10/11/1922 - 29/11/2009

We will remember you, Grampy Sum. Every time your orchid flowers we will talk to Charlotte about her Grampy Sum and how brave you were. Thank you for loving us like we were your blood all these years. Go gently.



Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there. I do not die.

- Mary Elizabeth Frye

Australian Rainbow Families

We have been profiled over here...

http://ozrainbowfamilies.wordpress.com/2009/11/27/meet-kelly-sue-charlotte/

At Australian Rainbow Families - a new initiative from Molly.

Bollocks

The report for the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill 2009 has been released today.

The link to the report is here:

http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/legcon_ctte/marriage_equality/report/report.pdf

Even though over 11,000 submissions were in support of the marriage definition changing to include same-sex couples, the committee has rejected the proposal.

The reasons cited are primarily religious-based as you will see if you read the report.

So, we continue to be treated as the lowest of the low in Australian society.

Thank you anyway to everyone who sent in a submission.

26-months-old

On Thursday we celebrate 26 months of life with you and what a dream it's been. You are a total delight to be around. You have the occasional tanty, but so far never in public and they're pretty mild generally speaking and usually few and far between. Your language skills are great, so it's easy to just talk to you about what's going on and why you're upset, etc. Usually after you've finished crying, you'll say, "I'm better now" and then we all get on with what we were doing prior to you being upset.

We embrace your sense of humour and your cheeky ways. The other day you popped off and then giggled and said, "Mummy did it!" Nice try, kid. I imagine next you'll be blaming the dogs.

We ADORE that you love books, reading and language as much as you do and you amaze us with your ability to sit still for hours on end listening to stories. Daycare frequently comment on your excellent "listening skills". You now "read" the stories with us and finish off sentences, etc.

You understand emotions really well now - happy, sad, angry and you'll pull appropriate faces when we ask you. For instance, the one above is, "Show us your angry face, Charlotte!" You're also very empathetic when it comes to other people's and animal's emotions which is lovely to see.

You have become quite independent with dressing yourself and the morning routine has blown out because you want to put your own clothes and shoes on and YOU WILL NOT BE RUSHED and if for example, you've put one leg in your pants and one of us tries to put the other leg on, you'll get very frustrated and this will cause you to remove your first leg and start again whilst shouting, "MINE". We've learnt to just let you go at your own pace.

Your imagination is awesome. Last week you tried to tell us there were pixies "just over there" and when we asked you what they looked like you said, "like little boys".

Okay, so maybe that's less awesome and more freaky but either way, you're our awesome and freaky 26-month-old and we wouldn't want you any other way because you are perfect just as you are.

Love, your mums.

xxx

Sorry, Mummy

I'm learning that there are little moments in parenting that crack your heart open.

This morning, we experienced one such moment.

Charlotte asked for some sultanas in a cup, which I gave her, but she promptly upturned the cup and scattered the sultanas all over the floor. She asked for some more and to give her the chance to do the right thing I told her that if she threw them on the floor again, there would be no more. So, I put some more in her cup and sure enough, she upturned the cup and they again went everywhere. I firmly told her there was no more and walked away to finish my ironing.

C then proceeded to have a complete meltdown about it - there was snot and tears everywhere!

She then decided she'd go to Mumma (Sam) and tell her all about how awful I'd been and I heard Sam say, "But you spilt your sultanas all over the floor, so actually, I think it is you who should be saying sorry to Mummy."

C shook her head as if to say, no and then went into the living area. After about 5 minutes, she walked up to me, hung her head and said in a quiet little voice, "Sorry, Mummy". I bent down and she gave me a big hug, looked me in the eyes and again said, "Sorry, Mummy".

Of course, Sam and I both started blubbering.

She has said sorry to us before in an off handed way but today was the first time she clearly went away, thought about her actions and felt the gravity and meaning behind what saying sorry meant.

More w/end stuff

Today we went to the RSPCA annual fundraiser and C got to have her first official pony ride. Official because she didn't know the horse and because she really enjoyed it, including the walking around bit. She was a star (and Harry the horse was a bit gorgeous too). Turns out the people who were running the pony rides are friends of C's Nanny.

What we're up to

As mentioned in a previous post, Charlotte has a fascination with eagles, so today we decided to take her to the Armadale Reptile Park because they have a captive Wedge Tail Eagle there who can't be released due to wing injuries.

She was amazed and a little bit overwhelmed that it was a real eagle.

And then we wandered around and saw lots of skinks, bobtails, monitors, snakes, birds, kangaroos, dingos and ponies.

The other thing we did today was Kindy Dance Time. It's rapidly becoming her favourite thing to do. Unfortunately, the term ends in a couple of weeks until next year.

On tippy toes.

Swaying like a willow tree.

Lining up at the end and waiting her turn to "fly" to the instructor.

"Flying" to the instructor.

Made it! Getting her sticker.

Big goodbye cuddles for Miss Sherry.

Now this will anger some people

And in news that will rile the fatherhood organisations… lesbians make better parents.

Edited to add: it is our personal view that good parents are good parents, regardless of gender.

Yes, we're still here...

We're bad, bad, bloggers at the moment but it seems to be the last thing on the agenda, so the best I can do at the moment is some pics taken over the last couple of weeks.

In house news, our home is on the market and we've had two potential buyers through so far (we're open by appointment only at this stage). The frustrating thing is that we really can't put offers in on other properties we like until we've got at least a decent nibble on ours. So, house selling and buying has kind of been occupying our thoughts (and time) of late. Pics of the house and kennels at the end of this post. Geez, it was hard to clear all the clutter! You'll probably get a sense of why we can't continue to look after the amount of land when you see these couple of pics of just a portion of the backyard. We normally have pictures on the walls, but the real estate people told us to take everything down and take it right back to a clean slate, which is what we've done as much as is possible with a two-year-old and all their gear.

In TTC news, we've had two months off because we didn't want the stress of IVF and the stress of getting the house ready to sell at the same time, but we're now waiting for Sam's day 1 and then we're back into it.

When we walk the dogs, C always says, "I take Beanie" and she does a pretty good job of it too!

Having fun with our friends Marnie and Leonie in their pool.

Pop taught her to give the "thumbs up" sign a month or so ago.

And now some pictures of our house and kennels...

Sheep!

This morning before work Charlotte told me she was "drawing a sheep, Mummy".

"Okay, honey," I said, continuing to make the sandwiches for lunch.

Until I heard her saying, "Body, ears, sheep" and to my surprise and absolute delight, she had done her first drawing that included a head, body and legs!

She proudly pointed out the sheep's ears (top left-hand side of the head) and then told me he/she had 9 legs. I told her that sheep only have 4 legs but not to worry, maybe this one is genetically modified.

She's also asking us quite regularly to draw her an eagle and trying to draw an eagle herself. We have no idea why or what the importance of the eagle is and daycare confirmed this morning that they haven't been discussing eagles and nor do they have any in the room.

An update

I wonder if I'll ever find time again to write a proper blog post - you know, with paragraphs? In the meantime, here's some dot points of things Her Royal Cuteness is up to:

• She likes to walk on the different coloured pavement on the edges of pathways.
• She tells us when cars are coming and very bossily tells us to, "get off the road!" and drags Harvey Bean with her.
• She likes to try and dress herself - can easily put her sandals on now and often gets them on the right feet. If we offer to help her with her tops, she snatches them away from us and says, "Mine!" (actually, she says "mince" but we have no idea why).
• Speaking of sandals, there's only one pair she'll wear at the moment even though she has another two pairs, brand new and never worn.
• She will only eat vanilla (nilla) yoghurt - although we trick her and give her banana yoghurt and because it's white she doesn't seem to know the difference.
• She closes doors when they've been left open and sighs as if to say, "A girl's work is never done".
• She's constantly trying to feed the dogs and she's very specific about each of them getting an equal amount and will say to them, "Sammy, eat!" "Bobo, come and eat!" - you get the picture. She says to Bean, "Good boy, Beanie" when he's done something like take a biscuit from her and eaten it. She also calls Beanie, "My dog" and insists on holding his lead when we walk with them. "I take my dog," she says, strutting off down the road with Harvey Bean at foot.
• Everything is "Little, little bit" especially in relation to food and if she's offered a piece of food that is too large to her way of thinking she'll asks us to "Cut it, please," but if she picks up a knife by mistake to hand it to us, she immediately will say, "Not for little girls".
• The other night we went out for dinner and at the end of the meal we asked her if she'd enjoyed her dinner and she threw her hands up in the air and enthusiastically exclaimed, "Fantastic!"
• She dances all day long at day care and they often comment on how much she loves music, dancing and singing and of course, BOOKS! She now makes up little songs and sings them to herself.
• Her language is pretty amazing, even though we don't understand everything she says all of the time. She sings the alphabet song fluently and now counts to about 14 and she recognises some words when written down. She recognises her own name in writing most of the time. She knows most of her colours and tells us her favourite colour at the moment is green.
• She has an awesome memory - for instance, she saw a picture of Wave Rock today and I asked her where it was and she said, "Hyden". For regular readers of this blog you will know that it's at least 4 weeks since we went to Hyden and saw Wave Rock (or Hanging Rock as C calls it) and we haven't referred to it since we got back.
• She loves to water the plants and has her own, kid-sized, watering can.
• We went to a home open today and she walked into the kitchen and said, "Nice drawers" (and for the record, they weren't).
• She knows how to ring Nanny and Poppy with two speed dial buttons on our phone - she presses the "phone book" button and then Nanny and Pop's speed dial number. She has called them a couple of times without instruction or assistance.
• She knows how to put a DVD into the player and hit play.
• She's suddenly 95cms tall.
• She regularly says, "Sorry" to us for all manner of things - from pushing past to dropping things.
• She pretends to burp by saying, "Burp" and covering her mouth and giggling.
• She tells us when she's done a "pop-off" and finds it hysterically funny.
• She prefers the company of older kids.
• She will sit quietly and be read to for 3 hours easily- it's nothing for her to ask to have read to her 20 or more books.
• She loves 101 Dalmatians in book form and on DVD and now has a small collection of Dalmatian statues and refers to them as her "Dalmatians". If she sees a picture of a Dalmatian, she will refer to it as such and not just call it a dog.
• If she has a tanty and ends up crying, she will eventually pull herself together, but doesn't want to be hugged or cuddled. When she's over it, she usually turns to us and says, "I'm better now".

And now for a little, little story with paragraphs and all.

We were at our local Coles the other night and she was standing in the trolley (because her legs are too long to fit her comfortably into the seat bit of the trolley. A woman who works there who knows us came running over to our trolley and pointed out that Charlotte was standing on our sausages and she said to Charlotte, "How will Mummies make dinner tonight if you're standing on the sausages?" and she pulled them out from under C.

C was MORTIFIED. I don't think she realised she was standing on them and we certainly didn't. She tucked her head into her shoulder and refused to look up at the woman - at which point the woman started to feel awful that she'd upset her and tried to make amends by telling her how beautiful she was, etc. C wouldn't have a bar of it and refused to look up from her feet.

As we wheeled away I noticed Charlotte's eyes were very red and then she looked at me and the poor little poppet started to overflow with tears and she kept repeating, "I sorry, I sorry, I sorry". It was truly heartbreaking.

We had to walk into a quiet corner to tell her that we knew it was an accident and that she didn't mean to tread on the sausages and they'd cook up just fine. It took some convincing and a few cuddles but she eventually pulled herself together.