Mischief Managed

I used dog food today to purchase a free half hour.  Not on purpose, I fed the dog, then it [by it, I mean my awesome three year old] went quiet... Too quiet.  I spied some suspicious doings out the bedroom window, and had the following mental dialogue with myself:

"Aw shit, I didn't realise that she could get the lid off that.  Doesn't look too bad so far, I guess I'll go out and clean it up.... Hang on, it's grotty already, and the dog will eventually eat all this food bonanza, or the birds will.  It looks like there's some food left in there, maybe I should just slink quietly past into the lounge and sit down, I still have half a cup of coffee left, I reckon she'll be another 15 minutes...cool!"

Here is what it looked like when she finally came in and asked me to come look at her creations...

Embiggen to fully appreciate the amount of dog food on the ground.

The dog's bucket for water...

Oh yes, she's eating some, though she does prefer cat food.

"and then I put that in there, to make some doggy soup!"  So proud of her accomplishments!

It was worth it. 

[Oh and in case overseas readers are pitying our dog not having a stylish water bowl, round these parts, a bucket is the easiest way to ensure cane toads don't sit in the dog water and poison it.  Cane toads can't hop high enough to get over the sides of a bucket.  Nice, hey!  Gosh we have some great wildlife here in Oz!] 

Sea World, now with more photos!

In the interests of getting my money's worth, I took Lolly to Sea World using our year long pass (which expires Thursday).  Given she is just slightly obsessed with the creatures of the sea lately, suffice it to say she thoroughly enjoyed it.  Too many photos follow. 

We saw pirate acrobatics, fed fish, saw pelicans, penguins, a polar bear, sting rays, sharks, patted starfish and sea cucumbers (a lot), and of course, dolphins.  Much of Lolly's day was spent asking if she could pat everything.  So when there were starfish and sea cucumbers on offer for the patting, it was some serious awesome.  I wish she could pat everything!

The pirate ship show, complete with cannons

Watching the pirate doings!

Polar bear plays ball!

Could this be the best ice cream face ever?

Adventures of the walking variety

We went out for walks this weekend, with a generous amount of snacking thrown in.  Saturday we went to Southbank with Lolly's birthday bike, which was a hit.  There was yummy fish and chips, and ice cream.  Mangroves were examined, and many seeds and leaves gathered for collages ("and then we can stick them on the paper with the strong glue and that will be so beautiful!!" rinse and repeat).

Lolly waiting for the lift in the carpark

Sunday saw us head off to Slaughter Falls (best name for a waterfall, evah) for a short bushwalk and lunch with the trusty gas stove. 

Lunch spot, now with more curls

Mmmmm, sausages!  It must have been drier round here than I realised, since the floods I've kind of assumed we're still waterlogged, but the creek and falls were dry.  Guess it hasn't rained much this season!  We found some still ponds and admired the fish.


Small legs only go so far, but Lolly enjoyed the walk, helped by the many dogs being walked on the trail.  On the merest glimpse of a dog, even on the sidewalk as we're driving past, Lolly says (repeatedly) "I want to pat that dog!" (rinse and repeat).  Most people (and dogs) are amenable, but I do draw the line at stopping the car, unloading, and accosting dog-bearing strangers.  I have boundaries.  Honest.

This is what I get when I ask for action - puppy pose!

Snail would have liked the river walk, but the bush walk was just too hard to take a wheelchair, too many steps and tree roots, too thin in places, steep!  It's our off week, so we do sneak in some non-wheelchair friendly locations when we don't have Snail.  It's an issue that sits a little uncomfortably, we know we couldn't go there if we had Snail full-time, does that mean we shouldn't do it?  It's not fair for Snail to miss out, but in all honestly, there is a divide between our plans for a Snail weekend/week, and a non-Snail week/end.  Just a meander.  Those with similar limitations, you know what I'm talking about here? 

Meanwhile, here is Lolly, asleep behind the sunnies in the car.  

More building!

Lolly is loving this stuff.  K'Nex seem to have a heap of good building toys, too, worth a look!  Her aunt sent the Zoo Buddies kit up for Lolly's birthday.  Lolly needs me to build the shapes, but has lots of fun helping.  The zoo set seems well worth it, to me!  The eyes are particularly popular!

Accessibility FAIL: Curbs

Have you ever noticed how steep some of these "accessible" curbs are!?  Or how crap they are?  Or how many have gaping holes and cracks in them? Or how they often aren't wide enough for a wheelchair?

Seriously?

 Or how they lead into ditches or other road architecture?

Or how people at crossings don't make way for you to use them? 

All these things piss me off.   How bout you?

Play along with Accessibility FAIL.

Apropos of Nothing

Our toilet blocked up again late last week (oh yeah, this blog is all about the glamour), and I was lucky enough to get a plumber to come pretty much straight over and fix it (this happens a lot to our loo, we are on acerage and have a long pipe over flat ground leading to the septic, which spells lots of blockages.  The best one EVAH was just after I came home from having Lolly.  Coz you don't need to use the toilet when you're 5 days out from having a baby).  Frankly, I was just grateful that for once it happened during a weekday, in working hours.  It happens so often that it's seriously becoming cost viable to get the septic relocated for thousands of dollars rather than shelling out for plumbers, usually at midnight on the weekend, several times a year. 

Anyhoo, as fascinating as you undoubtedly find our septic woes, our lovely and awesome plumber comes over, and also takes a look at a leaking tap in the upstairs bathroom.  Lolly enjoys "helping" people, so as he's fixing away upstairs, Lolly comes over to me at a gallop and the following conversation occurs:

Lolly: I need to put shoes on to help the man!!!

Me: ??

Lolly:  The plumber man.  I need to help him very much!  I need my shoes to help him!  [Runs over to the shoe rack and gets shoes]

Me:  Okay, he's upstairs, let's go up there and have a look at what he's doing.

Lolly: NO!! I need shoes!!  I need shoes to help the man!

Me: But he's just upstairs.  Let's just go upstairs.  We don't really need shoes.

Lolly:  NO!! I need to put shoes on to help the man!

Me: Can't we just go up the stairs without our shoes?

Lolly:  NOOOOOOO!! Shoes!!!!  [getting increasingly upset]

Me: But...it's just upstairs, what do we need shoes for?

Lolly: [grins and looks super happy]  Look Mummy!!  Hand-gloves!!

Hand-gloves, apparently

Me: bwhahahahahaha

I love an apropos of nothing conversation.

Lolly, as I was writing this:  Jesus, I'm tired, Mummy!

Three is Awesome

Here are some cool things you might do it you were three:

- spend a full 15 minute car trip, car windows down, calling whale songs to humpback whales that might need rescuing.  "Arrruoooooogaaaaaa!!!"

- Build stables out of chairs (that have to left up constantly at all costs).

Stables!

- get to tell your mother in a moment of grumpy (mine): "Mummy, just Stop.  And Think!"  Closely followed by: "Take a deep breath!"

- do "crazy awesome stunts" on the trampoline.  And call them "crazy awesome stunts."

- chase your dog with your toy stroller.  Endlessly.  Seriously, we have to put the dog outside sometimes.

Truce

- keep up a constant demand for horsey stories, and dolphin stories, and dinosaur stories.  

- play hide and seek with your dinosaurs in the bath.

Roar!!

- "doctor" all your toy animals with sticky tape.

- Think that finding a rock is made of awesome, and having to share it with your Mum straight away.

Mum!  A rock!!

Three is pretty darn fantastic, from where I'm lucky enough to be sitting.

A Day at the Shops

Jazz Hands!

Babychino.

Carosel is awesome.

Home again: Jump!

Seizures, and A BABY! comes to visit

Just before we went away, when I had the Snail, she had a home day due to some seizures, which was sad, and, frankly, kinda inconvenient, I had appointments!  I also loved that I had her completely ready for school before her first one.  My sleep deprivation would have preferred a civilised just-before-waking bedtime seizure so we could all stay in bed. 

And yes, when you have a kid that seizes a lot, there are the thoughts you have.  You spend time hoping to avoid some seizures, like the at-the-shop, or in-the-car, or just-before-going-out seizures, in favour of the sleep-in, staying-home-anyway seizures.  I mean, if you have to have seizures at all, that is.   We're getting an average of one home day in a school week from seizures at the moment, so I just cross my fingers that it's a day Lolly and I don't have much on.  This is one of the unseen costs to families of this kind of disability, and if I was to request respite, it would be the dream of someone who could come at very short notice on days when I have competing needs, and a seizing girl, to help care for her.

Anyhoo, a lovely friend came over to keep me company, and when Snail was awake, she was loving to see "a BABY!", a BABY! who had no fear of the Hands of Crushing.  I love this shot of them both!  Thanks, a BABY!, and thanks, V, for keeping us company on a bit of a stressful day.

A BABY!

Good Times

We had a lovely trip to see family, and my sister's graduation, which was tres cool and even had a flyover, it was pretty darn impressive, and a special day for all of us.

Where was my fly-over when I got my degrees?  Now I feel hard done by...

I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to put photos of the Aunty and peeps in question - in uniform and all, and with all the bigwigs attending - on the interwebs on pain of death [or excommunication, decapitation, or some such] so in leiu of that, here is a harmless and non-security-breaking-Lolly, dancing as the parade marched out.  And one of her just looking gorgeous, just coz.

Getting down to the marching sylings of the band.  The airborne curl!

Too lovely.

Lolly spent much time on our holiday hanging with Nanna and Pop, and playing with her Aunties.  We took a short day trip across country to the start of the Gippsland lake district, by the sea.  The weather was crisp and clear, the spot was eye-poppingly lovely.

Lolly got very up close and personal with this rather large black swan.

My perpective is a little out, this swan was nearly as tall as she was!

We had a very restful time of it, I read several books (as planned!  It was AWESOME!), Lolly played ALL the games with Nanna, who I'm sure is very glad to have a quiet day or two of rest now we've headed back home. 

On the boardwalk with Nanna and Pop.