Just a lovely photo

Party Animal

Fresh from the hospital, Alice launched herself into a weekend of parties. She knows her birthday is coming up, so needed to be reminded from time to time that the presents and cake were not for her.

That said, Little Friend Charlie hosted a brunch for Our Alice, since he is moving to the gorgeously lovely county of Cheshire next week. He had made cakes which Alice liked the look of and had organic crisps, which she did not (Walkers salt and vinegar only for our little girl).




The chums ate cake, bickered a bit and had a little sing song before we left.

Come Sunday, Little Friend Cora had a bit of a do down at Coogee Beach. Alice simply cannot sit still in the mornings, so after a brief debate about who should get to play with Cora's presents first, I set her free to run with the birds. Poetic but true.





The afternoon saw us at Little Friend Amba's third birthday which was a veritable extravaganza of outfits (Amba wore at least 4 over the course of the afternoon) and a bouncey castle in the garden. Fun for old and young, except for the little boy who managed to spew on it.

Both hostesses hoped that their parties would cheer Alice up. She definitely had fun, but thankfully there was no need to improve her mood. We were starting from quite a high spot - no obvious effects from the grommets noticed at all to date.

Critters

Living in a place with a garden has been a bit of a revelation in terms of Australian flora and fauna. Mainly the fauna - we have some lovely flora, but I'm sure I will kill them all by the end of our tenancy, as is my wont.

I think that the heavy rains over Christmas have caused a general problem with mosquitos in Sydney, but am not quite sure why a cloud of them live outside our front door. I got bitten in the time it took me to get the key into the lock this morning.

We let off some cockroach bombs before we moved in, so after an initial flurry of activity, they seem to have gone to live somewhere else. Nimby? Moi?

The more "interesting" life in the garden was a redback spider in our front courtyard. The man of the house was duly despatched to whack it a few times with a shoe, returning only to say that he couldn't see a dead redback, but that there was not much left where the web had been and a few black bits and pieces around the stairwell. Very reassuring.

I have been killing the local ants with gusto and Mortein powder, but the most interesting visitor to date was a little lizardy gecko thingie. It turned up in the kitchen on a hot day when everything had been open. Terrified of a small child pointing at it and yelling "Out you go" loudly, it froze to the spot and acquiesced to her demand. Alice bade it "Goodnight Lizard" as it scuttled off into the garden.

So no real fears on the lizard score. Alice is oblivious to the ants, claps loudly in the vicinity of any fruit flies and has perfected the Aussie salute with the "blowies". However, given her current obsession with a Lydia Monks book about spiders and how they dance and ride in a supermarket trolley "Just like Alice", I would still rather have actually seen the body of the redback.

Grommet Day

It's done. Alice has two little bits of plastic in her ear canal to keep her little tubes open.

We were up before 6 to be at the hospital for 6.30am, with Young Alice being bundled into the car in her jarmies, still a little dozy. Once we had checked in, her usual burst of 7.15am energy kicked in and she ran as much riot as she could within the confined space. Think caged lion and you'd be about there.

This was fixed at around 8am with a quick dose of paracetemol, mixed with a sedative. They wouldn't give us any to bring home. She remained cheerful but got a bit heavy and a little bit calmer, although I do remember asking the nurse when it was going to kick in, so there can't have been a major effect straight away.

Mums are discouraged from going to the pre-op room for the anaesthetic to be administered and although I had steeled myself, when the nurse said it would be traumatic and that they preferred the Dads to do it, I resigned myself to playing about on Facebook in the waiting area, by way of distraction. By all reports, the sedative started to work a little better as time went by, with Alice sitting on Stu's knee in the pre-op area, smiling and muttering things like, "Yes....shopping", "Yes....Dora".... When it came to the general, she recovered her will and had to be held down screaming. Definitely did sound traumatic. Stu was asked to give her a kiss just before she went under. It's real tear in the eye stuff.

About 2 minutes after Stu appeared in the waiting area, the surgeon was hot on his heels, letting us know that it was done and all had been well. She had a cold last week and although she had not presented with any fever or discomfort, (get me, getting all medicinal) , her ears were full of fluid, so they had been drained and the grommets popped in. Not glad that she was brewing up another ear infection, but slightly relieved that her ears were still in need of treatment/intervention and that all this was worth it. It has been a whole 10 weeks since she last had antibiotics so we had thought perhaps she was cured.

When we went to see her, she was pretty miserable because of the heart rate monitor attached to her toe but otherwise fine. Really happy to see her new Iggle Piggle and her new Night Garden book set again, she gradually calmed down and we were all pleased to get back to the room and away from the other kids who were also waking up in a fairly bad mood.

Alice needed to eat to show the nurse that she was OK, so she duly set to this task with gusto. If you look to the right of the first picture, you can see the discarded custard/yoghurt/jelly pots.

She decided Dad might like some too.

She discovered the fridge and kept leading one of us down the corridor to get her more jelly. It would have been cute if she didn't keep yelling her new favourite gag, "Allie don't like Mummy. Allie don't like Daddy either" [hysterical giggles]. I'm sure the other post-operated-on patients thought it was hilarious.

She was discharged at last around 11am and we gratefully gave up trying to entertain her in a confined space. At home she ate lunch and slept as usual. The afternoon was spent running about, shopping, stealing Stu's milkshake and playing at the park. No discernible effects at all.

So we're back onto preparing her for the new room at daycare next week. Phew. Thank goodness that's over.

The times they are a changing

It's a big week for Alice. Last day in the "Starfish" room today, as she becomes a "Dolphin" on Monday. This is a big difference - she'll be a little fish in a big pond, to continue the marine theme.

Their parting shot as below. Alice provides a nice summary:

"Alice spent her last day in the Starfish room and we will miss her very much. Alice did some sponge painting today with light coloured paints on dark cardboard as a contrast indoors. With the sponge stampers Alice used her right hand with a palmer grasp to pick up the stampers and place them onto her piece of cardboard.

Alice would use stamping movements to press their stamp up and down to print on the paper repeatedly. Alice would say “Ally do a painting” as she stamped her sponge stamp onto the paper."

Moments to savour

It's going to be a real pity when Alice starts talking properly. I remember this with my younger sisters - desperately hanging onto their last baby words until they really were too old to say "strawbaddies" with any semblance of dignity.


Continuing the fruity theme, our current fave with Alice is "blueberries" or "boobies", as she says. She is not discouraged in this and one or other parent is usually to be seen surreptitiously giggling at such moments. There was a moment of considerable confusion when she was demanding a handful of these little purple bubbles of loveliness last week, and Little Friend Charlie, who has recently become a big brother, insisted that they were "only for babies".

The new regime

The Yardleys of Sydney have had a great Christmas week off together - it has been wonderfully relaxing to have very few plans and even fewer golfing commitments (and that's just Alice). Father and I have taken the opportunity to put Young Alice through her paces and have been introducing some discipline into her little life. Results have been variable.

The new administration has introduced:
1. The dreaded sandwiches every day for lunch, with Alice sometimes eating as many as two.
2. The phrase, "Alice, you have two choices..." is a constant refrain, in an effort to stop her running riot/sulking/having tantrums when she doesn't quite want to follow orders. Alice usually manages to choose the option that we prefer, as long as we remember to make them both viable options. "We're leaving the park now. Alice, you have two choices - you can either get on your bike nicely or stay here on your own". "Stay here on my own", was the response that Pater elicited.
3. Eating all meals together, (no work means we are all at home for meals). The girls at Nursery had also asked us to get Alice used to sitting at the table until everyone had finished eating, so we have been working hard at this one. Alice has taken to this with gusto and in fact was mortified when Little Friends Jack and Amba took off as soon as they had thrown their peas on the floor when they came for lunch last week. "But Allie still going?", she cried.
4. Walking "just a little bit further" when we are out and about. Alice has got quite used to being carried, after all that knee walking and is unwilling to lose the habit. However, she is as eager to be praised as her mother, so can sometimes go for a good few metres, only to stop, applaud herself loudly and to exclaim, "Well done, everyone" before raising her arms in the air to be ferried about again.

So far, so so.