Chocolate, Tantrums & Rain. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.

To those who are still in drought, battling bush fires, struggling to get their garden to grow etc. I am sorry for what you are about to read but it has to be said...

ENOUGH WITH THE RAIN!

We have not had, since BEFORE CHRISTMAS, an entire week without rain. I am so sick of rain, the smell of rain in the air no longer excites me, it depresses me.  I am sick of making sure we have dry shoes, that no one is tracking slippery footprints into the house, that kids don't slip on the footpaths that have become slime covered concrete -a death trap if ever there was one.  Sick of feeling like even the clothes I am wearing are damp, like my hair is never quite dry unless I have just put down the hairdryer, like I am living in a fishbowl... and not because everyone can see into our house because no one closes the blinds, it's because the air is so damp, so very icky and damp.

When I say that it's been since before Christmas that we had an entire week without rain, I am not meaning that we get maybe 5 or 6 days without rain, we get 1 or 2 if we are lucky.  Some people are still able to mow their lawns if we get a couple of days in a row but even then, they usually leave mower tracks in the lawn.  Us, well, it's pretty much swamp land out the back.  Even the front, with it's sloping angle is rather swampy.  This does bring me to one positive about the rain, the yard hasn't been able to get the manky swamp smell about it because it is constantly being flushed with fresh rain water.  Thankful for small mercies?  Hmm, maybe.

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Scream scream scream if you feel you want to-ooooooo
scream scream scream if you feel you ca-aaaaaaaan
scream scream scream if you feel you want to-ooooooo
scream scream scream if you feel you can.

This is Monkey's personal theme song at the moment.  39470 times a day we find ourselves saying to him "Use your words"... the thing is, he really doesn't have many words to use yet.  I know he's frustrated but really, there are some times when he can help himself.  He used to be able to ask to be picked up- "up-bah" was his way of saying "up please".  Now he screams.  I tell him to say "up please" and he screams some more.  In the end I usually comply if he will at least stop screaming and make some kind of agreeable, attempt at communication.   He loves to walk himself most places where I would rather he was picked up, so we can go faster/he's safer/I have hands for his brothers to hold... But instead he'd rather dawdle along slooooow as can be (he can go fast if he wants to).  Then, when his brothers decide to dawdle when he wants to be moving he walks up behind them, puts his hand flat on the small of their back and gives them a guiding shove as he forcefully tells them "GO".  So he can make his needs known if he really wants to.

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It's been a loooong term this one.  We are in week IdontknowbecauseIlostcountatsix and Lion is sooo tired.  He is ready for the holidays!  I was hoping we would be going away these holidays, perhaps to Brisbane, but it looks like we will be at home with Wolf working most of the time.  At least it will give Lion a good chance to rest and get ready for the next term.

Lion is loving school, even if it is making him incredibly tired.  He is doing really well with his spelling and sight words.  His reading is going great and he loves the feeling of getting to the end of a homework reader and knowing he did it all himself.  I helped him do a quick clean up of his desk tidy tray this morning when I dropped him off.  He couldn't find what he was looking for so we pulled out all the notes and drawings he's done to facilitate his evil plans and then we pulled out all his crayons, textas, pencils and stuff and put them all in the pencil case that was almost empty (hey, if it's hardly getting used at least it'll still be good for next year).  We kept out a few lead pencils, a sharpener and eraser so he could get them easily and stacked everything back neatly in his tray.  If he's anything like me it will be back to it's pre-cleanup state by this afternoon.  *sigh* It's hard to fight that.

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Our big boys share a room.  This has it's good points and it's bad points.  It's good because they are kinda freaked out by being alone so this way they don't have to be alone.  The bad point is that they are never alone.  If one needs to go to the toilet or come to our room during the night they wake their brother up to go with them.  Whoever gets woken up is NEVER impressed and will hold it against their brother until the next time they want to go to the toilet at 3am... then all is forgiven.  This can lead to some interesting situations.
10:30pm Dragon wakes Lion up to take him to the toilet. Lion doesn't want to so walks past the toilet to our room to tell us that Dragon woke him up.  He walks in the door and closes it behind him... on Dragon's head.  Dragon bursts into tears, Lion says he didn't realise Dragon had followed him.  Cuddles for everyone, Wolf takes Lion back to bed, I take Dragon to the toilet and then back to bed.  Just what we need at 10:30pm.  And neither of them could see that any part of this was a problem.  I think it all worked out okay though because when Wolf checked on them before he went to work in the morning they were asleep in the same bed.

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Dragon wrote his name so beautifully yesterday!  If I could somehow show you what he wrote without showing you his name I would in an instant.  Beautifully formed letters, all neatly in a row... made me proud!

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I think I need to perhaps do a bit more housework. *insert laughter from my parents and siblings (and friends and generally everyone) here* *Insert choking on the snide remark Wolf is trying not to say here*

This afternoon Monkey put on a pair of my good shoes, grabbed a broom and started sweeping.  I guess he hasn't seen enough examples of when those two things get used to know that they don't go together.  At least they were flats... he's not old enough to wear the heels yet :-)

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I don't actually do heels... I fall off flat shoes so I don't think heels are the right footwear choice for me. 

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There has been a recall on a whole bunch of Lindt Easter chocolates.  I would like to offer this as evidence for why I should be disorganised.  If I had thought ahead and purchased my chocolates I probably would have eaten them all by now and be poisoned and need to buy more for Easter I would now have to return them which would be an extra trip, purchase more eggs without the kids seeing, try to not eat those eggs... ugh.  It's all too much.  Instead, I can go to the supermarket Easter Saturday and everyone else has discovered the poisoned eggs first and they have got their pesky recalls out of the way so I know whatever is left on the shelf is safe to eat even if all that is left is the rubbish that tastes like poop and my kids wont be getting poisoned eggs from us the Easter Bunny this year.  Being disorganised is saving my kids from poisoning.

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Photoshop isn't letting me save so I'm limited to photo free posts at the moment until I figure out what's wrong or I figure out how to use another program.

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Dragon offered this nugget of wisdom this week... "When you add hotness and coldness you get two feet. One is ours and the other one is ours too, so both of them are ours, I saw this".  If only I could figure out what he was saying.

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If you made it this far through my ranting and raving then you deserve some chocolate.  I hope you have some in the fridge that isn't poisoned.

Disclaimer: I actually didn't bother reading what was wrong with the recalled chocolate, only if it was anything I had purchased.  It probably isn't poisoned, it just had pieces of someones finger in it or something.  I'm sure your chocolate is fine to eat.