The Daughter-saurus #2

They're words, Amy, but let's just keep it between us.

Having a three-year-old (happy birthday plus eleven days, Mitchy!) who is teetering on the brink of Not Being Quite As Obnoxious, I'm really cherishing Amelia's 17-month-old-ness, because now I know. I know that it's only a few months until my precious little cling-on with wobbly legs becomes an all-kicking, all-screaming, all-possessing two-year-old. And one of the things I'm enjoying the most is the emerging language.

I couldn't tell you exactly which language is emerging from Amy - it sounds like English. That is, it's constructed of the same phonemes. But I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who understands it. When, for example, I point to a picture of a turtle in a book and she says, "Toe-too!", I look to whomever happens to be visiting as if to say, "See! She can say turtle!" and I get a look back that says, "Uh-huh. She's very special. Yes. Let's move on."

Nevertheless, I would like to dedicate this First Post in Bloody Ages to the cataloguing of my daughter's little collection of little words, whether I'm imagining them or not. Before I forget.

"Bow" - Bowl.
"Bowwwwwww" - Ball.
"Na-na" - Banana.
"Da!" - Daddy.
"Mimi" - Mummy.
"Da-deh" - Teddy.
"Roll roll roll roll roll" - Roll.
"Eye" - Eye.
"Ya" - Ear.
"Toe-too" - Turtle.
"Nonononononononono" - No.
"Boo!" - Boo!
"WAAAAAAAAA-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" - Mummy, Mitchell just snatched a toy out of my hand and pushed me over and my head hit the floor. Could you pick me up please?

Important.

No jokes today. Just a bunch of jokers.

Ok, I know I've been blogging a lot about vaccination in a Very Serious Way lately, but I honestly haven't had a lot of time to do anything on this here page except pass on stuff from others. And now I'm about to do it again.

This pdf file is an open letter to parents about the big fat fibs told by the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN), which, despite its important-sounding name, doesn't do anything helpful. Instead they try to convince people that childhood vaccines are more risky than beneficial. And that's not true. The Australian Skeptics have published this letter in order to have it freely distributed about the country, no doubt in an effort to destroy what little persuasive power and credibility the AVN has left.

Please print it, post it, paste it and do whatever you like with it. Unless you disagree with it, in which case, please do some more research.

Thanks, Australian Skeptics.

Orac the Insultant

I dips me lid...
Work is unbelievably busy at the moment. I find myself unable to scope projects effectively in my recently-established status as a work-from-home Mummy. However, I simply must steal a few minutes to quote one of my favourite bloggers (Orac over at Respectful Insolence). He does a well-considered smackdown like nobody else I know. Today's offering about the 'lovely' Jenny McCarthy and the 'hilarious' Jim Carrey:

"Together they spew antivaccine nonsense so ignorant and stupid that it represents a burning black hole of dumb, which simultaneously sucks all intelligence past its event horizon and burns out the neurons of anyone with any intelligence forced to be exposed to it."

Indeed.

Everybody's got one...

...but not everyone's is switched on.

I have just been watching a so-called debate on Channel Seven's Sunday Night program about vaccination in Australia. It's not a program I'd usually watch, but I'm an avid supporter of vaccination, and wanted to see if the telly would spew forth its usual panic-promoting bollocks.

It didn't. Ray!

There are plenty of people who will blog in detail about the show - I'm looking forward to reading more on Ratbags.com and on the Sceptic's Book of Pooh-Pooh (my vote for Blog Title of the Year). So I'm not going to blather on when some of my favourite bloggers will do it more eloquently and with more respectful insolence than me.

One moment did, however, motivate me to put fingies to keyboard. Meryl Dorey, of the mind-bogglingly misinformed and irresponsible Australian Vaccination Network, made this comment (apparently trying to convince the audience of something):

"I'm not a doctor, but I do have a brain."

I'm instantly reminded of a corker attributed to 19th Century English essayist Adam Cooper:

"Giving English to an American is like giving sex to a child - he knows
it's important but he doesn't know what to do with it."

These pudgy little piggies were made for walkin'

Stagger, stagger, wait, smile, stagger, plop, ray!

As the carers at kindy, the mummies at Playgroup, the creche staff at the gym, my mother, my sister and anyone who will listen will tell you, I've been announcing that Amelia was going to walk before her first birthday since she was about ten months old.

I was wrong.

I forgot that it is the Most Random Baby In The World's job to keep me guessing, so she chose April the 16th, her birthday, to take her first few steps. And do you think she was pleased with herself? She looked like the cat who caught the canary, brought it back inside to its owner only to find its bowl full of cat biscuits, full-cream milk and four more canaries.

Proud, proud mummy.

We marked the birthday occasion last weekend at a quiet morning tea with Nan, Pop, Grandpa, Reni, Auntie Jo and Auntie Robin, all of whom brought lovely pressies, including the coolest jeans I've ever seen - baby-sized or otherwise.

Mummy and Daddy presented Amy with Bunny 2, an imaginitively-named toy rabbit that I was given (alongside Jo's Bunny 1) at about the same age. Apart from Mitchell's middle name of Thornely (which may or may not get him beaten up at school), Bunny 2 is the first thing that I've handed down to the next generation. And I know it looked like I was crying, but it was just that Bunny had been sitting in a box for 30 years and I get a bit of hay fever. Really.

Now let's just take a moment to see what 12 months can bring...

Small. squashed.

All big and pot-bangy.

Now in the interest of balancing the kiddie see-saw, Mitchell has had a few lovely breaks from saying "NO!" to everything and correcting his parents ("You DO want to squash me, Mummy!") in order to display his entertaining and frankly astounding view of the world. Some examples:

• Whenever we pass a particular tree on the walk to the gym, he reaches out towards some fallen flowers and yells, "want a frangi-penny! Want a frangi-penny!"


• He will only be happy if his right shoe is put on before his left shoe these days. My growing concerns about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder are somewhat balanced by my bursting pride at him knowing his right from left.


• Reciting house numbers on long walks (see OCD comment above) remains a favourite pastime. I may have to start a new route, however, since he seems to have memorised which numbers on which houses are displayed, and which are not. Hence, on the way past the primary school, he'll tell me that "44" comes after "52", which it doesn't in the grown-up world. But sure enough, between number 52 and number 44, there are no house numbers displayed. Smarty-pants.

Oh, listen to me, all braggy braggy and such. They do horrid things too:

• Amelia is playing yo-yo with her secondary incisors. They seem to appear one day and be re-covered by gum the next, each occasion being announced loudly several times during the night. I've got a lot to thank Science for, and Baby Nurofen is currently at the top of my list.


• As hinted earlier, Mitch is about as contrary as a toddler can get, but only around his parents and his swimming teacher, it seems. If disagreeing was an Olympic sport, he'd be short-listed for 2012. He's a little bit like Jim Trott of Dibley in his delivery.


• If I am in the same room as Amy, she will hold my legs. It's all squidgy and gorgeous, until I want to go anywhere or do anything. Then I have to either walk very slowly, or prepare for a big wail.


• When not training for the Olympics, Mitch is trying for the record of the Latest Commencement of Toilet-Training Ever. I must have read about twenty-five articles or book chapters about the 'signs' to look out for that a toddler is ready for toilet-training, and I'm lucky if I can tick off a single one. He occasionally shows interest in sitting on the loo, but it's usually to distract Mummy's attention from a less-desirable option, like having a bath or going to bed. And the moment his bum-cheeks hit the seat, he says, "finished Mummy!" and I'm obliged to congratulate him on perching there in the first place. Sigh.

Ok, enough. You're all up-to-date. Now I'm sure I can find other ways to avoid doing work...

A Eulogy for Keith Urban...

...who is not actually dead. Don't write in.

No doubt you've been following the year-long Urban Decay that's been going on over Jo Blogs' way (and if you haven't, do. You'll be entertained. Unless you love Keith, in which case I'll be entertained). Unfortunately and unsurprisingly, I was unable to make it to Keith's final farewell, where the last shards of his most recent musical output were to be ceremonially flushed. But, just like a country singer, I didn't want the occasion to slip by without putting pen to paper and hacking out some poignant, if totally unnecessary, words:

What can I say 'bout a bloke named Keith?
With his foil-streaked hair and his perfect teeth,
With his gin-soaked life
And his skinny useless wife
And a catalogue of whining twangy piffle to bequeath?

Oh, what can I offer such a fellow as our Keith?
For I can't attend his funeral and I can't afford a wreath.
But I can jot this epithet
On a dirty serviette
And say "Adios, you boring twat. I'll see you Underneath".

This just in...

When news isn't.

Regular readers of this blog (hi, multitude!) will know that one of my favourite quirks of humans is their need to fill silence with any old rubbish. It's particularly entertaining when undertaken by people paid money to do it under pressure - namely news reporters and sports commentators. And when one forgets about piffling little trivialities like African civil wars or South American military coups (as commercial networks always do), one is often left with Very Little News Indeed. Everyone knows that nature abhors a vacuum (who doesn't?), so what are the poor reporters to do but come up with little gems like this:

"The NSW Premier, Nathan Rees said he didn't want to see a repeat of last week's brawl at Sydney Airport";

"The man was shot at by at least one gunman";

and my usual favourite:

"The Reserve Bank made no change to interest rates today".