B and I had a lovely evening out together (with H, of course) at Carols by Candlelight. As an actual carolling opportunity it was a bust: it was freezing cold and windy, we were far from warmly dressed and had none of those big fluffy blankets and thermoses of hot soup that of course one would expect to need at an Australian Christmas celebration, and H alternately fed, burped, pooped and complained the whole time we were there. Plus…nobody sang. We looked around us during the audience participation bits and saw absolutely no one singing, although a couple of people were looking at the songsheets. I was sufficiently weirded out by this not to sing for the first carol, and then thought, “Bugger it, I like singing carols!” and belted out the next few as loudly as I could in the hope that it might inspire someone, but as far as I know it failed. Then H was just getting too cold, hungry and miserable (in his pink grow suit with feet, purple cardy and hat and fetching pink loveheart socks) to stay, so we went back to the car so I could feed him without my nipples falling off. After he’d fed, burped and pooped some more, we went off to MacDonalds for dinner, although we had to stop in the carpark yet again for a feed (fortunately no more pooping!). H went to sleep after being swaddled and without needing any more booby (not surprisingly!) or any parental assistance, K went down after some booby milk and a couple of stories and a song from Daddy, and B and I had a snuggle and reaffirmation of how much we had enjoyed spending the evening together. Must do it more often…

We had a bit of a conversation about her Annagramma-ish personality quirks and perfectionism and criticism in general, which was I think quite useful in opening up space for change. She asked why I thought she finds it so difficult to admit to not knowing something and I said that sometimes I thought it was because she had an over-critical perfectionist bitch for a mother… *sigh* Today did manage to be more positive in that I was bitchy in a level and non-screaming tome of voice – let’s work on not being a total bitch tomorrow, hey?

I was also practising the mantra “People can’t do a don’t” very consciously when talking to K, after a conversation with E last night, and it made a considerable difference to our interactions. So I think, overall, it was a good, bonding day with both daughters. Here’s to another one tomorrow…