Roam hither and yon, my cat-eyed gypsy-girl

Feb 04 2014

Monsieur Z, the last day of 2013

I have not been keeping track of new developments and funny stories as much as I intended to; a fact highlighted whenever I try and remember when Monsieur started doing x, y or z. It’s time for a little snapshot of where he’s at. I have been reading various parenting blogs and I really like the way that Iliska Dreams blogs a monthly update on her son. Clearly I’m not going to be doing a monthly update, yet, but I am going to borrow the format for now…

Monsieur is now 30-ahem-something months old now…I stopped keeping track of months after he turned two. He was two years old for a while, and now he is two and a half. And a bit more! I’m going to start with the most exciting thing.

Sleep.

Monsieur’s sleep is fantastic. He still naps every day, anything from 2-3 hours, occasionally 3 1/2 hours. Even if he wakes after 4pm, he’ll be ready for bed by 7. He wakes sometime between 6 and 7am – still an early riser but anything after 6am is fine by us! He loves his sleep and will sometimes smile as he lays down in bed and say “I’m so tired!”. Of course any time we ask if he’s tired, he will reply emphatically that he is not tired. Four nights ago we took the side off his cot and so far *touch wood* have not experienced any disturbances or change in sleep patterns. He loves being able to climb into bed all by himself, and he waits in bed until we come in to the room to get him up. He was a little disappointed that his new bed was, in his words “a teeny, tiny, little bed” and not the big bed he was expecting, but he has adjusted quite happily. Hopefully it will last a couple more years before we need to convert it to a full size single bed, as at that stage something else in his room will have to be removed, most likely his beloved train table.

Eating.

Not really much to say on this except that he loves to eat. He continues to love zucchini, and bananas, and yoghurt. He monopolises all berries that enter the house. He loves coconut water and green smoothies and everything that Grandma and Nanny make for him. He has worked out that each house stocks different yoghurt, so will ask for Grandad’s yoghurt (Jalna vanilla) or Nanny’s yoghurt (Dairy Farmer’s Lemon Cream) or Mummy’s yoghurt (Gippsland Passionfruit – bought once, remembered forever!). Zac’s yoghurt is Jalna Organic (yellow lid!) or the organic yoghurt from Local Organics. I am thrilled that even after tasting flavoured yoghurt, he still loves plain yoghurt. We have started getting our veggies, dairy and eggs from a local co-operative that source nearly everything from Victorian farmers. The produce is delicious, extremely well-priced and there is such a lovely community feel to the hub where we pick up our order. There will often be things on offer to taste and Marcus will sit down with Monsieur and offer him a taste of whatever is going. I love watching his delight in sharing food with others.

Growth and Appearance.

Monsieur has grown so much this year. He is now in size 3/4 tops and size 2 pants – long torso! We measured him when he was two and half and in the six months since his birthday, he’d grown again as much as he grew between his first and second birthday. He still has deliciously round cheeks, but the rest of him is getting leaner. He is growing taller and longer but has remained around the 16kg mark for almost the whole year. He has such mischievous expressions, and such a bright sunny smile. He has definitely inherited my concentration face, but I shall refrain from trying to train it out of him. My mum tried for years to no avail so I already know that it’s a lost cause. He loves looking at himself in the mirror, and practising his expressions. We bought a small Ikea mirror for his room, but he still prefers to climb onto the stool and look at himself in the bathroom mirror.

Talking.

Monsieur weaves little stories together now, telling us about his day, or his dreams, or what his trains are doing. About a month ago, when R asked Monsieur what he’d done that day, Monsieur was able to tell him everything that we had done that day. I think that was really the start of proper conversations, conversations which don’t require an adult to step in and translate or add detail in order for it to be understood. He takes great delight in the patterns and form of conversation, always asking R in a sing-song voice “How was your day?”, or asking me in the morning “How did you sleep?”. If we forget to give the appropriate response, such as a “You’re welcome” to his “Thank you”, he will prompt us. He will also do complete exchanges all by himself, the latest being a couple of days ago: I sighed and Monsieur supplied the conversation he expected from my sigh, “You look tired, sweetie” “I’m NOT tired”. He will also give himself warnings or tell himself off, “Be careful, Z!” or “No climbing on the table!” said, of course, as he is climbing on the table.

He is constantly asking what letter words start with, in the format, “What letter for — ?”. So we get “What letter for spoon? What letter for fork? What letter for plate?” at mealtimes and plenty more questions throughout the day.

We haven’t reached the “Why?” stage yet, but we’ve definitely reached the precursor: “What sort of — ?”. “What sort of purple?” “What sort of friend?” “What sort of toilet?” and so on. It doesn’t matter whether the item/action in question can be divided into “sorts of”, we still need to give an answer.

Development.

Sometimes it feels like there are constant developmental leaps going on. I guess that’s what childhood is, really. At least once a month, R and I will look at each other and say “Did he just….?”, “Did I just hear/see right”? It might be for a quirky new way of saying something, “Oh, I’m just okay playing here” or it may be him suddenly being able to do something by himself, such as strapping himself into his stroller. Sometimes it is something completely out of the blue – like last month when he asked me to leave the room during my weekly skype call with a friend so that he could talk with her by himself!

Last week he was chuffed because he could suddenly climb the ladders at the big playground, thus opening up whole new sections of play equipment for exploration.

He is now quite helpful in our morning routine. We can hand a carton of eggs and bowl to him, tell him how many eggs we need and he will crack the eggs required into the bowl. It can get a little messy sometimes, but not much more than how messily I can crack eggs.

He is pushing boundaries more and testing us to see if we mean what we say. We can see the thoughts going across his face of “Do they really mean that? Huh. I guess they do” and it alternates between being quite comical and downright frustrating, depending on the circumstances.

This past month he’s also been hyper aware of where I am at all times and quite desperate to not lose sight of me. “Come with Mummy?” is one of the most common phrases I hear during the day, any time I mention what I’m about to do or where (in the house) I am about to go. We have discovered, quite by accident, that his desire to remain physically close to me is a powerful motivator. A couple of days ago I was sick of the battle of wills that was going nowhere, so elected to leave the room rather than continue. That got his attention in a way nothing else had managed and he packed up his toys so that we could play with cars together.

Favourites.

Cars and trains and books remain the favourites. Every morning he will ask “Play trains together?” or “Play cars together?” to whoever walks in to his room first. He loves weekends when the answer is yes. R gave him a little case which he promptly filled with trains. This is now his little travel case that he takes out. He also loves YouTube clips of trains. I am eternally grateful to the people whose hobby it is to film trains and pop the video online. These clips are our go-to “TV” watching. He has discovered the set of original Railway Series books that we gave him for his second birthday – the series which Thomas the Tank Engine is based on. The individual little books are quite long, compared to the new versions, but Monsieur happily listens to two or more of them. He also loves the new versions of the books, and R and I are finding that we want to read the whole collection too!

He is just getting into Duplo now too. Between some eBay bulk purchasing on my part and Christmas presents from the Yarra family, he has quite a solid collection of Duplo now. He is starting to build things, and narrate stories about the Duplo characters.

Monsieur also adores our cats, and is looking forward to the day when they start sleeping with him. I think that Shakti will be the one to start, once Monsieur can lie still enough! He loves to snuggle her and is so gentle with patting her.

How I am thinking/feeling.

In just the month (!) since I started writing this, things have changed and I’m not sure that I can really remember what I was feeling a month ago! Just this morning though, I was feeling like we’re having a honeymoon period, Monsieur and I. We have not needed the stroller for outings all month. We have filled January with swimming, cars, trains and trips to both grandparent’s houses. Monsieur has started listening more to me, so I feel like the ongoing fight of each day has gone. I was so exhausted as we approached Christmas – tired of the constant battle to do anything with Limpet around. But poof! That feeling is no more, at least not currently. I have slowed down, learned to breath a bit more, reduced my time on social media and consciously stopped browsing facebook during moments of waiting for Monsieur. Monsieur seems suddenly older and more helpful. The barrier testing is still there, but he lets it go a lot quicker and I feel less impatient with it. This summer has done us the world of good. I hope that I can hang on to this feeling, this patience as daily routine reasserts its place in our lives. This feeling of peace and calm is also due to having my Wednesdays back – last Wednesday I got stuck into organising the pantry, a task which I’d been “in the middle of doing” for two weeks. With just a small space of time to myself to get things done, I am much more patient the rest of the week. Our time is so short and I am treasuring this year ahead of us. In our house; no renovation things to do. Monsieur able to understand so much more and do so much more. I have small, very small twinges of thinking “you’re growing up so fast, I don’t want this time to end”, but mostly I am so excited watching him grow and develop.

So, I started this post Dec 31 and am finishing it Feb 4. I had grand plans of adding in photos, but now I’m just going to publish this before another month skips on by!

no comments

add a comment

Oct 23 2013

Home

We are home.

We moved home two and half weeks ago and it is more fantastic then we ever imagined; both the house and the being home bit. Our house is so quiet now, thanks to all the double glazing and sound insulation in as many walls as we could manage. A balm to the soul after seven months of living in the non-stop hum of Carlton.

Everything is just slotting together so easily and effortlessly – well, effortless apart from the unpacking and cleaning and organising! But even with all that, day-to-day life is feeling so much smoother, like I don’t have to struggle and fight for every minute, to do any single thing. Since returning home, the washing machine has been running hot, and I am more up to date with our washing than I have been in well, forever. Or so it seems. Really just since Monsieur was born. I’m actually tackling all the bottom-of-the-washing-basket tasks. The sarongs which need separate washing just in case their colours run, the hand-wash only (read: gentle cycle) garments, the fragile, *really* hand wash only alpaca rug, the silk sari undergarment which has sat in the basket since *ahem* my baby shower – it’s not like I’ve had a desperate urge to wear the sari recently, so the top just never made it to the list of “you’re getting done next cycle” as there was always something more pressing, something which needed to be worn the next day. And in all this washing binge, not once have we lost the couch under a mound of clean, waiting-to-be-folded clothes. Nor have we had to move clothes horses around the living room, repositioning them according to which activity we wish to do – sit at the table or watch TV. Moving them outside for sun, cursing the rain when it comes. Re-doing a load because it took too long to dry (3 days) and smelled mouldy. Nope. None of that. Clothes go in to the laundry, get washed, dried, folded and put away. What is this strange new world?! Having a laundry is even MORE awesome than I thought it was going to be. And I was pretty darned excited about it before.

The kitchen is coming together, with nearly all the cupboards being completely rearranged. Our plan of just putting stuff in cupboards and organising later hit a snag when it came to the kitchen. There just wasn’t room to put all the new Tupperware without pulling out everything and rearranging it all. It has been fun though. I’ve started to get on top of things like shopping, cooking, preparing food. Our fridge is looking deliciously organised and I’m enjoying having a store of food on hand, knowing that it will last so it doesn’t matter if I don’t get around to eating it straight away. Tonight, we totally had someone over for dinner. It was our standard dinner of steamed veggies, but still, it is progress. I could count on half a hand the number of times this year we’ve had someone over for dinner and actually supplied a home cooked meal for them to eat, instead of pizza.

I am so relieved. I am feeling capable again, like I can totally do this stuff. Be a mum. Cook. Shop. Keep us all in clean (until breakfast,) clothes. Do the stuff that everyone else manages to do but I have struggled with. It is nice to see that it wasn’t all just excuses. A small part of me was worried that we would move in, we would have all the storage space and kitchen organisational tools and places to put things and I still wouldn’t manage. That I was just deep down messy, disorganised and incapable. Already areas of the house are staying tidy and organised, because I have places to put things. It’s great!

Obviously there’s still a way to go. Plenty of cupboards yet to be organised properly. More boxes to unpack – though as of today our living area is almost box-free, and we can see the entire table, not just the tiny, cleared corner where we’ve been having our meals for the past week. It’s work, but it’s enjoyable, satisfying work. As each little part of the house comes together, I feel just a bit more contented and relaxed and happy. I love our home so much I want to hug it! A great, big, squeezy bear hug. For the best house ever. I’m sure it feels the same, after all the TLC it has just received.

no comments

add a comment

Oct 02 2013

Miscarriage

One possible post-holiday conversation:

“So what did you get up to over the break?”

“This and that. Found out I was pregnant. Had a miscarriage”

This conversation won’t be happening, because that’s just not how we talk about it in our society. But for a moment yesterday I imagined giving this response when someone asked me next week, as playgroup and dance class and general term life resumes.

Obviously I knew before my first pregnancy that miscarriage was a possibility. That’s why it’s often recommended or suggested that you wait until the first 12 weeks have passed, the main danger period as it were, before making your pregnancy publicly known. Before I got pregnant, I decided that approach was not for me. I saw the pain and heartache it brought to someone close, to be asked again and again when she was going to try for another child, just days after she had miscarried. The questions were completely innocent; very few people knew of what had happened. I didn’t want to be in that position.

My feelings changed though once I found out I was pregnant. There was a mix of wanting to keep it to ourselves a little longer, and a completely unfounded worry that I would somehow jinx it by telling people. This change in heart surprised me, but I went with it and we were very lucky to have a healthy, beautiful boy and an uncomplicated (though not easy) pregnancy.

I was also surprised by the number of people that admitted to their own experiences with miscarriage, once I told them I was pregnant. Even a friend who had been trying around the same time as me, and came out on a cocktail night just after she miscarried, yet she never mentioned it until I was pregnant – I was so shocked that I’d had no idea and she hadn’t talked about it at all. Even girls’ nights have their topic boundaries, it seemed. It was like getting pregnant was the first veil to be drawn back, allowing a deeper glimpse into the aspects of parenting and becoming a parent which are just not spoken about much. Friends told me how many miscarriages they’d had, when they’d had them; they shared their stories with me to reassure me that if I miscarried the first one, that was no indication of things to come. That it was completely normal, and many women experience it. I had read the books, seen the figures but had no idea just how many people I knew had had one.

I imagined that a miscarriage would be a neat, contained event; quickly verifiable by a doctor. Movies encourage this tidy view – a woman usually wakes up bleeding, goes to the hospital and the doctor sadly informs her that she has lost the baby. She can go home, grieve, and move on. As with so many things, the reality is messier, although perhaps not in the way you imagine. It never occurred to me that a miscarriage is something that can happen over days, not just minutes or hours. Not did it occur to me that doctors may not be able to confirm immediately, that they may need to wait for days too, before they can determine whether you are miscarrying, or if there is some other reason for the bleeding and cramping.

In that time, you’re kind of in limbo. What do you say to people if you want to explain why you’re not particularly chipper, “I’m miscarrying at the moment. Carry on”? You can’t say that you’ve miscarried, because until you get the confirmation, there’s always the slimmest, tiniest chance that your instinct may be wrong and the bleeding is for another reason and your tiny little blob is hanging on as hard as it can. Whilst I can say it definitely to myself, I can’t say it definitely to others until it is confirmed. Besides, you haven’t miscarried, it isn’t finished yet. It is a bizarre thing to walk down the street, going about your day normally, knowing that you are, in all likelihood, losing your baby, at that very moment. (..and the next, and the next. In fact, all the moments that exist between the start of the bleeding and the end)

Such a huge thing to happen, but so small and invisible. Not huge in the “Oh, I’ll never get over this” way, but huge in the ‘Wow, my body really knows what it is doing and I have no control over it” way.

Yet another veil lifted. I’m not sure how many more veils I want to see behind.

Everyone’s experience is different, there are so many variables and factors at play. I am grateful to go through it at a very early stage, barely with enough time to get used to the idea of being pregnant. Physically, it is not as taxing or painful as others with later miscarriages have described. This early on, it’s rather like having a bad period with lots of tests and time in hospital and a good solid dose of hormone activity. My anxiety levels yesterday were through the roof, almost like my body was pre-empting and getting the fear over and done with it before it all started. One more jaunt to the hospital to go, to check hormone levels. Presumably the hormone levels will be dropping drastically and they will finally be able to tell me what I’ve been feeling since yesterday morning – this one is not meant to be.

no comments

add a comment

Sep 29 2013

House Renovation – Everything else

As well as the main rooms mentioned so far, the renovation has included lots of other items as well. They are each relatively small, but keep adding it all up to a far more major and thorough renovation than we originally imagined, when first making the perhaps foolish decision whilst greatly sleep-deprived that, hey, as long as we were going to be pretty busy anyway with this whole parenting lark, let’s add the study of an MBA and a house renovation to our quota. (In case anyone is wondering, it is certainly not me doing the MBA! There are still plenty of nights where my brain is complete mush by 7:30pm, about the time that R is settling into a full evening of study having already worked a whole day and shopped and cooked dinner and we’ve done the bedtime routine together. I honestly do not know how he does it, but I think I am looking forward to it being over almost as much as he is).

These are the little niggly things that we’ve often said “Wouldn’t it be nice if…” or “I can’t wait until the day that we can change….”. Little things like the water-saving on-demand hot water system. Great idea, except when it doesn’t work with the water saving shower head. We’d grown accustomed to the random temperature changes during our showers but it was really highlighted when I realised that we couldn’t shower with Monsieur because we had no control over when the water would be extremely hot or freezing cold.

A higher side wall and wider roller door. The original gate to our backyard was low enough that people walking by on the street outside could look in and see our entire living space. It made for some awkward early morning moments sometimes, when wandering around the kitchen preparing a bottle whilst breastfeeding, to catch the eye of a passer-by. A wider roller door was also a key aspect. As part of the council’s initiative to reduce cars on the roads, all buildings built post 2005 must provide off-street parking and are not eligible for parking permits. When we first moved in, I spent a long time on the phone with various people trying to explain that our house was not a post-2005 structure, that it was an Edwardian era house, built in 1919 for heaven’s sake. I finally reached someone who explained that the regulation applied to all houses that had any alterations done post 2005; including subdivision of land, which is where we fitted in to the equation. Our backyard is our off-street parking but, until now, we haven’t had to use it. We discovered when we initially did try to use it, that the gateway was narrow enough that any car parking within about a metre (can’t say that I ever measured it) of our gate, made it impossible for us to drive in or out of our yard. It hasn’t been a problem as there was untimed parking opposite our house, however the streets have become busier and busier over the past three years and parking has been harder and harder to find. We figured that it was only a matter of time before all the street parking nearby became timed or permit parking, so we needed to make our off-street parking a viable option. Sure enough, earlier this year, the parking on our side of the street switched from timed to permit only, and just last month the parking opposite us became timed parking. Right now, I am looking forward to being able to park just metres away from our door, instead of blocks!

There are a few more things, but I think the photos are pretty self-explanatory… oh, except for The Crack, which needs some explanation. The Crack is where the whole renovation project Got Big! The Crack is the reason for all the underpinning, for us having to move out, for so much of the work. We’ve been watching and worrying about The Crack for nearly three years now as it has gotten wider and longer. In a lovely twist, the council received no less than four phone calls from citizens who were concerned about The Crack caused by the building works going on in our house – how could we be so careless with our property and cause such damage??!! Ha! Our builder endured a few council visits, patiently explaining that The Crack was being dealt with, that it existed long before the building works, that it was indeed the reason for much of the building works going on and these were all the things they were doing to comply with safety regulations. I’m still amazed that someone would complain about a crack in someone else’s house.

House Renovation - Everything else

no comments

add a comment

Sep 29 2013

House Renovation – The LAUNDRY!!!

Had we planned this extension and renovation pre-parenthood, I never would have given the laundry a second thought. An extra bathroom which I could turn into a darkroom, sure. But a laundry, not so much. Luckily the planning was done post-baby, when the designer and the builder would have to step over the mounds of laundry piled high in the hallway to reach our living room, where a drying rack, or two, may need to be moved for easy passage through to the couch, which would need a pile of clean clothes removed before anyone could sit down. At this stage, a proper laundry became imperative. Far more important than a second bathroom. R and the designer talked some sense into me, pointing out that it was very easy to add in a shower/toilet/basin on one side without compromising laundry space too much.

According to everyone else, we are getting a second bathroom put in – that is what a real estate agent and insurance company would bill it as. But for me, it is my laundry. It’s primary purpose is as a laundry, with occasional use as a second bathroom. One day it will also function as a darkroom, where I can lock myself away for an entire day of printing and no-one will be denied toilet access as a result.

At the stage of choosing colours, I said to R that I would really like to make it a pink room – think vibrant, warm, tinged-with-apricot, not pale, insipid or Barbie-pink. He was dubious, and with all the difficulty of running around different tile shops and paint shops and Reece’s showrooms just to select the scheme for the main bathroom, we eventually decided to just match the laundry to the bathroom. Same tiles, same laminate, same wall colour. I wasn’t 100% happy with the idea, but I just didn’t have the energy to try and decide upon a whole new colour scheme, particularly when my brief search amongst paint colours hadn’t turned up anything remotely close to what I was picturing in my head.

Thankfully the Universe listened, and at one of the last meetings with the designer, to confirm our colour, tile and laminate selections, she was flicking through her laminate sample book and I saw it. The colour I was looking for! I asked her to go back and pointed to it and told that that was what I wanted for the laundry. I was so excited to find the exact thing I was looking for – wouldn’t you know it, it’s actually made up of a few different colours – and she was so excited to have a client interested in something so bold and bright. She matched a plain colour laminate to it saying that she’d use the striped laminate for the cupboards and the plain laminate for the bench. My dream laminate is called “Energy Stream”. Somewhat appropriate for a room that I want to feel energetic in.

I took the samples home and announced to R that I’d found the colours that I wanted in the laundry. He looked somewhat aghast and asked me “…and you’ll love this forever and ever and ever???” Easy question – of course I will! I also pointed out that I’ll be in the laundry every single day and the case was closed. Happily, R likes the colours better now that the cupboards are installed, and it was R who finally chose the paint colour to match, suggesting that we use the bright orangey-yellow that is throughout most of the house. It was my turn to be dubious, but the colours do work well and the effect will be brighter than any of the matching pinky toned colours that I was looking at. It will be like having a permanent sunset in the laundry with these colours! I can’t wait to see the laundry finished!