Incredible Kids.

My kids are incredible. Yeah, yeah…here we go, another parent proclaiming they have spawned the returned Messiah. Truly though, my kids are quite amazing and it isn’t until the house is quiet and I am sitting here listening to the gentle snores of the littlest one tucked up in between myself tapping away on the laptop and my husband trying to block out said tapping to attempt sleep, that I really reflect on how lucky we are and how fabulous the children are.

They are so different, I know I have said it before, but every day I am amazed at just how different they are. And somehow it works. Take today for instance. Delilah, the queen of the universe, who can simply not understand or accept why everything in existence doesn’t revolve around her two-year-old being, and Leo, the over-anxious, caring, quiet, thinking four-year-old and myself decide to go down the street.

Delilah has a bike. It is pink, it has three wheels and it has two seats. But Delilah’s legs are as yet too short to reach and push the pedals the full circle they require to move forward. So, as a result, Leo rides it for her and she takes a load off in the back seat. So, we saddle up:

Me: “Ok guys, let’s ride down the street.”

Leo puts on his hat, his boots and goes to get the bike. Delilah is already out the door, one sock, no shoes, no hat, door left wide open behind her. Leo has a small coronary and insists Delilah rectifies all of the above. She says no with a well-perfected death stare and Leo politely and patiently explains that we simply cannot go any further in our planned adventure until she has appropriate footwear, protection from the sun and closes that door so the flies don’t get in because Daddy hates flies. Again, Delilah replies with a very short, but very loud and insistent “NO”.

We do this for a bit, Delilah practices some more stubborn traits until, eventually, she gives in. For this reason, we need to leave at least half an hour early for any engagement to allow for Delilah’s independence speech before we board the vehicle of choice for that day.

Ok, so here we are ready to go.

Delilah (holding on in the back seat): “It is scarwy Eo.”

Leo: “It is ok Lilah, I will go slow for you.”

Delilah: “Hanks for dat Eo, hanks for going slow.”

Leo: “My pleasure Delilah.”

And off we go!

After a relatively uneventful ride the two blocks to the main street, we arrive at the Post Office.

Me: “Ok, off the bike, park it there out of the road. Inside, you may look at all the pretty things but please do not touch them.”

Delilah: “Why?”

Me: “Because I have asked you not to, now you show me how good you are at listening.”

Inside the Post Office we go.

Leo asks if he can help me at all by carrying something, Delilah runs straight to the trinkets and starts lovingly handling them all and feeling each and every one to experience all the shop has to offer, afterall, it would be a shame to miss out.

Me: “Delilah, please only look.” I say in the hope she may suddenly become a different person just for the five minutes I have to be in the Post Office with many inviting things at two-year-old level. But just for that five minutes, no longer. It doesn’t happen. Probably a good thing because Delilah just wouldn’t be Lilah without having to experience absolutely everything on offer in the world without fear or judgement. Leo walks behind her quietly telling her how to at least handle the things properly so there are no damages.

Job done, time to go. I open the door. Delilah begins a very loud protest about her wanting to open the door. We give her this one and close the door allowing her to open it herself. She does, but then takes up residence on the Post Office floor holding the door wide open. I diplomatically discuss this for some time while apologising to everyone stepping over the small child and the concerned brother at 4.30pm in the Post Office doorway.

Then I give up. It had been a long day, in fact our third trip down the street.

Me: “Ok, well you can stay there Delilah, but we are going over to the supermarket. Bye”

Leo: “But Mummy, we can’t leave her here, I do like her, she is Lilah. What if she gets locked in, then she will have to sleep here and I am sure she will miss us.”

Me: “It’s ok Leo, I wasn’t really going to leave her, I was just pretending.”

Delilah, of course hears all this and renders my threat useless.

After quite sometime, a lot of convincing and possibly a bribe, we are eventually back on the bike.

Don’t even ask about the supermarket! All I’ll say is the protest reached fever pitch when we had to have a large conversation in the meat section about why we need to wear shoes in the supermarket.

Total opposites, but two peas in a pod. Leo goes to kinder for two hours on a Wednesday morning and Delilah spends the entire two hours asking where he is and if he is ok. Delilah is completely uninhibited, willing to give everything a go and take in all on offer. Leo is cautious but has a hilarious sense of humour. He is so very caring and responsible and always there to catch Delilah when her grand plan doesn’t quite work out. Delilah encourages Leo to push his boundaries and let some of the worry go. She looks up to him and wants to learn everything he has to teach. Together they make up the best games and have great fun, and mostly, not always, but mostly enjoy each others company.

Two amazing kids in their own separate ways. How lucky are we that we get to watch them grow together and discover new parts of their personality each day. A tantrum here and an over-anxious worry there pale to insignificance in the wonder of two incredible children.

The Meaning of Life

Despite the worn-out cliche, it really is incredible where life takes you. In a moment where despair is everything and there seems to be no way out it feels like there might not even be a tomorrow. Then, when time passes, as it does, I look back and, for one, realise there was a tomorrow and I made it there and secondly, that despairing event or moment steered me in a direction I would have not otherwise travelled, and I am always the more thankful for it.

I would not be where I am today if we hadn't weathered all the storms we have, re-thought decisions, made new plans, gone back to the old ones and then been thrown in the complete opposite direction...

Two years of Delilah Harris.

Delilah will be two on Sunday. In a way, it has crept up on us and I really can't believe where the years have gone, as cliched as that sounds. But in another way, it is hard to believe she is only just now turning two as since she was born she has been under the impression she is at least 25 and has gone some of the way to convincing the rest of us.

Delilah, or Lady Delilah as she has become known is independent, resilient, a drama queen, clever, cheeky, spirited, stubborn and somehow overwhelmingly cute and charming. Leo was and has always been a thinker, taking in everything, pondering and internalising it and then coming up with a reaction all in a very calculated and logical manner. Delilah isn't like that.

Delilah dives in before wasting any time thinking about whether it is a good idea. She speaks extremely well and therefore talks a lot. She has an opinion, and a very strong one, on almost everything. She refuses to accept, as she always has, that she is little and may require assistance with some tasks. She doesn't have time for getting dressed, getting clean and certainly not for having her hair done. She does have time for dirt, cuddles, food, her brother and her Grandma and Grandpa (not necessarily in that order). And really, what else does a girl need in life? Ok, so clothes would be preferable.

When you have a second child, of course you wonder whether they will be like their sibling, will they be different? Will they get along together? Will they suffer from never knowing the experience of being an only child with undivided parental attention?

Delilah answered all those questions in her first few months of life and has held true to them all. In a nutshell, she is as different from Leo as possible, but loves him to bits and idolises the ground he walks on and tries her hardest every day to be just like him. So, mostly, they get along so very well together and when they run around giggling at each other's jokes and worry over the welfare of the other and ask for two biscuits so they can share, it all seems a bit silly that we had those earlier worries.

Delilah is a girl of course, and in her two years has perfected the art of using that fact to her advantage. She is a rough-and-tumble sort of kid, but when she has had enough, she suddenly becomes a princess with looks that could kill and in desperate need of a cuddle before she expires in the next five minutes.

She loves dirt, and has been known to even taste quite a bit. She doesn't see the need to constantly have her face wiped or clean hands and always protests the process. She does however adore a bath in all its bubbly glory. Delilah is fast, she never stops, in her world everything needs to be inspected and handled and discovered and there is simply no time to waste. A slide is never to high and a playground never too challenging. She has a habit of never looking where she is walking, always looking around and behind her, making sure she isn't missing anything. Therefore she quite frequently walks into things and falls over and always has a war wound or two gain some sympathy points when required.

Delilah hates being still, detests the pram, the carseat, sleep, nappy changes, getting dressed or anything else that requires one to be still. She has devised a way of getting out of five point harnesses and has been known to push her brother back from the shops in her pram. She hates shoes and anything designed to keep her hair out of her eyes.

Delilah is yet to sleep through the night since she became mobile. She will wander into our bedroom sometime in the depths of the night with a "Daddy? Cuddles?" and the most gorgeously heart-warming smile ever on her face in the dull light of the alarm clock and snuggle down, tell Daddy off once or twice for his cuddle skills and then fall blissfully back to sleep in his arms. She is a cute one and makes it very hard for anyone to be upset with her. The charm on this girl has oozed since day one. A walk down to the shops takes ever so long by the time she stops to have a conversation with every single person who inevitably stops.

She also also perfected "the look", slamming doors, batting eyelids, whipping out the killer dimples, "NO!", cuddles, getting her brother into trouble and pointing out anything "pretty". All that I am told, are trademark signs of a girl.

She prefers to do everything herself. For instance, a trip in the car means Delilah putting on her own coat and hat, gathering up several inanimate friends, opening the front door herself, closing the front door herself, holding the car keys, checking the mail herself on the way to the car, opening her own car door, getting in her own carseat and doing up her own harness and then somehow closing her own door and then telling me which way we need to go and what we need at the shops. Any attempt to intervene and assist with any of the above will result in yells of "HEEEEELLLLP, OOOOOOUCH" all the way down the street and have concerned neighbours coming to see what abuse Delilah is being subjected to.

We reckon, from what we have seen in these first two years, Delilah is a girl who is going to hold her own, she'll be a match for anyone who bothers to challenge her and will be a hard one to pin down. She will have few cares in life and always look for the fun element in everything to make it worthwhile doing. She will be unruly by appearance but her stunning blue eyes, long eyelashes, dimples and blonde hair will render that unruly appearance invisible. She will have the world at her feet and choose to explore most of it for her own enjoyment, she will go after what she wants and while sometimes might fail, she'll get up, dust herself off and try again with a lesson learnt.

We fear there may be a B&S ute in her future also, and combined with that insatiable thirst for fun and adventure, that is where we choose to finish speculating.

Who knows, she is a clever one and knows how to work the system but also has a large dash of compassion and empathy for others and sooooooo much love to give. I can't wait to hand this to her in twenty years and see where my predictions came through, if at all. But in the meantime, we'll just sit back and enjoy the Delilah ride because one thing is for sure, its an unpredictable but incredibly entertaining one.

Happy second birthday Delilah Rose xxxxxx

Got Milk?

We looked for the milk this morning. As you would, we looked in the fridge. But to our surprise that shelf where the milk usually stood was empty. How peculiar. How were we to have our morning coffee in the absence of milk?

Maybe we had run out, it happens from time to time. Only neither myself or my husband could recall using the last drop and on inspection of the recycling bin, there was no empty bottle to be found.

Best to have a good think and retrace the last known whereabouts of the milk. Last night we all had hot chocolate and Milos before bed. Maybe forgetful old Mummy left the milk beside the kettle. Nope, no milk there.

I know! Mummy is a bit of a forgetful old sausage sometimes, maybe she was sooo tired when making the aforementioned Milos, she mistakenly put the milk away in the cupboard, thinking it was the fridge in her muddled-up way. It has been known to happen from time to time. But no, no milk in the cupboard. What about the freezer? Now that would be funny. But, alas, no milk in their either.

Oh dear this was becoming a worry. Aha! That Daddy has been known for night wandering, maybe he got up in the night and milk-napped that bottle of cow juice. He swore however that he never left his bed last night and a secret investigation revealed no traces of milk-napping.

Don't tell me someone broke into our house in the night to steal our one-third-full bottle of milk? It was beginning to look that way. How very concerning. And we thought this here was a nice town with nice folk.

Well, I guess all that is left to do is saddle up the pram, rug up the family and walk to the shop to buy more milk, and perhaps call into the cafe to fill that morning coffee void. What a puzzling mystery.

Where is the pram? Ah there it is, in the loungeroom parked and ready to go. Oh, but hang on, what's that in the basket underneath? The milk? The milk and the cereal container. Hmmmm. Interesting.

It seems the smallest one was prepared to take matters into her own hands when it comes to early morning breakfast and leave home with a bottle of milk and Sultana Bran!

"It is too early for breakfast Delilah, go back to sleep." is obviously no match for this young woman.

Good thing she can't reach the door handle.

Beyond the feathers

Leo has chooks. He loves his chooks, spends quite a bit of time trying to understand them. So much time in fact that I have come to believe that the rest of world has misunderstood chooks for their whole existence and Leo has been put on Earth to be their saviour and help the rest of the universe realise their ignorant chook ways.

He sits beside the chooks while they lay their eggs, then once a perfectly brown, oval and warm egg has been placed in the nest and the chook takes off for another peck around, Leo takes the egg carefully in his four-year-old hand and goes and thanks the chook for providing his breakfast and wishes the hen a good day. He then comes running inside to tell me the glorious news of a fresh egg, pulls a chair to the fridge and places it in the egg holder.

He can tell which chooks have laid which eggs and is not afraid to provide some constructive criticism, especially if one of his three beloved chooks has been off the lay. He encourages them to give each other cuddles and spent quite a bit of time counselling them over their archaic "pecking order" system when the third chook was introduced to the other two, constantly explaining the sharing concept at feed times.

Leo's chook giftedness (I am pretty sure that is an offical term) was discovered very early. His grandmother (a chook wrangler from way back) accidentally stumbled upon him having a quiet chat with one of her hens atop a 44 gallon drum when Leo had still to turn two. He was looking the chook in the eye having a serious conversation and somehow, the chook actually looked interested. It was then that mum told me he had the way with chooks like she had never seen before.

Funny really given that I am quite afraid of the things myself despite being a farm girl. I can clearly and wholly pin the blame of my broken leg when I was four on chooks, they broke my leg. And don't get me started on clucky chooks, talk about strike the fear of God into you.

In a Douglas Adams-type way I think Leo reckons chooks actually rule the world and we are just here to service them. That one day, they'll just say "thanks for all the scraps" in a bok-bok kind of way and that will be it.

He has instilled an excitement for his feathered friends in his little sister to the point where first thing in the morning, frost or no frost, I have my work cut out restraining the little sister before she is standing in the chook yard in nothing else but a nappy. They do have disagreements over whether the chooks should be let out of their very sizeable yard to roam the entire backyard or not. Delilah is a "free the whales at all costs" type whereas Leo is more concerned at what is best for the welfare of the animals concerned. In the chooks' case, he doesn't trust the visiting cats.

Leo came to me yesterday and said "Look what I can do Mummy!" and promptly bootscooted his way across the loungeroom in perfect steps, thumbs in belt keepers and all. Of course in a surprised and impressed response I said "Where did you learn that Leo?" His response? "The chooks taught me."

Another day when Grandma was here for one of her many exciting visits she asked Leo what book he would like to read. In his usual hilarious manner he brought her the atlas. In trying to outdo Leo's smartness, Grandma opened to a map of the world and said "Ok, where's Australia?" And Leo pointed straight to the correct country. So turned to a different map and asked the same question. And of course he again got it right.

So in amazement I of course ask "Where did you learn that, Leo." His response? "In the chookhouse!"

Hmmmm, so these chooks of Leo's are quite incredible, they have taught him so many things, including some naughty words which I told Leo to let the chooks know aren't acceptable. I hope he passed the message on.

So now that I've caught up...

You will probably notice the posts up until this point were all written before their posting date. Well, after starting this blog in 2007, getting distracted by Facebook for a few years and always having this little corner of the web in the back of my mind, I have decided to return to the dark side and give this blogging thing a red-hot go.

Many people have nagged me to do it, so here I am (see, it is all your fault!) and clearly has nothing to do with the many written pieces that keep me awake at night burning holes in my brain wanting a tangible home.

To catch you up, I have copied over all the below from my Facebook page. This is where my writing will live from now on, it will relieve my Facebook friends from being force-fed nonsensical stuff and allow my brain time to heal from those burning holes. So, here goes nothing....

The real Masterchef (written Sunday May 9, 2010)

“It will be the biggest challenge of their lives” booms the voiceover for the MasterChef promo. As convincing as he sounds, I somehow have to doubt that claim.

I watch MasterChef, I love reality television. It is such a lovely escape into someone else's chaotic world. Occasionally I draw similarities; cooking for a fussy panel of judges with ingredients which can only be found in the cupboard in a limited timeframe. I do that on a daily basis, but that is where the similarities stop.

You know what would make that show a real challenge? Have the judges chew up the food and when they don't like it, spit it out on the floor. Make that food weetbix and have it solidify while the contestants have to deal with the judges' tantrum over the food being unacceptable because we all know dried weetbix doubles as cement when it comes to clean-up.

Contestants should have to come up with a delectable dish according to the whinge of that night. “Noooooooodles”, “I'm hungryyyyy”, “Is tea readyyyyy? But I'm hungryyyyyy” will all be yelled while the cooking takes place. And if it is the day before pay day, that delectable meal has to be made using only potatoes and a congealed lump of sausages from the back of the freezer.

Then (it gets better), the contestants must cook in a kitchen which harbours mysterious wet patches on the floor and lots of pointy, wheel-based toys. Now that would make things exciting. While dodging the obstacles, the contestants will also have the added challenge of a too-clever-for-his-own-good three-year-old overseeing proceedings commenting on how the carrots have been cut wrong and how he would much prefer his vegetables uncooked ALL while a small, hungry but awfully strong girl stands between the contestant and the bench where food preparation is taking place and pushes the contestant's knee caps in the opposite direction to their natural bend, crying hysterically at the lack of attention.

In between all the cooking, preparing and attempting not to burning, the contestant must sort out at least two fights over toys and who gets to put the place-mats on the table, hang out a load of washing and begin the pick up of those pointy and wheely toys.

The real challenge is to get the said meal prepared, cooked, served and eaten before tiredness kicks in and what is referred to as “arsenic hour” in our house commences. The contestants will have to stand in front of the judges convincing them the food is yummy and good to eat and saying things like “just have one more spoonful” and “no, you can't have ice-cream” and “it will make you grow big muscles”.

Now that would be the challenge of a lifetime. Only, I probably wouldn't watch as I have a feeling it wouldn't provide the same mental escape I am looking for!