My new handbag, it even sings.

When Immy plays babies, she often says to the baby, "bye, bye, Mummy is going to work now." Then she goes off to a chair and says beep beep beep beep beep, while she pretends she is working on a computer.

It seems she has certainly hit the stage of imitating the big people in her life, which is actually quite an interesting reflection of us as parents.

When I suggested a little walk the other day, to reduce my cabin fever for some lovely fresh air, she ran around yelling "wait! I haven't got my phone"

And so our ten minute walk took nearly an hour as we stopped to speak on the phone every few steps, mainly to Dad, Nana and Granny.

I also got to use her handbag to put the house keys in, which also came with a toy mirror, pretend plastic coins and a stuffed dog!

Then I got to carry them all back home.

Have you ever seen yourself in the play antics of your children?

So you think you can't dance

It has come to my attention that I have some new followers, Hello, Hello to all two of you.

You may also not have read my post a few months ago about the dancing issues we were dealing with, in short, Popps was suffering horrible anxiety at the idea that people may, of all the possible things, 'look' at at her. Can you imagine? How dare they!

We had a few weeks of dancing turmoil of wondering whether to force her to stick out the year and together with the teacher we decided she would have to, on the condition that she never had to do the concert or dance in front of people at the end of each term.

Six months later.

With the concert now approaching the teacher suggested that the parents enter the room and get a glimpse of how the routine was coming together. No, said Popps, I don't want them in here. I don't want them to watch me. The teacher pretty much said, too bad, it's not negotiable.

I sat at the front watching her chew off any fingernails she had left and bite her hands. She kept her eyes on the ceiling and the teacher at all times. When the music started she went through and completed the routine. She didn't look all that happy, but she wasn't screaming and running out the door. This was progress.

At the end, she ran over to me, whispering, I did it, I did it, I did it.

 "Yes,  you did, and how did it feel?"  I asked.

It was ok, she says, because I made up a strategy. If you don't look at the people, you can't see where they're looking, so then they can't be looking at you.

She is a thinker our Popps and strategy is one of her favourite words.

Last night we had the first dress rehearsal.

Could barely drag the girl from the stage.




 

My perfect table; and other ramblings

I may have to reconsider changing my bio on the side of this blog. Domestic Goddess Failure - Ha!

These last few weeks the Huey household has been acting like a pilot episode for Better Homes and Gardens.

I was looking everywhere for a trestle table but at a child's height level, I got lots of options, but none that were perfect. We cruised around the furniture stores but still found nothing. Mr H arrived home with some wood from Man Heaven and as the weather was poor he decided to make me a table - in the lounge room. Aside from having some liquid nails now permanently on our carpet the table came up perfectly. Really, who minds a bit of sawdust surrounding them as they relax and watch telly when you get the table of your dreams.

With the table now in use I have been helping the girls get festive, with the help of some printable writing paper (free from PickleBums) they wrote out their letters to Santa for us to post today. Plus some cutting and snipping here to make little decorations which we have hang around.

Immy actually drew Santa a picture of himself first. See his hat and beard? Sure you do.

Popps went with the niceties first. Then the one thing on her list, cut out red love hearts and filled the envelope.

On top of that, I have even baked - Gluten and Dairy Free Cupcakes. It does not matter that I used a packet.  They are also looking rather special.




In other news, these are on my shit list. Betts Kids is often my go to place for the girls when they need new shoes (which is about every six weeks lately) I am a little annoyed to see high heels, from size 8 - which is basically from about two and a half years old - now on the shelves.  Really, who buys these and what must such things do for the development of little feet  and minds. So I walked out and got the summer sandals elsewhere.

Before Christmas gets started, we have a few things to do.

Yes, it is pretty clear around these parts that Christmas is well and truly soon to arrive.

The councils are dusting off the tinsel and putting them up on street poles and the junk mail is starting to arrive thick and fast.

But we have a few too many things to do before the Christmas celebrations can commence.

There is our first Dance Concert. Something that I never expected to be so time consuming. Extra rehearsals, make up nights, photo nights, full dress rehearsal, costume fittings and packing bags of hairspray, hair nets, bobby pins and shoe paint. I am now a Ballet Mum.

 Once I get through this I would like to think I will have a few days rest, but that is not to be, as the Fairy Princess Party will be held less than 48 hours afterwards. This is the party where I wasn't sure how many kids to invite, well, the list just took over and even with limited invitations there are 50 people invited. 50 -   Holy FairyCakes Harmony - you will be pleased to know that I have accepted the kindest offer ever for the cake to be made, to prevent serving up anything like my Echidna to a room full of three year olds and parents I have barely met.

I have also been using Pinterest to get all my ideas for the girls' parties and couldn't help falling in love with these dresses, so I sent the image to Granny Huey and she is organising one each for the girls to wear. I am hoping they will arrive in time for the local Carols by Candlelight and a few other Christmas events we have planned.

I am considering giving these a go too. Eating them I mean. yum.

We also have school orientations and preparations for Popps. How ready is she for school? So so ready. I thought I was too.

Things are hectic, but filled with all good things. Except for one. I rang a cleaner to come and help out, but she too is flat out til mid January...bugger.

I am giving up the night time nappies.

Crazy morning bed hair. 

Today is a good day. Good days come pretty easily around here. I like to celebrate the very small and think of all the positives in it.

From today I will never again be one of those people with a trolley full of Huggies Boxes because Toys R Us have them at super low prices, nor will I do a trip to Aldi to stock up on a months worth of nappies.

I will never again be aware of the latest, greatest, bestest, trendiest, snobbery inducing nappy required for babies of the day.

After six years, our trolley will be nappy free.

Immy has been dry overnight for weeks, but it was me, insisting that she wear a nappy to bed for 'just in case'. She hasn't wanted to wear them so I have bribed her with the expensive princess pictured ones, used pull ups and all the usual tricks.

Considering she woke yesterday at 5.30am because she needed to go to the toilet, and my whispering and pleading of just do it in your nappy and go back to sleep were not listened to, I am giving in. I am accepting that throwing a dry nappy in the bin is a waste of every kind.

And by giving in I accept that I may have to wash sheets more often for little accidents. But I also accept there is spare money floating around somewhere and a change table that needs to go on ebay, that bags of poo will not be filling up the wheely bin and best of all, my handbag will have so much more space.

Packaging, branding and stuff

When Popps had her first Christmas I unopened all the toys first and removed the forty thousand wires that the Little People seemed to require to keep them in place, because trying to do it all on Christmas morning was going to be no fun.

Brands spend major mega bucks on packaging and branding and trying to make you buy their product. If you hate the packet, rarely will you even bother trying the product.

Some brands have been lazy and just use the same words/colours/packaging in different countries and the lack of research is quickly shown.

Apologies to marketing people who have seen these a thousand times, but here are some of the brand/packaging bloopers from the past:

Ford was not able to market its popular Pinto in Brazil in the late '70s when it learnt that pinto is Portuguese slang for "tiny penis." It sold the Corcel instead, the Portuguese word for "horse." 

In China, Coca-Cola was initially rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. In different dialects the phrase translated as "female horse stuffed with wax" or "bite the wax tadpole." Coke replaced it with the much better Ko-kou-ko-le or “happiness in the mouth". 

Pepsi's late '60s slogan, COME ALIVE WITH THE PEPSI GENERATION was mangled in a Mandarin translation as PEPSI WILL BRING BACK YOUR ANCESTORS FROM THE DEAD. 

Parker marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico with ads that were supposed to say, IT WON'T LEAK IN YOUR POCKET AND EMBARRASS YOU. But because of a bad verb choice (they thought embarazar meant "embarrass"), the ads instead said, IT WON'T LEAK IN YOUR POCKET AND MAKE YOU PREGNANT. 

In China, KFC's slogan IT'S FINGERLICKIN' GOOD somehow got mistranslated as EAT YOUR FINGERS OFF. (Not that this slogan was ever really that great anywhere). 

Gerber's sweet, smiling baby-food-jar baby backfired horribly in Africa: Because of high illiteracy, Africa's consumers are used to seeing a product’s contents pictured on the packaging.

So when new milk bottles, in a new designed package got delivered to my door I initially wondered why they bothered. Sure I can always do with more milk but the packaging I was set to try just seemed to be like UHT Milk with a slanted top.

See, you can hardly see the new slanted top design that works so well.

But it was much more than that, some clever little milk and cookie eating designer has made the packet much easier to pour, also the seal was easier to open than usual UHT packaging. (And it isn’t UHT, it is fresh milk).

This is important to me, as I seem to have some kind of arthritis pain constantly in my fingers, every day stuff that I just do can cause mild pain. The kind that you just have but get on with things.  This packaging did not require strength in your fingers and hands.

Most of my readers may not find any benefit in this, but older people or people with joint pain may want to give it a try.  Especially if they are like Mr H and despise UHT milk and only want the fresh stuff – though I would bet a Tiffany’s diamond he could never tell the difference. Or if you care for an older person this product would actually allow them to pour milk a little easier. Something pretty small which could make a difference to making a cuppa tea without the mess.

How Imogen made the Mumma's all cry.

Organising Immy’s party is proving hard as we don’t really know which little friends she really prefers and which are just kids in the crèche room. Perfect timing was the crèche photos, with a picture of the group of 11.  I asked Immy to point to the kids she wanted to invite. NO BOYS.

Except Max.

Max is new at crèche. Max has a few special needs. He may not walk or talk, he struggles to swallow and has trouble eating, Max can't hear perfectly either.

But Imogen loves Max.

She likes to sit and read stories to him and ‘teach’ him to say Mum. She likes to see him smile and she celebrates when he says a word. She likes to stroke his arm and chatter away to him about what she is doing.

Max had to be invited to the party.

Until yesterday I had never met Max or his Mum.

I was at pick up early and I introduced myself to Max’s Mum who was there to pick him up too. As usual, in my fluster, I had forgotten the invites to the party, and as Max wont be back til next week I wanted to let her know the date and that Max was invited.

Max’s Mumma cried with happiness that he had been invited to a party.

She made me cry very proud tears that my daughter was such a sweet and caring girl.

The four carers cried to see the Mumma’s crying.

Immy is just wanting to know what all the fuss is about, and will there be balloons, if so, we need a blue one for Max. OK?

I may not be able to blog for awhile

Thankfully these are not ours. Ouch!

I may still be in shock for a few days and may not be able to blog...why?

I have just taken myself and the girls to the dentist.

The good news is that we all have perfect teeth. Not a filling, nor a hole or any treatment required.

The bad news.

It just added $560 to the credit card to confirm this.

(And Imogen was seen for free).

We did however get a new toothbrush each.

Do you have toothy pegs that cost a fortune when there is nothing wrong with them?