An update

I wonder if I'll ever find time again to write a proper blog post - you know, with paragraphs? In the meantime, here's some dot points of things Her Royal Cuteness is up to:

• She likes to walk on the different coloured pavement on the edges of pathways.
• She tells us when cars are coming and very bossily tells us to, "get off the road!" and drags Harvey Bean with her.
• She likes to try and dress herself - can easily put her sandals on now and often gets them on the right feet. If we offer to help her with her tops, she snatches them away from us and says, "Mine!" (actually, she says "mince" but we have no idea why).
• Speaking of sandals, there's only one pair she'll wear at the moment even though she has another two pairs, brand new and never worn.
• She will only eat vanilla (nilla) yoghurt - although we trick her and give her banana yoghurt and because it's white she doesn't seem to know the difference.
• She closes doors when they've been left open and sighs as if to say, "A girl's work is never done".
• She's constantly trying to feed the dogs and she's very specific about each of them getting an equal amount and will say to them, "Sammy, eat!" "Bobo, come and eat!" - you get the picture. She says to Bean, "Good boy, Beanie" when he's done something like take a biscuit from her and eaten it. She also calls Beanie, "My dog" and insists on holding his lead when we walk with them. "I take my dog," she says, strutting off down the road with Harvey Bean at foot.
• Everything is "Little, little bit" especially in relation to food and if she's offered a piece of food that is too large to her way of thinking she'll asks us to "Cut it, please," but if she picks up a knife by mistake to hand it to us, she immediately will say, "Not for little girls".
• The other night we went out for dinner and at the end of the meal we asked her if she'd enjoyed her dinner and she threw her hands up in the air and enthusiastically exclaimed, "Fantastic!"
• She dances all day long at day care and they often comment on how much she loves music, dancing and singing and of course, BOOKS! She now makes up little songs and sings them to herself.
• Her language is pretty amazing, even though we don't understand everything she says all of the time. She sings the alphabet song fluently and now counts to about 14 and she recognises some words when written down. She recognises her own name in writing most of the time. She knows most of her colours and tells us her favourite colour at the moment is green.
• She has an awesome memory - for instance, she saw a picture of Wave Rock today and I asked her where it was and she said, "Hyden". For regular readers of this blog you will know that it's at least 4 weeks since we went to Hyden and saw Wave Rock (or Hanging Rock as C calls it) and we haven't referred to it since we got back.
• She loves to water the plants and has her own, kid-sized, watering can.
• We went to a home open today and she walked into the kitchen and said, "Nice drawers" (and for the record, they weren't).
• She knows how to ring Nanny and Poppy with two speed dial buttons on our phone - she presses the "phone book" button and then Nanny and Pop's speed dial number. She has called them a couple of times without instruction or assistance.
• She knows how to put a DVD into the player and hit play.
• She's suddenly 95cms tall.
• She regularly says, "Sorry" to us for all manner of things - from pushing past to dropping things.
• She pretends to burp by saying, "Burp" and covering her mouth and giggling.
• She tells us when she's done a "pop-off" and finds it hysterically funny.
• She prefers the company of older kids.
• She will sit quietly and be read to for 3 hours easily- it's nothing for her to ask to have read to her 20 or more books.
• She loves 101 Dalmatians in book form and on DVD and now has a small collection of Dalmatian statues and refers to them as her "Dalmatians". If she sees a picture of a Dalmatian, she will refer to it as such and not just call it a dog.
• If she has a tanty and ends up crying, she will eventually pull herself together, but doesn't want to be hugged or cuddled. When she's over it, she usually turns to us and says, "I'm better now".

And now for a little, little story with paragraphs and all.

We were at our local Coles the other night and she was standing in the trolley (because her legs are too long to fit her comfortably into the seat bit of the trolley. A woman who works there who knows us came running over to our trolley and pointed out that Charlotte was standing on our sausages and she said to Charlotte, "How will Mummies make dinner tonight if you're standing on the sausages?" and she pulled them out from under C.

C was MORTIFIED. I don't think she realised she was standing on them and we certainly didn't. She tucked her head into her shoulder and refused to look up at the woman - at which point the woman started to feel awful that she'd upset her and tried to make amends by telling her how beautiful she was, etc. C wouldn't have a bar of it and refused to look up from her feet.

As we wheeled away I noticed Charlotte's eyes were very red and then she looked at me and the poor little poppet started to overflow with tears and she kept repeating, "I sorry, I sorry, I sorry". It was truly heartbreaking.

We had to walk into a quiet corner to tell her that we knew it was an accident and that she didn't mean to tread on the sausages and they'd cook up just fine. It took some convincing and a few cuddles but she eventually pulled herself together.

Books!

Tonight since dinner, Sam and I have read Charlotte 20 books. And now we have tears because we've told her that we've read enough and she really has to go to sleep. And when one of us goes to the toilet she comes running after us pleading, "Read Mummy/Mumma, read please!"

The child is completely obsessed with books and reading. The intensity of it is, well... it's intense and I'm not talking little picture books either - some of these books are 60-90 pages long!

Anyone else's 2-year-old go through this phase?

They start young, eh?

And the winner is!

Thanks for all your great Haikus - fabulous fun to read!

We're a bit bummed that we could only choose one winner for the Buyster Lighting $70 gift, but choose we have and the winner is...

Simone!

night light is broken
twin little boys screaming need
illumination

She managed to use 'light' and 'illumination' in the one Haiku which is pretty impressive (although this wasn't a criteria). I got a really strong visual image of her two boys screaming in the darkened room. Simone, email us and we'll give you the contact email to claim your prize (bohdana@iinet.net.au)

Again, thanks everyone!

25-months-old

Two years and one month is where we're at today. Seriously, where has this time gone and will it ever slow down to a reasonable passing-of-time rate ever again? I suspect not.

You continue to grow both physically and developmentally and your sense of humour is sublime.

Last week you became quite sick at day care and the carers rang us to come and get you late in the day. They said that you'd gone down hill quickly and that you had a temperature of 39 and you shivering. When we arrived they also mentioned that you hadn't lost your spirit even though you must have been feeling terrible. They explained two incidences to us; the first occurred when one of the carers was trying to take your temperature again and you didn't want to co-operate so you wriggled out of her arms and quickly said, "I feel better now" in an effort to deter her from pursuing you. The second happened after you'd drunk your second glass of water in quck succession and you burped. The carer asked you if you had burped and you said, "No! It was Anna!" (who, by the way, was nowhere near you).

Your mums thought their days of driving in the car with music blaring were well and truly over but it turns out that's not to be the case with you around. You sit in the back seat, throw your arm up in the air, pointing your finger to the roof and instruct, "Turn it up, Mummy!" and you keep doing this until our car is like a motorised boom box. What really amazes us though is that you sing to the songs and usually you know the words.

You've also taken to answering the phone if we don't get to it quickly enough and you've learnt how to phone Nanny and Pop and you've taken to referring to them as Nannypop - collectively. We've finally signed up with a real estate agent and our house will be officially on the market by the end of the week. As a result we've stepped up our house hunting and on the weekend when we pulled up outside of a house you announced, "I look at the house" and then when we entered a very dark and large walk-in robe in this house you said, "I don't like it".

Tonight in the bath you said you had a sore knee so I asked if you'd fallen over or if someone had hurt your knee and you said, "Mumma hurt my knee". The look on your face when Mumma walked in to hear you fibbing was priceless and you hid your head between your knees and then with a little grin on your face you looked up at Mumma and said, "No, not Mumma. Better now."

Let me let you in on a little secret darling girl... everything is "better now" since you've been here.

Our thanks to you...

We have found that every now and then something really cool happens – often surprisingly and out-of-the-blue.

Like the email we received today from Maree at Buyster Lighting.

She said some very kind things about The Muriels blog and asked if we would like to either choose a gift for ourselves to review or offer a gift to one of our readers to the value of $70.

Being the selfless people we are (HA!) we have elected to pass this very generous offer onto one of our readers as a way of saying thank you for your many years of support.

But there’s a catch.

We want you to exert yourselves creatively and in honour of my poem, Venus of Willendorf being selected for the Best Australian Poetry 2009 anthology, we want you to write a Haiku.

A Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry and has evolved over the years, but the form I was taught was 17 syllables in three lines – the first line has 5 syllables, the second line has 7 and the third has 5. It doesn’t need to rhyme. As an example, this is what’s printed on one of my t-shirts – it also happens to be a Haiku:

I can write Haikus
But sometimes they don’t make sense
Hippopotamus

Now, to make it even a bit more challenging, I’d like you to incorporate the word, “light” or “illuminate” or “illumination” into your Haiku. It can be funny or serious – and the subject matter is irrelevant – just make it stand out!

Time to get writing! Leave your poems in the comments section by next Wednesday, 28th midnight. We’ll announce the winner and reasons why on Thursday and the winner will get to choose any lighting of their choice to the value of $70.

Due to shipping costs, we have to restrict this giveaway to Australian readers.

If you don't have a Blogger account, type in any identifying name at the end of your comment(rather than leaving it as Anonymous) and then come back on Thursday morning to see if you've won!
Ooooooh, we’re so excited!

It was Anna!

She's sick. Most likely a viral flu of some sort - possibly even Swine Flu. To be on the safe side the Doctor has prescribed a course of Tamiflu.

She's been a little bit "off" the last two days but nothing obvious and certainly day care didn't report anything unusual with her behaviour, etc. This afternoon at around 3:45pm I got a phone call to say that her temp was 37.1 and she was unsettled and sooky after her nap, but okay in general. We agreed to come and collect her early, so I started to finish up a few things at work, rang Sam so she could do the same and then 10 minutes later I received another call from day care to say her temp was now 39.1 and she was going down hill fast - shivering and on her third glass of water.

I rang the Doctor who told us to come straight down, so Sam and I picked her up and headed to the Doctors - where we waited for an hour to be seen. Her temp went up to 40 something at the Doctor's surgery and the nurse gave her some Neurofen which pretty much zonked her out in Sam's arms whilst we waited to see the Doctor.

The verdict was that it's almost certainly viral, more than likely a flu and possibly even Swine Flu, but there's no way of really knowing. She prescribed some Tamiflu because of C's age and small size to be on the safe side and has asked that we bring her back tomorrow morning a a follow up.

She seems pretty good tonight, although she's lost her voice and has a nasty cough.

A couple of funny stories from day care though have arisen out of this... one of the carers was trying to take her temperature again and she didn't want it done and wriggled out of her arms, saying, "I feel better now".

The other story told to us by one of the carers was that after her second cup of water she did a big burp and when the carer asked her if Charlotte had burped, she replied, "No, it was Anna!" (Anna is another little girl in the same room, however, she was nowhere near C when she burped!)

Carer commented that at least she hasn't lost her spirit.

She's also suddenly fond of the word, "Sorry" and will say sorry to us each time she's done something she perceives is wrong and/or a mistake. We've been reading some manners books - Sorry, Excuse Me, Please and Thank You and it seems the Sorry one has had the most impact.

Road Trip

This weekend just gone was Sam’s birthday so we decided to go on a ‘little’ roadtrip to Wave Rock in Hyden. We took off on Saturday morning around 11:30am after Charlotte’s first Kindy Dance Time lesson (which she seemed to really enjoy).

Our first mistake was confusing Albany Highway with Brookton Highway so instead of only travelling 341.5kms, we ended up detouring through Williams, Narrogin, Kulin, Kondinin and Kalgarin – a total of 400.8kms from home.

We rolled into Hyden quite late in the afternoon which turned out to be a blessing in disguise because for all the tourist attractions surrounding Hyden, the town itself was quite rundown and there wasn’t much to see.

We stayed at the Wave Rock Motel which was pretty average but did the trick for the night. It appeared that the same person owned the motel, garage station and then the tourist shops and wildlife park out at the Rock itself and as a result the prices were exorbitant for the product/service quality.

The following morning we headed the 5kms out of Hyden to Wave Rock. The Rock is 14 metres high and 110 metres long and is believed to have been formed under the earth’s surface some 2,700 million years ago (click here for a detailed geographical explanation).

It was already 30 degrees Celsius when we arrived, with very strong, hot winds so the conditions weren’t terribly pleasant. The Rock itself is stunning.

There are steps with a chain to walk to the top of the rock where you can see the catchment dam and wall built of cement to capture the water run off (the water run off from Wave Rock used to supply the town of Hyden with water).

Sam then continued to climb to the very top of the rock whilst C and I waited at the top platform of the stairs because it was so windy C might have been blown off the rock and it was quite a steep. slippery walk and would have been difficult to carry her if she couldn’t continue walking. Sam got these pics from the top.

Our next stop was Mulka’s Cave. The legend of Mulka’s Cave is that Mulka was the illegal son of a woman who fell in love with a man with whom marriage was forbidden according to their law.

It was believed that as a result of breaking these rules she bore a son with crossed eyes. which prevented him from aiming a spear accurately and becoming a successful hunter.

Out of frustration it is said Mulka turned to catching and eating human children, and he became the terror of the district. He lived in Mulka's cave, where the imprints of his hands can still be seen, much larger and higher than that of an ordinary man.

Apparently, his mother became increasingly concerned about him. When she scolded him for his anti-social behaviour he turned on his own mother and killed her. This disgraced him even further and he fled his cave, heading south.

The Aboriginal people of the area, outraged by Mulka's behaviour, then tracked down this man who had flouted all the rules. They caught him near Dumbleyung, 156km south west of Hyden, where they speared him to death. Because he did not deserve a proper ritual burial, they left his body to the ants: a grim warning to those who break the law.

We then drove out to Hippo’s Yawn to have a gander, but didn’t get out of the car as we could see it clearly parked just in front. We also didn’t take any pics.

We then decided to keep driving to see if we could find the Rabbit Proof Fence (section 1), which we did. The fence runs for 1,832km & is the longest in the world. The south section of the fence passes to the east of Hyden.

Rabbit-Proof Fence is also the title of a 2002 Australian drama film based on the book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara. It is a true story concerning the author's mother, as well as two other young mixed-race Aboriginal girls, who ran away from the Moore River Native Settlement, north of Perth, in order to return to their Aboriginal families, after having been placed there in 1931. The film follows the girls as they trek/walk for nine weeks along 1,500 miles (2,400 km) of the Australian rabbit-proof fence to return to their community at Jigalong, while being tracked by a white authority figure and an Aboriginal tracker.

And then finally, in our infinite wisdom we decided that instead of turning around and heading back home through Hyden, we’d push on to Southern Cross and then travel down Great Eastern Highway to stop off at Nanny and Pop’s place before finally heading home. The sign told us it was 118kms from the Rabbit Proof Fence to Southern Cross.

The road to Southern Cross was unsealed, red and loooooooooooooooong.

Although there were some magnificent wildflowers on display.


What we didn’t quite realise was that once we hit Southern Cross we had another 362kms of driving to go before we would arrive at Nanny and Pop’s place – at 5:45pm and then another hour’s drive to get home.

So, all-in-all a terrific trip with a very patient 2-year-old who only got irritable in the last 30 minutes of driving down Great Eastern Highway with the sun in her eyes. She’s gone off to day care today with the picture of her at Wave Rock, proudly showing her carers and friends what she did on the w/end.

Totally worth every kilometre to see her beaming face as she waved (pardon the pun) her photo around this morning and her little friends gathered around her to see the amazing rock.

The one thing that was a bit freaky during the trip though was that we had told her before we went that we were going to see Wave Rock and we talked about Wave Rock on the way there - only she kept saying, "Hanging Rock" and we kept correcting her.

When we walked into our motel room there was a picture of Wave Rock above the bed and I pointed to it and asked her what it was. She immediately responded with, "Wave Rock". Although she continued to talk about Hanging Rock as well.

A google search shows there is a Hanging Rock in WA. Just for fun I've printed it off and I'm going to show the picture to her tonight and ask her what it is. A further search indicates that it's not far from Jigalong which is where the young Aboriginal girls were transported from and to where they followed the Rabbit Proof Fence home.

Here's a map of the path the Aboriginal girls followed from the Moore River Settlement to Jigalong. The pics of the fence above are from a section of Fence 1 (red). They followed Fence 2 (green) which joined up with Fence 1 and then took them to Jigalong. Fence 3 is shown in purple.

Checking in

I've been a slack blogger, so I thought I'd poke my head in and say that everything's swell. We've just been busy getting our house ready for sale - which, by our estimation will be on the market in just over 2 weeks time. We're a bit scared that we might sell and have nowhere to go and this is a shout out to Mum and Bob if they're reading - "Hey, the office at your place looks good for a few weeks!?"

C is now saying, "OH.MY.GOD" over and over again in a weird American accent and it's really very funny. I'm just relieved this is the worst thing she's picked so far up from us.

A now some pics from the last few days until I have the energy for a proper blog post.

The movie star look.

She has discovered Kimba the White Lion and we discovered that JB-HiFi stock an 11 DVD box set! She nearly burst with excitement when she realised what it was.

Hanging out in the back yard with Sammy, Harvey Bean (Beanie) and Jambo (Bobo)

C's Tasmanian Auntie sent across Henry the horse for her 2nd birthday which she was pretty happy about.

All in all, life is treating us all very well indeed and we are extremely grateful for it.

It took 2 years but finally we have a poo post

We always said we'd never blog about C's toiletting. We keep this blog largely so she can read it when she's older, and we just didn't think that toiletting issues was something she'd need to reminisce or be embarrassed about, but something happened last night that we have agreed must be shared.

It's a potential 21st story.

We were in Spotlight last night looking for new curtains and bits and bobs in preparation for our house being on the market (which, by the way looks like being ready in a few weeks) and Charlotte, at THE TOP OF HER VOICE, announced, "I DONE POO! I DONE POO!" Over and over again, whilst running up and down the aisles amongst... ooooh, THIRTY or so people.

Nobody knew where to look.

The security guard just about split his sides laughing as we chased after her outside to the car for a quick change (still she was shouting the mantra, I DONE POO! and motioning for us to follow her).

I had to stop myself correcting her by saying, "Actually, Charlotte... it's I DID A POO!"