Toast

The girls usually bite big chunks out of the middle of their morning toast rectangles, turning them into some kind of amorphous animals that squeak at each other over the breakfast table.

It's well established that Peanut is the mother while Bug is the baby. I would like to say their conversations are complex and deep, but normally they consist of high pitched "Mummy, mummy!" and "Baby, baby!" Ad infinitum.

But this morning Peanut, being hungry and with big plans for drawing a giraffe right after breakfast, scoffed her toast.

When the squeaky bread child came calling across the table, she was very blunt: " Sorry, but your mother has been eaten. Try again tomorrow."

The toast baby did not seem too perturbed.

Mrs Accident: raising resilient* children since 2008....

*read "shockingly callous"

Sweeping it under the carpet

I have a confession. It's sordid.

Oh, alright, it's not sordid. Not even a little bit, in fact.

Actually, I don't know why I started like that, let me try again:

I bought a carpet sweeper.

(Now I know why I started like that. You've all just rolled your eyes and scrolled away, right? Riveting. Woohoo! Mrs Accident's found a new housewifery tool! Call the Associated Press! Man the phones! We're onto a winner!)

My carpet sweeper is a bold blue, like the colour of a banana in a surrealist painting.

It has gears and cogs and bristles and brushes, and I've seen them all, because the damn thing falls apart at the slightest provocation. (Or violent provocation. Bug thumped it down the stairs.) But the nice thing about simple machinery is the ability for it to be repaired, so my fine carpety friend lives to sweep another day.

And it gets a work out every day.

And here we do have a sordid confession. My floors used to be shocking. I was embarrassed to be called the Accidental Housewife, because anyone who came to my house would have taken one horrified, shaking glance at my leprosy withered floors and assumed that any housewife that may have once inhabited the home had indeed met with a nasty, career ending accident.

But no more!

I hated pulling around our heavy old vacuume. I felt like I was enduring some kind of Ancient Grecian punishment. The thing was effective, but the outcome was barely worth the effort involved. It was not something to be done daily, but with two small kids and two dogs, it certainly should have been!

Enter carpet sweeper, stage left, (and exit, and enter, and exit... it usually takes a few passes... ok...wait... got it!)

It's light and quick enough that I can do a zip around every day, keeping the floors looking nice and holding off the vacuuming for absolutely ages. Yonks. Eons! (I recently went three weeks without vacuuming once. It was heaven. And probably terribly unhygienic. Please don't tell Martha Stewart!)

It's also good for that heartbreaking dilemma when you just finished vacuuming, the floors are pristine, then the toddler wakes up and grinds her post-nap corn cracker into the carpet. Instead of throwing the toddler, carpet and cracker out the window, you can simply grab ol' sweepy and divert years of pesky police involvement!  Mrs Accident, saving you from yourself since 2013. Your welcome.

So embrace your inner 1950s housewife, and get in early on my newly proclaimed carpet sweeper fad!

(Or, you know, not. I don't want to boss you around or anything. It's entirely up to you. I'm just saying they're good, that's all.)

Peanut, IV

To my darling Peanut,

tomorrow is your fourth birthday party.

You're beside yourself with excitement. You spent the last hour before your nap running up and down the stairs, launching from the banisters the parachute men your Daddy bought you, and squealing "Whoo! Best Day Ever!"

We're having a pony party for you tomorrow. There's horses on your cake, and even though we couldn't find you a horse piñata you're still pretty damn excited about the stegosaurus one instead. And (shhh!) we're taking you to the stables for a surprise pony ride tomorrow morning too. I cannot wait to see your face.

 If anyone asks you what you like, you take a deep breath and tell them "pink and purple and princesses and ponies and sparkles and unicorns!"

But that's not why I'm writing to you today.

 Today I want to tell you, not what you like, but what you are like. A snap shot of you at three and 364 days.

Where to begin? You're brave. Incredibly so. When you needed injections, you knew it was going to hurt. You were worried. And it did hurt, I could tell. But you held my hand, took a deep breath, and didn't cry at all. The nurse was astounded, but I wasn't surprised. You're the kid who gets straight back on her scooter after a bad crash, the one who falls off the bed head four times in a row because you are absolutely certain you can master climbing over the end rail, and won't quit until you've done it, damn the pain! (Did I mention you were quite tenacious?)

You're a natural performer and you love to sing and dance for your family. However, I mostly think you enjoy do it by and for yourself. I often catch you around a corner somewhere, eyes shut, swaying and singing along to a tune only you can hear. (Thankfully, although I can't hear the music, I can hear your lyrics, and they are pure comedy gold. My personal favourite thus far was an epic love song to your dolly with the golden hair. You would give any tragic ballardist a run for their money.)

You adore your baby sister. You make her bed every day, even though I've asked you not to regularly - it's her job! But you persist, because you have an incredible service streak that runs right through you. Your the kid who does the dishes without me asking. You're the girl who runs to find my shoes, because you've overheard that I'm heading outside and deduct I might need them. You ask to help with every household chore, and can dust and hang laundry and clean a bathroom and sweep perfectly, just because you like to be of assistance.

You like wearing dresses, and painting, snuggling the dogs. You like scooting and drawing and playing school. You think cake is an icing delivery system. You hate pizza, but will devour a calzone in a flash. You'll eat the cherry tomatoes, but won't touch the big ones. You like milk, the more chocolatey the better. You only have bananas in a smoothie. You're convinced you're the fastest runner in the world and get cross when anyone beats you.

You're my first born, the apple of my eye, the skin to my banana, the crust of my pie.

I love you, baby girl. Happy birthday!

Kindergarten at home: Learning about Japan

So we just finished our first week of homeschool. The whole, first, four day week! Epic. We're such professionals now. Ask me anything, I'll give you the homeschool answer.

But seriously, it went quite well.

Our doll's house is copping some serious weather.

I was kind of planning on doing a weather-focused week (it was SO wet on Tuesday!) but it quickly morphed into a Japanese week when we found some interesting books at the library. This tied in nicely with our work on teaching Peanut that she comes from Australia - no point teaching her about her country and culture, if she doesn't know that there are others that are different!

Fish kites. 97% glue, 2% dog hair.

So we read "The Magic Paintbush" by Julia Donaldson (of Gruffalo fame), and "Yoko's Paper Cranes" by Rosemary Wells. We made paper fish kites, and I let her in my cupboard to throw together a poor recreation of a kimono (note the socks and sandals... and that's my dressing gown!)

Kind of wished I'd insisted on her brushing her hair...

We painted our names in hiragana, and made some cherry blossom fans. We ate sushi and wasabi peas (Peanut made a wicked face, then went back for another. And another...)

We read about Japanese gardens, then recreated one in a dodgy white plastic tray with a couple of white pebbles, an old Buddha statue we found caked in dirt when we were planting our veggie garden, and a stick for the pattern rake.

And in between all that, we did some addition practice (first with a workbook, then some dice, then marbles, and finally adding the spots on dominoes.... But not all on the one day, of course!) and started in again on letters and reading. It took a while for Peanut's brain to find it's groove. I could see her searching the back of her mind for the letters she knew she knew, and getting frustrated with herself for taking so long. She wiggled in her seat, sighed, threw her head on the desk, and then suddenly, miraculously, read the whole of her "Gus the Duck" book by herself. It was a terrific lesson to her in pushing beyond what she finds easy and mentally comfortable, and having a spectacular success. I'm so glad she kept trying!

Her handwriting tells me we may have a future doctor in our midst.

She has also spent the week trying to convince me to let her have another (oh, just one more please Mama!) of her alphabet cookies. I rolled the dough into long snakes, while she made them into letters. Usually back to front ones, but cookie dough is easy to flip! I was planning to have some left over to freeze for when real school starts next week, but I think that's a pipe dream. They are pretty damn tasty for learning aides.

So, all around, it was a terrific success. She was excited to learn new things, had a rip roaring time, and got to eat cookies. Win!

I Love Lucy

We are a Two Dog House. 

However, with the necessary removal of our previous child-chasing, Archie-terrorising, Great Aunt-growling Panzer, we were missing a dog. 

Besides, Archie is nothing but a glorified canine throw pillow anyway.

And so.... 

(drumroll please, I promise she's worth it) 

....here's Lucy! 

Half kelpie, half schipperke, all love.

I would show you a picture of her sitting up, but I'm not sure she's capable of it when we're home. Every time we look in her direction she collapses in a heap in the hope of a belly rub. She even sleeps on her back, legs akimbo, neck stretched long. But she's a streak at the park!

She's amazing with the kids. She's calm, she doesn't jump up, she doesn't steal their food, and she doesn't mind if they take her ball to throw it. And if Bug does throw the ball her very hardest, all of two metres? Lucy will leap on it enthusiastically, gallantly playing the game as best she can, with exact the same energy and enthusiasm she expends on a proper throw by Mr Accident. 

Here's Bug, using Lucy as a pillow. Both of them are extremely happy with the situation. 

Archie has settled down immensely. You can almost hear the relief in the tone of his ongoing snores. He has a friend for the park, company for the morning garden romp, and someone to spoon with at night. Lucy has even joined him in his stair sleeps, stacked like a doggy bunk bed. 

Here they are. Lucy's actually dozing here, her nose though the balustrade, halfway between where I was sitting upstairs, and Mr A downstairs. (Then I moved of course, causing a complicated rearrangement of sleeping locations. Very thoughtless on my behalf, I know.)

Lucy has started to heal my heart. I didn't want her. I was still in shock from Panzer. I didn't feel I could welcome another dog so soon. But Mr A found her from a rescue group, and she was so perfect we couldn't pass her up. She needed us. We needed her too. And she's been a balm for everyone.

So that's how we'll leave this post today. Lucy exhausted from her run at the beach and flat on her back at our feet, and Archie snuggled in the beanbag and snoring contentedly.

We are a two dog family.

Happy Ham Day!

There is a horrendous void in the celebratory calendar between New Years Eve and Australia Day.

A void that can only be filled with ham.

Enter the patented Accidental Household's Happy Ham Day.

Well... alright, so its not actually patented. Yet. Therefore, if you enjoy ham as much as we do, probably best to jump on the bandwagon now. To assist you, here are the Accidental Happy Ham Day social conventions:

1) there must be a hot, freshly roasted, generously basted ham.

2) only invite people whom the whole host family likes. No charity invitations are to be issued to annoying friends, no relatives are to be invited solely out of a sense of duty. If you wouldn't invite them to the pub, then Happy Ham Day is not the time for a catchup.

3) it's BYO sides. If guests want a sandwich, then they had better bring bread. And if they want roast veggies, then owning a car oven is advisable. (Do they exist? Perhaps they should.) The hosts of Happy Ham Day are obliged to provide ham, and ham only. Anything else that may be available is a delightful bonus.

And so, adhering to those fine rules, yesterday we warmed our new CityCottage with a delicious, clove studded ham, litres of cider and a boat load of friends. (A boat slightly larger than a dinghy, but smaller than a ferry. I suspect about a yacht's-worth.)

Oh, the ham! I'm quite sure the pig, had he known how amazing he was going to taste and how he would be fussed over and complimented, would have considered willingly donating his left leg to the cause. The basting made it glow, and the salads and breads our friends brought as sides complemented it perfectly. (For the record, I did do up some roast veggies. They were quite well received, but nothing compared to Mr Ham.)

We sat down to lunch at the table, and didn't move until far, far later that evening. We ate all the ham, the sides, and then ordered in pizza. We drank all the cider, the wine, then sent an envoy to the bottle shop. Four rowdy dogs played under the table, and four rowdy kids ran up and down the hall, all insisting they were not tired, and all sleeping the minute their heads hit their beds.

I sat at the laden table and finally spent time, after far too many years, with some of the people I love most in the world. The best friends of my youth burst from high school and scattered to the four winds - different careers, different states, different continents. But now, twelve years later, we all meandered back home at same time, and congregated around my dining table. Its a strange, wonderful old world.

I just wish I had some ham left over to eat in it!

Doomsday? I'm ready!

I have been watching far too much of "Doomsday Preppers".

I've been inculcated.

I bought a water filter.

I bought two way radios.

I bought solar and hand cranked torches.

I have dehydrated potatoes and peas.

I am ready for the zombie apocalypse.

Are you?

In which I stop eating cookies, and miss them terribly

I am firmly of the belief that the only thing more socially offensive than bragging about one's own weight loss is having a fit of the evangelicals and trying to talk everybody else into a fitness binge too.

So I won't be telling you that I finally returned to my pre-both-babies weight..... ahem. (Feel free insert some applause here. Not that I need it, I'm proud enough as it is.)

And I won't be telling you how I did it. Unless you keep reading, in which case I hold no responsibility for your impending boredom or a sudden urge to have a set of rock hard abdominals. (Your choice who the abs belong to. I prefer Mr A's myself.)

It all started when I saw my friend Leah, looking smoking hot and strong just a year after having her twins. Twins! And she was so healthy and vital and powerful! I wanted what she was having, so I did what she did. I ran home and signed up for the Michelle Bridges 12 Week Body Transformation. You've probably seen it around the place, heinously over-advertised in the odd one or two million places.

If you're good at following instructions, 12WBT is simple. Just chug along following the recipes and doing the exercises she gives you for every single day, and bam! Success. Well, with a few speed bumps. There was a random bean and legume week in there that was a struggle (for Mr A, too. But for different and more gaseously scented reasons.)

Of course, it probably would have been wiser of me to do the program at an easier time. Having a move and Christmas in the middle was a major derailment of the diet train. And the exercise train. It was a pretty big crash, actually. And there was ham involved. Succulent, delicious ham.

But by New Years all the ham was eaten and the brandy sauce had lost its lustre, so I decided to be delightfully conventional and start again. (Luckily, more recipes had been unlocked on the site by then too - no more beans for me!) I mixed in some Zumba and kettle bells too, because obviously fitness fads are only popular because they are extremely effective. (You're all just lucky this isn't an in depth review of Crossfit. I'm holding out on poor Mr A, he's a boots and all convert.)

Despite the enthusiastic exercising, I suspect my success was mostly due to counting calories. (Of course, there's an app for that. And in this case, it's free: MyFitnessPal) Now I have the hang of it, I'm actually shocked at how much I used to eat. My two daily, deliciously large, double-choc, post dinner cookies were the equivalent of what should have been half my day's food. Never mind the afternoon cake...and the huge meal servings...Mien gott! No wonder I couldn't shift the last few kilos! It's a wonder I wasn't the size of a house.

And so here we are. Goal weight: achieved. Next stop? Quite possibly super-fit. Or a relapse into cookie-queen. We shall see!

Let them eat cake

We live in wedding-shop-central. There are about eleventy seven wedding stores within a minutes walk from our CityCottage. As a result, Peanut is currently mildly obsessed with weddings. Loves them. Plans her own. Intends to have a bright red floucy dress. Focuses on the provision of ample cake. (Of course, since she's three she doesn't actually like cake. Being an icing aficionado she sees cake as nothing but the slightly annoying but generally necessary delivery system.)  But this wedding has one caveat.

The bride, in her mind, will be marrying another bride. Why? Because she loves her best friend Victoria fourth most in the world, and of the higher ranking peeps, Mummy and Daddy are already taken and apparently marrying your own sister is taboo. So it will be a girl on girl wedding.

Besides, she considers boys of her age to be stinky, overly violent and insufficiently communicative. She wants someone who will build a house with her, not run in screaming, fly kick it over, then soil their own pants. I can see her point. (There were two... interesting boys at her last preschool, both with behavioural difficulties. It's unfortunate she's made a assessment of an entire gender based on these two squeaky wheels, as she knows some lovely, gentle, emotionally intelligent lads too. I'm trying to talk her round.)

But back to our well planned numptials.

Luckily, Peanut doesn't yet know that currently a lady marrying another lady is not recognised under our backwards, discriminatory laws. And that's completely my fault because because every time she mentions choosing a partner, I remind her that one day she will meet a nice boy or girl who she really loves, and if they love her back, then they might be the person she chooses to marry. Or chooses not marry. Because we are not the slightest bit religious, and it is her life, and her promise, so it follows it should be her choice.

She does know, however, that if I don't get grandkids, then I will be exceptionally cross. For some things, the things that really matter, it's worth taking a stand.

Ignoring Stuff. A city skill.

I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of city living.

It was overwhelming at first. I felt like Country Mouse. There was far too much noise, far too much happening at once. Too many people, too many cars, too many routes to learn and new supermarkets to navigate. (Sounds petty? Not at all - hustling two small children back six aisles in a crowded supermarket, fighting against the flow like a determined salmon in spawning season, is no easy feat. But I really did need more Parmesan.)

City dwellers seem to have refined the ability to Ignore Stuff. They know what is relevant, and what is superfluous, and can move about the streets noticing only what they need. But me? I was ridiculously overstimulated. My head was on a swivel, watching everything from the lowliest cockroach to a speeding bus. I reached the end of each day emotionally exhausted.

And I am used to seeing people I know on every corner. I had become a little too used to living in an idyllic neighbourhood cross between the Desperate Housewives and Stepford, but thankfully with less crime and fewer creepy robots. Here? I know nobody. As I walk the streets, I automatically scan the faces approaching for anyone I recognise. Anyone. At all. But I know no one. And when I reflexively smile at people, nobody smiles back.

I am working on my Ignore Stuff reflex. It's developing, I know, because now I can come back from a run calm, not frantic. I think of the ancient gums that line the local streets, the wrought iron work on the terrace houses, and that nice little dog at number nine. I am wilfully blind of the stinky old man I couldn't manoeuvre past, the piles of rubbish, and the busy roads I run down. And I've stopped looking for friends on every corner. But I can't stop the smiling. I won't! That's my little ray of sunshine, and I'm bringing it to the big smoke.

Casualties

We suffered some casualties during the Great Accidental Move.

Those of you who read along regularly know that before our big shift we had two dogs of varying loveliness. (Archibald the delightful eternal puppy, and Panzer the hell-hound. You can read about Panzer's adventures here and here.) We also had two extremely large goldfish. I'm pretty sure that (if  he had entertained the thought) the enormous gold fish could have climbed clean out of the tank and strolled off, evolving, down the road.

However, we are now short two fish and a dog.

The fish first - we tried to move them, transferring them to an occasionally lidded bucket, stopping their food and generally following all and any directions we could find online about moving fish. It was a disaster. The black fish didn't last the night, and goldy wasn't far behind, splashing off our mortal coil soon after.

Of course I hoped that was the end of the losses, but the biggest was yet to come.

We're down a dog. Panzer to be precise.

She's not dead, just... relocated.

She was always a little different. As a puppy, she was abnormally psychotic, chewing and bouncing her bulk around with the best (or worst) of them. I was exceptionally glad when she started to outgrow her energetic ways, but unfortunately she then developed what can only be described as "violent tendencies". She was wonderful with the immediate family, but would chase and growl and bite at anybody and anything that came near us. Including my great aunt, an unsuspecting German backpacker, all children, and any dog smaller than her. She had issues.

We tried. Oh, how we tried. Endlessly. Exhaustingly. Expensively. Including professional training in home, then three weeks of residential training with one of the state's best trainers. He could fix police dogs, rescue dogs and other problem animals, but he was lost with our Pan.

It was becoming increasingly obvious we couldn't keep her. The new house had no spare backyard to hide her when little friends came over, and the dog park was full of small fluffy Pan-bait. We were 24 hours from a date with the RSPCA, and since she clearly going to fail the initial re-home-able personality test, she was 24 hours away from a date with death. We were beside ourselves. I even tried calling friends who might take her in the Northern Territory, hoping her particular brand of crazy would be more socially acceptable in the land of pig dogs and anarchy. No luck.

Finally, as a last ditch effort, I called the breeder. And even though Pan was desexed, that wonderful lady agreed to have her back. Panzer was heading off to a family that would love her as much as we did, full of her-kind-of-dog, back to her mum and dad, brothers and sisters, with plenty of space to run and play. It was an enormous relief. 

And now she's gone, our house is so much calmer. The children are confident running down the hall or playing on the floor without being blindsided by a boisterous, heavy playmate. Our visitors can move around the house as they please, without being trapped on the couch at Panzer's discretion. And we can take Archibald to the park without fear of bodily injury and a lawsuit.

In fact, Archie's life has improved considerably. Panzer dominated him terribly, to the point he barely ventured from his corner and knew if he asked for a pat, it would come with a side of dogfight. It's taken him a week to come back out of his shell, but he's clearly far more confident and happy. We all are.

But I do miss Pan.

The Move - Chapter One (or How I Fell I Love With A Lady)

Well there I go again, announcing sweeping changes and then disappearing for weeks.

Why? Total lack of the interwebz!

Well, not entirely total. I did manage to wrangle myself my very own smart phone (finally!) and use ridiculously large chunks of bandwidth to feed my Facebook addiction. But any plans I had for blogging were shot down by the ruthless combination of teeny tiny keys and massive data costs. Besides, I needed all my spare bytes to navigate my way around the new city!

I had so many posts in my head, too. All mentally written, edited, and promptly forgotten. Drat!

Well, best I start at the beginning...

"How was the move?" I hear you ask, on tenterhooks for weeks waiting for our riveting removalling stories, keenly anticipating my return.

It went remarkably smoothly. Technically it was the quickest move we've ever pulled off, because this is the first time every box we own has been unpacked. All our last moves we never actually finished, dragging a box or two with us over several years per house.  We had to unpack every box this year, because this house is tiny. REALLY tiny. (And currently being made even more so by the additional of a hulking, man sized teenage boy, but that's another story.)

By the end of the move, we had ditched two skip bins and a medium sized truck's worth of junk, never mind all the still semi-useful stuff we managed to give away. It was a real wake up call on assessing the things we needed and really wanted. The downsize has been very cathartic, and do you know? I haven't missed a single thing I tossed. Not one.

We've found all sorts of ingenious places to stash the things we kept, too. All hale Ikea and underbed "storage". (Storage is a loose term I'm using here for the absolute cram-fest that is under every bed. I've put my childhood Tetris skills to excellent use. I'm pretty sure Peanut's bed legs are no longer actually touching the floor, but instead she's perched, floating on a morass of stashed Christmas decorations and excess crib parts.)

I'm in love with the house. Madly. She's a grand old dame with character. There are certain things I've always wanted in a house, and she ticks my boxes. Even the boxes I didn't know I had. Picket fence - tick! Hydrangea - tick! Wooden staircase - tick! Wooden floors.... shaker kitchen... dog door... formal dining... decorative arches... snug upstairs sleeping quarters that feel like we're tucked into the frankensteinian love child of a treehouse and a boat - tick!

And she's a house with history, who has obviously been loved for a long time. She's not just been cobbled together as strictly a rental concern. Everything from the hose fitted shower heads to the handy washing machine pipe hole in the laundry has been thoughtfully done. My friend Joel put it best: this is a house that was built (and recently delightfully practically renovated) to actually be lived in.

So, that's the end of The Move, Chapter One. I suspect the next chapter will cover the trials and tribulations of Moving With The Accidental Pets (we're down three, mien gott) or perhaps Ten Easy Lessons On How To Stow A Full Sized Christmas Tree In A Shoe Box. Who knows? See you tomorrow!