There's a hole in your trousers dear Climber dear Climber

The Climber is tough on clothes. Especially trousers, shoes and socks. I certainly don't bother buying Holeproof brand socks for him anymore, for fear of choking on my bitter laughter. And Climber's shoes are thrown out well before he grows out of them; there's absolutely no prospect of passing them on to his younger brother - unless Cherub doesn't mind walking around with his toes sticking out the end. As for Climber's pants, well, if I were not so slack about mending I think we would not be in such a clothing crisis, because a knee-patch in time saves 9 (pairs of trousers) but alas wherefore the knee-patches, hmmm? Domestic mathematical equation #1: trouser-destroyer plus slacker-mender equals clothing crisis.















I suppose I could have rushed to the shops and grabbed some el cheapo pants, but (a) there's not much winter stock left and (b) I find buying clothes for boys on my budget very depressing because so many of the K-mart/Target clothes have semi-violent motifs - skulls, bombs, camouflage. No thanks.

So I decided to sew.

Armed with my new book Sew What! Fleece (I love these Sew What! books, they have really taken the mystery out of sewing for me) I went to the Spotlight 20% off Everything Sale and came home with lots of fleece. Half of it is purple (I don't know how that happened) so looks like I'll be getting some new pants soon too. But first! New pants for the Trouser-destroyer, assembled in half a day, which is quite fast for me. I ended up using a Kwik Sew pattern (3773) rather than drafting my own via the book, only because of the urgency of the project.



A lot of the blogs I read feature very pretty handmade clothing, often with really nice fabrics and fancy embellishments like ric-rac or vintage buttons. Of course it's all for girls, or at a pinch quite young boy-children. I didn't want to spend all that effort making pants that he wouldn't wear, obviously, so I restrained myself with some plain, tasteful grey. You don't find much in the way of tasteful grey round these here parts, I'm just saying.

In the end I couldn't help myself, I just had to decorate them somehow.



But I couldn't sew him on properly. So I settled for this:

Boys and their Toys

Okay, so I admit it was me that started the ball rolling on the early Christmas present stuff with my very comfy purple shoes. And then on the weekend we had our Mothers' Group Christmas party...

...where of course the boys each received some early cheer. Climber is pictured here with a book that folds out into a castle...

...whilst here you see Cherub proudly displaying his goodies:

... a "Cool Tie" (made by my talented friend Jenny, it has silicon beads in the middle section which, when you soak it in cool water, swell up and retain the moisture so your neck stays cool for hours; Climber had one so Cherub wanted one too) and a Pengie (both my kids have a penguin obsession which predates Happy Feet. Go on watch the clip, it's very cute and only takes a minute...)



But Fixit has gone and trumped us all with his early Christmas present to himself. Oh yes. Guess what he bought? Go on....




..have a guess.






Here's a clue.

Yep. It's a new bike.

I should probably say straight off that I am fine with him having a new bike. He's been talking all year about fixing up and selling the old ones so that he can buy one. And he's my love, you know, I want him to have things that make him happy. I even understand why he rushed the purchase through and brought it home in the worst financial month of the year:- because he has a bike ride planned straight after Christmas and I totally see that anyone would want the shiny new bike for that. I'm pleased for him and I really love seeing how happy and excited he is, like say when he mentions nonchalantly that he really ought to ride it in to work this morning instead of the pushbike because the new tires need scrubbing in.

But, umm.. now we have three. Three motorbikes, people. And I'm pretty sure that makes us bogans, seeing as how we now have an equal ratio of persons to automobiles in our house. *Sigh* I don't want to be a bogan, I'm so rude about them all the time.

And I wasn't aware till after the bike was all but home that we were getting a loan to pay for it; I just assumed it was coming out of some payouts Fixit had earlier in the year that had actually already been spent on boring things like dentistry and other crap. Never assume people, it makes an ass of u + me. It has all really made me see that Fixit and I don't discuss money very much. Which, you know, maybe we should. Because on the one hand, there's me trying not to overspend at Christmas time, meantime whoopee!! New Shiny Bike!!

He has promised to spend January fixing up the other 2 for sale, and really the main reason he hasn't already done that is that large amounts of his spare time get taken up with being a functioning, contributing member of our household, with dish-washing and lawn-mowing and child-minding the boys while I'm out teaching and actually hanging out with us at weekends and stuff. And I can see that he feels a bit guilty about it so in no sense do I want to beat him over the head. BUT..... the minute he sells two-thirds of our massive bike collection he and I will be going to Ikea to get the long-promised new couch! So that we can finally replace Nell's-Ex's-Nan's-Couch which, for an object that was designed to be comfortable to sit on, is ridiculously UN-comfortable to sit on. Ask Crafty, she's sat on it, she'll back me up on this.

'Til then, folks, I will be dressing up in sparkly purple minidresses, wearing makeup and ladyshoes, as I fight the pink corner in this wheel-obsessed household. I doubt the Honda Hornet will be only boys' toy arriving in our household over the festive season somehow. Sometimes its tough being the only girl.

Boys are from Mars, Girls are from Venus.

Cherub and Next-door-girl continue to have the nicest little friendship. These two little curly-headed moppets are a real source of happiness for me as I watch them walk around our house together from game to game. I've never had to adjudicate any disagreements between them and they are so in tune with each other that they unconsciously imitate each other’s speech patterns.

I was watching them play recently and gained an insight into the different ways that girls and boys play. One of their favourite games at our house is this fold-down truck which when you collapse it flat reveals a mini road and industrial centre with miniature cars. Hours of fun. And it's not that Cherub has never anthropomorphised the cars, there have been frequent car conversations along the lines of "I'm going to go into my garage now etc". But when Next-door-girl plays with him, the cars all have to have names and relationships with each other [Venus] to enhance the play. And it seems that Cherub finds this slightly unnecessary [Mars] in that it interferes with the action.

Here's how it goes.

NDG's car : Daddy, daddy, will you take me for a ride?
Cherub's car : (in slightly grumpy tone) I'm not your daddy.
NDG's car : (not at all grumpy, problem-solving) Who are you then?
Cherub's car : (thinking he knows how to get out of this one) I'm Fixit.
NDG's car : (happily adapting herself to new circumstances) Fixit, Fixit, will you take me for a ride?
Cherub's car : (starting to lose track now) Who are you?
NDG's car : (still going with the flow) I'm Climber!
Cherub's car : (totally blocking now, why can't we just brrrm the cars?) No I can't. .... I have to take Cherub for a ride. (brrrrms off)

The sound of my laughter distracted them from playing on.

The Lallow Bike

I think you can probably tell which of these 3 admirable bikes is the preferred, indeed the ONLY one that Cherub would ride.












Yes. Despite the almost totally trashed steering wheel and the fact that he was getting too long in the leg for it, The Buzz Lightyear Car was the transport of choice for backyard brrrrming.

Occasionally he would stand on the tail-board of the blue trike and scoot himself along. Pedalling, however, was something that Cherub just couldn't seem to master. Fixit opines that there is a basic design flaw in tricycles, because the pedals are a long way away from the body and attached to the steering apparatus. Which is probably true but plenty of other kidlets manage.







However, when Fixit put some trainer wheels on Climber's little old bike, pedalling was suddenly the Cherub's friend.


Now he is off, off and away. He rides all the time. He pedals as though he'd been doing it for years. He corners neatly and steers competently. And he loves, loves, loves his new lallow bike.