Until Next Time...

Monet and I dropped Nanna off at the airport a little over an hour ago, after her 8 day stay.

All I can say is 'Thank God!'...HA! Only kidding!!! As if I would say that about Monet's lovely Nanna.

We had a great time with Marianne and I know she had a great time with us, well, at least that is what she said. I bet she'll be glad to go home and not watch Kid's television and not have to read books out loud to her Grandchild! She'll also be glad to get away from this heat and humidity which began late last week. (You seriously have no idea!)

We did a bit of touring around, a bit of shopping (Esprit in Cairns Central will miss Marianne dearly), swam in the pool most days and ate heaps, which meant I didn't cook at all as we ate out most nights or ate Thai takeaway!

Monet didn't want Nanna to leave which honestly breaks your heart to see a little one who doesn't understand such concepts of 'visiting'. She wasn't happy taking Nanna to the airport (Lyndon is at work so it was I who had the task of dropping Nanna off) and she kept saying on the way home that she wanted Nanna to stay. I solved the problem by stopping and buying a Chocolate Freddo Frog and Dora Drink. Monet liked that. But now I have just heard her say that she wants Nanna here.

Marianne, thanks for a great 8 days. We had your company and spoiling us! You will be missed and not just by Monet...

FLASH!

I might as well have slept with the light on last night. Our room was constantly lit by the lightening outside that zig-zagged across the night sky.

It started around 8pm, was going full flash by 10pm and still going strong at midnight. I have no idea when the lightening stopped, but I do remember waking briefly and thinking "its still going!"

It went for a good five hours. Five hours! Only a few rumbles of thunder but so much light flashing, it was amazing. But it is the norm up here with storms.

The first week we moved to Cairns we had a thunder (or should that be lightening?) storm that lasted over eight hours. EIGHT HOURS! We couldn't believe it. And its not just a zig-zag flash...wait 30 secondes....BOOM, (like in Victoria for exapmle) but rather flash,flash,flash,flash...flash,flash,flash.

Tropical storms. Gotta love 'em.

It's a Good Thing I Like Her...

Anyone would think that Nanna is on her way. Oh, that's right, she is.

Lyndon's mother is arriving tomorrow, alone (ie. without Poppy) for 8 days. We're all looking forward to her impending visit. In fact, we look forward to most people visiting, which is a good thing because two weeks after Marianne (Nanna) leaves my folks arrive for a 2-week stay. Christmas is a busy time isn't it? Around here it is anyway...

The spare bed is made, the balconies swept, the flywire cleaned (at long last!), the bathrooms are sparkling, the kitchen is spotless (I even cleaned out the cupboards! - *I know*), Nanna's favourite cereal is in the pantry and a bottle of her favourite wine is chilling in the fridge. We've booked the lovely Italian Restaurant down the road for tomorrow night and looked into visiting one of the large hotels up at Palm Cove on Saturday morning for Buffet Breakfast. (Yes, it is all about the food!)

Monet even decorated the Christmas Tree.

Not that you could tell, could you? It was decorated with a lot of love, let me tell you. (How long do Monet's legs look in this photo and how old does she look? No wonder people assume she is a school-age child!)

Monet's been wanting to do some baking for a few days now, so we did this afternoon. We made cupcakes and decorated them, especially for Nanna.


We've got a busy agenda over the next week. There will be shopping involved, a bit of touring, time in the pool, time in the playgrounds and plenty of time for food and drink with Monet's Nanna.

It's a good thing I like her.

(Sorry about the quality of the piccies, they were taken with my mobile phone...)

'Ah-Har, A'hoy Me Mate-ies!'

We've been living happily in Cairns for 20 months now and Monet and I have only just discovered the most awesome playground in the north of the Esplanade. We've driven past dozens and dozens of times along the Esplanade and spied the playground but never ever 'stopped' there. Until last week. I'm kicking myself that I have never stopped earlier.

Known as the 'Pirate Ship' it is absolutely awesome, especially for a little girl who has not long turned 3. I love it because she I can relax as she plays as it seems very safe and there are no real things to fall off and there is no swings! *yay*

We stopped after our weekly library visit last Wednesday. We weren't there for long as I had some things in the car which I didn't want to melt away into nothingness so I promised Monet that we'd return another time with a picnic lunch.

That 'another time' turned out to be 2 days later. With a cooler bag full of goodies (ham, cheese, baguette, watermelon, peach, potato crisps, Red Bull (for me), Dora juice (for Mon) and water bottles) we headed off in the car with our picnic blanket.

We were at the Pirate Ship for three hours. Three Hours folks!! And not once did 'I' say "let's go!" *heehee* (Lyndon didn't believe me!) I was not bored and saw many kids come and go, as I sat under the shade of a tree with Pickles (her teddy) watching like a hawk over my Monet.

She's not a great fan of a zillion children all at once, so she stood steering the ship for ages as the kids around her, milled around and went up and down the slide.

Once most children left she found herself one or two little friends and had a great time, coming over every so often to check on me and to have a little snack and a big drink of water. It's thirsty work playing. And 'walking-the-plank'...

The playground is just south of Cairns Airport and when the weather is 'perfect' the planes fly in over the city and land, rather than loop around over the Northern Beach suburbs and land. Last Friday was obviously 'perfect' weather... (A huge Jetstar plane I was able to capture.)

When we got home, someone was 'exhausted' and prompty fell asleep in her lounge of chair. It's a pity that, that then meant she stayed awake till 11pm on Friday evening!! *urgh* Yeah, I'm a HUGE fan of afternoon naps, obviously...

We'll be going back to this playground in the not-too-distant-future. Probably, I would say, with Nanna in hand. (Lyndon's mother arrives on Friday for an 8-day stay.) I hope Nanna is prepared to spend a good three hours at the 'Pirate Playground' on one of her days...*heehee*

You Are Amazing

As parents we know how our children really do amaze us at times, especially when they are little. It is amazing just how they do things, maybe being shown something once and it is never forgotten. Sometimes you wonder how they know things when they haven't even been taught. They just pick things up.

Being a 24/7 mum, I basically know what she has learnt from other children, other adults, books, television etc., so when Monet comes out with a particular word, for example, I struggle at times to wonder where she picked it up from.

Lately Monet has been enjoying colouring-in. Attempting to anyway. She's got a small container of crayons that get a good workout on some days (and lay idle on others.) We have about a zillion scrapbooks with pictures, shapes and photos she has glued down and pages where she's gone berserk with a found pen. (Oh, how much do little children love pens??)

The other night Monet was sitting on the couch with her 'etch-a-sketch' doing drawings of mum and dad.

(The animal shapes are not lost from this 'etch-a-sketch' - we still have them after 18 months!)

The concentration was something else...

That was last week.

Last night was something that amazed us. She sat at her 'picnic' table with light-green crayon in hand and blank scrapbook and did these...

In case you can't quite figure it out (sorry about that, she could have at least done them in black!), that's me on the left hand side with Monet below followed by Lyndon on the other page. We've got two eyes, a nose and mouth each, two arms and two legs. I have not shown her how to draw 'people' as such, animals, yeah, but humans, no. So we sat there amazed that within a week she has gone from doing kind of blobs to pictures of mum and dad that even I can remember doing when I was a kid.

I'm amazed anyway, even if you're not.

Fill In...

Monet adores her dad. It's scary how much she behaves like him.



(Sorry about the poor picture quality there, I'm not a fan of the flash on my mobile phone.) Notice the hand under head watching telly pose? Hmm.

Did I tell you that I got my hair cut last weekend?



Yeah, that's Monet and I, striking a pose, not a couple of 'fill in' models.

I like it. The girl who cuts my hair does a great job and always cuts it the way I ask. Love that.

Last Saturday also saw Monet and I invited to a 4 year old's birthday. In typical Cairns weather, it rained practically the whole time, so thank goodness for big undercover patios.

Monet had an absolute ball. She wasn't too keen on playing 'pass-the-parcel', but loved the 'Stick-The-Pirate-On-The-Treasure-Chest' (rather like 'Pin-The-Tail-On-The-Donkey'), mainly for the fact that my blindfolded girl won!! She won a Dora Scrapbook which made her day.

Being typical Tropical Queensland, what else do kids do at parties, but go swimming in the pool, even if it was raining! (This would never happen in Melbourne!) Monet had a fabulous time in the pool, she did so well splashing around with her floaties on. All the kids were under strict supervision by the mothers who were leaning around the pool fence and the dads who came, were in the water with them. I don't know who had the best fun in fact. Sometimes I think grown men enjoy being in the pool with the kids rather than the opposite way around.

Can you spot Monet in this chaos?

The parting party pack included a couple of el-cheapo Little Ponies, which Monet has been playing with all week! ALL WEEK. Thank God for $2 Coles Clip-strips.

We've got Lyndon's Work Christmas party tomorrow night. No one is happy about it. You might remember that last year we were fortunate to spend two nights here, but tomorrow night we get to do this again. No one is happy. I am though, it is a night out!

It Was 10 Years Ago Today...

It is 10 years ago since Michael Hutchence was found dead in his Sydney Hotel Room. I remember the day well, if anything, a little too well.

I grew up with INXS and I (un)officially called them my band. I saw them too many times to mention but in the last couple of years before Michael's death I had kind of gone off them. (I instead became obsessed by Britpop - especially Blur and I do still *swoon* for Damon Albarn...sigh...)

My mother initially rang me to tell me she had heard about Michael on the radio. I remember bursting out crying and to say that I enjoyed my work Christmas function that night is a big joke. On the day of his funeral I organised for my lunch hour to be taken when the service began so I could video tape it and mourn him in my own time. Gee, what a fun girl I can be sometimes!

I could not believe it and sometimes I still can't. There was something about the charismatic man who was a real 'rock star' (in my humble opinion) He charmed his way into women's hearts around the world and sang with soul.

INXS were never the same after his death and never will be. As much as I don't mind JD Fortune, he ain't no Michael Hutchence.

So on this 10th anniversary of Michael's death, I will raise my glass to him this evening and remember my INXS youth, where my bedroom walls were covered, ceiling to floor in INXS pictures and my favourite piece of clothing was an INXS t-shirt.

*sigh*

REMINDER...

Does anyone else have a washing machine that 'talks' to them?

Mine does.

I got a bit of a shock when I went to load the washing machine and I read on its LCD screen that it was after a wash!

This washing machine also tells me to 'have a nice day' after each load too.

Sometimes the littlest things brighten my day. Obviously.