Author: Veronica

Yesterday I asked everyone what you wanted to hear me (see me?) talk about. Lulu asked about what books Amy likes to read and what I liked as a child.

At the moment, Amy is going through a horribly independent phase and I am NOT ALLOWED to read books to her on pain of toddler screams. All books must be read ALONE and away from everyone. She will bring a book to me if she wants me to validate something (‘Dis cat?’ ‘Yes, that is a cat’) for her, but that is it.

When I do get a chance to read to her (when she is feeling sooky, or tired) I have some favourites of hers as well.

This is a counting book by Graeme Base with various animals on each page. The best bit about it is that there are recurring frogs in every scene and there are generally hidden animals in the drawings as well. Amazing book, simply for it’s illustrations.

This book I think I bought more for me than for Amy. One of my best memories is Dad playing his guitar and singing Puff the Magic Dragon to me. Every chance I get, I make him sing it to Amy now.

Amy has a book of colours and this is her favourite page. Not because it is pink, (if anything red or orange would be her preferred colours) but because there is a ‘bablooooon!’ And ‘shoooos!’ on the page. I refuse to show the front cover because it is an American book and the title ‘Colours’ is spelt incorrectly. (For me)

It is a classic, but I still love it. Amy will sit more still for these stories than she does for others. Some days I can even get 2 or 3 pages read before she decides she wants to do it herself.

I think Amy loves this book so much because we sing it, rather than read it. It also has balloons and a dog to point out.

I can never resist Dr Seuss. Fox in Socks is my favourite along with The Lorax.

Our favourite part of the story is the end when all the tweetle beetles battle in a bottle with their paddles, and the bottles on a poodle and the poodles eating noodles….they call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle. (Is it bad that I know that by heart?)

Amy giggles every time.

I couldn’t take a photo of Amy’s most favourite book though, because she is fast asleep cuddling it. That one is ‘Each, Peach, Pear, Plum’ and I love reading it. Very simple words and not a long story at all.

This was my favourite book when I was very little. I know now that Mum hated it and I reckon I probably made her read it twice a day. Sorry Mum.

When I was older I loved anything and everything by Enid Blyton, The Silver Brumby by Elyne Mitchell, The Chronicles of Narnia etc. You could generally always find me with my nose in a book.

Nowadays not that much has changed, except the amount of free time I have to do it in.

This is my bookshelf in the dining room.
1- Fiction. Nothing amazing.
2- James Herriots complete works. A couple of the Dune books.
3- More fiction. Marion Bradley, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Jackie Collins. Junk food for my brain.
4- Robert Jordon’s Wheel of Time Series.
5- Various new books. All fiction, all very good.
6- Sara Douglass. 2 of her trilogies. Great fantasy writer.
7- David Eddings. Lots of his books.
8- Christopher Paulini’s Eragon series. Trust me, the book is TONS better than the movie.
9- Robin Hobb. X4 of her trilogies. Great fantasy writer.
10- Amy’s books!
11- Cook books.
12- Angela’s Ashes and ‘Tis by Frank McCourt. Circle of Nine Trilogy by Josephine Pennicot and Dave Pelzer’s 3 books (‘A Child Called It’ is the first book).
13- John Marsden’s Tomorrow series and Ellie Chronicles.
14- DVD’s. Because I am not all literary and posh all the time.

And below is my bookshelf in the study.

I have 2 bookshelves in the study this size. Since I was able to put most of my books in the dining room, these bookshelves aren’t overflowing anymore. I used to have just as many books stacked in front of the shelves as were on them. Ooops.

Eventually I want to have my entire dining room with floor to ceiling bookshelves, just so I can stand in the middle of it and spin around.

I might just love books a little too much.

Thankyou Lulu, this was a great fun post to write. I enjoyed it.

Burgh Baby’s Mom? Barbara? And Susan? I will try and have your posts up in the next few days. Everyone else, you can feel free to suggest things you want to see me write about.

—–

And to finish off, a pox on Telstra! A pox I tell you! They went out to my exchange, fiddled with my line, declared that there is a problem and decided that they don’t know when they are going to fix it.

Oh yes, they will fix it. Just not today. Or tomorrow. Or anytime that they can put a date on.

(The date on the computer systems? was November 10 2011. Yeah, I’m not going to wait that long)

I have to ring back on Friday to see if they know anything more. Until then, dialup all the way baby. Still.

Amy has been full on lately. And by full on, I mean the the kid never stops.

2am? PLAYTIME! 4am? PLAYTIME! 5am? PLAYTIME!

6am? CRYING WOEFULLY UNTIL MUMMY HUGS ME BACK TO SLEEP TIME.

7.30am? PLAYTIME! BREAKFAST TIME! PLAYTIME! RUNNING! LEAPING! JUMPING! TIME.

And yes, everything she does deserves capitals and exclamation marks.

I am having to nap every day as soon as Amy does. This means that nothing gets done, but hey, at least I have had an extra hours sleep.

[Sleep is god. Don’t knock the sleep]

Currently we (meaning I) don’t have any cold weather clothes, so we are spending alot of time inside. I know, I need to buy clothes that a) fit me decently and b) stop me getting frostbite [in freaking autumn? heh].

Also, we need some play equipment that Amy can play on without my heart stopping. The slide, while she loves it, is either wet or too hot to slide down, as well as being unsafe if I am not standing right! there! next to her (her feet get tangled in the ladder and there are spiders).

[It is Tasmania. We went from 37C to 8C in 24hrs]

So, indoor play with a 19mth old.

So far we have tried acrobatics (Amy takes all the couch cushions off the couch and jumps from the couch, onto the cushions). We have tried cooking (Amy cries while I cook. She refuses to help unless helping actually means eating).

We have built block towers (I build towers, Amy destroys them, Seven eats the blocks, Amy screams at Seven). We have played ‘Help Mummy Fold The Washing’ (Amy takes all the clean washing and covers Seven in it. I try and fold faster than those two can unfold).

We have watched TV (until my eyeballs felt like melting). We have listened to music (Amy WON’T dance with me. Refuses in fact. If I hold her and try to dance, she squirms and tells me ‘Amy go DOWN! Me wanna go down now!’ which actually sounds more like ‘A-me go DOWN! Me ‘anna ‘o DOWN ‘ow.’ all slurred together.)

Did I mention the climbing? Amy CLIMBS. And then STANDS UP. On the arms of the couch, on the back of the bean bag I am sitting in, up the bookshelves, onto the bench!

So at the end of the day, I am left with this god awful cabin fever and a sense of unaccomplishment (is that a word?) not to mention a train wreck of a house.

I love my life.

And my frazzled hair. And nerves.

Okay firstly, WordPress? I LIKED the old layout. I knew my way around the old layout and then you go and change it on me? Hell. Anyway Weekly Winners thanks to the gorgeous Lotus. (Do you read her yet? You should, she is HAWT.)

Okay, I think I’m set now. it just took me 5 mins to work out how to upload an image. Damn you WordPress *shakes fist*.

You know what sucks even harder? I can’t write the post while the damn picture uploads. *shakes fist harder*

I’m getting peeved now. (Okay peeved is a VERY VERY MILD WORD [insert expletives of choice here]) I can’t make the photos upload any faster than one every 15 mins.

See this? This is what happens when I ask Amy to smile for the camera. She thinks it is hilarious.

It has been raining here for days, which is good because we do need the rain, however the cold and grey? I can do without. The grey however serves a purpose, in that it makes the rainbows look all the brighter. Yes, on the right hand side is a second rainbow. Not very bright, but there all the same.

This is one of the kittens we decided to keep. She spends all her time annoying Seven (the puppy) and leaping in the air for moths.

Amy has been cooped inside for a few days (see above: rain) so cabin fever has been a problem. Unfortunately she thought that hiding my camera was a great fun thing to do, so I have no photos of the havoc she has been causing. It took me 20 mins to find the camera so that I could take the photos of the rainbows.

See this one though? It takes lots of concentration to try and steal the camera as I take a photo. LOTS of concentration.

I promise I will have more photos next week. Next week I will even have ADSL (yes, I know, I was supposed to have ADSL last week. They messed up). Maybe tomorrow I will even get my linky thing to work rather than having to link everything by hand. Please let me know if anything is messed up or broken.

See more Weekly Winners here!

Dear Amy,

You are one week off 19 mths old. Honestly, where does the time go? I swear I have lost the last 18mths. Someone asked me how old I was the other day and I seriously had to think about it.

Your teeth must have stopped hurting for a bit because you have been pretty nice to be around lately. The sleep thing still isn’t amazing, but anything was going to be an improvement. Thankyou for not waking up 100 times a night. I really do appreciate it.

However, Mummy’s bench is NOT a place for you to sit when I turn my back. I know you were playing nicely with the stuff up there, but Sweetie? We don’t sit on the benches.

Also, I know that you like to play with Seven and she loves you, but you really don’t need to empty the baskets of clean washing just to bury the dog. I know it is funny to watch her try and squirm out from under the pants, jumpers, t-shirts and sheets, but Mummy had all that stuff put there neatly. Having to refold it wasn’t on my list of things to do today.

[Things that were actually on my list today? Nap as soon as Amy does. List status? Completed. MMmmmmm]

Other things that weren’t on my list today were – cleaning up the polystyrene ball that you gave Seven to chew on, trying (and failing) to re-splice the phone line back together, cleaning up all the tissues, baby wipes and nappies that you decided to throw about like confetti and removing tomato juice and pips from every available surface.

That said, thankyou for having such a lovely nap and for being good for Daddy when you woke up. Mummy really needed that extra hour.

Also, have I told you how cute your talking is lately?

You have gone from screaming about being terrified of moths, to catching the moths, throwing them in the air and crying ‘Mof fly down! YAY!!!’ and clapping.

Also, the fact that you can roll all over the puppy, squash her, kiss her, point out all her features ( ‘Nooooose! Mouf! Teef! Eeeeeeyes! Head! Hair! Fooooots!) only to have her roll over and lick your cheek is amazing.

We bought a potty for you yesterday. So far it hasn’t been used, but that hasn’t stopped you sitting on it at every opportunity and proclaiming ‘Yay!’ and clapping when you stand up, even though you haven’t done anything in it. However, I am just happy you will sit on it.

Anyway child, there are many other things I could say but I have a good book calling me and internet that refuses to load even a quarter of what I want to look at.

Love Mummy.

[ADSL should be connected by the 2nd of April. Bring it on!]