Sick Babies are Sad Babies

Alex has had her first bad cold, which has been a bundle of fun I must say.  I feel terribly sorry for all of my friends who have sick bubbas, especially those busy catching their first ever round of daycare bugs!

In this past week I have learned many things, most of them gross:

• Baby noses produce epic amounts of snot despite being tiny and button-like
• Babies like to rub their snotty noses because no doubt they're itchy
• Snotty baby hands are sticky and collect many cat hairs from the carpet
• Babies would rather snuggle into your shoulder (aww) and snort boogers all over it (eww) than have you wipe their nose with a tissue
• Tissues are great for shredding
• And eating
• Karvol is great stuff (I daresay this is the only useful piece of information in this post)

Miss is over feeling ill, however has a residual runny nose and cough which means she grunts like a little piggy now when she's crawling.  I really shouldn't laugh at my little piggy motoring around the lounge but I am instead a horrible unsympathetic mother.

Adventures of Special Cat

Yesterday Mel came to visit with her gorgeous wee boy Ollie.  Unlike Alex (who is five days his senior) Ollie is a master crawler, so I thought it would be a good idea to put the baby gate up in the doorway to the room containing the cat litter trays.  It worked a treat - Alex happily sat in the lounge and watched Ollie crawl up the hallway and back again.

I left the gate up after they left, partly because Alex might all of a sudden get the urge to crawl into the spare room, partly because the cats may as well get used to it being there and partly because I'm lazy.  Mostly because I'm lazy.

Later in the afternoon I found Basil sitting in the hallway looking a bit sad.  So I picked him up and dropped him on the other side of the gate.  He seemed happy and went to sit on the windowsill so I carried on with what I had been doing.  When I came back 10 minutes later he was lying down against the baby gate again, but this time he was still in the spare room.  O...kay.  I picked him up and deposited him back in the hallway.

As I was getting ready for bed I found Basil lying on the spare room side of the baby gate again, so I threw a toy mouse past the door to see what he'd do.  Extreme front leg extension through the gate, but no hopping over it.  I fed Zari some of her new dental bikkies.  Basil got all excited, and his hunger greed eventually got the better of him and he hopped over.  

I went to bed last night, marvelling at the cat who could apparently scale a 6' tall fence to escape the courtyard or climb onto the roof of our house but couldn't manage a 60cm high wooden door barrier.  Little did I know he'd get a whole pile stupider this morning...

Alex and I were on the floor in the middle of the lounge while I changed her nappy when a brush-tailed Basil zoomed past.  Mrraaoooowwwww he howled, as he sped around the coffee table and bolted to the other end of the lounge.  This amused Alex.  He cornered, mrrraaaoooowwwed and took off for another lap.  Tail up, ears back, impressively nimble for one who "carries his weight well".   After completing his two laps of the lounge he zoomed past us again and headed down the hallway.  I thought he just had a case of the zoomies and carried on changing Alex.  

Then it hit me.  I could smell poo.  Cat poo.  So much stinkier than baby poo.   Oh good lord.  I held my breath and raced into the spare room to open the window and spied a cat-splat in the litter tray.  Upon returning to the lounge for some fresh (ish) air, I spotted some cat poo on my purse.  And some on the carpet next to it.  And some on the carpet by the coffee table.  Tiny potent gloopy stink bombs dotted around the lounge along the path Basil had just taken.  Wut.

I'll spare you the details of the cleanup process, but I have now concluded that Basil's thought process went something like this:  Ohmygod, my belly is rumbling!!!  Rumbling lots! I need to poo!!!  Ohgodohgodohgodohgod!!!!  There's something blocking the doorway to the litter trays!!  But I need to poo!!!  I can't get in!! Ohgodohgodohgod!!  Arrghhh!! *puff puff*  Arrrgghhhh!!!!

I have *the* most special cat.  And a shitty purse.

Party Dress

One of the few things I have managed to achieve in the last month was making a dress for Alex to wear to her Great-Gran's 90th birthday party.  I believe me actually finishing this project had something to do with having to work to a deadline and the fact that Alex had nothing else nice enough to wear to such an occasion!

I used Burda 9712, which I bought and downloaded for $4 US from here.  The printing and putting together of the pattern was tedious, but if you can get patterns on special they're much cheaper than buying retail.

With the cats helping, I cut the pattern to size 18 months - except for the length, with I cut to the 12 month size.  For my 10 month old baby.  It fit perfectly around the yoke, but should have plenty of room for her to hopefully wear during summer.

The yoke is all double-sided, with fiddly bias edging around the bottom of the arm holes.

Annoyingly (typically?), the back yoke and gathering came out much better than the front.

So much topstitching!

And here is madam modelling it at the party.  After several hours of cuddles from random old ladies she was a bit frazzled, but that wasn't anything a quick cat-nap on mum's lap couldn't fix.

I didn't get any decent shots of her whole outfit on the day, so tried again tonight but she wouldn't cooperate sitting up...  

She has inherited a hatred of all things hat, bib and sock from her father, so the little Mary Jane shoes that Mum crocheted for her don't get to stay on long.

Not bad for the first item of clothing I've made in 10 (?!) years.  Was quite a nice change from rat hammocks, pram pimping and soft toys!

Blog? What's that?

You may have noticed a lack of blog posts here lately.  I'm going to go ahead and blame the tiny human in our lives for that - what with her teething and growth spurting and teething and not sleeping and teething I haven't really had any free time without a still tooth-less grizzle monster nearby demanding cuddles.

So, what else has happened in that time?  I'm three, nearly four weeks behind on my photo challenge.  Nev has had one whole day off work. The cats went to the vet for the annual check up - Basil has gained 500g this year and Zari's teeth are shocking so now I get to try and brush them(!).  Nev's Gran turned 90 so we went north to attend the party and Alex was cuddled by many old ladies.  We haven't had curtains in the living area since Monday as the curtain rails had to come down so our new windows could be installed.  Alex has started throwing herself forward onto her stomach (from sitting) quite often and it almost looks like she might be trying to finally figure out this crawling business.  But not before she yells into the carpet a lot.

And finally, I've perfected the art of making a Brownie in a Mug.  Because I feel so guilty about neglecting my blog I'm going to share the recipe with my dear readers - all 11 of you (including my Mum).  

Ingredients:

4 tbsp flour

4 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp cocoa

2 tbsp vegetable oil (not an oil with a strong flavour, which I don't have so I just melts me some butter instead...!)

2 tbsp water

Dash of salt

Instructions:

Put dry ingredients in a mug and mix.  Add oil and water and mix well - it's easy to miss mixing the dry ingredients right at the bottom of the mug.  Lick spoon.  Contemplate eating mixture as-is.  Nuke for about 1 minute (1:20 in my 1150W microwave).  Brownie should still be gooey in the centre when done.

Weekly Photography Challenge - Week 23: Open

I made Mum open her present realllly slowly tonight so I could take photos.

Birthday Time, originally uploaded by rattyree.

Happy Birthday Mummeh! <3

The Pram Saga Concludes...

Well.  The folk in Australia weren't sure what had happend for me to be sent the seat I was.  The lovely customer service lady in Auckland misread my email and thought I was only annoyed about the fact that the seat I received was a slightly different design to the original one I had, but they had two sent over this month so she could swap it out for me if I really wanted.  

So I put my awesome tablet to good use once more and drew all over the photo I had taken.  I emailed her back, explaining that while the seat I got was uglier, I could deal with that.  Unfortunately I couldn't deal with the lack of two straps and the buckle clips.  

Replacement seat on left, cat-pee-smelly seat on right

"Oh gosh! I'm so sorry!"  She told me to destroy the seat with half a harness and sent their second seat to me that afternoon.  It arrived today while I was feeding Alex so I had to unlatch her, put myself back together and race to the door before the courier man decided I wasn't home.  I was not prepared to organise redelivery for after the long weekend!  

This one is the same design as the original (now cat-pee-smelly) one and now I even have two head bumpers and sets of shoulder strap pads.  And more importantly:  it will NEVER be in a position where one of the cats could use it as a toilet.

I attached it to the frame and put the pram back together in record time, then celebrated by going for a nice hour long walk this afternoon.  I rewarded myself with a chocolate bar for walking so far, thus negating any health benefits of the walk.  

Also, when the hell did my baby get so big?!?!  

31st January

Today

Weekly Photography Challenge - Week 22: Brown

Basil is large, and brown.  I took a photo of him for the week we did "Large" so it is only fair I took a photo of him for "Brown" as well.  

Brown Mouse is Doomed, originally uploaded by rattyree.

Of course, he didn't just sit there and stare at mousey...

Zari was feeling a bit left out, so I went over to her and jiggled mousey around for her to chase.  

Unfortunately Basil of Doom in the background there ran her over in an effort to get to the mouse first.  Zari went and sulked under my desk.    

Weekly Photography Challenge - Week 21: Anger

I wouldn't put it past Basil to think slug and snail bait was tiny kitty bikkies, so the bait we bought is safe for children and pets - and evidently slugs and snails.

Grrrrr Snails!, originally uploaded by rattyree.

The Pram Saga Continues...

I experienced a moment of complete joy this morning when a package from Britax arrived.  The seat!  Finally!  Only three weeks after the last ETA I had been given!  After being out of action for three loooong months, the Strider would be coming out of retirement.

And more importantly, the Brick (as it has lovingly become known) would be going back INTO retirement - and not a moment too soon.  Last week the suspension on the back wheels broke so it's not overly usable anymore.

I did a little happy dance (away from the windows so the neighbours wouldn't see).  The cats thought I'd gone bonkers and ran away.  Alex got very excited and started clapping and bouncing up and down.  

I tore the box open, tipped its contents out, grabbed the seat frame from under a pile of fabric in the sewing room (!) and got to work.

Imagine my horror when I finished attaching the seat to the frame and discovered that parts of the harness were nowhere to be found.  Two of the five harness points missing.  Gone.  Not there.   HOW THE EFF DOES THAT HAPPEN?!??!?!?!?!?

So now I have a new seat that I could put Alex in, so long as I don't mind her falling out as we walk along.

The lovely customer service lady in Auckland has contacted Australia to see what happened, but she hasn't heard back from them yet.

I might just cry.

Or fly to Australia and set fire to their office.

The Great Debate

Nev grew up eating Vegemite and I grew up eating Marmite, so we've always had both in the pantry.  We have had many great debates about which is better.  

"You suck"  .... "**** you!!"

I'm open to eating Vegemite (it's not terrible), but Nev is completely anti Marmite.  No child of his will eat that sweet muck!

Oh really?  

om nom nom

You'll note the photos were taken at the beginning of her meal.  She ended up with Marmite all over her face (including her eyelid after she rammed soggy toast into her eye for some reason), through her hair, up both arms and down both legs.  Her bib escaped relatively unscathed.  

Now I'm being accused of withholding Vegemite because I know she'll like it better and I will lose the argument.  Pffft.  I'm just not bothering to give it to her as it will be a waste of perfectly good toast!  Although he's welcome to take over and make her lunch for me this weekend if he'd like to prove his point...  *cough*hint*cough*