Birdwatching

One of the nice things about living in the suburbs near a park, after years of living in the traffic-choked, smoggy inner city, is the wildlife. Specifically, the feathered kind. It's so lovely to see and hear the occasional kookaburra, or the numerous black crows with their terrific calls.

We also get big flocks of cockatoos who sometimes descend on our mandarin tree but at the moment are feasting at the water-logged playing fields in our park. It is deafening when they fly above us. One of the locals also breeds racing pigeons and every afternoon (when it's not bucketing down with rain) you can see their huge flock circling above.

At other times, the noise from the brown songlarks as they chatter away on the power lines is amazingly loud. They fly around, in and out of the trees at the front of our house and make an incredible racket, especially considering their size. My mother said that they remind her of musical notes when they sit there on the wires (excuse the dodgy photo stitching):

This morning I was fortunate enough to see a black-faced cuckoo shrike sitting on our clothes line out the back. It was pouring with rain but it just sat there surveying the territory. It eventually moved off, much to my relief. I was worried about it getting soaked! What a beautiful creature it was. Not too common around here.

The set of Gould League bird posters I received one year for Christmas has proved invaluable in helping to identify these creatures. I have one on the back of the toilet door, and must remember to put the rest of them up in useful places!

Crafty inspiration

I discovered another crafty blog in one of my mother's quilting magazines and I am so inspired! They make gorgeous "softies" (soft toys or cloth dolls) and quilts, too. The thing I love most is the fabrics that they use. Just gorgeous!

While looking at their blog and related flickr group I found other flickr groups and blogs that are about quilting. It's wonderful to look at all the pictures of the amazing creations people make. I really want to get myself organised so I can finish some of my current projects, and start new ones as well!

Getting out of the house

It was the Queen's birthday holiday today. Yay! A long weekend! That means Dan and Dante were home on an Atti-day.

We really needed to get out of the house. We've been cooped up inside all weekend, although Dan did take the kids out for a walk yesterday when the weather fined up to see the "mighty river" (the storm water canals near our house) and the fallen tree in our park. We had our niece, Jasmine, over for a sleepover on Saturday night (to give her parents a bit of a break, since they have a five-day-old little girl at home)!

So we took the kids to go and see Shrek the Third this morning and hung around the shopping centre for the afternoon. The movie was quite enjoyable. The kids were transfixed. Even Elora was fascinated by the lights and sounds. Grandma met up with us afterwards and we had lunch and window-shopped a little bit... I love looking in the kids clothing shops, especially now that I'm can buy girls' clothes. But I find that I am able to refrain from spending since I have loads of pink now.

Anyway, poor Atti didn't get to have a nap AT ALL today. And he did amazingly well, considering. We had a tiny bit of trouble wrestling the Shrek doll away from him in the department store but when I pointed out that it was broken (some of the stitching was coming undone - dodgy workmanship) he begrudgingly gave it up.

The upside of the long day with no nap was that we were able to get the kids (well, the two boys anyway) down to bed much earlier than usual and had the evening to ourselves. Woohoo!

But I should have used the chance to go to bed early and catch up on some sleep... yawn. Oh well!

Worst storms in 30 years

Wow, it rained down all day on Friday and Saturday. The wind was howling and unceasing. It was the most incredible weather I've seen in a long time and boy was I glad that we were safe and warm(-ish) at home.

The news was awful - a bunch of people died in the floods and winds, including a family whose car was swept away when a road collapsed. Absolutely incredible that it happened - I can't help feeling shocked and horrified by it.

And to top it all off, hardly any of the buckets of water fell where we really need it, in the catchment areas of our dams. It was such a shame to see all that good drinking water come down and know that it is just washing out to sea and not being harvested in any way.

It's icy out there

The weather outside at the moment is amazing. I can't believe I said that Sydney winters were dry and sunny. It's cold, windy and wet outside today. Yesterday morning we were woken by the most incredible, bone-rattling thunderstorm (and then went back to sleep because it was so dark and everyone was late for work/school).

According to my Degrees Down Under dashboard widget (Mac users only) the apparent temperature here is 7.9°C. I had plans to go to a farewell function at work for almost the ENTIRE admin section of my building (bar one person) but I don't dare step outside... not even to go next door! I've just managed to get both kids down to sleep and hopefully the cold and dark will help them sleep for a while.

It's times like these I'm glad we don't live in tents.

Favourite books

Over Easter, I was asked by Karen to suggest ten of my favourite books that I might recommend to others. It was a long and thoughtful process, taking the entire long weekend, but I finally came up with a list and I'm so happy with it I'd thought I'd share it. If you have any particular picks that you wish me to read, please leave a comment!

Mind you, I'm not wanting for books to read by any means... we have a huge collection of books, supplemented by my brothers' books (since we have the space for it). I'll write more about our library another day.

The books, in no particular order:

Across the Nightingale Floor - Lian Hearn
The first of the "Otori" series of books by this author. A great tale of love, war and ninjas set in an older style Japanese-like world.

The Princess Bride - William Goldman
The movie is a classic and one of my favourites... The book is even better!

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
I studied "Persuasion" for my final year of high school but P&P is by far my favourite Austen.

Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card
A truly excellent read - Sci-Fi, but don't let that put you off. The first time I read it took three days and not much sleep. I just couldn't put it down!

Dinotopia - James Gurney
The concept is wonderful and the artwork in this children's book is simply gorgeous.

Imperial Purple - Gillian Bradshaw
Recommended to me by my Latin teacher in school, Sister Philippa. A great insight into what life may have been like in Ancient Roman times.

The Lorax - Dr. Seuss
A really nice book to read to the kids to instill in them the dangers of over-capitalism (is that a word?) and not thinking about the environment that suffers because of it. Especially relevant these days with all the talk of climate change!

Boy and Going Solo - Roald Dahl
I was a HUGE fan of Roald Dahl when I was growing up. I even wrote him a letter and received a reply! Of all his books, these I love best - the true story of his childhood and young adult life.

Why Cats Paint: A Theory of Feline Aesthetics - Heather Busch & Burton Silver
Teeheehee! This is the funniest mock-non-fiction book.

Motherguilt - Ita Buttrose & Dr. Penny Adams
I recommend this book to every new mother I meet! So many things in it rang true for me. It didn't stop me feeling guilty about everything I do, but at least it helped me to understand the reasons behind the feelings and made me realise that I'm not alone, either.

She builds houses out of bricks

My new niece was born this morning just before 7am! Yay! The third little pig has arrived. Congrats Tim and Janet - we can't wait to meet her.

Plane milk

Once the kids have gone to bed in the evening, Dan and I usually have a late dessert or snack while we're hanging around before bedtime.

Tonight I just wanted a glass of milk, with nothing on it (I often have Milo on top).

Dan went out to the kitchen to get it. He was taking quite a while in there... and five minutes later came back with this. Filled with milk.

Happy Elora

My family came over today (the usual fortnightly Sunday tennis) - chaos and noise as per usual. My eldest brother Chris and his family also made an appearance, which was great as he doesn't play tennis like the other two bros. The kids had a great time, although Dan took Dante to our friends' farewell barbecue at Coogee in the afternoon. I would have liked to go as well, but the thought of chasing after Atticus in the cold and wind instead of him having his nap was too much.

Anyway, we put the two youngest cousins down on the playmat for some photos and managed to capture this terrific image of Elora's happy face. She is such a happy, smiley baby and this photo is a wonderful representative of this! I love her wide-mouthed smile, her shiny eyes and her outrageous hair (her hairdo does remind me of a Dilbert character).

I'll put up some more pictures of the girls on flickr.

Mums are special

I didn't mention on Mother's Day that Dante bought me a helium balloon when he went shopping with Grandma and Dan. A shiny red round balloon with the words "Mums are special" written on it. When he presented it to me I was busy hanging out the washing, so said "Oh thanks - give it Atticus". Dante exclaimed "No! It's for you! He'll just lose it!" and was quite upset about the whole thing. But I was too busy to take much notice and insisted that he take it inside and let Atti play with it (Atti loves balloons).

Afterwards Dan told me the story behind the balloon. They'd gone to the department store and there was a lady selling these out the front for $1. Dante really wanted to get me one so Grandma bought it for him to give to me. He was so happy.

However during the sojourn through the shop, probably overexcited by the toy section, he accidentally let go and the balloon sailed to the ceiling far above. Dante was devastated by this and burst into tears. He immediately demanded that they get another one, and he offered to pay for it himself with his own pocket money, because he knew that it was his fault for losing it in the first place. So they bought it, and he was very pleased to be able to give it to me.

And I was the most horrible, ungrateful mother ever.

I felt SOOO bad when Dan told me the story afterwards. What could I do? I thanked Dante for it again, but it just wasn't the same.

Anyway, it has turned out to be a really long-lasting helium balloon. Normally these sort of things deflate within 12 hours, but it has been two and a half weeks and it is still afloat. I took that picture this morning!

So on the weekend I was standing underneath it and called Dante to me. "Hey, Dante, look at my Mother's Day balloon! Isn't it wonderful? It's still floating! What a great present that was!"

Dan said that the grin on Dante's face was priceless. He was so proud and happy. And I felt so relieved that I'd made him feel good about his present.

At times I am just the most awful mother - when I'm tired and cranky I just pick on all the little things and unfortunately Dante bears the brunt of most of it. "Sit properly! Stop shouting! Don't use your fingers to eat dinner! You're not a barbarian!" Ack. I hope that the nice moments will outweigh the bad ones and he'll remember me fondly in years to come.