Birthday

Its my 37th birthday today. Marcus bought a couple of Ernie and Bert Pez© lolly dispensers, one for me and one for him. I chose Ernie. No way. He wanted Ernie so I got Bert. Why does everyone want Ernie?

He likes to ask me what I did at work, when we are on our way home. Yesterday I told him, then he said that today at work he had done an invitation for my birthday party. While I was digesting this he added that today he had also done an animation at work, which featured a frog.

Last birthday Sally gave me an anatomically correct model of a Holstein bull. He has recently joined the Roar Film fish in their tank - they like to swim around his bollocks, apparently. Like all workplace pets, the fish have jokey names (Happy and Larry) and I thought after a year as a nameless (but anatomically correct) model, it was time to name the bull and bring a bit of warmth to our relationship.

So he is now Oceancrest Chubby Dominator TX8243.

Invasion Plans

I'm keen to start negotiations with Andrew and Sharon next door about buying a wedge of their land. They have heaps and its just a paddock really, wth a bit of fennel infestation near our fence. I'm sure there is something in the Fennel Act (1924) about neighbours being allowed to seize unloved bits of backyard. Also there have been recent acts of aggression by their border troops (cat) against our homeland defence corps (cats). In a John Howard-like spirit of pre-emption I think we would be justified in establishing a buffer zone.

Bad Mans

Michael seems to have an essential scampiness. Elf has a photo of him when he was still in double-0 growsuits, and he has the most "Look out, I'm a scamp!" look on his face. This morning he slept in until it was time to get him up to go to daycare (This never happens, he is usually up at 6). I was sitting next to his cot lacing my boots, he was apparently still deep asleep, then he suddenly opened his eyes and broke into a mad grin. Arise, Sir Scampy! Scampy from the word go.

Marcus loves log trucks. And he loves flags. He loves OUR flag. He says "There's OUR FLAG!!". So we have discussions about big log trucks and the union jack on our flag and one day I'll have to break it to him that I'd rather have half as many log trucks and no union jack.

Yesterday we followed a police car for a little while. Slightly exciting for Marcus. Actually a police van. Marcus counted all the lights. Red, white, blue, red, red (brake lights), and a big white light inside the van. What is the big white light for? Er.. so the man shut inside can see. Conversation moved on to bad mans (which I can't resist calling them too). Bad mans stole our telly a few months ago. Marcus was pretty sure one of those bad mans was the one in the van. I said he was going to stay in jail for a while and he wouldnt be allowed to go home - Marcus thought that sounded pretty bad.

Expanding vocab

Michael had an amazing burst of new words over the weekend. Previously he had mummy, daddy, no, EIEIO, cooee and one or two more. Suddenly he can say Michael, Lily, water, honey, brother, sock, baby.

It was a long weekend due to Labour Day. Quite exhausting. I am contemplating going back to working 4 days, to spend more time with the boys and Elf, so I had better get used to more exhaustion and a few less sushi rolls and nice blueberry bagels.

Temporary families

I'm find I am thinking a lot about what happened to Erwin Kasterberger. I guess my musings about that don't really belong here. Have you ever had a happy "temporary family" of flatmates or workmates? You spend more time with them than your real family, but they come and go and you may or may not keep an attachment. It was a fairly happy little family at the printshop in Melbourne where I used to work with Erwin's wife Robyn. After I moved back to Tasmania I popped in to see everyone there once when I was in town but I havent kept in touch at all since. Even so - its hard to see someone you have known pretty well, even years ago, suffering publicly as Robyn is now.

Home Computer

We have got an E-mac at home now, and got onto the internet for the first time the other night. Elf is using it to hunt for a new house for us. I don't think I will be able to stand the slow speed of a dial-up connection, being used to broadband here at work. Marcus has taken to it, he loves typing and is quite a deft hunt-and-peck typist. We write his name and the names of friends and family , then get the computer to say them out loud. Haw haw.

Leaf Blowers

Has there ever been a more useless appliance than the leaf blower? I just saw someone chasing a few leaves around with one.

There is an excellent denunciation of leaf blowers in one of Bill Bryson's books, maybe Lost Continent.

Its not something you see very often here. I couldn't help thinking the man could have made just as much noise to a similar leaf-tidying effect if he had been playing a tuba. And it might have made a more interesting post too.

Erwin Kastenberger

Erwin Kastenberger was a security guard for Chubb, in Melbourne. Yesterday he was delivering some cash to a bank when it was robbed. He did what he was told, but was shot dead anyway.

When I lived in Melbourne 15 years ago I worked with Erwin's wife Robyn. She was a great workmate and Erwin seemed like a very nice guy the few times I met him. He found me a rent-free place to live at one stage, in an art gallery in Toorak Road owned by a friend of his (I was supposed to deter burglars). It didn't work out though, the place gave me the heebie-jeebies and I wasn't allowed to have any visitors.

Now Erwin is gone and Robyn is wondering why. I wonder too.

I have been thinking more about Erwin and Robyn and now I remember meeting their son Mark a few times. He was my age, and I think he was their only child. I had just moved to Melbourne from Tasmania, and Robyn did quite a bit of transferred mothering while I was working there.

Yellowly white

We saw a white volkswagen this morning. Marcus loves volkswagens, so I pointed it out. It was kind of cream/off white, but of course, with a just-3-year-old, you keep it simple.
Me: "Look, see the white volkswagen?"
"Yeah! Its yellowly white!"

Leaping

Michael has started leaping. Not quite really walking. He stands up, then leaps in the air, lands on both feet, then does it again and again. Its not meant as a method of getting around, although he sometimes ends up at the other end of the room. He's very close to proper walking, certainly doing a lot more cruising.

Marcus was annoyed with his cup-with-a-straw this morning.
"I'm indicated with this cup".
"Do you mean irritated?"
"I'm IRRITATED with this cup".

We went down to South Arm to visit Monica, Jonathan, Lena and Elise yesterday (I think to save time we will just call them the Cruikshanks now), and Nick and Anna and Lily did too. Its about 45 minutes drive. The boys had a great time, it was very noisy though. We used to have three kids between us, now we have five and another due (Anna) in a couple of months - things just get noisier and noisier.

The Cruikshanks have a very different lifestyle to us - lots of land, lost of space inside too. When we went for a walk Jonathan detoured at one stage to crush the skull of a sick rabbit. Quite a few differences to us. J built the house himself, works from home as a draftsman. They spend a lot more time with their kids than we can. Sigh.

On the way to South Arm we dropped in at Meadowbank vineyard to have a look at Anna's exhibition. The opening was on Saturday - we were supposed to be there but it just slipped out of mind. We forgot dinner at Jeremy and Emma's place on Friday night too - we are both feeling snowed under by the social calendar I think. Anna's paintings and etchings looked great, Elf and I both particularly like the etchings. I'm annoyed with myself for forgetting, particularly because we missed hearing Nick give a speech. Its something he stresses about enormously but does really well - it would have been nice to be there to support them both.

Balloon

Marcus: Yak yak balloon yak...
Elf: "mmm..."
Marcus: Yak yakkity yak balloon yak yak...
Elf: Mmm-hmmm...
Marcus: Do you want this balloon Mummy?
Elf: No, not really. I'm busy making dinner.
Marcus (sadly): Its lovely. But you don't want it.

Shots

Michael had a couple of vaccinations this morning, one in each thigh. He wasn't fussed at all. He made a tiny wumfle at the first one, so tiny that I didn't realise Dr Thompson had done it until he asked me to hold his other leg out. Another tiny wumfle then he turned his attention to the plastic car on the floor.

Song lyric for today:
We were once so close to heaven
Peter came out and gave us medals
Declaring us
The nicest of the damned
- from Road Movie to Berlin by They Might Be Giants

Talk

Marcus just won't stop talking. Yap yap yap. Some of it is quite interesting - that's the stuff that is usually related here. A lot of it is repetitive, annoying and impossible to reply to sensibly. This is all completely normal for a 3 year old. He is not a good listener which is probably also completely normal. I shouted very loud at him last night, I was so enraged that he wasn't listening while I told him something I thought was important.

Then this morning at 2am I was selfish when he had woken from a bad dream, and when he was heading off to get into our bed I told him to stay in his bed. I have a private rule that unless absolutely necessary he can't get into bed with us until after 3am - it just makes the night very long and uncomfortable. But Elf rightly pointed out that if he is scared he should feel like he can get into bed with us.

I sang "Hit me with your rythym stick" to Michael this morning and now he can say "Hit me". Great.

So - not a good 24 hours of dadness.

On the radio as I walked to work this morning Richard Adey interviewed Prof. David Flint, ex head of the Australian Broadcasting Authority, mate of John Laws and prominent monarchist. Listening to him is like having lukewarm smelly sump oil poured into your ears.

A little italian

The animation I am working on has this in the script: "The proprietor was a German, who spoke no English but knew a little Italian."

I have to listen to it over and over as I tweak the animation. Every time I visualise the proprietor's short Sicilian acquaintance.

Washing the car

We followed a very muddy car down the Southern Outlet this morning. Marcus said "When it rains it will wash all the mud off". I said that was how we got our car clean too - I think I have washed it once, just after we got it nearly 3 years ago. I told Marcus I didn't think washing the car with soap was important, and I'm too busy to do it. He said "I could help you daddy because you are too busy. But can you wash the top because I can't reach the top".

Other questions this morning: "Why do doctors wear gloves?" and "Why don't you sneeze when the sun shines like Mummy does and I do?"

Thank you for the purrs

Marcus was talking to Gizmo, our old cat. "Thank you Giz. Thank you Giz. Thank you Giz. "

We asked why he was thanking Giz. "I'm saying thank you for the purrs".

Such a good idea. I've had him about 13 years and I've never thanked him for the purrs.

Stripy Birthday

Today is Marcus's 3rd birthday. We had a Stripy Party on Saturday down at the South Hobart Community Centre - there were a lot of stripy people, stripy food and stripy balloons. Elf did a magnificent job sewing, cooking and generally excelling at stripy home economics. Everyone had a great time. Marcus got piles of presents that we have to somehow fit into the house. Michael fell off the portable mini-roundabout and grazed his face a wee bit - my fault for putting him on it when he was too tired to hang on properly.

Yesterday we backed up for more parties. Elf took Marcus to Liam's 3rd birthday, while I took Michael up into the mountains to Big Ben's going away party. Ben is a programmer at Roar and one of the finest gentlemen its been my privilege to work with. His family live at Collinsvale above Hobart and they put on a terrific spread. Ten of us got a minibus from work. Michael was very well behaved, charmed everyone and demonstrated his various tricks.

Michael is now miaowing like a cat (where appropriate) and also singing the EIEIOs to Old Macdonald Had A Farm. He is also a dab hand on the saxaflute - Sally's present to Marcus. Marcus built a very impressive spiralling saxaflute this morning then played a short honking composition on it.

Moon

I saw the moon rise over the Meehan Range while I was bringing in the washing last night. I looked up and where there had been nothing there was a bright orange sharp-edged blob. My first thought was it was the tidiest bushfire I had ever seen. It rose so fast - it was entirely above the horizon in about 2 minutes. I am extremely urbanised and only very occasionally do I have such a strong feeling of being on a spinning planet looping through space.

We are looking for a new house at the moment, to have more space and hopefully a flat back yard for the boys. But we are going to miss our first house. Will we see the moon rise over distant hills from the new house? I hope so.

Elf brought home a roundabout/carousel thing from the toy library. Its amazing what that woman can fit into a standard station wagon. The boys love it. Michael just sits on it, going nowhere and and grinning. He lights up when he plays with Marcus.

Elf's father Bill arrives from Canberra today, for Marcus's 3rd birthday party tomorrow. My mum and dad will be driving down today as well. I think we are all getting together for dinner tonight down at Kingston Beach - at Citrus Moon as it happens.

Police Car

We have just returned a police car we got from the toy library. Michael and Marcus take turns climbing inside and pushing themselves up and down the hall. I have also seen Marcus pushing Michael around in it quite gently, which was sweet.

I was in a very lazy parenting mood last night so I subdued a minor ruckus by putting on a video. Michael cruised to a position where he could see the TV, then sat back in his vehicle quite comfortably, with his foot on the dashboard, to watch Little Robots. He just needed a takeaway coffee and bag of doughnuts.

Fantastic Factoids

From a project Manuel, Rob, James and I are cooking up. Remember "fantastic" means "belonging in the realm of fantasy" not "really really good" as it is used these days.

• Taiwan is the only country with a national holiday to celebrate the invention of a synthetic fabric - Rayon Day on February 28th.

• The Burmese 3 wa and 6 wa stamps of 1938 became instant collectors items when it was realised that due to a printing mistake, instead of the Bhudda they featured Australian cricketer Stan McCabe.

• The bolivian stumpy duck is the only bird in the world to migrate by train.

[Further factoids removed on legal advice from Elf].

We are illustrating them (like the old Ripley's Believe It or Not) and hopefully we will find a newspaper who wants to run them.