Archives for February 2009

A celebration of my son – part 1

February 27, 2009 by Jen

Last year some time I received a bunch of photos on CD of JJ at after school care. While cleaning up recently I came across it and thought I’d share. He has some gorgeous facial expressions.

Last night he was feeling particularly down and saying that everyone except me hates him. At least he knows I don’t hate him as he’s thought and said that in the past although deep down I’m sure he knows it’s not the case.

Anyway, these photos are from 2007 and 2008. They’re not in any particular order.

One thing I did today which I’ve been putting off for far far too long is take a DVD of photos along to the photo shop to get printed. I had this CD and the DVD I made, a total of nearly 2,500 photos. I was there for quite some time going through photos and deciding, or not, whether to get them printed.

The plan is for JJ to make a scrapbook celebrating his life, his achievements, his friends, etc etc. The idea is so that he can look at it when he’s feeling particularly down and hopefully bring himself back up again.

Looking through 2,500 photos in a short space of time made me smile. I think my lad’s very cute now but he was super cute when younger too because of his toddler chubby cheeks.

Anyway, back to the photos from after school care.

He made this mask himself and it’s probably still kicking around somewhere. I’ve made a date with him for next Friday to really tidy up his room. It’s something I’ve been putting off for far too long.

Wearing a mask

Wearing a necklace he made. I think this might be the one he ended up giving to me. I must wear it more often.

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Face painting – a pirate – aaarrrggghhhhh!

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After school care has a quiet room. It’s mostly pretty quiet and sometimes I find JJ in there, usually playing a quiet game with other kids or hiding under bean bags. I don’t think I’ve ever found him in there reading a book but obviously he does sometimes.

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Here’s funny face number 1 of 200 (slight exaggeration).

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As there are a few more photos I thought I’d spread them out over two posts. Stay tuned.

The tooth fairy

February 25, 2009 by Jen

photo credit: Sappymoosetree

JJ has now lost his third tooth (23 Feb for the record). It was three and a half months since he lost his first tooth, and may I say I don’t like the tooth dangling by the merest thread. It makes me just want to pull it out and I get really sick of it being played with when he’s right next to me.

So his third tooth was pulled out just before school the other morning and we stuck it to a piece of paper so it wouldn’t get lost. This piece of paper went under JJ’s pillow that night with two questions JJ wrote on it. One – ‘Are you a girl or a boy?’, and two, ‘What do you like doing?’. I blame Santa for setting a precedent on writing JJ a note – damn Santa.

At 6.30 the next morning JJ trotted to my room and very forlornly informed me that the tooth fairy hadn’t come. Damnit I muttered to myself, I bloody forgot. And to my son I said, ‘Don’t worry about it, the tooth fairy was probably really busy but I’ll bet they come tonight.’

Last night after he went to sleep I snuck in and pulled out the note from under his pillow but the tooth was missing. I hoped it had just fallen out and onto the floor but I had a bit of a look around to make sure it wasn’t on the little table next to his bed. I couldn’t find it. I put some lipstick on and kissed the note and put $1 into the note and put it all back under his pillow. Luckily he’s a very deep sleeper. All done I thought with satisfaction.

This morning as I walked past his room he said, ‘Mum, have a look at the note, and the tooth fairy didn’t leave any money or take the tooth.’ Shit and blast I thought, he had moved that tooth after all.

I walked in. There was lipstick on the note and he’d had the tooth wrapped up in a tissue next to his bed. I stealthily took the tooth and I hope I haven’t messed with his head too much as to why the tooth was there one minute and not there the next. And of course I couldn’t say I put $1 with the note. I know I did it, I know it. There was $1 sitting on the little table next to his bed and I told him that was it.

He kept going on and on about the missing money, the lipstick on the note and the missing tooth. I felt really bad but there was nothing I could do to turn back time and make it all go more smoothly.

Oh, and to top it all off, after our walk this morning JJ told me he thought he had nits. He’s had them once before. I got the phone call from the school and when I picked him up it was so obvious he was infested. This time, it looked like he might have nits – I wasn’t absolutely sure but I didn’t want to send him to school before doing something about it. I got the special conditioner and used the nit comb through his hair just in case. It made us late and I get stressed and start getting louder when I’m stressed. As JJ informed me we were only late because of the nits, it wasn’t worth yelling. Yes, adult child, you’re right of course.

I have a spray bottle of tea tree oil mixed with water which is supposed to help ward off these little critters but it’s only effective if it’s used. Use it more I will now. Oh, and when I get home I’ve got washing to do. Oh what joy.

Have you had the joy of nits in your household. If so, how do you deal with it?

Weekend o’ women

February 23, 2009 by Jen

So my weekend away did happen. It didn’t go quite according to plan but then how boring would that be? The main thing is that nothing major happened to prevent me attending the weekend away.

The campground we ended up at was a lot busier than I expected, and a lot larger but it worked out just fine. We chose our spot, warned a couple of neighbours that we might be a bit noisy, and settled in for the weekend.

By the time I got the tent setup it was dark when I sat down to eat my dinner. I think with all the excitement and anticipation I may have slightly over-indulged.

It can’t be a pretty sight to see an adult woman stagger to her tent, fall into it, and have that same woman fall out soon after and start vomiting. No, it’s probably not a pretty sight, and hopefully nobody else saw her. Let’s just say that she suffered a bit the next day but because there was nobody else to worry about except herself it didn’t really matter.

The Saturday night was chock-o-block full of excitement, and fortunately it didn’t involve any of us. Unfortunately for a young man, it involved the medical helicopter coming to retrieve him because he was on the back of a tray top ute while a mate was doing 360s on the gravel. He came off and punctured two lungs, therefore requiring the helicopter to take him back to Adelaide. He’s still in a serious condition according to the paper today.

We had views like this.

And this.

I went swimming both days and because there were no shower facilities it was great to get in and wash camping grime off. It was slightly cool, but very invigorating.

I can’t say too much more about what happened on the weekend because it’s secret women’s business, but a nearby camper thought we were colleagues, or a sports team. Naaah, just a bunch of women who go camping once a year without men and without children.

My son coped just fine without me, in fact he hardly thought about me at all he told me as he hugged the life out of me.

Thwarted

February 19, 2009 by Jen

I’ve been approaching this weekend with a little bit of trepidation. I’m really looking forward to this weekend but am nervous upon its approach nonetheless.

The reason? The reason is that I’ve organised a weekend away with a bunch of girlfriends (it’s an annual event) and the last two years something has happened to shorten it or to make it a bit less enjoyable in some way.

Last year my cousin was killed at the beginning of the week and I still went away for the weekend but the funeral was on the Monday after and it wasn’t a pleasant thing to look forward to.

The year before that dad had a stroke the Monday before the planned weekend away and I only went for one night and while I’d reflect on it every now and again I had a good time inbetween those times because it had made me realise how life can strike you down at any time.

So this year, so far so good, and I’d damn well better not be jinxing things. However I got a text earlier to say that our campground was being threatened by fire and our venue has now moved. This isn’t the worst that can happen but it’s a real shame because the campground we’d planned to stay at is just perfect for all of us.

It will be different but I’m sure we’ll all have a good time. Damnit, yes we will.

Documenting the build of Lego

February 16, 2009 by Jen

Lego will either fill you with dread or make you jump with joy. It astounds me as to how a complex piece can start off as a few hundred separate pieces and end up (hopefully) as an object.

We were recently sent some new City Lego to review and I’m documenting the process. Speaking of lots of pieces, it has 481 pieces. I hope we don’t lose any!

Building Lego City Crawler Crane – part 1

legocitycrawlercrane We were recently sent the Crawler Crane Lego to try out and review. It’s a new product for the Lego City range and retails for $99 inAustralia.

Instructions were to document the build of it with photos etc. I jumped at the chance, and so did my son, because it was something pretty cool for him to do and something we could do together. It consists of 481 pieces and the instruction book is huge.

I’ve decided to do this review in two parts because it’s a fairly lengthy process and one long post might be a bit too much. Also the pieces are packaged into parts as you build different sections. In addition, where relevant, I’ve included the page number of the instruction book so if you have that you can see where we’re up to.

My experience with Lego is that the instructions are really comprehensive and pretty clear which is why the instruction books are so long.

So we started with package number 1 to build the figures, other miscellaneous bits, and the base of the crane. (He had to get his face in the photo!)

When we started I gave it half an hour before we had to stop because it was after school and before dinner. I got so carried away helping JJ out that I forgot to take pictures of him actually putting pieces together. Oops, me thinks this is as much fun for adults as for kids.

The two photos below show what we achieved in half an hour. JJ is seven years old and I doubt whether he’d be able to put this together himself. He was pretty good at finding bits and figuring things out but Lego requires exactness because if you get one step wrong it impacts on the next step. Fortunately if this happens it doesn’t take much to figure out what’s wrong and fix it.

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The image below shows the base of the crane nearly completed. JJ put the figures on it for fun.

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Lego Crane Crawler - stage 1

While I organised dinner JJ started doing the crane’s moving bits at the base. Let me just show you the picture because I obviously don’t know the proper terminology.

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Lego Crane Crawler - end of stage 1

Now we were up to opening bag number 2 to build the bit inbetween the base and the actual crane.

Lego Crane Crawler - beginning stage 2

JJ did a lot of this himself because again, dinner duties took over my time. Having said above that I thought it required parental supervision, he proved me wrong here. When I came back on the scene to help out it took me a short while to rearrange a couple of bits that he got back-to-front or upside down.

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Lego Crane Crawler - stage 2

By this time I’d lost track of how much time it had taken to get to this stage, but a guesstimate would be around one and a half hours.

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Lego Crane Crawler - stage 2

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Lego Crane Crawler - winding handle

JJ wound the string onto the bobbin and then I had to redo it because he hadn’t held one end while winding the handle. Being a sewer and having experience winding cotton onto bobbins helped me out here and JJ was very impressed when I showed him.

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Lego Crane Crawler - stage 2

This leaves us pretty much at the beginning of opening bag number 3 and putting together the crane extension bit.

So far it’s been a great activity to do as a team and JJ can’t wait to finish it. We’ll try to get it done in the next week or so. Stay tuned.

Adding power to Twitter

February 15, 2009 by Jen

I’ve been using Twitter for more than a few months now and up until recently I’d never done anything to really enhance my use of it.

I recently found out about a Firefox add-on called ‘Power Twitter‘ and I really like it.

One of the things that used to annoy me about Twitter was that the links to images and webpages were always in a tiny.url form, or in a form that was so early web days (a ‘naked URL, not a link behind words) and didn’t mean anything.

Power Twitter adds this functionality. (Click on any image below to view larger one).

It also shows images, rather than links to images which I just love because I’d rather see it all in the one application rather than have to open another application. To tell the truth, I usually didn’t click on image links and it took me ages to learn about this thing called Twitpic. Apparently it will show Flickr, Twitpic and Youtube links inline within Twitter.

There is also an inbuilt Twitter search function. It doesn’t show trending topics like search.twitter.com does but you can search for anything you want. It’s very handy.

Another handy little feature (you can see why they called it Power Twitter) is hover over people’s avatars and it shows their latest status updates.

The only drawback – and it’s only a very small drawback – is that it takes that little bit longer to load. Twitter loads as normal, then Power Twitter kicks in. It doesn’t bother me at all.

All in all I like having Power Twitter in my Twitter life.

What makes your Twitter life easier?