Cool things about 21-month-olds

- They understand much of what you say to them, can say "please"

- will help out around the house willingly if you ask (and sometimes just to copy what you are doing).

- can communicate their basic needs

- hilarious misunderstandings as you try to understand what they are saying - at times these are long babble sentences said with inflections, accompanied by a furrowed brow, pointing and a question mark at the end of it, to which you can only answer "uh huh?"

- big koala round-the-neck snuggles

- stumbly but enthusiastic running in the park

- the challenge of working out their logic

- love being chased around and giggles maniacally

- have a favourite bed time song (currently Morningtown Ride) and yawn and rub their eyes as you get part way through

- obsessions with planes, trains, cars and buses

- they start to make friends, and mention them at home when they see something that reminds them

- loves cheesy classics such as: La Cucaracha, Popcorn, the Chipmunks, Baby Elephant Walk, and Puff the Magic Dragon, and dances like a lunatic!!

- they call out "Mama!" when you've been in the other room for a while, when they're ready to get up in the morning, or sometimes when they're just happy!

A week in the life...

Last Wednesday
Had meeting with boss & was told my position would be full time once my contract ends. It isn't working for her part time. Was told I was welcome to apply. Told her I wasn't interested in working more time per week than currently. Fine, she didn't either when she had young kids. No - job sharing was too confusing for her, and she'd really prefer one dedicated person full time. Fair enough, and damn. Was asked to organise the recruitment of my replacement to start at the end of my contract in May.


Thursday
Found out I was in the top 3 for a job I interviewed for (you may remember my shit week from January - this was the result of that. Thanks for your advice Betty Sue - I never thanked you at the time). The recruitment person told me "up straight" what my strengths and weaknesses were, and that they were seeking references. This job probably would go to someone else, I felt. Oh well, must keep looking, I suppose...

Went trainspotting with E-chan at Erskineville bridge. "More choo chooo?" he asked after each train had gone by, as if I could press "play" again and make one appear! Bless him!

Friday
Nothing notable. Put on my professional & smiley face and got through it like most other work days.


Saturday
Happy Women's day!! I seem to remember being in exactly the same boat (job-wise) this time last year. My rational self-confidence eluded me for a bit as I complained on the crap range of part-time jobs around but did absolutely nothing about it. Then my Mother-in-law came to stay and we were all distracted.

Sunday
Cut my fingernail with a knife while making lunch! Dang! Didn't draw blood, but it must have scared me because I went into slight shock. How bizarre.

New neighbours over the corridor actually seem to have manners and introduced themselves by first name, yet don't seem afraid that we will throw ourselves at them as a result of their friendliness! That's a first for us in Sydney.

We drop E-chan's Nanna off at airport and he bursts into tears when he realises she is going. He loves his Nanna! He's beginning to realise who loves him how that is special. Poor lil' thing!

Monday

Some shopping to do. Overhear the following at the checkout (Mother to her two sons): "Now you've done it! Now you've upset Nanna!!". Nanna expresses regret at having come along shopping today, given their fighting. The two mulleted boys appear to be a mixture of sullen, bored, and angry at each other, they open their mouths to start complaining a few times but realise there is no point in arguing with Mum or Nanna, and follow reluctantly.

Tuesday
Assume as I haven't heard about job that it is being offered to someone else. But of course, my phone runs out of charge unexpectedly, today of all days, and I can't check messages until I get home. A quick scan of job vacancies at lunch time shows heartening supply of good quality part time jobs I could apply for, and I resolve to get cracking on some job applications tonight...


Wednesday
My phone messages, which I checked the night before, included job offer! Phew! Hello 3-day-a-week position with flexible "as long as I get the work done" attitude, more autonomy and more interesting challenges to sink my teeth into! Maybe I'm being a bit too optimistic, but plenty of time to complain later. Quietly put aside my jobs to apply for pile and ring to thank my referees...

off target t-shirt presents from parents

I hope you won't think me ungrateful and mean-spirited for writing this post - my parents-in-law and my own parents are dear things, but the generational gap sometimes gives rise to some amusing misses with presents:

1) after coming back from Japan a year or two ago, they found me some groovy tops - my surprise was great - they fitted and they were wearable in public! They then turned to C-chan "and for YOU!...":
- a very large white t-shirt that said "the last supper" and had a picture of all the sesame street characters sitting around a table with a big roasted bird on a plate, with big-bird's legs...
- some groovy looking cartoon printed y-fronts. "but we got the largest size we could...I hope they're big enough" they said. On closer inspection, the label said "Hip-star girls under wear". Lucky me!

2) another gem from my folks - an over-sized black t-shirt, saying "CountDown" in the style of the old tv show logo. Our eyebrows raised up when they said "we almost got you a Led Zeppelin t-shirt then decided to get this one...." What a shame, C-chan is actually a LZ fan and probably could have worn that t-shirt in public...

3) and from my in laws, the first of what I hope won't be many... t-shirt sets. A litte white t-shirt for E-chan saying "like father" and another over-sized white t-shirt for C-chan saying "like son". Haw haw! My M-I-L apologised that there were no such sets for mothers and sons. I assured her it was fine.

We have no idea how C-chan is ever going to wear out these three oversized t-shirts as pyjamas, but are trying. But sadly, these t-shirts stay in our drawers in almost pristine condition, and all his favourite t-shirts keep getting holes, stains, and warping out of shape....

Whatever happened to the Coorong?

For those of you with East-coast-centric school geography behind them, the Coorong is the massive lagoon at the end of the Murray River, just south of the where the river exits the sea, and the setting of "Storm Boy" - the novel and film written by Colin Thiele in the 70's.

But I digress. The Coorong is a national park, and is rich with bird and aquatic life. You know, an important breeding ground for birds and all that. I've been there several times, once on a Summer Holiday bird survey trip, and some other times for short camping trips.

Sure it has always dried up from time to time in summer, but it's been dry for quite a while. The picture above is the Coorong taken two weeks ago. The recent flooding and rains in the Darling/Murray River catchments has all flown into relatively empty dams (ie some of Adelaide's drinking water is sourced from a large dam downstream) and has been taken up by irrigation allocations that Qld, NSW and Victoria aren't really reducing as much as they should.

In fact, the river has stopped flowing for a while now (again, drought plus irrigation overuse), which has lead to sand banking up at the Murray mouth, and Lake Alexandrina (below left, with dust storm), a deeper lake to the North of The Coorong, is drier than anyone remembers.

Someone I know is doing sampling and surveying down this way and has made many trips to the region recently. On one trip, there were lots of dead, stinky fish lying on the dried up ground.

Very depressing, and I'm hoping that our climate change and water Minister - who is South Australian - will do the right thing by our poor, backward-flowing river system. Let's wait and see, shall we?

Update from the ranch...

It seems we are not to have the quiet life anymore.

We've just emerged from a few weeks of lurgy-ville - a cough that E-chan had that got progressively worse, until I got food poisoning (and E-chan did a bit but not as badly as he only had a few bites of my lunch that day), and wham bam! all 3 of us came down with the full blown cough-and-phlegm fest all at once. [Haven't I written this 3 or 4 times before!?]. As usual when you're a bit down, you worry about everything - job, rental and housing prices, the way the world is going.

Thankfully, after a week or two of what felt like swimming in mud, things are more or less normal. Still need more sleep, but even work seems tolerable. Am ready to get back into the pool for laps tomorrow!

E-chan is going great guns after a few weeks of adjusting to going back to child-care (whilst having above cold). One thing I didn't realise is that carer:child ratios are really small at the start of the year - the 2-2.5 year olds go off to pre-school (more like kindy) from January each year, and those who have birthdays later in the year get to enjoy one carer to 2 children instead of 3-4. After a few weeks of wondering where some of his little classmates have gone, then watching them through the fence in the bigger kid's playground, E-chan seems to have decided he likes going to care again. He's made friends with a little girl called Ruby, and they read books together and shared teddies. He's enjoying being more mobile and articulate than some of the newer, younger babies.

His vocabulary is ever expanding, and sometimes we can have little conversations that, while a tad one-sided, I feel he understands. He's sleeping really well too. We now read to him a bit (after putting on PJ's and brushing teeth - or is that chewing toothbrush and sucking off paste?), then cuddles and into bed with a night night. He complains for a few minutes, but goes off to sleep and we rarely hear from him again until morning.

We get lovely frontal koala hugs - legs clining around our middle, arms curled around our neck, and he even says "please" when prompted. Must keep up the manners training - who knows? one day it might even come unprompted. When we can we try to have dinner as a family at around 6pm - he loves it when I serve up his food in front of him at the table then serve the same for myself. Has resulted in him eating steamed green vegetables where before he wouldn't touch them, probably because he sees us eat them.

Ciao and hope you are all well, and sorry for the "update" style post. Will try to write something more interesting when I think of it...

Detachment

Does anyone else from time to time find themselves in their regular social settings - work, hobbies, mothers groups, whatever, and feel a bit detatched from it all? I'm not talking about when I'm with good, old friends. Just those further out on your inner circle.

Every now and again, I find myself thinking "what am I doing here with these people?". Thinking: it's time I got out and tried making friends elsewhere, because I've known these people superficially for a couple of years now, and we're not getting any closer as friends.

Anyhow, that's happening to me a bit lately. I'm not saying I'm about to chop a whole lot of superficial friends and associates out of my life, just because we're not best buds. But I am feeling a bit detatched from it all. I think it's something to do with thinking (just inklings really) about changing jobs, house, size of family, things like that. All these things at once, nothing fixed, but lots of permutations and combinations to think through, and not everyone can fit through with you to the next stage of your life. But I've found at times that you end up staying friends with the people you least expect...

-----------

By the way, got a job application in on Tues. Not sure I'd take it if I got it, but anyway...

Vacuous activities...

A bit of my time lately has been spent admiring amazonian tennis players slog it out at the Australian open, wondering why nikee gave Venus a short suit that she constantly had to de-wedgify from her muscular buttocks (I mean if you're going to sponsor an athlete, shouldn't you at least ensure you have an outfit that covers her 6ft warrior-woman frame properly?), and new-ish Serbian players who nearly beat Roger Federer wearing funky horn-rimmed wrap around glasses! That sporty-librarian look is a killer!!

On top of that we've had ever expanding vocabularies, cheekiness and bossiness from E-chan, and week-long visits from grandparents who have simultaneously been welcome and making our house seem a bit too full. And we've had to restrain them from going in to give E-chan cuddles when he calls out repeatedly at bed-time, which is instinctively what you want to do but counterproductive to establishing long-term routines. But who can really complain when they help with the washing up, book reading, shopping and cooking?

But we are looking forward to getting back into our own routine. In case you haven't picked this up, parenting has quite a bit to do with routines. Which is fine so long as you know which routines you can break and how frequently to break them without creating different expectations.

Gah!

Might go read my book, and keep and eye on the tennis!

Karma?

Some days are just shitty I think because the universe, after a bit of gentle nudging that you have ignored, decides it’s high time that you are propelled in a new direction. Lots of minor things happen, until finally the last straw shocks you into action kind of like one of those heart starty (defribulation sp?) machines.

Last week I had:
- Boss leaving someone else’s resume for a position startlingly similar to mine on her desk right next to where she knew I would deposit her mail (turns out she is looking for someone to job share with me, but she never told me about that, so I assumed the worst).
- shitty boss emails that made me feel an inch high, making me rather unprofessionally burst into tears in front of the only other person cohabiting my office that day, (who happens to be a retired septuagenarian)
- locked toilet cubicle doors that have opened themselves on me mid-stream!!!
- my premenstrual-ness abruptly conclude with menstrual-ness which I was only partially prepared for due to shorter than usual cycles and recently bad documentation of when it should be due (but really - I should be better at this by now!!)
- Son almost ignoring me in favour of visiting doting grandparents!!
- Son potentially developing yet another allergy if his development of a rash after eating fish is anything to go by (damn!).
- Stinky hot humid nights

What’s been brought into sharp focus is fact that I don’t love my job nor the topic of research that is going on around me. Boss is picky about relatively small things and you get told off (as if you are in school) for every little thing that might go wrong - usually by email - no matter how much you couldn’t know because you don’t habitually mind-read. And of course nothing is ever her fault, and I've been dreading opening my emails each day for quite a while.

Perhaps it’s best that I make a graceful exit from what was rather openly a stop-gap job that I took because I needed to? And perhaps soon before my self esteem gets ground down too much from being told off for my mistakenly not having mind-read properly or crossed my t’s with a nearly 85 degree angle rather than a 90 degree angle.

So the other night, I got fed up, and looked for vacant positions, and found one I could apply for that is exactly 3 days a week. Was worried for a while about moving on after such a short time, but then shitty thing # 2 above happened and I thought "screw that!". Am attempting to focus energy on positive smooth job transition vibes.

Year of the Rat

Happy New Year! What an eventful few weeks it has been?!

Firstly came our trip to Grandparentville – aka Adelaide – I called it Grandparentville because that is where all of E-chan’s grandparents live, not because it’s full of old people… This was rather hectic and not at all relaxing (as traveling with an 18 month old often can be), but fun. It was great to have some family support nearby, to meet the younger of my 2 nephews for the first time, to watch E-chan, Tomo-chan and Yu-chan running around together trying to escape from the house and steal each other’s toys. Also, E-chan was spoilt by not only xmas presents but also attention! There was never a moment when someone wasn’t willing to play with him, carry him or sit him on their knee for a story. We also managed to catch up with a few – but not all – of our friends in Adelaide.

Perhaps not surprisingly, E-chan has developed quite strong separation anxiety upon return home. The first few days, he constantly recited “where Nanna/papa/doggy?” and also “Mummy there!”, “Daddy there!” as if to reassure himself that we were still there despite being wrenched away from his loving grandparents. Sleep issues (ie screaming when we leave the room) resurfaced for a bit and we had to do what we could to reassure him that we’ll always be here for him. C-chan was back at work this week, I’m back next week, and a succession of grandparent visits (although welcome) over the coming month makes us think his anxiety won’t ease quickly.
E-chan developed rapidly when we were away, and now regularly puts together two or three words and his vocabulary is now heading up the exponential curve. He now runs much of the time, as if he can’t get places quickly enough.

We had in part a rather civilized (eccentric?) new year this year, reading James Joyce (or the first few pages of Finnegan’s wake anyway) around the table, after one of our guests announced one of her goals for the year was to read Ulysses this year. A new years eve book club - who would have thunk it?!

Since C-chan went back to work on Wednesday, I’ve been ringing my neighbourhood mum friends to find things to do with our littleys, as they are all around 18-19 months and needing to be kept entertained and excercised, and the weather is hot and humid. This has resulted in many trips to the park and the pool, a visit to an indoor padded 3-D mazey playland, and to Balmoral beach.

Holy Jumping Jehosephat Batman!

Last night we had a 1am unsettled period that unfortunately included screaming from our nearly 19-month old (see post to follow in the next day or two). This was potentially caused by a visit from a cricket. We’d watched a bit of Pan’s Labyrinth (which involves a cricket), then strangely we heard a loud chirp around bed time – it must have been just outside our open window. Then it poured with rain for a bit, and it must have decided to come inside (damn Sydney and it’s lack of flyscreens!). At 1am, when I got up to E-chan, I heard a rather loud chirp coming from our kitchen. Poor Little E-chan’s arms tightened around my neck in fear. We turned on the light and sure enough, there was a massive (7cm long) cricket on out kitchen ceiling.

As C-chan reminded me as he went about resettling E-chan, I did a science degree, so why on earth was I afraid of the thing? (this of course was just to cover up his own fear!) I managed to muster the thing down the wall and into the paper recycling bag we have slung over the door handle using a cunning switch of different household lights. I didn’t want any of the following to happen: a) insecticide use (how can we be sure E-chan wouldn’t absorb the chemicals?); b) to have a faster than lightening large insect flitting around our lounge room causing a flap as our difficult-to-settle son was nearly asleep in the next room; c) to have a squashed cricket on our wall; d) to have to touch the damn thing as it was making my half-asleep hair stand on end.

In then end it seemed to settle in our recycling bag, and was carried out this morning we assume, as we haven’t seen it since. Such a cowardly and anticlimactic end to my story - lacking in bravery or even university-educated rationality. But at 2am this giant bug was frightening, I assure you!!

In a week wherethere is lots of exciting things happening, including:
- labor kicked liberal's butt after having had its butt kicked equally hard last election
- lots of female polititians in high profile places as ministers and deputy leaders (isn't that nice?)
- climate change finally being on the agenda
- the newly turfed out liberal party bickering and sniping at whose fault it was that they lost the election and letting all that repressed anger that they couldn't direct at John Howard (even his father in law accused him of being an egomaniac!)
Not to mention all the things that are going on overseas that don't rate much in our newspapers...

In these interesting times, aren't you just pleased that news items like this make the papers? Stop press! Everyone - the ABC NEWSREADER HAD A COUGH!! I was actually watching the news at the time. She had to stop to cough a few times, and her voice actually sounded wobbly, like she was trying really hard not to cough. Then we switched to ABC news Melbourne for 10 minutes or so. Then back again after a cough lolly and glass of water. Big Whoop.

Hey Fairfax! I've got some news items that might be of interest:
Boy riding in shopping trolley this morning declares "I have an itchy bum!" really loudly!*
or
Professor in tanty throwing shock!

Anyone else got any newsworthy stories, given the new standard set by the SMH above?

*not my son...

The big swim

A month or two back a few friends and I decided to do an oceanswim – partly as a challenge that we all agreed to and were therefore more likely to follow through on, partly as a “let’s pick somewhere nice to go for a swim” thing. None of us are competitive, it’s just swimming up and down a pool gets a bit boring but we’re also a bit chicken about swimming far in the ocean unless it’s well manned by lifesavers – so an organized event like an ocean swim is pretty much the only way to go (if you don’t live near the beach), and it raises money for the local SLSC at the same time.

So we picked the Coogee Wedding Cake island challenge. The swim was either 2.4km or 1km – the latter is too short, so I settled on the 2.4 km swim and proceeded to not think about it too much so I wouldn’t woos* out.

So Sunday morning rolls around…
- By 8:30am: 2 friends have pulled out (one sick but still offering to drive me there and mind my bag, the other opting for the 1km option). That just left me doing the swim.
- By 10am: I lost my goggles when I got dumped by a wave whilst warming up. This was a bad omen, but my friend had a spare old pair she offered to lend me.

So there I was, “warming up” in the rather cold November Tasman Sea, thinking, “I’m not sure this feels right”…. A mostly pool swimmer, I’d forgotten how hard it was to swim in the swell in unheated water!! I had a headache (not sure if it was due to not having coffee that morning for the first time in a while, or if I was coming down with something…), I was unusually thirsty, I had no friend to hold my hand, and the island I had to swim around looked a long way out…

At the last minute I met someone through my friend, and we walked up to the start line together and made “just having met” chit chat, which helped ease the butterflies quite a bit. Then suddenly my cohort of similarly aged swimmers (some very buff and brown and fit looking) was up at the start line, ready to have blanks fired out of a gun by a newly-in-government Peter Garrett, to make us run like startled sheep to the water!!

Off we went! The start is a flurry of kicking feet, waves, trying to find a patch of ocean on your own to swim in, and trying to catch sight of the buoys ahead of you whilst getting into a swimming rhythm in a body of water that won’t be still. After about 400m I felt settled down a bit, and started to enjoy it. The course is basically out to sea, around and island and back again, and I got to the island ok. The water was cool, but the sun was nice and warm on my back. Then the sea got a bit rough, and I actually felt a bit sea sick. Tried to ignore it – what else could I do but swim back?

By the return journey, the field had thinned quite a bit, so you didn’t have to worry about other swimmers so much. But each time you looked up to see where the next buoy was, you were taunted by a far off vision of the Coogee foreshore – was I really that far out? I kept trying to repress the sea sick feeling, tried to ignore the fact that I’d stopped having fun and wanted to just float for a bit, and kept going. Finally, I reached the last buoy, and suddenly, the bottom of the ocean was only a few feel below, the water was warm, and the waves - with a bit of careful timing – carried you into shore (despite my tiredness, I managed to not get dumped). I made it out of the water, made an effort to run like my co-swimmers (although I really couldn’t be arsed), and stumbled through the finish line, which quite strangely had the words “START” above it.

I felt a bit ill and cold for an hour or so after, and was mindful of the memory of my brother going in a Triathlon as a kid and vomiting afterwards from the effort of it. But after I’d sat in a hot car on the ride home, then eaten a bowl of stodgey vege risotto I’d made the day before, I felt much better. Then I had a bath, relaxed for a bit, and it sank in that I’d actually completed something quite hard, and had kept going despite wanting to stop.

I think I’d like to do more ocean swims, but maybe ones with better courses – triangular swims in bays or swims around headlands don’t feel so bad. With the Coogee swim, you round the island to head home and think “my god! I’ve got another KILOMETRE to go!” Which is quite hard psychologically when you are starting to get a bit tired at the same time!

* is that how you spell it?

armed robbery, 3 way car crashes and lacerations to the left hand

It's been dramatic around here lately...

E-chan and I were coming home at around 5:15 on Wednesday, and found the staff of the nearby chemist hanging around outside their shop with a few other people. On closer inspection, one of the pharmacists had her hand covering her mouth. On closer inspection, she was gasping and going into shock. The other pharmacist was walking back from down the street, with an angry expression, as if she'd just come back from an unsuccessful chase. Concerned shop owners came in to comfort them, others were ringing the cops on mobile phones. They walked into their shop and locked the door shut behind them.

Then yesterday, there was a three-way car crash near my house. A car door had to be removed, peak hour traffic was diverted, fire engines and ambulances at hand.... the works. Many onlookers standing by.

And then also yesterday, without onlookers (E-chan was asleep, thank goodness), I foolishly and regretfully cut the webbing between my index and middle finger on my left hand whilst trying to remove the stone of an avocado with a blunt knife (note to self - get out a chopping board instead of holding avocado, and use a sharper knife next time). Wound was quite deep, so I saw before the blood. Luckily, I went into First Aid mode - my perception zoomed back up behind my head, and I watched myself locate my first aid kit, blood dripping all over the floor, washing the cut, finding a suitable gauze, and working out how to keep my two fingers from moving too much using my working hand and a bandage. Blood flow stemmed, it was avocado on toast (still thinking of my stomach - see?!) while my left hand was elevated for bit. This cut is going to be a bummer to heal. Seems I can still type though.

Straya votes

Got an interesting email from Getup.org via a friend:

http://www.howshouldivote.com.au

According to the survey of 20 questions, they suggest which candidate in your electorate has views that most line up with yours. Depending on how many undecided people do this quiz and take on the recommendations, it could have an interesting effect on the election. For example, my best "match" was with an Independent who I'd never heard of before, and wouldn't have bothered voting for. Kind of an interesting way to find out about candidates running for your seat.

Another useful site is the ABC election site:
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/
complete with Anthony Green's (the very properly spoken gentleman who gives a run-down of the swings in each seat vs the % of votes counted) election guide. I had a look around the site last week, and didn't realise, for example, that I was in SUCH as safe Labor seat.