My my my

"That's my's!"
- Thumper

Hmm.. she seems to have regressed - she used to say "that's mine".
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She was only unsupervised for a few minutes...

I had just arrived home, after picking up BallFiend from kinder and Thumper from creche. BallFiend was desperate to play with one of his toys (just recently received as a birthday present) and he raced down our long hallway to the back of the house to get started. I followed, assuming Thumper would be right behind me, and began helping BallFiend unpack the many, many pieces of the toy.

After a few minutes I realised that Thumper:
a) had not followed us down the to back room yet (she is usually right behind BallFiend), and
b) was very, very quiet.

Not a good sign. I hurried back to where she had last been seen, by the front door. And immediately realised I had left the door to our study open. Thumper had of course gone straight to my desk and armed herself with implements of destruction: black and red markers.

As I walked into the room, I found her drawing on the lid of a plastic tub. Thinking I'd got off lightly, I opened my mouth to start "the Talk" but she got in first... She took one look at me, put on a defiant face (presumably to mask the guilty one), re-capped the red marker and marched over to the drawer saying, in very matter-of-fact manner, "I'm just putting this away". She opened the drawer and placed the red marker inside.

It was then that I noticed the black scribbles all over the drawer-front of my beautiful 1960s Danish teak writing desk. I love this desk, I have had it since I was about 16 years old, before that it was my father's and originally it was my grandfather's desk. It's the sort of thing you pay a small fortune for in trendy vintage/retro furniture stores these days.

So anyway, I freaked out just a little bit and Thumper promptly burst into tears and ran away. I ran for a microfibre cloth and started scrubbing. Thankfully the marks came off, so either I was lucky and she had actually used a black whiteboard marker, rather than a permanent marker, or I just got onto it quickly enough.

Either way, I am going to be a lot more vigilant now. Next thing you know, she'll be out tagging trains.
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BallFiend's Birthday Week Bake-a-thon

Last week was spent celebrating BallFiend's 5th birthday...

• On Friday, I sent BallFiend off to creche with a green-and-chocolate swirl cake to share.
• On Saturday, we held a party with his friends.
• On Sunday, we hosted an afternoon tea with the extended family.
• On Monday (his actual birthday), we chilled out at home.
• On Tuesday, I made gluten-free, egg-free, nut-free (flavour-free!) cup-cakes for him to take to Kinder to share.

Saturday's party was held at the local scout hall with 10 of BallFiend's kinder, creche and other friends, including MasterF, MasterW, LittleMissIz, Thing1 and Thing2 (daughters of FunkyOrganMan and ThingMaker). The party had a green-theme (a really simple theme to do - I can highly recommend it!). We had green balloons, a green table-cover, green napkins, plates, cutlery and of course all the food was green:

• pea and ham soup served in green cups;
• avocado dip with celery sticks for dipping (also some corn chips in green tubs);
• green jelly; 
• green-and-white coconut ice (which DeepSpice and I between us took four attempts to get right and then the kids didn't eat it anyway, but that was OK because all the groan-ups loved it!);
• a fruit platter of green(ish) fruits - Granny Smith apples, green pears and green grapes;
• the birthday cake was a butter cake with a green swirl through it and iced in green icing.

I also got 3 metres of neon-lime green tulle from Spotlight (on the discount table... I wonder why!) and made the kids green headbands to wear. We played a few games involving green straws but mostly the kids just played around in the hall. It was the easiest kids birthday party I've ever organised. Although I have to give fair credit to all the parents who hung around and helped out. I was assuming that being a five-year-old party, at least some of the parents would drop their children off for the 2 hours. But none did, and all were roped in to help with blowing up balloons, party games, food preparation and sorting out disputes! I was really glad that they did all end up staying.

Sunday's afternoon tea was attended by Gran, GrandPaul, StompyDad, CutLuce, DesignerMonkey, Cuz1, DesignerSis, Wigward and Great-Aunt-F (GrandPaul's sister) and her husband Great-Uncle-M. BallFiend and I made yet another birthday cake (banana with chocolate chips at BallFiend's request), and we ate party left-overs as well as Gran's chicken sandwiches and Great-Aunt-F's scones. Yummo!

By Monday (BallFiend's actual birthday), we were all too exhausted to do anything much at all. So after going to his usual swimming lesson, we came straight home so BallFiend could get down to the serious business of playing with all the toys he received as gifts. Highlights were:

• the mega-mega-soccerball (about 60cm diametre) from his aunt CutLuce and uncle DesignerMonkey.
• the gi-normous Earth beach ball (68cm diametre) from his aunt DesignerSis and uncle Wigward. (I'm sure DeepSpice would beg to differ with the promotional description that "It only takes a few huffs and puffs to fill this globe full of air" - he spent the first half hour of Sunday's afternoon tea blowing it up!)
• the foil "Happy Birthday balloon" on a stick from Cuz1.
• the green helium-filled balloons from Gran and GrandPaul.
• all the green balloons left over from the birthday party.

He also received several Lego kits and has been enjoying them a lot (as has Thumper), books, games, a marble run, construction toys, outdoor adventuring tools, dinosaur kits, a watering can and more. Some of the toys have been packed away so I can bring them out in instalments. There's easily enough to last him until Xmas time!

Overall he was totally indulged and doesn't really (know how to) appreciate it, but it doesn't matter... I loved seeing him so excited as he ripped open presents and how he got even more excited if they turned out to contain anything vaguely spherical. 
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Census Day!

On Census Day five years ago, I personally upped the population of Australia by one: little BallFiend popped out at 1.46 pm on Tuesday 8th August 2006, and as a reward for our efforts the ABS gave him a t-shirt (which didn't fit him until nearly 3 months later).

BallFiend in his Census T-Shirt, at 9 weeks old. 

Given he was 17 days overdue, it's not entirely surprising that he came in time for the Census, but during the last few days of my pregnancy I was sure he would wait to be born on the day after the Census and we would have to wait another 5 years before he could become an official population statistic.

The funny thing is that once I went into labour, I completely forgot about it being Census Day. It wasn't until about 8.00 pm that evening, when a Census officer visited us in our hospital room to give us a form that we realised BallFiend had in fact "made the count".

Today, BallFiend is equally as disinterested in the Census as he was five years ago. Fair enough too.

BallFiend aged 5 years and, as you can see, still lazing about on the couch.
Thumper joins him for a pretend afternoon kip.

DeepSpice and I will complete the Census questions tonight (online - hooray for technological advancements!) and this time around, we get to add Thumper to our Census form. (Though if you had asked me five years ago, I would have said there is no way on Earth we are going to have a second baby!) We will also be marking "no religion", although if there was a religion devoted to the worship of balls, I might feel somewhat obliged to tick that box on BallFiend's behalf.
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Bittersweet birthday

Today, my Mum would have been 64 years old, though in my memory she remains a beautiful 53 year old woman... that is one thing that can be said in favour of dying early. I can't imagine how she might look now if she was still alive, how she might have aged. And I'm sure she would have been happy about that. Before she died, Mum said to me that she wanted us to remember her as she was: a happy, outgoing person - not the way she was at the end of her illness. I can honestly say that I never have any trouble remembering her when she was well, whereas I have to work hard to conjure up memories of her when she was sick.

I keep finding myself wondering what it would be like if she was still here... wishing my children could meet their grandmother. I still find it hard to believe she has been gone for 10 years now. 

Today I am busily preparing for BallFiend's birthday party, which we are having tomorrow at a local scout hall. It's a green party so we are all wearing green clothes and having green-coloured food. As I never wear green (too many years of wearing a green school uniform!), on Wednesday I scoured a local op-shop and found a couple of green scarves for $1 each. The birthday cake - with a green swirl through it - is currently in the oven, green pea and ham soup is bubbling away slowly on the stove and when BallFiend comes home from kinder, we will make the green jelly. We have green balloons, green plates, green cups, green napkins and green spoons. By the way, did I mention that BallFiend's favourite colour is green? 

Organising BallFiend's birthday party makes me feel connected to Mum. She always organised lovely birthday parties for me and my sisters, and made amazing birthday cakes. I like to be able to do the same for my children. I just wish my Mum was here too. 

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