Author: Veronica

For Sale or Trade:

One toddler. Slightly snot encrusted, but in a much better mood than yesterday. Is currently running, jumping, leaping and shouting BOO! at me. Can stand on one foot, hop, count, sing (tonelessly) and talk. Also gives good cuddles, declares ‘I LOVE you!’ occasionally and will accept any and all kisses.

Hates having her hair brushed, having me wash her face (hence the snot encrustation), raw pumpkin and being told no.

Is still mostly incapable of sleeping through the night, although occasionally she will sleep through for 3 nights and then wake up every hour for a month.

Likes any and all food (except raw pumpkin) olives and cheese especially, feeding herself, reading books all by herself, stealing any and all food from my plate. Loves being outside, kissing Daddy and climbing (onto the bench/table specifically).  Is a good problem solver and will move objects so that she can climb/destroy/wreck-rend things properly. Will play with something only until she figures out how it works, then throw it away.

Be careful, she can open lids of things.

For Sale or Trade:

One 6 month old puppy.

Chews things. Alot. Has a penchant for toddler shoes and women’s underwear (both stolen from the washing pile and clean). Barks only occasionally and is generally quiet.

Has shown lots of talent in the garden digging area, so if you need a digging dog, she would be perfect. Digs up pea seedlings in order to eat them. Eats everything, so is a little tubby due to living on a Toddler diet.

Insists on chasing and chewing on the cats, much to my annoyance at 2am. As much as she bashes them though, I caught her curled up asleep with the Tortoiseshell kitten this morning. Heh.

Is good with toddlers, randomly cleaning faces and playing. Doesn’t seem to like snot much though, probably a good thing.

For Sale or Trade:

2 Kittens.

Mostly grown, one tortoishelle and one tabby. Have no names aside from The Tortoiseshell and The Tabby. Both can catch birds, mice, frogs and lizards, although I try and discourage frog and lizard catching.

In fact, I can hear frenzied bird squeaking right now. Oh no wait, that’s okay, it’s gone quiet. I don’t suppose I will have to feed them now.

They don’t eat much and they cope well with puppy chewing and toddlerness. Will however eat any and all table scraps (including peas and carrots) if allowed. Continuously surprise me by not getting fat (like the dog).

They don’t eat my underwear or scratch or miaow.

Although, one of them is living in my roof of a night time (does anyone want their own personal roof cat?).

Generally unaffectionate and a little skittish.

****

For the toddler, I want at least her weight in chocolate and you can only borrow her. For an hour.

For the Cats, well they are worth their weight in gold with the lack of mice I have had lately. So gold offers only.

And for the puppy? Well at the moment I am willing to accept any offer. She’s giving me the shits.

Amy is sick.

Which would be very sad, was it not for the fact that she is so damn adorable when she is sick (aside from the copious amounts of snot and whining).

She needs a blanket. But not any blanket, no, she needs one of the wraps that we were given for the new baby. She needs to snuggle under one wrap, with another draped over her head for hiding under when the snot gets too much.

She wants oranges. But not to eat, no, she just wants me to peel and segment them so she can hold them while she hides under the blankets.

She needs a book. Banana’s in Pajama’s is good, as is any of the books from ‘In The Night Garden’ or her Bedtime Stories book. None of her other 1000 books will do. Not today.

She needs to be sitting next to me, but I’m not allowed to touch her blankets. The world will end if I touch them, unless she specifically crawls into my lap with them. The world will also end if I actually move from sitting next to her. Or out of sight.

She is so cute, even with a face full of snot and swollen weepy eyes.

Poor little pet.

**Updated:

She is now very sadly telling me that ‘Daddy is at work…sigh’ and requesting pumpkin soup. Weran out of pumpkin soup 2 days ago (I had made a big pot of it).

I’m thinking that this might get very old very soon. Cross fingers I can hold onto the cute and my sanity.

***

Oh and if you are that way inclined, you can win a handbag over at Handbag Planet. They are giving away one handbag an hour for their launch and honestly? I am not a handbag girl, but these are nice bags. You can enter here.

How to tell when your toddler is well trained.

Me – ‘It’s nearly 9am, let’s go jump on Daddy!’

Amy – ‘YAY!’

Amy – *runs*

Me – *continues replying to emails*

Amy – *from the bedroom* ‘Bounce bounce bounce!! YAY!’

And I? Am sitting here giggling while I listen to the bed squeak and Amy laugh.

Happy Sunday!

****

Also, head on over and congratulate Marie. She had her baby this morning! Congratulations!

I had plans this morning. Big plans.

I made breakfast and ran hot water to soak the dishes. I pulled out my cookbooks and told Amy that we were going to do some cooking. I planned dinner in my head (pumpkin soup) and mentally caculated the amount of housework I needed to do to make the house look the same all day (same being: slightly messy).

And then? At 8.15am as Amy and I were eating breakfast and watching cartoons, the power went out.

Snap!

Nothing.

I checked the meter box and then, finding nothing wrong (except a lack of power to said meter box) I rang Aurora (Tassie’s power providers).

Funnily enough, I was the first person to report a power outage. They said they would send a team to sort it out and I hung up.

90 minutes later, the faults message* still didn’t know where the power was out. 90 minutes after that they knew that power lines were down, but that ‘time of restoration is unknown, due to the extent of the damage’.

Now, we have tank water. Meaning that our water runs from our tank, into the pump that then pumps the water to the taps. So, if I have no power, lo and behold, I have no water.

Have you ever spent a whole day stuck inside with a toddler (weather was too shitty to be outside) with no power and no water? Also, no hot food?

Leslie, I know you have.

Needless to say, it was a shit day.

Amy spent alot of time asking for eggs and then crying when told there was no power to cook eggs with. She spent alot of time tantrumming because we couldn’t go outside. And she spent ALOT of time asking for us to ‘cook sumping!’.

Sigh.

By lunchtime, I was over it.

By 2pm I was ready to kill things.

By 3pm, I rang Aurora again, only to be told that the power had been restored to ‘all but a few’ houses.

Guess who wasn’t in the 99%?

Luckily Aurora’s technicians are pretty good and the power flicked back on at 3.45pm. I have never been so relieved in my life!

Amy got her eggs and I was able to take a break from being a human trampoline. At least to the Toddler. The little one is not so nice.

The good thing though? Nathan came home with a brand new charger for my laptop. YAY!

*You can ring the faults/emergencies line and get a computer message of where the power is out and when it is due to be fixed.