threelilprincesses.com

Category: The Bloke in The Shed

SHED: Did you know fish eat pumpkin?

TRUE, and I know it to be so because an underwater diver with a microphone in her face mask told me so. I’m not going to doubt her, especially as she was the one in the tank surrounded by any number of sharks as big as cars, huge stingrays and enough Snapper to send Rex Hunt into a piscatorial orgasm.

The answer came as part of a presentation in the impressive underwater auditorium at the Melbourne Aquarium. By way of qualification, the pumpkin revelation was only a small part of a longer answer to a question I posed to the aquarium diver about where they get the food they feed the fish, with the express qualification she could not reply “the ocean’’. But enough about pumpkin.

The Princesses and I had made the journey to Melbourne on the premise tickets to the footy were my Christmas present, but really Princess Kel and I just wanted to take Princess Ella to the aquarium. Staying at the sensational Medina Grand, we were only a couple of blocks away so we gathered Kel’s Melbourne-based brother Rick and shuffled off to the aquarium.

Now, we hadn’t been to the aquarium POK (post kids) so don’t fall into the trap we and several other families made and try to enter through the old entrance. The main entrance is now on Flinders St where, upon entering the facility, you are greeted by the magnificent penguin exhibition.

The temptation, being the first exhibit, is to hurry through it to the next one. Don’t. Take your time to marvel at the contrast of the penguins at rest on the ice and those putting on the most acrobatic displays in the pool. If you want to, you can actually go back to the penguins again after you’ve seen the rest.

You can follow an easy path through the different sections of the aquarium, but in hindsight I’d suggest timing your trip around the keeper/diver presentations at the different sections to get the most out of your visit. The schedule is online .

Look out for the spots at the aquarium where little kids can actually crawl underneath exhibits and poke their heads into glass spheres.

The rockpool is always a delight for the littlies and Ella showed no fear in picking up a starfish.

However the fear was there when a very brave Ella standing next to a docile crocodile in a glass exhibit was told it was actually a “real crocodile’’. We had to check her undies for stains afterwards.

Other interesting things Ella learned were stonefish are not actually stones, lionfish are not actually lions and you wouldn’t dare eat jellyfish with custard for dessert.

Ella really enjoyed it and it was a good 2-3 hour experience for a toddler, but I think she’d really appreciate the experience more as she gets older (me, I could have stayed there all day). The only negative for those with young, pram-weilding families is the one point where you need to negotiate one tight lift to get to another level.

Overall, the Melbourne Aquarium was an experience that Ella will never forget and that in itself was priceless.

Do you have any other kid-friendly suggestions for Melbourne?

Read more about our Melbourne trip at Spoilt on a grand Melbourne holiday (Medina Grand review) and Two nights in a one-bedroom Medina apartment ($1000 giveaway). The Bloke in The Shed also gives his account of footy at the ‘G and I give my take on the Melbourne Zoo.

Disclosure: We received a complimentary night at the Medina Grand and complimentary tickets to the Melbourne Aquarium. No financial payment was offered nor accepted for this post. All opinions expressed are purely my own.

May 17, 2011
LESSON FOR WIVES No. 6: The importance of communication

The new caviar – bananas!

DISCUSSION between myself and Princess Kel during a city stroll this week turned to bananas (you know bananas, the fruit which now has a higher price per gram than crack cocaine). Well, the conversation was around the fact we should buy two – despite the cost – to at least give the newly solid-eating Princess Holly a taste for them and Ella a treat.

So after quick call to the bank manager to secure the funding for said purchase, the decision was made. Later in the day we call in to a supermarket and I pop in to grab a few essentials, scruffing an extravagant three bananas on the way. People at the checkout look at me like I’m P Diddy.

On the drive home, Kel remembers a couple of other things she needed and we call by a little supermarket in the neighbourhood. Upon re-entering the car, Kel says “oh, I got bananas’’.

“Um, so did I,’’ was my response. We look at each other and swear quietly enough not to be heard by the princesses in the back seat.

“How many did you get?” says I.

“Two. How many did you get?’’ says Kel.

“Three’’. Yep, five bananas coming in at a nice little sum of about $16.

We cut our losses, decide to live on bread and water for the next month and tell a delighted Princess Ella in the back seat she can have her first banana since the floods hit Queensland …. AS LONG as she saves part of it for Holly. Ella, clearly switched on to the new high value on the bendy fruit, proceeds to jump from the car on arrival home saying “see, I saved some for Holly’’ holding up a piece of banana roughly the size of a walnut. Not even a very big walnut.

Later in the day I posted this status on Facebook: “Bought five bananas today. May not be able to pay the power bill this month.” This is a selection of the responses which followed:

Coley: I’m working two jobs just to pay for my girlfriends 2-a-day habit.

Shae: You can buy a pair of Jimmy choo heels for the cost of bananas.

Testy: I never even gave it a thought and bought 3 the other day from Woolies – got home and realised that they cost me over $8.00 WTF??

Feel free to vent below. Read more Lessons for Wives.

May 10, 2011
SHED: For the love of a mother

Kel and Holly

WHEN you grow up with a miracle mum as a role model, your expectations of what a “mum’’ is, is kinda high. You see, Betty O’Brien had seven kids and I was the last of them. I was a mistake in fact. Result of a housewives basketball celebration dinner apparently … still getting therapy for that revelation.

I was nine years after my next oldest sibling and my mum was well over 40. My birth nearly did us both in – I was so premature I spent months in hospital after being born.

Despite that, I still reflect at the amazing amount of time my mother devoted to me in my childhood, even to the point of having nightly post-school “foul shooting competitions” at the family basketball court while tea was bubbling away on the stove. My point? Bear with me …

I reflected on this influence privately recently. What I concluded was, in looking for my own partner I did, subconsciously, look for someone who would similarly take the same approach to motherhood.

Don’t be confused. Kellie and my mother are completely different people (it would be kinda weird if they weren’t). However, they both share an unfathomable love and devotion for their children.

Take our six-month-old Holly for example. Since conception, it has not been easy for Kel. A perfectionist with a great career and true professionalism, Kel’s sickness associated with the pregnancy meant she was largely bed-ridden for a large portion of the pregnancy and had to give up work way earlier than expected.

Since birth, she has had to battle a baby, which – while delightful in every way – has slept only three-hour stints at night on less occasions than you have fingers. All this while managing an independent and spirited three-year-old and a husband with a challenging, full-time job requiring long hours.

Kel does all this while remaining sane, (largely) happy and actively aiding the development of both children to the point they are a sheer delight to all those who meet them. Her kids adore her, as do I. She, like Betty before her, is the perfect mum.

Kel on our wedding day

Happy Mother’s Day to my dearly beloved. xx

What do you love most about your mum?

Taking part in Weekend Rewind @ Life in A Pink Fibro on June 10.

May 4, 2011
LESSON FOR WIVES No. 5: Big Girls Don’t Cry

The photo Ella will hate Kel for in years to come.

I’M PRETTY sure when you are in the process of scolding a three-year-old it is not OK to giggle. Picture the scene: Princess Kel is trying to dish up dinner, I’m cradling a tired and grumpy six-month-old and Princess Ella (the three-year-old) is proceeding to whine at great volume about anything and everything.

Then, Princess Ella erupts into tears because mum won’t put her on the bench (where her sole intent is to dirty the already clean washing up sitting nearby). Kel proceeds to tell her it’s dangerous to sit on the bench by herself. “But I’m a big girl,’’ comes the reply from Ella.

It’s on the end of a frustrated lecture that Princess Kel finishes off with the sentence: “big girls don’t cry’’. There’s an awkward moment of silence, followed by muffled laughter from Kel and I as we clearly both image the falsetto voices of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons launching into the ’60s song of the same name, Big Girls Don’t Cry. If only our lives were a musical.

It got me thinking about other song titles we might find helpful when disciplining our “little angels’’. Here’s a few suggestions:

What’s Going On – Marvin Gaye

Respect – Aretha Franklin

Walk This Way – Aerosmith and Run DMC

You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me – Dusty Springfield

I Fought the Law – Bobby Fuller Four

Fortunate Son – Creedance Cleawater Revival

You Can’t Always Get What You Want – Rolling Stones

Go Your Own Way – Fleetwood Mac

I Can’t Make You Love Me – Bonnie Raitt

Voodoo Child – Jimi Hendrix

Any other suggestions?

Read more Lessons for Wives.

April 18, 2011
SHED: New Woolworths CEO through the eyes of his brother

Fishing with family – this is the Grant we know.

IT IS not every day you learn your brother has been made CEO of one of the country’s biggest companies.

I shouldn’t have been surprised; he had been on that career trajectory for a while. But hearing the news come through the car radio that my older brother was to be the new CEO of Woolworths nearly made me veer off the road.

Everything else aside, it was a proud moment for what is a large and close family – seven children in all. Watching him on national television was more than surreal.

This was a bloke I grew up idolising, more for his ability on the football field than his future abilities in the boardroom.

He was much older than me, but the trips to Canberra and then south to Clarence to see him play footy remain some of the best memories of my life.

Even greater still were the memories of kick-to-kick alone in some vacant park oval. They remain vivid to this day.

The grief I gave his poor then future wife was regrettable now, but at the time I felt she was taking my big brother away from me. Silly, I know now.

As time went on, he and his family provided what felt like a second home for Princess Kel and I in Sydney as our own relationship grew.

Covering the 2000 Sydney Olympics was as memorable for the time spent with his family as it was for the Olympic experience itself – including my first introduction to pull-up nappies while babysitting his youngest (which time and an entire box of Wet Ones could not erase). But that’s a whole other story which I might tell with her approval one day…

To me, he’s not the CEO of Woolies. He’s the bloke who had long straggly hair, dodgy early taste in cars and who was more capable of installing a new power point than reading a board report (he started working life as an apprentice sparkie).

And while it is that way for siblings, it appears it’s the same for mothers and their children.

My brother relayed a story to me last night, which illustrates my point exactly. He rang my mum yesterday morning to tell her the news of his appointment before the announcement was made nationally.

“Mum, I’ve just been appointed the CEO of Woolworths,’’ he said.

“That’s nice, dear. How are the children?’’ Mum said.

Yep, sums it up nicely, I reckon.

Feel free to leave a comment and “like” us on Facebook.

Also, don’t forget to cast your vote in the Top 25 Daddy Bloggers.

We’re linking up with Where’s My Glow’s FlogYoBlog Friday.

April 5, 2011
SHED: It ain’t all black and white

Ella dressed in Julian's Collingwood scarf and hat

SHE must have caught me at a weak moment. I know a deal was done, I just don’t exactly remember when or how.

Let me explain. When Princess Kel was pregnant with our first (which turned out to be Princess Ella), we agreed: If it was a boy it would be a Collingwood supporter; a girl would be a Carlton supporter. Yep, Kellie supports the Blues and I follow the Pies (and despite this we still are happily married and have been for eight years).

For a while the deal remained true. Kellie would take great delight when I screamed out “GO PIES!’’ and Ella would reply “go the Blues’’.

But then the tide turned. Ella started to see in black and white. It could have been the fact Collingwood had a winning year last year so she saw the joy it brought me, the fact I constantly played the club song to her during the final series or me getting her a Collingwood footy.

Whatever, but when I sing out “Go Pies’’ now, Ella echoes it. She even requests “Good Ol’ Collingwood Forever’’ instead of “Twinkle, Twinkle’’ during our bedtime sing-a-longs. She was also more than happy to don my beanie and scarf for a photo which I posted on Facebook (as you can see). These were some of the responses –

Moya: “child abuse’’.

Jason: “Now that is just wrong on so many levels’’.

Angus: “Congrats on giving your child the best possible start in life.’’

Emma: “Stop it Julian, you’re embarrassing her!! Kel, make it stop!’’

Kellie: “ I’ll never have an afternoon nap ever again. My poor Carlton-loving daughter…’’

Deep down, I know I’ve brain-washed my little girl and deep down I know Kel thinks I have reneged on a deal. She can hardly complain though. There is a long tradition of first-born daughters following their father’s footsteps. Why does Kel support Carlton? Because her dad does ….

Have you influenced which footy team your child supports?

Don’t forget to vote for Julian in the Top 25 Daddy Bloggers.

April 4, 2011