I'm down to my last clean pair of underwear...

Winter is never kind to my piles. And before you roll your eyes and think "oh great, she's resorted to writing about hemorrhoids", rest assured, it is washing piles of which I speak. (This time...)

I know, blogging about laundry is one of the most droll topics in the world and quite possibly worse to suffer through than hemorrhoids, but before you roll your eyes even further, just wait a moment. I need help. I'm in a serious situation here. There is... I can't... I'm... I'm desperate. I'm drowning. Laundry seems to have been dumped upon our house like a snow bomb. I don't know where it's come from, but I'm almost tempted to roll it up into balls and throw it at the kids while shouting "snowball fight!" (Or in truth, while shouting "do your own bloody laundry for crying out loud I'm over it!")

I had a horrific nightmare on the weekend that the children were crying out for me and I couldn't reach them. I was trapped in a pitch black room, completely disorientated and something had tangled me up so I couldn't break free.

Then the Lad flicked on the bedroom light and I realised in my sleep-groggy state that the children were crying out for me and I really was tangled up - in washing!

I had slept through Guy Smiley calling out for me through the monitor at 3am.
I slept through him crying for me.
I slept through the Lily Bug waking and joining in the chorus of "Muuum! Mummy where you?!"
Then when their increasingly-frantic voices finally switched me into middle-of-the-night autopilot mode, I jumped to my feet and veered off in the wrong direction.
The dirty washing mountain had avalanched through the night so that it was no longer contained behind the bedroom door but in fact sprawled across the floor.
It disorientated me.
To make matters worse, I was so half-asleep, I wasn't even sure at that point what room I was in (Hell. The room I was in was called Hell.) and I kept trying to head towards the sounds of the kids through the baby monitor rather than the actual door on the opposite wall.
Truly, it was a horrific unnerving experience.

Note sarcasm about that 'otherwise immaculate house'...

Now normally, in the ideal world, nice neat laundry lives in a dresser or a wardrobe (or so I've been told.) And this is the conundrum we've arrived at: When we have more damp or dirty washing than we have neat and clean, where does it all go?

There are five of us in this house (excluding cats), we don't have a drier, and although winter has been fairly mild for us so far, Murphy's Law dictates that every time I try to hang washing on the line - even if it's a fine winter day - the clouds will smash together and dump water onto my nice clean laundry. Not because it's winter and that's what clouds do, but because I pissed off a Pagan Rain God, and I don't even know why.

The drying rack in the lounge is buckling beneath the weight of one load of towels, one school uniform, as many socks and undies as I could find amid the wreckage of the bedroom.The changeable weather has me darting in and out the door, hanging out washing then whipping it back in again at the sign of a shower until I feel like a human yoyo. (We had a thunderstorm this morning, then clear blue sky for most of the afternoon, then a sudden shower. FML!)

I'm down to my last clean pair of underwear. I've worn the same pair of jeans for four days straight. I haven't seen the Lad in over 24 hours but I did hear muffled screams yesterday and in hindsight, I think he may have been buried alive in the washing pile behind our bedroom door. And if that's the case. It's too late for him now. There were far too many of his rotten old socks in that pile for anyone to have survived the toxic fumes.

So as you can see, we're hitting crisis level here, and it won't be long until the house itself is buried and our family will be nothing but a history lesson for future school children. Kind of like the people of Te Wairoa. But without the volcanic eruption.

[Edited to add: Look at how much I have managed to write on the subject of LAUNDRY for crying out loud?! I need to get out of the house more...]

Things a small child probably doesn't need to know

There's really only so much a four year old needs to know. And in our family we often tend to answer our little ones questions far too readily, and without always stopping to think about the appropriateness of the originally overheard converstation that prompted them to make enquiries in the first place.

Take this snippet from tonight for example:

THE LAD: Yeah! I can get suicide bombers for my game now!
THE LILY BUG: What's suicide bombers?
ME: No....
THE LAD: They're people with explosives strapped to them -
ME: Nooo...
THE LILY BUG: What's explosives?
THE LAD: It's -
ME: Jarrod! No!
THE LAD: It's, uh... licorice.

Fortunately the Lily Bug was spared from nightmares involving suicide bombers tonight. Instead she may dream of a Willy Wonka type land involving licorice straps as personal clothing items.

Hmm. I'm not actually sure which might incur the greater nightmare.

I'm not entirely certain if it's nature or nurture, but sometimes our lovely kids come up with some strange stuff, right on their own accord and without any prompting from us at all. 

Take this snippet of crazy for example: The other morning I woke to the Lily Bug standing beside the bed, growling beneath her breath while wearing this mask (painted by Guy Smiley the night before).

I won't lie - I nearly shat a hole in the mattress. 

On a brighter and completely unrelated note, here's a wee gem that sprouted from a different conversation a couple of nights ago.


ME: You kids are geniuses.
THE LILY BUG: Wow! Really!!!
(I'm surprised at her excitement, and wonder how she knows what a genius even is. Until she turns to her brother and yells...)
THE LILY BUG: Guess what!?!? Mum said we're GENIES!!

Okay, but one last thing: Because I seem to love peppering my blog with post-dated entries like a wee treasure hunt of where the end result isn't treasure, but just a few more minutes of a reader's life wasted on my inane ramblings, here's another.

My question to the blogiverse is: What kind of cute/quirky/outright crazy stuff have your kids come out with? Come on, sharing is caring!

Blue Sky Winter

How is the weather for everyone this morning? 

What a beautiful crisp clear and oh-so-cold winter morning here in AK!! Cloudless blue sky... Warm croissants and hot coffee for breakfast... Thank goodness our bakery had them in stock this morning! $1.50 for a super-massive sticky sweet croissant - can't think of anything better.

Gonna make the most of it before the grey gloom settles back in - no working on graphics while the monkeys turn the lounge into a military-grade obstacle course today - it's picnic at the park day!

Now I'm off to pick up the Lily Bug from her first day of 'morning kindy' (yes, she's moved to the big little kids  session at last!)  and it's off to the park we go!


Water bottle - check.
More croissants - check.
Fruit - check.


And off we go!


Hope everyone else out there is having as beautiful a day as this. :)

It's been a long week...

It's been a long week with the Lad in America, and the monkeys and I'm counting down the day until he comes home (one more sleep - yay!) while snotty tissues mount up around us, and the early onset of winter sickness quells any urge to stomp around outside in muddy puddles.

Right now I sit here with nerves frayed from too many late nights trying to catch up on my tendency to schedule in too many design jobs all at once, as the monkeys swing off furniture, using my body as a spring board. Who knew my shoulders would be such a fun place to leap from?

Usually when the household turns to chaos, I grab a camera and photograph it. It's like I'm planning for my eventual Alzheimers and every little experience - even the messiest ones - are moments I never want to forget.

But not today. Today I'm missing my Lad, and sick and tired of the cabin-fever. Today it just feels like too much weight for my shoulders to bear.

My Children Are Human Paint Brushes.

With the weather finally turning to winter around here, the little monkeys are being confined to indoors more and more (and are home from kindy & playcenter this week because of colds!).

Who has any ideas for fun stuff to do when you're trapped inside?

Today I set the kids up in the kitchen with a large sheet of paper and some paint. I thought it would keep them occupied while I got some graphic work done... Of course, I was too busy snapping pics of the chaos to do any work, but it was a great way to spend an hour!

Recently I went to a four year old's birthday party and had a discussion with a couple of mums regarding messy play. Most regarded it with horror, even while saying "I'd love to let my little ones get messy but.. the clean up..."

Yes, clean up can be a mission, but look, it's so worth it! Nice clean tidy structured play is all well and good.... But my challenge to those who fear chaos is: Let your kids experience messy play. Come on! Throw a shower curtain down onto the kitchen floor and give them a big bowl of cornflour goop. It cleans up easy! And if they're hesitant to get stuck in - YOU get stuck in first! Show them how fun it is, and I PROMISE you, you and your kids will LOVE IT!

He's leeeeaving, on a jet plane!

So as of 9pm last night, The Lad has been on an LA-bound plane (possibly riddled with snakes) to attend E3. Which is... some gaming convention thing, idk? He won the trip after building a crashed plane display in his store to promote the release of Unchartered 3. 

Anyway... a couple of folk on Facebook land have asked for photos of the display, and as the memory card thingie with the pics is currently freezing every time I stick it in the computer (I've put it in front of the heater to see if that helps) I've drawn this nifty picture to represent his fine build. Behold...

One of his co-workers claimed on Facebook that he had seen the original, and this picture of mine looked kinda close. Poor lad. He deserves better recognition than that. Here's the original...