Catching Up

Whoa, has it been over a week since I was last here? Where did that chunk of time go?? Life here is a little hectic at the moment - with the work we're doing around the house taking up pretty much every spare minute and leaving me worn out at the end of each day, combined with work, running around after the kids and all the other things that being a wife, a mum and running a house entail I just haven't had a whole lot of free time. And the next couple of weeks look set to be even crazier as I'll be working pretty much every day. A totally insane decision that is already making me a little stressed but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Besides, after that I'll have two weeks holiday (at home, working on the house and yard!) to relax and catch up.

So what's been going on?

Offspring #1's thumb has pretty much recovered so at football today be managed to land on his shoulder. Yes, his shoulder. Luckily it doesn't seem to be more than a pulled muscle. His birthday is later this week and he's on a pretty big warning that if his behaviour at home doesn't improve there won't be a birthday at all. That said, I'm actually getting worried that his birthday present isn't going to arrive in time.

Offspring #2 has had a little leap in learning and wants to write every word ever spoken, written or thought. She has me making lists - parts of the body, things in a house, things we can see, etc, and then copies them all out, colours them in and generally has fun playing with letters and language. It's amazing to watch and so much fun seeing her little face light up when she works something out.

The reno work is progressing nicely. We've started the wall at the back of the house and I've been busy pulling out plants, ripping out the old coffee-rock retaining wall (it's hell on the hands and nails), pulling up brick paths (also hell on the hands and nails) and over the weekend I've put new plants into the tiered garden beds at the front of the house. As a result of all that I've not been doing quite as much baking and cooking as normal but I have tried a few new recipes. I'll try and get them up during the week.

And finally... I roasted a leg of lamb in the slow cooker for dinner tonight and decided to go the extra bit and do roasted vegies and cauliflower and broccoli gratin. I had plans to make a delish new dessert that a friend had shared with me but the kids vetoed that suggestion - they wanted marshmallows cooked on the fire that Hubby had going in the front yard. I said no, #2's asthma has been playing up and there was no way I wanted her out in the cold smoky air. Hubby to the rescue...

They simply toasted their marshmallows on the inside fire. And loved every single sticky mouthful. Thinking outside the square? Who knew it could be so much fun?

Oh Dear

When I collected Offspring #1 from school yesterday he told me that his hand hurt. I threw it a cursory glance, declared that it was fine and started to lead the way to the car, grabbing his hand as I walked. Oooops, grabbed the sore hand. He yelled and cried and I took a closer look then realised it was actually quite swollen and, after a poke or two, that it was very tender. Decision time. Take him home and listen to the moaning (he's a total sook) or go straight to the doctor, pay through the nose for a visit, and get it seen?

Off to the doctor we went. Who sent us down the hill for x-rays. Who charges us even more money and then sent us back up the hill to the Dr so he could tell us #1's thumb was badly sprained but not broken. The hand was bandaged to provide it with some support and he was told to take it easy, not take part in his sports class today and that hopefully he'd be fine for the footy game on Sunday.

Luckily it's his left hand so all is good school-wise, just can't do sport. He decided to help me out and write the note to his teacher letting him know.

I thought it was super cute and simply added my bit on the end:

Dear Mr Teacher,

As Ben has so succinctly stated, he has sprained his thumb rather badly - x-rays show no break - and is not to do sport today.

Kind regards,

Ben's Mum

When I collected him today the teacher gave me back the note. He and his student teacher thought it was super-cute too and that I might like to keep it. They didn't know I'd already taken a photo of it this morning LOL.

My Girl Loves Me

Her: I love you Mum.

Me: I love you too baby.

Her: I love you more.

Me: I love you forever.

Her: Yeah? Well I love you for 16 years and that's a lot lot lot.

Hmmm... I guess that means she thinks she wins. But I know I'm the winner really.

Just Wondering

Why is it that one child believes that an answer of 'maybe' really means 'probably not' while the other child is convinced that the same answer translates to 'sure, let me stop what I'm doing right this second so I can do your bidding, oh mighty one'.

At Least

when she has this much crap in her room...

I have an excuse not to vacuum! (yes, she does normally have bed linen. It was wash-the-sheets day.)

Offspring #2 spied the brightly coloured bag on the top shelf in my wardrobe and, being the inquisitive child she is, had to find out what was in it. Upon finding out a tent lived in the bag she nagged and nagged until I finally got the thing down and, amid much muttered swearing, set it up in the living room. Then she wanted it in her bedroom. Her tiny little bedroom. Cue more muttered swearing as I dragged it up the hallway and shoved it through her doorway.

So that's where it is - literally squeezed in between her bed and her shelves, full of teddies and babies and blankies and toys. And she's spent most of this past week turning it into a school-room, a hospital, a 'holiday place', a bedroom for babies and a princesses castle. I love watching her imagination at work.

Wordless Wednesday... On Thursday

Bad Mummy

No, nothing too awful happened. I just broke my promise to Offspring #2. Just???? Yes, I made a promise to her and I'm about to break it right now. Right here.

A friend made some seriously fabulous, seriously rich, seriously from scratch, totally decadent chocolate mousse. I didn't think the kids would like it much (not just wishful thinking!) mostly because it was sooooooo very rich. Boy was I wrong. They LOVED it. And I took photos that showed how much they loved it. And #2 allowed my photo-taking interference provided I agreed to show those photos only to our mousse-making friend. I was under strict instructions: "don't put them on your blog Mum! I mean it!!!"

But... this shot was too gorgeous and I couldn't resist. And so I broke my promise. Bad Mummy.

First Day

Well school started back and the boy-child headed off to Year 3 while the girl-child started her first day of kindy. All together now... Awwwwwww.

I know! How did she get to be big enough for kindy? That's about 17 different kinds of wrong. And Year 3? That's 23 completely different levels of wrong!

They both had great first days. Offspring #1 thinks his new teacher is "AWESOME" - the reason is hilarious and doesn't actually make sense but he's happy and that's all that matters. Offspring #2 thinks kindy is terrific fun - her teachers are very nice, they did drawing and painting, read stories, played and played some more and she came home "all worned out."

Yay for a great start to the school year. They're happy, I'm happy and it's all good!

Bathtime Battles

School starts back tomorrow so when I sent the kids off for their bath I told them it was wash-hair night (it's been a bit scatty through the holidays - kind of when we notice they're heads smell, or the hair stands straight up) and that they didn't have a whole lot of time before bed.

Well that was like raising a red rag to a bull. Could they have gone any slower? Probably but I'm not sure how.

Several minutes after they'd got into the bath I called out to see if they were washed...

Me (from the kitchen): Are you washed yet?

Them (in the bathroom): WHAT???

Me (sighing and heading to the bathroom): Are you washed yet?

Them: Yes.

Me: With soap?

Them: Soap???? Um.... (casting their heads about wildly looking for the soap)... yes.

Me: Show me your feet.

They duly lift their feet out of the bath-water. Said feet are filthy. Still.

Them (staring in amazement at those same feet): Oh... maybe we didn't wash our feet yet?? (yes, they had a question mark at the end of the sentence).

Me (not so calmly handing them the soap): I'll be back in two minutes to wash your hair.

Them: Is it wash-hair night? Why?

Then my head exploded.

A Boy...

and some-one else's dog!

A girlfriend called through over the weekend and she had her two little Jack Russells with her - Zorro and Indi. They were lovely little dogs, especially considering they were Jackies who aren't generally known for their um.... obedience and quiet natures LOL. These two were gorgeous, beautifully obedient and gentle with the kids. Both kids fell totally in love with them but Offspring #1 was especially enamoured. He loved when one dog climbed up for a cuddle, was thrilled when she lay down and napped on his lap and stoked beyond belief when the other dog climbed up for cuddles too.

Baking With The Kids

I spent hours scrubbing my house on Thursday. Hours! Then Friday morning the kids asked if we could do some baking and I was so pleased with my nice clean house that, dolt that I am, I said yes. A short time later we had flour and sugar everywhere. And that was well before we got to the icing. I'm still scraping that up off the bench.

But they had fun which was, after all, the whole point of the exercise. These little cut-out cookies were simple and easy. I was worried they wouldn't roll out very well because despite the amount of time the dough was in the fridge it stayed fairly soft but, so long as it wasn't rolled out too thinly it was fine. If you do make them be sure to keep an eye on them - they go from not-quite-cooked to blackened-and-smoking in the blink of an eye.

We used a variety of sprinkles to top the icing. I pretty much gave the kids free slather over whatever I had open.

Sprinkle Biscuits

from Australian Table, April 2008

125g margarine, softened

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 egg

1 1/12 cups plain flour, sifted

3/4 cup pure icing sugar, sifted

1/4 cup hot water

food colouring

assorted sprinkles, to decorate

1. Using an electric mixer, beat margarine and caster sugar until pale and creamy. Add egg and beat well. Add flour and, using hands, press mixture together to form a soft dough. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 2 minutes, until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

2. Preheat oven to 180C. Line a baking tray with baking paper.

3. Roll dough between two sheets of baking paper to a 5 mm thickness. Cut into shapes using a biscuit cutter. Place biscuits on prepared tray. Bake for 15 minutes, until golden. Cool on tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

4. Mix together icing sugar and hot water until smooth. Add a few drops of food colouring and stir until well combined. Dip one side of each biscuit into icing, holding over bowl to allow excess icing to drip off. Decorate with sprinkles.

Oh Look. Photos of My Kids. Again.

Just in case you forgot what they looked like while I was away...

We convinced the Daddy of the house to put the pool up when the temperatures hit the high 30's for several days in a row. Actually, I wanted him to go with us to the Lake for a picnic and a swim and he didn't want to so figured putting up the pool would shut me up but the first explanation sounds nicer. Anyway... the kids have had a ball playing in the pool and now, upon rising from their beds at Bloody-Early O'clock each and every morning, their first question is not about breakfast but what time they will be allowed to swim.

It's only a little pool so to call what they do swimming would be a fairly generous description but they splash and play and bash each other with the pool toys and generally exhaust themselves enough that I can make them go to bed half an hour before their actual bedtime. During school holidays.

Yeah, I know. Pure genius.

Meet My Boy

We call him Gappy.

Since we're up to lost tooth number 5 I'm thinking that the Tooth Fairy probably calls him expensive!

Fisher-kids

We took the boat out today for the first time this summer. Well, I say summer though technically it's still spring. But you know what I mean. We packed up a picnic, the Sunday paper, hats, sunscreen, fishing gear and headed out for the day. We wandered down the river, helped out a grand-dad who was fishing with his grandkids until their boat engine died, did a bit of sight-seeing and stopped at a playground for our picnic lunch. After that we jumped back in the boat and headed back up the river a little way before finding a good fishing spot.

Offspring #1 continued to astound us with his fishing skills as he caught three bream in fairly quick succession...

And Offspring #2 was thrilled to catch her first ever fish...

And yes, the fish were on the small side and were carefully released back into the river by the Dad of the family.

An Artiste

Offspring #2 and I had a rare day at home today. I say rare because, although I only work a couple of days a week and we spend heaps of time together, it's not often we stay at home all day long. Sure we still did the school run but that's an everyday kind of thing so it doesn't really count.

We washed dishes, made beds, tidied the house, hung laundry and even managed a spot of gardening.

We also watched #2's favourite tv show and danced and sang along. And danced and sang. And danced. And sang.

And we played "Cinda-brella". Apparently you pop on your noisiest dress-up shoes,run up and down the hallway a bunch of times and on the last lap you drop one shoe before running into the living room and exclaiming in a completely pathetic and tragic whimper that you've lost your shoe and don't know what will happen now. On the one hand I'm kind of horrified that she's play-acting at being helpless and waiting for the Prince to come and on the other hand I'm actually pretty impressed with her comprehension skills as she's only been interested in listening to the story the whole way through for the past couple of weeks.

I was enjoying our day so much that when she very sweetly asked if she could 'do painting' I totally weakened and gave in. Which was lucky. Because that was my chance to take some more photos of my lovely girl. The Artiste.

She's Growing Up Too Fast

We've just arrived home from the Kindergarten information session for Offspring #2. Yep, she's off to kindy next year and, while there were times when I thought that the first day of school would never come, I'm not sure I'm quite ready to let her go just yet. She's still so little - she only comes up to my waist. And she calls things funny names - we know what she's talking about but other people don't. And she needs help with her shoes sometimes. And she makes up crazy songs mushing together a bunch of different nursery rhymes to create something quite, um, extraordinary. And... she's my baby!

We found out what days she'll be attending kindy, who her class-mates are, met her teacher and saw her classroom. She'll be attending the same school as her big brother so a lot of the general school information is familiar but it was a bit of a relief for both of us to know that two of her special friends will be in her class and at least say hello to her teacher.

I guess I'd best clear off my fridge door sometime before February. I have a feeling there might be a lot more art wanting a space there.

My Baby's A Big Girl Now!

Remember this gorgeous little creature?

Well she's gone and grown up. I'm not sure when it happened. I'm positive that she still looked like that just last week. Then yesterday she went and turned four. Yes. Four-years-old!

To say she's gorgeous and (along with her big brother) the absolute light of our lives would be a complete understatement. She's funny, inquisitive, sunny and, according to her besotted Daddy, cute, cute and cute. She loves to help me 'do jobs', adores helping her Dad in the yard especially if it involves her gumboots, dirt and some garden tools and she waits patiently all day to collect her big brother from school only to pick a fight with him before we even reach the carpark. She loves her babies, doing puzzles, drawing and colouring, jumping on the trampoline, riding her bike and cuddles. She hates being left behind, being told no, cleaning her room and green beans.

We had a few of her little friends, along with their families, around for afternoon tea on Saturday afternoon for a birthday celebration and what would an afternoon tea party be without...

Some sweet little Marshmallow Teacups

Fairy Bread, with fairy sprinkles

Tiny little Baby Cupcakes

Party bags for the guests

and Birthday Cake with pretty flower candles

There Goes My "Best Mum" Award, #351

Yesterday morning Offspring #1 lost another tooth. It's his fourth one and, at last, the drama surrounding the general loss of teeth thing seems to be dying down. This time round he left it alone until it was good and wobbly then wiggled and wobbled it with all his might until the darn thing came out. He announced the news to the household and grabbed a cup, added the tooth and some water, and set it on his bookcase for the Tooth Fairy's impending visit. Hubby and I both made a mental note to remember the visit and then we all got on with the day.

I don't need to go into detail do I? Let's just say that halfway through breakfast this morning #1 remembered his lost tooth and raced down to his room. The sad wail that followed was truly worthy of an acting award. Of course some quick thinking saved the day - the Tooth Fairy is particularly busy on the weekends so sometimes she can't quite get to all the kids, especially as Perth is sooooooo far away from anywhere else, but the kids she missed last night go to the top of tonight's list so he's guaranteed a visit tonight. He checked that it would be 'impossible for her to forget' and was reassured that this was indeed the truth and all is well with the world.

Now I'm going to put the money for the visit in a place I can't possibly miss it so I won't forget. Again.

Brotherly Love

Around 5pm I did the usual "Daddy will be home soon, let's tidy up the house so it's nice and neat for when he gets here" call. Old-fashioned though it may be, appealing to the kids desire to please their Dad is a far more successful way of getting them to clean up their mess than stomping about and threatening to throw out all their toys. Who knew?

Anyway, they were tidying up fairly well and Offspring #1 was being very helpful. #2's usual M.O. is to grab a handful of toys, trot up to her room and launch them in from the doorway. Her big brother was actively encouraging her to actually put them away and everything was going along rather nicely. They reported back that they'd finished and began playing again when I spotted the tea-set #2 and her 'babies' had been playing with earlier and asked for that to be put away too. #2 sighed dramatically, pouted those beautiful Angelina Jolie-esque lips of hers and flounced off down the hall carting all she could carry. Big brother and I listened as her load was dropped at the doorway and bounced and clattered as it fell to the floor. He sighed, pouted his not-hardly-at-all lips and headed down the hall to sort her out.

I waited for the squabbling to start but was instead reduced to giggles when I heard him declare, "Well! This room is a disgrace!" Then he dug in and helped her clean it up. What a hero.

Finally...

We've had a rough old time of it with Offspring #2 this week. Her asthma (or is it croup?) has played up terribly and we had a couple of scary nights. She now has a streaming head cold and has been one miserable little chicken. We had an appointment scheduled with the specialist who has been treating her for Wednesday so he finally got to see when she's actually sick instead of having to rely on my version of what happens. He was really scratching his head to sort her out this time - you might remember that he'd tested her for a whole bunch of allergies and, upon her non-reaction to any of them, had declared that it wasn't asthma but recurrent croup. This time he got to hear the horrible cough for himself and decided it was an 'asthma cough'. He freely admitted that he didn't think it could be asthma but that 'that cough' was indeed an asthma cough.

So... instead of reducing her meds, as per the original plan, he has increased them. And he wants to see her again next week to check how she's responding to the changes.

I'd just like a decent night's sleep.