Rare opportunity

Well talk about strange. I'm currently sitting at home all by MYSELF. Yup thats right no one is hear.
I don't have a little person saying "I'm hungry" and yeah.
I've had a wonderful long shower, hung out some washing and even sorted out my boards on Pinterest (Yeah I created a new board for toys so I needed to sort it out - I'm a bit of a computer file freak. I like my boards to be organised. Yeah I know I'm strange lol.)
So I even have a opportunity to write a blog post.
For those of you who arent friends of mine on facebook here is the progress of the Dollys and the house.

I have 24 days to complete it. So fingers crossed.

I have started in the house now, Have one window done and will hopefully finish the other and window and door tonight. That will just leave attaching the roof to both side of the house and then attaching the lining to the house and sewing it together.

Hopefully the sewing machine that I have borrowed started being nice to me and lets me sew the other side of the velcro on the lining for the beds and for keeping the house together.

Alrighty wish me luck :)

Lets see why................

So lets see why I have been to busy to blog?
Well I don't actually know why. Time seems to of run away from me.
We have been sick with nasty sinus infections and all those things. Poor Miss Midget has had a bad run with it all. Thank goodness the drugs that we have for her at the moment have kicked in and are working.

Mr D and I have also been busy preparing for Miss Midgets birthday which is next month on the 28th.
Yes I know we're running early with prep but we're making a couple of her presents and are trying to give ourselves a bit of time so we're not rushing through it.

So instead of just rambling on with what we've been doing, here are some photos.
First set is Mr D's project (It will have some paintwork done by me once it's completed.

You may remember a while ago I was going on about a toy wooden kitchen for Miss Midget. Yeah that idea evolved into what you see below :)

Miss Midgets Mushroom House (in the making)

Frame's up

Frame dry now and painted

Lining is attached now.

Walls and roof are currently being painted in the garage. Will post more photos as we make progress :). Currently Miss Midget thinks Daddy is building a "trailer shed" in the back yard. Wonder how long she's going to buy that one? lol


Ok so then comes my project.

Felt Dollys and eventually a Dolly House/Bag

Didn't do to badly with my score from spotlight. This is what $17 looks like :)

So didn't really have a pattern to go by so did a bit of drawing. Started off with the one down the bottom of the picture

All cut out and half sewn up

Love the wool I choose for the hair. It's come out great

And this is how she's sitting at the moment. All I have to do is the rest of the face and sew up the back of her dress.

So all up I plan to have 2 dollys and maybe a pet (haven't decided yet). They are going to have a felt bag in the shape of a house that will have some beds in it for them (I figure this make keeping them together easier and also will be good on car trips). I have thought maybe to make the beds detachable so she doesn't have to have them in the house if she's playing with her big wooden house at home.

Anyway thats the plan. It's subject to change at the moment as all of this is being hand stitched.

Also while I'm showing photos of my creations. Heres one I made yesterday.

Meet Pandy

Ok so will try and give you updates on all these projects to let you know how we're going.

People and their Opinions

So had a comment put on one of my pins on Pinterest today

"Bad language shows a lack of vocabulary and no class!"

I was a little gobsmacked by it. In my head I'm thinking "Thats fine lady, You can think that but why go to the effort to post it on my pin?" 
What did she really hope to achieve? That I was see the error of my potty mouth and take it down?


I thought about it for awhile and then posted along the lines "Thats fine that you think that, You are entitled to your opinion. Just like I am entitled to delete your comment. Have a nice day:)"

It really does baffle me why people choose to push their opinions on to others. I really don't get it. My picture wasn't harming anyone and in MY OPINION I found it quite funny. 
I'm also a bit surprised as I didn't think this sort of thing happened on Pinterest. I thought it was sort of a "You can take it or leave it thing". Didn't even think that someone would go to that much effort. Why not just go look at a pin of something else that you are interested in?

Oh well small rant over with :).
I'll leave you with one of my favourite sayings 

"Just because your offended, doesn't mean you're in the right"

Guess that works both ways though to huh, each to their own and so on :).

Haircuts and feeling guilty

This subject has been bugging me for a couple of days now. While I'm going to try very hard not to offend anyone apologies now if I manage to (There is no ill intention behind this post at all).

So on the weekend I let Miss Midget's Nana cut her hair. I did ask her to in fact. This is fine just it didn't quite turn out the way I had hoped. Nana did her best and with Miss Midget there is the wiggle bum factor to take into account.

My thing with it all is I'm thinking I should of just well enough alone. Poor Miss Midget is now being asked if she's a boy when taken out places. Majority of her curls are gone and yeah. I'm no having extreme guilt about the whole thing.

I can hear you now - "It's just a hair cut" and you are right it is but it's a big thing to be put in charge of someone else's hair. I have flash backs to my own childhood where my mother made a judgement call with my hair and I was forced to have short hair in the hopes that it would get thicker. Now again my mother did what she thought was best and I don't begrudge her that as now being in the same situation I can see how difficult the decision was. It leaves you open to "Why?" etc.

Now I cannot stress this enough, I love Tayla's Nana to pieces and I did ask her to do it so as far as I'm concerned it's not her fault at all, it's mine. I feel guilty because I have done to my child what I had done to me.

When I was little I wanted desperately to have long beautiful hair like my favourite cartoon characters but it was not to be. Instead all through out my childhood after my hair cuts I would be tormented with "Your a boy, you have a boy hair cut, why are wearing a skirt?".
I'm almost 29yrs old so you would think I would be over it by now since I had these remarks at primary school and younger but yeah things stick I guess. I just don't want Miss Midget to go through what I went through. Hmmmm therapy is needed I suspect as I hadn't realized how traumatized I was by it all lol (just kidding)
Now I realize I'm making it out to be a life changing test that I failed miserably at and am putting far to much importance into such a shallow subject. I know I'm being completely silly with this post but yeah it's how I'm feeling at the moment. This and others things but really second guessing decisions I have made in the past and feeling guilty about things that I have done - So I'm not dealing with the other things and projecting my feelings into a completely meaningless situation - Don't worry, It's ok. Just let me have my rant about this haircut and I'll be sweet lol.

Now in all my rant above which has basically been about how I'm feeling, I haven't mentioned how Missy is. Well thats the funny thing. I'm pretty sure due to the fact she's almost 3 she doesn't seem actually care or to notice she's different again (All her little play friends have very pretty girly hair).
I still have to almost hold her down to brush her hair (or do it sneakily while she's occupied doing something else) and she's not said anything about. So I'm pretty sure it's just me for the moment having this guilt trip about it all. In saying that give it another few years and my name will be mud once she starts actually paying attention to her appearance and her hair.

Before the haircut

After the haircut - Almost no Curls :(

And just to prove I'm not telling fibs about the boy haircut. Yes this is me. I'm about 3 in this photo.

Children in public

Having worked back in the CBD again for what must be coming up a year I have seen and heard my fair share of children throwing epic tantrums. I have also seen peoples reactions to these tantrums.
You can always tell the person who doesn't have a child as they get this look on their face while they are pretending they don't see. The look speaks louder than anything though "Would you shut your little monster up!!!".
You can see others as well. Like the pity look - "Oh you poor thing". I assume these people have been in a similar situation and can definitely relate to what the poor Mum or Dad is going through. I'm pretty sure thats the look I get. Well at least I hope it's the look I get and not this one, the "I'm glad it's you not me" look. These people try  for the pity look but theres a smugness about them that you know exactly what they are thinking.


I'm lucky with Miss Midget, I have not had her pull a epic tantrum in town (we don't go to town very often so thats probably why) or in anywhere to public.
I dread the Supermarket though as I know one day my luck will run out and Miss will have one in there. I have managed to bypass a few that look like they may come. Distraction is the best in this situation and there are lots of things in a supermarket to do this with. If she tries the I want card and I say no and she even looks like she's going to go there I start talking about other stuff like "Can you help Mummy find.........?" or "Can you see......." or "Can you hold this for Mummy please?" this generally works. The only time I have any problem is when I'm at the counter and am trying to pay for something. Missy is insistent on having my wallet. Silly me gave it to her one day and she promptly spread the entire contents on the floor while having a look at it and deciding Mummy didn't need things. Lets just say I don't make that mistake any more. I also try not to park the trolley to close to the Eftpos machine either as little tutu fingers is just dying to "help" Mummy push the buttons.
Most of the time the Cashiers are lovely and talk to Miss and she thinks thats awesome. They also mostly understand if something doesn't quite go to plan.
There was one incident that comes to mind though where I just wished the ground had swallowed me. We were paying for our items and Miss just happened to be going through her screaming/squealing stage and no matter what I said or did she wouldn't stop it. The checkout lady made a big song and dance about it and how it hurt her ears but Miss carried on. The checkout lady was trying to be funny about it with me I guess but there was a definite "Shut your screaming monster up" undertone and look on her face. A couple of the things she said (this was a while ago so I can't remember specifically the conversation) that made me wish I'd picked a different checkout. I'd managed to ignore the screaming/squealing factor all through the supermarket and this lady made such a big deal about it with the other customers listening that I got quite embarrassed which in turn I'm sure made Miss go for it more.I think she was enjoying the attention. I don't think I could of exited that super market any faster if I'd tried.Thankfully we're out of that phase and the supermarket is safe again. Every time I go back to that supermarket though I make sure to avoid that particular checkout lady.

I could understand from her point as she'd probably put up with a few kids doing that all day but in all reality short of gagging my daughter or smacking her at the check out what was I to do? Threats do not work on a 2yr old as they don't understand and they really only have 2 volumes or at least Miss Midget does.....loud and louder.

I don't know, I guess people either understand or they don't. I think at this stage I'm lucky Missy is pretty well behaved in public. I do try not to push my luck with it though. If I can help it we use "parent common sense" and avoid places if Miss Midget is having an off sleepy/grumpy day and things like that. I realise this can't work all the time but I figure while I can there is no need to put Miss or I in that situation.

What do you guys think? Have a I missed a look that people give a Parent of a tantruming child or have you had something similar to my supermarket story. I know a few of you have strangers come up to you with odd pieces of criticism, how did it make you feel?

Getting rid of Dummies

So this post is about pacifiers and not stupid people just so we're on the same subject lol.
Don't want people to think my daughter keeps asking for her favourite stupid person - not that we know any.............

Anyway now that I cleared that up.
We are fast approaching Miss Midgets 3rd birthday (It's in August). Mr D and I have been talking about what to do about a certain dummy that Miss Midget is for lack of a better term addicted to and when to get rid of it.

No I know by writing about this I'm opening a big old can of worms but thats ok. I realise everyone has their own opinions on when to get rid of it and to be honest with you we had thought that we would of gotten rid of it by now.

We've been busy with trying to come up with a exit strategy for dummy for a little while now and basically we have come to the conclusion or at least I have that I need to harden up and not give in when Miss asks for her dummy and distract as much as possible. At the moment we are working on Dummy to be gone around her birthday and have been telling her "When your 3 that makes you a big girl and you don't need your dummy then and we'll have to say good bye to dummy", I think to a degree she understands but I'm also pretty sure she thinks her birthday is ages away.
To help make this good-bye process a little easier we have started with some rules.

1) If it's not bed time, no dummy. This to a degree works as long as Mummy toughens up. It worked last night :). The only time she gets dummy is right before bed time. We used to have this in place but we got a bit relaxed about it and it kind of snowballed. We'll know for next time to stick to our guns.

2) If she has a afternoon sleep at the moment we're (with the help of Nanny P) are in the process of weening her off it. So we're trying to convince her that she doesn't need it at nap time. I have yet to give this one ago myself as we only put it in place yesterday. So ask me again on Sunday evening how this plan is working lol.

Those are our major things we're working through at the moment.
With us working to the goal of it going at 3 that also brings up the debate on the date. Now I'm of the thinking that I don't really want to deal with having no dummy on the day of her birthday. By the time bedtime comes around she will of been running round like a mad thing for most of the day spoilt rotten with toys and sugar. So to me to take dummy away that day would just be plain mean (to me and to her lol).
I also think it needs to be a quiet weekend and we do it on the Saturday or even start on the Friday so that gives us 2 sleep ins up our sleeve to combat the screaming that will go with no dummy.

Yes I know there could be no screaming and it could all go really good. I'd be stoked if it did but with the attachment that Miss Midget has to dummy I'm picking we won't be so lucky.

We have been given so many interesting ideas of how to get rid of dummy. Some I'm not so sure I can go through with but some have been awesome ideas like
- The Dummy Fairy comes and takes it away
- You give your dummy to the Rubbish Bin and then you get to pick out a prize for being such a big girl.
There are a couple of others that were good but I can't remember them of the top of my head.

My daughter has a long history with Dummy.


26/11/09

As some of you know (probably most but I'm pretending people don't know me personally when I write this lol), my daughter was 3 and 1/2 weeks early when she was born. 4lb 4oz. She was just a tiny Midget back then. We stayed in the hospital for 10 days and got to bring her home finally after 10days. I think we lasted maybe 3wks at home before out of pure desperation and lack of sleep (I was having to feed her every 3hrs regardless of if she was sleeping or not because she was so little) and knowing she was not hungry etc we gave her a dummy. This dummy was a magic. I got to sleep and life was good. God forbid you went anywhere without said dummy though or you paid the price. There have been a couple of times where we had to make a emergency stops at the super markets to replace lost or forgotten dummy but we were fine with that as it brought peace and quiet and a happy child.
The dummy has had many names in our house like Gobstopper, Dumdum, Pipe (Mr D's childhood name for it) and d.u.m.m.y (spelling it out so Miss didn't know what we were talking about). It will be the end of era when dummy goes.
Well wish us luck on this new part of the adventure. At least if all goes wrong we still have blankie :)

Random Cat saga

Well those of you whom are friends with me on Facebook would have been hearing a lot about the random cat that turned up at home on Saturday night and has tried to convince everyone it lives here.
Those of you who don't know heres my little story...................
So we had a party on Saturday night and some time during the evening a very friendly black and white fluffy cat turned up. Now our guests thought we'd got a cat as this pretty kitty was making itself right at home. We were having to remove the cat from our house multiple times throughout the evening. At one stage it even tried hoping in the taxi with Mr D's father. It's a very friendly kitty.
When we woke up the next day the cat was still hanging round. No matter how much we tried to convince it otherwise the cat was determined it lived at our house.
We even had Miss Midget saying "Kitty, you don't live here. Go home".
Poor Kitty still didn't give up and over the course of the last few days we have had return visits from this cat. It even decides it's going to snuggle up on the porch swing and sleep in the afternoon sun almost every afternoon since it turned up.

 

Well yesterday I thought this is getting a tad ridiculous and started to feel bad every time I told it to go home (I had to remove it from car yesterday, When I was getting Miss Midget out of the back seat it decided it was going to sit in the front seat. A quick survey round the immediate neighbourhood told me that everyone had had visits from this cat and it didn't live at any of the addresses.
So I rang the SPCA to see if anyone had reported it, I also had a search online to see if anything turned up.
I got 2 phone numbers. One lady thought it might have been hers and got a bit excited as she'd reported her cat missing in August - Yeah it was a long shot to begin with but you never know. When I sent her the photo it turned out not to be hers. So now I feel bad for both Kitty and the lady for getting her hopes up. The other lady hasn't replied to my texts so I'm picking it's not hers.

There are enough neighbourhood cats in my area where I don't think Kitty is going hungry. I think it has been pinching of them. When it comes to see us it's just wanting someone to give it some love and pats.

Have a few people who were nice enough to re-post the photo I put up on Facebook which is cool. I have also rung the local Vets and providing Kitty comes to see me this afternoon we have a date with the Vet to see if it has a micro chip.


I can hear you all going "Why go to so much trouble for a Cat that isn't yours?"
Well to answer that this Kitty is far to friendly to not be someones beloved pet. I know it's got a home and people who love it. I just hope I can find it.


A few of you have said "Why don't you keep it?", Well as much as I would like to we are not really in a position to have a pet at the moment. The thought has crossed my mind multiple times but Mr D and I have talked about it and yeah it's not the right time for a pet at the moment.


Will keep you posted on whats happening with Kitty. I hope I find it's owner. I won't feel so bad when I send it home as I know it will have a home to go to :).

So if you know this Kitty or know someone who is missing a Kitty like this, Please get them to get in contact with me.