Gifts and Surprises

Gifts and surprises

Jinx and Kitty have this new game, it’s called let’s make our mommy’s stomach turn every morning.

The latest game is let’s hunt for lizards together, and when we have totally mutilated this poor lizard lets give it to our mommy as a gift. I mean who knows she may like to partake in this meal. They every so kindly leave the present for me at the side of my bed and on more than one occasion I had the joy of waking up in the middle of the night to let the dogs out and step on this awful gooey mess. Not my idea of fund and as I am quite fond of Lizards I admonish them, but it is not long before they off hunting again. Seems as if Lizards play quite a big role in our life... remember my blog about the Willy Eating Lizard, well now its my turn! Oh please why can't it be visiting fairy's carrying pots of love and peace!
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Last Night Jinx gave us the fright of our lives. She came into the lounge and there was this foam coming out of her mouth and I was convinced she had been poisoned, the drool and foam was pouring out her mouth and I have to say it looked horrendous and she wiped her drool on me. So needless to say the stomach did do a bit of a turn and I managed to control it. The sight of this foam coming out her mouth and her tail wagging at the same time and the drool pouring out needless to say she was still jumping around and playing so I was not sure if she was in pain, or had gone insane – not that I would recognize it with the way she behaves. The drool notwithstanding, I was far too concerned about Jinx so worry about the slime on my trousers as we have lost dogs to poisoning before.

Well thank goodness it was not poison, no our little Jinx hunts frogs too. And as we all know they have this slimy protection on their skins and Jinx reacted to the slime. Now I would have thought she would have learnt her lesson, now why would I think that? She most certainly has not given me any indication that has learnt anything other than how to terrorize me; it turns out this is not the first time jinx has chased frogs- but this is the first time that I know of that she had this reaction. This morning she was at the pool – yes you guessed it, chasing frogs again. I just shake my head at her as she prances around the pool with an expression of glee on her face.

Beast is turning out to be just as playful as his mother, but he has not learnt the art of jumping up on me to greet me as Jinx and little boy do. When I arrive home and open the gate, he watches them and tries to mimic them, but all he does is jump up and down on one spot, like a pogo toy. He is really cute and very very naughty… but I adore him. I think God decided my children weren’t enough of a handful so he blessed me with animals that need extra attention.

Our Cat Pussy-Cat (I mentioned him before) also used to love leaving us gifts. He used to leave them on my pillow for me and this was disgusting. I would find half eaten dead birds on my pillow or half eaten mice, and even a half hamster. Now I have been told this is a sign of respect in the animal kingdom as they recognize that I am the leader of the pack, but please, I could think of so many other way they could show respect- for example, not attack me while I am walking down the passage, not bite my toes that happened to wiggle while I sleep, or just maybe clean out their own litter box! Puss-cat has surprised us many a time, remember the time he out his toy mouse in Sarah’s school bag for her, well he caught me very nicely too.


It was winter time and I was putting on my boots. I put my size 4 foot into my boot and got the fright of my life. Puss had deposited a mouse in there for me, a bloody mess and I screamed so loud I am sure I woke the neighbours up. Puss-cat was not impressed with me as he obviously had hidden it there for safe keeping and grabbed this mangled mess from my hand and ran off with it. I knew he was annoyed with me because all I was given of his catch that night was this poor mouse’s head on my pillow.

Little boy had another way of showing his affection to Bern a couple years back. He was either annoyed with her or was claiming his place on the bed. He used to lift his leg on her pillow the minute he came into the house. Hence the relationship between him and Bern, they do not like each other. Bern says this was his way of marking his territory over me, well he took it one step further didn’t he when he peed on me. Strange and getting even stranger. I think I need to change my perfume or maybe give up on animals altogether, but oh how boring and peaceful my life would be! Let me give this some thought and I will come back to you on my decision. “Animals, endless love – endless chaos – vs- no animals, peace, boredom, no chewed property and…. I better stop right there as I think I am on the brink of finding homes for all of them. No not really I adore them and they adore me.

Mother’s day! This is a day we mother treasure and the memories keep us going for years. However there is often a price to pay for mother’s day. Caitlin was 6 years old and we were visiting our friend Mitzi for the night. The next day she and Mitzi’s little girl also a Michelle woke us up with breakfast I bed. Now as all mothers know you do not get out of bed on mother’s day until you have been served breakfast in bed. We heard these two six year olds and heard the giggles and knew that there would be a wonderful mess to clean up but this is their one day of the year they want to show appreciation and I was not going to burst their happy bubble.

They walked into the room, all smiles and giggles and served us our breakfast. Yum Yum, we said and looked d down at our plates. Fried eggs floating in a river or oil, hard enough to bounce off the walls, brown toast and my absolute favourite (NOT) fried onions in syrup, we smiled told them this looked absolutely delicious and asked for a cup of coffee please and told them they need to come and join us while we ate this feast of feasts.

Yes well……… with very long teeth I bit into the toast and egg. Rubber must taste like this, then they insisted we try the onions, I cannot even begin to explain the effort it took to even out the fork of onion with syrup in my mouth. My hand was shaking, my eyes must have showed glee at the thought because they were so excited and I took a bite. Well I swallowed it whole and they obviously thought we loved it because they rant to the kitchen and brought the rest of the onion from the frying pan with the syrup already poured in and dollopped the stuff onto my and Mitzi’s plate.

We looked at them and smiled a crooked smile and said “Oh Goody! More- Yum Yum” Cait and Michelle sat there and giggled with pleasure and smiled and asked us if we liked our breakfast and the two little buggers sat there throughout the whole ordeal and watched us eat this mother’s day breakfast. Well what could we do? We ate the breakfast, gulping a tout cups of coffee to help the egg, toast and syrup onion go down and not even the dog could be persuaded to help us eat the onions. Oh the joys of mothers day. Yes it tasted terrible, but oh the effort and love was so appreciated and we hugged them and told them they were very clever and how much we loved them and how wonderfully clever they were for not getting burnt and told them to get ready as we were going to visit friends for the day.

Mitzi and I looked at each other after their left the room, our faces green with the sugary sweetness of our breakfast and burs tout laughing. This is one of my fondest memories of mother’s day and one I know my Cait will tell her children too. My children have always made such a big deal of mothers day, special breakfast, presents they have made for me and dances they have made up for me, these memories cannot be bought and I wouldn’t trade them for all the money in the world. Mother’s Day, the best day of the year.

What also makes the heart melt is that wild flower your son brings you that he picked just for you and tells he loves you and thinks you are the best mommy in the world and one day his wife will be just as wonderful, but he will never love her was much as he loves his mom. So cute, so innocent and with so much love! . Or that special homemade card just because they wanted to show how special you are or how important you are to them. The drawing they bring home from school of their family where you know they see you as their centre of their life. They draw you with a big head, big eyes and sometimes a big smile, big hair and small body. I have kept some of these for their children to see.

The best gift ever is God’s Gift to me, my children and for this I will be forever grateful. I have attended their school functions and cheered them on, when Sarah was given her prefects badge, I sat in the audience and cried, howled is a better description. When Cait ran in her inter school races, I ran along the side lines cheering her on, when Mathew performed in his first concert and blew fire out his mouth a bawled with pride once again. Yes I am a wimp with my kids and cry with joy and embarrass them no end with my emotions, the cup runneth over when it comes to how much joy they have given me and I know I will be no better with their children.

For my birthday to years ago, Bern and my girls decided to give me a very special birthday. They decorated the double lock up garage, with linen and beautiful gauze which they tacked to the roof to give the impression of a bohemian tent. The table was decorated with candles and glitter and flowers and it was an evening of elegance and soft music and was so incredibly beautiful. We had a three course meal and were served by my girls and it was just perfect. One of my gifts was a bunch of sunflowers from Dom and that is the picture I use for my blog. I was spoilt rotten and my family really outdid themselves. I am not keen on being in the lime light but this was one of those occasions when I basked in it.

Not like my 40th! Well not one told me that they had arranged a surprise party at Ann’s house (Bern’s sister) so we took Jessie with us or little black foxy and I was dressed in my normal weekend apparel, Sarah was not with us which I was a little upset about as she said she had made plans to go to her boyfriends church. Oh well I said, I can’t stop her going to church! Jessie sat on my lap and got me so dirty and as I said I was wearing my normal weekend apparel. My hair was pulled back in a ponytail and I looked a sight. As I walked into the entertainment area I was greeted with Surprise! Well it most certainly was, my friend Trevor and his kids, my aunt and Bern’s Family and my girls and son. Needless to say I was overjoyed but felt quite ridiculous on my grubby clothes and I have to say really bad hair day. I was wearing pedal pushers and a t-shirt and when I look at the photographs I still shudder. Next time warn me people, don’t give the secret away, but say something like… are you really going to wear that today?

We decided to throw Anne a surprise 50th birthday party and she was not even aware of our plans as we had all booked dinner at a restaurant for her so she was absolutely clueless. In order to get her to get her to the house where the benefit was being held, we told her we were having a bingo evening to explain all the cars.

Annie arrived in her “Paint” clothes with her coins all ready for the bingo evening and when she was meant by Jossie who was all dressed up for the evening she still thought nothing of it. She commented to Jossie, “shew there are a lot of people here for Bingo and I am going to make lots of money!”

When she walked in she was till totally in the dark, she saw her friends she hadn’t seen in years but still no penny dropped it was only when she saw her son Franz that it dawned on her and, or I think the surprise shout from us must have been a dead giveaway! So poor Anne also has pictures of her surprise birthday where she looks like she was going to paint her house and we all were suitably dressed. Surprise birthday parties are fun, yes, but no to much for the victim who would rather look ravishing on her day than like something the cat dragged in. (a mangled mouse maybe!)