Surprise!

A new blog design! Do you like it? All answers in the affirmative, please leave a comment. All answers in the negative, please don't.

Shannon of Eightcrazy Designs has done a great job of taking my vague ideas and turning them into reality! I wanted to keep my basic colours but jazz the whole thing up a little.

It'll keep me up a LOT LESS at night than a tiny de Elba will, anyway!

Exciting days at Killing A Fly!

Thanks to all my readers for dropping by, reading and commenting so often! I'm a Really Little Blog, and it's lovely to know that people are happy to read my ramblings! I try to visit your blogs as much as I can and leave comments for you.

This post is to say ... "Watch this space!" ... exciting days are ahead and no, it's not a small de Elba I'm talking about! (Please don't think it is THAT - the real excitement will be a big come-down!)

Absurdity

Last night, I made a spinach and feta pie for dinner. It was lovely, but you'll have to take my word for it. Sonny Ma-Jiminy certainly isn't going to say anything good about it.

He didn't even taste it. He just gave me the following excuses for why he couldn't eat it. I grabbed a pencil and paper after the first few because it was just too surreal:

1. I used to eat pie. I don't anymore.

2. I only like egg pie.
(Me: Well you're in luck because there are 4 eggs in it!)

3. It's not ... 'egger' (i.e., 'eggy' enough.)

4. It's got too much sugar in it. (This has been my recent reason for disallowing lollipops and sugary drinks.)

5. I'm too cold for pie.

6. I'm just too hot for that pie.

7. It's not tasty for me. There's no salt on it.
(I told him that the feta is very salty and the pie therefore has plenty of salt in it.)

8. I don't like salt.

9. Pie is not my favourite.

10. It stinks.

11. It makes a sort of hot thing in my mouth and it tastes like .... avocado.
(I reminded him that he loves avocado, and ate his avocado burger at kindy this week.)

12. I don't [like avocado] now.

101 Ways to Wake Up

On the 20th March 2005, I lay in bed, very aware that it was probably going to be the last good sleep I was ever going to get. Ever. My blood pressure had been causing me problems, and as I was 37 weeks pregnant, I was likely to be admitted to hospital for a few nights, observed for a bit, and then induced. Which I was.

Since 20th March 2005, I have often remembered what that Last Good Sleep was like. I've been thinking about it a fair bit recently because Sonny Ma-Jiminy has been thinking of new and different ways to wake me up in the morning. I find it so hard to wake my body up and scrape myself out of bed, and he knows it. He is learning that he must be more persuasive to get me up in the morning.

Here are some different ways to wake up, c/o Sonny Ma-Jiminy:

1. "Hey Mummy, want an apple/banana/orange?" And he places a cold piece of fruit on my warm face.

2. Sometimes it's the sound of both children chattering to themselves that wakes me up. Sonny has been told not to go into Smoochy Girl's room, but he is usually desperate to get in there so he head right on in saying, "Smoochy needs me! I'll just go in to her. I'll make her happy." He often takes fruit in for himself and Smoochy. On these days, I find banana skins, mandarin peel and apple cores in her room and through her cot during the day.

3. One morning recently, I lay in the first light and heard the sound of spoon-on-bowl. I struggled out of bed and found Sonny Ma-Jiminy sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by cereal boxes and a milk bottle. I squinted through the myopic haze and saw that he had served himself breakfast, poured the milk with a minimum of mess and had nearly finished eating it. So I went back to bed.

4. His face was three inches from my face in the early-morning light: "THE JELLY'S READY!!!" I remembered we'd made jelly yesterday, and after the fifth request to check and see if it was ready, I had said "It won't be ready until tomorrow."

5. "Mum! Can I have an ice cream?" "Mum! Can I have some chocolate?" "Mum! Can I have a lollipop?" Yeah, right. It's 6:00am.

6. An urgent whisper: "Mummy! I've got a poo!" (Sonny Ma-Jiminy often offloads into his nighttime nappy.) Recently I've been leaving him to wait for a bit while I get my body into gear, so he has been bringing out the Big Guns of Dirty Nappy Persuasion:

SMJ: "There's poo in my room."
Me (wrenched from deep sleep): "Mmph, womphle, WHA-?"
SMJ: "There's poo in my room."
Me: "Err, you mean in your nappy?"
SMJ: "Yeah. And poo in my room."
Me (in denial): "Ah, good, so just in your nappy then?"
SMJ: "There's poo in my nappy. And it tumbled out of my nappy, slopped down my leg and slopped on my carpet."

The use of the word "slopped" did it for me. I was up.

Sigh. He sleeps well and he eats well, and so once the "do I have to get up" hour rolls around, he has had enough sleep. I've come to accept it. It gives me some interesting ways to wake up.

Clarification

I hope that after yesterday's post, you understand that I did not make that cake. The picture of the cake was an image I pinched from the Internet for illustration purposes only.

I have told my family that under no circumstances will I make cakes in the shapes of ANYTHING, with the possible exception of numbers (and then, preferably the easier numbers like 1, 3, 4, 7, 8 and 0). None of this "I want a fairy castle magical toadstool cake with pixies dancing around and Rapunzel in the top window" stuff here. Nope.

When I was a teenager I tried to make a swimming pool cake with plastic toys swimming in jelly - terrible disaster - got really angry - ended up just desecrating the cake in frustration. Don't want to go there again.

Now that I am much too mature to desecrate a cake that doesn't go right, I'll just do cakes in standard shapes. My family can, however, choose their favourite flavour.

For the one and only time in his life, Sonny Ma-Jiminy's birthday was on Easter Sunday this year, so I made him a cake which approximately resembled this one:
And Smoochy Girl had her Strawberry Cake a few weeks later, you may remember: That's alright isn't it? Better than hacking into some mangled design, then calming down and wondering what to do for a cake now that the best attempt is a pile of crumbs and runny icing.

Fourteen Minutes

One day this week, I dropped Sonny Ma-Jiminy off at kindy. He went to play with a group of children and a few parents who were there. I put his lunchbox in the fridge and came back to see the parents in the group smiling to each other and saying, "Fourteen minutes? Really? That's going to be a productive fourteen minutes!"

"Oh dear, what has he been telling you?" I asked.

"He said that in fourteen minutes, he's going to be FIVE!"

Sonny is desperate to turn five. He can't wait to turn five. He is anticipating turning five. Problem is, he hasn't turned four yet. He's three ("and a third", he would add) and I'm afraid that in eight months, I will need to make a cake like this, cobbled together with my less-than-leet photoshopping skillz:

A fourth birthday cake with five candles. How sad.

Three arms would be nice

My doctor always says that when we fall pregnant for the first time, our bodies should not waste time and effort creating nausea, exhaustion, lax joints or tender gums. Instead, our bodies would be better off growing a third arm. Because we're going to need it.

I remembered this today when taking a large pram and two children down a travelator at the shops. At the beginning of the trip, both children were sitting nicely in the pram, one in front of the other. By the time we finished and were on the way home, Sonny Ma-Jiminy was sitting in there, but Smoochy Girl was threatening to climb out and fall on the ground so I carried her in my left arm.

I walked quickly down the travelator towards a man who was not walking. He was having a ride. (This behaviour could rightfully feature in my sidebar under "Things I Hate.") As we got closer to him, Sonny became worried I would smash straight into him (which I wouldn't) and shouted, "Don't crash into that man, Mummy! Look Out!"

He put his hand out to the side to catch a handrail to slow the pram down. This made the pram veer to the left, and it took a huge effort by the right half of my body to keep it going straight ahead.

Smoochy wanted to leap out of my left arm and head downwards so she could grab the handrail too. The left half of my body struggled not to drop her as she grabbed the rail and pulled herself off balance.

Then she became worried that she'd fall out of my arms and so she reached up, grabbed the neck of my top and pulled it violently downwards.

Argh! Exposure at the shops! No! All I could do was grab my neckline with my teeth and haul it upwards.

Some days, I really need that third arm.

The Best Blog You Should Be Reading

Crazy Sister, she who is funnier than me, skinnier than me, and who sight-reads music much better than me, has started a blog!

Her name? Crazy Sister.

Her family? As crazy as her.

Her blog? Graze If You Want To, But Don't Eat Dirt.

Her location? In Australia, the land of not-all-that-much blogging. In the country, the place where you can't always get your phone lines connected within a month, and you can't easily replace a dead computer mouse. She's overcome the odds to get her blog up and floating around!

Please head over and read about her castrated mouse. Leave comments, it will totally make her day! (Or freak her out!)

Beanz Meanz ...

9:00 am

I have a bad feeling about this.

Today is Bin Day. Before I put our bin out on the kerb for collection, I decided to empty one of our bean bags into it so I could wash the cover and re-fill it with new beans. This is half of my greater project to re-fill both bags which have been Weed-On & Dried and Weed-On & Dried numerous times. (Yes, you are all welcome to come and visit anytime. I know you want to.)

As I held the rapidly deflating bean bag high over my head and watched trillions of beans pouring out into the garbage bin, I realised that the volume of beans was certainly going to be greater than the available space. What to do?

Well, certainly not the sensible thing, which would have been to stop the flow of beans and finish the job next week. Oh no of course not.

I went for it. Surely, with a bit of settling of the contents, it would all fit?

Not completely, it turns out.

It hasn't settled quite enough yet and there's now nothing I can do about the horror that is about to unfold in our street. I can't get the excess out into bags without the same amount of mess that the garbage truck will soon be making.

The giant bin liner doesn't meet at the top so I can't tie it up and contain the beans. I had to balance the sides of the flimsy plastic liner on top of the fluffy mass of spilling beans and gently hold the bin lid down while I gingerly wheeled the whole thing to the kerb.

It sits there now surrounded by a light snowfall of beans, waiting for the council garbage truck to roughly grab it, hurl it high into the air, give it a brutal shake and violently dump it back down on the ground.

Something tells me that in a few hours, there will be snowdrifts you could ski on.

Incidentally, which is more embarrassing?
	Risking your neighbours seeing the snowdrift of beanbag beans all over the street outside your home?
	Risking your neighbours seeing you frantically vacuuming the road?
pollcode.com free polls

11:00 am

Quite a let-down from a blogging perspective, but a huge success from an environmental one. The mess my beanbag-beans-in-the-bin disaster made was no more than the mess I'd already made, wheeling the bin out to the kerb.

I don't know how the garbage truck managed not to spill 80% of the beans out onto the road, but it seems I have been spared the humiliation of vacuuming the street.

Part Two of Yesterday

It was early but again Smoochy Girl was bathed and dressed. Just like last night, she cuddled in close with her head on my shoulder.

We settled down in the chair beside the cot for a long cuddle. Sonny Ma-Jiminy was fed and bathed, and he was playing in the living room.

Smoochy's small body was fresh and warm from her bath and wrapped up in warm pyjamas. She sucked her wrap as she nestled in close to me with her head on my chest.

I held her close and she looked up into my eyes. Then her head sprang up as she watched Sonny burst into the room again. "I need a nappy change," he proclaimed. "Okay," I sighed. "Just go and play with your toys and I'll be with you in a little while to change it."

Smoochy put her head down on my chest again, and her sweet breaths puffed onto my neck. The she bounced up as Sonny burst in again. "Hey Mum!" "Sshhh!" "Can you come and help me build a tall, tall tower?" "Soon, just wait for me to finish here."

We cuddled some more. I sang. She hummed. Sonny reappeared and Smoochy's head turned to him again. "Hey Mum! What can I eat?" "Sweetheart, please wait for me outside. I'm just cuddling Smoochy, then I'll come and change your nighttime nappy, okay?"

Smoochy snuggled down once again and I felt the warmth of her body against me. I murmured to her and her dark eyes looked up again. Then they snapped towards the door as Sonny crashed in again. "Mum, look at me do this. Can you do this? I can stand on one foot and shake my hands! Can you stand on one foot and shake your hands?"

"Ooh, please don't jump like that Sonny!"

"Oh no."

"What?"

"I think I've got poo on my toe."

Sigh. "Goodnight Smoochy. We'll have a cuddle tomorrow night. Maybe."

And then I remembered what life's all about.

It was early, but it was already getting dark. Smoochy Girl was bathed and dressed. She cuddled in close and put her head on my shoulder.

It's too early for bedtime, I thought. But she does seem sleepy.

I could hear the sounds of Sonny Ma-Jiminy playing happily in the bath.

For once, I would not agonise over whether it was the right time to let Smoochy go to sleep. In fact, right now I wasn't even going to decide whether I'd put her down or let her play a bit longer. I was just going to enjoy the moment while it lasted.

I sank into the chair beside her cot. The room was warm and dark. She snuggled into my body like a baby possum. Her hair smelled fresh and clean. Her breaths were soft and regular, puffing gently onto my neck. I patted her back and she patted my arm in response. She sucked her wrap and her eyelids flapped low - lower - closed ... half-open again, checking that Mummy was still there.

We hummed to each other. We smiled in the darkness. We pressed our faces together, enjoying the closeness.

Pah-LOONK!

Only one thing in the world makes that pah-loonking noise, and it is not one of the bath toys. "Sonny, what made that noise?"

"A poo."

Yeah great. Smooch, I'll let you go to sleep now. The cuddle was great, but I've got things to do. Let's pick this up tomorrow night; same place, similar time. Perhaps after Sonny's bath.

The Best News You've Heard All Day

Hey everyone! I think the Crazy Blog is getting closer! Check out what I found today!

http://www.blogger.com/profile/04429615833285806779

Making Nachos

An Awkward Apostrophe in Pedantland

I submitted a photo my Mum and Dad took to http://www.apostropheabuse.com/ and you can see my submission right here.

But if you can't head on over due to work internet filters or whatever, here it is:

I think that's funny. How's your screen res? The white text reads "Have you had your eye's checked lately?" and some wit has graffitied "Yes!! Have you?!?" in response to the misplaced apostrophe in "eye's" (har har har!)

Now I myself have pretty leet grammatical & punctuation skillz, but when I see incorrect grammar and punctuation, I choose not to get all pedantic about it. Sometimes I leave errors in my blog posts because although I can see they're there, I don't really worry enough about them to go back in and edit them. Unless it's a piece of creative writing, I sometimes choose to leave errors in to keep it rough & real.

But this piece of graffiti on the sign was inspired! I just had to submit it!

I found this comment underneath the Eye Test Sign photo, and I must admit the commenter was on the money:

Is "instore" correct? I don't think it would bother me if it read "Instore optometrist," as the word "instore" is used as an adjective. But they created a prepositional phrase which should, I think, read "Optometrist In Store."

But really, I didn't care. I started wondering why it didn't bother me.

I know that there is a place called Pedantville. It is a place where each and every little spelling, grammar and punctuation error is exhibited and mocked by the entire population of Pedantland.

But I personally find the inhabitants of Nonpedantsburg are much nicer people in general, they focus their time and energy on important issues rather than tearing down the reputation of people making errors in written expression. They are also much more numerous.

Conversation with a Nonpedant flows nicely. But when you're talking to a Pedant, an interesting conversation can easily be derailed.

You: I just don't seem to think as quick as I used to.
Pedant: Quick-LY. (Awkward pause) It's an adverb.
You: Uh ... I -er- sorry, I lost my train of thought. I guess I just don't think as ... My mind isn't as ... um, oh is that the time? I really must run...

Or this:

You: None of the boys are coming today.
Pedant: None IS.
You: Wha-?
Pedant: None IS. "Each, every, either, neither and none are singular and require a singular verb." What, your school didn't teach you that?
You: (smack Pedant across the face.)

I used to be that pedant in conversations. Now I care more about the person I'm talking to than the correctness of the conversation.

Which one are you? To find out, take this quick quiz:

Question One:
Spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors on Killing A Fly have, in the past:
(a) completely passed me by
(b) jumped out at me, but I didn't feel the need to do anything about them
(c) bothered me for days, even weeks, and it's been hard not to crucify Givinya in the Comments.

Question Two:
The spelling of the word "graffitied" or the use of "grammar" vs. "grammatical" above:
(a) could be right, could be wrong. I couldn't care less.
(b) has had me wondering since I read those paragraphs.
(c) had raised my blood pressure and heart rate. I googled them, looked at Dictionary.com and then phoned three geeky friends to discuss them.

Question Three:
Givinya's conversational writing style:
(a) is great - it makes me feel like I'm in a comfy armchair across from her listening to her rambling on
(b) is probably acceptable, given that it's 2008 and yes *sigh* times change.
(c) completely does my head in. I have a blood splatter on my wall from where I've hit my forehead due to her maddening propensity to blatantly split infinitives and choose awkward words to end sentences with. ARGHH! Now I'm doing it myself!

What's your score?

Mostly "a"s - You're from Nonpedantsburg, and you're always welcome at Killing A Fly. Your spelling, grammar and punctuation isn't that crash-hot, so I think we'll get along just fine!

Mostly "b"s - Another Nonpedant. You and I both pick up those errors, my friend. But please put a lid on it: I kept them there for a reason. Maybe I needed the post to read like that, maybe I wanted to preserve a conversational tone and decided to start that sentence with "And" or maybe I just don't care. If I lose my internet connection more than once while I'm trying to get back into the post to edit it, I'll just leave the error there. Meh.

Mostly "c"s - Look, I don't think you or I will get along all that well. You may consider giving up your daily dose of Killing A Fly and decide to go and read a dictionary instead. I'm not interested in being dragged into the arena of your grammatical prowess in order to have mine savaged to death. (Not that anyone has actually done this before, I'm just saying.)

A friend of mine used to say to pedants, "You're so Pedontic!"

The pedant would be unable to restrain themselves from correcting, "Pedantic!"

...to which my friend would say, "Ah! Gotcha."

Too clever.

Part 2: It's my SITS Day and I'll cry if I want to...

And I Still Don't Want To!

I've enjoyed reading your comments and I feel honoured that so many people visited from all over the world to read some of the crazy things over here at Killing A Fly.

I was particularly amused that you thought Australia was such an unusual and exotic place to visit. Australia IS great place to live, but there are 21 million of us over here and each day it's pretty much business as usual. We all ride kangaroos to the shops, get bitten by sharks and suffer from Vegemite-related health issues on a daily basis, just as you've heard.

Part of the complete joy of my SITS day was finally being the first commenter of the (at last count) 144 SITStas. I failed the last time I tried. This time my shameful confession is that I pre-wrote my comment, copied it ... hovered ... refreshed-refreshed-refreshed, aaand ... CONTROL-V-Paste-Shortcut SUCCESS!!

How very sad.

Less than 55 seconds later Robin the second commenter posted, so I must have only scraped in. That's it, I’m not stalking SITS comments anymore. I've had my time in the sun – it's somebody else's turn.

When I re-read my story about winning the eBay auction for the Bingo Set, I wondered why I thought it was interesting enough to feature. But I was encouraged to read that my SITS Sistas thought there was at least some merit in it. Reading the comments has been awesome! (Yes, those shrink-wrapped bingo balls do look sealed packs of birth control pills.)

Some of you were amazed I could get a rhyme for all those numbers – actually these are real "Bingo calls" and I found them here when I was doing some background reading for this post.

I loved Heather's confession:

I just read your ENTIRE bingo-related post waiting for the bit when the Two Fat Ladies came into the picture. Seriously. When you got to the part about camp, I was all "aha, so they're doing a Bad British Food theme night and will go riding in an old motorcycle with a sidecar..."

Which sounds like top-notch comedy to me, Heather, and I love it! Camp could certainly do with some Jennifer and Clarissa stirring cigarette ash into the artichokes!

The post about the Parasite Pyjamas seemed to spread a mass case of Psychological Bed Bugs all across the globe. Sorry I made you all scratch. Yes, bed bugs are actually

• real
• horrible
• easy to bring home from dorm, camp, backpacker or hotel accommodation
• terribly hard to get rid of once they’re established.

But don’t let that make you scratch all day!

Oh who am I kidding, as we started winning the war against them, I too had a major problem with psychological bed bugs. It was difficult to determine if we had made progress killing every last one because I felt my report of "I think I’ve been bitten, I’m itchy all over" became very unreliable as my mind conjured bugs and bites that didn't exist. I have read that this pest, above all others, is the one that will have a homeowner in tears when the Pest Control Officer arrives to treat the dwelling. In all seriousness, this is too terribly true. The violation of your body (they squirt an anaesthetic and and anti-coagulant into you, then suck your blood leaving you itchy and spotty) and the apparent hopelessness of so many attempts to control them can make you so depressed and apathetic.

But you liked the post and enjoyed my inexpertly-photoshopped creations, and for that, I thank you.

Many of you had suggestions for other items in the Parasite Wear range, including various items of clothing emblazoned with ringworm, tapeworm, duck itch, flesh-eating bacteria, mosquitoes, stomach viruses, the 'flu, streptococcus, scabies, toe jam, belly button boogers, chicken pox and Lyme disease.

I loved the suggestion for "Spider Egg Sac" earrings, with tiny baby spiders hatching and crawling down the side. The idea for a pyjama set with the words "I'm infectious, stay away!" was an interesting (but perhaps more effective?) twist on "Honey, I have a headache tonight." And yes you’re right, the intestinal worms could have been moved down a bit lower on the pyjama top so they could be more anatomically correct.

Thanks for making my SITS day so exciting and memorable! It's someone else's turn now...

Part 1: It's my SITS Day and I'll cry if I want to...

But I don't want to!

Whee! I am having such fun meeting so many new people, and they’re all primed to comment! When my Mr McGee poem was featured on Good Mom / Bad Mom, they all came to read but not to comment, which ended up in me pathetically emailing my brother to PLEASE send a comment so I could FOR ONCE end up in double figures, which request he honoured so ADMIRABLY that it deserved a post all of its own.

The comments keep rolling in and I've loving it! I read every single one, but would find it so hard to get to each of your blogs to give you some Comment Love back, so here I'll just reply to a few of the comments I've received so far.

Many of you went to my main page - thankyou! I wish I had something more interesting than The Shocking Case of The Cheese Sandwich for you to read, but today, that's whatcha get.

A few of you offered exclamations that I loved: Holy Hannah and Holy Buckets were great. When you try to keep yourself from saying anything too strong and shocking, you need some alternatives. Recently I read a blog where the writer took Santa's name in vain - I laughed out loud!

Many of you were kind enough to sympathise with me in my dilemma of sending "proper" food to kindy with Sonny Ma-Jiminy. And I was relieved to find that none of the kindy employees had stumbled across my blog and left hate mail.

A few of you remembered that song from the 80's with "vegemite sandwich" in it... it was "Land Down Under" by Men at Work back in 1983.

ugagirl30 said "We cannot send pre-packaged foods in their package. We must remove them and place them in ziploc bags so that the other children don't know what it is" and this reminded me that we too have the No Food Packaging rule at kindy. This is to reduce waste, because among everything else, this kindy teacher is quite environmentally conscious. I guess I just forgot that rule among the other four. So -sigh- I guess I acutally have five rules to dance around. And tonight is lunchbox-packing night.

EmmaP's comment has me wondering now what rules the kindy teacher might impose on her husband at home. The mind boggles.

WheresMyAngels said that an Australian friend sent her some Vegemite. Wow. I think that it's an acquired taste and I wouldn't even by TRYING it out on someone who hasn't had Vegemite from childhood. Waste of good Vegemite.


I was so glad to see most of you rolled on the floor laughing at my stupid injuries! I serve as a warning to others. Although I read that a startlingly high number of you have given yourselves similar nipple injuries on similar nipple-injuring scissors, in which you can also pinck your thigh or tummy fat. As one astute commenter pointed out that at least it was the pinch end, not the snip end. Too true.


I read with horror Mary Anna's story of catching her nipple in a 'Pampered Chef' measuring cup thing. I don't know these, but will Google them later. She said that you turn it one way to measure liquids and then pull something out to measure solids. Long Story Short: wearing a nightgown, reassembling measuring cup, got 'pulled into it', sustained ghastly nipple cut that bled requiring a bandaid - oh my word.


One of my best friends commented that she didn’t want to admit to being friends with the person who pinched her nipple with the chicken scissors. So ... Thanks.


Thankyou for sharing your Stupid Injuries with me. It makes me feel a little better to see I'm not the only one doing things like this:

• Lifting milk out of refrigerator too quickly and scarred hand
• Bruising thigh on the arm of the sofa
• Sustaining concussion from a hot air popper falling onto head
• Jamming scissors into hand requiring stitches
• Embedding a Thomas the Tank Engine into foot
• Breathing a burning piece of lavender so it lodged up nostril (too crazy for anyone but my Crazy Sister)
• Dislocating thumb while readjusting underwire in bra
• Bruising the bottom of foot while climbing into a boat in front of fiance
• Slicing a finger open while cutting a frozen bagel
• Breaking a toe by catching it on the kitchen island
• Ripping off a finger tip riding on a water department trolley that was clearly marked "No tresspassing"
• Dropping an earring back down into the ear canal
• Spraining ankles while playing mock Horse Shows when young
• Dropping a pound of frozen hamburger meat onto toe, breaking toe
• Walking into door jams a lot
• Spraining an ankle while chasing a shoe
• Whacking self in the face opening the freezer door.

I was relieved to hear that all around the world, people are sustaining Handtowel Injuries similar to mine, along with:

• Veggie-chopping injuries
• Scrapbooking finger-tip-snipping injuries
• Walking down the hall injuries
• Dishwasher injuries
• Laundry injuries
• and a painful-sounding Honda Civic knee injury that I hope heals soon.

But my favourite comment was trashalou's. I never expected someone to say, "Oh nipple scissors? We've all been there......"

I'll have a look through the comments on my other two featured posts soon, and give you a roundup of those!

The Shocking Case of the Cheese Sandwich

Sonny Ma-Jiminy is loving kindy, even though it's been a challenge for me to get everything right.

The Cheese Sandwich Incident reminded me how tricky it is to be a kindy mum.

As you might know, C&K Kindergartens everywhere have a healthy eating policy. It's great to see kids are encouraged to bring a healthy lunch, but where most kindies are a little flexible when kids bring something unhealthy, Sonny Ma-Jiminy's kindy strictly disallows even muesli bars. Okay. No thin-end-of-the-wedge stuff, I get that. Muesli bars could lead to banana muffins, and then we're all doomed.

So here are our first two principles that I need to keep in mind while packing Sonny's lunchbox:

1. C&K Kindergartens' Healthy Eating Guidelines
2. This particular facility's No-Tolerance Policy on the above

Hard enough. But this brings me to the third directive which makes the lunchbox-packing just that little bit trickier:

3. Sonny Ma-Jiminy's Law of Lunchbox Variety.

"Sonny, would you like a vegemite sandwich in your lunchbox today?" *

"No, I had one yesterday."

"What about a banana and some yoghurt?"

"I already had that!"

"Apple and sultanas?"

"Umm, just an ice-cream thanks."

Grr.

* (Apologies to all the Americans vomiting into their mouths over this.)

The above three rules, along with the as-yet unmentioned fourth policy, conspired against Lunckbox-Packing Mummy one day recently. I had forgotten Sonny's fruit for morning tea. Panic! What should I pull out of his lunchbox to give him for morning tea? I decided on a small salad of avocado, tomato and cheese. I knew it wasn't technically on the list of allowable morning tea foods, but I had nothing else!

At the end of the day, the teacher came over to me and said it had been a great idea! With the slightly "more substantial" morning tea, he was able to manage himself better and be happy until rest time without melting down. Relief.

We decided that I would continue sending "something more substantial" for morning tea. And I thought we were on the same page.

The next day I decided that the "more substantial food" of choice should be a cheese sandwich. The teacher had said the cheese in the salad the previous day had been a good option, so I felt safe with a cheese sandwich.

But I was about to learn that there is a fourth rule that comes into play when packing my child's lunckbox.

4. The Eating-Food-at-the-Right-Time-of-the-Day Policy

You see, the cheese sandwich was the wrong thing to send as a "more substantial alternative" because cheese sandwiches are strictly a lunch food, not a morning tea food. "Shocked" was the word the kindy teacher used to describe her reaction to my mistake of sending a cheese sandwich.

Oh dear.

I read the kindy prospectus again and saw that cheese and crackers is an appropriate morning tea food, but not a cheese sandwich. It should be saved for lunch time.

On discussing this with the teacher, I learned that "something more substantial" means "avocado, tomato & cheese salad" only, not my offbeat cheese sandwich interpretation.

The conversation then derailed. She gave reasons why the healthy eating policy is a good idea and why chips, lollies and cakes for morning tea are not allowed. I was too bamboozled to remind her that I was not in fact sending chips, lollies and cakes but a cheese sandwich - a permitted food - just sending it for the wrong meal.

Help me. There are six months until the end of the year.

I have never heard that sentence before

Today I went to a linen party and heard a sentence I've never heard before.

"This is our 'Hudson' and it comes in a taupe."

I had to restrain myself from laughing because it struck me that you would NEVER hear this sentence anywhere else.

Not in a boardroom.

Not in a speech therapy session.

Not in a playgound.

Not in a conversation at a bus stop.

It cracks me up. Anytime I need a smile, I'll just think to myself, "This is our Hudson and it comes in a taupe."

But anytime I want to laugh out loud, I think of the word "Dogsicles."

More Crazy Google Searches

Well Well Well. You guys are some of the unluckiest Googlers out there. The weird hits keep coming thanks to the world's favourite search engine, and I can only assume that disappointment reigns when you land on my blog, hoping instead for serious and helpful information.

I feel sad for you. I feel so sad that I have decided, as a community service, to offer you information on the topic you Googled, hoping that it will help you more than the blog posts you arrived at here at Killing A Fly. And so here we go.

what's good and what's bad about ukulele - According to a few of my friends, the bad aspect of the ukulele is its music and the good aspect is its perfect size, shape and balance for killing flies. I had reported in this post that nobody I knew of had actually killed a fly with a ukulele. But Crazy Sister informed me recently that she had, in fact, grabbed the nearest object to swat with when she saw a fly in her music room one day, and after the vile insect was dispatched, she saw that the object was in truth her ukulele. It could only happen to her.

french onion dip style guide - Are you kidding me? Who Googles this sort of thing? There is a STYLE GUIDE for French Onion Dip? Curiouser and curiouser. If you need tips on how to eat French Onion Dip with STYLE, I would say load up a cracker, nibble it delicately while pretending your conversation partner is terribly interesting and doesn't have spinach dip caught in their teeth, and whatever you do, wear some costume bling. You can't get more French-Oniony Style than that.

weet growing - I am not agricultural so you're on your own with that one. My only tip is that if you spell "wheat" the traditional way, you probably won't end up at a blog post about a one-year-old who has a picture of an Australian Cricketer on the wall beside her highchair.

ukulele pin up - Whatever gives you a buzz. Yet another poor Googler ends up at Smoochy Girl and her Australian cricketer.

what is killing the strawberries? - if you read the post you landed in, you will have learned that it was a car trip with Mr de Elba driving.

this is my life gasolin ukulele - one of the more disturbing Google searches. It sounds like you were reviewing your life or it was flashing before your eyes. Please don't put the gasoline in the ukulele. Put the ukulele down. Go and get some help. Or read my blog - it will zonk you out totally.

chicken money - Serious?! I thought I was the only person who had ever Googled those two words together. I was totally shocked to see that my search actually yielded results!

kindy sheets - I am very sorry that you too are in a position where you're Googling "kindy sheets." I feel your pain. I got a friend to sew mine.

paul hester - I knew it! I knew that as soon as I posted my blog about Why I Didn't Know Paul Hester Died that people from his estate would be onto me, demanding I stop using his memory for my own superficial purposes!

bad mum blog - Tell me you're kidding. Please. But first tell me if you wanted to find a bad blog about being a Mum or a blog about a bad Mum. Either way, I'm not happy!

sonny that will never fly - funny thing - Mr de Elba has been away on a camp for a week (bed bugs triumphantly ABSENT from campsite and returning bedding!) and Sonny Ma-Jiminy has demanded Mr de Elba "fly him around" by holding Sonny horizontally and zooming him around the house. That was an hour ago. Now - both are fast asleep.

giveaway, awesome giveaway, ukulele giveaway, giveaway tree - Bet you're glad you came to my site! iPods dropping off the tree into the sandpit that doesn't yet exist! Whoo! Oh no, wait - it's just seed pods.

bedbug bites when does it happen and where - When? When you're in bed. And where? the next Google search will tell you specifically where ...

belly button bed bug bite - Ew. Not good.

great fly killing games - You what?!? Great fly-killing games? In the spirit of this post, I'd love to offer you the advice you sadly missed out on, but I cannot think of one "game" that could possibly involve killing flies. Would my loyal reading public be so kind as to leave a suggestion or two in the comments?

ladies ukulele dress - Doesn't exist. There's no such thing. Couldn't be.

toothbrushing mirror cling - Google search terms getting weirder.

visitor paths hits wrong - And weirder.

bubbity - I am finding it hard to imagine how to respond to any of them.

kill a fly with a ukulele - At least now I know why these Google Searches ended up at my blog!

a fly on a grle s nose - Google didn't know what to do with them either! And decided Killing A Fly was as good as any other place to send them!

Oh yes, she did!

Crazy Sister had this on the door when I arrived. She insisted on posing for a photo with a shirt and facial expression to match her pseudonym "Crazy Sister." These fit the bill, I think.

There was much playing with cousins, and therefore much mess. Toys, food, sand and mud. Crazy Sister and I spent a lot of time smiling at each other, shrugging and cleaning up mess.

Smoochy Girl loved the horse-riding.

A rare moment when both the girls were clean. We didn't dress them to match. It was a coincidence, and gave us a bit of a fright to see we'd done it.

We spent some time at the "water park" which is for boating, not waterslides, in case you were wondering about the mud and lack of -er- waterslides ...

... which was all good clean twinkly early-morning fun ...

... until it all ended, inevitably, in ...

MESS.

"A Little Trip Away..."

Do you remember when I made a decision not to allow my laundry basket to keep stopping me going to visit my family or friends?

Tomorrow I am packing my two children and a basket of dirty laundry into the car and heading off to see Aunty Crazy Sister and her family (which includes Mr Crazy, Kindy Kid Cousin and Cucky Dargles.) We'll stay two nights and head back on Wednesday.

As I blogged a few days ago, during last week's Kids Holiday Program my blood pressure bothered me a little. I went to the doctor and in addition to some medication that works better for me, she gave me advice to 'Just go! See your sister! Have a wonderful time and get away from all those horrible children!!'

Now I must stress that most of the kids at the program were great, and the behaviour was excellent overall. But of course by the last day I was ready to bang some of their heads together and my closest friends know that a couple of the kids were sending me a little nutsoid.

Now taking two kids on a long car trip to go and wreak havoc with two other kids of the same age isn't exactly the same as having a wonderful time and getting away from all those horrible children, but it's close enough. So off we go.

Crazy Sister has had an idea. She decided it would be good to give her new house a name. (You know how some people name their house something like 'Briarbrae' or 'Dunromin' or sometimes a combination of the names of the occupants?) Well, CS thought she could call her house "Rehab" and do up a pretty little sign for the front door.

That way, she reasoned, I could always tell people that the stress had got to me so badly that my doctor had ordered that I 'spend some time in rehab.' Good idea.

Another great benefit of calling her house 'Rehab' is when Kindy Kid Cousin or Cucky-Dargles have a meltdown at the shops, CS can always growl at them, 'Right - it's straight to REHAB for you!' And she drives them home.

She's a thinker. It'll be a good trip.

How do I loathe playdough? Let me count the ways.

Ever since I saw my younger siblings popping small morsels of colourful, salty playdough into their mouths, I have hated the stuff. HATED it. I cannot touch it, look at it, smell it or even THINK about it without gagging, retching and having to quickly walk away, breathing deeply and saying "Think of the beach, think of the beach, think of the beach."

So let me say it early: I don't want to hear you say, "Have you got a really good playdough recipe, because I've found a great one and you really should try it ..." because seriously, you lost me at "playdo..."

When I was very pregnant with Smoochy Girl, I was doing some speech therapy work with a small preschooler. I'd had a return of the nausea I felt earlier in my pregnancy, so I was horrified to find small bits of dried playdough stuck onto the table we were working on.

As we worked, I looked at the dried playdough, and then I looked away. But I knew the stuff was there so my eyes found it again. Then I looked away again.

I tried to cover it with the worksheets and activities. I tried to shuffle away from it, hoping the boy would follow me. And all the time I was trying to suppress gulps and heaves as the playdough held me in its power.

Imagine my horror when he also saw the playdough, and picked it off! He touched it! And now imagine my total and utter disgust to see him pop it in his mouth as compulsively as my own siblings did 20 years ago and chow it down like it was M&Ms.

Man I hate the stuff.

And of course, this week I have been helping to lead a Kids Holiday Program at our church. I managed to avoid the playdough in the nursery where Sonny Ma-Jiminy and Smoochy Girl were being looked after by cleaning up other messes in other parts of the nursery.

But I wasn't able to make myself scarce when I was asked to supervise a table of older kids playing with the stuff while they waited for their turn to make the craft activity for the day. Sigh. I sat with my eyes fixed out the window, breathing steadily and mentally repeating, "Think of the beach, think of the beach, think of the beach."

They played. I knew the stuff was there, but kept looking out the window or meeting their eyes when they asked me a question. Don't look down, whatever you do, don't look down. There's playdough down there.

And then it started.

"I've made a nest with eggs and baby birds in it," said a boy. "Great job," I murmured.

"Look at my pizza," said three girls, spinning thin discs of aqua-coloured playdough on their hands. "Mmm, I like pizza," I replied truthfully.

"We're making a water park," said two other girls, rolling small balls of dough between their fingers. "I'd love to see how it turns out, "I said, less-than-truthfully.

"I made a TACO!" said a boy, thrusting a smelly aqua mass into my face. And I jumped up, walked around the table repeating, "Think of the beach, think of the beach, think of the beach."

"What's wrong?" they chimed.

"Nothing," I replied. "It's just that I don't like - I mean I really hate playdough. Makes me sick."

They looked at me quizzically. "Why?" asked one interested boy.

"I guess it's from way back when I was a little girl, and my little sister and brother used to - you know - (gulp) eat it. (Heave)."

"I like to eat it," said a boy, and either pretended to eat some playdough, or actually did eat some.

And that's where my story ends, because I don't remember much more. Repression is my Playdough Coping Strategy.

Awesome Giveaway in our Sandpit

Sonny Ma-Jiminy's old sandpit was retired because the lid was left off. Often. And the sandpit was under a tree. Yurk.

SMJ: We should get a new sandpit.

Me: Yes, we should. But we would need to have a new rule: The Sandpit Lid Must Always Be Left On When You're Not Playing In It.

SMJ: Yeah. Cos otherwise, iPods would drop into it. Off the tree.

Me: iPods? Oh, seed pods?

SMJ: Yeah. Seed pods.

Stuntman

Here's Tripod doing a song called "Stuntman." Oh, poor Yon.

Umbilical Brothers

How cool are these guys?

Gonna Make You Happy Tonight

This is a song for any woman who has found that the x-box tends to have a certain priority. Be amazed as Scod maintains his falsetto for the whole four-minute song. Written and performed by Tripod: Scod (Scott Edgar), Yon (Simon Hall) and Gatesy (Steven Gates).