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August 25, 2001
Saturday 25th August.
Pixie is 21 months old. WAHOO! Can you believe that in three short months she’ll be 2 years old? TWO YEARS OLD – it just sounds so exciting doesn’t it? And life in Pixie’s world is getting better and better. These really are groovy times my friends!
It is a known fact that I say to Jay, at least three times a day, “Isn’t Pixie just totally gorgeous?” God knows why I phrase it as a question because it’s rhetorical. I don’t need anyone to confirm what I already know. At 21 months Pixie is the cutest, funniest, most squishable little girl she’s EVER been. :^)
I am simply crazy about her, and life as a stay-at-home-mum is getting easier all the time…praise be to God (and I’m not even religious). Mind you, being the parent of a toddler requires you to find a deep reserve of patience and tolerance at times. Take the other morning as an example…
I woke up to find Jay had already departed for work and Pixie was lifting her doll’s stroller onto my bed-side table. It didn’t fit, of course, the wheels kept running off the sides, so she was getting rather frustrated and cranky and kept trying to force it to fit! I reluctantly shunted my brain out of neutral and placed the stroller on the floor saying firmly, “Pixie, it’s not going to fit. The stroller doesn’t fit on the beside table.” Then the girl decided to climb up onto the bedside table and play catch. She stood there, towering over me, her arms stretched out, and said “catch, catch.” And so she proceeded to jump from the table onto the bed and I had to catch her. This little game had the desired effect of jolting me firmly awake, I had to make sure she wasn’t going to slip and bang her head into the wall or something dangerous. And so she jumped onto the bed about 20 times in a row, only whacking her head into the wall once or twice (a good innings for one of Pixie’s games). By this time I decided it was definitely time to get up, after all, it wasn’t as if I was gonna get any more sleep…
But the fun didn’t end there folks. While I was in the shower she was busy doing something in the bathroom which I conveniently ignored, but by the time I opened the shower-screen I saw she’d stolen the bathmat and replaced it with a rather thin and fading cloth nappy. Then the girl came prancing in with my discarded undies pulled up over her jeans, both of her legs pulled through the same leg-hole. This cheered me up considerably and it didn’t bother me that the nappy-bathmat wasn’t really up to the job. Anyway, as I tried to dry myself Pixie decided it was as-good-a-time-as-ever to pass me every single one of her bath toys. So I’d dry a shin and then have to say “taaaaa” and take a rubber duck and put it somewhere. Then I’d dry an arm and have to say “taaaa” and take a plastic doll and place it somewhere else. By the time I was finally dry and clean and fragrant, and the bathroom sink was piled high with bath toys, the tricky fairy had managed to produce the vilest, stinkiest, poopiest nappy in the history of vile, stinky, poopy nappies!
I had to chase her around the house 3 times before I caught her. She’s never overly keen on having her nappy changed. Eventually I caught her, forced her onto the change table, and while holding her down with one hand I had to change THE MOST disgusting-nappy-in-the-history-of-disgusting-nappies with the other. It was one of those killer stink bombs, you know, the kind you can still smell two hours later. The kind that the minute you open them up the gas escapes like a dog-let-off-a-leash and romps through every room in the house within 15 seconds. If only they could create the same effect with air fresheners! The kind of poop you’re paranoid is trapped under your fingernails all day long, which forces you to wash your hands 15 times an hour like you’ve just discovered the joys of obsessive-compulsive disorder, so by the end of the day your skin is dry and cracked and bleeding and you’ve run out of soap. You know the type, don’t you?
So anyway, by the time the girl was in a clean nappy again and I finally made it down to the living-room (after opening every window in the house on the way, despite it being only 5 degrees outside) I noticed that she’d turned her toast into breadcrumbs which she’s scattered across the entire lounge-room floor (no doubt feeding the imaginary ducks!). This normally wouldn’t bother me too much, except our vacuum cleaner just blew up and I have to pick each friggin crumb up Cinderella-style, on my hands and knees by hand! Then I see she’d tipped the contents of her entire drink bottle over the coffee table…lucky she only ever drinks water. No bloody wonder, she’s only ever ALLOWED to drink water, after all we live in a house with cream carpet!!!!
And all this before I’d even had my first caffeine injection of the day. Lucky I’ve got a good sense of humour I say. Lucky I’m getting a decent night’s sleep these days! Also lucky that Pixie is the cutest god-damn pixie I’ve ever seen with my own eyes before. :^)
Anyway, the point of this story is that it’s pretty typical of life with a toddler. You can spend all day lurching from one ridiculous situation to another, from one funny mess-you-have-to-clean-up to another. And just when you think “I’ve had enough, this isn’t funny any more,” they’ll surprise you with a new little trick, so your heart does a little flip-flop and your humour returns, and you turn to your hubby and croon, “Isn’t she just totally, utterly, UN-BEL-IEV-ABLY gorgeous?”
Yes, Pixie has assembled a whole hatful of new tricks lately. She can repeat the alphabet with a cheeky little grin that says, I-know-I’m-just-the-smartest-and-cutest-little-pixie-alive! It’s the cutest thing, she’s so proud of herself, but she gets a few letters wildly wrong. F, H, Q and W always bring an extra big grin to my lips, because they are pronounced so badly, you can’t even recognise them. In other words, VERY CUTE! And even though she learns new words EVERY SINGLE DAY, and her pronounciation is usually surprisingly accurate, she has a couple of words that are doozers. Two which spring to mind are ‘elephant’ which is ‘fant’ (fair enough I guess), and ‘open’ which is ‘abay.’ Sometimes she’ll hold something up to me and chant, “abay, abay, abay” and being a bit thick it sometimes takes me minutes of dumb silence before I realise what she’s saying. It’s embarrassing really, after all, we BOTH know that I’ve heard the word a hundred times before, but every time I fecking-well forget what it means!!!!
I guess the big news that I shouldn’t forget to mention is that Pixie is now fully, completely, utterly, wholly, entirely, undeniably, incontestably…WEANED!!!!!! Three cheers please: HIP-HIP-HOORAY! I can’t tell you what a divine pleasure it is to have my body back, all to myself. I’m none too good at sharing myself around these days, as Jay will surely testify, but I can’t help it, I’m all mine again and it’s deliriously luxurious! I feel calmer, more energised, and free to bloody well guzzle an entire bottle of Champagne all to myself if I bloody well feel like it! Again: HIP-HIP-HOORAY! Drunken orgies here I come. Well, no, not really, but hell, it’s just nice to know I COULD if I WANTED to, right?
It was surprising how easy it was to wean the girl in the end. I mean, yes, it was a gradual process that took three entire months to complete, but the only time she blew-her-stack was at the very beginning when I cut out the day-feeds. After that, each time I cut out a feed she’d ask for it one or twice, then give up and move on. It was amazing, and if I had’ve known it was gonna be a bloodless coup I would’ve started the war months earlier.
And there have been other victories that have followed in it’s wake. I guess I figured I was on a roll, so why stop there. I have almost completely cleaned up the girl’s diet. For a few months there, when we were in fussy-eating-phase-101, the girl more or less refused to touch any foodstuff that wasn’t a either a chip, or custard-flavoured. It was scarey, and I decided I’d become the worst-mum-in-the-history-of-mumming when I let the girl eat an entire chocolate easter-rabbit for her lunch, just to keep the peace. Well fussy-eating-phase-101 has passed, praise the lord, and gradually over a period of weeks I’ve managed to weed the girl’s diet of all rubbish and plant some healthy eating habits. I’m so proud of her diet that I am, oh yes I AM, going to bore you all to stupefaction with a detailed account of exactly what passes the Pixster’s lips in every 24 hour period. Oh yes, you can plead for mercy but none you shall receive. I’m gonna do it, because I’m so fucking PROUD of it…(Okay, okay, get up off your knees, I guess you can skip the next bit if you really insist)…
Breakfast: Organic Vita-brits with biodynamic milk. Maybe a piece of wholemeal toast and vegemite.
Morning snack: Organic rice crackers, sometimes some banana.
Snack before her day-nap: A tub of yoghurt and a piece of fruit.
Late Lunch after her nap: Either vegetable soup, or a wholemeal sandwich. Sandwich is usually peanut butter and jam, sometimes hommus. Then a fruit tray, usually with banana, apple, orange, strawberries. Sometimes she’ll have dried apricots as well, sometimes a piece of cheese.
Afternoon snacks: rice crackers again.
Dinner: whatever we’re having which she usually won’t eat. She’s not too keen on dinner and usually only eats a couple of bird-picking mouthfuls. But we don’t pressure her, it does no good. She refuses all vegetables, except if they’re in a soup. But she likes bean dishes, pasta dishes, and the occasional rice dish. She’ll eat fish and occasionally corned beef.
Bedtime snack: if we know she hasn’t eaten dinner she’ll be offered a bowl of cereal, or some custard with mashed banana and rice.
THERE! SEE! Not a chip in sight. Well, only on occasion anyway. I’m so painfully proud that I’ve got her diet back on track. I thought all was forever lost when I started feeding the girl chocolate for lunch, but there you go, everything is redeemable at this age. The trick seems to be DON’T GIVE UP! NEVER GIVE UP!
Yes, there are a lot of rewards to parenting an almost two year old (Oh I DO like saying that!). Pixie seems far more malleable at this age than she was as a baby. Or maybe I’ve just become a more grounded parent? Whatever the case, we don’t have too many tantrums these days….oops, I probably shouldn’t have admitted that, should I? After all, we all know it’s an unspoken LAW of parenting that when you admit that everything is going fine and that life is easy-peasy, that routines are set in stone and running like clockwork, then something DISASTEROUS occurs and your child turns into a raving monster just to prove you wrong. It seems to me that the Universe does NOT like a cocky parent, and conspires to keep us on our toes at all times. Never get too complacent, that should be the mantra eh?
Anyway, life in Pixieland is MOSTLY smooth sailing these days, although I will admit that Pixie is not the easiest child in-the-history-of-children (snigger-snigger-HA!) to socialise. In fact, I’d have to admit she’s making the process rather mortifying for her slightly shy and introverted mother. Yes, she’s aggressive. Yes, she’s jealous, Yes, she actually INJURED a child a few weeks back at playgroup. GULP! I went through agonies that day, (well, for most of the week actually). Pixie grabbed a little girl roughly by her sweet, milky-white, smooth-as-silk cheek and ripped her face off! The poor, white-haired little cherub had big red, bloody GOUGES on her cheek and I swear I could still see the signs of them at playgroup the following week. It was horrifying. It was mortifying. And even though everyone tells me it’s just a phase, that it’ll pass, that it’s normal, I STILL FREAK OUT that it’s MY child that is doing it!!!! I just can’t help feeling somehow responsible. I can’t help feeling afraid everytime I walk into a room full of children, and not afraid for Pixie, but afraid of the damage she’ll do!! It forces me to hover over her every step of the way, I have to watch her like a hawk, trying to intervene and prevent the next attack!!! I couldn’t bare it if she injured anyone else, I feel like it’s my duty to keep the other children safe from her. I feel sympathy for the other mums, I mean, they don’t want to take their children to playgroup only to have them injured and scarred for the next week! I guess it’s not surprising that I’m finding playgroup a bit heavy going. I’d love to be able to sit around with all the other mums, drinking tea and comparing battle-scars. But no, I’m too busy following Pixie from one activity to another, trying to prevent an outbreak of toddler-warfare, trying to keep the atmosphere safe and calm. So let’s hope attacking-toddler-phase-101 will pass soon eh?
Anyway, guess what? It’s a sunny Saturday eve-of-spring afternoon here in Oz, and the day beckons. I’m sure I should be out in the backyard with Jay and Pixie, turning the soil in our vegetable patch, and dreaming of all the lovely plans we have for spring-summer. I really love this time of year, it’s always such a relief to have made it through another winter! And I have a little feeling I’m on the threshold of one of the best summer’s I’ve had in many, many years. I have a beautiful, funny, gorgeous little girl to share it with, and so many things to look forward to. The girl’s grand second birthday is just around the corner, followed quickly by another Christmas and the chance to visit family and friend’s. We have a fabulous backyard beckoning with a scented finger, a swing-set on lay-by, plans for a vegetable patch and an outdoor eating area, and a two-week holiday booked for next February, with an apartment right on the beachfront. I mean, come on, what more could a girl ask for???
On that note, it’s time to go and play. But before I do let me just announce that Pixie’s photo-album is finally on-line and ready to be perused. All interested parties can find old and new pics of Pixie and family at: (http://photos.yahoo.com/pixstersplace)
Best wishes to one and all,
Eloise and Pixie.
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