Needed and wanted

We are working on the difference between needs and wants right now. An important life lesson for sure, and one I don't always have a handle on. Yesterday Chet was building a garage out of a Wiggles domino set and some duplo and was looking for a space to put one his cars. He turned to me and asked: "is it needed or wanted?" Excellent question I thought, and explained that it was wanted - cars don't 'need' garages but it would be nice sometimes for them to have them. I then went on to say that he needs food and water and air and sleep and cuggles and he grinned at me and said 'yes, and kisses too'. I think he has got the idea mostly, although not sure the conversation will stop the daily plaintive demand that he 'needs ice-cream'!

Compliments ...

Chet is becoming quite the complimenter. Yesterday, he saw our neighbour's sister and thought it was our neighbour, Liz, and said "I like Liz's hair", because the sister's hair was quite different to Liz's and he had noticed the difference. This morning he saw me getting into the shower and said "Mummy, I like your belly button". That is where he should have stopped. I (foolishly) asked him why and his response: "because it is funny!" I wonder if he will be a charmer when he grows up?

Where ...

It has been a while between updates and I am slowly coming to terms with a whole lot of stuff that is happening at the moment. But, Chet continues to delight. He has lately become the boy who cried 'where?' - at every opportunity. I ask him if he wants some toast, and his response is 'where?' I ask him if he wants to put on his boots and he shouts 'where?', pretty much any question I might ask him could be guaranteed a response of 'where?' He still loves The Beatles and has a Beatles towel that we have to fix round his neck with a peg so he can run around and be 'super Chet'. Here is a photo of him enjoying dry wheatbix that he helped himself to while I was in the shower.

I have been reading a lot - my usual way to make sense of life. The other day I came across the following, which neatly sums up the way I am feeling.

"Whatever a family's tragedy, children demand to be cared for, fed, and played with. This is, I think, one of the great blessings they bring to our lives. Mourning must be filtered through the lens of their all-consuming needs, and their infinite capacity for joy." Death gets a time-out by Ayelet Waldman.

Nothing peoples

Life and conversations with a two year old continue to delight and frustrate in equal measures - I am sure most parents would agree with this. But the strange and funny conversations continue. Chet is currently talking a lot about various people who haven't bitten his toe. As in "Grandpa not bite my toe" - he told me this last night, just before bed, apropos nothing. I asked him who did bite his toe and his response was that the "nothing peoples" bit his toe which I took to mean that no one actually did bite his toe at all. But, on reflection, perhaps it was the nothing peoples, whoever they may be. They may be related to the Beatles song, Nowhere Man which he knows well and refers to simply as "Man".

Big boys

We are currently visiting my parents in Toowoomba. Their cat, Snouty is a rather large and beautiful chocolate brown (part) Burmese. He is also terrified of most things, including a chicken that used to visit a while back.

Overheard a conversation (well more of a monologue really) between Chet and Snouty.

Chet: Hello Snouty, you're a big boy.

Snouty: Quizzical, slightly scared interest.

Chet: I'm a big boy too.

Snouty: Hmm, goes to run away.

Chet (in a hopeful voice): I'm two.

At this point Snouty takes off with Chet in hot pursuit.

Also overheard between Chet and slightly older boy in K-mart.

Chet: I'm a big boy.

Boy: No you're not!

Chet: I'm a big boy.

Boy: Shrug

And then they both started playing with bangles.

Oh

and I know that October is sorely lacking in posts. This is mostly because we were away, it was Chet's birthday and we have all been sick. Am in the process of catching up ... it will happen at some point.

Thank you ...

to the man who told me I was lovely today as I was rushing to the train station at lunch time. You made my day. Had you told me this ten years ago I would have wanted to punch you in the face but I am older and fatter and more haggard and tired so these days I have more appreciation for the random compliment. I also think that perhaps you need glasses or were drunk which is fine too - nothing wrong with being drunk!

These days my compliments mostly come from Chet. He sometimes tells me that either I am pretty, my eyes are pretty or my glasses are pretty. However, he also said that some dinosaur bones in the museum were pretty so I am not 100% sure he has a grasp on the meaning of the word. Still ... better than nothing I suppose as I head inexorably towards 40.

Push me pull you

Chet has becoming very pushy lately. And I don't mean that he has become a stage parent ... He has developed a habit of pushing other kids, generally girls, and generally children that are smaller than him. We went to a third birthday party the other day and he pushed over a little girl and made her cry and hit the birthday boy over the head with a plastic plate. Admittedly the plate was purple, which is the favourite colour of both boys but still. Almost every time I take him to the park he goes to push a child and would do it unless I intervene. The other day he pushed over a girl from my mother's group, who he has known since he was about 6 weeks old.

I have to say that I am finding this new development quite confronting. I don't want him to hurt other children, and I also don't want to upset other parents. I don't feel that making him apologise to the other children is really going to change anything - I don't think he quite understands what that means and as a child I always hated being forced to apologise. So, I am left sheepishly apologising myself to the parent of the child concerned and trying to distract Chet by suggesting we go and look at the work going on at the train tracks. Fortunately the extension of the light rail that is happening at the train tracks at the bottom of the park is endlessly interesting to a small boy and there is almost always a digger or some men in flurou vests wandering about. I hope that the pushing stage ends before the track work does.

Mama gave me a new haircut ...

I cut Chet's hair last week, not for the first time and certainly not for the last time but I really didn't do a very good job. Fortunately, at just under two he is unconcerned. It is the classic Mama hatchet job. I accidentally took too much off one side so had to try and even it out on the other side. It looks like a bowl cut at the front and a bit of a bob at the back. Poor boy - luckily he doesn't seem to mind. The K-man, on the other hand, seemed to be quite upset.

I shouldn't be surprised - the K-man was apparently legendary for his blond bob, beautifully blow-dried and never a hair out of place. He often talks about how lovely his hair was in the past (the blond bob was before my time) and indeed it was. Here is the very special K-man, in his long lost youth. Perhaps Chet will look like this in the not too distant future?

Note to self ...

Some Mondays it is just not worth leaving the house. I should have known it was all going to go to hell in a hand-basket when I woke up snotty and with a sore throat. I had thought I had been suffering a bout of hay fever but no, it seems that a cold is setting in. Then, the landlord arrived when I was in the shower and I could hear him banging around outside looking for the source of a mysterious leak we have been having. So, shower cut short, I get dressed and go outside to find that he can't find the leak and that it was all for nought.

Then I decide to visit Aldi to collect nappies and other supplies. I really should remember that unless the conditions are ideal then a visit to Aldi is ill-advised. The conditions this morning were far from ideal - I was sick, I hadn't had breakfast, it was just starting to rain and I had absolutely no money on me so couldn't fork out the $2 for a trolley which meant that I had to go in there with a very active Chet (who refuses to get in his stroller) and carry whatever I wanted to buy as well as make sure Chet didn't steal deodorant, bread or crackers or run out the door and into the road. Now it has to be said that I was not at my best. I was winning no mother of the year award this morning. I was tired, cranky and impatient and my poor little exuberant boy bore the brunt of it, with me rudely pulling him away from tantalising displays and hurrying him through at a rapid pace. The only positive outcome is that I spent less than I would have as I could only cope with getting the bare essentials.

Aldi done I envisaged a relaxing coffee and breakfast at a local coffee shop called Babycinos. This coffee shop caters towards mums and small people - there is a good kids menu and lots of toys for the small ones to play with while their mothers chat, or in my case, slump desperately over a cup of coffee. Things were going ok when Chet tried to grab a toy off another little boy who also wasn't having a good morning. He ran away with the toy, Chet followed him, tried to grab it again, and then little boy latched on to Chet's fingers with all his might. I ran over, as did the boy's mother but it was too late. Chet was bleeding (a little bit) and crying and the mother was remonstrating with her son and didn't even look at me for some time (I guess her day wasn't going so well either). Anyway, I took Chet and sat down with him and gave him a cuddle and some toast and he kept crying and saying "go home". Eventually the other mother came over and apologised on behalf of her son and then of course we all happened to be at the counter at the same time. Chet held out his hand to the little boy and said "hand hurt" and the other mother just looked tired and embarrassed. She said to me that at least her son hadn't broken any skin, to which I had to disagree as he had really sunk his teeth in and Chet had quite deep gauge marks and a small bleeding graze. Those toddler teeth are pretty sharp.

All the way home Chet just kept saying "watch Thomas" - which is one of his catch cries at the moment. And for once the answer was a very positive "yes, yes you can watch Thomas". I might even watch some Thomas myself - I don't think that today was a day meant for great achievement ...

Sharing ...

We have all been learning some lessons about sharing. Neither the K-man nor I are known for our ability to share but parenthood has forced us to re-evaluate somewhat. The K-man remarked the other day that he had never shared as much food as he had shared with Chet and indeed it is impossible to eat anything in Chet's presence without him demanding "mine, mine" with greater and greater insistence, until we give him a piece of whatever it is - cake, toast, banana, gluten-free cereal. And of course, how can we teach him how to share if we do not do so ourselves? Here we are sharing the couch and some granny blankets - one of which actually was my grandmother's.

Even the cat has been getting a lesson in sharing. Whenever she has the temerity to play with any of Chet's toys - she has a habit of flicking them under the couch - he rushes up and grabs them, again shouting "mine, mine". Poor Minx, she invariably gives up and jumps high up on the couch, out of harm's way.

I have been thinking that this insistence of ownership is the curse of the only child but the more I talk to other parents the more I think it is a developmental stage. I guess it could also have something to do with spending time in daycare where none of the toys belong to anyone and everyone gets acquainted with the concept of sharing on a daily basis. Let's just hope we can get past this stage and all learn to share with grace - even the cat!

Last week ...

was a bit of a shocker in some ways. I had pleurisy, albeit a mild case, and Chet was cutting some of his final 4 molars. I had two trips to two different Doctors, one for me and one for Chet, as well as an ECG to make sure my heart wasn't causing any problems (it wasn't). I had two days off work and watched the entire 4th season of The Wire which is fantastic television although watching episodes back to back like that meant that I had the characters in my head for the whole week.

I also had a receptionist imply that I was a bad mother because I was allowing Chet to move some decorative rocks from a pot plant in the waiting room. I mean really. He was moving them from the pot plant to a display stand and back again, very quietly, not causing any damage to the plant or anything else. I would have put them all back when we left but apparently this was not good enough for the receptionist who came around the desk and stood over Chet and grabbed all the rocks and put them back herself. I said that he wasn't causing any harm and that I would deal with it and she told me that I was the mother and shouldn't let him do it in the first place. I was really angry and told her "don't tell me how to mother" but all in all it was a very unsatisfactory encounter. I was a bit shocked that she wasn't charmed by Chet - in the past year and a half I have taken Chet with me to countless appointments and he has done worse things than move rocks around. Every time the receptionists have responded to him with encouragement and interest - one even made him a toy out of a specimen jar and some paper-clips - so I was quite taken aback to suddenly have this negative reaction. Especially considering that he could have been unplugging her computer, pulling patient files from the compactus, playing with the telephone, sticking his fingers in the printer and generally being an inquisitive toddler. The receptionist also said that there were toys for him to play with however earlier she had forcefully put the lid on the toy box making them inaccessible and subtly indicating that she didn't want him playing with them. What's a boy to do?

But, we also saw a chicken crossing the road in Dulwich Hill which cheered me up no end. Not sure where she was going, or whether she made it to the other side as she was being chased by someone, presumably her owner, but I was amused to see something slightly incongruous whilst playing with Chet in the park.

Loving ...

my KeepCup. I feel so virtuous trotting downstairs from work to get my coffee in it. I have felt vaguely guilty for years, throwing away all those take away coffee cups and now I don't have to.Re-usable, environmentally friendly and it looks good. What is not to like? I still feel mildly embarresed by my coffee order at the moment (soy decaf flat white) but feeling virtuous about my KeepCup overrides any lingering embarrassment. A win win situation I would say.

In fact, it has gone a bit green round here. I decided as a bit of a New Years resolution to make a concerted effort to remove chemicals from our home environment and to eat as healthily as possible. This, combined with a dairy free, gluten fee and yeast free diet has meant that the past few months have been a bit challenging but I am thinking very carefully before I buy food or cleaning products which is part of the battle I think.

To that end, I went to a workshop last night at the Watershed on Natural Personal Care, and very illuminating it was too. It was presented by a cosmetic chemist and she talked about the kinds of chemicals that go into beauty care products and gave us some recipes to make our own. I made an oat and honey scrub and some rose water toner and am looking forward to making more products. Chet even had an oat bath today - oats are very good for eczema and the dermatologist recommended creams I have been using on his skin contain oats so I figured, why not go to the source. And, he seemed to like bathing in oats so maybe we will do it more often.

The wheels on the bus ...

Chet woke up this morning making the hand actions for The Wheels on the Bus and singing along. This is great, although it is not a song I really know - I think they must have been singing it at day care. So, I have been forced to look up the words and try and figure out the actions to keep him happy. If I don't, he just moves his arms about like Peter Garrett did on stage circa 1983 and says "more, more". So more it is. I did find a website that has the words for rhymes of all kinds on transportation themes, so if you are looking for a rhyme about a plane for example, this is the place to go!

Alone ...

The rain has stopped, the sun is out and Sydney is putting on a beautiful summers day. I have taken three days annual leave from work and Chet is in his new day care where he is settling in well. I took this opportunity to grab some much needed alone time and to sort out some things I had been putting off for an eternity. I put him in the car so the K-man could take him to day care and he looked really brave and tried not to cry and waved just a little bit as they drove off. Poor little monkey ...

The house is really quiet, I was able to have a shower without having to talk to Chet while doing it and I can leave doors open as I please. I have done some washing and had breakfast in peace. It feels really strange. It has only been an hour and I miss him already.

Cowpoke pants

Couldn't you see Chet in these pants? I could. He sure would look cute and he is a bit of a coyboy by nature ... We can't wait for him to talk properly as we are sure it is going to be very amusing. He is on his way, he can say Chet, cheese and cheers - all very important words for a small man although the distinction is perhaps only something a parent could hear. He is particularly good at 'cheersing' with his water bottle and will work a room, saying cheers to everyone and touching drinks. He is a hit at gatherings that's for sure. He has also been known to cheers us in the morning over breakfast. So, to win some kids clothing like these cowpoke pants by Brusselsprouts go to Georgie Love for more info on the giveaway. And thanks to Mama Mogantosh for the heads-up.

Sleeping ...

Well it is nearly the end of January and the blog has been very neglected. Mind you, it is not the only aspect of my life that has slid by the wayside recently. I started ABA Training at the end of last year and just before Christmas put all my training material in a box and there it has stayed. And the clean-up of the house has stalled somewhat as well although I did manage to prune the hibiscus tree out the front - hacked some might say but at least passers by can walk on the footpath without being assaulted by it. Still, I have to say, that health-wise I am much better and despite having been off the air for most of January I am now back, baby I'm back (and yes I have been watching too much Seinfeld on our new digital TV!)

And Chet has been quite unwell as well. He came back from Toowoomba with a cold, we all did, but his was the worst. Then he was well for about a week and then came down with an awful cough and high temperature last week. He didn't sleep properly for a week as his coughing kept on waking him up and as a result I didn't sleep very well either. He started getting better on Saturday and even slept most of the night Saturday night but wouldn't sleep for an hour and half last night for no reason that I could fathom. Well, this afternoon the poor little monkey has slept for three hours, nearly three and a half. I finally got him to sleep around quarter past one and he is still asleep at four thirty. I may have to wake him up as he won't want to sleep tonight. But, since we are going to a bbq tonight he might have a later night anyway. I think I will just let him sleep - he must have been so tired. Let sleeping Chet's lie I say ...

Chet and Spot

Chet and I went to visit Andrea and Kevin on Sunday and Chet proceeded to put their toilet duck in the toilet and splash the toilet water all over himself, get DVDs all over the floor, crawl manically up and down the hall, go into their bedroom, get the broom out and wack it about the kitchen etc etc. We didn't stay that long! Kevin wrote about it in his blip here.

And then he was 1

Chet is now 1. In fact, he turned 1 on 5 October, two weeks ago now. He is now not far off walking - he walks around the coffee table and has a little wooden trolley I got him for his birthday that he likes to push around the house, grinning madly. He now has 12 teeth - 4 molars seem to be coming through at once which has been giving him some gyp. And he sure can eat - sometimes it seems as though he is eating his bodyweight in food. And when he doesn't want any more food he waves his arms around vigorously in front of his face or he spits his food out or he simply drops it on the floor. But mostly he waves, a lot.

For his birthday we had a picnic in our local park which was well attended. I managed to consume a couple of glasses of champas which I felt were much needed after a year of interrupted sleep. We laid the cake out on a table cloth that my grandmother had bought in 1940 to use for my father's birthday parties. This table cloth was then passed to my mother when I was born and was used for all of mine and my brother's birthday parties. And, last time I saw my mother, the cloth was duly handed down to me to use for Chet's birthday. It is a beautiful linen table cloth with Snow White and the Seven Dwarves on it and has held up surprisingly well given how old it is. Although, as my dad pointed out, it hasn't actually been used that much over the years.

So, to my beautiful son on the occasion of your first birthday - you are a delight to me, I revel in your smiles and giggles and I feel we have been privileged to be your care giver until you are ready to take your place in the world. You are a happy contended child and you light up my world. With much love, your mother.

A year ago ...

I was just over 40 weeks pregnant. Chet was due on 28th September. On the evening of the 29th September I had a hind water leak which is where there is some leaking of fluid from above the baby but the waters don't actually break. It can be a problem due to the risk of infection. I thought my waters had broken and rang the Birth Centre around midnight. They told me to go to sleep and to call in the morning and let them know if there had been any progress. No progress in the morning so I went to the birth centre and then had to have a CTP scan to check that Chet (or Mr Leapy as he was known then) was ok. Then followed several days of daily trips to the hospital to check on my progress (none) and Mr Leapy's happiness or otherwise (he was fine).

After several days of this we were all pretty sick of it so the decision was made to book an induction. We were offered the Thursday or the Saturday so we took the Saturday in the hope that labour would start by itself. No such luck of course so the cascade of intervention followed from having my waters broken manually, to oxytocin drip, gas, epidural and finally, caesarean. Yowser. Still, I am glad I had those few days to get my head around the fact I was going to be induced and to prepare for the possible intervention that may follow. I think in some ways I was sad for a while regarding the birth as I had hoped for an intervention free birth but now, nearly a year down the track I feel OK about it. I know it is a cliché but I do after all have a happy and healthy baby. And the birth is only a few hours (15 in my case) in the scheme of things.

And, tonight, for the first time, I put my nearly 1 year old to bed without wrapping him. Yeah I know, you are supposed to stop wrapping at some point (I think around 6 months). I started trying to stop and have spent months wrapping only one arm - mainly for my benefit because when I don't wrap he grabs my hair and ears with the unwrapped hand. But, young Chetwin had really been resisting the wrapping in the last few days so I decided that tonight was the night for the wrap to go. And touch wood, it seems to be ok, although I did have to put up with some ear tugging. Hopefully he will sleep better - it would be nice to have a night of him sleeping the whole night - we have had 3 of those so far, and yes I am counting.