MonkeyDispenser » Family

Next, World Domination

Jason — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 12:05:32 +0000

This weekend we made a robot.

Initially its destructive capabilities appeared limited, but that was before we discovered the ‘overdrive’ button.

The movie below documents our results…

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

Cute, but in a dangerous way.

Jason — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 10:28:45 +0000

My youngest is now at the walking stage and recently won a whole batch of hair ties at a school fete. When I say won, she obviously received a little help from her brothers given that she is 1 year old and doesn’t quite understand the concept of gambling yet.

I know girls and boys are quite different, that’s fairly obvious and a biological necessary for the survival of the species, but it’s the small things that seem to be built in which always interest me. For instance, Holly already appears to like dressing up. Now that’s not unusual as her 6 year old brother does too – but his motives are very different. He dresses in superhero costumes so he can do a bit of harmless showing off whilst Holly just seems to like dressing up because it’s what girls do. It is a fairly normal girly trait but I didn’t expect to be able to see it before she was intellectually capable of understanding the concept, or before the peer pressure kicks in when they start full-time school.

Anyhow, I digress. The fact is it can be slightly eerie. She seems quite happy to have her hair dressed with these new ties, something the boys would never suffer until old enough to be reasoned with (not they they would have hair ties now, but there are entirely different reasons for that which involve their own reasoning over the difference between boys and girls). I have no real exposure to girls of this age, let alone raising them. I’m from an entirely boy family – except for my mother, obviously. Girls don’t seem to stay little for very long. Boys are eager to grow up just so they can do ’stuff’ and often talk about how they wish they were older. Girls just seem to do it while you’re not looking.

Seeing Holly with her hair tied is cute but spooky at the same time. I put a lot of it down to having read too much manga…

iMovie – ideas above my station

Jason — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 09:14:03 +0000

I think this is why I bought a Mac…

One of our cats is missing!

Jason — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 11:45:07 +0000

This weekend was quite depressing as we suddenly realised one of our cats hadn’t been seen around the house since sometime late last week. When you have kids to deal with you kind of ignore the cats a bit too much so we felt a little guilty that we didn’t even know exactly how long she’d been gone for!

The one that disappeared was Larrs. She’s always come across as a dippy kitten – the blond of the cat world. In reality she’s 14 years old now so all sorts of worries started going through our minds and I think Celeste and I really feared the worst. If anyone was considered likely to disappear it was always her scrapping brother, Etta. But as an old man himself he really is slowing down these days.

I don’t think the kids really understood that she might not show up again, but they were eager to help posting notices through all of our neighbours doors. We just hoped she’d got locked in someone’s shed accidentally. Of course the following thought is that the poor thing is trapped without food and water and no-one knows she’s there. Celeste had the idea for the posters and that they should ask everyone to check their garages and out-houses.

She really was quite upset by Sunday.

Then, late in the evening just before we started bathing the kids, I heard a meow from the kitchen. I assumed it was Etta before thinking he’s not really one to meow for no good reason. I went to check it out and there she was! Complaining away (her meows always sound like a complaint) but looking like there was nothing wrong with her. She didn’t have any damage, just sounded really fed up. Also she was pretty hungry, but would only take a couple of mouthfuls before complaining again.

Something definately happened to her, but I don’t know what. It’s funny that she appeared a couple of hours after we posted the notices through peoples letter boxes and I’m prety sure someone got home, saw the notice and checked their garage or shed.

Whoever they are, I’m very grateful. I don’t blame them at all for her geting stuck so I hope they didn’t feel guilty when she shot out of their shed! She’s always been nosey and I doubt anyone would spot her creeping about – being little and black like she is.

She’s had a lot of attention since then, and a promise that she’ll get more in future (plus the boys promised not to chase her – yeah, right.)

Etta just lay on his chair. He’s a cat of few words…