19th April 2010 (Monday)

Instantly forgot everything I was going to say on the instant of opening up this document to type.
However, off hand – it’s FINALLY the last day of the holidays, and FINALLY the Littles seems both better and willing to eat reasonably. Everyone is very happy. I told her to eat no breakfast this morning, so by the time lunch came round she was pretty hungry and took no longer than us in finishing the sandwich. Wasn’t too bad for the evening meal either. Today the Mr worked from home so we could have the car and go shopping for the winter school uniform…. Mind you, to be honest I’m pretty undecided about whether to send her to school in it tomorrow as it’ll be jolly hot for her. I think I’ll just act British and send her in the summer one, if we get told off we’ll comply but frankly I can’t imagine the whole lot of them are going to turn up in the hot stuff – it must be over 25 degrees outside still and it’s nearly 8 p.m.. Anyway, as with the summer one, she was immensely pleased with how it looked and was quite hugging me uncontrollably for joy, much to the detriment of the trying-on efforts.

Well we spent the morning doing that and looking for other bits and pieces – hence the relief for the Littles when we came home at nearly 1 p.m. and she hadn’t had more than a glass of orange juice all day – tucked in nicely. I think it’s worth making her hungry as it speeds up the pace she ‘expects’ to eat at, and in all the amount ingested is probably equal in total but it throws a much more desirable light on comestibles in general. The ‘lucky to get’ syndrome. Increases perceived value. We’ll see how it goes. I think I’ll let her have a small breakfast tomorrow but definitely cut it quite short, see if it’ll push up the lunch rate at all at school.

Amusing Littles quote of the day (well one of them). We were in K mart and there being rows and rows of (even by my standard) reasonably priced bras, I was looking for some strapless ones (hadn’t been wearing a lot of the summer tops I have in the UK, and now that I’ve started to, find that they’re really not very strap-friendly at all, need more than just one black strapless in my whole armoury). Incidentally discovered that they size them differently here… not sure what it is but I’m guessing I’m at about a ’12 A’ – sounds alarming, assuming they measure in inches or something. Basically, miss out the adult section and go to the teenage section or you’re doomed. The Non got very interested in all the said undergarments and started poking at them and rubbing her face in them, and generally luxuriating in sniffing the starchy-new smell admixed slightly with rubber, as they usually are. As I chose a couple to try, she started exclaiming to anybody vaguely near who would or would not listen ‘my breasts are VERY big, I need a 10B’ ‘Oh, do you?’ ‘Yes, I need this bra RIGHT NOW – LOOK at my breasts!’ and attempts to pull up (a rather long) t-shirt to catch a view of a nipple – unfortunately inflating stomach rather than chest in the process of the effort of demonstrating need for mammary support. I explained to her later that due to the law of genetic inheritance, she was extremely unlikely at ANY point in the future to have large breasts. She didn’t seem very accepting of this information.

We had a rather garrulous guy come round today to spray for spiders and for roaches. Actually that’s why we went out at that time, so that the Littles would be out of the house until it was all dry and dusted. We’ve only seen a couple of roaches but you know, it’s enough – and the main thing was the spiders, of course. He sprayed all round the outside. Interestingly, the first thing he did when entering the house was dive into the kitchen and check out all the cupboards in the twinkling of an eye. Must obviously be the prime factor in infestations of any kind. As we have everything stashed away very firmly in screw-top jars and the like (have done ever since Texas), he seemed to find no problems there at all – however did say that the boxes in the garage were a hazard. Which is entirely true, they’re undesirable on so many levels, really must decide what we’re keeping here and what we’re stashing and put it into storage properly. Besides, it’s totally unsecured – we leave that door open all the time to hang the washing out and there’s absolutely nothing to stop anyone helping themselves. Mind you, with most of the stuff there I doubt they’d want to but you know. Anyway, he was telling a most unsavoury tale about how he got bitten by a spider last week (though he didn’t see it) while on the job. Had been hired to spray the ground for funnel-webs (the top-dangerous ones here, way above anything else, they really can kill you reasonably quickly), and as he put it as he was spraying the ground ‘everything was coming up out of it, spiders, worms, the lot’ (accompanied by gruesomely evocative hand-movements). Then as he was going back to the house something crawled up his leg, bit him, and disappeared. Said he’d finished up the job, then went off to hospital and stayed in overnight on a drip, and was well enough again in ‘a couple of days’. Ah the joys of being a pest control guy in Australia. Says he reckons it must have been the likes of a mouse spider. They’re pretty nasty-looking critters.

Oh well, guess that’s about enough. Lots of love to all of you, V xxx