Life's not fair.

My sis and I were having a cuppa in my sitting room, our tiny ones on our knees and crazypixie busy trying on shoes and hats.

Tinyelf began the theatrics that signal a poo.

My sister asked ‘Does she poo everyday?’

I was confused.

‘She poos about three times a day.’

‘Oh, lilman only poos every three days.’

Every three days!

I was incredulous.

I was stunned.

I was envious.

The day before I had changed seven pooey nappies by teatime. 7, in a day.

She does that a month.

NOT FAIR

Dress code

I usually dress the girls in the morning but sometimes himself, my mother or my mother-in-law does it.
When this happens I try to leave complete outfits ready but there are rare times when himself or the grannies have to pick the clothes themselves.

So until my girls are choosing their own clothes the following tips will be duck-taped to the wardrobe door.


Tips for dressing my girls

Choosing an outfit

Dress for the occasion:
Jeans/trousers and top are appropriate when going to the pool, the woods, the playground and generally mucking around.
For visits to friends and grandparents or restaurants a pinafore (like dungarees with a skirt bottom), skirt or nice trousers and top will do.
For special occasions like birthday parties a dress is appropriate (not pyjama top and jeans, mum).

Colours:
Pink, red, orange, purple; pick one and don’t mix it with the others.
White, green, blue, denim can be matched with any of the above.

Pyjamas:
Are for bedtime only.

Tights and socks:
Should match outfit. See colours.

Shoes:
No matter what your daughter/granddaughter tells you, shoes should be worn in matching pairs.

Accessories:
This is crazypixie’s area of expertise. Let her chose hats, bags and bracelets for everyone.

When you’ve chosen an outfit using the above guidelines, lay it out to make sure it all works together (i.e. she won’t look like a little hooker/homeless child/teletubbie).

Before putting it on the child ask yourself, ‘Is this what my wife/daughter/daughter-in-law would dress her in?’


Always check that the clothes fit and are on properly.

The clothes are inside out if:
The tags are on the outside (take note, husband dear)
The stitching is on the outside.

Clothes are too small if:
Pulling it over her head involves you breaking a sweat and her in tears.
The top finishes above her bellybutton.
The trousers reveal a builders bum when she bends over.
The crotch of the tights is at her knees
Only one of four buttons will close.

If in doubt take a photo of proposed outfit and media message it to Jen for approval.

Life before little ones.

Feeling a little nostalgic while figuring out how to embed video in blogger.

Here's what myself and himself used to get up to at weekends (we're not in this but used to race against the guys that are).

Mad hatters.

This week we’ll be mostly drinking tea.

My littlesis presented crazypixie with a beautiful wooden tea set at the weekend. I love it, it’s carved from sustainable wood, there are little cups and saucers, a teapot, sugar bowl and jug. There are also wooden sugar cubes, tea bags and spoons, all of which I’ve put away for now as I have had enough of medical emergencies for a while.

So we spent the morning tea partying. Well mummy got all nostalgic and enthusiastic (a scary combination)and starting pouring imaginary cups of tea for lambkin and bear, while crazypixie tried to figure out how the pieces of this new puzzle fit together. Eventually the pixie gave in and quickly got the hang of imaginary tea.

We soon discovered that the tea party game is even more fun when wearing silly hats. Yes, the beloved bag of hats was called into service and we all looked fabulously ridiculous (no photo, too busy playing). Oh I so need to get out more!

Then the postman arrived…..

…….with a huge box of tea!

What excellent timing.

A few weeks ago my favouritest tea company in the world (too much Pooh, I know) was offering free tea on Facebook. So, of course ,I signed up!!

And today the box arrived. In it were 9 types of teas and infusions.

I think I’ll have my big girl friends around for a tea party all of our own.

And maybe I’ll make them wear hats.

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………

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