Some soppiness for your Wednesday

Life is a song

Love is the music

Let there be Love

I wish there was something bigger than capital letters to let you two know just how much I ♥ YOU!

Stickie Piccie - Happy little Vegemite

Sticky Baby had his first taste of Vegemite on toast this morning. He’s a real Aussie now!

The perils of mopping

I did a big clean the other day. Sticky Baby insisted on crawling through the areas I had mopped. This was the result....

Our Sunday in images

The cutest romper suit EVER, don't y'all agree?

Trawling the local markets

Sun, surf, sand and sexy husband

Mama getting some much-needed rays

My favourite handful of chub

Sticky Baby getting his afternoon grump on

Snoring in the swing

Discovery of the day

I have a confession to make.

I’m seeing other men.

Or rather, I’m reading other men.

Yes, I have a new guilty pleasure. Daddy-blogs. Seriously, these men blog like mo-fos. Such a different perspective from mummy-bloggers, but so entertaining and abso-freakin’ hilarious!

I’ve spent the better part of my Sticky-Baby-is-napping-therefore-I-finally-have-time-to-myself  allotments today sussing out the best Dad blogs in the blogosphere. There are so many. And the ones I’ve come across so far are genius.

If you have time for a laugh-out-loud moment (and shouldn’t we all?), check these doozies out:

The Daddy Complex - This David guy is brill. Cackled to myself like an old witch this arvo. Totally worth a read, in particular, in his right side bar, his How to hang out with your friends & their babies PDF file. I’m going to print it and frame it. And maybe send it out to all my kid-less friends. It’s just too good.

Shit my kids ruined - Such a clever concept. People submit pics of stuff their kids have destroyed. Peed myself. I have a feeling I’ll be contributing to this blog quite a bit in the near future. Can I take a photo of my boobs though? ‘Cause Sticky Baby fo’ shizzle ruined my tatas...

My own personal walking, talking Daddy-blog just came home from work, so it’s time for me to b-log off. Just in closing though, he says the funniest stuff to Sticky Baby sometimes. I am particularly fond of the moments when things are getting gnarly (ie. Sticky Baby is losing his shit and screaming for no apparent reason), and Papadada chooses to address him as if he were a grown man. Something along the lines of...

Why are you being such an asshole? Stop being an asshole.

Cracks me up every time. So wrong.....yet so damn true.

Fartology

Holy cow. It’s a momentous occasion on this brutally early Saturday morning.

Sticky Baby just farted.....and laughed!

It’s the first time he’s recognised how damn funny fluffs really are.


Do I add this to his milestones list??

Sticky Piccie - mama’s lost her mind

Big changes in Oz

Yesterday, Kevin Rudd, Australia’s Prime Minister, stepped down from the top job.

Just finished watching his final press conference. Seriously, I’m missing my favourite show to catch up on breaking Aussie news. It was a big day down-under, people. And yes, I realise I’m a day late with my reporting...no longer really breaking news now. shit. Oh God, My ZARA post took precedence...that is SO bad and shameful, I should bitch-slap myself with an Australian flag as punishment. Priorities, woman, Pri-o-ri-ties!

Now, despite this semi-heavy, academic-y post (if it were truly academic in nature would I have just used the term 'academic-y’?), it must be known to my readers that I most definitely have the political chip missing from my brain. Left, Right, Labor, Liberal, factions, cabinets, what-sits, thingamibobs? Huh? My brain hurts. You get my drift. But I did watch today’s press conference with total and utter focus and interest and I will say this about Mr Rudd’s speech...

He made me cry! Am I the only one who found his parting words and raw emotion very touching? Dudes, his bottom lip stuck out, his chin quivered and his voice broke. I can’t hold back tears when a grown man does that! Damn it!

I’ve been away from Australia throughout his entire stint as our nation’s leader, so truth be told, I can’t make any worthy comments about his leadership and reforms....

But he made me cry and I liked his speech! So there.

And I’m TOTALLY jealous that he gets to move back to my home town (and his home town) of Brisbane. Seriously, he lives in the same ‘burb as we did! Neighbours, us and the PM...ex-PM.

So, Ms Julia Gillard, I’m just about to watch your first address as Prime Minister of Australia. It better be good, girlfriend. I know you’ve got red hair and stuff, but I’m hoping you’ll either make me tear up like old K Rudd did or make me laugh out loud. Something extreme for my Thursday night, please! Expectations.....

First female Prime Minister though. It’s a HUGE deal. Germaine Greer (Australia’s most significant feminist voice) is probably still hammered right now...and rightly so.

Everything AND the kitchen sink

Please tell me your kitchen sink looks like this too?

This is the ‘drying out’ area. We let God do the drying in this household. Tea towels are smelly and generally end up in Sticky Baby’s throat..

Here is a run-down of the random collection of items found on our sink most evenings:

A  Singing, moving, pedalling Hippo. Meant to be a bath toy. 

B  Bicycle bell. Don’t ask.

C  2 little rattles. One orange fishy, one green crab.

D  Food net dispenser. Had a chunk of banana in it this morning. Clean now.

E  Little car rolling toy with very annoying, repetitive song...

F  Bottle tree. Love that thing!

G  Sippy cup lid. That never stays on. And wets my floors each and every day.

This is normal, right? Right?!?!

Hola Mothership!

Papadada and I were back in Barcelona for the day today. New Aussie passport for the hubby. Long-ass way to go, 4hr round trip, MISH-ON.

P’dada was originally going to make the trip by himself, seeing as though right now Sticky Baby and the car love each other about as much as Listerine and mouth ulcers do.

Ever since he’s become mobile (the kid crawls like someone’s slipped a dose of pseudo-ephedrine in his rice cereal), he hates being restrained in the car seat for more than 15 minutes. He gets very impatient and testy which leads to Papadada and I pulling out the most random items from God-knows-where for him to play with. The favourites right now? A pair of swimming goggles and an empty bottle of Coke. We get some weird stares from other drivers when they look in the back seat of our car and see a 9-month old pretend-chugging Coca Cola. That’ll teach you to stare, frenchy! Yes, our child is holding a bottle of pure evil whilst gnawing on blue goggles. Deal with it.

Total tangent, sorry....Where was I? Ah yes, so we decided it was a safer/nicer idea to leave Sticky Baby with Nanny B for his one day of ‘school’ per week. Save him the horror of long-distance driving and mummy and daddy bickering about the stupid iphone map application. That thing gets us lost every time, I swear.

So Papadada and I had a whole day together in a big city. Fun!

Boring passport pick-up out of the way, we had a very nice lunch at a lovely place called ‘Qu-Qu’. We both had a ‘pee-pee’, downed a cafe-con-leche each + a Nebraska beef burger for Papadada (not very Spanish, but he goes for the biggest item on the menu...and tapas ain’t that big...so Nebraska beef burger it is!).

And then....ZARA!

Come to mama. It’s been over a year since we last saw each other, since I last caressed your perfectly dressed mannequins, since I last cooed over your racks. Papadada ‘released’ me into the 4-story ZARA store, told me to "have fun” and "txt me when you’re done I’ll be at KFC". Love that man.

So I went a little crazy at first and ended up with 18 items hung over both arms, a groovy belt strung around my neck and a random fedora on my head, barrelling my way towards the change rooms.

And can I just say how forgiving and perfect ZARA change-room mirrors are?! I want that exact lighting and that exact mirror to follow me wherever I go. Yes please.

Result of ZARA-madness? 3 items purchased. Three. Trois. Tres. What the hell happened to 18? And do you know what I bought? A grey t-shirt, denim shorts and another vintage-y type shirt. Snore.

No but seriously I do love them. They are really ‘me’ and just good, trusty basics. And our bank card was thanking me. I ended up buying Sticky Baby four cute little Zara-baby items. Among them, these to-die espadrilles:

I was only in ZARA-land for 1hour. Pretty good. Papadada had the time to inhale a couple of KFC burgers which made him very happy.

Back on the road, homeward bound to pick up Sticky Baby by 4:30pm, who by the way is sprouting his 5th tooth. Another tooth mark to look forward to on my index finger when he chomps down for no apparent reason.

I am his favourite chew toy. Forget the blue goggles!

End Note: Devastation! The Zara baby espadrilles don’t fit! Too small! Did his feet grow in 4hrs? Saving ‘em for bebe#2, whenever that will be. Devastated..

Dead-giveaway that I watch too much MTV channel. I know, I know....I’m 30. Grow up, it’s time to move on. The Discovery Channel and The Food Channel are calling my grown-up ass their way. Ain’t gonna happen though! I love me some trashy tv and MTV is the home of it all! Hell Yeah!

Fill in the blankie

Is that not the cutest name EVER for a baby blankie company? Fill in The Blankie is a darling little US-based company that create the most beautiful blankets. Period. Personalised on all four sides of the blanket, write what you want, how you want it.

How cool is that?

Blogging guru Georgie Girl has posted a great little giveaway for her readers, and I am giving you guys the opportunity to take part! I know a few of you have rug rats on the way or perhaps a christening to attend or a birthday gift to buy...sumpin’ like that. This is your chance to win a US$100 gift voucher for use at Fill in The Blankie. Yesssssss.

Simply go to Georgie Girl’s blog and follow instructions there. Winner drawn on her blog this Friday. Good luck! May the blanket be with you..

PS: I have entered, of course. If I win, this is what I want Sticky Baby’s blanket to say:

Bonjour! Je m’appelle Sticky Baby

My mama rocks my world

My daddy is my hero

Wherever we are together, that is home

Dear Lord, please let me winnnnnnn! I can already feel the softness of the blanket on my skin Sticky Baby’s skin...num num num....

Sticky Piccie - Closet Assassin

This kid must seriously have a heat censor tucked somewhere inside his Pampers that guides him on Seek and Destroy missions for my belongings, and my belongings alone. Today, my closet...Not the pink Converse, I beg thee!

Shut up!

Get outta here! No way!  

I just got a Blogger Award! 

Ain't it something?

I was honoured as a Beautiful Blogger (check out my new, sexy button in my blog's side bar) by lovely Shannon over at Managing Mommyhood. She has 4 boys. FOUR. BOYS. She must be Ghandi. I just got an award from Ghandi.

WOOHOO! Thank you Sh-andi (Ghandi+Shannon merged) for making my day!

So, being relatively new to the blogosphere, I did some in depth research Googled this cyberspace accolade. Not only is it totally legit, but there are also rules to abide by. I’m shaking in me boots. Must.follow.rules.always:

1/ Thank the person that nominated you ✓
2/ Put the award up on your blog ✓
3/ Post a link the the person that nominated you ✓
4/ Post 7 interesting facts about yourself ✓ (keep reading, scroll down..)
5/ Nominate other people you think deserve the award. (research on award suggests nominating 7 other people, but Shannon generously nominated 12. Again. Ghandi. I'm going to go with 7 seeing it's peak hour/bath/bottle/bed time for Sticky Baby. Hope that's ok?) ✓ (again, further down, don’t doubt me)

Ok, so 7 interesting facts about myself. Be prepared to be riveted. Here goes:

• I have an 'outie' bellybutton. You know you want one.
• I used to play the violin and the trumpet. Yes, the trumpet. 
• I can do the 'Charleston' dance from the 1900s 

• I know most words to most Britney Spears songs. Skillz.
• I type like a bat outta hell. Speed demon on the keyboard.
• When I was in primary school I was a superdooper fast runner. Don't know what happened after that.
• I speak fluent French

And my awards for truly kick-aissshh blogs go to...

Ptit Poisson
Life.Love.Lawton
A Modern Girl’s Life
The Grapefruit Diaries
The Daily Julie
Dear Baby
Harper’s Happenings

Just like the Oscars, I can hear the invisible orchestra starting to play their ‘shut up and move on’ tune. Beyond rude, by the way.

Thanks for reading everyone! Don’t forget to vote for us using the brown Top Mommy Blogs button in my right side bar, or even easier, just click HERE! Cheers m’dears!

Daddy lovin'

A wee photographic collage, in honour of Papadada, the best Daddy in the world! Today is French Fathers' Day, so Sticky Baby and I are spending the day thanking the heavens above for this truly wonderful man in our lives and trying to spoil him the best we know how. Lots of coffees, a long nap and a crepe this afternoon! We love you like fireworks xoxo

An afternoon in Wonderland

Yesterday I co-hosted a fabuloso baby shower. And when I say co-hosted I mean I sat in on some planning meetings, picked up a few essentials, created a few posters, wrote up the invite, nothing major at all really. Lots of fun, got my creative juices flowing, loved it.

The real credit goes to the chickidee who BAKED like no woman has ever baked before! Seriously, the world needs to be introduced to Lovely Lelu, who someday will be as famous as The Naked Chef. But way better. And not so naked.

The theme we chose for the glowing mama-to-be (seriously, sex on legs with a basketball under her shirt, that one) was the Madhatter’s Tea Party from Alice in Wonderland. We asked the guests to don a hat of some description. I think this one took out the award for most creative:

Yes, that is indeed a mini-Eiffel tower stuck on a gal’s head. Priceless. That’s how us ladies roll over here. Booya.

Lovely Lelu’s apartment was decked out in all things Wonderland. The “Planning Committee” (we like to give ourselves a formal title, thank you very much) created all sorts of Alice-relevant signs, pictures, decals, decorations. Here are some highlights:

And the food! Sweet Jesus, THE FOOD! Enter Lovely Lelu and her enviable god-given gift. A sea of pastel-hued cupcakes, mini berry pavlovas, fig and goat cheese quiches (I would eat one of those off a leper’s head, for realz), brownies so dense and moist you could cry. Peeps, there were even teeny tiny sandwiches with pickles rolled up to look like snails. SNAILS! So cute. I took photographic evidence of these culinary delights to share with you all:

The table was littered with tea cups, saucers, jugs, vases of every shape, size and colour imaginable. From these, we classily chugged champers and punch. Glasses are so last season...

How much are you loving and vibing with the theme? Are you going to steal it use it for your next baby shower? I feel heads nodding in unison around the world.

And this little gem of an idea I actually plagiarised from another girlfriend’s baby shower. Tsk tsk. But it’s precious and it was a down-right hit yesterday:

Little baby onesies that everyone got to DIY decorate! Yipee! Paint fumes! This was my creation:

It says, ‘The most beautiful baby in the world’ in french. Difficult words to write, ‘cause Sticky Baby is the pinnacle of gorgeous-ness in my book, but this much-awaited bubba is for shizzle going to be a looker. Yes-sir-ree. 

Fabo afternoon had by all. Much fun to get out of the house, baby-free, sink a few tea cups of booze, chat with the lady pals, all whilst sporting my silly creation of a hat.

That’s me on the left with the giant flowers on my melon and Lovely Lelu on the right, Hostess with Mostest.

I’ll be dreaming of the Cheshire cat and the freaky bong-smoking caterpillar tonight. Sweet dreams!

Only in France

I’ve got a little sumpin’ to brag about...don’t you hate a bragger? I hate me already.

Yesterday, on my way to get my hairy legs waxed (info overload, my apologies), I was waiting at the zebra crossing when a gentlemen wound down the window of his car and said,

"Excuse me Miss?”

I thought he was asking for directions, and since he called me ‘Miss’, I liked him already, so I stopped to give him my attention. I said,

“Oui?”.

He said,

"I just wanted to say that you are very pretty”.

WOW

Why thank you elderly french gentlemen! Yes, he was older, probably around 55. But it still counts!

That’s all there was to it. No indecent looks, no weird stares, no flirting, nothing seedy at all. Just a really lovely, old-fashioned, gratuitous compliment.

It really took me by surprise (again ‘cause I was on my way to get de-haired, so I was feeling FAR from fabulous), but I thanked him profusely, flashed my boobs (KIDDING!) and was on my way.

I secretly wanted to use my super-hero powers to shrink him down to pocket-size so I could carry him around in my purse for a week. Need a compliment? Poke mini french man in purse.

Mind you, lucky me, I have a large Australian man at home who showers me with compliments on a regular basis. And he’s hot. And he’s only 30.

Sorry, bragging again.

Moral of my story? Give someone a compliment today. It’s nice. It’s really really nice.

Roll up, roll up!

Circus freak-show. That was the theme of my morning.

Sticky Baby was up at 5:50am instead of 6:30/7am. B.I.G difference, kiddo. Would you like your own personal time piece attached to your nappy, just like the rabbit out of Alice in Wonderland? I think you would.

Papadada began unpacking his bag from his recent trip away. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him retrieve and discard a decaying sandwich from one of the suitcase pockets. I have no words.

Sticky Baby has found someone something new to love in the house. The bin. They cemented their love affair this morning with a hug and a kiss. Yes, he kissed our cylindrical stainless steel bin. Note to self: disinfect bin like life depends on it.

I stupidly put my near-empty mug of coffee down on the floor for a minute and when I turned around again, I saw my 9-month old baby skull the remaining java like a seasoned pro. Caffeine is good for babies, right? Mother of the year award, coming my way. Like I needed this kid to be more hectic than he already is.

Nearly forgot. Before his morning nap, he also rode the vacuum cleaner like it was Sea biscuit.

I am waiting for the bearded lady and the lion tamer to knock on my front door.

Bike Bliss

Thelma and Louise-style shot....or rather Thelma and Louis

He shuts his eyes when he’s sick of me taking photos. Sneaky bugger.

Or tilts his head down...grrrr. Me on the other hand? Loves me a photo! The neighbours were scratching their heads wondering when the hell I was actually going to go riding. What evs neighbours...

Top Mommy (mummy) Blogs - Could it be?

Guys!

See that little brown square to the left of the screen? You’ll also find an identical one in the right hand column of my blog. Avert your eyes to the right a little, maybe scroll down a teensy bit...THERE IT IS! SEE IT? Ok good....

Now, you know how your finger is hovering over prime clicking position on your mouse? Ok good! Click, my pretties, CLICK!

Sorry for yelling, but this is exciting stuff. You see, every time you visit us at Sticky Baby, you can click on that brown square of joy to your right and you will be voting to rank this wee blog among thousands of other blogs! A-woop-woop!

I have visions of us being #435, then #103 and then eventually #1!

So train your brains pronto, my loyal blog-lets. Clickity click click each time you swing by and you’ll get us moving up the mommy-blogger ladder, one sticky step at a time.

Pretty please with a cherry on top! Heck, here’s a whole bowl...

(I bought these the other day from the market. First cheeries of the season. Not a type-o. I call them cheeries ‘cause they make me cheery. Too right)

Life’s important questions

I have a few questions about recent pop culture that I just can’t shake from my brain. Must share persistent, niggling, virusey eyebrow arches with you all...


✗ Who the frigg is Justin Bieber? He is 10, right? How is he everywhere at the age of 10? How? Why? Ugh?

✗ Why is Rihanna’s voice getting more and more annoying? Her new song Te Amo....irk.

✗ Did Heidi Montag from The Hills really say she wanted to increase her already-fake-bust-size to an H-cup so that it would match the initial of her name? (eyebrow arch PLUS mouth agape)

✗ How on earth does Olivia Palermo from The City still have a job at Elle magazine? Seriously, she has no skills whatsoever. And isn’t she a socialite with $$$$ coming out of her bitchy, skinny ass anyway?

✗ What the hell is Lady Gaga’s new film clip about? It sorta scared me. Is Alejandro a gay Russian soldier with a Latin name? That’s what I got from it. Can’t be right. Ale-Ale-jandro, Ale-Ale-jan-drooooo (so catchy, yet again, damn you Lady Gaga!)

✗ When are they going to make a show called The Real Housewives of Perpignan ‘cause you can be damn sure I’ll be queuing up for auditions and I WILL nab a spot on the cast. It will be heaps better than The Real Housewives of New York/Orange County/Atlanta/New Jersey.

Ok, I’m done. 

Ahhhhh, the cleansing power of a blog. It should be bottled and sold on infomercials.