When the poop hits the fan...and other embarrassing moments

There is apparently scientific evidence that getting 'knocked-up' shrinks your brain  - if that's the case then raising your offspring only makes you realise you didn't know sh*t in the first place.

I find 3-4-year-olds to be random little people with moments of cognitive brilliance peppered with episodes of psychotic, simian behaviour.

We'd had a sh*t week, quite literally, since we had a broken sewer pipe shared by all 4 Victorian terraces in our row. I found myself on Wednesday juggling a crazy child and a plumber who was dealing with a river of sewerage running down our newly paved side passage.

And while getting stuck into my new job as ‘involuntary strata manager’ led me to getting stuck into the Xanax, I had some lovely moments with my little girl as we replaced our afternoon bike ride to the park with a new stay-at-home game: 'chemical clean-up'. You know she's quite a dab-hand with a mop my girl.

So long as lots of bubbly detergent was involved she was overjoyed at the idea of swabbing the deck, which fortunately was only desecrated by the plumber's boots, while I tossed litre after litre of disinfectant, then bag after bag of top soil around the lower garden.

"What's that smell? It's disgusting!"; one of her new favourite phrases, had a lot of air-play until the disinfectant finally overpowered the previous stench.

Her speech has come along nicely, since she started with a speech pathologist; albeit sometimes embarrassingly so.  Like the time she pointed an accusing finger at an unfortunate looking elderly man in our doctors waiting room, crying “That man scares me mummy!”  I don’t know who was more mortified, me or the poor old man with the great-face-for-radio. 

And then there’s the joyful and loud descriptions of all her bodily functions: - During a speech pathology session: “I’ve got an itchy bum, Tiffany!” Both Tiffany and mum had to take a minute before being able to respond to that one, but it was quite good as far as sentences go.

And then again supervising bath time: -  on hold to one of the utilities, just as the operator finally answered, Lucie shouted in excitement “the pooh is coming mummy!”

I asked the operator if I could put her on hold while I perched my wet girl on the loo and Lucie qualified her statement, making an exaggerated grunting sound; “uuuurgh – it’s a really BIG POOH mummy!”

Someone somehow had turned up her volume. The operator was still laughing when I picked up the phone again.

And then the evening she turned political commentator: catching the early news on TV she took one look at our Shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, and shouted 'Go away cow!'.  

 

 

We didn’t know that Lucie needed help with talking; being in a bilingual family we expected her speech to be delayed that’s what ‘they’ say isn’t it? 

But after having her tested it turned out she did have delayed speech despite randomly using some very extravagant sentences.  (‘Go away cow’ not being one of those)

If you are in any doubt about your little wrangler I suggest you take a look at Speech Pathology Australia. You can read fact sheets online, download resources and look for practitioners in your area.  It will either give you peace of mind or set things straight before it impacts their schooling and social skills. 

We’ve made huge progress in a few short months and not just with Lucie’s communication skills but her personal confidence and interaction with other children. :0)

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