Hello Trixie!

Today, as with every other day, I was listening to Lily play an elaborate game of pretend with her dolls and toys. Today it was tea with Casey, who is a Barbie doll and a baby doll called Baby. They were shopping and having a tea party. But, for the first time today someone was in attendance that was not represented by a physical object. Her name was Trixie and according to Lily was a human girl that was her friend. She would come to her birthday party and bring a gift. I didn't think much of it and she didn't mention her after the game stopped.

And then this evening, while in the bath, Trixie came to play again.

"Who's Trixie?" Bob called out.

"I think she's imaginary?"

"No, she's from My Little Pony. One of the little ponies."

"The three little sisters? That doesn't sound right. Ask her."

"Lily," Bob began, "What colour is Trixie's hair?"

"Blue."

Smug look at me over the cat-walk.

"Is Trixie a pony?"

"No Daddy! A hoo-man!"

And so it unfolded that Trixie is a four year old girl with blue hair and green eyes. She apparently got her cutie mark bath towel from Target and had already hung it next to Lily's Tinkerbell one on the hook. She also needed tucking in and a kiss goodnight.

And I'm happy to welcome Trixie into our house.

According to this article on Psychology Today, Lily is one of the 37% of children, most of whom are oldest, only or have restricted television viewing, that have imaginary friends. She is more likely to "be less shy, engage in more laughing and smiling with peers, and do better at tasks involving imagining how someone else might think." The last two qualities are qualities that Lily has had for the longest time. Empathy is definitely one of her strengths. I hope this new friend helps her combat her shyness.

This is one parenting adventure I'm really looking forward to!

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/singletons/200806/imaginary-friends-any-in-your-house
http://family.go.com/parenting/pkg-preschool/article-826297-the-real-reasons-kid-create-imaginary-friends-t/
http://www.babycenter.com/404_is-it-normal-for-my-toddler-to-have-an-imaginary-friend_11537.bc

On further reading there's blue haired pony called Trixie that makes an extremely brief appearance in Equestria Girls. Our Trixie is otherwise different, having green eyes, being a little girl (Lily knows the ponies are "grown ups") and displaying already thought out likes and dislikes. She's currently tucked into bed with her dolly on Lily's bedroom floor.

Go home North Carolina weather, you're drunk

At home, when the seasons change, for the most part, it is final. You might have a day here and there that is uncharacteristic, but seasons are fairly well defined, even if there is little difference between each one.

Here, this is not the case. While spring hasn’t officially commenced, I believe it happens mid-month, unlike at home, which is the beginning of the month, we are starting to see the most delightful signs of it everywhere.

Birds as brightly coloured as parrots, in shades of red and blue, singing their hearts out. Blossoms springing from every tree and shrub in all the colours of the rainbow. Grass and trees in every shade of green you can name, and a thousand more. Squirrels darting here, there and everywhere, much to the extreme delight of my children.

But the weather simply cannot make up its mind.

Since we arrived we have had days where shorts and t-shirts have been chosen over jumpers and long pants, and other days with snow, ice and sleet. Last week was so cold, the children refused to go to the park, because despite the gorgeous blue sky, it was mainly under 10 degrees Celsius. And with the weekend came delicious warm weather, and on Monday and Tuesday we felt sweat start to spring up on our skin when we played outside. Yesterday heralded a warm, overcast day, ending in an epic down pour. And with that down pour, the warmth was gone, and today it is cold again. Maybe still okay for a park trip in the afternoon, but we’ll be wearing jumpers and socks.

One of the largely unexpected side effects of this constant rapid change in weather is that everyone has a constant mild cold. By everyone I don't mean the Maidens family, I mean everyone. It was the first thing most people said to us, warning us of the fact we would now be living with stuffy sinuses indefinitely.

And can I just say, of all the things to love about this place, this genuinely sucks. We are warm weather creatures, our family. We like hot sand, and sweat, and pools and the ocean and none of us can stand this teasing. I want to say blue balls. I’m going to call it blue balls.

The worst bit is that, as though the government is mocking us, we are now on daylight savings time. Which was awesome on Monday and Tuesday, the children ran out into the cul-de-sac to kick footballs barefoot and in t-shirts at 6:00pm when their daddy got home, but today just signals another hour we can’t play outside. 

Fortunately, after a cold and overcast weekend, we’re forecast for low to mid twenties (C) for the rest of the month. And I am most definitely glad to see the back of winter.

One Month!

One month! Today (well, yesterday, internet was being true to AT&T standards last night) marks one month since we first set foot in our lovely new home, all the way on the other side of the world.

I have a Week One, Two and Three post to post retroactively, along with Photo a Day posts, but thought I’d hold out and do the one month one first as it seems to be quite an important milestone.

This month we have managed quite a lot, as you’ll see in the retroactive posts!

This week, after a month of using a blow up bed, and developing various aches and pains as result, we are finally getting a bed delivered! It is a good quality king size pillow top with box spring base and was a great bargain at $799. The children have had their twin/ single size mattresses since we got here but will be also getting their box springs in the delivery. I’m so happy about this! I really like having a good bed and am very, very fed up with our blow up, despite it being a really rather good quality one. It also makes me irrationally happy that we all have the exact same bed, only in different sizes. They arrive Wednesday.

We wanted to be careful with the cost of the beds as we have exactly zero furniture and because of the huge saving on the bed, it was over 50% off, we were able to pick up a lounge and dining room table, a luxury we thought was still a while down the track. These items are being delivered Friday and I’ll be very, very glad to be rid of the four camp chairs we are using at the moment, two borrowed from neighbours and two bought from Walmart for $10 apiece. These may also be a source of the various aches and pains, they are certainly the source of the numerous blobs of caked on food I’ve been scrubbing off daily as the children struggle to sit in them and hold their plates of food. The lounge is a very cheap bonded leather one, and I think I counted five times I said to the salesman “I’m buying this cheaply on purpose. I will be getting rid of it in two years. I don’t want you to add $170 in warranties.”

We also managed to pick up some book shelves for $16 each so now the toys are neatly placed on shelves instead of all over my floor, so we are very happy with our little home right now. We’re still hoping to buy a BBQ for summer, but are otherwise extremely happy to have some more concrete and comfortable furniture. 

This week we also decided not to ship the animals for another month. It was about $1500 more expensive than we anticipated (we’re working on that, hopefully it’ll be more in the ball park of what we thought) and the crazy weather is persisting, with ice and snow yesterday. So we’ve decided April and true spring is the way to go.  We miss them horribly but it’s the right thing for us and the right thing for them. At the end of the day, we could have skipped the dining table, gone with the cheapest quote and had them here in a few weeks but the weather, and the cheapest quote, are rather dubious and they are extremely happy where they are and it really is just a couple more weeks.

In other news, we found a soccer club for the children and they’ll start within the fortnight, hopefully and Lily commenced a community ballet class. It’s a bit of a flop so we’re investigating schools. Next is swim classes. Archer is obsessed with basketball, so he’ll start that around his third birthday. Lily has been discussing doing “’nastics” but we’re hoping to convince her to do cheer leading instead, as we think this is the better sport for her. They frequently ask to go back to kindy, but we’re holding off until the new school year.  

On Friday we are having a housewarming of sorts, inspired by my ability to pick up a lamb roast from Costco and my eagerness almost any day to cook pumpkin soup. I’m also trying my hand at a pavlova. Two of the neighbor families are coming and it promises to be a fun night.

At the end of our first month, I can truly say that this is one of the best things we have ever done. We love our home, we love our neighbours, we love our community and we’re all very, very happy. 

I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year holds!

The time I lost Lily at Darling Harbour and Bob at Dallas Airport.

Somehow, in the course of our big move, I managed to misplace two of my family members in public places, resulting in overwhelming panic, tears and a handful of laughs. 

The first was Lily. 

For the Friday and Saturday before we left, we stayed at a hotel very close to Darling Harbour. Bob had to work Saturday and as we’d sold our beds, it seemed to make a bit of sense.

On the Saturday, I decided to take the children to the playground at Darling Harbour by myself. This might not sound like a significant feat, but if you’ve ever seen that particular park, you’ll know that it’s quite the nerve-wracking place for a mother with an active preschooler and toddler. Almost everywhere you stand, about half the playground is obscured from vision by equipment. The slide is a two story hill of cement, just to begin with, and it is always crowded. I had already taken the children for lunch, and on the merry-go-round so, sufficiently fortified, I set them loose. After several heart pounding moments where Archer was out of sight, I decided to follow him exclusively as Lily was happy going up and down the slide. I took a moment to text Bob, “This playground sucks. I cannot see both the children no matter where I stand. If I wanted to kidnap a child, I’d go to Darling Harbour playground.”

And so we hopped from the big slide, to the little slides, to the sand pit and finally to the fabulous, but extremely crowded, splash pad. Lily was happy walking up and down the hill, opening and closing the gates that change the direction of the water, so I decided to stick by Archer, who was happily splashing in a little pond area. Every now and again, I’d check to make sure Lily could see and hear me by calling her name and waving. She’d grin and wave back. She was maybe 20 metres away the whole time.

After one such moment, I turned to find Archer engulfed by a huge family. I turned my back on Lily, seeking out his little blond head, and when I found him, in what must have been a less than 30 seconds, I turned back around to find Lily gone. I looked and called and waved, waiting for her hand to wave back, or her grinning face to pop up from one of the streams, but it didn’t.

I had the pram, our camera and a significant amount of cash. So, with Archer trailing behind me, I did two laps of the pad, calling, and calling. Panic rose up inside me like bile. I took about 15 precious seconds to decide between leaving the pram and carrying Archer, or clipping him in, as he was slowing me down significantly walking. I decided I’d be slower carrying him, and clipped him in, losing another precious 30 seconds, and did one last frantic lap of the pad, making desperate eye contact with each mother and father, hoping they’d offer to help me. No one did, so I decided to ask for help. I it was then I realized not a single person around me was speaking English. I desperately didn’t want to get lost in translation, so I sought out some people speaking English. Another precious 30 seconds gone. Another 30 seconds of terrible, panicked thoughts running through my head. I admit I gave little Maddie McCann more than a few seconds thought.

It was two mothers, blessedly chatting away in English, that I decided to ask to help me. Tears welling up in my eyes I said “Can you please help me, I’ve lost my little girl.” Immediately they wanted to help, one offered to watch Archer while myself and the other lady looked. As we split up I heard the sweetest thing I’d ever heard above din of the crowd, “Can you see your Mummy here?” and sure enough, there was Lily, holding the hand of mother with a son, looking around for me. I ran and scooped her up, tears streaming down my face and kissing her all over. “Stop crying Mummy,” she pleaded, but the relief washed over me and I couldn’t hold it back. 

I thanked everyone over and over and took Lily back to our hotel room, where I lay on the bed for a quite a long time willing my heart to beat normally. 

The second was Bob. I managed to lose him at Dallas International Airport.

After our 15 hour flight from Sydney to Dallas, we had a minuscule 2 hour change over to get on our flight to Charlotte. Much to our bad luck, the plane was already running over 20 minutes late. We disembarked as quickly as we could, and were ushered through customs at what I’m sure was record pace, but we had a lot of luggage and the children had to walk as the luggage trolleys had no seat for them (they do in Sydney) and we had no pram, or hands to push it even if we did. And they did not want to. Crying, foot stomping and lying down in the middle of the airport ensued, and that was just me and Bob.

After all but throwing our luggage onto the check in carousel, we realized we had just 4 short minutes until our flight closed. Bob said, and I think ominous music should play here, “I’ll run ahead and ask if they can hold the plane, you bring the kids.”

Now, we were in Terminal D, and our flight left from Terminal A, gate 38, to be precise. So off Bob ran and I begged, and pleaded and bribed and threatened and even pushed the children through Terminal D, in the direction of Terminal A.

And then I found IT out. The horrifying thing about Dallas Airport. It is so big you need a train to get between terminals. A FUCKING TRAIN! I knew hope of making the plane was lost, but boarded the train, confident that Bob would wait at the gate, and that our travel insurance would cover the second flight.

I arrived at Gate A38, noting that gates 30 – 38 were in one direction, and the remainder were in the other, and Bob was not there. I spoke to the staff at Gate A37, as our gate was completely closed, and they asked me for me ID and boarding passes. Bob had them, along with our money, and my phone, which was useless anyway as we don’t have international roaming. They looked me up anyway, and Bob, confirmed I was already booked on the next flight in two hours and that Bob hadn’t boarded the first plane (I should bloody well hope not). The kicker was that our next plane left from Terminal C.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I had them page Bob not once, not twice, but three times, until the staff said, “Go to Terminal C, or you’ll miss your flight again.” More begging, pleading, threatening, bribing and foot stomping and another train trip, and we arrived at Terminal C only to see one gate over from ours had a small playground, I let the children loose and spoke to the staff on the not our gate. They paged Bob three times, and when, tears pricking my eyes, trying to harness my mounting panic, I explained he had our everything, one of the ladies gave me a look that clearly said “He’s done a runner.” I then gathered up the children, who were pleading for food and drinks and went to our gate, who paged Bob again. Then over the pager came a call for me to pick up one of the customer service phones. It didn’t work, so I rang through a page for Bob (we were up to eight by now) The customer service guy said “Oh, Mrs Maidens! Your husband’s looking for you, he’s in Terminal D.”

WHAT?

As I gathered up the children, the staff at our gate, who had already boarded everyone else, said “Don’t you go anywhere, Ma’am, we’re getting you on this flight.” And after about two more minutes of tearful, fruitless searching in the crowd, there came Bob, running up with our carry-on luggage in the biggest wheelchair I’ve ever seen, apologizing profusely. It turns out, we had lost each other when he had mistakenly gone to gate A23, which, remember, was in the other direction to our actual gate.

And we boarded the plane, completely free (Thank you American Airlines!). The children passed out before we even finished take off and we were given free food and drink and had a very good laugh.