Knitting

It's been a while.

I've been neglecting my poor little niece who is frozen in Wellington. She's grown out of pretty much every item of clothing in the world. And then her slack arse auntie took a good 3 months or so to churn out a simple jersey.

But now I've finished this one, I'm almost sure I can will the motivation to churn out another few items. This pattern is from here | rav details.

The way she's growing, I'm going to have to start knitting size 2.

I completely neglected to blog about it, but we actually had a visit from little Podgey and her mum last school holidays. Those two cousins hanging out was about the cutest thing in the world. The Devil Child was apparently the most entertaining thing on earth (MILES better than sleep) and Devil Child spent the whole time trying to get Podgey to smile at her.

We're due a visit to Wellington, me thinks.

A glorious shade of beige

What's that? A picture of a bed. Well, yes... but not only that. It's the END OF THE APRICOT! Please refer back to here and here for the apricot madness that graced my bedroom walls for far too long.

Please ignore curtains on the ground. And the dirty windows. And the fact that I've only got the second coat on the wall behind the bed. Just be appreciative that it's not longer apricot, OK?

It still brings me joy, as I ascend the Stairs of Doom, and pass gently into a beige glow - instead of being assaulted by the weird apricot swish effect. Argh. I won't miss that one bit.

Fuss

I read this blog post on getting toddlers to eat food the other day. Fricking truth. But it reminded me of my rapidly fading smugness about being the parent of a child who will eat what's put in front of her.

Don't get me wrong... we've had our food battles in the past. I am reminded of  the first iteration of 'Operation Take the Power Back' at age 11 months, when the Devil Child declared after a period of illness and teething she would only let custard based dessert pass her precious lips and anything vegetable-based or containing meat was promptly evacuated from the oral cavity if I managed to get it in before she realised what was happening. After a tearful call to Plunket-line and advice and solidarity from the Fairy God Mother-like Plunket nurse, my mantra of "It's my job to provide the food, your job to eat it" was instituted [mostly] to great success.

I also ensure to not express a dislike of any foods despite my personal feelings toward them. Although I draw the line at tamarillos. That shit is nasty. Can't even fake it. Curiously, the Devil Child loves it.

Anyway. Smuggy smugness at having an unfussy child. Enter the Devil Child at seven and a half years old.

My previously unfussy eater has taken to judging food based on looks, ultra sensitive to spiciness, and expressing wariness of new foods. Friends' opinions have taken on a lofty greatness that well surpasses my own, and previously liked foods are now left discarded on the plate.

YOUR OWN OPINIONS?! WHAT IS THIS???

My new tactic is to employ the shaming tactic: "Maybe when you grow into a big girl, you might like it then." Either she's buying it and will attempt the food at a later date, or she's totally on to me and has figured that it's easier to nod and smile rather than be forced to eat the abandoned food.

Gawd. I hope I'm doing this right. Remind me not to be so damn smug next time.

Loud

Devil Child does the Rotary summer drags with her rocking pink ear muffs. Kidlet is now much happier at the car events she's forced to attend. All she needs a gas mask with eye cover to protect her from the burn-out smoke she so strongly detests and we're good to endure a day of candy-floss fueled car fun like the good little bogans that we are.

Oh hai neighbours!

Someone *cough* took down the curtains in her bedroom as some sort of motivation to finish the sanding job she started back in February. Someone still hasn't finished the sanding and the curtains are still down, almost two months on.

Someone's neighbours have probably had to keep their own curtains drawn day and night lest they be subjected to their neighbour's nekkid form.

Even the Boy, who is usually most diligent with curtain pulling when dressing, strolled out from the shower unconcerned the other day. It turns out that 8 weeks of no curtains will even remove the inhibitions of those that are less inclined toward exhibitionism. Oops.

(Yeah. That's our room at the top. Nicely elevated so that the whole street (make that two streets) can see in to our bedroom.)

Fuck yeah, Feijoas.

We have feijoas! LOTS of feijoas! The photo doesn't really show the extent of it as these were the ones that I picked off the ground. But helllllzzzzz yeah. I really like that we bought a house that had existing fruit trees. And no, I will never shut up about them. EVER.

In fact, I will continue on and be smug about the fact that the peach tree that hangs over our fence has just finished fruiting the most delicious peaches I have ever tasted. (Covered in black spots, unfortunately, but whatevs man!)

Bet you wish you lived at my place.

Devil Child is going to turn into a feijoa at this rate.

Water babies

We've got an adult's sized paddling pool on our lawn at the moment. The kidlet has been having a great old time "swimming" in it after school. (The Child is exhibiting signs of having inherited her mother's flailing swimming style.)

She has also taken great delight in giving me shit for being too wussy to get in it. IT'S NOT BATH TEMPERATURE SO IT'S JUST NOT HAPPENING. I'm delicate as hell, people. And my child is just plain mean.

It would appear someone else has been enjoying the pool too, based on the images that appear on certain Facebook feeds. Perhaps a little more than the Child even.

Garden growing quite brilliantly thxvmuch

I grew the shit out of this cucumber. So much so that you will humour me by ignoring the horrendous photo and instead marvel at the deliciousness that was my cucumber. Yeah, we ate it all in one go. It would appear I can do quality, but not quantity.

But considering the disaster that has been my gardening in the past, this is good. This is Very Good. I think I like this Waitakere place and its prolific rainfall.

Apricot paint effect be gone

This is not me being a gangsta. This is me being a hard core sander with my home fashioned dust mask from a fabric remnant.

Well, until I got bored after one wall and started whining about how hard sanding is. Then the Boy got sick of me and bought a sander that I could use on the remaining three walls. I whined a lot less after that. Oh, and I also bought some proper dust mask thingies which saw the end of my sweet remnant dust mask. Such a shame. (Probably good for my lungs though. It was up to eff all.)

Anyway, this is what I am removing. You were first introduced to the delight of the apricot paint effect back here. What in Dog's name possessed anyone to paint that shit in the first place is well beyond me.



And now I am committed to seeing the end of it. THE END OF THE APRICOT PAINT EFFECT. I will not mourn its passing.

Fancy

The Devil Child dressed herself this morning. I thought it was rather Fancy Nancy inspired and wanted to preserve it for posterity/future shaming at adult birthday parties.

Whenever I dress the child (Yeah, sorry, individual choice blah blah but sometimes I want my child to look cute and maybe keep the prints down to the minimum of clashing.), I try to make sure there's a little of her zany-ness coming through (compromise and all that) but everyone always asks if she dresses herself whenever I'm responsible for an ensemble. WHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO SAY?!

For a handy guide to picking who has chosen what outfit, you can pretty much guarantee if there's a minimum of three prints in a single outfit, or more than one pink item, then the child has self-styled that morning.

If black is present in any outfit, then that'll be my work. And it will have cost me a shitload in bribery to get her to wear it.

Damn this strong personality business.