Firstly of course the Climber turned 6 this week. So we have a party to organise this weekend. I've gone as low-key as possible. It's in the park so I don't have to clean the house and I have kept the guest list to a minimum. Tomorrow is bake-off day; on Sunday I intend to sit on a rug watching the kids run around and amuse themselves while I sip an outrageously early glass of wine (morning party) and enjoy civilised chat with adults.
Secondly, Cherub has once again held on for 6 days, although he finally let go tonight thank the lord. I'M SO SICK OF HIS BOTTOM. I won't bore you with the details, suffice it to say our outings are curtailed when he's gone longer than 4 days, I'm wiping his bum more than is bearable and there are a lot of little smudgy undies soaking in the laundry sink, not to mention the stress and exhaustion of having to deal with his being fractious and difficult as well as this feeling that I'm probably handling it ALL WRONG.
(Bless his little curly Cherub head)
Thirdly, some blog-chasey ... you tag someone, they tags ya back. I made Tracey tell us about her blog, now she wants to know 6 weird things about me. Well, all I can say is I'll try but actually I'm very normal, and it's everyone else who is weird. I'm just saying. Or maybe I'm just tetchy. Just don't mention bottoms or constipation to me now because I may snap. Woman on the Edge.
1. I have weird little toes. The nail bed is about the same size as this [__]
I'm not showing you the photo,there's a lot of weirdos out there who are squeamish about feet.
2. I am moderately phobic about thunderstorms. I am twitchy and unhappy if I'm indoors and hysterical if trapped outdoors. Fixit looks bemused as he humours me in this but says there's nothing to be scared of you know. I do know. Phobias are not a rational thing.
3. I faint easily. A nurse told me this was weird (apparently she'd never fainted in her life!). She plainly suspected me of having an eating disorder. Actually I just have lowish blood pressure which can plummet dramatically.
4. When I faint I tend to have a little fit, even though I am not epileptic. Each fit is different, I've gone stiff as a board, I've thrashed around, but I do quite often scream when I'm out. And I can hear it too, even though I'm unconscious. Fainting is a strange feeling, its not quite as 'out' as sleep but your brain (well my brain anyway) feels like it's in a swirly drug-haze black eddy of noise and movement. And people always try to make you wake up! When I do wake up I invariably vomit. No wonder I never want to 'come to'.
5. I find it quite easy to stand on my points, even though I am not and have never been a ballerina. I can do it in sneakers, but it's best in my tap shoes.
6. I just love yodelling. It makes me happy to hear it and I would love to know how to do it.
I think you can't really proclaim yourself to be Another Nutter and not expect to get hit with a tag on this particular meme, sorry babe! I'd like to hear Lazy Cow too. I've met the girl and she seems normal enough but you never know with these Jaclyn Smith lookalikes. And I know it's only books all the time now, so you have my blessing to modify as you see fit.
Here is what happens when you allow your green-obsessed three-year-old help decorate the cake...
And here for good measure is the recipe for the Climber's Birthday Cake. It is delicious and fool-proof. It's famous in my Mother's Group.Buttermilk Spice Cake
Sift together in bowl:
2¼ cups of plain flour
1 cup of white sugar
1 teaspoon of baking powder
pinch salt
¾ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
¾ teaspoon of ground cloves
¾ teaspoon of cinnamon
Then add:
125g softened butter
¾ cup soft brown sugar (packed down)
1 cup buttermilk
Beat together for 2 minutes
Add:
3 eggs
Beat 2 more minutes.
Pour into greased and floured cake tins, either 2 x 9 inch layer pans or 1 oblong pan 13 x 9 inches.
Bake at 350° for 35 – 40 minutes for layers or 45 – 50 minutes for oblong pan.
Remove from pan. Cool.
Frost with EASY PENUCHE ICING as follows:
Melt in saucepan ½ cup butter. Stir in 1 cup brown sugar (packed). Boil and stir over low heat for 2 minutes. Stir in ¼ cup milk.
Bring to boil, stirring constantly. Cool to lukewarm.
Gradually stir in 1 ¾ to 2 cups of sifted pure icing sugar
Place pan in iced water and stir icing until thick enough to spread.
Decorate at will and enjoy!
Man, that kid's got staying power.
ReplyDeletePosybunny just said this morning that a few Black Forest Gummi Bears a day will fix that!
ReplyDeleteWow. He can hold it for 6 days?!?
ReplyDeleteWe haven't even thought about toilet training yet and now I'm scared.
With you on the lowish blood pressure though...I hang out on the lower end of the spectrum, too. ;-)
Is it ever too early for wine ?
ReplyDeleteI have your low blood presure too. I feel myself go all icy, and I need to sit down NOW. I see pinpoints of light. I just swoon in the 'noraml' way though - no vomiting for me ( thank God ! ).
I think our toenails match. When I clip mine, sometimes I wonder if I will clip so much off, ther is none left.
Enjoy the party !!
noraml ?
ReplyDeleteIs that normal ?
snap with the toenails thing. mine are so small that they can't grow properly.
ReplyDeleteand with the en pointe thing too, best in clogs though.
6 days? poor Cherub, and you!
Is it a three year old thing with the constipation? I seem to recall my eldest having a similar period at that age. We used Coloxyl Drops - as per usual nothing's good to take long term but we used it on and off for a while and it helped. When things got ridiculous we used Glycerol Suppositories For Children - relief in a matter of hours (sometimes minutes!) Again - only for worse case scenarios. I was feeling VERY stressed myself during this phase and using the above to the pressure off us all - literally.
ReplyDeleteAs to the thunderstorms thing - I'm trying not to let my girls see how much they freak me out!
I thank thee for the opportunity to let all my weirdness out. Don't be too frightened by the results though!
snap again for the little toe nails!! I paint more toe than nail on the little ones just so it looks like there is a nail there!!
ReplyDelete6 days WOW and ouch!! Enjoy your wine and that cake looks fantastic!
My Grandad was a yodeller. He always sang yodelling songs to us when he was alive. He was my favourite man in the world until I met my Pete. Thanks for making me think about him.
ReplyDeleteYou are hardly weird at all!
Those were some pretty weird things actually. :P
ReplyDeletePoor Cherub- & poor you!
ReplyDeleteYour weirdnesses are not that Weird... well some of them might be.
Lovely sounding cake.
Poor baby, hope he's OK now.
ReplyDeleteThat Icing sounds wonderful, I'm shocking at making icing, and usually resort to Betty Crocker frosting in a can, even if the cake is home made. Hope the party went well.
Thanks for the tag. I will do it, eventually, as I'm terrible about answering memes. Performance anxiety or something!
My favourite song is that yodelling song from Sound of Music. Once I start singing "once was a girl in a pale pink coat" I can go for days on end. It's a sickness.
ReplyDeleteOh, I'm a low blood pressure swooning type too.
Hope the party went well. You had glorious weather!
Not the shy poo's again! That must be difficult for everyone.
ReplyDeleteI love thunderstorms ... so you lost me at number 2 ;) I have low blood pressure as well but have only fainted once - at a Hunters & Collectors concert when I was 14. All the excitement and stagesmoke made me keel over!
6 days of holding it in is quite something... My kids are at the other end of the spectrum - going 3-4 times a day - which makes toilet training a nightmare. In the midst of our toilet training woes last year with G (all behind us now thank goodness) I was buying cheap underwear from k-mart (10 pairs for $10) and throwing them away when they got soiled. I simply couldn't bear washing them anymore.
ReplyDeleteHey sis.
ReplyDeleteI had a bad smudgy undy moment myself this morning. I will elaborate:
My ‘bad mummy’ meltdown moment this morning. I will first give you a little bit of background. While we were down the coast camping, uncle Pauly (as the kids call him) brought a new Sony DVD Walkman, and a couple of movies, one of which was Alien v Predator. James (the 12 yo son of the one of the families) was watching it in his tent, Whelan was fascinated by the machine and the video that was (1) scary and (2) he wasn’t allowed to watch. So he sat on Pauly’s lap, asking him questions about it. W: What does ‘v’ mean? P: It means they have a fight. W: What does the Alien look like? P: It has big teeth that poke out, and its huge. W: What does the predator look like? P: It’s invisible and has ropey hair. That sort of thing. He of course visualised it in his head so wonderfully that he gave himself a couple of terrific nightmares, and woke up crying!
This morning, I am doing my usual rush around get to work. Tired and razzed from the day before (mainly the 7 boys for morning tea - Whelan's new 'friends' from the surrounding houses - and umpiring the various disputes, a good % of these actually caused/started by W himself, and the bad Woolies episode with two kids on board and a long wait in a queue due to useless and stupid checkout chick), and also because the Plumber dropped in on a friend for some absent without leave time last night, didn’t get home till 8.30pm, leaving me tired and cross. He admitted it wasn’t fair, he shouldn’t have stayed so long, and had a sympathetic chuckle about the boys at morning tea and the Woolies episode. He then left for work early, leaving me to do the kids, on my own.
W’s sugars were low when he got up (the morning before he was 1.8!), at only 2.7. I should have given him a juice straight away to address the low sugars and get his brain functioning, but gave him one with breaky instead, hoping that his low sugars would mean he’d be ravenous as he often is. No. Spent the next 30 minutes trying to get him to eat his cereal (which HE chose, not me!), with intermittent bullying and encouraging techniques, finally he got rude, so got sent to his thinking spot for 5 minutes. Made him come back, and just so I won the argument, made him eat 5 more mouthfuls, which entailed some bullying, and a bit of shouting on my part (getting v. frustrated by this point, as it’s now AFTER 8am!), and lots of crying on his part. He finally did that, so then made him a crumpet, which he ate happily. Then more angst trying to get him to lie down for his insulin injection, only to discover in his night nappy a small amount of poo!
At this point in time, my razzed nerves snapped, and I lost it completely and ended up screaming at him, scaring the crap out of him , marched him down to the bathroom, having to literally drag him to his feet, then when wiping his bottom he shouts out that he hates me, causing me to give him a reflex slap on his bare bottom, making my hand sting and giving him a hand print. He’s crying and saying I was frightening him and that I had to say sorry to him. At which time I took a big breath (after finishing wiping his disgusting bottom), and gave him a hug and said sorry. Still had the injection to do, and when he was lying down to do it, he’s sobbing, and saying ‘you frightened me mummy, don’t ever do that again, you were scarier than Alien v. Predator’. The hand mark gradually went down and he cheered up and was ok in the end, but I felt thoroughly rattled, and by this stage I was well and truly late for work, despite my best efforts/intentions, and a 6.15am rise!
Scarier than Alien v. Predator! Bad mummy.......
ps - cake looked great, liked the green smarties actually!
ReplyDeletepps - at least I could throw the smudgy item away this time, tis an ongoing issue, that drives me nuts, where he just won't stop what he's doing and go to the bloody toilet. We have good days then all of a sudden a run of bad days. Sigh......
I really like the look of this cake. I don't know what penuche icing is, but it seems to go perfectly with smarties.
ReplyDelete