I didn’t ask to be a princess…
…but if the crown fits.
Cassidy adores a headdress. She adores even more the attention she attracts when she wears one. Most non-school days she appears downstairs with some sort of ‘prop’ on herself somewhere. The crown is a new $2 acquisition and although still in the testing phase, has been returning quite positive results. One trip to the shops produced two “oh aren’t you gorgeous’es” and several “isn’t she cute” gestures and smiles from old ladies.
Yesterday was the crown. Today was angel wings, a halo and a fairy wand. She asked me do angels have wands and I began to reply when she answered her own question. “I think they do have wands. They’re angels. The can do what they like. And anyway, the wand matches my shoes”.
myPhone.
My sister has already told me repeatedly that I’m a terrible blogger of late. I know. You see, we had this idea for a photobooth…
Most of my photos from the past little while have been snapped on my iPhone. It’s everything against my photographer-happy-place: it doesn’t have lenses, it’s not particulary good quality and it will never replace my beloved 5D2. But I have to say it’s still heaps of fun. Steve looks at me in a “I’m so glad you have a very expensive camera sitting at home” kind of way whenever I whip it out.
I love that it’s always in my pocket so I can be quick on the draw when required. I love that Isaac loves it and will often snap away. The two of us have spent a couple of quiet evenings snuggled on the couch downloading dinky camera apps and playing away. I love that you never know what you’re going to get. It captures the *real* stuff. I don’t have to think about exposure, light or anything – just that the moment was special enough that I wanted to remember it.
All these photos have a little story but I need to share just one before I forget to write it down. The picture of the pot plant, bottom row, third from the left.
My Nonna, the kids’ great-grandmother, gave Cassidy four bean plant seeds. Or rather, she gave them to Casssidy one day while I frantically waved my hands at her over Cassidy’s head mouthing “NOOOOOO!!!!” as I could forsee the heartache when the things wouldn’t grow. We are a family with skills. Growing anything in the broad category of a plant is not one of those skills. Nonna could plant a jug of milk and the next day there’d be a cow there.
Steve, doting dad that he is, scooped a handful of dust out of the plant cemetary we call a garden and bunged it all in a tupperware container. Cassidy drowned it with a cupful of water. Isaac was disinterested. I said a silent prayer.
Fast forward four days later. I got up and stumbled into the lounge room where Cass was watching early morning cartoons. I walked past the window where her container was, then doubled back for a second take. The beginnings of little green sprouts were poking up above the surface. Surely not…..?!
“Cass!!! Your beans!!!! They’re growing!!!”
She looked sideways at me, nodded smugly with a knowing half-smile and turned back to the cartoons.
Steve came down a bit later and evoked a similar response. Eventually after much excitement on our part, she ventured forth with, “well, Nonna said they would grow”, like the word had been made scripture. Oh yea, of little faith parents that we are. The seedlings soon outgrew their tupperware container so Pa came good with a pot, potting mix and even made a frame for the beans to climb up. They’ve now migrated from the windowsill to outside the front door.
I have the suspicious feeling we’re going to come home one day and the sly little weeds will have grown over the house in some kind of Jumanji-vine take over…
country road (take me home)
Just after Easter we booked in for a few days away in the hinterland. I won’t lie -it was hectic getting away and it was hectic when we got back. But while we were there it was lovely.
We booked an old, two bedroom farm cottage in the middle of nowhere with nothing to do but be us. We walked to the creek, Cassidy tried (unsucessfully) to make friends with the cows, Isaac did 674 laps of the house and paddock on his motorbike, we played Uno and had hot drinks on the back deck. Once I reset my brain to do nothing, I do quite nicely at it, thankyou muchly.
Cassidy has decided she is now able to do her own hair. If a set of wild caged birds were released onto her head, they’d do a better job. She is however, quite self assured of her own prowess and gets very insulted if you say otherwise. She also likes to unleash her creative genius on me in a “you’re so totally overdue for a new look” kind of way.
But with such cute freckles and a red hoodie, she gets away with it.
Our little boy doing things little boys love to do – trying to set a personal-best speed and stressing their mothers out.
In our holiday house we found some flyers for a farm down the road that offered tours. We ‘came on down’ (as they say!) and found the sweetest thirteen year old girl that does tours of their farm for her pocket money. They were the type of family that leaves you feeling warm, fuzzy and desperately wanting to move to the country. Her mum and sister came along too and our city kids petted their silky chooks, brushed the shetland ponies, held the four day old baby alpaca and (gasp) went for a mini trail ride on their horse.
I am a serious horse addict from way back. I adore their smell, their eyes, everything about them. I owned one as a teenager until a certain boy took over my time 
If we ever make it onto any kind of land larger than a normal house block, a pony is the first thing on my list.
Cassidy echoed this sentiment when she was lifted down from her ride and immediately said, “I want one of these”, like she’d just selected a new cardigan off the rack.
Ohhh baby, so do I……
heart mender.
Steve had to go to Mackay for a couple of nights and took Isaac with him. When the news broke that Isaac was going – on a jet plane, no less – the boy sparkled from the inside. His blue eyes look like sun on the water when he is excited. He was so thrilled I thought he might burst and he was so beautiful I feared I might burst right along with him.
I saw his eyes in the first picture and the first phrase that came to mind was ‘heart breaker’ but I think heart mender suits him better. He’s just too gentle a soul to ever break a heart.
can’t live with him. can’t kill him.
I love Steve. Really I do. But remembering jobs to be done is something we clash over often. The long and the short of it is, I ask him to do stuff and he forgets.
After an in-depth discussion with good friends of ours recently, it was suggested a white board above his desk to write urgent jobs on would do the trick. It would be in plain view all the time and not get lost in the brothel he calls his desk. Today with lightness of step and hope in my heart, I went and purchased said white board.
And this is how it looks, sitting on the floor of our office tonight:
He doesn’t respond to threats and isn’t ticklish so there’s no point tying him down. Any suggestions for my next move would be appreciated.
easter kwaft.
Cassidy adores craft. Or “kwaft” as she calls it. She suggests little projects she’d like to do about a hundred times a day. Taking on ‘kwaft’ with Cassidy is not for the faint hearted.
God really must have a sense of humour because she is so very like me. She has very set ideas on how she would like to do things; what will work out like the picture in her head and what won’t. The trouble with this scenario is that she’s five, and to a five year old, all ideas are fantastic. Even using an entire bottle of Clag to make a paddle pop stick handbag would be within reason.
Tonight she wanted to make something for her friend’s easter baskets at school. She unloaded this information on me about 5pm and after a moment of screaming “noooooooooooo” internally, I set about trying to whip up a plan. Once again my hoarding of seemingly useless craft products saved the day and I found some plastic coloured egg shaped containers I had hid away. My cake decorating box provided us with mini chocolate birds’ eggs and my trip to the junk shop recently had supplied the fuzzy chicks and ribbon. The excitement, clasped hands and “ohhhh YESSSSSSS mummy!” when she came down from he shower to find this collection on the table said it all really.
And that’s where the sweetness ends. From there on, I was merely a necessary assistant to her creative genius.
She started by using her class list to assign color schemes to each of her friends. She chose which colour egg container they were to receive, filled them with mini eggs and a chick, chose the tissue paper and ribbon. I was assigned the lowly task of writing the name tags and tying the bows. Even that required constant supervision from the Kwaft Commander and I was continuously reprimanded for my obvious lack of skill.
“Oh okay mummy…you used the purple tissue paper on that one. I would have used the green, but never mind”.
“I’m just going to the toilet to do a poo. Don’t do anything while I’m gone. Well, okay you can write the tag for Natalie but don’t mix hers up with Kellie will you mum? And check with me before you choose the colours”.
I’m telling you, the child would have Martha Stewart cowering in a corner. And I haven’t even touched on the Teddy Bears Picnic she invited all her friends to last week at school. That was supoosedly on Saturday. At our house. That I was blissfully unaware of until I got a text from another mum saying “is there a teddy bear’s picnic on at your house today? Alice told me Cassidy gave her an invitation”.
I really should have given her Christmas present of notepaper and envelopes more forethought. I suppose if she lacked stationary she just would have emailed them anyway. She probably has cassidyloveskwaft@hotmail.com registered for all I know.
a birthday for pa.
Happy birthday Pa. You are loved. xox
I love the second shot with the “four” grandchildren with Pa holding onto Cassidy’s baby
jazza mataz.
Jasmine, Jaz, Jazza-Mataz and Jazzy Meow Meow.
We had a bit of a sad day yesterday. It was time for our pussy cat to be put to sleep.
Steve and I got her from the pound soon after we bought our first house. We had been married six months and, both being cat lovers, she was one of the first things we ‘bought’ once we had a house of our own. We picked her because when we walked into the cat enclosure, she was the first one to jump onto my lap.
She would often lie in the patch of morning sun that came through the sky light and I would look at her and long to be a cat. The only thing I’ve ever seen her claw is Toby the labradoodle when he had the audacity to try to come into ‘her’ laundry. The kids have dragged her behind them, put her in prams, squished her and pulled her tail. She would lie there with a “please God let it be over” look on her face, but never scratch or run away. She would spend most nights at our feet, on our laps or on our desks in the office. She had a bad habit of jumping up silently behind you when you leaned forward over your desk, only to lean back and sandwich a cat. She loved us.
Cassidy has been especially sad. We came home to “no Jazzy Meow Meow” that night (Cassidy’s nickname for her) and she quietly went and got the flowers off our entry way table and placed them in the laundry. “Flowers for Jazzy”, was all she said.
I will find it hard to move those flowers.
the final countdown.
…to thirty. Considering I turned twenty nine yesterday, I figure I’m well and truly on it. Considering I can remember my parents turning twenty nine, it makes it even more disturbing.
I asked both the kids yesterday did they think I was old. Cassidy said “yes”, followed not quite quickly enough by a “no”. Isaac said “no” a tad too quickly because we were about to serve up the ice cream cake and he had his portion size to consider. I am blessed in the fact that Steve will forever be two and a half years older than me, so he can’t really say much.
Truthfully, it was a rather hectic day but ended with pizza and ice cream cake with my family and good friends. Not to mention, the best present ever – Master Will-yum started walking. On my actual birthday. Now I want to squish him even more.
*thanks to the Image is Found for making me look okay. I took some work.
bright sunshiney day.
Miss What-not-to-wear herself walked in this afternoon in her gumboots and requested a rain walk. I said what do we do on a rain walk. She said we walk in the rain and we sing.
I figure the neighbours already thing we’re nuts, so why not.
So walk and sing we did.
A bright sunshiney day indeed.
