This never gets old...

mineral oil can be a little freaky.

be warned, I do mention mortality and children in the same sentence.

a while back I found an article on the net (which I helpfully can't find now, but will keep searching) describing a child having a fatal case of pneumonia after inhaling a well-known brand of baby oil (which is made from mineral oil). I wondered at the time if this was trash journalism at it's best, because it just seemed so far-fetched. but when I ran it past TDN(tm), she nodded and said it was entirely possible. so I thought I'd better look further.

there's lots of information regarding mineral oil as used to treat constipation, and there's a number of articles about resultant pneumonia, with the recommendation that it be used with caution. nothing easily found about children not actually recovering from it, though.

then I remembered Snopes, and if you've never taken a poke around there, well... you can lose hours, except it can get well freaky in there, so be careful. they're independant urban-myth busters, and I don't use them as much as Coz, but I like to run all those stupid chain-mail emails thorugh the Snopes wringer.

so, Snopes says it's true, and I believe them. their information suggests that these sorts of cases has led to child-resistant packaging in the US.

the main reason I actually found that information is because I've gone off mineral oil in recent years. I'm annoyed it's just a by-product of making petroleum. it's cheaper to make than to dispose of. is it a complete co-incidence that mineral oil became more widespread after WWII and the increasing number of cars driven? on one hand it's meant to be inert, and on the other hand, it's a by-product of distilling crude oil. what do we do with all this stuff? market it, that's what.

anyway, I've found after a bit of trial and error (and irritation) that I can use some soaps. most commercial soap is just detergent in solid form (and therefore irritating), whereas properly made and aged soap is so much more gentle. I stress *properly made and aged*, because there's a whole lot of bad soap making and selling out there on the net. I have a milk soap and liquid wash which is creamy and foamy and has a nice smell... god, what a change. the end result is approximately the same - still need help from topical steroids, but I think that's better than having to use petroleum by-products over the entire body.

Tip #2

...and apparently, hairspray works really well for getting pen/texta off walls. I was about to give paint stripper Baijiu a shot...

Looking forward to 2020?

This little gem from one of our lecturers with a great sense of humour...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_veIGGP1Uh4

Laugh now, while we can....

Quote for the day...

"I won't be shy about my special horn again."

I have 'Thomas' on in the background and somehow managed to zone in just at that point...

Is it always like this?

I have just learned...

...that good ol' bum wipes are excellent for removing crayon, pencil & pen from off the walls.

Good tip, that!

Inside slide

We purchased a slide on the weekend from Sportsman warehouse, marked down from $200 to $50. Gem discovered it and was having a lovely time whizzing down it and wanted to take it home. I was about to grab her at the bottom and haul her back up the stairs, but stopped and picked up the price tag first, which was lying face down on the floor. $50 seemed to good to pass up, it will take kids up to 35kg (roughly 9 year olds) and so we decided to grab one.

On the way home, a crafty little voice from the backseat, belonging to Cha suggested that we could have it inside. This coincided neatly with me wondering where we could put it so it wouldn't get too hot to slide on. I was about to say 'oh don't be silly' when it occurred to me that keeping it inside would in fact be a great way of ensuring that it didn't get too hot. Slide builder, aka Dad also thought that putting slide together in the air con was a brilliant idea. So now we have an inside slide, which is really cool, except when the kids drag it into the kitchen when I'm trying to cook dinner.

The goodness of felt

Really as a PS to the cabin fever... Anyhow - felt is also a brilliant boredom buster, we made pincushions today, but for other ideas...

• homemade fuzzy felt
• felt clothes/spots/ears etc bits to toilet roll people/animals
• felt accessories for the dolls house/zoo animals/farmyard creatures
• for first sewing attempts
• for gluing together to make more permanent pictures/sculptures (think butterflies, flowers, beetles etc or whatever takes your kids fancy...). With the littlies probably best to do a bit of the cutting out pre-work
• homemade Barbie/dolls/teddies clothes to the child's specs
• for the older ones - needle holders (sandwich lighter fabric in a symmetrical shape with felt on top & bottom. Glue one half down solid - add needles to the other side so you can find them again, & yes I still use the one I was given when I was 5)

the list is endless - libraries always have a few kids craft books you can dig ideas out of.

Another one for odds and ends of wool besides the french knitting is those woven crossed sticks - remember doing them for fetes when we were kids?

Making the "chatterbox" out of different coloured squares of paper - can be used as just something to play with and get the fingers moving, add eyes/ears/tongue etc for animals, add messages or things to do for the "I'm bored" and go through the whole pick the colour & number routine to see what they get to do next

I'm sure there are also stacks of websites...

Cabin Fever

Crossposted from my blog

We have had some very cold days, where the wind chill has taken the temp down as low as -18. I wouldn't rug us up to go outside even if Pers & I weren't afflicted with the flu. So as you can imagine, cabin fever is kicking in and I'm about to commit toddlercide.

I just need some ideas, what do you guys all like to do with the wee-ones when you're hovelled up inside your 23rd floor appartment?

Well, you asked.

Noodle was told yesterday afternoon that if he had a sleep he could go to Billy Lids (indoor playground) in the afternoon. He happily trots off to be and then emerges some ten minutes later theatrically rubbing his eyes and yawning.
N: Can we go to Billy Lids now?
D: I said we could go after you had a sleep
N: I had a sleep
D: A proper sleep, not just ten minutes
N: I did have a proper sleep, I was asleep for hours and hours.
D: You were in there for ten minutes, that is not a proper sleep. What kind of idiot do I look like?
Noodle looks perplexed
N: What kind of idiots are there?

What’s with the Whiney voice?

And God, how do you stop it?
Age had one of ‘those days’ on Friday. Everything was answered with a contradiction, a whine or nagging.
By the time Mummy went to the grog shop for a much needed bottle of mother’s little helper I actually had to seriously ask myself if clubbing a four year old with a 2004 NZ Sauv Blanc would be so very wrong.
I can take pooh and wee and watching the same bloody episode of Ben 10 eleventy billion times. I don’t really mind being dragged to the park when I’d much rather be sitting on my fat ass watching Oprah. It doesn’t bother me that we read the same book 8 times in a row or soothing the ear ringing screams of agony that accompany a stubbed toe.
But the whiney voice, the oh-my-God-how-do-I-stop-from-killing-you whiney voice.
Fingers down a blackboard would be music to my ears compared to the whiney voice.
I don’t know what it is. Possibly the pitch of voice that can penetrate gums and vibrate teeth inside the jaw. Maybe the unreasonable nature of the request (but I must have chocolate for breakfast) or else it’s the sheer repartition. That you know in your heart it does not matter how you construct the answer the whine will just go on and on and on and on until you give in, your brain pops or you club the child. Possibly all three simultaneously.
I figure the whiney voice is somehow hard wired into the neo-cortex, thereby making it impossible to ignore.
Maybe cave children only used the whiney voice to inform mummy that there was indeed a slathering sabre tooth tiger at the cave door. Or the location of a rare yet nutritionally rich tree fungus.
I have no idea why it works, but please God, does anyone know how to make it stop?

dolls that don't make girls look like bimbos or whores

I can't remember how I found out about either of these, except that I stumbled across them on the net a while ago without actually searching - although I'd long wanted to know if dollies like this even existed. been meaning to post about them here, and now it's not long before Xmas, I guess a bit of potential-pressie-talk is pretty apt ;-)

Australian Girl Doll




they're the big dolly size, and a bit on the expensive side, but they look like they're a lovely quality doll. would be nice to see one in a shop to have a proper look. I think they've mostly managed to do it without being too stereotyped, except for the Almost-Bindi.


Only Hearts Club


these are from the US, and have such a wholesomeness to them that I scoured the website for religious content. hard-hearted cynical old me! couldn't find any, though... have seen these in a couple of shops now and think they are quite lovely.


of course, neither of them do boy dolls. crap. you stumble across the occasional boy baby, but the next step seems to be overly-muscled action heroes, or violent junk. where are the nice boy dolls? girls want to play with them too.

edit: forgot about the canny marketing exercise that is Diego, Dora's boy sidekick. he's okay, I guess. not offensive, at any rate. I used to think Dora was fine until I found Dora Xmas/Princess sparkly crown/tiara-type-affairs in Coles the other day. how do you keep that on in the jungle?

Big kid.

Diamond head turns four

Party time

No to put to fine a point on it, being a parent is the best thing in my life. In all of my life, like forever and ever.Being with AJ is a joy. I loves everything about him.As a four year old he:

Has a squirmy warm body that is delicious to snuggle against

He laughs like a drain

He says stuff like ‘ I can’t walk, mum. My legs are broken’

His skin is gloriously soft and unblemished

Except for the bits that are bruised, scratched and lumpy

He’s incredibly empathic

He hides his embarrassment by putting his hands on his hips and sticking his tummy out

His language skills are a work in progress. Slow, slow progress.

He has a dreadful singing voice

He now knows the value of sucking up

He loves Ben and Toby best

He likes Darcy, but I fear he’s just not biddable enough to be a best mate

He loves Alfie

The new pigeon wants a puppy books makes him squeal with delight

He is Ben 10 mad

He’s quite fastidious about hand washing

Happy birthday Whizz Fizz. This mummy couldn’t be any happier than when you are snuggled in my arms.

Just one of those days

when you realise, however much you want to, you can't fix everything for your child. C was really upset today because a girl I thought was one of his best friends didn't invite him to her birthday party. He pinched an invite and insisted that she had spelled his name wrong. Really wrong because it started in G and ended in eorgia. I took the invite off him and gave it back to her. Then at the car park I made a big show of comforting him, where her mother could see. This is the bloody child that we sent C to school with so they could be together because they were such close friends. Sometimes I have regretted this and today was one of those times. It just felt like a slap in the face for both of us really. (she was invited to C's birthday earlier this year).

I'm hoping that tomorrow her Mum has had a change of heart and that there is an invite for him. I don't expect him to be invited to everyone's birthday, which is fortunate because he hasn't been, but when it's one of his supposed best friends I just don't understand why the sudden cut off. I just feel kinda crap because although I was tempted to ask her Mum, well demand really because I was so pissed off, why he wasn't invited I didn't because some battles you just can't fight for your kids. It's a horrible lesson to learn at 5 and I said, but probably shouldn't have, that if she doesn't invite him to her party then she won't be invited to his party next year. (yes I've committed myself already, fool!) No doubt this will get told to her tomorrow, probably after she hands over the invite. If not I will just pray to the gods that he forgets. Or find something else so exciting to do that weekend that he forgets all about it.

Edit: D talked to C's teacher this morning and got some more background on the story. Apparently it all flared up yesterday and she had to physically separate them. C has also been, in the teacher's words, pushing all this girl's buttons and sending her right off. I can understand now that you wouldn't want someone doing that at your birthday party. I think a long talk is in order with my young man. This is not the sort of child I would wish him to be. The first lesson is going to be 'if you aren't nice to people, they won't invite you to their birthday party'. At least there is a reason, and a pretty good reason at that.

Cot for sale

Both the girls are now in 'big girl' beds and so I'm selling off our cot - hooray, one less thing in the house. I thought I'd mention it here in case anyone needs one or knows someone who does - if not I'm putting cot, mattress, mattress protector and cot sheets on ebay.

pants!

A rare sighting of patterns for boys clothing...

http://www.duckcloth.com.au/category.php?category_id=52

And a lot of cute other patterns and fabrics and everything!!

CSI Yass

Let me set the scene for you: I foolishly let myself think I could have some time to relax and read a book. I decided to ignore the child climbing up on the kitchen counter and pulling stuff out of the cupboard and concentrated on the book. Big mistake. The next thing that happened was a scream from G. I then discovered that what her big brother had pulled out of the cupboard was every pair of scissors that I had hidden. Including a lovely rusty pair of gardening scissors which G had put in her mouth and cut her lip with. Blood pissed out everywhere and she ran away and wouldn't let me touch her. I ditched the bloody tissue that I'd tried to wipe her lip with and tried again with a wet washer. She ran into her room and tried to hide against the wall, leaving blood on the wall and dripping on the carpet.

At this stage I decided by the amount of blood dripped through the house that we should probably get her checked out so I put a nappy on her and carried her to the car, still covered in blood. On the way to the hospital the cut stopped bleeding, but she had a lovely mouth ring of dried blood and blood spatter all down her shirt. I then realised that I didn't have my phone with me and couldn't tell their dad where we were. I imagined him getting home and finding us gone and blood everywhere...

Anyway, we had to wait a bit at the hospital, and of course there was a miraculous recovery and running all over the hospital and giggling and general silliness. But finally we got in and got the lip cleaned up enough to see what she had done to herself. Fortunately the blades had only cut the top of the lip on the outside and slid sideways underneath rather than snip straight through, so we didn't need stitches. We didn't need a tetanus shot either, thankfully, even though the scissors had been rusty because she'd only had the last one 18 months ago. So we got back in the car and trooped off home again.

Strangely there didn't seem to be as much blood when we got back, although parts of the carpet will never be the same again. I'm wondering if G and Pers are secretly having a competition between themselves.

Serves me right for reading a book!

Contraception - Pope's got it all wrong.

You know, with the evening I have just had with Persmonster, I am currently asking myself why, for the love of little bunnies, did we not use some form of contraception about 11 weeks ago.

Hey Mindy, you must have had moments like these, did they all happen in the SAME evening???

It started with "Look Mummy!" and then she showed me the blue texta she found and the artwork on the kitchen wall. [1]

So then we have a bath and she gives me the loveliest back and neck soap massage and washes my hair. Isn't she cute? I'm going to recommend a career in massage. She's good!

Finished it off with a razorblade skin scrub. I have cuts all over my back now. They sting.[2]

So then I get out of the bath and dry off, try to fix myself up a bit. In the meantime, she has thrown a toilet roll into the bathtub. Nice. Papier mache, anyone?

and... manages to get into my cosmetics bag and find my folate tablets and get the lid off the bottle. They taste yucky, apparently (which is a Very Good Thing). [3]

At the same time, she found the mini travel tub of sudocream (also in my cosmetics bag). It was all over her and some of the bathroom. She came out to me painted in it, asking for cuddles when I growled at her. She also managed to smear it on the mirror in the entryway after I chased her through the house, trying to catch her and stick her back in the bathtub, before the bathtub emptied. It emptied.

Then she refused to go to her bed and went to mine instead (again with the cuddles). But I notice now she has just gone back to her own bed.

Oh and she let the hamster out of his cage. He just came over to visit me. I guess he wanted a cuddle too.

So by now you're probably all thinking I'm an irresponsible parent to leave all these interesting, but dangerous things just lying around the house.

Why, yes, of course I am hoping my child will top herself. GET REAL, WHO ARE YOU KIDDING???

[1] Where the hell did that blue texta come from anyway??? Last time I saw it, it had fallen down the back of the oven. Ayi????? (she's efficient, I'll give her that!)
[2] It was a 'safety' razor, hidden under a pile of magazines and books. Ayi must have dislodged it this morning and I didn't notice. Didn't notice Pers had it either because I couldn't feel the cuts until I went to rinse the soap off (thought she was using one of her toys to make patterns on my back).
[3] She pulled up a stool to get to it while I was in my bedroom, drying off and inspecting my wounds. I am really running out of hidey holes for everything...

So... still want to have us around when we come home???

(This is crossposted to my LJ)

On Days Like This I Don't Like People

Just saw this today (I'm possibly a little behind the times): http://blogs.smh.com.au/lifestyle/essentialbaby/archives/2008/10/on_days_like_this_i_dont_like.html

Gosh...

You Tube for Tots

Hi everyone,
I am at the stage when I am really looking forward to having no kids wearing nappies- but Sophie doesn't seem to be as keen for this to happen as I am!
Someone suggested that Bear in the Big Blue House and Elmo had some good video's that may help Sophie become more interested- but I couldn't find copies of these video's anywhere. Then I discovered the beta version of You Tube for young kids
http://www.totlol.com
I found both Bear and Elmo at Totlol- I don't know yet how Sophie is going to find these- but I found they were fantastic- they had M and I in stiches.