What the!?!
Ryan just got dumped off RockStar.
The lesbian vote is obviously still large as Storm is still in.
Ridiculous.
It’ll come down to Lukas or Toby.
Month: August 2006
Phew…
Tonight we had Jasper’s parent teacher interview.
You know, there’s nothing quite like the pressure of the parent teacher meeting for your 10 month old.
You will all be relieved to know – as we were – that we have a lovely baby who has good routines, is a happy baby, loves painting, music and reading books, and is loved by the other children.
Afterwards we showed commitment to the precinct and had a lovely dinner of Italian food in The Rocks. The kids were blown away by seeing the Harbour Bridge, Opera House and Luna Park at night. It’s not that they haven’t seen it before, it’s just they’re older, more interested in these things and we drove under the bridge. And you know what? Even I was pretty impressed by the scale of it all.
But through all of that, I couldn’t shake this niggling feeling. What if Jasper had been a nasty baby. The one that terrorises the others? Has random sleep patterns and laughed in the face of routine. Oh the horror!
Tonight I got home, late as per usual.
When I walked in, there was video playing on the computer.
I thought, “wow, Chef took some footage of Jasper, excellent.”
Then I had one of those “hang on” moments.
“Hang on, he’s on the blue rug and we got rid of that before he was crawling”,
“Hang on, where is that?”,
“Hang on, what shirt has he got on”
and
then,
the ka-CHING moment.
I was watching footage of Oscar when he was a baby.
Then all I had was that dull pressing urgent primal ache of love, so overwhelming, for my children that I came over all teary.
There he was, this happy smiley bundle of wonderfulness trundling over the floor, and here he is, standing beside me, tall and broad at 8 1/2, watching himself as a baby and just being tickled pink about it all.
There was so much of him as a baby that is back in Jasper as a baby. The high pitched singy-songy voice, the smile, but most of all – the joy.
And once more I realised Oscar’s world is so far from perfect by the world’s definition.
And yet, to him, it is his world, filled with his family, his dogs, Kim Possible, Star Wars, ice cream, tennis balls, computer games, Lego Star Wars and mummy singing “Close your eyes” and patting him to sleep.
And really, by anyone’s standards, that is a pretty cool life.
And apart from all that, it kinda freaked me out just how like Jasper and Oscar are. Brothers indeed.
- Visit ::happy
- Cake ::YUM
- Period ::is back!
- Triumphant ::is the tampon
- Screen ::saver
- Neglect ::the housework
- Guitar ::folk song
- Loathe ::laziness
- Sugar ::and spice and all things nice
- Montage ::school art room
You can play too!
Carrot cake, banana cake
Well another weekend is done and dusted. My weekends of late have been far less suckful than usual. I have no idea why, although I think something called Zoloft may be playing a significant part.
Yesterday featured two matches of soccer that I didn’t have to attend – YIPPEE! Then tennis, with a Doctor’s appt in there somewhere for the New Recruit who has (another) cough from the kennel, this one with phlegm, so much phlegm.
Then we headed out to Dural to have afternoon tea with some other Lifestart families. There is some shit going down (yes, after everything we’ve been through – See Glamorouse and posts around April/May for more) at Lifestart, but can I just say, sitting in the eating ‘nook’ of what was probably a house and ‘estate’ worth in excess of $3 million made it all a little easier. The place had a lake. And a little bridge out to a little island in the middle of the lake. Then there was another pond, and a pool, and then the stables, and paddocks. And one of ‘those’ houses with its French Provincial kitchen and a formal sitting room. Seriously people, it was kinda like my dream existence. Anyway, delightful people and a great afternoon. I’ll go into the Lifestart palaver when I’m a little less emotional about it and a lot less vitriolic.
Today we just hung out and went to Woolwich Pier Hotel for dinner for my Dad’s birthday. I have to seriously stop going to all these places of serious money because if I see one more stunning house I’m going to scream. (Let’s just say that our half a house, sans cleaner, is feeling very unglamorous at this stage. You know it’s bad when the goal of the day is simply to clear everything off (and away) the dining table.)
I made him a carrot cake. Carrot cake is one of those cakes which you can get anywhere but is often pretty average – too sweet, too cakey, etc. This one rocks.
Carrot Cake
- 300g self raising flour
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp mixed spice
- 4 eggs
- 350g caster sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 300 ml vegetable oil
- 60g walnuts
- 60g (or so) crushed pineapple (drained)
- 150g sultanas
- 3 large carrots, grated
- Preheat oven to 180C, grease and line a 24cm cake tin
- Sift the flour and spices together
- Add the eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla – mix lightly
- Then add the walnuts, pineapple, sultanas and carrots
- Bake for an hour, or until skewer comes out clean.
- Cool in tin for 15 minutes then on a wire rack.
- Ice with cream cheese frosting.
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 250g cream cheese
- 125 caster sugar
- 3 tblsp lemon juice
- Put all in a food processor and blend until smooth.
If that wasn’t enough, I also made a banana cake. Sure, it seems decadent when bananas are still around $11/kilo, but is again the indication that this house runs very hot and cold on bananas, that is of course, unless they appear in cake form. This is fail-proof.
Banana Cake
- 2 tblsp butter
- 1 cup caster sugar
- 1 egg
- 3 very ripe bananas, mashed
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 tsp bicarb
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tblsp milk
- Preheat oven to 190C and grease a ring tin
- Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl, by hand and then add the egg
- Stir in the banana and add the dry ingredients, then mix through the milk
- Pour into tin and bake for 35-40 minutes
- Cool in tin for 10 minutes, then on a wire rack
You can ice it, but it isn’t really necessary.