He-Man says “By the Power of Grayskull!”

Jaxon says “By the Power of Gray-cow”

Fun for…er….the whole family!?

There are a lot of changes going on around here at the moment.

Among them, we’re upgrading our spare bed from a blow up mattress to a proper bed for times when Grandma comes to visit.

We got our new bed frame, and Tim gave it a coat of vanish. It’s not wet anymore but it’s still a little grabby.

So as we’re in the room assembling it with Jaxon playing with Buzz Lightyear in the middle of us we tell him he’s not allowed to touch it.

Then we needed to leave to get the remaining bits to the bed and as we leave we reinforce our request for him not to touch while we’re gone.

On our way out to the shed Tim asks me how long I think it will be before he touches it. And I tell him he’ll do it just once “just to figure out WHY we asked him not to touch it”

When we return we fully expected that Jaxon would have his sticky little mits on the bed frame. Instead, there’s Jaxon holding Buzz in such a way that his hand was touching it!

He proclaims “Buzz touched it! Buzz touched it!”

Evil little genius he is!?

I’ve been thinking about this post for a LONG time now.

I just haven’t come up with a fun or witty way to put it forward to you. So I’ve sat on it, waiting for that perfect moment in my head where everything just fall’s in to place and the words just flow effortlessly from my mouth.

Some people suggested I just leave it until such a time that, well…it would just be very old news. But that has never been my intention. So I wont do that.

It started out as waiting for the “safe” period to pass. And then, week by week…it’s increased to “ridiculously late for letting people know”

So I have decided that the perfect time for me to tell you has long since past. And that the perfect words are probably never going to just flow from my mouth. So here it is.

Drum Roll please….

I’M PREGNANT!

Ta-Da!

Every night Tim, Jaxon and I have a big bath together. We don’t all squeeze in to a tiny little tub. We have a two person spa that fits us all perfectly.

Recently, Jaxon took an interest in my, a-hem…nipples.

I didn’t lie to him when he asked what they are. I told him they were nipples. And I pointed out that he has nipples…and Daddy has nipples. We all have nipples.

Well, for some reason, he called them kettles for a few days. He would point them out on me, and Daddy and himself and say “Mum has kettles, Jaxon has kettles and Daddy has kettles”

He’ll even rattle off every other person he can think of asking “Does so and so have kettles?”

Well!

The other day we visited Nanny and Poppy. And we told them all about the nipple/kettle conversation.

Towards the end, he ever so politely (manner’s and all) asked Nanny to show him her nipples.

For some reason, she didn’t.

I was sort of glad for a while that he was referring to them as kettles. It meant that I wouldn’t get a call from day care telling me he needed to be picked up and that he was suspended for asking his teacher to show him her nipples.

We’ve got a fairly solid bed time routine set up with Jaxon, even if we’re slightly lax during the day about when we have meals and naps and plays.

It was all too obvious tonight, given the conversation that Jaxon and I had as I left his room.

It’s normally ME saying this stuff to him and him repeating it to me!

Jaxon: Leave the door open a little bit Mum (peease)

Mum: Yes, I will Jaxon

Jaxon: See you in five minutes Mum.

Mum: Um, ok!?

Jaxon:  “I love you Mum”

Mum: I love you too Jaxon!

Jaxon: Sweet Dreams Mum

Mum: Sweet Dreams Jaxon

Jaxon: See you in the morning Mum

Mum: Yes Jaxon

Jaxon: Sleep tight Mum

Mum: Jaxon, you’re stalling. Go to sleep.

Jaxon: Yes Mum.

As I’m walking off, and now no where for him to see I can still hear him yelling out “Night Mum!!”

So over the last few months, Tim and I have found a small selection of foods and drinks that  should not be given to Jaxon.

They include musk sticks, licorice (that long stuff, not the small chunky stuff) and lemonade.

If Jaxon has those things, he JUMPS OFF THE WALLS! He’s unbearable to deal with. Not because he get’s all moody or anything, but because he’s way too hyper and way too smiley and LOUD.

It’s just….annoying.

So last night when he started jumping off the couch and springing right back up, or running back and forth from his bed room to the lounge room…Daddy looked at me as if to say “What did YOU give him!?”

So I say “I swear, all he’s had is a freddo frog and some cordial”

And Jaxon, as if to say I was lying started squealing “frog and corrrrdial frog and cooordial frog and cordial” over and over and over again like maybe he’d had a kilo of chocolate and a liter of cordial without water in it.

I swear.

It was JUST a frog and cordial. But we shall keep in mind for future reference that perhaps the combination of freddo frogs and cordial should be left for times when he’s visiting family. Without us.

In light of my last post, the warning about the doom and gloom to come…I should say, that it’s not just doom and gloom.

But FRUSTRATION too!

As a result of Tim’s MS we get a 17% discount on our power bill. It’s called a Medical Cooling Concession and basically it’s because for people with MS, heat tolerance is drastically reduced. The 17% discount is presumably to help cover the extra cost of cooling over summer.

So the other day we’re sitting at home and get a knock on the door. Not two days after that 17% discount has been added to our bill and we feel a little better about being able to pay it.

The man at the door is about to install a smart meter. Having a smart meter installed means nothing at all to us. But it sends our electricity usage to the company’s every half an hour, instead of having the power meter read every three months.

At the time, we have a friend over. And she tell’s us that they had a smart meter installed a few months back and all it meant to them was a 30% increase in the power bill.

WELL! That pisses me off. Because we’ve only just got the 17% discount and if what she says is true, then it’s been made completely redundant by this stupid smart meter. No matter how you look at it we’re getting a 13% increase.

So she also tells us some ways of saving money on your power bill. And these seem fairly easy and well, regardless of what our bill is or the discount we’re going to get…I get to thinking that it couldn’t hurt to save some money right??

Right!

All she does is turn everything off at the power point when they’re not in use. The microwave, so you don’t pay for the clock. The DVD and TV so you don’t pay for the little red light they have to say they’re on standby. Everything but her fridge and freezer get turned off at the power point over night and if they’re out. She said it has saved them heaps on their electricity bills.

So I woke up the next day determined to make a difference to our power bill. When we left the house for a considerable amount of time, I switched the DVD player and the TV and set top box off at the power.

We came home three hours later, and when we tried to turn the DVD player back on…it wouldn’t. It was BROKEN!

I cried for half an hour. And on and off all night I would break in to spontaneous tears. Because I was simply trying to make a difference. Trying to save some money. And all it got me was another bill. A DVD player replacement bill.

It just seems to me that some times, when you really try to make a difference, something works against you.

I held my arms up high in front of me and I yelled….why do I bother!?

(side note: that didn’t make a pinch of shit of difference. It didn’t even make me FEEL better about having to fork out money we don’t have for a new DVD player. But I did it anyway!)