on pets.

Willow and Mister Leda.

I sent M a message one day asking if we could get guinea pigs. Exactly how M replied to that message is still up for public debate, several months later. I point out he didn't say no, and it was positive enough that I came home with two (free) guinea pigs and a hutch. M argues that he didn't say yes either.

Willow named them Mister Frodo and Mister Leda. I have no idea where she would have picked them up from, as the last time I watched Lord of the Rings was when I was pregnant.... and I remember discussing Leda and the swan while pregnant too, since I decided to reread all the Greek myths. Make of that what you will.

Mister Frodo was the more out going and active one; Mister Leda generally just sat there looking terrified. M never really warmed to them. Sure, he cared for them, but complained they were useless since they never really warmed to him and that he didn't get why people got pets other than dogs. Mister Frodo always tried to run away, and Mister Leda just always sat there looking petrified. They liked Willow, although god knows why. She never meant to mistreat them, but three year olds aren't the best with that whole empathy and gentle things. That's why we got the guinea pigs.

Then Mister Frodo died. One day he had diarrhea, and the next morning I found a terrified looking Mister Leda curled up next to Mister Frodo's stiff body.

Fail.

I considered telling Willow Mister Frodo had left to go on a holiday, and then to start sending her letters from Mister Frodo, full of stories about his great adventures. Or maybe I could wait till M got home and get him to deal with the whole thing?

In the end I decided to tell her the truth. Her little face fell. She asked some astute questions- which guinea pig was it? What happened to the other guinea pig? Why did he die? Can I see Mister Frodo? I answered them as best I can, and resisted the urge to scream hysterically as I retrieved Mister Frodo from his bed and prepared him for burial. As I dug the grave, I asked Willow to go and select a fabric to wrap him in for burial, praying that she didn't select a pure silk one or something. She ended up selecting her favorite fabric, a hot pink with white stars on it. I told her that was a good choice. In our household, stars will keep you safe, especially from the big bad banksia men. We wrapped him up, laid him in the grave, and Willow placed some flowers on that sad little bundle. Then she asked if she could pat him, so we unwrapped him and she patted him. I said a few words, Willow looked like she was going to cry, I shoveled dirt over Mister Frodo and Willow asked me how Mister Frodo was going to get out now.

Then I took her to the park as a distraction and on the walk home she asked me if Mister Frodo was alive yet. Now, she just asks if she can dig Mister Frodo up and look at him.

A few days later M took Willow and got a new guinea pig. He's tiny and brown with red eyes, so I suggested Sauron as a name. Willow insisted on called him Mr Frodo.
"But we've already used that name. Don't you want another name?" I suggested.
"Mister Frodo is gone. This is Mister Frodo now," she replied. M and I were creeped out and we didn't push the matter any further.

Mister Frodo II was raised by a teenaged girl, so unlike Mister Leda and Mister Frodo I, he's a lot tamer and friendlier and more interactive. If he smells something he likes, he starts making excited noises. He make happy noises when you rub him in the right spot, and like a dog if you scratch him tummy just so, his leg twitches. Mister Leda, by extension, has also become a lot friendlier and calmer, and only looks terrified about half the time now. Mister Frodo II is tiny and soft and friendly, and suddenly, M now sees the point of pets. Previously, the guinea pigs had to sleep outside- now they sleep inside. Previously, M went shopping and purchased something for everyone- a scooter for Willow, a plant for me and a seed stick for the birds- but excluded the guinea pigs; now he's spoilt them with their own food dish and special treats. I used to beg the supermarkets for green scraps, and now M buys them baby spinach since Mister Frodo II has explained to Mark that baby spinach leaves are his favorite.

So Willow's learnt about death, and M has learnt the joys of pet ownership. I'm not sure what I've learnt yet, unless you count "always get a family pet that is easy to bury."

warrior princess.

Willow, passed out in her room a few months ago (if the lack of clothing and then nappy didn't suggest this is old...) after an intense painting session.

vivid

Every year, in the early winter, Sydney lights up for Vivid, an interactive light installation all around the harbour. It's pretty awesome and you should check it out next year.

Rain + wind next to a large body of water= :( I went down to Sydney a few days earlier, and M had driven down from Little Town after work. We caught the train in from Holsworthy, so it took about an hour. All day the weather had been lovely and sunny, so I had no idea that as we pulled into Central, it was going to start raining. Heavily. But since we put all this effort in to get this far... we decided to stick it out. I panic purchased two large umbrellas (they were so large one would have been enough), pulled the cover up over Willow's stroller and wrapped a woolen blanket around her feet.

Totally worth it. Eventually the rain cleared up and a lot more families with children came out, so M and I felt a lot better about dragging Willow around in the cold and wet. She loved all the lights, and some of the stuff was really cool. Her favorite were the see saws- as you went up and down, you affected a rainbow of colours on an LED lightboard behind you.

For dinner we went to Pancakes on the Rocks. Willow picked pancakes decorated to look like a caterpillar for dinner. It was so cute because hers came out last, so knowing she was really hungry, I offered her some of mine.
"No thanks," she said. "I'm just waiting for my caterpillar. I don't want to get full."
Which was kinda cool, in an obsessed parent way- like hey, my daughter didn't pick "instant gratification" for the first time in her life!

sharks and rays.

1. Starting off with smaller rays. 
2. Shark + really, really big ray. Impossible to photograph as it spent most of it's time at the bottom. It's around 2x3m and weighs 300kgs. 
3. They're kinda like a cross between elephants and dogs, really.
4. It felt weird feeling them because you could feel them chewing on the peg- like there's a hard beak in their funny little mouth.

5. A ray got cranky at us for just sitting there not feeding him so he started splashing us. 
6. The rays were a lot pushier about being fed. The shark's didn't have a chance. 
7. The rays felt like.... a slimy tounge.
8. Willow preferred feeding them to patting them, although she patted a fair few. 

9. Big ray again.
10. This photo of Willow trying to get the bait on her stick kills me everytime.
11. You could pay extra to go in the water and Willow really, really wanted that. Especially when she saw that you could sit on the steps and get the really big ray to come up onto your lap. She kept trying to stick that foot in the water, hoping a ray would swim onto it/ eat it. A few nearly did.
12. Sulking sharks. 

13 & 14. I don't know any other creative way to say "We fed a lot of rays." But it was fun and all these photos are a reflection of that.
15. A shark briefly came and snuggled in my hand.
16. Hey, little guy.
17. Willow, playing it cool.

M suggested we should go to Nelson Bay for a little holiday, because he's awesome, and we took Willow to the Oz Shark and Ray Centre because we're awesome parents like that.

I asked Willow a few days beforehand how she felt about feeding sharks, and she got all excited and began speculating on what we could feed sharks- in the end, she suggested "all the spiders in the world!"

Then Jaws 2 was on tv and I was all "hey, you know what? This will be an excellent show to watch!"

Fail.

Willow started to get worried, so M cheerfully told her "those are the sharks we're going to feed tomorrow!"

And her little face dropped.

"I don't WANT to feed the shark's anymore!" Willow wailed. "Because then I'll never see poh poh or pa pa or Zack or Aunty Sharon never ever again!"

We tried changing the channel but she complained and wanted to keep watching Jaws, so we did. M tried to explain to Willow that the shark in Jaws was fake, and I tried to explain to her that shark's had a misplaced reputation and silly ignorant people thought of them as evil, ruthless killers, but they weren't. They just looked scary because of their sharp teeth. And yes ok, they ate other things, but so did we- we also ate fish, and we ate chickens and cows, and birds ate worms and other birds- a lot of animals ate other animals to survive. And that's the way it goes. & I hope you won't exclude someone or something just because everyone tells you there is something wrong with them Willow. Because it's not very nice to the person being left out.
I don't know which message got through, if any, but the next day she was excited again to be going.

Exactly.

After feeding the shark's and rays we had lunch (heavenly salmon with asparagus and mash for me, overlooking the bay; massive delicious schnitzel for M, and a bit of both of ours for Willow). We checked into our friendly hotel and I discovered that Willow can recognize the trip adviser owl logo from a distance- she knows it as the owl on pa pa's jacket. Fishing, dinner, bed. Then more markets and more fishing the next day. And that was that. :)

on frustration.

Totally unrelated to anything in the post, except this was cute- M was cooking on the BBQ outside the door, and Willow was cooking at her pretend BBQ inside. Sometimes, I really, really need to remember the cute stuff.

(So, this is a post written in a bad mood, so don't leap to conclusions that I'm cracking up or anything. But it's also written because it's a slice of what my life is like rightnow, and since I live with a three year old in a dunp of a town, I get frustrated. Normally I try to share the nicer slices of life on this blog, but for the sake of accuracy and keeping it real, sometimes I get really, really frustrated with Willow and other stuff. Monday I'll post charming photos of our trip to Nelson Bay and the three of us feeding sharks and rays. Promise.)

Three year olds are really, really big on contradiction. Within the past hour as I cooked dinner (a new dish that required a degree of multi-tasking, concentration AND A HOT WOK SPITTING MUSTARD SEEDS EVERYWHERE WHY DIDN'T THE RECIPE SAY "Ok, dry fry the cashews. Then, let the saucepan COOL DOWN before you add the mustard seeds, otherwise they'll EXPLODE like fireworks"), Willow has whinged that she's not hungry, she's hungry, she's not hungry, she just wants milk in a cup with a straw, mum, get me my milk already, no I'm not HUNGRY I DON'T WAAAAANT DINNER. IT'S TOO SPICY I DON'T LIKE IT. I'M NOT HUNGRY. I JUST WANT MILK.

Another example.
"I don't want to go outside. I want to go outside. NOW. I want to ride my scooter. I don't want to ride my scooter. NO DON'T PUT IT AWAY I WANT TO RIDE IT. I want to take one guinea pig out and play with him in my room. I want Mr Leda. I DON'T WANT MR LEDA I WANT MR FRODO."

Another example.
Big W has surprisingly nice bits of fabric in the craft area. Seriously- they have a lot of Robert Kaufman and other "better than you get at Spotlight" brands/ designers. (No Amy Butler yet, sadly.) Last time I went there they had Dr Seuss fabrics in among all the Little House on the Prairie florals. Anyways, last time we were there, Willow picked up three fabrics and asked me to make her a skirt. Since they were actually quite nice (unlike the hot pink star one that she wanted me to turn into a skirt) I agreed. She carried the three fabrics all through the store, we paid for them, we took them home, I let her select other fabrics to blend in, I sewed until midnight then spent the next day sewing so it was all ready and waiting for her when she got home from childcare.
Then she got whiny and annoying because her skirt didn't have any stars in it.

I sent Willow to her room  shortly after dinner, because she wasn't sitting properly and she knocked over her water. Just like I warned her would happen. Then I lay on the couch and tried to calm down. Then Willow stuck her head out of her bedroom and was all "Mummy, your washing machine is beeping. Hang out the washing."
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh.

Sometimes adding to the frustration is life in Smalltown. There at lots of really nice things about living here. But there are lots of shitty things too. Like, I found drugs at the playground, so another mother buried them in the sand pit since she had no idea what to do with them. Weirdly, I forgot all about it until yesterday, because hey, that's why life in Small Town does to you- you get all "Drugs in the playground? I guess it could be worse. Meh."

Then there's Other Parents Who Are Weirdly Hostile. My neighbor insists on keeping to herself, which is fine and all. I mean, it's her right to privacy and what not. It just really, really bothers me because Willow will knock on her door, calling for her son who we just saw peering out the window at us a minute earlier, asking if he wants to play with her- and she won't answer the door. Willow's played with her son exactly once, when she was out washing her car, and Willow behaved beautifully. So it's not Willow's behavior. Is it me? Do I have BO? Why do you refuse to let your son play with Willow? We're neighbors, after all, and he had a wonderful time with her last time.
There's a lady who lives around the corner with a son. Sometimes when we walk past he runs to the front door and says hello to us and chats to Willow. Then his mum notices and screams at him to get away from the door. So he does.
There's another house with three girls- two older than Willow, and one the same age. We were walking past and they rushed to the gate to chat to us. They asked if Willow could come in and play with them, and I said yes, if their mother said she could. They ran off to ask their mother, who apparently said yes. I went inside the front gate and then lingered awkwardly. The mother didn't come out to great me or anything- I could see her chatting to a friend- so I wasn't going to start walking around her yard without meeting her. So I awkwardly waited.... and waited... and waited. Eventually she walked up to me. I smiled, said hi, introduced myself and Willow, to which she said "I don't normally make a habit of inviting people in off the street," and walked off.

Willow doesn't understand why she can't go to people's houses to play. They are near us, so we walk past them a bit. She gets on really well with the other kids- she plays well, and makes a huge effort to behave perfectly. She begs and begs, and what can I tell her? I tell her we're not invited, and she asks why. I try saying they're not home, but she sees that their car is there. I saw they're away, or sleeping, or working, or at school...

So that's that. Happily, Willow has made friends at childcare- I think Dakota with the pretty dark hair is her best friend now. Or maybe Dakota is the only girl there whose name Willow knows? I don't know. But I often see them reading books together or dancing to Psy together.

balancing act

Last year M told me my new green jacket looked like a pool table. 15 months later, and I'm yet to ever wear it.

So when he said something in passing, while putting together a blog post, about how I'm trying to make it look like a perfect magazine life, I stopped blogging while I thought it out. Also, I found myself busy with life, and it was nice- freeing- to release those memories into the wild without having a record of it all.

On the other hand, Willow told her first joke about two months ago and I've already forgotten it. If I was really pretentious and twee, I'd throw something out there about the lightness and weight of being... but I'm not.

Willow's suddenly Grown Up these past two months. She's more and more her own person, with her own opinions, with her own twist on things.

The other night M started playing The Last of Us. Willow wandered by and casually asked M "Why are you strangling those people?"
"I'm not Willow," M replied. "They're just going to sleep."
"No they're not. They're strangled."
"Sleeping."
"Strangled."
"They're sleeping, Willow."
"They're not! They're strangled!"
"Sleeping!"
"Strangled."
They had this argument every single time that M strangled someone in-game, until M just gave up and put Peppa Pig on for her.

My camera phone got all scratched up, so I don't get very good photos off that anymore :( I think next time I might join M and get an iphone for no reason other than it's easy to get cases for them. M and I have looked and looked for a case for my HTC with zero luck. But iphone cases? Well, there's this one, and this one, and this Florance Broadhust one, and this Cath Kidson one....

M is at work and Willow is at pre school. It's wonderful. A whole day- well, until 3:15pm, where the whole empty (rainy) day stretches out wonderfully in front of me.... mostly when I get days like this I seem to end up cleaning. M and I have very different ways of cleaning. Or rather, M (and Willow, for that matter) just make sure things look neat, normally by dumping everything somewhere else. I tend to be messier, as I don't make things neat, but I'm cleaner- I dust, and I file things away (instead of dumping the paperwork somewhere) or hang the clothes up (instead of dumping things in the wardrobe). It makes me forever to dust, clean, file, hang up, sort, put away, rearrange the house, clean under the beds and sofa, but I think it's totally worth it in the end. We've all agreed to disagree.

Speaking of cleaning... if Willow doesn't clean up, it gets thrown out. Well, op shopped. Although sometimes I tell her (if she doesn't see me pick everything up) that Santa's elves came and gave her toys to someone who would properly care for them. The upside is that the house wonderfully clutter free. The downside is that I've come to realise that I'm more attached to some of her toys then she is so I save them- like Esme the doll, an old dog of mine that she likes, and her tonka trucks that I got at a garage sale for less than $10 each. The quality of them is so much better than the newer ones- It's like the newer they are, the more plastic they are. My only regret is that I didn't get more from that garage sale- I got a digger and a fire truck, but they also had a few dump trucks in various (large) sizes. At the time I quite logically thought "Well, we really don't have room for a dump truck big enough for Willow to sit in, and we already have a small dump truck." I should have found room. 

Sometimes the toys come back, and Willow gets super excited about that. I don't know if there is a wrong way or right way to do this. Maybe I'm scarring her for life. Or maybe this is an effective method of teaching her to value her stuff, and to clean up- mostly to clean up. Should I be teaching her to value her toys? I mean, maybe I should be teaching her to not value materialistic things? Yikes. M and I discuss how to parent Willow more than anything else. We have similar destination in mind- happy, content, able to support herself and a family, true to herself- it's just we disagree on the route, and neither of us have a map.

A few months ago we were swimming in laptops. Then two of them broke, which left us with one, and neither of us are good with sharing. Since one of the two that broke is mine... down when a lot of photos waiting to be uploaded. So boo. Here, admire some old (singlet and nappy clearly indicates it wasn't winter when these were taken) photos of Willow instead.

Like I said, these are from early autumn. Since then Willow's been toilet trained, and it's gotten heaps colder, and I've put a rug down in the living room.

We got the wood for free from Master's, as it was an off cut. Willow really loves balancing. She normally pretends she's balancing over the water, and there are sharks waiting to get her.

When we walk home from childcare, she always has to balance on the curb when we walk home. Always.

1228 days of Willow.

Confession: I have a preference for using business year calendars over the traditional Jan-Dec calendars. It just makes so much sense. December I'm always hell busy and looking towards the next year- so it makes sense to still be halfway through a calendar then. July? July is a much more boring time of year. It's also the most depressing month. Like, autumn is cold but you still have pretty leaves on the tree. Then you don't, but you're enjoying the cold weather and all that you can do with it. I don't even mind the shorter days. I'm busy trying to ward off the seasonal flu and keeping all my delicate plants alive- just the sweet basil and lime basil, to be honest.

 Now we're all past that- and for what? I'm planted all my spring bulbs but nothing is happening. The bare trees are bare and dull. Despite winter being more than half way over, my basil is dying despite me begging it to just hang on a little bit longer. We all have a right royal case of cabin fever.

Like so many other people, July seemed impossibly-far-ages away back in March. And yet, here we are. Just like mothering a small child seemed impossibly far away when said small child was still a toddler. 

Willow is delightful and hilarious. She's still requesting an older brother, but now she's updated her request to suggest that maybe we can find one at Woolies. She also has become a big fat liar, which is something I'm probably not supposed to write about as lying is wrong and we tell her so, but lying is also a perfectly normal developmental social stage and all that, so I'm not overly panicky that my precious little princess lies more than a politician in an election year. & you know what? Sometimes, her untruths are actually quite good. For example, we just had this exchange earlier today:

"Mummy, why is my room all messy again?"

"Because you messed it up," I patiently reply, while writing a mental note to myself to do a cull of her possessions again.

"I didn't. All the toys just fell off the shelves," Willow indigently replied. 

 Sometimes Willow is considerably less than delightful and hilarious. Sometimes, there's no other way to put it, but she's a little you-know-what. Sometimes she'll cry and make a big fuss over nothing- like the toilet paper has roses instead of tulip flowers AND I WANT FLOWERS!!!- and I can't resolve it, and it's all I can do to not push her down the toilet and flush her away. Other times she'll make a fuss over nothing- I don't want TUNA. I want TUNA ON NOODLES!!!- and in the end I give in, because I'm a human and I have limits, and then she's crying because she doesn't want tuna at all/ she wants toast instead/ she's not hungry and aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrragh. 

So that's that. We've also had a staycation in Nelson Bay which was wonderful. Expect more on that later. I return to uni in August, which is wonderful. Initially: stuff. I started trying to explain it all, but it's really long and complicated and you really don't care. Just know that I decided to think outside of the box and I'm now doing one second year subject, and one third year subject. Then next year in semester one, I'll be doing first year subjects again, which should be a breeze since I technically passed one already, and I completed the Advanced version of the other one. And I'm really happy because I thought I couldn't go to uni this semester, and I'd be stuck doing lame subjects I'd already done next year but HAPPINESS. I found subjects I can do this year and it's changed my whole outlook and I'm happy because the day that they're on is when Willow is at childcare and I found a babysitter who offered to do it for nothing and YAY. Suddenly life is fun and exciting, and I'm pumped about uni, instead of feeling trapped and woeful. In the meantime, please refrain from asking me what year of uni I'm in, because I rightfully don't know. 

Willow says...

I love you Willow.
I love rides mummy.