threats backfire

Ben and I felt that with Christmas looming it was time to work in a few good threats. Santa doesn't bring presents to naughty children, blah, blah, blah. I told Alex about the naughty boy who continued to be naughty even after his parents had warned him, so the boy ended up getting a lump of coal. We then had to explain what coal was and Alex thought it sounded like a cool present. The problem with threatening a child with a dud Christmas present is that you have to be sure they wouldn't like it. Alex would probably take his lump of coal and draw all over the walls and floor and then take it to bed with him to keep it safe (getting it all over the sheets and his pyjama's). Then I would be cleaning coal dust out of the shower. If he found out it becomes diamonds he would probably be found jumping on his lump of coal. Eventually he would loose it down the side of the lounge and his stupid cat would eat it. I don't want to even think about what happens to coal when subjected to the digestion processes of a cat.

lovely weekend

We have had a nice weekend. I admit that I hate Halloween, so that didn't start me off well. There is something about being blackmailed into handing over chocolate that really puts me off side. Can't imagine why. If I thought the little buggers had any idea what halloween was truely about I may be more inclined to be gracious about the whole thing, but in Australia at least it is just one big commercial opportunity for Cadbury to make some money, and possibly dentists.

Saturday morning Emma had to go to a party for one of her friends and it was lovely to sit and chat to the other Mums to the dulcit tones of children screaming in the background. Aah listening to the little lovelies playing brings back images of studying "Lord of the Flies". If you contemplate the biblical reference to needing to be like children in order to get through the gates of heaven I can only assume they must have had different children.

I got back with Emma and found Ben measuring up our backyard and marking out where we needed to move the washing line to in order to put in the trampoline. We spent the afternoon digging out a hole. This doesn't sound like a horrible ordeal. Unfortunately we are situated on top of what they assure me is clay but I feel may be some new form of orange diamond. It was that hard to break through that it is possible we have found something even harder than diamond. Still we got there in the end, my washing line is in it's new position and if I have a couple of glasses of wine before I hang out the washing I hardly notice that it is leaning at all.

The kids helped me make lasagne tonight. It was lots of fun. They love putting the dough through the pasta machine and making layers with the meat, cheese and pasta. A beautiful way to end the weekend.

I will leave you with yet another amusing moment from Alex....... he was telling me that they are reading "The Twits" by Roald Dahl at school and said " I miss the old days when Miss Vicente used to read to us". Last term was such a long time ago apparently.

Have a great week xxxxx

one of those weekends

We had one of those weekends. It started Friday. I turned up to the school at 12:15 to do art with Alex's class and they had just started sport. It wasn't as though I really had the time to do art but I had made the time to get out there for his class, so I was mighty miffed when it turned out they were doing something else and I had wasted my time. Not wanting my time to be completely wasted I informed his teacher that I would go and do some work in the library and to send a child in to get me if they needed me. While working in the library my phone rings which sends the battery flat. Great. I sat there putting stickers on the books hoping the call wasn't important but feeling safe in the knowledge that I had signed in at the office so it wouldn't be about the kids. WRONG. Half an hour later Alex's teacher comes running in to the library to let me know that they had just discovered Alex was missing from the classroom and was down in sick bay. He had taken sick at the end of second luch and another kind teacher had escorted him down to the office. Am I the only person that finds it a tad disconcerting that it took 1/2 an hour to discover that Alex hadn't returned from lunch?

The next debarcle was going out to the movies with my friends. Everything was organised. I was really looking forward to going out with a great group of girls. My usual paranoia surfaces and I think "I'll just check the movie times". I had already checked 4 times that week but a fifth couldn't hurt. Aaaargh. The movie time had changed. It was now earlier than I had expected which mucked up our dinner plans. Fortunately everyone was understanding and we still managed to have an excellent night, even if we had to see a different movie.

Saturday morning I had to take Alex to get his hair cut because he had hacked at his head with a pair of scissors. Not impressed. Dani did a good cover up job. While there I noticed that she has a sign up wanting to sell her trampoline. Spent the rest of the weekend working out how to get the trampoline into our backyard. Technically we have enough space. It just isn't all together. So if we move the washing line, butcher a tree, dig a ditch and flatten a twelve foot square of lawn we should be able to fit it in. Ben is not amused.

We then proceeded to have a long serious of minor upsets which peaked with Ben's work going pear shaped and taking up most of his Sunday afternoon. We went to bed exhausted but happy we had got through everything. Lying in bed dozing off and my cat Zuess jumps up and walks up the bed between us. He starts making this horrible coffing noise which can only mean that he ate his dinner too fast and is about to bring it back. Ben and I are urgently saying "no Zuess, no" as he walks up the bed making horrible noises. Ben puts his hand out to grab the cat before he makes it to the pillows and the cat stops walking and pukes in his hand. Goodnight.

These were some lovely shots from our picnic at the park. Emma was using the bubble sword and bubbles were blowing everywhere. Alex enjoyed popping them. Suddenly there was a swarm of children chasing bubbles, it was worse than the pigeons forming groups to plan stealing the bread rolls. I liked the other photo of Al and Ben sitting together, Alex is becoming such a little man.

This is what Ben does with his spare time. He plays with Alex's toys and sets them up to take amusing photos. He calls this photo "the dark side of pet ownership". Apparently the sith lord did not appreciate puppy biting the hand that fed him. An important lesson in life....don't bite men with a light saber.

We went to an indoor rock climbing centre today. The kids had a great time, although it did wear them out very quickly. Emma only lasted about 1/2 an hour before her fingers became too sore to go on. Alex went hard for an hour and had worked up a sweat by the time he was ready to stop. It was a great way to spend some time together. Would love to try it myself some time, the only problem is that you need to have someone else there to hold the rope. Not sure that I trust enough people in my life to hold my rope. Too many people I like to spend time with have way too wicked a sense of humour to be trusted.

Family outing

Ben is off work this week, so we are doing stuff together as a family. Today we went to Yum Cha for lunch over at Blakehurst. Emma was very brave and tried 8 out of the 9 dishes we had. We finally beat her with the pork balls, I don't think that she was particularly disliking the look of them but possibly just too full. She had been keeping up rather well until that point. Alex on the other hand was a little fussier and stuck with the spring rolls and dim sims and a couple of prawn thingees. We ended up having to ask for more spring rolls because he was still hungry. Fortunately the waitress that brought them over was a lovely person and was giggling at him bouncing with excitement on his seat, at the prospect of more spring rolls. I would have thought he would be over them by now, having lived on spring rolls and fried rice while in Thailand, but no apparently there is no such thing as too many spring rolls. Waiting for the spring rolls fortunately gave Emma a bit of a breather so she finished off with a couple of the egg tarts. Thats my girl. Helene my love we have some competition, Emma loved the BBQ pork buns, ate the prawn and garlic dumplings, devoured the prawn won tons and hoovered down the sweet pork buns. She definately would have given us a run for our money.

After eating a delightful array of tasty morsels we went across the road to Carrs Bush Reserve. Such a lovely little spot. It has a tiny (possibly man made) beach. The water is pretty flat but does have a net. One ponders what they thought the net was going to keep out, it didn't look up to keeping out anything more dangerous than the odd lost goldfish but the thought was there. A nice big park with a lovely little walking path. It also had BBQ facilities. Surprisingly empty with plenty of parking, although it is mid week and October so possibly it gets much busier during Summer. The kids had a splash around in the water. Emma was in one of those loose fitting hippie looking tops wading through the water talking to nature. If ever there was a child that should have been named "Galadriel Moonchild" there she stood. Blissfully unaware of those around her she communed with nature while Alex was on the beach head down, butt up digging like a dog. Suddenly Emma calls Alex to the water to see the fish she had found swimming around. He responds "cool" and tries to club one to death with a stick. Okay maybe that was exaggerating a little, he threw a stick in the water to see how fast they would swim away but it originally looked like that when we were watching. I stand by my origingal wish to name him "Thor".

Alex just came running into the room to tell me "trust pink, forget stains" and ran back out. Not sure what he has in mind for the rest of the week but apparently he feels I may have trouble getting it out of the wash.

Hope everyone else is getting as much joy from their school holidays. Will let you know how rock climbing goes tomorrow.

Dan xxxx