me what's wrong. doesn't always work! sometimes it's too late and all we can do is try to stop her hurting herself while the flailing screaming runs its course.

i love talking with percy because it makes me think about what i am saying, slow down and enunciate clearly. it's good practice for talking with adults too!

a little privacy, if you please!

2009-01-28T20:59:00.000-08:00

percy treated us to a funny episode a couple of nites ago. in keeping with her insistence on only having showers we were preparing for our shower that evening; collect towel, nappy, jamies, undress, adjust water temperature, etc.
at one point percy slipped into the ensuite without us and slid the door closed behind her. i went to open the door but she pushed it shut again protesting "no!" i asked what she was doing and may i come in. she replied again "no!" and that she was using the potty. the potty was not in the room. as the shower wasn't on yet we figured she couldn't get into much more trouble than falling into the toilet, which we'd hear and rescue her from right quick, so we let her be. i asked once or twice more if i may come in and got strong "no's" in reply. then we heard the toilet flush and percy opened the door!
i'm absolutely positive that despite her interest in us going to the toilet and her use of a potty she can't manage a full size toilet on her own. still, there was no pee on the floor, plus she seemed pretty emphatic that she was using the toilet and didn't want our presence while she did. paul was rolling on the bed laughing by the end (me too nearly)... maybe you had to be there.

22 months

2009-01-26T20:46:00.000-08:00

percy is 22 months old today. not long 'til her second birthday.
she arrived home from wollongong on saturday morning quite happy and unscathed. i think she missed us as she gave us lots of hugs and kisses.
on sunday we made an impromptu visit to my brother and family. we came away with more toys for her! she now has a lego collection that allows a quite robust big tower, taller than her, to be built with ease. too lazy to run downstairs to get the camera...

back to day care today with a rice bubbles, milky sloppy kiss to say goodbye with.

3 and 4 day experiments

2009-01-21T18:02:00.000-08:00

the four day experiment first...
last week, and continuing from now on, percy will be attending day care, and i'll be working, four days a week. we have wednesdays at home together. i think percy is taking this change just fine. each day i've dropped her off she's sat down to her second breakfast and waved me away quite happily. i suppose i'm taking the change fine as well. ('course i'd rather be a lady of leisure but that scenario is highly unlikely.)

our three day experiment is more interesting. percy is staying three nites with her gran and grandad. without us. i drove her down on wednesday afternoon and they'll be bringing her home on saturday. it's very traumatic! for me. by all reports percy is doing fine.
i only stayed a half hour or so before having a big cuddle and kisses and saying good bye. the drive home seemed to flash past but once home i became morose, tired, depressed and lonely. really lonely. and also inert. i know that's an odd way to describe a person but that's how i felt- very inert. i lay on the bed and couldn't move. even when a bit of rain came over and was getting the dry washing wet i couldn't run out and get it in. this isn't like me- i hate repeating effort. it just doesn't seem right that there was no little head at the dining table, no clambering nakey-baby to play with after dinner, no wet chookie in the shower, and saddest of all; no tousled head popping up to say "hello" this morning. it feels all wrong.

i imagine many would say i should be rejoicing. having some baby-free time; time with no cries in the night, no tussles over eating, no debates about whether to put a nappy on again (or run about naked- she's very much the nudist), no 6am rousing from bed, no repeat readings of the same book... yes, perhaps i should be happy. i just miss her.

i really, really miss her.

no-bath baby

2009-01-15T21:24:00.000-08:00

percy is a grot of a baby. she's refused to have a bath for weeks now! the dirt is piling up, that tan ain't no tan, she smells awful, her hair is a matted mess, her nails are black...

nah, just kidding! she has declined to have a bath but loves having showers! ages back, as a novetly, one of us, i think paul first, took her into the shower with him. then it was sort of a once a week thing. now it's every day. i'm not sure what the appeal is- the running water, being with mamma or pappa, having the choice...
it's quite fun to have a shower together. she likes the soap bubbles and helping to wash my legs. the down side is i like my showers scalding hot so i don't get to enjoy that broiled lobster feeling when she comes in with me and she was given a neat bath toy at christmas that really works best with a pool of water, not running water- she hasn't played with it once (sorry sin-sin and uncle karl.)

we've even gotten to the point that paul and i have to get out first and leave percy to herself for a couple of minutes at the end. she says "mamma/pappa, get out" and pushes open the door! bossy little thing.

christmas/ new year wellingrove

2009-01-13T18:02:00.000-08:00

more piccies...
percy, her oma and her cousins reading together, back in the favourite place- the hammock, paul riding the neighbours horse (there is a heap of video of percy riding and leading the horse too, which she absolutely loved, but it's about 15 minutes long and would take eight years to post), and playing in the glen innes pool...

christmas in wollongong

2009-01-13T17:56:00.000-08:00

just a quick couple of piccies... where else would you sit to feed your new dollies, but in your new tonka truck?

"i love you"

2009-01-12T17:25:00.000-08:00

adorably percy has started to tell us that she loves us. often she's just repeating us saying to her "i love you", but occasionally she will say 'i love you', unprompted and throw a big cuddle and kiss in as a bonus. it's heart swellingly wonderful.

i think the big leap forward in language could be attributed to the two weeks over christmas/new year when she was constantly with us or other family members and encouraged to talk non-stop. i mean the encouragement, not the talking!

sentences

2009-01-11T14:22:00.000-08:00

another step along the way to understanding and communication... percy is using three and four word sentences quite regularly now. it's great as it means she can be part of the conversation (a bit) and let us know what's going on in her mind. mostly it's descriptive stuff or requests; "percy climb up", "percy go swimming", "have more milk?", "have a look?" this last one is particularly funny, tho a bit frustrating. she uses it when she doesn't believe what we are telling her, eg. "have a look (in fridge)" when we tell her there is no custard or avocado. or in the bottom of a bag or box or cupboard when searching for a toy, towel, whatever.

she also asks "pappa, where are you?" or "what mamma doing?", actually there is lots of "what (name) doing?"; she's very curious. and of course "what's that?" hasn't let up. hilariously this question seems to come out even if she doesn't have a particular object or item to query- ie. she'll look in one direction, point in the opposite and ask "what's that?" 'what's what, little girl?!, i can't tell what you are asking about!'

i've read it can take 'til children are 3 or 4 before they substitute "i" for their name. we'll see, i think she's starting to grasp the difference between 'me' and 'you' so perhaps 'i' isn't too far away.

cats don't read!

2009-01-08T00:20:00.000-08:00

super funny! percy was chasing pi around this evening with a book calling out "pi read book!" she was very reluctant to accept that cats don't read...

2008-2009

2009-01-07T15:04:00.000-08:00

for the past couple of weeks we've either not been near ready internet access or i've not been motivated to write. it's been a very tiring few weeks, not to mention a confirmation of why i dislike christmas. never mind- percy loves life and thru her you can't help but see it all with a bit of a sparkle too. (is it wrong to already live vicariously thru my daughter?)

once again percy scooped the pool at christmas in terms of presents. she even ran out of steam on opening them. because we had two christmases with each set of grandparents percy spread out her present opening over five days! lucky chook! she now has a lovely new haul of dinosaurs, a mega-sketcher, horsies, a tonka truck big enough to sit in, books, clothes, baby dolls and i'm sure other things i can't think of just now.

percy is becoming an adept car traveller too. we drove to wollongong on 23rd dec which was easy, she's done that trip heaps of times. then on the nite of the 26th we left wollongong at 5pm for the 9 hour drive to wellingrove. the plan was that percy would sleep the whole way. which she mostly did! she didn't fall asleep until 9pm but was out of it for nearly the rest of the way. we arrived around 2:30am and transferred her successfully to a waiting cot. on 1st jan we drove 4.5 hours to coffs harbour. it took that long because we stopped for food, fuel, to look at waterfalls and to coordinate what we were doing with my brother and his family who had also decided to come to coffs. percy got a bit whingey towards the end of this trip because she was awake the whole way. still she only cried a little and was happy once we checked into the hotel. on the 4th we left coffs harbour at 4am thinking we might get ahead of all the returning holiday traffic. again percy slept nearly the whole six and half hours it took to get home. we didn't get any traffic, thankfully, just lots of road works speed limited to 80kmph, oh well.

the last three days percy and i have been at home together- mostly hiding in the air conditioning as it's been too hot for out door activities. she's made some fantastic new leaps in language and understanding too. details, and photos of the 'holiday' period to come...

Vale Rhonda

2008-12-21T19:34:00.000-08:00

last thursday evening one of percy's carers/teachers from her child care centre was tragically struck by two cars while walking home, and died. rhonda was a loud and lovely woman muched appreciated by her charges and their parents. sure, she had grumpy moments, don't we all, but she cared so much and was always the first to comfort upset kids, read stories and encourage all activities.
rhonda had no children of her own, tho with a number of nephews and nieces and all the children she looked after and taught at sdn i'm sure she's cared for more than most people ever will.

i wonder whether percy will miss her? i explained to her that rhonda would not be at day care today. i did say that she had died. i don't think percy has the foggiest idea that life ends and sometimes you'll never see a person again because they have died. i also don't think it necessary to sugar coat death to young people. she'll work it out eventually and we'll be nearby if she needs us for anything. she does still ask about a little girl that moved away back in august. perhaps she does remember people well and is curious why she doesn't seem them any more. is she also sad? i explained, as best as able, that abby had moved to perth, which is a place far too far away to visit from.

the rest of the centre staff certainly miss rhonda and grieve for her. i got a call from the centre manager asking if we could pick percy up again on friday morning as services would not be up to par that day. it was a very sombre feeling in the treetops room this morning too when percy and i arrived. i hope the day is going well.

vale rhonda, i know there is a dykes on bikes ride starring you going on somewhere right now.

what's that?

2008-12-18T17:38:00.000-08:00

for over a week now percy had been asking the question "what's that?", about everything. even things she's knows. i try to give her simple answers; it's a box, it's a spatula, it's a book, but when she holds up her baby sign language book open to the page for "pain" it's a little tricky. since she was very little we've described bumps and bashes and general scrapes as a "bonky", as in; "did you get a bonky on your knee?" if she falls over and appears to have hurt her knee. so i tried to explain what was on the page as "it's the sign for pain, you know when you get a bonky and it hurts, well you can describe that as pain." while i also do the sign for pain. i hope she understood me!

i think we should be gratefully she's only asking "what" so far, not "how" or "why"- those ones i'm not looking forward to.

some recent piccies

2008-12-15T14:55:00.000-08:00

do you see a theme here?

a nite's sleep

2008-12-14T13:51:00.000-08:00

sorry there hasn't been anything posted in the past week. it's been a bit 'same old, same old' at the percy house. she is talking even more, getting quite good at saying "please"; or rather "peese" with the 'l' left out. she tips her head to the side and nods at the same time. it's super cute. i think she's thinking if she asks for something, says please, nods and looks cute all at the same time how can we possibly deny her!

anyways, on to the important message of the morning... percy slept thru the nite last nite!! hurrah! from 7:30pm to 6am. very welcome. 'course it won't continue but we'll just have a little celebration just now.
what prompted this long sleep? not sure, unless it was the slightly mixed up day she had yesterday. we went out in the morning, percy in the backpack. by 10:30am she'd nodded off to sleep in it! what's with the morning droopies? she did the same thing on saturday which was a bit of a disappointment as we were at our parents group christmas breakfast. percy was tired and fussy and crying most of the morning. we ended up taking her home at 11am, she promptly fell asleep in her cot at 11:30am- an hour before normal nap time.

so yesterday she had this little doze in the backpack, which i must say didn't look that comfy, but then woke up when i needed a morning tea stop at a cafe. percy had a babyccino. she loves them! she even asks for 'coffee' now, accompanied by the nod, smile, tip of head cuteness mentioned above.
we continued our walk about until she cracked the poopies just on 12:30pm, which granted is her nap time. we rushed home to lay her in her cot, only to have her not sleep. despite all sorts of ruses she didn't fall asleep until 2:15pm. we got her up at 4pm thinking we'd never get her back to sleep come bed time otherwise.
she did got to sleep quite easily at bed time, and no peep until 6am. wowee! maybe we need to have mucked up days more often?

busy weekend

2008-12-10T00:15:00.001-08:00

with oma visiting for friday and saturday nite we made the last minute decision to skip swimming class (which we're not sure we're getting value for money for anyways) and go to the beach instead. we went to quiet la perouse, i think the actual beach name is something starting with 'c' but i can't remember. it was really nice. the water was cool to start but very yummy once in. we even got percy to practice a few 'tiger arms' and kicking anyways. oma and paul got little nibbles on their feet from what we figure were tiny crabs, percy and i missed out- yay! percy also liked building sand castles and heaping sand on our shoulders and feet.

clambering around the rock pools looking for crabs and other interesting sea life was also well received. percy was quite happy to plunge her hand in and touch the seaweed, shells, crabs, dead crabs and assorted other aquatic worldliens. perhaps i should learn to identify what might harm her before i let her do this... oh well!

she crashed big time in the car on the way home. what an exhausted little munchkin.

then on sunday we drove to wollongong for percy's grandma's birthday. we had a very nice (and very expensive, which we were generously shouted) lunch. there was a jazz/swing band at the restaurant. i thought percy would be interested in seeing the instruments and maybe dancing. was she!??! throughout the meal and afterwards one of us was taking her over to get a closer look and to dance- which comprises nodding and swaying her head, stomping, swaying from foot to foot and sometimes doing a twirl. she was also lucky enough to be invited to play the piano during a set break. she got a bit shy and only touched the keys a couple of times tho. it is much bigger piano than her little five key toy at home after all!

it was a weekend of old people! ha ha

feet fairly flying

2008-12-04T14:39:00.000-08:00

one day last week and again yesterday, paul wasn't able to collect percy from day care. it was ok for me to leave a little early so i picked her up instead.

it is an odd and powerful feeling to be on your way home to collect your little girl after not seeing her for eight hours. i barely notice the train stopping until we get to newtown. then because macdonaldtown, where i get off, is the next stop, i'm down in the vestibule, ready to go before the train has even pulled out of newtown. i know the backyards and the houses we pass quite well, as i stare out the window willing the train to get to macdonaldtown just that fraction of a second earlier.
the doors open and i leap out and bounce down the stairs. up burren street, burst out at erko shops, past the train station, down erko road and suddenly there i am at the front door! how did i get here? i really don't remember walking this familiar route at all. my feet were fairly flying, my heart is beating, not just from the brisk walk and then i see her gorgeous form, her wispy hair, her bright eyes and when she sees me the most enormous smile and strong, reaching arms.
ahhhhh... our cuddle sets the earth back on its right track.

woo ha ha ha

2008-12-03T19:08:00.000-08:00

last nite after percy's bath she and paul were telling each other stories and talking while percy got dried off and dressed in her 'jamies. some part of the story paul was telling involved the classic, evil 'take-over-the-world' laugh- "woo ha ha ha!" percy then had a go at this laugh. it was just too funny! in her little, gorgeous girl voice she imitated him quite well. it just didn't sound terribly evil. i doubt anyone would be quaking in their boots with fear after hearing it. never mind, she thought it was funny, we all did actually.
the other funny thing percy did a few nites back was try to pass off a fart to her pappa! we've taught her the word 'fluff', thinking this might be more socially acceptable. plus watching her bottom lip curl in and her eyes twinkle as she says 'fluff' is really adorable. anyways, percy fluffed while having her milk and i grinned at her saying "you fluffed!", she grinned back and said "pappa fluff!" had us both in stiches for a good number of minutes. does she understand the humour of blaming fluffing on other people? i can only suppose so.

nice sleep

2008-12-02T13:22:00.000-08:00

percy slept from 7pm to 5:50am last nite, not needing a settle or a whisper from us at all. yippee!
the nite before i only went in once for five minutes at 10pm.

'course i'm not holding on that this will continue- once bitten (read tens of times!), twice shy.

weekend with/without percy

2008-12-02T13:09:00.001-08:00

percy spent last saturday nite (29th nov) with her her grandparents again. it's a long drive to drop her off and return again the next day to pick her up but it is nice to have some toddler free time.
percy had a good time; she even baked us some little cakes on sunday morning...

(sorry i can't figure out how to get the picture up. will ask paul when he gets home tonite)

sy park playground piccies 2

2008-11-28T13:19:00.001-08:00

sydney park adventure playground

2008-11-28T13:02:00.000-08:00

about a fortnite ago the new playground in sydney park opened. (the official opening is next weekend.) we've had some super fun times on the swings, the roundy-round (for lack of a better name), the musical bridge- wooden bridge with silver knobs to stomp on that then chime different notes, the mirrors that change your appearance as you move in front of them from tall and thin to fat and short, the lovely wooden wombats, the range of slides, and most particularly the sand pits that have water sprinklers built into them! percy has soaked herself and giggled and covered herself in sand quite a few times now.

quite cutely she's also dubbed the set of three wombats as "pappa", "mamma" and "percy."

i finally remembered to take the camera on thursday...

shelling peas

2008-11-28T12:52:00.001-08:00

to make a delicious paella last week percy and paul had to shell the peas. percy really got into this old fashioned task...

tonsilitis

2008-11-26T17:31:00.000-08:00

so that explains why she's been very miserable the last three days! after two days of not sleeping, eating barely anything and feeling warm to the touch i took percy to her doctor yesterday afternoon. we left with a diagnosis of tonsilitis; the infectious kind and a script for a run of antibiotics. i didn't even know there was more than one kind of tonsilitis, or that it could be infectious. live and learn.

it's a good thing chooken takes her medicine happily. the antibiotics are three times a day, three 1ml droppers each time, plus we've given her panadol three times now to help ease the headache that she is likely to have from the blocked ears and nose. on top of that we've given her twice now a dose of 'incremin' which is a product that is supposed to supply extra nutrients and vitamins to non-eaters. well, it actually says on the packet, poor or fussy eaters, but i figure that's what they mean.
she evens says "medicine" and tips her head back with an open mouth for the dropper. i remember trying to give her panadol months and months ago when she'd thrash and scream and wail. thank god those days seem past.

we've had a interesting development with pi too. he's actually coming to percy for a pat. perhaps he knows she's ill and wants to comfort her. it's sweet. the last three nites he has come into her bedroom while we've been reading her good nite story. she hops off my lap and as we repeat "gentle", "quiet", " softly", "sshhhh", "slowly", "gentle", "sshhh", "pi doesn't like loud noises", she will kneel next to where he has lain down and stroke him and lay her head on his side. all that stuff about animals knowing that children are different and lovely, that animals are more patient, tolerant and forgiving is true! pi won't let us touch his feet, percy gets to poke at them nearly all she likes!
oopy still moves like greased lightening when percy is in his vicinity.

the antibiotics seem to be working well. percy was very chippier today with me staying home from work to look after her.

eating adventures

2008-11-21T17:55:00.000-08:00

i thnk percy is probably eating a sufficient quantity of food now. the variety is what gives me headaches. i think she's aiming to survive on custard and cookies. not the most nutritious of choices.
however we do convince her to try other things occasionally- roast chicken last week and garlic prawns for lunch today...

how much do you need?

2008-11-19T15:54:00.000-08:00

really, how much is actually necessary? my conclusion is a lot less than i previously thought.
i'm talking about sleep of course. (what else, hey?)

despite all our efforts, ideas and changes percy is persisting in waking two to three times a nite. seemingly most often between 11:30pm and 3am. she doesn't need a lot of help to go back to sleep; a drink of water from her sippy cup, the blankets pulled up and some minutes of quiet 'shooshing' gets her back to sleep in around fifteen minutes. despite the shortness of these actions they fact that they occur in the middle of our sleeping time is really disruptive. our regime is largely unchanged, meaning we go to sleep no later than 10pm, often and hour or two earlier and get up when percy does- anywhere from 5:30am onwards.

i think i can function on four hours of unbroken sleep with two to four hours of crap sleep thrown in the same nite. thankfully the last few nites i've been getting the unbroken four hours from around 2am to 6am so feel relatively rested when percy decides she's keen to get on with the day.

so, 4 hours! i used to think it was 9!

conjugating and counting

2008-11-14T17:51:00.000-08:00

percy conjugated her first verb today! she has known the word 'pat', as in 'pat the dog' for months. she likes to pat toys to sleep while playing "sleepy" on the lounge in the evening or if in the morning she comes into our bed for a fifteen minute cuddle before we can bear to crack our eyelids open she'll often give us a pat too. this morning she was seated between us, patting us both simultaneously and said 'patting.' wow!

percy also seems to be counting in binary. she'll repeat to herself while picking items up or pulling her magnets off the fridge - "two, four, six, eight." what's with that? sometimes she'll forget "four", but what happened to one, two, three, four, five, etc...?

observations in ashfield

2008-11-13T20:44:00.000-08:00

1.
while walking about ashfield i'm given to making assumptions about the demographics of the area. i have noticed there are two very large discount chemists, at least three other chemists, a discount vitamin store and a priceline (something of a discount chemist) and about six doctors/general practitioners offices/surgeries within two blocks. me thinks the population is rather ill, or at least concerned about fending off illness.
on the other hand there are five small to large fresh fruit and vegetable stores in the same proximity. surely with all that fresh produce illness is not so prevalent?

2.
an over-heard conversation in the office today centred on the age and ability of women to bear and raise children. i'm feeling very gen x now. i believe the women whose conversation i could hear are between 7 and 12 years younger than me, childless and very gen y.
i could not help but smile when they flatly said they would not give up their lifestyle to accommodate a child. they despaired over friends or acquaintances that were no longer '48 hour party people' and that had children that were monsters. oh dear... i did hold my tongue. i considered asking them what they would do if in the situation of having no family within two hours reach, no money for bought care and a child that screamed to the point of vomiting if separated from their mother? hmmmm...

3.
contining my eavesdropping (hardly my responsibility in an open plan office) i wondered at the selfishness or maybe it's the self control of these gen y'ers. one was explaining that her and her partner have been together four years, during which they were friends first and trialled living together for six months before they committed to their relationship. perhaps it's just me but i found this odd. when i fell in love with paul it was instantaneous, it brooked no argument or dissent, it was uncontrollable, there was not any necessary logic to it and it is endless. thinking of a trial living together or wondering whether this is the match for me, for life, is causing me to giggle now- it's just untenable and unreal. maybe this is a mark against me, and that i should be more dispassionate about love. what a ridiculous statement! that's the whole point of love; it is passionate and consuming and fearless.

nothing really about percy in these observations... oh well.

times two

2008-11-11T17:52:00.000-08:00

this morning i was lucky to look after rose for a couple of hours. she came to music class with percy and i and then down to the playground for parents group. at music it was a bit new for rose so she was content to sit on my lap and listen for most of the time. she was happy to join in with the big circle of parents and kids towards the end for singing, stomping, waddling, wing flapping and waving. percy has now settled in enough that she was fine to get along with my complete attention. we had a little issue when rose got a stamp on her hand at the beginning of class (because she was a special visitor) while percy had to wait 'til the end of class for hers. percy was not impressed as she covets those little stamps and wanted hers up front too. she came around eventually.
two activities that both girls enjoyed together was first pretending soft scarves were wings and flapping them up and down, particularly when the scarves ran over their faces. rose giggled and percy smiled, both with shining eyes during this, and second rolling and passing blow up balls back and forth.

walking down to our usual playground for parents group was slow going. i put percy in the stroller because rose is the better walker. meaing rose will stay by your side and hold your hand while percy thinks it is hilarious to dash off in the opposite direction. rose probably walked three quarters of the way, carried the rest.
it was just us at the park because everyone else was sick or otherwise unable to make it. but that was ok. there were plenty of other children, mostly girls (must be girly day out, today) at the playground. we had a fab time on all the equipment. percy even "learnt" how to push rose on the swing. i held her across my hips so that she could reach rose's back and give her a little shove. i'm not sure who liked it more- percy laughed the whole time.

heading home was slow going too. rose walked some of the way, then i swapped her into the stroller, trying to convince percy to either stay with us or help push. helping push the stroller was the best trick. she did do a few dashes back the way we had come. and then chris and sarah were waiting when we arrived. not bad timing.

i think i could do this times two gig. there's absolutely no time to stop but so long as they're both on the same sleep/ nap regime... let's not get too cocky!!

melbourne cup

2008-11-09T20:14:00.001-08:00

percy watched the melbourne cup horse race on the teev last week. she loves horsies now. she even had her own "horse" to ride... no bets made or lost.

tessa

2008-11-07T18:54:00.000-08:00

i know i am seriously stealing their thunder... but i had to say that our friends sarah and chris now have baby tessa, making rose a big sister! wowee.
tessa was born 3 and 1/2 weeks early, last nite at 7pm.
which means our mothers group is on to it's second round! three other mums are pregnant too.

we've elected to stay home instead of going on the blue mountains trip, and help out sarah and chris. we're only a few blocks from their home and their family is in new zealand. other friends- emma and david, are going to use the cottage we'd rented. better that someone gets to enjoy it than it sits empty.

new in november

2008-11-06T19:08:00.000-08:00

percy keeps growing and amazing us. her comprehension and word use is continuing to gallop along. i'm convinced she understands 90% of what we say to her. she's also able to repeat every single word she hears, whether she knows what it means or the context, or not. for instance a part of one of her books that moves the tail of an animal has been repaired so many times it's just not going to work again. i told her this morning it was 'busted-arse', it's cute to hear her babbling on her way to day care saying "bus-sed-ass" over and over. or should i be appalled? (at me.)

we've also had success with a mini 'time out' behaviour modification experiment. percy still occasionally likes to put her feet on the table at meal times. paul told her firmly at dinner a few nites ago that if she did not keep her feet down then she would be put away from the table and not be able to eat. (perhaps not much of a threat for a kid that doesn't eat much in the first place.) up go the feet again, accompanied by a sly grin. paul pulled her chair away from the table while explaining why. she yelled and cried but upon returning to the table 60 seconds later kept her feet nicely under it for the remainder of a pleasant dinner. we've yet to repeat this experiment for other undesirable behaviours, maybe it was a fluke?

i think the separation anxiety is lessening. after that one horrible week of leech clamping onto my leg at day care in the mornings percy has happily waved me away with kisses this week. sleeping has been a mixed bag. she's put herself to sleep with no action from us the last two nites, but she needed some rubbing and company previous nites. thru the nite we think she is largely waking up do to feeling cold. which is saying something for sticking with sleeping bags. whenever we go in to see her she has kicked off/ squirmed out of her blankets. hard to get out of a sleeping bag. but since we took her out of the sleeping bags she's also out grown them. buying new ones the next size up is about $70 a pop. the idea of getting her out of sleeping bags was also to help with toilet training in the future. once she transfers to a bed the plan is she'll learn to take herself to the toilet thru the nite. anyways, all the pros and cons added up mean we'll stick with blankets.

sometimes percy shares beautifully, other times the world is made entirely for her benefit thank-you-very-much-i'll-have-that-now! (rising crescendo) she will offer toys to us or other kids but not very often yet. she also doesn't get waiting for a turn on the swing. tho waiting for a turn on the slide doesn't seem to be so agitating. go figure, hey? she's possessive about balls and her bike. well, the bike is kinda special, i'd probably be possessive about it too. who am i kidding, i am possessive about my bike!
she shares her meals with us too. or psyches us. meaning she holds some food out in her hand to us and says ''mamma eat" or "pappa food", then as we reach for it or lean in to have her put it in our mouths she snatches her hand back and gobbles it up herself, with a laugh! i'm sure we shouldn't encourage this but it is hilarious.

we're off to the blue mountains tomorrow with all the other parents and toddlers from parents group for two nites. staying at a family holiday place called 'federation gardens.' every one seems very keen. i'm being a bit grouchy and just seeing the long drive, the expense and the inconvenience of being away from the ready accessibility of home. i think i'll come 'round...
let you know next week.

the case of the disappearing/ reappearing nappies

2008-10-30T18:21:00.000-07:00

some weeks ago i counted up percy's cloth nappies. we bought 20 when she was born. due to some slackness on our part one became too badly stained after sitting with unwashed poo on it for a few days, to be used again. that one got thrown out, leaving us obviously with 19. however my count revealed we only had 12. hmmmm...? where had these $20 a piece nappies disappeared to? we were also down two $35 each cloth covers.
i concluded after much deliberation that they'd vanished while at day care. which is a real connundrum as i don't want to march in there accusing them of either losing or throwing out over $200 worth of nappies. i can only think they went missing while at day care because at home and at day care are the only places we use them. if, for example, we are going to paul's parents or out for most of the day we generally use disposable nappies for the convenience. hence, unless someone pinched them off the clothes line (!) day care is the only place left.

i'm further confirmed in this opinion because yesterday in percy's bag when she came home from day care was one cloth nappy and one cover. for the past two weeks we been sending disposable nappies to day care so these two must have been there for at least this amount of time. (we've decided we can't afford to risk losing more cloth nappies- meaning the weekly shopping bill has just gone up by $22 for disposables.)
i'm very pleased to have a cover back. the $35 not withstanding it's easier to keep the system going with three or more (we were rotating 4) covers.

perhaps if i'm patient more disappeared nappies will reappear!

p.s. we've had some good nites of sleep with percy lately. we've even convinced her when she wakes at 4:45am or 5:30am or somewhere around there to go back to sleep for another hour or so. this morning paul pulled her blankets up and she went back to sleep 'til 7am! wowee!

new ball game

2008-10-27T19:43:00.000-07:00

literally. on the weekend we took percy to harry noble playground on her tricycle. she still very much likes riding and is very good about putting on her helmet. she says "helmet" repeatedly while preparing to go out and says and does "chin up" so we can buckle it on.
anyways, her little soccer ball pretty much lives in the parcel bucket on the trike; percy and her pappa discovered a new ball game...

the redeeming

2008-10-27T19:40:00.000-07:00

i'm pleased to report that percy slept very well last nite. i pulled her blanket up with a five minute "shoosh" at 12:30am and no more peeps until 5:30am. when i told her it wasn't time to get up yet. she nodded off for another 45 minutes. ah, rest...

the ugly

2008-10-26T20:57:00.000-07:00

well, yesterday i didn't have an "ugly" to go with the good and the bad. now i do.
oh dear, we'll never understand what a good nights sleep is ever again. being this tired makes me despair. why all the moaning...

percy allowed us about four hours sleep last nite.

because of the inconsiderate neighbours the nite before we thought we would go to bed nice and early and get some much needed z's. we were all tucked up by 9pm.
i first pulled her blanket up and 'shooshed' her at 11:30pm, then again at 12:30am, when she was awake again only ten minutes later i knew we were in for a bad one. we tried all the usual tricks but didn't close our eyes again until 3:45am. then little miss had the hide to wake up at 5:45am.

oh christ! breakfast at the wahltuch/ blumkaitis house this morning was not cheerful. i'm ready to resort to witch doctors to get some sleep tonite!

the bad

2008-10-26T02:14:00.000-07:00

while percy slept quite well last nite we hardly slept at all. our arsehole neighbours got married today. which was excuse enough for them to play loud music, scream and smoke cigarettes under our window until 1am last nite. despite us asking them twice to shut up and the cops asking them once, they were undeterred. i really don't give a flying f**! if they were getting married, my life and everyone elses' goes on. including for us a baby that never, ever, ever sleeps past 6am. which suits us fine if we've been asleep ourselves from around 10pm the nite before.

we've resolved we can't stand it any more. we've had a litany of neighbours from hell for five years. we need a free standing house in a quiet locale. which sad to say we don't believe exists in erskineville. or at least not in our price range. we're selling up and moving on. i'll really miss it as, despite the opinion of a great many people (including our respective parents) erskineville is not a rubbishy hole. it's really sweet and friendly. it's welcoming and different. it's convenient and contemporary. i really like that the guys in the video shop, the fruit and veg shop, the chinese take away, the pizza take away, the deli and the newsagency know our names. that the doctors and the chemist know percy so well. that everything we want in our lives is a short walk or bike ride (or if absolutely necessary a short drive) away. i like the narrow streets and the trees and the mix of houses. i particularly like the weirdos and freaks. they're our kind of weirdos and freaks. i like that adam spencer rode past us on his bicycle when percy was just a few weeks old and congratulated us. i like all the cafe people being so friendly and chatty. i like the well mannered dogs that percy loves to pat (and the well mannered owners who clean up after their dogs.) i like the little pocket parks and the expanses of sydney park.

oh well..... (sigh)

who's to say we won't find these things elsewhere? or something even better? at present- me!

the good

2008-10-26T01:50:00.000-07:00

percy slept well last nite. she needed a little shush at 10pm and then her blankets pulled back up with an even littler shush at 3:30am, then she woke at 5:45am for a cuddle in our bed for half an hour.

we had planned to meet some friends this morning at tamarama to enjoy 'scuplture by the sea' together. unfortunately poor baby rose was very ill. so she wasn't up to it plus her parents needed to stay home and catch up on sleep. and paul's cousins simply could not get a parking spot. they drove around for half an hour looking unsuccessfully. i think the only reason we got a spot is because we have a small hatch back car and are used to "kirribilli parking." we call it kirribilli parking because this is the first place that we lived together where parking is extremely rare and tight. if you can park in kirribilli- with 48 tiny reverses and pulling forward to get into a spot; we say you can park anywhere!

so we walked around the headland just the three of us. percy was very well behaved and interested in a number of the sculptures. she particularly liked a wire 'igloo' type installation that she crawled inside of. however once inside she decided it was poo time. not really a big deal, except that i've noticed percy kinda stalls after a poo until her nappy is changed. meaning i had to crawl in after her and carry her out ape/commando style. it was fun actually- and i wasn't the only grown-up to be crawling thru!

we had a little swim at tamarama after too. percy's only been in pools or little wave seas (black sea and wakiki) so far in her life. she wasn't too sure about the slightly bigger waves at tamarama. it was pretty cold too; i didn't push the issue of staying in! she loved covering me in sand once back on our towel anyways.

piccies...

separation anxiety

2008-10-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

poor monkey seems to be going thru an age-appropriate developmental thingo at present. all three days this week when i have dropped her at day care she has cried and wailed not to be left without me. she hasn't done this in months and months. it's really awful.

we arrive happily enough; go thru the ritual of putting the stroller away, putting raffles on her bed, putting her bag in her locker and then sitting down for some second breakfast.
on monday as i was walking out the door after saying good bye and getting kisses from her, she started to cry. the staff stepped in and comforted her quickly. when i rang a half hour later they said she had calmed down quickly and eaten her breakfast.
yesterday was the same except the tears started as i was saying goodbye next to her little chair at the breakfast table.
today she didn't even sit long enough to get any food in front of her. as soon as she sat down she slid off and wrapped herself around my legs, crying plaintively.
of course when i insist on leaving the crying becomes screaming and twisting her body about to be let down so she can chase after me. luckily her teachers are adept at helping her cope at these times and distract her with stories or activities with the other children.

still i feel awful. i want to insist to paul that one of us doesn't work at least every one of the week days so that she can stay with us. that's a pipe dream...

separation anxiety, i have read, often kicks in around this age because toddlers are getting more capable of exploring their world on their own, braver and bigger, but still require a secure base they can come back to, and lots of reassurance that it's all okay.
this could also explain why this week and a little last week, while her bedtime routine is the same and she happily goes to bed, as soon as we get up and walk out the door she starts to cry for us. some nights she'll drop off to sleep on her own anyways, other nites, like last nite, i rubbed her back and "shooshed" her for about ten minutes.

i feel so sorry for her that she doesn't feel brave and strong all the time. it's overwhelming to be little and not in control. poor chooken, as i've started calling her.

p.s

2008-10-20T19:04:00.001-07:00

percy slept thru last nite (moday 20 oct)! she took a little while to go to sleep initially- paul and i took turns rubbing her back and 'shooshing' 'til she fell asleep (about 40 minutes in total- but that included turning all the lights on and chasing out a big blow fly that was just irritating the shit out of all of us.)
she woke up and came into our bed for a 1/2 hour cuddle at 6am.
keep up the good effort bubby!

horsies!

2008-10-20T18:53:00.000-07:00

as part of the on-going 'art and about' horse thingo (you might recall we had a lump of clay to fashion into a small horse some weeks ago) there was a procession of horses thru the streets of erskineville on saturday afternoon. rose and her daddy chris came over to watch them go past our front door with us. the girls both seemed to enjoy the novel afternoon with much pointing, hair pulling (poor chris) and squeals.

cold toes

2008-10-20T18:48:00.001-07:00

percy insists on taking off her shoes and socks regularly. she sometimes then also insists that we do too. when i complained to her the other day of having cold toes; this was her solution...

i'm not convinced of the efficiency.

previously she has insisted on us taking our clothes off too (i think her pappa put her up to it- to get me naked!)

music class resumed

2008-10-16T16:38:00.000-07:00

after a two week school holiday break, music classes resumed on wednesday. percy is now in an older age group- 18 months to 3 years. part of our take home materials inlcuded two harmonicas. which she just found enthralling. we went up king street in the afternoon, percy on her trike, puffing thru the harmonica the whole way! because she was holding on to the handle bars with her hands and the harmonica with her mouth she could only make the one same note, over and over. oh well, she loved it.

sydney children's festival

2008-10-16T14:46:00.000-07:00

on the 8th of oct for our usual wednesday parents group get together we went to carriageworks in eveleigh where some of the children's festival was being held. i forgot to charge the camera batteries so didn't get that many pictures but some...

there was lots of great things to do- climbing, drawing, a swamp forest to explore, bottles filled with coloured water to tap out tunes on, shadows to make and what seemed to be percy's favourite- cards! she may have been making up the rules to hold-'em poker tho, i'm not sure.

nice to nazgool in point 9 of a second

2008-10-14T18:45:00.000-07:00

for those that need a little reminder prompt the nazgool are the nine undead kings enslaved by sauron in the lord of the rings trilogy. (i spelt it phonetically, don't know if it is correct.)

we think this is an apt description of percy on monday nite. she wailed and screamed from 1:30am just like the nazgool are depicted as doing in the LOTR movies. for a bloody hour and a half!! how can a kid sustain that sort of energy and focus?!
she is very wilful (see her gene pool for reasons why!) and had in her head that she would sleep in the big bed with mamma and pappa monday nite. she had been sleeping with us, or at least me as paul again decamped to the lounge, during her stomach bug illness and again when her fever was running its course. she obviously got a taste for it.
by 3am both paul and i were sitting on her bedroom floor, shaking our heads and despairing of ever sleeping again, while little miss, most tragically, clutching her teddy bear in one hand, head down, crawled slowly down the corridor towards our bedroom. if it hadn't been so frustrating and enraging it would have been sad.

what happened in the end? we gave up and gave in.

yesterday we were determined to get back on routine. we thought we'd have more success because her and i would be home together. it's working a bit. she had her nap in her cot with less than ten minutes of protesting. went to sleep in her cot last nite with no protest, put herself back to sleep without intervention from us when she woke mid nite. at 4:30am she woke and came into our bed. oh well, better than 10:30pm
she started her nap today in her cot without a bother. so progress in the right direction...

it's lucky she's so adorably adorable the rest of the time! because when nice little bubba goes nazgool on us it's really hard.

yet again

2008-10-12T02:52:00.000-07:00

percy cam home early from day care on friday as she had a high temperature. needless to say we've had a pretty rotten weekend. tho she seems quite good this evening. hopefully she'll sleep well tonite and we can get back to normal tomorrow.

tricycle!

2008-10-07T02:49:00.001-07:00

on monday afternoon we bought percy a tricycle! she seems to love it already.
piccies of assembly, riding about yesterday and then today when she fell asleep at the wheel! (handlebars.)

words, words, words

2008-10-07T01:54:00.000-07:00

people tell me that percy has advanced language skills for her age. without having a head too big to fit thru average door-ways, i'm somewhat inclined to agree.

she repeats everything we say immediately. she only has to hear it once to recognisably repeat it. not just paul and i recognising it either, other people too. (this was manifestly brought home to us this morning when i said "fuck" at pi our cat and she promptly repeated "pi fuck, pi fuck". oh dear.)

she knows the meanings of most of what she says too. (thankfully not the word in the previous brackets.) good ones this week are "come", while holding out her hand to led you somewhere, "hot" when she sees steam, "milk" and "bottle", "open" and "close", "empty" and "more" what paul swears was "pretty mamma" this afternoon, and potentially the ability to count!? surely not. this is what makes us think this... percy asked for a water bottle "lid" that was on the draining board, paul handed it to her, she then asked for another one, once she had both in her hands she clearly said "two lids", i kid you not! yes, yes, we'll be signing her up for mensa soon.

the other upside of this language explosion (aside from feeling like we spawned a genius) is that we are all able to communicate with each other far better than previously. unless of course she's latched onto a word that is right for her but makes no sense to us- then she gets really frustrated at how thick her parents are.

her favourite song at present is baa baa black sheep. this is as much as she can sing...
"baa baa back sheep
....
yes sir, yes sir
.... full
one ....
and one ....
and one for the ...."

at the end we substitute "...for the little girl who lives on smiths lane" she claps enthusiastically for more.

October 2008

2008-10-07T01:22:00.000-07:00

what a big month it has been already, and it's not yet a full seven days old.
percy has recovered from her stomach bug. seemingly quite quickly as on saturday at our parents get together tara told me that joe was vomiting for eight days when he had a run-in with a stomach bug a while ago. poor little fellow! he also lost a kilo in weight over the time it took him to beat it.
she was still under the weather and quick to tire on saturday. she had two naps instead of her usual one.

on sunday we all drove to paul's parents in wollongong in the morning but only two of us drove home an hour or so later. drum roll.... after carrying in all the necessary paraphenalia to keep a toddler healthy and happy for a day and night, staying to play for a short while and be sure she was comfortable with where she was, paul and i left percy with her grandparents for the night! was it harder for her or me? me, i think.
percy had a parting sook and cry but was happy reading a book five minutes later. she also had her great aunt thelma and great uncle steve to entertain her. they are back from their months and months explore of australia in skippy the campervan. (if anyone is wanting to buy a campervan they've got a good one to off load.) we have been advised to go easy on the "great" label but it's such fun to tease!

so, paul and i came home by ourselves. i think i did remarkably well for my first over night separation from my baby. no tears, no wailing, no wringing of the hands, no waking up in cold sweats! i understand percy did equally well. she loves her grandparents dogs so was well distracted and entertained by them. particularly when she woke at 3am and needed some help going back to sleep. apparently one jumped up on the bed she was sharing with her gran and laid his head over her legs- how sweet!
when we returned on monday morning to collect her she was happily, and very concentratingly (word?) mixing up some pancakes in the kitchen. we were in the door and watching her for five minutes or more before she noticed us.

what does one do on a baby free afternoon and night? well, first you take a nap.

huh? what? there's something after that? oh yeah, right... what next...

second, you see a movie without worrying about turning the volume down because you're in a cinema and the baby ain't going to get woken up. third, you come home and doll up for a night out with your perfect husband. fourth, you have a great cocktail called a bonsai kitten at madam fling flongs. (you could have more but one was enough to make me stagger so that'll do.) fifth, you sample as much of the tapas at madam ff's that you can stuff in. sixth, you walk home holding hands under a starry sky (disregard the fact that it was cloudy and the city lights pretty much drown out the stars.) seventh, your devoted husband gives you the best body massage you've ever had. eigth, you... that'll do! this is a blog about percy afterall. she's well under-age!

that's the biggest news. we not only survived but enjoyed a night apart from each other.

absolutely awful

2008-10-02T22:51:00.000-07:00

percy is still awfully sick. i had a dose last nite too. thankfully i've mostly thrown it off today, feeling low but not outright miserable like she is. the whole family has stayed home to look after each other and be quiet together.
no vomiting from percy for more than 24 hours now so perhaps she's on the mend in that regard. she has eaten tiny amounts and drunk a reasonable amount of water. just hanging in there now...

bike helmet

2008-10-02T00:04:00.000-07:00

oh oh oh!! gotta tell you this before i forget! on tuesday, when percy was still feeling well we had a super day. i rode us down to have lunch with pappa, on the push bike. percy of course had to wear her bike helmet. after her nap i needed to go up king street for a few things. percy went in her stroller- wearing her bike helmet the whole time!! she demanded to put it on and wouldn't take it off! can't get her to wear a hat for longer than 5 minutes but a bike helmet for over an hour- go figure.
needless to say we got a few weird looks from passers-by, particularly other parents or parents-to-be. i could just see in their heads "gee, do we need to get a helmet for the baby?" or "she's an over-protective mum!" it was very funny, i think i giggled quietly the whole trip.
she even refused to take it off at home. preparing dinner- sitting on the bench eating some cheese.

general update

2008-10-01T23:01:00.000-07:00

prioir to being laid low with gastroenteritis percy has made some changes on the developmental milestone chart. or she's just growing up and we're responding to that...

1. she now brushes her teeth standing at the sink on a little step, previously she did it in the bath tub. (of course "brushes" is a bit of a generous description- she sucks the toothpaste off the brush, luckily it's a no-flouride hippy organic paste, and chucks a hissy fit if we try to "assist")
2. she dropped using a sleeping bag at night some weeks ago. can't remember when now. which is good because it's too hot for them now anyways.
3. is expanding her vocabulary and understanding- and making us understand her! she sometimes uses three word sentences tho mostly it's one word and signs.
4. is sleeping much better. when she's not sick of course. so we've had about a total of 4 weeks in the past 18 months of sleeping thru the nite without either of us making any visits to her bedroom or cot-side. hopefully as she gets healthier the good sleeping will become the norm!
5. is quite affectionate, asking for cuddles a lot. yippeee! i love this part.
(6. ain't eating much; even when well. oh well, persist, persist, persist. bllrrghhhh.)
7. back to the good stuff... she can climb lots of the equipment at day care and playgrounds. both her fine and gross motor skills seem to be pretty good.

anyways, while she's on her third nap of the day i ought to do some useful things too. nearly all the four sets of sheets she spewed all over are washed and put away again... nearly done.

stomach bug

2008-10-01T22:48:00.000-07:00

percy's caught some nasty gastro bug at present. on tuesday nite after vomiting 4 times between 10pm and midnite we called our gp's after hours emergency service number. we've not used this before so didn't know what to expect. paul spoke to an 'operator', describing our situation and they advised that a doctor would be with us in about an hour, hour and a half. sure enough a doctor was at our front door at 1:30am. unfortunately but good, if you follow my meaning, percy had dozed off in the mean time. when the doctor entered the room she woke up, looked straight at him and said "hello." what a good little hostess!
the doctor pronounced that she does have a stomach bug but no temperature and nothing else wrong. there is no medication safe for a child under 12 years for vomiting and the like- you've just got to tough it out. lots of fluids. he advised if she's still sick in the morning to take her to our usual gp. this was the case. she was ok in the morning but after waking up from a sleep at 1pm she threw up the little she'd eaten in the morning.
thankfully no more vomiting for the remainder of the day and last nite. only once so far today. she managed to eat a little, tiny bowl of mash potatoe and half a slice of vegemite bread this afternoon. being all she has eaten in nearly three days. i've been coaxing water into her as much as possible.

she's listless, grumpy, doesn't want to be touched but does want cuddles and to be carried around (can't win) will read her books a fair bit but generally wants to do things for herself- which she can't at present. poor thing.

home from day care today with me, tomorrow it will be paul's turn.

her first nap of the day on mamma and pappa's bed. the t-shirt says "i'm definately up to something," quite funny but not the case today.

last needle

2008-09-24T21:13:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-21T16:11:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-18T21:12:00.000-07:00

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!?"

2008-09-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

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?

2008-09-14T18:02:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-11T19:33:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-10T00:38:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-08T03:20:00.000-07:00

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...

2008-09-04T02:55:00.000-07:00

...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!

2008-09-03T23:18:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-02T21:13:00.000-07:00

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!

change, change, change

2008-08-31T21:22:00.000-07:00

the day changes, the month changes, the season changes...
my job changes, my habits change too (hopefully!)

just a quick note more relevant to me than percy. started my new job at housing nsw today. instead of catching the train from erko to the city, i walked up to macdonaldtown and caught a train to ashfield. it's something of a luxury to travel against the main flow of commuter traffic- i not only got a seat, i got a row of three to myself with only about 20 people in the whole carriage. the trip from the child care centre to the office takes approximately 1/2 an hour- same as going to the city.
i'm also determined to get back to the yoga and pilates classes that stopped during the months percy and i were so sick. touch wood- percy is pretty snotty at the moment, hopefully this doesn't lead to another cold.

as the world turns north again the plan is for my satisfaction, happiness and life in general to look up too...

arrogance and aspiration

2008-08-28T00:54:00.000-07:00

got to tell you this as it is hilarious! it goes straight to the heart of the arrogance and/ or the aspirations of parents.
anyways...
i was eating breakfast this morning with percy, reading a cycling magazine. i know i shouldn't be reading but i can't help myself. percy was sitting on my lap as she sometimes does. she leaned over the magazine, distinctly pointed to a big number "2" on the page and equally distinctly said "two".

did i laugh?!! of course percy can't read or recognise numerals. or can she......? cue twilight zone music....

P is for...

2008-08-25T19:48:00.000-07:00

during our long weekend trip to the blue mountains, we stopped for lunch with our lovely friends amanda and tim. amanda presented percy with a great present that i have finally found a nice frame for and hung on the wall. it is in good company with her birth certificate and pictures that are extracted from 'the wind in the willows' and 'arabian nights'

thank you so much amanda. and sorry it has taken me so long to get it up.