infinitemonkey.co.nz :)

Oh hey, I'm back!

It's been over a year since I've blogged here, and I'm not entirely sure how to start again...

So I figure I'll start with superheroes.

Noo... Not those ones. I mean, these ones.

The Teen isn't in this photo because, well... She's a teen. Eighteen in fact. She still lives in our house,  and she's still as wonderful a creature as ever, but most of the time we exist in entirely different orbits...

So I'm back! My camera is broken so photo updates will be done with my crappy phone camera, which I'm really sad about, but I think I'll do a recap post soon. For posterity and all. And even if there's no one left around with the slightest vaguest foggiest bit of interest in reading my ramblings (and if that's the case it's likely just as well - I do ramble, after all) then at least by updating here, I can remind myself I'm still alive.

10/52

This week I only have one photo to contribute to Project 52 - The Lad caught this shot of the Lily Bug as she sailed through the air towards him, expression fierce as she was impersonating a T-Rex at the time. As she so often does. To our youngest daughter, playing on the trampoline is not so much about jumping as high as she can, but about cage fighting. Far as she's concerned, the tramp is a fighting ring, and the opponants are all dinosaurs. With her sweeping kicks, swift claws and savage teeth, B-Rex will get you every time.

See what I mean?

Bolt huh? Should've called her Cujo.

Meet our new puppy Bolt. We've discussed bringing a puppy into our family for a long time now, though normally in a "one day when the cats all die of old age" kind of way. However this three month old SPCA girl had been giving us please-take-me-home eyes at Animates for weeks now. Six weeks! Poor thing.

 

Oh, these photos are completely misleading. Look at her - all lovely and innocent and butter-won't-melt-in-her-mouth. And she is. Until she sees a child or a cat, and then she turns into a rabid psychopath.

 

 Honestly. I mean, I love her, but she's all teeth and claws and TEETH! and what the hell was going on when I decided we needed a pup?!?!  

 

The kids have become eternal targets of her desire to chase anything that moves. Hell, they don't have to be moving. They only have to look at her and she throws herself on them in a fury of teeth and claws and snarls. And not in a 'puppy just wants to play' manner! We're talking nasty gashes and deep puncture wounds. My daydreams of a cute puppy playing nicely alongside the kids is cracking here!



 

 But we made our dog bed, and now it's time to pee in it. I'm sure the kids will eventually be able to climb down from the top of the furniture, and I'm sure our cat Pookie will eventually stop hiding in the wardrobe. It's just gonna take some patience, perseverance, and FML.

9/52

If you had been in our crazy house on Sunday afternoon and seen the kids smear green paint all over their bods then run it through the kitchen (... the hallway... the bathroom... the don'teventhinkofgoinginthatlounge!!) you would never have guessed Guy Smiley had been in hospital with breathing difficulties during the wee hours of the previous night.

But, despite being awake from 1-4am, and then up for the day from 6am - which we can probably thank a 1am dose of Redipred for - our little dude was a box of birds through most of the day. The kids got it in their heads to do some painting. Of course, they weren't talking about painting on paper. When do they ever actually paint on paper in this house?

It was at around 5.30pm that Guy Smiley (in the guise of Hulk) made his way to the computer and became very very very quiet.

Turns out, even superheros have to sleep.

The Lily Bug - As usual, she was the instigator of the madness. As usual, she kept the household upbeat, made her little brother laugh and kept the ball rolling. The messy goopy paint ball, that is. Sure, the kitchen floor may keep that green tint forever and ever, but it was all worth it.

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

8/52

The Lily Bug - when Granny Greener came up to Auckland for a train trip, we hung out in Devonport for the evening, took loads of snaps, watched a couple of huge ocean liners cruise out from the harbour... And all that time, our dog mad girl couldn't take her wistful eyes of this lil fella running up and down the beach.

Guy Smiley - taking time out to enjoy a refreshing drink during  the second of two birthday parties we attended on the weekend.

Backdating like a mad woman to join in on...

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

7/52

 The Lily Bug - the best way to overcome the nerve-wrecking adrenalin-pumping mortifying terror or hurtling face first down a water slide is to think (and act) like a T Rex. That'll scare them drops of water!!

Guy Smiley - making himself at home during the Lily Bug's school visit. He had been standing on the edge of the fort and, using a long plastic hockey-stick-like-thing as a fishing rod, caught a dozen fish of every size and colour. Most he threw back into the ocean, one or two he ate.... It was a gorgeous game led by his own imagination and initiative. I flicked the camera to video but - idiot me! - Accidently deleted it. :(

6/52

Guy Smiley - our adventure to the relatively new park at Tui Glen fell a little flat when we realised the climbing frames were high and huge, and completely intimidating to our little dude who could only stand on the smallest platform and gaze about in frustration.  I love this photo so much, but could only surprise him into smiling when I told him I had a poo on my head. He looked up and laughed. Fleetingly.

The Lily Bug - climbing the rope at the playground near Narrow Neck Beach. Love the determination.

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

5 birthday candles...

In the days leading up to her 5th birthday, the Lily Bug grew increasingly anxious. As much as she was excited by the hype of her birthday (and the hope of her Trash Pack Street Sweeper wish coming true) she was terrified at what she would suddenly become, on the day of her birthday. Would she wake up and discover she'd grown into an adult all at once? Would she suddenly be too big to play with toys and run around a playground?

Despite our reassurances that she'd still be the same height on the 4th as she was on the 3rd, she had taken the notion of suddenly becoming a 'big' five year old to heart, and began waking from bad dreams in the night, refusing to sleep and even wetting her bed. It was only on the morning of her birthday when she woke to realise she was still a little girl, and made me measure her height just to be sure, that she finally relaxed - and got on with enjoying life through the eyes of a five year old. Which are, initially at least, very much like the eyes of a four year old.

 


Me on the other hand... I found it hard, really hard, to get excited about this particular birthday. These last five years have gone way way too fast, and no matter how much I may wish it, I just can't seem to grab Time in my hands and stretch it out, to make it last longer.

Guy Smiley - can have his cake and eat it. Though, whatever else that is hanging out of his mouth, I just can't tell you.

To be honest, the Teen and the Lily Bug don't spend a lot of time together. You know how it goes with 17 year olds... They have their own life to live etcetera etcetera... But it was nice to see them hanging out for this special event - and I made sure to snap photographic evidence. ;)

The Lily Bug's birthday cake. The birthday girl painted it herself. She had longed for a T-rex cake, and I'd used chocolate truffle mix as I usually find it easy to mold into shapes. This year, the Bug and I shaped the cake together, and she painted it. Less a T-Rex, more a Dragon, but the process of its creation became the theme of our day and as well as being incredibly fun, it was a nice way for the Bug to relax and overcome her birthday anxiety. Henceforth, a new birthday ritual for our family.

5/52

At the end of another postcard Summer afternoon spent jumping off boat ramps, chasing gulls and dogs and struggling in vain to pull out the ocean's plug, the kids stopped for a quiet (and oh-so-fleeting) moment to stand side-by-side and admire the deep blue, arm in arm. For all the pics that I snapped of them laughing in mid-air as they leapt from the ramp, or in deep concentration as they balanced along its edge, this moment was the one that defines just how beautiful their friendship is. I'm so glad to have managed to caught this scene just as it was, before one of them had a chance to look over shoulder and poke out a tongue - or shove the other one on to the sand ;)

Furiously backdating to join in on the Portrait a Week project at...

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

4/52

The Lily Bug - accustomed to Auckland beaches with long stretches of sand and rock pools at low tide, Waitara's shoreline laden with smooth round stones, driftwood and the odd sun-bleached or cooking-fire charred animal bone, initially worried her. Soon enough, she had discovered a beach stone's purpose in life is to be stacked. Stacked and stacked and stacked.

The Teen - would you believe it? I caught a photo of her. Admittedly, this whole walking-along-the-tracks-hand-in-hand-with-beloved was ever so slightly set up...

Guy Smiley - devastated because he's too little to keep up in a friendly game of ball. Don't worry little peanut, it won't be too long before they'll be chasing you around the field.

Furiously backdating to join in on the Portrait a Week project at...

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

3/52

I love Guy Smiley's lovely soft expression as a friend paints his face. Batman. And once the make up is on, he totally believes it.

The Lily Bug demonstrates her handstands on the trampoline. She's so proud of herself, and refuses to let me back inside even though dusk is well rolling towards bedtime and I'm swatting mosquitos as I stand at the entrance of the tramp, click click clicking...

Furiously backdating to join in on the Portrait a Week project at...

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

2/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

Best friends, and not afraid to be seen frollocking through the wilderness (aka overgrown lawn) in fairy wings.

Furiously backdating to join in on the Portrait a Week project at...

1/52

"A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013."

New Years Day 2013 and the Lily Bug and Guy Smiley are trying out their skateboards on Nan's driveway. Just as I used to, once upon a time... :)

Furiously backdating to join in on the Portrait a Week project at...

New Years Day 2012

When the Teen was little, we would sometimes sit outside blowing wish bubbles. Sometimes we'd make a wish for ourselves within the bubbles, sometimes we'd wish on behalf of our friends, and sometimes we'd really push bubble magic by wishing for the world as a whole. 

Fast forward to New Years Day 2012. All the elements came together this day. The Lad managed to swing the day off work, the weather was postcard perfect, Cheltenham beach was - surprisingly - not tooo packed, and the bubbles were flowing.... 

The Lily Bug revealed her wish to me as she stood at the water's edge.

To blow a really big bubble.  

And shortly after - she did. 

The girl is now a believer in the power of bubble magic. ;)

End note: This is a post dated entry. It's currently 3rd March 2013 as I write this and being that I've been completely slack about blogging this year, I figure I'll make up for lost time by uploading some of my fav pics from Jan & Feb with 'a few' accompanying sentences...

And so I face the final curtain

Here I sit, half an hour until midnight, and as much as I'd love to say something profound and meaningful right now - to pass on some thoughtful insight on what I've learnt from this past year, or what I want to leave behind or take forward with me into the new year - my mind is a blank.

Wait... Wait...

A trickle of thought. Not quite the reflective kind. As much as I'd like to see in the New Year in a state of Zen-like calm, I'm currently worrying about the Teen who is celebrating New Years at the party of a friend of a friends. (I'll be picking her and her boyfriend up at 1am - they'd better there!!)

She's going to turn 18 in 2013. Eighteen!

Realising your very first baby is no longer a baby, and is walking the steps of an adult (but still with the tumultuous emotions of a teenage girl) brings a whole new meaning to parental anxiety. I'd quite like to wrap her up in tissue and pop her in the freezer until I'm old enough to deal with having an adult teen. Another five years should do it.

If I could have any kind of New Years wish, it would be that this year is a better one for her. She has all that teenage angst going on.. The bleak inner voice the tells her she's too fat, too ugly, too unpopular.. Fueled by the startling ability to make self-destructive decisions, and fanned by the fellow teen girls who cheer her on in her self-hate. The kind that are her best friend one moment, then spilling her deepest secrets to the world and telling her to go kill herself in the next. I hope above all hopes that 2013 will be the year that she sheds the fake friends and gains some inner peace and emotional stability.

New Years Resolutions? Haven't made those since I was a kid. I remember sitting up all night writing up a list of ways in which I would improve myself over the next 12 months, even at an age where there was very little I could do to control life's circumstances. Resolutions were never kept then, nor are they ever now. The only tradition I hold true to is a New Years Day swim. At the beach preferably, and even if it means just dipping my toes in the water (Let's be honest - I can't really swim.) Cleanse away the old year, start the new one with a clean slate. In theory.

I'm feeling bad for the fact that the Lad is sitting across the room channel surfing, and though we're in the same room, we're almost alone. Normally, it's perfectly comfortable for us to share the same room while doing our separate things. But tonight is not a night to be ignoring your loved ones while perched in front of a computer. I should have thought of profound realisations earlier, rather than try to scrape together anything now.

Quick - resolutions. Let's pretend I'm going to make one and actually remember it for more than a day.

1. Put Infinite Monkey Design on hiatus. It's stolen far too much time from the kids.
2. Remember to live, rather than simply exist.

3. And maybe, if it's not too much to ask... Maybe learn when to turn off the computer.

HNY..... :)

Burn! Burn my pretties!!

Note: This post was from the Draft pile - I'm clearing out the backlog. Don't hate on my bad MS Paint doodlings. Happy Christmas and Merry New Year ya'll!

THE LILY BUG: I wish I was the sun so I could shine brightly.
ME: Aww you're so cute!
THE LILY BUG: Then I'd turn myself up really high... So everyone can burn. *cackles manically*

She said that. I kid you not. My sweet lovely loving (most of the time ;)) little Bug uttered those words.

In her defence, I think she had just mucked up her phrasing a little. It was a cold morning on the way to kindy, and I'm sure she was only thinking about how she'd like to bring toasty warmth into the lives of those who, like us, have a thinly insulated home and a car heating system that kicks in five minutes after you reach your destination.

And I'm sure the way she tittered gleefully at the end of that statement was due purely to the amusement of watching my jaw swing open and hit the floor of the car. I admit, I too would find that comical. In a Loony Toons kind of way.

The Lily Bug is going to make a fantastic Global President of the Entire Planet some day. I think the evidence speaks for itself.

Tornados and Storm Chasers

This afternoon while the Lily Bug danced in a thunderstorm, a tornado ripped through our neighbouring suburb of Hobsonville. It's odd, but as I drove home from kindy shortly before lunch, I reached a part of the road where I had a clear view towards the North Shore and saw a strange cone-shaped cloud that looked like it was spiralling out from the cloud above. I paused at the intersection longer than necessary just to watch it and see if it were a freak cloud or something more malign.

I couldn't truly tell, and so deciding the distant peals of the thunder storm (which was approaching from the opposite direction) had simply made me paranoid, I went on my way.  There were a few things I needed to do before heading home, but the cloud had unsettled me. The more I drove, the more my anxiety increased. I had wanted to make a detour to the fruit and vege shops along Hobsonville Rd because the Lily Bug was pleading a strong case for plums from the back seat, but anxiety caused me to return home instead.

Once inside, I told the Teen about the freak looking cloud (and she, zoned on Facebook, nodded vaguely in response), then paced the room waiting for the thunderstorm to hit. When big fat raindrops finally kicked in, they did so with ferocity.  The Lily Bug tore outside into the rain so she could run in it. In force of habit, I grabbed the camera and snapped a few shots of her playing in the rain while repeating "too wet to go out, to cold to play ball, so we sat in the house and did nothing at all" in my head with a smile, anxiety momentarily swept aside by my daughter's childhood joy at the forces of Nature. The Lily Bug's storm dance was short-lived and soon she was in a warm shower. Not long after, I heard sirens, and assumed the heavy rain had caused a car accident on Hobsonville Rd.

Later, one of the Teen's friends told her via Facebook that a tornado had struck and killed three people. The phone began ringing as friends and family checked to make sure it hadn't cleaved a path to our house. Thank goodness no, this house almost comes undone if I turn the suction up too far on our vacuum cleaner.

Only a km or two away, three lives were taken and homes were up-heaved, their inhabitants left homeless.  Warnings of further tornados coupled with ongoing emergency services sirens left me on edge and unwilling to let the kids outside despite the rain having cleared. I relaxed only when the birds and cicadas took up their songs again. Geeze, the tornado didn't even come close. Always a little prone towards dramatics, I am.

I don't know if that cloud I had seen was in fact the tornado forming, or a quirky-shaped coincidence. But I do believe in signs, and in gut feelings. And I'm glad I followed my churning stomach by not driving to the fruit and vege shops. Overly dramatic or no, it would have been so easy for me to drive a little further on to Hobsonville Point for a good pre-storm run around on the playground. It would have been so easy to have been caught up in the wind-whipped terror, had I taken that path today.

Ignore the overgrown lawn. Please. Our lawnmower broke three weeks ago, and the Lad is going to fix it... Somewhere between now and Christmas.

 

Guy Smiley did a lap around the house, but didn't like rain in his eyes.

Met Service, stop toying with me.

Met Service, I wish you'd stop toying with my emotions like this. Last week's 10 day forecast told me there was no point in trying to dry washing or make outdoor plans, as Monday through to Monday would be rain rain rain. All weekend long, I wore the same pair of socks - who could know when I'd next get the washing dry? And socks are a precious commodity, frequent stolen by Gremlins in this house!

As it turned out, Monday was quite nice. Tuesday appeared to be almost-summerish. I donned my Domesticated House Wench Hat and washed and hung out loads of washing. Went to the supermarket for 'just one thing' and spent $187 on all sorts of random things, but not that one thing I originally wanted. Made plans to go to the park.

...Saw a big angry cloud in the distance.
Checked Met Service again (rather obessive-compulsive here).
Thunderstorms with hail, huh? 
Typical.

We held off from going to the park. The thunderclouds hovered on the edge of the skyline, never seeming to come any closer. Each time I thought "bugger it, let's just go" a few drops of rain would start to fall, chasing us inside again.

In the end, restless and fed up, we welcomed the thought of a good old fashioned thunderstorm. Something to break the monotony of the day. The black clouds came and went in batches, drawing closer then skirting around our neighbourhood as if the smell of my randomly-purchased Air Wick Scented Oil plugin in Frangipani offended them. (Or maybe it was the Lily Bug's reindition of Rain Rain Go Away performed on the back lawn yesterday still holding effect?)  Blue sky and white cotton candy clouds in between. How's that for indecisive?

At last we heard a crack of thunder, like an old friend ringing the doorbell. We ran out to greet it. Guy Smiley, face to the sky catching raindrops with his mouth and shuddering with laughter as drops splattered his eyelids.

It was the outer edges of someone else's thunderstorm. The droplets soon eased off, and an impromptu game of Tag ensued. And because I already had the camera on me to grab the above shots of Indie in the rain, I snapped some during our game. I love the way little faces light up during a game of tag!