Saturday, September 30, 2006
Root Shoot Marry # 8 - the Boys' Own Edition
See below for the main game of Root Shoot Marry #8 - I tried adding the girl pictures into that post and almost lost the lot so here are the ladies for anyone who wants to give them a try too, this week.

Carly Simon















Marianne Faithful (is that spelled correctly?)



















Frida from Abba - sans the satin hotpants, sorry about that.
























Remember - this is a moment in time theme, so you take them just as they are here, not as they later became!


mtc
Bec
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Friday, September 29, 2006
Root Shoot Marry #8 - When they were young...
Choice is the very essence of Root, Shoot, Marry. You have to choose: sometimes the best of a bad lot, sometimes the worst of a good lot, either way, you have to choose.

But something interesting I've noticed about participants in Root, Shoot, Marry, is a tendency to make choices within their choices: "Oooh, yes, I'll root him - but only if he's the way he looked on the poster I had in high school." or "Oh, well, I'll shoot him if I must but only if we believe the vile rumours in the magazines"... You see?

So this week I'm making it easier for you. I'm giving you Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan and Sting not just on their own megastar merits, but in a snapshot in time.

Take 'em or leave 'em, but you have NO CHOICE in how they look when you do. Oops, maybe that's not easier after all ... sorry about that.

























Go forth, pick one to root, one to shoot, one to marry - just as they are pictured here.

(and for male participants - you know who you are - stay tuned, and I'll post a girl option shortly via an edit.)

mtc
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Thursday, September 28, 2006
The Punisher's Gun
Meet The Punisher. A gift to the Gorgeous Boy for his fourth birthday from the sweetest great-aunt in Australia.






















The Punisher is a tough guy. Just look at that face. He can fight Spiderman, you know.

But where's his gun? It said on the package he had a gun that fires real bullets.

Could it be hiding behind the skull?



















We looked and looked.

And finally we found it.

Here.


























How handy.

mtc
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Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Sugar and Spice and Bawdy Ditties
Cute enough to make your teeth ache, right?























Even cuter now!

























A little sugar-fix for all those mothers-of-boys out there!




















For the posterity's sake, and to fully explain the title of this post, I have to record that throughout the taking of these photos the Sparkle Twin was singing a little ditty of her own devising that went something like this:
Tushie, tushie, bum, butt butt
Tushie, tushie, butt, butt,
Poo, poo, wee-wee-head,
Tushie, Tushie, butt, poo, butt...

And so on. She might be singing it still, were it not for the fact that the words made her giggle so much she nearly wet herself and eventually had to run to the toilet.

Yes. She's 4.

Oh! I nearly forgot to mention that the words to the song were accompanied by actions. It's nothing short of a miracle I managed to get two whole photos that don't include a Madonna style crotch-clutch.


************
Conversation this afternoon with the Sparkle Twin:

ST: My grandmama told me about the People Shop - you know the People Shop, mum?

Mum: What do you buy at the People Shop?

ST: Mu-u-um! All the mums and dads go there to buy they kids.

Mum: Really? Is that where I got you? - and it's 'their' kids...

ST: Uh-huh. That's where you got BOFE of us. And you goed to the Sister Shop to buy they big sisters.

Mum: You mean the Pea Princess? - and it's 'go' to the shop...

ST: Yep, she can't be in the same as they People Shop.

Mum: (intrigued and forgetting to correct grammar) Isn't your big sister a people too?

ST: No. She's a grump.

Mum: Fair enough.


mtc

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Sunday, September 24, 2006
Odds and sods...
It's Sunday morning, and you're going down, Dad.


















The old man should know better than to mess with a boy in Spiderman pyjamas.

I think that's what the dog was trying to tell him.

************


I don't do asterisk posts. I wonder why? But I'm doing one today.


************

The Pea Princess went to her first Guide Camp this weekend and - despite a major fit of nerves as she drove away with her dad, and only knowing the girls in this patrol for a few weeks, and not always being the greatest joiner-inner because, hello! PEA Princess! - had a brilliant time.

I am so very very happy for her.

************

Back home, we got to see what a two-child family felt like.

(Parents of two children, block your ears.)

SO fucking easy.

(Parents of two children who didn't block your ears just then? Ok, you can gloat now because, yes, the two-child family may well be the crowning achievement of the 20th century. You win.)

And quiet. Except for the incessant whining of two four-year-olds wanting someone to fill big sister's role as Head Prefect and Games Mistress.

Then I remembered the $10 Ikea tent that has saved my So-Not-The-Games-Mistress arse many times. It's still set up under our one tree, full of sleeping bags, barbies, cake crumbs and ants.

************

We made pumpkin scones. They were almost perfect (I wasn't game to let the oven get too hot first time, so the first batch didn't rise quite as well as the second, but all would have passed muster at a Country Women's Association street stall).

The recipe was from my mum's precious family recipe book and, as usual, when I open it she starts talking to me again. It's still a bit overwhelming, to hear her so clearly in my head, and it's taken me a very long time to use the book at all because of this.

I loved Badger's recent cookbook post and in fact have something similar in my draft folder about this cookbook packed with handwritten and typed recipes from my mum, nana, great aunts, great grandmother and her mother and so on... Problem is, while Badger's post was delightful, mine is all dark and torn and angsty and since that is never how I really feel about food and only how I may feel about family, that post's not emerging from drafts until I, like the second batch of pumpkin scones, can rise a little higher.

************

If I was really into world peace and shit I would go and find out once and for all what the difference is between American and English scones. But if the notion of pumpkin scones needing to rise is confusing to y'all, do your own damn googling!

************

Kim tells me she has no intention of returning to the Evil Empire where we first met.

I can't tell you how relieved I am.

But I do wonder what kind of camping she is doing that she can check her blog comments on Saturday and text me her response...

************

And finally, because this asterisking is boring me and may well be boring you and that's probably why I don't do it more often (being a Bear of Little Brain and Low Boredom Threshold), I have yet to mention the package waiting for me in the mail on Friday from our mortgage broker.

I can't name him, but I want to because he has a totally delectable Argentinian name. That, and with the miracles he pulled off to get us into this house without selling the other house, I should be flogging his business at every turn. But I ramble...

I can't name him but there was his name on the back of this heavy package. "Oh bugger," I thought, "It's probably our paperwork that I'll have to try and file." And so I let the Pea Princess open it while I hung out the clothes.

In fact, what she came racing out to me with was a copy of Maggie's Table with a lovely inscription from the nameless Argentinian.

In the way of all great gifts, it was something I wanted, but not so desperately that I would have bought it for myself. I have been ogling it all weekend and planning my festive season around some of her wonderful big-quantity recipes.

As a result of this and other reading I was able to do sans the third child, I was inspired to add the Library Thing to this blog and it was So.Simple that I urge you to try doing same (unless, like Lazy Cow, you've already built one all by yourself!).

************

Phew - done! The current Root Shoot Marry Game is just below this post if you've not yet played this week. At least three RSM virgins joined this week and have made wonderful contributions to the world of the virtual drinking game.

Back to my blissfully noisy three-child house.

mtc
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