Sunday Snapshot of Randomness

Another little snapshot of our week... and a video from the week before because I haven't put it up here yet.

Dragon has been telling me for days that he has a cough but is only ever coughing to punctuate his desire for cough medicine.  I've gotta say, our cough medicine tastes good, I can't really blame him for wanting some.  So, judge me if you want, I spun him a story...

Mummy: "Are you sure you want cough medicine?"

Dragon: "Yes *cough* I have a cough *cough* I need some of my cough medicine *cough*".

Mummy: "I don't think you do have a cough."

Dragon: "*cough cough* I DO have a cough *cough*"

Mummy: "Well, just be warned, cough medicine tastes really bad if you aren't really sick.

Dragon: "I am *cough* sick *cough cough*"

Mummy: "Okay".  Goes and pours a couple of mls of straight lime juice into a medicine cup and heads back to Dragon.  Making sure he's standing on the tiles just in case we need a clean up she hands him the cup.

Dragon: Takes a big swig of 'cough medicine' and puckers his face up from both the surprise and the taste.

Mummy: "How did that taste?"

Dragon: "not very good" and defeated he goes back to playing without coughing... kinda like he's been doing all morning other than while he'd been asking for cough medicine.

______

Lion read a book for himself today.  ALL BY HIMSELF.  Actually, he read FIVE books ALL BY HIMSELF.  I cried.  Because I'm a big fat sook. I have been trying to convince him that he can read, he has all the skills he needs he just needs to sit down and really give it a go.  This week I caught him sounding out words on EVERYTHING he could get his hands on so I pounced.  I praised and I encouraged and I praised some more.  I couldn't find any books that we had that were written completely in words he could read but I got him to read as many words as he could but he still didn't get it that with the right book he would be able to read it ALL BY HIMSELF.  Today he found one of our boxes of Reading Eggs books and asked if he could read them since he wasn't able to play Reading Eggs on the computer.  Seemed like a good idea to me.  I thought all the books were made up of one word to each page along with a picture so he really could tell by the picture and that everything in the book started with the same letter so really not that challenging but confidence building none the less.  Next thing I know I am hearing "I am Sam, Sam p-a-t-s, PATS a cat"... what the???  there are short story books in the pack and he has picked one out to read.  He read all four of the stories to me and one of the alphabet books.  WOW.  He was so pleased with himself.  I was pretty darn pleased with him.  So now, just like I thought he would... My boy LOVES reading.

_____

We often find wildlife in our house.  Spiders are not at all  uncommon, Geckos are thriving around here and frogs are an all too familiar pest.  It used to be just little ones but something wasn't sealed properly when we got the aircons put in 15 months ago and now we regularly get large green tree frogs in the house.  These are TWO that Wolf caught the other night.  He wanted to take a photo with my phone so he brought them into our bedroom and held them over my head while he took this photo.  Thankfully I slept through the entire thing, I must have been tired because usually I wake up to their plop-plop-plop through the house and I'm the one that goes to hunt them down.

_____

Lion had his school production on Wednesday and Thursday this week.  He did GREAT!  He had a small speaking part as the dad in their pet shop play and had lots of fun but was so incredibly worn out by the end of their four performance "season".  I was glad they did it in the last week of school for this term so they told the kids from the production to have the last day off if they wanted (I'd say it was the teachers idea for a quiet day) and now they can have a chill for two weeks to recover from their very hectic schedule.  Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos of the performance and weren't allowed back stage so I have nothing to show you.  I am hoping someone took some photos for us proud mums and dads!  If they didn't then next time they do a production I might offer my skills as a photographer and take some photos that can be used as an extra fundraising avenue to cover the cost of their performance space etc.  I know there were a lot of people who assumed that because we weren't told otherwise before hand that photos would be fine.

_____

Now, for this weeks wowness... Our little Monkey has taken to skateboarding like a fish to water.  This was his first or second time on daddy's longboard and he was right into it.  He now wears shoes when he goes on it though.  He wasn't wearing any this day because we didn't think his little feet would need any protection because the plan was that he would stay on the grass and watch... not Monkey, he's in on all the action!

A day or two after this, we were standing chatting with a neighbour on the grass with Monkey sitting next to the board on the grass.  No one saw him do it but he managed to get on and pushed the board over to the sloped driveway and we looked up to see him push off and kneel (like in the video) on the board as he rode it down to the road.  Wolf caught him before he came to any problems and I sent Aunty Chimera a message to ask if we could have the baby helmet back now that Little Bear doesn't fit it anymore.

We're Under Siege!

They are coming to get us...

The creatures...

Creeping in from every direction...

Playing on our weaknesses...

Closer and closer they come...

AND THEY ARE TOTALLY FREAKING ME OUT!!!!!

Over 9 days we were beset with some of the most hideous happenings around this place.

Episode One... Saturday lunchtime July 31st.
The boys and I are going stir crazy.  I can be inside the house all day and not worry most day.  But I hate the Saturdays that Wolf has to work.  Those days send me round the twist, I count the hours until the shop closes and then I start to listen like a crazed woman for the sound of his car coming down the street.  So we I decided to get out in the yard and do something domestic.  I had been getting sick of seeing all the weeds growing into the boys sandpit so I thought I'd go and pull them out.  I set up the playpen with a large towel underneath it so my baby couldn't choke on nature and need an ambulance ride to the hospital like his big brother did, put the baby in it and set to work.  I kept my eyes peeled for my old friend but he was nowhere to be seen.  I got through that and looked around, I might as well keep going since the bin was only half full of weeds.  I decided to tackle the bindiis (bindy-eyes) that are trying to take over our yard.  So there I was right next to the playpen with my baby in it pulling out great heaps of bindiis and weedy vines hand over fist and shoving them down into this bin.  I reach out and grab a handful of vines and start to pull... two great big hair arachnid legs reach out menacingly towards me... I let go of the vines, step back and bend over to have a better peek... it's a whopping great bird spider ready to suck my brains out like a milkshake and then follow it with a monkey brain chaser.  Well, that was the end of that little bit of domesticity... I grabbed the baby and came inside... and then called from the relative safety of my house to the two big boys playing in the sandpit that it was probably getting a bit to hot outside and they should come in now.  Wolf came home and couldn't find the spider where I said it had been... he did find the sucked-dry skin of a big old frog tossed aside by a bird spider like last nights take-away container.  Did I mention this was RIGHT OUTSIDE MY BEDROOM WINDOW????  I did  NOT sleep well that night!

Episode Two... Sunday evening August 1st.
Wolf has said there is a smell around... I have little sense of smell so I'm not much good at locating the source of these things.  I figure it can't be that bad since he is just complaining about it and not getting down and finding it.  Eventually I go to put Monkey to bed and it's too much for Wolf, he decides to empty the dishwasher because he figures if the smell is in the kitchen then getting the dirty dishes out of the way will go a ways to finding the stink.  The next thing I know he busts into the bedroom where I am feeding the Monkey and thrusts a camera LCD screen in my face all the while gagging and heaving.  I can't quite make out what is on the screen but I can tell it's inside the dishwasher.  Monkey has been well and truly woken up so I take him out to find out what is going on.  It was indeed the inside of my dishwasher... the dishwasher that I had put on just before lunch the day before... for about 30 hours the contents of that dishwasher had sat undisturbed bar the removal of a couple of pieces of cutlery and two breakfast bowls... and there, on the bottom of the dishwasher was the body of a rather large green tree frog... or at least he was once green, before he decided to slow-boil himself in our dishwasher!  I'll spare you the photo... I can't stand to look at it again to load it on here I'm not sure if you're eating or not so I'll just leave it on the hard drive.  At this point I realised that I had used one of the breakfast dishes that had been removed and I started gagging too...  Eventually we managed to slow the gagging enough for Wolf to remove the trays and try to lift out the soft boiled frog.  But it wouldn't lift.  It turned out it was baked on to the bottom of the dishwasher.  I'll spare you the details and just tell you that a barbecue/paint scraper was involved in the removal of the frog and our dishwasher has never been cleaner... and we washed all those dishes again and try not the think about the ones we used!

Episode Three... Monday midmorning August 9th.
I'm sitting at the computer right beside the back door.  I hear a noise, kind of like the breeze blowing through the long grass at the back fence... but kind of different.  I've heard this noise before... My entire body does NOT want to move but not knowing is worse... I get up, I look out the back door across the patio to the grass... nothing.  Thank goodness, I could have sworn that was snake noise.  I go to sit back down and catch a glimpse of something move right at my feet (on the other side of the screen)... a two metre long snake is slithering past my back door!  My mind goes into bladder control mode and then reminds myself to get the camera so I can look at photos when I am trying to identify it later...

Yep, that's a snake.

creeping creepily across my patio.

This one is just because I thought two photos might not be enough for you.

I chased it along to the next room and took more photos through the laundry door but they didn't work and it scared it and it scooted off into the grass.  Uh oh, I didn't like knowing it was on my patio but I REALLY didn't like not knowing where it was at all!  I rang Wolf at work, shaking like a leaf, and had a little freak out on the phone.  I spotted it over by the kids sandpit and had insane thoughts of grabbing one of their nets and getting out and catching it.  I didn't think those thoughts for very long.  I watched as it crept all over the boys toys and explored our yard.  Wolf told me to make some noise so it knew it wasn't welcome.  I had a baby asleep so I wasn't about to make some noise for an animal that doesn't even appear to have ears.  I remembered something about stamping on the ground when bushwalking will let snakes know that you are around and you are bigger than them... sounded good.  I put on my gumboots, tucked my jeans into them and went to go outside... I couldn't see it anymore.  Hang on, there he is... gingerly I open the door, he doesn't move... I go out onto the patio and stomp my little feet for all I'm worth... he still doesn't move... I edge over to the grass to get a better look... Hang on, if that's a stick then WHERE IS THE SNAKE?????  I hurry back inside and determine to never leave my house again!  After all, he's probably curled up on top of my garage roller door waiting to drop on my head.  I had a little vent on facebook and my sweet, kind cousin let me know that he was probably in my house by now... I went to close the window over the screen with the hole in it and shove a towel under the door into the garage.  I found that the garage door was open... he could be in my house!  Cousin P then proceeded to suggest what he might be doing in my house and give me photos of babies and snakes.  Yeah, I needed that.  My other male cousin from that side of the family Cousin A kindly suggested that I shake out my quilt before I go to bed because snakes like to make themselves comfy like that.  Thanks.  I was a neurotic mess by the time Wolf got home.  Monkey and I practically flew to the car to do the school and kindy run that afternoon.  Hooooo boy! I'm still getting the hibbidy jibbidies thinking about it now!

So anyone want to come and visit?

This is on top of the spider trapping me in the shower not too long ago.

They say that all of this nature and junk is a sign of a healthy environment.  Healthy, shmealthy, bring on the smog and pollution, I don't want all this nature getting so close to me!

Okay, you'll have to see yourself out now, I'm just going to go and curl up foetal position in a corner and rock back and forth for a bit.

Catching up on the cuteness

Photos from round and about.

Lion and Dragon got bug catching kits with some more of the money they got from Grandpap and Nano for Christmas.  We searched high and low for the nets and everyone was sold out so in the end Mummy put her thinking cap on and we went to the fishing section and found fishing nets and bought the ones with the smallest holes in the net.  We got the catcher/dome/cage thingos from the junk shop.  Dragon was at kindy when we got them so Lion and I went to a park near Grannysaurus house and hunted for bugs... that didn't want to be found.  But he sure was a cute bug catcher!

While he was running around our back yard he told me "I'm going to catch some bugs with this net mum, but I wont catch any Eagles, they fly too high"

Glad to know that Lion, glad to know.

Eventually he caught a moth, butterfly, two stinkbugs and a praying mantis.  Grannysaurus warned him that the praying mantis might eat the other bugs and he was fine with that but it had to be on his terms... I heard him whispering to the praying mantis "eat the stinkbugs, eat the stinkbugs".

It did try... it had a good go at one of the stink bugs but it got away.  So it grabbed a moth.  Lion watched in awe for the drive home as he got a front row seat for some "dinner theatre".  He watched quietly then I heard "he...hehe... hehehe.... it's funny when he eats its head"

Later that evening he was playing around with it (outside) when he started freaking out... "my praying mantis got out...... ON TO MY AAAAAARRRRMMMMMMMMM...... IT'S GOING FOR MY HEEEEEEEEAAAAADDDDDDDDD"

Good thing Daddy helped, Mummy was too busy laughing to be of any use.

*****

Daddy took some photos on another day when he was looking after them...

Lion's catch

Dragon's catch.

Good thing I wasn't home, I think.

*****

Monkey likes to eat.  Monkey likes to eat pizza crusts.

"It's not a problem, I can stop anytime I want, I just don't want"

*****

Lion's artistic talent is blossoming!  One afternoon they had been shooed outside to play and were drawing on the patio with chalk.  Lion drew a picture of me!

After this he coloured my dress in pink and put a bunch of pink flowers in my hand!  He made sure that he pointed out to me that he did the eyes beautiful just like mine, it had eyelashes like me and the hair was just like mine too.

*****

Monkey likes to eat.  Monkey likes to eat corn on the cob we discovered.

"My corn, you get your own corn, this one's mine... ALL MINE!"

I had eaten most of the corn off it before I gave it to him and he had a great time chomping away at the mangled cob.

Showing Daddy "Lookie Daddy, I've got cooooorn!"

That's pumpkin all over his face too.  He loved his dinner that night!

*****

This little girl lives on our BBQ.  She's a bit sweet.  She's also a bit fat... that's how you can tell she's a chick, the fat ones are always girls they say.

*****

Lion and Dragon had a great time playing on the equipment dotted along the Strand when we went for a stroll one afternoon.  Unfortunately none of the photos of Dragon were any good.

BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!

As I post this there is a frog being eaten by a SNAKE in my backyard!!!!!! right next to the boys sandpit!!!! Am I slightly freaked out????? YES!!!!!! Does Wolf care???? NO!!!!!!! he's asking me to hold it so he can get a better photo! Does my mum care????? NO!!!!!!! she's telling me to get out there and rescue the frog (and I told her if she really cared about the frog she'd come over and rescue it herself!)

Oh, the noises the frog is making... it's been going on for about an hour (which apparently is sort of a good thing since it means the snake isnt poisonous or the frog would have been dead an hour ago)... it's a heartbreaking wail... sort of like the sound they make when they get mutilated by the airconditioner and refuse to die quietly!!!!!

I called the Wildlife carer people because they put you on to whoever is the on-call snake man (or woman here) but she said if it's out at night in the cold and the rain it's probably going to be a tree snake not an eastern brown (they are bad ones, really, really bad ones), and it's not doing itself any favours by eating when it's this cold.

First I called mum to see if I should call the wildlife carers. She was asking me all sorts of questions about the shape of it's head and the type of neck it has. How was I supposed to tell. IT HAS A FROG HALF WAY DOWN IT'S NECK!!!!

so here it is... and also a shot of how close it is to the sandpit which is why I was freaking out.

Can you see it??? it's there just behind the strappy leaves.

It's about 60cm long.

AND HAS A FROG IN IT'S MOUTH!!!!!

Okay grandma get out that Tropical Wildlife book and identify it! And I only want to know if it's a "good" one.

FROGGY FRENZY

We unrolled the shade for the cubby house the other day and there were some frogs hiding in it that gave Lion a bit of a fright (when one jumped on his head). We did a spot of frog spotting and then had to be careful for the rest of the afternoon as they seemed to pop up wherever you wanted to walk. There are three in this first picture...

This little froggy found a perch up on the cubby house... I just love this photo...

This little guy decided that the grass was a bit too spikey on his bottom so he rested on my thong:)
This little froggy thought the slide might be a nice place to rest...

This one found himself a nice little hidey hole under the cubby house...
They were all a bit traumatised by being chaced by two little boys and a mad woman with a camera so we tried to stay away from them after that.