Tiny Human's Room: It begins

Tiny Human needs his own room,

we agreed but didn't do anything too soon.

Our four bedroom house has the space

but there is much stuff all over the place.

One room for mum and dad,

one room for computers and other doodad.

One room for the little women,

this would mean back to the beginnin'.

The last room for Tiny Human,

a place for him to cry, sleep and poo in.

The change did not seem hard,

some things would need to go the junk yard.

The girls went from two rooms to one,

they didn't care it was all about fun.

Their hoard of stuff sure had grown,

since the little girls came with one bag of their own.

I discarded and I moved,

all the belongings until everyone approved.

Now the bunk beds are back,

and giggling at nights I am tyring to attack.

But as for Tiny Human's new room,

his is a bomb, kind of a cloakroom.

Rubbish and dolls litter the floor,

and remnants of blue tack on the wall.

Perhaps this job is bigger than one day,

my body surely agrees anyway.

I did 8000 steps just fixing room one, 

I don't know if I can do another one.

Next weekend I will make it happen,

yellow, grey and teal I will colour the room in.

Tiny Human will have his room,

Once we add furniture and a good broom.

 

 

Tiny Human is a tiny human boy!

Lions and tigers and bears oh my!

I mean…

Colours and clothes and names oh my!

Trucks and cars and mud oh my!

Dinosaurs and pirates and guns oh my!

 

(Sing to "We’re off to see the wizard…")

Chris and I made a baby, a wonderful baby boy

We’ll find he is a great little boy, if ever a little boy there was.

If ever oh ever a amazing kid there was this one because,

Because, because, because, because, because,

Because of the wonderful things he’ll do.

Chris and I made a baby, a wonderful baby boy!

Meet your sisters

Dear Tiny Human,

When you come into the world, you will come into the best family there is. The truth is, it isn't for me or your dad that it is so fantabulous, it is because of your sisters.

One year ago today, I nervously went to Sydney airport to pick them up. I knew they were flying for the very first time and were travelling from their old house in Tamworth with their Case Manager, Natalia. I already knew what they looked like as I used to see them all the time, but I was still worried I might not recognise them. And even more worried they would see nothing familiar in me. A few months before when we had picked Isaac up from from his carer, Leah had remembered me. She had said "You used to come to our house". That I did.

People started to come off the plane and I eagerly waited in a position they could see me, but secretly wanted to hide a little bit. Then I saw them. Two tiny little girls stepped out of the corridor with Natalia. They had colourful clothes, comfy sneakers and little backpacks on their backs. I said hi and they stayed close to the safety of Natalia.

I spoke, as we walked, about how far away the car was because I had not parked here many times and we had to walk for a while to get to it. But once we did, it would be a really quick drive home.

My vivid memories are less reachable after this point. I know the first night was really smooth and strangely everything seemed to go smoothly after that. They fit right into our lives and I felt a strong need to look after them. The more and more they became parts of our lives, the more and more I saw just how remarkable they were, and knew they would not be leaving our family.

You see, there is something really special about your sisters. They are the most amazing and resilient girls you will ever meet and they make me and your daddy better people. 

You are so lucky to have a big big sister who is super smart. Leah is a great reader and speller and her memory is surprising! She loves sports and being active and works so hard at everything she does. Leah is one of these kids who keeps trying until she gets it right, she doesn't give up easily. And eventually, she gets it right - she wouldn't have it any other way.

Leah is kind to her younger siblings. She is so lovely and soft with Isaac and Mani and loves taking care of them. I know she will care for you just the same. She is nice to other kids at school too, she shares and takes turns and helps them when they need it.

The other thing to know about Leah is that she likes to learn. Her brain doesn't always stretch as far as she might like and at times you wouldn't be blamed for thinking there was a logical part of brain missing, but her one track mind, means she wants to know everything about that subject. She will ask questions and repeat information and you will always hear her say "Guess what?" before she tells you what she has discovered that day.

Tara is so much more excitable than Leah and likes to keep five things in her mind at a time. She enjoys laughing and talking about her Bum-Bum. I have no doubt, she will be pointing and talking about yours as soon as you come out! Tara will do anything to laugh and make others laugh. She is still learning how to get others to laugh with her and want to spend time with her, but most of the time she doesn't mind.

Tara is a natural gymnast. She jumps and climbs and swings at any chance she can. I call her a monkey. Her high energy comes in handy in her class, but gets in her trouble a little too when she is too busy to listen. This girl is great at following instructions... when she stops to listen! The thing is, she loves to help out and be appreciated for her helping.

What will work out really well for you is that she wants to help take care of you. Tara loves babies and thinks all small things are cute and adorable. And let me tell you, when her little mouth says the word 'adorable' it truly is adorable! She already enjoys holding Phoebe and India and likes to pat them on the head. She is interested in babies and just watching and talking about them. She is really going to love you.

So, the truth is, your sisters are better than fabulous, so much for than fantastic and remarkable doesn't come close to describing their little personalities. They are fantabulous and everything more! You are so lucky to have these big sisters and I am happy to have these daughters. I have been blessed to share the last year with them and I can't wait to see what comes next!

Love Mummy

I made a rattle

So, most people know that I like to make things. I don't like instructions or patterns, but when I can, i love to make things from scratch. There are times this works out well and other times when I fail miserably. Thankfully today was not one of those days! I even made a song.

I made a rattle,
I made a rattle,
Yeah Yeah Yeah!

I made it myself,
I made it myself,
I'm so great!

It has spots, 
It has spots,
And bells inside!

I made a rattle,
I made a rattle,
Yeah Yeah Yeah!

The thing is, it didn't start life meaning to be a rattle. It was meant to part of a mobile i am making... but this is generally how I make my things, on accident!

I am still planning on making a mobile. It looks great in my head. It is yellow and grey themed and makes a bell sound and there are star shapes and it will clip onto the crib for purely decorative reasons. So many decorations to gather dust. But before I complete this project, I may accidentally make some other things along the way. Stay posted!

I have two sick babies - Part 2

When we left off, the mother was worried about two of her babies and planning a way to alleviate pain for them. 

The mother made an appointment with the dental clinic for the little girl. She was nervous and excited to wait for the appointment and asked her mummy constantly when it would be time to go. Four hours, three hours, two hours and forty-five minutes, two hours and forty minutes and so on. When it was finally time to go the girl held her mums hand and said she was worried about having her tooth pulled out. The mother assured her that she would be there and would hold her hand.

At the clinic they read stories in the waiting room whilst the doctors ate lunch. Then it was their turn. Tara fearfully followed her mother into the treatment room and reluctantly sat on the chair. It went up and she put sunglasses on to block out the bright light. The doctor took a look then said they would need to take an x-ray.

The little girl sat on the chair with the lead vest on it and reached out for her mum who could not be in the room. The mother rocked the girls' doll in her arms and reassured her that everything would be okay. And it was. The x-ray showed the troublesome tooth was actually ready to come out, the root was dead and it was being pushed up by a much bigger tooth. The pain was not due to the wiggly tooth but the infection the girl had given herself. It turns out with her fingers constantly in her mouth she had introduced a bacteria that the mouth did not like much and it had made her gum swell up and cause her pain.

The options were to pull the tooth - if the girl would allow it - or leave it there and it would come out on its own. Given the pain, the mother wanted the tooth out and the girl was more than happy for this to happen. She was even excited. It would be her first tooth and the tooth fairy would come!

The doctor put some numbing cream on the gum and prepared the girl for the shock of the tooth coming out. One... two... three... OW! The tears came down. The mother could hear the little ones pain. They held onto each other and the little one had to concentrate on biting down to stop the blood. She cried and wanted comfort from mum all the way back to the car.

But, when the little one looked in the mirror of the car, her tears went away. It was as if seeing the gap in her mouth made it all real. She had "lost" a tooth! Now it was excitement time. She couldn't wait to show her sister, and for the tooth fairy to come and to show her friends and to send a photo to Mummy Julie. Wow, my first tooth!

Once at home with a resting 5 year old, the mother could focus her attention on her eldest daughter. Her orange cat, Penelope, was still in the washing basket she had been in when the mother had left for the dentist. The mother fed the cat some dry food and offered her water which she refused. The mother was sad for her tiny cat and wanted to make it better but it seemed Pene was not recovering.

When the night time came, Pene was carried into her mothers room, washing basket and all. The mother knew that the cat would not be able to get out of the basket without pain or assistance and wanted to be there when it occurred. They all slept until a clatter in the early hours of the morning following by the sound of a cat in pain woke the mother and father. The mother was raised from her bed to comfort the cat and assure her she was looked after.

The mother made Pene a new bed on ground level and encouraged the sweet cat to go back to sleep. It was at this point that the mother knew the doctor was on the list of things to do tomorrow... today? Saturday.

So in the morning she scooped Penelope up and put her int the RSPCA box that Carla had come home in. Pene did not like this one bit but was unable to protest among her pain. The mother had found a nearby vet with great reviews and turned up for a consultation. The vet saw her quickly and poor Pene cried when she was touched and viewed by the big man doctor. He said the left hind leg was very swollen and they needed to get x-rays. It could be an abscess or a fracture, they just didn't know. Pene was packed back into her box and the mother signed the form to allow her to be looked after fro the next few hours.

Anxiously the hours passed for the mother until at 2:30 the doctor rang and said there was no fracture and no need for surgery or a splint. What Pene had was torn and hyper-extended ligaments that had caused the swelling in her leg and her hip. She would probably be saw for days and would need some anti-inflammatory to help her heal as well as the pain medication she had been given. But it meant Penelope could be picked up and taken back home.

At home, the mother was supposed to keep the little cat inside and already Pene was hating this. She was wild and hated kitty-litter more than the pain she was in. But the mother kept her inside over night and like the soft hearted mother she was, she slept lightly in order to hear when she needed to respond to the needs of her child.

Today on Sunday, Pene is still hobbling around and Tara is more than pleased with the gap in her mouth. With some rest, Pene will heal, and in time Tara will loose more teeth.

The End.

I have two sick babies

Against the norm, I am not sick. But I have two little ones who are the opposite. The first story goes like this;

Once upon a time a little girl, named Tara, had a wiggly tooth. She was so excited to be like her big sister and get a visit from the Tooth Fairy. So excited in fact that she wiggled that tooth all day and night in the hopes that it might come out sooner than it wanted to. 

But the weeks past and still the tooth stayed in her little mouth. It proudly sat among its friends and chomped like the best of them. It had been so long that the girls mother had forgotten all about that tooth until one Thursday morning.

The little girl was brushing her teeth and playing with that famous tooth. She was super excited and said: 'mummy mummy, I heard a snap, my tooth is going to come out soon.'

A snap was a weird sound to come from a tooth, but the mother figured if the that little bone was just holding on by a few strings to the gum, a snap might be appropriate. She thought little of it and shared in the girls excitement for the few moment until she was encouraging the girl to wash all the toothpaste off her mouth. The little girl always had toothpaste on her mouth... and cheeks... and clothes... and anywhere else!

The little girl and her sister went off to school like normal. But for Tara it was not normal. All day long she played with her tooth. She had her fingers in her mouth whenever she could and if that was not possible, she discovered she could wiggle this tiny bottom tooth with her top teeth! What a marvelous revelation! It is doubted whether the girl learnt anything on this Thursday amidst the distraction of the tiny wiggly tooth.

The afternoon came and at home she wiggled it some more. She stood in the bathroom in front of the mirror watching it move back and forth, back and forth. Soon she was carrying a small mirror through the house so she could see the movement constantly. Even at dinner, the mirror sat next to her.

She brushed her teeth at the end of the night and was tucked up into bed with kisses and hugs. Her mummy got into bed too, she was just as tired. But something was different. As her mother lay in bed, playing games on her phone, she heard some sobs coming from the child's bedroom then little feet on the floor boards, then the tiniest, tearful voice said: 'mummy'.

Little Tara was at the door saying her tooth hurt, she was crying in pain and there was nothing her mother could do. As after bed door appearances where not an uncommon thing, the girls' mother waited in bed to see if the girl would wander back to her room on her own. Today was different though, the child stayed at the door, little pain tears running down her face. 'My tooth really stings.'

She said this over and over and then asked for a cuddle. Mummy, got down off bed (a little sore because of her own pain in her stretching belly) and hugged the tiny girl. She took the girl back to her room, kissed and hugged her again, but the silent tears meant that the mother was not able to leave. She knew her tiny daughter was in pain and needed comfort tonight.

They sat and cuddled until the mother got the girl to lie down with her. The mother sang songs that made no sense and sounded like;

Close your eyes little Tara, it's time for you to sleep. Close your eyes little Tara, it's time for you to dream. You can dream about a pirate ship sailing out to sea, finding lots of treasure and eating monkeys. Perhaps that's not a good thing to dream about, what about mermaids instead. Dream about their long golden hair and tails swimming everywhere...

This gibberish went on for a little while until she lowered the volume to nothing and the mother laid her head on the pillow to feign sleep. After ten minutes of resting the little girls' breathing deepened and slowly her mother un-wedged her arm and moved out of the bedroom. Back in her own room, the mother drifted off to sleep, until the second story started and woke her from bed with a leap.

The second story went something like this;

Once upon a time a mother had just comforted her sore five year old to sleep when she heard a loud commotion outside her window. There was a bang and cats rowing then a crash and more sounds of a feline fight. It stopped and the mother put her head back to rest. Perhaps it involved her Penelope, but this was not uncommon.

But the mother did not sleep, she lazily texted her husband to see if he knew where the bright orange cat was. He did not, he searched for her and when the fluff-ball was inside, he invited the mother to take a look.

Penelope was a middle-aged domestic cat with half a tail. The mother had got her first child from the RSPCA seven years prior and had loved the strange animal despite her want to be wild. Pene used to chase birds and mice and share them inside, but as she neared eight years old, she appeared to grow tried and lazy. She even failed to defend her territory from the mean neighbourhood cats that lived across the road.

These cats were fierce. Four or five of them lived just across the road with a woman owner. Sometimes you could walk past and see them sitting there on the front lawn eerily watching you. They never appeared friendly and the mother never petted or played with them.

They came into our front yard, stalked up beside our cars and then overtime were so comfortable with our property, they were in the backyard and even in the house! They would eat Pene's food and walk through the house like they owned it. The once wild, street cat, Pene no longer chased and clawed at them.

She fought with them some, usually at night and occasionally growled when they came near to her but until this Thursday night, the cats had only had harmless scuffles. 

Once Pene was inside with the mother and her husband, they could see she was not one hundred percent alright. She was covered in the leaves from the annoying plant that stuck to her fur and was not comfortable walking. In fact she flopped herself on the stair as if she had run out of energy. 

The mother was worried, this was not like Pene at all. She started to take the leaves from the orange fur and although the cat allowed this, she was not about to let her mum take it from her left leg. Pene got up and hobbled into the study, she went behind the couch and sat herself down where she could barely be reached. The husband brought the cat some water and said he would keep an eye on her whilst he watched some television shows. He shut all the windows so that Pene was forced to stay inside.

So the mother went to sleep and in the morning the two stories merged to make one. 

The little girl woke up in pain and cried at the thought of eating. She let her mum know that not only did her tooth still sting, but her head hurt as well. 

The mother found her cat limping out of the study, not running to her bowl eager for breakfast. She was limping more and made sad sounds when she moved down the two steps to the laundry.

The mother did what good mother's do and tried to fix the things she could not fix. She made the girl some soft corm flakes for breakfast and gave her some panadol. She encouraged the girl to just brush her top teeth and said that she would be staying home from school today. Next she made sure the cat was eating something then helped her get comfortable in the washing basket she was trying to climb into.

Before she could focus on Tara and Pene, she had another problem to solve. The girl's older sister Leah was not a happy chappy. For the mother had suggested they may be able to ride their bikes to school that morning and given the nights events, the mother said that simply could not happen. The mother wanted to keep an eye on her two babies in pain and they would need to delay the bike ride until next week. This made Leah cry and sulk and she needed extra persuasion to get dressed. But when she did, Leah sat with her mum next to Pene and saw just how sore the little cat was.

With Leah at school and Tara at home a dentist appointment needed to be made to fix the little girls' pain. As she planned the day she watched the cat and carried her outside to see if she needed to use the toilet, she did not. She just wanted to sit in the sun. The mother would allow this and check on her oldest daughter through the day.

And because it is not yet eleven o'clock, the story is not ready to end... check back in soon to see if my babies are on the mend.