Last week, though, there was a dilemma. If you're at all familiar with Pinafore, you'll know that the chorus is a collection of women who sing that they are the protagonist's "cousins and his sisters and his aunts". Miranda pondered for some days whether she should be a cousin or a sister (she felt she was too young to be an aunt). She finally settled on cousin, because of the logistics of sisters, who are usually (but not always) reasonably close in age to their siblings, but cousins can be any age, from very old to very young.

So there you go. She is a cousin, thank you. She says it doesn't really matter, but she feels it's important to know your character... (I'm not making that up. Really.)

A couple of days ago, she overheard me telling her grandmother than I had quit Coca Cola "cold turkey". A while after, Miranda asked, "I don't have to give up turkey, right?"

I had no idea why she asked. I said, "I don't have to give up turkey. Why do you think that?"

"Cold turkey?" she insisted. "You said you gave up cold turkey."

I did explain to her what "cold turkey" means, of course. And tonight she had a sandwich with cold turkey in it, so I hope her fears are put to rest.

One of the things we did on our Boxing Day trip was visit the Ninety Mile Beach Marine National Park. It was too cold to swim in the Tasman Sea (Antarctic currents? You betcha, even in the middle of summer!) but we had some fun playing in the surf and getting our feet wet.

Anyway, Miranda got two pairs of shoes, because there was a buy one get a second pair half price sale. Now she's got some new sneakers, which she absolutely loves (they are kinda cool looking), and a pair of good walking sandals. She was so excited to wear her new shoes today!

And then, another treat, Nanna came and took Miranda to school. Normally, I do that, but when Zoë is sick it's quite tricky to arrange. I didn't want to have to bundle Zoë into the car first thing in the morning if I could possibly avoid it. As it happens, Nanna was already out to take Grandpop to the train station, so it was only a minor detour for her to transport Miranda, who always loves riding in Nanna's taxi.

Just now, we had this conversation:

Miranda: I don't think you could really touch the sky, because it's actually just air.
Me: Yes, that's true.
Miranda: Then why is it blue?
Me: Well, it's not always blue, you know that. It's lots of different colours at different times.
Miranda: Yes...
Me: But when it is blue, it's because one of the gasses up high in the sky is nitrogen, and nitrogen scatters blue light.
Miranda looks a little confused.
Me: Well, there's more to it than that, but "Nitrogen scatters blue light" is good enough for now. Wait for Daddy to come home and confuse you some more with physics.
Miranda, happily: Okay!

She had the flu (as did Zoë and I; Andrew was clever enough to get a flu shot!), then she had strep throat, then she had strep throat again, and she's only just finished the second course of anti-biotics for that.

This morning around 4am, she came into our room. She said she was shaking all over. She said she got up to use the toilet, and just started shaking and wanted to come into bed with us. Naturally, I let her do that (and I have the sore back to prove it). She shivered for quite some time, even though her skin didn't feel cold to me at all. I thought, "Uh, oh, chills," and sure enough, she warmed up... and up... and developed a fever, though she was still shivering somewhat off and on. She also complained of a headache, which I know she's had off and on for a few days. Also that her ear hurt. This isn't looking good.

Today she's not much better. She's had the chills and fever off and on, still had the headache, the ear apparently wasn't giving her any trouble, but she kept having waves of nausea and her eyes were watering spontaneously.

Weird. I have no idea. I'm thinking it's either a very bad case of allergies (it is spring, after all) or maybe some sort of sinus infection, but honestly, I don't have a clue. Happily, our doctor will probably have some idea, so we'll go see him tomorrow.

However, during the very last act, which involves whip cracking (real whips!) and lasso twirling, she was invited into the ring! The whip cracker held out his bullwhip and a rolled up newspaper with fringed edges and asked her which one she wanted. She, rather cleverly I thought, said she wanted the proper whip... He, of course, convinced her to take the newspaper and he stood her in the front, facing us, with her arm outstretched and the newspaper in her hand, and then he cracked the whip behind her (she didn't even flinch) and then whipped the newspaper right out of her hand.

When she came back I said to her, "Now aren't you glad we made you stay where you were? You would have missed out on being in the circus!" (I hope that made an impact on her.)

Later she was arguing with her sister about some random thing and she announced, "It's not fair!" (whatever "it" happened to be at the moment). Her father said, "It's not fair? What's not fair?" and then went on to say, "It's not fair! I went to the circus! It's not fair! I got a show bag and fairy floss! It's not fair! I got to go in the ring and be in the circus! It's just not fair!"

She was somewhat bemused by this, but I hope she got the message. I also told her that life isn't about what is or isn't "fair", it's about what IS, and what you do with it, and what you make of it.

Here's hoping that both those lessons stay with her.

Today she and I were in my room, petting the cat, who was lounging around on the bed. From the livingroom area came a sort of bumping, muffled crashing noise. The cat, who had been lounging with her eye half closed, purring, raised her head and perked up her ears. I called out to Zoë, wanting to know what Zoë was doing.

Miranda, still paying attention to the cat, answered, "It's Zoë making a noise that's bothering the cat."

Me: I know it's Zoë. I wanted to know what she was doing.

Miranda: She was bothering the cat!

See? Miranda understands. It's all about the cat.

So Miranda decided that when she dies, people can have her organs. But then added that she's not going to die for a very, very long time.

Good to see she's got it all sorted.

P is a bit of a little snot and he likes to pick on Miranda. He teases her about being short, which she is, but that's not like something she can help or change, so it's a pretty dumb thing to pick on. He also tells her she's fat, which she isn't. She's not skinny, but she's definitely not fat. About that worst that can be said is that she's short-waisted and when she's had a meal, her tummy pokes out for a bit.

Today, since Miranda was going to have P.E., I gave her a strategy to use if P started picking on her. I said to her, just say, "Don't be stupid," when he says you're short or you're fat or whatever it is he decides to say. So she did. Everything he said, she just said, "Don't be stupid." He finally got fed up with it and told on her.

Now, the teacher is well aware of the conflict here, because Miranda has, in the past, told on P for teasing her. The teacher got them together and proposed a deal. If P would be nice to Miranda, she would stop saying "Don't be stupid" and she wouldn't tell on him. Miranda thought it was a good deal. Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly), P also thought it was a good deal, and he agreed to be nice to Miranda.

How long that will last, I don't know, but if he starts again, she's ready to tell him not to be stupid. Perhaps it will remind him of the deal he agreed to.

Plus, Miranda's birthday is in January. This year she had her very first "real" birthday party. It was at a local restaurant that has an indoor playground, and they organised everything. Lots of food, fizzy drink, games, it was excellent, and the kids really enjoyed themselves. Miranda was thrilled to be having a real birthday party, too.

Then, of course, the long, annoying days of holidays. If we'd actually gone anywhere on vacation, it wouldn't have been so bad, but we didn't, so I had two little kids here for weeks. For the most part, they were okay. They entertained themselves and each other fairly well most of the time, and I do organise activities for them (mostly crafty type things), plus they've got a ton of DVDs and a computer they can play games on (mostly educational games, because I'm sneaky that way).

We still had our fair share of the inevitable bickering and fighting and kicking and hitting and spitting and so on. Not fun. We were all glad when school started up again last week, I can tell you!

Miranda's hair has gotten long enough to put it in a ponytail fairly easily. She used to wear it in a bob that stopped just below her ears, looked very cute, but then she saw all her school friends with long hair and ponytails or braids and she wanted to grow out her own hair, as well. I advised against this somewhat, and outlined for her all th pitfalls of having hair that is both long and extremely thick, but she wanted to give it a go. When she gets a haircut, we just get the very ends trimmed, and trim the fringe (bangs). And now her hair is down to where it skims her shoulders. I've been putting it in a ponytail, using two ponytail holders, one higher, then another one a bit lower, and a few hair clips to manage the strays (her hair is also very silky, in addition to being extremely thick). She normally comes home with wisps around her face anyway because the "non-slip" clips do slip, but she's happy to be wearing the ponytail. I think it makes her feel more grownup.

The little girls also both got their ears pierced on New Year's Eve. Well, during the day, obviously. We went to the local pharmacy, where they have two piercing guns and can do both ears simultaneously. It wasn't some sort of weird New Year ritual or anything, that just happened to be a day we were available to get it done, and I wanted to do it at the beginning of the school holidays to give the ears some time to heal before school commenced.

Anyway, wearing one's hair in a ponytail allows one's special gold sleeper hoop earrings to be viewed by one's friends. It's terribly grown up, you see.

Miranda will be starting violin lessons with a new teacher, as hers has had to move rather a long way away (still in the Melbourne area, but much too far to do regular lessons any more). I'll write about that when it happens this weekend. No, really. I will. I'll write. Seriously.

Until they went into the livingroom, which is where Santa had put the bulk of the goodies. Including a Mushabelly horse. She carried the horse around with her all day and took it to bed with her. She was so very pleased! She did look over the other things she got (computer games, a new music theory book, pretty dresses, books, various other interesting toys, a DVD of The Upside Down Show, and played with many of them, but that little round horse is definitely the favourite this year. Isn't it good that Santa got that letter?