112/365 Thank You, Swimming

Posted on December 1, 2010 Leave a Comment


It’s no secret that my little munchkin has been a little bit emotional of late and just a teensy bit tantrum happy. And while I don’t see that changing any time soon and I feel much better for knowing that it’s a developmental stage and not something that I’m doing wrong, every now and then it’s nice to have a wee little break.

In this case I don’t mean an actual, physical break. But every now and then the routine goes just right and it just makes everything easy.

Once upon a time, Riley would always fall asleep after swimming (at around midday) and have a nice long 3-4 hour nap in the afternoon. But as she’s gotten older, she hasn’t been as sleepy and it’s not unusual for her to skip naps most days. She still needs a nap but once it’s after 2 it’s just too late to put her down without her being up half the night.

But yesterday after I had taken a very enthusiastic creature to swimming (with only about three tantrums along the way) she crashed in the car and slept for two hours once we got home. Which made for a very easy afternoon, particularly since she wasn’t grumpy for a change.

Unfortunately it didn’t stop the bedtime drama because of her gripping fear about the dark – but that’s another story.

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107/365 Nap Ready?

Posted on November 15, 2010 1 Comment


Up until our recent joy-filled weekend of gastro, population Riley, she’d been on a nap strike. Of course, eventually she does get tired. Even energizer bunnies run out of steam eventually and on one such afternoon she created a makeshift bed on the floor. Although in fairness, she didn’t actually sleep, she just pretended and occasionally checked on the photos I was taking to see if it met with her approval.

I guess if you were going to vote it would have happened by now, but you never know! Vote for me on Babble! Don’t worry I have a pregnant brain and sooner or later I’ll forget all about it

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73/365 All Tuckered Out

Posted on August 20, 2010 5 Comments


I don’t care for transitional nap stages. And I’m pretty sure we are in one. Napping every second day. Which means on days when she does nap she crashes like a tonne of bricks and is senorita grumpy pants when she wakes up, probably because she sleeps too deeply. And on days when she doesn’t nap it’s tantrum city because she’s tired and easily frustrated.

But there are upsides to this transitional phase. There are days when she still naps. And despite the fact that I don’t recognise the cranky creature that wakes up later, it’s still nice to have her napping on some days. And on the days she doesn’t nap? Well come bedtime that’s just heaven. I’m all into a 5:30 bed-time. All into it.

And I still feel bad having a whinge about it, because in spite all of that she’s still great company.

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Goodbye Sweet Naps

Posted on July 21, 2010 5 Comments


I’ve been holding on to the afternoon nap for dear life. Those few hours during the day where I could get things done, or do nothing, or just listen to the beautiful sound of silence. I persisted despite knowing, deep down that it was over.

And then I realised between it taking half an hour to an hour to get her to take the nap and the extra hour it was taking me to get her to bed at night, it wasn’t exactly giving me any extra time. And that bedtime was getting closer to 9pm. Which meant I was eating dinner at 10pm and not getting to bed at a decent hour. So finally, this week, I threw in the towel. I figured she might nap every second day for awhile, but I’d leave it up to her.

The first night saw her in bed at 7pm and asleep at 7:15pm. Oh, heaven. Actual time for myself in the evening. Time that doesn’t involve madly shoveling food down my throat before bed.

The funny thing? Once I released my vice-like grip on the damn nap – most days since then she’s napped. And she’s been sleeping better at night. Yes, she woke up at 5:30 this morning, but she didn’t come into our bed. And I enjoyed sleeping alone – undisturbed sleep. And being able to wake up on my own when Josh was leaving for work. Without being slapped awake by teeny little hands.

I could get used to this new routine. In bed at a decent hour. Up early. Mostly still napping because of the 5:30 start. I don’t mind the early start. She is very happy to play on her own in the morning and I can get plenty of work done. Right now she’s next to me on the couch arranging some of her books into a line – counting them – messing them up – and starting over.

Maybe it’s not goodbye to naps after all, but it is goodbye to my control freak tendencies as far as daytime sleep is concerned.

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Open Door Policy

Posted on March 24, 2010 10 Comments


A few months back, the munchkin started wanting company to go to sleep.

If I put her in bed and closed the door she’d just get up again and bang on the door.

Not anymore.

I’ve discovered the secret.

If I leave the door open, she doesn’t get out of bed.

She just chats to herself and then goes to sleep.

I’ve now blogged about it.

I anticipate that the whole situation will unravel rather quickly.

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I am Not Amused

Posted on March 13, 2010 Leave a Comment


So after two days of e-mailing, arranging, drowning in computer coding and generally feeling like I wanted to hit something in a repetitive fashion, I have a semblance of my website back. I don’t have the domain name (that transfer will take about 5 days or so), and I don’t have my design which took more hours than I’d choose to remember to build, but I do have all my photos, posts and comments, and that’s the main thing.

For anyone who hasn’t had the pleasure of my continual complaints on twitter – a couple of days ago my hosting company who provide ‘unlimited space’, suspended me for ‘utilising to much CPU’. Whatever the hell that means. I certainly don’t know. But I could be reinstated if I offered to pay them $150 a month. Because I had no warning, I’ve had to harass the hosting company for backup files, organise a new host and organise the migration. Blah, blah, blah. That’s how I feel about it. The hard part is over now anyway, the rest is just time consuming. So I will be here at http://goodgoog.wordpress.com until my beloved http://goodgoog.com is back up and running.

It’s not just my twitter followers who have been subject to my rants, Riley’s insistence that I read 20 million stories per day has taken a back seat to computer time. I only get through about 10 million or so. Today I was pushing her on the swing, while on the computer. It’s either a new low or a new high, I can’t tell. This afternoon as I was trying to figure everything out, I noticed that she was being unusally quiet. Which normally would spell trouble. I’ve taken my nappy off trouble. Or I’ve decided to decorate my bedroom with toilet paper trouble. Or, look, I’ve just redistributed the contents of the milk on the kitchen floor and started mixing in other things from the pantry kind of trouble. But not today. I turned around and there she was, asleep on her stomach.

For some reason, I find her just that much cuter when she’s fallen asleep on her own, in some random place. Weird, possibly. Caused by acute sleep deprivation and stress, also a possibility. But nonetheless, it was a bright spark in an otherwise awful couple of days. In which I have poured boiling water on my own hand, temporarily lost my mobile phone (again) and smashed far too many things in the kitchen. Apparently, clumsiness is a symptom of blog trauma.

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Tips from the Isolation Tank

Posted on March 5, 2010 8 Comments


It’s hard to know why, but some days, despite having a glorious toddler who is great company, a loving husband and a great family, I feel alone, isolated and sad. Perhaps it’s a shade of depression, and if that’s all I’m left with, that’s pretty damn good. On those days, I miss my mum (Hi Mum!). That’s an inside joke. I never call her mum, I have always called her by her first name. And we keep in touch most days on the phone, and we skype. But it’s not the same. And she uses all of her extra money to visit us whenever she can. So rather than wallowing in my alone-ness, here is what I do to drag myself out of the pit.

1. Treat Yourself

I so didn’t feel like leaving the house today. I wanted to snuggle with the doona. But I got myself out of the house. Driving makes so much difference! I went down to our local shopping centre, and treated myself to a real, caramel-infused coffee and bought some banana bread for the munchkin. We wandered about, picked up some groceries and she played games with her shoes.

2. Reaching Out

It’s a fact that when you least feel like reaching out to someone, is when you most need to do exactly that. Today I contacted a friend on facebook who I’ve known for ages, but haven’t talked to in a long while. I wasn’t sure if she was ignoring me, or if she had just been busy. She had been busy. Another lesson learned, it’s usually not about you. We now have plans to meet up in the future and I’m so excited to see her – she hasn’t had the chance to meet Riley yet.

3. Make Plans

While I might feel like I will be sad for the forseeable future, I won’t be. So I’m making plans that might not seem like fun right now, when nothing does, but I know I’ll have a ball once I get out of my own head. So I’ve said yes to the Sydney Mum Bloggers meet-up. I’d love to see anyone who’s within striking distance of Newtown there as well!

4. Snuggle Time

Few things in this world are as nice as snuggle time with the munchkin in the big bed. She’s been wanting to nap in there during the day. Which in some ways is easier, because I can just lie down next to her until she drifts off. It’s one of the few times that she actually does the whole quiet time thing. And I get to cuddle her and kiss her. And she usually cuddles and kisses back and there’s some nuzzling there too. When you feel alone, feeling wanted and needed is pretty freaking awesome.

5. Housework is Not a Priority, Unless . . .

I don’t worry about housework on days like this. It will be there tomorrow. There’s always time for cleaning. That being said, sometimes forcing yourself to stay active is just what the doctor ordered. So today I’m doing a combination of mucking about with the blog and pottering about the house.

6. Connect with Generous People

This is why I love blogs. I can sit back, relax and catch up on my blog reading. Particularly those blogs written by lovely women who I also count as friends. Who have been really generous in time and spirit with me. It’s the next best thing to sitting down and having a cup of tea with them in person. Yes, I’m a coffee drinker, but tea is always comforting. It reminds me of good friends. And I drink tea at my mum’s place. I’ll give you a hint one of my favourite people blogs over here.

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Wordless Wednesday – Afternoon Glow

Posted on February 3, 2010 3 Comments

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The Guilty Conscience

Posted on January 12, 2010 4 Comments

I always wondered why mothers’ had such a reputation for making their children feel guilty. And now I think I know why. Because you feel guilty ALL the freaking time. After a while it probably becomes second nature and eventually you just become good at it. I’m assuming anyway. I’m not actually at that point yet. I’m at the ALL the freaking time part. For example:
I let her eat a chocolate cupcake before lunch. Actually, if you read my blog, you are probably wondering if I give her anything except chocolate.

And it was good!

The Rationaliser: It’s not so bad, there was cacao powder in it

The Guilty Conscience: And refined sugar, you’re totally reaching. I’m not even going to dignify that.

Yet another example:

The munchkin watching TV (or feasting her eyes on ‘kiddy heroin’ – phrase stolen from @flyingfish1970 -it’s ok we’re related it’s highly unlikely she’ll sue)

The Rationaliser: I had to work. YOU try working on the computer with her dragging on your pant leg.

The Guilty Conscience: She’s playing with crayons, if you’d turned off the TV she would have most likely continued playing and not had that creepy blank stare on her face. And not to be picky, but you’re hardly working, you’re taking photos. GOOD LORD! What is THAT?! In the second one she’s eating chocolate AND watching TV. If you can’t see what’s wrong with that, I can’t help you.

And finally, the nail in the coffin

The Rationaliser: Giving her a bottle during the day helps her get to sleep.

The Guilty Conscience: Not even you believe that. It helps her get to sleep quicker and with less help from you. This is totally selfish on your part. Oh I give up, somebody hand ME a bottle.

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Better than Napping

Posted on November 19, 2009 4 Comments

What could be better than napping? On a hot day like today – napping on the couch in the only air conditioned room is even better.
Lounge napping 2

Although I was a little concerned that this hanging off the edge of the couch bit was a recipe for disaster. A grumpy waker at the best of times, I can only imagine how things would have gone if she’d fallen off and bumped her head. So with a little coaxing I managed to get her to move to a more secure position

tummy time

You’ll note that she seems to be allergic to having her head on the actual pillow. And I had real concerns about the comfort level associated with this new position:

uncomfortable

Tempting to re-position her again, but feared that would be tempting fate and eventually she settled into a less awkward position

Comfy napper

And then she didn’t move for about two hours:

lounge napping

I love those mooshy cheeks.

But seriously, the serenity of a long nap is how I imagine heaven to be. There’s a bumper sticker in there somewhere.

And while she was doing that I was updating Flickr. Because apparently I need more ways to crush time under my stiletto. As if twitter and facebook weren’t enough.

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