Today is one of those days where I don’t feel like parenting or being a parent. I would love to say to my partner, ‘Here, you take over for a bit, I’m going out.’ But that ain’t happening, so instead my son is in front of the telly and I’m in front of my computer.

JJ is going through a stage where he’s REALLY pushing the boundaries with me, testing me, then testing me, and then testing me again for good measure. I think he figures if he says something often enough then I will cave in and let him have what he wants. He doesn’t know what he’s dealing with though. The more anyone nags me to do something the more I dig my heels in and don’t want to give in.

This can make for some tense and volatile times in the Jaycee household. I lost it a bit this morning and howled up at the about to be full moon and then went and laid down on my bed for a bit. I was honest with JJ when he came in to see what was up and said to him that sometimes it’s very hard work being a mum and when he keeps pushing me and nagging me that it’s hard to deal with. I don’t know if I should be saying these things to a nearly five year old but I feel I have to occasionally so I can get it out in the open with him and move on. And move on I did. I could wallow around feeling sorry for myself but that isn’t going to achieve a thing.

We’re having guests over for dinner tonight so after lunch he helped me tidy up a bit and as a reward, now I’m letting him watch the video he’s been nagging me about all morning.

As a friend said to me last night when I was around their place for dinner and JJ was showing off his ‘impeccable table manners’, ‘When he starts school he’ll really settle down.’

I really hope he’s right.

I’ve added a couple of Typepad’s Widgets to my weblog. I’ve not got a Feedburner subscription - the little orange icon to the right.

I’ve also joined the Blog Barrel network which purports to generate more traffic to my site. Thought I’d give that one a go to see what happens and hopefully find some more sites myself. I tend to get a bit stale with my blog reading or discover of new blogs.

Even a Photoshop novice can experiment with brushes and make something that otherwise might be beyond their means. When I say ‘their’, I mean me in this instance. I’ve changed my blog theme yet again because I found this website that has a heap of brushes you can use so long as you give a link back to his site. The site being Photoshop brushes.

I liked the stars, hence the ’stars in her eyes’. Not really sure what else this alludes to but I guess it’s also a bit of a cliche and therefore easily remembered.

My old banner ’tis here.

I’m largely responsible for the safarisuit website and I don’t update it very often as it’s a pain in the ass to do. I have to do it home for a start and use FTP to upload changed pages. I’ve almost sub-consciously started a blog type format for it where I put latest news type items on the homepage and archive off the older ones.

Being a lover of blogging I thought why not convert it into a blog. I initially thought of getting another Typepad account and using that like I do for this blog but I thought the safari suit host must provide a blogging facility. They don’t as such, but they do have the minimum requirements for me to install Wordpress.

So as I’m writing this I’m uploading Wordpress files to my webspace on my dialup connection. An aside, I told a friend recently that I’ve done all of the safari suit website via my dialup connection and he was astounded. Unless I start making megabucks or doing more work from home I can’t yet justify getting broadband. So dialup it is. While it’s damned slow it gets there in the end.

I haven’t completely worked out how I’m going to transfer what’s already on the safari suit website to a blog type format but I think it will eventually work out. I’m optimistic if nothing else. Right, the files have finished uploading.

Not even five minutes later

Wordpress is all installed on my website. Too easy! There’s no content there as yet.

As someone who is normally very frustrated at the crap level of documentation for just about everything I am very impressed with the documentation on the Wordpress site. 

Now for some configuration.

As a book addict I’ve kept nearly all of the books I had when I was a kid. I’ve got Enid Blyton, Nancy Drew books, some Golden books and of course numerous Dr Seuss books.

I’ve been reading them on and off to JJ for quite a while now and I love them. I love them for the silly rhymes they have.

‘"All mine!" Yertle cried. "Oh, the things I now rule!
I’m king of a cow! And I’m king of a mule!
I’m king of a house! And, what’s more, beyond that,
I’m king of a blueberry bush and a cat!
I’m Yertle the Turtle! Oh, marvellous me!
For I am the ruler of all that I see!"’

Reading out loud in rhyme is quite soothing and fairly easy unless you read Fox in Socks. JJ was given this for Christmas from a friend of ours. I was staying over at their place the night and being on holidays I’d had a couple of drinks. Not that I need to be on holidays to justify drinking. But I mistakenly decided to read JJ Fox in Socks after a couple of drinks and had great trouble getting my mouth around verse like this,

‘First, I’ll make a quick trick brick stack.
Then I’ll make a quick trick block stack.
You can make a quick trick chick stack.
You can make a quick trick clock stack.’

The illustrations also keep JJ interested as they are just about as silly as the rhyme is. And the premise of a story like Green Eggs and Ham is just nonsense. Who would eat green eggs. Yuk!

But of course it’s the message behind the books that really shines through for me as an adult and, I’m sure, to some extent younger readers.

Green Eggs and Ham was a great book for me to read to JJ when he was going through the I’m-not-going-to-eat-vegetables stage. Like the character in the book who will not even contemplate tasting the green eggs and ham JJ would not taste some of the foods I put on his plate. I’d read Green Eggs and Ham to him and afterwards say, ‘See, he didn’t want to eat them at first, but after he tried them he decided he did like them after all. If he can do it so can you.’ JJ eats nearly everything I give him now. I can’t say it’s just this book that did it. Other threats like no dessert probably helped things along somewhat.

The Yertle the Turtle the story is a great one about wanting more than you have and not being satisfied with what you do have. Yertle wants to survey more land than he can currently see from the rock in his pond and makes all his turtles stand on top of each other so he can reach a greater height. This works for a while but due to an uprising of the turtles below in the form of a hiccup from Mack, Yertle comes tumbling down from his perch and is king of the mud.

‘And the turtles, of course…all the turtles are free
As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.’

Before I went on my first overseas trip a friend gave me ‘Oh, the Places You’ll Go!’. I took it with me and even brought it back with me and now it sits in JJ’s bookshelf. It’s got great messages for the adult and the child reader whether travelling on holiday or just travelling through life.

‘And when things start to happen, don’t worry. Don’t stew.
Just go right along. You’ll start happening too.’

and

‘I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true
that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you.
You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on. You’ll be left in a Lurch.
You’ll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump.
And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.’

How true! Despite being in the Lurch, the waiting place, not having fun, or just being plain lonely you will get through it eventually and have fun. I love reading this book when I’m in a slump as it reminds me that I will come through the other end and be okay again. I think it’s a good message to send to kids as well that it isn’t all happy times, there are sad times but not to dwell on the bad times and focus instead on the good times.