This is what happens when you give me 3 days notice

So for anyone who read my last post you might think that was enough insanity for this week. Sadly there is no such thing as enough insanity in our household, so allow me to show you yet another moment that had me wanting to tear my hair out. 

Do I have any people in my audience who work for the Department of Education?? No need to out yourselves, especially after the rant I'm about to go on, but can this be passed on to the higher ups somewhere pretty please? I'm asking, no I'm begging you guys to stop organising dress up days at schools and kindergartens.

For anyone out there who thinks I'm just being a grinch right now, clearly you have never had the panic of being told THREE DAYS before a dress up event that your child is required to come to school/kindergarten this week dressed up as something from some random theme that there is no way in hell you have anything that relates to in your dress up box. Admittedly our dress up box is one fairy dress because Miss K really isn't into dressing up much, and she rarely wears the one costume she does own. She's just as happy putting on a pair of my shoes and pretending to be me. But when the theme of your dress up day is "Australian" it is difficult to put a national spin on a fairy dress. Short of teaming it with a pair of thongs (flip flops Americans, I know.) and a bottle of VB beer and going as a bogan fairy, I really struggled to come up with an idea. (For any non-Australians who don't know what a bogan is, please feel free to Google it.)

For any of you who aren't from Australia, you definitely have no idea what the heck I'm panicking about, so allow me to fill you in. Here in Australia we are about to celebrate book week starting on 20th August. I know this is about three months after you guys do, but we're always about a step behind so it's all good. This year the theme was Australian books/illustrators. I'm all for highlighting the local talent we have around here, especially for authors whose works I have enjoyed in the past like John Marsden, Paul Jennings, Andy Griffiths, and the wonderful Melina Mallos whose latest book I reviewed a few months ago. So for me that part was a big plus. The giant steaming bag of poop however was that I didn't find out until Monday of this week that we had to dress up on Thursday, and it had to fit the theme of book week. If I was any more fiscal than I actually am this wouldn't be a problem, I could just run down to the local shopping centre and find a costume. However given it is currently my off pay week, and any money I do have I've selfishly decided needs to be spent on food, this was not an option.

Luckily for me, this isn't my first rodeo. I have been given minimal notice of special occasions more than once by our kindergarten, despite the fact that we have a Facebook page and they have our email addresses so they can send out newsletters, so I know what it means to rush around like a headless chicken just so my child isn't left out of the fun. First I had to Google Australian children's books for inspiration and discovered to my joy that two of my favourite kids books are actually by Australians, Where is the Green Sheep and The Very Cranky Bear. My first thought was she could go as the green sheep, and just stay home and have a nap. (For any of you who haven't read Where is the Green Sheep and do not get my reference, please go out and find yourself a copy, it is a great book for kids, and it is so easy to read Miss K reads it to me nowadays.) But in the end I decided that would be too mean so we decided to dress Miss K up as the very cranky bear. I was able to do this with thanks to an empty egg carton, an old headband I had lying around and some icy pole sticks and toothpicks. It wasn't pretty by any means, and if Martha Stewart was grading me I'd get a C for effort and an F for enthusiasm. There is photographic evidence, just because this will look excellent on her photo board at her 21st, but that doesn't mean I can't share it now with you guys. I call this photos "This is what happens when you give me 3 days notice."

That's her best cranky bear face. Either that or she's impersonating the hunchback of Notre Dame, I really can't tell. 

Of course you look at the grin on her face in that picture and you realise she loves her costume, so I guess I can call it a win. What that photo does not show is the fact that one minute after the picture was taken the headpiece broke, so she ended up going to kindergarten with a bear nose. So my C for effort changed to an F.

The kindergarten very kindly told us that we didn't have to follow the theme if it was too hard. The only problem is they did it on Wednesday night after I had already spent an hour making this thing and I had no other alternative anyway so we went with cranky bear followed closely by her stressed and very cranky mum. I like to team with the theme you know. (Hats off to any Kath and Kim fans who read that in Kath's voice just now.)

So this is why I'm begging the powers that be to please stop making dress up days a part of the curriculum. You probably think you're doing something nice for the kids, breaking up the monotony that is learning, and giving them fun memories to carry on into their adulthood. What you don't see is the stressed out parents behind the scenes madly trying to figure out how to turn an old beer box and three empty tin cans into a cowboy outfit. We put enough pressure on ourselves to be perfect parents without you guys adding to that pressure by increasing our workload with all of these "fun" extra activities. 

Well that's all from me for now, there will definitely be more insanity to come soon, as I have so many more reasons to pull my hair out right now I'll be as bald as Bruce Willis before you know it. Is anyone interested in doing a reboot of GI Jane anytime soon because I'm sure I'll be a shoe-in for the lead. You'll even get my best crazy eyed stare for free. 

Here comes the holiday slideshow

Alright so in a minute I'm going to post a lesson I have learnt in the last few days about dealing with toddlers, but because it has been so long since we've spent any quality time together, I have many pictures from my time off to share with you guys. And like the long suffering friends you are, you'll sit there quietly and listen to the long monologue that goes with each photo, complete with lame jokes that I think are hilarious.

So as I discussed here, Miss K is now the proud owner of a fancy pair of glasses. The difference these glasses have made was apparent from the moment we put them on, and I think that has made her like her new accessory, as she never takes them off. The glasses have the added bonus of making her look even cuter than she did before. (I didn't even know that was possible)

My little princess poindexter

She looks so intelligent. I just want to ask her for financial advice. 

The only thing cuter than Miss K in her new glasses is Miss K in her occluder eye patch. Now I have to admit that when the optometrist told me we had to start using the eye patch every day for a month my heart sank. Not only was I worried that we were asking too much of a very little girl who had been incredibly patient to date, I also hated the fact that there was just one more thing that separated her from being just like all the other little kids I see out and about. So the first few sessions of pirate therapy were done behind closed doors when there was no one else around. I needed to spend a few days getting used to my beautiful baby with this horrible padded patch covering half of her face. Plus I figured she'd need a bit of time to adjust to this new addition to our routine. But as always she took this change in her stride and loves pirate time. I don't think it hurts that I make sure this time is something special. Sometimes we go around the back yard collecting things then make a nature collage, other times I pull out my Nintendo DS and we spend some time playing that. Of course there are the days when it is too hot, or we're both too tired, and those are the days where we just veg together in front of the telly watching half of Giggle and Hoot, yelling out the occasional ARRRRR to each other.

ARRRR YA SCURVY CURR WHERE'S ME RUM?!?!?!?!?

And my last holiday picture of this post is one of my favorites from this summer. Along with a new found love of pirates, Miss K has recently discovered the wonder of fairies, after being given a set of fairy wings to play with, and we have spent many an hour in our garden casting spells on flowers and grass while she floats around gracefully. (At least that's what I think she's trying to do, it really looks like she's walking on the moon most of the time.)

Except here she just looks like she's glaring at the photographer.

It's nice to see in between all of the pirates and the rough housing and the temper tantrums there is a little lady there too, just waiting for an opportunity to step out and feel pretty. 

So there is just a tiny cross section of what we got up to since the beginning of the year, there would be more except I kept forgetting to get my camera out so when I tell you we went for a trip to Spain, you're just going to have to take my word for it.

The begrudging model

Well I promised I would be back today with photos of Miss K modelling her brand new kimono top, but I forgot that I would have to contend with the model herself and her ever changing and fickle moods. Well it took both me and my baby sister ten minutes of begging, coaxing, persuading, distracting and bribing of Miss K to finally get some decent pictures. Unfortunately they are all on my baby sister's phone, so I only have one to share with you now, which is the one she posted on Facebook for me today.

I will be cornering my sister the next time she comes home and insisting that she uploads the rest of the photos onto my computer straight away, because there are some absolutely beautiful ones there, which put my attempts to take her photo to shame. 

Of course my photos don't come with the lovely filters and effects that only come from Instagram. But I can't complain too much because at the end of the day Miss K really did love her new top (she actually kissed it when I brought it out to show her) and I did get some pretty pictures of her wearing it too, so all in all I guess it was a success.

Well that's all from me for now, it is CSI Saturday here right now and I don't want to miss any more of my stories. 

Guess what I've been doing

Can you guys guess what I have spent the past two evenings doing?? I'll give you a hint...

No I have not spent the last two nights staring at a t-shirt hanging on my door handle (on a truly horrible and old fashioned crocheted clothes hanger too) I have actually spent the last two evenings making this lovely kimono top. This was actually the hardest sewing project I have undertaken to date, for several reasons, first of all it wasn't just squares of fabric of different sizes sewn together, and secondly that bright green strip you see running across the top of the shirt is actually bias tape, and something I have avoided at all costs before now, with good reasons too. I always knew the first time I sewed with bias would be horrible, and I wasn't disappointed. The biggest problem I came across with the bias is that I actually bought tape that was too small for what I needed, meaning that I had to do a lot of fiddly messing around with the tape to make sure it fit on the top properly and didn't look ridiculous either. That took me three hours to do. Three very long and frustrating hours. So the next time I do this top, I will be making sure I use thicker bias tape which hopefully will make everything go a lot smoother.

Yes you heard me correctly then, this is only the first of hopefully many kimono tops I will be making. This was really just a practise run to make sure I could actually follow the pattern and have it resemble a piece of clothing at the end. Because of this the fabric I used here was a very cheap and thin cotton (that I found for $5 at our local Spotlight store, can anyone else say bargain??) which as my little sister told me made this top look like it is meant to be hospital scrubs and not a gorgeous Japanese inspired piece of clothing. But I'm not too worried because the next time I attempt this it will be in a softer, possibly more stretchy fabric. And because I made plenty of mistakes this time around, I have learned what not to do next time so I should get it done a lot quicker too. And the first thing I will be doing next time is making sure I don't have the iron on too hot when I press the fabric because the very first thing I did was melt one of my cut out pieces of material while trying to iron out the creases made while the material was stored in its shopping bag. Luckily I hadn't even pinned the pieces together yet so I didn't have any unpicking to do as I had to scrap that piece and cut out a new one. Luckily I bought way too much material for this project, so I still had more than enough left over to cut another piece out. But it does mean I now don't have enough to make a matching pair of pants to go with this top. 

Hopefully I can return tomorrow with photos of it being worn by Miss K. Sadly by the time I had made the final finishing touches on it tonight, she had been in bed for 3 hours and I couldn't bring myself to wake her up just to make her model her new top. But I know she will be super excited to be allowed to wear it tomorrow, as I let her try it on a few times today while I checked hem lengths and made sure it fit her properly, and every time I made her take it off again she cracked the poops at me big time. Fingers crossed I can get her to sit still long enough to get some decent pictures for you guys too, but I have a feeling I'll have to wait until she's strutted her stuff on the catwalk (our lounge room floor) several times first. 

Well until then I am super duper tired now and I need to go to bed. I will hopefully be back tomorrow with new photos, but until then stay awesome my lovely readers and for all of my American readers I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of good food and happy families.

We've got mail

So the day I have been waiting for a whole week finally arrived today, our parcel from Western Australia arrived this morning with Miss K's new hair accessories from Little Birdies. Miss K and I both had trouble containing our excitement while opening the box, and her reaction when she saw the hair clips was more than I could have hoped for. She was so impressed with them she grabbed them out of the parcel before I could even stop her and started trying to put them in her hair. Then she proceeded to strut around the lounge room like a little catwalk model while mum and I oohed and aahed over her. I even managed to get her to sit still long enough for me to take some photos to show to my friends on Facebook, including the lovely lady who made the hair clips in the first place.

The look of pure concentration on her face is thanks to Yo Gabba Gabba, which she was watching at the time.

And just because I am such a sucker for that pretty face, I couldn't resist snapping some more photos when she sat down for morning tea too.

That look is because I'm interrupting her watermelon to make her look at me. 

Well that's all for now, and I can now finally stop stalking the poor postman everytime he rides past on his motorcycle hoping he has a parcel for me. Unless any of you wonderful readers would like to start sending me gifts? I know you're all such a generous bunch... no? Alright then never mind.

Well stay awesome everyone, I'll be back again soon.

My prima ballerina

So this is just a quick post to share some photos with you guys.

For anyone who knows our family, you would know that my baby sister owned a dance school until the middle of last year. As a result of her own 16 years of dance lessons and then owning a dance school, our house has been filled with bags and boxes and crates of old dancing costumes for years now. So today mum finally got tired of looking at the bags and boxes and crates and put all of the school's costumes in a vacuum seal bag so that they could be stored more efficiently. Well Miss K was in seventh heaven with all these pretty dresses sitting around just waiting to be touched and explored. In among all of the lycra and tulle was my baby sisters old tutu, which was one of Miss K's personal favourites. So just because I am the best mum in the world and I love making my baby smile, I helped her to pop the dress on so she could be a ballerina just like her aunty. Thankfully my sister had her phone ready because otherwise these photos wouldn't have happened. (Stupid camera batteries dying last night)

So without further ado, let me introduce you to my little ballerina.

Now ballet is not my favorite thing in the world, and up until before Miss K was born I was adamant that my little girl would not be taking dance lessons like her two auntys and one uncle did as kids. However I have been told by all of my sisters and my mum, and my little sister's former dance teacher that I have no choice, and Miss K MUST take dance lessons when she's older. I would fight this, but the sheer delight on her face in these photos is enough proof that Miss K might want this just as much as everyone else does. Luckily for us, as little as this area does have in the way of entertainment, it is absolutely filled with dance schools, so we are definitely spoilt for choice. Just as well because it looks like I've got no say in the matter.