How Soon is Now

1. I know I'm beaten when, for an hour after we get home, Sweeney starts every sentence with "I want ..." in that whiny, whiny voice - you know the one - and then, when I'm ready to tie him to a tree outside in the southerly gale, I harness all my mother-ness and tell him that I love him, because I read that you should do that when your kid is really getting up your nose ...

And he says "Don't tell me you love me!! Just don't, okay??". With accompanying sounds of being pushed beyond human emotional endurance ...

2. I reckon The Smiths is brilliant music to clean toilets to. I mean that in the best possible way ...

3. Today was Sweeney's friend Blessing's 4th birthday. Happy birthday, Blessing!! His parents brought a cake and loot bags into preschool for the kids today. I'm in that pre-birthday party state where I think that everyone's going to be judging Sweeney's loot bags and whether anyone's allergic to the cake. Must. Calm. Down.

4. Sweeney's really into Graceland - the Paul Simon record, not Elvis' villa. I'm not very into it, but see 1. for a clue into how negotiations go around our house at the moment.

5. I made a glorious enchilada dinner tonight. It started on Friday night as tomato and rice soup from How to Eat, then it became chicken, rice and veges with crispy tortilla chips on Saturday night, and then tonight I followed the instructions on the back of the tortilla packet and it came out as an enchilada. Groovy.

6. Sweeney's dad, Martin, is really sick. Like, old-time, before-the-transplant sick. Apart from being devastated for Martin and his family, I really don't know how I feel about it from minute to minute, and have no clue how to navigate Sweeney through this, so figure I'll put it to the back of my mind until after his birthday.

7. I was at a house today with a load of coat hooks on the wall, all empty. They used to hold coats belonging to all the kids who grew up there, but they've all grown up and moved away. It always looks a bit sad.

8. We've been reading this book a bit over the last week. I found it at the DCM book fair last year. It's great - lighthearted, accessible, with a nice message about self care. There's a bit of annoying stuff about Dad always being right, but - buyer beware - this is about Jesus, after all. What Sweeney takes from it is that Jesus does cartwheels and rides a donkey, which looks like the best time ever, and Judas Iscariot looks grumpy. Awesome.

The week's other favourite, Wriggle and Roar, is from the same woman who wrote The Gruffalo and about a million other great rhyme-based books. This one's got lots of short action rhymes, and Sweeney's mad for it at the minute. One of the nicest things ever is to hear him erupt into chirruping some song he's learnt at preschool. I had to look up the words to Go Go Bananas the other day because he kept singing variations on it and I couldn't get a straight answer out of him about the lyrics. It was driving me ... bananas.