Musical Journeys

At Christmas, the large guy in the red suit bought each of our children a CD of music. I have to wonder what the musical future of my kids is when I look at what they got and what they're enjoying.

Michael got a compilation of Australian ballads, so does that mean that we're going to see him going all country or worse ... hill billy? Of course, he's been the one most likely to ask to listen to my Rolf Harris CD too ...

Samuel received the latest Beatles compilation which I happen to think is cool. Sam is the one that has shown the most interest in my music of all of the kids every now and then asking what something is or telling me that something that I am playing sounds really cool; especially the bit of Beatles that I have. So at least for him, I have hope that he'll be into a cool and eclectic mix of independent artists.

Thomas received something that appeared at first glance to be suitable for him, a Power Rangers CD Unfortunately the first listen introduced what I can only call a bad mix of Heavy Metal TV themed crap. The big fat guy should have done some more listening before sticking that in a stocking. And of course Thomas likes it simply because its his! When he starts asking for black t-shirts to be added to his wardrobe, I'll be worrying even more.

Emily received a compilation of toddler tunes that can be sung along to, which is most likely to see her down the pop/idol kind of stuff. Given she's a girl, I expect that that will be likely regardless. But we'll see what we can do to help.

So there you have it, a start down their musical journeys. It will be interesting to see where that takes us. Of course, given the breadth of what I have in my collection, I am also aware that where you start has little bearing on where you finish. After all, I own a couple of Ice-T CD's but the most recent things to join my collection were Johnny Cash and a Eurythmics compilation!

As to Caroline, well she just had the gall to tell me that we don't need loud music for New Year's Eve. And I thought she knew me? Apparently having conversation is enough and you don't need anything to dance to. I think I've managed a compromise ... we are going away for New Years, but I've scaled back from my original intent of taking along my old stereo from the shed. I think I'll get Rolf loud enough to maintain tradition!

Anyway, here's wishing you all the best for your own end of year celebrations! I hope that 07 treats you all well and kindly.

And that was Christmas ...

Well, a merry Christmas to all from the Temby Tribe. Its been and gone in its usual whirlwind of fun and chaos.

The big guy in the red suit certainly looked after everyone this year and now we just have to deal with the instant land fill that seems to have accumulated in the living areas of the house.

Its always interesting in the lead up to the big day to hear what it is that the kids are going to be asking for.

Sam either came up with a new strategy this year, or actually was so adamant that he only asked for a single item ... a digital camera. He did manage to get a few other things of course, but the look on his face when he managed to get one was priceless. He's been snapping anything and everything ever since and probably the only thing saving this computer from having its memory filled with pictures of randomness is the limited memory card that he currently has. But that won't last long.

Michael was similarly targeted in his desires, but wanted a little more than Sam. Thomas just wanted surprises and was lucky to be able to enunciate that much with the excitement level pushing him to bursting point. For the last couple of days prior to Christmas, he kept breaking out in random, loud bursts of uncontained excitement. I don't know how else to describe it.



When his head hit the pillow on Christmas Eve, after opening their presents, he was asleep in 5 seconds! What bliss.

And then of course, there was Emily. Every time that she was asked what she wanted for Christmas by someone, there was one consistent response ... "A candy cane." It was beautiful.

And then of course, following a moment of further consideration, she'd add (in random order) "A Pony, a dog and a kitten." Of course, being the first girl in the house, she was spoilt as there were dolls and things to get that couldn't be inherited from the three brothers that preceded you!

All in all, Christmas was wonderful this year, with the only shadow being the uncertainty about Canada. But I even managed to forget about that briefly!

Licking the floor

During the winter, we had our floor boards sanded back and then covered with a polyurethane treatment to keep them nice. Which was fine except for the fact that they dude doing it screwed up the job, leaving grit in the floor and obvious marks where he'd stopped and started applying the coating.

It was unacceptable and we let him know that. He complained that the cold weather made it difficult and so we organised for him to come back and do it again when the weather warmed up. And so he did. That meant that we got to move all of our furniture out of the extension all over again!.

And he screwed it up even worse. I wouldn't have thought it possible, but he did. So we've had a quote from someone else and threatened to send him the bill. We'll see how that transpires.

That all pissed me off, but the thing that really got me to writing was the tacos. The other night we sat down to have tacos for dinner. I ate one before Caroline got around to sitting down with us. She took one bite and said, “This tastes like floor polish.”

Now mine had tasted a little odd, but I hadn't thought anything of it. I of course told Caroline she was crazy as I ate away at my second. After all, they'd been sealed in plastic before I took them out. But as I ate away at my second, I realised that that odd flavour I'd noted ... it was indeed the flavour of floor polish. Talk about a ruined dinner.

That same night, I found some cake in the freezer that had been there long enough that it deserved to be eaten. It was a lemon tart, one of my favourite cakes in the entire world. I waited until it had thawed out and thought, “Well dinner might have been ruined, but at least I can enjoy this.”

Yes, you guessed it, the very first bite ... floor polish. Out went the cake.

But the ultimate was two nights ago when Caroline produced some chocolate. Yummy caramel flavoured chocolate ... that tasted like floor polyurethane floor polish. I was angry then! There'd been no warning that various food stuffs would come out tasting like the polish after it had exuded through the air of our house for a couple of days!

I don't want to lick the floor ... and I didn't need all my yummy food to taste like that was what I was doing either!

Foot in mouth

Every now and then you manage to say something completely inappropriate. Its one thing when you mean to and something else entirely when its completely accidental.

The other night I was being driven back to my Brother-in-law’s house and we were dropping one of his friends off along the way. Tehre was some discussion about the fact that this friend had missed my Nephew’s birthday party because he was in hospital and me, being the quick witted wag that I am said, “Well its not like you were dead,” inferring that it was a poor excuse.

I felt ever so funny minutes later after we’d dropped him off and it was revealed to me that he was in fact suffering from terminal cancer …

Ouch.

Always prepared ... almost

We prepared because we were going up winding mountain roads and thought that there was a fair chance that this would prove the initiator.

Well we survived that trip and days later, found ourselves using the bucket as a storage device given the lack of a console in the walk-through designed Tarago that we’ve hired.

Yes complacency had settled its comfy mantle about our relaxed shoulders.

Last night on our way home from visiting a friend’s place, with Thomas having drifted off to sleep on the living room floor, we were moving quite happily, ignoring Emily’s complaints of “Daddy you’re driving too fast and making me car sick.”

Right up to the point where we heard an ill-fated burble from the back seat. The sort of burble that ends with the propulsion of stomach contents into the wide blue yonda. Of course, when there’s six of you confined to the somewhat tight spaces of a motor vehicle, wide blue yonda tends to be hot confined space close to other children.

The real surprise and the reason for the total lack of warning was that the burble had come from Thomas. Yep, the one sleeping child in the car had managed to vomit. He was an absolute trooper, standing uncomplaining on the side of the road in his jocks whilst we attempted to deal with the inside of the car and his clothes.

This reaction was of course utterly polar to that of his three siblings who were suddenly 50 metres down the road protesting at full volume about how bad the smell was and that if they had to get in the car they too would vomit. Of course, I dealt with this with all the usual tact and diplomacy of someone who is inches away from the offending substance, cleaning it up with the toilet paper that I can only be eternally grateful for having ended up in the car.

Hell, we were only 5 minutes away from where we were staying anyway.

Regardless, it was all dealt with and perhaps even close to forgotten by the time this morning rolled around. Well at least up until the point that I was awoken by Caroline propelling herself out of bed at a speed usually reserved for getting on the end of a goal scoring opportunity on the hockey field. Certainly a speed never ever associated with her movement from bed.

That rapid movement was closely followed by the sound of vomit splattering on the tiled floor. Emily is sharing our room at the moment and she’d decided that Thomas couldn’t be the one to have all the fun!

But we’re all over that now. We’ve been to dream world, we’ve eaten food, and the two little tykes are now in bed (possibly even asleep, but let’s not stretch the fabric of reality too far!).

Just another day on holidays with the Tembys.

Yukon ho! Or turmoil and trouble in forty seven parts …

The saga continues. I think that the last thing that I wrote on the topic of a potential international relocation for the Tembys was The Boy Who Cried Wolf. I think that we need a little recap on the way that things have gone so far.

Back in October of 2005 I received a phone call whilst on holidays that resulted in my being asked if I was interested in a position overseas … Qatar, Oman, maybe Canada. We said yes and then waited for something to happen. At that time there was someone lined up to do my job. He pulled out, we got on with life.

Then, out of the blue, some time in about May I found out that discussions had continued with that person and had in fact progressed to the point that he’d signed a letter and would be starting on the 31^st of July, shunting me into a temporary position until such time as something came up for me.

About three weeks before that date, I was informed that once again, he’d decided not to follow through. Back on the merry go round we hopped.

Those who rule the realm of my work from above continued to recruit off and on in an attempt to provide sufficient resources to either release me or provide options for expansion of the business.

A couple of weeks ago (from present day) I found out that that they had narrowed the target down and were talking seriously to some one with another in reserve. Of course, the first one fell through.

Then I received a call from the CEO of our international operation. He wanted me to tell him when I could be released from my current contract and a copy of my resume that they could put before our potential client on the other side of the world.

Gears clicked and things started to get serious.

Fast forward 2 weeks (last Thursday) and I get a call from my boss telling me that the back up guy had signed up, it had been discussed with our main client and he’d signed on the dotted line. Holy crap. Suddenly it was getting very very real.

At this point, I started to try and track intelligence down on the likelihood of us actually winning the work in Canada as it is one of those kind of important things as no one has quite got around to mentioning what happens to me if we don’t win the bid and there’s someone here doing my job. Its not really something I want to consider too much.

It was also about this point in time that I found myself at a cocktail function for one of my clients. A client who at that time didn’t know that I was looking to move on. So I was what one might refer to as moderately surprised when someone that we’d done some work for a couple of years ago, but whom I hadn’t seen since came up to me and said, “Dave! You’re off to Canada!”

After a quick clarification as to who he’d heard the news from, I discovered that the person running their tongue off and putting our client relationship at risk was my bosses boss! Never mind that neither he nor my immediate boss had thought to tell this particular client and then started spouting such information at an event they were hosting, I just set about picking up the pieces and informed them myself as I departed.

There was something about having told my direct reports and a client that suddenly made this twisted and warped process actually seem like it could result in something real. Real enough that sleep became a memory and focus something that eluded me regularly.

And that’s pretty much how things are now. I’ve discovered that we’re likely to find out if we’ve won the work or not on the 13^th of December, 2 days after my new replacement starts. There’s still no word on things like money or packages or departure dates or anything that matters …but hey, how much fun would it be if it was all straight forward.

Oh and did I mention that there was a moment of insanity back in that process somewhere that had me apply for a job in India, working on the New Delhi Metro? Well not to worry, it fell through.

Mango Tree

I know I’ve discussed the Mango tree before, but it’s been a long time now and I’ve never quite managed to get around to this part of its story, but I had to at some point.

I bought Caroline a Mango tree quite some years ago now, because she likes Mangoes and when I saw a real Mango tree I thought, wow that would be great to sit and drink beer under in the back yard. I had no expectation that any Mango tree would ever produce fruit in our back yard, but the drinking beer under it thing was quite appealing.

And so we planted the tree in the garden and nurtured it and protected it (including keeping shade cloth around it for some 2 years or so until it was tall enough and strong enough to stand on its all, live long and prosper.

It survived those times tough times like when my boys stripped large leaves from it and again when they decided to play ninja’s with it and nearly ring-barked it (yes I have photographic evidence).

Despite those trials, the tree managed to survive to the point that the first time that I thought we’d be leaving the house to go and live overseas, I pulled up a chair and had a beer, sitting under the leaves that barely cleared the top of my head. And then it started to prosper. It was actually taller than I am, well watered and growing all the time.

When we weren’t going overseas, I thought I would yet get to sit in the true shade of the mango tree for a quiet beverage one day as the child raced, chaotic and child-like about the back yard.

Then we had a visitor. I came home one day to be informed that there had been an ‘incident’ with the Mango tree. A friend’s son had decided that it was the perfect height for him to swing from. Of course, such childish ideas never take into account that whilst the tree might look tall enough, there was no way it was ever going to be strong enough to support that small boy’s weight. And when I made my way to the yard, already crestfallen as I’d been half informed, it was clear to me that that was the end of the mango tree.

It was that day that I gave up caring for the mango tree. Caroline is a little more persistent than I am and so the tree has been transplanted, hoping that the one shoot will flourish, but without love and care (and possibly without a dedicated watering point) recovery over the time since this incident has been slow. Its still a stunted looking thing that struggles to reach to my waist and I just can’t bring myself to care anymore.

But I don’t hold a grudge …

girl!

Things I've Been Taught By My Daughter

After having had three boys, I never really expected that this would be something that I would ever get to write. Nonetheless, fortune smiles upon us and so this will become the record of what my little girl teaches me.

That sleeping in a bed, far from being a safe and comfortable experience, is in fact an open invitation for three foot tall beings to torture and punish you. That parenthood is probably one of the only roles in life where you will find yourself playing poke the vomit down the drain hole whilst standing naked in the laundry at 3am. But even more astoundingly ... you don’t actually want to give any of it up.

That 5 hours sleep is enough reinvigoration that following a round of vomiting, when the body is feeling better, you can chatter aimlessly and happily to your exhausted father for half an hour straight when his only reason for being in the room is to settle you down and get you off to sleep

That despite the fact that you’ve seen it all before, you will still be amazed at either how far vomit from a small child can go, or how much of a bucket can be filled with the stuff.

That in addition to clamouring for your attention when you are on the telephone, little girls will in fact, insist on taking the phone from you to say hello and babble indiscriminately at the person on the other end.

That the female ability to multi-task begins when little girls wander about the room imitating their mothers, playing and wandering about whilst having a phone clamped between ear and shoulder and babbling incoherently at the same time.

That despite any prior example being set, a squeal pitched somewhere between ouch and excruciating must be both part of the female genetic make-up and fun to apply.

That there need be no particular reason to unleash said squeal.

That despite spending adolescent years spent trying to access girl’s bits, when it comes to changing a nappy, boys bits are infinitely preferred.

That little girls are just as happy as little boys to frolick about the house devoid of clothing.

That it is never too young to start coveting and obsessing over shoes.

That just because you’re the youngest and a girl at that, there is no reason to think that you won’t be the ruler of all that you survey. And if you can survey more from the top of a table then that would be the ideal place to survey from.

That the whole incessant talking thing might just be gender based after all!

That a pint-sized child no more than 2 feet tall will occupy a space of disproportionate size when occupying your bed. To the point that its easier to leave her there and occupy her bed in retaliation.

boys!

Things I've Been Taught By My Sons

That eggs were indeed meant to be free. Though freedom really shouldn't include impacts with paved surfaces.

That when one child is violently ill it would be naïve and pointless to think that none of the other three will suffer the same fate.

That the instant you pick up a telephone to have an intelligent and more importantly, adult conversation, you will have small children clamouring about your legs for attention.

If you leave your camera around the house and it actually has film in it, it is of course an open invitation for your boys to practice amateur photography. Perfect subjects include the mess on the floor, your brothers, the television and of course ... your brother’s bare arse.

That it is never too early to think about Christmas.

I have learned that there are many reasons to cry in this cruel, harsh world, numbering among them:

- That there are too many vegetables on the plate.

- That you have to have a bath when you want a shower

- That you have to have a shower when you want a bath

- That you have to be the first out of the bath

- That you have to have your hair washed

-That you’re the only one not to have had your hair washed (yes, once Thomas was distraught because his brothers and sister all got their hair washed, but he had missed out).

- That things haven’t gone your way

- That your brother got an extra lolly

- That you have to go to bed (Even when its 2 hours past bedtime)

- And of course, sometimes just because you’re tired and need a good cry.

A cat is a perfectly good substitute for a basketball.

Cats really do want to swim in the mop bucket. Esepcially when they're kittens.

When ordering paving bricks, allow 1% more than you can imagine for all contingencies to account for un-help* After all, bricks will be thrown, dropped, levered, pushed, propelled, levitated, magicked and even misplaced in such a manner as to ensure they have at least a 3 foot drop onto a surface that will ensure they are rendered unsuitable for their given purpose.
*un-help is the collective term for all those wonderful little things that happen when you're working in the yard and have forgotten to otherwise entertain, restrain or deploy three boys under the age of six.

Don't bother with a puppy. Leave something in the yard that vaguely resembles a shovel. You'll get holes in the lawn anyway.

Don't ever bother cleaning your shed. All you're doing is putting everything that you don't want touched in a number of clearly defined places that ensures they'll be transported elsewhere before you next want to use them. And after all, what fun would it be trying to do some work around the house if you didn't get to spend the first hour looking for that elusive screwdriver that you know wass right where it was supposed to be for the last 6 weekends. The weekends that you didn't need a screwdriver.

If you have a little girl, you get to build a cubby house, then paint it, decorate it set it up with lights and tables and chairs and teapots. For boys, you get to build a cubby house, refix wall boards that have been hammered, kicked and otherwise removed because a slippery dip and a door with ladder aren't enough exits (even though you're five foot in the air) every three weeks. The blackboard will be useless when you find the kids up there with a tin of paint that was liberated from the garage. The old sink, telephone, chairs and other items that have been put in the cubby house for the pleasure of aforementioned boys are of course first checked for their ability to bounce when propelled from a window.

Clothes look best when removed from the irritating storage device called your wardrobe and re-distriubted in random fashion about the nearest horizontal surface (that would be the floor).

Whenever given five minutes alone you should raid every possible cupboard to check for the food that your parents have hidden from you. You know, chocolate, chips, biscuits etc (The fact that I personally still do this has no bearing what so ever)

The perfect place to consume said bounty is behind a couch. And that is of course where you hide any evidence, too.

When looking for a piece of paper to use, pull every conceivable piece out of the drawer, distribute liberally, then forget what you're doing and go play with something else.

If you suspect Dad has put new batteries in the torch, take it from the one place he knows where to look for it in an emergency, hide it and leave it on. If the batteries aren't new and are dull, then what the hell, hide it anyway.

Always blame someone else. Even if you're caught with the evidence.

If you have to, frame them.