Saturday, June 25, 2005

Love (a post about Nippy the cat)


today's installment
Originally uploaded by Crit Chicken.
We talk about love a lot at home - I say "I love you" to D'Arcy, he says "I love you" to me and we say it when we talk on the phone, but what he often talks about is how much he loves and misses Nippy. Nippy lives with D'Arcy's dad, although she lived with me before we got married. She is probably 17 years old, she was an adult cat when she came to live with me in 1990, and D'Arcy adores her. So, when I dropped him off to his Dad last time, we both took lots of photos of her, so that we can print some and he can look at them when he is at my house.

So what is it that he loves so much about her? Is it the unconditional love of an animal? It's not that she is safer than people - the saddest he can get is if she bites or scratches him, and she still does it if he pushes her too far. But there is something there. She has huge yellow eyes that penetrate your soul, and perhaps he sees that. When I was pregnant with him, having had no experience with being a mother, all my anxiety dreams about the coming baby transmogrified into dreams about the cat - in all those dreams she was my baby. I miss her too, and I dearly wish she could live with me. When I saw her last she was miaowing a lot, and I said to her "Nippy, you're very squeaky today" and D'Arcy said "That's because she is a cat". The wisdom of a four-year old.

One time when he first started crawling, he was so excited because he could finally follow her around, but when he did follow her and grabbed hold, she responded with a big scratch. On the face. Across his eyelid, which he managed to close.

When he first started talking, one of the first words he used was "bao" which was the one he assigned to Nippy. This morphed to "Hippy" some months later and then to "Mippy" until he managed to master the 'n' consonant later.

I hope that she will come to live with me in another house in the future, but I know that the likelihood is small; she is old, she doesn't like change, she is happy where she is, and despite her unpleasant habit (she pisses on things when she feels insecure) D'Arcy's dad is fond of her...So while I feel like I have a cat, I really don't see her much. I love you Nippy.

Monday, June 20, 2005

The Recurrence of Representational Drawing


artwork
Originally uploaded by Crit Chicken.
After a 12 month break we have pictures of things again. Here we have two dinosaurs. The paler one is Shorty, an apatasaurus. Note the extra leg 'in case one falls off'. The darker one is Spike, a stegasaurus with lots of spikes on its back. Both are characters from one of the Land Before Time movies. D'Arcy can't understand why it is that I don't like it. How can you explain to a 4 and a half year old that the dialogue is crap and the role models suck?

I love his pics - he also did one for his Aunty's birthday card, dinosaurs and a picture of her...a big head/body with really long arms with lots of fingers and long legs with lots of toes, and a face of eyes and mouth. I'm so thrilled at this whole phase, and have been looking forward to it almost since he was born, and now we're in it again. I also love that it started and then stopped again. Child development is so fascinating. As a sometime linguist, I kept a dictionary/diary of his language acquisition, so when I look back I know how many new words he learnt in a week, and at what age. That data is all in his dad's computer, but I can get it on a disc (and should) it is fascinating reading for a mother!

So, a very gushy post, forgive me, but I am very in love with my son. He rocks my world.

writing!


more photos
Originally uploaded by Crit Chicken.
Well, assisted. He did the D and I did the rest. the other says 'shorty' who is one of the dinosaurs from 'The Land Before Time' which is the current movie obsession. The writing was achieved by me tracing the shape of the letters on the page and D'Arcy imitating. The R was the hardest!

dinosaur enthusiasm


more photos
Originally uploaded by Crit Chicken.
So, the day of the unpleasant event we had gone to a gem, fossil and mineral show, and returned home with a fossilised shark tooth, and a copralite (fossilised poo). Very happy with these purchases.

Monday, June 13, 2005

A Crappy Time (that I wasn't going to blog, but changed my mind)

Last Saturday (week and a bit ago) D'Arcy and I were outside our house, when a bloke rode up on his bike, singing loudly (songs from The Wizard of Oz). He said hello, and we replied. He stopped and started to chat, and it became obvious that he wasn't going to go away fast. It was also obvious that he wasn't quite the full quid. He had no shoes, and was self conscious about the fact that his tracky pants were pulled up to his knees, revealing his battered looking legs. He pulled them straight and said "sorry, I cut them shaving" "??" I said, and decided that we should terminate the conversation. It looked like he was going to ride off, but then doubled back to ask D'Arcy about his trike, especially the trailer bit on the back, saying "I want to give you something to put in it" and pulled something out of his pocket (his underpants, it turned out) "in fact, I want to give you all my clothes" so he did. Took them all off. "No thanks mate" I said, and picked up D and took him inside, locking all the possible doors. CNG (as he became known) started banging on the carport door, then on the house door, then on the windows. Meanwhile I was ringing the mental health crisis team, to be told "you should ring the police (you idiot - no, they didn't actually say they, but it was implicit in their tone of voice)" so I did. And my mum. Mum was great, came really quickly, and stalled CNG after he came out from the neighbours and got himself dressed. He cheerfully told her his name and address. Finally the cops showed up and talked to him, but not to me. They talk for ages and then vanished, I was left not knowing the final score, so repaiedr to mum's for the night. D'Arcy dealt with the whole thing pretty well, only getting upset when I completely fell apart. His questions were all of the "why" nature, to be answered with "I don't know, and I don't think he knew why he was doing those things".

Finally went and hassled the cops on Monday to find out what happened. They were apologetic, and explained that he is someone they know of, no record of violence, just decides not to take his lithium when he starts feeling good, and then behaves inappropriately. And the address was not a fake. So I felt like I could go home again. It meant I got the agent to fix the busted front porch light. Yay. I can laugh about it now, but not at the time. It has got me thinking about mental health a whole bunch, which is not my favourite thing, but is kind of useful.

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