Yesterday Princess No-No had her first hair-cut.  I was awfully nervous about it.  She won't even let me BRUSH her hair!  It was half way down her back and not at all suitable for the warmer climate.  We ahd had many arguments about it with me trying to sweep it up in a pony-tail and her running to the corners of the house to avoid me or standing on her head (downward dog style - for the yoga enthusiasts among us). Needless to say, she didn't even murmer once.  No protest as the hairdresser snipped and snipped and combed and snipped.  It gave me an idea.  Maybe I can take her to Myers when I want to dress her and she refuses.  Or to Speeds when she refuses to wear shoes.  And surely a waiter could work wonders when she won't eat a morsel.  What is it with kids and doing the exact opposite of what their parents want but being totally compliant when they're directed by another adult to do something??????

Lately, my daughter has been exhibiting real signs of empathy.  I know a lot of this is modelled but I am so impressed.  She is only 2 (and three months) but she always said "bless you" when somebody sneezes and, the other night when I started coughing, she got off her chair and started to pat my back.  Whenever anyone seems hurt she says "are you okay, are you allright?" She also, if she sees somebody looking sad, is apt to reach over and stroke their face and try to get eye-contact with them.  It's pretty phenomenal to observe. On the one hand I know that she is just modelling our behaviour because that is the way that we treat her but, on the other hand, I can sense real feeling and genuine compassion in her.  Since these are the characteristics I most sought in a child I am feeling very happy about it.  Don't get me wrong - she still yells out "mine", like any two-year old and says "no" just about every third second.  What I am writing about is a surfacing dimension of her character that impresses me as her mother and as a fellow human being.  I'm proud of her.  I love her terribly.

Today Mummy is Sick.  I have what Princess No-No had the other day.  It's not pretty.  I'd love to just collapse in bed but Princess No-No needs looking after.  Lucky, it's a long weekend this weekend.  Perhaps I can collapse then.

My angel managed to steal my mascara out of my make-up bag today.  I found her sitting in a corner applying her mascara in much the same way she has seen her mother do it 100 times.  She looked like an adorable little raccoon face.  I asked her what she was doing and she said "pretty eyes".  Isn't that sweet?  I didn't think something like this would happen when she is so young but, there you have it, already modelling herself on Mummy.  She's adorable.  I had to laugh.  But I confiscated the mascara anyway!

Poor Munchkin.  Last night we were up all night with Princess No-No feeling a bit under the weather and unable to sleep.  Today she has a runny nose and a temperature.  It's pretty mild I think and it takes the shine out of life for her but it will pass and it's important she learns that.  At the moment she is watching one of her favourite videos (one of the bonuses of being sick is getting to watch slightly more TV!) Hopefully she will only be sick a day or two and then life will go back to normal - well, as normal as possible when there is a two year old around!

Yesterday my daughter was at her grandmother's for the whole day.  I worked in the morning and then I spent the afternoon in the hospital with my father. My husband picked her up and brought her home.  I didn't see her until 7.00 at night.  This was the longest time we've been apart.  You know what?  She didn't seem to mind or to notice even!!!!  It was quite funny.  I, on the other hand, pined for her in the afternoon.  I just kept thinking about holding her little hand and kissing her face.  Don't get me wrong, she was delighted when Mummy came home but she certainly coped admirably with my absence.  Sometimes you never quite know whether your child needs you as much as you think or whether you're just not ready to let go.  Hmmm.  Food for Thought.

Last night my daughter couldn't sleep.  She was scared.  There wre noisy neighbours.  She wanted to lie down with me.  She doesn' t often want to lie down with me but when she does I usually oblige.  We hve a spare bed in her room for just such an occasion.  Really, it's the bed she will be sleeping in when she's ready but so far she prefers her cot.  So, we went to lie down on the spare bed and I was all set to cuddle and coo to her.  But it seems that she wanted to be the affectionate one.  She held my face with her two hands, kissed my forehead, snuggled into my neck, kissed my cheeks, stroked my hair and snuggled again.  This went on for a few minutes and it got me wondering - normally, kids are supposed to be so egocentric but they obviously love to give love as well as receive it.  My daughter has been affectionate with me before but not on this level.  It was interesting.  It was lovely.  How special when your child returns your love.  What a blessing.

Today we played play-doh.  Yes I am describing my whole day!  It was just one of those days where everything drags and I lack inspiration and I sit there, bored, supervising my daughter's play and wishing I was somewhere else (with her of course) - somewhere more happening than home.  It sounds grim I know.  Perhaps I'm not cut out for being a stay at home Mum.  Perhaps we all go through times like this and its part and parcel of the job.  i don't know.  I'm so new at this.  I'm just learning.  I guess I have to wait and see. 

 

My husband works a lot. He leaves home at 7.00 in the morning and doesn't come back until 7.00 at night.  He then tends to work most nights from home.  At the moment, things are particularly busy so he has been working sometimes past midnight.  It gets lonely.  The weekends are different though.  He really tries to keep weekends as free as possible so we end up having a wonderful family time.  My daughter behaves so differently on the weekends.  She is calmer, relaxed and will often go off and play on her own (something that is hard to get her to do when we are home alone).  I figured out recently that she is happiest when her father AND her mother are at home at the same time.  That is her nirvana.  And it has become mine too.  Thank god for the weekends. 

More in-law trouble.

On Saint's Day my husband's mother approached me to tell me she did not like the name I planned to call my son.  She had her own suggestions.  Later I found out that she had already approached my husaband and he had told her, in no uncertain terms, that it was not a decision for her to make.

This reminds me a lot of when our daughter was born and my husband's parents disliked the first name we chose but liked the second name.  They asked if they could call her by her second name and we said "no, the middle-name is not the name we want her to be called by".  That being said, they then went out and phoned all of their relatives and told them that they had a grandaughter called - you guessed it - by her middle name!  For the next year, every time we ran into a relative they referred to our daughter by her middle name. It was embarassing.

It never ceases to amaze me how incorrigable some people can be.  It floors me.  I'm floored. 

Yesterday was Orthodox Christmas.  (My husband's family is Othodox Christian).  Shortly after we arrived at Christmas Dinner by daughter dissapeared, along with her grandparents.  After an axnious five minute wait and questions asked along the lines "has anyone seen my girl?" she reappeared.  Walking up the steps into the loungeroom, flanked by each grandparent was my daughter wearing, strangely, an entirely different outfit.  "Oh my god, how gorgeous" squealed my sister in law very, very loudly.  "Oh, she's adorable" said my brother in law.  But my husband and I just sat their like stunned mullets - shocked, uncomfortable but not really certain why.  The worst part was the look on my daughter's face.  At only two she realised that something "different" had just happened.  It was clear she didn't know how to place this experience and she looked to her parents for answers.  We let her down.  Instead of responding to her by saying "are you okay? are you allright?" we just tried to smile and act as if what had happened was okay.  I mean, who wanted to be responsible for ruining Serbian Christmas????? 

Last night I cried about this.  I felt like I had not responded properly.  Surely any parent worth their salt would have stated quite clearly in front of their daughter that what had just happened was not okay.  That it was not okay for anyone to take her into a room by herself without her parents knowing and removing her clothes for whatever purpose.  Why didn't I stand up for her?  Why didn't I send the message that this was not acceptable?  Why did I allow it to happen? 

So upset by this was I that I even wrote to Minti for urgent advice.  The responses seemed fairly consistent - what happened wasn't okay.  My husband should talk to his parents. 

This is what we will have to do.  Fingers crossed it goes okay.  WE don't want any more trouble with these people than we have had already and we have had A LOT!

 

Today superconfident Mummy has dissapeared and has been replaced by emotional wreck/possible child neglecting Mummy.  It is one of those days where my two year old needs attention.  Not just the occasional bit of attention but all day attention.  Like, cry when I leave the room attention.  Telling me to "sit there" right next to her while she plays and then crying if I don't.  Bringing me endless books to read and demanding I colour in pony after pony after pony in her colouring book.  Only half of the day is gone and I have already been in tears once.  I feel like I am being held hostage by a two year old.  I do my best to be "available" for her but I end up just sitting there seething with rage.  When I get too upset (after the 25th Mummy, mummy, mummy" I go upstairs for a breather and to calm down.  It's hard, however, to breathe and calm down with your two year old at the bottom of the stairs screaming "mummy, mummy, mummy" frantically, wondering why you have walked off on her. 

Does this just happen to me?  Am I normal?  Am I a terrible mother? 

I don't expect answers.  I know the answer is "of course I'm not a terrible mother" but that's not how I feel.  I feel like I've let her down somehow. 

These are the days that being a stay at home Mum (day after day after day after day after day after day after day) just sucks!

Last night my father came over for dinner. 

Well, he really came over to teach me how to cook one of his signature dishes. (He has several).  So we all sat down at the table - myself, my father and my daughter, and he started telling me to fetch this and cut that and peel this and dice that and I was having a wonderful time until he reached over and tried to assist me in marinating the meat. 

"No, I'll do it!" I screeched, grabbing the meat tray off the table and pulling it close to my chest. 

We just looked at each other - with me realising that this was something that my daughter would do (only she's two and I'm a great deal older) and my father realising that you never really lose your little girl no matter how old she is. 

It was nice. 

My father has a heart condition and I really don't know how long I'll have him around so I've been pestering him a lot lately.  It's been good. 

I'm heading toward my third trimester and am starting to feel the weight of the pregnancy and the fatigue caused by sleep deprivation.  I wake between 2.30 and 4.30 every morning and sometimes don't get back to sleep at all.  I exist on about five hours of sleep a night which wouldn't matter so much if I didn't have a toddler to look after during the day.  I find myself thinking "here we go again" as I recall the torture of sleep-deprivation following the birth of my daughter.  It seems unnaturally cruel that nature would "prepare" mothers for this deprivation by fiddling with their capacity to sleep in the three months approaching birth.  Though it has been said, has it not, that Nature can be cruel indeed?

Last night was one of those nights.  My little girl started vomitting just before dinner and then just kept it up here and there until quite late.  She had no other signs of illness.  It must have just been some kind of stomach bug or maybe she ate something unsavoury she found out in the yard.  Who knows?  But I slept in her room and I woke up when she did and held her when she needed to be held and changed her when she vomitted and showered with her and held her again.  And, you know what?  Sickness is an awful thing and you don't wish it on your baby girl but, at the same time, part of me valued that time where I could nurture her and be there for her and love her through her sickness. Yes, today I am tired.  But last night I felt like an all-powerful, earth-mother and that was kind of exhilirating.