Andrew, Callum and I took a nice stroll through Leederville, today. I thought it was a little quiet for a Friday afternoon.I guess the lunch crowd hadn’t reached the streets yet.

We walked past all our old favourite cafes and restuarants.
It was fun to recall all our social antics from Leeds. Sunday coffees and BLTs at 130. Saturday night coffee and cakes at Cino’s. Sushi and crazy Jap waiters at Banzai. Delicious kebabs at a very dodgy Effie’s. Lunchtime burgers at Retro Betty’s. Late night browsing through Oxford Bookstore. Lunchtime work meetings at Cafe Villa. Weird arty movies at Luna. After movie kebab at Cosmos. Friday night Latin dancing at the Leeds hotel. It was just hillarious to have so much history in one small strip of cafes.

We ended up at Siena’s. With their special sound dampening ceiling, their indoor children’s play area and spacious seating arrangements.. it’s been our recent favourite cafe.
Even though the coffee is so-so.

Being a full-time mum, one usually forgets how to appreciate public holidays.
I figure it’s just like any other day, except you can’t go window shopping.

Anyway, we decided to put off going to the Perth Royal Show and join my church on their Children’s Picnic Day. It was cool! There were SO many kids running around. There were team games and water games. An Asian Australian styled BBQ – that is, fried bee hoon, nasi goreng, chicken curry, sausages, chops and steak served on the same table.

I didn’t let Callum play any games. The games were designed for 6 – 12 year olds and he was too little to dodge soccer balls and shoot water guns. However, he did have fun running around the field throwing the water balloons.

I’m obsessed with my garden. It’s actually a bit embarrassing.

Despite appearing to be my mother’s daughter, I have to admit that I can’t drive down the street without turning my head to check out other people’s gardens (as opposed to, say, checking out all the hot guys fixing cars in their driveways).

I’ve recently decided that our backyard was looking a bit plain and feral. It needed trimming. It needed tidying. It needed a whole lot of colour and flowers. And it needed to bear me fruit.
The only catch was… I couldn’t spend TOO much money on it.

So I bought a whole stack of seeds. They need a bit more patience and loving, but they’re much cheaper than seedlings and ready-potted plants. I’ve got daisies, poppies, tomatoes, corn, cucumbers. I bought a good potting mix, fertiliser and after 7 days, they’re sprouting already!

Also, as I visited family and friends, I asked for a few clippings here and there. I was actually quite surprised that people were very eager to share their plants. They’d rip seedlings out by the roots. Hand me clippings the size of branches. Give me all six varieties of their daisies.

The hardest part was waiting for everything to grow.
Grr, I hate waiting.

My husband is a huge history and maritime buff. Me? Well, I’d prefer to go shopping on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. But the specky Maritime Museum in Fremantle offers free entry every 2nd Tuesday of each month. So we thought we’d check it out.

It’s basically a showcase of WA’s maritime endeavors – including Australia II (when we won America’s Cup in 83), a peak into the history of Freo, the Swan River, the fishing industry and our part in the Indian Ocean community etc.

I wouldn’t exactly say that it was a dull exhibition.
I just had other things on my mind. Such as how to stop my kid from pulling on the wooden boats suspended on wires, squishing his fingers in the interactive displays, and smearing his drool all over the glass display windows.

Ever since I was 16, I’ve been on a fruitless mission to get my hair as shiny, smooth and silky as “naturally” [read : cheap] as possible. I really believe all the chemical shite in shampoos and conditioners that create the build up in your hair is plain evil. And I reckon every once in a while, your hair needs a bit of natural goodness.

Ok, so here are some of the things that I’ve tried over the last 10 years (please note that I have no scientific backing whatsoever to any of my claims. Heh.) :

Beer : Apparently beer makes your hair soft and shiny. And at the impressionable age of 16, I decided that VB was the most beeriest beer I could get my hands on.

Egg : Just the yolk. Make sure you don’t rinse it out with very hot water (the egg might cook). Hair felt ok.

Mayonnaise : Couple of tablespoons made my hair very shiny! But it took ages to wash it out.

Honey : Mix 1 teaspoon of honey with 3 cups of water. You’re supposed to wash your hair normally, then comb the mixture through your hair and then leave it in to dry. I washed it out, it was way too icky to leave in.

Coconut milk : My aunty told me about this one. Just massage and rinse it through your hair.

Coconut oil : You’re supposed to massage the oil into your scalp then leave it in for a several hours. But I didn’t have the patience and left it in for 30 minutes. It took ages to wash out, but my hair felt very soft!

Avocado : Massage mashed avocado into your scalp for 20 minutes then wash out. It was gross!

Water only treatment : For 1 week I tried to use nothing but water to wash my hair. My hair felt so gross after the first wash. After the second wash it got a little better. I caved in after the third wash because I had a party to go to.

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with the shampoo and conditioners from Lush. They’ve been sooo good. A little expensive, but it’s nice to use someone else’s cocktail of natural goodies.

Guess who’s pregnant again?!? Yep ME!!! I’m about 5 months in. BabyTwo’s sex will be kept a secret until D-day in late March 2005. Callum and BabyTwo will be almost exactly two years apart. We are SO excited!

I have a feeling that Callum’s a real mummy’s boy, and that he’ll get pretty jealous of the new baby. So I’m trying to get Callum used to the idea that I have a baby in my tummy. But now he just points to his own tummy and says “baby”.

It’s true that you’re more relaxed second time around.
When I was first pregnant, I didn’t have any coffee or alcohol or panadols or ham etc. And I was reading every bloody bit of literature about being pregnant, what’s supposed to happen at what week, how my baby is developing each month, all the things I have to watch out for and be aware of. I didn’t have a particularly stressful pregnancy, but it did tick by very slowly.

Yep, I’m a lot more relaxed this time. I have one shot of caffeine a day. I hang out with Callum. Go out a lot, do stuff in the garden, make yummy dinners. And suddenly I’m 5 months pregnant. Time has flown by!

There is one big difference so far. When I was pregnant with Callum, I had a fantastic pregnancy – with only one or two cases of headaches. Now with BabyTwo, I’ve been stuck in bed with nausea, headaches, dizziness, tiredness and loss of appetite. The first 3 months were reeeeeeally baaaad. My doc put me onto Vitamin B6 and things have been ok since.

Anyway, things are all good at the moment. Hehe, I’m giggly with excitement, and now even more so that I’ve told the world about it!

This is Callum asking me whether he can take his bubble blowers into the bath. It’s so funny, he doesn’t know how to blow bubbles properly.

The most he’ll do is dip the blower into the bubble solution, stick the thing in his mouth and SLURP IT UP. So I have been filling the bubble container with WATER, which has been confusing him even more. Oh well.

Anyway, I’m off to spend the weekend in Margaret River – just me and my husband. Yay. We have friends getting married at the very posh Leeuwin Estate. Ciao!

The wedding was great!!
We left Callum with my parents for 2 days + 1 night and apparently everything went better than expected.

It was a black tie evening. And being 5 months pregnant, the only thing I could fit into (without looking unbelievably frumpy) was my black cheong sum! Andrew did a great job as the MC. The food was fantastic, the music and dancing was great fun. But for most of the night I sulked and pouted because I couldn’t get stuck into the free flowing Leeuwin wines and the abundant platters of Margaret River cheeses.