Busy Days

My goodness it has been a busy few days.



Yesterday morning I had made an appointment to get two teeth filled. On the way to the dentist I picked up my Tupperware I bought recently from Mummy McTavish, then I get to the dentist & I actually need 4 fillings (two of them were big enough I could fit my fingernail in them - that's why I made the appointment in the first place). I managed to get 3 of them filled, but the dentist didn't want to fill the other big one at the same time because it was on the opposite side to the first big one & he didn't want to numb my whole mouth. Hence I have another appointment for another filling in a week. Personally I would have rathered get it over & done with & who really cares if I was drooling out of both sides of my mouth, at least it would be symmetrical.



It would have been nice to go home & rest, with my numb mouth & aching jaw (the anaesthetic even numbed all the way up to my scalp above my ear & 1/2 way down my neck) but my day didn't end there.



I decided I would duck into the chemist to get some prescriptions filled. Now even though it was only 11:00am on a weekday at the Chemist Warehouse (which isn't part of or near a shopping centre) there was a wait of 1/2 hour for those prescriptions. Home I go in time to take Little Bear for her 12 month old needles (2 months late but whose counting).



Little Bear was very good but she did scream as she actually received the needles. Although it was obvious they hurt, the scream was more of a broken hearted cry and she looked into my eyes through her tear filled eyes & it broke my heart. Anyway, after the needles she settled down really quickly (although she thought when the nurse put the band aid on her arm that she was actually swabbing it for another needle and started to get worked up again but stopped when she realised she wasn't getting any more needles). She also refused to take the sticker from the nurse because it was square & the same size as the alcohol swab they use & I think that she thought that's what it was. We tried to point out that there were pictures of puppies on the sticker, but she still didn't want it.



Took little bear home for her sleep (where DH could babysit because I had more to do yet), then back to the chemist to pick up the medicine. From the Chemist to the grocery store & the idea was that I would go home with the groceries & Little Bear would go with Daddy to pick up Cheetah from school. Of course it was 3:05 as I left the grocery store, so straight to school I go.



Finally with Cheetah & a boot full of groceries I get home, unpack the groceries & put the cold stuff away. About 1/2 hour later it's time for Cheetah's music lesson & off we go leaving Little Bear with Daddy because she has not yet developed an appreciation of Cheetah's music making ability. Music lesson was relatively uneventful (except I had to drop Cheetah & dash to the bank as not once during all my stops had I remembered to get money out to pay the teacher).



After all this I am home !!! & ready to start organising my pantry with all my new Tupperware. During my clean up I found about 8 boxes of LeSnacks (the big boxes, not the little ones), about 6 boxes of muesli bars (that's 108 mueslie bars), 3 enchilada kits, brown rice, white rice, basmati rice, aborio rice (& some wild Thai rice in the fridge), 2 big packets of Cocoa (plus what was already in a tupperware container, 4 1L bottles of olive oil, 3 boxes of 20pack potato chips, & so on. Hopefully now that my pantry is more organised I won't double (triple, quadruple, etc) up on so much stuff as I shop fortnightly & don't usually (or so I thought) keep more than one or two spare boxes/bottles of things.



So I sit at the kitchen table with Little Bear pulling tupperware containers out of the box & running away with them. I manage to label all my new ones & start to fill them up. 1/2 hour later the kitchen table is covered with cocoa, cornflour, custard powder & then I start to fill up the rice. I was being careful - honest - when next thing I know there is half a container of rice on the table, floor, chairs, in the boxes, under the fridge and generally the entire kitchen, dining room & loungeroom. I go to vacuum them up & this funny thing happens - have you ever tried to vacuum up dried rice? Some of it goes up the vacuum but some of it shoots away in the opposite direction (& when I say shoot, I mean it keeps going till it hits something - even if that is two rooms away). I finally get most of it & continue on my merry way, filling them all up with stuff. Then I find the almost empty container of arborio rice & 1/2 a packet of basmati rice. I tip out the arborio rice (as there was less than 1/4 cup & wouldn't even be enough for one side serve), and proceed to tip the basmati rice into the container. This time I was being REALLY careful yet again, 1/2 the remaining rice ends up all over the kitchen, dining room & lounge room again. Vacuum cleaner comes out for the second time in 1/2 hour. (In years to come when I am blogging about finding a grain of rice in the weirdest places, remind me of this). Those who know me really well know that I tend to get frustrated quite easily. You would think that my blood pressure by this time would be high enough to blow a gasket, but actually the opposite happened.



All this rice all over the floor reminded me of a funny story (but believe me I wasn't laughing at the time). When Cheetah was a newborn, DH & I lived out of town in a rural area. Although the house had flyscreens, the flies always managed to find a way in & one night (being the mother of a newborn), I just didn't have the energy to take the rubbish down to the bin but thought it will be ok. There was almost nothing in the bin anyway & it had only been there since that morning. I wake up the next morning & come down to the kitchen to find a sight that looked like someone had spilt the rice. I squinted & strained my eyes (as I wear glasses/contacts & didn't have them on at the time), to see that these little grains of rice were moving. Oh no - Flies had laid their eggs on the plastic tray that the meat had been sitting on the day before (no meat scraps, just the tray) & those eggs had hatched in time for the maggots to cover the entire kitchen floor but they hadn't quite made it out of the kitchen. Cheetah was awake & so I sat him in the entrance in his rocker & proceeded to clean up the maggoty mess with a dustpan & brush, trying not to dry retch every few seconds. I managed to get every last one of them (believe me I wasn't letting a single one of those suckers escape) & get the bin bag with it's newest inhabitants sealed tightly & downstairs into the wheely bin! It must have been quite a sight, watching me clean up those maggots, because usually Cheetah would not last more than 5 minutes in his rocker without direct constant attention, but he happily sat there the entire time it took me to exterminate those vermin. (You can imagine me in my long leg jammies with them rolled up around my knees, balancing only on my big toes to avoid squashing the insects, or worse - being slowly ingested feet first by a sea of writhing white wriggly grubs moving as one in their frenzy to consume all but my bones). That being done I washed my hands, then again, then again, then went out to make my breakfast. I look in the cupboard & what is the only cereal in the cupboard??? You guessed it - RICE BUBBLES !!! That was the most awful tasting bowl of rice bubbles I have ever had & I swear some of them moved!



OK - back to my blog. After being run off my feet yesterday, I have spent most of today busy too. This morning I looked after Lion McTavish as Dragon had a birthday party to attend. For morning tea I let the boys have a double choc chip biscuit each, that I made myself. Lion raved over them & about 10 minutes later asked for another one. "You really like them don't you?" I asked him. "Yeah!" "You baked 'em good, Aunty Chimera!" Awwww - you can come back anytime Lion!



Once Lion had gone home, DH took the kids up to Poppies place to pick up their cousin who is staying over the night. While they were away I chopped & packaged 3kg chicken breast & 1.5kg rump steak & also packaged 3 packets of sausages, 1 packet chops, 1 packet steak, some chicken mignons, chicken kiev & chicken mince. I got a new foodsaver recently which I set to work today. It has done a brilliant job & there is no way I would have fitted all of that meat in my freezer without it. It's tedious work though, cutting the bags then sealing one end, packaging then sealing the other end & you have to wait at least 20 seconds in between each use so when I had a pile of bags to seal, it still took me ages. I still love it though. It also means I can take the meat out of the freezer & put it in the fridge the night before I am ready to use it & I don't have to worry about it leaking all over the fridge. All of this took me several hours to do.



For dinner tonight I made Enchilada's (to use up some of my surplus pantry stock) and while they were in the oven, I thought I would take some time to myself (first time in 2 days) & play a computer game. Well silly me put the oven on fan forced instead of bake & didn't even think about cutting the cooking time - Several burnt enchilada's later & dinner is finished, the big kids are showered & almost ready for bed, Little Bear is in bed - but not sleeping very well tonight (could be the intermittent screeching of the older two), and I am blogging.



I still have more to do yet, before I go to bed. We've only been back for a week & I am ready for another holiday !!!

Disappointment

This afternoon I picked up Little Bear, who came running to the gate as I walked in (usually she stands there & waits for me to go to her).*Then I picked up Cheetah who asked me how my day was - It was good but long I tell him. I'm glad it's over (which at 5:30pm it is actually very far from over, but I was a lot more optomistic now that I was on my way home). Cheetah tells me that he had such a good day he is sorry it ended and proceeds to tell me all about his day. He also tells me that he wants to practice for "80 minutes tonight... No make that an hour and 20 minutes" (he is developing a very dry sense of humour. Don't know where he gets that from)



We get home & we all have a play in the backyard like we usually do, then we come upstairs & Cheetah has a drink & afternoon tea & then starts his Clarinet practice like he usually does. 20 minutes later he comes into me and asks me if I remember him telling me yesterday about the arts extravaganza? Oh dear... His eyes are welling up, his bottom lip is quivering & he is trying very hard to maintain his composure.



He then tells me that he can't perform a solo at the Arts Extravaganza because he's only in grade 4 (remember I said the odd numbered grades are the ones who perform each year). It takes him a while to even tell me this much because after every syllable he has to stop and hold his breath a second to keep from crying.



A big hug later & he can't hold it in anymore & cries softly on my lap. As a parent that's the worst. Everything you say risks just making the pain worse. After just holding him for a while I tried to tell him some things to make him feel better.



The first thing I told him was that "I love me!" I was trying to tell him that I love the fact that he loves playing the clarinet so much that he is working so hard at it & so on, but the first thing that came out of my mouth was "I love me!" Not what you expect your parent to say when you are feeling miserable about yourself and it made him smile. A few more unintentional freudian slips later & he was laughing at me. - Disaster averted!



Later I was cooking chops & didn't realise that I hadn't put the fans on in the living room. 10 minutes later & the BEEP BEEP BEEP of the smoke alarm is piercing the loungeroom which by this point looked like Beijing before the olympics came to town. Then DH, Cheetah & I are all running around like 3 year olds at a Wiggles concert trying to clear the air around the smoke alarm - that didn't work so DH pulls it down and races it off to another room to try and squash the noise. Having some success (turns out it has a hush button - who knew!) he brings it back out & puts it on the bench near the window where it makes a pitiful little bip....bip.....bip. Not sure if it was a flat battery or the wisps of smoke breezing past the alarm on their way to freedom, so I removed the battery just to be sure!!



20 minutes after this Little Bear wakes up (Yes she slept through 5 minutes of screeeeching & hullabaloo and then woke up when everyone was quietly sitting down eating their dinner). Normally she would put herself back to sleep but not tonight. She was wide awake & ready to party. Am I asking too much if I wish for a sleep in tomorrow?



Finally 2 kids in bed & Australia won the bronze medal in the Women's water polo after a nailbiting tied game followed by a tie in penalty time followed by a penalty shootout where we beat Hungary by 1 goal.*Just one more load of washing to hang out & a smoke alarm to reinstall (with new battery) & I might be able to call it a night. Not sure if I can sleep after all the excitement!

Great Expectations

As previously mentioned, Cheetah is learning Clarinet at the moment & I think he has had about 4 lessons and is doing extremely well for the number of lessons - but keep that in mind... only 4 lessons.

Tonight Cheetah announced to me that his teacher has put his name down for a clarinet solo at the end of year concert.

Now this concert is no small thing, it is a huge event, held at the Civic Theatre, that only the odd numbered grades take part in because it was far too big the first year when every grade took part. Children from the other grades only take part if they make up part of the choir or orchestra. (even with only half the school it still takes about 3-4 hours).

I pointed out to Cheetah that he has had 4 lessons & doesn't he think he might want to have a bit more experience at playing the clarinet before he commits himself to a solo in front of several hundred parents, all the teachers & half the students? His reply was "It's not 'till the end of the year Mum !!!"

Holiday

This is going to be a long blog tonight but I have a weeks worth of holiday snapshots to show off.

Last time it was ziplock bags, this time the tissues. I was racing around the house the night before we were due to leave trying to pack & get 2 children & a husband fed, washed, clothed & sent to bed. I left Little Bear in the playroom building towers & climbing all over the furniture. I walked into our bedroom a short time later & found this sight! I love the expression - the only thing missing is the halo & wings. Normally I would be a little frustrated. This time I was just glad she was amusing herself because I had things to do.

This photo is of Bear & her Daddy riding the Go Kart at one of the places we stayed. There is no seatbelt so it was a bit of a juggling act for DH to keep Little Bear in the seat while steering & braking (as there was only a hand brake). She didn't like putting on the helmet but once she was going she didn't want to stop.

Just before leaving for our second destination we took a detour through Kuranda where we visited a Butterfly Sanctuary. Little Bear LOVES butterflies and you can see the wonder on her face as she was surrounded by literally hundreds, maybe thousands of butterflies everywhere she looked. I would love to move to Tasmania sometime but I must say I would really miss the Ulysses and Cairns Birdwing butterflies. They are just awesome.

Cheetah & I also visted the Venom Museum where there was an interesting collection of snakes, spiders, scorpions, and some frogs. I was a bit concerned when I saw the frogs as I thought they might be food for one of the other creatures, but apparently they were actually part of the display. I didn't ask if they were venomous. When we left the museum we got to hold a snake (Black headed python to be more precise). I was a little concerned about this too, as there were quite a few in a group who got to hold the snake ahead of us & I thought she might be a bit riled up by the time Cheetah & I got to her, but she was OK & didn't try to bite, although she was a little restless. I have a photo of me & Cheetah with the snake, but I was the one holding it & I wanted to post the one where he is actually handling the snake.

Here we are at the final destination & we found a HUGE house (3 huge bedrooms, 2 huge bathrooms, huge kitchen (are you getting the point that it was big) equipped with all the mod cons, extra toilet, laundry, huge back deck, river running through the backyard - you get the picture).

Litte Bear was a bit pensive during her first canoe ride & alternated between total excitement at all the new things she was experiencing, and fear of the canoe & the weird rocking sensation (it was a bit rocky, mostly because of the fact that she wouldn't sit still). She loved it when we went out the second time. Cheetah took this picture from the river bank as the Canoe only held 2 people (plus one quite little Little Bear)

Cheetah loved the hammock on the back deck. It would be lovely in summer during the evening to see all the daytime animals getting ready for bed & watching the nocturnal creatures begin to emerge. As it is winter it was a bit too chilly on the deck after dusk, even with our jumpers & thick socks on. I love the second photo of Cheetah in the hammock. It is very hard to get a lovely photo of him because he can't seem to act naturally in front of a camera lens. This one just has the beautiful relaxed expression that I love but don't see enough of anymore.

This is one of the Pademelons that were so tame they would eat out of your hands. She has a baby in the pouch who would poke his nose out every now & then. It was a little pink nose so he couldn't be a very old baby. It was a bit too chilly for the babies, so even though there were 2 or 3 that had babies in pouches, we rarely saw any sign of the babies other than as the wriggling mass inside their mothers pouch.

It took as a few days to teach Little Bear they weren't "Puppies" and even then she kept forgetting. She did say "Wallaby" once or twice (or at least her version of this word) but I think "Puppy" was easier for her to say.

Cheetah loves Little Bear, but she doesn't always reciprocate that affection. This was one of those less than kodak moments but I liked the series. First we tried a nice photo with Little Bear in between us. In that one she is trying to cuddle up to me at the same time as pushing her poor brother away. The next one I held her as far away from Cheetah as possible but she is still insisting that he is too close. The last one she is laying down the law to him that I was HER mum & he should rack off. I don't think Cheetah took her too seriously!

This is an incredible family shot of our family as everyone has a very natural expression on their face (Even Cheetahs expression is one you will often see on him). Usually one of the kids is crying, the other sulking or pulling silly faces while one parent looks frustrated and one parent is looking at the ceiling through raised eyebrows. Although Little Bear is sucking her thumb, this is her usual pose & I think she looks very sweet (especially as the thumb sucking usually indicates she is getting tired).

Little Bear by this point was a bit over the whole photo thing. Here she is standing at one end of the deck by the gate where all the Pademelons & Turkeys & sometimes other creatures too, would come to be fed by us. She loved to just be out here on the deck. The birds were amazing too, with all sorts of rainforest birds flying right down & landing in front of us.

Being a family vacation there wasn't much at all of this going on at all. This was one of those rare moments while Little Bear was pre-occupied with the Pademelons and Cheetah was happy because he was behind the camera lens!

Really we had a wonderful time, but I wish we had more time at the river. We would love to go back there with family & stay a bit longer next time, as this house would easily fit two couples and some kids comfortably and there was an even bigger residence owned by the same people next door which could fit 3 couples comfortably (another plus - you couldn't see any of the neighbours from the house or even the canoe although we went upstream & downstream for a couple of hundred meters in each direction).

Cheetah & his dad actually saw a platypus while canoing, but unfortunately it only made that one appearance and Little Bear & I missed out (probably didn't help that she loved to stand at the front of the canoe yelling with joy at all the new things and banging her hands and jumping up & down in her excitement - Poor platypus is probably still nursing a headache).

Unfortunately Little Bear was sick with a fever for 3 days & 2 nights of our trip but she still managed to have fun during the day. We just didn't get to sleep at night, but who needs sleep anyway. She slept brilliantly last night (our first night home) and I don't remember anything from the time my head hit the pillow to about 6:30 this morning when my body clock told me it was time to wake up even though Bear was still snoozing. I managed to stay under the covers until 7:10 but paid for that by being late for work. Little Bear woke up as soon as she heard me moving around outside.

Back to the daily grind today (except for DH who is enjoying another week & 2 days off work until he starts his new job next Wednesday). Little Bear was excited to be back at daycare & had a good day but she ALWAYS has a good day at daycare. Cheetah also had a good day at school but was glad to see me this afternoon as he wasn't sure if he was meant to catch the after school care bus or not, I hadn't reminded him that morning like I usually do. Luckily he did catch it and it was the right thing to do.

This afternoon Cheetah was practicing his clarinet & I noticed that one of the songs was a bit out of tempo. I went in to help him with his rhythm & was told that he "doesn't like to play it the way it's written, he likes to play it the way it is meant to go". I guess he was talking about the way HE meant it to go, because I am pretty sure the person who wrote the tune didn't intend it to be sung the way Cheetah sings/plays it. I tried to talk to him about the importance of learning to play the music as it is written & not always playing the music that is in our head but I am afraid my suggestions fell on deaf ears. I will leave that one up to his teacher !! He really is playing very well & I am very proud of his progress including his determination not to conform, although I think this skill (of playing the music in his head) will be much more appreciated by me and others after he learns the basics about rhythm, tempo, pitch, etc.

GRRRRRR

Does anyone else have issues with getting the paragraphs to show up in their blogs.

I preview & add extra spaces between paragraphs & remove spaces & edit in HTML & it doesn't matter what I do or what it looks like in the preview, it still posts without spaces between the paragraphs. It is taking me longer to try to stop this from happening, than actually writing the blog & as you can see from my last few posts, it seems to be all for nothing anyway.

Can somebody tell me how to stop this madness before I start going INSANE .....


Oh no... too late !!!

The Sound of Silence

You know that sinking feeling you get when you suddenly realise you haven't heard your child for a couple of minutes.

This evening I had dragged out the pots & pans for bear to play with (noisy but it keeps her occupied & beats the sound of crying). I was around a corner & when I realised it had been silent for just a little bit too long I walked around the corner to see this...

Little Bear upon realising that she was unattended snatched the opportunity to open this drawer (which she knows she isn't allowed to touch) and I walked around the corner to see her pulling ziplock bag after ziplock bag out of the carboard boxes that hold them (kind of like the tissues come out of the tissue box). She had already emptied the smaller box on the right & was just pulling the last few out of the bigger box in front of her. I grabbed the camera but when I came back she had realised that she had been caught & was trying to stuff them back in.

It's a pity I missed catching the look on her face as she was pulling them out, because it was priceless. She looked absolutely enthralled by the seemingly endless supply of little bags. The photo below was taken by Mummy McTavish (who is bear's aunty, not mummy... confused?) and she has a very similar look on her face in this photo.


This was taken while Mummy McT was keeping bear occupied (that's Dragon in the background) as I was doing housework to prepare for a tupperware party which I was hosting for Mummy McT. At this point in time I actually had my head inside an oven from which I was trying to clean off years of baked-on, burnt, black bits of who knows what so that I wouldn't gross everyone out when I cooked homemade pizza in it that night.

Although it looks like bear is dressed in her pyjama's, it was actually a fairly cool morning & after I had dressed her in a lovely little dress & leggings, she had a drink of water & pulled the top of the cup off with her teeth while holding it upside down. Her warm leggins survived this first onslaught but then of course she then saw the puddle on the ground and stepped in it & proceeded to run away from me leaving fresh little footprint shaped puddles behind her. Being a friday, I had a weeks worth of washing stacked up & the only clean warm outfit was this one.

This photo is of dragon & bear trying to be good & as you can see by their eyes it is very hard work. I'm also sure that when Mummy McT poured the drinks she intended the straw cup for the older dragon & the sippy cup for the younger bear. I think dragon actually snaffled the sippy cup in another case of trying to prove that "I'm the Baby" .

After all this hard work by everybody involved the Tupperware party was a fun night, the pizza tasted great & Mummy McT made a bit of money (I hope - because the rest of us sure lost a bit).

I bought the rest of my pantry containers (I have 'done' half my pantry & still had half to go) & got my free antarctica containers which will make my freezer look as organised as my pantry (well that's the plan anyway).



I love this photo because in the big version you can see each eyelash on Little Bear and her eyes look so beautiful. Her hair has a bit of the mad scientist thing going on, but as you can see from other photo's, that just her!

Like the saucepans, the bubbles are another great way to occupy her for 5-10 minutes, just long enough to do something like the washing up. (I have a dishwasher, so my handwashing only takes 5-10 minutes). She loves to put the bubbles in her mouth & they must feel funny on her tongue because she gets this look on her face like they are tickling her. Although I don't think the bubbles would taste that good, at least the detergent I buy doesn't have some of the nasty chemicals of other brands.

Blogging for the sake of Blogging

Well it has been 2 and 1/2 weeks since my last post & that should give you some idea of how busy I have been lately.

I love my job & I love my family but some days .... well what can I say, I am too tired to even think of the words to describe it accurately but Aeriel acrobatics on a tightrope while juggling jelly and riding a unicycle standing on your head ... I think you get the picture.

I must count my blessings though - I have a 13 month old child who has been sleeping through the night for several months now and an 8 year old who is able to help out a bit around the house.

I also had dinner cooked for me tonight. Steak, salad & pasta. In the 9 1/2 years I have been married, the number of times DH has cooked dinner would probably average once per year To be fair though, he has cooked 3 or 4 times since I returned to work (getting close to averaging once a month) and that is a huge improvement on when we were first married.

I am going to see Mamma Mia tomorrow night with some friends from work (actually I am only aware of one other person who'se going, so hopefully there will be more than that) and it will be good to have a night away from the family doing something just for me for a change. I also have a tupperware party on Friday night but while they are a good opportunity to get a bit silly with the girls, it's still a lot of responsibility/work hosting one & as it is dinner & drinks (or pizza & plonk depending on which side of the tracks you live) it will mean preparation & cleaning up afterwards. Anything to get the sales right !!!

Anyway, my light at the (not so distant) end of the tunnel is a holiday in the Atherton Tablelands next week. We will be away for 6 days & 5 nights & are even taking Cheetah out of school for 4 days. This holiday was a special treat using some of our tax refund & now it looks like it will be the last family holiday for at least a year.

DH has resigned from his job & has verbally been offered another job but hasn't actually been given this offer in writing yet. He is a bit stressed about it. The new job is about 20k more than he currently makes, plus a private use station wagon & free fuel in Qld for a very similar job to the one he does now. How could he refuse. He's a bit ticked that he is going to have to start back at square one with regards to accruing long service leave, but them's the breaks ! At least if this new job doesn't happen, he could probably retract his resignation but in a male dominated blue collar workforce his pride would take a bit of a bruising (stereotypical - maybe, but accurate).

Cheetah's clarinet lessons are going super & I am really impressed with how quickly he is picking it up. He would probably be doing even better if it weren't for the complete breakdown every few days when he "keeps playing a C instead of an E and tries so hard to do it right, but it just keeps happening ...... (this is where the words get lost in the tears)" or something to this effect. I keep pointing out that the next day he plays the difficult piece & is laughing because it's perfect & seems so easy & then a few days later a new piece is causing drama's. I have tried pointing out how often I make mistakes and have to keep working at it until I fix them but that's different because he "keeps making the same mistake over and over.... (tears again)". I have tried to help him recognise the problem before it becomes a problem & give him coping strategies (ie. realise that he has played a piece incorrectly 2 or 3 times so get up walk away & do some silly stretching & rubber lip exercises & then try a different piece before going back to that one). That doesn't work either because Cheetah doesn't like to give up before he has mastered something but he gets so tense he has no hope of mastering it. Any pointers here Mum-me???

On the positive side, these only affect the one practice session & usually the next day he is able to play the piece really well. I am not looking forward to when he begins to learn music that will take more than one practice session to master.

Cheetah also had his school photo's today. I wish photographers would take photo's on the first day of school when the uniforms haven't got chewed collars yet & no brown stains from milo yoghurt that is drunk straight from the tub instead of using a spoon & no holes in the shorts, and socks are white instead of brown & kids stay neat & tidy all day because they are too busy meeting friends & sorting out where they fall in the pecking order this year, etc. At least Cheetah is one of the taller ones in his class and is usually standing behind other kids. We also got the individual portrait & apparently he tried to hide his chewed collar. It will be interesting to see how that worked out (as when he showed me, it looked sillier than just leaving the collar as it was). I used to get frustrated at such things, but I have long since learned that unlike those sterilised picture perfect (pun intended) photo's of the girls & boys looking pristine in new uniforms & perfect smiles with not a hair out of place, photo's of my son will be a true reflection of him, not some photoshopped alter-boy butter-wouldn't-melt-in-his-mouth impersonator, but my gorgeous dimpled ratbag with that silly grin & mischievous glint in his green eyes that means I can never quite fully relax.

Now it is too late to finish that huge pile of folding so it will have to wait for yet another day & given the choice between sleep or dishes I choose sleep. I hope you have enjoyed my insane ramblings for today & I shall try to blog at least once more before we go on holidays (as no internet for those 6 days).