Photo Caption Competition

I took this photo a few days ago. It made me laugh, and still does, every time I look at it.

Yep, she's on the back porch. Right beside her blackboard, with chalk in hand. On the potty.

I have several captions running through my head ... "A loo with a view" springs to mind.

But I want to hear your witticisms -- so I am going to give away a fresh serve of my favourite bath product - delicious lemon myrtle and rosemary bath salts - to the person whose caption suits best. Just leave your title or caption in a comment to this post, and I will announce the winner on Saturday, 31 May (Australian time).

And, dare I say it -- bring out your best 'toilet humour'!!

Creative storage...

We now live in a rented house. It is has some great design features and some that I wouldn't mind changing, if it belonged to me.... Brad and I love the back deck, from which we can just see the mountains, while we nibble cheese and bikkies and watch Naomi ride on her little bike.


Naomi, on the other hand, likes finding creative ways of storing all sorts of things. Just look at all the different things that can be stored in the slots of a built-in wine rack, that is very conveniently placed at 2-year old level...



A biscuit container, a plastic lid, assorted hair clips and ties, both of Mummy's house shoes (neatly placed side by side in adjoining slots). And for the record, I had to take the camera out of one of the slots to take this photo!! Every time I walk past it, I notice something different slotted in one of the boxes. A juice cup. A baby doll. Naomi's hairbrush...

And one lonely wine bottle!

Seventeen in the bed....

And the little one said... "Roll over, roll over"

So they all rolled over and one fell out...

Is it any wonder she sleeps so badly when there is hardly room for Naomi in the bed?!?! Ha ha ha... only kidding, this photo was taken straight after we made her bed up with clean linen, and she decided to take all her dolls and animals off the shelves and tuck them in. It was too cute to pass up on the photo opportunity!

Who's your Mama?

Are you a 'Mummy'? 'Mum'? 'Mother'? 'Ma'? Despite having given birth and nurtured a gorgeous little girl for the past 18 months, I have been none of these. The word "Daddy" is heard from morning till bedtime. But on the subject of who I am, Naomi has been stubbornly silent.

Except for a brief and horrifying period of several weeks where she called me 'Sasha'!!! What the?? I am NOT having one of these open, new-age friend relationships with my daughter. Where is the respect? The honouring of parents? Although, it wasn't surprising as everyone else in the world calls me 'Sasha' (or Sweetie). All the daycare children that I care for call me Sasha. Thankfully, she is over that phase.

One day when playing the "Where's such-and-such person" game, I said "Where's Mummy?", and Naomi pointed to herself. The penny dropped - the words sound too similar for her to differentiate and all my saying 'mummy' was just confusing her. So instead, Brad and I have been saying 'Mama'. And guess what? Yesterday, Naomi said "Mama", and when I said (with tears in my eyes) 'Yes, blossom?" she went on chatting to me about the rocks that she had collected from the garden - completely oblivious to the moment of pure joy that she had just brought me. She has said it many times in the last 24 hours, and I may even get used to it -- but I will never stop enjoying the sound of it.

A new addictive craft

My neighbour across the road invited me to a Creative Memories scrapbooking party, which was held yesterday. We each had to take along 6 - 8 photographs, with a theme.

I am ashamed to say that it was hard to find that many actual physical photographs, and I had to go hunting in the bottoms of sideboard drawers - it certainly is the age of digital photos! But I came up with some lovely shots of Naomi at various stages in her first year - from a couple of weeks old, through to her first birthday party.

And here is a photo of my first ever attempt at scrapbooking, entitled Naomi's First Year.

I love quilting, and have been in withdrawal for the last year, as I haven't even finished one project! I miss the beautiful vintage print fabrics, and the satisfaction of making something with my own hands that I can snuggle up under in the coming winter months. Which is why scrapbooking has the worrying potential to become a new addiction -- such beautiful papers, ribbons and embellishments - like an Aladdin's cave of pretty things. And preserving the happiest of memories.

But the thing I liked about it was the 'almost instant gratification'. Within half an hour I had created a page of memories and I was actually happy with the result! While not as utterly scrumptiously satisfying as finishing a bed quilt or lap rug, it was the sort of thing that I might even be able to find time for around Naomi and the daycare kids.

Luckily the cost of the materials, albums and fripperies that were in the catalogue were waaayyy outside our current budget, so the danger remains only peripheral... but certainly lurking there, waiting to pounce when I have more time or funds..... Does anyone else enjoy scrapbooking? Is it as addictive as I think it could be?

House sale and bargains

I forgot to mention yesterday, our most exciting news - the sale of our house is set to proceed on 28 May! The purchaser has confirmed that he is happy with all the inspection reports that he has received (pest, building, electrical and a property valuation!). So I now have less than 3 weeks to pack up the combined clutter of a 3 bedroom house and a Family Daycare business into boxes. The big catch is that we are not yet sure that we can move into the new house on the same date. It may be as much as 2 weeks after we sell this house. Whilst I relish the thought of 2 weeks in a holiday apartment, we could do without the expense of renting, storing furniture etc, not to mention the loss of my business income from not having a house to care for kids in!

I have to get onto our lawyer today and get confirmation of a date to move into the next house, so that I can warn my parent clients if there is going to be a delay of some days.

Above is a photo of Naomi enjoying her new property - a diorama book called 'Maisy's Farm' that I picked up for $2 at a garage sale a couple of weeks ago. It shows signs of previous hard lovin', but the daycare kids and Naomi love when I set it up and they can play with all of the cut-out people, animals, tractors etc.

Tropical cool and war wounds...

You know its autum when... you can have a lazy Sunday morning in your soft fluffy warm dressing gowns without overheating! Yes, we here in Paradise think that it is getting cooler - the days are now around 28 to 30 deg C. Clear blue skies make for crisp cooler mornings (in our opinions, anyway!). Naomi is now bundled in flanelette pyjamas for overnight (mostly because I don't have a sleep bag that fits at the moment, and she hates having covers on her).

Yep, people, this is the best time of year, here in Paradise. The heat and humidity have gone (although I do miss the monsoon thunderstorms and rain). You can pretty much guarantee that the weather will be fine on any given day, and it is cool enough to make your morning cup of tea a total pleasure.

However, whilst the weather may be divine, things in the Cherished household are taken one day, and sometimes one hour at a time this week.

You may have noticed the red splodge on Naomi's nose, in the above photos? She took a tumble down the auditorium steps at my mum's graduation ceremony on Saturday afternoon. It was a glorious swan dive - right onto the metal non-skid strip that they attach at the front of stair treads. Think cheese grater effect, on very delicate skin. She had a red lump on the forehead and gravel rash from bridge of the nose right down to the top lip. Blood everywhere. Screams echoing around the auditorium. And I couldn't even muster up a tissue - not even the crumpled up type that live in the bottom of every handbag (you know you have one lurking in there somewhere!). But not me. Because I don't carry a handbag - just a gorgeous little pink princess ballerina backpack, stuffed with snacks, crayons, paper, toys and a spare nappy. I briefly flirted with the idea of sticking the clean nappy on Naomi's face, but thought the better of it when I realised it may be needed later.

So instead, I scooped up screaming child and all our paraphernalia and hobbled painfully (as I had twisted my ankle earlier that day!) the 50 metres to the nearest bathroom, to get handtowels with which to stem the bleeding.

It has left a very impressive scab down her nose. But I am having trouble with the top lip - it won't dry up and scab over, because of course the nose has started running like a tap again, causing the top lip area to be constantly covered in... well, you know what I mean.

Consequently, sleeping has been disrupted, child has been very whingey and grumpy and I have been tearing my hair out.

A nice tall glass of Motherhood, anyone??