Don't Google - Saturday

This is 10minutes AFTER it was spotless *sigh*

After finishing Wednesday's blog last night and googling the subject,  I am totally paranoid and freaked out again and wash the towels that are not in the cupboard. There are about 15!! Why do we need so many towels out at once? I also completely spiegel the kitchen, even moving the appliances off the counter this time. I also decimate one of the bathrooms upstairs. Hubby does the downstairs one. The other one we will sort later. We moaned about having only one toilet but three is ridiculous. Ridiculous but so so useful. 

This means hubby gets the lie in and I am not managing to take it easier on the weekend to recharge for during the week. Will just have to have a low key week. Hmmm.

Finally around 4pm we manage to leave the house to go to the park. This time both hubby and I remain remarkably calm and understanding when the car doesn't start again and we decide to take the pram and we end up holding a palaver, and an indaba, and a punchayet, and a pow-wow. Maia realising the car isn't working bursts into tears cos she doesn't want to walk. I had initially wanted the pram to carry the food bag and nappy bag and coats and balance bike and scooter. instead Maia sits in it. I pack everything around her. Realising Maia gets to ride, upsets Ellie who also decides she doesn't want to walk. A fight ensues about who gets to be in pram. I suggest turns. Maia doesn't want to get out. I suggest one on way there one on way back. Not approved by both. I then pad the scooter with the coats and hoik Ellie on top. I take the dog and hubby pushes. No way could I have done that myself. Not sure how hubby did it!

When we arrive in the park I notice before the girls do that there is more than just the bouncy castle there. Honest to G-d I don't want to sound like a grump but ffs can't the park just be a park? Does it need to have bells and whistles? And costly ones at that. I make it clear to the girls that we are not here for the rides. They get it and don't nag. 

Ellie wants to go to playpark first, so Maia goes with hubby to skatepark.

As if to illustrate my point from Thursday about helicopter parents,  there is a man at the play park telling his daughter how to play. Since when did it become ok to tell your kids how to play?. Don't sit at the top. Put your legs that way. Go under there. Shut the fuck up and let her play and she wouldn't feel so unsure of herself. I can't stand listening to it any more and move to another bench.

Ellie is upside down on a bar. I remember fondly how I used to be able to do that. I turn myself upside down sideways whilst sitting on a bench to meet her eye to eye. She is in a funny/off mood and I want to smile at her. I suddenly feel something on my head and realise I am on the lap of the woman next to me. I thought the bench was longer than it was. I laugh a lot. She thinks I'm barmy but takes it well and kind of laughs too. Ellie is ready to go to the skate park. Thank fuck!!

Another skate park day. Another snack time skate park day. I brought some food because they hadn't eaten much all day. A hunger meltdown is always best avoided . This time, I occasionally wander about outside with the dog since hubby is also there. 

I suggest a move to Ellie who looks at me like I've lost my mind. 'why dont you Skate along the top of that block. Drop your scooter to one side and jump to the other'. I have no idea how to do work up to the fancy moves that happen in skate parks but that feels like a good starting point. am I telling her how to play? Am I that dad? Hmm. I don't think so because it's a suggestion. 

She tentatively tries it and is quite chuffed with her efforts. She later tries a hop thing. 

Maia has a fall and I resist the urge to run to her. I'd probably get whacked by a boarder. She gets up no problems and comes to me. "I fell mum" she says excitedly!

Grandpa pops by to say hello and give hubby and Maia a lift home to fix the car to pick Ellie and I up. Ellie remembers she was meant to go in the pram on the way home and persuades hubby to do that instead of car. I love how she expects the bargain to be still upheld even though plans have changed!! And I love how we are able to accommodate. 

I am so tired that when we get home I sit on the sofa with the girls whilst they watch an odd little cartoon with bears. I don't remember the cartoons I watched being so overt in their teaching of lessons??? Maybe it went over my head too. By the power of grey skull......

I wake up to find that for the first time EVER, I have fallen asleep on the sofa and everyone else is upstairs asleep!! No one woke me. No one cried for me or refused to go to bed without me. A Mazing!!

Meltdowns - skilfully avoided

Losing the Plot - too tired for it

Breastfeeding - lovely

stop the guilt repair the connection

Maia has a hard time imagining that she could ever get back to sleep without the boob, sometimes so do I, she tries and tries and tries, sometimes so do I, she decides she really can't do it, the problem is sometimes so do I.  So starts night weaning, later than some mamas, earlier than my 'inspirational mama's.  The ones who completely extendedly full accessedly on demandedly breastfeededly until child wants to end itedly.  Because I know in my heart and in my instincts this is what she needs and wants.  Its just not what I can give.  I managed later with Maia than I did with Ellie and I still have some residual guilt and possible connection problems for that. I blame early natural weaning and having another baby and having her daddy go back to work and her nana die suddenly...I guess they all contribute.....stop the guilt repair the connection.....stop the guilt repair the connection....stop the guilt repair the connection....anyway...

I notice a difference with Maia than I did with Ellie and I don't know if it's because I night weaned too early or if its just a  temperament thing.   If I am removing breastfeeding I need to provide an alternative.  With Ellie I told her a story about farm animals sleeping next to mummy and being comforted in different ways.  I played with her hair, she hates her hair being touched now.  I rubbed her back, she hates her back being rubbed now.    The only thing that's lasted is eskimo and butterfly kisses, got them from my dad.

Ellie accepts very little form of physical touch and comfort from anyone.  It took her over a year to allow people she had met twice a week to touch her to say help her off a high wall or tree or bus or just hold a hand and it's only now she won't have a full on screaming meltdown from a stranger trying to help her off and on a bus, if my hands are full.    Sometimes she now holds hands with a stranger (that freaked me out slightly, but I know she wouldn't do it if she didn't have my hand too) if we are grouped together, like waiting to leave a room. Maybe she gets confused about who we all know and who we don't, although she knows way more people than me since she asks EVERYONE she meets 'what's your name?'

In hindsight I wonder if my story involved too much touch from me and not enough boob. Nowadays she goes back to sleep only if she can lie on my arm...probably to make sure I don't touch her.  I sneak in a sneaky stroke of the cheek once I know she is fully asleep,  she is so soft and snuggly looking.

With Maia, she likes me to play with her belly button, I tell her how we used to be connected there.  I nibble and kiss her ears, she asks me to bite them.  She is fulfilling that 'oo i could eat you feeling'.. I love it! I get feedback, she asks me to do these things, she asks me not to.....sometimes it takes longer than I would like for her to fall asleep and usually on those nights,  it takes for ever because she knows I am going to leave the room as I have the 'wrong' bed energy head on.

Yet still when she is finally asleep and I sneak downstairs, I think...is it too soon?