Like a tiger

When I started this blog this title came from a description of some presents I'd received for my 31st or 32nd birthday. I lived in a sharehouse with 3 friends and we had a pretty good, non responsible kind of smoking drinking life.

On this particular birthday I was the lucky recipient of a beautiful cream teapot with a curly silver handle (thank you Emma) and a massive bunch of hot pink tiger lillies. (thank you girls from the opera house - my fave flowers in the world.) Hence the phrase Tigers and Teapots.

Once I met Ed and we headed overseas for a year this blog was named after those two domestic things but quickly became reality as we travelled south america drinking endless cups of tea and working with wild cats (the locals called my cat a Tigre) and then onto Thailand where we got to do our fair share of cuddling real live tigers.

When I got home I lamented my life had become "less tiger - more teapot" and it certainly did. Ed and I bought a house with a white picket fence, we made a baby, I stayed at home for a year, went back to work, starting going to bed at a sensible hour and kind of grew up. Then I got pregnant and had another baby - hello Poppy and it seemed that tigers were a long way from my life.

Until Poppy got a little older - by the age of 14 months Poppy fell in love with a toy of Ivy's. A lovely soft floppy toy tiger with big soft paws and a sweet face. His name? "Tigery". Soon enough Tigery became Poppy's bed companion and best friend. Then Poppy started growling and "rahing". My mum accused me of teaching her but I swear I didn't. In the mornings I'd go into her darkened room and the first thing I'd hear was "ah-raaaahhhhhh". My tiger baby was here. Then our tiger child started growling at people and her favourite - birdies. Her standard answer to what you say to birds is "raaaahhhhh!"

Then my sister bought our tiger baby - a toy baby. This particular toy baby is dressed like a tiger, odd? yes. Suitable for Poppy? Absolutley.

Then at a garage sale recently I spotted another lovely toy tiger for 2 dollars. Before I could say a word she snatched this tiger up and covered him with kisses. She is amassing quite a collection.

I explained to her carers at childcare not to be alarmed if she starts growling or rahing and while some of them looked perplexed, one of them - a chinese lady called Jing said "of course Poppy likes to growl - she IS a tiger" Huh? "She is born in the chinese year of the tiger." SO there you go - it was meant to be.

So now I really do have a tiger AND a teapot in my house once again - funny how life comes full circle eh?