Early toilet humour

The Little Madam currently finds poos and wees incredibly funny. It's not the poos and wees in themselves that make her laugh, more the words. Like, she'll use either word to describe just about anything and everything, and then giggle uncontrollably.

I found it amusing the first dozen times, but now I just roll my eyes and wish I hadn't inadvertantly encouraged TLM to use "poo" as a universal adjective. We adults may think it pretty tiresome, but she sure hasn't gotten tired of it yet.

I'm quite certain that this is just one of those things that all young children go through. But I never realised it would start so damned young.

TLC

My cold has gone on for a week now, and the boy has been suffering from his for even longer. TLM has already had her cold - she seems to only get bugs for just long enough to infect the parents, and then she's right as rain again. Typical.

The boy has been really looking after me - cooking most nights and doing the dinner dishes, encouraging me to put my feet up once TLM's in bed, bringing me fresh boxes of tissues, and refraining from playing his Farscape DVD's while I'm about. And all of this while he's still nursing his sniffles and coughs.

I reckon that echinachea he's been taking, must be turning him into a Stepford husband. But don't tell him I told you.

So...I don't have to be young and beautiful to become famous...

Making it in the arts is hard, apparently. Whether it's writing, singing or slicing animals very thinly and putting them between glass panels - it's the kind of field in which looks and connections are at least as useful as talent.

So how the hell did Wing do it? Her singing is even worse than mine, she's certainly not as pretty as I am (which isn't saying much, I know), and as far as I know she isn't hooked up with a soccer superstar. Some say it's her passion that wins her fans. Others say her fans mistakenly believe she is intentionally satirising pop diva-dom.

Well, if all it takes is the willingness to be laughed at, would I be happy with all the fame and adulation?

Maybe, but only if there was money in it.

Slow cooking

I reckon I'll get myself a slow cooker/crockpot. The idea of chucking a few ingredients into the pot in the morning and having a cooked meal by the time I return home, really appeals to me. There is the danger though, of ending up with a nightly stew that tastes the same regardless of what goes in, like the stew we used to make in the billy back in my tramping (hiking) days. But I'll arm myself with some recipes from the Internet and the library, and perhaps a truckload of Maggi Cook-in-the-pot sachets as well.

Because we are having way too many ready meals at the moment.

Mothers Day weekend - against all odds

When I saw that we were rostered on for weekend cleaning of TLM's daycare, I thought it was just typical of my luck. Then when the boy came down with a cold and TLM followed with a strain of her own, I wasn't surprised that I spent most of Friday afternoon blowing my nose on work toilet paper.

But this weekend has turned out okay after all, so far. The colds seem to be abating, and my sniffles have gone too. I'm starting to wonder whether I was merely the victim of my workmate's cats' fur, which has probably been clinging to his clothes all this time.

I shopped for a gift for my hard-to-please mother, and found a jaunty winter cap for myself. I did find a more conservatively styled hat for my mum too, but won't be too put out if she rejects it. The weekend cleaning didn't take all that long, which was a relief. And though we didn't go out for Mothers Day brunch as I'd hoped, he and TLM bought in some yummy gourmet soup with crusty sourdough bread for lunch at home.

This afternoon we'll go visit my mum and she'll have the chance to tell me how much she hates my present. And then I'll just give her a twenty dollar bill instead.

...and that's why I feel ready to go to bed at 7pm tonight

I don't know why - it's something that's only started affecting me in the last couple of years - but when it's that time of the month I start feeling unwell. Most of the time I get these oppressive headaches that make me feel like a block of polystyrene in a woodworking vice, and most of the time I have terrible nights' sleep. This month, I've had sore, itchy eyes and hayfeverish sniffles (as well as the insomnia).

So I couldn't blame it on the boy, who has a cold and his nocturnal nose-blowing seems as high-decibel as a jet plane taking off behind the house.

Another thing that disturbed my sleep was this strange, deep buzzing noise that turned out to be my mobile phone mutedly telling me I had a call. By the time I realised it was my phone and not the boy's, it was nearly time to get out of bed anyway. It was our babysitter calling in sick.

To cut a longish story shortish, I stressed, worried and bit my nails. Then I called in my emergency person - my sister-out-law. She had to rearrange her day's plans, but was able to take TLM for the day. They even had to wonderful time together, from what I'd heard.

But I was a few fizzes short of effervescence by the time I got to work. And after almost two weeks of staring at computer moniters for hours on end, I've come to the conclusion that not only do I need to wear my spectacles all the time - I'm probably gonna need some thicker lenses.

Wondering about naughty canine costumes

Naughty Pagan vents about an advertised "Princess Leia slave costume" for dogs. He reckons it's a bit dodgy, and wonders whether the kind of people who'd buy such a thing are the dodgy types who'd turn a pet into some perverted sex object (ugh!). I've had a look at the picture, and can't imagine that getting anyone hot and sweaty. But then, I've had a fairly sheltered upbringing.

It did make me wonder whether a dodgy doggy person might be able to find other kinds of pervy dress-ups for dogs - naughty nurse and French maid costumes come to mind. So, I had a quick Google.

I didn't come across any Naughty Nurse dress-ups, but there is this Wonder Woman outfit, this harem dog outfit, a cheerleader outfit, and yes, a French maid outfit!
While I generally have a live-and-let-live philosophy, I really hope that anyone who dresses up their pet, only does it because they think it's cute. But not sexy (bad human! Bad!).

The Golden Compass - it ain't so bad

After hearing through the grapevine that The Golden Compass was a poor filmic rendering of Philip Pullman's wonderful fantasy trilogy, I'd assumed that we wouldn't bother watching it. But the boy has this habit of wanting to watch movie versions of certain novels even if they're supposed to be bad. So I wasn't terribly surprised when he brought home The Golden Compass on DVD. But I was surprised that I liked it as much as I did.

The books were criticised by many sensitive Christian folk for it's anti-Church theme. Fair enough, because it's true. But I don't see the point of taking away that emphasis in the film. Everyone who's read the books is likely to be disappointed that the film version is goes "lite". Anyone who hasn't read the books will probably still enjoy it, but probably most of the latter avoided the books because they'd heard it was anti-Christian - in which case, they wouldn't bother to see the movie either.

Apart from the removal of all references to the word "Church", the movie pretty much follows the first book (which in NZ is called "Northern Lights"), except for the end. The book ending would have been a real downer if they'd put it in the movie. But I do hope that the event in the book ending i.e. what happens to Lyra's friend Roger, is included in the next film. Because that bit is reveals so much about Lord Asriel's true nature.

The armoured bears are well realised, as are the land- and cityscapes of Lyra's world. The girl who plays Lyra, I found a believable and likeably rascally heroine. I triumphantly recognised the witch queen as played by Eva Green from Casino Royale, but the boy found it weird to hear Gandalf's voice coming out of the armoured bear's mouth. The role of Mrs Coulter though, seems tailor-made for the likes of ice-queen Nicole Kidman.