Oops

A voice from the loo calls out.‘ I was in your uterus, mummy.’

I continue washing up.‘You were love.’

‘I have a tiny uterus.’

We’ve had many conversations like this.‘You do love.’

‘Daddy has a..’

Knowing where she’s heading next I intervene to correct.‘No he doesn’t have a uterus, only girls have a uterus. mummy and daddy make a baby together and the baby grows in mummy’s uterus.’

‘What’s make a baby about?’

Feck. Me and my big interrupting mouth

‘Is that an elephant out the window? Right,time to wash hands.’

Owee!

This week my running, dancing, climbing crazypixie was stopped in her tracks. Three days ago she tripped, an occupational hazard for a wired 17 month old, and she must have landed awkwardly because there was much hysterics.

After the initial cuddle I thought she was just being a little melodramatic with her ‘owees.’ Closer inspection showed that her foot had swelled a lot and she couldn’t bear for me to touch it nor could she put any weight on it.

Feck!

The thought of tending to my wounded pixie and my elfin boobie monster in an over packed waiting room (presumably rife with swine flu) as each of my smallies in turn became hungry and overtired during a 5 hour wait was more than I could bear. So I threw some nappies, emergency snacks, toys and drinks in a bag, phoned himself to let him know what was going on, lifted the two into their car seats and headed for the nearest take-out-a-mortgage-to-pay-for-this Swift Clinic. At the car park I bunged (that should read ‘lovingly placed’) crazypixie into her buggy and threw (ditto) the tiny one into a sling.
Up in the lift and to reception. Wow! No queue – no one else in front of us at all, comfy chairs and loads of toys. We were called in a few minutes. Crazypixie attached herself firmly to me as the nurse and doctor came to check her out. She was such a brave girl and when each professional was finished and leaving, through her tears crazypixie would smile, say ‘Bye’ and blow them a kiss. They were charmed and weren’t to know that ‘Bye’ is pixie speak for ‘go away’.
Going for an x-ray proved complicated, as tinyelf was strapped to me getting fretty and crazypixie was snuggled up to me. We couldn’t bring tinyelf into the x ray room and I wasn’t keen on extricating myself from either of them. Enter himself on his white steed (well, shanks mare anyway).

An hour and a small fortune later we were home. Nothing broken, thankfully.

So she’s been on painkillers and confined to the couch. We’ve been colouring, reading, playing with her animals, picnicking, dressing and undressing her sister and doing anything to keep her amused while keeping her owee elevated.

Cue DVD’s.

We looked at a few David Attenborough’s first (nerdy parents, the poor child) until I discovered a Pooh DVD I had bought to amuse mrman when he was younger.

She loves it.

I love it.

My mum and I cried at it!

We’ve watched it 5 times in 2 days.

Anyhoo, she seems to be on the mend. She can hobble about a little and has rediscovered crawling. Soon she’ll be back having her own adventures and we can mothball Pooh, Tigger and the rest of the Hundred Acre Wood until the next period of confinement.

Under House Arrest

It should come as no surprise to us really that our girls are strong willed. With parents like us what did we expect?

This week tinyelf has decided that she would rather not travel by car. She voices her opinion by turning red and screaming at the top of her lungs to such an extent that mummy has to throw on the hazards lights, stop in traffic and haul her out before she makes herself sick or has a seizure. This has happened 9 times (and on three separate trips) in the last two days and no amount of soothing, feeding, winding, changing or dangling of toys seems to make a blind bit of difference. She starts the journey quite happily but obviously runs out of patience about 5 minutes in. When she’s taken out of her seat she’s all smiles and cooing, as if to say, ‘that’s better……now don’t put me back in there.’
So our nine week old has us under house arrest!

And house arrest wouldn’t be all that bad if we were allowed to go around fully dressed, but no. Crazypixie has decided that ‘nuwees’ (nude in pixie speak) is the way to go. Any clothing with poppers is useless as she can get it off, ditto her grobag and pyjamas. And she can also remove her own nappy! Short of stitching the clothes onto her I’m not sure what I’ll do.
And she isn’t satisfied with being ‘nuwees’ alone. Oh no. This morning tinyelf was undressed as she fed and crazypixie insists on viewing mummy’s tummy and boobies at regular intervals.
The only clothes she seems to be happy wearing are scarves or bits of fabric that she drapes around herself and calls her ‘bwas’ (yes, you’ll remember, pixie speak for bra).

If my girls had their way we’d spend all day at home, nude. Ah well, maybe it’s not that bad………

Rescue me

There have been times, mostly when crazypixie was just born, that himself has dropped everything to come home and help me cope with our crying baby.
There have been days when I’ve rung him at 9 in the morning sobbing down the phone, ‘When are you coming home?’ Then we’ve chatted and all was well in the world again
There have been mornings, following rough nights, when he’s quietly taken crazypixie downstairs, fed her and amused her while I’ve snored away upstairs with tinyelf.
Today it was my turn to rescue him.

Tinyelf and I were in bed as she was having her morning feed. My phone rang. Bizarrely it was himself, who was presumably just downstairs. I answered, hopeful that it was an offer of a cup of tea. But no.
A sheepish voice asked me to come down stairs and let him in.
Confused, I threw on a big t-shirt, and bounded down the stairs only to be greeted by crazypixie.
‘Where’s dada?’ I asked.
‘Outside,’ she grinned and pointed. There he was peering in the glass looking all lost puppyish.
I opened the door and we both just collapsed laughing. Apparently he had just popped out to get something from the car, he’d put the top lock on the latch and pulled the door after him. Then when he tried to get back in all he could hear was the key turning in the lock.
Clever crazypixie!

Snapshot

Here’s a snapshot for my girls to look back on:

Tinyelf, at 6 weeks old;
You are growing and developing by the day and we are constantly amazed by your new feats.
You can now smile and you chat to us in your cooing language.
You are very alert and like looking at peoples faces,.
You love your sleep, like your dada, and love to snuggle up next to your mama and hold on while nodding off.
You are very patient with the enthusiastic attentions of your big sister. But when you’re tired, hungry or bored, boy can you scream!!!

We love you, you tiny little snugly elf………

Crazypixie, at 16 ½ months old:
Your new thing is spinning around in circles until you’re dizzy and then falling on your bum. This is your dancing!!
Your favourite book is your birdie book, A Bird Identification Guide, which we frequently have to sellotape back together.
You like to figure things out. You can now almost get your shoes on yourself. Well, you can get the right one on and closed but you haven’t quite got the left one yet.
You climb on all the furniture and instead of sitting in the bath you run back and forth.
You love playing outside and being nude. You would probably explode with excitement if we left you run around nude outside!
Every evening when Daddy comes home from work you squeal ‘Daddy’ and run to the door.
You have new words every day, and are starting to say little sentences, ‘bye, bye baba’ and ‘in bin’.
Your favourite toys are your Bear (‘B’), dolly (‘Baba’) and plastic cow (‘Moo’).
You are a great big sister, you insist on trying to hold tinyelf on your lap and read books to her. Sometimes mummy has to curb your enthusiasm as you try to drag her around by the arm.

We love you, you determined little pixie…..

Dressed to Impress.

Heading out to play football with mummy........in the rain....Irish summers are all about being dressed for the conditions!

Can’t you take a hint mummy?

A friend called over this afternoon with her tiny person and as we sat there chatting I began to wonder what crazypixie was up to out in the hall. A quick peek around the corner revealed the results of her labours.
In the middle of the floor were: my sandals, her sandals and her jacket that she had managed to extricate from the bucket of freshly washed clothes.
Crazypixie herself was sitting on her bike, which was parked at the front door and attempting to tie the straps around her waist.

Do you reckon she was trying to tell me something?

Nap Time

Crazypixie has a daily routine that she is rather fond of, or should I say if she gets her naps and food on time we can avoid TTM (total toddler meltdown).

Today was the first day where I didn’t have assistance from himself, my mum or my sister at nap time.

Now, rather than be worried, I was optimistic. I’m a very capable woman (had to stopping typing there as had a fit of crazy laughter). I had even dared to plan on taking a nap myself as my two darlings snored sweetly (I know…hilarious)

Nap time is about 10:30, so I reckoned and hour and a half lead in time would be plenty.

This is roughly how it unfolded:

9:00 Put on kettle for cup of tea before the madness. Decide to do a quick wash-up as there is a lot of water in the kettle (feeling so organised and supermumish). Crazypixie helps by emptying cupboards.
9:15 Tinyelf begins to stir. Play a last game of build-the-bricks-and-knock-them –down-again with crazypixie, while keeping an ear out for tinyelf.
9:30 Feed tinyelf while reading animal book with crazypixie (definitely heading for mum of the year now).
9:45 (yes, she’s a speed feeder) Started to change tinyelf. Lifted crazypixie down from the table.
9:50 At the insistence of my toddler put nappy on crazypixies dolly, lifted crazypixie down from table for the third time.
9:55 Calmed crazypixie down after a Oscar-winning dive to the floor (from the floor) and big crocodile tears. Here comes the TTM………….
10:00 Manage to finish changing tinyelf, who’s not too impressed at this stage, as crazypixie flings her dolly around the room.
10:05 Give crazypixie her morning snack. All smiles and sweetness again. Lay tinyelf in her pram to kick about and so she’s out of reach from crazypixie who’s doing her best to introduce her sister to solids a little bit too early.
10:10 Run upstairs to get sleeping bag and bear. Tinyelf starts screaming. Wind tinyelf…. rock and soothe her…back in pram.
10:15 Realise sleeping bag is covered in poo from this mornings ‘good morning mummy’ gift. Run back up to laundry room to locate clean sleeping bag, crazypixie quite happy sleepily clutching bear but tinyelf wakes crying again. Wind tinyelf…. rock and soothe her…back in pram (going into crisis mode now) .
10:20 Chase crazypixie who has woken up again and decided that mummy needs more exercise (she may have a point) and then play I’ll-try –to-change-your-nappy-while-you-try-to-flip-yourself-over-and-run-away-at-every-possible-opportunity. Tinyelf wakes. Wind tinyelf…. rock and soothe her…back in pram (smiling on the outside, tearing my hair out on the inside).
10:25 Dismantle nappies and put them in bucket for washing later. Wash crazypixie’s hands after removing them from toilet. Tinyelf wakes. Wind tinyelf…. rock and soothe her…back in pram (I think I'm developing a nervous tic).
10:30 Put crazypixie in her sleeping bag. Start to sing her sleepy song while rubbing her hair. Tiny elf begins to wake. Run upstairs with crazypixie, give her a kiss, say night-night while putting her into her cot. Remove and hide extra toys that will keep her awake. Turn on monitor.
10:35 Run back downstairs to the now screaming tinyelf. Wind and soothe her…….give her another small feed……….walk around and sing to her until she dozes off.
10:50 Put tinyelf back in pram, settle her gently when she stirs again.
11:00 Both girls asleep. I enjoy a cold cup of tea while venting into the blogosphere…………..(it wasn't that bad, really)
11:30 Cr@p! Is that crazypixie stirring?

Is that you mummy?

Crazypixie spent this morning pulling my top up and down, presumably trying to figure out where mummy’s sizable tummy has gone and what on earth has happened to mummy’s boobs.

Yes, I am now the proud owner of a pair of 40FF’s that I need a wheelbarrow to cart around. My milk has come in and the tinyelf and I are trying to adjust (think mouse trying to feed from geezer).

In the meantime my heart is breaking for my crazypixie (not helped by postpartum hormones) as I see her trying to figure out what’s going on. She alternates between kissing ‘baba’ to trying to pull baba off mummy. As we get her involved and try to show her what’s going on she is dealing it with it in her own 15 month old way. She’s climbing up to the pram to take a look and see our reactions and pointing out ‘baba’ to every guest . She’s also been very busy changing and winding her dolly, and only occasionally throwing dolly across the room.

We’re very lucky to have great family support and my in-laws have moved in for a few days to help (this is a good thing) so at least crazypixie is getting loads of attention and distraction.

Nonetheless, crazypixie is my baby and I’m finding it a little difficult to adjust too! I’m trying to make as much time as I can for just her but my darling tinyelf is quite demanding as she tries to train mummy and daddy in her ways.

I know we’ll find our balance and we’ll be just fine and crazypixie will soon come to accept tinyelf as part of our family and by this time next year my girls should be the best of buddies and gleefully wreaking havoc together.