Bakefest for the Cherub

Or how I spent my afternoon ...

Buttermilk Spice Cupcakes

Honey Joys

Lemon Slice

Birthday Bear Cake
as per Cherub's request

Lolly bags.
Invaluable tool for making the party guests want to leave.
Wise parents only let their children eat from them once they are seated in the car for the return trip home.

Are the holidays nearly over?

So much happening these holidays, so much I could blog about. But I'm exhausted. All I can manage are dot points. If I'm not too busy getting ready for the party this weekend, I may elaborate. In the meantime ...

• My oven is fixed. We had a really nice electrician.
• We went to see Thomas the Tank Engine Live On Stage yesterday, and I've decided I'm not an arena spectacular type of person.
• The person responsible for the script of that show was punching above their weight.
• The four of us went to the Royal Melbourne Show today and I had a juggling lesson and the instructor stole my watch (he slipped it back to Fixit without me suspecting a thing).
• We've reached saturation point with all things train. (that'll only last a week, though)
• Climber was so tired he emigrated briefly to the Land of Can't-Cope. He's back now, poor little sausage.
• Cherub does not like the Dodgem Cars.
• It's really hard to drive a Dodgem Car and comfort a crying child at the same time.

The Saga of the Oven

I went cooking crazy last week. So unlike me. Macadamia biscuits, pumpkin soup, a new batch of sourdough starter (because the 1st lot went off, it smelled like a rat had died in our pantry), sourdough bread, honey-soy pork & noodles, bulk batch of bolognaise, chicken stock, a lemon tart, baked risotto, 2 lamb roasts, pancakes. I just couldn't stop. Fixit was getting mighty sick of all the washing up, I can tell you.

I've been forced to stop now. Yesterday I went to bake another batch of the macadamia biscuits (to be followed by a loaf of wholemeal sourdough) and found that, despite a good long period of pre-heating, the oven was stone-cold.

I rang the real estate agents and left a message. I said my oven is broken. We went to Jenny's house with the biscuit dough and baked them in her oven. The agents rang me while I was there. She said What's wrong with the oven? Is the fan not working? I laughed bitterly. No rental house I've ever been able to afford came equipped with a fan in the oven. Let alone a working light.

The agent rang the landlords. They of course needed to come and have a look. So I of course decided that I needed to do an emergency oven-clean before they came and looked. Seeing as how I cleaned the oven exactly ONCE since we moved in 4 years ago. Halfway through that fun job there's a knock on the door and there is Mrs. Landlord (they live 2 doors up from us) come to have a look. She knows nothing about electrical appliances, I think she just wanted to check that I wasn't making it up. She said maybe they couldn't fix it till next week. I said no I must have it by the weekend. She said her husband would come and look after work. She tells me they don't want to get an electrician because they charge you just to have a look. Very expensive. We have lots of bills, she tells me, rates, water....

I have to tell you how much I hate it when our landlords cry poor to us. They have a lovely house to live in filled with all the mod-cons. They also own 2 investment properties, one for each child. I don't begrudge them that, they've worked hard for it. But I think I am the wrong person to whinge to about how hard it is for them.

She tells me Mr Landlord will come to look when he gets home from work. She goes and I get the oven finished and mop the floor so the house looks lovely for his visit. He doesn't show up. He got home late and didn't want to wake our kids. Mrs Landlord shows up this morning. Her husband thinks maybe I knocked the element when I was cleaning the oven? Um no. Because the cleaning happened AFTER the oven was broken. She tells me to call the agent to say get an electrician. Tell them not to send an expensive one. I do that after she goes. I don't mention the expensive bit. The agents need the landlords' say-so to call the sparky, not mine. Mrs Landlord is not answering her phone because she's gone off to work.

I drop my risen sourdough loaf over at Jenny's and she cooks it for me.

I have school holiday mayhem this week, visits here-there-and-everywhere. And I need my oven fixed!! Because in 5 more sleeps it is Cherub's birthday party and I have me some baking to do.

Clickity Clack

My cd has been officially launched. Well, when I say my cd, I really mean theirs.

Ages ago I was in a recording studio, laying down some tap for a song. This afternoon, Fixit, Climber, Cherub and I fronted up to a pub for this:

Geez it's been a long time since Fixit and I went out to some live music. We used to do it a lot. Back in the days when I worked in rock n' roll. Before Children.

Today we took the boys because it was an afternoon gig, family friendly. The boys were beautifully behaved, although we had to go back to the car to get a couple of matchbox cars so Cherub could brrrrrm, as the music wasn't really grabbing his attention. Then Climber took one of the cars to the loo and left it there. We went back in to check but it had gone, which made Climber cry. Thankfully just before Mrs Wainwright started playing, we heard an announcement. Would the owner of the orange chevrolet make their way up to the stage please. (The owner of the orange chevrolet had to make 2 trips to the stage actually, he forgot to say thankyou the first time.)

Climber was really into the music, almost mesmerised by it. We were watching him during the performance, he was strumming the orange chevrolet as if it were a mini guitar.

We couldn't stay for the whole set, it was past dinnertime for the boys but we did hear *my* song; I Will Breathe Again. Prefaced by an absolutely glowing speech from Trish telling people about how magical my tapping was. I may have to go through doors sideways until my swollen head subsides. She told me she mentions the tap in all her interviews too, which means I'll be desperately scouring street press to see if I'm famous. This is what she wrote on the liner notes of the actual cd :

and Caroline .... (aka Miss Caroline) astounded us all, tapping the solo on I Will Breathe Again, amazing!

and this is the thankyou note she sent.

Have I mentioned that Trish (singer & songwriter for the band) is a really nice person? Anyway. It was a great gig. Go see Mrs Wainwright if they come to your town. Buy their cd. Support live music.

What our Mum did to our hair.

The theme for Flashback Friday this week is "what our Mum did to our hair". I know in the family archive I have a perfect photo for this theme. Unfortunately the family archive lives in Sydney and the custodian of the family archive is away on an Italian sojourn. (Hi Mum!) I can only tell you about the special hair, but it's not the same.

I think it must have been one of those "let's take some decent photos of the kids" sessions. In those days, for special occasions, you brought out the Hot Rollers. My sister and I would have been so excited, doing our hair like Mum. And not content with adding fine upward curls to the bottom of our dead straight hair, using the largest rollers of course, Mum also popped a warm roller into my little brother's blonde baby hair, giving him one beautiful curl at the top of his head. The photo of him is adorable.

But I can't show you that photo. Instead, here's a couple of photos where there is evidence of what Mum did to our hair. Which was nothing too atrocious.

Definitely a home haircut on my fringe, wouldn't you say? No idea whether the handiwork was mine or Mum's. I know I definitely have trimmed both my kids' hair, but Climber's is so straight and thick I can't really get away with that anymore. I do love this photo. Mum with her girls. My mum is so blonde and glamorous. I think there was still a degree of back-combing going on with Mum's hair in those days. Bronnie and I loved her long hair, loved seeing her get dressed up in some of her fabulous party frocks. Like the leopard print pant suit with a plunging neckline and the hole in the stomach. Or the bright yellow mini dress. I've got 2 of Mum's glam outfits in the back of my wardrobe. The woolen LBD gets the occasional airing but the rainbow skort dress has been a little snug since Cherub's birth. Sadly. One day...


Hair photo #2. Do you think she could have parted my hair properly on School Photo Day?!?! Geez.

Or is forgetting that it's School Photo Day genetic?

The Bompy Alla song was indeed Pump It by the Black Eyed Peas. Well done to Caramaena, Jac & Siobhan for recognising it, and to Blue Mountains Mary for correctly identifying which bandwagon to jump on.

The Henna Song

My preferred method of keeping the kids quiet in the car is listening to the i-a-pod. I can't say it the real way anymore, Cherub says eye-apod and now so do I. That talk is so catching. The kids love the music. Cherub is forever calling from the back of the car Can you put that song louder please?

Anyway. You know that song Iko Iko? (Here's one of the versions I like, best use of bike shorts in an 80s video I must say.)

Well, we love that song, but this morning we heard the Doctor John version, which is not the usual one for us. (We're favouring the Dixie Cups.) And it took a while for this to sink in, that this was the same song done a different way. Climber cottoned on first. We had quite a chat about it. Then a minute or so later when I thought we'd finished with the subject, the Cherub piped up: Mummy you got 2 hennas, do you.

Huh?

I'm a bit slow sometimes. Climber worked it out for me.

Talking 'bout Hey Now (hey now) Hey Now (hey now)
Iko Iko ah nay ... etc

Anyway. I thought I would issue a challenge. Because recently I had to decipher a very difficult song request, courtesy of the Climber. I cracked it after a day (obviously I wasn't thinking about it the whole time) but I had an advantage because I know the songlist on the i-a-pod.


So here it is, as he told it to me:

BOMPY ... alla
BOMPY ... alla
... the radio
... the stereo

Have a go. Once you get the Henna Song out of your head, obviously

We gave our pram away.

I love to hear birth stories. That was by far and away the most interesting session in the early nurse-supervised-days of our Mother's Group, where we all got to sit round and find out about everyone's different labours and deliveries. (Although, the Baby First Aid session was also fairly memorable; shouting WAKE UP BABY at a rubber baby doll before attempting CPR on it whilst simultaneously praying that I never had to do that to a real child.) Every birth story is so very different, even if you have the same circumstances as someone else, such as emergency caesar or VBAC or whatever. I'm always willing to hear the full blow-by-blow account and will gasp sympathetically at the appropriate moments.

Anyway, this week Fixit and I discovered a similarly fascinating type of story - the Vasectomy Story. I was under the impression that men didn't really discuss their vasectomies. You know the way men all wince in sympathy when you take the family pet to be neutered? As if the mere thought of any pain or damage to the family jewels was too terrible to be considered? This behaviour led me to suppose, mistakenly, that men didn't like to even think about, let alone discuss, assaults on the meat & two veg. Apparently, however, undergoing vasectomy is more on par with childbirth. In that It's Fun To Share!

We've heard about elephantitis. And bruising. Of days and days of pain. (And days and days of whingeing if you hear the wife's version.) Of tear-filled eyes upon first sitting astride the motorbike an entire week afterwards. It's all been very interesting.

Going ...

I therefore feel that I can share with you all the fact that Fixit was Done last Friday. I may as well tell everyone here, it's been a very public vasectomy for the poor man. All the blokes at his work know, as do all my friends, our newsagent and our chiropractor. So far I've held off on telling my Tap Students but I wouldn't put it past me.

Going ...

True to form, Fixit was incredibly stoic and made no fuss at all. I was the one getting all twittery in the lead-up, no doubt making it worse for him by regularly asking him if he was sure he wasn't nervous. I had to restrain myself from giving him reassuring pats on the bollocks. He said once you've seen your bone sticking out of your leg, a simple surgical procedure (even one that involves needles directly into highly sensitive areas) doesn't seem too dramatic. The whole thing took 30 minutes which included paying the bill. The only moment of drama came when Fixit instinctively braced as the first needle approached, whereupon the surgeon said very sternly "Don't kick me! I've got an open needle in my hand and you wouldn't want it going into the wrong place, now, would you?" Fixit said he wondered to himself where on his body could possibly be worse than the area for which it was heading. The only place he could think of was the eyeball.

Gone.

He was advised to make me wait on him hand and foot on Friday night, which pretty much happened. And he told me at about 8pm that what he really felt like was a glass (or 2 or 3) of scotch (sadly we had none), but that was as pathetic as he got. There has been some swelling, nothing scary though. He was a bit slower around the house over the weekend, but still participated willingly in chores such as dish-washing, clothes-washing and yard-clearing, as well as the fun stuff like visits and cafe brunches. There was no need for pain-killers or frozen peas. Sure he drank red wine every night but then so did I.

The worst part of it has been the news that it will take at least 8 weeks before we can really relax about the whole contraception thing. So the night away from the kids, staying in a hotel (his sister's forthcoming wedding) isn't going to be quite as much fun as I'd thought...