More bits and pieces

from here

I’ve decided to ditch the term ‘my husband’ on this blog; it sounds too possessive and impersonal. From now on my husband will be referred to here as ‘Alan’, partly because it’s short and easy to type, but mostly because that’s his actual name.

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Thanks to a gift voucher and stacks of free time, I’ve seen five films at the cinema over the past few months: Pitch Perfect, Les Misèrables, Life of Pi, Argo and The Impossible. I was originally thinking that this would mean five separate blog posts, but the reviews I wrote were so tedious that it would be cruel of me to post them. I thoroughly enjoyed all of the films, for different reasons and in different moods; you should see all of them! Especially Argo. (Although if you don’t like movies that make you cry, DO NOT SEE The Impossible.)

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Our television finally died (it was a hand-me-down from my grandparents), and we bought a new one a couple of Fridays ago. We told the woman at the shop we were looking for a small TV, but the ones she took us to were too big; we ended up buying one from the “tiny” section. It’s so light and thin! And there’s a DVD player built in! It’s crazy to think that only 10 years ago new televisions were almost as deep as they were wide; I could barely carry the TV I had before my grandparents kindly donated theirs to me. Anywho, we had to take our new TV back and replace it because the permanently-green pixel ended up bugging Alan too much after I pointed it out to him. And then I had to go back again two nights later because we realised we’d left a DVD inside the one we’d returned. JB Hi Fi is a dangerous store for me to spend any time in; the masses of CDs, the volume of the music and the coolness of the staff all have a hypnotic effect on me and I have to fight the urge to buy albums by artists I’ve never even heard of.

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I’m still nervous about this year; since high school ended, odd-numbered years have generally been less kind to me than even ones, and so I’ve started to approach them with caution. As with alliteration, I get a little weird about numbers: I feel more comfortable setting my alarm for 8:01 rather than 8:00 on the dot, but finding out that Moses was due on the 17/8/10 (one odd, two evens) had me panicking (he arrived on the 28th, bless him). This baby’s due on the 4/8/13, and unless he/she arrives late (like, on the 13th) or on an odd day in July, I don’t think I’ll feel comfortable with the birth date.

Two-and-a-half

Towards the end of the holidays, Moses hit what I assume is the dreaded Terrible Twos (I’m not entirely sure if that’s what this is, but he’s two, and it’s terrible...). We were cruising along nicely, me thinking, “What a simply delightful age! Why would anyone not like this age?! Maybe Mo’s skipped that Terrible Two thing because we’re such wonderful parents!” then BAM! Nek minnit, our toddler is lying on the floor of the supermarket and screaming because he’s not allowed to eat a nectarine until after we’ve paid for it. A super high point was when he threw a particularly loud and ugly tantrum because I had the nerve to run to the toilet and vomit rather than fetch him the toast he’d demanded. Age two-and-a-half sucks.

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Mo: I got an idea! Mummy’s got a baby in her tummy!

My husband: Quiet, Moses. It’s still time out.

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The other night I spotted two envelopes I was supposed to have posted, still sitting on the table. I gasped and pointed before loudly saying, “CRAP!” Moses, concerned that Daddy was needed to jump in and kill something (I react in much the same way to spiders), asked, “Where’s the crap, Mummy?” which made my husband and me snort and giggle like kids. 

Mo kept looking between us, wondering why no one was doing anything about the crap when it had seemed so urgent just moments before, and asked again, “Where’s the crap?” Realising he wasn’t going to let this mystery go without a satisfying answer, and having no intention of mentioning anything about words he probably shouldn’t use around Nanna, I showed him the envelopes and tried to calmly explain that I had been meaning to post the letters that day, but had forgotten to do it. Still a little uncertain, he pointed to the picture on the stamp and asked, “Is that a crap, Mummy?”

“Yes, darling,” I said. “That’s a crap.”

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Mo: You get baby out of your tummy now?

Me: No, buddy, this is college. I’m just enrolling in a couple of subjects.

Despite being at his most difficult stage so far, Mo’s also at his most interesting and adorable. He offers cuddles and says, “I love you too, Mummy!” when I kiss him on the cheek. He adds new words and phrases to his vocabulary every week; three recent additions are “God willing” as in “Daddy come home after I have a sleep, God willing?”, “Don’t worry, Mummy!” (usually as he’s heading towards a validly-concerning situation), and “What are you talking about?” He makes up games and sings songs to himself and imagines all kinds of broken things that need fixing.

We found a book at the library – part of a ‘People who help us’ series - about a dentist named Joe. After one read I decided it was the most boring book we’d ever read; after one read, Moses decided it was the most fascinating book we’d ever read. We read it around 27 billion times in the time we had it, and I returned it long before its due date because I couldn’t bear to go through it again. Later, I was inspecting the extra tooth Mo’s grown (he’s an overachiever, in true first-born style) and murmured something about having to see the dentist about it. “YAAAAAAAAAY!!” he cried. “We go tomorrow?!”

He is heart-burstingly gorgeous and makes me laugh most days (often not too long before he makes me want to run away from home). Two-and-a-half is a simply delightf—  Wait...

Never mind.

Books, books, books, books, books*

I did a bit of reading over the holidays: The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby (a highly enjoyable read for booklovers), Holidays on Ice and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris (both of which were sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant, always wonderful – in true Sedaris style – although Me Talk Pretty One Day is still my favourite of his books), Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt (OH MY GOODNESS I WILL NEVER COMPLAIN ABOUT ANYTHING EVER AGAIN), True Stories by Helen Garner (I now plan to read everything Garner’s ever written in the hope that I will somehow absorb some of her talent; she’s brilliant. I’m completely smitten), and 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker (a book-long exploration of the kinds of things I was thinking through in these posts. This book was another wake-up call, and I intend to study it more closely and slowly with a friend this year**). I also read How to be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson, which I couldn’t help but review more lengthily.

Perhaps I had issues with this book because I read it at the wrong time: a summer holiday is probably the least appropriate time for a lecture on the perks of slowing down and doing less. The book started well, pointing back to the Industrial Revolution as the starting point for our now overly-busy lives; where once people would work just enough to pay for their daily needs before resting for the remainder of their time, now we’re all about working more and more so that we can earn more and more so that we can buy more and more. We don’t think twice about walking while eating or waking ourselves up artificially with caffeine or taking medication when we have a cold so that we can Soldier On (ugh, I HATE this Codral slogan) and be constantly productive and efficient in order to keep The Man happy. Tom Hodgkinson doesn’t quote Empire Records (he chooses poets and Chinese philosophers instead), but they end up saying the same thing: DAMN THE MAN!

So far, so good. But then at some point, it lost me. By the end I was picking it up each time with a sigh and a loud, “When will this book be OVER?!”, which is never a good sign. Throughout the last chapters, I was so bored I could only read a few paragraphs before drifting off to sleep (“Mission accomplished!” cries the author). There are LOTS of chapters, many of which cover the same kinds of topics and seem to be more of an argument for Tom Hodgkinson’s ideal life than for a truly idle life – there was a chapter on sex which had such a tenuous link to idleness that I got the impression that Hodgkinson lost his way during the writing of this book and rather than JUST ENDING IT, decided to continue by talking at length about other random things he happens to like (beer, pubs, moonlight, etc.). In the end, what could have been a tight argument ended up untidy and unconvincing (if you’re such a fan of sleep, Mr Hodgkinson, then why stay up until 5am?!), which was disappointing because I think this is a discussion that our culture could learn a lot from.

I’ve just noticed that all of the books were non-fiction! I still compare all fiction I read to We Need to Talk About Kevin; I’m terrified I’ll never read another novel quite as good again. I did read the prologue and a small section of Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin this holidays, but couldn’t match my husband’s enthusiasm for the book (he fell in love with it instantly); I was surprisingly blasé about getting married, considering it’s the length of this five-book series that’s turned me off (seriously, they’re BIG books, with TINY writing). That and the fact that I DON’T ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND ANY OF IT, so it takes me a week to get through each page.

I’ve no idea how much reading I’ll be doing this year, so this may be my last book-related post for a while. I still haven’t worked out whether to attempt Anna Karenina or just see it when it comes out at the movies. But what if it’s the novel that knocks Kevin off my Best-of-All-Time list?! I can’t have read my last best novel! I’m tooooooooo youuuuuuung!

In other news, I seem to have completely forgotten how to end blog posts.

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* Thanks to Justine Clarke, my life is now like a giant musical.

** Though I’ve skimmed over a review, I LOVED this book, and you should DEFINITELY read it.

Holidays

My holidays are officially over: I had my first class yesterday. Well, the first hour of my first class, during which I realised that it would be impossible for me to do two subjects this semester – especially if one is a theology subject covering giant topics such as predestination and what happens after we die – and get the rest I need and be a fun mother and kind wife and diligent laundress and actually learn stuff rather than scraping through just to finish my Graduate Diploma. So I walked out, dropped the course, and went to the library to work on my first assignment for my second class, which will now be my only class, which is on tomorrow morning.

We had a good summer, from what I noticed each time I took a break from obsessing over pregnancy things and popped out of my shell to observe life in this world. I managed to get most things crossed off my holiday to-do list, although I still haven’t joined the ALP or toilet trained Moses. We went away a few times, and had water fights, and played at the local pool for hours, and hunted down air conditioned spaces, and Moses discovered Hide and Seek. He hasn’t quite grasped it yet: he says, “I hide in the cupboard and you come find me?” and I say, “Sure! I’ll start counting, but don’t tell me where you’ll hide!” and he says, “I hide in the cupboard, okay?” And even though he knows we know where he is, he’ll still peer out regularly to make sure we’re still searching for him rather than making the most of the quiet with a cup of tea and a book.

Some photos of our summertime shenanigans (forgive the colours of the last four especially - I’m too tired to fiddle and try to make them pretty):

This last photo was a highlight of my holiday (along with the wedding at which it was taken!). It was snapped by one of the photographers from Love Katie + Sarah and I love love love it; it's nice to have a photo of me and Moses to go with the squillions we have of him with my husband, even if said photo features me with a squished nose and hair that looks so dry it could snap:

To do:

- Copy post from Word to blogger.

- Upload photos.

- Insert something pithy about the year ahead to finish this post.

- Go to bed.