Jikana Damaru

this little light of mine

she brings so much joy & love ♥

& Monday mornings I miss her the most

when she is near me she is always singing

humming & chatting

when she is at school I miss holding her hand

& giving her hugs

this weekend we spent away as a family

& when we are all together the light seems to shine brightest.

My little boo-boo is 6 months old...

... and he's ready to go places. He won't be content with rolling much longer; this boy wants to run! He's already trying to crawl and I don't reckon it will be too long before he's off... Dan and I are already taking bets on when he will take his first steps. Fern was 13 months exactly, but we are guessing Elliott might be a lot earlier than that!

His sister thinks he's hilarious. And vice versa. Like any healthy brother/sister relationship its full of laughter and the odd tears. Until now Fern has had the upper hand. "Loook mum, I'm up hiiiiiigh! Looook!"she trilled to me the other day; and when I looked over I witnessed her standing on top of her poor baby brother.

But he's a good sport, my boy-o. Two minutes after I removed my daughter's feet from his stomach he was gazing at her adoringly. And he can get his own back. When she least expects it, he grabs ahold of Fern's hair, and pulls. Hard. She screams like blue-murder and I pretend to be sympathetic, but actually I'm secretly giving Elliott straps for learning to stand up for himself.

And he loves his mummy. We're besties, Elli and I. He's always always got a huge smile for me and despite the fact that he is almost already too strong for me to hold onto, we have so much fun together. Have I mentioned how much I love my son?

This month, we need to learn to eat food. We have it a little bit confused and like to shove our thumb... or indeed our entire hand... into our mouth as soon as the spoon hits it. Most of the food ends up all over him. Or the surface he is eating on. Or me. But we'll get there, I'm sure!

Here he is. 6 months. Wow.

There's a frog in my pants

Last weekend I was feeling too lazy to walk up the flight of stairs to my bedroom (this happens quite regularly) so I ducked out to the clothesline to grab a fresh pair of knickers. I collected them, brought them inside, started to put them on and... out jumped a real-live frog. Ta da!

Now, I take great pride in telling people that I'm 'from the country'. It's my little differentiator amongst my city-posh friends and city-suited colleagues. I like to think it gives me a wholesome, scrubbed-faced demeanor when I'm going about my ordinary grey city life. A touch of pink about the cheeks. Me? Oh, I'm a country girl.

The truth is that while I did indeed grow up in a large country town, we lived on the decidedly un-rural main street. There was a horse over the back fence once upon a time and we found a dead chicken in our yard one year, but that was about it for us and country living. Gran and Pops still live in the same house I grew up in and the Tsunamis even refer to our visits as 'going to see Gran and Pops in the city'. So, no, not really a country girl at all.

So the frog in the pants thing was more of a problem than you might think.

It just did the one jump. More of a startled leap, really, as if he was saying 'sure, take me off the clothesline, drag me inside the house, but I am not going anywhere near that bottom'.

After the jump, he sat on the floor, looking contentedly around. A little croak saying: New digs; roomier. I've got a roof over my head, there's an ensuite. I kinda like it.

I wasn't so sure. It's one thing to have a house in the bush (in the city), quite another to share it with bonefide country-type wildlife. LOML was called for and the frog was smartly despatched out back. What on earth was he doing in a backyard that didn't have a pond? The creek is easily about 100 metres from the house, down a cliff, around a little bend, leave a trail of breadcrumbs. Oh gosh... Did somebody's prince take a wrong turn?

I'm so glad he made the detour. Unlike, say, the time a massive huntsman got caught in my hair (shudder) or the time a snake slithered its way across my verandah (eek), a frog is really quite manageable for a 'country girl' like me. I'm just glad he leaped to safety before the knickers went on!

Did you grow up the the country or the city? Do you remain true to your roots?

And have you ever had a frog in your knickers?

[Image by Darkrose42]

lOVE it

lovebirds print available here

Sweetheart Felt Hair Accessory

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Insiprational Pins - Gorgeous Laundry Rooms

Today in my series of posts "Inspirational Pins", I bring you gorgeous laundry rooms with pops of colour inspired by my Laundry Room Ideas inspirational board.

Have a sweet day!

My Sweet Prints

I have a thing for lovely prints and wonderful words on my walls so I was very excited when I met the lovely Janette from My Sweet Prints.

I have followed Janette's work for a while now and late last year was lucky enough to meet her at a bloggers meet up and then again earlier this year when a few of us met at the park with our kids.

Janette is a very talented graphic designer who started up My Sweet Prints after the birth of her gorgeous son William. All of her work can be customized and they would make the most wonderful gift.

Here is a look at some of her lovely designs.

You can fine Janette via her website here or her blog here - with so many lovely prints it is hard to decide on just one.

Cappers Kazoo will not brush her hair

Do you know Ella Kazoo? She of the untamed tresses and testing 'tude? Well, that's my Cappers right there. Red hair and everything.

The only way I can get the dreaded School Hair done is to give her the choice of either the brush or the scissors. Her main ambition in life is to grow her hair down to her feet (?) so she chooses the brush every time. And then ouches and yelps and moans and squeals her way through the School Hairdo until it's done. Honestly, child, can't you just suck it up and get the job done stoically?

With The Badoo's hair even curlier and more unkempt, I see years and years and years of hair wrangling ahead of me and I just sigh. It feels like torture for both me and the child, yet... I kinda like her beautiful, thick long hair, even when it's unruly and Kazoo-like. I can't bring myself to choose the scissors either.

And so we endure.

Do you hair wrangle? Does it drive you bonkers too?