FUD: Fear/Uncertainty/Doubt

Snippets of conversation. November 25, 2006

After I emerged from a lengthy gameplaying session on the PC:

Mike: How’d your game go? Did you win?

Me: I lost, ran out of money. Just like real life!

While watching The Day After Tomorrow:

Mike: If we’re ever hit by global disaster and Ethan is stranded in another city, it’s your turn to go get him.

Me: My turn? You haven’t even had your turn yet!

Mike: But I made dinner.

Yesterday morning in bed, after Ethan came in for a morning snuggle:

Me: Hey Ethan, what kind of dog can you eat?

Ethan: A HOT dog! Hahahaha!

Me: Hey Ethan, what’s brown and sticky?

Ethan: Dad!

Me: [hysterical laughter all day]

A snippet. November 23, 2006

Ethan: Babies don’t live in volcanoes; they wouldn’t have a mum!

Me: Wha?

Ethan [patiently]: Babies don’t live in volcanoes; they wouldn’t have a mum!

Me: Um. That’s true. Uh, who told you babies live in volcanoes?

Ethan: No one. Can I have a snack? I’m always hungry.

12 Reasons to Eat Pie November 20, 2006

I’m watching C4, the local music channel, and they do a thing called 12 Reasons, like “12 Reasons to humpbe Robbie Williams”. Here’s my 12 Reasons. Feel free to add to them in comments.

1. Do you like pie? I like pie.

2. Pies can conceal all kinds of good things, like cinnamon-apple and strippers.

3. Pies can be sweet or savoury. Some pies can be both at once, like bacon and egg and coconut cream. Yum!

4. Pies are good to accompany ice cream. Mince pies, not so much.

5. Pies fill that last little gap in your stomach when you really really need to fill it. The little potato-top ones are great for that.

6. Every time you eat a pie, an angel gets its wings.

7. You can’t spell pie without pi. Think about it.

8. If you look at Mike and say, “What are 12 reasons to eat pie?” he makes this really cool face.

9. Pie is irrational.

10. Weebl and Bob like pie.

11. I bet Trogdor also likes pie.

12. Pie will always be there for you. Always. Until you eat it. And then for about twelve hours after. Maybe even longer if you don’t flush.

Metapost. September 17, 2006

Due to the excessive and horribly depressing number of spam comments on this blog of late, I’ve turned on the “Users must be logged in to comment” option. I know it’s a pain in the butt, but since only, like, two people read this it’ll hardly impact the world at large.

My best suggestion is to tick the little “Remember me” box when you first log in, so you’re automagically logged in whenever you deign to comment. I promise I won’t abuse your delicate email inboxes.

What was I saying about gender? I forget. August 25, 2006

Me: Thanks for letting me wipe your nose, Amy. Good girl!

Ethan: I’m a good girl too!

Me: Yeah, you’re a good girl.

Ethan: I’m not a girl, I’m a boy. I’m a girl, I’m a boy, I’m a girl, I’m a boy, lalalalala!

Okay, but if he wants to wear a frilly pink dress to kindy, I may have to put my foot down.

It’s a Dance Revolution! August 13, 2006

Amy has learned to dance: she stands up and shakes her teeny-weeny booty to such classics as Row, Row, Row Your Boat, Patty-Cake, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Ring-A-Ring-A Rosie. With the last song, when you get to “A-tishoo, she starts bobbing up and down, in preparation for the falling down, when she laughs uncontrollably. It’s a damn good thing she’s in nappies, because I think she probably wets herself with the hilarity.

Nothing new under the sun August 2, 2006

So here’s what’s happened in the last week, in summary:

1. I turned 30!

2. Amy didn’t walk! Still!

3. Amy learned to say Up, Daddy, Sock, Shoe, Hey!, Hello, and Oops.

4. Ethan got banned from watching TV. Aw, his first grounding!
5. Amy tried to pop out four teeth at once, and this is ongoing. Please, put us out of our misery. Me first!

Excuse me while I play catch-up. I haven’t been updating because things have been busy and the weather has been good. Who expects two days of warm sunshine in midwinter? Not me!

By Ethan: a short story. July 20, 2006

The phone went walking down to the river, and had a drink. And he just went down home. He bumped his head on his chair and gave his mum a kiss. Then he walked down to the park and he watched a movie called The Incredibles. He saw a ‘F’ and then he said his name, which was “The phone went walking”.

Me: That’s his name?

Ethan: Uh-huh. And he just got scared because he found his kite and flew up with it. He heard a bump, and it bumped on his head. He found his mummy and he climbed up a tree. Up in the tree he found a nest and he lived in it. But the bird said, “Oh no! Who’s in my nest! A phone? With legs and eyes and a mouth? Yes!”

Me: Then what happened in the nest?

Ethan: The phone broke. Into little pieces and the bird ate them all up.

Me: Is that it?

Ethan: Yeah.

ET FIN

When the cat’s away… July 19, 2006

Mike is away in Auckland until late tomorrow, and so far all I have done is prove my dunce status in front of two of my neighbours in a sad case of “Wednesday is for Losers”. In a two hour space this morning:

* D brought a shirt to sew a button back onto, but forgot to bring the button. She told us that she’d checked for the spare button that’s usually sewn inside a shirt when you buy it, but it didn’t have one. Later she found it. Where it should have been.

* M brought some photos to put in her album and searched through her stuff a bazillion times, unable to find the exact piece of paper she’d meant to bring. Not surprisingly it was where she’d already looked.

* I slopped my cup of coffee all over myself.

* D got picked out in front of everyone — about sixty people — for having her nametag on upside down. This was more of a WTF? moment, though.

* I was separating some thread for a cross-stitch and had the end of the thread between my teeth to keep it taut, when my hair got tangled in the thread and I almost had to cut it out.

…

In other news, Amy has cut two more teeth! One lower first molar on each side, within two days of each other. The top two are currently very hard bulges under her gums.

Ethan had a friend to visit this morning, and the two kids were playing various pretend games. I heard them fighting at one point and went to see what was up: Ethan wanted to be four so he could go to morning kindy, and his friend H wanted him to be five so he could go to school.

D and I were discussing the impact of parental alcohol consumption on our children — D’s husband had gone to the supermarket with their three-year-old daughter who pulled him into the wine aisle and yelled, “We have to buy wine for Mummy!” while her four-year-old son wanted D to invite her friends around “for drinks” so he could have his friends around and they could choose between chips and popcorn. The other night I had a glass of wine while I was cooking dinner and Ethan asked, “Is that wine?” I said yes and he said, “That’s what grownups drink, isn’t it? That’s what you drink when you’re at D’s house.”
Honest, it was only that one time…

As your attorney I advise you to get high. June 8, 2006

I have a horrible nasty dose of the flu, and spent most of last night feverish and telling Mike he was too cold. Today I’ve blobbed out on the couch.

Mike: What kind of painkillers do you want? We’ve got ibuprofen and paracetamol.

Me: Whatever’s fastest. How about morphine? Do we have any heroin?

Mike: We have codeine.

Me: That’s probably a bit extreme, I suppose.