Crappy New Year

I sure hope the crap that was floating around the bathroom floor and computer room downstairs earlier today is 2006's way of saying "smell ya later".

After we farewelled my sister and her children, who had stayed overnight, Ben went down to his computer room and soon after came running upstairs and announced there was a disaster. The floor was covered in water and floaty bits. We hastily put Henry to bed and started the mop up while trying not to gag. Not sure what went wrong but that is the third such incident since we've lived here. The bathroom downstairs rarely gets used and the plumber says the pipe that flows over is connected to the kitchen plumbing so something is going wrong somewhere. With a bit of luck we can move sometime soon. Just waiting for the lotto win that is coming my way.

The only good thing to come from it was a trip to the dump to get rid of some bits and pieces that were just taking up space anyway. Nothing important was ruined and thankfully no water got into any electrical appliances.

I will take this opportunity to kiss 2006 goodbye and enjoy the rest of my anniversary/ New Year's Eve with my husband and child. I may even polish off the vodka.

Wishing all of you the very best for 2007. May the weather be kind to you, the money tree abundant and the good cheer flow lashingly.

Merry Christmas to all

It's 6.30am and I'm the first one up. I'm quietly waiting for Henry and Ben to poke their heads out of the bedroom. I can hardly wait to see the look on Henry's face and hear him say "Oh my Goodness" as he tears the paper from the gifts piled under the tree. Then we'll call Sissy and wish her a Merry Christmas and find out what Santa brought her.

Merry Christmas one and all. May Santa bring you nothing but joy, champagne and a stuffed turkey. Happy Feasting!

And so this is Christmas

I'm finding it hard to get in the festive mood. It's not the weather because, thank God for small miracles, it's surprisingly cool for this time of year. By cool I mean it's not yet 50 degrees. There's a beautiful breeze most days and I am still able to breathe relatively comfortably. I haven't really felt festive at Christmas for a few years now. Maybe that just happens when you get older. Each year it becomes more and more of a drain and each year you can handle less and less festive spirit in the form of sparkling wine.

When I was a kid I looked forward to Christmas from about October onwards. By the end of the birthday marathon it was time to start preparing for Santa's visit. Of course now that I'm a mother who has to work for a living and try to provide many Santa gifts it has a new meaning. How my mother who had five children and ran a business did it I will never know.

My brother and sisters and I would spend hours drawing pictures of Christmas trees and colouring them in and hanging them all over the house. We'd make loops out of coloured paper and string them together and hang them in a doorway and on the tree. We'd carefully plan our shopping lists with the small amount of money we'd saved throughout the year. We'd write lists of things we hoped Santa would bring to us. Our home would become a veritable drop in centre . Friends and family would be in and out and the front door, not even bothering to knock. Those who knocked were not known to us but my father would still not bother getting up from his chair. He would simply yell "Enter" in a voice so loud it would frighten away even the most hardy red cross collector.

My father always left a six pack of beer for the garbage collectors, the postman and the milkman. We'd all stay up late Christmas Eve hoping to get a glance through mum's bedroom door where she'd locked herself in trying to wrap and sort out Santa's stash. We'd wake at about 3am to sneak a peek at our stockings but first we'd hurry to the kitchen to see if Santa had drunk the beer we left him and eaten the Sao smothered in Vegemite. We'd then go lock ourselves in the bathroom and check out the goods. We'd go back to bed for maybe another hour and then later make as much noise as possible while pretending to be quiet so that Mum and Dad would get up and we could open the gifts under the tree. Mum would play some carols and ever so graciously tell us how beautiful the strung together ceramic swans we bought her were and how they were just what she wanted. Dad would read every word on the label of the cheap aftershave and tell us he'd use that as soon as he had a shower.

Someone was given the job of stashing all the wrapping paper in the bin and then we were shooed out of the house so mum could start the gargantuan task of cooking a turkey, taking phone calls, wiping bloodied knees when someone fell of their new bike, and slapping hands when someone attempted to stick their finger in the gravy to test it out.

We'd sit on the front lawn and wait for the neighbourhood kids to come by with their new shiny toys and we'd compare. We'd then stuff ourselves stupid with food and then in the afternoon have a water fight with the hose while Mum and Dad slept.

Maybe I just don't have enough kids.

Get a Byron Bay Massage

I'm not sure if the message posted above the heads of these mannequins is completely visible but it says;

Make a fashion statement everyday

Watch the sunset from the lighthouse

Get a Byron Bay massage

I imagine this is some kind of list dreamt up by merchandisers and marketing professionals. The scene kind of reminds me of those ads years ago that presented cigarette smoking in a glamorous light - you too can be too cool for school if you have these clothes coupled with a distant, vacuous look. It's standoffish but inviting (read pert nipples).

Anyone who knows anything about Byron Bay will know that it's not only where the "beautiful people" go but it's also where the "feral" people go. The dirty hippies hang out there selling hash filled cookies to anyone who doesn't look like a cop. I imagine the real attraction to Byron Bay is it's beautiful coastline but there's got to be an element of the dangerous that is also inviting to the kinds of people this shopfront window is appealing to - young girls with an eating disorder who have rich parents who supply them with credit cards.

But I may be wrong, maybe it's women like me who think they could somehow emulate that look. When they're rushing all over town to pick up screaming toddlers and hormonal teenagers they imagine they can switch off and become as vacuous as a mannequin with pert breasts and a distant look. Somehow they'll be able to treat themselves to a Byron Bay massage and watch the sunset from the lighthouse while enjoying a home made cookie.

Ride the Big Red Car

Yesterday (oh it seems like years ago now) I took Henry to the Wiggles concert. I had my doubts as Henry always says "don't like the Wiggles" whenever I suggest we watch them on TV. That's only because they don't know the Fireman Sam theme song. Yet. I also find it rather amusing that that it's called a "concert" because that conjures up images of drunken teenagers sweating profusely while screaming and gyrating with their arms in the air to a screaming gyrating performer on stage. I guess a Wiggles concert is a little like that only the audience are not drunk and most of them are under five.

I hadn't really followed too closely the rise of the Wiggles since Maya ditched them for the Spice Girls about 10 years ago so I wasn't really prepared for the traffic jam as cars full of screaming toddlers lined up waiting to get to the carpark of the Boondall Entertainment Centre. I sat in traffic long enough during that jam to watch a mother get out of her car and take her daughter behind a tree to water the grass and casually stroll back to the car which hadn't moved more than an inch or two.

Last time I saw the Wiggles was in 1995 when I took Maya to one of their "concerts" in a church hall at Oxley for the grand price of $5. Now they're big enough to play to a packed out audience at a major entertainment complex to which tickets had been sold twelve months in advance and were accompanied by a personal loan application. They even have security guards at each corner of the stage to stop those sweating, gyrating toddlers from getting too close and possibly throwing a grenade and ruining it for everyone.

Henry, to my surprise, loved it and stayed still for at least three quarters of it, then he just got a tiny bit feral as opposed to the loose cannon type of feral he usually is. He did try a few of his usual bossy techniques on little Owen, a beautiful blogger baby we met for the first time at the concert. Owen was really getting down and grooving in the seat directly behind Henry but Henry didn't like it and demanded Owen "get off there". (Don't worry Owen, I punished him later by not letting him listen to Fireman Sam on the way home).

We also got to meet up with Charlotte and Carla who we hadn't seen for some time. Charlotte was doing pretty well at the grooving too on her heavily pregnant mother's lap.

Ah, it's a joy for parents to see their offspring enjoying themselves while they're still young enough to have a good time without the help of illicit drugs.

If only the pit didn't have sand

We gave Henry this tub filled with sand for his second birthday. At first he wouldn't go near it because it actually had sand in it and this sand made him "diiirrrty". He would sit beside it and Twinings Tea his fingers in the air so that they wouldn't have to touch the sand while he played with his trucks. Just recently he's started to get a little more friendly with it. He won't sit in it yet or put his feet anywhere near the sand but he will actually move his trucks around. He still attempts to avoid having to touch it but at least now he doesn't start thrashing around as though he's got a thousand bullants eating away at his flesh.

I attempted to make the experience more enjoyable for him by adding some of his plastic road pieces, building tunnels and adding some ginger leaves to create a more realistic "machines that destroy old forests" scene. I then got in and covered myself in sand, got his matchbox excavator and made machinery noises while pretending to dig and load up the dumptruck. He watched me intently, told me not to get "all diiiirrrty" and then had a go at it himself. The above photo is the result of me acting like a 2 year old so that I might teach my son how to act the same.

Wombat Divine

On Saturday evening we took Henry and Maya into the city to see the Myer Christmas Window Display. Every year they base their display on a different theme. This year it's Wombat Divine by Mem Fox. It's a kids book about a Wombat desperate to be in the school Nativity play but it's difficult to find him the right part as he's either too fat, too sleepy or too clumsy. He ends up fitting in perfectly as the baby Jesus.

We have had this book since Maya was Henry's age. It was much loved by her and is now much loved by Henry. The pages are all dog eared and smeared with vegemite and other assorted food items. The illustrations in the book are beautiful and the Myer display has clearly been in keeping with the book. They've even managed to find fabrics and colours that are all identical to the book.

I wasn't sure how Henry would cope with being in the city as I tend not to take him out in public very often because, dare I say it, he's a right royal pain in the butt. He runs off. Nothing can hold his attention for more than two minutes (except Fireman Sam). I was surprised that he enjoyed the window display enough to actually spend a total of about five minutes admiring it. As soon as he'd seen enough he of course took off. Fortunately we were in the mall and there was plenty of room for him to run without fear of being run over by a vehicle of some kind.

When we left we took the glassed elevator down to the carpark. We stood him in the elevator, told him to hang on and look outside. After the first level the lift descended into the darkness of the carpark and poor Henry must have thought he was being thrown down a well as he started shaking and was on the verge of tears but was too much in shock to actually cry. As the lift stopped he said "oh, oh don't like that lift Mummy". I picked him up and he was very tense and his heart was beating fast. The joys of running wild through the mall had been replaced by a fear. I only hope he isn't now psychologically tormented by the experience and will re-enter an elevator when the time comes to do so.

Happy Birthday Maya

Today marks the 14th anniversary of Maya's birth. I'm in shock and somewhat distressed of course but it's not about me. It's about her.

Yesterday afternoon we went to my mother's to play ladies in celebration. My mother had baked a sponge cake, pecan shortbread type things, mini puddings, and christmas tree shaped biscuits. This was all served on a crisp white linen table cloth, royal doulton china and lead crystal serving dishes. Even Henry had his own mini teacup. My mother does this for all her female grandchildren on their birthdays. I'm not sure whether she's attempting to show up her own daughters or whether she simply likes any excuse to lay out the "good" china.

There is of course a party which will involve several teenage boys and girls running around my home and neighbourhood planned for this coming weekend. I'll crack open a bottle of McWilliams sweet sherry and add it to my coffee as I lovingly agree to each and every demand placed upon me. After all isn't that what mothers do?

Here's proof. Proof that he won't say "five"

I found one!

Just the other day I was wondering if it was at all possible to buy a CD of theme songs from children's well loved TV shows. Postman Pat, Fireman Sam, Thomas the Tank - all of Henry's favourites and had even thought about making one myself. Until today that is.

While trawling a $2 shop I found one. It has a whole passel of favourites including the three mentioned above. We played it in the car on the way home and Henry thought for a moment Fireman San was going to pop up in the front seat driving his firetruck. I looked around to see his expression and he was not moving but his eyes were darting around the car in anticipation. Finally he relaxed and started singing along but when Postman Pat started playing soon after I thought he may just wet his pants with excitement.

As soon as Postman Pat finished Playschool started and this unfortunately elicited a cry of "don't like that song, put Fireman Sam on". So we listened to Fireman Sam a total of three times on the trip home from the shopping centre. I think a part of me is going to definitely regret wishing there was such a CD and having that wish come true.