Optional extras.

By the way, you can see the girls and me in photos by Shannon).

Too busy living.

I've not written because I've been enjoying the summer holidays. Hanging out with Hazel and Iris, Moab and Iris's rabbits Chickpea and Iggy Hop. It's been lovely, better get back to it as they'll be at school again in a week.

No, no! One of a kind!

We had got out the door(!) and were about to walk down to the local cafe for brunch. Hazel spied the garage and suddenly wanted to scoot her scooter instead of walking. She needed to go back for scooting shoes, I was hungry, gave her the key and suggested she go and get the right shoes on and catch us up. Hazel wanted an adult to come with her to help find and put on the shoes, Sean went with her so to do. I suggested to Iris that we start walking, she was unwilling. I explained that they would catch us up, because they would be fast. Iris pointed out a rose with sunset coloured petals. We looked at the rose. Iris pointed out a soldier fly with black patches on its wings, we looked at the soldier fly. Iris asked why the leaves of our sycamore are much paler green than the leaves of the oak, I thought aloud about possible answers. Iris gazed thoughtfully at the sycamore and the oak. Iris heard movement at the house and informed me that they were coming, and we could wait for them. We waited. Hazel got her scooter and scooted off, zooming past us.

"Iris, Hazel is very fast on her scooter, that's why I wanted to start walking and said they would catch us up."

"Me wongked Hazel go firsk; me evil denius."

Hazel and Iris.

Braids.

"I pooed and peeed in the toilet and nowhere else!"

Iris says she uses her bottom teeth as a first class lever, I'm trying to remember if she's right.

... Later ...

She was opening a tooth-paste tube lid by putting the flip-top on one side of her teeth and the tube on the other side, then she lifted the end of the tube. She used the tube as the lever and her bottom teeth as the fulcrum, but I'm not sure if it was a first or second class lever?

I blame too much telly.

Best thing a newborn sibling can do.

Back in the day, if Hazel put her lovely soft child cheek beside Iris's, Iris would root around on it for a nipple. Hazel used to love these "funny baby kisses".

I'm thinking of this because my inbox seems to have another baby sister or baby brother announcement every time I look at it, each one reminds me of the day that Sean went through to Hazel's bedroom and said
"The baby came out of Mum's tummy last night, you're a big sister now."

When Iris was born Hazel was very keen on her, but, you know, newborns are extraordinarily frustrating people to love. Getting positive feedback out of a newborn is a matter of hope and kind interpretation on the part of loving and experienced adults; people who are new at trying to understand babies often find newborns completely opaque.

Newborns are used to a comfortable, friendly but impersonal environment, not unlike a private spa pool at a resort famous for its unobtrusive but efficient service. Newborns tell you something's wrong, but they don't know to tell that you've got it right. Newborns do love to breastfeed but not everyone has the superpower of making their milk, and their tummies are often a bit dicky. Newborns aren't as tolerant as a doll or as grateful as a cat, they can't even hold onto their presents.

Hazel cared desperately and wanted to know that Iris loved her back or even noticed her, and the only feedback Hazel had found out how to get reliably was negative, I was feeling a bit panicky about their relationship spiralling down for the 6 or 8 weeks before Iris learnt to smile when a friend, who'd had had 5 of her 6 babies by the time I'd had 2, told me about the funny baby kisses.

Iris is on form.

And now to collect the lovely H and K from school (thank goodness we live in walking distance) and then to play my violin.

Bike park.

Wanda Harland's expectant!

I'm not getting around to reading the web much these days, but I'm not at Playcentre where I wonder if Iris is missing Rosa, I'm sitting with Hazel as she doesn't vomit some more (keep not vomiting Hazel; it's a good look) drifting through months of words and it turns out that Wanda Harland's expectant! Omigodomigod!

(Examines self for urge forth to go forth and do likewise... nope, it's still schadenfreude I'm afraid, I prefer other people to do the vomiting.)

Waiting for the win-win situation to emerge.

The other day Iris and her cousin H had a completely incommensurable difference. H wanted 5 more pick up sticks and 4 marbles. Iris wanted all the pick up sticks. I talked, listened, and eventually Iris went off to do something else.

While I was doing such a delicate thing I was totally engrossed in the moment, and H and Iris, and so when I'd finally got to the end I looked up to see what was going on with my adult guests and I discovered I'd had an audience. They had interestingly varied expressions. Shannon's looked like professional respect, Traveler's like a tourist watching a police negotiator (a little mind-blown but interested), and Sean and D both seemed to be feeling profound relief that it wasn't themselves in the hot seat that time.

Small naturalists.

Iris is crying bitterly in the bath, neither Hazel nor I can staunch the tears. Suddenly her attention is caught by a Disney figurine of a seagull,
"Seagulls don't normally have webbed feet."
"Don't they?" I ask, wondering again whether being constantly corrected or discovering that you've been patronised for years is worse, "we could look at the beach," she brightens further,
" I hope there's a dead one", Hazel enthuses, "to look at really closely."
Iris is completely cheered by the thought.

Toilet paper.

"Look Mummy, I am wrapped in the toilet paper!" Iris laughs, invisible except for her muscular little legs.
"Oh. Iris." I say, tiredly, humourlessly, but fondly.
Slightly disappointed she returns to the loo to unwind.

I'm sorry. I wish I hadn't suppressed the laughter. I wish I'd let it rip. She'd laugh if I wrapped myself up and capered half naked for her.

Perhaps it's the connection with the only place in my life with a lock on the door. The children use the toilet paper for things other than its intended purpose. It's not wasting, it's using; they are exploring ideas with it. It's a cheap resource, usually it is not even rendered useless, merely less pristine. We have more, they use it clean so it's not a health risk. But sometimes I get disproportionately distressed by it anyway. I try to guess when it might matter and just put the toilet paper up high so that we won't come into conflict un-necessarily. And that's why I didn't laugh; I was amused this time, but I didn't want to reinforce playing with toilet paper only to become a shrieking ogre about it some other time.

I told her aunt.
"Is she Mummy's mummy then?" she asks.
I'm still groaning on the inside.

Transitions and objects.

Mary, carrying her own baby and shepherding her own almost-not-a-preschooler anymore took a rotten branch taller than she is a.k.a. The Most Inconvenient Transitional Object Yet out through the crowded zoo foyer for Iris. It's still in the car (although I shortened it a little so it fits in the boot). I start to get it out and each time Iris becomes anxious and pleas "not quite yet".

One of the features of life with Iris since Hazel has been going to school is that she usually likes to take something from the place she is leaving with her to the place she is going. She needs to borrow something from Playcentre at the end of the session in order to leave happily. She often asks people if she can have something to eat as she's leaving and carries it with her as she goes. She surreptitiously picks up litter, leaves, gravel, and carpet fluff to hold in her hand until she's settled into the journey. She took a toy meerkat she'd borrowed from her cousins when she was visiting them to the zoo.

Typically a Transitional Object is something like White Bear, with whom Hazel has slept almost every night that she hasn't slept with us. Iris doesn't have one beloved object that she sleeps with, she likes variety; at the moment the thing she wants to have in her bed as she drops off to sleep is me,
"Lie down and stop typing or I will never get to sleep!"
I don't suppose I count as a transitional object in the original sense as they're some kind of substitute for the mother, but she's certainly using me to make a transition less of a change, and I think that's what the other things are about too.

Raisin bread and sprinkles.

Today Iris decided we live in a busy cafe and we made bread and muffins and fluffies and were as polite to each other as if we'd never met.

Oh, I could cry.

They love each other. They hit each other of course, they're sisters and they're only 3 and 5, but it's usually preceded by something the other could have responded to that was verbal, or at least vocal, and it's definitely an expression of passing frustration rather than lasting enmity. They spent their days together for all of Iris's life. Hazel went to school and now they are separated for over 6 hours of every week day. Hazel did some emotional processing and seems pretty settled by now.

Iris seemed more all right at first, but she never coped well with drop-offs and pick-ups and has become very stressed. She has been night-wetting for the first time since she was 20 months old. Her first response to every suggestion of a change in activity from anybody is negative. She is having to take more and more awkward transitional objects everywhere. She's edgy, demanding and sad. All she suggests doing in Hazel's absence is watching DVDs. We went to the pool with school and she wanted to be left in the classroom. I took her away. She was heart-broken anew and has re-interpreted events to suggest that if she had been able to fold her clothes like a school girl she would have been allowed to join Hazel at school.

Iris has not wanted to go to Hazel's ballet recently, she used to demand to watch it. Last week Sean was home sick and so I left Iris in front of a DVD and took Hazel. Today I asked my father to come over so I could take just Hazel. Hazel said she didn't want to do ballet anymore because Iris doesn't like it and she wants to spend more time with Iris. I explained we've paid for the term and she herself would have to tell her teachers that she was leaving and why and hug them goodbye. Hazel spent the lesson, curled foetally, thumb in mouth, watching the other children dance.

But Lois McMaster Bujold says to lower the wall, not increase the pressure.

I'm trying to help my children through this separation and change. I'm trying to remove unnecessary transitions from Iris's life, I'm trying to empower Hazel to walk to and from school so that Iris doesn't have to come face to face with the source of her grief twice a day. I'm trying to give Iris lots of opportunities to use scissors. I too have been cutting things up in order to make new things out of them. Emotional processing through displacement perhaps; I am trying to remain calm.

Iris swam today!

She dived down and swam through the water, she came up, face alight with pride. After her swimming lesson she swam right to Hazel, doggy paddle, a stroke that probably has a romantic fascination for this small dog lover.

Yes! One more risk of death diminished, one more source of health and happiness given!

Shallow grave.

Wish my rodent was imaginary; I had a tug of rat with Moab, the rat's tail-skin stripped off, the shiny naked tail bled on the carpet as the rat tried to flee from us. I took the rat outside and convinced Iris it wouldn't make a good pet now, not with its tail smarting and its internal injuries slowly killing it. I explained we had a choice, it could die slowly or I could kill it fast. We decided I should kill it. I picked it up by its poor naked tail and swung its head hard and fast onto the concrete step to snap its spine.

As it quietly died Iris called it a cutie and admired its perfect little pink feet.

Baggage claim.

My lovely physiotherapist said I wasn't getting better enough and referred me to a podiatrist so that if I was doing something in such a way that I kept re-injuring myself he could help me fix it. I am and he is. I've been running wrong, of course I've never been taught and I don't do it in order to annoy anyone, frivol ACC funds or even to make my team lose because our women are slower than the other teams' women, but it's still wrong both injurious and inefficient.

So I have work to do, it starts with exercises. I'm supposed to run while I do some of them. It transpires I can't think about my exercises in the game, I'm too busy thinking about the game. I also break into sheer stage-frighty panic at the very thought of doing them anywhere public. So I'm trying to fool myself into doing them around the barriers of my sports-phobia and my tendency to avoid effort in situations that may lead to failure.

I throw the disc to the other end of my lawn, I quickly look around to check no-one's watching, I run, slowly and awkwardly, thinking of all the instructions I'm trying to follow, to the disc, I pick it up furtively glancing around to see if anyone's started watching, I throw the disc to the other end of my lawn, I glower around to check no-one dared watch, I run, fuming at my incompetence in following this kind of instructions, to the disc, I pick it up and pull it viciously into the bushes at the other end of the lawn... after I while I get sick of myself and jump to the disc, trying to use my bottom as if it had muscles in it, Iris jumps with me, she gets to the disc first, grabs it and runs away from me laughing; effortlessly and visibly using her beautiful glutes.
I swear, "Bum!"
She falls to the ground giggling.
We start again.

A day with Iris.

The day Hazel started school the skies were scorching clear. Iris and I went to a cafe with friends and lunched on fruit and carrots in the bush listening to the birds. Iris ran to the toilet and got there with bone dry undies, danced to every car stereo we overheard, took off all her clothes to play in a sprinkler and we agreed we'd had a day of delights. All day I felt Hazel's absence as an emptiness in my stomach like a new love.

Hazel walked out of school a three-metre tall born-again pupil with a new book bag , she told me it was the first day of homework and read her homework book to me in the playground, and to Iris at home, and to Iris and me at home, and she got Iris to read it to me too. She then told me
"Ella was kind to me," and asked "can I start my homework? How do you do homework?"
As she had already read the book I told her she could copy the words out of the book if she wanted to do extra homework. She copied out the title and first sentence, and drew around the book ("not on the book!" she explained hotly) "to see what shape it is." She was a little disappointed to hear that although the teacher had given her the book it was not hers to keep, but vastly cheered to hear the school has a whole library.

She tells me she played with Ella, Nyah, Zoe, Tara and Maria, but not the other Ella who lives next door. That she took the principal 3 of the 4 pictures she did today because when she was visiting he'd said that sometimes people bring him things they are very proud of and it's the best part of his day.

I'm as threadbare as a thousand year old rug and I haven't even done the washing so Hazel has no clean knickers to wear tomorrow to the school picnic I found out about today (Iris and I are invited too).

Stickers.

Iris gave up nappies at 20 months. But she never got into the keeping one pair of undies dry all day mindset. Now she has dog and fairy stickers and a place to stick them which she can see from the toilet her undies have been "bone dry" for 24 hours.

Hazel had sticker rewards a long time ago for "being a good big sister" (not making the baby cry). Knowing Iris was getting them for toileting, Hazel wanted a reprise. She's been giving up toys to Iris willingly and asking for her input into choices.

It's amazing the motivational power that putting a sticker on a piece of paper has.

Perhaps I should get one too. I could put a sticker on the chart every time I do something the way I want my children to learn to do it, for getting down to their level and interacting with them, for cleaning up messes, tidying things, keeping my cool, admin stuff, and doing my foot and bottom exercises.

Iris watches Star Wars.

Iris, to Han Solo: "Why do you let the space monkey drive?!"

Six-year old Star Wars geeks to Iris: "He is not a space monkey", "His people are wookies", "His name is Chewbacca." Iris, at her cute three-year old best, smiles at the Star Wars geeks, they look pleased to have educated such a nice little girl and everyone settles down.

Chewbacca reappears.
"Look! Space monkey!" Iris exclaims to the Star Wars geeks.
They go nuts. Iris smiles again.

Priority inversion.

Hazel wants to go to Tumble Tots very much (and whatever I think of their modeling, the kids' sheer enthusiasm for the programme won out in the end). So she started getting dressed early, which is good because while Hazel needs to get dressed before she can go to Tumble Tots, Hazel wants to get dressed in private. Hazel decides in order for her room to be private it needs a sign on the door. Hazel is not yet five, she writes very very slowly, after an hour's work the sign says "CEpOtDAng" which means "Keep Out, Danger" it is a huge achievement and she has to celebrate her new sign before she gets dressed (in the public playroom).

Iris also wants to go to Tumble Tots very much, she also needs to be dressed before we can go to Tumble Tots, unfortunately, just after she manages to become willing to take off the beautiful nightie that Anne made her that says "Sleep well Iris" and has a kiss in the pocket, she finds the bag of fabric scraps I was given yesterday and gets the urge to design clothes made out of them that would be perfect for Tumble Tots. I do not have time to sew her new clothes before Tumble Tots.

Susan would prefer the children go to Tumble Tots than to pass the day with grumpy children who missed out. In order to go to Tumble Tots her children need to be dressed. She could spend her time putting the fabric scraps away again, stuffing her children into clothes suitable for Tumble Tots and writing Hazel's sign, or in a consultancy role: talking them through making their own choices and surfing the web.

Oh well, so much for time management skills, I guess it's time to start modeling working well under time-pressure.

Want more? See Wikipedia on priority inversion.

Valiant little people.

Hazel's been coughing at night during the weekend, and last night she complained about her ear hurting, Iris had lots of nightmares last night and was hot to the touch. I took them to the doctor this morning. Turns out Hazel's been much more valiant in her wonderful bee performances than I realised, she has quite a rattly chest but the show went on anyway. Iris also has a chest, and some other part of her body (not ears, maybe tonsils, I'm a bit short on sleep and can't remember), she's quite floppy today.

This is what DVDs were invented for.

Promising.

Poor wee Iris is squeaking with nightmares, I'm sitting by her and making comforting typing noises while she re-settles.

We started our new role-playing campaign today. I am optimistic about it. We're playing some people employed (or about to be) by the Lucky Ali Detective Agency (est. 2189), but before we got to that the GM gave us a fairly serious action piece using pre-generated characters who broke a guy out of a subterranean and Antarctic prison. My current group is good. Everyone's able to drop into different characters fast and well and so doing various parts of the story/world (whatever it is that we make up when we do this thing that we do) is going to be rather a pleasure. We then got to Tazeem Willoughby (who sprang so oddly fully-formed out of my forehead a couple of weeks ago) and Lucky Ali interviewing the others, the candidates and the current staff of the agency are weird and wonderful, intriguing people all of them. I'm looking forward to finding out more about them, and about Tazeem. Backstage at Hazel's ballet show I've been watching how dancers talk differently from normal people and thinking about how Tazeem (who is a dancer) will use hand gestures and body language a good deal, along with rather stagey facial expressions.

I'm also considering starting a Theatre Thing (dress ups, drama, dance, music, and movement) for pre-schoolers with a friend of mine who's a trained teacher and, like me, spent a long time at Drama Christi. We're just talking it through at the moment, but it feels like a gap in the community, and it's certainly something we could do.

Sweet dreams my cheery little Iris who laughs at my jokes, you deserve them.

But for historical accident there go I.

Ruth's looking for a great nanny. When my children are driving their parent cracker I sometimes envy her lifestyle with the washing virtuously put on the line and someone bringing professional calm to their interactions with her children while she goes out to manage her team of adults in their well-ordered workplace. Her workmates don't remove their clothes, bite or pee on her, they can take turns, and when she asks them a question they usually answer. But I don't envy her this search, and after the kids have watched this David Attenborough DVD and I've got my template working we will go outside and throw the frisbee while the lasagne cooks and the sun shines. Ruth will go to meetings and read boring emails under flourescent lights.

P.S. Iris went to playcentre with no other family members and Hazel had another good time at school today.

Way to drive your parent cracker.

1. Whine.
   
2. Take off your clothes. (Bonus points for complete nudity at lunch time outside Parliament).
   
3. Bite people.
   
4. Ask for something, ask for it a lot, beg, plead, yell, then get polite. When you get the thing glance at it and hurl it away.
   
5. Pee on your parent.
6. Don't respond if your sister asks you nicely, wait until she pulls your hair, then do what she wants.
   
7. Don't get in the car.
   
8. Yell very loudly "I am!" whenever someone makes suggestions about your behaviour.
   
9. Don't eat when people are watching.
   
10. If you listen, don't look, if you look, don't answer.
    

Hobby horses.

Last night Hazel liked the mop so much she mopped up after Iris missed the loo so she could ride it back to the cupboard.

If anyone said "Hey Susan, do you want to run after a frisbee in the rain?" I'd be so there.

I made up a person, it's just a game you know.

Toilet seat.

I think the girls and I will be buying a toilet seat today, the old wooden one has been cracked for a long time but what with very energetic short people putting the lid down so they can stand on it to flush, it's got to the stage where it bites people who fidget. Iris says she wants a pink one, I'd like a clear one with strange stuff embedded in it (if anyone's seen those available in Wellington do pipe up about where).

By the way, here's a game theoretic discussion of when the seat should be left down and up. I've never minded putting the seat down myself, but then I wash my hands after using the loo.