Always quirky, sometimes sweet speculative fiction

Category: My Family (Page 4 of 4)

thoughts and experiences on being a wife, being a mother and trying to make a family work

Evil Genius’ First Day

Xander experienced his first day of day-care today. He’s stayed at home with my husband many times before, and he’s spent afternoons with my mother while I’ve had three or four hour shifts but today he experienced care given not by blood relatives and was there for a full day. Typically, he took it better than we, the parents, did.

In the morning as we dropped him off we were both down on bended knee, waving and saying nice and clearly: “Bye-bye Xander, mummy and Daddy are going to work now.” But he didn’t care, he was trying to race over to the slide or the plastic ‘Flinstones’ style cars. Even when we walked out of view all he wanted to do was run around and play with the other kids, there was no backward glance to see if we were lingering behind him like we normally would.

My husband and I consoled ourselves with the thought in a few hours when the novelty wore off he would notice our absence and become distraught. We took great pains to let the centre staff know they could contact either or both of us if he was too distressed.

Of course neither of us received a call. Blessedly I was extremely busy at work trying to ensure there would be nothing left for my boss to worry about when he returns from his leave so the day went by quite quickly for my first eight hour work day in a year and a half. I rushed back to the day-care centre as soon as possible, running a little late because (as always) a customer came in with a long and complicated sale mere minutes before closing. Everyone who has ever worked in retail knows exactly what I am talking about. Naughtily I was speeding just a little but by an incredible stroke of luck someone was speeding much worse than I and they caught the attention of the unmarked police car and not me – and of course I was scared straight by my brush with the law and maintained the correct speed limit the rest of the way to the centre.

When I arrived I found my son happily scribbling on some paper with a girl a little older than he. He looked up, looked back down and scribbled a bit more before doing a double take. He wasn’t particularly upset, but he wasn’t bursting with joy at the sight of me either. Normally when cared for at home he is ecstatic at my return so it was a little knife to my heart.

The carers told me he had been generally happy all day – he had trouble sleeping, but he has trouble sleeping even with his father and nanna so that wasn’t a surprise. I’m glad to hear his first day went so well, but can’t help feeling disheartened that he didn’t miss me more. Or maybe he is an evil genius and this is a ploy to have his vengeance for abandoning him…

Eight Ball

For those interested/concerned Xander has almost fully recovered now. He took a turn for the worse after my last post, but has bounced back now.

As I catch up on all the posts that I missed over the last few days I curse all the book review blogs I follow. Every single one of them had a review for a book I now desperately want to read. Damn you all stop making me want to spend more money! I would threaten to unfollow them but we all know I’m not capable of that. In fact I should be reviewing more books myself, I haven’t even put up half of my collection on Goodreads yet. There is so much I need to get my rear in gear over. I feel like I’m behind the eight-ball at the moment and I have to remind myself that I’m not under any real pressure because my main job is Xander and that’s going beautifully and everything else is just side projects, but when you don’t get anything done on those side projects for a while it can ruin a good mood fast.

Hope everyone else is feeling a little more accomplished than I am right now.

So I don’t finish this post on a dreary note if anyone out there is on Goodreads let me know so I can befriend you.

Fever

Xander is in the throes of his first fever. When he was four months he had a mild cold but no fever, and now ten months has passed without a single illness plaguing my poor boy, but late last night he got hot and clingy.

The doctor this morning was HELL. We have a great doctor’s clinic nearby where you don’t have to make an appointment, just show up and wait. Most of the time you’re only waiting 10-15 minutes which you usually wait at a doctor’s office even when you have an appointment anyway. Today was an hour and a half in a packed waiting room with a baby who just wanted to cling and cry.

It’s not an ear or throat infection, his nose isn’t running and he doesn’t have diarrhea so it’s just a random fever. Even though I know it isn’t something to panic about he’s just so sleepy and clingy and sad that it breaks my heart.

Get well soon my little prince!

Post-nap Ritual

Obviously reading is important to me – not many writers aren’t passionate readers. I am trying my best to pass this passion on to my son as well. He has a large collection of books already at the tender age of 14 months. It’s a mix of all my old favourites (like Graeme Base and Rudyard Kipling) and some new finds from the local bookstore.

We usually read a book together when he first wakes up from a nap, while he’s still quiet so he won’t tear the paper pages in his enthusiasm.

This afternoon I was exhausted so we napped together and when I woke up I was alarmed to find him not lying on the bed next to me. Panicked I ran through the house looking for him and was grateful to see he was safe and sound in the nursery, seated on the floor pretending to read a book with a couple more on the floor. He flashed me a huge grin when I came to the door as if to say “Finally mummy, you’re up, now help me read this.”

He certainly knows his routine ;p

Farewell To Ayame

For seven years I’ve had a lovely, quiet, low-maintenance pet. His name was Ayame, and he is a snake.

Interesting use of tenses there you say? Well, Ayame is still alive, but he’s not my pet any more. Since Xander was born I didn’t handle Ayame as much (read: at all) and it became quite difficult to feed Ayame once Xander was able to walk because Xander would come over and try to stick his adorable baby hand in the terrarium and fat, pink baby fingers look not too dissimilar to snake food.

I was speaking with some good friends and Ayame’s sad situation came up in conversation, so my friends went through all the effort of getting a handling licence so they could take care of him.

Today those friends came over to take Ayame home with them. I’m glad Ayame is going to a home where he will get more affection, but it is still sad to see him go. I am lucky that it was friends who took him, so I can just go for a visit and see him again, but there’s still a sense of loss, because now there’s an empty terrarium under the TV.

Has anyone else had to make a decision like this for the good of their pet? I’d like to hear some stories to make me feel better.

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