Let's Play Make Believe

This will be a fun game, I promise.

First, let's pretend you're me. You're a 30 year old fiancee of a very wonderful and enigmatic man, and you have a three month old daughter. You frequently send out monthly emails to your friends and family updating them of your daughter's progress, because over half of these people don't have access to your blog, and you don't really blog too much about your daughter anyway because you want to keep some things private.

Having said that, you always put in the email how old your daughter is, and when her birthday is. This isn't so people lavish presents upon her (yet), this is so people will KNOW how old she is, and on what date.

With me? Okay.

Now...Let's pretend that yesterday the MiL rings. The conversation is going very well, (which you know is a fairly rare occurance) and you're discussing your daughter; her granddaughter. You talk about her progress and how she's fussing at the moment because at the same time you're on the phone with the MiL, your daughter is squirming and bellowing in your arms because she's overtired from her visit with her Neena and her Nanna, and you're trying to get her off to sleep.

Then your MiL asks how old she is. You take a quick look through one of the many mental folders you have, and recollect that she asked you this question not five days previous when she called. And, not only did she ask you, she also asked her son the very same question. And she was met with the same answer every single time: "She'll be 3 months on May 7th."

So, let's just say all of that happened, and you hand off the phone to your fiance because MiL wants to talk with her son, and you sit down on the couch with the fussing child, and you think for a moment. You know without a doubt that people have been told time and again about the date of your daughters birth. You know with every fibre of your being, if you were to ask any member of your family, when your daughter's birthday was, they would be able to tell you and some of them may even be advanced enough to tell you the exact time, even though that's not what you were getting at.

Okay so we've pretended all of that happened. Now, let's switch places again, and you're a grandmother. Do YOU remember your grandchild's birthday? How should I be feeling?

Baby Einstein

Under her play-gym, Kira studies the telephone shaped rattle. I CAN touch this!

Rather than attempt the rattle right at the moment, she suddenly becomes quite preoccupied with the star and it's musical lights.

She's learned if she kicks the side of the gym, the music and lights start up again!

Hmm, I like the lights but not so much the noise, Mommy.

This is so much fun!!

Back to the telephone rattle, and some serious consternation.

I Hate the Phone Company

Our internet is out again. It was gone all day yesterday and I have no idea when it came up, but I was awake at 6am and apparently it was on then. Last week we suffered with the internet being down until around 830am every morning, and then for no reason whatsoever, it went down on Monday until around noon before it came back up. Yesterday, it just didn't come back up.

We called our ISP, only to find out there's nothing wrong on their end (even though they were experiencing a wicked high volume of calls, so much so that my brother was on hold for about 7 minutes), but they submitted a "line problem" ticket with the phone company, who incidentally, were supposed to get back to us yesterday by 4pm. If you guessed they didn't call us back, you'd be quite correct.

Telstra, you can lick my ass. I hate you. Get your act together.

I Again Question the Sanity of One Katie Holmes

Okay, you all know how I felt about Katie and the Tyrant's whole birthing thing, right? Well what the flock is up with their marriage plans?! And why for the love of god, does she let him control her so much? Case in point:

But it's not just Katie setting the pace. Hubby-to-be Tom Cruise has signed her up to a company called Buff Brides, in preparation for their wedding later this year.

Buff Brides' Sue Fleming told the Daily Mirror: "Katie can and will do it... She has great motivation. She loves her fiance and was proud that Tom oversaw this programme."

She was proud?! I don't understand that! First he tells her what she should be wearing when she's pregnant. THEN he goes and designs her wedding dress without her knowledge or input. THEN he tells her NOT to make noise during the birth of their child and posts signs on his front gate about using hand slow hand motions because obviously his woman is pregnant and therefore stupid. And NOW ... he's enrolled her in this programme because she's got some weight to lose, and she's proud!?

I totally get your man standing behind you, and supporting you through whatever decisions you make in life, but to actually make them for you and then stand by him, is just mind boggling. How is this different from the woman whose husband beats the shit out of her, and then smiles and says she loves him and that's the reason she won't leave him?

This whole Holmes-Cruise "engagement/marriage" thing is just as bad as the folks who get up on Jerry Springer and sing the praises that is their destructive relationship. I just can't wrap my head around it.

It's Kind of Like Judgement Day

Tornados invaded Australia. I was checking out a map that was on one of those digital boards like they have at NASA, and I saw a small mass of land (slightly bigger than Tasmania) off the east coast of far North Queensland. On this small mass of land was some whirlwind activity, and the projected path for this activity, was straight across the pacific, and right into Australian soil.

I glanced out the window and saw two tornados off in the distance. I started to quietly panic. I don't want tornados, I thought to myself as I got up, and climbed up through a hole in the roof (a man hole, if you will). There, before my eyes, was a delightful twisted knot of tornados, all spinning entwined together, probably 7 or 8 of them in total. And they spun there together, not moving from their solitary spot, all black and dark beige and incredibly menacing.

In the time it took me to spot these tornados, and the new small island off the coast of Northern Queensland, D was struggling with 2 pairs of pants and a key. Apparently he pulled on his jeans, and the key was in the pocket. So he reached into his pocket to grab the key, but then pulled on his track pants to find the same key. Evidently he was getting frustrated at trying to get the key from both pairs of his pants, but at least he didn't have the looming death and destruction hovering over him, entwined lovingly in a mass of wind, dust and debris.

I'm Going Mental Over Avon

Usually Avon has some kind of stigma attached to it. When people hear you use it, you're almost always greeted with some kind of furtive grin, and a look that implies something along the lines of, That's only because it's cheap, so don't try and sell me on it.

I remember as a kid, I think I may have been around 12 or 13, but not much older than that, and we used to have an Avon rep come around every so often. I used to love pouring through her catalogues and looking at all those mini lipsticks and eyeshadows and thinking how wonderful it must be to have all of that stuff! I didn't realize back then, that those were mostly just samples, and the product you bought was actually much larger. I just remember everything being so pretty and feminine and smelling so lush. But I never really owned any of it, except for the Night Magic Perfumed Body Powder, although back then it was the Night Magic TALCUM powder. And I just loved the way it smelled. It was the only powder I'd use, but I used it quite sparingly as my allowance didn't provide me with enough cash to be able to buy it every month.

And then when I came back from America, I met up with one of my cousins, who is now an Avon rep. I didn't buy too much from her, but I did sop up as many sample items as humanly possible (I now have an extensive collection of perfumes and facial products, half of which I will probably never use). In doing this, I've found a couple of really wonderful fragrances, and skincare products. Which brings me to my entire point: facial products. Specifically, stuff designed for those of us with acne that won't go away, even if we beat it with a stick.

I'd tried everything store bought, and none of it really worked. I even tried Proactiv which did not work either. (While it did not work for me, friends of mine use it and their skin looks absolutely flawless so clearly my genetic makeup was tampered with ... somehow) After perusing through the catalogue of such pretty, pretty things, I decided what the hell, and bought some items.

I have to tell you how much I love the Clearskin Double Action Cleanser. While I still have my blemishes, they are not nearly as horrible as they once looked (I understand all things take time, much as I wish they'd disappear overnight) and not only that, my skin is so much softer and cleaner! Oh, and younger looking. Ontop of that, I also own a facial scrub by Planet Spa (not listed on the website) and another Avon branded mask. After only using each of these once, (on separate days), my skin is again softer, more supple and nourished, and pores? Tightened, firmed and NO LONGER VISIBLE! This shit is truly amazing, and I'm just astounded that my skin looks so much better after only using these products for a week or so now.

So of course, I went on a rampage and decided to buy an assload more stuff, some makeup and perfume and body washes, things of that nature.

So give me that funky little look and that sly little smile when I tell you, YES I BUY AVON - I don't care. I've found a nifty set of products that work for me. I might just start an Avon cheerleading squad.

This is Where I Beg Your Forgiveness

It looks like my new home isn't as ready as I thought it was going to be, so I'm posting back here for abit. So much has gone on that I haven't blogged about on here, I don't even know where to begin! I suppose I ought to start with a smallish Kira update.

She went for her shots on the 18th, and was such a good girl about it. Infact, she was leaps and bounds better than I was! Her first needle encompassed an assload of diseases, but this didn't make her do very much more than squirm and be audibly fussy. The second shot, however, was the ever so nasty pneumonococcal shot, and christ did she scream. (I'll point out here that I was in tears long before she even GOT her shots) The first thigh had some big bruising around the injection point, but the second thigh didn't, though it did have some minor swelling.

For the following 24 hours she had a minor fever and surprisingly wasn't overly fussy. We had to give her children's panadol (like tylenol) to keep the fever at bay, and just to digress here, why the hell are these meds cherry flavoured? Kids HATE cherry! At least mine does, anyway. So, suffice it to say, she hated the shit and kept spitting it out.

Okay, what else... She's pretty well given up trying to roll over, at least for now. She MUCH prefers sitting upright, which she does amazingly well, and loves to be on her tummy. She can raise herself upright on her hands for a few seconds before coming back down to the floor, and! We have reached yet another milestone: she scootches! Basically this means that it's a crawl but her belly is scraping along the ground. She gets quite alot of speed up in doing this, and very happily scootches around the floor during tummy time. Not always, of course, but alot of the time, and I've found this particular activity wears her out rather quickly so she tends to sleep very well when she goes down for her naps.

She's still fighting sleep during the day, but I'm a mean old mommy and don't give in. Usually I can put her to sleep in less than 20mins of rocking and swaying her, but on her off days, it can take up to an hour and that's when I pull out the Big Guns. Or the pram, whichever is closer.

She's blowing bubbles with her mouth now, and drooling like a machine, so for this reason, we have cloth diapers handy and lots and lots of facewashers to constantly mop it up. That and the spit up, of course.

She watches tv when we let her, and is absolutely riveted to a couple of the shows - the nightly news being one of them. I'm not sure I like that, but she gets a little unbalanced when I switch the channel, so I'm hoping it's just the bright colours she likes. She also enjoys Wheel of Fortune (again bright colours) and a couple of kids shows like MacDonalds Farm and The Fairies. Both of these shows have heaps of bright colours (you almost need to wear shades while watching), and lots of singing and dancing. Truth be told, I like The Fairies, particularly Barnaby Bee. His "Bizzy Buzzy Bee" rock song is awesome.

Anyway. I've taken an assload more pictures which have been uploaded to the Flickr Album, so take a look for some more Kira-Goodness. In the meantime, I need to jet and get my child some food. And in an effort to get you to forgive me for not writing sooner, here is a picture of her and I together (she's almost 3mths here):