Oct 08 2007
Today was eventful. I was bitten by my neighbour’s dog and I learned Caspar’s very first word: Dah-gah.
Dah-gah is not, as I thought, a random combination of syllables. Dah-gah means dog.
That’s synchronicity for you.
Sep 30 2007
That’s right. I am out of the netherworld and the monitor is on!
After my old one blew a gasket, I spent days in purgatory. The official definition of purgatory is no access to your hard drive and the punishments are thus…
This is not an exhaustive list, but thanks to the kindness of strangers… Okay, not strangers. Big Sis’ BF, B, collected a monitor for me today from a friend who never uses it. There was some worry, given the great age of my computer, that it would not be compatible with my video card but it was needless worry. Like I said… Plug ‘n’ play mama! Oh, the sheer joy of seeing that screen which said Windows Loading. Who would have thought that Microsoft could ever give me joy?
It was my intention to do some major work, catching up and backing up but I was invaded this morning by other people’s children. They happily sat on stools in the kitchen while I scrubbed the oven and the cupboard doors and mopped the floor.
Yes, I am totally THAT cool.
They even stayed despite my refusal to let them watch the Grand Final on television. Australian Rules football, like Microsoft, is the spawn of Satan. Instead, I taught them how to knit and bankrupted them both playing Monopoly.
One would imagine that when I sent them home for dinner and put Cas to bed, I would be free to indulge my internet addiction. But no.
Their dinnertime marked the return of Big Sis and B from the pub. B is one of the most wonderful men on the planet. He works hard and he is a phenomenal father. He is completely down to earth, completely an Aussie bloke, yet he is as sappy as a school boy when it comes to Big Sis. He works in construction and his favourite book is the dictionary.
He loves words and when he’s had a few beers, he likes to use them. All of them. Especially the big ones. He mashes up the English language in a phenomenal way, but with such enthusiasm, you can’t help but listen to him. Listening to him is like reading Jabberwocky.
So my night up until 11:30 was not the night I’d planned. While Big Sis watched TV, B wanted to read my poetry, then he wanted me to show him a million other things on the world wide web, like his father’s artwork, which as you can see is beautiful. He also wanted me to introduce him to the wild and wonderful world of YouTube.
This particular video caught both our attention. Watch it. It’s a cack.
So this is all you guys will get tonight. I’ll be catching up tomorrow. Unless I am inundated by children again.
The Pied Piper can’t compete with my cool factor.
Sep 19 2007
My computer is at least 1000 years old and was cobbled together lovingly by my friends PC and Shaun using discarded parts and ingenuity. My monitor is the size of mouse poo and I had been rapidly shrinking the display on it as the edges became blurrier and blurrier. Last night it fizzed. This morning it popped.
I am now going to do something which goes against the grain with me and talk about money. I say goes against the grain partly because I think I have read too many English novels and partly because I have a very specific notion of “class” which is worthy of a post in itself. But this is my blog and I’ll cry if I want to, cry if I want to, cry if I want to…
Money is just money. You can do fun things with it but beyond covering the bare necessities, it’s really not that interesting. This morning when I heard that ominous sound, it really did seem like being able to access my computer was a bare necessity. It was a disaster of untold proportions.
What was I to do while I drank my morning coffee if I couldn’t look at all my site statistics to see who had been reading my blog? How was I to transfer the loan payment for the house I can’t afford to live in, already a day late? How was I to download the forms I need to fill out so I could go back to university next year? They are due in 3 days and I can’t afford the late fees. And tomorrow is Big Sis’ birthday: I need to make a lemon meringue pie. All my cookbooks are packed. If life without books is hard, life without books or my computer is untenable.
So panic. I need a monitor. I need a monitor now.
And I needed to buy laundry detergent. And toilet paper. And baby formula. And a present for Big Sis’ birthday. And I’m scraping the bottle of the change barrel. Last month we were down to our last few cents to keep us in milk; this month… Money is sometimes depressing. So off I go, with $35 in my pocket for the next three weeks, hoping against hope that somehow I will find a way. If only formula wasn’t so bloody expensive. It’s not like I would have ever started feeding Cas the stuff if I had had a choice. (Cleft palate children can’t breastfeed.)
Fortunately, or so I think, I live at the end of the earth in an outer suburb that used to be a separate town, where dead-end drug users shoot up behind the op shops and pawnshops which breed here like flies. I try one. I try another. The only monitor I find even close to my price range is $25. That’s too much.
And that’s depressing.
So my mind starts adding up all the things I wanted to do, that I cannot. Like the present I was hoping to buy for Caspar’s first birthday, that present I’ve had my heart set on for ages.
And I cannot buy it. My little drummer boy’s first birthday and I cannot buy him that special gift I know he will love.
Now that’s depressing.
So I move on. I find good laundry detergent I can afford, $2 a box. I find a pink leather iPod cover for $3.50 to give to Big Sis. That’s a nice present. I realise that Caspar doesn’t need the most expensive baby formula any more. He eats 3 meals a day and his digestive system has matured enough so that it won’t make him constipated and gassy like the last time I tried an alternative. I find some on sale for less than half the price of my usual formula. I have $10 left. And my mind, so hooked on the percussion desk for his birthday, lets it go.
Maybe for Christmas.
I start to calm down.
I leave a message for Shaun. He always has computer junk lying around. So what if he’s on holiday. I won’t die. Big Sis has a computer and it doesn’t matter if I have to reset every password I’ve ever had because I rely on my computer to remember them for me.
And two days ago, Caspar took my pen from me and did real scribbles in my notebook. I can afford crayons. He will love crayons. And I will love sitting and drawing with him and pinning his artwork on my fridge.
That’s right.
Money doesn’t matter.
I don’t like getting down to my last penny, or having to pay my bills a little late. I don’t like not being able to fix the things that break or go out for coffee every other day. Sometimes it’s stressful. Today, I had a bad hour. Verging on tears, it was still just a bad hour.
In a few months, when the house is sold and I have no more debt and I have a five figure bank balance (hopefully), Cas and I can live a slightly easier life. Perhaps I still won’t be able to buy whatever I want. Perhaps I’ll only go out for coffee once a week, but what can money buy that compares to the delight in my son’s eyes when I blow raspberries on his feet, or his giggling pride when he toddles back and forth across the room?
What can compare to his slimy kisses in the morning or the way he hands me my glasses when he thinks it’s time for us to get out of bed?
The death of my monitor was a bad hour. Not the first, and not the last.
But it’s only bloody money.
Sep 15 2007
I’m not sure if I let you all know how Caspar’s hearing test went after his surgery and I’m too tired to check at the moment, but he can now hear properly. At his age, they only test the normal vocal range but that is the most important part. Anything else will just be what it is.
What I can tell you is that he knows words. Quite a few words.
He has known nose for a good while. It took me some time to realise this as he points to noses a lot and at night when I put him to bed I always say, Beep Beep. Have a good sleep. With appropriate actions. I know this is tragic but I did it once and he liked it. He is the final arbiter of my taste.
(Except when the most interesting thing on TV is an ad for the latest obnoxious ringtone. I have to draw the line somewhere.)
Anyway, after exhaustive testing, he knows nose.
The second word I learnt that he had learned was a little out of left-field: Buddha.
That’s what I said. Buddha.
I have a large wooden carving on my mantelpiece that he likes to be held up to (to poke its nose!) and whenever he is upset or crying, taking him to see Buddha works like a charm. No, Hush, hush, there, there…, just, Let’s go and see Buddha, and everything is roses again. If you have a very unhappy baby and no hair left, I highly recommend investing in the tubby philosopher.
Cas is also quite comfortable with ears, especially Buddha’s ears, but doesn’t yet find other facial features particularly worthy of his interest.
He has become au fait with toad and fish and frog and can confidently point to cats and dogs in real life as well as picture books.
He knows which family portrait in the hallway is Oma.
(He might know which one is Mummy as well but that could just be wishful thinking.)
I will not recount all the words he knows (yes, no, thank-you, good and more are not thrilling to anyone but me) but I will skite about the most impressive phrase to date.
Reading has been something of a struggle lately. He has become more interested in turning pages than listening to words. He has been trying to work out this miraculous process for some time but it has eluded him. With a little help from Mummy however (consisting of a finger between the current page and the next) he can get the job done. Since he discovered this, I have had to hold all books out of reach to avoid his impatient and somewhat destructive fingers.
Today I discovered that simply saying, Turn the page, solves this problem much in the same way Tinkerbell’s tinkle did when I was listening to Disney stories on vinyl.
Tomorrow, he will be 11 months old. He knows what Turn the page means. I am doing something right.
Then again, he knows that if he follows me when I say, Pee pee pee pee peeeee… he’ll be allowed to pull the toilet roll.
Sep 09 2007
The fourth assignment from 30 Poems in 30 Days . Poetry of place…
Get out of the house and write in a new place. Write about the place you choose to go to. Don’t just rely on what you see. Describe the smells, the tastes and the sounds if you can. Try to give your readers a full picture of the place you choose.
I have discovered
you cannot write
a poem
at the beachwith child in tow
with sand in fist
with weak waves lapping
still coldwith gulls crying
with hand tugged
while watching
first wet feet.You cannot write
a poem
at the beach
when it isnew and seen
with new eyes
fixated on the sand
the texturethe damp sinking
movement
beneath pink
feet.Not while you
teach him
to shake and shake
it offteach him not
to eat it
point to birds
pointto waves
to people
unseen by eyes
fixated.You have to cheat
and write
when he is home
in bed.
Aug 17 2007
Well, Caspar’s first birthday is only a couple of months away now and I’m all turned around about what to do. The budget is very very tight so a party seems out of the question and, quite frankly, the thought of organising it seems pretty daunting while I’m working so hard to get the house sorted out so that I can sell it.
At first glance it’s a pretty major milestone but it seems fairly obvious that a first birthday celebration is more for me, and for some photos in the album. Is Caspar even going to notice it? Chocolate cake he would definitely notice. Mum got him quite attached to the stuff while she was here. In fact, I ate some chocolate the other day (which is not like me!) and his lips started trembling and the tears started welling with the injustice of it all. My sensitive, maternal response was, of course, to start laughing my head off at him. And not give him any chocolate.
But my question is, is a first birthday party worth all the effort? Do I even have anyone to invite? It kind of appears to be a pointless exercise but not making a big deal of it goes against all my instincts. What are everyone’s thoughts? Comments here would be most welcome.
I’m currently toying with the idea of having a picnic-style get together where I don’t have to provide everyone with food and drinks. But then how to transport myself, and Caspar, and a cake, and presents to, say, the Botanic Gardens (which is more central for my friends) without us both being completely exhausted before the party even starts?
Grrrr. It makes my head spin.
cerebralmum is a 30-something single mother living in Australia with her 1 year old son.
