Water Bear

These were taken from Little Bear's shower tonight.

She has always been very good in the water (however, like her mother, she isn't fussed on the swimming pool if it's under 30*C).

In these photo's she is lying on the floor of the bath. The water is about 2-3 inches deep. (where her head is, is on a slight upwards slope though).

She would put the plug in while the shower is running, then go up the other end of the tub (away from the shower) and lie herself down in this position without any help from us.

As you can see, the water is over her ears, but it doesn't bother her at all.






In the second photo, her dad tells her to wiggle a bit & she does this kind of jive move & thinks she is just hysterical.

Grounded

Remember this post?

ie. the one where I told Cheetah he was not allowed to take his expensive DS to vacation care?

Yesterday I turned up a bit earlier than I usually would & he was holding it in his hands, but wasn't even playing it himself, he was watching his friend play their DS instead.

As I walked up, he realised & tried to hide it, but as he did he saw that I had already seen it, so he used the same movement to slip it into his pocket like nothing was the matter.

When I told him I wasn't happy, he said "it was just in my bag, I don't know how it got there. HONEST !!!"

That statement was far from honest !!!!

He is now grounded from Computer, Playstation, DS, and Wii.

He doesn't know how long for.

I don't know how long for.

No more

Today Little Bear attended kindy for the first time on a Friday.

Today was the only day I will get with my husband at work & the two kids in care.

Today I worked like a madman in our garden to try & tidy up the garden beds which became manically overcrowded by all the weeds over the wet season. (Which is now pretty much over) until Christmas time next year.

Today I filled up the trailer & a garden waste bin full of weeds & there is another trailer load of weeds lying on the lawn for their chance to go to the dump.

Today I received an invitation to a Diva party that one of our neighbours is holding for our neighbour who'se house burned down. All the profits will be donated to that neighbour (although she doesn't know it yet). Normally I don't like going to these types of things where there's a heap of people I don't know. This time though it will be mostly neighbours & since I am too shy to meet them any other way this will be a great opportunity to meet & greet while supporting a very worthy cause.

Tonight marks the end of today & a very tired mummy is going to drag herself off to bed. I will take photo's of some of my handiwork in the next couple of days (nothing flash, but very neat & tidy again). I know you can hardly wait.

Fire

A few nights ago, I set our smoke alarm off again (it's a regular thing in our house - every time I cook chops).

We couldn't get it to stop so we had to take it down & pull the battery out. I forgot all about it & it didn't go back up that night. The next day I saw it sitting on the bench but DH wasn't home & I am not tall enough to put it up without a ladder - DH can just stand on a chair. I thought "I will have to remember to get him to put it back up", but of course forgot about it.

That night after DH had gone to sleep I lay in bed tossing & turning thinking about the fact that our smoke alarm wasn't up & hoping that our house didn't catch fire that night.

The next morning we got up to our street full of fire engines, police cars & ambulances.

Our neighbour's house had been completely burned out.

Needless to say, the smoke alarm was back up that day!

Apparently no-one was hurt in the fire.

Singing Bear

Finding it hard to find the time to blog lately.

Had a nice easter, but Little Bear got sick on Sunday night. Had a fever since then that panadol took care of. It's gone now & she is back to her happy little self again. Mummy & Daddy are helping out by eating some of her chocolate.

Lately she has become quite the singer. She picks up words to new songs really quickly. She has a few favourites, but the most favouritest favourite at the moment is definitely the song "Open, Shut Them".

Here she is singing the song, and getting her teddy bear to do the actions.

(Sorry, yet again it's sideways. I can't work out if there is software to turn rotate them like the normal photo's, and when I realised & tried to get another one of her while holding the camera horizontal she was not as co-operative).

Here are the real words - with Little Bear's usual interpretation in brackets.

Open Shut Them (Oh-Peh Shu Dem)
Open Shut Them (Oh-Peh Shu Dem)
Give a Little Clap (gi a CLAP)
Open Shut Them (Oh-Peh Shu Dem)
Open Shut Them (Oh-Peh Shu Dem)
Lay Them In Your Lap (Ay dem ola LAP)

Creep Them, Creep Them (ceep dem, ceep dem)
Creep Them, Creep Them (ceep dem, ceep dem)
Right up to your chin (righ-dup ola chin)
Open Wide Your Little Mouth
But-Do-Not-Let-Them-In (Oh-Peh Whyyyyyyy Yooooouuur Mout Budonoledemin)

I found out by her singing this song, that there is another verse I was never aware of.

Shake Them, Shake Them
Shake Them, Shake Them
Shake Them Just Like This!
Roll Them, Roll Them
Roll Them, Roll Them
Blow a Little Kiss

She doesn't sing this verse in the video but I had to look the words up on the internet because all I could work out was that it involved shaking, rolling & kissing. (Sounds kind of like an idea that Elton John might be able to put lyrics to).

She also loves to sing Baa Baa Black Sheep but instead of singing "One for the master and one for the dame" she sung "One for Mummy and One for Daddy and One for Cheetah and One for Poppy and One for Grandma ..." and then she realised that she wasn't sure how to end the song so we had to end in chorus singing "who live down the lane".

Unfortunately she has only done that version a couple of times & now she seems to be singing the real lyrics mostly so I don't think I am going to catch that one on camera.

Cheetah of course is being Cheetah. He is griping at me that his ONLY friend at vacation care is allowed to take his DS (Nintendo for the uneducated) and spends all day playing that so he isn't any fun to play with. This of course is said to try & get me to allow my son who is a hyperactive & forgetful 9 year old (not a good combination), to take his DS as well. The DS is a $200 computer that would fit into a glove (not counting the cost of the games that run about $50 a piece & are the size of a memory card for a camera). Expensive, easy to steal & in the hands of a mad scientist personality. I don't think so kiddo.

This afternoon I picked him up & heard all about what a good day he had (forgetting that he wasn't meant to be enjoying himself because who can have fun without a computer)?

This child cannot believe that I lived a childhood without compact disc's, hand held computer games, or even a VCR

Cheetah - What's a VCR Mum????
Mum - A Video Casette Recorder. It's what they used before DVD!
Cheetah - So what did you have
Mum - Nothing. We even had to get up to change the channel on the TV because there was no remote!
Cheetah - ??????? (the only time I can think of that my son has been lost for words)


So despite his abusive mother witholding the basic necessities of life from him, he is still managing to enjoy himself !!!


Hope everyone else had a peaceful, reflective, blessed easter, however you celebrated.

Overactive Imagination

When Cheetah was little, we used to worry that he didn't seem to show a very active imagination. He didn't pretend a toy was anything other than what it was (eg. Sticks could not be used for guns, guitars, or rocket ships, they were just sticks). He was extremely intelligent but didn't seem to be very creative.

Now when I think back to those times, a lot of his creativity was overlooked because he found his creative streak in the most unusual of circumstances.

My favourite example ...

When Cheetah was 5, he participated in a school Fun Run. As a working mother, I was unable to attend the fun run, but that afternoon I asked Cheetah how he went.

Very matter of factly Cheetah told me he came first.

Now even though I had never seen Cheetah race, I had seen him run & felt if he was to run like that when competing with around 70 or 80 other children his age, he was either trying to make me proud by lying about his 'achievement' or he had done a Steven Bradbury.

Thinking it was more likely the former (does that make me a bad mother?), I tried to tactfully get the truth out of him. Trying to do that without crushing his fragile little psyche was like drawing hens teeth.

I can't remember exactly what I said but it was something along the lines of "Is that what really happened?" (I tried to get the tone that was between "Wow-I can't believe it" & "I DON'T believe it" Not sure how successful I was).

Cheetah's response.

"Well actually it was a tie. Billy* was coming first & I was holding his hand when we crossed the finish line". (*names changed to protect the innocent)

Mummy: "It must have been hard to run while you were holding hands. Did you hold hands for the entire race?"

Cheetah: "No, I stopped to help Billy cause he was having trouble."

Mummy: "Oh dear, that doesn't sound like Billy. I thought Billy was a good runner"

and so it continued for a few minutes. Then the story changed slightly (...in the mind of the 6 year old telling it - read 'wildly unbelievable' to the Mummy listening):

Cheetah: "No, that didn't really happen Mum. Actually I was wearing my jetpack & at the end of the race I flew across the finish & I won the race".

Mummy: "Cheetah, now I know you are making that up!" (Giving Cheetah that stern look in the rear-vision mirror while trying to keep an eye on the road as we were driving)

The next view of cheetah in the rear-vision mirror was of a very serious little 5 year old boy, caught in the act of lying & looking extremely contrite, head down & almost in tears & Mummy was sure we were finally going to hear the truth...

Cheetah: "You're right mum, my Jetpack was broken that day".



I couldn't respond for a good 5 minutes & then some as I was laughing so hard.

And to think we were worried about his imagination!

And just so you know, we never did find out how he really did in the fun run!

The Aftermath

This is the bit everyone hates about camping (except maybe the kids).

When we camp, we set up a large tarp over the top of the tents. This means there is usually no need to set them up again when we get home to let them air out.

When there is a Category 4 cyclone 400 km away from your campsite, that changes things a tad.

After getting home, we had to set everything up, clean it up, put it away again that night (it only took a couple of hours to dry) & go to work the next day.

Under our house was not spared. There were camping ropes, poles, bags, helmets, bikes, esky's, & a ton of wet clothes.

For a week I had to stand in the trailer to hang the washing up under the house because it took us that long to finally clean the last of it up.

Still, it was a good weekend & I would do it again.

( ...maybe next year)