Brown Sugar, how come you taste so good

Carla, whose job it is to stamp out childhood obesity, is going to be horrified by my very public disclosure. I have discovered a way to get Henry to eat his vegetables. It's so simple that I broke down and wept for all the times I've worried about the fact that he may become constipated and get scurvy or something from a vitamin deficiency. The secret is simply brown sugar. Tonight I cooked him up some beef strips and threw in some vegetables as I always do in the hope that he's reconsidered his hatred for them since yesterday. Since I was making the rest of us the best stir fry ever and using a bucketload of brown sugar in it, I thought I'd just sprinkle a little of it over Henry's beef and vege, along with a splash of beef stock. He devoured that with rice like he'd never eaten before in his life.

So now his teeth may rot and the sugar may turn into fat but at least he won't be vitamin deficient and I won't have to scream at him like a fishwife every evening because Mary Poppins was right. A little bit of sugar does help the medicine go down and make mother extremely happy.

So this is what we did

Henry and Maya waiting to board

My brother, this kid's Dad, reckons this is a sure sign his son is not gay (not that he'd care)



Where the public go to leather themselves up. But what a beautiful place to get leathery

Our flight last Friday was not scheduled to leave until 3PM but it was a stinking hot day. We were packed and ready to leave the house by about 10AM. A surprise visit from my brother in law filled in some time but we wanted to be out of here. Gone to places other than here. We had booked the car into an airport carpark for the few days we'd be gone and since it was so hot convinced ourselves that we could just drop off the car early and hang out in the air conditioning at the airport while we waited for our flight.

So that's what we did. Everything went incredibly smoothly. We dropped the car off, shuttle bused it to the airport and decided to eat. We didn't realise we would need a bank loan though to feed ourselves. Never mind, we justified the expense by telling ourselves were were on "holiday" even if it was only for a weekend.

Henry was so excited about getting on a plane. We ate and then headed to the waiting area in which we were able to see the plane we were about to embark being loaded with luggage and fuel. Another little boy, only slightly younger than Henry, came bounding up and announced that that plane there was his. Henry told him that he was wrong, the plane was his. They eventually came to a compromise when Henry suggested to him "you go on that plane and I'll go on that one". The boy agreed as though he knew to argue was fruitless.

Henry was so excited by the take off and could not understand why everything below us seemed so small. Then he discovered the individual tv sets in front of him. They gave us ten minutes free after take off and then you had to pay to continue watching. Since we were going to be on the plane for a little under an hour we didn't bother. He didn't notice. When the refreshments trolley came around offering up all kinds of over priced treats he decided he was hungry. As he'd only just had lunch and we were going to a place that lived life an hour ahead of us meaning it would be dinner time when we arrived, I ordered him some instant noodle things. That was a fortunate distraction because it kept him quiet and in his seat for the rest of the flight.

The weather was perfect and we spent most of the two days at the beach. We even had fish and chips for dinner down there on Saturday night. There were babies galore when my brother's friends visited but none of them came anywhere close to being as adorable as my nephew. That baby is squeeze material and he was fascinated with Henry who only cared about him when he made a dive for his new matchbox loader.

Monday morning it was back home and to work on the way home from the airport. Ben, Henry and Maya got the day off and had unpacked the suitcases and cooked dinner by the time I got home. Since then I've not had time to check my emails let alone update this blog.

Last night the smoke alarm decided to go off at 3AM. Once we overcame the panic and established that the house was not burning to the ground we ripped the thing off the ceiling. It might be sometime before it gets placed back up there.

Off to places other than here.

Today we're off to visit my brother in a town in another state. A town that has some of the world's most beautiful beaches. This will be Henry's first plane ride and he is so "accideted". I told him the pilot will tell him to sit down if he gets up and wanders around too often on the plane. He got worried that the pilot was going to come to our house and fly him away in Thunderbird 2.

He's not too sure what to expect and neither am I. If his behaviour on the plane is anything like it's been this morning I might resort to raiding the liquor bar.

Dancing with Liquor

My mother recently gave me a jazz CD with music from the twenties and thirties on it. On the inside front cover is a quote from someone somewhere which reads:

Jazz dancing is degrading. It lowers the moral standards. Unlike liquor, a great deal of the harm is direct and immediate. But it also leads to undesirable things. The jazz is too often followed by the joy ride. The lower nature is stirred up as a prelude to unchaperoned adventure.


So I played it over and over and over with a glass of wine in my hand while dancing around by myself, to see which would lead me to have immoral thoughts first - the music or the liquor.

Sadly neither caused me to feel as though I was a brazen hussy searching for a quick and intimate interlude.

I think it's because I'm eternally old. Apparently, according to my teenage daughter, once you reach the age of 25 you should just give up doing anything that might be considered "cool" because you'll just look like a bumbling idiot trying to regain your youth.

She once came home and told me how her poor friend was embarrassed becaue her mother, who is OVER 35, has a myspace page. I asked her how she will feel when she is 35 and her daughter tells her she is embarrassed about the fact that she is not yet in an old people's home. She reckons there's no chance she's going to ever be 35 because that's like AGES away. I had to do give her the "I thought that once too" talk. I should have remembered that that giving that talk is like asking "have you done your homework". It falls on deaf ears. They can't hear anything that does not mention the words "would you like some money now".

I decided the only thing to do is play degrading, immoral jazz music really loud every night, especially when her friend are here.

It's a conspiracy man!

This afternoon, on our way to visit some friends whose pool we use just because we can, Ben and I stopped off at the shop to pick up a bottle of wine to take as a thank you.

As Ben got back into the car he mentioned that the staff of the particular bottle shop we had stopped at are...well let's just say he called them something that I can't mention here. That started a conversation about how, nowadays, in the age of the casual twenty four hour workforce, no one is an expert in what they do. They care less about knowing the product they sell than they do about earing time and a half on Sunday. That then led us to talk about a program we watched on TV about a Mongolian tribe and communism and about the downfall of the younger generation (because we are eternally old now).

From the backseat Henry says "It's a conspiracy man!" as though he alone knows the politics of world operation.

Of course this is a line from the Cars movie. Words uttered by George Carlin who is the voice of Filmore, a petrol sniffing, early sixties Kombie van, but Henry happened to repeat it right when it matters.

Our son, he's already waving the red flag. We've raised him right and for that moment we believed he was capable of becoming the leader of the Labour Party before he starts prep school.

Tool shopping

The only way to get a man into action is tell him that you need a new tool. A man type of tool. Even if it's a man type of tool that they never use. The excitement at having to spend money on a man tool is palpable. It's completely unlike the excitement they feel when you ask them to hang the washing.

Ben lives for the days when our tools break down because it means he can go and buy new ones. Why he cares so much I'll never know because he doesn't use them, I do. Yesterday our grass trimmer packed it in. I got about half way through trimming the grass when it happened. Ben was almost emotional with excitement. It meant he could buy a new one. His excuse for not doing many of the tool related jobs in the house is because he thinks the ones we own are crap. I'll admit that none of them are particularly fantastic but for me they always get the job done. However replacing them with newer, more expensive models, does not mean that he will suddenly start volunteering to take care of the man related jobs.

He's on the hunt for a new grass trimmer and he's just waiting for the day the vacuum cleaner blows up. He's not the only man I know who reads the junk mail and does internet comparisons of such equipment. He would love a new vacuum cleaner and I think he deliberately sucks up poisonous vacuum killers in the hope that it blows up sooner rather than later giving him an excuse to go shopping. Since he does all the vacuum cleaning I'll allow him that.

Duck Update

The duck is still alive after twenty four hours. This morning we went and bought it some real duck food and it hasn't really stopped eating since. It seems to like us slightly more too.

Book Slide

I was just sitting here at the computer trying hard to mind my own business and trying especially hard to ignore the thumping sounds coming from henry's room. Through the haze I heard "Mum, come and get the mountain of books off me, please, I'm stuck under a mountain of books!"

I rushed in there only to find this.

Wild Duck

We're babysitting this wild duck for my niece while she is on holiday in New Zealand. My nephew found it abandoned in the bush and took it home. My niece has spent almost every waking moment with it since. It's cute but timid. I think it loves my niece more than it loves me. Henry has been very gentle with it and we've taken it out and let it swim in a large tub of water which it seems to like but I don't know what to feed it. It doesn't seem to like the seed my niece left. Last time we saw it, when it was just a wee thing, she was feeding it some kind of ground meal stuff and it liked that. I've given it bread but I know this is not good for it.

I will just hope and pray that it's still alive by the time she returns because she will howl and cry for days if it's not.

Little Treasures

We spent the morning at Carla's house today. Owen, Charlotte and Henry played beautifully together but I believe poor Carla may have been slightly frazzled after we left.

The Root of all Evil

Carla and I have just had an email conversation about all the bad things associated with bribing your child with food to get them to co-operate. She knows all about how bad it is because she works in an environment that is all about fostering good eating habits in children. But because she's also a mother she knows that the reality of life with kids is much harder than is often suggested in all those good eating habit books.

We spoke about this because I bribe Henry with Nutella. Yes Nutella. Those lovely little one-serve packs of them. They're worth their weight in gold because all I need to do is utter the word "Kintella", as Henry calls them, and he comes running.

I've had to bribe him today in order to get him to co-operate while I treated an infection that had developed in an unseemly place. After a restless night in which Henry woke several times in obvious pain I told him we'd need to go to to see Doctor Helen. When I rang to book in we were told she was on leave. I told him we'd have to see her locum. He did not think this was such a good idea and asked if she had lollies like Doctor Helen did. When I told him I believed she did he said "well, that's ok then."

Kintella or any other bribe subsitute that works, makes being a parent easy...sometimes. When I am in a hurry to get out of the house early in the morning and Henry is feeling decidedly unco-operative all I need do is whisper the magic word and he's like putty in my hands. What parent wouldn't want that kind of complaince?

Henry has also recently learned some unsavoury words from Child From Hell at daycare. He's also developed the normal sense of toilet humour. He says all day "Mum, that's a bum, bum". He then looks at me and says "I shouldn't say that naughty word should I?" I remind him again that no he should not. It's not polite. This is usually followed by the words "Kintella doesn't make me say naughty words".

In other news, Maya had her braces removed today. The three and a half years she had them on for were worth every second. Her teeth are beautiful! They're straight and perfect and look like they could easily be my teeth if I'd gone through three years of wearing braces. I'm jealous. I want her teeth. She has to wear a retainer for some months yet but it's not at all like those ugly fuse wire type things that were around when I was a kid. Her retainer is clear plastic and one would never even know she is wearing it. I'm very proud of the fact that she stuck it out and was diligent in doing all that was asked of her in order for her mouth to look like that of an overpaid supermodel's.

When Stashing the Trash leaves a sweet taste

It's been a busy weekend. We haven't stopped much to take a breath. While Maya was at her first guitar lesson for the year Henry, Ben and I spent some time at the park. Since he's that much bigger and has developed a sense of balance he does really well on the playground equipment. He seems less like a suicidal kamikaze pilot and more like a child who has realised there are no safety nets to catch him when he falls.

I've been trying to get rid of junk and clutter around here and as there is a council kerbside clean up on the horizon there was no better time than this weekend to pile the footpath high with unwanted bits and pieces. Then we just wait for the endless trail of utes and trucks that will come by, go through it and spread it around like vegemite on toast before the council eventually collects what's left.

We had some friends over for drinks last night and I learned many things about them that I hadn't known before. Amazing how loose the tongue becomes after a few drinks. They left around 11PM so I was tired when I was woken at 5.30AM by Henry who had been asleep already for twelve hours by that point. I lay down with him this afternoon to read him some stories and we both fell asleep - me for an hour, him for three.

I'm feeling very pleased to have got rid of so much useless junk from my house. It almost feels as though I cleaned out a few cobwebs from the brain as well.

Mental Rental

I don't know how many of you who read this rent the home you live in. I do. I'd love to buy a house one day but right now it's just not possible. At least not anywhere near where we'd like to live so we're stuck being tenants for now. That does sometimes have its advantages but they don't outweigh the benefits of being a homeowner. I've owned one before. For a start, when you're a tenant you can't let your kids loose with some sticky tape and posters of all boy bands. If your two year old decides he wants to learn to write the alpahabet on the wall using a wax crayon it causes you to stress and fret for weeks until you find some magic formula for removing it. It is however very nice to be able to call the landlord and tell him when the plumbing goes haywire, or the electrics don't work, or the dishwasher packs it in...or it would be nice if we were taken seriously.

We've had it good as far as the amount of rent we pay...up till now. We fully acknowledge that. But because of the low rent we have put up with a lot of things that we wouldn't normally. The rent is about to increase. Fair enough. It's going to rise substantially in one hit however. Because of this I asked for some things to be taken care of. Things that I have in the past asked for but have not received. One major problem, which required the services of a tradesman, was looked into and it seems something may eventually be done about it. The tradie arrived today. He's been here before and he's in deep with the landlord and so takes nothing I say seriously. Obviously he's been directed to do it as inexpensively as possible. I don't care as long as it gets fixed. What does irk me is that when he shows up he leaves his respect in his van. He walks through the house in muddy boots. Leaves a mess of garganutan proportions all over the place, uses the bathroom to wash his hands, splashes dirty water all over the place and then wipes it on my towels. He uses the toilet and flushes it using his mud covered hands.

I know these things are pretty typical of tradespeople but it seems when you're a tenant they care even less. It's no big deal to them if they leave a mess. They're doing a job for someone who's going to claim the cost as an expense at tax time and who only wants to pay the bare minimum in the first place. I'm tired of it but there's a certain game that needs to be played. Right now the rental market is tight. Rents are exhorbitant and they can pick and choose who they rent to at will. They won't take a lease that's longer than six months because as soon as it expires they'll raise the rent higher.

I regularly read an investors forum, just to see what all these property investors are saying. None of them care much about their tenants in this time of prosperity. They see them only as dollar symbols. Gone are the days when a good tenant would be rewarded and treated fairly and justly. We've been lucky up until now and so the decision for us now is whether to move to a nicer house in which all things work as they should for the same amount we're going to have to pay or stay here. But of course moving house doesn't come cheaply. It's inconvenient and stressful but it sure would be nice to walk away.

Tea Party

My mother is always looking for an excuse to use her fine china so she holds tea parties for her grandchildren when they have a birthday. She bakes all morning and then sets out the delicate china. She even, from places known only to her, manages to find heart shaped, pastel coloured sugar "cubes".

Even Henry enjoys these rituals. He gets his own small tea cup and saucer and ever so gently lifts it his delicate little lips. Then he slurps down the tea until he gets to the undissolved sugar at the bottom. Then he runs his fingers around the bottom of it to get every last grain.

This latest party was to honour my niece who turned thirteen and was last year Dux of her school.