Chanda Belle

I don’t have much to report on the stitching and designing front… been a little busy with day to day mothering stuff (even with all the help from “daddy” – we do make a great team!). Here is a little 7 hour sample from last night:

4:00pm: change both girls nappies. write and send email to builders regarding bathroom fittings.
4:10pm: afternoon snack with Ila, drink glass of milk and glass of water, look for scissors and pencil without anyone noticing and smuggle them into handbag
4:30pm: calm Lena down and feed her while searching for steam train videos on youtube to keep Ila entertained
5:00pm: gives up on reaching builders over the phone
5:05pm: bath with Ila, thankfully Lena is a curious spectator through it all
5:30pm: move operations to the kitchen. empty and re-fill dishwasher with Ila’s help, stop to entertain Lena every few minutes, get dinner started
6:00pm: dinner is cooking, daddy is home… hand over Ila and dinner care to daddy. move to bedroom to get Lena ready for sleep.
6:05pm: Lena goodnight rounds. Lena gets a cuddle and a feeding top up… and drifts off to sleep at 6:21pm
6:22pm: tackle Ila to get her to wash her hands
6:24pm: daddy finished getting dinner ready. everyone at table having dinner, drink glass of juice and water
6:38pm: daddy and Ila are reading a story. borrow large glue stick from daddy (its the one he uses for his work receipts), change socks (wonder how my socks got wet?), put shoes on, quickly say goodnight and drive 25km to kindergarden
7:02pm: walk into kindergarden. negotiate the size of the owl lantern down so little 3 year old can carry it herself… its agreed small owl lantern can be created. craft owl lantern for Ila. used a hot glue gun for the first time in my life, now I know what I want for Christmas!
8:36pm: driving back home. notices cars behind flashing their headlights. stop to check if rear lights and brake lights are working. all seems to be working.
8:58pm: walk in the door and hide owl lantern. Daddy put Ila in bed and cleaned up after dinner while I was out. the dishwasher is running. Ila is sleeping. Daddy is walking around with Lena, who just woke up. Put craft items away. Return glue stick to the daddy in exchange for Lena.
9:01pm: in bed feeding Lena
9:28pm: wash Ila’s milk bottle, dishwasher is finished, turned it off. boil water for a cuppa.
9:30pm: look at the giant pile of laundry waiting to be folded. decide it can wait till tomorrow. I get 30 minutes to myself, its WIP Wednesday… cross stitching the greens on Summer in my Garden.
10:00pm: quick goodnight hug with the daddy, wonder what that rumbling noise in the background is, we both look for source of noise but dont find it and then mama goes off to sleep.
10:25pm: Ila wakes up, wants a drink of water and goes back to bed.
10:31pm: Ila starts screaming. She can now tell what the problem is… her tooth hurts. Have a look in her mouth, there’s a molar coming out. Administer ibuprofin. Bring her to bed with me. Hold her hand and explain the pain will soon go away until we both fall asleep. Still wondering what the noise is.
11:15pm: Lena wakes up. Noise still there. Daddy is sleeping in the lounge room with ear-mufflers on. Fed Lena.

Lena woke up several more times through the night but is now napping.

Here is a picture of the owl lantern (taken next to last years lantern for size reference – fyi last years was not crafted by me, the kindergarden supplied it). All ready for use in a couple of weeks at the lantern festival.

Its not perfect but its the only one with a tail. Its also the only one with orange wings and it has slightly different eyes.

It could be argued that I would have saved 2.5hours had I not made the owl as requested by the kindergarden. Ila will probably never notice the difference or know the extra little effort it took her very tired mama to go and craft it, just so Ila could have it and take part in the festival… but I smile when I look at it and I look forward to seeing Ila’s pleasure when she uses it and walks around singing the lantern song she’s been practicing for weeks (all on her own, since we don’t actually know the song ourselves – mental note, must get a copy of the lyrics so we can learn it too).

We never did find out what the noise was, fortunately it stopped at around 1am. Still waiting to talk to the builders about the bathroom fittings. Ila reported that her tooth ache is gone before I dropped her off in the kindergarden this morning. And now Lena is awake and needing a feed. Life is good.

I’ve always prided myself at being a brave person and generally doing the right thing. An event last week left me pondering about what exactly the right thing is.

We were at a large bank getting some cash out when 2 guys walked in. By “we”, I mean myself, my 2 little girls, a good friend of mine and her daughter. The 2 guys looked non-threatening, one of them was carrying a small courier bag. One of the guys said to the other “I take this door you take the other”. This raised the hair on the back of my neck as I looked at where my 2 girls and my friends daughter were and pictured a bank holdup. Looking around I saw no security guards and no other children around. A second glance at the guys showed that they were lining up to get to a teller, no doubt the comment was directed at getting through the lunch time bank crowd as quick as possible. Nonetheless, I couldn’t wait to get out of the bank with all 3 girls. Fortunately, my friend was done and we walked out almost immediately.

It felt like a cowardly thing to do… it still kind of does. At the same time cold logic tells me my instinct at the time was right, get the 3 girls out of there. Their safety is my first and main responsibility. Had I truly felt that the guys were really a threat I had the option to call the emergency number and warn the police.

We were around the area for a bit longer and heard no sirens, so the guys were really just there on an errand. Poor choice of words on their part.

This little event somehow is stuck in my mind since it gave me a taste for how I would re-act in such a situation. I have mixed feelings about it… but there you go, these are the mothering years of my life.