Christmas 2008

Our Christmas this year was, as I think it should be, about family. We started the day at 6am with 2 little high-pitched voices in the next room squealing excitedly: Cool!! Shortly afterwards they appeared in our bedroom clutching the loot from their stockings (it took a few trips, but clearly, untying the stockings from the bed was too much effort) and showed us what they'd received. Cherub was ecstatic to find the requested Mighty Mac with hooks ...

...and Climber liked his Lego, and his Slinky...

... but the Rubik's Cube that Santa delivered - which promised all the fun of the original plus 6 exciting electronic games - turned out to have No Moving Parts at all. Which, when you think about it, is really all the fun of the original and of course what Climber had been after. Still Santa is a very busy person so I don't blame him for being taken in by that spiel on the packaging. We'll just have to take the boy shopping so that we can own a plain AND a fancy cube.

After breakfast we gathered under our Christmas tree and exchanged our gifts to each other. Surprising me, Fixit gave me a globe; something I've always wanted but never bought due to feeling they were an expensive luxury. And thanks to kind handout from Mister Rudd's government, Fixit now has his very own ipod, an engraved blue nano.

It took supreme restraint on my part not to get him the purple one, I can tell you.

We drove out to Fixit's parents' house for the morning where we caught up with almost all the Fixit family. Fixit's brother, partner and kids were there, as were his sister and her husband, over from Adelaide but without their children.

Grandma Fixit has a big array of Christmas doodads, including a jack-in-the-box Santa who said ho ho ho when he popped out and made Climber jump. We had a lovely morning and it was hard to drag ourselves away but onwards we went to my uncle and aunt's house in time for a splendiferous feast and more presents.



Climber was lucky enough to be the Kris-kringle recipient of my aunt Carmel, who never having kids of her own was always the spoiling aunt to me, my siblings and all my cousins. So Climber not only received the Dangerous Book for Boys (Carmel likes to buy books being a great reader herself) but she was totally sympathetic to my tip that he was still young enough to need a toy alongside of a book - however good the book was - and thus also delighted him with a Transformer. Kris-kringle money limits are as nothing to Aunt Carmel.

We had a gorgeous day with the family, ate like royalty and left the childcare to my cousins. (Well, I was still suffering from the stupid parvovirus -still am, sad to say- so I think it was quite okay for me to sit around doing nothing more strenuous than lifting a wineglass to my lips.) We also spoke on the telephone to my Mum, my sister & her kids and my brother as well, who were enjoying their own celebration in Canberra.

We left just slightly later than the boys' bedtime, feeling like we'd had a great day. Cherub summed it up for us by telling us that Christmas is the best day ever, and noted wistfully that it is now a long time till the next one.

You'd Better Not Pout.

The kids gave me their slapped-cheek disease (or parvovirus) for Christmas, which is what the arthritic pain in my joints and the itchy feet were all about. Symptoms could go for up to 12 weeks, but at least my cheeks are not red. Yet.



Climber wrote another letter for Santa, but it wasn't a request for toys. It's just an up-front thank you to him for coming tonight. We've left it on the boys' bedroom door for him to collect personally.



We'll leave him a beer too and a drawing from Cherub.



Seriously, kids make this time so special, even when they give you the parvovirus.

Happy Christmas everyone. I hope you have a really splendid one, with love from us all here at Blog Stomper. xx

Backwards

Something has been so horribly wrong with my back over the last couple of weeks that I feel that I've turned overnight into an old person. There's been constant pain and lack of mobility, and it has been so wearing. I actually think my last chiropractic treatment turned the corner for me but now I feel like I have whiplash from that particular session; out of nowhere my third finger knuckles swelled up and my feet began to itch and a muscle ache settled over my whole spine*. I look like I'm wearing an invisible neck-brace because I have to turn my whole body to look sideways. But I think my session tonight will balance all that up and I expect to feel like myself again by Christmas. That's the plan anyway. It can't go on like this. It has been agony to actually sit at the computer for any length of time which is why I have barely visited anyone or updated here. I've had plenty going on despite my back being knackered. I've still had to get the Christmas shopping done, run the household, make the little cookies, attend the family gatherings with my Mum and put on the end-of-year tap concert/party for my small students.



Fortunately, the whiplash-giving treatment was after the concert so as you can see here I was able to turn my head. And dance and smile.



All the kids were gorgeous, there were no technical stuff-ups (thanks for asking facebookers) and I made way too much fairybread. And I was spoiled with many little presents afterwards. I have the nicest students.


I love my job.

*turns out the joint swelling and itchy feet was parvovirus, the same thing that caused the ultra-red cheeks on Cherub that you can see in the picture there. Also known as slap cheek disease. Adults who contract it can get viral rheumatoid arthritis, much worse than the kids symptoms.

The Last Day of Kindergarten

Today was the Cherub's last day at kindergarten, an event that loomed large on my emotional calendar. I love our kinder so much that actually I never want to leave it. It is a fantastic place, with great resources and wonderful staff and I count myself and my boys lucky to have somehow scraped our way in there. When Climber was three we were told by our local council that they did not have a place for him at any of the local kindergartens, and we'd already been knocked back by some out-of-area kinders, so when I heard that our one might have a vacancy I made my sister ring up from Canberra and find out if it was true because we were going through this at that time and I didn't think I'd be able to hear someone else tell me no. But luckily they said yes to us. And I'm still thankful, because both my boys had a beautiful year there.

My plan for this afternoon was to collect the Climber from his last day at school and then just hang around for a while. I wanted to let the Climber, who is also very attached to the place, have a last good play there, because he always wants to play and explore, and I have not really been able to indulge this what with having been so busy, busy, busy at this time of year. And of course I wanted to take plenty of photos and maybe even some video footage of my little Cherub whizzing around with his friends. I wanted to savour it.

But poor old Cherub caught Climber's Slapped Cheek Disease and although when I sent him off this morning he was pink-faced but happy, by lunchtime he was sad and not joining in or eating or anything, and what else could I do with a face like this but take him home early?

Santa Santa Santa

If I haven't been much of a presence in blogland recently it's because of all the frenetic Christmas activity going on round thisaway.

To wit.



The Mothers Group Party. Jenny took over the hosting because it was very rainy and we wouldn't all have fitted inside my house. She is totally ace like that. One of the Dads dressed up as Santa and caused much hilarity by persistently mispronouncing all their names. My boys showed Santa the way to the tree, his eyesight was pretty dodgy...



The Kindergarten party. Held at the same time and place as a local Carols by Candlelight and another Kinder's party, so there was a slight concern for this Santa in case he got mobbed by all the other kids. In the end Santa just chatted to the kids and our kinder teachers handed out goodies. Cherub was very adorable talking to Santa, and didn't hear Santa ask if he'd been a good girl.




All the end-of-year good-byes mean little presents for teachers. I got busy this year and made coconut ice christmas trees and macadamia star biscuits, to go with the handmade gift tags. I am SO handmade this year. Well, apart from, you know, all the stuff I'm buying with Prime Minister Rudd's handy Christmas handout. I can tell you that Fixit is getting something much more expensive this year than I originally planned. Sshh. Don't tell him.

The Motorbike and Comfortable Couch Ratio

Once upon a time, a family named Fixit moved into a house in Melbourne.

A kind friend asked them if they'd like a second-hand couch for their new house, because their Nan was going into a nursing home and didn't need hers anymore. So the Fixits were delighted and said Yes please. Unfortunately, nobody thought to check if Nan's Couch was comfortable first. Why would you, surely the whole point of a couch is that it is comfortable to sit on?

But whoever designed Nan's Couch was either very short, very stupid or a complete bastard. The couch had a monstrous hump right where a normal adult's neck would rest, which meant that when you sat on it, most of your body reclined on a backwards angle, except for your head and neck which were thrust forward by the stupid hump.

(Not such a huge issue for very short people)

The Fixit family, like many others, did not have huge disposable income so the problem of the uncomfortable couch was often discussed but never solved. They spent their evenings in the Grown-Ups' Room either perched on the lounge arms, lying vertically across it, or on the floor with their backs leaning up against it. Or just on the floor. Sometimes they (and their visitors) tried sitting on it the proper way but that never lasted long. However, the Fixits did reach an understanding that the desired ratio of comfortable couches to motorbikes owned by Mister Fixit would ideally be 1:1.

Time passed. The motorbike to comfortable couch ratio became 2:0.

Another year passed. The ratio blew out to 3:0...


...and Mister Fixit began to feel horribly guilty, but the time available to him to sort it out became negligible.

Finally after 5 years of sitting on Nan's Couch of Neck-Torture, Fixit managed to sell one bike.

More time passed.

But! a trip to IKEA was planned...

... and eventually the Fixit grown-ups found themselves in affordable furniture heaven. (Strangely though, in all his 40 years of life, Mister Fixit had never really absorbed the complete ramifications of the IKEA do-it-yourself philosophy and became more and more outraged at the lack of *service* therein. And Stompergirl, at first slightly worried that the motorbike money might go back in the wallet, was soothing towards his manly ire, but eventually couldn't stop herself from saying Dude that's the whole point of IKEA and why we can actually afford furniture from here and although the grumbling continued whilst he used his excellently good manly muscles to hoist sofas [and bookshelves and a chestofdrawers, they thought they'd go the whole hog] onto some trolleys, the transaction eventually went through)

The next day, the furniture was delivered, and Stompergirl put in a call to a churchy charity group who advertised that they took unwanted furniture away. She was a little bit unnerved by the what sort of condition is it in? questions from them, especially since her visiting nephew had got ink all over one of the seats, but she put that one at the back when the men rocked up, and the next thing she knew the World's Most Uncomfortable Couch was out of her life forever.


And on it's way to put someone else's neck into agonizing contortions but she really can't think about that now.

Ten Dot Points.

• The rostering system at Fixit's work sucks. They tell him his next week's roster, which could include evening or weekend work, three days prior. (And don't think he gets paid overtime for working crazy shifts or 91/2 hour days. Oh no.) This means I am now hosting the Mother's Group Christmas Party on my own. How anyone at that company is supposed to organise their Festive Season Social Life is beyond me.

• It is probably just as well that our Festive Season Social Life is restricted to kiddie events this year, like the Kinder Party on Thursday and the Grade 2 Party next week. Yep, that's it. Live it up, hohoho.

• Climber's Slapped Face Disease has almost left his face and he now has a lacy rash over his shoulders, arms and legs. There's no pain or discomfort, he's just a bit more decorated than normal.

• The boys are really getting into the nightly ritual of the advent calendar. We have those crappy commercial el-cheapo open the little door for a chocolate ones, but at least the Cherub got the Thomas the Tank Engine one, bought mid-November as I stood in a long queue at Toys R Us. At no point did I search out a suitably themed one for Climber, I did what I always do which is run into the local supermarket in a panic on November 30th, and grab the only option available which is always Blinky Bill. Not that I'm down on Blinky Bill but this is the 3rd year running that Climber has had that one. Luckily all he cares about is the chocolate inside.

• I say: Dinner's ready boysies and Cherub calls back: Okay we just have to destroy the bad guys first.

• The fact that I have not screamed abuse at or performed physical violence on Fixit and his very annoying hacky, phlegm-y noisy cough is testament to what a saint I am.

• I've just finished the Mary S. Lovell biography of the Mitford Girls and loved it. I suspect I will be searching out more things Mitford from now on. It was the perfect book to read hot on the heels of Brideshead Revisited. I now realise I need to own Love In A Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love; the library's versions which served in the past are now not good enough.
• I'm finding it very hard to buy presents for anyone who is not my child when I go shopping.

• The second of my happy swap cds arrived but our clapped out cd player wouldn't recognise it so I've only been able to listen to snatches of it through my computer's crappy speakers, when the kids would let me near. I'm working on it, but meantime thank you so much trixiejones and friends!

• I harvested the first broccoli from our garden:
  

Isn't it teeny-tiny? Fixit probably planted them too close together.

The Christmas Tree goes up.

You know what really says Christmas to me? Having a real tree at Christmas time. It's the smell of a pine tree in a loungeroom. Sure, they are messy, and wonky, and getting more and more expensive, but the smell! It brings me Christmas cheer.

We did some preliminary decorating when Fixit first brought the tree home. While he sawed off excess branches so we could fit it in a pot, I found some pretty fabric for the underlay and Cherub got the stuff together for a circular track round the outside.



Then we waited till after dinner and bath, and the whole family including Nell began the decorating process.



Nell is very good for tying fiddly string onto ornaments and unravelling tangled fairy lights. The boys are good at hanging baubles (up to a certain height of course), and Fixit is good for reaching up high and plugging stuff in. I float around filling gaps and directing operations.



Bertie Wooster, however, is good for nothing.



Climber took a hand in the photography, behind and in front of the camera. This is him doubling as a particularly rosy-cheeked elf. I'm pretty sure he has 5th disease (also called parvovirus or slapped face/cheek.) He's absolutely fine, and I would like to reassure everyone that no actual slapping was responsible for this face:



There was of course discussion about who should put the star on. Cherub had been eyeing it off ever since I bought it last week, and wasn't going to let any height requirements enter the agenda.



In the end we had a sort of mid-air passing ceremony so that both boys did the star. This montage shows the action, but in a strange order: basically start at the top on the right hand side and go down that column, then go the middle top and down then the left.



The Cherub was also facing health issues, he gagged on his dinner (he had this mean mother telling him to get on with it, just eat that last mouthful for goodnessakes) which caused him to bomit it back up and he was heard to repeat pathetically many times during that evening I don't like bomiting. Well, who does? And maybe just maybe the bomit wasn't all the faultmeanmother, as his guts have been acting up all weekend (causing me to thank my stars that he has finally learnt the ancient art of wiping his own bottom). Nell captured this last photo of us; rather than saying Happy Christmas! or even cheese! we are all saying Cherub farted!!, and if you look at his pleased but slightly guilty face you'll know it's true.

Making and Doing

I spent most of yesterday putting together my happy cd for Sooz's swap. It only took that long because of technical difficulties but I heaved a huge sigh of relief when I posted them this morning. Then I knocked up another one for Frogdancer in gratitude for services rendered vis a vis Wallace & Grommet. Sooz despite having a week of hell managed to get hers out so that I received my first cd yesterday, and I see that she and I have quite similar tastes and were probably knocking round the same gigs in our lives Before Children.



I ordered the WhipUp calendar, featuring two of my favourite bloggers Poppalina and Ric-Rac, and that arrived in all its beauty this week. I just need to find somewhere to hang it because the other calendar spot is right in the cooking prep area, and poor old Leunig '08 is covered in splatters. Purchase of the calendar entitled me to a new member discount at Red Bubble so I have ordered a present for Fixit from there which I can't tell you about yet, but I think it will be really nice.

Finally, the boys and I made the Christmas cards! See, I craft. Once, sometimes twice a year...



I found the idea and tutorial at this awesome site, and I am so chuffed with how beautiful the results are. They were also so simple and fun to make...



...that I decided to make gift tags as well..



Now for the shopping. Have I mentioned how much I love the internet? I've already done some online purchasing and it beats the hell out of shlepping round a Shopping Centre.

Pardon?

We were sitting at the dinner table tonight and our conversation with the Climber was getting quite animated, when out of nowhere a small doleful voice announced no-one listens to me. And a small doleful Cherub-boy leant his face into his hand, and looked glumly at his plate. There was a moment when both Fixit and I sat frozen, just looking at our small son, while we replayed the conversation in our heads and realised he had been trying to interject without success. We then added insult to his injury by bursting into surprised laughter, but we reined ourselves in and asked him to tell us what he'd said.

The thing is, we're so used to him being our happy-go-lucky baby that we forget he's growing up, and getting more complicated. So sometimes he has to remind us. He's only got 5 (five!!) more days left at kinder, and he's just spent the last few weeks attending Transition programs at school. (School!!!) See the new school bag and school hat on that big boy there?



Sorry bubsy. I will try harder to listen to you.

All I Want For Christmas

The Climber's Third Ever Letter to Santa:

Dear Santa
May I please have a rubix cube, slinky and Any 3 in 1 creator lego set please.
Love from Climber.

(previous letters to Santa from Climber here)

The Cherub's First Ever Letter to Santa

DEAR SANTA
I WOULD LIKE MIGHTY MAC FOR CHRISTMAS.
WITH HOOKS PLEASE
FROM CHERUB

(I wrote it out for him to copy. Please note that my template was written in straight lines.)

(Oh, and Santa? Just in case you don't accept letters posted on the internet, we have also sent you a hard copy via Snail Mail. We just sent it to Santa Claus, North Pole. Hope that is okay. We're hoping Australia Post isn't too stringent about the postage costs, we posted 3 letters for the sum total of 95cents, would that cover it do you think?.. )

You say potayto and I say potahto

You may have guessed, from my predilection for dance and drama and writing that I'm Humanities Girl. Not Maths / Science Girl. And definitely NOT Engineering Girl. This is not to say that I did not do well at those subjects when they formed part of my curriculum (well engineering was never there but I was pretty good at maths and science. If you don't count calculus and physics, and why would you?) It's just that, given the choice, my interests lie on the arty-farty side of the brain. Whichever one that is, I always forget. Once stuff gets a bit technical I lose a lot of focus. This is why I suspect knitting and I will never be great friends, because if I try to read one of those fancy patterns I immediately feel my brain fuzz over. It's not that I'm dumb, but let's face it, I am more given to creative flights of fancy than technical analysis.

So I don't know why Mister Fixit thinks I want to hear all about the mechanical stuff he did at work. Or TAFE (trade school). I'm starting to dread TAFE weeks to be honest (and not just because poor Fixit gets so angry about the incompetency of pretty much everything or everyone involved in the schooling process - which of course comes home to roost with us, his loving and -mostly- competent family.) No, I dread TAFE weeks because Fixit's method of processing new information is to talk it out. He has to regurgitate in his own words to understand; it's just the way he learns. This has been vaguely annoying, but when the subjects were easy (like say maths, which he already knew, or Human Factors, which is common sense) he didn't feel the need to bang on about it so much. Recently, however, they had to cover Year 11 Physics in the space of 3 weeks and he had a lot to wrap his head around. The upshot of this was that he spent a fortnight trying to teach me physics and I don't want to be mean or anything but : I DON'T WANT TO LEARN PHYSICS!

I acknowledge that it is important and would probably be very helpful in day-to-day life but I already have too many things to think about and..

.. I DON'T WANT TO LEARN PHYSICS!!
It makes my brain bleed. Also, the day I decide that Aircraft Mechanical Engineering really IS my cup of tea is the day I sign up for my own apprenticeship, meanwhile I don't really want to learn it second-hand. Call me crazy.

Do people wonder what we see in each other? A typical after-work conversation at our house goes like this:

ME: (sitting quietly doing something absorbing like reading your blogs or playing online scrabble)
FIXIT: (walks past and stops) Oh, you should have seen, at work today we had to dismantlelandinggearstripbackwingtipblahblahblah.
ME: *thinks* can he not see I am busy? Still, better be polite.. Oh right.
FIXIT: It was a prick of a thing. The guy Philip who was the leading hand [inserts a whole lot of information about Philip that I couldn't care less about]
ME: (eyes straying back to computer screen or book or newspaper) Mhm hmm...
FIXIT: Anyway, he got us to pull out the blahblahblah and there was this blahblahblah. (wanting me to understand, because to him stuff like that is Very Interesting and Important to the Anecdote:) You know how a blahblahblah goes blahblahblah?
ME: (sensing an answer is required) *thinks* No Yes.
FIXIT: Well, the blahblah goes into the blahblah like this (demonstrates)
ME: (nods intelligently)
FIXIT: Yeah, so then we had to blahblahblah ad infinitum...

... which goes on to the end of the blahblah while I keep trying to make my eyes look at him and interject appropriately. It usually winds up with me trying to connect the only way I know how, by contextualising it on an emotional level ie Was that annoying? or Gee I bet that was frustrating. Or with him realising my eyes have glazed over and saying good-temperedly I don't know why I bother talking to you! or more snarkily Would you pay more attention if I put a computer screen round my head?

I, of course, never say anything boring to him.

Reasons to be grumpy.

It's not right -is it? - to come back from a relaxing beach holiday feeling more tired than before you left. I'm convinced part of this exhaustion stems from contemplating (and doing) the mind-boggling amount of laundry generated by the trip: bedding, towels and beach towels for 8 people which I alone am stuck with because my sister had some weak-arsed excuse about not being able to bring huge amounts of manchester on the aeroplane. Hmph.

***

I was completely convinced that my thyroid medication needed topping up because my metabolism had slowed down and I was putting on weight, but I saw my GP yesterday and the thyroid is perfect. Apparently I have to increase my fibre & fluid intake and cut back on the chocolate consumption. Hmph, pfft.

***

Also, Climber is having another growth spurt. It's not that I grudge him the massive amount of Weetbix this process requires and God knows I remember how exhausted I felt when I was growing him during pregnancy, but the kid is hard work when he grows. During his last growth spurt poor Cherub could not open his mouth in front of Climber without getting his head bitten off, such was the grump level. The current spurt is less angry but outrageously emotional. To the point that if I hear him crying / yelling / disappearing into his bed my first reaction is What NOW? Don't worry, I hardly ever say that. But I think it. A lot.

A wedding in Torquay.

As we waited for the bride to arrive we watched a menacing cloud blow across the ocean towards us, and put up our umbrellas. But when it hit, the rain was light and only the cold-blooded (ie. me) shivered in the wind. Then the sun came back out and two sweet souls declared their love and their commitment to each other.

My sister, her partner, her 2 kids and the four of us shared a posh beach house in Torquay, courtesy of our Dad. Four kids (aged 3 - 7) in one room, and somehow they managed to get to sleep. Eventually. The expensive posh house also featured crazy DIY wiring that meant that the switch for the light in the top-floor front bedroom was located at the rear of the house on the ground floor; surprisingly, we didn't find it upon our slightly drunken return from the reception and had to sleep the first night with the light on. (Why don't people pay professionals? I'm still waiting for the apology from the landlord, I said I'd accept wine and chocolate.) My cousin Emma loaned us her very nice and brave boyfriend who did the babysitting for us while we partied on at the reception.

We had a delightful weekend, lots of food, family and fun. All the good pictures are on my sister's camera, she donated her services as her wedding present to the happy couple. I'm hoping to see some of them soon. I left the memory card for my camera in the computer at home and had to limit myself to the 6 shots my internal memory chip can hold. The weather was not really beach-friendly but it seemed mean not to take the kids down to the water so this is them on Sunday morning and by Sunday afternoon they were able to put on their wetsuits and actually play in the water. A bit.

Hi I'm A Mac

After years in the PC wilderness I'm back in Mac. Thank the lord. Actually, thank the Nell.

Because Nell knows The Guy.

The Guy (he's her very good friend and I liked him even before he was The Guy, his son learns tap with me) gave her his G4, which she mostly used to stay up all night playing World of Warcraft. As you do. (It's an internetty Dungeons and Dragons game as far as I can work out, I don't really want to know any more than that...) But anyway, then The Guy gave her his G5 and so now *I* have the G4. What a guy. Seriously.

It's taken less than 3 days to get to a level of functionality that I am happy with, (you know emails set up, bookmarks in web browsers etc) and that's been 3 days that included a birthday party, (Cherub's best friend's) the monthly Family Lunch with The Fixits, Mother's Group, Tap Hall spackfiller repairs, 4 classes of tap dancing and the rest of the crap I do like feeding the family. I reckon it took at least 3 weeks with my other computer and a-LOT-and-a-LOT of swearing. This is not just because Macs rock. It is also because Vista really, really, really sucks. So I'm leaving the Evil Empire Computer to the males of Chez Fixit, and I shall blog at you from the comfort of my lovely new Apple. I've nearly got the hang of the X close-box being on the other side (it's like when you drive a European car and keep putting the windscreen wipers on when you want to indicate.) If anyone knows what I should do when the computer underlines a word in red to tell me it is misspelled, I would be grateful if you could share your knowledge with me. On the PC I used to right-click and the spellcheck would give me the correct options, but my days of right-clicking are O-V-A-H.

I leave you with a picture of the Cherub from his Best Friend's Party. Shown here modelling the T-rex face paint and the novelty glasses. I call him the Harrypottersaurus Rex.



Thank you Nell and thank you Greg. Mwah.