Random funnies

Every now and then, the pace of day-to-day parenting threatens to get the better of me. It usually coincides with the kids having growth spurts (and the inevitable trip to K-Mart to address the everlasting problem of clothes that actually fit my three beansprouts) and makes me stop and take note of what's going on around me (as opposed to blindly carrying on).

One of the best things about being a parent, aside from chubby arms thrown around your neck in a passionate cuddle, are the funny and stupid things your children do and say. If your children are my children, funny and stupid come hand-in-hand on pretty much every day that ends with a 'y'.

I'd love to say that I remember every mispronounced word and every ridiculous habit or obsession, but unfortunately my memory is limited to retaining the two items I need at the supermarket (and yes, my lovelies, make it three items and I'm officially stuffed...)

As a result of this, I try desperately to hold onto the funny, the stupid, the adorable, and the downright ridiculous things that my kids say or do...and I fail miserably. Which means only one thing: I will have literally no fodder for their 21st birthday parties.

So more for my own good than anyone else's, I have collated a few random moments from the past week. They are, quite literally, unrelated to each other. They form no pattern, and provide no theme for this post other than the fact I need to remember something embarrassing (at least for Jack's 21st, at any rate). So here they are. Randoms from this week in April. Enjoy.

At the moment, all three of my kids break into random song for no other reason than because. Phoebs favours songs about what she is doing or watching; Maisie sings the tunes of known nursery rhymes combined with vowels and consonents of no particular order. She sings so earnestly that her voice strains to get the words out, which makes her singing crack on the top notes. She favours ABC and I'm A Little Teapot, but her absolute favourite song this week is "Call Me" by Blondie, which she screams "All Eeee!!!" Almost as funny is Jack's current operatic style of warbling, which is quite disturbing. He knows it freaks me out. I can't quite transcribe Jack and Phoebe's lyrics to "Mamma Mia", but it goes something like this:

"Mamma mia, here I go again, ay ay, e e e nasist ya,
Mamma mia, na na go again, ay ay, something something let you go
Here's something wrong my darling, ooh there's a danger on it
Ay ay! Will you ever let me go?"

Which is totally how it goes. Obviously.

One of the activities most enjoyed by our kids on Easter Sunday was collecting old, sun-bleached kangaroo bones in the paddocks surrounding the house. They were fascinated by them, and kept asking which part of the body each bone had come from. Now, keeping in mind the sombre reason for our trip to the country, what Jack did was particularly...um...well, let's just say he lifted the mood somewhat. Grasping a piece of kangaroo vertebrae and thrusting it triumphantly into the air, he exclaimed, "I know what this is! It's a Star Wars spaceship!" And he hurtled away with his "spaceship" flying through the air, making the most extraordinary "spaceship" noise (I can't do it - it's this thing he does with his lips and they vibrate and whistle and...it's just weird). I've never seen a kid fly a bone through the air, but my son managed to do it with aplomb.

Whilst the boys were zooming roo bones around, running barefoot through the grass, Phoebe and her beloved Harper were involved in secret girls' business. There were dolls and teddies strewn about, and I saw them running with the kite around the house. But every time I spied the two middle children, they each had cheeks bulging with Easter eggs. The first time I collided with Phoebalina as she ran out the kitchen door, lips wrapped around a bunny's ears, her eyes bugged and she tried to hide the rabbit. "Harper gave it to me! She couldn't eat it all!", she blurted, and as permissive as a mother on Easter Sunday can be, I let her go with her chocolate booty. Each successive time I glimpsed Phoebe, the rabbit was smaller, until I deduced that she had consumed the entire thing. I didn't really care - if you can't eat chocolate at Easter when you're a child, then your mother must have been kidnapped by the fun police. That's what I reckon, anyway.

I didn't see Miss Phoebe for quite a while after that, until Anna and I cooked the snags on the outdoors fire and called the kids for lunch. The fact that Phoebe ate two bites of her "sodige" and begged off the rest didn't phase me at all. I just thought she was keen to get back to running madly around with the tribe. As I found out later, she was actually very green around the gills by that point, and a sausage just about tipped her over the edge! Daddy had found her eating a second enormous Easter egg (again, apparently donated by the more-than-generous Harper), but struggling to finish it. She asked Daddy very quietly to take the unfinished second egg away, and to please "not tell Mum". Uh-huh. As if Daddy's gonna let Mum miss out on a pearler like that!! Funnily enough, Phoebs hasn't gone overboard on the choc ever since...

The Mouse is at that delightful stage in which you could not imagine a more amusing, more gorgeous creature than a two year old. She's really started to push the boundaries, and we've had a fair few barnies at the dinner table lately when the Mouse has pushed her plate away and demanded (quite rudely, but with a charming smile), 'dogurt'. When the yoghurt is refused, and she is taken from the table, dinnerless and yoghurtless, the temper is something to see. She has perfected the fake, open-mouthed "cry", to which the eyes are completely dry and the wail can stop remarkably quickly.

We went to Ikea the other day, not for any other reason other than fun. We still came home with stuff we didn't know we needed until we saw it (and then it was like, how did we survive without this incredible storage solution before? and why don't I buy four?) but with a new house around the corner (bahahahahahahahahaha......huh) I figured, why not? Why not, indeed.

The big kids were pretty awesome. They know the Ikea drill - you can sit in the chairs, you can pat the cushions, but you hold Mummy's hand in the kitchen section and you listen to Daddy when his voice goes deep. The Mouse, on the other hand, has only recently eschewed the pram (much to my dismay). She likes to *ahem* 'walk', preferably without holding anyone's hand, and will insist on a 'tuddle' when she wants to be carried. Basically, she is a pain in the shops at the moment.

In Ikea, Christian and I insisted that Maisie held at least one of our hands at all times. In return, she responded by dropping to the floor at irregular intervals, splaying her body out across the crowded Swedish path. She would grin happily from her position, dissuaded by nothing - not Mummy and Daddy walking away, not strangers stepping over her, not enticing displays. She would have to be hauled to her feet every time and carried until she promised to walk nicely ("Will you hold Mummy's hand?" "No! Hahahahaha!" "Then you can't get down." "Yes! Down!!!!!" "Will you hold Mummy's hand?" "No! Hahahahahaha!" and so on, and so forth.)

In the end, we gave her something to carry (a packet of knives, I think) and followed the arrows as fast as we could. Next time, I'm going back to Ikea pretending to be single and childless. At least then I might manage to sit in the Ikea cafeteria without having apple juice poured everywhere. Phoebe managed to soak (and I mean, SOAK) her pants and undies with apple juice within, I dunno, 20 seconds of opening the bottle? And promptly burst into noisy tears at the table, crying, "Mummy! I'm sorry! It was an accident!!", as though I were a Mommie Dearest-type parent who would beat her with a wooden coathanger for spilling her juice. Everyone looked. I mean, everyone. I felt so judged (and my pants weren't even dripping).

Meanwhile, Maisie is practising her vocabulary. Which means she labels everything. Which means we have to parrot every single word she utters, and accompany it with a smile and a little clap. Or something like that. She labels her clothes, the floor, the pets, her food. Our car, other peoples' cars, the sky. She is obsessed with water, and pronounces it "war-ter", with a very strong 't'. Every glimpse of the beach (or, 'bitch') is announced with the phrase, "pa pa tit tit!", which means, "paddle, paddle, kick, kick!", which in turn means, "hurrah! swimming!" The poor thing is so delirious at the sight of her beloved warter, that today, in a rainforest, every time she saw a creek she proclaimed it was the "bitch". "No, darling, not the beach, a creek!" "Crik!", she'd cry, and then around the next bend, "Bitch!" Our children are charming, no doubt.