Sharing...

At the end of the day, parenting is hard work. Little kids are tiring, physically, mentally, emotionally. But then they go and say something which makes you think... maybe I am getting something right here, after all.....

Conversation today, after we told Naomi that she and Daddy are going to the Hi-5 concert next weekend...

Naomi - "Wow! That is great! Who is coming?"

Daddy - "Just you and me, Blossom - a special day out together."

Naomi - "But what about Ryan?"

Daddy - "We don't have a ticket for Ryan, honey - just one for me, and one for you."

Naomi - "But... I could share my ticket with Ryan... then he could come too!"

But Why????

You know you have a 3 year old when....... 'Why?' is the response you hear to absolutely anything you say!

Recent conversation -

"I'm hungry, Mummy"

"Yes, dear, we will have lunch soon."

"Why, Mum?"

"Because you are hungry, Naomi"

"Yes, but why?"

"Because the gastro-intestinal acids in your stomach have finished digesting everything you had for breakfast and morning tea, and are now sending hunger impulses to your brain, telling you to eat something."

Dazed look, thinks for a minute....

"Oh. But Why, Mummy?"

Aaarrrrgggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am seriously in need of parenting suggestions.... how do you deal with 'why?'. I am ok to answer it reasonably most of the time, but when it is the response to every single statement! (Daddy says this morning, Naomi I have to go to the toilet. Response 'why, daddy?')

Is there a recommended method of maintaining your sanity for the next year or 2, until this obsession with 'but, why?' passes?

Small Girl, Big Bike!

Another milestone reached in our little family. The first 'real' bicycle. Sweet Hubby and I discussed it - Naomi's birthday is nearly 5 months away, and we are planning to be away for Christmas. Her little plastic ride-on has been too small for her for a few months now. So we decided to get a new 'bike' now.

As the nearest toy store is in Cairns, over an hour's drive away, Hubby and Naomi took a trip together today, leaving Mamma and Ryan at home for a few hours. We talked about what kind to get - something that was very stable (preferably a tricycle), something with pedals that her feet can easily reach, and with pedals that are very smooth and easy to push down on. Maybe even one of those long handles, so I can push her on it while carrying Ryan.

Instead, she has a big bike, with training wheels that wobble along, pedals that her toes can barely stretch down to and that are very heavy to push along. And no handle. But it is pink, and has ribbon streamers. So Naomi loves it, and Daddy is very proud of himself for getting a bike that his little girl adores.

I very generously offered to go to the chiropractor and pick up a back brace, to help with the pain of all the hours spent bent over pushing the bike along.

Oh, and there is also no helmet. But I think that I will handle the expedition to get that. Who knows what Daddy and Naomi would come back with, if I let them loose on their own again!!

Technical Issues...

My printer was making funny noises when I tried to print this morning. I went to investigate. Do you think this will be covered under warranty?

More to the point - what's for dinner? What can I whip up with a tomato, a hamburger bun and a whole chicken ... all of the plastic varierty!

Little ones have big ears...

Never underestimate the size of those ears, or what their owners comprehend.

Sweet Hubby is diabetic (type 1 - the genetic kind). Every meal requires him to calculate the carbohydrate portions, and take insulin accordingly. Every dinner involves this conversation:

SH - "So what do you think the carbs are?".
Me - "Well, you have a cup of rice, which is 42 ... " etc.

Last night, Naomi announced to us that "The rice is the carbs, Mum".

And tonight: "How much carbs do you think, Mum?". (before anyone had mentioned it).

Sweet Hubby and I had totally different reactions. I was rather amazed at her understanding, and use of new words.

Sweet Hubby was troubled.

There is a 10% chance that either one, or both, of our children will be type 1 diabetic. He is horrified at the thought that he may have passed it on to them. It is such an all-encompassing condition that affects every single thing you do - exercise (reduce insulin), food (calculate carbs, increase insulin), travel and outings (always have juice & sugar with us), eating out (take blood test kit, select meal by what carbs are likely to be in it). etc etc. And never ever ever forget that it is life-threatening. I have had to make 2 separate emergency ambulance calls with Brad in a diabetic seizure in the bed beside me, in the 6 years that I have known him.

He is desperately hoping that neither of our children will ever have to deal with such a life.

Tea Party - Small Town style!

We have had a very busy few days - first a family dinner in The Big Smoke (mmm... night away in luxury room at affordable price... more about that later!).

Then, being a country gal, I couldn't miss the Mareeba Rodeo, which is on this weekend. I didn't get any great shots of the rodeo events, but we DID take Naomi on her first ever show ride... the spinning tea cups. She looked very serious most of the time, but when I got her to wave to Daddy as we went round, she waved and gave him a big grin! Afterwards she declared that it was fun, and has been asking me all day if she can have another ride on the Teapot Machine.

And because I am an equal opportunity Mamma, here is a shot of Ryan, laughing at his Mummy and sister spinning around in a large blue teacup.

Note to self ...

Don't turn your back on the sweet-natured baby when he is happily sitting in his bouncer. Not even to peel and chop veges for dinner.

He is likely to be 'raided' by his very cheeky 2-year old sister.

And definitely don't take photos, if you are trying to convince the 2-year old not to put mini traffic cones on her brother's head.

Peter Rabbit's new friend

Naomi has an amazing grasp of vocabulary. Well, we think so anyway! She chats away to herself while looking for things ... "Not this one. No, not this one either...". It amazes me that a 2 year old knows what the word 'either' means, and how to use it in a sentence.

But she does slip up sometimes....

As Naomi was telling me about the rabbit design at the bottom of her Beatrix Potter bunny bowl, she exclaimed "Look Mummy - there's Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottonbud!"

For the record, yes, I have a thing about clean ears.

Tuesday Tips for Mum - avoiding tantrums

I had a couple of practical tips that I was going to write about today, and link up to Kimberly at Raising Olives. But as I was hanging out cloth nappies this afternoon, one particular thought kept running through my head, and it was about poor behaviour in young children - and mine, in particular!

It occurred to me that I have been seeing Naomi in one particular position recently - flat on her back, making whingey noises, crying. **Lightbulb moment** These are classic tantrums!

One of the best pieces of advice that I can give to mums of young children is to remember that MOST bad behaviour stems from a few basic issues. The child is usually one (or more) of:

• Tired;


• Hungry;


• Out of their usual routine; or


• Out of their comfort zone.

I find it helps me to keep my patience with the whining, crying, disobedience etc, if I remind myself to look for the cause, instead of just getting frustrated with the result.

If Naomi misses her nap, or has an early sleep, you can bet that by 3pm she would try the patience of a saint (and, as you know, patience is not a virtue that I possess in great quantities).

If she is hungry, there is the constant nagging and nagging and nagging (...) for something that she knows is a treat, or that I have already said 'no' to.... a million times.

I also found that, when we had daycare children coming into our home, Naomi needed to have regular intervals during the day when she could play by herself for 10 minutes. If she was constantly crowded, or having toys taken away, games interrupted by other children, etc, that was when she started biting (gulp. Yep, she was a biter. Thankfully, no longer an issue).

So my real tip here is to figure out the things that CAUSE the difficult behaviour in your kids, and try to avoid those situations. Do your best to encourage sufficient sleep, at the right time of day. Schedule regular meals and snacks, and try to get them to eat enough at meal times to avoid the hunger pains in between times (at least until they are old enough to open the cupboard door and get their snacks themselves!!).

With the coming of our sweet Ryan, (now 12 weeks old!), our home routine has been thrown out the window. The consequence has been a serious back-slide in Naomi's behaviour. But tomorrow is a new day - heck, the next hour is a new hour! If I try to get back to basics and have regular meals and naptime, hopefully we can pull things back together around here, too.

Photo Caption Competition

I took this photo a few days ago. It made me laugh, and still does, every time I look at it.

Yep, she's on the back porch. Right beside her blackboard, with chalk in hand. On the potty.

I have several captions running through my head ... "A loo with a view" springs to mind.

But I want to hear your witticisms -- so I am going to give away a fresh serve of my favourite bath product - delicious lemon myrtle and rosemary bath salts - to the person whose caption suits best. Just leave your title or caption in a comment to this post, and I will announce the winner on Saturday, 31 May (Australian time).

And, dare I say it -- bring out your best 'toilet humour'!!

Creative storage...

We now live in a rented house. It is has some great design features and some that I wouldn't mind changing, if it belonged to me.... Brad and I love the back deck, from which we can just see the mountains, while we nibble cheese and bikkies and watch Naomi ride on her little bike.


Naomi, on the other hand, likes finding creative ways of storing all sorts of things. Just look at all the different things that can be stored in the slots of a built-in wine rack, that is very conveniently placed at 2-year old level...



A biscuit container, a plastic lid, assorted hair clips and ties, both of Mummy's house shoes (neatly placed side by side in adjoining slots). And for the record, I had to take the camera out of one of the slots to take this photo!! Every time I walk past it, I notice something different slotted in one of the boxes. A juice cup. A baby doll. Naomi's hairbrush...

And one lonely wine bottle!

Seventeen in the bed....

And the little one said... "Roll over, roll over"

So they all rolled over and one fell out...

Is it any wonder she sleeps so badly when there is hardly room for Naomi in the bed?!?! Ha ha ha... only kidding, this photo was taken straight after we made her bed up with clean linen, and she decided to take all her dolls and animals off the shelves and tuck them in. It was too cute to pass up on the photo opportunity!

Who's your Mama?

Are you a 'Mummy'? 'Mum'? 'Mother'? 'Ma'? Despite having given birth and nurtured a gorgeous little girl for the past 18 months, I have been none of these. The word "Daddy" is heard from morning till bedtime. But on the subject of who I am, Naomi has been stubbornly silent.

Except for a brief and horrifying period of several weeks where she called me 'Sasha'!!! What the?? I am NOT having one of these open, new-age friend relationships with my daughter. Where is the respect? The honouring of parents? Although, it wasn't surprising as everyone else in the world calls me 'Sasha' (or Sweetie). All the daycare children that I care for call me Sasha. Thankfully, she is over that phase.

One day when playing the "Where's such-and-such person" game, I said "Where's Mummy?", and Naomi pointed to herself. The penny dropped - the words sound too similar for her to differentiate and all my saying 'mummy' was just confusing her. So instead, Brad and I have been saying 'Mama'. And guess what? Yesterday, Naomi said "Mama", and when I said (with tears in my eyes) 'Yes, blossom?" she went on chatting to me about the rocks that she had collected from the garden - completely oblivious to the moment of pure joy that she had just brought me. She has said it many times in the last 24 hours, and I may even get used to it -- but I will never stop enjoying the sound of it.

A new addictive craft

My neighbour across the road invited me to a Creative Memories scrapbooking party, which was held yesterday. We each had to take along 6 - 8 photographs, with a theme.

I am ashamed to say that it was hard to find that many actual physical photographs, and I had to go hunting in the bottoms of sideboard drawers - it certainly is the age of digital photos! But I came up with some lovely shots of Naomi at various stages in her first year - from a couple of weeks old, through to her first birthday party.

And here is a photo of my first ever attempt at scrapbooking, entitled Naomi's First Year.

I love quilting, and have been in withdrawal for the last year, as I haven't even finished one project! I miss the beautiful vintage print fabrics, and the satisfaction of making something with my own hands that I can snuggle up under in the coming winter months. Which is why scrapbooking has the worrying potential to become a new addiction -- such beautiful papers, ribbons and embellishments - like an Aladdin's cave of pretty things. And preserving the happiest of memories.

But the thing I liked about it was the 'almost instant gratification'. Within half an hour I had created a page of memories and I was actually happy with the result! While not as utterly scrumptiously satisfying as finishing a bed quilt or lap rug, it was the sort of thing that I might even be able to find time for around Naomi and the daycare kids.

Luckily the cost of the materials, albums and fripperies that were in the catalogue were waaayyy outside our current budget, so the danger remains only peripheral... but certainly lurking there, waiting to pounce when I have more time or funds..... Does anyone else enjoy scrapbooking? Is it as addictive as I think it could be?

House sale and bargains

I forgot to mention yesterday, our most exciting news - the sale of our house is set to proceed on 28 May! The purchaser has confirmed that he is happy with all the inspection reports that he has received (pest, building, electrical and a property valuation!). So I now have less than 3 weeks to pack up the combined clutter of a 3 bedroom house and a Family Daycare business into boxes. The big catch is that we are not yet sure that we can move into the new house on the same date. It may be as much as 2 weeks after we sell this house. Whilst I relish the thought of 2 weeks in a holiday apartment, we could do without the expense of renting, storing furniture etc, not to mention the loss of my business income from not having a house to care for kids in!

I have to get onto our lawyer today and get confirmation of a date to move into the next house, so that I can warn my parent clients if there is going to be a delay of some days.

Above is a photo of Naomi enjoying her new property - a diorama book called 'Maisy's Farm' that I picked up for $2 at a garage sale a couple of weeks ago. It shows signs of previous hard lovin', but the daycare kids and Naomi love when I set it up and they can play with all of the cut-out people, animals, tractors etc.

Tropical cool and war wounds...

You know its autum when... you can have a lazy Sunday morning in your soft fluffy warm dressing gowns without overheating! Yes, we here in Paradise think that it is getting cooler - the days are now around 28 to 30 deg C. Clear blue skies make for crisp cooler mornings (in our opinions, anyway!). Naomi is now bundled in flanelette pyjamas for overnight (mostly because I don't have a sleep bag that fits at the moment, and she hates having covers on her).

Yep, people, this is the best time of year, here in Paradise. The heat and humidity have gone (although I do miss the monsoon thunderstorms and rain). You can pretty much guarantee that the weather will be fine on any given day, and it is cool enough to make your morning cup of tea a total pleasure.

However, whilst the weather may be divine, things in the Cherished household are taken one day, and sometimes one hour at a time this week.

You may have noticed the red splodge on Naomi's nose, in the above photos? She took a tumble down the auditorium steps at my mum's graduation ceremony on Saturday afternoon. It was a glorious swan dive - right onto the metal non-skid strip that they attach at the front of stair treads. Think cheese grater effect, on very delicate skin. She had a red lump on the forehead and gravel rash from bridge of the nose right down to the top lip. Blood everywhere. Screams echoing around the auditorium. And I couldn't even muster up a tissue - not even the crumpled up type that live in the bottom of every handbag (you know you have one lurking in there somewhere!). But not me. Because I don't carry a handbag - just a gorgeous little pink princess ballerina backpack, stuffed with snacks, crayons, paper, toys and a spare nappy. I briefly flirted with the idea of sticking the clean nappy on Naomi's face, but thought the better of it when I realised it may be needed later.

So instead, I scooped up screaming child and all our paraphernalia and hobbled painfully (as I had twisted my ankle earlier that day!) the 50 metres to the nearest bathroom, to get handtowels with which to stem the bleeding.

It has left a very impressive scab down her nose. But I am having trouble with the top lip - it won't dry up and scab over, because of course the nose has started running like a tap again, causing the top lip area to be constantly covered in... well, you know what I mean.

Consequently, sleeping has been disrupted, child has been very whingey and grumpy and I have been tearing my hair out.

A nice tall glass of Motherhood, anyone??