Sleepless Nights

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  • The Toddler

    The Toddler was in full force today.

    I tried to have a shower while she was occupied with her toys. Didn’t work. Eventually, after a little head and hands poked into my shower (getting soaked in the process) for the tenth time, I stripped her off and put the plug in and she had a shower with me.

    I left the water in to be used on the garden later.

    Getting dressed was something that she SHALL. NOT. BE. SUBJECTED. TO! And I was a MEAN MEAN MUMMY for doing it.

    I finally got her dressed (cue cheers) and (the second) breakfast served. While I wasn’t looking, she fed her (second) breakfast to the cat. I can only assume from the amount of grumpiness that reared it’s ugly head, that the first breakfast had gone to the cat as well.

    Sigh.

    As I was preparing to go out (hair makeup etc) Toddler came into the bathroom and threw the roll of toilet paper into the toilet before I could stop her. She emptied a cup of water all over the floor and finally, as a final encore of Toddlerhood, she fell in the bath.

    Fully dressed.

    After I had taken 20 mins to dress her.

    Sigh.

    We eventually got out the door and Toddler was fed vegemite and cheese sandwiches in the car because I had finally realised that she was still hungry. Maybe the cat looking satisfied and NOT yowling for food should have tipped me off?

    ***

    Toddler enjoys shopping, as long as Toddler is not in any way, shape, or form constrained in a trolley, stroller, or arms. Hand-holding is also out of the question as it restricts Toddler’s movement.

    I juggled finding 2 new pairs of pants for Toddler, a handbag and a hot drink (chai tea latte).

    Toddler raced around the shop causing Toddler chaos in her wake. I spent the whole time putting the soft toys back onto their shelf and re-packaging all the shoes.

    Also apologising. Did I mention the apologising?

    At one point Toddler realised that there was music! over the sound system. She raced around the shop, with me and her Nan (my mum) in hot pursuit. As soon as she found a slightly empty space (a dance floor if you will) she proceeded to dance and sing and generally perform.

    Drama queen.

    ***

    Toddler is unhappy about any attempt to contain her in a trolley. UNLESS you sit her in the main bit along with all the food.

    So, being a person to take the path of least resistance I let her sit in with the food.

    After Toddler unwrapped my block of chocolate, I realised I may have made a (slightly, very small) bad decision.

    If you are in the supermarket and you notice a block of unwrapped, slightly chewed, macadamia nut chocolate hidden amongst the pads, please pretend you didn’t see it. I am truly sorry.

    After a while Toddler decided that causing chaos OUTSIDE of the trolley was the new fun thing to do.

    Did you know that there are dogs on the cans of dog food? Toddler let me know.

    There are cats on the cat food. Toddler let me know this also.

    Even better? A Scottish Terrier is actually a cat and Toddler won’t have anyone tell her that it isn’t.

    ‘TAT!’

    ‘No Sweetheart, that is a dog’

    Toddler points at a Border Collie.

    ‘Dis dooooooo ag’

    ‘Yep, that’s a dog’

    Toddler points at a Terrier

    ‘TAT!!’

    ‘No, that’s a dog.’

    ‘NO! TAT!’ stomps foot
    Sigh.

    ‘Come look at the cats then…’

    EVERYTHING actually should be placed on the floor for ease of access for Toddler shelf climbing. Toddler saw to this today and was mightily unimpressed when I put everything back where it belonged.

    She threw herself backwards when I held her.

    She ran away when I didn’t.

    For a final straw, as I was packing the groceries back into the trolley after paying for them, I trapped a (very energetic) Toddler between the wall, myself and the trolley.

    Toddler is a mighty escape artist. So mighty in fact that she crawled underneath the trolley to escape. She would have managed it too had her pesky foot not gotten stuck and her MEAN MEAN MUMMY not removed her from there.

    Cue tantrum.

    I think I lost weight today.

    The Monster

  • Break Out The Champagne

    We got pre-approval.

    Don’t know what I am talking about? Read this.

    Right, done?

    We got pre-approval!!!

    The catch? We have to find $1000 to pay out the rest of the money owed on the car. Provided we can do that (within a week) then they will give us our home loan.

    We bought the house!!! WOOOOOOOOT!

    Sorry, this was just an updaty post. Toddler post to follow.

  • The T-shirt Debate

    I said I wouldn’t do it, but here I am, jumping in boots and all to give you my opinion on the whole t-shirt debacle.

    The T-shirt Debate.

    An Aussie clothing chain has released a set of t-shirts emblazoned with various slogans.

    tshirts.jpg

    I pinched this picture from Megan at imaginif. Thanks.

    Parents are up in arms, calling for the tops to be recalled, that they are unacceptable, and that they shouldn’t be worn.

    Apparently they turn girls into slutty seeming, sex wanting bitches. Boys become drunk, asshole (really that should say arsehole. We are in Australia here), pimps.

    Parents are swearing that they will NOT buy these t-shirts, etc etc.

    Fine. Don’t buy them. Finished.

    However, the more that teenagers perceive that these tops are controversial and likely to cause anger, the more they are going to want wear them.

    Would I buy them for my daughter? Probably not. Would I have bought them for myself when I was 14-15? Most certainly. Am I going to have a hissy fit if Amy walks in wearing something similar when she is 14? I doubt it.

    The shop in question selling them is marketed towards teenagers who are able to buy their own clothes, not teens still dependent on their parents for money.

    My mother was laid back and when it came to the small things, she was prepared to let them go. I wanted to dye my hair purple and green and blue? Okay, she would help me do it (it wouldn’t work by the way, my hair was too dark).

    You know why? Because it was ONLY HAIR. It grows back. I could have shaved it and she wouldn’t have batted an eye. She also let me wear whatever I liked. She helped me pick them out even. When I was 16 she bought me these boots.

    Boots

    Because she let me be my own person, clothes and hair were never rebellious points for me. I never ‘acted out’ by cutting my hair and wearing ‘odd’ clothes.

    Sure, I made some clothing choices that were in (very) poor taste, but once I realised that I stopped wearing them.

    These tshirts are going to become more popular now that there is such a controversy surrounding them. More teens are going to want to wear them for the reaction they garner.

    I remember what highschool was like.

    The kids with the strictest parents were the most likely to lie and change clothes after they left the house.

    The kids with rich parent had access to hard drugs and the liquor cabinets.

    The kids with deadbeat parents smoked dope.

    Generalisations I know, but that was what it was like. These kids BRAGGED about what they got up to.

    ‘My Mum doesn’t know I wear heavy makeup and tight tops because I change in the dunnies at school’

    ‘My pars never notice that I am getting smashed on their alcohol because they are too busy at work’

    ‘My parents don’t give a fuck what I do, so I get stoned with me mates’

    In the scheme of things, a thirt is such a small thing. It doesn’t make the person and it doesn’t say anything about who they are.

    You have to let teenagers make their own decisions when it comes to the small stuff.

    You have to choose your battles.

    Is wearing a stupid t-shirt for a while, until it becomes uncool, actually going to affect the person your teenager will become? I highly doubt it.

    Are they going to act out more if you make it into a big deal? I would lay money on it.

    Also? The Mr Pimp t-shirt that has all the (supposed) sexual connotation that are getting up peoples noses? A ‘pimp’ to a teenage boy is a boy popular with the ladies. It isn’t sexual at all.

    Feel free to disagree (politely of course) with me in my comments section. I will explain my reasoning behind this whole breakdown of the teenage psyche. Remember I was in highschool a few short years ago. I haven’t forgotten what it was like.

  • Am I Allowed To Talk About This?

    Remember when we all went ahead and nominated some of our favourite blogs for the bloggie awards? And how you got to opt in to be on the panel? Well, YAY. There I am. A panelist.

    First up I was excited!

    Yay! I get to have my say! I feel so special! I can use lots of exclamation marks to show how I felt!

    Then I had a look at the categories I get to have my say in.

    Sport? But I don’t read any sport blogs. Who are the sport bloggers?

    Music? I love listening to music, but reading about it? Not so much.

    Best Computer and Technology Blog? Oh GOD! Why me?

    Have I mentioned that I have dial-up? (yes Veronica, in every other post) and that it takes aaaaaaaaaaages for pages to load? Yes? Okay, I will shut up now then. Anyways, I am at the point in the voting where I am SO OVER IT, but yet, I feel so powerful!

    You? No, don’t like your layout and you are hard to read. BEEEEEEP gone.

    You? You write well and you are easy to read. DING go ahead.

    You see? The supreme powerfulness of my job?

    The catch you ask? YES! You are with me. There is a catch and just a small one.

    THERE ARE 20-30 BLOGS IN EACH CATEGORY AND I HAVE TO LOOK THROUGH 10 CATEGORIES!!!

    30×10=300.

    300 blogs on my teensy weensy computer. FUN! (Well, actually it is a whole lot of fun and I am discovering a bunch of new blogs. But shhhhhh)

    So. My point you ask? Well, not really any point. Just having a whine.

    I haven’t gotten around to the category I am most looking forward to though and that is the best kept secret category. Strange, but I actually know a bunch of blogs on that list. (Am I allowed to say who it is? Amiamiami?)

    Anyways, I have until the 18th January to get my nominations in. I foresee either the page being left up forever, or me writing the people I like in each category down.

    I don’t get a chance to vote for my own blog *sobs* because the categories I may have been nominated in are absent from my nomination list. Conspiracy? Much.

    I so wanted to see who was on the list of teen bloggers too.

  • Neither Here Nor There

    Soooooooooo, we went to the mortgage brokers. Don’t know what I am talking about? Go here and see. I will wait.

    Good you’re back.

    There is good news and bad news here, okay?

    Firstly the bad news – we won’t know anything for definite for a few days.

    The good news? Apparently we look good on paper, and the few things that MAY go wrong for us can all be fixed. The mortgage broker is confident that it will go through, EVENTUALLY.

    Nathan has a $200 bill in collection, that we only found out about recently. The telephone company was supposed to forward our old bills on to us when we moved here and they didn’t, hence a bill in collection. IF that stops it going through, we write a handwritten explanation and fax it through to the bank, along with a ‘paid in full’ receipt.

    The second thing that could go wrong is the car. We have a current car loan, due to be fully paid off in April. IF this makes us too far extended for the bank to give us a loan, we just pay the car loan out, and then put the application back through.

    Very little will actually stop is getting this loan, a few things will just defer it.

    We will buy this house.

    The mortgage broker is going to bend over backwards (no, not like that. Your mind is in the gutter again) to get us our loan (and him his BIG commission).

    YAY!

    I will ring them on Wednesday to try and find out whether the application is approved or deferred. Note, I didn’t say rejected? It shouldn’t get rejected. Now we just need to come up with 1k to pay out the car if need be. *sigh* We need rich relatives.

    So maybe hold off on the champagne and just have the cheese today.