In case it's escaped you so far...

Here's the litany we'll all share (slightly American slant but truths are universal in so many ways...)
Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anSpBUxsgAU

(because I haven't worked out how to embed the videos in here as yet...)

Spare Parts for Babylove Car Seats

On the off chance that you might be able to get spare parts for Babylove seats I emailed them the other day and told them what the problem was with my car seat and asked if they sold spare parts. The good news is that they do. All I had to do was call their customer service line (1300 303 330) and give them the part number, which they looked up on their computer there and then confirmed that they had them in stock and took my credit card details. Two days later I had my replacement buckle for the second hand car seat we have. Since the car seat was made in 1998, I was pretty impressed. Their email is custserv@britax.com.au.

who needs the fort at festival...

... when you can make one of these??




out of cardboard boxes. I found it at this site.
bring on the children's parties, I say :-)

check out their gallery to see what other people have done, it's pretty cool. I cross-posted at ForBattle! because I couldn't resist whacking up a piccie of the armour.


carry on.

Pocoyo!

I've Torby has caught the Pocoyo bug. I blame Meg & Jamie.
It's too too cute and we now own one of the dvd's and a few of the books, one of which Torby lurves (it came to the supermarket with us.)

Just thought I should share :)

Farmstay...

Hi All

Keep this website in your favourites for a while - http://www.countryroads.com.au/. We have just spent a divine 4 days on the farm and I would really recommend it as a holiday option once your kids are about 5ish. Patting the animals, feeding the chooks, goats, alpacas, checking for eggs, pony rides, quad bike rides, tyre swing, cuddling the goats, lambs, rabbits, campfires, solar heated pool, decent size cabins... the list goes on.

We will be heading back up there again!
cheers

Gym membership, anybody?

Seeing as we're sodding off, does anyone want a Fernwood gym membership? I'll be using it until we go, but it would be great if I could transfer it over to someone.

Let me know if you're interested yet. We have no rock-solid timeframe, probably in Beijing by March. I've had the membership since August so there'll be at least sixish months left on it.

Kids books at Australia Post

A tip from one of my mother's group mums who is also a primary school teacher.

Australia Post is selling sets of kids books really cheap at the moment. 4 Mem Fox books for $10 (author of Possom Magic) and 4 Graeme Base books for $20 (Animalia) and a bunch of other sets.

I found them in the Burwood Plaza post office but not in the Westfield one.

It's something to do with literacy week and it happens every year for a short time.

Good value I think.

The new season tie-dye

Sometime in the near future, I'll be doing some dyeing. I've got some white singlets but I need to collect a few more bits and pieces before I'm ready. I figure I'll at least be doing a green. Other colours dependant on what I've got.

If you are interested in throwing a few things into the bucket (tied or not), then let me know and we can arrange a good time.

Book Party

We are having a book party to celebrate Dafydd's first novel- Eaglehawk
It will be held at Banjo Books Unit 4/ 2 Oxford St Epping 2121
Sunday the 14th of October from 2-4pm.
This is after the Star gazing event, we are trying not to clash.
If you are interested in coming or would like to get a copy of the book then leave an RSVP at eaglehawk_dafydd@hotmail.com before the 25th of September.

Hmmmm

So is it a sign that Toilet Training is iminent when she lifts the lid on the toilet, drops the phone in and flushes?

Size 1 clothes for summer

Hi guys,

Yes. It's me begging again.

Anyone got any clothes in size 1 and even size 2 that you no longer need. Sadly, I think the Crankmaster J has caught up with a few kids so you are probably still using the clothes.

Ah well. I shall have to go shopping. I'm getting better at it.

Thanks

Listen lady, I don't want to hit you with the pram anymore than you want to be hit by it!

I have to get this off my chest, it's been bugging me for quite a while now. Even before I had a kid in a pram of my very own.

So today at Westfields (big mistake, I should confine myself to never leave the house on weekends, apparently), I didn't lose my temper when:

a) The first lady stopped right in front of the escalator while I back peddaled to try not to hit her.
b) When another lady did the same thing.
c) When people going the same direction almost wandered into me
d) When I was constantly cut off
e) When I couldn't get into the lift because it was jam packed full of people who could have taken the escalator, or at least someone could have gotten out to let the person in the wheelchair in
f) When people walking towards me walked into me, couldn't work out where they were walking (I'm walking in a straight line here, people, it's not hard).
g) When the people in front of me suddenly stopped or slowed down so much I wanted to punch them in the head.

p, q, r, s, t!!!!!!!)

No. Didn't lose my temper at all. Was very good, you all would have been so proud.

But I did express some frustration, when the two Little Misses with their 80's rocker hairstyles, arse cracks and ughboots, cut me off, then slowed right down and I had to pull up so I wouldn't hit them, I had nowhere to go to get around them. It went down like this:

Me: "Oh, come on!" (Hardly a John McEnroe tantrum, no really, I was just exasperated at this point and it was almost a breathed sigh)
Little Miss Bumcrack glared then slowed to walk beside me, with her be-ughed grrlfraynd still moseying along infront of the pram "Well, you could have said "Excuse me", you know and been polite about it at least!"
Me: "I could have sworn at you, but that would have been impolite, you guys could at least watch where you are walking".
LMB "Redneck".

Yes. That's right. I'm a redneck apparently. I wasn't the one in the ughs, honey. And I'm slightly more classy than to show my arse-crack in public. Nice comeback, sweetheart (which is what I thought, after the whole thing happened. Tch! Hate that!)

And I almost stopped, handed them the pram and said "Fine. You navigate your way around a mall full of idiots then". But I didn't, because I was pretty cranky and it was time for me to go and be somewhere else before I gave them both a bitch-slap to the head, so I just twitched, sucked it up and walked off.

Redneck. Hmph...

Another time, I was in the lift, which was quite packed and this woman turned to me and told me I shouldn't be out in public. I looked at myself in the mirror and I was dressed appropriately, my hair wasn't offensive that day and I didn't smell, so I couldn't work it out. But of course, she meant the pram, Persmonster and I shouldn't be occupying space in the lift. Luckily, it was time for me to get out and I didn't have to be trapped in a confined space with yet another idiot, else otherwise, she too, would have received a bitch-slap to the head.

Call me old fashioned, but I've always been the type-o-gal who will hold doors open for people with prams, help them up stairs/onto trains and generally have enough nouse to stay the hell out of the way and be aware of my surroundings enough not to wander aimlessly into someone's pram.

So is it just me or is the population saturation of idiots on the climb? Is that across the board, or is it just Parramatta?

Oh and LMB if you read this? You should get your roots touched up, honey.

Warning - mulberry eating machine

I thought bananas were the ultimate baby food. Mr J thinks differently.

I've been going through the frozen berries in the freezer. Blueberries are pretty good but last season's mulberries are particularly popular.

The neighbours have cut their tree back hard this winter so I'm not sure how well it will produce in the coming season. So I need help in locating other mulberry trees to stock up for next year.

So. Does anyone know someone with a tree in the backyard? Especially if they don't like mulberries... Most people can't eat everything a tree produces. Do you know someone that will let the babies have the excess?

Mulberries season isn't for a couple of months, so I have time to locate trees and beg.

Oh, and come summer, there needs to be a blueberry picking expedition in Murrumbateman. Mindy, you may be invaded.

total recall

I've been reading (as I'm sure you have) about the massive recall Mattel is doing for all of the lead-affected toys it has produced in China... but I've been too slack to find a comprehensive list of all the recalls. luckily, one of the articles I just read has a handy-dandy pdf, so here you go -

Mattel Voluntary Recall Information

and because a post without a photo just goes against the grain, here's a random piccy!


this is from the Play School concert a bunch of us went and saw a couple of months ago. I meant to blog it but caught a nasty bout of Teh Slack. the chick on the left is Angela Moore who used to be Shirley Purvis from the Castanet Club (for those of you ancient and/or hippp enough to remember). the pianist, Penny, was also from CC. they have a children's CD which sounds kinda cute. I might even fork out for it sometime. I heart Angela.

carry on!

I may regret this

I may have started a life long shoe fetish with these little things (they only came in pink). But I thought they were rather cute, and at $5 (BIG W on sale) will do a great job of keeping her socks on and her feet warm. She had a mini tantrum in the shop when I put them on her to see if they fit, then took them off again so I know she likes them.

It's too quiet

Had a job interview this morning, so in anticipation of starting the job, the kids are both at daycare today. It's Gemma's first day. She didn't cry. I don't think she realised what was happening. I was given the impression that if I got the go ahead for the job I could start tomorrow, although that now seems to be changed to next week. Anyway, I'm making myself wait until 3pm to pick up the kids. It's quite difficult. I'm dreading dropping Gemma off tomorrow morning, because this time she will know what's going to happen and I don't think she will be happy. I'm almost hoping that they ring back and say they have decided to go with someone else.

However, if I do get the job, it will pay for both kids' childcare, give me some much needed bling for the CV and it's only four days a week so I still get Friday off. But I don't get to have picnics in the tent on the verandah and chase the kids around in the mud. But I could pay the bills. I hate waiting for the phone to ring.

Update: Gemma cried this morning, so I got feeling guilty and upset so I decided not to wait for the phone to ring and called them. I start Monday. All I have to do now is find something to wear to work. I just realised that I haven't had to dress up to go to the office since late 2002.

I made it to 3.10pm before leaving the house yesterday, and I stopped for petrol. When I arrived Gemma just gave me a sunny smile and an 'oh you came back!' look. Charlie decided to stay until later so he could play with his friends. There was however a lot of cuddling later that afternoon and we had to put Gemma to bed three times before she finally went to sleep. I hope it gets easier.

The handy notebook

We have had an A5 brightly coloured bound notebook kicking about on our kitchen table for about 2 years.... Lately it has become the never ending list of bits of paper that need to be signed and contractors/builders etc that need to be rung. However in it's glory days we would occasionally write down absolute classics that come out of the mouths of babes. I would truly recommend it as a general habit as having a notebook handy to write it down in makes it 3000 times more likely that you will in fact remember it in more than 5 minutes time. I had forgotten these and was looking for any more papers/calls that we had forgotten to do when I came across two of the best:
"We had 2 budgies at kindy - Bluey and Squarky. Poor Squarky died & went to Kevin. Birdie Kevin, not people Kevin. Birdies go to Kevin, not people. After Squarky we had Budgerieguard. He saved people and kept them safe, but he didn't because he lived in a cage." circa Jul 06
and
"There's more love in the whole entire world than words" Jan 07.

And here's one that didn't end up in the book because I was driving home last night:
"Mum - what are booby traps? Do they hurt your boobies?"
try explaining it without laughing while doing 70km on the freeway in peak hour traffic....

Master Dafydd is an author- shameless plugg

David has written two books for the It's True series of childrens books. One of these is 'Bourke and Wills forgot the frying pan'. The other is 'The Vikings got lost'. They are both entertaining books that Alex is just starting to enjoy even though he is a bit too young to really get into them.

http://www.allenandunwin.com/shopping/ProductDetails.aspx?ISBN=9781741144727

It is hard to get hold of the books so I have included the link to the publishers web site so that anyone who would like to get one of his books can. If you do a search for David Greagg you will get both books.

Hi-tech school reports

Yes it's half yearly parent teacher interview time and we have received the school reports... We loooove the school reports and I have been wondering whether teachers have a secret website where they write what they really think and the secret website chucks out the PC-parental version that they can paste into the report cards. No corkers this time round. Last year there was the ever classic "likes to create drama with her classmates" and "is an enthusiastic vocal contributor". It's become a bit tamer this year and almost heading into the stereotypes of our time such as "could apply her/himself more". I prefer the secret website option - anyone know any primary school teachers? Do the senior school teachers amongst us know something we don't?

You know your baby is hungry when...

you are chewing off a broken nail and he cries at you because you aren't sharing!