Or You Could Just Hide In the Cupboard

Or You Could Just Hide In the Cupboard

Quote of the Day/Week/Month/Year or Until I Change It!

‘Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.’


Mohandas Gandhi

Crossroads

Pondering the choices we make at our crossroads is like revision in the school of life.

Regretting the mistakes or taking for granted the successes, means we have learnt nought.

An attentive student will gain wisdom from the mistakes and joy from the successes.

Cartillyer – 2008

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Miss Flora's First Birthday is Just Around the Corner!

We celebrate Miss Flora’s first birthday in a couple of weeks. Due to her food intolerances, we’ve had to find a cake that is free from dairy, wheat and cocoa. Basco do a nice tea cake, cake mix, which still contains a small amount of dairy, but we’re hoping there’s not enough to upset Miss Flora’s belly on her big day. We’ll put a little bit of icing on it so she can make a right mess when she tries to wear it. A first birthday isn’t a first birthday without cake on your face, head, arms, fingers, table, Mummy, and Daddy. I’ll let you know how we go.

No Birthday Shall Pass Without Cake!


Every year Mr T insists that he doesn’t need a cake on his birthday and every year I buy one, but in 2008 we were pretty busy on his birthday, so when he insisted he didn’t want one, I foolishly relented. As soon as I said, ‘Okay, we won’t get one,’ it felt wrong. I believe a birthday should be celebrated with cake and presents, the more, the merrier (cake, presents and people), but I couldn’t shake the feeling that we’d ruined Mr T’s birthday by not including a cake in the celebrations.

It wasn’t long until that feeling became fact. Boywonder and Tomboy were tucked in their beds for their afternoon nap while Mr T and I settled on the couch to enjoy a cuppa and one of the videos Mr T had received as a birthday present. Boywonder was the first to wake and at first we didn’t think anything of the fact he had woken much earlier than he usually did. He walked into the lounge room with his cheeks flushed and his eyes looking very glassy. As soon as I felt his forehead I knew his temperature was well above normal. I left him standing where I’d felt his forehead while I retrieved the thermometer from the kitchen. As I re-entered the lounge room Boywonder placed his hand over his mouth, his eyes bulged and his cheeks blew up like a blowfish. The next few seconds played out in slow motion; I knew what was going to happen next, but also knew there was no way I could stop it happening. All of my brainpower was focused on trying to prevent what was about to unfold, so my mouth was unable to communicate to Mr T or Tomboy. I looked back through the doorway to the kitchen for a suitable container, but there were none. I looked at where Boywonder stood in the middle of the lounge room carpet. As I started to cross the few steps that felt like ten metres, vomit began pouring out of Tomboy’s mouth and onto the carpet.

This stirred Mr T into action, but it seemed all of his brainpower was focused on communication, because apart from sitting up in shock, he was unable to move from the couch as his mouth started uttering incoherently, ‘What the …? Oh, man! What …? How …? Aargh …’

I grabbed Boywonder’s arm and coaxed him to the kitchen as fast as I could, but we still seemed to be stuck in slow motion. By the time I had him standing on the kitchen tiles, he’d finished coating the lounge room carpet in something that looked like chicken and vegetable soup, but smelt like sour milk mixed with rotten oranges.

Now that the emergency was over, we were moving at normal speed and the parts of our bodies that were left without power were once again functioning.
‘This is what happens when you don’t have cake on your birthday,’ I told Mr T as he surveyed the carpet in disgust. I knew from past experience that I’d be the one cleaning it up. If Mr T attempted to clean it, I’d end up having to clean up two lots of vomit.

As fast as Boywonder’s tummy bug appeared, it disappeared. The vomitous explosion was just what Boywonder needed to reduce his temperature and make him feel good again. Despite the afternoon’s disastrous turn Mr T was still in the ‘birthday’ mood that evening and enjoyed crawling about on the floor (upstairs away from the earlier disaster scene), acting the fool with Boywonder and Tomboy.

While they played I ran the bath. The sound of the water thundering from the tap into the bath makes it difficult for me to hear anything more than 30 cm from my ears, so when I heard a loud thud in the hallway, instinct insisted I investigate. I found Mr T lying on the floor, holding his head in his hands.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

Apart from a quiet groan, he was silent.

I moved closer, bent over him and asked again. I was starting to worry until he finally answered me.

‘I spun around on my knees and smacked my head on the stair railing. I think I nearly knocked myself out,’ he explained, still holding his head in his hands.

After a few more moments of silent cursing (the children were also watching and waiting) Mr T got to his feet.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘We should have bought a birthday cake,’ I replied with raised eyebrows and an ‘I told you so’ smile on my lips. 

As usual, I forgot to check the weather for that night and the next day, so Mr T volunteered to go downstairs and find out. Halfway down the stairs Mr T slipped and landed very hard on his behind.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked as I looked down on him, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

‘We should’ve bought a birthday cake,’ was his sad reply.

So from that day forth a new birthday law was passed in our house and it is ‘no birthday shall pass without having cake’. The good thing is that now we sometimes buy two cakes; you can never be too cautious.

Mr T has come a long way in the last two years. He not only agrees to have a birthday cake, but participates in choosing which one he wants. And this year he even went as far as complaining when the rest of us ate the leftover cake the following day while he was at work. Did he really think he’d be able to have his cake and eat it too?

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Excuse me....



Our family enjoys toilet humour; with four adults and three children under the one roof, we don’t have much choice. We could: a) pretend no one ever makes rude noises or disgusting smells (hard to do after a curry dinner), b) continually run to the toilet to hide our offensive expulsions, or c) make fun of it.

We’ve been reinforcing manners lately to ensure Boywonder and Tomboy remember to say excuse me after burping and farting, especially since they both attend kindergarten. They’re doing very well with it, despite the fact the adults in the house like to sit, smile quietly, and wait for the first victim to notice the skunk like odour before excusing his or herself.

I was suffering with quite a rumbly belly one morning and thought I could get away with a sneaky smell or two. Boywonder proved me wrong.

‘Who farted?’ he asked loudly.

‘It was me, sorry,’ I replied with a smirk on my face.

‘That stinks! Say excuse me, Mum!’ he demanded.

‘Excuse me,’ I replied sheepishly.

I thought that was the end of our exchange and that I was forgiven my indiscretion.

‘Oh! I can still smell it!’ whined Boywonder.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘Say excuse me again, I can still smell it!’

I don’t know how, but Boywonder believed that saying ‘excuse me’ would make the bad smell magically disappear. I would've spent more time explaining things, but by the time I’d finished laughing at his confusion over the power of ‘excuse me’, the smell had dispersed and he had run off to play. 

I’m sure it won’t be long until Mr T teaches him the ‘pull my finger’ joke.