This is your blog life

I'm going to do what lots of recording artists do when they haven't come up with anything new for a while - do a retrospective.

Except this isn't a best of blog post. To tell you the truth, I went through my archives and posts of notable quality are hard to find on this blog. So it's more of a selection of brain dumps which I might submit if I had to produce a This is your life for the blog.

Let's start with a library anecdote, since I once harboured ambitions of being a librarian (I even completed three Masters papers). Some of the world's strangest people hang out at public libraries.

Oh look - my very first meme...

When I started this blog I was still a keen-ish painter, although I've since become a slacker mum (albeit with neuroses). At one of my life drawing sessions I encountered an extraordinarily muscular female model. But this isn't her.

If you think that a five-foot-zero Asian woman driver ought not be in charge of a bus, then you aren't the only one. I had serious doubts about driving the library bus, even after I got my licence.

The library bus yield really blog-worthy material though, like the wrinkly not-so-secret admirer and the drunken yobbo who wouldn't get off the bus and let me drive to the next stop. Some customers were just downright lovely; one of the old-folks homes even supplied us with afternoon tea (just don't eat the biscuits).

Getting assaulted by a young African boy though, was not a highlight.

Then I got pregnant and had Baby (or here for the gory details), whom you now know as The Little Madam. From early on she proved herself to be a challenging sleeper. Mine was a never-ending struggle to find new and effective ways to put her to sleep. This didn't put me off thinking about possible siblings, but you'll be relieved to know that sanity has won over so far.

Do you know that after about five years together, the boy and I have only been on two holidays, not counting long weekends? BTLM (Before The Little Madam), we spent two weeks showing him the South Island, one highlight being the miraculously puke-free (at least, on my part) whale-watching at Kaikoura.

ATLM (After The Little Madam), we had a nearly-disastrous holiday in Fiji which was cut short due to the need for a good rest.

I've tried my hand at domestic goddess-hood, but I think the cooking gene must've skipped a generation. Despite the odd success , my goddess career is characterised by culinary disasters.

But it hasn't all been about life as a librarian-in-waiting or a first-time mum with an incredibly gorgeous, non-sleeping child. It's also been about the odd book , movie, or Buffy/Angel episode.

Short and Sweet Like Me, this is your blog life.

Put yer finger in yer ear, in yer ear...

Luckily I'd made an appointment with The Little Madam's GP already. (I'd put in a claim with the travel insurance company because of our prematurely-ended holiday back in June you see, and needed the GP to fill out a medical certificate.)

I mentioned that TLM had had a rough night last night, and even though she didn't have a temperature, I asked if she could check her ears.

And guess what? Make Tea Not War and charlotte were right in their comments to my last post - TLM has an infection in her left ear.

Unlike some, I feel little compunction from the use of antibiotics - as long as it's being used to treat a bacterial infection, of course. So TLM received a squirt of antibiotics late this afternoon (as well as Pamol for the pain at bedtime) and hopefully she'll start feeling and sleeping better tonight.

Not that I actually wanted TLM to have an ear infection, but I was so relieved to know the source of her screams.

Fingers crossed for tonight.

She screams

I don't know what's wrong with The Little Madam, but she's not having a good night. She woke up at 8.10pm, and hasn't gotten back to sleep yet - and it's nearly 10pm.

She screams, one of us goes in.
We pick her up and cuddle her and sing to her, she goes quiet - even starts snoring. We try to put her back in her cot, she resumes screaming.

We've been in about 8 times now, which is surely a record which hasn't been surpassed since the very early days when it routinely took 3 hours to settle her for the night.

We gave her Pamol, which usually works when she's teething or otherwise unconsolable, but it hasn't made any difference tonight. She hasn't got a temperature and she's pretty much over her cold.

It's kind of unusual for her to put up this much fuss at night and I don't know what to do.

Old and boring

No late-night partying for me, nor the anticipation of many shot-glasses of peach schnapps (ever since that evening I had one gin and tonic and spent the following hour in the toilet). Nope.

For my birthday, my mum gave me "lucky" money in a red packet, and The Little Madam has been her gorgeous self. The boy has either forgotten, or is waiting for the arrival of a secret shipment of something mostly useless but geeky and expensive. Or perhaps he has finally accepted that I'm a practical woman with simple tastes, and just want to be taken out to lunch in the weekend.

The radio is tuned to an easy-listening channel, and I'm not even bothered by the fact that I haven't heard a song yet which was recorded later than about 1990.

The haircut I got last Saturday is, despite my hairdresser's protests to the contrary, mumsy. It's short and low maintenance and you will never see it on a twenty-something.

On the other hand, it's not often that on the day of my birthday (being Spring) the weather doesn't resemble a backdrop to The Tempest.

So I'm thankful I can be comfortably boring on a warm and sunny day.

Another "What I've done" meme

Only because the lovely Neil invited me to...

Filled in with an x:

( ) Smoked a joint
( ) Done cocaine
(X) Been in love
( ) Had a threesome
(x) Been dumped
(x) Shoplifted
(X) Had feelings for someone who didn’t have them back
( ) Been arrested
(x) Made out with a stranger
(X) Gone on a blind date
( ) Had a crush on a teacher
(X) Been to Europe
(X) Been to Canada
(x) Been to Mexico
( ) Seen someone die
(x) Thrown up in a bar
( ) Met a celebrity (but I almost had lunch with Andy Serkis, except I didn't recognise him)
(X) Met someone from the internet in person
( ) Been moshing at a concert
( ) Gone backstage at a concert
(x) Lain outside in the grass and watched cloud shapes go by
( ) Made a snow angel
( ) Flown a kite
( ) Cheated while playing a game
(X) Been lonely
( ) Fallen asleep at work
( ) Fallen asleep at school
( ) Used a fake ID
() Been kicked out of a bar
(X) Felt an earthquake (well, duh - I live in New Zealand)
(x) Touched a snake (one of those huge python-y sized ones)
( ) Slept beneath the stars
(x) Been robbed (well, burgled - but not mugged)
(X) Won a contest (a karaoke contest, no less)
(X) Run a red light (only because it was 4am and I wasn't paying attention)
( ) Been suspended from school
( ) Had braces (and have the teeth to prove it)
(X) Felt like an outcast
( ) Eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night
( ) Had deja vu
( ) Totaled a car
( ) Stolen a car
(x) Hated the way you look (well, duh - I'm female)
( ) Witnessed a crime
() Been to a strip club
(X) Been to the opposite side of the world
(X) Swum in the ocean
(X) Felt like dying (during many of those occasions when I gave myself food-poisoning)
(x) Cried yourself to sleep
(x) Sung karaoke
() Paid for a meal with only coins
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t (many, many, many times)
() Made prank phone calls
() Caught a snowflake on your tongue
( ) Been kissed under the mistletoe
() Had a bonfire on the beach
(x) Crashed a party
( ) Seen a tornado
(X) Had a wish come true
( ) Gone bungee jumping
() Screamed in public
( ) Told a complete stranger you loved them
(x) Had a one night stand
( ) Kissed a mirror
( ) Had a dream that you married someone
( ) Gotten your fingers stuck together with super glue
( ) Been a cheerleader
(x) Sat on a roof top
( ) Talked on the phone for more than 6 hours straight
(X) Stayed up all night (only once, when I was younger and had more stamina)
(X) Not taken a shower for three days (the worse part was the greasy hair)
( ) Made contact with a ghost while playing a Ouija board
( ) Had more than 30 pairs of shoes at a time
( ) Gone streaking
(X) Been skinny dipping
( ) Been pushed into a pool/lake with all your clothes on
(x) Had sex in a public or semi-public place
(x) Been kissed by a complete stranger
( ) Broken a bone
( ) Caught a butterfly
() Mooned/flashed someone
() Had someone moon/flash you
( ) Cheated on a test
(X) Forgotten someone’s name (I forget A LOT)
(X) Slept naked

Fourteen months old today

Today, exactly one day before I turn 42 (horrors!), The Little Madam turns 14 months old.

She isn't at all bothered by the prospect of getting older. She's too busy learning new ways of getting from a lying-down position to a sitting-up one. Her current favourite is to roll over onto her tummy, then push back with her arms unil she lands on her bum. She only practises this when 1) I'm trying to change her nappy, and 2) when I put her down for a sleep.

Right now, life with TLM feels mostly pretty easy - she still resists naps of course (she wouldn't be TLM if she didn't), but at night sleeps for around 11 hours. She smiles lots, is great at keeping herself entertained and is much less likely to cry when a well-meaning stranger tries to play with her.

Every day I try to take her out somewhere and show her something of the world. One day, the prospect of cruising the supermarket, visiting her Poh Poh or looking for books at the library will probably bore her to tantrums, but right now these are all exciting adventures.

At last I can honestly live the cliche say that it's great fun have a little 'un.

Yes, you CAN blame your tools.

The first time I made berry muffins, I managed to overcome the fact that my oven's thermostat has died and gone to oven heaven. They turned out perfectly and I was so excited I had to go visiting that very afternoon, just so I could show those muffins off.

The second time I made berry muffins was not quite so successful, and I blame the oven.

By the time I had semi-melted the margerine, unsuccessfully mixed it with the milk and egg-replacement, attempted to mix it all in a beaker with a stick blender, spilt it all over my clothes and the floor because I let go of it when I reached over to turn it off at the wall, put on a Wiggles DVD to prevent The Little Madam from engaging in an intimate investigation of this scrambled eggs-like plaything, changed into clean clothes and mopped the mess off the kitchen floor, the oven was probably hot enough to fire clay pots.

The muffins were still raw on the inside by the time they'd developed a brown, crispy surface. Although I fixed this by turning the oven off and leaving them in there for a further 15 minutes.

And yes, we still ate the muffins.

Here's the recipe - it's great if your oven doesn't outwit you:

Dairy-free, egg-free berry muffins
2 cups flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
75g margarine, melted
½ cup sugar
1 cup rice milk
1 tsp Orgran egg replacement
1 tab water
1 cup frozen berries, chopped

Set the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl.
Add the sugar.
In a separate bowl, mix the melted margarine, milk, Orgran and water.
Add to the dry ingredients.
Mix gently.
Divide among 12 muffin pans (or 6 Texas muffin pans).
Bake for 10-12 minutes.

At the risk of being flamed by breastfeeding mums everywhere...

I've just read another article about a fight between a retailer and a woman who tried to breastfeed on their premises. And despite the fact that I myself am a breastfeeding woman (though only just), my opinion on the matter probably doesn't match that of most others.

It's probably because I'm a teensy-weensy bit on the prudish side, because I was never comfortable with breastfeeding The Little Madam in public, myself. At our mum's group meetings, I never knew where to look when someone whipped out a boobie to give her little one his or her feed. TLM's feeds were usually timed so that I could get the job done before we left the house, or after we returned home (and I've just realised why I don't get out much).

Not that I'm against breastfeeding in public per se, rather that I'm keener on seeing more nice places where women can feed their babies when they aren't at home. If I've ever had to do the deed in an airport lounge or cafe, it's only because the only other options were to use the toilets or go home.

You could say that if I'm uncomfortable with it, then it's my problem. But then, it's obviously a problem with a significant number of people. And until the attitudes of enough people have adjusted, surely it's only being sensitive and thoughtful to try to avoid offend those who haven't yet reached that stage of enlightenment?

First words

The boy was the first to decide that when The Little Madam said "da da", she meant him. He was the one who told me that when she says "mumumumum", she means me and not the food in her mouth.

But yesterday I heard her say "shut" several times. At least I hope that's the word she's saying.

Same old same old...

I'm suffering from severe bloggers' block right now, so I'm just gonna list a few things below for the sake of having something to say:

The Little Madam is quite the roller these days. Every time we put her down for a nap, or attempt a tricky - i.e. pooey - nappy change, she's like a limbless Olympican going for a world record. This isn't the first time she's done any rolling, but it's the first time in a while. I'm sure it's a sign of some kind of developmental leap.

I'm having my second consecutive cold, and it looks like TLM is too. I keep wanting to wipe the snot from her upper lip, but the last thing I want is for her lip to get all red and raw from the over-eager application of wood pulp. Besides, don't kids like eating their own snot?

The boy is also sick. Which is not as bad as you'd think, because now that we have TLM he doesn't treat every cold as a near-death experience. It's actually nice to have his company when he'd normally be off computer-geeking for a living.

I used to be smug about having lost all my pregnancy weight within the first few months of TLM's birth, but since I've stopped most of her breastfeeds (now down to one per day, before her bedtime), all those extra cookie-and-cake calories have gone straight to my tummy. I've avoided it so far, but I think an cardio-exercise DVD for home workouts will soon be on my shopping list.

Still watching gilmore girls on DVD - the boy brought home seasons 3, 4 and 5 a week or so ago and I'm practically soaking in it most evenings.

Like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives...

The fluffy menagerie

I took this photo while waiting for The Little Madam to nap this morning. After fifteen minutes she started yelling, so I went in to find her with one leg sticking out of the collar of her sleeping bag, and the other hanging out of one armhole. She could grow up to be a gymnast...

It might be a girl thing, but TLM has a real fondness for soft toys. And the boy is a sucker for buying her whatever makes her hyperventilate with excitement.

From left to right are:
Pelican, Red Panda and Heffalump, Dragon (originally mine), Tigg, Koala and 'Enry (that's Cockney for Henry).

Brainwashing

Thanks to the recent high-rotation in our house, of the Woody Guthrie's Songs to Grow On, I cannot get those songs out of my head. Particularly the one that goes "Put your finger in the air, in the air" (or is it "put your finger in yer ear, in yer ear"? When I lie in bed at night, if I don't fall asleep instantly my head becomes haunted by his cute ditties about going 'round and around in a circle, building a house for the baby-o and taking people for a ride in his car-car.

Our Baby Einstein DVDs get quite a bit of usage too - I put one on first thing in the morning to keep The Little Madam out of trouble while I shower, and another one at the end of the day so she'll not try to climb into the bath when I'm filling it with hot water.

But because we've played Baby Neptune so many times now, I can't hear Strauss's The Blue Danube without mentally inserting "Quack quack, quack quack" at appropriate points in the music (it accompanies a bathtub scene featuring syncronised-swimming rubber ducks - it's great).

Just as I was telling a couple of fellow parents I'd just met the other day, having a child sure has opened up a whole new world to me.

Technical difficulties

Ever since the boy moved in with me, I've had to live with his need for constant upgrades to our various electronic appliances. I'm sure it's a boy thing as well as a geek thing - if I were still single I'd still be using the same VCR I bought about 8 years ago (instead of a new-fangled DVD recorder) and the 17" television my mum loaned to me 10 years ago. I would've bought myself a PC eventually, but I probably wouldn't have upgraded to broadband without the boy's insistence. And I'm pretty darned sure I wouldn't have a 42" plasma television on my living room wall instead of a nice, block-mounted poster of Venice.

But now that I've gotten used to living in a high-tech house, it's all the more upsetting when the gadgets stop working properly.

Last week the boy came home with a new, improved router for our home computer network. Being a computer-whisperer (I tell him that when he fixes his staff's computer problems he should first bend towards the relevant hard drive and talk to it softly, just for effect), he confidently spent the three hours required to reconfigure all the...um...configurations...to get the network connected up via this new router.

And he was really very upset when, less than 24 hours later, I told him that the laptop and the internet connection were no longer on speaking terms. Much cursing and general grumpiness ensued, including an implicit accusation that I did something to the laptop to cause this rift.

I don't know why, because I'm not a complete techno-cretin, but sometimes things stop working around me. VCRs stop recording as programmed, DVDs become "invalid" and home computer networks crash and burn. Maybe it's something to do with leylines, or bad feng shui. Or maybe there are electomagnetic hotspots on my body. Whatever it is, I can actually understand why the boy acts like I'm some sort of anti-Midas.

So now you know why I didn't get online until now, after the boy's gone to sleep, so I could use his computer.

I don't know why I bother

My mum is not only hard of hearing, but also has a memory even worse than mine.

It's a recipe for frustration, really. Whenever I try to tell her anything, I have to repeat it many, many times, each time more loudly. She'll hear me in the end, but forget it after five minutes.



I promise this will be my last grumble about my mum. At least for the rest of this week.

A day with my mum - an oven-roasted self

I just spent the whole day with my mum today, and it was hard - but not in the way I expected.

She's been staying with my brother, having just got out of hospital for an angioplasty; she's now on new meds and we didn't want her to be on her own while she's testing them out. To help out, I offered to entertain Mum during the day while he's at work (his family's away up the coast for a few days), then get her back to his place in time to cook him dinner.

Anyway, I was a bit nervous about spending all day with Mum, because she has a tendency to tell me how to run my life. Even a couple of hours with her could result in high blood pressure and an urgent wish for the boy to transfer to another country.

But it didn't happen that way.

Her critiques on my child-rearing, dress sense and housekeeping ability were minimal. What did bother me was that I ended up sweltering in oven-roasting temperatures all day because my mum is a human popsicle. She was snuggled up in three layers of polar fleece, and still wanting me to turn the heat up. I was stripped down to a (supportive) singlet and rolled-up jeans and still having one long, hot flush.

And of course, she warned me several times that I ought to put on a sweatshirt because it's cold out and she didn't want me to catch a chill.

Kinky boots

What a good film this was.

When it first came out at the cinemas, I wasn't particularly inspired by the reviews I read; it came across as a cross between The Full Monty and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. These are two great movies, but who wants to go see a movie which is as derivative as this one sounded?

But last night we were sitting in front of the telly with a copy of Kinky Boots in front of us, and nothing promising on the telly.

And it turned out to be way better than anticipated. In short, it's about a shoe factory up in the north of England which is in danger of going under due to competition from cheap imports. The young man who's inherited the factory from his dad goes to London in search of buyers, meets a black cross-dressing nightclub performer and comes up with the radical idea of diversifying into women's shoes for men i.e. sexy thigh-high boots for cross-dressers.

It's a feelgood movie, like Monty and Priscilla. It's got a fairly predictable plot, yet it's based on a true story and anyway that very predictability is part of what makes it such a happy movie.

Isn't it nice to watch a movie you thought would be rubbish, and find that it's genius?

The brushing of tiny teeth

Apparently you're supposed to brush your kids' teeth as soon as they start appearing, and this post in Blogging Baby tells you the recommended way to do so.

The Little Madam's teeth-cleaning procedure consists of chewing on the bristles of her little duck-decorated toothbrush, then chucking it overboard in favour of a little plastic cup which she uses to empty bathwater out onto the kitchen floor.

I've tried brushing her teeth for her. I've tried and tried and tried. But TLM just will not let me get the toothbrush anywhere near her mouth. It's much like how she reacts to the sight of a spoonful of food.

Hopefully TLM's brush-chewing action is enough to remove any food that might be stuck to those little incisors (of which there are now five), because even though milk teeth are going to fall out anyway, what kind of mother would I be to allow her daughter to grow black toothlets?

Group bug

It seems that all three of us have colds this weekend. This means that I have little energy and no patience, The Little Madam is whingy and has no appetite, and the boy is sh*t out of luck if he thought he was going to get a break this weekend.

In which I nearly kill the boy with my cooking

Now, I would be the first one to tell you that burgers and anything else made with minced up meat must be cooked thoroughly before eating. And yet I've been guilty of giving the boy a local version of Dehli-belly twice in the last couple of months.

The first time was with a couple of venison burgers. The one I cut into, to test for done-ness, was nice and brown inside. The one one my plate and the second one on the boy's plate had lovely pink interiors. Who knew that commercially processed burgers would need such variable cooking times? (I was fortunate enough to find out before I was halfway through my venison sandwich - the boy had been too hungry to notice.)

The second time was last night, when I decided to make hot dogs out of a packet of Kranskys I got from the supermarket. (There are some strange items in the sausage section at the supermarket these days - I saw some small, purple cocktail sausages with the words "purple cock" typed on the label. I kid you not.) I pan-fried those Kranskys till their respective skins split; surely that was a sign of cookedness? But the boy was apparently in and out of the loo all night (I didn't notice - the only thing that wakes me at night these days is the sound of a baby crying), and I was glad I'd only had one.

As I get older and grumpier, I have moments of insecurity in which I fear that the boy might go off me and leave for someone younger, more pert and better in the kitchen.

Cheeky monkey

Just a quickie, before our crappy Internet service bumps me off again...a photo of our TLM in all her cheeky-monkey glory.

A moment of grumpiness

There's this saying that keeps cropping up - now that I read so much parenting stuff - about how you should spend plenty of time playing with your kids instead of trying to keep your house clean, because when they grow up they aren't going to look back and wish their parents had cleaned the house more.

To that I say rubbish rubbish rubbish.

I'm no Bree van der Kamp (I can't cook, don't keep my house spotless and don't care if TLM wears mis-matched clothes), but I do think it's important to keep to a minimum standard of cleanliness.

The reason people don't look back on their childhoods and wish they're parents had spent more time on the housework might be because they already died from a terrible bacterial infection caused by a dirty toilet.

The stalking shuffle

I haven't posted for a few days because I've been overcome with a nasty tummy bug, possibly that very same virus which felled The Little Madam a couple of weeks ago. Secretly I'd hoped it would lose me a couple of kilos over the weekend - it would have been fair compensation for all the vomiting, stomach cramps and other stuff you won't want to read about in detail - but the bug didn't hit me that hard. Either that, or I had so much excess fat on me that any illness-related weight loss was barely a drop in the ocean of fatness that is my post-pregnancy self.

But I do have an amusing little anecdote about TLM. It's even a short and sweet one...

The Little Madam's bum-shuffling is now a sort of crawl-shuffle; unless she's got something in her hands, she moves forwards by putting both hands down, then shuffling her legs up to her hands. So if you were nearby, you'd hear a distinct thud-shhh...thud-shh as she gets herself around the room.

TLM has also taken to following us into the bathroom. Unlike some parents who think it's a good idea to let their kids see what goes on in the grown-ups toilet, and aren't bothered by the whole lack-of-privacy thing, I prefer to keep the bathroom door closed when I go about my ablutions (especially if they're of the tummy-bug variety).

Now imagine you're me, sitting on the toilet and minding your own business. There's nothing going on in your head, for a change. Then you hear an ominous sound, the sound that goes like this...thud-shh...thud-shhh...thud-shh...which gets louder and louder until it's right outside the toilet door. You sigh in relief that the door is closed. Then it comes...bang! Bang! Bang! You remember that the door's closing mechanism is a little faulty, and sometimes it just opens when there's a strong draft or persistent 13-month-old.

And then...it's only a matter of time before she's caught you with your pants down.

First music love

I tried to instill in The Little Madam a good taste in music. From the library we borrowed classic children's favourites from the Fifties and kid-friendly world music. From my own collection I frequently played Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the album (which I still prefer to Radio Sunnydale), Bach and a selection of lounge-y acid jazz (not trendy, I know, but it comes from a very partying time of my life). Next for TLM's musical education, was going to be some Chemical Brothers.

But all that could be for nothing, because what she really loves to hear is The Wiggles' CD, Big Red Car.

Oh, well.

The song about a dog who barks all night gets her giggling, as does Five Little Joeys (jumping on the bed). It's too cute to sneer at, really.

Baby toupees

The boy sent me the link to this site which sells baby toupees. I think they're for real, too.

If I get the urge to disguise The Little Madam as Donald Trump, Bob Marley, Samuel L Jackson or Li'l Kim, I'll know exactly where to go.

In praise of the boy

Last week the boy came home with a bunch of gorgeous mango-coloured tulips for me, for no reason.

Tonight the boy brought home a bunch of white roses, and it's still not my birthday.

After I jokingly told him that there is nothing sexier than the sight of one's life partner cooking dinner and putting the offspring to bed, he made me dinner and did naptime duty all weekend.

See, he's not just a pair of stunning high cheekbones and fantastic legs worthy of a drag queen, you know.

What do you get when you cross mummy-brain with inner-blondeness?

That bag of peas in the freezer has a twist-tied hole in every corner because each time you needed peas, somehow you didn't notice there was already a hole in it for pouring them out.

You will absentmindedly top up your baby's sippy cup of rice milk, with cow's milk, which she isn't allowed.

And sometimes you will attempt to steam vegetables without putting any actual water in the pan.

Welcome to my world.

Early to bed and early to rise, makes this woman end up with red in her eyes

The Little Madam has been waking most mornings between 4am and 5am. I'm not sure why she's doing this; I thought it was because she'd been sleeping through, but some nights she would wake up two or three times for a cuddle, and still be ready to start the day well before dawn.

It might be because we're heading into summer, and the days are getting longer - but she still happily goes to bed at 6pm and anyway, if it's still dark when she wakes up I can't see how an earlier sunrise is going to affect her.

Or it could be that, now that I've stopped feeding her at night, she gets hungry a lot earlier in the morning. Also, I haven't been giving her midday breastfeeds since the weekend, so maybe TLM is simply still adjusting to the idea of getting some of her calories via the sippy cup.

This is why I'm looking forward to the start of Daylight Saving. In about three weeks time, her bedtime will magically become 7pm, and she will equally magically wake up around 6am. That sounds almost normal.

Weekend fun

It was bound to be fun, because I had some guaranteed baby-free time.

Yesterday, in that period between The Little Madam's lunch and after her afternoon nap, I escaped into the city centre and went shopping for books and DVDs. My retail booty included Bill Bryson's latest book, The Life and Times of Thunderbolt Kid (which I haven't started yet because I'm in the middle of a re-reading of Jung Chan's Wild Swans), the movie Sione's Wedding (the official DVD) and a pair of warm-weather jeans from Shanton, which is having a relocation sale (fifteen bucks!).

Sione's Wedding was great fun to watch. It's a Samoan chicklit-for-boys story, about four immature guys who are banned from a big up-coming wedding because of their reputation for causing trouble at social gatherings. They're given strict instructions not to turn up to Sione's wedding unless they show up with a girlfriend each, to prove they've grown up somewhat.

There's Albert, who's a shy insurance worker still living with his mum; Stan, who is hanging out to meet someone he met on a phone party line; Mike, the hunky bicycle courier who prefers honky chicks and Sefa, who does actually have a girlfriend but acts like he's single. Kind of a brown, male, Kiwi Sex in the City.

While there's nothing really new in such a plot, it's done quite well and it's funny. The boy liked it too - I could tell because he kept shouting relationship advice at them.

We took TLM out to lunch today. It's not often the three of us all eat together, so it was a big deal to me. TLM got a chance to try beef lasagne, pizza crust (the boy was too hungry to give her any filling), salad and shoestring fries. She definitely liked the lasagne, so that's something I'll have to learn to make at home. And on the way home, we took a scenic route via Toy World (she now has a Heffalump, one of those hammer-banging toys and a shapes jigsaw toy).

After all that excitment, an afternoon nap was out of the question.

Voracious eating

I tried to write this yesterday, but I've been having trouble with the Internet this week. It turns out that the (free) firewall I use, ZoneAlarm, sometimes goes a bit spastic and prevents the laptop from connecting to the ISP. And all the other times, the ISP is the problem - I can tell because when I try to ring the technical support line, I get a recorded message advising that I have a 25-minute wait to get a human being on the line.

So anyway.
The Little Madam really is making up for tummy bug time. Whilst sick, she barely ate and slept lots - 11 solid hours at night and several 1-2 hour naps during the day. Now that she's all better, she's whining for food every couple of hours during the day, and waking up desperately hungry during the night.

Just as an example, TLM ate 1 1/2 slices of wholewheat toast for breakfast this morning. And that's in additional to most of a small banana and half a pot of baby yoghurt. And two hours (and one failed nap attempt) later, she had three small sandwiches and a big drink of water. At this rate I'm pretty confident that she'll quickly regain that 1/2 - 3/4 kg that melted off her body when little was going in and tons was being spewed or egested out.

I hope it won't be long before she's all caloried up and able to eat and sleep more normally again. It was hard enough night-weaning her the first time around, and now I'm going to have to do it again. This weekend, I plan on cutting down to two daytime breastfeeds. I reckon it'll work much better if I'm not around her at midday, when she normally gets a breastfeed, so I've warned the boy that I'm going out around that time. I'm sure the boy has a sneaky feeling that it's just an excuse for guaranteed weekend baby-free time.

Herself again

I think the worst is over. The Little Madam has been puke-free since yesterday morning and hasn't produced another foul-smelling poo since the one which interrupted yesterday's morning nap. Plus, she's replaced her recent behaviour of sleeping all night and napping lots during the day, with her more usual wakefulness. In fact, right at this very minute she's resisting my second attempt at getting her to take a morning nap. She's also laughing lots and shuffling about looking for trouble. The old TLM is back.

But I'm feeling a tiny bit of nausea, myself. Either I've caught what she had - which has a quite high probability - or I'm being paranoid.

Awash

Just in case you're wondering, The Little Madam is still in the throes of her tummy bug. Just when I thought she was getting better - right before we went to the doctor's - she surprised me with more big pukes and truly vile diarrhea.

The latter was so bad this morning that the boy, who'd opted to stay at home and help out, was motivated to get out his machete and clear away the jungle of vine which had been sealing TLM's bedroom window shut. Then he had to stamp out the small family of cockroaches which had immediately tried to migrate into the room while the window was open.

My poor baby has lost a fair bit of weight, as you can imagine. She's never been sumo-sized, and I fear that it won't be long before she starts to resemble those starving kids you see in Save the Children advertisements, all eyes and devoid of baby fat. I left a message with the doctor to keep him up to date, but really I don't know what he could do to help. The only course of action I know of for these situations, is intravenous rehydration in a hospital, and he didn't think TLM is that dehydrated.

Just sick to the stomach

Since Thursday morning, we've had to clean up two or three small pukes, about four enormous pukes and two massive middle-of-the-night bouts of diarrhea. My toddler-care book tells me that vomiting is normally over and done with after 24 hours, but The Little Madam has gotten worse over the weekend, not better.

Father's Day has been a major non-event - I didn't get around to buying anything for the boy, so I told him that today he could do anything he liked i.e. play online computer games. However, I had enlist his help in distracting TLM during some of her more irritable episodes (poor thing, babies shouldn't have to suffer from tummy aches).

So it looks like tomorrow morning's appointment with the pediactric dietician will be cancelled, in favour of a follow-up visit to the doctor.

Can The Time Traveller's Wife be geekily correct?

Finally I have finished The Time Traveller's Wife. If you're planning on reading it, or are in the middle of this novel and not finished yet, you may want to skip the rest of this post because it's going to contain spoilers. (You might also want to skip the rest of this post if you've got this far and are bored already).

One thing about this story - it's really quite sad and depressing. Poor Claire seems to spend practically her whole life waiting for Henry to come back from whenever he is. Just before he dies, he tells her to get on with her life once he's gone. Then he tells her that he'll appear to her when she's about 82 years of age. What a bloody horrible thing to do to her - what kind of man willingly causes his loving wife to put her life on hold for thirty-odd years, waiting for the next time she'll meet him?

Then there's this other thing that is bugging me - One of Claire's artist friends talks about her latest exhibition. Apparently this friend creates computer viruses, then exhibits the HTML code. Now, I couldn't write a computer virus if someone put a gun to The Little Madam's head, but I'm pretty sure that you can't write a computer virus using HTML. HTML isn't even a computer language - all it does is make web pages look nice. Or am I talking out of my rectum?

It's a gut feel

I took The Little Madam to the doctor's this afternoon to check her out. After examining her ears and throat, and listening to her chest, the doctor confirmed that she has something.

I thought it would be okay to give TLM fruit purees, seeing as her pukes seemed to always follow solid food (breastfeeds seemed to be no problem). But one hour after her late lunch/early dinner, after she'd been exploring the hallway and geting acquainted with the dehumidifier, banana and pear puree (surely much more than she'd swallowed in the first place!) gushed out of her little rosebud mouth.

There was puke on the carpet. There was puke on the rug. There was puke on the over-sized jigsaw puzzle-cum-playmat with a picture of the Solar System on it. There was puke on the linoleum. And of course, there was puke on TLM and there was puke on me (prompting TLM's third emergency clothing change today, and my first).

Funny though; she was initially upset about all that puking, but mere minutes later was happily looking for something breakable to play with again.

Gagging for it

There must be a gastric bug going around - The Little Madam threw up at breakfast, and again at lunchtime. She's got a temperature and doesn't want to do anything except watch the telly and cuddle her mummy. She's not normally a puker, so I'm guessing she's sick. Again. I bet it was one of the kids at playgroup on Wednesday, and it was the first time in weeks we'd actually managed to make it too.

Libido help. Help!

Perusing the Huggies forum yesterday, I came across something called horny goat weed.

And it is what it sounds like - an aphrodisiac. There's hope for the boy yet.

Apparently the Chinese have been using it for thousands of years, for mojo-related purposes. And look how many Chinese there are in the world.

I'm a little surprised that the boy hasn't been slipping it into my cuppa every evening (or, if he has, it mustn't be working). Perhaps he just doesn't want to risk getting blood and guts all over the duvet (side effects include dizziness, vomiting, dry mouth, thirst and nosebleed).

Just in time for goodbye

The Little Madam's naps are sooo irregular. Just when I was getting comfortable with her taking 1-hour naps at around 9am and 1pm most days (and one or none on the other days), she goes and changes again. This morning, only a couple of hours after getting up, she whined and whined until it became clear to me that she really wanted to go back to bed.

So she napped from 8am-9am. Which wouldn't have been a problem, except on Thursdays she always has swim class at 9am.

As soon as she woke, I threw on her fleecy coat, grabbed the nappy bag which was bursting full with snacks and swimming gear, and headed to the pool.

We got there just five minutes away from the end of the class. They were doing underwater swims (i.e. ducking the bubs into the water and hoping they don't swallow any), and obviously TLM couldn't go straight from being completely dry to getting a good dunking.

So the only class activity she got to do was the bye-bye song.


(We stayed on afterwards and did our own thing, but it's hardly the same thing).

reading about fertility rites

Did you think I'm doing it to improve my own fertility? Not likely.

During The Little Madam's afternoon nap today, I did my exercises (despite soreness from yesterday's) and still had a little time left over.

It's about time I read something that wasn't about parenting, so I pulled The New Golden Bough from my bookshelf and settled down on the couch for some mythology-anthropology.

Did you know that only around a hundred years ago, European villagers were getting their young and nubile to get jiggy amongst the crops, in order to ensure a good harvest? And I used to think that the penis-worshippers in The Wicker Man were a bit over-the-top...

An unfit mother

Don't call the Social Welfare dudes yet - this isn't anything to do with some of the less savoury items on my previous post's list. This is about physical fitness, or in my case, the lack of it.

All of my adult life, right from my teens when I got fat, when on stupid diets, got fat again and then discovered exercise, I've been a fitness junkie. Right up until my last term of pregancy, that is. At the peak of my physical fitness I had the oxygen capacity of a woman ten years younger, and could do a Tae Bo class and still breathe through my nose.

I know there are women who ran marathons when they were eight months pregnant, or who launched into a fitness program as soon as their respective babies popped out. But I wasn't one of them (pushing The Little Madam around in th buggy used to be great, but now that she's so mobile I hate to keep her harnessed up for long). And because breastfeeding helped me lose all my maternity fat, I didn't quite have the motivation that some new mothers did.

But things are going to have to change. I'm sick of looking at my belly in the mirror and seeing a ripe candidate for liposuction. I'm sick of getting out of breath pushing the buggy up the hill to my house (though to be fair, it's a very steep hill). And soon (I hope), I won't have breastfeeding to use up all those cake'n'biscuit calories I've been consuming for the last 18 months.

So today I started a modest fitness programme; just seven exercises which I can do at home while The Little Madam is napping, and the whole thing can be finished before she wakes up, even if she's decided to treat me with a 45-minuter. It's just a few lunges, ladies' pushups etc, but it's a start. And perhaps in the weekends I can use my baby-free time to do some laps at the local pool (not that I haven't been unsuccessfully meaning to for the last six months).

Today's workout:
supermans - 2 sets of 8
leg lifts, inner and outer thighs - 2 sets of 15
twist crunches - 2 sets of 15
ladies' pushups (the ones you do on your knees) - 2 sets of 15
shoulder blade squeezes - 2 sets of 15
lunges (no weights) - 2 sets of 15

Obviously if I keep this up, I'm going to need weights in the near future - not to mention a wider range of exercises and some cardio work. I'll worry about that in a couple of weeks.

150 things to do before you die

I stole this off Scholiast.

What I've achieved is in bold -

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins
03. Climbed a mountain (Mt Egmont in NZ)
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone
08. Said "I love you" and meant it
09. Hugged a tree
10. Bungee jumped (and I live in the bungee capital of the world)
11. Visited Paris (twice)
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise (but didn't really appreciate it because I was a little drunk and a lot tired)
14. Seen the Northern Lights
15. Gone to a huge sports game (It would be too boring)
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa (even though I've been to Pisa)
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg
19. Slept under the stars (does it count if I was under a tent?)
20. Changed a baby's diaper (just a few times)
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower
23. Gotten drunk on champagne(yeah, but it only took half a glass)
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope (and found Scorpio and a meteor)
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment
27. Had a food fight (it was at a medieval banquet. Those potatoes are HARD).
28. Bet on a winning horse
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb
33. Seen a total eclipse of the moon
34. Ridden a roller coaster (just a mini-version)
35. Hit a home run
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking (That's how I always used to dance)
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day (that's so tacky)
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer
40. Visited all 50 states
41. Taken care of someone who was shit-faced(you know who you are...unless you were so shit-faced you don't remember...)
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country (even when I danced like a fool)
44. Watched wild whales (at Kaikoura)
45. Stolen a sign
46. Backpacked in Europe (...and Africa, and South America, and Thailand)
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach (what about midnight skinny dipping?!)
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland (if you include Northern Ireland)
52. Been heartbroken longer than you were actually in love (oh, the embarrassment)
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger's table and had a meal with them (it's the kind of thing you do when you're travelling, eh?)
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow
56. Alphabetized your CDs
57. Pretended to be a superhero
58. Sung karaoke(Once my singing team won a prize, another time I was booed off stage)
59. Lounged around in bed all day
60. Posed nude in front of strangers
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken
69. Toured ancient sites
70. Taken a martial arts class(I used to be a brown belt in karate)
71. Played D&D for more than 6 hours straight
72. Gotten married
73. Been in a movie
74. Crashed a party (a really good Christmas party held by a very large advertising agency. The food and band were wonderful).
75. Gotten divorced
76. Gone without food for 5 days
77. Made cookies from scratch
78. Won first prize in a costume contest
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Snake River (but I have rafted the Zambezi River)
82. Been on television news programs as an expert
83. Got flowers for no reason (from the boy)
84. Performed on stage (but only at school)
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music
87. Eaten shark (that's just fish'n'chips, isn't it?)
88. Had a one-night stand
89. Gone to Thailand(twice, and didn't like it either time)
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone
92. Buried one/both of your parents
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently (-ish. Cantonese.)
95. Performed in Rocky Horror
96. Raised children (wel, I haven't quite finished yet)
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country (I would, but I can't ride a bike)
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over (does a year in Edinburgh count?)
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn't stop when you knew someone was looking
103. Had plastic surgery
104. Survived an accident that you shouldn't have survived
105. Wrote articles for a large publication
106. Lost over 100 pounds (how about the same 4-5 pounds over and over again?)
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Petted a stingray
110. Broken someone's heart (I think so, but he'd never admit to it)
111. Helped an animal give birth
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone
114. Gone on an African photo safari(just a short one; most of the time I was backpacking/hitchhiking)
115. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol (just in a shooting club on open day)
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse (and it made me itch and sneeze like crazy)
119. Had major surgery
120. Had a snake as a pet
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours (only when I had terrible food poisoning)
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states (but that would be obvious!)
124. Visited all 7 continents (but 6 out of 7 ain't bad, right?)
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days (on the Wanganui River)
126. Eaten kangaroo meat
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper (it was a local freebie newspaper, and about a badly-made chicane on our street)
129. Changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about
130. Gone back to school (art school and library school, but couldn't commit to either)
131. Parasailed (in Bali)
132. Petted a cockroach
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one important author who you missed in school, and read
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
137. Skipped all your school reunions so far (it's hardly a difficult thing to do)
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language (amazing how you can get buy on phrases like "Coca Cola", "Rolling Stones", "Bruce Springsteen" and "fast motorbike")
139. Been elected to public office
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you're living your dream (for about nine months, when I was an "artist")
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn't know you (oh c'mon...just selling one's artwork to someone who does know you is a big achievement!)
145. Had a booth at a street fair
146. Dyed your hair (blue and red, on separate occasions)
147. Been a DJ
148. Shaved your head
149. Caused a car accident
150. Saved someone's life

A new best friend every day

The Little Madam has never had a lovey, or special toy. We keep a little chimp stuffed toy in her cot, but really her alliances seem to change daily. One day it's the chimp, the next it's a mini-Eyore doll. Cose to bath time it's her little toothbrush decorated with ducks and during pajama time she'll clutch likely a closed jar of bum cream like it's the most fascinating thing in the room. Or, as this photo illustrates, it might be a sock she's been wearing all day.

Dim sum, an obvious choice?

I don't know why I never thought of it before, but surely Yum Char must be the best choice for eating out with a half-Chinese finger-food fanatic?

The only thing I can think of as a possible problem would be if The Little Madam reacts to the prawns or soy sauce, of which the latter is of course a mainstay of Cantonese cooking. Oh, and MSG of course. And having to check for egg. Well, no cuisine is perfect.

But really, little bits of meat and veges wrapped up in little bitty parcels? We already know that TLM likes deep-fried wontons; I'd be shocked (and stunned) if she didn't take to at least one or two of the many dishes which are paraded around the tables. Though perhaps not the chickens feet.

On the home-cooking front, I've just tried her out on asparagus rolls. She didn't take to them (so, more for me), but on the other hand she did like the avocado open sandwich I was eating.

Food for allergic kids

My sister-in-law has been a treasure trove of knowledge as regards the feeding of little'uns who need to avoid the Evil Five. She was the one who gave me the recipe for egg-free, dairy-free chocolate cake, and told me how to make egg-free and gluten-free meatballs. I've tried to note down everything she's told me, but now I don't have to because it's all published on the Itchy Kids website.

Tomorrow The Little Madam gets to try lamb French cutlets. They're kind of expensive, so if she ends up throwing hers on the floor I might just retrieve it (without breaking the 5-second rule) and eat it myself.

I had another chat with our GP today, as a prelude to our up-coming visit to the hospital's pediatric dietician. There seems to be a lot of conflicting advice about when fish, eggs, dairy, wheat and nuts should be introduced when the child's got allergic family. However, I've got the go-ahead to give TLM yoghurt again, because she's had it a few times in the past without any problems. It may be quite some time before she's offered peanut butter sandwiches, omelette or smoked salmon sushi though, because some of the literature advises waiting until 3-4 years old.

Comfy evenings in front of the telly

The upside to having a child who sleeps more or less from 6pm to 6am is that we usually have time to ourselves in the evening. Perhaps this is why the boy has always ensured that our collection of unwatched television and film DVDs is never allowed to remain low.

Currently we're enjoying Season Two of Battlestar Galactica. Who'd have thought that a remake of a silly-sounding Seventies sci-fi show, starring an actor whose previous role was as a cowboy (Lorne Green, Bonanza), could be so watchable? Well it is. The good guys aren't all good, the bad guys aren't all bad, and one of the main characters is despicably amoral.

The 4400 is also turning out to be quite good. It's about a group of people who've disappeared over a period of about fifty years, seemingly into thin air, only to re-emerge by a lake somewhere outside of Seattle. Slowly, it becomes obvious that these people have all come back with enhancements e.g. super-strength, the ability to suck the life out of a fellow human, or gestating an embryo that wasn't in her womb before her disappearance. Sounds a little like a serious-fied version of X-Men, I know - but it isn't.

And last but not least, I finally got around to watching Extras, Ricky Gervais' follow-up to the cringingly funny The Office. It's damned funny. Quite apart from the star-spotting (Samuel L Jackson was in the last episode I watched), Gervais and his female co-star play movie extras who have a special talent for putting their feet in their respective mouths. I'm not going to try to give an example though; you should just watch it.

That's all folks. My mum is currently staying at my brother's house and soon I have to go help her use their shower-over-bath.

What to get for Fathers Day

I've only just found out that there's a new Bill Bryson book out, The Life and Times of the Thunderbold Kid. And if I hadn't been perusing Dymocks' Fathers Day junk mail, I would still be ignorant of it today.

Buying it for the boy, for Fathers Day, wouldn't be appreciated though; I'm the Bryson fanatic, not him.

And so we come to the same problem I have at least twice a year - what the hell to get the boy who buys himself everything.

As soon as The Little Madam starts drawing with crayons (rather than eating them), his presents are going to be framed baby-art.

The clock that lied

I've noticed lately that The Little Madam has started waking quite a bit earlier than usual. She's gone from calling for milk and a Baby Einstein DVD anytime between 6am and 7am, to calling desperately for milk at around 5am. This isn't so surprising to me, since she's sleeping lots better now and getting very little - if any - milk during the night. But I was starting to wonder whether 5am was going to be the new 6am.

This morning, her yelling was so loud and insistent that, even though I usually try to wait until 6am before going to get her, I ended up struggling out of bed at 5.30.

TLM seemed pretty glad to see me, and the idea of putting her straight back to bed after nursing her didn't pan out because she got upset when I started to veer off the normal get-her-dressed-and-put-on-a-baby-DVD routine. So I brought her out into the lounge.

And that's when I noticed that the clock in the bedroom is a whole hour behind.

Hospital drama, the sequel

The Little Madam and I went to visit my mum in hospital this morning (and not an hour too soon, because as soon as we got home it started pissing down like you wouldn't believe), and The Chinese Patient is feeling pretty much back to normal. She's due to be discharged tomorrow, and we're currently organising for some home help for the first few weeks. This includes a weekly cleaner, which hopefully means that I no longer have to put off seeing to that mould in her shower box.

The hospital staff, on the whole, have been really good, especially considering the language barrier and my mum's old-lady fussiness. I hope the janitor doesn't mind having to scrape all the shrapnel from TLM's lunch, off the floor by Mum's bed; rice balls have a habit of disembowelling themselves all over the place, their constituent grains sticking to tenaciously to whichever surfaces they land upon (hey, what a lot of big words I used in this sentence!).

We intend to go back after TLM wakes from her afternoon nap, so if you have the weather god's ear could you tell her to please make it stop raining?

Debug

eb and jb have possibly found the answer to my problem with those annoying pop-ups which appear when you lovely people view this blog. I never thought to blame it on the Nedstat code, visible in the form of a little button at the bottom. But the writer of this article does. So I've removed it and will simply have to survive with not knowing whether anybody reads my blog - at least until I find a replacement.

So the upshot of all this is, if you still get the pop-ups then let me know. Otherwise you have the cunning eb and jb to thank.

Hospital drama

My mum nearly died today.
First I got the call from my sister-out-law, that something had happened to my mum and an ambulance was already on its way to her home. When I rang Mum, hoping to speak to her friend who just happened to be with her, at first I thought I'd rung a wrong number, because I couldn't understand the voice on the other end. I kept saying "It's me, Mum - what's going on?", only to hear a distant voice that sounded as though it was talking to someone else in the room.

By the time I'd arrived at her house, my brother was already there and the paramedics were wheeling her into the ambulance. They were having trouble finding out what had actually happened, because she was speaking incoherently in Cantonese. To me, she only repeated over and over that she was feeling very faint and light-headed.

It turned out that her heart was beating very slowly, which was affecting her blood pressure. This had caused her to almost lose consciousness, and the oxygen debt was affecting her brain. I am so damned grateful that someone was there to call for help.

At the Emergency room, staff in green scrubs, blue scrubs and office clothes (that would be the cardiologist) bustled around getting blood and checking her vitals. At one point, I was asked to put my finger on her arm, where they'd put a needle in. And that's when it happened.

My brother and I had been trying to talk to her, but she wasn't responding. She didn't seem to hear us. Then she was making strange gurgling sounds, and one of the green scrubs was hoisting my mum's chin up so hard that it left finger marks around her jaw. There was a brief commotion involving an oxygen mask and more chin-hoisting, before we were asked to go to the back of the room i.e. get the heck out of their way. Seconds later, there were audible sighs of relief. The leader of the green scrubs (the chin-hoister) said something to her colleague about Mum "nearly giving up" on her, and that was when I realised how close my brother and I had come to being orphans.

Although they aren't sure, the general consensus is that the problem is likely to be due to some of the medication she's on for high blood pressure. Mum's okay now, resting in the cardiac unit for overnight observation. Her blood pressure and heart rate are back to normal and she's already started to complain about the food. As far as she knows, she merely dozed off for a while this afternoon.

Second thoughts on sleep

It's only because The Little Madam recently graced us with the third-ever night in which she slept through from 6pm until 4.30am or later, but I'm now having second thoughts on whether it really is a good thing to sleep train one's child.

For most of TLM's first year of life, she woke me up 2-4 hourly at night for a night feed. Despite all my moaning and groaning that something had to be done about it, in the name of my sanity and ability to drive without falling asleep at the wheel, we never did get around to sleep-training her (except for her naps, twice).

So I've been both amazed and relieved that she has started to sleep through all by herself, without any "training" on our part (not counting the night-weaning, which only started this week because she still usually wakes for a nightfeed once per night, and only because I've no more patience).

Several mothers told me their kids were all breastfed to sleep, and it didn't stop them from sleeping through by age two - but I sure didn't want to wait that long.

It was Dr Weissbluth's (or Dr Wisebum, as one cheeky reviewer referred to him) book, lent to me by the wise Make Tea, that told me my daughter risked becoming an insomnolent teenager with zero-powers of concentration. And most sleep books told me that the longer we left it, the harder it would be to fix.

But it looks as though, in our case at least, they are wrong, wrong, wrong.

This has brought on a bout of wisdom-in-hindsight. If we knew then what we know now about TLM's evolving sleep behaviour, would I have been so grumpy and insistent that sleep-training was necessary? Would I have been more accepting of these nightly interruptions if I'd known for sure they would last only a few more months?

I suppose when it comes down to making the decision whether to wait or train, it's a matter of whether you think you can endure it any longer and still function effectively as a parent. Did any of you parents have any regrets as to whether you made the right decision, whether it was to train or go with the status quo?

Night weaning moves

I reckon by now it's high time I got my boobs back. So a couple of nights ago I embarked on a night-weaning programming to get The Little Madam used to sleeping without a minimum of one or two breastfeeds per night.

The only thing is, I'm not sure it's working. Maybe she really can't go more than 9 hours without food (her birthday sleep-marathon notwithstanding).

The programme goes like this: First, work out how long she feeds at night. Then, each following night, when she cries out for boobie, feed her for one minute less than the night before. When she protests - and by god she will - cuddle her until she goes to sleep or will at least settle back in her cot. Once down to a two-minute feed, omit the feed altogether and just go for the cuddle. The next night is when you start the actual sleep-training (i.e. let her cry for a bit, then go in to check on her, then leave, repeat until she's put herself to sleep).

The first night I timed her nightfeed, she clocked in at seven minutes.

Then TLM got her jab, so I put the programme on hold for a couple of nights.

Night #1 of night weaning, I unlatched TLM after seven minutes; the boy and I then spent about 45 minute resettling her. Then she fell asleep until about 6am. Total amount of night sleep lost - about fifty minutes.

Night #2 of night weaning, I unlatched TLM after seven minutes again because I thought I'd take it a little more slowly. I unlatched TLM, then upset her when I dropped the clock, which made a loud, echoe-y clatter on the floor. It took about 45 minutes to resettle her. Then she woke again at 3.30am and did this slow wail that sounded like she'd settle down, but didn't. I went in about an hour later, fed her for seven minutes, and spent another 45 minutes resettling her. Total amount of night sleep lost - about two and a half hours.

I need a carrot to keep going; I will now peruse catalogues for non-maternity bras and shirts that don't open or lift up easily.

Writing stuff down

I thought of a great subject to post about last night while I was bed, but I'd already forgotten what it was by this morning. What I should do is have a notebook and pen on the bedside table, just in case I come up with an idea I want to remember.

After all, if I didn't write stuff down I wouldn't remember anything except my name.

When The Little Madam was about three months old, I started to record the times she fed and napped because I hoped to work out what her routine was. It never really worked, because by the time I'd determined what it was, she changed again. But I still, even now that she's one year old, can't stop logging her naptimes, meal times, meal contents and overnight sleep times.

It must sound totally anal to you, dear reader. But I can't stop. I've already filled up two whole notebooks with this stuff, and have just started a third*.

What can I say - I've got one of those obssessive personalities. If I'd been any different, I wouldn't have quit my IT job to learn how to paint pretty pictures, or gone overseas for two years at an age when most of my friends had already returned home, or spent 18 months in a sometimes-thankless job helping library customers with their photocopying (actually that last job wasn't all bad, I did fun and satisfying stuff too).

My obssessions are what keep me going.


*I'm not saying that one day in the far future, I'll go back to the notebooks and reminisce over how TLM slept for 40 mins four times a day at the age of four months, or ate nothing but luncheon slices and toast every day for about three months.

But it has been useful for seeing how she has progressed in her sleep habits, or even just to prove to the boy that I really did only sleep in 3-4 hour blocks most nights last month. It'll also be handy if she starts to show any symptons of food allergy, because just about every single thing that passes her lips is there on paper.

The Emperor and the Assassin

The Emperor and the Assassin (a great review on this link) is an old movie I know (1998), but I'm giving it a mention because it's so very very good. We bought it on DVD on the weekend you see, after a failed attempt to go to a carpet & rug sale (there was absolutely no parking) and a successful search for a child safety gate (so The Little Madam doesn't fall down the steps when she tries to go outside), and I really wanted the boy to see it.

This came out around about the same time as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and at the time my tinny voice could be heard in film-watching circles asserting that Assassin was by far the better movie. It's not just better because it's based on Chinese history (about a king's desire to unite China, how it changes his character, and what his concubine tries to do to stop him), it's also an absorbing story with interesting characters, and one which doesn't try to pander to Western tastes more familiar with Jackie Chan buffoonery (not that I don't enjoy those) and Jet Li action flicks.

Hammock time

We just got back from the doctor's, where The Little Madam received her fourth and final Meningococcal B vaccination (two months late). Of course, she wouldn't have the afternoon nap that would have helped her feel a little more rested for the jab. But she took it like a trooper, calming right down after the initial piercing, red-faced shriek.

And I've found that if I put a tired, jabbed one-year-old in her baby hammock (the one she looked so sweet in almost exactly one year ago, here) and bounce and rock it for about fifteen minutes, I can make her fall asleep after all.

More birthday pics

Here' The Little Madam posing on her Poh Poh's lap. Little did she suspect she would soon be attacked by a giant chocolate cake...


And here she is taking her giant jigsaw puzzle apart (she hasn't yet learned that the object of jigsaw puzzles is to put them back together).







The next day, we went out and bought her a car. It's got the words "Hunny Pot Express" on the back support. Now, I'm pretty sure that sounds very slightly soft porn. But I could be mistaken...

Miss Interpretation

Ever since we were kids, my brother and I had to take turns playing interpreter to our mum. Whether she was trying to buy insurance, or get a good price on a lounge suite or convince the electricity company that the bill was unreasonably high, one of us always got roped in to translate Cantonese to English and back again.

My Cantonese-speaking workmate used to have a great laugh when she overheard me on the phone, acting as the go-between for my mother and some poor furniture retailer or whatever her target of the day was. She drives a pretty hard bargain, which totally conflicts with my aversion to this way of doing business (what a sorry excuse for a Cantonese I must seem).

It would go something like this:

"So you want ten percent off for cash? Okay, put me onto the salesman and I'll ask him. She wants to know if she can get ten percent off for cash. You have to ask your manager? Okay, ask your manager, and let me talk to my mother. Mum, he has to ask his manager. Put me back onto the salesman again. What - the manager is at lunch and you don't have the authority? Alright, I put me back on to my mother then. Mum, he says the manager isn't there and he can't give you a discount without the manager. Mum, it's already on sale at fifty percent off anyway. Why don't you just pay what it says on the poster? Okay okay okay! Put me back on to the man. My mother says she can get ten percent off at that shop in the mall. You can give five percent off? Okay, put me back on to my mother. He says you can get five percent off. Why isn't that good enough,mum. Look, I haven't got all day to talk on the phone you know - I have computers to programme. Okay okay...put the man back on..."

And so it would continue until an hour had passed and my mother had got her bargain.


Today I had to hire a plumber for my mother, whose bathroom and laundry taps have become leaky and obstinate. Being the interpreter is much more tedious now, as every other sentence has to be repeated at least twice because my mum is so hard of hearing. It really cuts into my free time (TLM's nap time) you know.

Which Pirates of the Caribbean character are you?

Having only seen the first movie, I find her a little ridiculous rather than admirable. I'd really prefer to be either Will or Jack Sparrow.



Which Pirates of the Caribbean character are you?

I found it at Not quite The Spectator Essays.

Party pic

Here's a piccy of the bemused birthday girl, watching a giant brown, candle-topped slab approach her while everyone sings Happy Birthday. That's her Poh Poh making sure she doesn't make a run for it.

You'll have to excuse the uncropped-ness of the photo because I've loaded it straight onto Handbag (the name of my laptop), which doesn't have any photo-handling software on it.

Oh, and I was gonna dress her up for the do, but her dad was the one who got her up from her nap. He was the one who put her in the sweatpants and McDonalds colours.

It's her party and she'll be adorable if she wants to

The Guests -

My mum, who took an hour to get ready but made enough deep-fried wontons and rice rolls to feed a all the staff of your average south-Chinese sweatshop.

My brother, his partner and their two kids (aged 5 and 2 respectively). My sister-out-law provided the recipe for eggless, dairyless chocolate cake. The very fact that I managed to not quite get it right just shows how unlike Nigella Lawson I really am. The fact that the cake still tasted really good is testament to her (my sis-out-law, not Nigella) ability to select the right chocolate cake recipe to suit my baking "talent".

The Editter, who stepped in as the god(less)mother-by-proxy. TLM's actual god(less)mother is in fact Flying Kiwi, who is of course overseas.

TLM's godparents, who are the boy's most fab friends. They left their super-cute, floppy-eared doggies home to come over and set The Little Madam up with her next season's fashion wardrobe.

The rest -

I made sure there was lots of food on offer, but my mum's wontons were the clear favourite. Next year I'm going to forget about ordering bakery goods, and just get mum on the job. TLM didn't really take much notice of the presents (loads of the latest in toddler-wear, a truly great pop-up version of We're Going On A Bear Hunt, Chocolate Mousse For Greedy Goose and a genuine piece of greenstone all the way from the Deep South - South Island, that is) but only because she was too busy watching her cousins trip and land in other people's cake. There was also the obligatory lap-time to be spent with each adult present, no doubt pretty tiring for someone who is more used to being in a crowd of three.

She was a worn-out little angel by the time everyone had left to go home.

p.s. We did take photos, and I'll endeavour to post some up soon.

All night long

It was The Little Madam's birthday, but this morning I felt like I was the one who got the present - amazingly, she slept from 6pm till 6am without a single night feed. There were a few cries around 1am, but five minutes later (I think - I was in a deep sleep at the time) all was quiet on the baby front. Twelve. Whole. Hours.

Unfortunately, I woke up at 4.30am to the sound of the boy's snoring, and didn't get back to sleep at all. That didn't do anything to change the amazing-ness of TLM's night though.

A quiet birthday

Today was just another day for The Little Madam, but to me it marked two things - her first birthday, and the fact that I really did survive my first year of motherhood with my sanity more or less intact. So far anyway.

She's fairly blase about the birthday cards, her present from the lovely eb (acopy of That's Not My Dragon) and a cheque from her grandad, all the way from the UK. As far as The Little Madam was concerned, it was just another day in which to bumshuffle-crawl into the rubbish bin, stick her fingers into kitchen cupboards and pull the tea trolley until it toppled over and landed on her face.

Since the actual celebration is not until tomorrow, I'm assuming that's why the boy hasn't conjured up any birthday presents. And I didn't get her anything at all. When she's old enough to ask me why, I'm going to tell her exactly what my mum used to tell me (in stern Cantonese) - "I gave birth to you. You should be giving me a present."

Since it was so sunny and relatively warm, I took TLM to a neighbourhood park, where she sat in the swing and laughed at the sight of me in my sunglasses (I don't know why she finds it funny; I like to think I look cool and hip in my sunglasses). Then we went to the library, where I let her loose amongst the board books. When she caught sight of her old favourite, Bathtime Peekaboo, her whole face lit up as though she'd spotted an old friend. It was a rather touching reunion, really. I had to borrow it to take home so she could continue to paw it's pages and gaze at the picture of the giant rubber duckie.

After we got home, I put on a Buffy CD (the first one). I don't tend to play music much now, so it'd been a while since she last heard it. It was really cute how, when TLM heard it, she just sat completely still with this faraway look in her eyes. It was as though the familiar soundtrack was bringing back memories of when she was in the womb.

Then it was off to bed at 6, almost seven hours after she'd woken from her last nap.

So ended TLM's first anniversary.

At last, a meme that means something to me

Thanks to Make Tea Not War, I have found a meme I can get my teeth into...

1) The first movie you remember seeing on the big screen:

It was one of those Tarzan movies. No, not the ones starring Johnny Weissmuller - I'm not quite that old. It was the Tarzan that came after. The next movies I remember going to see were the Bond movies. You can probably guess that I have no sisters ...

2) Movie from which you can quote multiple lines in your sleep:

That's quite a challenge with a memory like mine. I'd have to say Zoolander, because the line "stings like a fissure in my ass" just keeps popping up in my head at the most inappropriate times.

3) Director (dead or alive) that you’d most want to have dinner with:

Is Johhny Depp a director yet?
Otherwise, probably the maker of those hilarious mockumentaries, Best in Show and A Mighty Wind. It couldn't possibly be a dull dinner.

4) Movie that should have won an Oscar but didn’t:

Zoolander ;-) I dunno really, I just know what makes my brain tickle.

5) Movie that didn’t disappoint despite being the adaptation of a book:

The Lord of the Rings - but then I never got past the first chapter of the first book. Most often I see the movie before I've read the book, which is probably a better way of doing it. In which case, I can recommend 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Hotel New Hampshire.

6) Movie you were dragged to by someone else expecting to hate, but which you loved:

Trainspotting. I was expecting something that glorified drug-taking, and got the opposite. It was scary, repellant and really, really funny.

7) Movie that scares the crap out of you no matter how many times you see it:

Salem's Lot. The first time I ever saw it my brother and I were home alone. He left the room just before that scene with the vamped little boy floating outside his living brother's window. That scene still gives me the shivers.

8) The movie that makes you bawl no matter how many times you see it:

Usually if it made me bawl the first time, I wouldn't go see it again. But many, many episodes of Buffy make me bawl and it's never stopped me from watching them repeatedly.

9) The movie that still has you rolling on the floor with laughter no matter how many times you’ve seen it:

Zoolander. Of course.

The boy's near-death experience

I'm only blogging about this because it's a nice change from blogging about The Little Madam and television, and because the boy is too lazy to update his own blog...

Something happened to him on his way to work yesterday - a sheep escaped from a nearby abatoir and ran straight into his car. He'd managed to swerve to avoid getting hoofed in the face, but his car has a nice big sheep-shaped dent in it though.

There was some mention of it in Stuff, but anyone expecting to see a mugshot of my man-about-the-house (me, for instance) would have been terribly disappointed. The article basically says there was a sheep limping about on the motorway with a broken leg, possibly caused by a run-in with a motorist. Not so much five minutes of fame, as five minutes more of utter invisibility.

One positive side effect of his facing possible death-by-woolliness, is that he was feeling pretty damned good for the rest of the day. I suppose being grateful for being alive can do that to a person.

I'm not the ONLY crazy mum around here y'know

Granted, this woman's child is almost twice the age of The Little Madam, but that doesn't stop her from being just as anxious about her son's eating habits as I am about TLM's. Ask Moxie is my latest best blog discovery. I wish I'd discovered her sooner - sure, she's no more of an expert on parenting than most parents, but she sure does sound like she knows what's what.

Another reason I'm always concerned about how much TLM eats is that she's very little for her age. It's supposedly normal for babies to triple their birth weights in the first year, but TLM has crept from a 3.66kg birth weight to a petite 8.44kgs at almost one year. The GP assured me that it was probably my shortness genes coming into play, which was not at all reassuring (the boy is 6'2"; I truly believe that short women hook up with tall men because of a subconcsious desire to create normal-size offspring).

After TLM was weighed at her WellChild checkup yesterday I had a chat to the Plunket nurse and she's going to get me an appointment with the hospital dietician. It's pretty hard trying to think up finger foods for TLM which don't include the Evil Five (dairy, eggs, soy, nuts, fish), and hopefully this food expert can give me some more ideas.

Back into the social fray, whilst dodging unpredictable naps

This week is going to be the most social week The Little Madam has experienced for at least a month. Although we're still administering her inhaler twice a day (during Baby Einstein-viewing times, or else there's a big fight), she's pretty much all better now and no longer coughing herself awake at night. She's still waking up lots anyway, but I s'ppose you can't have everything eh?

This whole two-naps-to-one-nap transition is pretty hard - yesterday I put her down for her afternoon nap at midday, and she slept all of 45 minutes. By bedtime she was almost bouncing off the walls (what stopped this from happening was that we have almost no bare wall space). So today, because she woke up at the pre-dawn time of 5.30am I decided it was going to be a two-nap day. And she decided to sleep only in the morning, and talk to herself during the entire hour of her afternoon nap.

So anyway, this morning we went to the Salvation Army playgroup, where she absolutely delighted in spending time with a whole array of unfamiliar toys. Tomorrow morning TLM hits the pool for her swim class - the first in about a month. On Saturday afternoon we're having a cosy wee birthday party, because guess who turns the big One on Friday?

Lane is me, and so is her mum

Yesterday's episode of Gilmore girls had this really hilarious scene in it, one which was especially poignant for me.

It's the episode where Korean American Lane gets married, with her ultra-conservative Christian mum receiving the worrying last-minute news that her own mum, a Buddhist, has decided to attend. Lane's mum had obviously never had the guts to tell the matriarch about this slight change of religion; the sight of her sweating buckets to replace all those crucifixes in the house with two enormous Buddhas, is priceless.

I've always identified with Lane because she too, has been occasionally forced to live a double life* ever since she discovered her American/Western side (it's what makes us first generation Asians "bananas" **).

It was interesting to see a member of the older generation suffering a similar dilemma.

* Some of the myriad facts about my life that I hid from my mum:
- that, at the age of fifteen, I bought myself a guitar and practised secretly in my room. She didn't find out for about six months even though we lived in the same house.

- whether I was still a virgin

- that I was a social drinker until that Asian drinking curse caught up with me (not content to merely make me go beet red at the second sip of gin & tonic, now I get physically sick after a drink)

** banana: White on the inside, yellow on the outside

Mummy brain strikes again

Only someone with a colander-like memory like me, would schedule her wee daughter's vaccination jab for the same day as her first birthday.

Doh!

Never mind that The Little Madam is already two months overdue, with her 15-month jabs already nipping at her heels. I've rung in to get it postponed till next Monday.

Asking to be dooced

The boy has gone and ordered some extra-geeky t-shirts off the Internet, and this is what he got me.

I'm guessing that it's not the kind of thing a person would wear to work, eh?

Eat your greens, don't breathe 'em

The great thing about using a steam vaporiser when you or your child has a stuffy nose, is that it really does help with the breathing.

The dangerous thing about the steam vaporiser is that there's a greatly increased risk of breeding mould on your walls if you use it a lot and can't provide adequate ventilation or clean the vaporise thoroughly.

The Little Madam is just getting over her 6th cold since June, so you can imagine that our vaporiser has been working overtime. I had noticed that having it on all night resulted in damp walls and furniture the following morning, so had made sure that her room was aired out during the day. Well, as much as possible considering the heater was on all the time and I like to keep the door closed to minimise heat loss.

But it wasn't enough. And I obviously haven't been cleaning the vaporiser out nearly enough, because this morning I discovered a thick layer of the nasty green-black stuff on the wall opposite TLM's cot, all around the bedroom window and coating the block-out curtain.

A mould allergy is a pretty likely culprit as a cause of TLM's worrying wheeze, too.

So as soon as the boy got out of bed I sent him to work on cleaning out TLM's room with a bleach solution. We're also going to pull up the (green) carpet, which is probably camoflaging it's own population of spores, and do a general declutter.

So I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that by this time next week we'll have a one-year-old with lovely clean airways, unbothered by fungal things and dust mite poos.