Collected Twits

Lion was after a Jedi name, so I  was looking through my Twitter as I had won a prize for one I made up.  While doing this I revisited a lot of old tweets about my son's exploits over the years and wanted to collect them in one place.  With twitters 144 word limit communicating an idea becomes a discipline, one which I have not mastered to well.   Here they are in historical order, with some explanatory notes.


One of my first tweets appeared on 5 Dec 09, which was:

I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind

Apparently this was too cryptic so I followed up with:

Exploding bums and projectile vomit. When raising 3 little boys there's never a dull moment. Thankfully the wife cleaned up most of it.

Lego for Christmas, 28 Dec 2009

"Some men will build, others will delight to destroy those things" must be my sons motto as soon as i finished his lego model he 'exploded' it

The Airplane family, 27 Jan 2010, Lion 5 years old

My son (Lion) has told me that we are an airplane family today.

Which meant we had to talk in airplane.  "Tchk, I love you Daddy, roger, over Tchk".  "Brummm"

Bong goes my day, 28 Jan 2010, Dragon 3 years old

Met family for lunch, asked son what he did today his response... Bong!

Happy Valentines day, 14 Feb 2010, Lion (5), Dragon (3)

Never thought I'd be telling my boys "Don't pull apart the furniture" A new era dawns for me.

I came home to these two trying to remove the fabric off the arm of our couch with plastic tools.

Dragon Swimmer, 27 Mar 2010, Dragon (3)

My son (Dragon) is swimming and giving me some classic lines: the water is up to my monkey! Dragon swimmer super hero to the rescue!

He was wearing a monkey t-shirt at the time, and was so proud that he was in deep enough that the monkey was getting wet.

Hammer time, 25 Apr  2010, Dragon (3), Monkey (6 months)

I just told my son not to hit his baby brother with anything.  His reply But Dad it's only a hammer.

A inflatable hammer, but still...

Punching the air, 2 May 2010, Lion (5)

Classic line by my oldest son (Lion) tonight:  If I have a nightmare tonight I will punch it...

Lion no longer talks this way, it is normally Dragon who has decided that punching is the answer to every problem.

Swedish Chicken, 13 May 2010, Dragon (3)

My 3 yo son is flapping his arms saying Bok bok bjork...  He says he's the Swedish chief. Sounds more like a swedish chicken to me.

He was in the middle of a Muppet marathon that day. We have the DVD of the first season, and the boys love it.

Strange Motivations, 16 Jun  2010, Lion (5)

I find it surreal that the threat of 'not going to school' is the biggest motivator for my oldest son

Even now, he is motivated with if you don't XYZ, you may not be going to school.  With me I would have thought 'Yay, XYZ are not going to happen then.'  With Lion, XYZ are done in a flash. 

Can you speak Mon Calamari too? 3 Sep  2010, Lion (5)

having an interesting week, as oldest son has decided to talk in 'octopus'. I'm not fluent in octopus so blub blub blurble dont make sense

Even his school teacher had to take Mummy to one side and say 'Now normally we like to encourage creativity, but speaking Octopus the whole day is very distracting to rest of the class."

Christmas on Mars. 11 Sep 2010, Lion (5), Dragon (3)

explaining how far away Mars is to my sons told them if we left now we would be there for Christmas. Now my sons are convinced we are spending Christmas on Mars

Two tweets in one day.  It was very dissapointing for them to realise that we would not be going to Mars anytime soon.  Some nights, they still gaze up at the stars (normally Venus) and say "I wish we could have gone to Mars."

True Story. 29 Sep 2010, Lion (5), Dragon (3)

sons are cranky with me because they believe I am withholding critical information in regards to their time machine.  "Dad it has to work!"

Too much Calvin and Hobbs and Star Trek I think.  They had a cardboard box and an old radio I let them pull apart and were getting frustrated that I kept feigning ignorance on the inner workings of a time machine.  How do I tell them that robots from the future would come back in time and try to kill us if I allowed them to create one?  Because I know one of them is going to create a killer robot soon, no point in giving it a time machine as well.

More to come....

Random thoughts and a random winner...

My brain is a little random today.  So I am just going to dump it all out on here and hope that helps.  It also fits with the other need for this post... picking a random winner for the Walt Disney Studios Alice in Wonderland 60th Anniversary Special Edition giveaway... but I'm going to make you wait for that.

Monkey has FINALLY cut the missing tooth from his crooked little smile.  He has had 3 bottom teeth at the front for the last 6 months.  The fourth one just wouldn't come through.  FINALLY it has shown itself and is a sharp little fang, I think it may even be responsible for his cranky moods and upset nights of late.  Even if it's not, I'm going to blame it anyway because the other option is just that my child is a little feral.

I turned 30 last week.  I don't feel old but apparently I'm pretty much geriatric now.

I'm still getting pimples.  This is beyond a joke.  They were supposed to stop after puberty.  I guess officially this is still after puberty but I was kind of expecting something a little closer to the end of puberty, not still be going at 30.  I hate pimples.

I cleaned my lounge room at least 5 times over the weekend.  Is it any wonder I can't get the house clean if I have to keep re-cleaning the same rooms over and over and over?

Last night at 10pm I was scrubbing out the cupboards under the sink... I like to live on the wild side.  I spilt half a litre of milk under the dishwasher last week and I cleaned up the milk straight away but with the dishwasher pulled out I figured I'd better clean up all the other gunk that was collected under there.  So finally last night I got around to that and when we went to put the dishwasher back we realised that when Wolf pulled it out the spot where the drain hose connects to the drain under the sink had cracked and grotty drain water had been dripping under the sink all weekend... Thus, at 10pm I had just finished cleaning under the dishwasher when we conducted emergency repairs to the connection (the dishwasher was running before we realised so it was a race against the cycle) and then commenced pulling the cupboards apart and cleaning it all out.  Admit it, you are jealous of my exciting life.

I have made white sauce approximately 9349428490 times.  I know that you NEVER walk away from it, not even for 'just a second'.  It will, without fail, be that exact second that it starts to thicken and grab at the pot and because you aren't there to stir it you'll get a million lumps that you can't get rid of.  I KNOW THIS... yet I do it every time.  I walk away... I get lumps.  Oh well, no one complains... they know better than that.

There's still more random in my brain but this will do for now, I can't keep you waiting forever.

Now, the moment you've all been waiting for...  The winner of the Walt Disney Studios Alice in Wonderland 60th Anniversary Special Edition is comment number...

The third eligible comment belonged to...

Kym from mumma's Mini Mes

Congratulations Kym, if you can email me at MummyMcTavish@gmail.com and let me know your mailing address I will pass the details on so you can be sent your copy of Alice in Wonderland.  

For the rest of you, I'm sorry but you'll have to go out and buy your own copy... or hunt down one of the other competitions running to win it ☺

It really is a wonderful family movie and we will be enjoying it over and over and over again!

'sup?

This post has been sitting in my drafts to add some photos to and then post... I'm just going to post it, okay?  I'm glad you're going with me on this one, I'm trying to get posts up, they will never be perfect so just getting them published will have to be my goal, no more languishing in the drafts for months...

Things have been changing around here.  Wolf got a new (long prayed for) job.  Wolfs new job went from being contract to permanent.  Lion started a new year at school.  Dragon started a new year/class at kindy.  Monkey has grown up so very much.  Mummy has... done stuff... or something... I can't really remember, I am having enough trouble remember which classrooms my boys need to go to and dropping the right child at kindy and at school and making sure that at least one child comes home with me...

Anyway, part of Wolf's job now is weird shifts.  His old job meant that he was around in the mornings to help (a bit) with getting us off to school before he went to work.  He was then home about three quarters through the afternoon to help with dinner, bath and bedtime.  His new job has some shifts that I don't like very much.  I enjoy the perks of these shifts like starting at 7am means he's home at 3:30pm and we get lots more play time.  Starting at 2pm means we've had the morning to play and go for a coffee if we want to.  Unfortunately it also means that I get a little stressed in the mornings if he's got to head off early.  Or I flip out in the evenings if he's going to be home after bedtime.  The big boys are very light sleepers in the early hours so they wake up when Wolf is getting ready... at 5:30am.  Which means they wake their little brother about that time too... which means I am dealing with tired cranky kids from the start.  Getting tired cranky kids ready to leave the house is not fun.  But at times it does come with some entertainment.

One particular night we finished two separate boxes of tissues so the next morning beside the bin were the two empty boxes.  Monkey thought these were great and while Mummy was busy trying to convince Dragon that he really did need to wear clothes to kindy Monkey put them on his hands and went around the house banging them together to make as much noise as he could.

Lion always wears joggers to school, Monkey found his own joggers and decided that was what he wanted to wear today so I found him some socks and we put them on him, Dragon decided that since everybody else was doing it that he wanted to wear his joggers too.  The problem with that is he never puts his socks back in the wash.  Or one goes in the wash and the other disappears.  So I went hunting for two matching socks.  After a few minutes I called to him that I was having trouble finding two socks that matched and could he just wear his clogs today?  "No mum, I want two socks that are not the same as the other one"... well, that might also account for why none of the socks I can find match, they aren't even worn as a pair!  So, you can't get more mismatched than one blue sock pulled almost to his knee and one grey sock that comes about an inch above his ankle.  I didn't explain to his teachers at kindy what was going on, they see me drop him off twice a week, they probably figure that it's lucky we remembered to turn up each day... and that I don't accidentally leave the wrong child behind.

On the way to kindy there was a general cacophony in the car, I assumed it was coming from all three boys.  We stopped at the traffic lights and I glanced back and saw Monkey sitting in his seat, worn out look on his face, fingers in his ears.  I know just how he feels.  I thought I'd have a better listen to what was bringing on this reaction from him...

Dragon was burping "baa baa black sheep"... the whole song.
Lion was baaing (yes, like a sheep) the ABCs... all of it.

I wonder what effect this will have on my little Monkey, will he go for a "can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach?  Will he be "the quiet one"?  Will he raise his voice louder still to be heard above the din?  Who knows.


*Don't forget to check out my Walt Disney Studios Alice In Wonderland 60th Anniversary Edition giveaway here.  It ends this Sunday*

I wonder...

On any given day I do a lot of wondering.

I wonder when I will ever get to have another hair cut...

I wonder how many more massages I can get for my back before our health fund bonus runs out...

I wonder how I can convince my kids to eat more good food...

I wonder how I can eat more chocolate without the negatives that it brings...

I wonder if I can convince a cleaner to come to my house every couple of days and work for cupcakes...

I wonder how work at home mums do it...

I wonder how work outside the home mums do it...

I wonder if my kids are going to turn out messed up...

I wonder if my middle child will ever decide to wipe his own butt...

I wonder why we just can't all be well at the same time lately...

I wonder if peanut butter sandwiches every day for lunch is really a good thing for Monkey...

I wonder if I should get a worm farm or a Bokashi Bucket...

My wonders have a hierarchy, or perhaps a rating system would be a better explanation. Some wonders have a higher importance on one day than others. Today, my highest rating wonder is this...

I wonder if a worm farm counts as getting the kids a pet?

They did get rather excited about finding worms when they were digging at Grannysaurus' place a couple of weeks ago. They do get completely freaked out by dogs and I have said that I'm not buying a pet that needs toilet training until we are no longer toilet training children... and that seems forever away. The plus side is at least worm wee and poo is good for the garden, unlike the barkers eggs and dead grass patches that a dog leaves around. The kids have asked for a bird... but Monkey is afraid of anything with eyes so that gets rid of that option. It looks like our only real option for a pet is a rock or worms... and Lion gave me a pet rock for Mothers' Day and Monkey threw it out a hole in our window screen. I guess it's down to worms... or maybe that Bokashi Bucket...

Hmmmm, I wonder....

A letter to my children on Mothers Day

My Dear Children,

I feel that I have little to offer in the way of 'words of wisdom'. I have done my best to raise you as *mostly* well balanced human beings who know not to eat with your mouth open and not to be rude to old people. But on this day, as I examine my roll as a mother and my level of success in that roll, I feel that I have let you down. So, my precious children, as you head out into the world there are some things I want you to know...

I love you so incredibly much that I can't put it into words. I don't love you enough to let you sit on my lap while I go to the toilet... there are such things as boundaries and I would be a poor example of a mother if I didn't teach you this.

I am so proud of you when I see you share. It swells my heart and makes me want to scoop you up and hug you forever. Wiping your boogers on someone else' shirt, however, does not come under the banner of sharing. Wiping your boogers on MY shirt is just plain gross.

I love to see your sense of justice developing. Seeing you fight for the weaker ones around. Watching you make sure no one misses out. I love all these moments! Flogging a toy off one brother so that the other brother can have it is not justice.

I have tried my best to teach you to be frugal. To use things up before you throw them out. I love to see the creations you make out of empty boxes. Hauling the Doritos packet out of the bin, taking the dead battery and other junk out of it and then gobbling up the crumbs in the bottom of the packet is a little extreme. How about we just stick with making sure the toothpaste tube is empty before it gets binned and stuff like that.

Compassion for animals is another admirable quality that I have tried to instill in you. Caring for animals who cannot care for themselves will teach you so much in life. But please, lets stop crying over every fossilised frog and gecko we find in the house. If they are silly enough to hop behind a bookshelf into the dust then they will just have to deal with the outcome.

I pray that you will keep your fantastic imagination. I love to see you pretending to be something or someone else, to listen to the stories that you come up with, to see you acting out amazingly intricate storylines with your GI Joes and HotWheels. There are times that we do need to draw the line between imagination and real life... like when sticking in character will get you killed. No more cement mixers sinking to the bottom of the pool, no pterodactyls soaring through the air from the cubby house. No more. Ever.

Your love for your brothers is heartwarming. It makes me go all soft and gooey to see the way you all love each other so much. I would ask, however, that when one has a vomiting bug, a cold, a cough, whatever, that you show that love not with affection but rather by keeping your distance so you don't all get the bug and in turn infect me. Love is not found in 38478 extra loads of washing, in spite of what those gushy mothers day poems say.

I love to see you teaching your brothers new and exciting things. Teaching them how to turn the bucket over for the perfect sandcastle, sharing your knowledge of the stars at night, reading a book together, teaching them how to maneuver the skateboard to do that neat trick you just did. Teaching them the best places to hide an apple core in the playroom so you don't have to walk 5 metres to the bin does not count. Teaching them to eat their boogers to save time getting a tissue does not count either. Teaching them how to intricately wind the words "poo" and "wee" *legitimately* into a conversation so mummy can't get cranky at you is also not something I am thrilled with. Yes, I am sure.

So to the ones who are the reason that I so proudly wear the label "Mother", I love you, now please get off my lap so I can finish on the toilet and wash my hands...

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.

*****


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.

*****

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.

*****

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.

*****

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!

*****

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 :-)

*****

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

*****

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.

*****

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.

*****

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.

*****

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.

A day with Monkey

I have some Monkey gems gathered from our days alone together... and just another reason to share some 'old' photos of my mischievous Monkey.

Wolf has taught all the boys to use 'The Force' to open the automatic garage door.  Arms out, palms up, use a forceful voice and say "UP, up, uuuuup...." and the door does as it's told.  One day I was taking monkey out in the afternoon and I opened our garage and he did his thing.  He walked out onto the driveway, looked at the neighbours garage door across the road, drunk on his own power he stretched out his arms... "UPUPUPUP".

All the boys sleep with one eye open at times. Sometimes BOTH. It never stops being freaky.

Monkey loves to give kisses. We make a big deal out of it when we get a kiss, they are pretty special!  I asked him for a kiss and presented my cheek.  He gets his pudgy little finger, points to my cheek, "Ucky".  Hmm, no kisses for me.

Monkey & Mr Murphy... they are best buds.

We do the usual pointing to body parts game and I ask him "Monkey, where is your tongue?" he sticks it out. "Monkey, where is your nose?" he squishes his face up and points to his nose.  "Monkey, where are your hands?" He looks at his hands then shows them to me.  "Monkey, where are your cuddles?"... "Stuck, Ma"... Hmmm, no cuddles for me either.

He still sucks his thumb... or finger... or shoe.

I miss that fluffy hair.

When noisy big brothers are home you can't hear very much EXCEPT the noisy big brothers.  When it's just Mummy and Monkey home and you are quietly eating lunch you can hear EVERYTHING.  The house makes a noise and he stops to listen "oh oh oh", a car drives around the cul-de-sac and he gets nervous "oh oh oh", a dog barks in the distance "oof oof", the plant by the front of the house scrapes against the security screen and he freaks out and has a screaming fit until I get him out of his highchair so he can cling to me for dear life.  I guess noisy brothers can be good for some things.

 

Ahh, back in the days when he couldn't get away.

He's learning what noises animals make, I got him some cheap board books with some animals in them and he can do a horse noise, a cat noise, a dog noise.  He gets a lot of the others confused but with help to remember he can make the noises.  I thought this was necessary when a Ulysses butterfly flew past the window and he got all excited... "ooooh, OOF OOF, oooh, OOF OOF".  So I guess a big butterfly makes the same noise as a doberman?

He's a mystery, that's for sure.

Quick Wit

Scene: TV dinner -The KFC "the pigeons called" ad comes on...

Lion turns to Dragon and announces "Dragon, the pigeons called, they want their dinner back".  Dragon doesn't skip a beat..."Lion, the pigs called, they want their head back".  I just about snorted my dinner out my nose.  That kid is developing a quick wit which is getting him into a lot of trouble.  It's hard to explain to a 4 year old when it is "quick wit" and when it is "smart mouthing".  For instance, if you are getting in trouble and you give one of your jibes to your mother... that'll get you in a whole lot of trouble.  If you are mucking around with your brother exchanging good natured barbs... all's fair.

Now for a little "Out & About with Clan Mctavish"

It comforts me that we are not the only family that does this with cheerios...

He had a whole row, this was the only one he didn't find to pull back off

Although having the ladies sitting in front of us at church giggling at my kids as I whisper sharply to them "DON'T lick'n'stick, just eat them" was not one of our finer family moments.

Don't be fooled.  He's not really this civilised.

While we were out he decided to be like all the trendies and sit and read his book at the cafe with his snacks, babycino and his water.  He fitted right in, he was just with his uncool parents, a major flaw in his social image.

"oof, oof"

Lion found a puddle of water on one of the seats outside his classroom and started blowing it towards the end of the seat to watch it drain off... Monkey misunderstood what was going on and started woofing and slurping the water up.  I am running with the theory that the seats were really clean from all the rain that we've had lately... right?

Hugging the dinosaurs at the "Zoo"

We took a little trip to the Zoo, otherwise known as the Museum of Tropical Queensland (MTQ) with our friends.  The kids love it, it's all very hands on and although some of the exhibits have been there since forever, the kids see it all as new every time.

This was the ONLY was Monkey would get close to this dino.

It's "the zoo with the dinosaurs in it" to my kids and that is always a thrill.  There is also a fantastic display of the HMS Pandora and general North Queensland displays of wildlife and stuff.

We HAVE to take this photo every time.

Dragon & Monkey with the fantastic introduction to the A is for Animals exhibition

The current attraction is A is for Animals, showcasing animals involvement in wars (past and present).  I loved it!  I particularly loved the artworks and the photography on display but the kids liked the more interactive bits with the cockatoo that talked to you and the puzzles and games where they could get hands-on.

Monkey tried very hard to dress himself, he seemed satisfied with this result.

Lion with his sculpture of a man wearing a kilt.

Sunday School had an art gallery exhibition on Sunday. They had been learning about Creation and we went to see the creations that they had made.

Lion with his painting of... I'll have to check with him again, I can't remember.

Dragon (standing on a chair) with his painting of a desert with a red squiggly road and a sunset and a tree.

Dragon's sculpture of Monkey

Extreme Lounge Room Sports

Lion has often said he wants to be a monster truck driver but I'm getting worried when the monster truck is part of the line up and a TRAIN is doing the jumping.  I don't think there was a proper risk assessment for this jump.

My plan is to be back blogging more often (than even BEFORE I was sick) so I don't have to do massive catch ups on our life like this... but I think it's going to take me a while to get back into any sort of pattern.  I am setting aside some time each day to write the Yasi story but because I'm not writing it in order it's making it hard to post the next bit but I'll get there... I promise!

Confessions.

So, you know in movies and cartoons how someone will be about to tell someone else something really important but there is always a loud noise just as they are about to say it?  It goes something like this.

Fred: Hey, I've been wanting to tell you something really important.
Frank: Okaaaaaay.
Fred: Well, you know how when we were little, your favourite truck went missing and you never found it, well *Fred & Frank walk past a construction site and there is a truck reversing*
Frank: Sorry, I didn't hear that because of the truck, what did you say?
Fred: I said *a guy with a boom box blasting "Ice Ice Baby" walks past F&F*
Frank: Sorry, missed it again because of that awesome music.
Fred: (getting louder) I SAID *A herd of velociraptors runs down the street and people are screaming everywhere*
Frank: Sorry, still missed it.
Fred: (Now screaming for all he's worth) I SAID I STOLE YOUR TRUCK AND SOLD IT FOR 5 CENTS. *at this point the velociraptors have emptied the street and all is silent except for Freds yelled confession*

Yeah, I'm a big fan of doing that to the kids with appliances.  This morning it was the coffee grinder... it's fun stuff, people, fun stuff.

What's for dinner?

Life has been moving faster than we can catch up at the moment.  Wolf has a new job, Monkey is getting smarter and smarter, Lion has finished his first year of school and Dragon is done with Kindy for the year.  It's almost Christmas and I am soooo far behind on blogging what's been going on around here.  I'm just going to do my best and see how fast I can catch up.

 *****

Driving along in almost silence one day, Dragon was obviously doing some deep thinking when he came out with this doozy... "Mummy, Are we God's Lego?"  Wow, what an opportunity... kicking my own deep thinking brain into gear I got on with an answer... I can't remember it exactly what I said but it was along the lines of "yes...and no"  Yes, we are like God's Lego because God can make us into whatever he wants to, he has complete control of us.  But no, because God loves us perfectly, he loves us more than we could ever love Lego and because of that there's never a person that is out of his sight, he never wanders around saying "now where is that kid with the red cap, I know I had him here somewhere yesterday".  He takes care of us better than we could ever take care of our Lego.  Dragon took it all in, processed it and gave me a deep response... "I need to wee when we get to the shops".

*****

Lion had a bit of fun a while back helping Grandad to clean their big trailer with the pressure sprayer.

*****

I think I sing too many children's songs when a sudden ant bite sends me into a tuneful (or not) frenzy of "Ants in my armpit, a a a, ants in my armpit, a a a..."  Stupid ants.

*****

I found Monkey a few days ago sitting on the floor unwrapping a Dove chocolate like we have in the advent calendar... I don't know where he got it. He tried to pretend he wasn't opening it and gave it to me while looking all innocent... I pretended along and shared it with him... no one need ever know....

*****

These are what Lion and Dragon took for their school and kindy friends instead of Christmas cards or candy canes.  I hate candy canes, the kiddie-crack that they are, and there was no way I was going to sit around and supervise as they wrote in 483940 cards for their friends and then when handing them out find that we missed a kid who is now in tears and... and... and... it's all too much for this season of love and goodwill.  Something sweet, something with no names attached... easy.  Yes, I'd much rather stay up late, after the kids are in bed and make treats for their friends than supervise the Christmas card writing.

*****

Cleaning up the kitchen bench junk piles recently I found...

• 1 hand grenade (toy, thankfully )
• many rocks
• 2 pairs of socks
• 1 snake skin
• sparklers
• matches
• an array of things I should have returned to people

Life with boys is never dull.

*****

Lion's class led the school assembly a few weeks ago.  It was awesome.  This term they were discovering "Who Sank The Boat" so they performed it for us.  Lion had to welcome everyone to the assembly and introduce one section then thank everyone for coming at the end.  He had a lot to learn but he did a great job!

*****

We had Cheetah and Little Bear come for a sleep over a few weeks ago... it was absolute chaos!  But we did have a lot of fun!  Believe it or not the last two to go to sleep were Dragon and Little Bear... those two kept going and going and going and going!

Little Bear managed to find our only two Duplo girls... she said one was her and one was me... she's so sweet.

***** 

Judge me if you wish but when the kids ask what's for dinner over and over and over they usually get the response "poo on toast".  One day Lion came to me and asked "Mum, are we having poo on toast for dinner?"  "Yes" I responded... "Oh noooooo" said Dragon... "not TOAST".

*****

Phew... there's a bit of a catch up... still more to go!

Odds and Ends

Driving to school last week and a little Dragon voice pipes up from the very back of the car...

"Mummy, Mr Maker has boobies like yours".

"What was that, sweetie"

"I said Mr Maker has boobies like yours"

"uh, okay, are you sure?"

"Yeah, he does"

"No, Mr Maker is a mans and he can't have boobies like Mummy because Mummy is a girl"

"No, Mr Maker has boobies like Mummy"

and for Dragon, that was it.  That signalled the end of the conversation and neither Lion, nor I could say anything to change his mind.  I don't know where the idea came from and it hasn't come back up.  Random.

We had rainbow day at playgroup last Tuesday, I was on morning tea for the grown ups so I made a cake.

This was the outside...

This was the inside...

Yes, it was for the grown ups!

In other exciting events Lion tied one end of a 5 metre rope around his waist with a single knot.  He ties the other end to the rail of the cubby house approximately 2 metres off the ground "with a very tight knot" and informs Wolf that he's going to jump over the edge and it's okay because the rope will stop him before he gets hurt.  Thank goodness he decided to tell Wolf what he was about to do or that would have been a very painful lesson in length and double checking calculations.

For Remembrance Day last week I did some poppy craft with Dragon, he had loads of fun and even thought himself to give his craft to one of his friends whose daddy is overseas with the Air Force.

Things have been interesting around here lately.  Saturday must have been in the running for some kind of awards. After the first few incidents that I can't remember now I figured why not give my friends on facebook a live feed of the crazy...

*Do not give your 3 kids babycinos and then hide from them for some peace and quiet.

There will be mess.

It will be on the carpet.

You will be sorry.

*I just found Monkey standing on the kids table singing and shaking his toosh dancing... lets hope this isn't a future career path for him.

*I let Monkey play with daddy's hair brush while I changed his nappy and... Well... I'm gonna need to wash it now. Should I tell Wolf?

*I Went to put Monkey in bed and found he'd trashed his room at some point... I made him clean it up but he had so much fun cleaning it he promptly up-ended the basket of his clothes so he could clean that up too.

This was another gem, I had helped the big boys build a pillow fort to try and keep them a little bit quiet while Monkey had a nap, Lion and Dragon were both talking a mile a minute, speaking as one person."...and mum, y'know what mum, if anyone tries to get into our fort the crocodile will eat them, or the snake will bite them, or the lion will eat their foot, or the dragon will breathe fire on them, or the possum will hiss at them, or the rock wallaby will... um... throw rocks at them"

Monkey loves apples, so far I've only given him a whole apple.  I love my apple slinky machine so when I was making apple slinkies for his brothers I figured I'd run one through for Monkey too...  I don't think he quite knew what to do with it so he did what any self respecting 1 year old would do... he broke it into a zillion little pieces and threw them around.

I think he may have eaten a few small pieces.

Monkey also loves his highchair, if he's in his highchair, it means I'll be giving him food.  So he got his hook on highchair pretty grotty so I put it by the back door so I could take it outside and hose it and the next morning while we were getting ready I found that it was suddenly filled with a baby again.

Today I read on Twitter that someone (I wont name her just in case she doesn't want it shared further than she already has *update* Ali is happy to be linked and she's heaps of fun so go here to meet her) was going to book herself a colon hydrotherapy appointment.  Now, I was a little sleep deprived so I didn't connect the dots of colon meaning, well, your colon and hydrotherapy meaning LOTS of water.  So I googled what colon hydrotherapy involved... then I lapsed even further and I clicked a YouTube link... yeah. I did.  I quickly figured out that this was not something I was going to be putting my hand up for any time soon but figured that surely the clip will just go though what happens without actually showing it.  Nope, not only do they show you what is being cleansed from the colon but these people show their faces.  What possesses them to record this stuff in the first place but more than that, what possesses them to cut to a shot of their face, immediately to a shot of what was formerly residing in their bowel.  I was rather shocked by the clips we found on YouTube of people using neti pots and filming the former contents of their sinus cavities but this was just plain crazy.  The similarities were not lost on me though... Colonic Irrigation, it's like a Neti Pot for your, well, you know.

Now, to get those mental images out of your head...

Here's a cute kid.

Conversations with Confusion.

mmmm, vanilla cupcake

Lion: "Mum, my shirt, It's not green!"

Mummy: "You're right sweetie, it's not green is more khaki."

Dragon: "Our car has khaki!"

Mummy:  "what? No our car is silver."

Dragon replies in an exasperated voice, and starts speaking slowly for silly Mummy to understand.

"No. Muuuuum. It's HAS khaki! Hur-umm" (last bit is his frustrated noise)

Mummy: "What part of our car is khaki?"

Lion: "Mum he is saying our car has CAR-KEYS, you know to start the car."

(In Australia we pronounce that muddy green colour "kar-kee" (with a soft 'r' sound... I'm not good at all those phoneticy explanations)

a reecacino for Dragon (named after one of their kids, I think)

I just walked into the toilet to find Lion standing there pants around his ankles covering his mouth, nose and ears with his hands.

Mummy: "What are you doing?"

Lion: "I'm breathing through my butt"

Mummy: Stares in stunned silence.

Lion "I can you know, I can breathe through my butt".

Mummy: Turns away still in stunned silence but now pondering why on earth he needed to cover his ears too... can he breathe through them as well?

the best babycino I have ever seen

We went out for morning tea this morning with a very pregnant friend and her little guy.  It was a lovely morning, at a very child friendly cafe.  There were none of those "looks" that you get that are filled with daggers if your child so much as lifts their backside off the seat. They must want them to suffocate.  Instead there was a whole stack of highchairs in one corner all in good working condition.  Half the tables were black... With chalk containers on each table for the kids to draw ON THE TABLE!  There was a big set of shelves with plenty of toys.  There was a whole kids menu with a great variety, not just a little section in the main menu with a couple of things like frozen chicken nuggets and fish fingers.  It was FANTASTIC.  The best thing was that Dragon didn't like the vanilla cupcake I bought for him so I got to eat that too!  The following "conversation" was partly in my head and partly Monkey's own words.

my orange cake with lime syrup and cream

(I think this is the most 'homemade' tasting thing I have ever had in a cafe,

the good kind of homemade, it was delicious!)

The kids are all getting tired, we put away all the toys and do a quick tidy of our table and start to leave.  I turn around and while we were tidying Monkey has lay down on the floor too worn out to carry on, he looks up at me...

Monkey: waving "Buh" General translation: "Bye". My translation: "go on without me"

Mummy: "It's time to go"

Monkey: waving/shooing me away "Buh".  My translation: "I'll only slow you down, just leave me here"

Mummy: "hop up, it's time to head home"

Monkey: looking up at me tired and defeated he waves me on... "Buh" My translation: "you've got to leave me here, I'll be fine, you go on without me"

Mummy: scooping up the poor defeated soul... "come on kid, you know our rule 'no one left behind' "

Monkey: waving to all in the cafe as we head out the door "Buh". Translation: "Bye"

I think he just wanted to stay and get some more of that good food!

the aftermath.

The name of the place we went was "Betty Blue and the Lemon Tart".  Dragon asked me 50 times on the way there what it was called.  In the end he just started calling it "The Lemon Tart and the Blue Balloon"... I think that's going to stick.

The really scary thing about these conversations is that I just went to a public meeting with a bunch of adults getting up and having their say and I did occasionally have the thought cross my mind that talking with my kids makes more sense than what some of them were saying... I also had the though cross my mind that some of them were talking out of their... well, anyway, that's all for today.

"Buh"