30 January 2012

Speech! Speeeech!

Speech classes start tonight, which should be very interesting.
Getting Marcel home early enough for me to dash to the hospital in time should be very interesting.
Poor Marcel home alone with a growing head cold & two kids as bedtime draws near should be interesting.

Just to recap, I am the one going to speech class even though I have an impeccable way with words. If you're scoffing, you are welcome to CAN IT! Anyway, while Ben's vocabulary has grown tremendously over the past several weeks, as many of you predicted it would, I still want to see what they have to teach us. I want to find any way possible to encourage him in his language development & help him be understandable to everyone else without us resorting to nagging & correcting. I figure he's done so well on his own recently that it can only be onwards & upwards from here.

Heee-yah!
That's me karate chopping the sky, which I felt compelled to do suddenly.

I'll let you know how the class goes in any case. It goes for four or five weeks for an hour & a half so I hope it's at least fun. Why on earth would I think it would be fun? I'm afraid the nerd in me comes out at the thought of going to a class of any kind. If I had spent a little less time choosing which cute notebook to take with me (where is Lisa Frank when you need her?)(oh wait, here she is!), maybe I would have remembered Evan's 4-month immunizations today. Hello smallpox.

Speaking of Evan, there's been no further rolling over. He leeeeans as if he's going to, teeters there for a few seconds then rolls back to his starting position. The process is always accompanied by a lot of whining, groaning & what is most certainly baby grumbling. Stubborn child. I keep rolling him to show how it's done & giving him encouragement but I think he startled himself so much with his first couple of rolls that he's a little hesitant to take the plunge again. Maybe I could build a little ramp & send him down it - that would get him going for sure! Mother of the Year.

Anyhoo, it's raining & I'm distracted. Ordering my groceries online these days, which is the single greatest thing I've ever done for myself (thank you Nicole for suggesting it). No more dragging grumpy hobbits through the aisles of Mordor & forgetting half of the list or just having to cut it short for everyone's sanity. Look into it, people - if Kariong offers it then you know your bustling metropolis would have it too.

Off I go into the wild blue yonder ...


29 January 2012

Waddles

Sorry I've been away - I've been putting a bit of effort into getting my new blog up & running so have neglected this one a bit. Luckily, I have been making notes about things I want to write about. Now I just realized that Ben took a pencil to those notes so if I can decipher my original chicken scratches under there like an art restoration person (restorator? restorationist? I have read enough nonsense novels where those guys are also terrorism experts, I should know what they're called)(I'm pretty sure restorator is not a word for what it's worth but really, why are they always art historians PLUS top secret super spies - choose one awesome career at a time, buddy), I will update my blog accordingly.

In the meantime, I give you a glimpse of my poor son who is sleeping in penguins head to toe tonight. 

This would be more effective & adorable if I had gotten a picture where his arm wasn't actually covering one of the penguins. 
That penguin's belly is a polar bear, by the way! Cutest t-shirt ever. 
I just tried to look it up on threadless.com but it's apparently not for sale anymore. Sorry.

He looks more & more like the Fat Controller from Thomas the Tank Engine every day. 
Bless him. 

24 January 2012

Oh, little man.

As the reining Mother of the Year, I always feel a little guilty that I'm not reporting every time Evan blinks his eyes or farts or whatever. He is my gorgeous little guy nonetheless & today we made a giant leap in the land of development - he rolled over for the first time!!! I know, hold on to your hats people. Big news, big news.

He'd been a little out of sorts for the past couple of days, even more clingy than usual & even less sleep during the day with even more cluster feeding. Bless his little cotton socks, he was driving me BANANAS. Did I not learn anything while raising my first little lovely? Ben's consider "raised" at this point, right? Anyway, I completely forgot that every time Ben freaked out like that, he'd suddenly have a new skill. 

I could keep rambling about how exciting his first (& second if I'm going to keep bragging) rollover was - he banged his head on the ground his first go but he still gave it another go. No, no, I'll stop talking about it now. But let me just say there are Olympic athletes that don't show the high level of determination my little monkey musters up in his little face & fists when he's getting ready to go for it. But nope, I'm done. 

We'll just have to get video for you so you can share in the excitement. 

I'm trying to stop using so many exclamation points by the way (that's right, this is cutting back!) so I feel like everything I write is coming across as depressed. I'm not depressed, I'm just trying to be a little more mature. It's painful. 

19 January 2012

Rejected.

I was having such a great day today - was totally knocking it out of the park with my goal of holding Evan as much as possible (he spends too much time being hushed & shushed while we run after Ben most days so I'm trying to make up for that), got our TV antenna fixed FINALLY & other such wondrous things. Then I made the mistake of grabbing our mail before picking Ben up at day care.

Inside was this:

*sigh* Did I expect to win the $200,000 grand prize? No. I would have happily settled for the $10,000 weekly prize. Let's be honest - I would have peed myself with delight to get the $500 for them just playing the darn clip. But nooooo, we were DENIED.

Let me make it clear how badly we were denied. I sent the DVD off on Friday last week - it's now Thursday. They received it, watched it, deemed it unfunny & sent us the rejection letter in SIX DAYS! Nothing gets done that quickly. Ugh.

Granted, I realize the show probably has more than enough clips of kids blowing out birthday candles but I thought ours was far superior to most I have seen on air. Whatever. I appreciate the line that says "comedy is subjective" as if the people who peddle groin hits & old people toppling over are the grand judges of hilarity. I can't argue with their choice of clips of cats clobbering babies & toddlers but come on people, this ain't Shakespeare. Maybe we need to invest in a pet to mix with our kids & THEN my dream will come true.

If you don't remember what we entered, it was this little gem:

If you agree with them that it's not funny enough, I highly advise you to keep it to your damn self lest I smack you with a shoe. And lest I film myself smacking you with a shoe & attempt yet again to get on this stupid show. 

Anyway, onwards & upwards ... I guess. 

In better news, today is Marcel & my 12 year anniversary - not marriage anniversary, just dating. Seems like a lifetime ago that we were carefree 20 year olds frolicking in the snow & falling in love. Silly kids, we had no idea what was in our future! Hahahaha, if only we had known ...

15 January 2012

Golden Globes

I don't have cable, pay TV, Foxtel, whatever you want to call it. There are a handful of times I regret this - when I desperately want to watch true crime documentaries (The First 48 is the greatest series ever) & when the awards shows start rolling around.

I would give my right arm to be watching the Golden Globes red carpet right now & the actual show afterwards. Instead I'm following the Fug Girls' live coverage on Vulture while speeding between E! & every other entertainment website I can think of to see the dresses. Yes, I know I could watch a feed of it on the internet but it never loads correctly & I get so aggravated that it's not worth it. I know I'll see highlights later.

Here are my dress favorites in whatever order they happened to pop up from where I saved them.

Debra Messing
photo courtesy of bellasugar.com.au
When I googled the lovely Ms Messing, I saw that she has favored this look in the past.
I would favor it too if it made me look so wonderful. 
Hard to go wrong with dramatic black.
Also, I love green & respect bold accessories.

Angelina Jolie
This look couldn't be worn by many women because it would end up wearing them instead.
I would never wear it because I have no gravitas.
Angelina rocks it.
I hate Brad's hair. I hate it to Hell.

Kelly MacDonald
I would wear this dress. I don't care that I'm short & frumpy.
It would take an act of violence to pry those greeny bluey sequins off of me.
I have never seen Kelly without referring to her as "the girl from Trainspotting" but now I may amend it to "the girl from Trainspotting who wore that amaaaaaazing sequiny dress."
Upgrade.

Sarah Michelle Gellar
I always crave drama & fun in red carpet style.
I am so sick of nude dresses, it makes me want to scream.
This is the anti-nude in my mind & it's awesome!
Thank you SMG for coming back with a bang.

Helen Mirren
It's blue, it's classy, it's gorgeous.
I feel the strong urge to force my husband to photoshop my face onto hers so I can pretend I wore this.

Dianna Agron
This goes against my every natural instinct.
I'm not drawn to red dresses.
Column styles leave me feeling meh.
Skin (or the illusion of it) peeking through strikes me as cheap.
Also, I hate Glee.
But I think my love off all things Rob Ryan is overshadowing all the bad & forcing me to love this. 
I'd much prefer it as a framed papercut for what it's worth.

11 January 2012

Motherboy in the Kitchen

So we had another date night last night (thank you, Ilse!!!) & saw Sherlock Holmes: the New One. I have no idea what its subtitle actually is but when did people stop just calling things Crap 2 or whatever? 

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed what I saw of it. To be fair I saw most of it before I fell asleep. It's a long movie - 2 hours & 4 minutes apparently. 

And also to be fair, the Erina Hoyts theatre now has an Xtreme Screen theatre. I don't know what that means - there were no snowboarders or BMX bikers jumping around so I'm not sure what was so Xtreme about it. What I do know is that there were extremely comfortable brand new leather seats, still stinky new. I settled in a little too comfortably & ended up drifting off several times throughout the last hour of the movie - every time I came back to consciousness I thought "Oh, that's okay it's just more fighting/action" but those are probably just the scenes that woke me up - I'm sure I snoozed through the witty repartee & the scene where Holmes & Watson finally just get it over with & make out. Will have to watch it again one day. 

Today was a new day as they often are. Ilse is in Sydney & Marcel is back to work so this is my first day alone with my sons in a few weeks. Scary stuff. They have been incredibly kind, I must admit. Evan has gone so far as to take TWO actual naps of about an hour each instead of his usual catnaps on me, which come to an abrupt end when I have to get up or, ya know, move a muscle. 

Ben has joined me in my new love of cooking. Yes, it's been slowly sneaking up on me for 32 years but I'm finally really enjoying being in the kitchen. Now that Ben has joined me, I'm pretty sure we're only another 32 years away from a creepy Motherboy cooking show together. (If you don't know what Motherboy is, you best borrow someone's Arrested Development DVDs before I smack you.) Ben's audition tape is okay but I'm afraid Evan interrupted:

Yes, it's always that chaotic in our kitchen. And yes, lots of Depeche Mode gets listened to while we cook so there are frequent dance breaks.

Possible future cookbook cover?

AFTER
Notice Ben is doing the dishes.
I think we all know that by the time he figures out what he's doing, he won't be interested anymore.

We have a professional photographer visiting us & this is the only family picture we have to show for it. Apologies for exposing my bosom but Evan is very impatient if he doesn't eat on demand. And no, the car was not in motion - I'm not THAT bad of a mom.

Anyhoo, have a happy day wherever you are.


09 January 2012

Disco lady

If you didn't know, I have a split personality. 
Nothing serious. 
Just talking about my taste in decorating.
One one hand I want heavy, dark & rustic.
On the other hand I crave anything shiny, spangly & garish.
I never thought the two worlds could meet.

I AM SPEECHLESS.

We don't currently have any stairs, unfortunately.
Marcel is attempting a pre-emptive veto for any future homes.
He has another thing coming.
I shall have disco ball stairs one day.
 I'm pretty sure putting it in writing (typing) makes it so.

Good day to you!

02 January 2012

Hello Ghostbusters

Happy New Year!!

Yes, 2012 has snuck in the back door without any of us really being ready for it but it's been kind so far. Well, except for when I slammed my finger in a drawer on New Year's Day. Technically it was still 2011 when I got the same finger & two others mangled in our hand mixer the day before so I guess I can't blame that on the new year. If all the fingers on my right hand survive 2012 I will consider the year a success.

This will be brief because I'm supposed to be getting dressed & ready for the day but I just wanted to check in to let you know that I still love you like crazy & wish you all the very very best in 2012. Hope you'll stick around for more of my nonsense because one of my resolutions - if I have to call them that - is to blog more regularly & make this thing into a more sensible place instead of the current ramshackle home for my ramblings. My other resolution is to drink more water & I'm doing pretty well with that so far so raise the roof, etc!

Marcel's amazing sister Ilse is here at the moment so I'm a bit distracted these days - they are running around like only Eisele's can (seriously, they have so much energy they make me feel elderly!) but when I'm not trailing after them I am thoroughly enjoying being able to clean the house & keep up on laundry because they take Ben with them pretty much everywhere they go (he may look like a Moore but he is in constant motion like an Eisele). It sounds sad but I really enjoying being a housewife when I have time to do it properly - a little cooking here & there, changing sheets, entertaining the baby.  Oh that baby. He's lucky he's so cute because he's woken up around 2.30am the past two nights & I'm terrified it's his new thing. After weeks & weeks of sleeping through the night, how dare he try this crap now! Ha ha - we know we've been EXTREMELY lucky to have had it this good this long so I'm really not complaining. But I am hoping he's just pulling himself back together after a raucous New Year's Eve out on the town. When I get my brain back in order I'll share a video from that night with the gorgeous & amazing Bobongie family who were kind enough to let us celebrate with them, crashing with a baby & a toddler. I can't actually get the video off of my camera at the moment - must not be on the SD card, so I'm trying to find the cord that goes with the camera. Blah blah boring blah. I should have made not being boring a resolution but I didn't so you're stuck with me.

Ya know, as I was drifting off to sleep last night I found myself thinking about one of my original dreams in life - to be the Ghostbusters receptionist. Not an actual Ghostbuster but their receptionist. Annie Potts rocked the hell out of that role & I wanted her quirky hair, big glasses & an even bigger accent. One day, one day ... yep, still my dream.

Okay, I'm seriously going to go get dressed so I don't get scolded. 
Enjoy your day & drink lots of water.