But Suddenly …

Later …

Happy Thanksgiving!

(not house because my parents are still awake and I didn’t want to answer the awkward “Jane why are you carting around the most unusual stuff we own,” question.)

A yellow construction hat for when I dressed up as Mrs.Bob the Builder for a theater awards ceremony. (None of my peers recognized me but someone little brother did chase me around singing the theme song from the show)

A sign that says Angel (not legna). For the record I think the sign recognized that I do not deserve the title of white wing wearer and punished me by shooting some of the blue feathers straight up my nose. It was not pleasant.

A small collection of stone animals with creepy smiles on their faces.

A small gold statue of Buddha that quite possibly randomly appeared on my bookshelf on day. I am not sure what Buddha was trying to tell me with his random appearance, but unless he was asking for an appearance on my blog, I feel that I might have missed the point.

And a statue of Napoleon Dynamite, because my life wasn’t embarrassing enough already.

<3 Keep Blabbing

Jane

Obama Vs. Bob the Builder

Graph by: lolsmuch6125 via Graph Jam Builder

Peter Kay’s All Star Band perform for Children In Need 2009. Included in the medley are:  Can You Feel It (0:00), Don’t Stop (1:24), Jai Ho (2:14), Tubthumping (2:58), Never Forget (3:16), Hey Jude (3:36), One Day Like This/Hey Jude (3:55).

The music video features over 100 animated characters from different production companies. All characters are voiced by their current voice artists with the exception of Thomas The Tank Engine, who is voiced by orignal narrator Ringo Starr.

Peter Kay’s All Star Band perform for Children In Need 2009. Included in the medley are:  Can You Feel It (0:00), Don’t Stop (1:08), Jai Ho (2:12), Tubthumping (2:41), Never Forget (2:59), Hey Jude (3:18), One Day Like This (3:37).

The music video features over 100 animated characters from different production companies. All characters are voiced by their current voice artists with the exception of Thomas The Tank Engine, who is voiced by orignal narrator Ringo Starr.

Adriano e Sergio alla fattoria degli animali (stanza dei topi)

Andammo ad Amsterdam a incontrare 1/3 di questo weblog e fu bellissimo.

Sarà lecito il passato remoto? Era solo una settimana fa e mi sembra sia passata una vita.

Non ne parlerò perché la sto ancora maturando quest’esperienza tanto è stata intensa.

Però forse Adriano avrebbe qualcosa da dire, con uno stroopwafel in una mano e Bob the buider nell’altra (nel mondo globalizzato i bimbi dell’occidente hanno gli stessi eroi per giocare).

A large group of construction workers is working on Central Station. The arrival and departure 
hall of the 50s no longer met modern requirements, so it had to be torn down and a new modern building is to be erected. Principal ProRail realises that successful realisation of a project like this only can be achieved with the hard work of people and therefor they have photographed some of them to display their portrets on the construction site and with this honor them. I really like this idea!

Time to get busy.
Such a lot to do!
Building and fixing
’til it’s good as new.
Bob and the gang
make a really good sound.
Working all day
till the sun goes down.

Bob the builder
Can we fix it?
Bob the builder
Yes we can!

Can you fix it?
Right.
Left a bit.
Right a little.
Ok, straight down.

We can tackle any situation
Look out, here we come

Can we dig it? Yes!!!!!!
Can we build it? Yes!!!!!!!
Can we fix it? Yes!!!!!!

Bob the builder
Can we fix it?
Bob the builder
YES WE CAN!!!

Bob the Builder: On-Site – Roads and Bridges
2008
60 minutes

Melody is still into construction trucks because they are now building the new on and off ramps near our house. We checked out this DVD from the SLZ library. Bob and the trucks talk about building roads and bridges. There are clips of the trucks doing their jobs and then it shows the real life trucks at work “on site”. Now I will complain less about the roads taking so long to be repaired/built because I know the hard work that is put into all of the construction. Even I learned a lot from this DVD.

Other reviews of Bob the Builder: On-Site – Roads and Bridges:
Amazon
DVD Talk
BloggerNews

- Joyce

Bob The Builder Lego Building Sets At The Lowest Prices

Lofty and Dizzy Hard at Work #3597

Muck Can Do It #3596

Scoop At Bobland Bay #3595

We bought this house because of the basement.  There is an identical house around the corner, fronting on the park.  But that house has a finished attic, and no basement, and this house has a finish-able attic and a HUGE basement.  Brett and I sat on the floor of the other house’s attic, looking at the floor plans for both.  The house with the basement had a bigger guest room, more accessible for older relatives.  It had a big, sunny room for Brett’s office, with a door between that space and the other room, which would be our children’s play room.  We decided and signed the offer.  Now the house is mine, not Brett’s.  But the basement is still just a little bit his.

A couple of days after the 2008 Superbowl, when Brett dumped me suddenly, I told my now-ex-friend Tiffani that I hadn’t slept in days.  “He lays there next to me, and I just wonder—will he look at me? Reach out and touch me?  And then I feel afraid and desperate, and I just can’t close my eyes.  Maybe I’ll sleep in the guest room.”

“Don’t you go to the guest room!”  Tiffani was vehement.  “He needs to go to the basement.  He started this, he’s the one who wants space.  Don’t you go anywhere.”

So I told him to go.  And I slept, fitfully, but better than eyes wide open.  He asked me pathetically if he could come back upstairs about a week later.  “Are you coming back as my husband, or because the room is more comfortable?” I asked pointedly.  He stared at me dumbly.  “Then you can’t come back to my bed.”  And he never did.

He made a little apartment for himself down there.  He came and went after the kids’ bedtime out the French doors.  And he fucked my best friend on the sofa bed we bought for our parents to sleep on when they visited their grandchildren.

Brett lived in the basement for seven long, long months.  When he left, I stayed out of there for a few weeks.  Then, I found myself in a quandary.  Paul was being shipped out of town, with two days notice.  The very two days I had the kids.  A proper goodbye was absolutely necessary.  I had counted on Paul being in Atlanta through Election Day; disappointment and fear at having to face my new life loomed.

So, how to have a few more nights with Paul?  Obviously, the guest room.  It had no furniture, and the first night he snuck in, I ended up with rug burns that you can still faintly see on my upper back.  We were smarter the second night.  I met him on the porch in a tank top and shorts, and we shared my beer while we looked at the stars.  We eventually did end up in the guest room, with a blanket on the floor this time.

I had the baby monitor in the room—somewhat disconcerting to my young friend, but he was good humored.  Then we heard a cry.  I threw on my tank top (backwards) and ran upstairs.  Tillie was up—an extreme rarity.  Damn my luck.  I calmed her and settled her in with her binkie and blankie.  Arriving back in the basement, I found Paul wrapped in the blanket, waiting for me.

A few minutes later, having laughed off the interruption, the baby monitor crackled.

“You’re fan-TAS-tic!!” the gleeful voice of Bob the Builder sang.  “Good job!  You’re fan-TAS-tic!”

Tillie was playing Builder Bob’s workshop.  What a great background for our final liaison!  We laughed and tried to ignore it.  Then:  “Uh-OH!  Try again!”  Great, Builder Bob is calling the plays on possibly the last sex I’ll ever have.  Is this what being a single mom is all about?

Eventually, Tillie went back to sleep, silencing Builder Bob, and I got to say goodbye to Paul without the cartoon play-by-play.

The guest room is furnished again, and I’m slowly organizing the rest of the downstairs.  As Yom Kippur ended last week, Joshua and I stayed up after the kids were in bed.  We finished cleaning the kitchen, and headed to the guest room.  We talked and kissed and made love and held each other.  No Builder Bob, and no goodbye.

Brett descended to the basement as the beginning of the end.  Paul met me in the basement for the end of the beginning.  But I think Joshua belongs upstairs.

Did you know:

1. Bob the Builder’s cat is called “Filcher”?
2. I pull my pants down in public?
3. I am growing backwards, Benjamin Button style, and will eventually be younger than my daughter?

Three year old logic – you can’t beat it.

I’m currently experiencing little waves of excitement washing over me, as it was decided late last night that I’m off to Droitwich for an impromptu tattoo this afternoon.  Please don’t assume I’m one of those people who thinks “ooh, I fancy some ink…sod it, let’s get something“; I mean, seriously, it’s your skin for the rest of your life, give it some thought!  No no, I’ve already got a sleeve started, I’m heading over to have some more work done on it.  Matt is bloody fantastic; I wouldn’t let anyone else near me with a needle. 

Actually, of course there’s a chance I may go to someone else at some point, but arms, chest…anything visible; it’s Matt’s.  I may as well have a reserved sticker on my ass.

The UK’s Immigration service today confirmed that it is to investigate a number of old asylum-seeker and illegal immigrant cases which had previously gone inexplicably undetected or ignored, starting with the case of a Peruvian bear which is thought to have been cruelly held captive at a West London address.

A police artist's impression of what they believe the 'Paddington bear' to look like

Police have confirmed that a Mr. and Mrs. Brown have been detained with regard to the disappearance in 1975 of a bear at Paddington station, London, amidst rumours that it had entered the country from Peru on a lifeboat without the correct paperwork, and with only a note around its neck saying ‘Please look after this bear. Thank you.’

The Home Office refused to be drawn on media speculation that the Browns had been force-feeding the bear condiments during its captivity, although it is known that traces of marmalade were found at 32 Windsor Garden, along with what witnesses described as “an incredible amount of bear faeces.”

Detective Inspector John Simpson of Scotland Yard said: “There’s no sign of the bear at the house now. Obviously, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and this case is no different. But quite aside from the animal welfare issue here, we have to consider that there’s also a very real safety concern too. I mean, there is real life bear living in West London, which is now at large. What were these people thinking?”

A Home Office spokesperson has confirmed that the operation is part of a wider initiative to clamp down on offenders who might have been overlooked as part of administrative oversights. “As part of this initiative, we are also seeking the whereabouts of a group of asylum seekers who entered the UK in 1965 posing as firemen. They were last believed to be operating in the Trumpton area. “

The statement continued: “In addition, the service is deeply concerned about a Welsh nationalist that is believed to be helping illegal immigrants from Ireland enter the UK using his steam train Ivor. Anyone with information on the self-styled ‘Jones the Steam’ or the Trumpton case should call the UK Border Agency anonymously, or contact our helpline.”

As a result of the initiative, police have announced that they have already made one arrest, that of 34 year-old Polish immigrant Robunio Nowak, or ‘Bob’ to his friends, who had been operating a successful business as a builder using a false name and passport for over fifteen years. Police are believed to have thrown in an additional charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice, after Nowak offered to ‘fix it’ for officers if they let him go, a source has revealed.

Programme du jour : Ecole et Jack O’Lantern.

 

Je me réveille à nouveau vers 6h30, Maman  dort encore, je vais donc la réveiller. Je m’habille pendant qu’elle se douche puis nous prenons notre petit déjeuner.

Nous partons de la maison un peu avant 7h15 et je suis l’une des premières à arriver à l’école. Nous faisons un tour dans les couloirs, en attendant que la classe ouvre. Aujourd’hui pas de soucis, je rentre dans la classe sans même me soucier de savoir si Maman est encore là.

17h30, Maman vient me chercher, nous rentrons à la maison  et passons un peu de temps dans la salle d’activité à faire un "Jack O’Lantern”.

Je me régale et suis bien contente du résultat mais je ne veux pas goûter la soupe de citrouille que Maman a faite, je lui préfère un bon plat de pâtes au beurre. Je joue ensuite dans ma chambre avec mes babies et mes playmobils .

Pas de douche ce soir, c’est vendredi, Maman m’autorise à regarder quelques épisodes de "Bob the Builder" avant d’aller me coucher.

A 21h, je suis presque prête, une dernière chanson, un gros câlin et je suis endormie. Rédacteur : Aurélia ma Maman.

Toutes mes dernières photos : Cliquez ici et vidéos : Cliquez ici.

Ich erkläre Peter, dass der US-Präsident Barack Obama und Bob Baumeister – “Können wir das schaffen? Ja, wir schaffen das?” – zwei Dinge gemeinsam haben: den legendären Satz nämlich: “\”Yes we can\”. Peter findet das interessant, fragt nach Barack Obama, was er tut, was er macht und warum er so berühmt ist. Ich erkläre das alles – yes we can – so gut es eben geht. Peter sinniert, dass es lustig ist, dass sein animierter Kumpel Bob Baumeister und so ein wichtiger Mann eine Gemeinsamkeit haben und hakt nach: “Mama, hat der Barack dann auch sprechende Maschinen?” Nein vermutlich nicht, aber: Peter schau, Bob und Barack arbeiten eng zusammen.

So I think I’ve told you me and Renate were gonna go to Ikea, to get some more storage stuff for our many wonderful clothes, this we did. (If I didn’t tell you, I know for certain she did)
Towers our lovely good friend drove us in his tiny clio, and we treated him swedish meatballs as a thank you.
We got drawers and a shelf for our dvds and a tv table, we’ve also had our sky+ box installed, we’re just waiting for the phone line and the internet now and we’ll be sorted.
Anyway I thought you might like to see the result of our Ikea adventure:

Renate is playing bob the builder

My Drawers

shelves and tv table

I am quite proud of our work tbh

WE ♥ Ikea

We all know that the term “Slumber Party” is a complete misnomer because it involves precious little slumber at all. Still, it’s fair to say that nobody would ever dare to host one if they were called “Wide Awake And High On Sugar Endurance Parties”. Somehow, retaining the word “slumber” in the title is vaguely reassuring to parents. Aspirational, even. 

It was therefore an unsurprisingly exhausted Mr Justice that my husband picked up from his first ever slumber party the other weekend. And somewhere between the party and home something happened in the car between Mr Justice and his two siblings, the details of which noone would speak: what happens in the Love Bus apparently stays in the Love Bus. Even my husband wasn’t forthcoming, except to tell me he had subsequently banned all television for that day. 

And having made such a grand pronouncement, he then made a swift getaway outside to work on the new carport for the rest of the day, leaving me inside with three bickering children and no hope of any respite.

Of course, I contemplated overturning my husband’s ruling, by finding a loophole such as “Oh, but Daddy meant no TV for anyone in the car…”, or “This? Oh, this isn’t a television. It’s a total home entertainment system…“, or even “Daddy who??”. But I didn’t. Because some small part of me wanted to play the martyr. Okay, okay so all of me wanted to play the martyr. That’s how I roll. 

“Oooh, look at me! I’m Daddy! I like to play Bob The Fucking Builder with my powertool friends all the live-long day while Mummy’s inside developing a severe baking-stress disorder from watching the kids mutilate gingerbread dough… Can we avoid all childcare duties ever? Yes we can… ” was just a small example of the kind of things I muttered under my breath that long, long day. 

But at one point, while I sat around the kitchen table with the kids eating warm gingerbread mutants, I saw him balanced perilously on a ladder outside in the howling wind, holding a drill in one hand and a hammer in the other and I thought, “Actually, that doesn’t look like that much fun.” 

And then the same thought occurred to me later when I found him crawling around on all fours in the semi-darkness of the shed, trying to find an essential screw he’d dropped in his hurry to finish the job, no doubt largely aided by me looming at the door and saying “Are you planning on finishing any decade soon?” while the kids screamed and hit each other with blunt objects behind me. 

My poor husband. He gets up every morning at 4:30am so he can start work at 6am in the city. He arrives home just in time to share “shit o’clock” with his family in a house that, quite frankly, would look tidier if it had been firebombed. Every now and again I just need to stop and think how it must be for him to rush home from a full day’s grind only to have a screaming child thrust in his arms before he’s even stepped through the front door. Just as sometimes he needs to remember what it’s like for me to never ever be able to go to even go to the toilet without some small person following me asking “How do our bones stick together, mummy?”. But this is not about me…

The other morning, I happened to wake briefly when my husband’s alarm went off and saw how cold and dark it was at that ungodly hour. I jumped up and hugged him tight and said thank you for doing this for all of us, before considerately collapsing back into the warm bed to sleep a little longer.  

When I spoke to him on the phone later in the day, he said “How did you know? This morning, more than any other morning, I was really struggling to get up and face the day… and then you thanked me. It made a big difference.”

And so I’m thanking you again now, my darling husband, in advance of Father’s Day this Sunday here in Australia. Thank you. For everything. 

Now, where’s that drink you were getting me?

Lovely shopping experiences are sometimes far between when one shop with a toddler.  There is one shopping experience that came to mind earlier today and that was when Logan and I were in the DVD section of Makro.  The DVD in question was the Bob the Builder box-set. 

Secretly the plan was to spoil him with a DVD, yet I had a timeless classic in mind – Aladdin or The Lion King, something special that I can give my child.  And please don’t think that I have something against Bob, I don’t, but at Logan’s age – 3 and a half years, Bob the Builder is so yesterday and it really isn’t something I want to invest to.  As it is I am struggling to get Barney out of my house! 

Naturally I walked out of the DVD section without a DVD and Logan a smack wealthier.

Photo Credit