What you talkin' 'bout Sarah?

Yes, its been a while.

Its not our fault. Its the fuggin gummint.

In the past cupla weeks we've increasingly noticed that Little Miss S is emerging, caterpillar butterfly-from-a-cocoon-like, from the communication bubble, and hence the blog feels the urge to emerge too.

It all started with the annual Sandy Point Cup Weekend windsurf trip.

There we were, ignoring/listening to the babble that is Little Miss S of late, when others in the house said "She's talking".

"No, that's just Sarah-babble."

"No, she's talking. Listen, she's saying 'ball!' ".

And she was. 

Handed the ball she was as happy as Larry-ette.

(And also clearly now ready to be taken to the footy.) 

Then she started jumping.

"Jumpy jumpy" she said.

MMmmmm...

"Hat" she then said, pointing at, well, a hat.

"Up!" was next, as she grabbed a fellow one year old, who is bigger than herself though still not walking, and tried to drag her onto her feet.

(It didn't work.)

This was all finally and embaressingly topped off with "Jar!", which is a somewhat sad reflection of the fact that, being a second kiddie and all that, mum and dad have dispensed to some degree with all the pre-cooking and mashing of veges etc, and just resorted to Mr Heinz finest. 

In a jar.

(i.e., "Jar" = Food.)

"Dadda" and "mumumumum" have been around for a while too.

While its one thing to mutter the odd demand, its another to feign ignorance of what mum and dad are talking about - surely a teenager, not a one-ager, trait. We know she's engaged in a bit of this because of late she's been giving the game away by actually responding correctly to the things she really wants.

A true trap for young players.

It all started with a hairclip.

"I wonder where your hairclip is Sarah?" muttered, somewhat rhetorically, mum one recent day.

Who then noticed the girl running down the corridor and into the bedroom, emerging a tick or two later with...

A hairclip.

"Crikey" said mum.

For dad it was toast related.

As per weekend-usual, there he was preparing his brekky of tea and toast - while intermittently humming the tea and toast song by the Weddos and swearing that the Sat'day Age hadn't arrived again and it was past 8am - when Little Miss S started pointing. 

At his plate and the jar of Vegemite.

"Ok, if you want (my) toast, go and sit in your chair..." grumbled dad, while thinking "hehehe... she has no idea what I am talking about, but it sure sounds like I'm being a good parent...", only to turn around and see...

Little Miss S, bolting across the kitchen, pulling out the little kiddies chair at the little kiddies table, plonking herself up onto the seat, and smiling expectantly back.

"Bugger," grumbled dad. "That just me cost half me bloody brekky." 

(Soon followed by; "Where's me bloody paper?". 

And; "When are we getting a bloody 4-slice toaster - with 'extra little bit of toasting' option?")

Of course it hasn't been all been new talking and antiquated swear words in the Baghdad-end of Hampton.

Given the extreme time period since the last blog, we'll have to attempt a top ten (per kiddie) from the massive list of undocumented recent firsts.

Little Miss S:

1. First trip to the snow, including her longest car ride to date (400km+, which she did amicably), and of course her first time actually seeing snow (somewhat a shock and awe experience), first tottering about in snow in snowboots, first snowman (kinda scary/creepy cold white dude with a carrot for a nose and prunes for eyes - later eaten by currawongs) and first ride in a toboggan, in which she fell asleep. Onto the other person in the toboggan. (Yes,this all occurred prior to her first birthday too... eons ago.)
2. First trip to the Show. As in the Royal Melbourne Show. Hence she saw lots of farm animals, a guy on fire diving off a twenty metre high tower, a 'ride' in a fire engine, her longest train trip to date, and her first showbag (Seasame Street - she likes the Oscar the grouch umbrella). And it didn't even end in tears.
3. First concert (and first photo with a 'celebrity') - Justine Clarke, who appears to be famous to people depending upon distinct age groups. Either; she's been on Playschool for about a million years, or if you're pre-Cambrian, she was the original "Roo" on Home and Away.
4. First dancing, including claps and twirls and common or garden variety jigging. Often to the aforementioned Justine Clarke.
5. First swimming lessons - not that she's all that keen on going underwater, lying on her back or having water splashed on her head, but she does do a mean rocket ship. (You have to be there.) Lessons ended early as the poor lass developed an infected preauricular sinus (insert sad face), but she left defiantly with the Arnie Schwarzenegger Terminator-ism - "I'll be back."
6. First eating of nuts. (Not allergic.)
7. First "Come on, read me a book!". Though it goes more like 'pull a stack of books off the bookshelf, find one she likes, point it at mum/dad saying something we cant understand at a hundred miles per hour, then plonking herself down ready for action.'
8. First walk (unassisted) all the way to the milkbar... and back! (Yes, accompanied by mum.) Considering each step is about a tenth of that or mum and dad, that's not far short of pulling a cart across the Nullarbor.
9. First rides on a mum and dads shoulders - though she's yet to learn that yanking mum's glasses off means mum is running blind and rudderless. However little Miss S seems to think she has the solution; yanking mums hair like a set of reins. 
10. First >100mm rainfall month (October 2010).

Master M:

1. First time on skis! Including first (two) lesson(s), first ride on a magic carpet, and first ride on a chairlift... with mum, who was so excited/nervous that she forgot to drop the safety bar till dad started yelling "drop the goddamn safety bar!" as they lifted several metres above the ground/snow. This was soon followed by Master M's first ski down BigD (between mum's legs).
2. First swimming badge (a seahorse) which means he can dogpaddle like Thorpy and hence goes up a class. No, we don't know why the badge isn't a dog either; seahorses are decidedly armless -and ipso facto crap at dogpaddle -  last time we looked. 
3. Can now pedal a bike, or at least his sisters pink trike. All the way to the shops. Where he thinks he should be rewarded with hot chips.
4. First washing of hair without cracking it - in fact he now even tilts his head back in the shower and washes off the "snow" himself. (Wonders will never cease!)
5. First Lego build. (Mum and dad can see the next obsession looming on the horizon... here's hoping the bank manager isn't reading)
6. First cloud identification - "That's altocumulus..." 
7. First pash with a girl on the couch, and an older woman (Caitlin) at that; ohhh errrr! (Followed up the next day by "Not today Michael!" whenever he moved in for a hug. "Get used to it son..." Dad consoled.)  
8. First pair of thongs. (Australian's understand this importance. Final initiation to Aussie manhood to go; own set of BBQ tongs.)
9. First toys ('Duncan and Charlie' from Thomas the tank engine) bought by saving up his own money. (Well, the change at end of the week in dads pants that was handed over for placing into the money jar if Mike had been 'good', where good is somewhat loosely defined as not being in the naughty corner at the exact time dad takes his daks off on Friday.)
10. First year with near-average rainfall... though he's yet to see a sprinkler. (We'll point one out to him in the museum.)

I am one.

I am one.

Hear me roar.

(Or at least rush up and down the hallway a bit going "GRRRrrr".)

Master M gave me Trains. (Does he ever give any other present?)

Mum and dad gave me a Tea set.

Nana, Papa and Babcia gave me a Trike.

(Apparently it was "present starting with a T" birthday. 

I ask you, where are the diamonds from Tiffany's?)

I have three teeth.

I've been walking for nearly two months.

I sleep through the night (occasionally).

I sleep in the day briefly (one sleep cycle twice a day please).

I've managed to lose one of almost every pair of shoes I've ever owned.

My favourite food is whatever I can scavenge from the cupboard when mum isn't looking (usually a jar of mush).

My favourite song is "Row row row your boat", with a particular penchant for the crocodile scream bit in the second verse.

My best friend is my big brother.

I'm statistically well placed to live past 2100.

But best of all, I'll always be pretty much smack on 40 years younger than my dad, so he better not forget my age.

My name is Sarah.

And I am one.

Walking the walk

Its been a long time between drinks.
Spilled on the floor/over mum/down the back of the couch respectively.

The last two and a bit months (has it really been that long?) has involved a myriad of firsts and adventures.

Arguably the most significant being the girls first step.
At a mere 10.5 months young mind you.

Alll very exciting, and followed on from a few weeks of tottering with increasingly less and less hanging onto stuff - like mums legs, the couch or the underside of the clothes horse with her head covered in dad's Reg Grundies.

Then came the biggy - Five successive steps.
Yes.
Five.
In a row.
And not only did she teeter the five steps in front of mum, but chose the mothers group to take her great walk, and hence had an audience who whooped hollered and cheered her across the room.
And let mum take home cheesecake to celebrate.
MMMmmmm.... cheesecake...
{where were we?}
Yes, teetering tottering little girl.

Dad was phoned soon after to convey the news, as well as to convey that he needed to sneaker-net some data off to a big Bureau (deputy) boss. Which he did, told the story about the girl's mothers group sprint around the room, and was promptly told:
"What are you doing here - go home son!"
{Err... yes sir.}

Upon which the lass did a quick four-step just to show dad it wasn't a fluke.

Well done little Miss S, 10 days shy of her 11th month in the outer world.
That said...

Is she the only person in the world who could walk BEFORE they grew any teeth??

(She has now grown her first chopper. Which she literally uses to chop... or at least chomp... on anything which takes her fancy. She especially likes to chow down on a cup or glass, as it makes a little clinky sound that appears to amuse her no end. Makes it a bugger to feed her a drink, but hey, who needs H2O when you can have clinky-clinky noises?)

The boy has also had adventures.
Not any gamechangers like walking, but still life lessons that will probably stay with/scar him for life.
Arguably the biggest being "the kite".

There we were at Smiths Beach on Phillip Island, flying dads kite. It was fun, but the boy was in severe risk of being lifted into the stratosphere, so it came time to pull out the k-mart special mini kite.

We thought it would last 2 seconds before spiralling into a death dive and burning, hindenburg-like, on the sand.

We were horribly mistaken.

Instead this wonder of modern Chinese aeronatuical engineering flew like a dream on its single string, only slightly deterred when dad accidently crashed his stunt kite into its strings in some sort of stuka attack dive.
But only slightly...

Dad flew his kite.
Mike flew his kite.
There were smiles and grins until...
Suddenly a kite flying sans boy.

"Grab it boy!" yelled dad, as the kite stayed aloft and independant of its pilot.

And started to head towards the grassy cliff.
Which it ascended.
The boy looked pensively skyward...
"The string will get caught in the bushes" assured dad.
It didn't.
Up the cliff it went, higher and higher.
(Those Chinese certainly don't fluck around when building kites.)
And up and up.
Mum grabbed the lass, and with the boy trailing behind, started up the cliff path following the still flying kite.
And on it flew...
Till eventually it's handle caught in the top of the only tree between Smiths Beach and some place in coastal south-west WA.

And still it kept flying.

By this time the family had clambered the several hundred metres up the grassy slope and along the cliff top to reach the still soaring kite.
The boy looked up.
Looked at dad.
Looked up.
Looked at dad, and, with wide and pleading eyes said...

"Lets go to the shop and buy another one."
And started to walk off.

Go to the shop and buy another one?
What in the wide wide world of sports have we spawned?

Dad promptly put plan B (which did not include a shop) into action and layed out his stunt kite, flew it into the sky, and, remembering the earlier beach kite battle, looped his kite over the renegade ones strings and brought it to the ground.

Boy happy.
Dad happy.
Mum pooped fromm carrying the girl up the Hilary Steppe, sherpa like.
(Kite shop, arguably, unhappy from a missed sale.)


Walk on.

CO2: We call it life.

There's a coal-black sheep in every family.

Mum was agonising over where the family should start investing its hard earned when the house finally gets paid off - in the unlikely event that we ever reach such a point of course. 

It was decided that all the family should be consulted.

"Boy" she said, questioning the self-appointed smartest character in the house, "What should we buy? Bricks&mortar? Gold? Shares???"

"Shares" said the boy in his best Alan Kohler voice, barely glancing up from his train kit.

"Which ones???" replied mum, eager to learn the inner workings of this fiscal genius.

He thought about it for a moment, looked at his Thomas engines for inspiration, turned over a tender once or twice for good measure, then sternly replied:

"Coal."

Coal. 

The son of two climate scientists; oh the shame...

(The world is clearly doomed.)

Still, we're hoping that nurture will take over nature - that or we'll beat it out of him - and there'll be hope for the future generations yet, despite the fact that Thomas the Tank Engine is clearly a mining industry shill. (Damn they're clever.)

Indeed the nature v nurture grudge match has taken many forms in this family from the Baghdad end of Hampton. 

And most noticably with the girl (now 9 months old by the way; as long 'out' as 'in').

There we were all thinking we were the models of modern parents and avoiding the boy/girl labels and all that (please ignore pink cardie in opposite pic), only to find the girl tending to her teddy one night, tucking him in and making sure he was all warm and cosy for the wee small hours... awwww.... 

Not to mention being transfixed by unstacking the dishwasher and watching dad cook a Sunday roast. If, by transfixed, you mean doing a rap-dancing worm across the floor at dad's feet, which is really just the polite way of saying she was so excitied she was dry humping the polished boards in a somewhat unlady-like manner.

  

Not that it's always easy to be lady-like in this modern world.

Case in point. And bare with us - it's a long story.

Her darling brother, Master M, has recently perfected the art of weeing into the toot standing up.

Yes. 

Genius.

This has been at least partially come about through his increasing upwards growth, meaning his wedding tackle is now at the right height to flop his willy over the rim of the bowl and hit the target.

And generally, like most blokes, he does.

Skip forward to mum, boy and girl cramming into the Griswald family truckster and motoring off to Westfield Southland - a.k.a., the Deathstar.

They arrived. 
They shopped.
They drank a juice. 

"Mum... I need a wee!"
 

No worries..," thought mum "they have these great family rooms..." (Indeed it may be the star of death, but it sure does come with some gee-wiz family rooms compete with a twin set of toots in case mum needed to go to, and in this case she did.)

In the past the lad would be plonked on the kiddie dunny and hence be somewhat immobile and helpless until retrieved by mum. But now, having achieved stand-up wee status, he wasn't quite so constrained.

Hence... boy standing at loo, shoes off, pants off and Reg Grundies kicked across the room for good measure, while mum abluted in parallel across the room, somewhat trapped with the girl at her feet. (The room had just been cleaned. Trust us.)

Then it happened.

Little Miss S, showing her faultless devotion to her big brother, slipped mums grasp and did a bolt. As in Usain Bolt - fast - across the floor, and before you can say "showers with a somewhat golden tinge", she was pulling herself up on the boys dunny.

He, of course, received a bit of a surprise at seeing a little smiling face emerge next to his bowl, so looked down and smiled. 

Now, as they say in motorcycling circles, 'where you look is where you go'. 

And indeed he did.

Right in/on her dial.

Mum was, well let say, somewhat shocked/stunned/mortified.

For that matter, Little Miss S wasn't all that impressed with matters either.

 

But like the good boy scout all mums are, a change of clothes was extracted from the pram, old clothes bunged into a selection of nappy sacks, and Little Miss S showered, this time with colourless water, under the wide-arcing faucets and dried off with a cloth nappy. 

And the family left with no one ever the wiser. (Well, until now.)

Not that, in the grander scheme of things, wee'ing all over someone, even your sister, is that bad.

Like, its not as though the boy was the Dark Lord of the Sith (a.k.a., Darth Vader), or worse, owned coal...

Rock and Roll all night and party every day (II)

Three.
The boy is three.
No, we can't believe it either.

But the boy could, and hence he announced to all and sundry that he would be having a party "just like Dash!" (Dash being his best friend. Well, unless he has declared someone else his best friend for the day.)

And he declared who would be attending.
"Aaron, Dash 'he's my best friend!', Baden, Ashley, Ava, Lily, Maladyn (actually Madelyn, but we dare any practising speech pathologist to get the boy to say it right), Mitchell, Owen, Archie, Georgie, Josh, Inge, Joseph..."

"What about {insert name not on list here}?" suggested mum.

"No."

Ooookaaaayyyy then...

The day started well enough - though arguably a bit frantic - with grandparents and Mistress P on food duty and dad on cake purchasing and "get the boy to have a goddamn sleep or we'll all be in BIG trouble" responsibilities.

The latter involved whisking him off to the local pool for a toss about in the surf (the place has a wave machine; yes, we know, massive greenhouse footprint and all that. Hey, everyone's entitled to get a root on their birthday - in the boys case it was of the planet) and a slow drive home in a warm and cosy car.
Always does the trick.
Even for dad.

The visit to the pool also presented the first age-associated conundrum.
Kids under three - free.
Kids three and over - $2.70.
(Adults $5.50)

In they walked.

"Just here for a swim" offered dad to the nice lady on the desk as he handed over a tenner.
"That'll be $8.20 thanks" she said. "Oh - how old is the boy?"
Dad pondered momentarily.
"He.. was... three... yesterday..." he grumbled.
"Happy Birthday!" exclaimed the woman to Master M.
"And here's your $1.80 change sir."
"Thanks..."
Dang nabbit.
The free lunch is over.

The party itself was all cheer and good wishes and presents of an embarrassingly generous nature. (We now realise how cheap we are- sorry everyone we've ever attended a party of.) As of Saturday, the Baghdad end of Hampton has become the Lightning McQueen capital of the free world, with a fair dash of Thomas the Tank Engine and even Chuggington thrown in for good measure.

There can't be a toy shop in greater Melbourne not in severe animated cartoon character deficit.

This of course meant that the boy was, and remains, like a pig in poo.
And not just because of the chocolate icing smeared all over his face.

Of course there was the mandatory cake with candles, which refused to light in the seabreeze. Which is a bit of a bugger when you have to do it several times for all the little-uns to have a go at blowing out.

Candle-blowing was followed by a few rather tuneless renditions of Happy Birthday, though (thankfully?) dad had had a couple too many and forgot to do a speech (he argues he didn't forget and that it was a party for the kids, so speeches weren't necessary. Some may argue if that was the case, neither was his beer.)

Come closing time, Master M was doling out kitty-cute goodbye hugs and kisses with all his mates - which in reality may just have been a police-line pat down to ensure none were skiving off with one of his Lighting McQueen characters down their pull-ups - and all was declared a big success.

No fights.
No tears (well, maybe one or two when some realised it wasn't their birthday...).
No spewing.
Ticked all the boxes really.

Plus mum and dad had bribed the folks at work to turn on a pearler of a 27°C autumn day, foregoing the thrill of watching kiddies, parents and family flirt with hypothermia, as occurred at the lads first birthday.

Granted, there was one downside; namely Mike's bottom.

Or rather, its ability, late in the party day, to produce farts of stunning (literally) stink.

"Its probably been the crazy mix of foods he's been eating today" someone opined.
"No it isn't" piped up the boy, "I've just eaten cake!"

And so he had.
As you should on your birthday.

The Boy is three.
Wow.

Addendum:
1) The party also coincided with Mistress P's big four oh. Mike, ever the gentleman, allowed her a candle blow out and Happy Birthday rendition (one only).

2) Little Miss S survived the day on only one sleep (she normally likes to get in two to three) and a concerted raid on the fairy bread. Yes. We know. Hundreds and thousands are possibly not exactly on the prescribed baby food list. Can't stop the party girl.

.

Rock and roll all night and party every day (I)

Ok.
That's it.
We're moving to Queensland/DoubleEwAy/the EnTee if that's what it takes.

Yes, it's that time of the year again.

The switch from daylight saving back to sun time, and hence once again we're doing the baby backstep battle. Because, seeing as the majority of her life has been spent an hour out of whack, getting her re-whacked is proving nigh on impossible.

Prior to the clock switcharoony, little Miss S was sleeping blissfully until 6:30-7am (i.e., 5:30 until 6am, sun time), when along comes the end of daylight saving.

For adults, well its a doozy. In fact you feel, for the first few days at least, like someone has given you an extra hour a day to fritter away as you see fit.
Its great.
You get into work 'early', leave 'early' and generally spring about like there's 25 hours in a day.
Which, if you have a sub-1 year old, is prolly what you need.

Cos in our case... she kept waking at the same (sun) time.

Well, almost.
And by almost we mean earlier.
Way earlier.
First morning: 4:40am (Just for clarity: Four. Forty. Ay. Blessed. Em.)
Then: 5:06am
5:16am
5:51am (we saw light at the end of the tunnel!!!)
5:05am (...obviously the loco coming the other way.)
5:05am (at least we're being consistent, though with a short nap in mum and dads bed afterwards)
...and so on and so on.

Its proving to be cruel and unusual punishment, and surely deserves a Geneva convention, if not full blue helmeted U.N intervention.

The boy, granted, adjusted within a few days. Lets count our blessings there.

Still, all this clock changing shenanigans hasn't stopped the girl from advancing on in leaps and bounds.

The latest 'first' has been pulling herself up onto stuff.

We'd kinda forgotten the joys this bring, such as finding your beautiful little daughter, tottering up onto her knees and raiding the bottom drawer of the change table, chowing down on a set of mum's disposable breast pads.

Of course this also means that its back to baby-proofing the house again, and hence the hair tie has been strapped around the crockery cupboard drawers and, given her propensity to eat anything paper-ish, all books and magazines lifted at least two foot above the ground.

We also figure that if the girl is mobile, she must be ready to move out of home. And hence... yes, at the tender age of nearly eight months, she's been packed off to childcare.

Ok, its right next door to mum and dads work (perfect for a lunchtime snack on mum's mammaries), and it is only one day a week, but still... she's out there and doing it.
And without much grumbling either we must add.

As for the boy - well, it appears he likes chocolate. And that he's quite aware that mum and dad think there should be some form of rational thought into how much gets eaten in one sitting.
Which is not much (that should be eaten... there should argubly be lots more of the rational thought).

The lad, on the other hand, thinks too much chocolate is barely enough, and hence when he laid his hands on a slab of the Easter bunnies finest that dad decreed exceeded the volumetric boy-intake limit, he (as in the boy) stuffed as much as he could into his gob in one gaggingly large hit.

Let us describe it in mathematical terms.
One massive chocco blob + gushing boy-drool (cos its chocolate) = a Syd-harb worth of brown slobber distributed across the floor.

And his shirt and himself.

But he wouldn't spit a molecule out, despite its suffocating qualities.

"Breathe through your nose!" said dad, arguably being helpful.
The boy did.
The boy survived.
The shirt didn't.

The kids know how to party in the Baghdad end of Hampton.

.