Mouldy Jessica

This month's 'Tough Toddler' award goes to Maggie:

• for continuing to grab our hair as a means of pacifying herself to get to sleep.
• for also biting the aforementioned hair and managing to rip out strands in the process.
• for screams (especially in confined spaces) that have you clutching at your ears and checking afterwards for blood.
• for learning to say 'no', in the cutest manner possible. It's a soft, tert 'na' - often repeated and accompanied by a quick turn of the head. She seems to say it at every opportunty. Even when Marge goes to kiss her goodnight.
• for learning to jump. And jump. And jump.
• for learning to spin around and around and around and *bump*
• for quickly adapting to new technologies, particularly those that beep. Her latest toy - the kitchen timer.
• for excellent climbing skills that have taken her to new heights and a variety of photos, books and cordless phones.
• and lastly: for scaring the daylights out of Homer as she stood barefoot on a glass photo frame.
  She placed it on the lounge suite and was rocking on it. I didn't see her until...
  The glass broke with a sickening crunch and Maggie just stood stunned. I whisked her away and examined her feet. Thank God! Not even a scratch.

Honourable Mentions to Lisa:

• for the quote of the month: 'I want to watch mouldy Jessica'. Of course, she's referring to the movie 'Madagascar'. Just as well her friend Jessica hasn't heard that one.
• and for learning to forgo the disposable nappy. Yes, she is now officially toilet trained! Woohoo!!!!

And of course Special Mentions to:
Bart - for almost knocking out his front tooth with his own basketball.
Bart - for his willingness to finally chip in and do some chores (in exchange for some Nintendo DS time). He's currently into Nintendogs and has a German Shepherd pup named 'Deathy'.
Harry Kewell - for THAT goal against Croatia to send the Socceroos into the Final 16. Realistically, that's as far as they'll go. But we'll all be watching for a miracle against Italy.   ;)

Dishonourable Mentions and a Yellow Card to:
Homer - for being a slacker with this blog. Doh!

c..c...cold

I walked to work this morning. At 10am.
It felt strange. No sunshine. Face frozen.
When I got in, I found out that it was still minus 2 degrees outside. At 10:30am!
According to BoM, we've hit a maximum of - 0.2 degrees so far today.

And Bart still insists that he doesn't need to wear a jumper to school.

Where were you when Cahill scored THAT goal?

Maggie woke up crying again at around 12:45pm on Monday night.
I barely heard her, through the headphones.
I was in bed, staring at my notebook.
Of course, my notebook was connected to the portable DTV tuner.
I was watching the beginning of the end of the Socceroos' World Cup fairytale.
One nil down against Japan. Just over 10 minutes to go. So many missed opportunities.
As Maggie's cries intensified, I took off the headphones, and crawled out of bed.
I turned back to see if Marge was awake. Nope - she was oblivious to the wailing across the hall, and the sporting disappointment unfolding across the world.

When I got to her room, Maggie was sitting up - as she usually does. She looked through me. And just kept crying.
I tucked her back into bed. She kicked off the covers and cried even louder.
My mind drifted back to the game, as I pondered what to do.
"It's over anyway. Might as well stay with Maggie until she falls asleep"
"No - don't give up. Australia may have already equalised. You can't write them off yet!"
So in one fluid motion, I rushed the crying Maggie back to our bedroom, jumped into bed, threw placed Maggie beside her sleeping mother and turned to the screen.

Australia: 0. Japan: 1.
My heart sank. 83 minutes gone, and nothing had changed.
A minute later, EVERYTHING changed. Australia's first World Cup goal. At least we come away with a draw. What a sigh of relief.
Five minutes later, I jumped up and punched the air as Cahill scored his 2nd.
(And so did Marge, except her punch connected with my leg as she scowled at me for waking her up!)
And when Aloisi made it 3 - 1, four minutes later, I was just smiling like an idiot. It took me another 2 hours to get to sleep after that.
What a game!

Well done Socceroos!!

Toilet humour is supposed to be funny

The last 2 weeks have been quite a challenge.

Lisa picked up a nasty stomach bug - probably from playschool.
Since then, the kids have taken turns throwing up and diarrhea-ing.
And the two adults have been feeling queasy - possibly from all the exposure to the toxic output we've had to clean up.

Thankfully, Bart is old enough to talk into the porcelain bowl himself.
If only our two little princesses were more co-operative.
Marge and I have become adept at grabbing Lisa and Maggie and rushing them to the toilet.
And also identifying the visual queues to throw that bucket under them before the vomit hits the carpet.

We haven't been 100% successful though.
We've found that disposable nappies are not designed to withstand such forces of nature.
Our sighs would resonate through the house whenever we saw those wet brown patches seeping through the girls' pants.
And how those sighs quickly turn to screams when we discover that they've been sitting on the carpet. In the lounge room! Aaaarrggghhh!!!!
At least Maggie would try to tell us the she was uncomfortable.
Lisa on the other hand. Sometimes I think she could wear the same nappy for a week without being bothered.

I hope you've already eaten.