Keep the cork in it

Who says you need vodka to have fun?

I just spent a most joyous afternoon in my backyard. Just me, the LGBB, Jazz and a bottle of bubbles. Not alcy-holic bubbles. Oh no. The $1.20 teddy bear-shaped cannister blowing-bubbles kind of bubbles.

Steve and I discovered on the weekend the amusement that is perching your daughter in her cot and blowing bubbles in her direction. What added to that particular brand of fun was the new bottle o' bubbles I had purchased the day before on an impulse. The only logic I had was, "It's bear-shaped, it'll be a hit with the LGBB" (who is dead keen on bears, just quietly). I hadn't factored in that they were obviously trying to shift their shipment of bear-shaped bubble blowers because they were in any way defective, hence the bargain price.

So Steve started first. That is, after he'd screwed back on the bubble shaper bit that I'd pulled off, thinking you had to pull out the stick from whence the bubbles come. I actually pulled the top off it and after much deliberation, we worked out that you squeezed the bear/cannister to make the bubble head appear out the top. It's fixed to the bottom, see. So you squeeze, then blow and the bubbles will form and spill out, as is the usual custom.

I was doubled over in fits at Steve's first attempt. You have to picture it though (and maybe, even then, it still doesn't do the visual justice): a grown man sitting laxidasically in my breastfeeding rocker chair in the LGBB's room, both of us looking on eagerly at him and on his first blow.... nuttin'. A big fat fizzer. No bubble. Second blow, same thing. What made it funnier was the action of having to squeeze the bear to make the bubble blower head come out. And then Steve's deadpan face as he did it. Over. And over. And over. The guy should be on stage.

So today, I took said bear outside with me, the LGBB and nature. The breeze picked up only after I started to try and blow. As Murphy's Law dicated. And then..... oh my God. The invention worked. Some little bloke in some far away Taiwanese factory high-fived as bubble after bubble came out in quick succession. And the LGBB's face lit up as they whizzed past her pram. She was leaning forward eagerly, trying to grab them (many moments too late, don't you love that about babies' developing spatial ability?). And then the piece de resistance: Jazz. And her big boof head, trying to bite the strange balls that were floating through the air.

Oh my God. I thought I was going to let go my pelvic floors laughing. Ok, we're amongst friends - maybe I actually did, just a little. Thanks to Lolly 7 months ago.... So here we were, outside, the LGBB looking all confused and a little pissed at not being able to grab a weird floaty thing coming from Mummy. Mummy doubled over pissing her pants laughing at the dog who was indignantly trying to stop the strange floating balls from invading her space in the backyard. Oh, and then there was poor old lady, Pep. So out of it by this stage in her life that she sat next to me, ever next to me the darling, blinking and confused when they popped in her face.

I thought the afternoon couldn't be topped off. That was until I took the LGBB inside to "finish her off" (that final few minutes of play that insures a sound afternoon sleep... is the plan, anyway). I gave her her stacking ring toy. All the rings were separated from the main stem. And she was grumpy! Oh boy, was she in a snoot. She was wrestling the rings off me as I attempted to chuck them over the top of the stem. The largest ring got caught on her arm and she tried to grab the next one as I flung it, but the big one up her arm got in the way.

Bwaaaahahahahahaha.

It was like watching some crazed and deranged spoilt starlet trying to fit on all her bangles. Like seeing Elizabeth Taylor being pompous over the diamond jewellery and swatting away her minders. I was in fits. And each time she looked up at me gruffly, I had to stare off into the middle distance and pretend I was laughing at something else.

But oh, how I was laughing at her beautiful, sweet, silly, sick self. The poor darling.