Not Quite a Princess

When we went to the doctors to take Chicken for her needles I was concerned. Not because of the needles (although she put up a pretty good fight), but because of her height and weight measurements. She is tall and thin, not unhealthilty so, but tall and thin nonetheless. And she's blonde, and she's pretty. My very deep concern is that she'll keep up this trend and become a tall, thin, pretty, blonde teenager.

See she's just too pretty for her own good.

I have one comfort in all of this. She is gross and violent. Okay, I guess that's two things.

Chicken is the kind of girl that you might pass in the shops and think "What kind of mother lets her kid get that dirty?" She constantly has food on her face and in her hair, she rolls around in dirt and sand and she eats it too. She farts all the time. She is constantly getting rubbish out of the bin and playing with it.  Chicken is also quite violent. Gremlin may start most of the fights, but she sure finishes them, usually with a pretty solid bite, poke in the eye or squeal in his ear. She is also pretty unforgiving to herself, she is forever covered in small scratches and bruises. In fact she even sucks her thumb so hard that she cuts her thumb on her teeth. So it could actually heal, we had to put a waterproof bandage on her thumb and then tape up the entire thumb so she wouldn't take the bandage off.

So hopefully she'll stay gross and violent as a teenager too, that should keep the boys away. At least for a little while.

It's Getting Out of Control

I'm referring of course to Gremlin's Jedi mind powers.

Here are the things that people have given us in the past three days alone:

 Yet another lady from day care went op-shopping and bought this for Gremlin. She actually tracked it down on the internet, went to Townsville (a 4 1/2 hour drive away, gee I hope she was there for some other reason than my son) and bought it for him.

Yes and our really nice neighbours gave us clothes and bikes, their grandson has outgrown these things, so they thought they'd give them to us.

The people in our life are too nice. They are all in his thrall. We asked him to use his powers and get us a house, we'll see if it happens.

3 Reasons I Hate Toilet Training

Reason 1. The Walk of Shame

You know what I mean, that shame faced walk up to the nearest shop person. You have to explain your embarassing situation. Your darling child has just peed on their floor. Then you offer to clean it up but they refuse to let you. And you walk slowing away, feeling awful because your terrible skills as a parents made your kid pee out in public.

Reason 2. The Ability but not the Will

Gremlin has just displayed an amazing skill, one that every boy seems to learn early. He can fart on command. he can't manage to tell me he needs to go to the toilet, ever, but he has enough control to FART ON COMMAND!

Reason 3. The Guilt

That knowledge that if you were just home more, if you were more patient, more attenitve, more consistent. you could get that child toilet trained. But you are just too darned busy.

If I keep this up, he'll probably be toilet trained before he goes to uni, what do you think?

Frere Jaques

Who ever composed this song deserves to be tortured, for a very, very long time. And by torture I mean listening to Gremlin singing, over and over and over again.

There are probably 6 million songs to this tune, and I'm pretty sure Gremlin knows them all.

You know how parenting and pregnancy magazines tell you to sing to your children, that they love the sound of your voice and that it helps their development blah, blah blah. Well it's all lies. It's just other parents trying to get your brats to sing the same songs their brats sing so that someone else can feel their pain.

I'm so sick of his singing. I love him, I really do, but I really don't care about the whereabouts of "Thumbkin"

My Son has Jedi Mind Powers

Yes, I'm pretty sure Gremlin is a Jedi. Why? Because of the number of people that are in his thrall.

When we pick up the kids from daycare we get bombarded by carers telling us how sweet and charming our son is, how they wish more of the kids were like him. We figured that once he was settled in he would show his true self, you know, the tantrums, the stubborness and the sibling bashing, but it's been almost a year and the gushing hasn't stopped. It has in fact gotten worse. One lady actually purchased a Wiggles bag for him while op-shopping, not for the daycare, but for him. Another is looking to buy guitars for the Junior Kindy room, just because he likes them so much.

Gremlin even has the other kids in love with him. When we arrive, an older child takes him by the hand and includes him in their game. He has the entire Junior Kindy room playing the air guitar with with him whenever they play a Wiggles CD. It's crazy.

The real question is, will he use his powers for good or evil?

Genes

I'm getting sick of explaining. I shouldn't need to defend my fidelity to others. I have never cheated on my husband. No-one asks me outright but a few people seem to assume I have.

Why do I need to say this?

Because my son is not white. I am white, W@dsy is white and my daughter Chicken is white. But Gremlin is not.

He is brown, he has light brown skin and light brown hair and dark brown round puppy dog eyes. He is not adopted, he is mine and W@sdy's. By why does he look different?

Genetics!

Australia is a very multicultral nation. W@dsy is English and his mother is English, his dad is Irish they are all white. My father is a white man born in Australia, my mother was born in India. She is Anglo-Indian with a olive skin. People see my mother's skin, and my stepdad's curly hair and think that Gremlin is theirs. But they look at me and Wadsy and assume that I've been fooling around.

People say,  "Gee your son is really tan." and I say "Yes" and leave a really long pause while they decide whatever they are going to decide about me. I shouldn't need to explain my family tree whenever I meet someone.

W@dsy never has people comment on my son's skin to him, why does everyone ask me?

Am I being too touchy about this? I think I'm just kind of sick of it.