One of my favourite poems...

If                                                          by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too; 

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same; 

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

Easter kid moments...

I 'spose I shouldn't be surprised that a long weekend as meaningful as Easter couldn't pass through without some memorable moments...

DD1(Age5*)
On returning from Easter Sunday Mass, Grumpa PG happened to be hitching a ride back in the 'people mover' to the house (Mistake No. 1) and had finally been told by his ears that unfortunately, they had officially reached their capacity for the day and would he please do something about it (even though they realised it was only 8:45am in the morning). And so, responding to his tortured sonic capturers, he attempted to reduce the onslaught of many frequencies by reasoning with the kids ... (Mistake No. 2).  This reasoning was joyfully responded to with a number of counter arguments, to which he responded finally that they should all be politicians... (Mistake No. 3). To which the question was asked - 'What's a politician?'. And Grumpa's answer of 'the people who make all the rules...' inevitably became Mistake No. 4; for, after a slightly pregnant pause our DD1 stated in a matter of fact tone -

"If I was 'Prime Minister' I would make it illegal to pooh in your pants... "

 - Now, a question to any 'all knowing' parents out there - what may I ask, is the appropriate response to such a statement...?

DD2 (Age4*)
Over rest times on the Sunday our DD2 was captured in a moment of artistic inspiration while exploring the medium of water colours... Now as with many of our DD2's artisitic moments - they are not necassarily short lived. For it did not end until every adult in the house (5 of them.. ) had at least 3 of these dripping multihued masterpieces ... now what the other adults in the household did not know at the time, was that not only did our DD2 instill her creativity with use (?? misuse..??) of hands, eyes, clothes, floor and random objects between the kitchen table and the intended recipient. Oh no, it could not end there. Each master piece had been lovelingly sung into creation, in true savant style ... over the full 2+ hours. Undoubtebly, it was an unspoken expectation of DD2 that we lucky recipients not only recieved and appreciated the spectrum of colour, but also the spectrum of frequencies that had been so tenderly invested in them.

DS1(Age 3*)
POOOHS ON THE POTTY!!!!!
(Now I apologise for the lavatory subject matter of this blog, but potentially I should have put as a component of the original below disclaimer - I have 4 (Soon to be 5 children) under the age of 6 - what is considered 'appropriate' subject matter becomes quite skewed from the mean by at least 1 to 2 standard deviations...)
Anyway, our 20mth old has been achieving more success in this department ... consistently and for a few months now, so it was a VERY BIG DEAL!!

DS2(20 months*)

• DS2 - 2 ft
• Easter Bunny - 1 ft
• DS2's eyes and open mouth  - x10 magnification... 'nough said

* I take no responsibility for any inaccuracy's of age, name, hair / eye / skin colour,  (despite the fact that I am their father) for reasons specified under the 'Clueless Father Act of (approx) 6000 BC', Section 29, paragraph 3, line 2.

Playing with photo's

Well, in attempting to copy my clever DW and add a pic to the background I ended up playing around with photo's and found Picasa 3 - a nifty little program! Still a bit of a beginner with it but enjoying the pleasant effects and ease of getting pic's down to the right size / quality.

Anyway; background of the blog is of the sunset at our place a few weeks back.

And this is a flower that I used to (Before the rain's started appearing with winter) stand next to every day when watering the pumpkins (Not that I particularly have a desire that the pumpkins live - but I have a desire that I live, and my DW has a desire that they live - so I water them... ) with the hose  - The hose would only stretch so far, so my face would literally be inches away when stretching - an annoyance until I actually started to appreciate it's beauty... it's amazing how God really tries hard to put beauty before you - and if you stubbornly continue to ignore that beauty he may create ingenius ways to curb that stubborness... kinda like shoving it under your nose
:) Anyway, hope you enjoy.

Be sure of what you sing...

It's palm Sunday today and my DW decided to sing a line of 'Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna in the Highest' while sitting amongst the kids... my DD2 picked up the tune, as only she can, and we continued to hear it through the rest of stories (While she was listening to story's - I tested and she could actually still tell me what was happening in the book!), lunch time, rest time, afternoon craft activity, dinner and on the way to Mass... And unfortunately despite the dedication and repitition in practicing this one line of tune - the choir did not in fact sing this tune... but never mind, something as insignificant as that couldn't stop our DD2...

As many people who come into our house can atest to - be careful of singing / humming or even breathing a tune when you walk near DD2, because if she decides she likes it, prime time ... in fact any time air will be soothed by this young little voice.

Did I mention there was a sale on ear plugs last time I went to the pharmacy...?

A random Saturday...

2 special moments of today

Saturday Morning mass:
DS2 head on the shoulder of 'grumps' in the pew in front of us - Content for almost the entire mass to just peer backwards and cuddle ... 2 little eyes content to just zone out, and every now and again the rise of chubby cheeks to indicating he was smiling. A pleasant reminder of the special closeness that comes with living in close proximity with the in-laws, and the kids coming to know that Grampa is a sucker almost always for a good long cuddle.

A homemade See-saw with a 5yr and 18mth old:
After ascertaining that the older sibling is not just trying to experiment with live ammunition for a new catapult design... it was a nice moment to watch (Unobserved), and see the pure glee of both in their respective roles as siblings.... Even if one of them was almost in the middle of the seesaw and the other looked like he was wanting to enter in the space program a little under age....

Bird Catcher vr 2...

Below mentioned birdcatcher... vr 2

And so it began...

"Hello World", as was written in the early years... of code :)

Well, on the inspiration of my Darling Wife(DW) and her dedication to recording the nuances and titbits of life that bring that little twang to the heart on remembrance - I have started this blog.... another few bytes of life thrown out there to be devoured by the ether of electrons.

I will admit that I have extraordinary little hope of updating this regularly, and even less that if this blog does last past one or two instances, that any who read it will be able to understand more than a few non sensically, misspelled words that may seem to be mashed together like a paper mashe projects from one of the Darling Kids(DK). Or if the unlucky reader can overlook those above art's of murdering the English language, I raise my glass to the adventurous spirits that can stand reading more than a paragraph that seems to have been sprayed liberally with a high calibre comma dispensing machine gun... because unlike my resume or other official documents -- my DW has not proof read it. :)

So after that little disclaimer - What do I intend; I really don't know...  other than at times a quaint saying, or memorable moment comes upon me that I would like to somehow record.. as if through these choice items recorded I aim to give some resonance of the quirky perspective of life the Great Lord above has chosen to give me.

And so what of today is worthy of note;

Coming Home:
Upon leaving work today I looked at my diary and unexpectedly discovered, with much glee, that I had tomorrow off. The mood lasted the journey home, and amplified nicely by the joyous greeting of kids running out of the house, up the drive and DD1(Age 5) even letting the carefully constructed bird catcher (made out of an old broken washing basket, old rope and a stick), fall, just to smile a greeting at me in the car.

In particular, DD2 (Age 4) deciding that today I needed to be directed to parking as if I was a jumbo; with many hand signals and orders shouted (Just missing those airport red hand light things) and then once completing the precision exercise (That today was a complicated maneuver due to the directions) she offered sincere and heartfelt congratulations that I had managed to so safely park the car.

Progressing inside I found DW blossoming nicely with pregnancy, sitting on the kitchen bench cooking dinner. I proceeded to inform her of my unexpected find that I had tomorrow off - her response, with an evil glint in her eyes and a quirk on her lips was... "Oh, you think you have tomorrow off,... do you?"

Twas' good to be home.