Real Love chemist style

It's almost Valentines day..and...well the most Valentiney thing I've received this year is a card that Poppy "made"me, ie: her lovely and creative childcare carer made with Poppy adding a few scribbles.

But Eduardo and I aren't really into St Val's - nor anniversaries. In fact we've only been married for 3 years and were hard pushed to remember the date recently. Major Fail.

However we have some majorly big love going on...and here is a little rewind post that sums it right up for me.
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Last weekend I discoverd that true love ain't about diamonds, flowers, chocolates or candlelight dinners......oh no true love is setting off to the shops with the kind of shopping list that would have most men trembling in their boots.

The list in question was this:

Nipple shields

Thrush cream

Anaesthetic cream

Heat pack

Cabbage

And my Edward showed true grit by setting off with this very list in hand and returned with the said items in record time. To add insult to injury it was his birthday, what a guy.

In case you think I was just being very cruel or testing the limits of our relationship I must explain. Last Sunday I had the most horrendous bout of Mastitis which is an unbelievably painful infection of, well I won't beat around the bush, the boobs. In agony I was willing to try just about anything to relieve the pain and after consulting the net, friends and doctors I had amassed a list of things I wanted from the chemist but unable to to leave my house to obtain these magical objects I had to send Ed instead. I am impressed. It's funny you know, once upon a time my step-grandmother commented on the fact that she worried that seeing as we ain't married that perhaps Ed wouldn't 'stand by me'. Well I'd say this is the ultimate litmus test.

So my advice is this - Ladies if you are worried about your man not standing by you, don't send him to the altar, send him to the chemist instead.

A two wheeled time machine

Ed loves getting me surprises - and mostly (damn him) he is bloody good at it. This Christmas he was looking particularly pleased with himself and I for the life of me could not even imagine what he had in store for me gift-wise.

I must be getting old, because short of a million bucks, a full time nanny and a new house I couldn't think of anything I wanted. It's a nice place to be in your life though, when you feel like you have everything you could ever want. Then I discovered that some of the best presents are the ones you don't even know you wanted until you get them.

This beauty was Ivy's idea - the madness of a four year old or sheer genius? Ed bought it and my parents were coerced into hiding it. It...which quickly became a "she" under my ownership was stashed in the garden for me to discover Christmas morning.

Apart from being glorious to look at, from my first ride I realised she could give me so much more than just looks. She gave me freedom, fun and the ability to fly back to that feeling I don't think I've had since I was a kid.

Riding her along the waters edge near our home brings my 70's childhood zinging back. Suddenly I recall zooming around my hilly neighbood at a kid, at sunset, on my own, with my friends, singing Abba at the top of my lungs and more often than not pretending that my bike was a much desired horse.

The horse, sadly, never happened but these days the bike gives me the same feeling. And now being a responsible grown person, a partner, a parent and now a boss jumping on my bike is just all about fun and no responsibility.

When the kids are driving me nuts, work is stressing me out - Ed just tells me "go on, get on yer bike, you always come back smiling." And I do - I am addicted.

Like a tiger

When I started this blog this title came from a description of some presents I'd received for my 31st or 32nd birthday. I lived in a sharehouse with 3 friends and we had a pretty good, non responsible kind of smoking drinking life.

On this particular birthday I was the lucky recipient of a beautiful cream teapot with a curly silver handle (thank you Emma) and a massive bunch of hot pink tiger lillies. (thank you girls from the opera house - my fave flowers in the world.) Hence the phrase Tigers and Teapots.

Once I met Ed and we headed overseas for a year this blog was named after those two domestic things but quickly became reality as we travelled south america drinking endless cups of tea and working with wild cats (the locals called my cat a Tigre) and then onto Thailand where we got to do our fair share of cuddling real live tigers.

When I got home I lamented my life had become "less tiger - more teapot" and it certainly did. Ed and I bought a house with a white picket fence, we made a baby, I stayed at home for a year, went back to work, starting going to bed at a sensible hour and kind of grew up. Then I got pregnant and had another baby - hello Poppy and it seemed that tigers were a long way from my life.

Until Poppy got a little older - by the age of 14 months Poppy fell in love with a toy of Ivy's. A lovely soft floppy toy tiger with big soft paws and a sweet face. His name? "Tigery". Soon enough Tigery became Poppy's bed companion and best friend. Then Poppy started growling and "rahing". My mum accused me of teaching her but I swear I didn't. In the mornings I'd go into her darkened room and the first thing I'd hear was "ah-raaaahhhhhh". My tiger baby was here. Then our tiger child started growling at people and her favourite - birdies. Her standard answer to what you say to birds is "raaaahhhhh!"

Then my sister bought our tiger baby - a toy baby. This particular toy baby is dressed like a tiger, odd? yes. Suitable for Poppy? Absolutley.

Then at a garage sale recently I spotted another lovely toy tiger for 2 dollars. Before I could say a word she snatched this tiger up and covered him with kisses. She is amassing quite a collection.

I explained to her carers at childcare not to be alarmed if she starts growling or rahing and while some of them looked perplexed, one of them - a chinese lady called Jing said "of course Poppy likes to growl - she IS a tiger" Huh? "She is born in the chinese year of the tiger." SO there you go - it was meant to be.

So now I really do have a tiger AND a teapot in my house once again - funny how life comes full circle eh?

On ageing and dying

A quote from Fran Robson in the Good Weekend this weekend:

"I just want to live until I die, like the song says. What's starting to filter through though, is that the world we're accustomed to actually dies before we do.In undertaker speak it precedes us. The real pathos of ageing isn't the inevitability of death but the long slow shuffle into an alien landscape."

Hello Dolly

The email came late last week from Emma. "Interested...it's bloody expensive but it IS Dolly".

Am I interested? Hell yes. Dolly Parton, that boobalicious, blonde, living walking, talking, cartoon country and western singer (and so, so much more) is coming to Australia after a 30 year break. She's playing Acer Arena for just one night and I am sitting here poised at the computer waiting for the tickets to go onsale online so I can snap some up.

Having done the maths I realised that I haven't been to a gig for about 4 years (I think the last one was when I was pregnant with Ivy) so even at $165 - if you average that out over 4 years it's pretty good value AND apparently Ms Parton is renowned for pulling off 3 hour shows on a regular basis.

What has suprised me more (more than my own discovered passion for the lady herself) is just how many other Dolly lovers have leapt out of the closet. When I posted that I wanted to go on Facebook messages of solidarity, envy filled up the comments box. And currently the number of those of us going together to the show is at 15.....I am buying the tickets....I just hope I don't max out my card, but if I do, it IS for Dolly.

I look good on Thursdays

On Thursdays I look good.

If you dropped into my place at say around 1pm there would be a tidy nay immaculate house, washing wafts on the line, the laundry basket tamed and sorted and sitting on the dining table. The floor is devoid of it's usual layer of spattered pureed fruit and specks of cheese and the dishwasher is stacked.

Poppy is either a: clean and happy and playing or B: magically asleep, which is usually unheard of at this time of the day. It is a scene of domestic bliss - and I will not be part of it. In fact I would not even be in the house.

Because Thursday mornings is what I like to call 'Dee day'.

Dee is my friends nanny who I have borrowed for a princely sum to take care of Poppy while I go to uni this semester on day a week (having not been able to secure a spot for Poppy in Ivy's childcare centre - despite being on a waiting list since 2009.)

Now I've experienced the magic of using a nanny my life may never be the same, though sadly unless I rob a bank the experience will end mid July for us. As a friend said to me recently when she found out we were using a nanny. "Oh man, having a nanny is like flying business class....once you've done it, you'll never want to go back to economy."

And so it is true. Having someone come to your house means you can swan out the door when you are ready - whether your darling is still asleep, still spattering yoghurt around the kitchen or still in their jammies. There is no waking up a cranky child, stuffing breakfast into them and then stuffing them in the car to get them to a childcare centre where they will join the ranks of other snot encrusted babies lined up in their highchairs. No - there is nothing but calm and it makes me realise why all these godamn celebs and millionaires look so bloody good a few weeks after squeezing out their kids.

Sadly at 20 bucks an hour with no Govt rebate, this kind of bliss does not come cheap. The other night Ed and I were having our usual discussion about what we would do if we won the lottery. A few years ago our millionaire fantasies revolved around moving to Thailand, travelling 6 months of the year and buying a holiday house. The other night you know what our ultimate fantasy was? Building a bigger house with a separate apartment in the garden and unlimited access to Dee.....these days that would beat the best tropical island in Thailand hands down.

Some numbers

3 - is the number of colds that Poppy has had in 6 weeks

3 - is the number of days this week I have spent unable to do anything except hold a crying sick baby who doesn't want me to put her down, ever.

2 - is the number of colds I have had. I have one now which arrived the day the first one was just on its way out.

3 - is the number of people in the house who have also had stomach bugs.

4 - is the time of the morning we have seen more frequently than we would have liked to thanks to a sick baby and a weird almost 4 year old.

9 - is the time we have started going to bed in case we start the day at 4.

400 - is the amount of dollars we have paid in Poppy's childcare fees which we haven't been able to use because of reason number one.

0 - is the amount of energy I have - having been sick or looking after a sick child since about mid March.

0 - is the amount of time I have had to be able to do any uni work in the last 3 weeks.