The Gym!

I joined a ladies gym about September last year. Haven't been for about 6 weeks. Mainly because I have had other things on my mind but 2BarRiff is not letting me forget that I haven't been. This is REALLY annoying me!!!!

Olden Day Rats!

Last night whilst cooking dinner, The Bomb (who is 3 years old), Princess (who is 6 years old) and I had an interesting conversation. They were watching a DVD called The Wild. It's about a bunch of animals from New York Zoo going to rescue a lion cub who has runaway from his father. They come across a small animal called a hyrax. This is a small furry animal which looked like a rat to me. So this is how the conversation went;

Bomb: Whats a hyrax?

Me: It's a small furry animal. Like a rat.

Princess: Rats can kill you!!!

(The Bomb at this stage is quite worried it's going to kill him.)

Me: You can get sick if they bite you.

Princess: And die!!

Me: Yes you can die but not so much nowadays. In the olden days lots of people died from the plague which was a disease the rats carried.

Princess: Will the olden days come back again?

Me: No.

Princess: You and Daddy got married in the olden days hey, you know before the Bomb and me were born!

Me: Not that far back sweetie. Daddy and I are not that old!

The Princess and the Bomb both look at me as to say 'Yeah right Mum!'

Wha?

While the children are playing (no TV!) and the Blogmistress is popping out to do the shopping, my task is to create a post off the top of my head.

Blah. I do not want to be creative. To please my beloved, however, maybe I'll try.

EXCEPT

Why would she then take the eldest with her shopping, leaving the youngest in tears of abandonment, and myself elevated to the position of chief comfort giver.

Yeah, plenty of space to craft a blog entry, when I am pestered to go on the Wiggles website.

Meh.

It's arrived!!!

Yes my Kambrook 4.2 litre slow cooker is here. My amazing Sister-in-law introduced me to her slow cooker and it was love at first sight! My Brother who is married to said Sister-in-law works for an appliance retailer and offered to get one for me. Imagine my glee when they said 'you chuck in all the ingredients in the morning, turn it on to auto and your dinner is cooked 6 to 8 hours later or overnight without you.' I had to have one. Anything that helps get me through feral hour (5.00pm to 6.00pm) is a blessing. If I don't have to be occupied with making dinner I can concentrate on separating two tired and whiny children. Great!!

The slow cooker has sparked 2BarRiffs interest in cooking as well. We attempted a whole chicken in a delightful sauce. We only had 4 hours in which to cook so 2BarRiff made the sauce and I got to skin (or abuse) the chicken. Set it on to cook about 1pm and by 5.30pm it was done. Our kitten was entranced by the smell as we all were. The chicken was served with mashed potato, beans, carrots and Yorkshire puddings. (The Yorkshire puddings are 2BarRiffs favourite and since I had extra time on my hand I made 12. All were devoured!) The chicken was delicious! The meat fell off the bones and was so moist. Just Gorgeous! Can't wait to try out other recipes.

Dear Movie Reviewer

I know it's a hard job. You go out to see all the crappy little arty films and then have to come up with a few hundred words to convince someone, anyone, perhaps even yourself, that they are worth watching.

Then, every so often, a big movie comes out and reviews are all over the newspapers, TV and Internet so I understand that perhaps it's a nice change to recycle a few comments here and there. Nothing too much, just enough to, well, enable you to take it easy for a little while in a profession that is otherwise highly demanding.

With this in mind, I have a little request. Would it be possible for one of you to write a review (it doesn't have to be big, just a small one) of Pirates of the Caribbean that does NOT mention that Johnny Depp's inspiration for his character was Keith Richards.

Guess what? I know! I know because this is the THIIRD movie in a TRILOGY and we have heard the same frickin' line for the OTHER TWO movies already.

Enough. Please.

Hugs,

2BarRiff

PS If Keith Richards really was the inspiration for Cap'n Jack Swallow, the character would be spending half the movie getting his stomach pumped or in a smack-induced coma.

Chatter, chatter, chatter.....

Over the last few weeks I have realised a disturbing personality trait, which I dislike. It has also, without me realising it, set up at pattern in my relationships which needs to be broken. It’s Chatter.

I hate silence. I feel it needs to be filled with talk or I am somehow failing the other person or not showing enough interest in them or the conversation. I find this trait also translates over into the written word. Instead of saying something in one sentence I find I do it in ten sentences. In my mind this somehow makes me seem or appear intelligent enough to carry on a conversation. Instead of talking to a person I am talking at the person.

My mind is so busy thinking of the next thing to say that I am not listening fully to what the other person has to say. Interrupting them or finishing their sentences is very irritating. Also the other person doesn’t get a word in edge wise. Master2Bar doesn’t say much in our conversations, which has been a real concern to me as I want to hear what his thoughts are as well. He is very interesting and full of great ideas. What I didn’t realise is that I am so busy filling the silence (which is when Master2Bar is thinking) that he doesn’t get a chance to say anything. This is fine for him because he enjoys me talking and it’s easy to let me go on without him having to say much at all.

Another fear is the pattern I’ve set up for the Princess. She also chatters from morning to noon to night. This is partly her age and also I am her primary role model. We have noticed that she has trouble stringing together a sequence of events, even it if it just happened. You can see her brain working but her mouth is already moving. I see a lot of myself in Princess and I fear she is going to have trouble later with her social and language skills at school. We have to train her to focus and organise her thoughts before she speaks.

So my challenge for the next few weeks is to stop chattering, give Master2Bar a chance to express himself and help Princess all I can. This is not going to be easy but my relationships with my family are more important then some inane chatter

My tummy hurts

Dealing with sick kids was never really a problem until school started. If they had a temperature, or were just whingy it was a matter of keeping them wrapped up, calm and attempting to rearrange the day accordingly (Thank goodness for Grandmothers on call!).

But now, with the onset of school, it's developed into more of a guessing game.

I've learned that my gut instinct is usually the wrong one. When I think they are faking, they usually aren't and when I think they are sick, I find out 10 minutes later that they are quite fine thankyouverymuch.

My best(worst) experience of this was a couple of years ago. I had a week off between finishing one job and starting another and so my wife and I organised for her to go away for that week with her mum and I would stay home and look after the kids.

She left at 3.00 am on Sunday morning to catch the plane to Sydney. 40 minutes later, the youngest started vomiting.

OK, so that was crap but I was able to deal with it. Got the Princess to pre-primary that morning and spent quality time cleaning up vomit most of that day and night and it ended up looking like one of those 24 hour things.

Cue the next morning and the Princess was acting sick. No way, says I - I am onto you so off to school you go. She lasted about 10 minutes in class until the teacher recommended she go home as she was looking a little off colour. Alright, no problems, we can sit around watching Barbie DVDs for a day, so back home we went. And that would have been cool except, pulling into our driveway, she managed to vomit on just about every surface available in the back of the car.

My mother had a simpler system. Unless we were projectile vomiting on an 'Exorcist' scale, bleeding buckets from an ear or had lost a limb, then we would be bundled onto our bikes and sent off to school. I cannot recall a single time I was half crook and got to stay home. Mercy, benefit of the doubt, some would say compassion, were foreign concepts.

But those were simpler times and I was a simple child. I did not have the capacity to run a Psy-Ops program like the Princess can. For instance, a conversation from this Monday morning:
Her: "Dad, you know those eggs Mum found in my hair yesterday?"

Me: "Yes, but she only found eggs and no lice"

Her: "My head is itchy again"

Me: "I'm sure it's just itchy. There's nothing there"

Her: "But I really think I should stay home"

Me: "No, you are fine - if you stay home you'll miss out playing with your friends"

Her: "OK, I can tell them about my nits. I'll tell Mrs XXXXX as well!"

That kind of scheming shows a level of sophistication that, quite frankly, scares me. She knows that the mere mention of nits means a phone call home and Mummy coming to pick her up. She was, effectively, trying to blackmail us for a day home. What cheek!

So how do you win these battles?

Testing

Testing, testing, 1,2,3

Hello world.

yada yada yada

The eagle has landed.

2BarRiff says:

What a stupid way to begin a blog.