Arachnids on the Loose

Occasionally the entertainment comes not from the children, but from the adult sector. Usually it's a situation which is incredibly NOT funny at the time, but as emotions fade and we are able to look back on the incident objectively, it becomes ridiculously silly. And we laugh. At ourselves.

My sister and I spend quite a bit of time together now we live near. She was kind of my hero, growing up, because she always seem so much older and wiser than I, and was capable of handling things that were still far off to me. Belle was always ahead of me, at a place I longed to be.

Belle has birthed 2 gorgeous children and continues to tame them daily. She has worked in the outback, travelled overseas, competed in equestrian events, assisted foaling mares through long cold nights and a whole pile of other things for which I admire her.

But she is very very scared of big hairy spiders.

So you can imagine her reaction when, driving into town one day recently, her 4 year old daughter Bear calmly announced "Mummy, there's a spider" and edged a little further towards the back of her seat, while pointing to that "spot" right above Belle's right shoulder.

Did you know that technically there is no such thing as a "blind spot" when it comes to spiders and my sister? Certainly a motor vehicle travelling in the exact same spot, out of her line of vision, would be unseen, because one's head simply cannot twist far enough behind to make visual contact.
But place a giant hairy spider in much the same location - INSIDE the car - and suddenly the head and neck become able to spin and twist the full 360 degrees.

I believe Belle's head did exactly that, as she threw the Rav 4 down a gear, swung to a safe spot on the road to stop, slammed on the brakes and leapt from the car with her two children safely wrapped in her arms whilst simultaneously making a half-hearted attempt to swipe at the hairy monster slowly advancing on her bare neck.

Perhaps the only mistake Belle made, to this point, was to loose sight of the Spider as it hit the floor and scurried somewhere to a safe hiding place inside the car.

Her next mistake was more obvious.

She rang me. And asked for help.

If there is only one thing I truly outshine my sister in, it is in my fear of giant hairy spiders. I am terrified of them. Creepy, crawly, hideous creatures with long, scurrying hairy legs and no predictability. I have goose bumps just typing about them!
Exactly WHAT kind of help Belle thought she'd get from me, I am not sure - but I responded to the call of distress. My sister was stranded on the side of the road, with 2 small children beside her and a beast of a spider lurking in her car.

I did what any hero of the moment could do - made a strong coffee, grabbed a huge can of Mortein and drove as quickly as possible to the rescue.
Where I handed over the coffee and bug spray, and locked myself in my (spider free) car with the children!!!

When it became obvious Belle required more of me than caffeine and chemicals, I settled all the children in my car for a picnic. (And by picnic I meant a quiet and elegant sharing of chocolate biscuits and water, seated on the floor of the People Mover. By picnic the children apparently thought I meant squash as many biscuits as possible into the car interior and then add water, thus creating a chocolate-biscuit-mud-sludge.) And I climbed out to offer further assistance.

What a sight we must have been for passers-by.
A Rav 4 parked precariously on the very edge of the road, doors thrown open and assorted bags, car seats, strollers, DVDs and toy boxes up-ended on the road side. One giant can of bug spray between two well-dressed and made-up women, who alternatively sprayed wildly into the car then leapt back and watched with hawk-eyes for the tiniest hint of movement.

Of course with a giant hairy GREY spider inside a GREY car with GREY interior it was never going to be easy.

With occasional back-up and support from Bean (Belle's ever-encouraging husband who is to be commended on his ability to NOT laugh over the phone at us when we called to update.Which is more than can be said for the Rooster, who I believe mumbled "It's just an effing spider, get over it" and went back to sleep. Admittedly he'd just finished a 12 hour night shift when I woke him in the height of excitement to inform him of the Spider Situation) we continued and refined our Emergency Response of Spray - Leap Back - Watch for some time.

Not once did it cross our mind to assume the Spider was, by now, drowned in the fumes of the bug spray and would therefore be terrorising us no more. Not a mention of climbing back into the car and heading into town for a spot of shopping or a strong coffee. No - Belle thought the hairy intruder had likely made his way into the DVD player which was conveniently located ......... directly beneath the driver's seat!!!!

Quitting was therefore not an option. We would continue until the arachnid was sighted, destroyed and removed ................ and even then I wasn't not sure I wanted to ride in their car ever again.

And so we continued the spectacle, much to the delight of morotists driving by. Spray, Leap Back, Watch. Over and over. With some cheers of encouragement from the children. We varied the routine a little by Belle spraying on one side of the car and me watching on the other - an arrangement I was more than happy to continue seeing as it meant the hairy invader would need to crawl across the car floor BEFORE he could launch his hairy, scuttling giant body at me and attack me.

It took a long time, and finally, just as I'd shut my eyes to beg for some Divine Intervention in locating and removing The Spider, Belle squealed "Here it is!". Before I could respond the Rav 4 shook and rocked with heavy blows, and a cloud of bug spray mist enveloped it completely.

"Got it!" Belle cried, and we all cheered.

And gingerly replaced all items to their previous locations within the car, headed to town for that strong coffee .................... and both became the proud new owners of a full house and car's worth of spray treatment to keep spiders at bay!!!!!!!!!!

We heart Mortein!

You Call That a Toasting Stick? THIS is a Toasting Stick!!

Just before the fireban started for the summer, we had a small bonfire to get rid of all the rubbish and grass clippings in our paddock. My brother-in-law, Bean, handled the "manly" side of things, as the Rooster was on shift, and after a few days of building the kids up for it all, Bean and his family arrived and we headed down to the paddock to toast some marshmallows on the fire.



Being of a military background, Bean had things well planned and ready to be executed safely and swiftly. The excited children - 6 in total - were instructed to each find a long stick for skewering marshmallows, and once the initial heat of the blaze had died down, marshmallow rations would be carefully distributed and a toasting demonstration would proceed before the children would be permitted to toast their own sticky balls of coloured gelatin!



Much noise and crazy footwork followed (mostly from Bean lighting the larger-than-expected blaze!) and eventually the children lined up with their selected sticks.

The idea of handing out the marshmallows carefully was one of necessity. In a family like ours, things must be done completely and utterly equally and fairly, so as to avoid calls of "He's your favourite!" and "That's not fair, he got more than me!" and " I want the last one toooooooooo!"



And so we count and ration food treats. And we do not distribute anything until all are lined up and ready, so as not to avoid anyone and spark a conflict of great intensity!



With children lined up, eager to show off their Toasting Stick selections and begin the exciting work of toasting and eating blackened, charred lumps of gooey goodness, we began to hand out A. Single. Marshmallow each, accompanied by explanations of "Only one at a time".



When inevitably asked to explain WHY we were doing this one marshmallow at a time, the best answer seemed to be the honest one : "Because there's only room on your stick for ONE. Toast and eat ONE, and when it's gone there will be room for another one."



This all went remarkably smoothly until I got to Pants who, as usual, required a personal and in- depth explanation as to why he was only having one marshmallow. Pants' mind only operates in derivatives of 4. Previously it was 3 - when he WAS 3 years old - but since turning 4 and after much conditioning and preparing for this momentous occasion of moving up a number, his mind works in 4s. 4 biscuits, 4 handclaps, 4 kisses at bedtime ... you get the idea!



So he lined up, I explained, again, the importance of him only taking one marshmallow and gently took his stick to demonstrate that only one would fit on it at a time.



And then I actually LOOKED at the stick he had chosen - and what could I do?!



If you can't see in the picture properly, Pants is holding the stick&marshmallow equivalant of a jewellery tree. Or cup stand. Or egg carton. Or spice rack. Or tool box. Or any other item designed specifically to hold multiple numbers of whatever it's designed to hold!







So we continued our bonfire and marshmallow experience, 4 marshmallows at a time!

To Become a Jedi

The Rabbit got a light sabre for Christmas. A you-beaut, flash-as-Michael-Jackson light sabre with removable parts and coloured discs to change the blade colour and rearrange the order of the pieces to create an exact replica of whichever Star Wars hero he wants to "be" today.

It's also really useful for beating up your brothers, prodding them in the car, belting them over the head and generally wreaking havoc. And the Rabbit discovered ALL these uses within minutes of putting it together.

We tried calmly redirecting him, confiscating the weapon, arguing over whose idea it was to give him a weapon in the first place, helping him create imaginary foes to battle .............. but apparently none of our suggestions were as much fun as the Rabbit's ideas.

And so, finally, exasperated and completely over his constant misuse of this toy, we sat him down and had a good, long chat. I did the talking and the Rooster nodded approvingly beside me.

I told the Rabbit all about jedis, and how they do not receive their light sabres until they are properly trained. How a jedi only ever uses his light sabre for good, and how he nevers hurts those on his own team. I taught him that his brothers were on his team, and that meant he was not to hurt them. That the boys were all jedis, and they were to all work togther to battle as a team and save the day.

I went into great detail about jedis, training, jedi etiquette, respect, trust and Star Wars in general.

At this point I should mention that it's been a while since I last saw Star Wars. I used to watch "The Empire Strikes Back" as a kid, over and over on the VCR. And I think I saw the first of the newer movies when they were released more recently - but I actually have no understanding of the storyline or characters.

I do know, however, that Annikin starts off good and is trained to be a jedi, and then turns bad. And as the Rabbit especially likes to be Annikin, I pounced on this character as a final analogy of what happens to one who misuses his powers, training and weapons.

"Think about Annikin, Rabbit" I gently reminded him "He did all his training and learnt all about being a jedi. He worked hard to earn his light sabre, but then he did the wrong thing. He hurt people with his light sabre, and he got into trouble because of what he did."

And I turned to the Rooster, who was looking a little suprised that I'd taken this route, but was nodding in agreement nonetheless. All I needed was for the Rooster to back me up and complete this lesson and we'd be done - a suitable ending to this story, something about Annikin having his light sabre taken away forever, and our little boy would understand.

"Let's ask Dad about it Rabbit.

When Annikin did the wrong thing with his light sabre, what happened to him? What did they do?"

The Rooster looked the Rabbit square in the eyes, paused for a moment and then told him clearly :

"Obi Wan took his own light sabre and cut off Annikin's arms and legs.

And I'm Obi Wan."

I definitely need to know the plot and storylines of any movies I attempt to use as metaphors for lessons for my children in the future.

Or I need to stop suggesting the Rooster finishes a moral tale I started!

The Rabbit can also be suprisingly gentle and loving with his younger siblings.

Tales of the Toilet

There are occasionally situations in our family where I hold my head high, claim whichever of the children have not embarrassed me, and proudly stalk off - leaving the riff raff behind.
The riff raff of course, being the Rooster and whichever of the kids he's led astray!


Tubby has one of those voices which carries. It's a little higher pitched than anyone else's voice, it's quite loud and it seems to bounce off all surrounding structures and echoes long and loud. When Tubby speaks, you can't help but hear him, and usually what he has to say is well worth listening to!

We occasionally visit distant family members in far off cities (alright, so we catch a flight to Brisbane now and then!) It's usually crazy at the airport - kids running in all directions, baggage flying off the trolley which the Rooster insists on stacking with precision and delicate balance, and a panic to make it to check in on time so we can wander aimlessly for hours afterwards until the flight boards.
The Rooster struggles a little with these family outings, and seems to shift moods regularly from overwhelmed and crazed loner with multiple children following him as he weaves wildly through the crowd with his trolley; to doting and focussed Dad trying to amuse the children and keep them entertained, usually by making them laugh.

On one particular outing he parked the luggage trolley and headed for the men's room. Once the boys noticed that Dad was obviously going somewhere fun and exciting, they also needed the toilet, of course. And so they ran off after him, and once he'd accepted that his private and quiet moment alone with the urinal had turned into a small circus, he stepped boldly into Dad-mode and they disappeared from my sight.

I waited quietly for their return, and was relieved to see the door swing open and the male members of my family emerge, seemingly in great spirits. They were obviously sharing some private joke, and given it involved what goes on in the men's rest rooms, I was content to enjoy their smiles and know no more.

Alas. Remember that loud voice I mentioned, belonging to Tubby?
He was beside himself with laughter, and was still a good 10 metres away from me when he could not wait a moment longer.
"Mum! Muuum!" he shouted to me, while about 92% of the passengers in the Melbourne airport also turned their attention to him. He seemed to swell in the attention of so many on-lookers and his voice became even more audible than usual.

"We were peeing in the toilet, and Dad told me to pull his finger. I did - and HE FARTED!!!!!" and he collapsed into a pool of giggles again.

I suspect the Rooster turned all shades of red because when we rejoined him a significant time later he was still a shade similar to a steamed lobster. But I cannot know for certain - because I was gone before he clapped his hand over Tubby's mouth to prevent further truths escaping!