Actually, no.

Not chinchin fox after all. Which means we don't know what it is. I'm now thinking some kind of insect bites (but what?) and have washed/vacuumed all his bedding and snuggly toys (sorry Ow) to see if that fixes it. The doctor suggested scabies, but it's not really typical of that either. Sigh...

Daddy came home a week ago, and E is loving having him back, but it's sometimes a case of "No! No Daddy. Mummy up!" which is a bit hard on them both.

I took D to see Toy Story 3 on Wednesday, which we both loved. D keeps wannting to tell the beloved all his favourite bits, but I've talked him out of it, on the grounds that we will probably buy it on DVD and I don't want all the best jokes spoiled.

D has been (and got us) hooked on Masterchef over the last couple of months, even E likes it "Massachef on?", and we were sad to see some of our favourite chefs eliminated recently. I always think there could be a lot more cooking and a lot fewer ads though. I've taken to turning the volume down during them, as D has a tendency to want to sing along or recite them, and it drives me beserk, being prone to earworms as I am! I'm also trying to make him see that the ads are not vital, and are in fact an interruption, though they do provide an opportunity to get up and go to the toilet, or make a cup of tea, or change the toddler's nappy, or have a chat with your companions and bring them up to speed on the bits of the show they've missed.

School holidays are now finished, so back to school next week. D is simultaneously excited and annoyed. He doesn't like school, but the school term means that basketball training, and games, resume.

A Pox on't

Yes, we have the "chinchin fox", or at least that's what we assume is going on. Spots that come out sequentially over a number of days, following a couple of days of being slightly snotty. The doctor couldn't think of anything else it could be either so there you go. He's perfectly happy though - wasn't actually sick, and is a bit grumpy about being itchy, but other than that quite normal. We've been avoiding going out unnecessarily, but we do that anyway in the middle of winter. The doc thought it was such a mild dose because he's been immunised for it (it's on the govt schedule here at 18 months) as have I since our last scare when there was an epidemic at D'Arcy's school. He didn't get it then, so I'm wondering if it'll happen this time. Of course it's now jsut school holidays and the incubation period is up to 21 days, so he might get it when it's time to go back to school. He'd like that! As long as he doesn't miss camp, which he's been looking forward to this year. He had such a great time last year, and his sleeping-on-his-own is pretty much cemented here now.

Erik had a birthday (#2, I know, I can't believe it either) and we had a small party for his friends here. I made a cake (from a packet) and it was actually quite yummy. I needed to go out a few days later and buy a mixer though as it was just too hard without one!



Erik is sitting on my knee and saying "bwow candin den" when he sees the pic of the cake.

Holiday!

We had a family holiday. First ever really. My sister lives up near Tweed Heads (right on the NSW/Qld border) so we went to visit her. It was Erik's first plane trip, which he quite enjoyed, especially when the space waitress offered him an apple.


We went to the shop at Tropical Fruit World, where you can buy all kinds of exciting things without having to pay the exorbitant entry fee to the orchard, and played on their playground for a while.


We ate dragonfruit frozen yoghurt,


bought Rollinia, which is related to custard apple and really yummy with some lime juice,


and dragonfruit.


But rollinia was Erik's fave.


We went to Dreamworld


as you do, when you have kids. It was exhausting for me, as I carried E most of the time, and there was lots of standing around. One of the standout rides was the log-ride, which was very splashy, but a lot of fun. Erik's other favourite was the Wiggles World section of the park.

The beach was a popular place with all the boys.


All up, a success. Would do it again.

Stabby?

Not a fabulous title for a blog post, but as we've been at the National Folk Festival for the weekend, kind of appropriate. Actually, mainly appropriate because "stabby" is the closest Erik can get to saying "festival" which is quite cute. We had a good time, though I got really tired, wrangling E by myself for 4 days. We arrived on Thursday, with D'Arcy who announce on arrival that he was feeling sick. He lasted about half an hour before he needed to be taken home, whereupon he went to bed, only to reawaken 2 hours later with a raging fever. I managed to get his dad to take him for a few days, which left me and Erik free to go and play.

Erik's highlight was the Icarus Performance Troupe who were three roving street performers dressed as giant kangaroos on stilts with springs in them. "roo? jump. roo? talk. roo? big." are some of his conversational gems. He talked about them all day on Friday, including when he woke up in the night! By Sunday, D was better enough to join us. His highlight was playing with Ampersand Duck's son Bumblebee, and getting weed on by another street performers dog accomplice. Erik also loved playing with B and has a name for him now. "B, chase!" and "boys" (meaning D and B)...



I had a lot of fun, despite it being exhausting, and caught up with lots of friends.

In other news, Erik has been feeding his cat, Ow, at mealtimes...



This meal was pasta and I think Ow enjoyed it quite a lot!

Raining

It has been raining a lot here lately, which is weird, as we're officially still in drought, but the last couple of weeks have seen some excellent precipitation. Erik now says "rainy" which means both "rainy" and "raining" which is quite a lot of fun.

A couple of times lately they've opened up the spillway on the dam, and today we went to check it out.



I've also been thinking about black&white photography a bit lately, having signed up for a photo challenge with some friends. I've received a roll of film and a shot list. I take the pics and send the film back to the woman organising it. She'll develop it and post the resulting photos online. This isn't one of them (obviously) but I'm starting to think in terms of what makes a good b&w shot, so that's a good thing I think...



Lots more pics from the dam on Flickr if you want to see them.

Imaginations

Erik made a dog out of some toast he was eating at lunch time...sorry it's a bit long, and ends with a tantrum (it was bed time) but he's chatting away about all kinds of things here, for those that are interested. I'm hoping Anne shows this to the Joyces...

Because I am a bad mother,

I called D'Arcy on his posturing and bravado. We were having laksa for dinner, which he usually declines to eat in favour of spring rolls. Last night he said he'd like some laksa, which I provided, and he was tucking into it happily (it's not really very hot) and somehow the dinner table conversation turned to some Mexican Hot Sauce that the beloved had brought back from the US last trip.



I mentioned that the one on the left is so hot as to be almost inedible (and even the beloved sweats mightily when he eats it, which makes me laugh) and its primary ingredient (as you'd hope) is habaneros. D'Arcy's response to this was "let me try some, I can handle it. Bring it on!" I tried to dissuade him from this, but he was all keen by then. I put a tiny smear on a tiny coffee spoon and said "don't put it all in your mouth at once" but of course he didn't listen, and shoved the spoon in his gob. Now, those of you who are familiar with the habanero pepper will remember that the first moment you put it in your mouth, you think "hey this isn't so bad. Huh, hottest chillis known, bite me!" and then it does. Quite hard in fact. D'Arcy didn't eat anywhere near as much as the kid in this link, so his response wasn't quite so graphic, but still he was unhappy. Half a glass of milk (which he never drinks) fixed it pretty well, but he didn't finish his laksa. The beloved points out that it was very hard not to laugh at him, but we managed with only a bit of "I told you so".



This is towards the end of the holidays, playing in the tent inside seemed to be the fun thing to do one week. D's hair was really long here. He's been desperate to grow it long, so one of the things he got for Christmas was some bandannas to keep it out of his eyes. His dad and stepmum have been keen for him to get it cut "neatly" (despite the ironic fact that his dad had long hair when I first met him) and dragged him to the hairdresser. Fortunately the hairdresser is on his side, and gave him the barest trim. It was great.



More tent action. Sometimes Kovu was in there too.



One of the T-shirts we dyed, this was an ABA one that was a fundraiser for one of the local groups, but of course the shirt was white. Silly colour for a baby, but we fixed that.

School has begun. D's new teacher is lovely, which makes a change from last year, where he and his teacher didn't see eye to eye on a lot of things really. He still doesn't like school though, and says frequently that "it's boring". I've tried pointing out to him that "boring" is a mindset, but he's not receptive to that idea at all.

His knee has finally healed up, with a nice scar to show for it, that he won't let me take a pic of, sadly. He's also very much opposed to wearing shorts, as he thinks people (especially kindies) stare at his knee. I'm not sure if he actually thinks that, or he's just saying it...