Sleepless Nights

Author: Veronica

  • Giving toddlers back some power.

    This post sponsored by The Mother Media

    When my daughter was born and we were living in the suburbs, I used to see a lot of mothers with jogger prams, running. Running was never my thing and I used to trudge from Dynnyrne, all the way down into Hobart with Amy in the pram, once a week at least.

    I imagine if we’d stayed living in the suburbs, we would have kept walking all over the country side.

    However, we moved out into the rural areas of Tasmania, where I spent hours every day, walking to the corner of the sealed road, along my gravel road, wishing for Amy to fall asleep. Kilometres of walking, designed to stop her screaming and give me some peace.

    I was rather fit.

    A few years on and we’re living even further out in the rural areas, with land and lots of poultry. Our roads are unsuitable for walking; a 110kmph highway runs along my front fence and there is no real verge for walking on.

    Because we’ve got pasture and a giant flat area for Amy to play in, for this Christmas, we bought her a bike. She doesn’t know it yet, obviously, but part of the reason her father has been whipper snipping for hours each day, is so that the grass is short enough for learning to ride. He’s leaving some long parts and we’re going to create ‘bike tracks’ for the kids.

    With Amy getting a bike, we needed something equally fun for Isaac and a trike was what we decided on. I hadn’t gotten around to buying one yet, luckily, because the opportunity to review one came up.

    The Smart-Trike 4-in-1 has some pretty amazing specs. It adjusts for a baby as young as 6 months to ride and recline (oh the sleeping possibilities! do you know how much I would have loved one of these when Amy was a baby?) all the way up to a 24+ month old to ride alone. Having a clutch means that Isaac can pedal as much as he likes and yet, we only move at my speed.

    Best. Idea. Ever.

    I’ve not let Isaac ride it yet, in fact, neither child knows about it. But that doesn’t matter, because this tricycle? It’s AWESOME. I wish I’d had it for him 12 months ago when he decided that he absolutely NO WAY was NOT letting me put him in a pram.

    This has caused some issues, as you can imagine.

    Supermarketing is a pain in the arse and he bolts at the slightest chance of freedom.

    I think this tricycle is going to change all that.

    We  don’t have footpaths, so when we’re at home I’ll take the handle off and let him ride around, like an older child.

    But you can bet your socks that I’ll be putting the handle back on and letting him ride around the shops, while he’s strapped in, so he can’t bolt.

    I figure it’s only fair, that he’s given a chance to run over all the adults who spend their time glaring at his screaming meltdowns, or pushing past him.

    The Smart-Trike. Giving toddlers back some power.

    Well, some power that doesn’t involve screaming tantrums.

    ?

  • I take back everything I said about the stupid fucking greenhouse

    Oh yes, it was BRILLIANT, right up until we had a bit of a breeze and some rain.

    I woke up this morning, to find it collapsed and half the joins broken. No matter I thought, DUCT TAPE. It fixes everything.

    I hassled Nathan until he got out of bed to help me and in the middle of a rainstorm, with the wind trying to blow us away, we put it back together. Of course, then the sun came out and defrosted our frozen fingertips and ears.

    We pinned it down better than before and went away.

    An hour later, it sailed merrily across my paddock, dropping poles and joins all the way.

    This time, it was pretty broken.

    Some people might have called it fucked, but not me.

    No, I am more determined than intelligent.

    Through the waist high grass I dragged its various bits and pieces back to the small enclosed yard.

    Wind safe! I thought. Protected! I thought. Easy to access!

    Haaaaaaaaaaa. Cough.

    Amidst a lot of swearing, Nathan and I put it back together. We only had to traipse back out to the paddock to look for missing pieces half a dozen times or so.

    An entire roll of duct tape and an awful lot of cursing later, it was back upright and mostly okay. We pinned it down, even better this time and went inside.

    It will be fine I thought. It’s protected from the wind on all sides! The weather isn’t even hitting it.

    I kept thinking that, right up until the wind grabbed it and tried to steal it.

    Again.

    Racing outside in bare feet, I grabbed it and held it down, while the wind gusts passed.

    And then we tied the fucking thing to the fence on one side and star pickets on the other side. I’d like to see it try to run away now.

    On the upside, the temperature inside must be sitting somewhere near 38C – a far cry from the 10C it actually is outside.

    As soon as I can find the energy to bring the watermelons and honeydew seedlings over from the big garden, I’ll pot them up. Again.

    I’m sure they’ll be grateful.

    UPDATED:

    Photos. Because Kristin asked me for them.

    I tied it to the fence. Front and back. If it goes, it takes the fence with it. Please don’t let that happen.

    A bamboo stake promotes “stability”.

    More “stability” and lots of duct tape. And some grass.

    And now, two different dramatic representations of how it looked when I found it blown away.

  • Stupidly excited

    You guys, look what I bought myself.

    You have not lived until you’ve tried to put together a flat pack greenhouse with 2 children running under your feet, stealing poles, nicking joiners, losing the poles and joiners in the long grass and smacking each other with sticks. Isaac also tromped all over the tomatoes and pulled out a pea plant or two. Kids. Nathan eventually came out to help – not so much help me put it together, but stop the kids impaling themselves on poles.

    Anyway.

    I am stupidly excited about this. A greenhouse is something I have lusted after for years – ever since we put our garden in and realised that Tassie gets barely 3 months of decent growing season, before the frosts come back and kill off the tomatoes.

    With a greenhouse, I’m hoping I can extend our season enough so that I’m growing things for 9 months out of twelve. Cucumbers! Capsicum! Melons! They will all actually ripen.

    I ordered it online from a sales website and worried that it wouldn’t be any good. But it’s sturdy enough and the plastic is mesh filled, to prevent tearing, definitely something I need with small ones (and sticks) running around.

    Now I can grow more tomatoes! Even when it gets frosty!

    Like I said. Stupidly excited.

    Inside are my cucumbers, watermelons, luffa, basil, lettuce, cauliflowers and my honeydew melons. I’ll add tomatoes and probably some more cucumbers in the next few weeks.

    The rest of the garden is doing well too. The heirloom tomatoes are ready to stake and the pumpkins are taking off. Sort of anyway.

    Pumpkin at the bottom, rock melon middle left, basil and collard in the middle, tomatoes through the rest of it, with some bush peas and corn thrown in for good measure. (wide angle lens. the garden is bigger than it looks here.)

    The house garden is going mad too, between the peas and potatoes, I can’t walk through my path in the middle anymore. Somewhere in there are climbing beans. I’m hoping they’ll make it to the surface to flower eventually.

    I’ve been madly picking snow peas and our strawberries are starting to ripen too.

    In the very left hand corner, next to the white plank, you can see a bush? That’s my black currant bush. My two grandmothers struck that for me, before Nan died. I’m so pleased it’s doing well and my great grandmother will be too when she sees it at Christmas. I’ll take cuttings to strike when the new growth hardens up a bit. It’s covered in berries at the moment, we’re just waiting for them to ripen.

    And ducklings.

    Because what kind of blogging duck farmer would I be, if I didn’t share photos of the fuzzy cuteness?

    Platter appearance by Frogpondsrock – it was full of shell grit, but I filled it full of water just after this photo, just for the babies. I really shouldn’t put her ceramics outside for the animals, but it was the only thing I had at the time. Heh.

  • One line bios.

    Anna made me think about One Line Bios and now I sort of hate her for it, because I can’t get it out of my head.

    Sleepless Nights is complex and always has been. That’s okay, because everything I post falls under the umbrella of mummyblogging anyway, even when it’s about hatching a duck egg in my bra, or cutting the heads off my poultry and cooking them (the poultry, not the heads. Heads aren’t my thing). I’ve been trying to think how I’d sum myself up in one line – you know, that one line you use to describe me to other bloggers and they know who you’re talking about immediately. They might not remember my blog name, or my face, but they’d remember my story.

    That’s in an ideal world of course.

    All the ‘big’ bloggers, they’ve got their thing. Anissa had a stroke. Heathers daughter died, sadly. Her Bad Mother is all philosophical (and don’t forget the cupcakes) and Mr Lady is just plain funny – you can’t forget a blog called Whiskey in my Sippy Cup. These things that don’t define us necessarily, but are how we’re remembered in the blogosphere.

    Because Sleepless Nights is so eclectic, I think I’m missing my thing. Is it duck raising? I mean, the ducklings are pretty cute, but it’s not all ducklings, all the time.

    The kids are hard work, but I’m wary of their privacy, especially as Amy takes the steps out into the big world of School in February. She might drive me crazy sometimes (I’m writing this at the expense of a roll of aluminium foil), but some stories aren’t mine to tell. Maybe sharing her Aspergers journey is helpful, but I’m not entirely sure how to blog about it constructively, without it turning into a series of posts about behaviours that leave me pulling my hair out.

    It could be about Isaac and his slide into non-verbal that we’re hoping to halt. Autism though, that’s a hard one. I’ve only got so much energy for squeezing heartbreak out of my fingertips before I can’t think about it anymore. We’re not even sure he’s autistic, his meltdowns, sensory issues and language development suggests he is, but his social skills confuse everyone. He likes to refer back and smile. He masks his behaviours when we’re out – except for the screaming meltdowns – and then spends an hour hiding his face on the couch afterwards.

    Like I said. Some stories aren’t mine to tell.

    It could be Ehlers Danlos and my rapidly falling apart body. All the dislocations and the exhaustion. The insomnia and brokenness. The fight against medical professionals to be taken seriously and treated with respect.

    Maybe I’m just that Tasmanian blogger.

    A one line bio is hard to come up with, probably because as humans, we’re always going to be more than one line.

    I definitely agree with Anna though, a one line bio, a decent schtick, it helps make your blog memorable.

    We all need our one line, our thing. That thing that makes us different from the other blogs.

    The problem is how to find it, and exploit it.

    ***

    What do you think my one line bio is? What keeps you coming back?

    More to the point, what do you think your one line bio is?

  • The power of the suck

    It’s no secret that I love myself a Dyson. I mean, LOVE.

    When Dyson offered to send me their newest product to trial, I was excited. The digital slim.

    Shiny and blue. Small. Battery operated and with amazing suck. I was in lust.

    Of course, in the month that I’ve had it, it’s had a giant work out.

    Amy likes to climb the cupboards, to see what we might be hiding in the top cupboard, out of her sight.

    It was inevitable that she would tip something out accidentally and I was prepared for that. I wasn’t prepared for her to throw handfuls of flour out of the bag and then use the flour on the floor to make footprints.

    Creative? Very. Also messy.

    The regular vacuum cleaner, also a Dyson, is a pain. I mean, it’s fantastic and all, but it’s big and heavy and I dislocate things hauling it around to clean up messes. And as it’s an older version, the foot isn’t all ballified and doesn’t move easily for me.

    So a tiny little vacuum that I can manoeuvre is so welcome.

    Frankly, I adore it.

    The only down side, is that sometimes, if Isaac has been particularly messy with his cereal and I’m having to work hard to get it all, the battery will go flat mid-suck. That can be the only problem.

    So thankyou Dyson.

    Also, please can I keep it now?