Spring, spring, spring, spring, spring!

Yes, in case you missed it, it's finally Spring! We made it through Winter. I like to pat myself on the back every time I make it through Winter because I achieve so little otherwise. And by the way, I have been unwell for the last couple of days and so haven't been blogging. Its amazing how feeling unwell makes me want to not blog. Anyway, I'm feeling better and its Spring and I'm convalescing and DW would like me to take a few minutes to herself and do something constructive. Or blog.

Ok, so time to catch everyone up on things at my house. Well, we had Little Man's second party for his first birthday and I actually finished his little truck. After adding wheels, it was definitely a truck so that's what we are calling it. It actually looked pretty good and he was able to push it along and ride on it. It looked like he might have been really interested in it until someone got him a shiny plastic trike that has stickers and rolls smoothly and doesn't hurt to sit on. I've decided to assume that the problem is just that I haven't painted his truck yet and all will be well when he sees his bright red truck with fire licks down the side and the superglue sets on his fancy little trike.

Toys are getting smarter. One of Little Man's toys is a car dashboard thing. It has a steering wheel and indicators and horn and a little dashboard car person thingy. It makes a carcophony of sounds but here is the kicker. If you play with it for a little while making all sorts of crazy and increasingly annoying noises, you get told off and told its a kids toy, for Pete's sake. So you walk away and slump down at the table and look at said toy longingly, knowing that if you touch it, well, on a scale of 1 to 10, it wouldn't be good. Obviously intended to draw a toddler's attention back to itself, the toy waits for a couple of minutes and bursts back into life. Needless to say, a surprised look is not enough to shield one from suspicion.

Apart from his truck, all of Little Man's toys make some sort of noise. Princess likes to see if she can get all of them going at once to create a kind of carnival atmosphere. Little Man eats the wrapping paper and plays in the boxes. Next year he will actually enjoy the toys. When he hits three, he will finally understand that it is HIS birthday and not just a lucky day when people give him stuff.

So now we are passed the birthdays for the year. Its something of a relief. After proving just how good I am at carpentering, DW has decided to focus my attention on the backyard. Apparently we have decided that the weeds have to go and we need something resembling a structure, a plan. So we drew up our plan and we argued about the merits of the plan and drew up another and debated the virtues of the new plan and then drew up a third plan and disagreed on the pros and cons and so on. A few reams of paper later, we settled on a plan DW liked and we thought about how we would achieve this new wonder of the world. It was decided that we would do things in stages. So we started by drawing up a plan. I get the feeling its going to take a while to get this done.

Also, the bedroom has been delayed. But I have decided to take some time off from work and get the rest of the things we need to finish and DW has agreed to paint stuff and we are hoping to finish by the end of September. At least we have already agreed on the plan. We just have to find the time. Did I mention we have kids?

Lastly, tomorrow is Father's Day and DW has headed off to Bunnings to do some shopping. Bunnings is the perenial backup for presents for me. Whenever DW can't think of anything or runs out of time, she goes to the Bunnings drive-through-for-women which asks only two questions, "Cars, gardens or wood?" and "How much?". This year DW started fishing for ideas a few weeks back. Catalogues were left lying about. The following week, a highlighter appeared beside the catalogues. Then DW started to ask me what I was working on or what my Dad might want. Then she mentioned that Father's Day was coming up. Then she mentioned that a bloody hint would be good. Then she said what do I want for Father's Day and to be specific. I said I would like a router. She said, "There, now, that wasn't to hard now was it? Any normal person would have known how to leave a hint." Three days later she said, "What the hell is a router? Do they have them at the drive-through?"

DW is actually great when it comes to buying me gifts. She tries really hard and usually comes up with great ideas, even ones I wouldn't have thought of myself. For my birthday she bought me a hammock which is big enough for two. Unfortunately, Princess ALWAYS wants to get in with me, which reduces the relaxation component and increases the desire-to-throttle-but-can't coefficient. It might be ok if she'd just lie still but she has a condition whereby she is acutely annoying. DW also bought me the most beautiful, wonderful, shiny drill bit set which I open occasionally to look at but am too afraid to use. I think she is going to get me a router tomorrow. I can't wait!

Ciao!

Thought for the Day: I don't know Jack Squat. Or his brother, Diddly