A Good Mum

Children often come out with random statements that make us laugh. A little less often is a random statement that melts your heart, even more so when spoken by a two-year-old child soon after I’d had a battle of wills with her.

As is the usual at the moment, Miss Flora told me which cereal she’d like for breakfast, I made it, she then refused to eat it, and I told her she’s getting nothing more to eat until after she’s eaten her breakfast.

Realising she wasn’t going to win this battle Miss Flora proceeded to eat her (now soggy) breakfast. So she didn’t have loneliness as an excuse to leave her breakfast, I hung about in the laundry (next to the dining room) and loaded the washing machine.

Miss Flora asked me what I was doing.

‘Getting the next load of washing ready,’ I replied.

‘You’re a good mum,’ said Miss Flora.

Wow! I was expecting another question or the exasperating ‘why’. After overcoming the initial shock, I felt really appreciated. I stopped what I was doing and gave her a cuddle. ‘Thank you’, I said.

Miss Flora then pointed at the bookcase. ‘Are they your books?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘Have you read them all?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I replied, realising that my exalted moment was over and Miss Flora had moved on to the next topic of conversation. It seems precocious two-year-olds are too busy to allow tender moments to slow the momentum of their thoughts.

Only A Little Bit Fat!

Now that summer is here, Junior Accountant has decided to lose some excess weight.

As Junior Accountant set up the Wii Active, Boywonder, Tomboy and Miss Flora crowded around her asking questions about what sort of game she was going to play.

Junior Accountant – ‘It’s an exercise program to help make me thinner.’

Tomboy – ‘But you’re only a little bit fat.’

Junior Accountant – ‘Gee, thanks for that.’

Tomboy – ‘What? I’m only commentating.’

Tomboy’s commentary was soon forgotten as the three little ones busied themselves with some humorous attempts at imitating Junior Accountant’s exercises.

Fifteen minutes later Tomboy tilted her head to the side, looked Junior Accountant up and down, and declared, ‘I don’t think it’s working, you’re still not thin!’

When I Grow Up

On our way to school earlier this week, the kids started discussing what they wanted to be when they grew up.

Boywonder said that since he was so good at pulling his seatbelt out and across him to do it up that he would be good at making car seats and belts for cars.

Tomboy said that she was good at drawing so she would be an artist when she grew up.

I asked who was going to be a doctor.

With their professions already chosen, Tomboy and Boywonder nominated Miss Flora, to which Miss Flora responded with, ‘Nooo, I’m going to be a dog!’

It brought back memories of when The Apprentice was little and declared she was going to be a tree when she grew up. The interesting thing is that she’s studying conservation land management and horticulture…

Dumb and Dumber on Holiday

Mr T and I had a couple of “moments” during our last weekend in Traralgon. We stayed in a lovely spacious apartment that included a deep spa bath, a remote-controlled heating and cooling system in the lounge area, and a walk-in wardrobe in the main bedroom.

After sussing out each room and cupboard in the apartment we unpacked and Mr T hung his shirts so they didn’t get creased. Unfortunately, the more Mr T tried to keep his shirts from creasing, the more his forehead creased.

I found him having a great deal of trouble as he attempted to hang his shirts' coat hangers on the door handle of the walk-in wardrobe. The door handle was too close to the doorframe, thus preventing him from getting the hangers to sit over the handle properly.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked, rather confused as to why he was persisting with the door handle when he had a whole wardrobe on the other side of the door.

As he opened the door to the wardrobe in an attempt to hang the shirts and then close the door, he remembered what was on the other side of the door. ‘I could just hang them in there, couldn’t I,’ he said rather sheepishly.

It wasn’t long until Mr T decided to check out the spa bath. After a while I too went in the direction of the kids’ bedroom and the bathroom that contained the spa bath, only to be met by a loud rumbling sound.

‘What is that horrid noise?’ I asked.

‘It’s the spa bath, don’t worry, it’ll turn itself off soon,’ replied Mr T, thinking that it worked on a timer.

After ten minutes the sound didn’t stop and I went into the bathroom to where the “empty” spa bath sat, still desperately trying to circulate air and water through an empty bath tub. I became a little worried when I noticed a slight burning smell. I looked at the button Mr T had pushed to turn it on and went back to where he was in the bedroom and asked if he had tried to turn it off by pushing the button again.

‘No,’ said Mr T slowly as he thought about the merits of my suggestion, so I returned to the bathroom and pushed the button. The spa bath stopped.

Both are understandable gaffs when one is unfamiliar with the abode or its amenities, but there is no excuse for the dumb moment we shared on the first night.

We decided to turn the heating on when it became quite chilly during the evening. The instructions above the remote control on the wall said, ‘Pick up remote, turn it on, set temperature. There will be a delay before the system starts’.  It sounds pretty simple doesn’t it, and even more so when it was the standard wall-mounted system, like the one in this picture, which you can hear and feel when it’s on and working. Not for us!

We pushed the on button and the remote beeped. We set the temp and the remote beeped each time we went up or down a degree. We sat back down in front of the television and waited for the heating system on the farthest wall to start warming the place. After twenty minutes, I increased the temperature on the remote to 29C (84F) because the room temperature hadn’t changed at all.

After discussing how useless the heating system was, we concluded it must be because it was trying to heat a very large room. After another fifteen minutes, by which time I was wearing my large overcoat over my pyjamas and had a blanket wrapped around my legs and feet, I went to the remote and picked it up and increased the temperature by another five degrees. I moved closer to the heating system and noted how quiet it was – too quiet!

With the remote still in my hand I pushed the power button on the remote again – maybe turning it off and on again would help – and instead of the remote control beeping, this time the heating system beeped as well – and a light came on! It was at that point that we realised the heating system hadn’t been on at all because we hadn’t picked the remote up and pointed it in the direction of the heating system.

We took comfort in the fact that we were as dumb as each other when it came to figuring out the heating – or lack of it.

Why Do I Have White Hair?

I was sitting on the steps, watching Boywonder at Auskick while Tomboy stood on the step behind me, playing with my hair.

It was very relaxing until Tomboy said, ‘Why have you got white in your hair?’

I ignored her question, hoping she’d find something else back there – nits, fleas, ticks…

But it wasn’t to be.

Slightly louder this time: ‘Mummy, why is there white hair on your head?’

I was still hoping something – anything – would distract her when she asked with a shout, ‘Mummy, why do you have white hair?!’

Tomboy’s loud vocalisation about my grey roots in desperate need of some hair dye, not only confirmed I was going grey (not to mention deaf), but brought it to the attention of everyone within a ten-metre radius.

My reply: ‘Because I have too many kids!’

A couple of weeks later while seated at the computer waiting for the hair dye on my head to do its job, Tomboy asked me why I was dying my hair.

‘To get rid of the white hair,’ I replied.

‘Oh, you didn’t tell me you had white hair,’ she said before trotting off to play.

At least I’m not suffering memory problems!

Tomboy Takes Over the World!

While Mr T and Boywonder have been home sick with the flu this week, Tomboy and Miss Flora have been busy trying to take over the world.

When Mr T came downstairs after trying to have a nap, Tomboy asked, ‘Did you have a good sleep, Daddy?’

Mr T said, ‘I was until I heard a lot of banging downstairs.’

‘Ah, yes,’ replied Tomboy, ‘we were trying to take over the world.’

‘Well you woke me.’

‘Sorry about that,’ said Tomboy before running off to continue her appropriation of the world from the safety of our lounge room.

The Apprentice Quotes…

The Apprentice amuses us regularly with her unusual views and interesting comments.

When planning their trip to Port Douglas, The Apprentice’s Boyfriend (TAB) suggested that they do some snorkelling. The Apprentice responded with, ‘I don’t know, what if I get the bends?’

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While play fighting with Tomboy one evening, The Apprentice exclaimed, ‘You’re so strong; every muscle is muscle!’

As opposed to…?

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We were all sad to hear that one of TAB’s racehorses fell ill, resulting in it going blind, but The Apprentice was optimistic when she asked, ‘Don’t they have like a Paralympics for horses?’