We help a young man in Armenia buy livestock

It's that time of the month again - my monthly KIVA plug. The repayments from money we've loaned to people in some of the poorest countries in the world is starting to filter back to us, meaning we can lend it out again and help someone else :)

This month, for our 65th KIVA loan, our family has decided to help Smbat in Armenia (the 56th country we've loaned money in!). He's the sole breadwinner for his family, despite being on 20 years old. He wants to buy some livestock to improve their situation and we've decided to help him. He'll be paying his loan back over two years beginning in February next year, which will hopefully give him ample time to fatten up his improved herd and sell them off for a profit.

Here's what Smbat's application had to say about him:

"Smbat is 20-year-old proactive young man. He lives with his parents in Goris, Armenia. Smbat is engaged in agriculture and is the only breadwinner in the family. He keeps 8 cows, a calf, and 40 sheep. Despite his young age, Smbat has big plans for the future and is working hard to achieve his goals and ensure a better life for his parents. Smbat has applied for this loan to purchase 2 cows and 10 sheep. The loan is very important for him because an increase of his livestock will give him an opportunity to earn more income and implement his future plans."

What I love about KIVA is we don't have to contribute huge amounts of money to help someone. US$25 is all it takes to get involved in meeting someone's loan request - and you get to chose who you help. Plus, as the money rolls back into your KIVA account, you can opt out of any future loans and take your money back if you find it's not for you.

If you're interested in looking into the KIVA world of microfinance, here's a LINK to the website. And if you join and are looking for a Team to join we're part of Paying It Forward - love to see you there.

If you're one of the 127 people who have already joined KIVA through Big Family, little income and begun stretching a helping hand across the oceans, your repayments will likewise be coming into your account over the next day or two, if not already, so check out your account and relend the money! There's still a lot of people in need of a hand to get their little street stalls or farms up and running.

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High Flying Drama

Miss2 enjoying Tracey's birthday present

"Don't take that outside or you'll lose it," I heard Tracey warn Miss2 this morning, about thirty seconds before there was more wailing outside our back door than Japan does for 'scientific' research.

Back on Tracey's birthday, my sister arranged a lovely basket of goodies to be delivered. Part of this was a helium filled balloon, which was quickly commandeered by Miss9, Master7, Miss5 and Miss2 as being too much fun for Mum. Consequently, since then I've spent a goodly amount of time each evening being dragged into the various high ceilinged rooms of our house to pluck the balloon from the ceiling after someone has let go of the string.

Following the sounds outside, which had escalated to bawling, I followed the pointing finger up into the sky and, sure enough, there was Tracey's balloon, already twenty or thirty meters up, slowly drifting off.

Attracted by the noise, we were soon joined by Miss5. They too, guided by Miss2's finger, soon found the cause of their little sibling's frustration.

"Daddy, get it down!" Miss5 instructed me.

"I can't, love," I told her. I could no longer read 'Happy Birthday'. There didn't seem to be any wind around this morning, but the balloon was determinedly drifting away regardless.

Now I had two little girls howling - one at the balloon and one at Miss2.

"You naughty girl!" Miss5 admonished her sister. "Now I don't have a balloon to play with either."

I tried to redirect their thoughts.

"I wonder if it will drift all the way to Brisbane," I said. "Maybe Lily or Annie will be able to see it." I thought throwing in their cousins might work. It didn't.

"I want it back!" Miss2 continued to sob.

"When it lands, maybe another little girl or boy will find it and play with it. Wouldn't that be nice? They would be very happy," I said, appealing to my children's altruistic side.

"Noooooo," howled Miss2.

"They'll have MY balloon!" yelled Miss5.

"Come on," I said, shepherding them back into the house. "Let's race around to the other side of the balcony and see how long it takes before it's out of sight."

It took ages but by the time it was completely untrackable the anguish and wailing had been replaced with a few smiles and chuckles as Miss9 joined us on the balcony for some balloon watching. Occasionally someone would lose sight of where it was and the others would point and help them find it again. As the balloon had drifted away I kept watching for low flying planes and wondering how difficult it would be for the Air Safety investigators to remove fingerprints or DNA from the foil.

Eventually we scattered and things returned to normal. Of course, this is us, so by normal I mean Miss2 began attempting to feed the dog banana, Miss5 began checking out her own bum in the mirror and Miss9 changed Miss0's nappy before I even realized the baby had done a poo.

"What a nightmare," Tracey said to me later. "It was bound to happen though. I've been stopping them from taking it outside all week."

"We should buy them one each for Christmas," I suggested.

"Are you mad?" Tracey asked me. This comes up a lot. She never seems quite sure.

So helium 'happy birthday' balloons are definitely a no-go for under the tree. Gotcha :)

Mind you, I've already bought the kids (ME!) one of those remote controlled floating clown fish for Christmas - so if you're thinking of taking a joy flight you might want to watch for that in the skies over G-town come Boxing day. Or listen for it: My kids will be sure to let off an air raid siren like scream as it swims up over our roof towards the clouds.

 (after watching this, for the first time in my life I want a cat)

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A nightmare before Christmas

Have you and your kids watched Arthur Christmas yet? We watched it once then bought the DVD - it is that good. It's one of those movies which pulls off a great story with lots of laughs and no nasty bad guy. The movie was light and funny and thoroughly enjoyable. Just how fabulous and uncommon a concept this is in a movie came home to us on Sunday night.

One of the best things about Christmas, or Easter, are all the wonderful movies. I always looked forward to the stop go animation movies as a kid (I think it's my nostalgia for them which lead me to enjoy Hoodwinked so much).

Hot on the heels of Arthur and his family, I wanted something Christmassy to watch with our four little ones (the baby is happy to watch us watching). I decided we should watch A Christmas Carol - the one voiced by Jim Carey, because he's hell funny. I was very excited as I pressed play and hunkered down on the lounge with the kids.

"Nice choice," Tracey congratulated me me five minutes later. She was adorned like a human Christmas tree, with Miss2 was burying her head into her Mummy's chest while Master7 and Miss9 were clutching an arm apiece.

It was as though I'd sat them down to watch Jaws, The Omen or Dawn of the Dead. Within five minutes the room was full of screaming and moaning, and none of it was coming from the telly.

"Aaaaaaaaah!" cooed Miss5 sweetly from my lap. Between sobs she managed to tell me, "I don't like gho-oo-oo-oosts."

I never realized just how frightening A Christmas Carol is. I should have, of course, because it has ghosts and anyone who's played Pacman knows ghosts are scary. But then I've primarily watched the Scrooged version staring Bill Murray, where the scariest moment was when I thought they were going to staple little antlers to the heads of mice.

So the long and short of it is we didn't watch A Christmas Carol, or any Christmas movie that night. Instead we spent the next two hours explaining it was only a movie and Daddy won't be allowed to chose any more DVD's in the lead up to the fat guy bringing all the goodies.

But I'd bet my Christmas stocking we'll be watching Arthur Christmas again, cause that movie ROCKED!

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The Bum Monster

Find these cracking pants here

We have a lot of kids. I know cause I live here and I have to share the toilet with them.  Even with the oldest two having moved out of the house, there are still five of the little critters running, screaming, through the house trying in vain to get my attention.

Our house is loud. All the time. Especially if Master7 is trying to be funny. I often think to myself it couldn't get worse, but it is incredible the difference to the noise level an extra two children make.

I know because the other night Cousin9 and Cousin5 were over for dinner and the place was deafening.

But it wasn't just our ears which were being assaulted - Miss9 decided to accost one of the other senses as well.

'My eyes! My eyes!" moaned Cousin9, stumbling into the kitchen, squinting and simultaneously rubbing his hands across his eyes and trying to focus on them.

"What's happened?" his mother asked, worried.

"She pulled her pants down," he said, almost gagging.

"Who?"

My money would have been on Miss5, but surprisingly, in this case, it was Miss9. It seems my daughter had decided to introduce her cousins to The Bum Monster.

"You get the blame for this," Tracey hissed at me as she raced into the bedroom to ensure our child was pulling clothes on instead of off.

"I think the word you mean is credit," I called after her, grinning. "And yes, I do." But I wasn't really feeling all that confident because The Bum Monster has been known to backfire.

The Bum Monster is a tradition in this house, dating back hundreds of months. When the moon is full or there's a cheeky feeling in the air The Bum Monster can sometimes be found chasing kids around the house. Okay, it's me :) I chase them, bum first, from room to room until I corner them on a bed or the lounge. The love this game because my bum is, quite simply, hilarious, with a capital H. And when The Bum Monster catches them, he sits on them, which is even funnier, with a capital HILARIOUS.

The trouble is the kids don't always dress appropriately when they do The Bum Monster. The younger ones, like Miss2 and Miss5, for example, tend to go the full monty when they attempt it, and actually release the beast, which tends not to illicit as much merriment from whichever poor kid they're chasing.

Tracey, as you might have guessed, feels I might be encouraging her darlings towards becoming social pariahs, and no doubt, as she stomped out of the kitchen, was already adding this incident to her quiver of poison tipped arguments against letting The Bum Monster back into our house.

But I was saved by my daughter's prudishness.

"It's okay," Tracey said as she came back into the kitchen, looking relieved. "She kept her undies on."

***

(In case you missed it, a previous post a few weeks ago THE NAKED TRUTH also touched on The Bum Monster - hit the link and have a catch up read if you missed it)

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My wife's birthday present sucks

"The kids slept well," Tracey said to me when she emerged from the bedroom this morning. It was a statement, not a question.

I glared at her through aching, unfocused eyes and said, "You're shitting me, right?"

This is roll reversal - usually it's me making the ignorant, insensitive comment first thing in the morning.

"I was up four times in six hours," I shot at her. Not that I've any real grounds for feeling indignant. You see, today is Tracey's birthday and all she wanted was a night off from getting up to her children.

"From midnight to midnight, you're doing the kids," she told me yesterday. "And by the time I wake up I want them fed, dressed and bags packed."

"No worries," I said, because it's her birthday and what's one night as a thank you to my wonderful wife for all she does. Well I was wrong. 'Big worries' would have been a more appropriate response. 'Lots of worries' would also have sufficed. No wonder our Miss0 naps so well during the day - she's awake all bloody night!

I knew I was wickedly tired before Tracey even skipped out of bed. I'd been up with all the kids for an hour already, a good deal of which I'd spent looking for my Kindle. I read a few pages of a book every morning while I sip my coffee to help ease myself into the morning. The thing is, Kindle or no Kindle, there wasn't time for easing into the day while I was trying to light a bomb under the kids' bums.

"Josh! Out of bed, mate. Molly, stop playing with your doll and pour a bowl of cereal. Grace? Grace! Where are yo...what are you doing? The telly isn't even on. Why are you staring at it? Come on, put your uniform on. Josh! Last warning. Get up and start breakfast or there'll be no DS this weekend. Yes, or computer or Wii. Thank you. Sophie, where is your nappy? Is that poo? Oh no."

I eventually found the damn Kindle thing, which I'd put down to help Miss2 and Miss5 mop up the milk from their attempts at breakfast, in the fridge.

Another sign I was in for a bad day was when I accused Tracey of getting up herself to attend to our baby in the early hours of this morning. I might not be good at this but I wanted to be able to say I came through with her 'present'.

"I didn't get up," she assured me, grinning.

"But Emily had a bottle filled with just water when I got up this morning. You must have."

"Well, it wasn't me," reasserted Tracey. "No way. I clocked off at midnight."

"Oh," I said, my mind thinking this over. "In that case it looks like I forgot to add the formula to her bottle last night." What else had I forgotten?  "I changed the baby's nappy too. I better check I put one back on." I'm  extremely pleased to say I had.

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY my darling! Another year older but you still look the same to me as the day we first kissed.

Or maybe that's just the sleep in my eyes. I'll check again tomorrow after a good night's sleep ;) xx

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Rain, Hail or Whine

Hasn't the weather been funny lately? I know I've been getting the odd laugh from it.

I've been enjoying a number of chats with clients about how hot then stormy then hot it's been. Everything is so dry that looking over my balcony at the surrounding suburb, I'm hard pressed to find the colour green.

No doubt, come Monday, I'll be able to regale my customers with tales of my mowing (what I'll loosely term) my lawn today, which resulted in a cloud of dust and dry dog poo so thick I had a coughing fit.

A few weeks ago, after a storm gave us some brief relief from the heat, I was chatting to a bloke about the hail, explaining how a friend of mine ended up with big ding to their car from it.

"No," he exclaimed. "But the hail was tiny."

"It's true," I told him. "I saw the damage the storm caused myself."

My friend was at home with her two kids when the storm hit.

"MUM! HAIL!" her kids yelled from outside.

"I'm moving the car!" she called back. The car was still fairly new. The last thing she wanted was a dent on the duco.

She raced out. Sure enough there were little white stones pinging off the bonnet.

Rushing now, she jumped into the driver's seat and fumbled with the keys. The stones were coming a little faster now and making a deafening racket.

"Tell me when!" she called out the window, throwing the car into reverse and edging back.

And subsequently hit the side of the house.

"Just a little bit," she explained to her husband when she spoke to him.

So where were her kids? Inside. They hadn't heard her yelling.

So although my friend, like the rest of G-town, doesn't have any hail damage to her car, she does have an awfully big ding in her bumper caused, as I'm sure you'll agree, from the hail storm.

Meanwhile, here I am a couple of weeks later creating a toxic cloud with my mower because there isn't a hint of hail, rain or even light mist.

"Can you die from shit on the lungs?" I spluttered angrily at Tracey when I came in to flush my mouth out and grab a drink.

"Dunno," she said. "But you've clearly got shit on your liver."

Must be the weather: even her jokes are dry.

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Gaming for life

Gaming is very different today to when my brother and I were kids. I can still remember being totally enthralled for hours playing Pong on a telly. I think they called it Pong because, let's be honest, the game involved two rectangles bouncing a ball between them and really stunk. But to us back then it was just like tennis or squash, only better than the real thing because we didn't have to sweat or leave the house.

But the real 'fun' didn't come along until games like Space Invaders, and then, in the eighties, Frogger.

Mum always snapped at us how we were wasting our time playing computer games and nothing good could ever come from them, but this week she was proven wrong.

My brother had some uncomfortable laser surgery this week, during which they added drops to his eyes so they were completely dilated.

Naturally, he couldn't drive after the procedure, so his wife accompanied him to the surgery. Well, kind of. She shoved him in the general direction of the doctor's and then decided to single-handedly turn the retail industry around at the huge shopping centre opposite.

After a few uncomfortable hours, my brother emerged into the street, squinting and barely able to keep his eyes open in the light. He'd managed to message his wife he was ready to be picked up and was straining his eyes at any vehicle which roughly resembled the shape and colour of their car.

Then his phone buzzed. It was a text from his wife.

Cause that's what you do when someone's had eye surgery, you text them.

"Can you get across to the other side of the road?" She didn't want to cross the busy road in her car and figured it would be much easier for all involved if she could simply pull up to the curb on the other side.

My brother looked up and squinted. There were six blurry lanes of heavy traffic in front of him. It would be like playing Frogger while looking through the bottom of a glass.

"OK for sure," he messaged back. "Don't want to make it too difficult for you. I think I should be ok, although struggling to to see a little. Just in case I don't make it across, can you tell the kids I love them."

Any sarcasm in his remark was clearly lost on her.

"Thanks, will do," she replied cheerfully. "We'll look out for you on the other side. Good luck!"

Thankfully, those many hours sitting in front of the telly jumping the little green frog across the road paid off and my brother managed to get across the highway without being squashed, saving his good wife the hassle of doing a u-turn.

So FYI, Mum, you owe us an apology.

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Twin Peeks

A girl I know, whose husband works away in the mines for weeks at a stretch, was asked to send her man a photo of her breasts. You know, to keep him company on those long, lonely nights.

“No, I don’t think so,” she told him. “I've heard of things going wrong with that sort of thing.”

We've all heard those stories. Photos accidentally being sent to mothers - or worse, the mother-in-law.

"Not a hope in hell," my friend assured her husband.

But he's apparently the persistent type because she was eventually persuaded to take a photo, against, she assures me, her better judgement. And when she sent the photo, having made all manner of threats regarding what would happen to his manhood should anyone besides him ever see it and received assurances it was for his own personal use only, she took a full minute staring at the number to make sure it was right before she pressed send.

After which she went about her day feeling just a little bit daring and a tad naughty but nice.

Her adventurous spirit lasted all of an hour. 

“Mum?” her Mister5 called from the next room.

“I'm in the kitchen. What's up?”

Her little man walked into the room holding her phone. “Why have you sent daddy a photo of your boobies?”

Snatching the phone out of his hands and thinking fast, she said, “So he can check them for lumps and make sure they’re all okay.”

"Why does he check them for lumps?"

"Because they can mean there's something wrong and I need to go to the doctor," she answered him. This really wasn't a conversation she wanted to be having.

“But I can check them for you, Mum,” her little man offered.

"I know, sweetie, but it's really a job for your father. He's the expert."

Yes, and if 'the expert' ever finds out she showed someone the photo when it was forbidden for him to, I think she'll never hear the end of it.

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Ducking Home For Christmas

A friend of mine, whose five kids have moved out, was fretting to me this evening about Christmas. She's very worried the whole family won't all see each other over the Christmas break because they'll show up on different days.

Planning Christmas is hard once the little birdies start to leave home and especially when they start dating other birdies. If anyone's parents have split it's harder still - another set of parents who want to see their kids on Christmas.

We've solved this by giving up on a Christmas Day feast. We've been telling our oldest they can have every single Christmas with their partners' families, so long as we have Boxing Day, or some other day around Christmas, where we're all together - no excuses. We can't be fairer than that, surely.

But still, it seems, this may not be as simple as I expect. Certainly my friend seems prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to entice her chicks back to the nest.

"We're going to tell them their father has something important to tell them," she told me. "They'll think he's sick or something and will come home quick toot."

That's a bit drastic, I thought. But then she explained her reasoning behind the importance of having all the kids home on the same day.

"Five Christmas dinners!" she moaned. "They'll all want the double cooked roast duck, because it's everyone's favourite, and they take SIX HOURS TO COOK! And if we don't do duck for everyone there'll be hell."

You know what? If I had to spend six hours a day, five days in a row cooking a feast over my Christmas break I'd feel sick too.

"And what are you going to tell them when they all show up expecting doom and gloom?" I asked.

"Oh, they'll be gloomy," she assured me. "I'll tell them, after twenty years, it's their turn to do the dishes."

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The Rhythm of My Heart

This is pre-extensions. Yes, that's all Rod's own
hair...and enough hairspray to keep the musical
of the same name walking the boards for a week. 

Because he's managed a bit of work locally over the holidays, Master20's been coming up on weekends. It's great the kids can all get together and bond. Even better he gets to share some of their 'look at me' moments and correct me on my dodgy parenting.

Today we watched Miss9 jump and toe point her way through some Highland dancing at a local daycare centre's Christmas function.

Master20 was so taken with her performance he posted a little something on Facebook:

"My sister Grace was Highland dancing today. Most confidence I've ever seen her have. She was beautiful."

"She has my rhythm," I posted back. By which I mean there were glimpses of rhythm but nothing which had anything to do with the song playing. "It was everyone else, including the bagpiper, who was out of step."

"Dad!" he came back. "You are barred from treating her dancing like you did my singing!"

This has been a bone of contention for a few years now. Apparently I wasn't very supportive of his singing career ambitions. 

Three years ago, Master20 came rushing into the house, announcing excitedly, "I'm in the school play!" 
 
"That's fantastic," I told him. I was in school plays when I was at school - usually up in the rafters helping with the lighting and trying to look down the girls' tops. "What are you doing? Props? Seating?"

"I got the lead."

"So you're doing lighting? You'll be working with electric leads and things?"

"The lead! I'm a lead actor in the musical!"

"Have they heard you sing yet?" I asked with some trepidation. 

Because the bathroom was right near the kitchen, I had. Let's just say my oldest son could guest spot the segment on Spicks & Specks where someone does a performance of a well known song, which almost but not quite sounds like the original, and everyone has to try guess the title. I love my son, but he may as well attempt to hold steam as hold a tune.

"Sure did. We had auditions the other day."

I tugged absently on my ear, the one closest to the bathroom door when I'm doing dishes and so the one he'd most abused, and thought about this some more. "So, I guess," I said eventually as I ran this new information through various parenting filters. "Well done?" But I couldn't help myself: I had to be sure. "Seriously, though, they've actually heard you sing?"

Oddly, my oldest seemed a bit crushed at my assessment of his inability to hold a tune. I didn't understand. I assumed he knew. It took a fair bit of restraint on my behalf not to ask if lip syncing was an option.

Which is why he was so keen I should support his little sister's performances.

"She is graceful and will get a lot better," he posted loyally. "She did a brilliant job." As a sibling, he makes a great father. As a father, let's face it, I sometimes don't. Hey, I've seen the audition tapes of X-Factor, Idol and So You Think You Can Dance - I see myself as saving my kids from a world of humiliation. But I had to admit he had a point.

"Actually," I conceded, "she was doing great until I caught her attention with my waving and photo taking." She was. Then she spotted me, grinned, and seemed to forget why she was there. But she looked fantastic and was loving every single minute of it, which is all that really matters anyway. And I confess I LOVED watching her dance and have taken dozens of photos of her wonderful performance. "Maybe I blinded her ears with the flash?" I offered.

Though I was damned if I was going to take all the blame, so I posted one final comment to my big lad.

"Although your singing might be the other reason her ears are damaged."

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