My little fearless warrior son, Connor, is afraid of one thing in this world. And that’s cats!

I thought about this the other day when someone on a mothers forum posted a question asking what your child is scared of. He’s definitely not afraid of heights or speed or anything like that… in fact the more dangerous the better for him. In fact, he’s already trying to walk down staircases (ie not backwards or on his bum) - bear in mind he’s only 16 months old!

But cats, that’s a no no.

He just has to see one to start screaming. LOL! And I think I’m making it worse because I’ve started feeding a stray cat that’s decided our garden is a haven. Everytime he sees it he screams and runs for cover.
The cat of course, is not interested at all, which is typical. LOL!

It’s so bad, that the other evening we were watching a program on TV and a home video of a cat came on… he screamed and performed so much that we had to change the channel!

LOL! Hope he grows out of it soon

Bradley’s theme for the week at school is wild animals. Now that is such a cool theme for him, he’s certainly got enough wild animals to take to school for show and tell!  LOL, he has been obsessed with plastic animals for years.  so much so, that he has a huge toy box just filled with animals… nothing else!

Anyhoo, that isn’t what this post is about!

This evening we were watching a lion programme on NatGeo Wild and he pipes up…
“Mom, do you know that elephants have stuff in their tusks that people use?” and then
“And, people kill elephants?”
“And do you know how people kill elephants? They shoot them”
“And then they cut off their tusks and leave their bodies just there on the ground”
“And then they sell the tusks”
“Poor elephants”

I dunno about you, but although I think it’s good to teach the kids about poaching and animal conservation etc, it seems quite hectic to teach it to 5 year olds.

I had a good chuckle to myself on the way home today… and the reason… there’s new graffiti on a wall and it’s just gorgeous!!

Last year, I would have moaned and groaned about the vandalism, but now I see the beauty in it.  I see that there’s a new photo opportunity, and I can’t wait to stop there sometime this week (if it’s not too dark) to take a few shots of it.

It’s very obvious to me that I’ve changed a lot since I started the photo-a-day thing.  I see things in a completely different light.  I’m the weirdo carrying a camera around all day, but who cares!   I get the strangest looks most days, but again, who cares!

Connor’s big boy bed arrived on Wednesday, but I only managed to find linen for it today.  I hunted to find something half decent that didn’t cost an arm and a leg!

So tonight’s the big night… he’s in his bed for the first time. Hope he sleeps! LOL!  He looks so tiny in it!!

So that’s that… cots are a thing of the past in my life.  Sjoe, it’s quite a milestone actually, and it made me a bit sad to see it packed away for the last time.  It wasn’t the most amazing cot, but both boys have started out life sleeping in it.

Fiona, you’re welcome to collect it at any time You’ll probably just have to touch up the paint a bit.

On my way to bookclub (I have posted my pic for the day though)

I’ll catch up tomorrow

Have a good night peeps!!

…and I’m at work! Blegh!! I went the practical route again, and decided that I need to keep my leave for later on in the year rather, so here I am.

The office has got me the most gorgeous basket of flowers, which brightened my morning!! I’ll take a pic of them later on today.

I have booked out a looong period in my diary around lunchtime to take myself out to lunch and buy myself a present - from me to me! I’m thinking a new handbag at this point but I could change my mind when I get to Sandton City!

…and before you ask how young I am today… I’m now on the wrong side of 35… heading towards 40! OMG I’m old!!

Sometimes the things Connor gets up to are just ewww!

When I tell him it’s bathtime, he runs to the bathroom and generally starts throwing toys in the bath. Last night, however, it took me some time to actually get into the bathroom, and when I finally got there… he had lifted the toilet seat and had his hands in the water… and his hair was wet!
He was using the toilet water to “wash” his hair!!

Needless to say, I washed his hair last night!

Hee hee

I attended the Microsoft Mix event held at Monte Casino today, and I learnt such cool stuff! OK, granted, I wasn’t enamoured by all the speakers, but I was blown away by some of the things they showed us. It wasn’t new to a lot of the people in the audience, and I had actually heard of most of them, but hadn’t realised the power of the tools until today.

We went to find out more about Silverlight because we’re starting to develop in it, and the BA team want to start designing screens in Essentials. I have seen some good examples of websites using it before, but I was blown away today by one.

Check out Hard Rock’s memoribilia site…   you just need to load Silverlight on your machine, but I promise it’s worth it.

They used Deep Zoom to develop it, which is incredible.  Read the navigation tip before using the site, then zoom into any part of the page, it’ll just keep going and going deeper and deeper into the photos.  It’s WOW.

The presenter gave us a tip, type V on the photo.  The page will take you to a Beatles memoribilia piece, and then zoom out, and keep zooming out!  I promise you it’s worth it to try it out!

Oooh and try this one out too… it’s a Virtual Earth app built with Deep Zoom

Just click on a part of the map and use your scroll wheel to zoom in.  It’s absolutely AMAZING!

We learnt about other cool stuff too, but I need to sleep :)  I’ll blog about that another day

We’ve had a leaking something for the last few days which has resulted in our garage flooding after we have a shower.  We thought it was either the shower pipe that was broken or the drain that was blocked or both, and Lance couldn’t fix it. So, I phoned the plumber who duly came this morning to sort the problem out.

“Dufus” left a note for me, which I got this evening.  The leak was caused by the drain that was blocked, and he fixed the problem.  Guess what it was caused by?  Apparently it was tampons!!

Ja right!!  Idiot!!  Just because there’s a female in the house, you can’t just assume that I use tampons!!  Idiot!!

It’s impossible that it’s caused by tampons!  I use a mooncup damnit!!

I did this a few weeks ago, and I’ve decided that I need to do it more often.

I learnt these very random things yesterday at my parent’s house when we went there for a braai (bbq).

1. Connor is a very sweet soul… at times… he was very eager to give his cousin Erin any toy she wanted to play with. Saying that though, I know that he’s not a push over like Bradley was/is… he’ll stand his ground eventually.

2. Carl (my brother) prefers to use his aperture setting on his Nikon, than the full manual setting. Makes sense for now, but I want to figure out how to adjust the exposure and the aperture settings on my camera - I can’t work it out at the moment.

3. My parents are going to Columbia next year for a wedding. How cool is that?!! I’d love to go there!

4. Carl is entering the Master’s Cup of Photography again (he was a finalist last year in the Photo Journalism section). But, he’s stopped going to camera club for the same reasons that the one commenter noted on my photoblog yesterday… it’s too hierachical and the same people get the awards all the time. We’ll have to see whether the camera club Fiona and I have joined is the same.

5. The refugee camps on the East Rand are the biggest in Jo’burg (from the Xenophobia attacks). One houses 15000 people and another 25000 people. I didn’t realise they were so big.

6. There’s a new refugee camp that was being erected with UNICEF tents in the grounds of the Boksburg Fire Dept this weekend. Apparently even the mayor didn’t know about it! My SIL’s friend lives on the property. Quite right so, the residents are up in arms. I would be too! Yes, I feel desperately sorry for the refugees, but there have been so many reports of violence in the camps in the last few weeks… and the firepeople don’t have proper security on their houses! It’s going to be a disaster! They’re expecting 1800 people… and have only supplied 5 portaloos! 5 loos for that many people!! It’s a recipe for disaster!

7. And back to nicer stuff… Elaine (my sister) has got 3 distinctions so far for her mid-year results in her honours year!! She’s too damn clever!

8. Some of the car manufacturers have graduate trainee programmes that looks fantastic!! Hope my sister can get into one of the car programmes like she wants to, when she finishes her studies at the end of the year.

9. The best kind of lunch = braaied steak and wors with salad and garlic bread! And the best part… spending the time with family!

Don’t you love the way that conversations ramble between the arb and more serious stuff.

Oh and then, I learnt this last night….

You remember that friend of mine that was attacked in her home at the end of last year? Well, there was an intruder on her property last night!! I can’t believe it! She’s got lazer beams in the garden, electric fencing and a house alarm now… and someone still managed to get to their kitchen door without setting anything off!!
Scary shit! I can’t imagine how they’re feeling tonight. Hope their kids sleep OK!