I feel like singing that Lili Von Shtupp song from Blazing Saddles. I’m so tired! But not from that.

Woof woof! All night long. DD has *that* cough again. That cough that is dismissed by doctors as being nothing, even when it affects her breathing. I worked out I had a total of 4 hours of sleep, broken into 10 and 20 minute segments. DD looks fine this morning and is coughing a lot less. She’s pretty bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. But I dread tonight where the same old thing will happen again. It’s just me at the moment, no other adult around to take turns checking DD, the vaporiser in her room, rub Vicks on her chest and feet, give her sips of water, and so on.

We had another “fashionist” moment as I dressed DD. She declared that her purple Pumpkin Patch trousers didn’t feel nice. Fair enough, I guess. However, there aren’t a lot of other choices in her wardrobe. She wouldn’t wear the beige corduroy pants with flowers, her denim overalls, or her jeans with cherries or bees on them. She decided on a pair of jeans that are at least a size too big, declaring that because there was hot pink lining on the inside of the waist, these were “pink” and thus OK to wear. Dratted jeans wobbled around her non-existent waistline and I had to find a belt. The only belt I could find was either the polar fleece one for her dressing gown, or an orange belt from an old pair of jeans. DD proudly displayed her outfit of many colours, orange belt glowing against her purple top, partially hidden by a hot pink sweatshirt.

Just as well I was wearing sunglasses to hide my dark circles!

A Guide for Toddlers

1. Ensure you wake 30 minutes after your mother has fallen asleep. Make sure you use the tone of whimper that is never noticed by fathers, or cough, or call out for a missing toy.

2. Keep on the act even after your mother has looked after you, thus making her so thoroughly awake that sleep will evade her for at least another 60 minutes.

3. Wake up with the birds and let everyone know you’re awake.

4. When you and your mother have a nap, wake early.

5. When you’re awake, have a few tantrums. Those wear out mothers if they’re already sleep-deprived. Best to have a tantrum over things which are hard to fix, or use totally intelligible words so your mother can’t work out how to assist you.

6. Demand delicacies and/or unsuitable food or drink ALL DAY. Refuse the finely-prepared meals that are presented to you. Scream if you feel up to it.

7. Holler and splash as much as you like during your bath, refuse to get out, holler some more while being wrestled into pyjamas, scream while having your hair brushed, and complain about being made to wear a nappy.

8. Make everything right by telling your mother “I luff you!” while giving her a hug and kiss before going to sleep.  Prepare for the next 24 hours.

The Mysterious Sumkitty, Perpetrator of Evil and Chaos, hit my kitchen on Monday while I was at work and DD was at childcare. None of the three cats will own up to this so apparently it was Sumkitty who did it.

Sumkitty peed on the toaster and the powerpoint next to it, and then peed probably a litre of urine all over the counter top. There must have been a minor blip in the power supply from that circuit, so all the digital items re-set themselves or turned themselves off.

This morning (Weds. am) I scrubbed the counter top for the umpteenth time. There’s no funny smell, there are no marks, I’ve used disinfectant several times already, but somehow it just doesn’t seem clean. Cooking last night on the stove top (right next to the Area of Evil) was no fun at all - analogous to the potty dance you do when the toilet seat in the public restroom is vile and the floor is full of rubbish yet you’re busting to have a pee and there’s nowhere else to go.

With that pleasant observation, I’ll go and do some work now. After washing my hands.

This post from Andrea Frazer has made me think more than possibly any other post she has written recently. I really enjoy reading Andrea’s blog. Her humour, honesty and winning way with words speak to me, often in the way that I need *right now*.

Her post was on “bragging cheerleading moms”, the ones who insist on letting the whole world know how fabulous their little darling is. An annoying and principal part of their cheering is volume. How can you publicise your child’s cleverness if nobody hears your message? (Why yes, I am interested in advertising and marketing. How did you guess? LOL!)

Since reading that post, I’ve found myself to be almost hyper-vigilant about how I address DD, my utterly adorable 2 year old, in public. As I mentioned in my earlier post here, supermarkets can be fraught times when DD is in one of her moods. I turn on the full entertainment and distraction mode. Not on my Robinson Crusoe with that, obviously. But do I tell the world how fantastic DD is if she does something smart?

I realise I’m slightly hampered. I’m a trained singer and do public speaking. My voice can carry easily and boy, it’s easily understood. (Except, of course, by a cranky toddler. That goes without saying.) Are people learning more than they ever want to know about me, my daughter, and our little world? Maybe. I am utterly shameless in those powder keg situations. I will sing (softly, I hope!), point out interesting things, discuss DD’s food preferences, and more. The squee of “OMG! You are so smart to count to ten!” is more than I could stomach. I will, however, praise DD if she does something right, and praise her for continuing good behaviour. I don’t have to let everyone know about it, though.

I guess I’ve ended up a bit paranoid. I probably shouldn’t be. If I had my wits about me, I’d hold onto my business cards and hand them out to people who give me looks, offering them singing and speech lessons.

I think DD is taking after her mama. After forcing the poor mite to come with me to the restrooms at the mall, DD was highly disgusted with me and proclaimed loudly “Ooh Mummy! Mummy did a yucky! Ooh, stinky!” Thanks, kid.

I am used to DD’s tantrums. They start over the darndest of things: not finding her favourite socks or teddy bear, being made to wear clothes, being made to have a fresh nappy, not having biscuits and honey for breakfast, and that’s just before 7.45 am.

DD threw a tantrum just as we entered the supermarket the other day. I was on my own and I couldn’t get anyone to go and do our shopping for us. We had no milk or bread or various other items so that was it: I had to tough it out.

The wailing started as I put DD in the shopping trolley. She wouldn’t go in the stroller and she wouldn’t walk so that left the trolley. She wailed through soft drinks, toiletries, cat food, dairy goods, toilet paper, pasta, rice, chicken, beef and pork, and became a bit quieter when we finally got to the vegies. Ah! “My onion!” she declared. “My apples!” she continued. “My oranges!” she stated with a covetous look in her eyes. “We already have enough oranges,” I said. Ha! Stupid thing to say!

Waaahhhhh! The tantrum monster returned.

I admit it. I gave in. I gave her an orange to hold until we got to the checkout.

All the same, I’m giving myself seven out of ten for that. I kept my cool, I didn’t scream or shout, and one more orange in the fruit bowl isn’t too bad.

Parent Center has a page on 2 year olds’ tantrums. OK, the developmental psychology side of things is nothing new to me. Wise words there include: Choose your battles. Watch for signs of over-stress. Alert your child to upcoming change. Cuddle after a tantrum.

To think that I was feeling a bit peeved that the bra I wanted to buy wasn’t on special and I had to pay full price of $54.95 for it! I should be much more grateful for the fact that I can afford to buy a new one.

The project Uplift Fiji seeks to send secondhand bras to Fiji and some other South Pacific nations to help the women there. This is serious stuff. In tropical conditions of heat and humidity, fungal infections and abscesses occur between the breast and the chest wall. Bras will help.

From the website I learnt that Fijian woman may make $1.50 or $2 an hour. A new bra can cost up to $40. That is an enormous amount out of her wage.

If you are in Australia and you have used bras that you can donate, please look at the list under the “Supporters” tag at the side and take the bras to a collection point.

Thank you.

I honestly thought that nesting was something that pregnant women only did to their own houses or apartments. That final burst of energy, zooming around and making a nursery look “just right”, sorting out cupboards and wardrobes, eyeing off the garage with hungry eyes, and in the background, there is their partner rushing out to the Shed, the one place of refuge where even a hormonally-driven woman should fear to tread.

A couple of weeks ago DD had a young friend visit. Her mother is, I realise with hindsight, sharing her nesting instincts with others. While the two girls played, somehow I was cajoled into clearing up the magazines under the coffee table, and the toy box, and DD’s books … and the list goes on. I was ready to put my feet up afterwards. Seriously, how normal is it to nest in someone else’s house? Does this only happen when the woman’s own house is already fine? Or is the urge triggered when faced with what might be intolerable mess?

Actually, it reminded me of how much easier springcleaning and big clear-up jobs can be when you have another person or two helping you. I should get off my fat butt and suggest to my friend A. that we share cleaning - the two of us work on a room in her house for one afternoon, the next week we can work on a room in my house. I’m not saying we’ve got grubby houses. Rather, it’s the accumulation of little things that turn into big piles when you’re working and looking after kids and trying to have a full life.

Hey, it might just work!

The How Clean is Your House? website has links on it to pages on how to clean glass, windows, and bathrooms. All very helpful. Even more fun is the link to a gallery of disgustingly dirty houses on the website. I know this is the result of a competition ot get a Dyson vacuum cleaner, but honestly, I couldn’t bring myself to let people know if I had a toilet that revolting.

For everyone’s delectation, here is my to-do list for the next couple of days. In deference to my asthma problems, nearly all of these can be achieved with soap, water, lemon juice and elbow grease. The mould will be zapped by DH, I hope.

1. Scrub out the microwave oven.
2. Pull out the griller tray and scrub the inside of the griller.
3. Sort out bookshelves and find any unwanted books to go to the Lifeline Book Fair.
4. Pull out the cupboard in the hall away from the wall and clean the floor and get rid of the rapidly-propagating dust bunnies.
5. Find out what has fallen behind the piano.
6. Remove the mould colonies from the ceiling fan in the bathroom.

This is in addition to attending a meeting tonight that will go for about 2 hours.

I bought a new knit top in what I thought was navy blue. In some light, it looks dark blue and under other lights it looks black. I wish I had some way of actually telling what colour a top is while I’m at a shop, looking at clothes under fluorescent light. It’s the same thing with determining the correct shade of foundation for makeup. Next thing you know, you’re wearing makeup that wouldn’t look out of place on Bozo the Clown.

No, we don’t have a dog. Can you imagine the carry-on the cats would create if we brought a dog into their close-knit family?

Rather, I have a toddler who coughs and coughs. The doctor hasn’t been much help with this apart from when her cough turned into a croup cough, for which she was given prednisone syrup. For children at DD’s age, doctors are reluctant to diagnose asthma. I can say outright that cough syrups are next to useless, ditto the usual “folk remedies” like honey, Vicks Vaporub on the chest and soles of the feet, etc.

On Radio National’s Health Report on 12 May 2008, there was a report on persistent childhood coughing, defined as that which continues for four weeks or more and doesn’t have asthma-like conditions (eg getting worse with exertion). Anne Chang, who’s Professor of Child Health at the University of Queensland, examined the use of cough syrups that are basically anti-histamines. Amazingly, the efficacy of these medicines has hardly been studied in the past.

Professor Chang said: If the cough is acute [and it's not asthma], meaning that it’s less than four weeks then it’s probably going to be post viral and you wouldn’t advocate any sort of therapies except to watch and wait.What we’ve advised practitioners is just to watch and wait because the majority of them would actually just go away. We’ve done a study just looking at 108 kids and in kids with a dry cough, and it’s chronic, something like 20% of them actually just resolve spontaneously. [...] What is advocated is that every child with a chronic cough should have as a minimum a chest X-ray and if they are old enough to have a spirometry as well. [...] The treatment that we would advocate is simple stuff like rubbing Vicks on their chest and using honey and lemon drinks which probably soothes and changes your receptors: so just non specific treatment as opposed to medication.

All very sensible stuff and most reassuring, though I will keep a close eye on DD all the same. I should also invest in a pair of earplugs so I can get some sleep from 5 am when DD starts up the coughing every morning.

A quick list of books which I feel I should have read but somehow haven’t … Lazy? Unmotivated? Threatened by the denseness of the prose? All of the above? I’d say the latter.

1. The Seagull - Chekhov.  I’ve seen this performed and neither the performance nor the performers provoked any desire in me to open my copy of the play.

2. A book on how to drought-proof my garden. The poor garden already looks pathetic and books like this make me alternately angry and sad. I don’t need any more of that.

3. Pamela. Yes, that novel. The one from centuries past where the maid is pestered by the aristocrat and gives up her virginity only after her wedding to the same.

4. Man and Superman - George Bernard Shaw.