Bare Necessities III

All Secundus needed to take to bed with him were three matchbox cars, a larger metal ute (or "Bute" as he called it), two superballs, a toy spider (plush, not plastic), a hand rake (part of a sandcastle building set), a train ticket, and of course Dog and Baby Dog.

New developments

Well, little Tertia (aka. E.) is starting to move around. Not crawling, but more than rolling. Squirming, I'd say. She can move across the room, just never in the way she plans. Which causes her endless frustration because she JUST WANTS TO EAT THAT BASTARD DINOSAUR AND SHE CAN'T GET TO IT!@@!*%$*(I&*^.

Secundus (aka. A.) had a new first as well. He Delegated for the first time. Just before dinnertime, he and his cousin (who was visiting) were snacking, because they were apparently (so they informed us in their two-year-old way) starving to death. Secundus was asked to take some of the rice crackers to Primus (aka. D. - remember these, because I'll probably be using these in this blog from now on after having seen Stardust, which was cool, and has encouraged the already existing in-house habit between myself and Mrs B when we want to refer to the little varmints in a coded manner*). Anyways, when I asked Secundus to take some to his brother and the little cousin's elder sister J., he immediately got two of them out, passed them to his cousin, and told her to take them in to Primus and J., which she immediately proceeded to do. I beamed with pride - my little guy is becoming a Slacker, just like his old man.

*Other options have included Primo and Duplo, or Pint-size and half-pint when we just had two.

Whole lotta not blogging going on

Not a lot going down lately, so no urge to blog. Stuff that's happened:

• A. is toilet training. Argh! the horror!
• D. performed at Town Hall in his junior choir. They were exceedingly cute.
• E. has taken to howling blue murder when she doesn't get her way. Such as when she gets put to bed. She's howling now, because her brutal and cruel parents have put her to bed.
• Empty staff positions filled. Yay! Don't have to do no personnel stuff for a while. Note to self: glue staff to chair to avoid having to re-hire.
• Taking two weeks off work for school holidays. I intend to indulge in some sitting, and maybe some hangin' around.

That's all for now. Catch you in a few weeks' time.

Learning to talk

A. is at that most entertaining time when he's starting to talk a lot, and starting to become understandable, but still at an entertainingly low level of verbal accuracy. Some recent gems:

• "Bibby Bec! Bibby Bec!" when looking for auntie Bec
• Cucumbers have been variously referred to as "Doobadabbas" and "Cubacubbas" as he gets more of the consonants in line
• There is a crane yard near our house that we occasionally drive by. It's very exciting for boys who are fans of Cranky the Crane. Thus, the cries of "Ganky Gane! Ganky Gane!" when we drove by yesterday. Poor old Ganky has been a popular toy lately with A., leading to some water damage when he was played with outside in the rain.
  
• D is becoming a fan of Guitar Hero now that he can actually play it a bit. So both boys were singing along to Cherry Pie. A.'s rendition of the lyrics "She's my cherry pie": "Cheers my beppy bye"
  

Long long weekend

Took an extra day off for the APEC long weekend. Memorable highlights:

• bought a 24" monitor that was on sale for $599. Now we've got to get the Mac Mini to go with it.
  
• D. quote (while playing with his soccer medals and awarding them to people): "Baby E. wins the Nobel Prize for Kickboxing!" (further research indicates it is a simpsons quote, but I found it hilarious when he said it anyway).
• A. being discovered riding his bike around in the rain, wearing only socks (his galoshes had fallen off). He was thoroughly soaked.
• D's writing has massively improved - he was writing a lot this weekend.
• Saw Ratatouille with the kids. Quite entertaining, and while it lacked some of the substance of previous Pixar movies, it was entertaining, and beautifully animated.
• Tomb Raider Anniversary edition gave me vertigo and sleep deprivation.
  

Off to Canberra for a conference later in the week, to be joined by J and kids at the weekend for Exciting Times In Sunny Canberra.

Random posting

So, haven't posted in a while. It's a pity to disappoint my vast readership, so here's some blather, some tiny sparks of pointless conversation to fill the yawning silent void that is the blogosphere.

Trois Freres is still awesome.

If you're 6, Ben 10 is awesome.

If you're 2, Hi 5 is awesome. Personally, I think it's a lot less interesting now that Kathleen is gone. She was a hottie. Not much point watching the show now. And I've just discovered (while extracting the above web link) that The Princess Bride is one of her favourite movies. And her husband has the same name as me. And her favourite number is 1. That's one of my favourite numbers! up there with Graham's Number and n. It's her birthday tomorrow too, and another of her favourite movies is on TV right now, so it's a good time to be Kathleen, I reckon.

If you're six months old, pretty much anything you can grab and chew on is pretty awesome.

D is going through a Favourite Music phase. On the way home this evening he controlled the iPod (with the little radio dongle to make it play through the stereo). He couldn't quite figure out the controls, but he was very excited by the power, and was trying to find his favourites (he was disappointed by the lack of Doo Wah Diddy Diddy). On a regular basis he'll come up with a new favourite band. We listen to a lot of music - at home, as well as to and from school/work in the car each day. So I'll frequently get drilled on my favourite songs (and mine vary depending on mood as well, but I can generally fall back on Golden Brown and most of Faithless' Reverence album). He'll frequently claim the Cat Empire and the White Stripes as his favourites, but today it was The Police (mainly because of Guitar Hero and Singstar). Regina Spektor gets listed frequently, as does Jackson Jackson (though I'm not sure why - he doesn't really know their songs). I've gotta say, for a six-year-old he's got pretty good taste in music :)

Governed by thugs and degenerates

From what I can gather (via listening to Hack and a bit of web searching), proposed new legislation (see also) will mean that the ACCC can sue unions and community groups for organizing boycotts of companies, if the company makes a complaint. The companies will have nothing to lose in doing this, since the ACCC foots the cost of the lawsuit. So things like boycotting oil companies that are producing shale oil, or are cruel to animals, or engage in any other unethical practice, would become illegal. So personally boycotting a company isn't illegal, just encouraging others to do so is.

Wankers.