Dear Reader

Arrrrrrrrgh...time for an update, I reckon.
So, I've lost count of what week it is at uni. Suffice to say that I'm somewhere behind that mark, still. I'd have lost my identity if I told you I were anywhere else, though...this is how I do 'student', it would appear. It's how I've been doing student since I started uni in 1994 - I've taken time off from uni in 1998 (when I was forcibly removed from enrolment by the Exclusions Board, only to return and finish my BA with Honours - that'll learn 'em), with a 2 year break to have a 'real job' (only to realise that stuff is for fools, and full time work and I just don't have a friendly accord) and 6 months 'off' between handing in my Honours thesis and embarking on my Grad Dip Psych in 2005. Then falling pregnant (as loosely planned, mind you, so my decision-making there occurred on parallel universes before they rudely converged in that October) meant that my Grad Dip would take an age and three quarters to complete. As if that wasn't complicated enough, I fell pregnant again, for the prestige you get when you add a degree of difficulty to elements of life that really didn't require complication, and were already interesting enough.
Here I am, two units away from graduation, and I'm enjoying this unit. Which is a bit perverse, because, apparently, this is the hardest unit of the course. I'm not refuting it's level of complexity - it's way complex - just sayin' I'm getting a lot out of it, the relevance is high and my project is something I'm genuinely interested in (positive psychology interventions - all that happy, happy, motivation, 'what makes you tick' stuff). Still, life seriously intrudes on my best academic intentions. Again. Hard to concentrate when there's a cute girl on the floor wanting to be held and snuggled and breastfed. Call me undisciplined, but there you go - my dedication to study dissolves with a pretty face.
Which leads me to what I really wanted to update the blog for. The girl. She's a treat, my little walker. On the 15th of August she was 10 months old, and her 'taking steps' turned into what could be more reliably described as 'walking'. Within the last week and a half since turning 10 months she has been waddling around the house and delighting all of us with her ambulatory efforts. There's a lot of plopping down on her bum, before she resolutely collects herself for the next effort. Like her mother, she likes to throw in 'degree of difficulty', by either attempting to clap whilst walking, or to wave, or sing and wave, or talk and clap. Or all of the above in one contained, more often unsuccessful, attempt. She's waving goodbye, too - whether you're saying bye in English or Spanish, she'll start flicking her hand up and down. She's a social girly.
Sturdy, too. This is a valuable trait when you're the sister of Captain Chaos. I think she has better coping skills than I do, currently. I could learn from her, I'm not too proud to admit that.
She says 'Mama', or "Mamamamama', just to be convincing - and I am pretty smug that I'm the first in her vocabulary list. Boy struck a lovely compromise for us in the 'Mummy/Daddy' wars - he said 'puppy' first, and all was well. This time round, I'm smug and triumphant. And why not?
As for that brother of hers, he's challenging all my inner resources. I thought I had it down pat with him and then all that 'boyness' kicked in to give me what for. Sheesh! I got left behind, spun around blindfolded and whizzed inside a Gravitron with that testosterone surge (Come ON, you Gen X Melbournites, you KNOW what a Gravitron does to your head). He likes ballet. I've got him in a ballet class and he's the only boy. I ought to have photographed him the moment he opened the bag containing his ballet shoes - he was just so pleased with himself! We watched some ballet on TV and he wants to lift 'his' girls when he's bigger - that conversation was a melting moment, for sure. Write him off as a feral at your own risk.
It's not just the dancing to which he likes to turn his physical prowess. This week I took him to see my horse again (weather lately has been formidable for taking small girl out in) and I relented to let him have a ride. Normally, he'll sit on Dante's back while I lead him back up from the paddock, and from time to time I have sat him on Dante whilst I lunge him in the arena, with the dual benefit of giving Dante a bit of a workout (with the best intentions of following up with more regular lungeing and riding...still hasn't happened) and also giving Boy something else to wrap his brain around. I've posted the photos before and he's comfy up there. This week I popped Dante into a canter, which I've never done with Boy up there on his own (I have done it when he has been sitting in front of me on Dante, and that's fun) and he was actually pretty good - sticky and balanced. I was so proud of him and thinking of his future in a forthcoming Olympics when the farrier, who was present at the equestrian centre on this day, pointed out the significant horse height to boy size ratio, and his observations of child hospital emergencies and injuries in similar ratio scenarios. Fair point. Point taken. Point not resented. Point tricky, though, cos Tom doesn't like to come with me to the horse property and sunny days don't seem to hang around till Boy's creche day lately, so if he comes he rides. And if it were up to me he'd already have a pony of his own to ride. Thing is, it IS up to me and I can't afford the headspace and time right now to look for his pony. My bind is that right now, going to see Dante will invariably involve taking Boy with me and making that call each time he gets on, or taking my rare opportunities to go without him when that coincides with nice weather (for the girl's sake). Anyway, he loves it and he's got a knack. We had a chat about it and I'll work out a way to keep him riding and Dante in light work. I'm probably not going to keep myself off the "Tut-tut" conversation list, but I probably never will, for one reason or another and I can't control that. One thing that made me laugh, though, was said farrier trying to illustrate his point in a way that only someone who didn't know Boy could. He asked me how I'd feel if Boy climbed a ladder the height of Dante. Ummm, he's climbed higher. And if he fell off that ladder? He's fallen further. Not a good example! Boy sleeps on a loft bed and swings himself off at will and in one piece all the time. He climbs playground equipment the 'wrong' way and ends up sitting on TOP of the structures while other kids point at him and say he's 'naughty' (well, extraordinarily agile is probably more accurate and meaningful) to their parents, who glance, alarmed, from me to Boy, from Boy to the ground, from the ground back to me. And probably shake their heads in disbelief at my composure before gasping as he leaps off said structure to land safely on two feet on the tambarked surface, ready for the next misadventure. That's my boy. If he can get himself up, he can probably get himself down. And I DO note that falling off a static object is not falling off a moving, possibly frightened or agitated horse (depending on the reason horse is dislodging boy) in the kettles of fish-type difference in scenario. But still.
Not to be pigeon-holed into 'feral kid' status, this kid also partakes of a weekly creative drama class. He LOVES it. And I don't know why, exactly, because it's a class I drop him off to and do my own thing for an hour. Letting go is kinda nice. So is a quiet hour with the small girl mid-week!
My tip of the week is: watch Boy. It's a film I got to see last week with Katerina and it's being released tomorrow in cinemas. It will make you laugh, chuckle, wheeze, wince (if you were a child in the 80s, that is - if you are a child of the 90s and you are currently reviving the 80s via your wardrobe you will probably not find it nearly as comical) and perhaps just a little teary in parts. It's well worth the trip to the movies, and I just love, love, love Kiwi cinema. This film exemplifies why. So, umm, if you don't like it, you may not find yourself as enthusiastic about the film-making cred of our cousins across the ditch...but I think you will.
Well, it's past midnight, the girl has finally resigned to a sleep-state and as much as I'd like to continue with my imminently-due assignment, this panadol I've taken will only take me so far. Wisdom says sleep is the course I should follow, and who am I to argue with her?