Hokey Pokey

Now that we have a dog outside and cats inside my family are getting to be very skilled at the hokey pokey. You kick your leg one way to stop the cats then kick it out the door to stop the dog. The neighbours must be finding it all very entertaining. Apparently the dual direction attack while walking out the back doors has made me a bit lazy when going out the front door. I went out the front door today to take out some bottles to the recycling bin. Angel was running decoy sitting to the left of the door. As I opened the door and swung a leg to keep her in Zeuss gets down low and charges out the door. Special Ops could take lessons from my animals. He avoids early interception (picture me dropping armfuls of recycling while trying to run and stoop to catch a fast, thin, slippery cat) and runs through the lavender bush and straight under my car. Jewel used to go straight under the car also, although fortunately she was stupid enough to be tricked everytime by me rubbing my fingers together and saying "biscuits". Zeuss just sat in the dead centre of under the car and sniggered at me. I ran around the car trying to scare him out one side but he just sat there looking at me. I did try pleading, I tried threatening, I tried coaxing. None of these worked so I thought it was time to use a big stick. I found a piece of dowling that Ben had been using to mark where he should stop when parking on the drive way and pushed it under the car. Not quite long enough. I had to lie down on my stomach to get it to go far enough in to make contact with the cat. At this point I am reasonably cerain my neighbours were all standing watching "the mad lady across the road". I poke the stick in at the cat and he takes a step sideways. I try sweeping the stick across the ground and he just jumps over it, possibly sniggering. Feeling less than friendly at this point I am ashamed to say I decided to sweep the stick under the car at head height. That cat has the most amazing talent for flattening himself. Still no success. Tempted to get the dog and throw him under the car to get the cat out. Ran through the possible endings and decided against it. While sitting wondering what to do next the cat runs out from under the car and heads straight towards the crazy cat killing neighbours house. Ohshitohshitohshit. Good news, he decides to go left and jump the side fence. Bad news, dog is in backyard and cat doesn't like dog. Set new Olympic speed record while bolting back to the front door (quick shuffle to keep second cat in house) through house to back yard, grab dog and chuck him inside the house so that he can't scare cat over any side fences (second cat will just have to deal with him and serves her right for running decoy in the first place), stealth mode down side passage so as not to startle cat. It is very hard to stealth mode while trying to get a visual on your target and not stand on any land mines. Cat is slinking towards back door. Managed to get behing the target and grab him. Cat suddenly turns into an octopus. I am now standing at the back door trying to get in while the dog is jumping up and down trying to great me and cat two is working on getting out. If I open the door too far cat two gets out. If I don't open it enough I can't get my octopus back in the house. After much antiseptic and bandaging I have the situation under control.

Yet another great weekend

Our new puppy Captain Jack is a lovely little fellow. The kids have been having fun with him and I have enjoyed taking him for a walk of an evening. The kids take him for walks too, although generally when they walk him up and down the street the lazy little puppy just sits and looks at them until one of them picks him up and carries him up and down the street.

Took the kids to the Mounties Christmas party this morning. It was fabulous. They both got to go on all the rides (Emma is finally tall enough) and they got their show bags and fairy floss and an ice-cream. All the people running it were really friendly and helpful. Not bad considering it was free. Okay so I had to be a member, but membership was something like $5. When I think about the last time Mum and I took the kids to the Easter Show, the hassle of getting in there, the crowds, the long day and the cost (at least $400 as far as we would admit, there may have been more) Mounties starts to look like a bit of a bargain.

I have started thinking about things I want to do with the kids these holidays as well. I want them to have fun, I also want to be able to keep it cheap. Mounties has free kids Bingo on Mondays starting at 11am, so that may happen one of the weeks. Still have to suss out what the Catholic club may be offering. I know both clubs have child care on premises that is reasonably cheap. If I have had enough I may just go up to the Catholic Club chuck the kids in child care for 2 hours and sit in a quiet spot with a book to regain my sanity. Less than $10 for club care or over $30 for entry to Tic Tocs or Lollipops. Hmmm hard decision. Other than that I am hoping for lots of free playing at home or visiting of Grandparents. If anyone has any suggestions for budget conscious amusement I am open to ideas.

We just got TiVo. We had a whole heap of Frequent Flyer Points and Qantas is trying to encourage people to spend them so when the TiVo offer came up Ben jumped at it. He is having a lot of fun picking programmes for it to record. It seems pretty cool, not cool enough for me to have gone out and bought one, but if we had to spend the points or loose them it was a good choice.

I hope you are all under control in your warm up to Christmas and I wish you all a merry, jolly, happy and mould free Christmas day.

Love Dan xxxx

action-packed weekend

It was supposed to be a quiet weekend. Ben went to a work Christmas party on Friday night, so rather than spring for the taxi fare we worked out it would be cheaper for him to stay in town. I had a nice quiet evening, drank a little wine, ate a little food. Helene popped around in the morning to pick up the cake I had baked for Thomas. Alex was due for a haircut at 11:30 and fortunately Ben was home in time to mind Emma. Picked up a BBQ chook for lunch and got back home expecting that to be the highlight of the weekend.
While sitting eating lunch I noticed something trying to climb out of the pool. It looked a bit fat to be a lizard, but maybe it was a pregnant lizard so I had better go save it. When I got out there and looked it turned out to be a frog. While I am more than happy to fish lizards out of the pool I don't like the idea of grabbing a frog, so I ran back to the house to find a bucket to fish him out of the pool. Out all four of us go with the bucket and Alex is saying "cool we get to have a pet frog". We have one of those shell shaped wading pools and it was full of water because of the rain from the night before. Ben decided to tip him in there so he could have a bit of a rest before he went home. I call it a him but having no idea how to check the sex of a frog it may have been a her. Anyway we put a couple of bricks and bits of broken pot in to give him places to sit and rest and added a bit of shade. Alex wanted to try and catch him some flies. We had a wonderful afternoon watching the frog swimming around and sunning himself and generally being a frog. I love cheap entertainment.
When we got up in the morning the frog had hopped off home, which is all for the best and the kids were happy they got to spend time with him and save him.

While getting up and finding the frog gone was a happy thing we discovered that our backyard had now acquired a dog. He is the cutest little puppy and the kids have already fallen in love with him. Rang around and no one had reported a lost puppy, put up posters and haven't heard from anyone. He is a white puppy with a black patch over his eye, so we named him Captain Jack. Then we made him a temporary kennel out of a cardboard box and the kids spent the afternoon drawing lovely pictures on it for him. He has enjoyed a lovely bowl of chicken for dinner and has spent the day being bathed, groomed and patted to within an inch of his life. I keep hoping someone will come and claim him so I don't have to take him to an animal shelter tomorrow. Ben is pretending to be very stern and has been telling me we can't keep him but the puppy is so cute I'm hoping he doesn't mean it.

My quiet, uneventful weekend ended up being full of a lot more stuff than I originally expected but they were all fabulous moments with the family so I'm really happy it all turned out the way it did.

More stupid cat stories

Yes these two pictures are of the same cat. Apparently cats don't enjoy falling into a bathtub full of water. Who would have guessed? We have decided to rename her "You Stupid Cat". This certainly saves time when talking to her and is the phrase she hears most often.

The second photo is of her asleep on a pile of tissues. I didn't know that cats like nests but this one seems to want one. Alex was having a moment and emptied an entire box of tissues while playing with her. Ben wasn't happy with either of them but I wasn't too concerned because we are always using tissues for something or another. So I piled them up and popped them on the table, the cat got up on the table and slept in them. Not to be encouraged, so I moved the tissues off the table, put the cat on the floor and went off to do something. As you can see, when I came back the cat was again on the tissues. Put cat on floor. Turn my back on her and she pulls the pile of tissues off the chair and onto the floor and is again asleep in them. This went on for a couple of weeks until I used them all up cleaning up spills.

Looking forward to the opportunity to express my delight in the kittens behaviour over the next couple of weeks as we are preparing to put up the Christmas tree. Just getting the boxes out has made her feral, I hate to think what she is going to do with the tree. If I serve kebabs over Christmas you may not want to ask what type of meat I used.

Dan xxxx

Friends

One of my friends has been incredibly naughty and given me a present that was very lovely but not necessary. I was going to put it under the Christmas tree and wait but Alex couldn't cope with the idea so he opened it. Out came a beautiful box of chocolates and Alex looked and said "isn't that a great present, you have a lovely friend Mummy". "Yes I have a lot of lovely friends Alex" was my response. Christmas may be full of frantic shopping, baking and being driven nuts by needing to be in six places at once, but I thought that little moment summarised what Christmas should be. I stood there knowing that I have a lot of lovely friends and I am very grateful for their friendship, humour and the occasional shoulder, also that while I never expected a gift so generous it reminded me to be grateful that my friends appreciate me for who I am, which is a bloody hard task some days I'm sure. So while it was lovely to receive a gift I wanted to let you all know that I appreciate you all and hope your Christmas brings you as much love and joy as I get from knowing the wonderful people that I get to call my friends.

Great Husband

My husband is great some days. Actually I think he's pretty great everyday, but some days he manages to be pretty damn great. He knew I was feeling a little under pressure with the work load I have given myself lately. On top of that I have been given some unreasonable pressure from outside sources. I got some news today from a friend that was a very helpful heads-up, but frankly has sent me over the edge. I rang Ben and confessed my need to drink and cry until I pass out. He has heaps of horrible stuff on at work and he let me get it off my chest and then rang me back later and offered me butter chicken. What more can you possibly ask from a fella?

another Alex moment

Ben and I have been playing a game on Facebook. It is one of those word games where they give you 6 letters and you have to see how many words of 3 or more letters you can make. The kids have started sitting next to us while we are playing and trying to help find the words. Emma is getting quite good at it. Alex sits next to me and makes the sounds to see if he can find a word. I can't remember what all 6 letters were at the time but last night Alex was sitting next to me doing his usual sounding out while Emma was calling out suggestions. All of a sudden Alex catches my attention he is sounding "s", then he tries "sl", we add an"u", and finish by sounding a "t". Then he puts the sounds together and yells out "slut, slut Mummy, try slut". We aren't sure if Emma has come across the word before or if it was the look on Ben's face but she quickly dashes out to the kitchen, placing herself far enough away to be out of trouble but close enough to hear what happens. I'm trying to keep a very blank face. I look at Alex and ask him to put the word in a sentence. His response was "I don't know, how about I just got slut in the head?" I can only hope he was thinking of the word slapped.