Tag Archives: toddlers

Three

10 Apr

Three years ago, after 22 long hours, I held my son in my arms, and in that moment my entire life changed forever.

I have always wanted children and known they were in my future and I couldn’t wait to hold him, even before I was pregnant, my arms longed for him.

Even though I had this longing, I don’t know if I was fully prepared for what it actually means. I mean, you know about the serious lack of sleep heading your way, but nothing really prepares you for the endless months of sleep deprivation.
You realise that, unlike a horse or cow, a baby human is completely dependent on you for years, leaving you little space to be you anymore.
You become a new you. Most of the time it is fine, but sometimes I pine for the old me.
My spontaneity has gone. I have become kinda o.l.d.

Today was my big boy’s third birthday. I have such nostalgia today but it’s not for him. It’s for me. My life.

Maybe something has inherently happened at Terrible Twos has given way to Fucking Awful Threes, but the last few weeks I’ve felt like perhaps I’m not quite as equipped for this job as I first thought.

Yesterday I fantasised about going for a walk. On my own. And not stopping…… I imagined the whole scenario.

I’d drop the kids to the neighbours so they’d be safe until Mister H came home and by then I’d have just disappeared. I have always had a sense of the dramatic.
I used to think the missing persons people had met with foul play, but maybe some of them were just tired of picking up after everyone and being pierced with shrill syllables.

I don’t really want to disappear.

It was just a fantasy. Sometimes I fantasise I’m on The Voice too.

I just thought maybe out there on my walk I wouldn’t feel so torn in pieces. Trying to fulfil everyone’s whims is a fuller than full time job but my time card doesn’t get any extra hours.

There is a new tone in Mister Three’s repertoire that pierces my brain and I can’t reason with him. The Super Nanny would shake her head at me, but I really don’t know how to parent this new person in my house.

I love him with my whole, entire being, but he is grinding me down.

I also wasn’t prepared for what children would do to my relationship.

Three years ago my boyfriend became my baby daddy, and something changed in that. Now instead of nights dining and drinking, we play musical beds until the sun comes up and then he’s gone at dawn for the day and it’s me left. I miss my boyfriend. He’s become kinda o.l.d. too.

My friend’s husband said the problem with us girls is that we have too much time on our hands to think and internalise our feelings, and that perhaps in this time we focus too much on the negative stuff.

He makes a valid point. The hours and days of child rearing are so long, it’s easy for your thoughts to turn sour and begin picking at yourself like a crazy bird picks it’s feathers.

Maybe it is as simple as choosing happiness… and wearing earplugs so I can’t hear the whinging.

I am nostalgic, this evening. As my baby turns three.

On another note, I ate a lot of chocolate cupcakes today….. didn’t help the blues but shit they were yummy.

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How To Prevent Your Toddler From Killing Your Baby.

27 Feb

baby-safe

If I had a dollar for every time I said ‘Be gentle with your sister’ I could buy myself a First Class one way ticket to somewhere peaceful where pool boys massaged my feet whilst I drank cocktails the size of my head.

One moment of relaxed vigilance and my baby could be unwittingly suffocated, choked, or just ridden off into the sunset by her exuberant big brother.

Today, I popped over to Sleeping Could Be Easy to give my friend Nina a few tips on how to keep her gorgeous toddler away from her soon-to-be newborn twins.

She said this gave her a chuckle, but also made her scared…..

She should be.

I have marvelled many times about the fact that second children are ever conceived, in light of the fact that first children really play havoc with your sex life, but something I have observed in the last 9 months, is that it’s a miracle our second children make it to their first birthdays.

It’s generally not that our first child is malicious, but more inclined to love the new baby a tad fiercely……

To read the rest of this post pop over here

Have you caught your toddler being over zealous?

If you know someone that’s got a new baby and a toddler, flick this over to them.

You may save a baby’s life!

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Toddler versus Tabby. An action adventure tale of oral hygiene.

23 Jul

I recently promised one of my readers some action/adventure as I was a little stuck in the mummy blog rut. How much childbirth and boob stuff can you really blab on about? You want adventure? You want action?

Try cleaning your kids teeth. That’s friggin’ action.

There are high speed chases that occassionally end in collisions and people flying through the air, there’s explosive language, and even sporadic nudity, his, mine, both – anything goes.

I often think that I would have more luck cleaning Mister Fluffy Pants’ (yeah, that’s my cat’s name – what of it???) teeth than I do D Man’s, although, I would no doubt end up with slightly clawed forearms. I somehow feel that the overall trauma would be somewhat less. Of course, I would have to buy the cat his own toothbrush as sharing one with your cat would be weird……as it stands, I’m stuck attempting to clean a very uncooperative toddler’s teeth with varying degrees of NO success.
I googled for some technique tips and read of one woman who grabs her tortured kid in a head lock but that seems altogether a tad ballistic, especially when you take into consideration that this round of teeth with fall out eventually anyway, so perhaps World Wrestling Federation tactics are not the way forward? Surely, it will only cause negative associations with teeth cleaning, or a pro-wrestler with dazzlingly sparkly chompers who enters the ring with a Dora the Explorer toothbrush?

It’s highly recommended to brush your toddler’s teeth twice a day, and to clean each tooth thoroughly, including the backs…… INCLUDING THE BACKS???. How the hell are you supposed to get the backs, twice a day?  I’m working on the theory that if I clean each tooth in his head once a week, we’re doing ok. I’d love it if D Man was compliant, with a flip top head for easy access, but he’s usually hopping about, grabbing at the toothbrush and anything else within arms reach (contact solution, hand soap, toilet roll, which, FYI, is never the same once it’s landed under a running tap).
I also really loved the handy tip about turning the entire tooth cleaning experience into a game. Obviously, D Man got that memo before I did because he’s turned it into an awesome game of Catch Me If You Can, Loser.

I’ve got a little system going on. Basically, I squirt toothpaste on a little Ben 10 electric toothbrush, whilst weilding a mini-mouth manual brush in my other hand. When he opens his mouth to suck the toothpaste off the one he’s holding (whichever one takes his fancy on the day) I lever the remaining brush into his gob and brush as swiftly as I can. He’s bites it, he blows raspberries, then he manically shakes his head from side to side like he’s front row at a Nirvana concert and then he bolts.
I’ve given up chasing him and decided that we can try again in the evening. Not becuase I don’t care about his oral hygene, I just know that this will not be the only battle of the day and I need to conserve my battle strategies.

The experts, who hand out advice on this matter, also recommend no lollies. They stick to the teeth and the sugar has a little party that boogies on down in baby teeth. We rarely give him any lollies so that’s under control, but they also mention that dried fruit is the root of all dental sin, as it’s as full of sugar and sticky as a lolly and attaches it’s sticky goodness to tiny teeth and creates oral havoc….. Oh….. I see. We eat sultanas and dried apricots all the time, am I doing something bad???  Dang. I love dried apricots. He loves dried apricots. I think that this pearly set of milk teeth may be in big trouble.

Thankfully, we need not worry too greatly, as he’ll get a whole new Hollywood smile by the time he’s 10 or so (guessing, no idea) because I really do need to conserve my energy for more dramatic action/adventure scenes.

NB I would have dearly loved to post a picture of D Man and Fluffy Pants, but to say their relationship is precarious is an understatement. D Man loves Pants. He wants to pat him, rub his nose in his fur, and have tea parties with him. Pants hates D Man and wishes he was never born. I hate those one sided relationships.

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Super Yummy, Healthy Muesli Bars for Rugrats and Rascals

27 Mar muesli bars


It’s so hard to find good snacks for munchkins that are easy to pack and carry and are not full of preservatives and hidden nasties.

Muesli bars are awesome to throw in your handbag but I made the fatal error of buying a whoop from the supermarket after discovering their popularity. It wasn’t until I was home that I read the ingredients – rookie error. I found that a certain brand, synonymous with ‘health’ were so chocked full of sugar, oil, additives and fake fruit that I really couldn’t in good conscience feed them to D Man (company shall remain nameless although may rhyme with Muncle Schmobys). Then upon further investigation of yummier ones with less additives I discovered they were a million dollars per bar and over a couple of weeks could bankrupt you.

My household is a peanut butter lovin’ household and I’m sorry to say I can’t go past a bog standard salt added, sugar added version….although I do buy light as it makes me feel slightly better about my addiction (hell, if that’s the only one I have left I’m doing ok!), but recently a very dear friend of mine of singing the praises of all natural, all singing, all dancing pressed peanut style peanut butter. I got all righteous about it and decided not to start off with a little jar, no, I bought a whacking great bucket and decided, from now on, my family would only eat healthy peanut butter………Mister H turned his nose on day one, and D Man shortly followed suit, leaving me with a big tub of the stuff sitting in my pantry……. so I got to thinking, mmmmmmm, peanut butter muesli bars????

If you’re a nut free household you can omit the peanut butter but you will need a little more honey to keep it from crumbling into a million pieces upon first bite!

For something I’ve never made before I’ll often poodle around on google for a while and check out a couple of different recipes to see how the basic structure of said thing is (i.e. : what’s needed to keep it all together and not fall apart upon first bite) and then I’ll amalgamate and tweak until it’s mine.

So, after extensive muesli bar consumption, and a lot of dried fruit wind, here’s what I came up with.

Yield : 20 bars, so perfect to take for play with friends

Makes 24

Ingredients:

  • 125g butter
  • 1/4 cup honey (1/2 a cup for no peanut butter version)
  • 1/4 cup peanut butter
  • ¼ cup raw sugar
  • 1.5 cups puffed brown rice (avail in either cereal aisle or health aisle at major supermarkets)
  • 1.5 cups raw quick cook oats (these are smaller pieces and easier for little jaws and digestive tracts to handle)
  • ¼ cup mixed seeds, pepitas, sesame, sunflower, whatever you want
  • 1.5 cups dried fruit of your choice. I love cranberries, sultanas, apricots and dates
  • ½ cup shredded coconut

Method:

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper. Mine is 34cmx22cm to give you an idea of how big you need.
Combine honey, peanut butter, sugar and butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil and stir for about a minute to let it thicken a little. Remove from heat and set aside.
Throw all your dry ingredients into a big bowl together and make a little well in the centre. Pour over your syrup and stir it until all dry ingredients are well coated and combined. Spoon into tray and I press down firmly with a big spoon to make it nice and even but also to compact it as much as I can before cooking. Pop it in the over for about 20 minutes, depending on oven, maybe 25 minutes, until it’s golden. Remove from oven.
At this stage, I get a clean cake tin and I press this puppy down as much as possible. The first time I made it I was picking up puffed rice from all manner of nooks and crannies so I reckon this step is imperative unless you want to eat outdoors or you have a dog that likes muesli. Leave to cool, put it on a board and cut into desired size.
I get about 20 pieces but I may be known to cut them chunky…..cos I’m a pig.

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