Archives for January 2008

Sleeping in the tent by himself

January 15, 2008 by Jen

Last time I wrote JJ and I had put together a list of things he wanted to do this week. One of the things was setting up the tent.

We set up the tent yesterday afternoon and put the mattress and sleeping bag out there. JJ then proceeded to put half of his belongings in the tent with him and he willingly went to bed at the allotted time. Monty dog was in there with him much to her disgust but I let her out after she barked at a car moving ten blocks away.

Here he is telling me that he will stay in the tent and not get up too early.

It was hard for me not to check on him every ten minutes but I knew if I did that he would find an excuse to come inside. I did make it quite clear that the back door was open for him to come inside any time he wanted. He had the lemon tree not far from his front door so he didn’t need to come inside to go to the toilet for number one’s.

He took a while to get to sleep but not too long after dark, he did and he stayed in the tent all night. I really didn’t think he’d do it and I’m really proud of him.

Mind you at 6.19am he bounded into my room and informed me that it’s going to be 24 degrees here today. I told him that he’s not to turn on the television before 7am and to go back out to his tent. I think he woke up before it got light!

But back out to his tent he went and I fell back to sleep to wake up at nearly 8 o’clock. Bliss.

Just bits and pieces

January 12, 2008 by Jen

This is by no means a cohesive blog post with any sort of beginning, middle and end so I’ll do dotpoints for the mini-stories in no particular order.

I’ve nearly finished my conference presentation. I had to go into work today to pick up my USB stick I left there the other day when I went in to do a practise run. I’m feeling a lot happier about it now but it’s been a real noose around my neck these school holidays. That and Vacswim classes right in the middle of the day. When I hand in the presentation tomorrow or Monday I’ll have more time to spend with JJ to get him and myself away from the damn computer.
Which leads me to what I’ll do with JJ. We’ve written a list:
I don’t know how much of this will get done but as we’ve got a list I’ll be accountable.
JJ has had one of those good days where he’s adorable 99% of the time instead of 60-70%. He’s done some sweeping for me, offered to do some watering and handed dishes to me when I washed up. He even had a sleep today without any prompting from me. Once I realised he was asleep I went and laid on my bed and read my book. Ahhh, memories! And with just about everything he’s told me today, he’s delivered it so emphatically that it was hard not to completely listen without being distracted by something else, and not to smile too much at him.
It wasn’t too hot here today, mid 20s, so the morning walk was quite pleasant. I did bump into my air conditioning guy who supposedly fixed a leak the other day and the leak’s still there as I found out during the 42 degree heat on Thursday. I could still use it but water dripping down on the inside of my place is not what I like. He said to see if it keeps doing it and call him if it does. Does this mean another call out fee?

I’m going to wind this up now and upon reflection I’ve realised that this does have a beginning a middle and an end. I’ll also say that my monthly broadband allocation is down to its last 1% and I’ve got two days until it’s renewed so my internet speed will be quite slow very soon. I didn’t plan that very well.

My prize arrived

January 9, 2008 by Jen

Around Christmas time I entered a competition to win a pair of handmade earrings and I won. So I was very excited today when a little package arrived with an airmail sticker on because I knew my winnings would be inside.

Stacie, the earrings arrived safe and intact and have been in my ears ever since. I keep wanting to look at myself in a mirror to admire them as they are so gorgeous.

Of course I took photos.

I also took a photo of me wearing them so I could submit them for the Self Portrait Challenge that I started last year, the theme being celebration. This fits because I won the prize at the Christmas celebration time of year and because I very rarely win anything so that’s good enough reason to celebrate in my book.

So here’s a photo I took of myself wearing the earrings.

If you would like some jewellrey as gorgeous as this visit Stacie Florer’s website.

Clowning around

January 8, 2008 by Jen

Last time I wrote about how it all sometimes gets a bit much for him. I wanted to let you know that the day did considerably improve.

It was a stinking hot day and we’d been invited to a friend’s 7th birthday party at a park that has a wading pool. It’s hard to leave a house where the air conditioning is on, when you’re a bit tired and hungover and you’ve had to deal with a grumpy kid in the morning but go out we did. Luckily I’m a fairly social animal otherwise I would have stayed home. I know that my son is also a social animal and he enjoys playing with other kids.

The birthday girl’s parents had organised Pass the parcel but they didn’t organise any music so a friend and I did the singing. Luckily we saw the parcel after we’d agreed otherwise we would have done a runner as it was the biggest parcel I’ve ever seen. It fitted across four kids laps. We sang all sorts of songs and our mate clapped so we would stop singing and let a kid unwrap one of the many many layers.

It also turned out that a friend of ours was over from Sweden and he does clowning. I’d thought to take my camera along so I was able to document his act. In retrospect I wonder how appropriate it was for the young kids there but they were very entertained, and so were us adults.

He had a great case of goodies.

He’s a bit of a punk so the song he played on the ukulele was definitely not a Wiggles song.

He juggled.

He played with fire.

But then he put it out.

He told a story while playing the didgeridoo.

What’s going to happen with this balloon?

Where’s the balloon going?

Yep, he swallowed it and I’ll let you guess where he retrieved it from.

Then he played with more fire…

He finished off by making us all do the hokey pokey. This photo was taken at the end of that. It was a well deserved rest for him as he did a magnificent job.

See the whole photo set on Flickr.

It was a very pleasant afternoon sitting around in the shade and walking through the wading pool. JJ had a great time with one of the dads throwing the ball with him and playing a bit of soccer. I reminded him to say thank you and JJ did and he also said he was a good dad. The guy went home feeling very chuffed and I was pleased that JJ got some male bonding time.

Sometimes it all gets too much for him

January 5, 2008 by Jen

I write this as a huge pile of dishes awaits my hands and as my son sits in a bath hopefully relaxing and calming down. It’s 10.30 in the morning and the day has not started too well.

JJ had a late night last night – about 10pm which is two hours after he’s normally asleep and we’re both suffering for it today. I asked him to pack up something and he couldn’t find it and just completely lost it. I didn’t have the inclination to lose it myself so as I do in these situations I laughed, trying to get him to see the funny side. He was too tired and too overwraught to see any funny side so he just screamed at me more. This is why I ran his bath and he’s now happily playing in it. I even put some lavender essential oil in which is supposed to calm and relax.

I found some photos that his first childcare took which remind me of how cute he was back then (he’s still very cute now of course).

These photos remind me of the time that he first started having those terrible two type tantrums. I remember leaving childcare one evening after picking him up and he wouldn’t walk out to the car. He wanted me to carry him. Ever since he could walk I’ve made him walk because he’s always been too big and heavy for me to carry. This night he refused to walk so we sat out the front of childcare for a while until one of his carers came along and convinced him to walk. Neither of us were going to give in.

He’s come a long way since then and there is a very polite boy that I get to witness sometimes, but sometimes that two year old is still there also.

One of the best love songs ever

January 3, 2008 by Jen

Ooh, I know my headline is a bold statement but I think it’s so true. Of course others may not agree with me but I dare you to listen to or read these lyrics and not be moved.

The below is part of the song. Who is this?

….
And she floats upon the breeze
She moves among the flowers
She moves something deep inside of me.

I was walking around the flower show like a leper
Coming down with some kind of nervous hysteria
When I saw you standing there, green eyes, black hair
Up against the pink and purple wisteria
You said, hey, nature boy, are you looking at me
With some unrighteous intention?
My knees went weak, I couldn’t speak, I was having thoughts
That were not in my best interests to mention…

…And we moved through the days and through the years
Years passed by, we were walking by the sea
Half delirious
You smiled at me and said, Babe
I think this thing is getting kind of serious
You pointed at something and said
Have you ever seen such a beautiful thing?
It was then that I broke down
It was then that you lifted me up again…

Every time I hear this song I just want someone to sing it to me and mean it. It doesn’t even have to be singing, it can be saying and it doesn’t even have to be these words, it could be something similar said with the same passion with which these words are sung.

Who is it? Have you guessed yet? That’s right, it’s Nick Cave’s ‘Nature Boy’ from the fantastic double album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus.

Go on, go and get a copy and listen to it, read the lyrics and don’t tell me you weren’t moved.

I’m not normally a love song kind of girl but with words and music like this I can’t resist.

What’s your favourite love song and why?

Brand new Aussie bloggers community project

January 2, 2008 by Jen

Three of my blogging friends, Meg, Snoskred and Andrew have setup an Aussie bloggers community project which had a soft launch yesterday.

As Meg says:

Our aim for this project is “empowering, encouraging, supporting and promoting Aussie Bloggers and the Australian blogosphere in general”.

To facilitate this goal, we have established a group blog (which will be launching on the 21st January, 2008) and a forum which is now open for registration.

You don’t have to be an Australian blogger though, all nationalities are welcome.

I’m very excited to be a part of this project as a moderator for the forum and as a blogging contributor. The take-up of forum registrations has been phenomenal with 80 members as of this morning and 2262 posts in 286 topics.

With the drive and passion of the founders and the moderators (I am a little bit biased here) I predict that this will be a valuable way of bloggers helping each other out and finding out information relevant to blogging. If nothing else it’s a good way to meet some fellow Aussie bloggers. I met a bunch of these people – virtually – last year and it’s been really good.

« Previous Page