If a photo paints a thousand words...

Hooray! My photo-blogging thing is working again, plus Caleb's home sick (not so hooray) but the point is I've nothing to do but wait on my almost-2-year-old and stuff around with my blog. Thus, I thought I'd add some photos to put faces to the names of the Tassie kids. There, don't you feel better now? I know I do.




The entire kiddy clan from left to right: Caleb, Ella (both mine), Brock, Rachel & Jessie. Purely coincidentally, they are actually arranged in chronological order. Dig it.





My sister away from sisters, my cousin Alice. And me too. Whaddya know?




Saturday Night Live, Schmatterday Night Live...this is THE comedic ensemble.




I like to call this one: "Tugging on Heart-Strings". This is the stray kitten which Caleb became obsessed with and the cat was so completely dying for attention that it even took Caleb's strangling holds and suffocating hugs as a compliment. It gave me flashbacks of ex-boyfriends, actually.





And finally, my favourite. I like to call this one: "Brock Finds God."

Oh yeah, and check out my dodgy-pram-manouvre photo if you're looking for mildly illegal things to do with kids. Cos I'm nothing if not inspiring.

Birthday cake blues

It's Caleb's 2nd birthday party tomorrow and I'm feeling a mixture of pride and terror. Pride that we've even managed to get him to this point with all appendages in place, terror at the prospect of confronting the whole birthday cake ordeal.

You see, I SUCK at birthday cakes. As a kid I loved nothing more than flicking through that huge Women's Weekly Birthday Cake book and picking out that year's indulgence of choice, and once I became a mummy I entertained fantasies of bake, bake, baking up such fantasy cakes with the ease of Martha Stewart and the sex appeal of a domestic geisha.

But alas, it was not to be. Take for instance, my daughter's 2nd birthday cake. We went through the book together and she proudly picked out a butterfly. (Actually, she picked out a castle first until I convinced her Mummy would have a much higher chance of success at something that was only on one level.)

Now, in the BOOK, the cake looked like a beautifully crafted vision of butterfly-mixed-with-confectionary goodness.

In Jenny-land, the cake looked like this:



On the bright side, the kids devoured it within minutes so I wasn't taunted by my inadequacies for long.

So tomorrow...I'm leaning towards a muffin stack. Then at least people can congratulate me on being novel. Wish me luck!

No hard selling here!

So I've had a full day with the kids (poor me, poor me, right? Actually, it was surprisingly enjoyable given Caleb's a bit under the weather) but as I head towards the inevitable madness of dinner/bath/bedtime, I'm sorry to shatter your illusions by revealing that I'm all out of subtlety and wit.

So I'll just come out with it: my website's updated a little bit if you want to check it out. No pressure. See, if I was hard-sell I'd be all like:

(twirling hair)
"Yesterday my website was a nightmare. But now, thanks to a couple of superficial changes, some textual additions and a couple of new photos, my website is so cool I'm thinking of making two. One for home and one for the boat."

But I'm not.

Just...it's there. You know. Do what you want.

www.jennywynter.com

Mission Impossible III

Took myself on a good old-fashioned Jenny date (i.e. me, myself and I: well, plus popcorn and post-mix Coke if I'm to be entirely accurate) to see "Mission Impossible III".

It was everything you would expect of "Mission Impossible III."

There you go, briefest review ever.

I couldn't help thinking:

a) how much Tom Cruise's love interest reminded me of Katie Holmes;
b) how nobody does 'running intensely' like Tom Cruise; and
c) how, if Tom Cruise's public persona hadn't been put through the ringer in the past year, you could almost have a crush on him.

Gone are the "Cocktail" days, when I longed to have his tequila parked in my sunrise... now if he offered me tequila I'd just go "SLAMMER!" and that'd be that.

I don't even know what I'm writing. It's after midnight, I'm cranky and delirious.

Good night to you.

Morning TV and The Meaning of Life

The only thing worse than facing the cardio room at the gym, is being force-fed morning television at the same time.

Yes, that's right, today I hit the gym again for the first time since I've been back and no, absence does not make the heart grow fonder. It still sucks. But on the bright side, the advertorial-infested television was ripe with comedic fodder - picture this:

Bimbo on couch: "My old vacuum cleaner was an absolute nightmare."

(Really? I mean, REALLY? To me a nightmare is being chased by a chain-saw wielding maniac when instead of running, you can only bounce. Or meeting Tim Minchin and realising you're a star-struck idiot.)

Bimbo: "But now thanks to the (brand), vacuuming is so easy, we even got two. I've got one for the home, and my husband has one for the boat."

(Wow, THE BOAT! How handy. I love it when marketers are so completely in touch.)

In other news, I have booked in a few more gigs, which I SWORE I wouldn't do, but one was offered at the Py-Hi (where I did my first full-length shows and attracted a fan-club of drunken construction workers) which does hold a special spot in my heart. Plus these days I am SOOO much better at dealing with hecklers I can't wait to see if my old clan of fellas are still there! Then I spoke with Fedele from the Sit Down Comedy Club, explained my dilemma and he was really understanding: we booked in just three gigs over the next two months. Believe me people, THREE gigs in TWO months is a significant improvement in my over-cluttered lifestyle!

But I do want to keep my skills up and of course, actually try out my reams upon reams of new material to shape it properly. But that's IT! No more gigs for me! *slapping wrists*

I had this huge revelation the other night, which I may just share. In fact, I will. For those of you who don't know, my mum died when I was five, a fact which I've always found incredibly motivating in terms of just putting myself out there for what I really want, because I'm very much aware that my time is finite.

But then talking to Frankie (my bestest bestest friend) the other night, I realised that even if I DID only have a few years left, why would I want to spend them all chasing career stuff? Honestly, if that really were the case, I'd much rather be spending them with my family and my friends. I've always tried to learn from my mum's life: she was a singer, a great singer actually and the tragic thing was that she had quite literally JUST won a song-writing competition, the prize of which was a recording session in Sydney, when she died before she could even claim it.

I'd always thought the lesson to draw from that was 'well, you've gotta go for gold in chasing your dreams NOW', but now I think it's actually 'well, you've gotta savour every moment with the people you love, because the time you invest in career stuff may not even matter'. Not that I'm not going to still follow my dreams, but now I'm just trying to do it in moderation. Because I am nothing if not a walking cliche.

Enough rambling from me...we've both got work to do. You do yours, I'll do mine and everybody's happy. ;-)

Hulk Hogan, you ain't got nothing on my son

If his career as a pro soccer player doesn't work out, I think my son has a real future in the World Wrestling Championships. You know, the one where it's all televised and theatrical and they slag each other off verbally before the physical onslaught begins.

Yes, Caleb practices his best moves on me daily. Climbing high onto the couch, he jumps into the air and lands on my tummy/neck/nearest-innocently-bystanding-appendage (and yes, sometimes he yells out during it and yes, sometimes it really hurts) but here's the clincher: instead of going in for the final lethal head-butt, he cuddles me to bits.

What a damn good thing toddlers are cute.