Paper & Scissors 101

Last night Bonnie and Clyde decided they wanted to cut things out, so I grabbed an old magazine, tore all the pages out and we all started to cut out the pretty pictures and put them in a shoebox.

Bonnie and Clyde both had kids’ scissors and I had a pair of very sharp embroidery scissors. I cut out some very intricate pictures with precision (if I do say so myself) and put them in the shoebox. Bonnie looked in the shoe box, picked up a picture of pram that I had cut out and said “Oh wow Mum, this is verrrrrrry good quality work”.

Now I just have to get my bosses to say that!

That BLOODY Ad…

I personally think it’s a bloody good ad and it’s a shame they don’t have to sell Australia to Australians because it seems most of us like it.

I think the people and groups lobbying against the ad are doing Tourism Australia a favour as it has sparked so much interest in the ad. When it was banned in England, 100,000 Poms downloaded the ad from the internet on the first day. 100,000 people that would not have paid any attention if it was just on their TV sets without all the hoo-haa surrounding the bloody ad.

Now the bloody Canadians and Yanks are in on the act. Apparently the Canadians think it promotes drinking and aren’t particularly impressed with “hell” rather than “bloody” but it’s the Yanks that have made me put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard)…

“The American Family Association (AFA), which has more than two million members and leads campaigns against abortion and gay rights, was upset with the bikini-clad model Lara Bingle's use of "bloody" and "hell" in the ad's tagline.”

Don’t these people have anything better to do with their time than force their opinions onto the masses? (Which is exactly what I’m doing here, but that’s beside the point.) Why don’t they turn off the TV… read a book… spend time with their children?

Do we really want to invite people into the country that say “women shouldn’t have a choice” and “gay people should be live in shame”.

I think every person entering the country should get off the plane saying “Bloody great to be here”… and if they don’t, they shouldn’t be allowed in.

If you don’t like our bloody ad… then FUCK OFF!!! Now thaaaat’s swearing!

There’s nothing like Ambition

Last night Bonnie told me she had decided what she wants to do when she grows up… be a school office lady.

When I asked her why she wanted to do this, she responded with “because they hand out clean school uniforms and undies to kids who wet their pants”.

I wonder how many toes she will have to step on to achieve such a status in life.

Bribing Children

Bonnie’s school has an awards programme to encourage good behaviour from the students. When they’ve done something well or nice, they get a sticker on a chart… and the system goes like this:

10 stickers = “Notice of Good News”
3 “Notice of Good News” = Merit Certificate
15 Merit Certificates = Bronze School Award
25 Merit Certificates = Silver School Award
35 Merit Certificates = Gold School Award
50 Merit Certificates = Gold School Award + Medallion

Now, I’m no rocket scientist but that breaks down to 30 stickers per Merit Certificate, so…

Bronze School Award = 450 stickers
Silver School Award = 750 stickers
Gold School Award = 1,050 stickers
Gold School Award + Medallion = 1,500 stickers

... and there are only 202 school days per year.

Bonnie's no juvenile delinquent but she could go to that school until she’s 35 and never receive a Bronze School Award let alone a Gold School Award + Medallion… I think I'll continue to bribe her with chocolate!

Don’t be Nasty

I overheard part of a conversation last night between Napoleon and Clyde…

Napoleon: Say, I won’t be naughty anymore.
Clyde: Okay, me not be naughty anymore.

Clyde comes running in to me and I said to him, “now mean it”, to which his response was “No. Me say it nicely, not mean!”

The Commonwealth Games Opening

Well, the 18th Commonwealth Games was officially opened last night.

I missed the beginning but sat down in time to see the 71 nations enter the MCG. I must say most of the African and Asian nations looked stunning. India has so much colour and glitter, it looked like they’d just stepped off a Bollywood film set, the Aussies on the other hand, looked like they forgot to get changed after a hard day at a Catholic high school, although I’m sure my mother thought they looked lovely (didn’t you mum?).

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa sang a beautiful “happy birthday” to the queen and when it turned into “God save the Queen”, the Queen stood for the National Anthem. I looked at Napoleon and said “does the Queen have to stand for the anthem?” He looked at me like I was an idiot, “Yea-eah”. I don’t understand this. She’s the one being saved. She should be able to sit and scratch her arse if she wants to!

Then the speeches started. Poor Prince Phillip was obviously feeling the heat under all of the lights and didn’t look particularly well, in fact I thought he was about to fall off his perch. The Queen looked bored senseless. She was staring off into space and I could hear her thinking “Shit, I’m 80 years old. I have to sit through this crap every four years and look like I’m enjoying it. Why does God keep saving me, why won’t he let me just die!” I must say, I have to agree (well, not about the dieing) but for the love of God, let the poor woman stay home in her flannelette nightie with a glass of sherry watching Eastenders.

Can God go to School?

On Sunday at Kids Church Bonnie made a person out of cardboard with the limbs held on with clips so they can move, just like God made all of us (minus the clips I guess) and she wanted to take that to school for news today…I thought this was okay but later decided I had to stop her because the kids are not even allowed to celebrate Easter and Christmas at school.

I think Christians are probably a minority at her school and in light of the fact they are not allowed to celebrate Christian holidays, I don’t think they would take too kindly to the topic of God being raised in class.

I must say I wouldn’t mind if she learned about other religions as I think you have to keep your mind open to all possibilities and you cannot make independent decisions without knowledge.

Why do we have to sacrifice our own beliefs so as not to offend others?

Clyde the Asian Prostitute?

Clyde doesn't get too much of a mention because he doesn't really say that much at the moment but this morning he cracked me up.

The poor little fella has a black eye at the moment, kindly given to him by his sister Bonnie (they only work well as a team if working against authority).

I was holding his little face between my palms this morning and said "my beautiful little man"... to which he responded... "me not beautiful little man... me handsome big boy".

Nobody Likes a Smartarse!

I know every parent wants their child to be intelligent, more intelligent than we are ourselves… but I can live with being smarter than my 4½ year old and 2½ year old kids… or am I?

Yesterday Bonnie showed me a picture of a sphinx and said “This is the great stinks. It has the head of a human and the body of a lion”. I was quite impressed. I corrected her on “Sphinx” rather than stinks and asked who taught her about the Sphinx, to which she replied “Nobody, I saw it on Little Einsteins (a cartoon)”.

She then pointed to a picture of the Rosetta Stone and said “This is heiroglyptics”. Again, I was impressed. Again, I corrected her on “hieroglyphics” rather than heiroglyptics… but I don’t think it will be too long before she’s correcting me.

Australia. Founded by Pirates?

We have a First Fleet framed picture in our hall. It has a handwritten list of all the people who traveled on the First Fleet, a map showing the route the First Fleet traveled and a drawing of the Fleet.

One day Bonnie asked me about the picture. I’m not proud to say that my history knowledge is lacking somewhat so I explained what I could. They were prisoners from England sent to this God forsaken county (I bet now they wished they left the prisoners in England and shipped themselves out here), many died on the way due to the lack of fruit and vegetables (any excuse to reinforce the importance of fruit and vege’s) and when they got here they built a city, our city. She was very interested and asked many questions. I answered what I could and made up what I couldn’t.

About 2 hours later when Clyde woke up from his nap, they were both standing looking at the picture and I walked past. Bonnie said “Mum, tell Clyde about the pirates”.

Aim low to avoid disappointment

Last night sitting around the dinner table Daddy asked Bonnie what she wants to be when she grows up. The conversation went something like this….

Daddy: What do you want to be when you grow up?
Bonnie: A butterfly.
Me: I don’t think you’ll be paid very much to be a butterfly.
Daddy: Do you want to be a teacher?
Bonnie: No!
Daddy: A nurse?
Bonnie: No!
Daddy: A doctor?
Bonnie: No!
Me: A fireman?
Bonnie: No!
Daddy: Looks at me and says “she’ll probably end up working at McDonalds”
Bonnie: Eyes light up, big smile… “THAT’S IT, THAT’S WHAT I WANT TO DO!”

I guess its only logical since she is growing the burgers herself!

Bonnie & Clyde – Biscuit Thieves

I guess I should note how I came to refer to my children as Bonnie and Clyde.

One day, without their knowledge, I stood watching this dynamic duo steal the biscuit tin and was quite astounded that they worked so well as a team.

I keep my biscuit tin on top of the wall mounted kitchen cupboards thinking they would be safe from the kids, but I was sadly mistaken. Bonnie brought her little table into the kitchen and climbed up onto it. She then opened the kitchen cupboard so she could hold on and hoisted herself up onto the bench. Once she was on the bench Clyde climbed onto the table. Bonnie reached up, grabbed the biscuit tin and handed to Clyde. Clyde jumped off the table and allowed Bonnie to make her descent.

Once they were both safely on the ground I said “hey, what do you think you’re doing?” I expected some guilty looks and a “sorry mum” as they handed the biscuit tin to me, but no, that wasn’t to be the case. Clyde put the biscuit tin under his arm and started running. I reached out to grab him but he put on a fend that any footballer would be proud of and took off up the hallway with Bonnie shouting “run, she’s coming, run!”