There are only a few kinds of poverty that seek to definitively sap your soul.  Surviving them will never leave you unscathed, and the scars left behind will instinctively flare up within seconds of noticing that the bank account has dipped below a certain level while after thumbing through a stack of bills.

I’m scarred now.  And it hurts.

The soothing balm of a promise of cash was short-lived, and in it’s place is a bitterness and numbness that seems to transcend the use of monetary devices of this common culture into a Utopian ideal.  As a self-defence mechanism, my mind seems to drift off into a world of make-believe, where we don’t need money to be happy and good times are still readily available regardless of our lack of funds.

My underlying demeanour may betray it, but my mood is a good one this morning as I dance back and forth from the countertop to the stove, a toddling bucket of curls clinging to my only stationary leg.  I whistle a nameless tune and eventually put lyrics to Beethoven’s Fifth that tell the story of the naughtiness contained in my small child.  She humours me with an emphatic, “Gah GAH!” and then smiles up at me while a piece of egg-soaked bread flops limply into the frying pan.  Breakfasts are my specialty.

Breakfast is also her least favourite meal, or at least the hardest to get her to eat.

I do what I can with the cheap white bread and our expansive spice rack, and even without butter (we’ve run out days ago) the French Toast turns out pretty good.  I’ve made some of it sweet, with sugar and some syrup, and some of it savoury, sprinkled with a dash of nutmeg and some tomato sauce, to cater to the two drastically different palates in our household.  I’m curious which the baby will prefer, as it took no fewer than 110 donuts and 13 eggnog banana milkshakes to keep her mother sated during the pregnancy, I assumed she’d have a sweet tooth.

Her mother may insist that the child has inherited her savoury tooth as she points out that her sweet preferences disappeared the instant the baby was born, but I find the child to be quite open to things such as chocolate and ice cream when offered.  Of course, if one followed her small body about her day they would find her real love is bits of fluff off of the floor, typically found in corners or under furniture.  She’ll quite happily chew a ball of dryer lint/random fuzz for as long as she can until you chase her down.  Her resistance holds out until her mouth is forced open and is then redoubled in an effort to not only keep possession of the fluff but to bite my finger as a lesson not to try again.  She’s quite resourceful.

My dance of the frying pan is given intermittent freedom while the toddlecurl discovers that I’ve accidentally left the pantry door open.  As I check out the burning smell that turns out to be the spiced-half of the bread reacting badly to the margarine I’m frying it in (ah butter, how I long for thee) I can hear assorted bottles being shoved aside and something plastic clattering across the slate floor.  I would worry that the perceived violence of the syrup bottle’s trip across the kitchen would indicate anger from the child, but she allays this with a squeal of delight and a loudly exhorted, “DaDAH… gah GAH!  BAHBAH!”  I take this to mean that she is telling me how pleased she is of her actions towards the syrup bottle.

I respond with something dry and sarcastic, and she repeats the same sentence as if to chastise me for not taking her seriously.  I reply again with sarcasm, but feign apology as well, to which she plods the length of our 8-foot kitchen and yellingly smashes her face into my jeans.  As I finish conducting my orchestra of slathering, spicing, flipping and syruping, I realise that I would have preferred her causing mischief in the pantry for a bit longer as I would have been able to finalise breakfast preparations unhindered by the squealing naughtiness gripping both of my legs and talking to the hole above my right knee of my jeans.

Breakfast is served.  My wife, never really being much of a morning eater, dutifully trudges her way through a piece of French Toast before handing it over to me so that I can swap out the sweet half of the baby’s portion for the savoury and gauge scientifically the results.  As I stir the oatmeal banana mush that I’ve prepared as a standby in the event of total French Toast Failure, I notice that the mass of lovely curls, that had mushed peas in them only last night, now have syrup in them as well.  She appears to enjoy playing with her breakfast more than eating it.  I divide a few pieces of the savoury French Toast and leave them on her tray rather surreptitiously for fear that she’ll rebel against things that I actually want her to eat, and throw them onto the floor for pure indignance.  Some days, this one can be a real shit.

My attention turns from my own breakfast and the further stirring of the oatmeal concoction in time to see my child happily taking huge bites from a wad of bread in either fist.  With balled-up syrup-covered fists on the ends of her spread arms, she looks as if she is challenging the World to provide something tastier to her, for what she’s holding would sure be hard to beat.  She’s already eaten most of her mother’s uneaten breakfast.  Just to muck with her a bit, I throw some eggs right in the middle of her tray.  I’d fried up the leftover egg batter in the used cooking bits left in the pan, giving it a horribly grey colour that I prefer to think of as “seasoned to taste”.

As her thumbs become paintbrushes and the slightly runny and oddly coloured eggs become the paint, the canvas that is the tray of her high chair transforms into a masterpiece, complete with a collage of texture and flavour.  “Less is More” she seems to believe, as she very purposely removes some of the leftover sweet toast with her fingers and then places it under her tray on the seat by her legs.  I’m surprised to see such a deliberate act of removal when she is busy with wanton creation, but she’s always been a bit meticulous, and I will undoubtedly find at least half of her breakfast under her butt when I eventually lift her out of her chair.

With her creative juices flowing freely and her eating slowed significantly, I finally employ the use of the oatmeal mush.  I get a few spoonfuls in before she concedes that her artwork may have to wait until after mealtime and decides to eat a bit more.  As is her way though, her concessions are ever on her own terms, and she purses her lips and slaps at the spoon on it’s third trip in.  I back it out and try again, only to be met with a shaking head and flailing arms.  It’s becoming fairly evident to me that she may not be interested in my mushed backup plan.

Now I concede. She watches me put the spoon back into the small bowl before flinging her arms out across her painted tray, grabbing a handful of egg and toast, and shoving it gluttonously into her face.  Her actions of hearty independence appear to be telling me that she may not enjoy the eggs and French Toast so much as dislike the mush and/or the idea of me feeding it to her.  She almost giggles as she grabs a piece of egg-smeared crust and begins munching on it with fervour.

As I lean across the table and put my head in my hand, I realise how much fun she is.  Not just to interact with, as I have been, but also just to watch, as I am now.  So much of who she is going to be, is here already, and so much of who she is, is just wonderful.  It boggles my mind to think that I have such an impact on this small person’s life, and therefore the rest of the World.

It is then that I realise that I haven’t been thinking about the rest of the World for at least an hour and a half, a new record for this stressful week I’m fairly sure, and I am once again humbled by the power that my child has over me.

Go away for a while World, I’m feeding my child.

When the time comes for your beloved Wife to undergo painful and serious abdominal surgery in order to bring forth your child, you take it VERY seriously. So be warned, these pictures are NOT meant to be funny.

I lied about being in IT, I actually AM a doctor. I had just finished my rounds when Wife was wheeled into the PreGettingBabyCutOuttaYou Area.

And by “rounds”, I mean “can you believe they didn’t even kick me out or ask me to knock it off?”

I found out that you don’t need tits to make the sounds coming out of her head stop.

I can’t be positive, but I think she looks like me.

I’m also not completely certain, but I may actually be completely, 100 percent, absolutely, wholly and truly, lamblastedly, shaznasterly, SMITTEN with my child.

We got to take her home on Australia Day and I think I managed to convinced her that the fireworks and barbecues were all in her honour. She’s obviously not impressed, but that may be because Mother Nature tried to cook her. She does this though, this sleeping thing, where she sleeps all the time. Sleepy. Sleepery.

For those that care and haven’t been there yet, there are more pictures and baby awesomeness and love and everything that’s wonderfully goo about the World over in my other diary. Email me juddholeATdiaryland.com. If that doesn’t work, then leave a comment in here with your email addy. If that doesn’t work, then join up on the Notify Thingy, get a Notify email from me which has my current email on it, and then cancel the Notify thingy and stalk me long enough for me to get you to put random groceries in my fridge. Crap, you can go to the GuestBook too, I think, that’ll get me your email without giving it to the spammers, which is exactly why I don’t put it on here. Thanks.

A not infrequent occurrence in our household is to have a waking-up-way-too-goddam-early child unlatch our bedroom door and poke his little head in with a “HiGoodMorning!” before gently clambering across Wife’s swollen belly and eventually my chest and/or junk.

This morning I was simply too close to recapturing that ever-elusive Last Bit O’ Sleep before the alarm went off and just wasn’t in the mood for a cuddly, yet sharply elbowed, child to land on me. Door opened and boy made his way quietly in while I growled at him with a “wazzdazzhimmin…” saw him say something to Wife and then scitter out the door.

“SherzamfegDERR!” I started to shout at the quickly vanishing curly brown head when Wife rammed her butt back into my mid-section while ordering me to “shut up!” with a harsh whisper. “BudeezsherzamfegDERR!” I argued, to which she answered once again with “shut! up!”

My dismay and growliness apparently meant nothing to Wife. I wondered how she could be so insensitive, letting Buddy run rampantly in and out of our bedroom and waking me up on my… own… special… day?

This question was answered by Buddy stumbling back into our bedroom, labouring under the strain of a large, newspaper-wrapped, toolbox-looking item, and announcing loudly and happily (despite my grumpiness), “Happy Birthday Daddy!”

My feelings of jackassedness lasted only as long as it took Pie to come bouncing into our bedroom and for the both of them to start helping me unwrap my spoils.

Grogginess gave way to raw excitedness for the simple and pristine beauty that lies within a tool as versatile, usable, and fuckincool as the Dremel…
only Cordless.

Wife treated ME to coffee in bed and children treated me to lack of pointy elbows in my crotch whilst playing on our bed, and a good time was had by all. Kids ate cereal that Buddy proudly prepared himself and Wife and I played TickleButt in the shower in preparation for our appointment with the TV Lady.

I’ve done some cool shit in my life. I’ve been a part of an assload of very noteworthy things. Too many to list, all I can be somewhat proud of, but nothing, NOTHING, can top this:

I helped make this.

TV Lady showed us this too:

If you look closely…

at just the right angle…

and squint your eyes just right…

you can see that it’s a baby.

Wife informed bro-in-law Düd that he was about to be treated to yet another niece with this:

Yep, gonna have me a little girl.

‘Course, we’re only figuring on this because Mother-in-law CrazyCatLady pyschicicked it, both children tipped it that direction (though Buddy “weewwy weewwy wanted a widdle bruvver”), Wife and Batgirl Visioned it, and because the TV Lady said so. Actually, TV Lady’s boss took over the TV show just long enough to tell us that baby is awesomely rockin’ though she showed barely the slightest interest in the sex of the child-to-be.

I was a bit perturbed, but still too face-splittingly grinning to say something like, “Can ya run that thing over the little squirt’s crotch some more? I don’t reckon I saw either junk or bits.”

I DID suggest that we shouldn’t fret too much over what we may or may not be seeing, as I proudly announced that any potential son of mine would leave absolutely ZERO doubt that he was a-swingin’. Wife gave me that all-too-familiar smile that suggests she’s overwhelmingly in love with me while thinking I’m a Great Big DoofusHead Tardigan at the same time and this may actually make her more in love with me.

We made a brief stop at home for some food before going back to pick up the pics from TV Lady, and Wife paused long enough to call CrazyCatLady in order to preempt the gloating.

CCL was not at her best. Auntie L has finally succumbed to the Big C we were told.

Mere days after we were made aware that it was SERIOUS and she is gone. Just like that.

I liked her. She wasn’t family in the technicalities of blood, but neither am I, and the two of us were always treated as if we were and more.

I’ll miss her.

There were some hugs. Lots of them. In a quiet and somewhat cold kitchen on my birthday, there were quiet hugs for a wonderful woman.

We grabbed TV Lady’s pictures and then our other little ones from CCL’s. I can’t help it sometimes, and something about my nature means that I have to hug those that are grieving. I’m not sure why, maybe it’s my own need to feel comforted by comforting, maybe it’s because I’m compassionate and noble, maybe I’m secretly a pervert and enjoy rubbing myself on others.

CCL grips me tightly before pushing me away and a little too loudly proclaiming through a choked voice and wet eyes, “I’m holding it together!”

“Yep. Sure you are,” I thought to myself as I brought the room to the tantamount of distraction (another part of my nature) with the announcement to the kids of their future siblings gender.

Their reactions could not have been more different.

I mentioned before that Buddy was very much wanting a little brother but somehow Knew that it was a girl, but I wasn’t prepared for how hard he was going to take the news. Pie couldn’t have been more elated and, no shit, I haven’t seen a reaction like that from the new Tea Set, Just Like Me Baby, Christmas Bike, and Pillbug the Puppy combined.

She ran around in circles shrieking in excitement, he gently cuddled into my shoulder and sulked for a bit. He saw some of the pictures and is now convinced that he’s just cemented his place in history as the Ruler of the Yard Apes in our household. He’s over it I reckon.

I look back on today, a significant day for me, and choose now to reflect.

Par-for-course around here, NOW is when my newest daughter chooses to start her Baby-Fu Fighting in Wife’s belly again.

I felt it. I just felt that. And I helped make her.

Surreal. Simply surreal.

When a crash is followed by a sharp cry, followed by silence that eerily resembles the calm before the storm, and is then followed by a DNA-splicing shriek, one can safely assume there’s actual trouble.

I’d been outside finishing the yard work, was covered in dust, dirt, and grass clippings, and was just shutting down the edging device that Aussie’s call a “whipper snipper” when I heard the command from the kitchen, “Go get Daddy NOW. He’s out the back! NO, Out The Back!” I crossed the backyard in two paces while my boy came running out to find me to inform me that “Pie cut-ted her head on the cahstle!”

In the middle of the kitchen was Wife holding our little girl, who was dressed Mowgli-style in only her knickers, and was sprinkled down her left side with fresh blood. Wife had a rag on her head and had stopped the bleeding almost straightaway, giving a clear view of a bloody cut right on the top. It didn’t look terribly bad, though head wounds bleed a shit load, so we calmed her down with a Chupa Chup, which turned out to be barely necessary as she was merely whimpering a bit at this point. A closer look revealed two gashes along Pie’s skull whose distance apart was exactly the same width as the spikes on the top of their Christmas present, a castle siege kit complete with knights and catapults, and the longer of the cuts was gaping.

We called the closest vehicle-owner we knew, The D�d, and rousted him over to our place in the merest of seconds. We loaded up both kids and ourselves and headed over to the Doctor’s Surgery to find that there was no line and no waiting. Haste wasn’t exactly necessary as our little girl was basically fine, though she made a perpetually scowlly face and whimpered whenever we mentioned her “ouchie.” Drawing attention away from the wound was her brother’s job, and he was a champ at it. Far better than The Dud anyway, who I remember as saying something along the lines of “now your head’s gonna be all gross.”

After getting settled on the robo-table and pulling the little curtain a bit, we were greeted with SpaceyDoc, the brillo-haired, Amazonian, pill-popper (I can only assume), who wandered in and began squeezing my little girl’s wound investigatingly. I suppose I wouldn’t have minded this had she informed us that she is the freakin’ attending physician, though I imagine that I’d still have felt the strongest of urges, upon witnessing her squeezing the wound for the third time and causing my little girl to cry AGAIN, to punch her directly in the side of her fuzzy head.

She absently trimmed some surrounding hair and squeezed the wound again, nearly driving me into violent action, and then began working like an actual Doctor of the Healing Arts. Despite the Pie’s request that the doctor “doesn’t gimme the sharp thing” she barely made a peep when she got stuck not once or twice, but three times, and she did nothing more than whimper once when the actual sutures were being sewn in.

While this made both Wife and I immensely proud, it also gave SpaceyDoc enough suspicion to question us on exactly how far our baby fell and what her normal behaviour is like. As she examined Pie for a concussion, we tried to describe that the kid is simply freakin’ bulletproof and that there isn’t any great cause for concern as the fall to the castle/floor was less than 2 feet. SpaceyDoc was barely buying it, but we explained to the nurse that we’d probably be as cautious too, if we’d seen a kid that small make that little of a fuss while getting 3 stitches to her noggin.

She was walking and talking normally enough for us, and her silence during the stitching was also attributable to the fact that she’d missed her nap in all the excitement. We cleared the Surgery, Pie finished her lollipop, and happily told everybody about her “poor li’l head booboo,” eventually getting her Poppy to take some pictures for historical documentation’s sake.

Her only comments in the last two days concerning her head both involved the pointiness of the “spikes” sticking out of her skull, and didn’t have anything to do with any pain, and the wound has been clean and healthy so we snipped the stitches out today. The parallels between what had happened to his sister’s head at the Doctor’s and what “Daddy does to his shirts and Mommy’s pants” has kept my boy’s highly inquisitive and intelligent mind occupied while I’ve been writing this.

He’s about to show me how to get the freakin’ DVD player working again, but his little five-year-old brain doesn’t quite understand why I giggle and say to myself, “but they didn’t tear her head off with their teeth at the Doctor’s did they?”

I sat and I Googled, and I came up with a list of about 25 emails for Web Firms here in Perth, and then I sent each one a short greeting, my resume, and an extensive cover letter. After 3 days, I had heard back from 3 of them.

So I wrote ‘em all again. I apologized if I was being perceived as obnoxious, but made it clear I wasn’t going to quit until I received a response. Most wrote back with, “Sorry, we don’t have anything, but we’ll keep you on file” and one even wrote “You don’t want to work here dude” and nothing more.

My favourite though, was the one that simply said, “Okay, you’ve got my attention. Let’s talk.” An amazingly Ocker bloke picked up the phone, and a few minutes later I had my first interview scheduled. Though he hadn’t advertised for the job, he was looking for a PA, as he’d just lost one to a company in Melbourne, and was hoping for somebody with just the right amount of experience, technical savvy, and managerial skills. We both agreed that it’d be difficult to specifically search out that kind of person unless you knew exactly what you were looking for.

I got my Businessly Sexy on, borrowed Poppy’s car, and cruised to South Perth. We talked formally and interviewingly for somewhere around 4 minutes before we were both sitting on the other side of the desk in front of a monitor and bullshitting like we’d gone to grade school together.

Turns out, I’m exactly what he was looking for.

I told him that with the product that he’s got and the skills and tools at his disposal, he could retire by 40. He told me that the job pays about $30K more than I was asking and quite frankly, if I make the company more money I will get paid accordingly.

We’ll finalize the deal tomorrow, I’ll most likely start next week, and it may honestly be the last job I’ll ever have.

Wish me luck.

I snapped a few pics of our beautiful chidlers, and caught a good one before I could say, “Holy Public Indecency Batman!”

Is that my boy or what?

We’re both cooking dinner at the time (by \”both cooking\” I mean \”she’s cooking while I stand there and relatively ineffectually look helpfully-sexily-mildly-retarded\”) but Wife notices her first and asks what it is that she’s doing.

A wry smile spreads across the small child’s face as she stares me in the eyes lovingly and pretends to not have heard her mother’s question. I repeat the question, for posterity if nothing else, and her pace quickens as she continues rocking sideways through the room.

After moving around the kitchen counter and squatting down to small child’s level, I ask her what she’s got behind her back. Barely a flicker passes across her eyes as she gleefully pulls one of her hands into view and wiggle’s it’s emptiness in front of my face.

\”Nice try Pie-Pie,\” I smile sternly, \”but seriously, lemme see what’s in the other hand.\”

A more noticeable flicker passes across her eyes this time, as she looks me in the eyes placidly and innocently, shuffles her hands behind her back for a second, and then holds up the now empty other hand.

I simply stare in astonishment for a second before I grab her and spin her little body around to reveal a paintbrush that she’s pulled from it’s drying spot above the washer.

She’s barely THREE, and I’ve seen worse sleights-of-hand from idiot wedding magicians.

I’m afraid.

It had been a long day, and though the expression she was showing me was obviously meant to make me think it, she just wasn’t being that damn cute. A lecture on being good and going to sleep instead of being naughty and ignoring the directive to sleep was going as well as can be expected, and I genuinely thought she was kind-of-sort-of listening.

She nodded when I asked questions of comprehension and she smiled lovingly into my eyes as her little hand snuck up from underneath the covers and began to scratch around in her ear.

It was only when I noticed the other hand sneaking up towards her opposite ear that my suspicions sparked, and those suspicions full-on flared when I saw that the \”itching finger\” was firmly embedded in her ear as a finger from the other hand was inserted into her itch-free ear.

A vacuum-sealing SCHOOP was almost audible as both her ears were firmly plugged and a satisfied smile broadened across her angelic face.

I almost screamed, \”Are you fucking kidding me?!?!\” as I pulled her hands from her ears, but it’s terribly confusing to be caught so firmly between the desire to chastise (or even punish severely) and the feelings of admiration and respect for such a blatantly cheeky act.

Oh, I punished her, not severely, but you have to respect the fact that the kid simply didn’t want to be lectured, did the best she could to avoid it, yet still wanted to let me think that I was succeeding.

I’m very afraid.

I told Wife to stay in bed while I got up to quiet the herd and was greeted with an over-enthusiastic, \”DADDY!\” and a slightly guilty-looking little girl, who’s face was covered in what looked like frosting off of a glazed donut.

She defines \”precocious\” and has the appetite of a large bovine, so if a meal happens to be a bit tardy, just about anything is sought out for at least a test-tasting.

I wiped my finger across her cheek in extreme curiosity, knowing that if we’d had anything frosted in the house I’d have surely partaken in it already.

\”What is this? What have you been eating?\” I asked, popping my finger into my mouth.

Smiling sweetly at me she shrugged, and replied reasonably honestly, \”I don’t remember.\”

‘Sweet’ and ‘frosted’ were two of the things I was at the very least expecting, and I cursed and spat the plastic-tasting flecks of unknown across the oven while shouting, \”What the hell is that? It’s not even ORGANIC!?!?\”

It seems the previous evening’s efforts to ruin bro-in-law’s woman’s fondue pot were dwindled down to the use of those tiny tealighter candles, which bear a remarkable resemblance to a foil-wrapped, sugary treat.

She’d been gnawing on wax. Yummy.

I began cleaning her up and yet another lecture when I noticed that where there were once seven gleaming, pristine, gorgeous-looking, home-grown tomatoes on the counter, there were now six lovelies and one gnarled lump of seed-bleeding gore.

Frustrated already, I snatched it up in my hand and held it in front of her sticky little face.

\”What’s this?\” I asked with a snarl, yet remaining calm.

Without missing a beat, she pointed at the remaining tomatoes and replied happily, \”It’s one of those,\” obviously pleased that my question was an easy one to field.

\”What happened to it?\” I asked, feeling my temper rising.

With a look that suggested that I may have an extra chromosome or two, she replied condescendingly and somberly, \”It got chewed.\”

\”Kid, I’m hungover and don’t particularly feel like playing The Pronoun Game,\” I sighed out exasperatedly, \”who chewed it?\”

Her expression grew even more somber as she lowered her head, and her voice, and her hope faded that I wasn’t going to ask that particular question as she said, \”I did.\”

At that moment, with my head pounding, my bladder straining, and my stomach gurgling unhappily, the admission of the truth was like a shining beacon, but my anger only slightly lessened as I asked, \”What the hell were you thinking first eating wax and then climbing up on the counter, where you KNOW you’re not allowed, and eating a tomato?!?!?!\”

A brief flicker of hope lit her eyes and a slight smile spread as she thought that maybe the Loss-of-Memory card would bail her out yet again when she said questioningly, \”Um… I don’t know?\”

I’m very, very, afraid.

My saving grace is that Wife was a Black Belt in the exact same brand of LittleShit Fu that our youngest is quickly mastering, as she was the spittin’ image of that same unique blend of piss n’ vinegar. At least that’s what CrazyCatLady feels the need to share with me every time that I’m touting the awesomeness of Wife in front of her.

Regardless, she’s on MY side now, and I can see myself calling upon her Ninjahood, \”Honey, she’s countering my Stern Lecture of Doom with The Crouching Rabbit and my Disapproving Glare of the Watcher with Eye of Doe, can you go lay the smack down, BruceLeeStyle?\”

AAAAAAAAAAND on that note, Wife is apparently opening up our cute little DLand-romantical world to her readers by openly inviting people to ask questions about amputees fellating vegetables… I mean, about ME (close enough, eh?). So feel free to ask her about how awesome I am at singing while making snail stew… Go on… DO IT.

My sis-in-law is awesome. Love her like a good game of \”Making Babies Chasey.\”

Also, I just can’t help this one, but you gotta go check this guy out. Wife keeps coming in from the next room because I’m fucking cacking myself in here. I have no idea if I’ve ever been to his diary before, but I randomly clicked on a not-even-very-funny banner, started reading, and am now in tears. I think I might love him.

Every Friday, Golf with \”the boys\” consists of my 5-foot-nothin’ Aussie father-in-law, Poppy, a big hairy kiwi, Pedro, a legally blind kiwi, Johnny, and a wild-haired Scot, Willie, who I swear is either constantly drunk or has a serious speech impediment.

I was happy that it didn’t take long for them to take right to \”the big yank\” or for the constant ribbing and shitslinging to become an integral part of the game. By the second week, I’d gotten somewhat used to Willie’s constant chattering in a language that resolves somewhere between DrunkenScot and AussieBloke, and was even beginning to hold actual conversations with him.

I was lighting up a smoke on the 4th tee when he came up and said, \”Ussed be Ah’d bargeredmearoot festin namoornan… wannatnayt too!\”

My mouth and brain both worked unconsciously and extreme concentration clouded my visage until I’d come to the conclusion that he was telling me that he enjoys a cigarette first thing in the morning and at night as well.

I looked at him curiously and said, \”But I thought you quit smoking, ya goof!\”

He shook his wildish-Donald-Trump-maned head while cackling before gesturing madly in front of my face with his hand, \”Root! ROOT!\” he yelled while jerking his fist up and down, \”Nahh gawdammed smoook!\”

He responded to my questioning what this piece of information concerning his masturbatory habits had to do with anything I cared about with, \”Cosyoornadda beg YANK, yerra beg WANK! BWAHAHAHAHAAA!\”

We’ll see how he takes it when I whip his ass at golf next week.

This Shit Rocks. Seriously. It whups all kinds of ass on the NFL I am almost sad to say.

For as much clich�s as we may tend to fulfill as newlyweds, wife-as-a-faithful-servant-while-hubby-watches-sports went down the tubes the minute that Wife sat down on the couch, out-belched me, and screamed something mildly intelligible at the player on the television while drinking a beer.

Oh yes, we be us some big ‘ol Footy fans.

Non-stop action and a tense and tremulous finish provided an atmosphere of adrenalinized testosteronity on our back patio that only playoff sports can bring and Wife and I sipped beers while recapping the game we both just watched. After we went next door and rubbed CrazyCatLady’s (Mother-in-law) nose in our win, of course. She’s not a West Coast Eagles fan and made the mistake of telling us this quite proudly, so we figure she was much deserving of the pajama-ed whistling and taunting we provided on her front porch.

Life with my 21-year old brother-in-law has been an interesting ingredient to the mix of Judd’s New Aussie Life. In an effort to save up some money and get a fresh start on things, he’s been staying in our spare room and has been quite a joy.

And by \”joy,\” I mean, \”a 16-year old girl.\”

He’s an awesome guy, but the life of a 21-year old gay male in Perth, Australia apparently consists of clubbing and drag shows late into the night and MSN chatting with 97 potential boyfriends all day. Properly motivated, he’s a champ with the dishes though.

For being the other \”man\” of the house, I was quite appreciative of his contribution to our post-Footy-playoff-win-reveling when he excitedly told us the recent happenings at AsianQueenFriend’s fashion show.

To be jolted from my own daydreams of AFL stardom (\”He’s never played before folks, but this new American is a delightful surprise to the entire league!\”) with soap-opera-drama-like announcements of how the wrong name got on the labels of the outfits (or some shit like that) was yet another reminder of my continuing adjustment to life here.

Thankfully, Wife is with me every step of the way. Literally. Especially when I’m kicking my shoe to her across the front yard and getting tackled by the letterbox.

She’s awesome like that.

Or she may just be with me until I’m a million-dollar Footy Star. We’ll see.

\”Daddy?\” my 2-year old asked in the manner that suggests she’s either in trouble or about to be.

\”Yeah Pie?\” I replied, forgetting that shorter towels mean my boy bits are exposed while I dry my hair.

\”Oh!\” she exclaims (she starts most sentences this way), \”you have a willie!\”

After pulling the towel off my head and debating whether or not to cover myself, I looked down as if to somehow verify that I did indeed, have a willie. I’d decided that showing no shame or awkwardness about it would provide the right message and said, \”yep, sure do.\”

While I stepped to the mirror to shave, she showed no discomfort while she prattled on with, \”I don’t have a willie, I have a fanny!\” (’fanny’ being the Aussie’s word for the girl’s part in the front as opposed to the American’s use of it for anybody’s part in the back) and she continued with, \”my brother has a willie too! And Mommy has a fanny too!\”

I was enjoying this bit of cuteness right before shaving cream haphazardly smeared across my face when she calmly said, \”Nanny (Mother-in-law) has a fanny too!\”

I spit a good portion of said shaving cream into the sink as she finished with the loud statement of, \”An OLD fanny!\”

Too much laughter can bring the kind of reinforcement that a statement like that just doesn’t need. The kid KNOWS when she’s funny, but CrazyCatLady DOES live right next door, and I don’t need that kind of shit coming out of my kid’s mouth randomly and damaging my mother-in-law’s unblemished opinion of me. For this reason, I slapped my hand over my mouth and coughed shaving cream into it while she looked on bewildered.

Don’t look at me like that, I didn’t teach her to say that.

I’m still working on getting her to tell people that hockey goalies are well hung and beer and cigarettes are good for you.