Waiting to see...

So I am sitting here, waiting for Atti and his grandparents to walk in the door from his first sleepover.

They are late - what is THAT about? Surely you bring him back on time if not early the first time? You know, to his concerned parents?

So, how did it go from our end? Could have been better. Atti had only been awake from his nap about half an hour when his Grandfather came to get him. And he wasn't having a bar of it, so we ended up with me strapping a sobbing child into the car and watching him head off. 

Worst. Mother. Alive.

And we didn't really get a lot of information. I was somewhat spoilt by my first babysitter with him, who used to send me updates and photos through half day when I was at uni and she had him. We got an update that he was asleep (much later than usual - possibly a delay in the message rather than the idea they put him to bed at 8?), but that has been about it. 

Later;

So they rolled in a half hour late, and Atti seems fine. He talked about staying and was fine about it (although when his father asked if he wanted to do it tonight he said a pretty definitive no). He apparently had a fine time, ate a huge dinner and went to bed just fine (if a touch late). Woke up at 5.30 (yay for not being the person who had to get up) and it basically all went tickety-boo.

Excellent. So I guess we can try it again in a month.

Get me a tween!

School goes back next week here, and so today I ended up with three 3 kids for the morning, to help out a couple of friends. Also, I kinda love them, and they are, effectively Logan's cousins (no, he has actual cousins, but they live on the other side of the country and never have time to Skype, so in actuality, these are some of the kids who function in that role for him).

Oh and Rio was one of them. So psudo-sibling and two of his psudeo-cousins. 

So I piled up the pram and headed off to Scitech - our version of a science discovery centre here. It is awesome, we are members and go there a lot. But we haven't gone in the school holidays, which seems silly. 

We all had a great time, but that is not the point of this post. It is that it is so fantastic to have a couple of great older kids when you take out little ones. Basically the older kids split up and one went exploring with the 5 year old, and one spent the morning chasing my 2 year old around. It was fantastic! Then they debated and came to an arrangement over who was going to push the pram home. I love it! I have to get me one of these teen/tweens!

Then we came home and they made themselves lunch and amused themselves until it was time for them to go. I mean seriously - this is amazing. My morning was sooooo much easier. 

I wonder how one goes about acquiring a teen for the purposes of slave labour…..

Co-sleeping - the middle of the night edition

And then it ended, as it always does. Atti woke up after midnight, and was just not going to go back to sleep in the bed with us. So after a half hour or so of wriggling, climbing on me, flip flopping and so on, I carried him back to his own bed, which he was perfectly happy with.

And everyone went back to sleep. Atti even slept through the thunder and lightening that was directly over head and VERY loud at 4am. I certainly couldn't sleep through it.

But this morning he told me he liked sleeping with Mama, so maybe we can do it again some night soon.

Co-sleeping

We did a bit of co-sleeping when Atti was little, but at around 7 months it became impossible. He went from waking, feeding and then rolling over and going back to sleep to tossing and turning and taking forever to wind down back to sleep - at which point we moved his night sleep permanently to his own cot. Up to a year it was in our room, after that in his own room.

But this post isn't really about that - I think to co-sleep or not is a personal choice and people need to do what suits them and their babies. As an older child Atti simply doesn't sleep in our bed - I have tried bringing him into our bed when he wakes early or anything and aside from one glorious morning when he went back to sleep and slept for hours - it literally never happens - he just doesn't sleep.

Well tonight he woke up about 9 and was kind of upset. And clearly really hot. Not like fever hot, like he sleeps in a closed in room and the fan died* and he is kind of attached to his elephant blankie (doona). And about 10 toys. And he is a sweaty little dude - comes from his Dad's side of the family. So he was hot and grotty and I stripped him off and sat with him for a bit. I decided to bring him into our room and plop him on our bed. We get a little breeze from the window and our fan is still working. So I brought him in to let him sleep in here and be cool for a bit. 

He is doing really well actually, I am tempted to leave him in here tonight. Although I am actually worried he is too cold now - he is just in a nappy. 

But it is kind of delightful to be able to lie in here, computer screen brightness turned down, headphones on, being able to watch him sleep. I can see why parents co-sleep with toddlers - even when they are kicking you in the head - it is kind of delightful to be able to watch him again.

There are bits of this that are just so so precious. Moments that imprint on your heart - that you can't photograph or anything. There was one tonight actually, with Rio and the Wookie. The neighbours filled the wading pool tonight and the kids and the Wook were in it. My neighbour and I were sitting on the couch chatting and the Wook was sort of lying with his face hooked over the edge. the kids started heaving on his legs and after a while they actually managed to pull him into the pool with a 'pop' noise. And for whatever reason, it was utterly hilarious to us all. No idea why, but it was a wonderful moment. 

*he is getting another one tomorrow.

Choosing your family

Thank goodness you can actually choose your family. Well, no, you can't but you can set up your life so that your 'family' is, or includes, people you choose. While there are a lot of great things I can say about my blood family, I found a fridge magnet over 20 years ago that says 'Friends are the family you choose for yourself' and it is kind of one of my mottos in life.

Especially now that all my family live on the other side (or middle) of the country. So we don't have that much to do with them. But we do have a really great extended 'family' in our neighbours and friends. And right now I am so grateful for that.

I realise I am a little ranty. There are two things that are disconcerting me a bit at the moment, my sister is in town and she is a bit…. it is almost like she has a kind of autism about relationships. She doesn't really get how the rest of us work within relationships and every time she visits our family up north she upsets them all by the way she behaves. I have spent years telling them all that you just have to accept her with her limitations and work within them…. then she finally comes here and carries on about being all excited to spend time and get to know Atti - then she spends almost no time with him. And I promptly sound exactly like the rest of my family (except I rant to my friends and here, not to her or the rest of the family).

Ayyyy yai yai.

The other thing that is kind of knocking me off my game is that I am writing my will and a bequests list and I am trying to write a bunch of letters to go with the will. And it is a little upsetting to put yourself in the headspace where you are gone and other people are raising your kid. I think it is probably a good thing that I get upset, if those letters ever need be used they will probably be the better for it. But urgh, writing them is hard. 

I mean, what do you actually want to say to the people who will be your kids family in that event? To the kid himself? Its a bit rough. 

And so possibly I am displacing my discomfort about that onto my sister, who is behaving EXACTLY like I knew she would. But who I hoped would actually fall in love with my son (as opposed to gushing about that very idea on IG but not actually being willing to spend any time with him, or get off her phone when she is at the park with him) and want to get to know him. Actually a half hour at the park where I took some lovely photos will do - I mean look, she adores him, she said so on IG and there is the photo to prove it!

Sigh. Family eh? As opposed to my 'family' who spent yesterday afternoon playing with, delighting in and celebrating my son. Who know him and who love him. I need to remember that the important thing is he has that, regardless of whether it comes from his blood relative aunty or his faux-aunties and uncles. He is loved, and pretty widely at that. And if my sister misses out on that, then it is her loss, not his.

I love it when he surprises me

It is a public holiday here in Australia - I will spare you the rant about it though - and we had a couple of parties to attend. The morning was spent with the Wookie's parents (whom I love to refer to as 'the out-laws) at an army base (the Wook's dad is ex-military).

It is always a nice time out there, they aim it at the member's grandkids, so there is a jumping castle and playground and sandpit and a petting zoo. Atti was VERY excited about the petting zoo and this was the first time he really was old enough to actually be allowed to hold some of the animals (with assistance). 

He also, much to all of our surprise, went on a pony ride. His Grandmother took him over to see the kids ride on the ponies, and asked if he could go on it. I said I had no problems but that I didn't think he would do it. I watched him line up with her, and get very excited about it all, and I thought that once he was actually supposed to get on the pony, that would be the end of it. I was wrong - he got on, and spent the whole time saying 'I on a horse!' So that was kind of great.

We came home, had nap time, and the house hold had set up for the afternoon party. Three shade shelters have been set up (finally! yay!) and they had set up our little shell pool and the blow up wading pool. When Atti got up he spent the whole afternoon in the pool. Over 2 hours. Ducking his head under water and blowing bubbles. Brilliant!

And I eventually decided I could no longer deal with him slowly turning blue, so I got him out, brought him in and dried him off - and allowed a little tv to settle things down. About then a family turned up to the party with a son the same age as Atti, so he and his big brother came in to our flat and played with cars and trucks and so on. There was lots of lovely sharing going on, so I was pretty pleased with that too.

All in all, it was a lovely day. I was a bit put out about today - Mondays are a work day for me, and of course with the public holiday there was no daycare and no work. But there was a whole community here to play with him and look after him so I could get a few things done, and it is always nice when you realise that spending time with your kid brings pleasure to other people too. Everyone had fun, me included. I might even wander down and watch the fireworks tonight!

Happy Invasion Day people! 

There are days….

There are days when you know about an hour in that the day is just going to be hell. And you can't cancel everything and hide under the blankets, so you just have to accept it and kind of lean in to it.

Today was one of those days. 

And sadly it was my birthday too.

Yesterday I broke the cardinal rule of kid sleep and said to someone in the office that my son now reliably sleeps past 6am… you know where this is going right? Yup, 5.30am and I was woken up. And it all kind of went to hell from there.

Unfortunately I wasn't smart enough to just cancel all the plans for the morning, and so we drove a loooooong way to a conservation park on the outskirts of the city. We were meeting some friends at the water playground, but I wasn't willing to drive that far for an hour, and the only other thing open was the children's forest - we went to the children's forest. 

It was awful. One of the kids we play with a lot, he was sick over xmas and his mum has totally caved on her 'not carrying you around all the time' stance, so Atti has watched how he demands and gets picked up and carried a lot. And so he is not having this walking business - so we spent most of the walk in the forrest while him whining to be carried and then sooking about not being carried.

The water park bit was nice, one of the parent's brought hats and cake and candles so we had a birthday thing. And one of the other parents is awesome at rough-housing with the kids, so they all had a great time. And huzzah huzzah, I figured out how to stop Atti sleeping the whole 40 minute drive home, and then not sleeping any more. So he did have his normal nap and he did go upstairs to hang out with the neighbours for a couple of hours.

I was intending to sleep and relax. But actually I had to walk to the post office to collect the mail I had missed that morning and when I did lie down, every time I feel asleep my phone rang. Why yes, I did turn the ringer off, but I also dropped it on the bed and it woke me up the final time by vibrating!

Tonight was kind of nice though - the Wook, his parents and Atti gave me this beautiful copper casserole pot, which Atti immediately stole for his kitchen. Seriously, I took it out of the box and a split second later he was off with it! Maybe he should have been called Oliver? He and Rio 'cooked' a casserole in it, and then discovered it's reflective qualities, so I am having trouble keeping it in my kitchen at all.

I kind of think that by leaning in and accepting that I was going to have a rough day, I kind of changed it a bit. I wasn't being very tolerant and nice in the forrest, I admit - I was hot, tired and my kid was whiney - plus my friend was being a bit ….over-helpful. Actually judge-y, but her way of expressing it was concern and suggestions for sorting out the tired and the resulting shitty parent and friend I was being.

I mean I get it, but all I feel is judged in the moment.

Oh whinge whinge - it was a nice day by the end of it. We had Rio that night, and she was no trouble at all (which is not standard at the moment). She went off to sleep with little fuss (again, not standard currently) and I got to flop down, eat a delicious vegetarian shepherd's pie cooked by someone else, and watch old eps of Gray's Anatomy. What is to complain about with that?

Neighblings

They really are like siblings.

I haven't written about the communal living for a bit. And at the moment it is pretty full on too. 

Rio's mum has been offered a job, so I am going to be doing Rio-care 6 days a week until school starts. then for a fortnight I will be doing all the drop offs and pick ups while she does her training course. I am going to have two kids for a couple of weeks. Wow.

After that, uni starts up again and we will be moving into a new routine, where I will out at uni on Mondays and Wednesdays, and Rio's mum will do the drop offs of both kids, and on Monday will pick up both, Tuesdays I will drop Rio off at school and spend the day with Atti, Wednesdays Kay (Rio's mum) will drop off both kids and my Father in Law picks Atti up and they spend the afternoon together, then thursday I am at home so I will do Rio's drop off and spend the day with Atti, then Friday I will drop Atti off at his grandparents and head out to uni. Once my class is finished I will go pick him up and if the traffic isn't horrible, we will get to our playgroup for a couple of hours; Saturdays Rio will spend with us, so I will have to work out a new routine to get her ballet class in and I think Atti is going to start kiddie soccer, and I need to shop and do some cooking.

At the moment we are going to the pool on Sunday mornings with our friends. A couple with two girls, one if 4 and one 18 months. He was recently sent to the middle east with work, indefinitely, and he was the one who did things like swimming lessons with the eldest. She is a bit of a handful and the mum is a bit overwhelmed if you take anything out of her normal routine. So I suggested they come swimming and I would give up my mornings alone and go along, so we would have three adults and three kids and everyone would cope. 

So it is a pretty full on schedule these days. I am really going to have to make a plan each day and stick to it, to get everything done this semester - because I am supposed to be full time this semester. This is going to be a challenge! But worth it.

However we are going to be trying our first overnight with Atti at the grandparents at the end of the month, so hopefully that will go well and the Wook and I can start getting a date night a month and a sleep in - a much needed sleep in. 

The biggest challenge with the new schedule I think is going to be getting Rio out the door. She is a late starter, and a hella slow starter. I am going to be doing things like making breakfast biscuits and cheddar mite scrolls - stuff that can be eaten in the car - in the hopes of managing the mornings. Because currently, if I have Rio first thing, I don't make plans before at least 10, and I don't make any must-do plans. She really isn't a morning person. And 5 day a week school and early (for her) starts are going to be a challenge.

So that is where we are with our communal living at the moment. Oh, well also, my sister is coming to visit, and I don't have a guest room. But in our set up, it is not a problem, I 'booked the guest suite' - my neighbour's spare room. She will be able to stay there for her visit - which is nice for her because she won't get woken by Atti's early mornings, but sad for me because she won't get woken by Atti's early mornings and get all Aunt-y about it and let me sleep in!

Kids and Parks

I ended up at two different parks with two different kids today. I was looking after Rio for the morning while her mum went to a meeting, and she mentioned that Rio's kindy class was meeting up at a park a couple of kilometres away, to play in the water splash play area. And Rio has been missing her kindy friends, so I said we would go. Which we did - but she never managed to find anyone she recognised! 

However in the attempt to find her group, we did a walk round the whole of the park, and I remembered why I had always loved this particular park. It is one of the oldest public parks in the city I live in, and it is so beautiful. It has a lovely wide path that runs all around the lake, and it is entirely in shade, and gets a nice breeze as you walk - it is great for kids to learn to ride bikes and has wonderful disability access - so there are always lots of people in wheel chairs there.

It also has a wonderful splash pad play area, a great playground and a second smaller adventure playground. That last one is not undercover and is not great for toddlers, but it is great. Also, free parking, which is not to be sneezed at.

Atti and Rio playing on the splash pad play area

They have a lot of great festivals there, I really should make sure I get a list of them.

Rio didn't have the best time, because we didn't find her friends. But I promised that we would arrange a playdate with her friends next week, so she can catch up with them before school starts. And we had a lovely conversation where she was telling me that she is Atti's sister! Which she basically is, but we possibly don't need that conversation being repeated to her Father before all the court orders are in place!

In the afternoon I picked Atti up from daycare and realised that I couldn't cut through the school to get home with all the work they are doing there. Which is fine, but we have to walk through a park to get home the other way. So we had an impromptu visit to the park this afternoon - which tested my backup 'what I keep in the bottom of the pram' prep. I did have everything we needed, except a snack. A lovely lady overheard me explaining that we didn't have a snack and gave us a packet of shredz. 

The nice lady also had a lovely little boy who played with us for the afternoon. Lots of turns taking spins in the spinny-ride and setting the duck and ball sailing in the water feature.

Lovely afternoon actually. Feeling like much less of an awful mother today!

Awful mother

I took Atti and Rio to the zoo today, and there are people walking round this city tonight telling their partners or friends about the horrible mother they saw there (that would be me) and how they are never going to be like that.

In my defence, I had had even less sleep than normal.

One of the happy moments today

But seriously - I was a bad bad Mama today. And it was all due to piss poor planning. I didn't take the pram. Seriously, it would have been that simple. One adult, a two year old who is currently a bit clingy and tantrum-y and all about discovering boundaries, and a five year old who gets snotty when she is told that what she is doing is not ok, and who is seriously annoying when the two year old is having a tantrum. 

So yeah, not taking the thing that would mean that I a) did not have to carry everything, and so felt like a pack mule, and couldn't pick up my kid and b) the thing I could strap my kid into if he did anything like run off. Also, I could put the other kid in it too, so I didn't have to try to manage to carry all our stuff, and my kid, and figure out where the other kid was too. And she would have had somewhere to put her stuff so she wasn't walking around the zoo with her water bottle tied to her hat strings. Also, I wouldn't have cared if the kids' shoes were on or not, because if they were in the pram it wouldn't have mattered. 

Instead I lost my kid at one point, my kid through all kinds of tantrums, charming other parents decided to 'help' (WTF exactly?) and the other kid had a drink bottle tied to her hat and had picked a flower (long chat about why that is not cool to to outside of your own garden) and then carried it around all day. And they both were carrying around apples that they munched on - for hours. Weirdos.

And I was so tired and hot and over it - my kid had his first tantrum as soon as he was out of the car. It took us forever to cover the like 200 meters from our car to the front gate because he was having a huge tanty. So I wasn't exactly hitting it out of the park.

I am a bit at a loss what to do with Atti when he has public tantrums these days. Every time I try to stick to my game plan, other people get involved and decide to 'help'. It is hard enough to parent in public (without just giving in because it is too embarrassing) without everyone 'helping'. I try to get him out of anyone's way, and let him have his tanty. I stand next to him, and talk to him, telling him that I understand he is angry/frustrated/whatever but that X is not ok, and I am not going to let him do it. We can either go home, or he can do what I want (walk with me, get into the cart, stop doing something) but if he won't do whatever it is, we are going home. And then kind of let it run it's course. 

Sometimes (in the right place and situation) I will do the walk off saying 'ok then, but I am going home/to the car/to the zoo, so bye bye. Have fun lying on the footpath. See ya'. Which works, but isn't the best option, and means people give you the mean girl look as your sobbing toddler stumbles along trying to catch up. Also, he has started trying it out on me when I won't go somewhere he wants to - he walks off saying 'bye bye Mama'. Oops.

Guess it is time to read all the toddler taming books again.

Things did improve after we got home and a nap was had. Some of that time Rio went home, and the rest she watched stuff on her iPad, so I did have a bit of downtime and could chill out and reset. We had a fairly normal afternoon after that - the kids ate their lunch and fought over various toys, and I let them watch a little tv so I could stop sitting on the floor refereeing who has what magnetic sand and stopping the toddler from dropping it all over the carpet and helping them both make towers. I played with them and the kitchen and helped Rio set up her cake shop and played sand games and had a veeeeeeeery long esoteric discussion with Rio about the ephemerality of sandcastles and that it was that way because it was the nature of sandcastles. Philosophical discussions with a five year old is pretty exhausting. 

The 'tower' in question

I was pretty glad to have the Wook come home early, Rio's mum's partner turn up early to pick her up and Atti be mostly fine hanging out with Daddy today. He had a bit of a tanty about an indoor bath when I had been saying he could have an outdoor bath (missed his chance) but he and Daddy had a shower/bath together and had a lovely time judging by all the giggling. He was easy to put down to sleep tonight and so far we haven't heard a peep out of him. And I don't have Rio tonight, so I should be able to go to bed early, if I could just get to sleep….

So a bit redeemed. But I really need to remember that if it is likely that I am not going to have a lot of patience on an outing, I really should plan better. Take the time to empty out the boot and put the pram in there - life will be much easier if I have the pram with me.

My lesson for today - take the pram. The pram is your friend. 

Kids and photography

I am an amateur photographer. I basically took it up because I was spending so much time sitting in rooms with babies, that I started it as a hobby.

Mostly the people in the groups I frequent have been pretty enthusiastic about it. There was one parent in the signing class who was funny about me photographing her kid so I didn't take photos on the days she attended our class. 

My parents group have always been great. There are a couple of photographers there too, so it has been fun to learn along with them, and it has been fun for me to photograph our kids growing up. I know several of the parents have really appreciated the photos.

I have also kind of thought of it as playing to strengths. I am one of those mums in that french parenting book - much more likely to be sitting on the side of the playground, watching my kid play while talking to other mums. Some of our parents are absolutely the in the playground going down the slide and climbing the frames with the kids. So I kind of figured between us we had it all covered.

That having been said I have been making a concerted effort to put down the camera and play with Atti - I have been making it a priority every day to spend a little time mornings and afternoons to get down and play with him. So I was a bit surprised and hurt today when (during the time I had put down the camera and was playing with the kids) to have a few comments made about me photographing all the time and missing out on the fun with the kids.

Especially interesting that this came from the most non-judgey mum I know. Actually no, the most non-judgey mum who has a kid my age. But I was really…. I don't know what the word is. Hurt I guess. Stung, anyway. Probably made worse by the fact that I had thought this myself and had made an effort to do more of the getting in with the kids.

But also, I kind of feel a bit pressured by the helicopter parents. I really am a mum who stands back out of the playground unless I am really needed. I am a big fan of competent kids and kids learning to do stuff themselves. And meeting other kids out there and working out their socialising. So I am by inclination and theory one of the mums who is on the edge of the playground - and has every intention of edging back more and more. Because I think it will benefit my kid. My particular kid is very physically competent. And pretty verbally competent so he can also state what he needs and wants. He has spent a lot of time with older kids, so he knows how to go to them for help as well as just shouting for me. If I am the only person there with him I stay closer, but I still tend not to actually get in the playground with him. But where I live there are so many mums who are right in the slide with their kid.   And I think fine, you know your kid better than me, but mine is cool with me over here.

However the mums who have been learning and parenting along side me for the last two years apparently don't think so.

And I am not too sure what I am going to do with that.

You will note that I am not adding any photos to this post. Feels a bit ridic to do so.

Lights, action!

The Grandparents handed back a VERY tired little boy yesterday afternoon - he hadn't had a lot of sleep, had basically run up and down the hallway playing ballgames with his Opa for about 2 solid hours and we had been to the beach that morning before Opa came to get him - so he was really tired and consequently went to bed earlier than normal. And he must have gone out like a light the moment I was out of the room, because I accidentally left my phone in there, and I had a missed call about 10 minutes after he went to bed - and he never made a peep!

But about 9.30 I heard chatter an my name coming from his room. What is THAT about I thought, he is not normally awake at this time. So I went in…. and the bedroom light was on full blaze. Atticus was up, thought it was very funny, and was announcing that he needed to play with his train. Hummmm said I…. maybe one book.

This is interesting, because that light bulb blew about a month ago. No I am not that slack, especially in the holidays. We have a reading lamp in there, which we actually use rather than the room light. It is softer and thus better for bedtime, and it doesn't shine in his eyes when I am changing him. I must have walked in there one day and flipped the switch, realised it was out and not flipped it back, and for whatever reason, last night it came back to life (zombie light bulb????) Much to the delight of my son, who likes nothing better than to get get a bit of reprive from sleep. So we had one story, and then back to bed he went, and slept in. Lovely son, lets have more of that!

Sharks, and siblings.

Damn Ikea - you get me every time!

On Friday morning my neighbour and I took our neighblings to Ikea for breakfast and a few things we needed. Atti had a great time at the restaurant, as we sat near the trash conveyor belt and he was fascinated, and also because we met K and Rio there, and honestly, it was like a rock star had entered the building when he spotted her.

We had a fairly nice breakfast (and I am inspired to try making some cinnamon scrolls) and then onto the shopping part. Rio's mum wanted to look at beds and pick up some pillows and kitchen stuff, I wanted photo frames to frame some shots for the Wook's parents as a belated xmas gift.

We grabbed a trolley and let both kids stand in the body part. Or stand, then sit, then stand, then Atti got very upset because he wanted Rio to sit, but she wanted to stand. Ah, sibs. Meanwhile we got to take turns in steering the SS Small Children away from anything touchable, while the other looked for what she wanted. Win! 

Well, until we unwittingly stopped to look at some outdoor furniture and parked the kids next to a bin full of discounted, HUGE stuffed sharks. SHARKS FFS. We live in a place where people are killed by those things a couple of times a year. But there they are, nuzzling an enormous shark each, naming them (Rio anyway. Rosy if you don't mind. Rosy the shark. I guess it could be the colour of the water after she bites you…) and generally acting like all they have ever wanted in this life time is a stuffed shark to cuddle.

Stupidly we thought we could let them ride around snuggling them then put them back before the checkout. Ha ha ha ha HAH. Dopey dopey us. We forgot that we had a 5 year old with us. 

Long story short - we haz sharks now. Or 'sharkies' as the smalls shout regularly. Rosy and Fergal (that is me, I am terrible). Fergal, Atti's shark can be differentiated because the second I paid for him Atti started dragging him by his tail through the shop and consequently he is filthy. And he has to join the menagerie in Atti's bed for sleeping, of course. I tried to go in last night and remove him… and Atti promptly woke up, asking what I was doing in his room, and where was his shaaaaaarkie? *mumble grumble put shark back in the cot*.

That having been said, first nap with Fergal was a ripper. Atti hasn't done a three hour nap in a couple of months til then. And he is going on two hours today. So if Fergal helps with the sleeping, I will consider it the best $10 ever spent. 

Cartoons are awful

Atti and I got to hang out with my not-neice today, who is 12, and awesome. While Atti napped she popped on a dvd of old style cartoons and I was working in the same room, so I got to watch some.

OMG. They are awful. The ones we were watching were called Merrie Melodies. I must have seen them growing up (or at least I have seen all the conceits used in them), so why am I so horrified now?

It was astonishing at how much I found offensive in them - the racist imagery and violence was shocking. I watched a dog vs cat one, where the the dog was turned into a 'chinaman' after being hit with a bin lid that gobsmacked me. There were several 'asian' tropes in the three or so I watched, and they were all offensive. 

The violence is astonishing. I mean, there is a reason it is called 'cartoon violence' I guess. But seriously, I don't want my kid watching that. I don't want him to think that hitting people with bin lids (or anvils, but where is he ever getting an anvil?) is ok. 

 And ok, I get that it is stupid to complain that the science is all off in a cartoon, I get that, truly… but seriously, the science is so so wrong.

I think these things will be making their way to the bottom of the pile, and out the door before Atti is old enough to absorb anything from them. I can get the 'why do some animals have clothes on?' questions from Peter Rabbit!

Making an effort

So while I have a couple of months break from uni I am making an effort to do a few things around the house, one of them is make some better food choices, for myself and the Wook, but also for Atti. So I have been trying out recipes to find some good food that I can make Atti that is not too time consuming, or expensive, and that is lower in salt and sugar and generally processed stuff.

One of the things I did was make a homemade tomato sauce. Atti loves sauce and loves to dip things into sauce, particularly tomato sauce. I have been a bit concerned about giving him much of the commercial stuff, because it is, as my neighbour says 'tomato flavoured sugar sauce', and I would like him to get less sugar and salt. So I used this recipe, although I might have put a bit more honey in it. I intend to bring the amount of honey down in each batch, getting the kids used to a less sweet sauce. The sauce is great, very tasty and you get a pretty decent amount in the fridge, so it is viable that I could make a batch of this every few months and keep this going once school is back on. It is also a handy base for a pasta sauce to have on hand in your fridge.

Today I made some potato, cheese and veggie patties. Based on this recipe, but I used half white potatoes and half sweet potatoes, and I grated in a few cups of zucchini and carrot rather than corn. And I chopped up some herbs and threw them in too. They have come up really nice, and I am intending to use them for the vegetarian dinner I am due to make my neighbours on Friday.

I have also made some polenta fries for the kids, which went down pretty well with some fish fingers for dinner last week. Recipe I used is here - I think I might also grate in veggies for some squares in the future. And I have knocked up a batch of breakfast biscuits that are wonderful (I used dried pineapple in place of sultanas though) but everything on the C&Z website is wonderful. 

And Atti has loved it all, thankfully. And most of this is things that I can make in bulk and freeze, so it is viable that I could keep these dinners going after I return to study. And lots of them are things that the small can help me make too! Or at least that only require a little tv time to keep him distracted while I do the bits that are too hard to do with a toddler 'helping'.

Music…. where did that come from?

I am not musical. I have no real musical ability at all. I don't mind it, but it isn't really a passion. Since having a child I have been a bit sad about that, and take any opportunity when friends who are musical share that with Atti.

So my neighbour likes to play guitar at him, and Rio's mum apparently plays piano and is planning to get a piano or organ and teach the kids (yay). Today we visited my girlfriend and her family, all of whom play instruments and sing. 

This friend is the one I have had for over 20 years who is all but my sister. Her kids are really, more my niece and nephews than the kids who are my actual relatives. I have helped raise them, and so they are practically Atti's cousins. But due to schedules and life, we haven't actually spent as much time together as I would have liked. One of the things I definitely want to do this year is spend more time with them. So today we went over for the afternoon and stayed to dinner. 

One of the best things today? Atti played a heap of instruments. The middlest child got drums a couple of weeks ago, and Atti got to play drums for ages, with various kids. Then he found their piano, and he loves to bash about on a piano, and was joined my my friend. Then the youngest got out recorders and we all had a toot. Then we showed him the accordion. I am kind of glad no one told him the violins made noise though…..

I also loved our group dinner sitting around the lounge room floor. The kids had set up a kids table and chair for Atti, which was fine at the start (I was sitting on the other side). But then he realised the big kids were sitting on the floor eating their dinner, so he had to do that too. The adults were on the couches and his Daddy was sitting on the step (it is a slightly sunken lounge room). The Wook got up for some reason or another and lickety-spit - he was over sitting on the step, eating his dinner. He was so funny about it too. But he ate a fair amount of vegetable curry, and I doubt he would have done that at hom

The other interesting thing today - Atti, who used to tell you when he had a dirty nappy, realised that this lead to the dreaded nappy change, and so has uniformly denied there is anything wrong with any nappy, for months. Today he stood on the step to the lounge room, and said to the assembled group "everyone, I done poo. I need change my nappy"(he hadn't). After I checked he stood on the same step and told everyone that he had an owie nappy, and needed a nappy change. So the Wook put him in a disposable, and that settled him down. He has never made an announcement like that before. Wonder what that is about?

Good memory son

One of my friends at law school graduated last year and found herself a position at a mining firm that will allow her to do her RP year and college of laws. Every since we have not seen her, she is working 12 hour days, weekends and she spends her very little free time with her partner. I don't begrudge her it at all, but I have been a little sad about it because she ADORES Atti and they have had lots of fun times together, and I was sad they weren't able to do that anymore.

But yesterday she popped up again and came and hung out with us for the afternoon and dinner. It was great to see her and catch up, but also wonderful for Atti to be able to hang out with his friend too. They cooked together in his kitchen, played trains, and then went outside with the scooters and the bubble wand. It was gorgeous.

And thankfully he totally remembered her. He was using her name and completely comfortable with her - I was very happy about it because it really has been months and months since he has seen her. So it was really nice.

Doubt we will see much of her anytime soon, as she is back at work Monday - but here is hoping we might find a little time here and there to have some catch ups.