Singin' in the rain

So spring has finally sprung in this part of the world, for which we are all grateful, and with it spring has brought all the glorious symptoms of hayfever, about which none of us are pleased.

But today was different. Today we had some ripper thunderstorms with fantastic lightning and buckets of rain.

We just got home from my In-laws' house and did the mad dash from the car to the house in the pouring rain. As per instructions Mars was taking off his shoes before heading upstairs for bed, when he began to sing Singin' in the rain.

His Nana has been continuing his education in the classics, so he's seen the movie recently and now insists on singing show tunes whenever his father feels irritable, or perhaps I've got cause and effect confused there.

Anyway, as is his wont, he was changing the words around and came up with these lyrics:

I'm pimping in the rain,

Just pimping in the rain,

What a glorious feeling,

I'm pimping again.

So we told him to stop because that's a grown up word that we weren't prepared to explain. He was astonished that it turned out to be a real word, but he understands that some words are not for children to use. So he took off his other shoe singing these words:

I'm not doing it in the rain,

Not doing it in the rain,

What a glorious feeling,

I'm not doing it again.

Then he asked me if I could make a video of him singing his new lyrics, but I said no. I really think blogging about it is enough.

Can't type - coughing

It has been a long time between posts. We've been busy, and we've all been sick. Not life-threatening-off-to-hospital sick, but a persistent cough that we've had for about ten weeks and I for one am fed up.

So what's been happening?

Venus had her birthday party two weeks after it was originally scheduled, and it was awesome.

Almost all of our fish got fin rot and are now buried under the little tree in our front yard, and our local aquarium staffed by the very helpful Daniel has closed, because helpful Daniel has gone back to uni.

We celebrated my brother's birthday, Father's day and my Mum's birthday.

Little Bumblebee is now six weeks old, and last week he reached Mars' birth weight of 4.3 kilograms.

In due time these things will get their own posts, but for now I just wanted you to know that the blog is not abandoned.

Thwarted plans

Venus is turning four next week and her sparkly party is the day after tomorrow.

X-Man's mum very kindly offered to make Venus' sparkly birthday cake. Together we planned the shape, she got together all the decorations and everything she would need, and she would have been ready to make the cake tomorrow.

Or so we thought.

I was under the impression that she was really keen to make this cake, but you will not believe the lengths she went to to try and get out of it.

Even though she's not due to give birth for another two weeks, she started with some practice contractions on Tuesday, but spent a lot of time assuring me that she would still able to make the cake and come to the party.

I had my doubts.

On Wednesday X-Man came to our house for a while in the afternoon so she could get some rest, and by Thursday she could barely move around because the baby had its head so tightly wedged in her pelvis.

At 7.10am today we got a message to say that she was on her way to hospital to have the baby and I would have to bake Venus' cake myself.

I knew it! It was all a cunning plan to get out of making this cake.

What she didn't know was that Mars had a cunning plan of his own.

Last night he developed a strong histamine reaction to something, taking the form of a spreading rash, and had an elevated temperature as well. By 9am today I was on my way to the doctor with Mars, whose rash had spread to his extremities and whose temperature had not dropped.

Later in the morning I sent an email to let everyone know that Venus' party would have to be postponed for two weeks due to Mars' illness.

Which means, you guessed it, that X-Man's mum will still have to make Venus' cake. Supernerd would point and shout "Woo hoo! In your face!" at this point, but I shan't, because I have manners.

Anyway, the story ends well. Mars is feeling better after a day of rest, X-Man's mum won't miss out on the party, and Venus' disappointment at not being able to have her party on Sunday was washed away with delight when we told her about X-Man's new little brother, Bumblebee.

But seriously, some people will do anything to try and get out of making a birthday cake.

Morning

Most often, the best part of my day is in the morning.

On school days I usually get up first, wake Mars and make sure he's getting dressed, and then I creep into Venus' room to wake her up.

She is a little angel, wrapped up in her bright blankets with that serene expression that happily sleeping children share.

I kneel down beside her bed and I kiss her on the cheek. Her eyes slowly open and then she smiles, and the sun shines.

She says "Mummy!" and she wraps her arms around my neck.

And even though I know that later there will be tears over something unimportant, it doesn't matter because at that moment, there is only love.

The world game on the table

At home there is a chart on the wall with the children's names on it, and when they do something particularly impressive they get a sticker, called a positive, beside their name on the chart.

When they have ten positives each they get a treat. The first time they chose their own treat - a special lunch at a local pancake restaurant. The second time I gave them a really cool easel from Ikea.

Lately Venus has been making special efforts with helping to clean up around the house among other things, so she had more positives that Mars for a while and this was causing him some unhappiness. So when he finally caught up to her I wanted their treat to be something they could use together, and something that Mars would particularly like.

I gave them one of these.

They absolutely love it. It is cheap and not particularly well built, but they really enjoy playing "table soccer", as it has come to be known. When I first gave it to them they played for about thirty minutes without a single pause.

Within five minutes Venus had rewritten the rules of the world game. When Mars scored two goals in a row she was most displeased. We got our first amendment to the rules.

"Mars, you can't score two goals in a row!"

If only someone had explained that to Germany before the World Cup.

The church that was

I didn't grow up in a church, but when I was nearly sixteen I started going with my friend. It was within walking distance of home and I came to love the place, even though the building was nothing special. It had no stained glass windows and really its only concession to ornamentation was two wrought iron sculptures on the two feature walls, one depicting a city surrounded by the holy spirit and the other a meshing of the alpha and omega symbols.

But somehow none of that mattered really, because the people are the place and they became part of my extended family. Then when my Gramp died and my Gran moved house to live in the street behind the church, she became part of the congregation too.

I was married in that church, and my Gran's funeral was there. I became part of the music ministry almost as soon as I joined the youth group, and I continued to play until we finally left to change churches more than ten years later.

Now what was the vicarage is six or eight two-story units crammed together, and what was the church is a day care centre. And today for the first time I had occasion to visit that day care centre and the feelings that I had just walking around in there took me by surprise.

I don't know if it's because I miss that time of my life, or because I miss my Gran, or just the feel of the place that was such a big part of my growing up. But I'm sitting here crying without really knowing why.

I guess that's just part of life though, change. My Gran would be happy to know that the children who attend that day care centre all seem happy. It's a nice place with lots of bright colours, children's art on the walls and generally a nice feel.

Still, things won't ever be like they were.

The installation

For a couple of hours yesterday afternoon Mars and Venus worked together on a project. A big project. An installation of such size and location that it almost completely blocks egress from the front door to most of the house.

It happened in just the same way as I remember from when I was a kid. It started out as a small idea, and then it got bigger and bigger. They'd do some work on it and call us in to look at their progress. Then we'd go back to what we were doing and after twenty minutes or so they'd call us back in to show us something new they'd added.

Eventually they came into the kitchen and announced that they'd finished, and then asked me to come and take a look.

I came around the corner to see this.

Venus sits in the front on the pink chair with Mars behind her on the blue chair, both of which are tipped over to make them into bucket style seats. The boxes on each side hold toys, and you can see they've incorporated their water bottles into the design, to stave off thirst. When I asked about several other features I was told they are "for decoration".

So finally I asked what it was.

Venus replied "It's a boost off."

I asked "What for?"

Venus replied "A jump circuit."

So there you have it. If you ever wondered what a boost off for a jump circuit looks like, now you know.

What I want to know is, when the time comes, how am I going to get them to dismantle it?