Singing

Kids can come out with the oddest gems. Take today. We were all in the car on our way to my parents' house for dinner. I've got one of my CDs playing, and Jessica, not having MY genes for singing, starts to what I can only describe is "screech", in an attempt to sing in time with the music. Sarah says in the midst of Jessica's wailing, "Jessica is sad". And Jessica replies without missing a beat, "I'm not sad, I'm singing!!!"

From the mouths of babes or what!!??

ODD SPOT: A couple hobbled into a Washington State emergency room covered in bloody restaurant towels. The man had his hands around his abdomen and the woman had hers around her head. They eventually explained to doctors that they had gone out that evening for a romantic dinner. overcome with passion, the woman crept under the table to administer oral sex to the man. While in the act, she had an epileptic fit, which caused her to clamp down on the man's penis and wrench it from side to side. In agony > and desperation, the man grabbed a fork and stabbed her in the head until she let go.

P.S: Where do I find these odd spots...!!!

Teething

Emma may be teething. She's plunging her fist into her mouth and gumming those little fingers with gusto, and will cry and grizzle until we've rubbed a little Bonjela into her gums. Ah, Bonjela! This stuff is a modern marvel! It was so good to have around when the twins were teething, too! This and baby panadol are all that stood between us and oblivion!!! And to think, at one time it was perfectly acceptable to rub scotch on a baby's gums to soothe them! I can imagine some of these kids having cirrhosis of the liver by age five...!!!

ODD SPOT: A 20 year old man came into the ER with a stony mass in his rectum. He said that he and his boyfriend were fooling around with concrete mix, then his boyfriend had the idea of pouring the mix into his anus using a funnel. The concrete then hardened, causing constipation and pain. Under general anesthesia, a perfect concrete cast of the man's rectum was removed along with a ping pong ball.

P.S: Hey, nothing like having a concrete momento of the whole stupid event...!!!

Passports

Emma needs her own passport to travel overseas, but the crazy thing about it is that the passport lasts for 10 years! I mean, can you imagine if she goes overseas again a few years later and the customs officer is looking at the passport, and then at Emma, and then back at the passport...I mean, what's Emma supposed to say, "Yeah, I've got teeth now!"

Or what if the photo on the passport has Emma with a dummy in her mouth. Is this what she's going to have to carry around with her for the next 10 years so she can be recognised overseas!!??

Ah, the logic of bureaucracy...!!!

ODD SPOT: The word gymnastics is derived from the Greek word "gumnazein", which means; To train naked.

P.S: Trust me, some people should not be allowed to train naked!

Mim's Take On The Wedding

I took my time responding to the wedding blog Lill brought out a few days ago because Lill summed up all the memorable bits in a lovely collage of highlights that picked the best bits of the day. What could I possibly add? I could do the boy thing here. I could say, "Oh yes, my wife was beautiful, but what about that 1920s Silver Wraith with the two-tone finish...!!!" Or I could say that despite how stupid I always seem to look in photos, for some reason, on the wedding day, my face decided to behave itself long enough to take a few decent shots!

But if I could sum up the wedding for me, it would be that finally I felt whole and complete, and that in some ways I was living the life I was destined to live, like I've achieved my knightly quest, or found my Holy Grail.

Ah, the knight themes continue to prevail....

ODD SPOT: On average, a woman will speak 7000 words over the course of a day while a man will only speak 2000 words in the same period of time.

P.S: Unless your name is Drew, in which case you'll speak the total amount of both men and women combined in the same period of time!!!

P.P.S: I really loved the golden suns and moons on my vest...I know, it's a boy thing!

Only words

Emma received her first immunisation shot today. Bit of a drama, because normally Lill would go to the Health Nurse for a baby's first injection, but the Council have cut this out, and therefore Lill had to go to the local immunisation centre and waited up to an hour before Emma had her shots. Just another of those services the Council thinks the community can do without (Grrrrr!).

Sarah and Jessica have learned the word "Stupid", and are using it on each other, and others they come into contact with. I must admit, this is quite tame compared to the stories I've heard about what kids have said in public with their parents in tow, but best to nip this now. I remember when the twins first started to speak, someone had accidently uttered the word, "$hit", and they picked up on it fast and used it to their heart's content! And when they go to kindergarden, they'll be exposed to more words and more attitudes, and I'd rather arm my girls with some decorum and protocols with regards to social behaviour. Listen to me, spouting pop psychology! Well, pop psychology or not, I care about how my girls turn out in this world, and it's our job as parents to do our best!!!

ODD SPOT: A kiss will stimulates 29 muscles and chemicals causing relaxation. Women seem to like kissing light and frequent; men like it more strenuous.

P.S: I've been told with lips like mine who needs airbags!!!

Personal Milestone

Well, so much for this being a blog about Emma's first few weeks in the world! It's kind of taken on a life of its own. In just over 18,000 words I've gone on a voyage of discovery, using Emma's little life to look at my own and that of my family's. It's fanatstic that my children now have a record of what Dad was like, in some ways better than a photograph or a video. It's an extra dimension into Dad's heart and mind, and who is this man who plays such a big part in their lives. And I'm pleased to see Lill joining the ranks. Even at only 2,500 words, she has managed to convey the great milestones in our lives for our children to see. Didn't know she was a budding author. Oh, and she makes great mini-pizzas, too!!!

ODD SPOT: Women make up 49% of the world population.

P.S: There's a conspiracy theory in this somewhere!

Just say It!

Okay. I'm gonna just come out and say it! It's gonna cost me a re-programming, but it needs to be said! I will not be silenced anymore! Here it is: Emma's hair makes her look like an orangutan! There! I've said it! Ha! Ha! Ha! Okay, I know Emma looks a lot like Lill, so that statement I made can be badly misconstrued, but it's the hair! That hair that will not go quietly into that gentle night....oh oh! I hear the footsteps! They're coming to do you-know-what! Well, I'm glad I said it! Do you hear!? Glad Glad! Glad! Okay girls...Do your worst!!!....

Hello all, as you can imagine, we have had to reprogram Mim again! Pity, he was doing so well! Never mind, we have a lot of fun doing it!

Signed, The Iannello Girls.

ODD SPOT: Marilyn Munroe had six toes on one of her feet.

P.S: Hey, it didn't cramp her dating abilities, let me tell you!!!

Elvis Loses It!

Maybe there's hope for my girls yet!

Surprise surprise we have a couple of those Elvis dolls that you hang from the rear view mirror. Well, I noticed one of those dolls with its arm hanging out of its socket, and the spring coil connecting the arm stretched and trailing behind it! I asked Lill what happened and she said, "The twins got to it." Lill then responded to my raised eyebrows, because she continued, " I said to the girls, you know who this is, and pointed to the doll, and the twins replied, yes Mum, it's Elvis."

At that point I thought it prudent for me to turn away before Lill saw the huge stupid grin on my face!

ODD SPOT: It was the accepted practice in Babylon 4,000 years ago that for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the honey month or what we know today as the honeymoon.

P.S: Mead! Bleeeech!

Blame It On The Baby!

The twins have learned a valuable lesson - shift the blame on someone younger!!! Most notably, they have started to blame Emma, or Christine's little baby Michael, for any wrongdoings they cause! They realise that we can't smack babies, and therefore make the perfect scapegoats for their shenanigans! Cheeky things! Like I said before. That Maltese blood....!!!

ODD SPOT: Did you know you share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world?

P.S: And do you think ANY of them rang to wish me Happy Birthday!!??

Go For Gold!

Okay, Emma is now doing this half growling half yelling thing, as if she's possessed. She'll do it for minutes at a time, as if she's holding a conversation with Beelzebub about the weather in Gehenna or something! They start so young...!

Lill and the girls are really into the Olympics in Athens at the moment. I don't mind a few events, but thank goodness for PayTV! The poor twins have this thing at the moment in which they think their daddy can do everything! They were watching the gymnastics, and Sarah and Jessica start yelling, "Daddy! Daddy! Come here!" When I get there, they're both pointing at the TV yelling, "Look daddy! That's you, daddy! My daddy can do that! Can you do that now!!!", and Lill would be chuckling to herself, saying, "Yeah, I'll get the video camera!". Me, I'm just staring at the screen, thinking to myself, the last time I was that flexible, Madonna was a Material Girl!!! And to think, one day they'll look upon me as an embarrassing old fuddy duddy!

So, can somebody again remind me why I had children....!!??

ODD SPOT: Contrary to popular belief, if you swallow chewing gum it does not stay in the gut. Usually it will pass-through the system and is excreted without incident. However, several cases have been reported where the gum has stuck in the rectum, causing the unfortunate Sufferer to excrete long sticky trails of gum, like a pink spider's web.

P.S: Unfortunately, I have too much imagination not to picture this....

Library Antics

Not that I expect my girls to follow me in my profession, but it warms my heart to see the twins love going to the public library for storytime and borrowing books. However, watch how pride turns to despair as I recount the last visit the girls made. It started off as normal...of course, it always does! They had storytime, they did some activities, and then they chose some nice books for bedtime reading. Finally, it was off to the Loans Desk to borrow the books.

Well, here's where it happens. The girls love to sit on the counter so they can see the book borrowing procedure happen before their eyes. Sarah, forthright as usual, asks the Librarian if she could stamp her with an animal ink stamp (what, like she's at a nightclub or something!?). Shocked, the Librarian asks which animal ink stamp would she like. Sarah replies, "this one, this one, aaaaaand this one!" So the Librarian places an animal ink stamp, one on each of her chubby hands, but Sarah is still adamant she wants the third stamp. The Librarian says, "But dear, you've only got two hands, where can you put the third stamp?" To which Sarah promptly replies, "Here!" and points her little finger directly at her forehead!!!

Sigh! I try to bring them up tame, but that Maltese blood just gets in the way....

ODD SPOT: The venom in a Daddy Long-Legs spider is more poisonous than the venom of a Black Widow but they cannot bite humans because their jaws won't open wide enough.

PS: And of course, I'm going to test this out for myself...NOT!!!

Mim's Take On The Proposal

I knew the Proposal blog was coming, but it was still embarrassing when it came about nonetheless!!! While romance comes easy to me, setting it up and making it happen was hard work! Lots of preperation, organisation, and simply working up the courage to do it all certainly can take it out of you, never mind the thirty plus degree heat...!!!

Only a few choice people knew what was going to happen that day. Do you know how much of a bloodhound Lill can be? She can sniff a setup a mile away! Not being the sneaky type, I had to call upon the best to help me through the situation...Ren's invaluable experience in deviousness and underhandedness got me to where I am today. I love you, Man!!!

So when the day came around, I was so nervous, especially asking Lill's dad for his daughter's hand in marriage. He was blushing, and he huffed and he gruffed, but I think in all that he said yes. So armed with that, and leaving all the necessary details behind, I went off to Ren and Helen's to set up. I lost a lot of weight while I wore that armour! It might have been only 33 degrees outside, but inside that suit....whew! But when Lill agreed to be my wife, nothing else mattered, not the heat, no more nerves, nothing!

But let me just say one thing. It was all worth it! I would do it all again! Let me just say this to you Sarah, Jessica, and Emma. If any man makes this much effort for you, then he may have my blessing...just! Because in the end, it's not just the romance, it's what they will do for you that counts!

Eating at John Jacques was fantastic and romantic. Ocean views and superb seafood! This alone would've made Lill mine!!! (The Maltese love their seafood...!).

ODD SPOT: 73% of Test tube babies have an irrational fear of aquariums.

P.S: Mmmmmm!

The Blah Blah Blah Queen

Funny thing with Emma, it happened with Lill today and it happened with me last week. If you put Emma in the bouncer in front of the TV and walk away, out of her sight, she starts to talk to the TV! When I say talk, I mean the oooh and aaaah noises she makes, [gush mode on] it's just the cutest thing! [gush mode off]. And when the twins play around her like a whirlwind, Emma often talks to them as well, to try and get their attention. It'll be interesting when she's older, and she wants to be included in their activities.

As you may have noticed, Lill can now blog under her own name. By adding her name to the list, the blog has now added a list of contributors at the top of the list, which provide links to the contributor's profile! And, I've forgotten to mention this, I've made the little photo on the side clickable as well, so that it offers a better, larger, and higher quality picture. Stay tuned for a change in pic very soon!

ODD SPOT: Several well-documented instances have been reported of extremely obese people flushing aircraft toilets whilst still sitting on them. The vacuum action of these toilets sucked the rectum inside out.

P.S: I'm doing my best not to picture this, but.....

Mornings

Some mornings the twins like to hop into bed with us. Lill thinks it's cute and fun, but that's because they prefer my side of the bed!. Nine times out of ten I'm kicked out of bed because there's no room for me! And now Emma is getting in on the act! This morning she was having a ball being in our bed! Okay, either we now upgrade from a Queen size to a King size bed, or I learn to sleep in the bath!!!

ODD SPOT:
Murphy's First Law for Wives: If you ask your husband to pick up five items at the store and then you add one more as an afterthought, he will forget two of the first five.

P.S: Too true.....!

Health Nurse Visit

Emma had her visit to the Health Nurse today, to get measured and weighed. It's amazing how Lill organises all three girls to get them to anyplace, it's a logistic nightmare! The dry figures: she weighs 4.86kg, is 57.8cm long and has a head circumference of 37.4cm. This is average. She has gained 420 grams in a month, and again, it's average but at this stage of the game, we will probably expect a growth spurt to come on.

While they were there, Lill popped in to the chemist so she could have passport photos done for Emma for her trip in October. The twins decided to help out by trying to get Lill to buy half the lollies on the stands, as well as trying to convince her to buy Mylanta, Fishermens Friend and several creams of embarrassing desriptions. Yep, that's my girls!

ODD SPOT: Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.

P.S: If you're ambidextrous do you split the difference?

Milestones

A couple of milestones to mention here, and all in all this weekend has been good despite not going away.

Emma is now three months, and cooing and ahhhing so much that she gets upset if you don't talk back to her. Great, another one with no "off switch"!

We normally place Emma on the floor for some tummy time, .ie we place her on her tummy so that she will lift her head and move a lot more and therefore exercise her neck and arms. Well, yesterday she was on her tummy and pushed with her arms and rolled over onto her back! She got such a fright she cried but it the fact she had done this by herself...well, I'm a proud dad, okay!?

Lill clipped Emma's fingernails for the first time since she left the hospital. Back then, Lill had accidently clipped Emma's finger rather than the nail, and oh boy did the scream that ensued let us know she wasn't happy! But no harm was done, and they needed to be done after three months, so....Lill finally got the courage and clipped them. I'm not laughing here, mind you, I did the exact same thing to Sarah when she was little. Ah, don't you love it when history repeats itself...!!!

ODD SPOT: Cranberries are sorted for ripeness by bouncing them; a fully ripened cranberry can be dribbled like a basketball.

P.S: Yeah, I'd like to see you try this at Safeway...!!!

Fateful Weekend

Looks like we were fated to stay here in Melbourne this weekend for two reasons.

One. We have a sizeable fish tank outside which is home to five happy fish, which the twins love. Unfortunately it has sprung a leak and if we hadn't been here this weekend all five fish would have been dead from lack of water! As it is, I managed to save four and I'm attempting to find and repair that pesky leak!

Two. Much to my poor suffering wife's dismay, Channel TV1 is hosting a Stargate Marathon Weekend! So in between necessary chores, I am doing a couch potato and trying to get in as much Stargating as possible.

Ah fate! It seems to know me so well...!!!

ODD SPOT: If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle; if the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle; if the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

P.S: What if the horse stands on its hind legs and then places one of its fore legs on its hip and the other one extended like a spout and then sings, "I'm a little teapot...!!!"

Okay, I think I'm losing it.....

Meet The Parents

Well, Rye is off the Agenda this weekend, what with Jessica now having a high fever and was very sick last night. Never mind. We can always go to Rye another time. Cest la vie, and all that!

After Lill's blog, I guess it's time for me to reminisce. I'll pick up from when I first went to visit Lill at her parent's house. So there I was, at the front door, girding my loins (I love that expression; actually, I love trying to picture that expression!), preparing myself to meet her family for the first time. Did all the usual preliminary checks before showtime, you know the routine: make sure hair is in place, test the breath, polish the shoes, and check to see if my zipper was up! Okay, with all systems go, I ring the doorbell.

Next to the front door is a large window, which being night time, has the curtains drawn. Well, when I did ring the doorbell, the curtains pull aside like one of those Punch and Judy shows, and hanging in front of the window like Garfield dolls are Lill's two younger sisters, screaming at the top of their lungs, "He's here! He's here!!!" That should have been my cue to just turn around and drive away! Even to this day Lill's sisters still scream in this fashion, and on occasion hang out in front of windows to embarrass anyone they're with!

So I'm let in and I meet the family. Lill's Mum and Dad were in the kitchen making preparation to make tomato sauce that weekend. In my best voice I introduced myself, and the reply I got from Lill's dad was, "Come help us make tomato sauce this weekend!" I assumed he either liked me and approved of me, or he desperately needed the extra hands. These days I'm leaning towards the latter....

By that time Lill was desperate to drag me out of the house before her family could make further impressions on me! And so Lill and I went out that night, and our budding romance continued to blossom. (see Lill's blogs). It was fun and exhilirating....and a huge learning experience about the social customs of Maltese!

Oh yes, and that weekend, I did help them make tomato sauce, and thus won the hearts of Lill's parents!

ODD SPOT: Actor Lorne Greene had one of his nipples ripped off by an alligator.

P.S: What was he doing with the alligator in the first place, I really don't want to know...

Hugs and Kisses

Emma slept for seven hours straight! Go Emma! Quite frankly, Lill and I needed it! Speaking of which, we're making plans to go to Rye this weekend. I have an RDO this Friday so we'll have a nice long weekend. It'll be Emma's first time down there, too. The dilemma... no access to computers for more than a day! How will I survive!? Better charge the Palm....

Funny story. Jessica, the obsessive compulsive one, is in love with this green corduroy dress at the moment...she even wears it to bed! Well, a couple of days ago we managed to pry it loose from her so we could wash it. Oh boy, the drama we had! Sometimes I saw her pining outside the laundry door, waiting for that dress to make a reappearance! Today, Lill tells her that it's now washed and dried. Well, you should've seen her face! So excited and bubbly, chanting "Oh Mummy, I love you! I love you!" and smothered Lill with hugs and kisses.

Hey, Lill Honey Poo Bear! If you get me a state-of-the-art laptop for Christmas, I'll do the same thing...PROMISE!!!

ODD SPOT: The average person has over 1,460 dreams a year.

P.S: Wow! I'd love to sleep long enough to have that many dreams at the moment...

Violent Femmes

Emma's campaign of terror continues with her sisters. This time it was Jessica who got too close to Emma's face and then BAM! nice head butt to the forehead! Emma didn't even blink! Yep, she certainly has her mother's head...

Sarah recovered from a bad fever last night. She was shivering and babbling at one stage and I came close to bundling her up and taking her to hospital...but the fever broke, and she was a bubbly and happy child this morning. Now I'm the one babbling this morning! Time for my 100th cuppa....!!!

ODD SPOT: If you have hiccups that just won't go away, massage your ear lobes.

P.S: Hey, I'll try anything once...

Where's the OFF button on this thing?

Lill and I have decided to change our names by depol because we're sick of hearing "Mum" and "Dad" from Jessica's lips every 5 seconds. A typical conversation with Jessica will begin with "Mum", or "Dad", and then around every 5th word after that she'll repeat it. Example..

"Dad, can you read me a story in bed? Dad, I want three four six stories in bed. And Dad, I want lots of hugs and kisses. And Dad, Sarah is under the bed again. Dad, I want a glass of water. Dad, I want to wear my stockings to bed. And Dad, I don't want the pink pyjama, I want the green dress. Dad, don't do all the buttons. Dad, Sarah ate my biscuit today. Dad, I want to go to the toilet. Dad, I want to brush my teeth. And Dad, Sarah was a cheeky girl today."

All this would be said in her wonderfully high whiny voice, and spoken at twice the speed of human conversation. By about the third "Dad", you grow tired of that word very quickly and this is where the wish to change it comes in.

Jessica now anticipates when she's about to be told off. As soon as she knows she's done something wrong, she'll burst into tears and will try and send YOU to your room. She even sent her grandfather to his room for something SHE did the other day! Out of the mouths of babes...

Speaking of babes, When Emma lies on her tummy, not only can she lift her head up, but she can now pull her shoulders up off the ground, too! I know I know, proud Dad in the building! What can I say....!!??

ODD SPOT: When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered that ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 Billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300C.

The Russians used a pencil.

P.S: I'm rolling on the floor laughing....

Wash The Chicken

This morning was a busy one, as I had to bathe all three girls before our afternoon guests arrived. I was having friends over I hadn't seen in over a year, so I was looking forward to catching up with them.

However, this morning Jessica was also telling me that we were going to "wash the chicken", and do you think I had a clue as to what on earth she was talking about!!?? After Emma's bath, I told the twins it was time for their bath. Jessica was so excited and she told me again we were going to wash the chicken. So as I was running the bath, I was conjuring all sorts of images, including how do you really bathe a chicken, and whether I could use a hairdryer to dry one, and would it sit still long enough to let me do so. When it finally came to bathe them, Jessica brought into the bath with her an egg cup, which had the figurehead of a chicken, which she proceeded to wash. Chuckling to myself, I bathed the girls, and in the end I bathed that chicken too at Jessica's request, and dried them all off, too. Not as challenging, but I still got the job done, and managed to enjoy a pleasant afternoon with old friends.

Oddly enough, Emma slept through most of today. Lucky her!

Good thing I blog, so she can catch up on some future date...!

ODD SPOT: Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a
great king from history:

Spades - King David
Hearts - Charlemagne
Clubs -Alexander the Great
Diamonds - Julius Caesar

P.S: Just curious, who does the Joker represent...?