Tag: det’s dwarfling

honorary mum ask made me wonder – what kinds of books are you reading to the Dwarfling right now? what’s her favorite story?

oh! She has a TON of books! We have so SO many kid’s books. Part of her bedtime routine is 3 books before lights-out 🙂

(she has recently discovered that she can get out of bed at night, and the first things she does with this power? SHE GETS ANOTHER BOOK. I am quietly so proud bc i did the same thing when i was a smol lmao)

Favourites! 

  • Hop on Pop 
  • Go Dog Go! 
  • anything to do with the alphabet (such as Animalia or A to Z) 
  • she loves One Ted Falls Out of Bed, Sugarlump and the Unicorn, The Gruffalo and a Squash and a Squeeze, by Julia Donaldson!
  • OH MY GOD DOES SHE LOVE EVERYTHING BY MEM FOX (makes my Strayan heart warm, I tell you!) Possum Magic, Where is the Green Sheep? and Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes are standbys.
  • Sandra Boynton books! SHE LOVES THEM, and they are such FUN, with such boppy awesome rhyming rhythms! They’re all great, but My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs! and The Belly Button Book seem to be the ones that get the most attention.
  • Best bedtime book at the moment is Goodnight Mice by Frances Watts. I love reading this one, and she cuddles up very close and it is so gorgeous. 
  • She likes Slinky Malinki better than Hairy Maclary! 
  • The Day the Crayons Quit is a little complicated for her, story-wise, but she ADORES the pictures and pretends to write the letters.
  • Her First Words book is well loved and well-worn now! And We’re Going on a Bear Hunt has been patched and sticky-taped together a ZILLION times (she gets very excited and squeals a lot when the bear turns up)
  • We have the McFarlane and Creagh books Energetic Elliot and Bouncy Ben and she LOVES THEM, aaaaaaah
  • Miss Lily’s FABULOUS Pink Feather Boa is a good one for quiet time before dinner: she likes saying ‘Potoroo!’
  • The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Of course! I think it’s some sort of law :p she loves counting the foods.
  • Also: psst @kailthia she loves loves LOVES The Tiger Who Came to Tea ❤
  • Newest obsession is My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes ❤

That’s not even a quarter of the books on her shelf: she is bonkers for books, and I am delighted by it 🙂

Hi there Dets! I can’t believe the Dwarfling is two and a half already, how did that happen? She sounds like an absolute ray of sunshine and I’m so happy for your little family! ♥ On another note, I saw that anon talking about printing out Sansukh – totally planning on doing that as well and then finally reading the whole thing (Idk if you’d remember, but I’m the anon from a while ago who said she’d been waiting since chapter 30 for the story to be finished before continuing haha) 1/2

I just wanted to make sure you’re okay with that though? I’m not planning on selling it, of course. Sending so much love your way for all the work you put into this huge project ♥♥ 2/2

Hey Nonnie! *Hugs* 

I KNOW, where did the time go??? She was a baby three seconds ago, I am sure of it! And now she can say ‘i love you, Mummy’ and ‘Mummy, can I banana ‘Rozen yoghurt pleeeeeeaaaase!’ and ‘X is for Xyra-phome, Y is for YACHT!’

(she can’t quite say xylophone. She also has trouble with the letters F and V, lmao)

Yes, absolutely! I am totally overjoyed for anyone to print it out for their own use, COMPLETELY so. ❤ I hope it brings you much enjoyment, Nonnie!

How’s your Dwarfling doing?? I still think of her as this tiny baby that’s just starting to crawl, but then I remember she’s around the same age as my nephew, and I’m like??????

Hey Nonnie!

She is AMAZING. She is truly the most amazing little wonder, I am stupendously lucky to be her mum and to know her and love her. 

She’s 2 and a half, now! Looks a lot like I did at that age. she’s a happy, talkative, creative, curious and energetic bundle of love. She’s mad for art, play-doh, painting, puzzles. She likes crafty things: we made kitty ears on a headband the other day, and painted them. 

Her imagination is spiralling everywhere! She plays all sorts of games with her bunny (Most Important Toy is Bunny) and her other ‘special’ stuffed toys, Little Mouse and Little Owl. She has a toy kitchen she can spend hours in. She is always making up wonderful little games!

She’s soaking up words like a SPONGE. She has eight and nine-word sentences already, and loves any and every sort of alphabet game there is. 

I had a small fret over teaching her too swiftly? She just LOVES everything to do with the ABCs. ‘Big’ letters and ‘little’ letters (capitals and lower-case, heheheh) and her phonics (’Ess sounds like ‘SSSSSSSSSS!’ with so much GUSTO that you can’t keep a straight face!) etc, drawing them, reading books with animals or words in alphabetic order (such as A to Z, etc. Animalia by Graeme Base is her newest obsession). She can spell ‘cat’ and ‘dog’ and is always proclaiming that ‘A is for Apple! A is for alligator! A is for avocado!’ and the like. CONSTANTLY, about 300 times a day, she is telling us what letter is for what!

She also LOVES NUMBERS – esp. counting, she can count to 30 and wants more numbers, all the time. She even counts down with the microwave!

So, like I said: I was having a small fret. I don’t want to be a pushy academia mum, I don’t want to make her feel like this is her purpose, or that I love her only because she likes to learn things. But Mr Dets put it like this: “she’s a toddler, she learns in 5-minute bursts, and then it’s done, then it’s back to playtime! You don’t FORCE her, she WANTS to learn, she comes to us and asks us about it!” So i stopped fretting, and we’ll just keep going at her pace. When it slows (and it will!!!) then that’s cool too. Right now she’s at full throttle, though.

She likes books, all books. If I’m doing anything at all, she brings me a book to read to her. She likes dress-ups, and trains (SHE LOVES TRAINS OMFG) and rockets, and dinosaurs, and dancing! 

She is a good little eater: loves most things. Not mushrooms, sadly (I love mushrooms). Getting her to eat green things still requires a little sneakiness, heh.  Yoghurt is still her favourite.

She’s beginning to have Serious Opinions about her clothing, too. Favourite colour is purple! She only likes her sneakers when it comes to shoes, and no other shoes will do. Dresses, yes – skirts yes – TROUSERS NO. Though tights in wintertime are okay, apparently! 

We recently shifted her room around: no longer a baby’s room, it is now a toddler’s room. No more cot! (*wipes a tear away* MY BABY AUGH) Her toys are all in boxes where she can reach them, and her books are too. Every so often I buy a page of stickers, and we have fun sticking them all over her bed and chest of drawers and cupboard doors. 

She’s going to swimming lessons with Daddy now, and loves them. She won’t let me play my violin when she is home! Not because she hates it, oh no – because she WANTS TO PLAY IT HERSELF, so so so badly hahahaha! So I have bought her a little toy one of her own. She has fun with that. She also likes to bash away at my piano keyboard.

(she’s much more gentle with our poor ancient deaf and arthritic cat these days, too)

Now and then she has a good tantrum – clears the pipes, lmao.Well, she’s 2! That’s going to happen 🙂 she’s much MUCH more understanding of WHY things happen now, so they are getting rarer. When they happen, though, they can be pretty explosive! My little one has a stubborn Dwarvish will ❤

She travelled like a champ during the holidays – camped in the tent, had such a ball. Really, she was simply amazing. Travelling six hours a day in the car with a toddler can be very very difficult, but she was truly awesome. Grumbled only a little, listened to music and sang along, played games and read books. She was always very glad when we stopped for a play-break, though!

okay shut me up, i will talk forever about my beautiful, beautiful child

Hi! I’m a big fan of Sansukh, and I was wondering if there was an update schedule or if you were planning another update soon?

Hi Anon!

I am afraid that instead of an update schedule, there is just an A4 piece of paper with “SHITFUCKSHIT” written on it, hehehe. In other words, there is no update schedule – I post the minute I have finished a chapter (and often, I am still editing it after posting). 

I’ve just gotten back from a very long trip/holiday/visit to family in another state! I hope to have another chapter out next week (I HOPE I HOPE, cross your fingers and toes for me!) – but I haven’t even started it yet, tbh. 

I know what is going to happen in it, in broad strokes, and once I begin writing I tend to move fast, so it is entirely doable to get a chapter out next week. My awesome lil toddler goes back to daycare next week, too, and I will actually have the opportunity – huzzah! So, sorry that I can’t be more reliable, but I promise I am doing my best 🙂

Hope you are doing okay? Having a good week? Re-reading “Hearts will as hearts must”, sooooo good :)

hey Nonnie, I’m good! Had one of those stomach-twisting, heart-squeezing, slow and drawn-out anxiety episodes earlier in the week, actually. I wasn’t so great then. So I took a few days offline, to re-sort myself 🙂  

Been at home with my little person all week: daycare is done for the year. I’m pretty knackered: a two-and-a-half year old is a small ADORABLE inexhaustible ball of unexpectedness!! We went to her first concert today: the Wiggles – OF COURSE, lmao. She went berserk. She adores all of them, but especially Emma!

(it’s the first concert I’ve ever been to where I knew every. single. word!!)

I’m American but my spouse and in-laws are Australian and South African. And the seasons thing is just. ridiculous. I’m always sending them sweaters and wraps I make in December (because it’s cold, so I feel like knitting with bulky warm things) and a woven picnic blanket or a pair of moccasins (because loom and leather and beads are more comfortable summer crafting) in July. They’re good about it.

I feel this deep in every fibre of my soul, omg. I get woolly socks and scarves and stuff from our cousins overseas every Christmas – when it’s generally 35C in the shade

(nice ones tho! Useful for a Sydney or Melbourne winter trip, that’s for sure! tho the Dwarfling has generally grown out of them by the time she can use em, sigh)

*snrk* you’ve reminded me too, of a time aaaaages ago when I complained about it online: ‘god I’m boiling here, please freeze me like a WWII supersoldier PLEASE PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD’ 

and someone was all: ‘hahaha there’s always one in shorts and a t-shirt in wintertime!!!’

and I was like… no, you misunderstand, I live upside down in Satan’s Armpit. 

Hey you’re like really awesome and I’m 17 and seeing that hey, adults can have families and actual lives and still be in Fandom is really cool and I really look up to you and yeah. Thank you for all you do!

Hey Nonnie! *blush* awww. Thank you so much!

I know a LOT of 30+ adults in fandom. Some 40+ and 50+ as well!

My family and life and job, of course, are the biggest part of me, and so they take up around 90-95% of my time. I can’t spend uninterrupted hours on my hobbies like I did when I was 17-25, which can be frustrating at times. But there’s no age limit on fandom, so I just plod along at my own pace nowadays 🙂

If anything, having the dwarfling has solidified our nerdiness – both of us. I can’t WAIT to read her The Hobbit. CAN’T. WAIT.

(Mr Dets is determined to introduce her to Classic Who. He is a massive DW fan, going back decades… when I bitch about Moffatt, he shrugs and says, ‘should have seen the stink about John Nathan-Turner as showrunner’.)