W is for 'What the?'

Our youngest offspring, Anarchy, is four.  He's more like me than I'm strictly comfortable with.  He's not a highly physical child (he holds his hands high when he runs, so he looks like a human washing machine, and none of his limbs seem to be facing the right direction), although he does love kicking balls, reading books and riding his scooter.  He's verbose, and he's a drama llama.

Now, he's only little.  He can't tie his shoelaces, he can't cook, he can't even clean his room without supervision.

So, 'W is for Whale" should be right up his alley:

Right?  No.  Boo-ooring!

Anarchy has an iPad.  Well, it's my old one.

The child uses it far more effectively than I ever will.  Now, I have heard all the arguments against too much gaming, too much TV, not enough running around outside.  For the record, he is a mean machine on the trampoline.

But, I swear, he learned the concept of 'first, second, third" from MarioKart on the Wii.  His reflexes are sharp as little tacks.  He understands some laws of physics, especially if they are accurately depicted in the game.

He could read his name not long after he turned three.  He could spell it shortly after, clicking the little letters in games to put himself in the hall of fame.  In recent months, he's been inclined to pick up a pen and write it.

And write and write and write.  Names, labels, random nouns.

Recently, he was playing a cute little game called Scribblenauts Remix on his device.  It involves you helping a little character by typing in nouns, and that thing will appear for your little man to use.  It's like choose your own adventure with stuff.

Anarchy's little man was in a bind, couldn't move, was stuck between two buildings and to add insult to injury, the boy had conjured up an eel that had eaten all of his goldfish. Time to get out of there.

He asked me, "How do you spell jetpack?"

I looked at him.

"It starts with 'juh', right?"

"Um, yes.  What do you think is next?"

With coaching, he got it all except the kicking K.

You should have seen the fist punching when his little man sailed up and out of there.

He's learned something that I have long suspected to be true:  a jetpack fixes everything.

Until next time,

Em.  x

M is for Mortified

You all know that Sparky and I adore our children.  Well, he does always, and I do most of  the time.

I suspect because he sees them less, that he isn't as exposed to the circus that is our children on a daily basis.

I found these posters on Flickr.  They're by Nathan Rippenberger, and the collection is titled, "Things I Have Said To My Children."

They are startlingly, scarily accurate.  Except, our giant inflatable penguin is called Mawson, so I used 'Mawson' instead of 'Penguin'.

Also, we don't have a cat door, but we do have a snorkel.  And a cat.  Two, in fact.

It's true, too, I won't hold a conversation with anyone who is naked (there are a few rare exceptions to this rule, but the offspring should be at least partially clothed).

Just YESTERDAY I had to ask Anarchy to stop licking my arm.  I didn't addend, because "that's what weird kids do." but you can bet your bottom I will mention it next time.  

And there WILL be a next time.  

I consider us very lucky, the offspring rarely say inappropriate things in public (Oh, there was a, "Look at that fat lady" that one time in Woolworths...), but how mortified would you be if your children came up with some of these?

Bless our mortifying, hilarious offspring.  

C is for Cock-a-doodle-doooo.

Over at the LoveCats blog a few weeks ago (Was it weeks?  I'm not sure.  We're back from holidays, it's raining, it's a cold, windy 18 degrees, the back-to-school malarkey is fierce and I feel like I'm revisiting last September.) I dropped in and said hello to two new members, farewelled two others and generally cracked jokes, rocked out to Elvis and stole cyber chocolate chip biscuits.

We were also asked to mention something about ourselves.  I mentioned our animals/children.  And Trevor.

Trevor is our rooster.  Specifically, he's a Bantam Partridge Wyandotte Cockerel (Hands up if you sniggered then.).  He's there to procreate (How about then?).  With the Bantam Partridge Wyandotte Hens.  I suspect he thinks he's above all that.  I mean, look at him.

He is a Very Noisy Creature.  Yes, "Cock-a-doodle-doooooo!".  And not just at the crack of dawn, either.  He will crow at four in the afternoon.  For fun.  He seems a little confused about his purpose in life.

As I said at LoveCats, our animals seem to end up with human names--Barney, Beryl, Esmae and Trevor.  I may have also mentioned that our kids are called Fluffy, Socks and Spot, but that, as you know, is a lie.  Turns out, Sharon Archer had a Bantam Rooster called Napoleon.  Very cool.  Wish we'd thought of that.

Poor Trevor is actually a bit of a dud in the procreation department.  All crow, no go.  Lucky for him he's pretty.

Third and final offspring offering--Bring the Anarchy

So, now you know Faith & Love.

It's time for Anarchy.

Anarchy is four.  Tomorrow.  There will be a pirate cake.  I'll take pictures.

Truly speaking, he is the anti-anarchy.  He is sweet and cute and totally led astray by his sisters.  He has a little speech thingy that means he can't put two consonants together, which is adorable at this stage, but might need looking at if it's still around when he turns twenty-one.

He is eating the icing first and matchbox cars, warm hugs and raspberries on your face with little white teeth in them.  He is bats and balls, Spiderman and Lightning McQueen.

Anarchy is also our showboat (here's where you  insert, "Like his mother." if that's what you were thinking. And rightly so.).  He likes to dance like a lunatic so Faith & Love giggle.  He loves making 'gas bomb' noises on his own forearm.  He tells great jokes.

A:  "What do you call a peanut in space?"
Me: "I don't know, Anarchy, what do you call a peanut in space?"
A:  "An Astronut!"
Me:  *headslap*  "Oy."

OR

A:  "Knock Knock."
Me:  "Who's there?"
A:  "Moustache" (pronounced with a 'mooo')
Me:  "Ah, a moustache who?"
A:  "Ummmmm..."
Me:  "Would you like a banana?"
A:  "Yes, please."  (He's very polite.)

(Of course, the proper answer to that joke, as I tell it, is, 'I moustache you a question, but I'll shave it for later.'  Snort.)

This is Anarchy under the clothesline, pretending that the blue sheet is the ocean,

 and he's diving for treasure.  He is wearing his 'better pants', which are trackies, 

but they are 'better pants' than jeans.  

But he's not all sweetness.  Despite his propensity for girly items (Nail polish, handbags, hair product.  Sparky feels a little threatened at this point, but I tell him school will soon pound all those cute quirks out of our boy.), he knows the words to some very dubious songs. This is one of his favourites.  (Which might be my fault, but I'm not copping to anything.).

Polyester Girl - Regurgitator.  
all i want you to say is nothing at all
and all i want you to do is stare at the wall
i love your plastic hair and plastic eyes
marvel at your plastic breasts and plastic thighs

my polyestergirl
so shiny
polyestergirl
so shiny
polyestergirl
so shiny
polyestergirl
so shiny

you're the perfect guy's accessory
dangling from my arm for of the pretty people to see
boy's with sassy pouts and perky glee
great for backstage and entertainment award ceremonies
***
took you for a ride up in an aeroplane
but your body burst and left an ugly stain
had to take your pieces back to the factory
it took them several weeks to get you back to me***she's my polyestergirl
shiniest in all the world
she's my polyestergirl
shiniest in all the world
she's my polyestergirl
shiniest in all the world 


Yes, it's a song about a sex toy.  It's massively inappropriate and hilarious.  Sparky raises his eyebrows.  


Sparky's more of a rock dude, but does a mean falsetto of his own.  He also dances beautifully to Katy Perry on the Wii.  Something I have felt the need to video in the past.  I am keeping it for leverage, should the need ever arise.


So, those are the offspring.  In all their sassy, perky glee.  


Sparky and I would be completely lost without them.  

My Offspring, part deux. She who was actually first.

Last week, you met Love.  Was it last week?  I have no idea.  We all got some kind of indestructible virus and got sucked into a wonky time/space continuum.  Heck, it could have been in 1986.

This week, you get to meet Faith.  She is our eldest offspring, who is in the last embers of her eighth year.  I have always thought she was lucky, because her birthdate is three numbers repeated.  

Faith is a glass half full and heading towards overflowing.  She is always Up, and dragging everybody, no matter how grumpy we are, into Up with her.  

She is the one who is always trying to make you smile.  Most often, she succeeds.  Especially when she dances like MC Hammer.

She is netball and razor scooters, popcorn and Total Drama Action, iPods and pop music.  

She is Sparky's girl.  

One of her favourite things to say is that she got Mum's face and personality and Dad's sporting ability.  She is extremely lucky it wasn't the other way around, because I am the physical activity antichrist and she'd look funny with facial hair.  

Here she is, quite a few years ago, peeking out from under Sparky's arm.  Yes, they are on a kayak.  They do things like that.  It's when they're doing it together that she's happiest.  

She is our lovely big girl.  

There is one more child, saved for next week.  

In the meantime, here's something to keep you laughing until then.  In a former life I taught German in schools, so I love this one:

My Offspring, Part 1 (which is actually instalment 2)

Please allow me to introduce our second child, Love (6).  Not her real name of course, but since she refuses to use her real name, it's moot.  

Love is all about..the love.  She is fairies and drawing, independence and relationships.  She was a sick baby, so now she has a pain threshold of fifteen out of ten.  This means there will often be blood that she hasn't noticed, running down her forehead, or her arm.

You will most often find her chasing one of the cats to put it in a receptacle of some kind to cart around, or riding her bike, singing lewd Rihanna songs she has no idea about the meaning of.

She is cute, but feisty.

And every night, at bed time--without fail--she'll tell Sparky and me that she loves us.

L's & G's--I give you, Love.

PRK Eye Surgery - if you are a bit squeamish, or are just in it for the reviews, now would be be a good time to discover your toothbrush needs polish.

I had a MASSIVE post here - and the boy hit the delete key, when I had all selected. Then it autosaved a blank page. Crap. Now I'm too shitty to repost that which took me 90 minutes for me and my fuzzy eyes to write. Errrgh.

Lesson learned....

--LATER--

I've thought about it all day, and I've decided to give you the highlights in key words and phrases. Really, this could be an improvement. PRK Eye surgery has the capacity to be fairly revolting. So here goes:

- E forgot the drop-in-eye-for-the-week-beforehand eyedrops. Oopsie.
- Nice leather recliners in recovery room. Put these on personal shopping list. But not in white. What were they thinking? Don't they have children??
- More drugs in small bag. Five sleeping tablets. How much pain would I srsly need to endure?
- Everyone smiles in the surgery. Not much use, because they took glasses away and I haven't seen anything clearly since.
- Numbing eyedrops. Feels weird.
- Drugs, eyedrop form.
- Large machine I can't see because of lack of glasses. Could have been a wizard with a wand for all I knew.
- Doc says look at green light. I panic because green light has disappeared. I CAN'T SEE THE GREEN LIGHT!
- Eye speculum. Ewww. But comforting, because it makes blinking about as possible as walking on ceiling.
- Laser. Smells less like burning hair than I anticipated. More like burning human eyeball, I'd say.
- Green light has reappeared. Doc had his hand in front of it. Tool.
- Red laser light, green light, white light, repeated noise. Like a disco for your captive, immobile eyeball. Complete with drugs.
- Scraping off front of eyeball. Nicer than it sounds, due to drugs.
- Healing disc on eyeball. Repeat left eye.
- Back in gorgeous leather chairs. Will they notice if I pop one in my handbag?
- Ask where hubby is. Taking advantage of free biscuits, apparently. Will be in later.
- You paid how much? Biscuits looking less like freebie at this point...
- Take hubby to see doc post-op, in order to get drug regime into more heads. I just know I'll stuff it up.
- Blur.
- Fuzz.
- Weeping.
- Drugs.
- Hamilton's CERULEAN SINS on iPhone. Excellent. Will have to review when I can see keys better.
- Someone is pouring 98% salt saline into my eyes. No? Well, it feels like it.
- Can't keep eyes open, even though I want to.
- Sleep more than body likes.
- General discomfort.
- See doc next morning, all in order. Eyeball has not expoded or fallen out overnight. Cool.
- Hubby: He DID say it would get worse before it got better.
- Smack hubby.
- Hubby goes back to day job.
- Day 6 - still fuzzy, but healing lenses out now, so less prickly.
- Notice with improving vision that shower needs cleaning. Darn. Why'd I have to notice that first?
- Sleeping tablets still safe in little package. Yay, me!

See? You didn't need the full version anyhow.

I was hoping to go to SARA (South Australian Romance Authors) meeting tonight, but the double vision would make my driving even more suspect. And really, I just don't have the points to spare.

Hope everyone in DC is having a hoot!

I was on a roll...

That should read - I was on a roll.

My roll has petered out (damn Peter, and the horse he rode in on).

There's been stuff on. It is times like these I wish I could get the "I have the ability and the opportunity to volunteer for that" part of my brain lasered out.

I wrote thousands of words in two nights last week. It was rockin'! A great feeling...

This week, I've spent three nights out doing non-writing related (which upsets me), non-paying (which upsets hubba hubby) activities.

For the children. God bless their grotty cotton socks and grimy faces.

I've done a blurb (many, many times over) for the Bites pitch. I'm gonna have to bite the .38 calibre and get someone to look at it for me. Yikes.

But things are looking up (and concede I am waaaaayy too old for this, but seem unable to stop the excitement)...

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY NEXT WEEK...

Crossing fingers I get an updated internet connection (or a frying pan...). Either would be wicked.

Completely unrelated to MY BIRTHDAY I tried to get into a chat on eHarl today. I logged in okay and found myself in Steeple Hill. Whoopsie. Gotta work out the whole international timing thingie...

But I was in, that's gotta be good. The last time I tried to chat, I couldn't find the room.

Ah, takes me back to university days...

Luck for everyone with their things! And did I mention? it's MY BIRTHDAY next week...

Tee hee, E x

Gatdangit! Just when I was on a roll...

I was soooo cruisin' today. I's made a little list of Jobs To Do (things like move Mohammed's Mountain of washing, and bake a cake), and I was flying through it. I could see hours and hours of time to spend on my revisions tonight. Then it happened.

Visitors. The Unannounced kind.

The floor was still in the JTD list - we don't bother with plates, kids can't seem to keep their food on them anyhow - and I hadn't brushed my hair in over 24 hours. Blurk.

And it was old rellies who are ALWAYS neat and tidy. Who never leave the house with the breakfast dishes undone, or the lounge room floor looking like an underware sale at Target....

I was mortified. Then I thought, well, bugger ya. Next time, call... If you want to see me neat, warn me beforehand. I might be able to oblige.

Four hours later, no time for revisions. Dang.

What do you do? E x