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.