So, how many of you are there?

The boy came up with another interesting link.

This one invites you to enter your first and last names (there is nowhere for your middle name), and then tells you how many people in the US have your name.

The Little Madam shares her name with absolutely zero people in the US, whilst I have four name-alikes.

I'm not sure how useful this is to anyone though.

Thoughts on underwear

Happy and Blue 2 asks the question - what is your favourite invention - and my answer was self-cleaning underwear.

Which, of course, doesn't exist yet.

But then I had a memory flashback.

There was this one time, on the telly, when I saw an item about Teflon-coated underwear.

That must surely have been a sincere attempt at self-cleaning underwear. Except having a Teflon on the inside of one's knickers doesn't so much clean it, as prevent anything from sticking to it.

Is that a good thing?

Now, if one were to do a poo or a wee, the stuff is just going to slide right off - where do you think it's going to go?

Once I knew a woman, recently arrived from China, who expressed disappointment at the unavailability in New Zealand of throw-away knickers. They don't sound at all comfortable, but I bet they'd be handy.

All credit to the other bloggers

I don't normally push other people's blogs, because it's hard enough getting you lot to read this one without pointing you elsewhere. But I'm compelled to tell you about - nay, rave about - The Big Side Order. It's creator, Gary James, writes wonderfully and wittily about his adventures in the Yorkshire wilds, looking for love and the way back to the car. If you haven't found it already, go see him and tell him I sent ya.

And in a moment of diplomacy, let me assure you that if you're already on my blogroll then I'm loving reading you right now...

Boobie-free

Weaning The Little Madam from her bedtime breastfeed was, I thought, going to be tough. It's been part of her bedtime routine since she was about a month old, and we all know how much kiddies hate to have their routine mucked about with.

But it seems that TLM is making it easy for me. For the past few days, her nostrils have been so clogged with snot that she's only been able to breastfeed maybe a couple of times. Last night she didn't even bother trying, even though I'd deliberately tried to minimise her mucous-ness by cutting out the dairy products that day.

So tonight I decided not to offer it to her. And she didn't even seem to notice.

It's turning out to be much, much easier than I'd anticipated. And I'm turning out to be just a little bit sadder about it than I'd expected.

The hunt continues

When I rang work to update my boss-to-be on the childcare situation so far, she surprised me with an offer to subsidise The Little Madam's childcare costs. What's more, she told me that if the in-home carer doesn't work out, she'll heavily subsidise the cost of hiring a live-out nanny.

Isn't that just about every working mother's dream?

This increases my options so much more, so I'm that much more likely to find someone I'm completely - or even mostly - happy with.

After I heard the news, the terrible upper-back and neck pain I'd been suffering from in the last few days subsided noticeably, and I've been able to stop taking Voltarin (an anti-inflammatory which just happens to aggravate my asthma).

Meanwhile, I'm going through in my mind what instructions I'll have to give regarding TLM's morning naps. Something along the lines of - put her down for a nap around three hours after she woke up this morning, but if she looks tired earlier then try for earlier. But if she looks wide awake, keep her up until she starts looking tired. But if she hasn't fallen asleep after half and hour, get her up and try to keep her up until she's had her morning tea and try again. And if she doesn't go to sleep after that, give her an early lunch and I'll try for an early afternoon nap when I get her home.But try to work in an outing each morning...

Meet the nanny

So we met the caregiver mentioned in the last post, and my fears about miscommunication were pretty well realised.

You see, I initially called her on the Tuesday and told her we'd drop by on Friday. But later that day, the agency rang and told me the caregiver had expecting me that day - not Friday.

Then, yesterday I rang and asked to postpone our meeting because of The Little Madam's cold. I suggested a couple of different days and times, neither of which suited her. Finally we settled on today - Saturday - at 2pm. Only it turned out that the caregiver had somehow mistakenly agreed to Saturday at 11.30. Not a good start, I think.

So yes, the English being "not one hundred percent" was no exaggeration.

However, her 3 1/5 year old son played really well with TLM, excitedly bringing out all his library books and toys, including the annoyingly loud musical moneybox. And the caregiver herself, though without formal qualifications or first-aid training, was as gentle and nice as I'd been told.

So there you have it. She gets along with TLM and her son promises to be a good playmate, but we'd have to communicate everything in writing to avoid any more misunderstandings.

snorts and worries

The Little Madam's slight sniffliness has developed into a full-blown cold (which helps explain her irribility of late), and it hasn't taken long for my sinuses to mucous-up in sympathy.

The timing's not exactly convenient, since we were supposed to be meeting our potential caregiver today. It's been postponed until tomorrow, but in all honesty I doubt that she'll be any safer from our bogey-germs by then.

I shouldn't judge until we've at least met the nice-sounding woman who's offered her home and her childcare services, but already I'm not totally sure she's the right person for the job.

For one thing, her English is "not one hundred percent" (her agency's words - she's from India). Kiwis tend to speak pretty quickly compared to other English-speakers, and I tend to mix fast-speaking with spoonerisms and mumbling. There could be a lot of opportunity for mis-communication.

Then there's the fact that she has no formal childcare qualifications whatsoever. She'll be studying toward one while she's working, but it's really not the same - I just envisioned that the person showing my little girl the world would have been trained already.

Also, not meaning to be racist - I'd far rather that the person who spends 15-20 hours per week with TLM was of either the boy's culture (English, Welsh) or mine (Chinese, Kiwi). I reckon TLM would be more comfortable with that.

Though, aside from the first concern, I'm probably making too much of it. Just because a person hasn't book-learned something doesn't necessarily mean they aren't going to be great at it. And there are probably tons of well-adjusted kids who're being raised by caregivers of a different culture and language from them (like the children of expats, for instance).

Get me some Valium. Now.

There's something about the last hour or so of The Little Madam's day which utterly exhausts me by the time it's over.

Over-tired from refusing to have her afternoon nap, she issues a steady whining monologue which I try to ignore - except sometimes she whines because she's doing a huge poo, so there's a good chance that by nappy-free time there's a fulsome, smelly trackmark waiting for me.

By dinnertime, TLM's more interested in throwing food than eating it. I waver between issuing a stern "NO", and simply ignoring it in the hope that some of the peas and meatballs rebound off the wall and into her mouth. (I've tried simply ending the meal as soon as she starts acting up, but then I worry she'll go to bed hungry and not sleep well).

I usually put on a Baby Einstein DVD during nappyfree time, so she'll leave me alone while I get her bath ready. But Baby Einstein no longer holds TLM in a hypnotic trance. So to minimise the possibility of carpet burns on her bottom (she's a bum-shuffler, remember), I strap her into her infant chair with a cloth nappy under her backside. Whining continues as she struggles to get free of the chair harness.

You may have tried to dress a freshly-greased baby who's intent on practicing her rolling, wriggling and sitting up. If you have, you're probably already nodding in recognition. If you haven't, you're welcome to drop by for some workplace training.

Once she's in bed, she pretty much goes straight to sleep, for which I'm indescribably grateful. Our baby-free evening has begun - which means I'm free to lie inert on the couch until either I'm persuaded to make dinner, or the takeaways arrive.

Hmm...maybe this time TLM really is turning one-nap girl.

The calm after the storm

It's hard to believe that it's actually calm and sunny today - the sort of weather you always think Spring should offer up, instead of those gale-force winds, toe-numbing temperatures and pelting rain that characterise every single Labour Weekend I can remember.

Yesterday, because I was sick of being cooped up indoors, I took The Little Madam out to the local playgroup and we nearly got blown backwards into the traffic we'd just crossed. Really. At the traffic lights I had to brace myself by planting one leg way back and leaning heavily into the buggy. The buggy's rain cover kept threatening to blow right off and sometimes I had to choose between holding onto my rain hood or holding onto my baby (she won).

But after four full days of atrocious weather,the kind that blows cars off mountain roads and turns a Cook Strait ferry crossing into the ultimate punishment for forgetting one's seasickness pills, at last it's Spring-like.

I think we'll go for a nice walk.

In which two gay cowboys mumble their way through a whole movie

Yep, I'm talking about Brokeback Mountain. I'm a bit behind on the movie-watching front, but at last I've caught up with this one.

Mumbling aside, it was actually a really good movie. I didn't actually like Ennis and Jack until towards the end though, twenty years after the start of their affair and still no closer to having a life together. It was probably seeing Ennis make love to his wife Alma, and then flip her over so he could...y'know...that kind of put me off him. It was the look of anticipated physical pain on Alma's face that did it.

But by the time those two had spent twenty years going on fake "fishing" trips together, repressing their emotions in that manly way and understandably adrift from their respective wives, I did feel sad for them. So much waste, of love and of time.

The boy even got a little wet around the eyes (actually I was surprised he sat and watched it with me in the first place!), and that's got to say something.

No, your honour, she wasn't in a fist fight

Just before I came out of the bathroom I heard a loud thump which had me thinking that The Little Madam had somehow managed to climb onto the couch and fallen off it.

But the boy was sitting on the couch, so that wasn't it. What it was, was that TLM had spontaneously decided to give yoga a try, and failed to keep the pose for the recommended two minutes.

That's right - our bum-shuffler, who is only ever gets on her hands and knees when she's moving from tummy-time position to sittin gup, was trying to crawl. Or maybe she really was attempting a downward-facing dog position.

Anyway, it ended with a nose-dive. Perhaps the trauma of having one's face unexpectedly, and harshly, meeting the kitchen floor is really tiring. But today, split lip and all, she actually went down for her morning nap (though the boy did have to resettle her).

Yellow crayon

The Little Madam's Aunty H gave her a set of crayons and a scrapbook for her first birthday, and ever since then I've tried to show her (TLM, that is) how to used them to draw. Invariably, she pops the crayon in her mouth instead and gives it a good chew before I yank it away again.

Yesterday though, she took the yellow crayon and made little sweeping motions across the page. True, she used the blunt end instead of the pointy end, but she made marks - real, visible marks. I was so pleased that I took that page and put it into her scrapbook so I can show it to her one day when she's a famous tattoo artist.

Then I had to wipe yellow waxy stuff off her teeth.

Anxiety sets in

I'm waiting to hear back from one in-home childcare (that's one person looking after up to 4 kids, in her own home) agency, hopefully with a list of potential care-givers for The Little Madam, and for a visit from another agency.

If the alignment of the planets is in my favour, then I'll find someone who'll take good care of TLM while I work part-time from next month. TLM being the ultra-cute kid that she is, I'm confident that whoever gets the job (if anyone does) will adore her.

But 2-3 weeks is not enough time for me to worry about things like:

- what if the caregiver turns out to be a child abuser? At least in a daycare centre there are multiple staff so you can't get away with mistreatment. TLM could get upset every morning and I'd think it's simply separation anxiety;

- what if TLM never settles in?; She might never nap because of the huge change of environment, and regress in her sleep habits.

- if I spend all my time either working or catching up with TLM, won't I have even less me-time than I do right now?

I suppose every parent who decides to put their kid into daycare must go through exactly this kind of angst, and they can probably blog about it a lot more eloquently too. So I'll just shut up now.

Emergency babysitting

My old employer just rang and offered me my old job back on a temporary basis - November to February.

I reckon it would be really good for me to go back to my part-time job, and for The Little Madam to experience being looked after by people who like child-minding so much they'd make a career out of it. The boy is really supportive too (though I wonder if that just means he's keen on seeing me get off my bum and earn some money).

The major obstacle though, is finding childcare. I rang the place whose waiting list I've been on since I was seven months pregnant (almost a year and a half ago), and they aren't going to have any places until January at the very earliest. Needless to say, other childcare centres whom I didn't bother contacting until today, don't have any places until next year at the earliest either - and people on their respective waiting lists are ahead of me already.

Even if I had returned to work after 6 months as I had originally arranged with my old boss, TLM would not necessarily have a place to go once I was due to start work again.

Which leads to this question - how on earth do mothers synchronise their childcare with their return to work?

Ventilation

Usually when a telemarketer rings me up and asks whether I would like a home demo of some product or other, I just say no. But I've been thinking about installing a home ventilation system, heat pumps and/or underfloor insulation all winter, so yesterday I welcomed an HRV salesman into my home to give me his Irish-accented sales pitch.

I'm sure that handsome salespeople with charming accents and the good manners to ignore a 14-month-old with his shoes, are more likely to make an on-the-spot sale than the rest. But I tend not to buy anything (unless it's at a book, DVD or clothing sale) until I've mulled it over, compared it to several competitors, talked to my friends about it and tried to get a discount.

Consumer magazine might have advice on how to choose between the different ways of cleaning or heating the air in one's home, but I'm too lazy to go and look through the stacks of magazines.

I'd rather just ask you folks.

The climate here is mild, ranging from around 5 degrees Celsius in Winter to perhaps the late 20s in summer. My place is a draughty 2-3 bedroom cottage, only insulated in the ceiling. There's a little condensation on the windows in our bedroom in Winter and the hallway sometimes has a piebald look about it. Two rooms are heated by oil column heaters and the rest of the house is au naturel i.e. fridge-like in the Winter and oven-like in mid-summer. Oh, and we're considering moving house sometime.

So what do you reckon? Should we bother with heat pumps? Would a forced-air ventilation system make a noticeable difference to my asthma? Does under-floor insulation fix cold feet better than a boyfriend's warm tummy?

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