Blancmange, B, Ballet and Breaking Bad.

Hello again. It's been a full week since my last confession blog post. Forgive me readers for I have sinned. You know, been slack again. About posting. Which I know doesn't matter in the slightest but still, I feel I need to act as though I am a minor celebrity by apologizing. So indulge me won't you.

It's been a busy week round these parts. More storms, hot weather, me continuing with the predominant literary trope of this blog by complaining about having no air conditioning and adding to it by weeping with frustration while I tried to put together the pedestal fans that I had taken apart to clean, kindy concerts, more freaking ballet rehearsals, a sick baby, spending money we don't have on shit we don't need. You know the drill.

I think this post might call for some dot points again. And you know how I love a good dot point.

• I've been going to bed at 8 or 8.30 nearly every night. Because I am so bloody TIRED all the time. WHY AM I SO TIRED? My kids, these days, sleep through the night. They wake pretty early but I don't think that explains my bone weariness. I never used to be able to sleep during the day but at the moment I could sleep hours away. Hours I tell you. I fall asleep lying on the floor next to B's cot. The early bedtimes have rendered me almost incapable of keeping up with blogging, housework, tv viewing. But I do feel a bit less tired. I am guessing the absence of anything much that you could call actual exercise is not helping my energy levels. If I don't action some exercise soon I will become a human blancmange.

Me, earlier today.

• Apart from being quite sick with a fever last week, B is very cute at the moment. Some examples of his cuteness include;
• he says "fuck" instead of "truck". He also says "pig" instead of "big". So when we are out and about he is often heard shouting at the top of his lungs "pig fuck! Mummy PIG FUCK!". Amusing, no?
• When he wakes up in the morning and I walk into his room, he shouts at me, whilst standing in his cot - "Get DA WATER mummy! Get DA WATER!". Which is his way of requesting a drink.
• When I take off his sleeping bag, he often says "Hello feet!" to his appendages. CUTE!
• When I say to him "Love you!" he replies "Wah Woo!".
• When he has a sore anything he says "Sore tummy! Sore tummy!". Even if it isn't his tummy. I mean what is he, like, 2? OH RIGHT!
• When he DOES bang his head on something, which happens fairly regularly, he cries and says "Bump da HEAD!"
• When I tell him it is time to get out of the bath, he tells me sternly "No! Free minutes!" which is his way of demanding three minutes more.
• He is obsessed with M mowing the lawn and comments regularly throughout the day "Lawn. Mower. Boots. Hat. Gasses" (glasses). HEEHEE.

Here is the boy in question in his kindy photo.

• We went to P's kindy concert on Friday night. She and all her pre-kindergarten cronies were up on stage singing Christmas carols. Very cute. I could hardly see her because she was hidden behind a tall kid but what I could see was her staring at all the other kids and only occasionally joining in. Some would say easily distracted, I would say DEAD SET OBSERVANT and INTERESTED IN PEOPLE!

And the girl.

• Saturday we went on a wild goose chase to some non-existent Indian supermarket to purchase some AUTHENTIC spices for M to make dhal. I mentioned to him that I thought you could get some pretty bloody authentic spices at Woolies but he was not deterred. When we weren't successful in locating the supermarket, we decided to go to a fancy pants market type place at harbourtown and had lunch at the deli there, which was very nice indeed. Fancy pants gourmet food type things are M's Achilles heel, spending wise, so we then proceeded to buy a high end panettone, some salted capers, and some baklava. We were sorely tempted by all sorts of other ridiculously priced goodies but stopped there. Frankly we should be living on tins of baked beans and cat food like pensioners do, the way we are going.



File footage of a panettone. I think this is the same brand.  Weirdly this looks a lot like our floor too. Curious.

• After our spending spree, I then had to wait around outside P's ballet rehearsal, sweating for OVER AN HOUR AND A HALF. This time I was able to see P doing her thing through a window. Whilst all the small ballerinas faced the front doing the actions, P faced sideways, mostly staring at the other girls and occasionally getting the steps in. DEAD SET OBSERVANT, SEE? PRODIGY! I think she is clearly going to be an anthropologist or life painter.
• We threw caution to the wind for a second year running and put the Xmas tree up in November. We are going away next weekend so I figured what the hey. Didn't put the outdoor lights up because I got too tired. Energy levels low. MUST EXERCISE! MUST! Here's some file footage of Christmas Past if you are interested in it. Everything looks basically the same this year except messier because I retained limited creative control of the project and outsourced it to my junior colleagues. http://slapdashmama.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/poo-of-day-festivus-for-rest-of-us.html

• Even though I have been adhering to my stringent early bedtime curfews, I did manage to stay up late enough on Saturday night to watch 4 episodes of Season 2 of Breaking Bad. SO OBSESSED WITH IT. I know I am late to the party but better late than never, as they say.

• I really miss having a proper smart phone. I am at a loss. No easy access to a photographic record of my life. Therefore no easy access to photos for this blog. And don't get me started on Instagram. I mourn it. I must do something stat.

Anyway that's a wrap.

Bedtime routines.

M was at a conference in Sydney last week so I was getting my single parent on.

OK, ok, so maybe I called in the help of my mother, like the sook that I am.

No mum is an island, right? Certainly not I.

Even, I, super bedtime routine person, become challenged in the face of flying solo during the witching hour.

 Despite being a naturally scatterbrained individual with a virtually routine-free (aka disorganised) child rearing habit, I have always maintained a strong commitment to a finely tuned bedtime routine.
These days, mostly it works. Except when it doesn't, if you get my drift.

Anyway, this is what I do.

1. Cook dinner while kids are watching TV. B still doesn't really watch TV, I am trying to encourage it. For a while there I got excited about the concept of sending P to a Steiner school, until I read that they discourage television viewing because it discourages imagination. They can shove it. Imagination is not something my girl lacks *gets bossed around by 4-year old, wears costume, plays Kangaroo mummies*.

2. Serve dinner at 5pm. Kids eat/throw/smear it.

3. 5.30pm. Bathtime for B. It took me freaking ages to develop a proper bathing system for both of the kids when B was born, but now they are a bit older I tend to do them separately. P watches more ABC2. God bless it.

4. 5:45pm. Get B out. Jammies on. Goes out to say goodnight to P. She ignores him because TV!

5. I read him a story. He has three that he chooses from every single night, sometimes we read all three. They are "Each Peach Pear Plum", "Peepo", and one called "Toddle Waddle".

6. Then he has a drink of water, I turn the light off, and I stand rocking him and singing his regular lullaby which is this song that Dad used to sing - it goes like this;
                    
                       Ally bally, ally bally bee
                       Sitting on your mummy's knee
                      Waiting for a wee bobby
                      To buy some Coulter's candy....

This is B's favourite lullaby, but some of our other classic bedtime hits also come from Dad.  Here's one old faithful;

                    Well me Ma, she said to me
                    Would yer like a cuppa tea?
                    I said, no no.
                    I want cocoa
                    Down in the glen...

I have argued with him that the last line seems incongruous and that it sits uncomfortably with me. Surely it should be something like "Down by the sea", which would rhyme with "tea"? But he asserts that his version is correct, as his father sang it to him.

Another chart topper is;

                Wee Johnny's lost his marleys
                Wee Johnny's lost his marleys
                Wee Johnny's lost his marleys
                Down by the Linfield Way.

               He lost them down the gratin'
               He lost them down the gratin'
              He lost them down the gratin'
              Down by the Linfield Way

And so forth. Mum says that when Dad used to sing this to us as children, it was Wee Sammy who had lost his marleys, but Dad denies it. Also, he didn't lose them in a potato gratin, rather down the GRATING, but with the G cut off. That is very important for the FEEL of the song. Also, marleys are marbles. Obviously.

OK, back to the routine.

7. 6 - 6:30pm. After singing the song, I put B down in his cot and say "Night night, love you." These days he often say "Nigh, nigh" back. Sweet.

8. 6:30pm - P in bath. Usually have to drag her screaming from the TV.

9. 6:45pm. Jammies on. Read her a story. She takes about twenty years to choose one. She doesn't have a particular favourite.

10. I lie on her bed and sing her a lullaby. Since she was a newborn baby I have sung Edelweiss to her. I suppose this is probably a weird choice, what with its associations with the Anschluss and the von Trapps escaping Nazi persecution and what not but it was the first one that came to mind back in the day when P was tiny.  We have done the hardcore hard yards with P. She has been an erratic sleeper and has gone through stages where I had to hold her door shut while she screamed and yelled at me at bedtime. Calming. These days we have it down pat. Yay. That's not to say she doesn't creep out a few times and scare the life out of me when she's supposed to be asleep, but truly she is mostly pretty good. TOUCH WOOD OMG!

What does your bedtime routine look like? Do you keep the kids up til 10pm and go to sleep on the couch with them? Do you lie on the floor until they drift off to sleep, waking stiff and uncomfortable hours later? Do you all pile in together? It's a broad church. What's good for the goose ain't necessarily good for the gander. Many hands make light work. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I could go on with the meaningless idioms, but I won't.

Bon nuit fair readers!