I've done it again

This whole Not Blogging thing and the Thinking Of Something Half-Interesting But Forgetting What It Was By The Time I Sit Down To Blog thing.  It's got to stop.

I wonder what the eight or so semi-interesting things I thought of were since I last blogged?  I could sit here and attempt to remember a few of them, then try to cobble together something interesting to say about them and make you wish you'd turned the TV on instead.

But then, perhaps you should have turned the TV on instead of reading this.

Oh wait.  I've just remembered one of them.

I heard on the radio today that Victoria's rainfall "has now returned to average levels."  That hurt my brain.  The implication was that Victoria's rainfall has been unseasonably high or low - knowing Australia, it's probably been low.  Surely this means that now there is a new "average"?  And so it's a bit silly to say that rainfall has "returned" to average, when ... oh you get it.  I've got a sore throat and my nose is running.  I'm going to bed.

Yep.  Definitely should have put the TV on.

What does Qualison mean?

(A post for Taz.)

Buzz has been very excited to learn the alphabet.  His school follows Letterland, and together we've learned about Lucy Lamplight, Impy Ink, Talking Tess, Eddie Elephant, Red Robot, Annie Apple, Clever Cat and Yellow Yo-Yo Man.

Over the last few weeks, Buzz has been excitedly telling me about Qualison Queen - a letter that he hadn't done yet but was going to do in the near future.  Qualison Queen was to be the final letter of the 26, and when he'd completed Qualison Queen, that would mean he was finished the alphabet!  He has been was so excited!

But I wasn't sure what Qualison meant.  I asked him, and he assured me that the word was Qualison, even though he couldn't explain what it meant.  Today I was in the classroom, and took the opportunity to check out the Qualison Queen on the wall to see if I could work out what Qualison meant.

Oh.  I get it now.

Was that clever? Or just rude?

Jessie:  Mum, take the batteries out of your throat!

Humph.  I didn't think I told her off too much.

Always Learning

As a parent, I'm always learning.

Today, for example, I learned that if your child moans loudly when you're in the deli section, "I need to do a wee" and then proceeds to repeat this all around the shop punctuating her moaning monologue with, "I'm holding my bottom so the wee doesn't come out," and "Oh no oh no I think I just did a little bit of wee in my undies," the best course of action is NOT to keep repeating, "Oh sweetheart, you did eleventy billion wees this morning and the last one was just before we came, so I think you're probably empty."

The best course of action in that situation is either to leave the trolley and head straight for the bathrooms or to bolt directly for the nappies section, rip open a box and whack one on her straight away.

See, I'm always learning.

Lovely Links

If you check my navigation bar above, you'll see a new tab: "Links."  My Links page shows each blog I follow, along with a little description of them.  As with this sort of thing, I am sure there are wonderful bloggers I have left off, and if you feel that your blog has been left off my list, please let me know.  If you lurk here and would like me to check your blog out, let me know about that too!

It's windy today.

Hang Ten

Jessie loves going up and down the 'travelators' at shopping centres.  But why does she stand side-on with her arms out?  Because she is surfing, of course.

She jumps onto the travelator and then lies down on her tummy.  I am sure that people think she's fallen and she can't get up, but in fact she is lying down on her imaginary shortboard, paddling her arms until she gets out to where the "waves" are.

Then all of a sudden, she snaps into a side-on standing position, arms held out for balance.  She stays in that position, occasionally swaying and saying, "Woo-oo" until we are finished, then she hops off the travelator and walks off through the shopping centre with her "board" under her arm.

One-Upmanship

I'm referring to this:

I became very suspicious of Crown Princess Mary of Denmark who, after giving birth to a baby boy just like I did in 2005, gave birth to a baby girl who looked startlingly like then-named Chubbity Bubbity [now "Jessie"] a mere week after Chubbity's birth. She seemed to be stalking me. I formulated a cunning plan to test my stalking theory by scheming to next give birth to a multiple or a monkey. Copy that, Princess!  (From www.killingafly.com - 18 June 2008)

and to this.

Princess Mary pregnant with twins
Denmark's Crown Princess Mary is pregnant with twins, the palace announced on Friday.

One-upmanship is what it is.

'What a Wonderful World' always makes me chuckle

Like most people, I love a good laugh.  But do most people sometimes find themselves unable to turn the laughter off?  I do.  Something will get me going and I will laugh and laugh and laugh ... until I have a coughing fit, choke, or -let's be honest- wet myself.  Sometimes, all three.

I hope my good friend Dani is reading because if she is, she will be saying, "You've got that right.  I remember the time in third year Sign Language lectures when..."

I think it was our third year at University when we spent a term learning some basic Australian Signed English. During the term, we'd learned a lot of vocabulary and we'd also been preparing to videotape our class signing (not singing) to Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World."  I remember practicing the signs during the classes as well as afterwards when I was back in my college dorm room, usually joined by a particular sign-loving student of Urban & Regional Planning.

On our final day of classes we stood up behind our desks, preparing to be videotaped as we signed to the song, just as we'd practiced.  Perhaps my main concern at that stage was that I might forget some of the signs or get lost during the song.  But I was soon to find out that there was another notable way I could disgrace myself in the class video.

Soon after the song started, the absurdity of being one of 56 students standing up behind their desks in a classroom doing sign language to Louis Armstrong singing "What a Wonderful World" hit me as being utterly hilarious.

I smiled.  I smirked.  I grinned, and did that funny thing where you try to use your grinning muscles to pull your face back into "deadpan" but end up failing miserably.

I giggled.  I laughed.  I totally cracked up and tried to wipe away the tears without anyone noticing.

I looked at Dani beside me.  She was signing the song flawlessly, smiling quizzically but deliberately not meeting my eye.

Now instead of laughing at "Practically Nothing" I was laughing at the sheer insanity of being one student among 56 standing behind a desk signing to Louis Armstrong observing skies of blue and clouds of white while being videotaped and finding it so funny that she was laughing and couldn't control herself.

As Mr Armstrong remarked on friends shaking hands, saying How do you do?' I realised I was ruining the video.  This made me laugh harder to the point where my facial muscles were quite out of control.  I decided there was no way to salvage my dignity but to duck down under the desk and try to compose myself.  Once under the desk, I laughed like a madwoman at the situation I found myself in: one person crouched under a desk in a class of 55 serious signing people, cackling hysterically because it was so funny that I couldn't stop laughing because I'd found something (what?) funny in the first place.

From that position, I realised there was no dignified way to emerge with a tear-streaked face from below a desk and rejoin one's classmates in front of the video camera as if nothing had happened.

I was a fool.  I tried it anyway.

As I stood up and rejoined Dani, it dawned on me that materializing from below the desk was more ridiculous than everything else I'd done since Louis had reported on the trees of green and red roses too.  I laughed so hard I was practically weeping.  After briefly considering ducking straight back down under the desk, I decided that doing so may just disqualify me from graduating or something.  I was left to snigger away to myself while attempting to sign a few 'What a Wonderful Worlds' as the music died away and my classmates stared at me in disbelief.

Sorry, Dani.  I have no explanation.

But as I guess you can imagine, every time I hear Louis Armstrong singing "What a Wonderful World," I giggle a little bit.

The Prodigal ... God?

At church and also in our Connect Groups [home groups], we're studying "The Prodigal God" by Timothy Keller.  It's great stuff.  There is a book, discussion guide, and the DVD which is really thought-provoking.  The subject matter is deep, and it makes you think seriously about your relationship with God.  It asks about our motives for doing "the right things" and urges us to value most a relationship with God, rather than valuing "being good" or "doing good things."  Serious stuff.

And just to show how serious we are in our House Of Funny Children, take a journey with me as I open up the DVD to check everything's okay in there before I lend it to a friend ...

Yep.  That's about right.

Messy Fun

There are days when I feel that I have the strength to organise a paint/glue/sand/water activity for the children.  But wisdom reminds me NOT to get it happening unless I judge I have to strength to clean up afterwards as well.

Recently, I decided I had the fortitude to get this activity going and to clean up at the end.  We road-tested Woody's new birthday sand and water play table, and it was good clean (but not dry) fun.  I filled both sides of the table with warm water and I made one side bubbly as well. 

I hasten to add that it's the middle of winter here.

It's best if you set up an activity like this with the full expectation that each item of clothing will go straight in the wash when finished, and that both children will go straight from the yard to the shower.  Possibly naked.

That way, you can allow them to enjoy the experience without getting on their case every thirty seconds, nagging them to keep clean or dry.

For you know there will be laughing.

There certainly will be wet sleeves.

There will most probably be standing-up in the water.

And it will be quickly followed by lying down in the water.

Best just to get clothes in the wash and kids in the shower.  Don't ruin it with nagging.

Portal to the Centre of the Earth

I have found a portal to the centre of the earth.  It is here.  Under my rose garden.

I have always wondered why, after thoroughly watering my roses, the soil is dust the next day.  I have put it down to too-good drainage in the soil, and failed to follow that up with more frequent watering.

Now I know why the drainage is so good.  Under my garden is a portal to the earth's core.

I discovered this by accidentally leaving our tank running slowly onto one of our roses.  After it had been trickling onto the "Old Fragrance" all night, it had drained from completely full to completely empty.  Something like 13,000L went onto that rose.

You'd think the surrounding ground would have been wet, but apart from directly under the end of the hose, it was dry.

13,000L went straight down - to the centre of the earth - without touching the sides.