See what I have to put up with?

Last night, devoid of any other ideas for entertainment in the extra hour of time we'd gained with daylight savings finishing, I said to Steve, "Tell me something to Google and I'll Google it."

After a moment's pause from both of us and a smirk tripping across his face, I confirmed with a withered look that, yes, I knew he knows everything and there was nothing he would need to Google but could we just do it for amusement's sake anyway. Maybe he could pretend not to know the answer to something. Just to humour me.

So he says "Ok, Google this: does Steve know everything", not that he's not modest or anything *cough from silent crowd* He obviously just wanted to ensure Google was up to speed with his vast knowledge of.... well, shit, basically.

So I did. And here was the single, solitary search result on an otherwise blank page:


Naturally, he found this hysterically funny. I told him I wasn't playing anymore.

Getting her fix

Try as she might*, the LGBB just cannot kick the habit. And now, today, photo evidence that her addiction is increasing.

Yes, that's right. I caught her trying to shove two dummies in her mouth at once. And I nearly melted right on the spot.












*er... she hasn't tried at all yet and I'm not in a hurry to make her, but that's a minor detail

Four X moment

You can get it singing a song

You can get it sitting by a dog (or two)

You can get it blowing a ras'


Matter of fact....

I've got it now.

G'night.

To all you Intuitive Mothers (and mothers in the making)

Do you ever read something, like a book or an article, and think, "Hang on.... did I write this for myself and forget?"

I have found the Mother *boom-tish* of all such books. I am only wishing I'd found it when LGBB was about 7 weeks old and I was going through the motions with a fake smile plastered on my face, I was that worn down by sleep deprivation and had been hung upside down (or so it felt) for so long that to find right way up seemed so impossible that I was quite happy to just hang there and wallow, thankyou very much all the same, kind Sir.

I have found it, for me personally, to be one of those nuggets that speaks to your core. That inner you whom you know, maybe very well but more often perhaps not so intimately - the authoress herself professes to not really know where the book came from and I find that fascinating as much as it is affirming that it comes from a divine and pure source, devoid of much of the ego you find in other books of its kind. I know exactly what she means because there have often been times where I will write something and go back and read it later, to find I feel like I'm reading it for the very first time. Ella's Parallel Story was written like that. In fact, both the stories about her that I wrote for her pages came from thin air (not to say they're not completely factual, it's just that I sat down, put my fingers to the keyboard, got up and went away and there they remain, unedited bar a few spelling errors, no reworking or the likes).

This book, Intuitive Mothering, has given me the fodder I really needed at a time I really needed it to stand taller and realise I don't need peripheral parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, friends, professionals... ANYONE... to give me the proverbial pat on the back I thought I needed from an outside source. Mind you, the irony isn't lost on me that a book (in itself an "outside source") has led me to this conclusion. Hmmm. No, I think the difference is that I feel far more empowered by seeing the book on the shelf (the slimmest paperback spine in amongst the other Parenting manuals, just leaping out and going "Pick ME! PICK MEEE!", having the follow-through to purchase it (I was on a "date" with Steve at the time and we'd just meandered in to a large bookstore and sauntered to our favourite sections - he Quantum something-or-other, me Parenting) and then realising what a pearler it actually is right from the first page.

It shines a truth. It speaks to my innermost mother instinct. Reminds me to trust what I feel is right, for me and the LGBB. It goes and sits and has a yarn with that real deep knowledge we all have that, without all the assvice and interference and uncertainty that builds up in you when you defer to others to tell you if you're heading in the right direction, you most certainly ARE doing exceptionally well for YOUR baby and everything is going right (despite what any general book or MCHN tries to tell you).

Just yesterday, I had a nightmare day: went for the LGBB's 8mth check. Was told I was sitting her too much and "that's why her legs are bent like a frog, if you keep doing it she'll have problems and need physio" and rah de rah de rah. It made sense, there were no "that doesn't sound right" alarms ringing in my head. I simply went "Ok" and began doing more tummy exercises with L from the time we got home. Don't think it's a coincidence that the poor kid had the most miserable afternoon - she cried and cried almost non-stop, big sorry-for-herself sobbing - and by the time she got to bed last night we were both exhausted. By the time I went to bed, I'd realised (again) that I'd allowed someone else to tell me what was best for my child. It resulted in an extremely uncomfortable day for both of us.

I always vow I'll never do it again, that I'll be more aware of it next time.... and I always slip! I'm not hard on myself for that, I am realistic about it and the fact that by my very nature, I aim to please/do right/do it well. But when I walk past that book on my end table, it snaps me back - the pendulum might get out of whack but if it swings back to centre, all is not lost.

I don't profess that the book has ALL the answers or that it is for everyone, merely it is a bloody useful tool now for me to dip into - full of reminders I could have written to myself, but so nice to see it in print, published, as if anything written in a book is fact and "right".... except this time, with this book, intuitively, I know that for me, it IS right. Because it speaks to my truth. The comforting thing about that is, if it has been written by someone else, and yet it is full of what my deeper wisdom would have written had I not buried her with fear, cynicism, loathing and the best of intentions, then surely it is going to also make someone else's soul squeal with delight.

So therefore, I feel it my duty to pass on to anyone who considers it might be something they'd like to source.

I give you Intuitive Mothering by Lyn McPherson, published by newholland.com.au, ISBN 174110352-5, available in all good bookstores... or maybe none because the authoress says now they are rather difficult to come by (makes my finding my copy so much more special to me). We have been in communication with each other by email a few times now, she contacted me personally out of the blue after I posted a private comment on her site just to thank her for her work in making this happen. She's one amazing and lovely person.

Some small exerpts from:

The better we look and the tidier our house is does not reflect how well we are coping.

"Things" are not important to your child, but you are. If you are happy and around and interacting with your child, that will mean more to them than anything you could ever buy them.

Confronting and releasing expectations: Make what we "should" do what we "want" to do.. or don't do it. Another barrier to tunin in to your child lies in expectations. They are everywhere, from mothers to friends to doctors - and especially the expectations you heap on yourself. The key to liberating yourself from expectations is to take the word "Should" out of your vocabulary. Every time you hear yourself thinking you "should" do something, ask "Is this really something I want to do? I it the right thing for me and my child?" If you are able to say "yes", that is great - it has now become your choice - not something done because it is expected. If your answer is "no", choose not to do it. (If I had remembered this yesterday, my Bullfrog-Legged baby and I would have had a much happier afternoon, wouldn't we! I didn't listen to my instincts until last night, and I couldn't wait until this morning to make it up to her when she got up for the day)

Be proud of your decisions and choices. If you feel the need to reassess one of your choices, do so for you, not for others. Avoid the bombardment of influences out there..... Throughout your journey with your child, just be who you are. Do not expect to feel anything, just let yourself feel. Let it all flow. Neither of you have ever done this before - it's a new relationship for you and your baby. Every woman is beautiful and unique. If we were all the same, life would be very boring. Every child is also beautiful and unique and every mother is beautifully equipped in her own unique way to understand, nurture and raise her children. See the beauty and the mystery of the discovery, and the true freedom brought about by feeling rather than thinking.

'Intuitive Mothering' is more than another baby care book. It is a warm and friendly tool for the new parent negotiating the maze of apparently conflicting, prescriptive advice about parenting styles and approaches - Dr Bronwyn Gould, Chair, National Assoc. for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.

Oh and..... if you go to the Links page on her website you might just see something from Yours Truly....

Lolly. In the Round

Michael Flatley eat yer heart out, t'be sure t'be sure

Any requests?

Hmmmmmm, I don't know that one.

The great Matchbox Heist of '82

I had the most bizarre day yesterday.

I went to a really old friend's parents' place for lunch - meaning, we've been friends a long, long time (24 years to be perfectly accurate), not my friend herself is really old - and it was such a spinout to go back to the home where I'd spent much of my youth, after school, on weekends, looking after their animals when they went away, etc.

And despite the fact that her 2 year old son and the LGBB were there, I could have been 10 again, just yearning for her older sister to say she was going riding on her horse and would I like to go *swoons* They have 6 acres there and the girls, frankly, were living my fantasy life.

I watched as she pulled out some Matchbox cars from a container to give to her son.... and there they were. Three of my old cars. I sat up a bit straighter, unsure then if I only remembered them because I'd played with hers so often. But they were so familiar! The green VW Golf with the roofrack and prized orange-tinted windows. The convertible orange Mercedes (sans convertible roof, mind you). The cool metallic blue Mustang. Oh, surely they were mine!! I kept the conversation light and casual as I grabbed first one, then the other, then the other and deftly flipped them upside down, looking for my mother's tell-tale nail polish daub on the underside.*

Nothing!

Still, that didn't mean much, I mean maybe these ones had been herded from the rest of my stash before The Big Fight that caused the once-and-for-all division of cars with my little bro.

Anyway. Whomever they belonged to, they were still being well loved (she says, with a tic in her eye that won't go away because she'll never know or be able to ask if they were STOLEN from me at some point of our childhood, before we stopped playing cars, that is, and started talking about boys).

And then, to spin me right out, when I got home I flicked on the telly and they're playing reruns of Family Ties on TV1 at the very after-school time that I used to watch them as a kid. It was an absent-minded after-thought, and we never usually have these in the house, but before I plonked myself onto the couch to watch it while folding baby clothes and nappies, I grabbed a mini packet of Doritos from the pantry.

I felt like I was sneaking them because I didn't ask mum if I could.

*My brother and I fought to face-scratching point once over who had the better cars, caravans, trailers, ambulance, fire engine, you name it. We would fight over every last little roof-dented, wheel-buckled shit box we had. So mum, fed up no doubt long before the face-scratching day, finally bellowed that she'd put an end to this once and for all. She sat like a mediator at a summit, all the cars belly-up in front of her, while Timmy and I negotiated our way through whose were really whose. And then she put a daub of pink nail polish on the underside of all mine so there were no further arguments. I was mortified that I had to have the pink brand on mine (I fought so hard against anything girly and pink for the first decade+ of my life).

A clever idea, just quietly. But don't ever tell 'er that.

The great Matchbox Heist of '82

I had the most bizarre day yesterday.

I went to a really old friend's parents' place for lunch - meaning, we've been friends a long, long time (24 years to be perfectly accurate), not my friend herself is really old - and it was such a spinout to go back to the home where I'd spent much of my youth, after school, on weekends, looking after their animals when they went away, etc.

And despite the fact that her 2 year old son and the LGBB were there, I could have been 10 again, just yearning for her older sister to say she was going riding on her horse and would I like to go *swoons* They have 6 acres there and the girls, frankly, were living my fantasy life.

I watched as she pulled out some Matchbox cars from a container to give to her son.... and there they were. Three of my old cars. I sat up a bit straighter, unsure then if I only remembered them because I'd played with hers so often. But they were so familiar! The green VW Gold with the roofrack and prized orange-tinted windows. The convertible orange Mercedes (sans convertible roof, mind you). The cool metallic blue Mustang. Oh, surely they were mine!! I kept the conversation light and casual as I grabbed first one, then the other, then the other and deftly flipped them upside down, looking for my mother's tell-tale nail polish daub on the underside.*

Nothing!

Still, that didn't mean much, I mean maybe these ones had been herded from the rest of my stash before The Big Fight that caused the once-and-for-all division of cars with my little bro.

Anyway. Whomever they belonged to, they were still being well loved (she says, with a tic in her eye that won't go away because she'll never know or be able to ask if they were STOLEN from me at some point of our childhood, before we stopped playing cars, that is, and started talking about boys).

And then, to spin me right out, when I got home I flicked on the telly and they're playing reruns of Family Ties on TV1 at the very after-school time that I used to watch them as a kid. It was an absent-minded after-thought, and we never usually have these in the house, but before I plonked myself onto the couch to watch it while folding baby clothes and nappies, I grabbed a mini packet of Doritos from the pantry.

I felt like I was sneaking them because I didn't ask mum if I could.

*My brother and I fought to face-scratching point once over who had the better cars, caravans, trailers, ambulance, fire engine, you name it. We would fight over every last little roof-dented, wheel-buckled shit box we had. So mum, fed up no doubt long before the face-scratching day, finally bellowed that she'd put an end to this once and for all. She sat like a mediator at a summit, all the cars belly-up in front of her, while Timmy and I negotiated our way through whose were really whose. And then she put a daub of pink nail polish on the underside of all mine so there were no further arguments. I was mortified that I had to have the pink brand on mine (I fought so hard against anything girly and pink for the first decade+ of my life).

A clever idea, just quietly. But don't ever tell 'er that.

Good one, window-licker

Standing at the kitchen window, Jazz seized her opportunity to stand up at it from outside and get as close as doggily possible to me.

I was dropping toast in to the toaster, absent-mindedly watching her face and thinking how cute she is - really (I mean, despite wanting to get that cute boof-head of hers and flatten it when she makes me crazy) - when I realised she was studiously watching my every move.

Smart dog, what a clever girl, I gushed to myself. She's a handsome dog and she's brainy. Dropped the toast into the toaster. Clang, clang.

It was then that old Brainiac dropped her gaze down with her head cocked. She was looking for the dropped bread. Outside.

What a genius.

With or without you

Who was I kidding?

I forgot that I miss you until I finally said the words.

Is it really like in that book? Can you show me?
I feel like I should know. In a maternal way, I want to ensure where you are is comfortable. Not lonely. I wanted you to myself and it happened so quickly, so suddenly, that I had to share you out to the world. I barely had time to know you myself in those brief moments you were right here in front of us. And then you were gone. And there was no more pilgrimage to make every day.

The void was filled eventually. I suppose. Did I start filling it in too quickly? No, I don't think so either. I do wish sometimes that I had had more time to stop. But to stop at that time would have been to die. Strange, I didn't have thoughts of wanting to die to be with you. But rather, thoughts of wanting to swap my life for yours - that if there was a way I could have died so you could be here, to live a life - your life - I know I gladly would have.

I never entertained the thought that we would live our lives together. But... are we anyway? Is the only difference that I can't actually see you?

I have often thought of you, Ellanor. Often. In the first months, the first year, I wondered what you were doing and where you were. I would say to people and to your Dad that it felt like you were just away on some trip somewhere. I likened the feeling I had, still have, to a mother wondering and a little concerned about her worldly child off travelling the wilds of Africa, the mountains of Tibet, the streets of Rome.

I feel like you are just a postcard away.

With friends like these...

Question:

If your baby is a grubby grot, getting over a cold and therefore still spitting and snotting and dribbling everywhere, would you take that baby to your friend's house and let your baby do said spitting and snotting and dribbling all over her baby's toys and rugs?

I know I wouldn't.

Would also let your baby eat on the floor and crawl around with dirty face and hands, rubbing stuff into your friend's carpet and touching all the furniture (table legs, licking table legs, grotty hands on couch)? Would you pretend you didn't see it or would you do what my friend did and laugh at each thing and say "Ooops you got some dribble on the toys"? And then, to top it off, would you get your friend's baby's big teddy bear and snuggle it into your baby's dirty yoghurt and fruit covered face? I'm not talking a bit in the corner of the baby's mouth, I'm talking a full face of food.

And would you make it so your friend feels she doesn't have any recourse because, after all, you've come over for the half day to be with your friend who you think isn't coping well (and press her to go onto anti-depressants)?

I am seething, more for the fact that after she's left, I have MORE work to do. I will have to clean all of the LGBB's toys. I am so angry that I could cry. There was no point pointing it out, my friend lives a far different life to me and I can see that when I go to her house. I am by NO means the cleanest person, but I don't see how you cannot see your child is slobbing all over someone else's fucking house. Fair enough, let your child do that at your place but I know for a fact that you'd not willingly allow your child to go crawling about with food in their hands and on their face.

I've never come across this before, mainly because this is the first visit from this friend since her baby has been mobile. I am shellshocked at her disregard for my home. She's a good friend, which makes this so much worse.

What is ridiculous, though, is that I am not assertive enough to even say anything. That apparently, it's easier for me to (once again) allow someone to do as they please thinking that I think it's ok when underneath I am thinking "Just get through this next half hour then they'll go and you can start cleaning, it's nothing that can't be fixed/cleaned". When really, I planned to do work this afternoon but I feel like I can't work because I have to clean before things/food/snotty spots set all over the place. Add to that that Lolly has just woken and I have very limited things to give her and places to put her to play until I do clean, even if I did decide to put off the cleaning.

GOD I'm cross! I think I'm mostly angry at myself for being so timid - the fear of being told I'm too pedantic or that it's funny to see me flustered over something like this is far greater to me than the inconvenience this friend has just created for me.

I'd love thoughts from any mums on this. Whether this is considered usual behaviour or not, as I sure as hell KNOW that my daughter would not be allowed to do that at someone else's house, regardless of how comfortable I was with the friend (in fact, in many respects, the closer I was to a person would just insure that I didn't allow it). It doesn't take much to wipe your baby's face and hands, surely??

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.

A different spin on the same old number

Well, when I created the pages about Ellanor and expanded on them as the demand became apparent, I never expected to receive a request to use her story as inspiration for a young girl's interpretive dance number.

But that is exactly what we received today.

In part, she wrote

i would jsut like to say that what you have done is beautiful, and im sure people say this all the time but i guarantee you that your website and contribution is helping people every day. I am only a young adult so have never had a child or lost a child for that matter, so i cannot even begin to think about what that would be like.

And nor do you really want to, my dear.

my other reason for writing to you is because i am a dancer at university and am currently in a project of choreographing a dance piece. The idea that i have chosen to explore is a mother losing a child. I know that i haven't ever felt the pain of a mother who has gone through this, but it is something that i want to explore because i feel it is such a tragic subject that people (both men and women) can be faced with and at times is totally unexpected. As teenagers and young adults we often think about what our families will be like in the future and how our children will be, yet we never really think about what it would be like to actually lose one of these children. I want to explore my feelings on this and put them towards others.
I found your website to be very inspirational and as i have not experienced motherhood yet, i would like to use your stories and poems etc as inspiration for my piece, in terms of your loss, your grief and also ellanor's gift.

What this has done is drop a penny in my head. A long time ago, I wanted to touch children. No wait.... that sounds SO wrong. I wanted to reach children. That's better. I wanted to reach them, reach out to them, not necessarily open them up to things but more... keep them open? If that makes any sense? My father has said to me on more than one occasion, 'We are born coming into this world knowing all'. It's the other way around to that which we are conditioned to think. I believe this thoroughly. Although, I am guilty of falling into the same trap with the LGBB; because those motor skills prevent her, we have to nurture her to the point of doing things for herself. But the underlying knowledge, it's there in every one of us. How many times have we heard "S/he's been here before" or "s/he has an 'old' face" when talking about newborns? It's not coincidental, I believe, but rather we're seeing echoes of what they have come in with, before it's gradually lost and they begin to wake up from where they've been and come into who they are now.

When this girl wrote to us today, I realised that all those times I've yearned to be a primary school teacher, a child care worker, a kindergarten teacher, I was looking for that hook. The powerpoint, if you like, that would enable me to plug in somewhere and experience that awesome time when children come into their own. And to be a contributor to the shaping of our future world. But I never realised any of those vocations. None of them sat well. It seemed futile, because my whole aim was to create awareness of how brilliant and fascinating they were - of, for lack of a better expression, touching them in such a way that they grew up full of pride in themselves, having a well developed understanding of their role in the bigger picture, how they can make a difference to the world and the way everybody lives. To take the blinkers off, I suppose.

But it just seemed such an exhaustive task and I let it go. Now, I am becoming wise to the prospect that if I want to truly help change, turn the juggernaut around, join the growing tide of people who are chipping away at making a difference, I can't do it myself. Not me, personally. But through people like this young girl. What better place to encourage young children to retain their innocence and awareness in order to heal the Earth than in the home?! From their parents? And even better, young adults who are yet to become parents. What a boon! For Mother Earth!

Little by little, awarenesses may begin to open up just that bit more. The possibility to name just one example that, hey yes, as absolutely crazy as it sounds, I did have conversations with my daughter before her conception and after her death. And that was only made possible because I was open to it. People she flitted to and dove in to open awareness that bit more were also only able to hear her because they too were open (if you want to read more on what I'm talking about, read Little Ella ... and take a box of tissues with you). The reason I use this as a good example is that that message, her message, was about expanding forgiveness in the self. Opening up others' compassion and consideration for others. In essence, not unlike that obscenely cheesy movie, Pay It Forward.

It's fascinating to me. And I am being gently pushed towards something that's forming in the outer reaches of my mind. I can feel it, but I can't tell what it is yet. It's bugging me! Not unlike a mozzie trapped in my bedclothes.

The bed bugs bit

Well, what a successful binge fest one lucky mozzie had last night, dining on my feet.

I hope he's pulled up sore this morning, little fat bastard. I have three bites on one little toe (excuse me, would you like a little toe with your mosquito bite, madam?), two on both big toes - right on the knuckles too, conveniently(not) for scratching - various others around my general feet area and one in the centre of my foot which, after a morning of scratching, now looks like a big red Play button.

And I'm going out of my FREAKING mind with the itching. I look like a mangey dog, scraping my feet along the carpet as I walk. Anything to tickle the itch away.

Oi said pet, oi said darl, oi said puh-LOISE

The LGBB tells it straight to the camera.

Perks of the job

Tell me what other kind of job in the WORLD has a clause that says:

"You will oft times be prioritising and in such demand that taking a dump will become a luxury."

Just wondering.

Harnessing her inner logic

Please Sir...

I want some more.

We're moving. Yes, I'd care to make it official

If only I could convince Steve that 16 baby huntsmen in one day (and waking not 5 minutes ago this morning to the big granddaddy of them all on my side of the bed half way down the wall near my head) is grounds for moving.

They may well be as nervous about approaching thunderstorms as me and turn indoors to escape the heat. But they should have built their own bigger houses if they wanted something to protect them from the goddamn weather. Coming in uninvited and unwelcome is just rude.

EEEEEUUUUGHHHHH!!

The baker's dozen

Twelve plus one.

Thirteen.

Baby huntsman spiders, all over the LGBB's bathroom.

A nest has exploded somewhere and my skin is crawling, people. Can I come over and sleep at your house?

I'm so hungy I could eat a sandwich from a gas station

Not unlike the scene from Vacation where Clarke Griswold is trying to find where to fill up the new family truckster with gas, I have just spent an infuriating few minutes pawing at the outside of the smart little arsed black box known as the video camera.

I turned it over and over and over. Like you'd do when you were a kid with those bloody annoying Rubiks cubes (c'mon, hands up who unstuck the coloured squares and restuck them perfectly in colour sequence then proudly declared you'd solved it? Just me?). I could not for the life of me where to stick the power cord to recharge the damn thing. And it had lost battery power right in the middle of the most delightful little "golly-golly-golly"ing by the LGBB. A moment, never to be captured again! Bastard technology! Damn thee to hellll.

I started trying to make the little jack fit in to various similarly sized holes, even the ones underneath that were so clearly not the power outlets, not unlike when Clarke is tapping down the side of his car with the gas nozzle in case there's some sort of hidden opening that will magically open sesame. So when I finally found the hidden flap, more secret than 'arry Potter's Chamber of Secrets, I heard Ellen in my head saying "Oh... Clarke? Isn't this the gas tank?"

Too smart for its own good, stupid video camera. Golly, golly, golly.