Post 'Mud' Post

Well it didn't explode or crumble into ash and shards.

Instead it resembles a large slab of fettucine in an invisible bowl. 

 You will note the silver Saltwater sandals in the lower right corner. The Saltwater shop near us is shutting down so they were all marked way down. They only had silver ones left. What else could I do? They needed a home.

Meanwhile, back at the fettucine slab... having never worked with oxides before, I had a little play and slopped a wash of cobalt carbonate over the whole thing. Then I wiped it back and put it in the kiln overnight to see what would happen.

The best thing about doing these experiments is the sheer unknown of the alchemy of it all. 

Now what do I do with it? It may end up in the garden with the ceramic skulls and busts and masks. One day in a millennium or so the eclectic midden will be unearthed and they'll wonder what on earth it was all for.

 This one was a little experiment with leftover bits of clay...

that turned into quite a handy Mothers' Day gift for the best little Mother in Law in the West-ern suburbs.

Another one was dubbed a salt pig and spoon for my own marvellous Mum. She used it for the Mothers' Day "counting" where we all convened to eat, reminisce and recover from Eurovision.

The fish was for the birthday brother who likes fishing, of course.

This Mom song was played for us at Shorty's prep Mother's Day gala girls' night out. (Last week was quite the busy one.)

It never gets old and makes me laugh out loud and every word of it is true.

Happy Mothers' Day to all who mother!

Mud

You know that feeling where you just have a crazy little buzz and everything feels a bit too hectic. That's when I start gnawing nails, or culling or rearranging rooms . Sometimes it an avoidance strategy to avoid an unpleasant task (e.g. laundry) or thinking about something of a looming nature (e.g. surgery) . It keeps me awake some nights and wakes me from sleep on others. Yesterday it crept into my happy place at work...

so I played with mud.

There is a great deal to be said for the joy of mud which is probably why children are so drawn to it. I've had mine swimming it from when they were little but I doubt they'd deign to undertake such a thing nowadays- except if there's a ball involved to disguise the primal joy of mud wallowing. 

So I got some mud- clean, pretty, white porcelain  mud  that had gone hard in the bottom of a bucket.

It needed a swish around with some water and a big potato masher type of thing.

There was a ridiculous amount of shredded paper packed around some ink that came the other day. I knew it would come in handy.  A generous nest of it was immersed and squished around in the mud. (Yes, of course, it was clay slip but for therapeutic reasons I prefer to call it mud today.)

The whole gooey mess was quickly slopped into a big bowl shaped mould and gently coaxed into a convex shape.

Then, after a deep and satisfying sigh, I left it to dry. It was worth doing just to see the faces of the boys walking past. A lot of them do NOT like getting dirty.

I'll fire it when it dries and see if it becomes something or whether it was just a cathartic bit of fun.

The paper should all burn out leaving the exoskeleton of the clay. A bit of alchemy, a dash of mystery. Good times!

Easterish

Okay. Maybe we got just a little bit Easterish after all.

1. The bunny's bum pancakes as spied on Pinterest.

2. The rabbit's foot pancakes as invented in our kitchen this week end.

 

 3. Bunny's bum and rabbits' feet pancakes with ice cream for breakfast. This is a once a year day!

 4. An embarrassment of chocolate and long ears for all. We were one egg short when the bunny went to dole out the booty on Easter eve so one big boy got an I.O.U. from the bunny. ( I suspect there had been a raid on the big high cupboard but have taken the path of least resistance and claimed responsibility for not thinking clearly at the supermarket. Imagine such a thing!)

 5. An embarrassment of sugar or maybe just enormous excitement in the bloodstream of the short one. This year Bunny trumped Santa!

 6. Ye ol' talcum powder bunny prints as delivered at midnight every easter. It never gets old!

7. My favourite ritual and family celebration of the year spent with my favourite people in glorious sunshine and all I had to bake was cupcakes!!!

Happy easter week end to you all!

The Ghost of Easters Past

So here we are at Easter already. 

Another year is speeding by like a 15 year old bombing a sick hill on his Bustin Mechanic. 

(Trans. :- boy skateboarding with unnecessary speed down a steep bitumen road.) Note how I try to fit in with the local dialect around here?

This year I feel very happy to see Easter. 

Two years ago I came home from hospital on Easter Sunday. Two days ago I got a big pat on the back and congratulations from my surgeon for getting to the third year and past the danger zone. I'm laying both arms firmly on wood as I type this.

Last year I kept remembering the year before. This year I'm celebrating being here on THIS day regardless of what the future brings. 

There have been no beautiful crafty Easter things unless you count the fifty or so roboturkeys made with year 8's before the holidays. I glazed mine in a pseudo Bitossi orange but didn't get it out of the kiln in time for this Easter.

Next year.

It's been good to enjoy home without the rush of school lunches and the guilt of after school care.
We've done a lot in two weeks. The small one has taken to having a brekkie tea some days with me out the front with the nanna tea set.

We have loitered around GOMA a lot and been back to see the animal sculptures in the Falling Back to Earth exhibition more than once. If you're local it is well worth the visit just for the serenity of that blue lake and the photo opportunities.

BYO animal.

 It's free for all the under 13's which makes it very economical for such a big exhibition. While you're there, the upper level houses an eclectic exhibition of all the State year 12 finalists for the Excellence in Art Award in 1013. If there's one thing kiddos will look at in an art gallery, it's other kiddos' art.

Like many valiant parents, I also survived the Lego movie. There were bits I laughed out loud at, others I felt intimately familiar with and parts where the five year old was burrowing her face into my shoulder in response to the sensory overload. SO many spots! If you did it in 3D or LSD, I respect but do not envy you.

None of this is very Easterish. In fact the only Easterish thing around here is the stash of eggs in the Big-High-Cupboard. It's been more about seeing some truly good friends, hanging out with my children and family, making memories and enjoying this beautiful city. The weather is sublime, the company even warmer and the next year lies undiscovered and full of hope and new life.

Happy Easter to you all!

A Fullsome Life

It's been a while hasn't it?

A lot has happened and nothing much has happened either. You know how it is.

There have been some changes. The stalwart Birkis have been thrown over for the new old Saltwaters. They are a bit lovely to wear and since summer just won't go away.....

This is the floor at work not our bathroom after a bad eyeshadow moment

 There has been much handling of clay at work and fish are the critter du jour it seems. Here is my demo and there are substantial additions to the creepy skull collection too.

Meanwhile the ladies have settled into a delightful year of sisters only at their primary school and are handling the top and bottom rungs of the school ladder happily enough. Today was free dress day. I don't like free dress day. Somebody always takes issue with what is being worn, be it them or me. It's just more laundry I say. The school "nooniform" is the way of no arguments and peace among the ladies.

 Lala and I have been watching The Block. I guess that means we're Blockheads but it's better than finding her watching Home and No Way and drooling into her nooniform.
We like to check out the art in the background of the Block shops. We saw something like this in one of the challenges. So we made one for ourselves. This stuff is easy and everywhere at the moment. Just splash colours all over your canvea or have a beautiful small assistant do it for you, then chalk a shape over the top and colour the canvas outside the lines white. Easy Peasy, lemon squeeeezy!

Then Poopsie here went and turned all five on us. (At this point the phone was commandeered by a teen who had coveted it for his 15th birthday. He installed something hipster on the camera and I was too agog with birthdays to notice.) There was yet another dodgy rainbow cake, cream thrown over it in the boot of the car and dollar shop butterflies applied liberally. They are SO easy to please when they are little.

I forget where she got the ding in the forehead but we painted a daisy over it for the party so her friends wouldn't think she was a battered sav.

I swear chillun only taste with their eyes when they are small. 

 The big boys constructed a sheet fairy tent thing in the trees which kept all the wee-uns happy for the afternoon. You have to love a good peg and sheet construction. It never gets old.

So she rode off into a new year of being five with all the sugary pinky sweetness that was attached.

A week later these two turned fifteen. 

I took them to see a contemporary version of Hamlet where he was just another difficult whingey teenager. They loved it and went home to proceed to fence with each other over the cake. 

So it's been busy and tiring and fulsome. There have been celebrations and blow ups and laundry.... always the laundry. The mother who strained organic sweet potato through a moulie for her infants is long gone. I leave you with the contents of a rushed shop before going out somewhere without the boys one night. They "cooked" their own dinner.

Paper to wrap present for the party we were off to, Three McCain's pizzas to fulfil the tastes and appetites of all three boys, muesli bars to keep them out of the pantry after dinner, a plunger for the blocked shower and medicinal wine for mother.

Ah, Life- she is always changing!

Schoolies

 The little boy on your left has grown 6 inches since last January and turned into this 13 year old on your right. He just started high school this week and was most gracious about it being a little overshadowed by the Short Divine One starting Prep school.

 Times have changed in other ways too. I recall back when the four biggies were in early primary when a Contact and covering marathon of several days would have to be undertaken. The Big Fella would take them out while I sticky taped and peeled and folded into the hot wee January hours once with a swarm of flying ants for company. No longer! Number Four declared it highly uncool to cover any books or even to have her mothers' uncool handwriting on them. In fact I left a pile of pens and exercise pads on the table and told them all to organise their own bags this year….and it was good!

Of course, I covered Shorty's tiny selection and took great delight in going overboard with sparkly glittery stuff because I only had to do it once!!

We bought approximately (sung to the 12 days of Christmas) seven pairs of shoes, six pairs of socks, five boys' shirts, four boys' shorts, three girls' blouses, two pairs of skirts and a laptop bag of required denomination. Not to mention the padlocks, belts, lunch boxes, etc) The coffers are well empty!

 There were no first day photos. This one was crying because she did not like the 'stupid' dress (aka the nooniform). She fell asleep at 3.45 pm after her first day. The second day was a breeze. 

homework- Day 1

This one refused to be photographed so I sneaked one from behind the tower of lunch boxes while he was checking his diary for the thirty seventh time.

We can't get a group shot because the B1 refuses to put on shoes until we drive into the school driveway and the B2 is gone to swimming training before the normal people get up. I may have to pay them to sit for a first day photo some time around the twentieth day when we've all recovered.

Wednesday I was so tired I wagged the doctor. Yesterday I came home after drop off and crawled back into bed for an hour.
Who'd have thought? Five of them…all at school. The happiness, the excitement, the bittersweet sadness, the fun, the quiet, the laundry…..the relief!

Newness

Yesterday I got home from a couple of weeks in the wonderful Mater Hospital. One of the y's crackin' sons quipped that I'd been in all year. I've come home to find all is well, there's a new dishwasher, the dog ate Shorty's craft table, there is a glut of eggs.

The kids have been walking the dog/ hawking the eggs to neighbours. Best of all there is a new persona here now. In the absence of ol' Lefty, we have been delivered of a new, bouncing baby breast named Alys and my (now) C- cup runneth over.


'Tis a Christmas miracle! The surgeons that  made this possible and available are truly good people.
We got some nice clear scans back too so it is looking like a lovely new chapter. Thanks for all your kind emails and comments over the last two slightly cryptic posts. Support comes in many forms, be it lycra, flowers or simply kind thoughts and wishes. Thank you, all. We hope to resume normal transmission again soon.

Word from the Y's

Sometimes the smallest people amongst us are the wisest. 

The youngest one here has been asking a lot of profound questions lately. 

She is going through the "Y" phase. 

She has also taken to collecting Y's. 

We have a whole vinaigrette of Y's in the living room now. 

They come from car parks, beaches, kindy…U name it.

There is always variety in the Ys. Once she found a whole family of Y's.

 Sometimes the Y's are quite tricky. This is known as a hairy Y.  

Lately she has been asking a lot of hairy Y's about me and my "bump" and where it has gone and how I will get a new one. Answering her Y's has been oddly comforting and calming. By making the answers simple and not scary, they become so for me too.

To be  honest I've been asking a lot of Y's myself. 

Y me?

Y now?

Y can't they give us the all clear?

Y am I going back for more?

Y am I so lucky?

Y are all  the appliances breaking down?

Y did B1 chip his front teeth sky larking after being told only last week that they are the best ones in the family? Why did he do it this week?

Y do children find all this so much easier to cope with and understand and respond to than adults?

 I have learnt to never dismiss a Y as irrelevant.  They are all different and all important.

May

she never lose

her Y's.

We can rebuild her!

I had two nutcrackers.

One had an unfortunate encounter with the dog.

We threw it out- thought it was best for everyone concerned.

Lala thought differently. She retrieved him from the bin. With straws, bandaids and some prosthetic limbs made of plasticine and plumbers' tape she attempted the impossible.

We CAN rebuild him!

Isn't modern reconstructive surgery amazing….?