My Confident Little Fairy

About a year ago, if I tried to drop Emily at childcare she would cling onto me so tightly and the childcare worker would have to pry her little arms from around my neck and I would leave in tears because my little girl could be heard screaming from the car park.

A change of childcare centres and a year later and I have one confident little girl. This morning for the first time EVER she walked confidently into her room....by herself.....without being carried!

It might have been the fairy costume she had on, it could have been the party music bellowing from her room, it could have been that she also had a full nights sleep the night before. Either way I was absolutely chuffed that she did it all by herself.

and yes she did have a top on..... but isn't just the budding little artist too! 

Miss Emily

Emily is at both a gorgeous age and one that totally does my head in. How a two year old can have this much attitude at such a young age I have no idea! For the last week I've heard "my turn!" and "No, mine!" at least a thousand times.

And the drama! If you move something to the wrong place, or you try to help in any way, you'd think the world was ending. There's head down, face burried in her hands, thrashing about and screaming.

But tonight I just had to laugh. Emily has a couple of 'babies' that she has really taken to playing with lately. Every night while I'm cooking the dinner she lines them up, reads them a story, and then one by one changes their nappies. At first I had no idea what she was doing when I saw this.....

Apologies for the poor photo. Just after I tried to sneak this pic with the IPhone she totally cracked it at me for daring to take a picture of her!

Yes that's right, she has socks on her hands. But to her they're not socks, they're gloves and every time she changes her babies nappies she has them on. At childcare they read stories to the toddlers and change their nappies with gloves on. It seems Emily has created her own childcare center in our living room and it's complete with a naughty corner. While I was having a shower this morning I heard her telling one of the babies to "sit here!" and "Sshhhh!". I think she might have got that bit from me......

I'm totally loving her embrace of this new make believe world. It reminds me of when I was her age and everything was fun and a game. She has no idea of bad things in the world, of loss, of sadness. All she know is eat, sleep, play and love.

She is learning new words every day and mumbled sentences are starting to become clear. She now has friends at daycare who wave to her through the window when we arrive. A little red headed boy named Dean rushed over to us yesterday and said "Emawee ball!" and gave her a green ball. She was absolutely delighted and turned to me and said "bye", waved and ran off with him. It was totally adorable.

I know it won't be like this for long and I'm totally going to soak up every moment of it.

The Smack

Did you watch 60 minutes last night? I did and I wasn't shocked at all by the amount of debate it has raised today.

The story was whether or not we should smack our children. If you missed the story you can watch it here....
http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/stories/8465814/the-smack 

After this story I had to admit I was torn on the issue. I admit I have smacked Emily. This is not something I'm proud of. As a parent you can sometimes feel at your wits end repeatedly saying no over and over again with no positive response. Sometimes she would even look at me and laugh. I justified in my head that smacking was OK if she was going to hurt herself (i.e. strangle herself with the blind cord or burn herself on the stove).

After watching last nights show I really sat down and thought hard about when I smacked Emily, why I smacked her and what effect it had on her.

Hubby hardly ever smacks Emily. When he says no she listens. Why is that? Why is it that when I say no she pushes and pushes until she's pushed all my buttons?

I thought about the various types of punishments we have dished out in our house and what has worked most effectively. At the moment the 1,2,3 and then a time out in her room seems to be the most effective. My hubby likes to hold her close when she's having a tantrum and remove her from the room until she's calmed down and initially I thought this was awful. I'd watch her scream and squirm in his arms completely frustrated. However it works. Eventually she stops and now he only has to say a stern "no!" and she stops the bad behaviour as she knows Dad means business. Geez I hate it when he's right!

I thought about Emily's response each time I smacked her and the first time I did it she was shocked (and so was I) and she cried. Now days she either bites or scratches me in return so I think what I've taught her is that it's OK to be violent when you don't like something.

Looking back on last nights program there was a young man who was featured in a 60 Minutes program some years ago on the same subject. His Mum consistently hit him with a spatula and his response years later was very interesting and thought provoking. He said that he found it hard to respect someone who didn't respect him as a child. He felt she didn't respect him because she hit him. She pointed out that they are from different generations and would naturally disagree on this issue. This may be true. But she inadvertently pointed out that as the new generation of parents we can learn from our parents mistakes.

I remember when I was 12 or 13 I was really testing the boundaries with my parents. I would sneak out, deliberately disobey, play one of against the other. I was a mean, mean girl who had lots of hormonal angst and God help me if Emily does to me what I did to them! (She probably will and more since I believe in Karma) This one particular day I had my mother in tears and my father just couldn't take it anymore. He grabbed my arm and smacked me hard. This was probably the second or third time I was ever smacked (and the last) and my response was to run away. Probably not the response my parents hoped for. They wanted me to behave. Instead I did the opposite and ran from the house and kept going until I'd walked right across town and to a friends house. Obviously my friends mother did the only responsible thing she could do and called my parents who immediately came and got me. I look back on that moment now and think I must have pushed them beyond their boundaries to feel they had no other option but to smack me. However I also know that the smack didn't get the positive response they wanted from me.

Physics law says if you put a positive and a positive together you get a positive. If you put a negative and a negative you get a negative. It makes sense that if I want a positive response from my child I should use positive reinforcement.

How do you discipline your child? I'm really interested to know what other Mums and Dads do and does it work?

A Place In The Sun

Hooray for the sun coming out! We've got 12 days left of our holiday here in Ireland and the first couple of days here were glorious and sunny. But for the last week it's been overcast, raining and we've had bitterly cold winds. When it's like this there's not much you can do but stay inside and keep warm.

We're staying in my mother-in-law's 2 bedroom cottage and it's gorgeous, but probably better suited to 1-2 people, not 3 adults and a toddler who just wants to run around all the time.


On Thursday night we picked up hubby's other two children who live here in Dunfanaghy. Now we have two teenagers, 3 adults and a toddler in a two bedroom house. It's slightly crowded to say the least however I think we're all coping enormously well.


So when we woke this morning and say blue skies and felt the sun through the kitchen windows we were all so happy. My mother-in-law Helen has taken the children swimming this morning and hubby has gone to the gym. Emily is asleep for her midday nap and this has given me some peace and quiet to do some writing and just relax. Aaaahhhhhh.......

Early morning sun hits the hills and we wake up to a glorious view of the valley

I love that everyone lives next to each other here. That is that my father-in-law Jimmy has the house next door to Helen's (they separated some time ago but remain friends) and my brother-in-law Adam and his partner Olivia and son Reuben live in the little cottage next to Jimmy's.

Adam and Olivia's little cottage next to the main house

Having everyone at your doorstep has been fabulous. Both the little ones have been sick at various times and we've been able to run panadol back and forth and bulk buy nappies and wipes since they're both the same size. We've shared food and wine such as the delicious Rhubarb Crumble cooked by Helen with Rhubarb from Jimmy's garden, and Spaghetti Bolognaise cooked by Jimmy and eaten here by the whole family.

One decimated patch of Rhubarb

Every where I look here there are reminders of a wonderful family life. There are animals everywhere and gardens that are well looked after. Emily has fallen in love with the little white horse named Holly who lives across the road behind the house. 

Holly the friendly neighbours horse

Helen has a little dog named Coco Michelle and she was happily sleeping on my feet while I was writing this until the sound of typing must have annoyed her and she moved to the little bed next to me on the couch.

Coco Michelle having a wee nap

Jimmy has a wonderful vegetable patch with potato's, leeks, carrots, spring onions and strawberries growing. He also grows Christmas Trees that he sells at the end of the year. The whole family is musical with Helen playing guitar, base guitar, saxophone and various other instruments, Jimmy plays the guitar and is a very well-known musician around here, brother-in-law Adam plays the drums and is in high demand with local bands and hubby plays guitar and base guitar. I keep waiting for them to break out into some sort of partridge family type gig but they are all way too cool for that.


Tonight we're heading out with the in-laws for a bit of frivolity and fun at the local pubs. We'll watch my Jimmy play in his band and drink some Guinness. Tomorrow we'll all wake up with headaches and no doubt Adam and Olivia will wander down at some stage to join in with our recollection of previous nights antics over a bite of lunch. At some stage Jimmy will wander through the trees that divide the house and pop his head in the door to just say hello and see how we're going. The kids will play and run about in the garden chasing the cats and dogs. It's a lovely life and I'm quite happy to just relax and enjoy it for now.

Emily walking up the lane

The Trip So Far

Well we made it! 40 hours to get here but we're finally in Ireland!

I thought I'd fill you in on the trip so far....

We took this at Singapore Airport. It's amazing that after sitting on a plane for the last 8 hours Emily still found the site of them landing a thrill....

Emily finally fell asleep on the last leg of the journey after much coaxing and crying. She looks sweet here but half an hour earlier she was a nightmare!

Day two and Emily was enjoying some time with her cousin while watching CBeebies. These two were born three hours apart on opposite sides of the world but their friendship has been instant and they are a joy to watch together.

My mother-in-law took me for a walk on this beach which was just gorgeous, although freezing cold, and absolutley pristine.

This is the view of the town of Dunfanaghy Co.Donegal where we're staying and it's taken from Horn Head which boasts the second highest sea cliff in the world.

Hubby has a cold so there's no going anywhere for a couple of days but this is really a blessing in disguise as it forces me to do nothing and just relax. The jet lag is finally subsiding so hopefully we'll get out and see some more sites this week.

What are your best travel tips?

My Little Angel.....or should I say devil?

How did my perfect little sleeper turn into such a rat bag??

Today when I picked up Emily from Day Care her carer pulled me aside to inform me my darling daughter had not only not slept all day and was completely hyper, but she had to be removed from the room for being disruptive to the rest of the toddlers trying to sleep.

Surely they had gotten her mixed up with someone else? Emily has always been a great day sleeper and mostly a good night sleeper. But this is the third time in a week she's refused a day sleep.

Apparently she was fine all afternoon but getting her home tonight she was exhausted and miserable. And naughty! I keep telling her no and she just laughs at me and does it anyway.

Since when do almost 2 year olds get the upper hand?!

My little angel NOT climbing on her Daddy's office chair and playing with his new computer that he loves more than me!

I'm determined to get on top of this behavioural problem before it gets too out of hand. If anyone has any tips I'd love to hear them. We're heading to Ireland in less than three weeks now and I have to work out a way of calming her before we get there and her Nana discovers how loud her voice is! 

The Week That Was......

God I've been hopeless this week with my blog! Totally neglected it. Even the awesome bloggers who have more than one child and are attending the blogging awards managed to post something.

Well if you've been wondering what I've been up to, here goes.....

• Working like a crazy woman in the shop to get all the product on the shelves so Mum doesn't have to do anything but sell while I'm away

• Sewing, sewing, sewing! I'm determined to feature some of my own creations at the next Little Me Markets

• Toddler wrangling. This consists of negotiating bath, PJ's and bedtime routine with a 20 month old. She's a determined little bugger who managed to scream her head off till 9:15pm last night!
• Getting Emily checked out by the doctor because she had an epic stack in our driveway and a day later her eye was still swelling.

• Cooking dinner every night. Doesn't sound like much but we always do at least one to two take out dinners a week as we both work and it can be hard to get something cooked in time for Emily (we don't get home till about 5:45pm and by then she's starving and crazy). The reason I'm cooking every meal is because we're trying to save money for our big trip to Ireland.
• I must be totally crazy because I also committed to another market before our trip. Now I'm doing the Little Me Market on 15th April in Wodonga and the Golden Horseshoe Festival in Beechworth on 7th April.

To top everything off I have developed a lovely sinus infection. Albury-Wodonga sits in a basin and pollen hangs around for most of the year. We have gorgeous Autumn trees but when their leaves begin to fall so do these potent fury spores along with their seeds. They cause havoc with my sinuses which over-react to the pollen and I inevitably get an infection. Now the infection has spread to my lungs so I've had to start two courses of anti-biotics or else it will become full blown bronchitis and I won't be able to travel.

Speaking of travel, I can't believe we're leaving in 2 1/2 weeks! I'm excited and nervous and very stressed. Taking a toddler on a plane is a daunting task in itself, but the longest flight I've been on is 5 hours to Bali. I didn't even get jet lagged. I have no idea how I'll handle the flight let alone how Emily will handle it. Then there's my hubby who is terrified of flying and will have to be sedated the entire trip, so I'll also have very little help with Emily. I'm just praying we have nice flight attendants who will give me some tips.

Anyway, I'll try to make an effort next week to blog a bit more often. What a crazy crazy life.....but I wouldn't have it any other way!