Eloise's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 4/29/02 -------------------- 3/19/02 2/28/02 1/28/02 1/11/02 12/17/01 12/5/01 11/26/01 11/23/01 11/15/01 11/7/01 10/26/01 10/7/01 9/20/01 8/25/01 8/2/01 7/25/01 6/29/01 6/28/01 6/27/01 6/25/01 6/4/01 5/23/01 5/8/01 4/30/01 4/10/01 4/4/01 3/22/01 3/10/01 2/22/01 2/14/01 2/3/01 1/15/01 12/20/00 12/17/00 -------------------- Eloise's Introduction

January 15, 2001

Well, here I am. Slap-bang in the middle of suburban Canberra, tucked into my 'study' in our new 'home.' Phew! It is a fantastic relief to be this side of the 'big move.’ After a month of living out of a suitcase I am eager to start the process of planting new roots. I have missed having all my things around me and I'm enjoying seeing everything afresh as I find a place for everything in this new house. It's amazing how old things, forgotten things, disused things, are 'reborn' when you plonk them in a new environment. It always kinda niggled me that my swanky-wanky bread-making-oven was stuffed in an awkward cupboard in my old kitchen and rarely ever used because it bloody well took up the entire bench. Now it has pride of place on the LARGE breakfast island (don't you just love real-estate jargon … ha!) in my open-plan kitchen and I am excitedly looking forward to the smell of fruit-bread wafting through the house when the weather cools down. Yes, I am rediscovering the trappings of my existence and realising that sometimes a dramatic 'change' can be a welcome breath of fresh air, blowing the dust out of the stale corners of one's life.

And my, my, my, it does feel very luxurious to sit here, typing away in my very own 'study.’ Yes, I've graduated from the days of a desk shoved in the corner of a 'junk' room, surrounded by all the things that have no particular place within the home. I don't think it was healthy for my creative psyche to be working in the junk room, surrounded by the material 'waifs' of our existence. I mean, what was that saying about my 'work', my writing, every time I sat myself down amongst the rubble? Probably that it was an illegitimate business, that it didn't 'stake a claim' in our house, that it was just another junky accessory to life that had no functioning place to exist. Well, all that has changed. I now have my very own, albeit small, room. I have placed my desk beside the window and when I turn from the computer screen I can look out to the front path (I'll see the Mormon's coming, don't you worry!), and it's a green vista of trees and shrubs and I can just see the rise of a dry grassy hill behind the house across the road. Pixie is BANNED from this room (hee-hee) and I shall fill the blank wall behind my desk with floor to ceiling shelving and I shall lovingly wipe the dust from my collection of books and put them all on display again! Come on back DeBeauviour, and Nin, and Austen, and all those women writers who have inspired me to write! YAY! I can't wait to be surrounded by books again (living with a certifiable book-eater, as I do, we've had all our books packed away for months now), and I hope, hope, HOPE that sometime in the near future I shall actually find the time to READ some of them again. *Wistful sigh*

Yes, this house will do very nicely for the Richard-Sephton household and it's contents. It feels splendid indeed to suddenly find ourselves with so much S-P-A-C-E. We've arrived in suburbia after close to 10 years of inner-city living, nestled (or should I say squeezed) into a quaint two-bedroom apartment with tall ceilings but NO cupboard space. Now we find ourselves swimming in a three bedroom house where the lounge-dining-and-family rooms combined are almost as big as our entire flat used to be. It's fantabulous! Suddenly our furniture can breathe, instead of being jammed tightly next to each other. It's amazing how the space around things makes such a difference. All our old, quaint, dark wooden furniture (purchased over the years to match our old 1930's-style apartment) looks rather interesting in this very clean and cream suburban house. Ha! Who would'a thought it? I've never much liked newer style houses, Jai and I have always favoured styles pre-1950's - houses with old-style charm: fireplaces, mantle pieces, tall ceilings, picture windows, established gardens. But here we are in an 80's brick veneer (sneakily masquerading as a 70's number), and I am actually amazed at how good our antiquey-style furniture looks. I must be slow on the uptake not to realise it's what you put INSIDE the walls that matters, rather than the walls themselves!

And after years of pining for a backyard we've finally got one! And it's a beauty! Just outside the glass sliding doors in the family room is a paved brick area complete with BBQ, pergola and fernery; next to which is a little walled garden with a soft grassy area surrounded by luscious green shrubs and tress -- a perfect little lawn for Pixie somersaults and a little wading pool! The yard has two levels and up the stairs behind the BBQ area is a green grassy lawn (begging for a swing set and cubby house!! Ah-ha!), a small rose garden, a couple of HUGE gum trees, a grassy slope perfect for rolling and sliding down, and an empty vegetable patch just WAITING to be filled!!!!! Let's face it, who could ask for anything more?!!!

And so we've been forced to buy a lawn mower, a rake, a compost bin, and heaven only knows what other gardening accessories and we're eager to become creative gardeners!! If only it wasn't so stinking hot that our skin sizzles and pops like a roasting bird the minute we step outdoors! EEK! It's been mid to high 30's (equiv. 100F…) almost all week and we're literally melting!!!!

All in all my little foray into suburbia has been a turn up for the books despite still being haunted by the "suburban housewife" ghost which is threatening to suck all the eccentricity and artistic ambitions out of my system and turn me into a used and abused cookie-baking robot! ARGH!!!!!! Ha! Ha! Ha! I keep telling myself that if I start to turn into a cliched housewife I will IMMEDIATELY run out, dye my SHORT CROPPED hair suicide blonde, get an eyebrow piercing and tattoo on my upper arm! So hold me to that if you think I'm losing it!!!! And yessssssss, I've had my long tresses CHOPPED! Yay! I couldn't bare to see another new year pass with the same old boring hair so I walked into the nearest hairdressers just before New Year’s Eve and said, "Chop it all off. I don't care what sort of style you give me, just get rid of it!!!" Famous last words if ever I heard any. Now it looks like I'm wearing a furry helmet on my head but hey, at least it's a change!!!!! (I'd had long hair for eight years!!)

Talking of the new year, as usual I have a MOUNTAIN of resolutions lined up to break. I've been meaning to record them down some place but haven't got around to it yet, so I guess here is as gooder place as any! I want to get thin! Yes, I know, I know, you've heard it all before, but hell, I am FED-UP (pun intended) with looking like a waddling bloody duck and will admit to STILL not fitting into my f@#%ing Levi's!!!! I'm gonna try the old dieting again, and see if sometime this year I can't shed a kilo or TEN!!!! Apart from that I want to be a better person, kinder, more thoughtful, more caring (you know the drill!); and I want to save money (I'm a certifiable credit card fiend!). I want to make new friends, hold scintillating dinner parties that are the talk of the suburbs (which means extending my cooking repertoire), and grow green fingers and whip this garden into a magical Pixie-paradise!!!! But wait, there's more …

Perhaps most important would be my commitment to resuscitate my marriage! Yes, our marriage has taken a right old beating since Pixie's arrival on the scene, and it's time to try and make some time for "us" again. Pixie continually hogs the limelight, demanding all our attention, and affection, and sucking all the energy out of us. By the end of the day when we leave her sprawled in the centre of our bed and find a few minutes for "us," we're flat out exhausted and can do nothing more than mumble to each other, sip lukewarm cups of tea, and stare inanely at the TV before stumbling into the narrow slither of bed Pixie assigns us!!!!!!!

You know the scary thing is that Jai and I were a remarkably close couple pre-Pixie. We were best friends, spent all our time together, hated being apart (spend a grand total of 12 painful nights apart over a nine year period!), and were extremely affectionate. Not an evening would go by without long cuddles on the couch watching TV, and we really thought we had a tremendously strong marriage. We'd only fight about once a year and would always make it up before the sun went down. But since Pixie's arrival we've barely had a spare moment together to just cuddle or chill out. There's always a zillion things to do when Pixie's asleep, and always a zillion things to do for her when she's awake. We bicker a lot, always snapping at each other because our stress levels are always so high and we're always so bloody tired. It only takes the smallest thing to tick us off! We never get time in bed ALONE, and our sex life STILL hasn't recovered, although you'll be relieved to know that it has resumed!!! I seem to have completely lost my libido, and am beginning to wonder if I shouldn't seek some kind of help! Is it because I'm still breastfeeding? Has it chemically altered my body and switched the sex drive 'off', because it seriously feels like I have an "on/off" switch and it's definitely OFF!!

Jai and I simply don't get time to RELAX together any more, to just hang out together and enjoy each other's company; we're always burdened with external demands and we're always rushing to fit one more thing into the day! We haven't had a "date" since Pixie's arrival because we haven't got any baby sitters, God help us! My mum looked after the Pix once while we stayed with her over Christmas and we rushed out to see a movie, and then rushed back the second it was over, fearing Pixie would be a monster without us! Ha!

And so I really want to make quality 'alone' time with Jai a priority this year, before we suffer any irreparable damage to our marriage. I tell you, the demands of a high-maintenance baby are more consuming than I ever would've imagined!

And now, what you've all been patiently waiting for: an update on the Pixie-pooh! Well, well, well, time to admit what a crap parent I am. Ha! Yes, all the things I didn't want to happen to Pixie are happening right before my very eyes! Sheesh! Little 14-month-old Pixie is addicted to TV and chips! ARGH!!!! She received two videos for Christmas and I SWEAR she would watch them on repeat ALL DAY LONG if I let her! I fear the 'parenting police' will burst in, handcuff me, and lock me away because I'm afraid I'm guilty of putting on the video TWICE in a row because I was enjoying the peace and quiet! I swear, little Pixie is as quiet as a mouse and completely enthralled by her videos! I remember reading that 1-year-olds don't understand TV but are simply mesmerised by the noise and constant motion, but I'm not so sure. Pixie has a 'Banana in Pajamas' nursery rhymes video and she knows the songs … she'll wriggle and jiggle and get all excited when her 'favourites' come on (Old MacDonald is a firm fave!) Regularly throughout the day she'll find this video and bring it to me, grunting incessantly which is her way of saying "put it on, put it on"… I've been singing her nursery rhymes from a book for a few months now, and before Christmas it got totally ridiculous because Pixie would locate the nursery rhyme book (either lying around or a high shelf) and she'd grunt and gesture until I WAS FORCED to "read” the book to her over and over and over and over. I felt like I was going insane, each day I'd be forced to sing each rhyme AT LEAST 20 times over. Enough was enough … and so I went in search of a video to relieve me of my incessant singing duties! Pixie seems to be a nursery-rhyme ADDICT, I guess it could be worse.

And yes, we swore we'd never let "any child of ours" eat junk food … BAH! Considering we rely on good old Maccas, or KFC, or pizza for AT LEAST two of our meals a week (guilty as charged!), I guess we had our heads STUCK up our bottoms when we vowed that one! Ha! Pixie loves chips, goes crazy for french fries and she RECOGNISES them from a distance and grunts for them! Bugger! Bugger! Bugger! Worse still, my Princess is a … PICKY EATER!!! ARGH! Some days she'll only eat custard and mashed potatoes, and it drives me CRAZY! I know all the books say not to worry, not to ever 'force' food on a kid, and not to get stressed if they only eat one type of food but GOD, IT'S ANNOYING! Some days she'll hardly eat anything at all, and then she'll wake up three times a night demanding the boob! ARGH!!!! Oh yes, she's a boob FIEND, I think trying to wean Pixie might be like prising the bottle from a drunkard! We might have to enroll in a BAA (Boobaholics Anonymous) 12-step program! Her boobfeeding frenzies drive me crazy … I would so like to give up and have my body back, thanks very much! But I'm not sure I'm ready to pick that fight just yet!

And the little hobgoblin REFUSES to ever sleep in her cot. She's as happy as a clam sprawled out between Jai and I, even takes her day time naps in our bed. Oh well, I'll have to admit we both kinda like being close to her at night … EXCEPT WHEN SHE WAKES UP FIVE TIMES A NIGHT … that was last night, and we're both pretty cranky about that! And she must be the rottenest kid to wake up with. She screams in your ear, pulls your hair, yanks your nose, and head-butts you awake! ARGH!! It's horrendous! It's far, far, far worse than being woken by breakfast radio, and that's really saying something … ARGH!!!!

Apart from that the poor little kidlet is cutting ALL FOUR MOLARS AT ONCE!!! She's forever chewing on everything and is often grumpy and out-of-sorts; occasionally she just out and out screams! I can't wait for this entire teething business to be over … it could be soon enough at this rate … the little monkey will soon have TWELVE TEETH -- four top, four bottom and four molars!!!!

Boy oh boy, this entry is really waffling on … sorry about the sheer size of it, I guess I'm trying to catch up on news! If you've made it thus far, thanks for persevering! And I really have to apologise for the lack of photos! I had to return the digital camera I had on loan from my brother … I didn't want to drag it 650 kms away! And we're still having endless troubles with AOL, who we'll be "sacking" this week!!! And so stay tuned for our new e-mail address and (hopefully) some freshly scanned photos NEXT WEEK!!!!!

Love to all,

Eloise, suburban heat wave survivor!

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