I don't think there's any risk of that.....

Last week I went to see the child health nurse, as I do every now and then - just to update Charlotte's statistics. You know, length, weight. ... all those things that people seem fascinated about knowing when it comes to babies..... I'm not sure why we're so fascinated. thankfully people aren't that fascinated about those statistics when it comes to adults as i think I'd find it quite disconcerting to go to work for example and have people say "so, what do you weigh this week?"... but I digress. So I'm at the child clinic updating the stats and she tells me that I'm underfeeding her..... UNDERFEEDING HER???!!! WTF? Seriously, please refer to the 101 Ways to use a bandanna post, take a look at the thighs on my child and tell me I'm underfeeding her - go on, I dare you......

Beep beep beep (the sound a truck makes as it shifts into reverse)

It's also the noise I make when our darling daughter is moving around lately because yes folks, she's this close to crawling (you can't see but my forefinger and my thumb are about 2cm apart!!).... but of course, she's got her gear stick stuck in reverse 'cause she hasn't learnt how to go forward yet!! Not to worry, I'm sure it will happen soon.

What would be even nicer is if she would learn to pat the puppy gently - "GENTLY" I screech to Charlotte as Sophie (the dog) yelps and runs for cover. Not 2 seconds previous to that she (that is, the dog) was soundly asleep dreaming about whatever it is that dogs dream about - only to be rudely awaken by her ear being pulled.... poor thing. There'll be nowhere she can go soon without that happening - once the munchkin is fully mobile. I've never been a fan of the child playpen, but perhaps I can buy one and put the dog in it to sleep - she should be safe in there!!

Anyway, so I have no photos of the dog hair pulling or ones of the crawling attempts (they happen too fast to photo just yet) - but I do have photos of the latest achievement - sitting... yes, seriously, who would have thought that Dave and i would ever have been so enthralled with watching another human being sit on their bum. I like sitting on my bum - and I'm sure Dave enjoys it too (I mean, he's in IT so there is lots of bum sitting... just kidding hon). Anyway, so here's photographic proof.




You'll notice in the second photo the blur as her head races towards the floor. About a millisecond after this shot I dropped the camera in an attempt to catch her before she hit the floor - but alas I was too slow. There was tears, there was screaming, then there was raspberries on the tummy followed by giggles. Truly, the child is a regular Jekyll and Hyde!! (for those who care, the camera is fine too!)

A star is born....

Well, we haven't even made it to the interview with the modelling agency and already my young one is strutting her stuff on the silver screen. Seen here with Laurie Lawrence - swim coach extraordinaire - she made it to the Channel 7 news on a news item promoting teaching infants to swim entitled Kids Alive Do the Five. She managed not to cry or make a sound while he tipped water over her face - can't say the same though when he jumped in the pool with her....... there were tears then - not because she doesn't like the water, but god forbid because she couldn't see me anymore (and perhaps also because it was food time for her) the bottom lip even made an appearance. Not to worry, Laurie handed her back to me and she was all smiles again. I can't say enough good things about Laurie and his infant swimming messages - to all the mums and dads out there - teach 'em to swim!!

101 ways to use a bandanna.....okay well one way

Recently Rebecca of CravE posted a wonderful blog asking people what they will do with their Canteen bandanna for National Bandanna Day..... of course I immediately thought of ways that I could exploit the beauty that is my daughter and this is the resulting creation!!!





And here with a matching contrasting toga look.....





as I write this with my child on my lap, i find myself becoming increasingly wet and realise that while a wonderful fashion accessory, these bandannas are not absorbent enough to be used as a nappy!!! excuse me while I go and change.......

Hi Ho Hi Ho

It's off to work we go...... yes today I started back at work part-time after 6 months off. that'd be the longest period in my adult life that I've not been at work. And by work of course I mean the kind where I get to sit on my bum all day, chat with fellow office workers, have a long lunch and get paid for it all. As opposed to the kind of employment I've had in the last 6 months which has been wiping up vomit, changing less than desirable nappies, wearing vomit, being peed on, did I mention wiping up vomit? Oh, and you don't get paid..... oh unless you count the baby bonus (thanks johny)....but of course all of that was spent before I'd even had the little blighter what with all the stuff people tell you you have to have - she needs somewhere to sleep, somewhere to be changed, she must wear clothes and have one of those car seat things so she can be driven around like lady muck..... did I mention I was sending her out to start earning an income soon?? LOL..... but yes ladies and gents, with all my joking how much hard work it is to raise a baby and my poor husband still had to drive me to work today while I sobbed most of the way there about how much I was going to miss her..... I'm sure he wanted to scream at me "you've been complaining for 6 months about how you miss your pre-mummy life, now get over it".... but the smart man knew better....................

Type-A personality meets meditation - ha ha ha

Okay readers - sorry about the lack of posts (like i'm sure you care) - but I haven't been feeling too much like writing over the last few days - overwhelmed with life and all that. So in an attempt to bring some 'inner peace' to my thesis-writing, garden landscaping, house renovating, baby-rearing self, I decided to off-load the baby today and attend a meditation retreat. it's a free day run by a man who is a sri-lankan buddhist - lovely guy - lots of inner peace. something i wanted to learn. now i realise that meditation doesn't happen overnight. but whoa - nothing prepared me for how hard it really was. we were told that we had to focus on our breath and to not stress out if our thoughts wandered but be mindful when they did.... to speak to them and plead with them to come back to us if they wandered - much like a small child - you cannot force them to do your will, but you can ask nicely.... so here's how my session went in my head...

breathe in.....
breathe out.....
breathe in...... i wonder if charlotte is doing okay with her daddy....must remember to pick up .... d'oh.... mind come back to me
breathe in....
breathe.....must get some more of those thesis revisions done before ...oh shit, mind come back to me..
breathe in..... oh listen to that bird... and there's a cricket... is he in the building with us? I hope not... oh crap.... mind come back to me.....

and so it went for half an hour..... well actually so it went for about 15 minutes - i think i spent the last 15 minutes of the session staring at the trees out the window..... hmmm, this is going to be harder than I thought...

so in the next session our teacher discussed barriers or hindrances to enlightenment... he mentioned 5... and I think every single one of them applied to me!! oh dear.... this path to enlightenment could be a rocky one.... and then we did some further meditation after we knew the barriers and had a few hints and tips to help us through..... i lasted even less time this round.... mostly because by this stage I had - if nothing else, relaxed a little..... now what happens when an over-worked stressed out mummy of a 6 month old relaxes with her eyes closed on a nice warm day - yep, she falls asleep - sitting up..... i did that whole jerk awake really suddenly thing before you topple over onto the floor and then look around really quickly to see who saw you.... thankfully everyone else was still busy meditating!!! *sigh* at that point i realised the futility of trying to meditate when you're falling asleep and I made my apologies and went home for a nap..... and so went my first day of attempting to tame the jungle that is my mind.... practice makes perfect I guess :)

Carla needs....

ok. don't ask me what this is about, but I'm game. Rebecca of CravE has put me onto this - apparently she was lured to it by a certain someone of And so the days are filled...
type your name and 'needs' into google and see what it comes up with... apparently my needs are as follows:

Carla needs 1300 milligrams every day. don't ask me 'of what'.... it's none of your business....

Carla needs some pretty serious psychological help. Oh dear. How true this is. I am weeping at the accuracy of what is merely meant to be a bit of fun with a search engine. Beck don't even bother to comment. Elizabeth - shut up!! :)

Carla needs to accept responsibility for the results . ... what results are these? I suppose I got a positive pregnancy result 15 months ago and I think I'm taking pretty good care of the outcome!! Okay so in my blog earlier today I did mention that I wished my 6 month old would start bloody contributing financially but she's not... so in theory I'm still responsible for her yeah?

Carla needs to pee and encouraged by Kim slips into a small park ... okay, honestly, I don't know anyone named Kim. Granted, a friend of mine in Sydney would argue that I have an incredibly small bladder so she thinks I ALWAYS need to pee, but really, I've never peed in a small park.... on a roadside in Africa perhaps, but it was New Years Eve and there was large quantities of vodka involved and..... anyway, you probably don't want to hear about that.

Carla needs to know how precious and lovable she is, and that her father's absence has nothing to do with her. Oooh, okay when I started this 'googling' fun I didn't realise there would be home truths involved.... next one....

Some time later, Carla needs him to use his old skills and he, unwillingly, obliges her. Unwilling obliges her!! How incredibly insulting.... and why would I be wanting him to use his old skills anyway!!?? Ewwww....

Carla needs Paul. ... no I don't..... really. I need Dave. I love Dave. Honey you HAVE to believe me..!!! ;)

Carla needs to feel a job is really hers. Which job are we talking about here? Are we talking about the job that entails me swanning around all day sipping strawberry daquiris, hob-nobbing with others, wearing pretty party frocks and being the centre of attention? Yes, I need to feel that job is mine!!! Or do you mean the job where I get to change poo-ey nappies all day, get vomited on a zillion times, and try to console a screaming baby after her vaccinations? That job? Oh yeah, that job is really mine... :) (footnote: the smiles make it all worth it!)

Carla needs your support! god - needy little so-and-so aren't I?

Carla needs only to stand perfectly still on a gloomy rooftop, peer intently into a pair of binoculars, and read lips as she's never read them before. ... God that's it!! That's what's been missing from my life - me standing in the rain on a rooftop attempting to communicate with someone through a bloody pair of binoculars..... honey, I'm going out to buy some binoculars!!

Dahlink.....she's gorgeous!!

the other day, my darling husband suggested we register our daughter with a modelling agency - he alluded to the fact that everyone tells us she's gorgeous. now of course, WE think she's gorgeous - but I had assumed we were a little biased. and i had assumed that others said she was beautiful/cute/adorable because that's what people say about babies. I mean who among us has not commented on the beauty of a - how do I say this nicely? - you know, a baby that isn't, well..... oh let's be honest, who hasn't commented on the beauty of a baby that hasn't quite evolved from the gorillas yet... there I said it :)

anyway, so I took him seriously and I sent her photos along to a modelling agency.



I received back an email telling me how gorgeous she was and could i come for an interview. now let me say here, for those of you who don't know me (and that would be most of you I'm sure) I am under no illusions whatsoever that this is not a form letter that is sent to every hopeful mum of a star-to-be child. I am so uncool about the whole modelling/fashion/talent industry that when a friend of mine, tongue in cheek, suggested that I'd now have to get some D&G sunglasses, I had to email and ask what D&G stood for :)

Anyway, so I thought heck, this could be a riot, so I made an interview time. worst case scenario, I'm out an agency fee. best case scenario - the little blighter starts pulling her weight around here - I mean what? she six months? and still sponging off us...... get a job already!!

Finishing is not my forte

Okay readers well when I started this blog I did allude to the fact that I wore many different caps and yet so far I've only managed to tell you of my 'mummy' role. So let's rectify that now. To my list of roles I add - PhD student. I am of the type that enrolled, oh say 1000 years ago now, and who is currently onto her 5th "thou-shalt-submit-or-get-out" letters sent by the University. In theory I have until June next year (06) to submit - what happens if I don't no-one is quite sure. It's a situation I'd rather not test, but let's face it, the chances of me submitting by June next year is unlikely.

One may ask why a type-a personality such as myself - who can juggle so many things at once - is unable to get this done in the next 8 months.... oh dear reader... I have failed to mention that I LOVE to start things... even the middle part of things is fun..... finishing something though? Hmmm, not my forte. I can juggle 16 different projects - but the minute one of them requires completion - well suddenly the other 15 things become much much more important.....let me give you another example. My other cap - the home landscaper..... below find a series of photos of our backyard. I embarked on the demolition of our yard - with the intent to build a retaining wall - with gusto. The minute child was asleep I would be out in the backyard sledgehammering, sawing trees, crowbaring up slabs of concrete. With relish I attacked this yard for 5 weeks...... nothing has been done since. To be fair, I have since travelled to Newcastle to present at a conference, been working on my thesis, and raising previously mentioned child. but you see dear reader, this too requires completion....... not one of my strong points...... not sure where that leaves me with the 'raising child / mummy' role........ but then that's not really a role that ever ends so maybe I'll be okay at that one!! anyway, I really do hope to progress on the yard in the next few weeks so I'll keep you updated.....

Eskimo kisses

I am writing this blog in 5 minute spurts - in between that I am settling my 6 month old who has a) learnt to flip onto her tummy in the cot but who b) has not yet figured out that you can put your bloody head down and GO TO SLEEP LIKE THAT!!! *sigh* She's mostly got the hang of it but some days she flips her head into the bars on the cot (I imagine that must hurt) all the while flinging her little feet out the other side through the bars (yes she is sideways in the cot.....her dad sleeps sideways in the bed so I guess she is taking after him in more ways that just the geeky computer ones...) *sigh again*

But what I really wanted to marvel at today is how quickly these little beings learn things. Since she was born I've been doing eskimo kisses with her.... for the uninitiated that's where you rub noses side to side - like the eskimos do (admittedly this is something I've only heard about - I've never actually kissed an eskimo) ..... and as I'm writing this there is a voice inside my head telling me we don't actually refer to them as eskimos anymore, I'm meant to say Inuit - but not for the natives of west alaska, as they still like to be called eskimos (throws hands up in despair, googles 'eskimo politically correct' and comes up with this site for those who care to educate themselves). For the record I'm just going to keep calling them eskimo kisses.

aaaannnywayyy... back to the point. so now, at the tender age of 6 months, I can now put my nose on charlotte's nose and say 'eskimo kisses' (think stupid high pitched voice when you say that) and she starts flinging her head side to side - showing a remarkable lack of head control - sometimes she even flaps her arms and smacks me in the face while she's doing it - which I'm sure is not how it's done but she seems to be having fun. Sometimes I don't even have to be there when she starts doing eskimo kisses -- which of course leads me to believe that perhaps it's just some developmental phase of movement she's doing and in fact, has nothing to do with me teaching her eskimo kisses at all.... but I choose not to believe that.

Like father.....like daughter

ok, so here's the child I was talking about. Cute huh? You'll note she's tapping away on the computer already. that's because her daddy is in IT and she's already taking after him!! if on some days my typing gets a little blah you'll know it's because she's sitting here whacking on the keyboard contentedly!! hubby insists she won't hurt it. i think she'll prove him wrong... but hey, what do I know right?

I won't go on too much about her as I know how annoying that can be (ok, well truth be told I probably will go on about her alot but if you're not inclined to hear me rabbiting on about what a wondrous daughter I have - there're plenty more blogs in the sea).

Welcome to my life.....

Well here it is. My first post. Kind of scary to get started...... only because I wonder how much of my life will then become devoted to this 'blogging'.... like I don't have enough on my plate already. recently my child health nurse said to me... (yes I have a child health nurse - that's because I have a child. she is 6 months old but we'll get to that later).... she said to me "so are you taking it easy?" to which I replied "yeah, pretty much.... I return to work part-time in a week, renovations are soon to begin on our house, I am currently trying to landscape our backyard, and my first chapter of my phd thesis is due to my supervisor in a week....but other than that, yeah I'm taking it easy?" She sighed, rolled her eyes and said "See you next week".... and so fellow bloggers and readers-of-blogs..... allow me to take you on a journey into the life of thesis writing, landscaping, home renovating, crazed mother of a six-month old!! Enjoy....