Trials and Tribulations

What a week. It has been wet, and wild, and wacky - and that was just the first couple of days! Naturally, while the car was being fixed by the mechanic, it absolutely poured with rain. I collected the car on Wednesday afternoon and rejoiced in not hiking through the pouring rain even as my bank account wept in despair. On thursday morning we raced carwards (a bit later than usual) as I was going to get Kieran to kindy then head back to New Lynn to get the WOF. Leaping into the car I turned the key and listened to the 'sweet' sound of silence.... peachy, just peachy! It was then I realised that Chris had not closed the door properly when retrieving the cat from the car the previous evening... and the battery was flat, flat, flat. I confess that bad words passed my lips, if quietly, as I pulled the kids out. I then called the kindy, the WOF place and Chris - to advise him of his transgression. It took nearly an HOUR to walk the boys to kindy, with the only saving grace being the warm sunny day - and I cursed my decision to leave the stroller at home. I then walked Cameron to the playground, the library for storytime and the opshop before we staggered off home at 11:20. Of course, as 2:30 rolled around - the time we had to leave for kindy - it absolutely TIPPED down. Cameron was not impressed and truthfully, neither was I. On friday we headed off, slightly late and frazzled, to the WOF shop. As we got to the top of the hill I rolled down the window - and heard the window glass crash down inside the door. I confess to muttering some very dark words indeed as I rocketed back down the hill, where I heaved and tugged and pulled and dragged the window back into place. Let's just say that window will not be wound down again in a hurry. After that it was anticlimactic to get the WOF easily... and watching a police chase streak past me left me in a very zen state of mind. The boys perked up that afternoon when the postie delivered Zoop Zeeplebug's letter from Neptune. They were still all of a froth and a ferment when Chris got home lol. The weekend was a bit of a write off with foodshopping etc. Cameron's tooth is almost completely in place, and he is showing interest in his potty. Boys boys are playing a game called "make a bed on the lounge floor".... we look like we harbour illegal immigrants most days haha. We managed to get out to see Chris's grandmother, who gave the boys a NZ half crown apiece. Poor Chris came down with a mild case of food poisoning from my most excellent cooking apparently lol. Maybe I should just feed him charcoal haha. So sunday was spent quietly plumbing the mysteries of the universe. I have also been rewatching the Lord of the Rings movies - tonight is the Return of the King. I am all agog to ascertain the identity of the titular king and to find out whether Frodo makes it to Mordor... after all, one does not simply walk into Mordor.

Exam exhaustion

Wow, it's been a hard week! We headed out to stardome last sunday to check out the voyage to Earth. We took two excited little boys in, dashed around the stardome then headed in for the film. And that's when IT happened. One child quivered like a leaf when the lights went low and the black vastness of space appeared above us. Said child huddled on my lap hands over face for most of the session while his brother shouted "Nepnoo!", Mars! and Earth! as they came along. Apparently Kieran really enjoyed the show! What else did we do last week? Let's see, I studied a lot, the boys played up, a lot. I am sure there's a link there lol. We went to many playgrounds, many, many playgrounds lol and cavorted mightily in all - can you tell the weather was good? On friday I took the car into New Lynn for it's WOF. While it WOF'd we headed into the mall and discovered the playground has been removed. Fabulous. So we walked around and looked in stalls and found space slippers in a shoe shop that we admired, and did not buy :) Upon returning to the car we found it had failed the WOF due a broken engine mount. Naturally I was delighted by the news of this expensive repair, and drove it home heart in mounth each time the road was bumpy or I had to brake suddenly. And of course it meant having to ring up the trusty mechanic and book the car in for Monday. The day of my exam. Woot. To cheer myself up I decided to bake a chocolate and coconut slice for the boys. They were very excited, Cameron in particular was so excited he twisted the oven dial from a perfect 180 degrees to a massive 230 degrees. There followed a scene of much excitement as I pulled the charred object out, swore mightily under my breath, dialled down the temp, swathed it in tinfoil and put it back in to finish baking. Eyes aglisten the boys watched like hopeful meercats as I scraped the char off the top, bottom and sides once it was cooked - and pronounced it delicious. I should serve them charcoal for dinner rather than expending my effort on culinary triumphs obviously lol. We have watched many, many hours of Mr Moon and Space. Lots and lots of space. Sigh. I wrote up the letters from Space which arrived on Saturday and aroused such a ferment of excitement that we were impelled to watch MORE space, and read the letters aloud many, many times. The next one will arrive sometime this week. I have a suspicion Chris won't post it on a friday but will aim for a midweek delivery so he doesn't have to endure 40 minutes of letter discussion, space dances, really bad space jokes, and hysterical cavorting. Sunday was spent in a ferment, with the boys boiling around the house and Chris looking wild eyes and desperate at the thought of yet another day looking after them lol. I meanwhile immersed myself in Medieval times, learning about pilgrimages, crusades and the mad mystic Margery Kempe aka the weepin' creature. On Monday we were awoken by Cameron's howls at 5am. Poor love is sick. I managed to fall down the last 2 steps onto the tiles as it was dark (see 5am!) and I was still half asleep. Once the bottle was sorted C snoozed again and I studied some more before hiking off at 6:30am to catch the train, and then the bus which should have delivered me to Massey 30 minutes before my exam at 9:15am. I like to approach exams with a zen like calm. A calm I did not feel as I pelted from the bus stop Masseywards at 9:13am. Yup, bus was late, very late. However the exam is now over and I made my slow/wet/cold way home, getting in at 2:30pm to seeing Chris waving a Massey folder for semester 2 at me. Jeez, there is such a thing as being too proactive! Now I can't wallow in various entertainments but have to decide whether to start work on the folder. And I kind of have to as I am doing 3 papers this semester. What *was* I thinking?

Star Ship Ahoy

Sadly all here at Chez Seal have fallen into the clutches of a foul and vicious lurgy. Poor Chris got so bad that he headed home early on Friday, after a workmate's funeral. Naturally, like sharks scenting blood in the water, the boys pounced on our combined weakness. Valiantly rising above their own hacking coughs and Niagra like noses they have exhibited a range of behaviour last seen only in the most violent and depraved days of the Roman Empire. On Wednesday I took Cameron round the local playground on his trike. He really enjoyed it, especially as his feet now touch the pedals. He still can't steer for toffee though which made it rather...exciting :) On Friday, given that the forecast was for a sunny day with patches of cloud, we went to Parrs Park.... with the bikes. Kieran is an odd little chick at times. I don't know what goes on in that boys head. He ignores his bike for most of summer, says he doesn't like bikeriding, then exhibits an unholy desire to go bike riding in wet, cold, rainy winter. Truly, men are a mystery. Naturally we got rained out after an hour and a half, and I found myself jogging back along the path to the car, cursing my desire to have a walk that led me to park on the opposite end of the rugby field. Kieran happily pedalled along in front of me and Cameron lolled in my arms so I was the only one puffing at the end of our little scamper. That night I made pumpkin soup for Playcentre to sell at the stall at the market. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed. At nine o'clock the house began to tremble with the snores of three congested males. There's only so much fun to be extracted from mirowaving pumpkin pieces so I amused myself with a website which captions comics with a WTF factor. (http://www.lileks.com/institute/comicsins/covers/DCheroes/5.html) I also began creating Kieran's Letters from Space. I came up with an idea to write a letter to Kieran from an Alien. Kieran will get 10 letters in total starting with the Kuiper belt and Pluto, then a letter per planet. I am wondering about making personalised stamps. Should I go for a more generic solar system pic, or have a pic of the appropriate planet for each letter??? Decisions, decisions. Having costed the personalised stamps I think we'll go for the normal kind! I managed to finish A Letter from Mars (Just Earth, Venus, Mercury and the Sun/Farewell to go!) before the soup was cooked. It was delicious! Just buttercup pumpkin, with sauteed leek and onion, cooked with some chicken stock and a splash of coconut cream. This afternoon we head to the StarDome for our journey to Earth. Despite feeling so ill I am really looking forward to it.

The Transit of Venus

A couple of nights ago I lurked furtively in the lounge until the magic hour of 10pm when there was a partial lunar eclipse, disturbed only by Chris crashing down the stairs again. It was gorgeous. At 10 the moon was exceptionally bright and surrounded by an orangey haze and puffy cotton wool clouds. By 11 a sinister reddish chunk had been carved from it. I debated waking Kieran but eventually decided there would be many more eclipses in his future so let the boy sleep. Sadly none of my photos was any good :( In other, related, news today is the Transit of Venus. Naturally, this being Auckland, we have a weather prediction of thunderstorms, cloud and rain. Yay. However I found this cool pic of the transit at SheSpeaks. Isn't it cool! If Kieran lives another 100+ years, retaining hawk like vision to the end he will see the next Transit across the Sun. I feel gypped, but will be watching via NASA's live webstream. I have booked us into the Stardome to see the show Chronicles of the journey to the Earth this Sunday. This show takes us from the Oort cloud through the planets until we end up at Earth. One wonders whether we'll see Venus and Mars.... I suspect so. I think both boys will adore this session given their unholy fascination with all things space related! All continue in rude health, sans Chris who is nursing his stair related carpetburn and a cut finger from slicing the bread too enthusiastically (Is it only I who imagines some kind of karate movement with a HIYA then a gush of blood!) and Cameron who has a nasty cold, for which he visited the Dr yesterday. I have submitted my final assignment for one paper and now just need to study for the other...as I have an exam on the 18th. I also need to do conference support work and some minuting sigh. I battled with semester 2 enrolments as Massey offers a choice of 5 papers in total, one of which I have already done. Gee, such choice! As a result I was forced to choose between a poetry paper on "love, loss and looking around (Hell, NO) and Gothic. Guess I am immersing myself in the Gothic experience semester 2 lol. We head off to Mainly music this morning and then a food focus group for Kieran's kindy. By the time this ends at 12:30 and I dash home to get Cameron I shall be able to watch the transit of Venus on the NASA webcast.

Hail to the Queen

It's Queen's Birthday Weekend and things are hopping here at Chez Seal. On friday the munchkins and I rejoiced at the blue, sunny day and headed out to Parrs Park. They had a marvelous time sprinting back and forth across the rubgy fields, cavorting across the equipment display all the gaiety of lambs in springtime (sans the threat of Easter meal slaughtertime of course). I also stopped in at Oratia District School, where Kieran will be going in January. It is gorgeous! Surrunded by apple orchards, it has a pool, it's motto is "find joy in work' - I fell in love lol. Then after we got home for Cameron's snooze we headed out to the library as the boys needed to replenish their supply of space books. Burdened with what seemed half the library we trekked home, pausing to climb upon every wall and balance. Cameron's last tooth is now visible, he can count to ten with a hiccup at 7, and he can walk up and down the stairs all by himself. On saturday Chris made brioche and cinnamon buns and after a rousing hour or so of Kinect adventures Cameron went down for his nap. Once awake, we headed out to go ice skating (Kieran and me) and for a play in Olumpic Park (Cameron and Chris). This proved exciting as I had not been on skates for lo, these many (ahem, 10) years so found myself clinging to the edge while my child clung to me. Sadly I had left my wallet at home so couldn't hire Kieran a balancing frame thing. I felt a real git. Kieran's excitement remained unabated however, and he has decided he would like to try ice skating lessons. So we will save up for those in October. Looks like we will be doing a lot of saving! On Sunday we did a hike to Harold Moody playground. We walked there sans stroller and Cameron was a walking champ! We ran them ragged, walked them up the top field and walked them home as it began to spit. At the library Cameron's wee legs began to fail and he was carried by his loving mother. We reached the wall of balancing and suddenly renewed vigour filled his body lol. Once home he was tucked into bed and I got stuck into my assignments. Monday Cameron staggered downstairs with streaming nose and a temperature. So we had a quiet at home day, me working frantically on my assignment were possible and the boys mooching about all grumpy like. Tomorrow is kindy and Plunket and Wednesday is the Transit of Venus! This one in a lifetime event will see Venus pass across the sun  between 10 and 4pm. Kieran is very excited. In other news it was the Queen's Diamond Jubilee - and I could not find any coverage of it at all. I had to resort to the internet lol. Go the Queen.