Sleepless Nights

Month: January 2009

  • All Shiny Clean Now

    I was standing in the bathtub wearing nothing but a bra and track pants when Nathan got home from work this afternoon. Bear in mind that I am about ready to pop, so it can’t have been the sexiest thing he has ever seen.

    But I suppose you need some back story.

    Dinner tonight was going to be a throw together meal of chicken boccocini. I tend to boil the chicken first so that when I cook it the second time it isn’t A) overtly fatty and B) likely to end up raw in the middle. I have a tendency to poke things while they are cooking, which sausages? Fine. A pot of boiling chicken with bright orange fat floating on the surface? Not so fine. Being the clumsy pregnant woman that I am, I managed to splash myself with bright orange fat.

    Not such a big deal, say, if I was wearing one of Nathan’s t-shirts. Instead I was in one of my only (fitting) maternity tops and so I freaked out a little and ran to the bathroom to rub it with soaker and get it in the washing machine.

    Trust me, I am not that anal on any other given day.

    I rinsed the top in Amy’s bathwater and then realised just how grubby the bath tub was.

    And being approximately eleventy months pregnant, I decided that I just couldn’t live with a grotty bathtub for a moment more.

    Up until that point, I always thought that the idea of a pregnant woman scrubbing her bathtub by hand was a sort of myth. Not true apparently, because dude, you should have seen me.

    I will just remind you I was wearing nothing but a bra and track pants at this point. Perfect bathtub cleaning garments.

    I started off just scrubbing with a face washer and Amy’s soapy water. I quickly realised that it was useless (unless I had of wanted to scrape the crud off with my fingernails and honestly, I just wasn’t that committed) and moved on to the big guns.

    Bicarbonate Soda.

    The BEST cleaning product ever.

    Ever.

    And I just happened to have bought 2 bags the other day at the supermarket. Prophetic? Probably.

    I grabbed a scrubber, threw some bi-carb in the now empty bath and went to town.

    45 minutes later, the bath tub was cleaner than I had ever seen it. I was just rinsing all the bi-carby bits down the drain (Bi-carb. Also good for unblocking drains) when Nathan walked in the door and caught me in all my glory.

    After his ‘What on earth ARE you doing?’ question, he laughed. And then spent the next 10 minutes snickering at me.

    All I can say? Let’s hope that the whole myth of NEEDING to scrub the bath right before you go into labour is not actually a myth. I could definitely handle having this baby out where I can hug and hold him already.

    Because if he decides to hang around in there much longer, not only will I need a helluva lot more chocolate in order to cope, but I might decide the bathtub needs cleaning again.

    And I’m not sure I could handle that.

  • Goddamn Animals!

    Last night as I was cooking dinner, I realised I had been yelling at Seven to stop barking for an awfully long time. Strangely enough, she was barking near the house, normally all barking occurs at the property line as she protects us from strange people trying to post letters or answer mobile phones.

    So, I did what anyone would do. I yelled some more and then headed outside to investigate. Lo and behold, what did I find but an echidna! Quite common in Tassie, not so common on my actual property.

    echindna

    The poor little thing was terrified and had buried itself in the hay up against the house.

    I called the dog inside figuring that the echidna would trundle away once s/he wasn’t scared anymore.

    However, 17 hours later? The echidna has done nothing but burrow into the hay more, creating itself a little tunnel and hidey hole.

    Now I have NO problems with an echinda taking up residence in my backyard. God knows that we have enough ants about the place to feed an army of echidnas and Amy thinks it’s fantastic. The cat and Seven however? Are less than impressed.

    Seven seems to think that she needs to protect us from the spikey burrowing thing and the cat isn’t sure whether to ignore it, or to spend all it’s time wandering around eyeing the moving hay uneasily whilst puffing up to 3x her normal size.

    [An impressive feat when you consider that the cat is due to have kittens any day now and is therefore as big as a basketball]

    So to the disgust of my domestic pets, we have an echidna living in our yard now. Ner ner.

    Unfortunately Seven can’t seem to stop barking at it. I wonder how long until my ears start to bleed?

    ****

    Also last night, [not while I was cooking dinner] Nathan discovered why Seven barks at apparently nothing.

    There is a possum, living in the giant pine tree nearby.

    This possum likes to come into our yard and run in circles taunting Seven to chase it. When Seven obliges, the possum darts away up the nearest tree where Seven can’t get to it.

    Sort of like how your younger siblings used to taunt you when you were a kid, only as soon as you went and told on them, they promptly looked all angelic and you got into trouble for making things up? Or as soon as you went to chase and hurt them, they ran behind your mothers knees to hide?

    Yeah, the possum has been doing that to Seven.

    ****

    So an echinda making a home in the backyard and a possum that has learnt to tease the dog.

    What will be next?

    ****

    Also, what is the world coming to when spellcheck doesn’t recognise the word ‘echidna’? It’s not like I am talking about some kind of exotic animal here. Sheesh!