Dog Days

All is not happy in Matilda's world. As you'll know, she is a dog of senior years and has many miles trodden beneath her soft paws.

She has been slowing down for a while but still the spark was there until last week, when on the way home from dropping Eloise off at school, she took herself down into a creek for a drink and a paddle. Lyra and I pushed on for a while but then had to turn back when Matilda hadn't caught up, to find her still in the creek, unable to climb the steep sides and in need of help.

So I climbed down into the creek and had to lift the poor girl bodily out.

And for a next few days she hobbled about, a little shorter every time, til she could barely make it round the block.

So, to the vets and we talk about arthritis and ticks and so on and put her on anti-inflammatory tablets.

And on Saturday night she fell down the stairs and hasn't been upstairs since, she's taken herself to the bottom of the garden, and she's just lying there, with a wag of the tail if we go down to see her, and a drink of water if it's put in front of her.

So we don't know if she's hurt her back or been bitten by something nasty or whether she's just ready to die.

In about an hour we'll carry her to the car to go to the vet again for some x-rays and we'll hopefully find out what's going on, but in the meantime it feels a lot like some sort of crunch-time is impending, and that's not a nice feeling at all.

Firsts

Here is Little Lyra, puckering up for her first kiss with Mum. How sweet. She just sort of decided to do it, and then she wouldn't stop. I don't get kisses of course, that just wouldn't be right, would it? It's not some sort of egalitarian utopia that we live in, after all.

On Monday, Little Lyra took herself for her first little walk. How exciting. She was messing about with a toy, Nicole had her stood up, and off she went. Now, if properly launched, she will go for four or five paces before realising what is occurring and then falling over or lowering herself gently into a more feasible position. Still, now everywhere she has to be accompanied. If she wants to go to anywhere - for instance the shops - she'll crawl up to you and hold out her hand, into which you'll be obliged to insert your finger, before setting off at a humungous pace, climbing stairs two at a time, before seeing something, stopping, and returning the average walking pace to something considerably more glacial.

What a Potentially Musical Family We Have the Potential To Be

Eloise is learning the violin, and apparently is in need of a half-size fiddle now, according to her reports of what her teacher has said. She is also getting to be quite good at the recorder, she picks up a ukelele from time to time, and has a tinkle on the old plastic ivories too.

Lyra is following suit and is partial to banging - literally - out a tune on the keyboard, especially when she is upset set. She is very fond of the pitch-bend wheel. Also she can get a note out of the recorder; just the one, though. She isn't allowed near the violin, but she adores the harmonica being played for her.

Early Morning School-Run Blues

I will now attempt to explain to you, dear reader, the challenges of getting a child to school when another child who does not attend school has needs that must be balanced against those of the first.

The first challenge is of course how to maximise one's rest in order to have the greatest mental fortitude to bring to bear upon the challenges of the morning. This is achieved through partnership of course. If there is an infant that is prone to rising with the sun (and there is) then this child, if unmollified by the mammary, can become habituated to rolling around on the bed and attempting to mount the bed-side table in search of trinkets, drinks, or worse. This situation can be ameliorated by the contingency of lifting the child onto the floor and managing it through the Limited Sense Strategy. Perhaps use only your sense of Hearing, as I do.

In time, the child may experience signs of upset. This could be boredom or hunger. At this point it may become necessary to open eyes, perhaps even leave the warmth of the bed. Playing at this time in the morning (do not forget that at this time of the year the sun rises at five am) would obviously run the risk of something or other, so perhaps confinement to the high-chair might be in order whilst breakfast is considered. Probably in the abstract.

Breakfast, when eventually delivered, may well consist of cereals, breads, perhaps something egg-based. Berries are popular.

At some point the older, wiser, daughter may choose to awaken. This however is a rare occurence.

Much more likely is the scenario in which the older, wiser daughter must be awakened. This will usually occur over an hour before school time. The daughter will complain bitterly about almost everything and the previous good humour afforded by interactions with a human being yet to develop the capacity for speech will evaporate like screen-cleaner on a clean screen.

Breakfast for the grumpy child will have to be negotiated and will be dithered over. Time will begin to run short. Tasks such as napplication, dressing, and ablution (including sunscreen) can be accomplished for Speechless while Grumpy dithers. Tooth-brushing will be the high-point. Napplication the low.

Time will run seriously low and will need regular announcement. Announcement will be resented and the resentment will be communicated. Shrilly. The shrill communication will need to be picked up on, obviously, and objected to. It's all downhill from here really. After a crescendo, someone will need to get themselves bloody well dressed and ready, and their bag packed, or else there will be real trouble.

At some point someone may realise that provisions for luncheon and break-foods have been neglected and this will need to be attended to. This will probably result in an argument, I mean negotiation, too.

Number Two Daughter is now bike-capable so we have transportation options of available to us, depending on the day and our after-school commitments. Maybe we'll ride a bike, maybe we'll walk. On certain days - shock, horror - we might even drive. But only as a last resort. Or if the weather's bad. Transportation dictates our departure time.

Transportation Mind-changing is not to be encouraged. Last time a mind was changed we ended up with me on a bike with the babe on the back and the dog on the end of a lead, sniffing the proverbial roses, and Eloise on a bike halfway up the street with a procession of three cars following her uncertain progress. Not to be repeated soon.

Still, after all that, we haven't really been late yet. Yet.

Lyra's Birthday Number One

A year has passed in the life of Lyra, twelve months since our excitement-stricken drive to the hospital and contraction-punctuated hobble to the Birthing Centre where I gazed slack-jawed upon the cowled alien-face of my offspring emerge from my lovely wife's unmentionables at a pace that can only be said to have been indiscreet bordering on downright pushy.

A year in which Daughter Number One has progressed from being a caring elder sister into something a little more nuanced as the spotlight of public attention has slid away and the shadows of sharinghood have spread their dark wings in a depressing embrace, gesturing at the existence that the rest of us must endure and unimaginatively naming it Reality.

A year in which Daughter Number Two has progressed from being a dribbling lump of inertia, admittedly a cute one, but dribbling and reasonably inert nevertheless, into a bouncing squealing lump of energy, in love with nananas and constantly wanting to be bup.

We started the day by delegating the present-opening activities to Eloise and a suite of charming things were revealed, for which I am sure Lyra would thank you all if only she understood birthdays, presents, the societal rules of etiquette, and the English language.

We invited a few friends to the park for a play and a barbecue at the park. We stayed for a few hours eating and drinking. Lyra was managed and chaperoned communally. It may be that she was not fed or watered as much as she should be. If only he had managed to grasp the English language by now she would have been able to explain in her later upset whether this was the cause.

She was present for the cake cutting and so on. The cake of course was the real purpose of the party and I am sure (I think I am sure) that Nicole will be reasonably content that I should report that the Rainbow Spectrum Cake was an ambitious project to attempt, and whilst perhaps not realised to its maximum potential it was nevertheless rainbowy and very large, being made up of six normal-sized cakes with the icing challenges that the physics of that particular scenario present.

The Australians, as ever, were bemused by the bumps. As there was only one, and one for luck, their bemusement only really had a chance to germinate before the event (or ceremony if we're being ambitious) passed by like a balloon on the breeze.

Gardens of Integrated Delights

The first garden that we visited was a cosy place free of tiresome lawn with little paths wandering around a wonderful little plot with native plants bursting from the red soil of every bank at every opportunity. The owners were clearly very proud of their prizewinning garden and it wasn't long before Eloise was working her way into their affections, bit by bit, with Lyra incoherently working her way up the other flank, and caught between the pincers we were sent away with cuddles and a children's book of Oliver Twist that we are still reading.

In all we visited five gardens, yabbering away at each one: one beautifully manicured by an unlikely-looking muscle car enthusiastic; another by his father with an extraordinary garden with not a wasted centimetre; a child-friendly kitchen/cottage garden where we probably outstayed our welcome borrowing mulberries and bothering chickens; and another sculpted effort with bowers and avenues overflowing with blooking cliveas.

And at the end we visited a park for a rest where we drank coffee and ate ice cream in the Garden City of gardens.

Toowoomba

On a day such as this very one - only a Sunday - and Nicole's Birthday - we decided in our infinite wisdom to tip our hand towards the Toowoomba Festival of Flowers, which was competing in Nicole's Birthday Proirities with O'Reilly's Rainforest Thingummybob at Lamington National Park and any secret things she hadn't told us about.

Anyhow we decided that Toowoomba was the Place to Be and off we set down the Warrego Highway towards it, not really having much of an idea what to expect as we headed out across the Lockyer Valley along the Darren Lockyer Way, a road that strives in competition with only Steve Irwin Way for a name so inspirational and yet at the same time, or indeed simultaneously, so very original. See, the Steve Irwin Way goes past Australia Zoo, right? Whereas Darren Lockyer Way goes up the Lockyer Valley.

The valley that the road wends its wendy way across... well, you wouldn't call it a valley as you wended your way across it, in the sense that there aren't mountains that you can see on either side of it, but we're told it's a valley so a valley it is; and at the end of it, the road does ascend into what are some quite impressively steep and dare I say looming hills. At just the point where a child in the back - let's call her Eloise for the sake of illustration - might say "How much further is it, for flip's sake," just atop the retaining wall of hills in the distance you might spy a smattering of roofs glinting in the sunlight, and say "See those mountains up ahead, that's where we're headed."

And as the car laboured up the hill, with fuel economy obviously at the forefront of your thoughts, we exchanged a glance that says "Well we're here now, now what the hell do we do." And the obvious answer was to visit the Tourist Information Centre, an answer so obvious and obviously so often arrived at, that the police had been called in to manage traffic and the place was mobbed and maps sold out.

So we ended up marking up our own map from the Festival leaflet with random people's gardens that they had inexplicably opened up to the public.

Laughing

To get Lyra to think something is a really good idea, all you really have to do is laugh at her after she's done it, at which point her eyes light up and somewhere behind them cogs turn, very obviously.

Today the unlikely and potentially counterproductive behaviour that we have probably already ingrained into her is the act of sitting up quite straight, then falling over backwards.

So far she's only tried this on a nice soft bed.

Well-adjusted

Shall I paint you a picture of well-adjustment, of peaceful evenings spent over the Scrabble board, light and pleasant conversation over the dinner-table in the warm spring air, laughter exchanged around the piano, singing and dancing around the house, giggling play-fights, monosyllabic baby-conversation, prancing in the countryside beside a gamboling dog, never a cross word, but always a kind one?

Well things aren't that bad, but there isn't any singing around the piano. Mostly Eloise belts out the Les Mis favourites one-handed or Lyra bashes the notes indiscriminately; still I suppose she's only ten months old. We don't own Scrabble. Our play fights involve girls giggling and me being frankly assaulted. Eloise does sing and dance around the house, mostly when she's supposed to be doing other stuff. We don't prance in the countryside, and the dog is too old and senile to do anything approaching a gambol. Still the baby conversations are monosyllabic but fun, the cross words mixed with the kind ones, and the spring air is very, very warm.

Ma ma ma ma

Baby development update: Mas are in evidence, but das are not. There are las and blas, but the most important syllable is lacking. As far as the utterances go they are not words. Perhaps they will be soon, but probably not.

Four teeth are through, more on the way judging by the nocturnal inconvenience. Amber necklaces are ineffective against the pain of teething. Paracetamol is effective against the pain of teething. Tonight we may well have the opportunity to assess the efficacy of bonjela against the pain of teething.

Crawling is still going on, and getting up to standing with support. So-called chair-surfing is being done, though I don't really see it as an extreme sport.