Happy New Year, and That's All Folks!

This is it, its New Years Eve and I've been typing up my final post! I thought I'd summarise the year of Blog posts I've made, although there is much finer reading by going through the archive sets.

• In January we had the Crying Baby, and The First Day Of School.
  
• In February we had The Story of Wednesday (the Dog), Callum's so called First Word (and he still doesn't talk), and our favourite past time of Going to the Beach.


• In March we had Callum's Chickenpox, Sleepy Children, The Golden Crutch (one of my literary masterworks), and my first Taekwondo grading.


• April brought the first of the birthdays with Aidan's birthday, Stupid Faces, Our Melbourne Trip including Going to the Zoo with all the nieces and nephews, and Ethan having a Heart Attack at soccer.


• In May we had Six Strange Things About Me, Hell Morning followed by Aidan's Child of Courage Award, Anth's Birthday, and my first trip to the U.S. for the year.
  
• For the first part of June I was in the U.S., but I did have the good fortune of seeing my Sister and Her Family. On the return I got to see Callum Crawling and had My Birthday.


• In July, we saw what it was like to have Dinner at our Place, Discussed God, had Ethan's teeth fall out, and had Ethan's Sports Day.


• In August Ethan got the Taekwondo Student of the Month Award, I did the Bridge to Brisbane run (and paid for it for months!), went to the Ekka, Went to a Farm, and had Aidan's Sports Day.


• September brought forth Aidan's Charity Art Auction night, spring Callum eating Chocolate, and had Callum's First Birthday


• In October I went down to New South Wales to watch the AFL Grand Final with mates, Callum stood for the first time, I headed back to the U.S. again and wasn't home for Ethan's birthday, and Callum really got going walking.


• In November Ethan took up Auskick, we had family outings to the Park, and I got very very sick.


• Which brings us to December, where we've already had many trips to the beach, we completed nearly a whole year of Taekwondo (including with Snake!), we got our new Bird Beefy, and recently celebrated Christmas.

Well, that's if from this particular Angry Dad for a Year in the Life Of experiment. I've enjoyed doing it, and hope this can be around long enough for me to get a complete copy for my kids prosperity. Thanks to all those who read, commented and offered advice throughout the year. Your reveiwing and reading generosity has been muchly appreciated.

Ciao for Now, Finished Angry Dad.

P.S. I haven't gone completely, I'm going to attempt a new blog called I Love Brisbane. Check it out!

Go Kart

How cool is this! My nephew Christopher got a Go Kart for Christmas. As Uncle Andrew lives on a nice big block of land, he is able to ride it all over their yard. He's already set up a track which loops around the main house and the guest house, and covers most of the back yard. We went up to Noosa again today to do a Christmas visit to my brother's family, and this is what welcomed us. Ethan was wrapped, and fortunately he got to have a go too!

Chris seemed quite happy to have us there. He even let his uncle have a go. It didn't quite go as well up hill as I would have hoped, but once I got it on the down hill run, I was able to power slide it around the bottom half of the yard. I even took it around the house, and once it got off the grass onto the bitumen, it showed its extra bite. Quite scary, but also a hell of a lot of fun.

We had to face over a two and a half hour drive to get up to Noosa today, which was twice as long as normal. It seemed everyone in Brisbane was going North. We therefore didn't stay too long at Uncle Andrew's, enough to say Hi, eat a sandwich and some cake, and then nick off. As our kids were being their loud, annoying and destructive selves this was probably not such a bad thing. We also had to fit in a quick trip to see Grandma again for Aidan's benefit. So most of today was spent travelling or visiting in a rush.

Ciao for Now, Lets Go Karting Angry Dad.

Aidan's Pants

This should have been a nice, relaxing post about our day trip up to Montville on the Sunshine Coast hinterland. Instead its about Aidan's Pants. We braved the Sunshine Coast traffic today, and sat on the main highway north out of Brisbane for a good half an hour before getting off for a long winded alternative route. This meant we ended up in Montville for a later than expected lunch.



It has changed a bit since we were last there. There was a new restaurant and shopping area called The Edge, which has great views back down to the Pacific Ocean. Callum was less than impressed about having to stay in his stroller, but Ethan was happy to be there. At this point, Aidan was behaving himself as well. We had lunch, and then decided to have a walk through the township. The town itself is very arts and crafts oriented, with several shops catering for the more eclectic arty farty types like us. Our unfortunate restriction is we never have any money to buy anything! (and if you didn't know by now, I'm tight)

So we'd walked down hill down the the main street of Montville. At this point, as you can see, Aidan was still behaving himself. We went and took the kids to a park so they could run around and let off some energy. That's when Aidan decided his pants didn't fit him quite right, and he undid the cord holding his pants up. From that point on, nothing we could do with his pants would settle him. He bit me. He used his Tourette's like screaming. We had to literally drag him screaming all the way back to the car, a good 20 minutes walk through the holiday crowd. I tried to use all the calming / soothing techniques we've been shown. Nothing worked. Anth took him for the last 10 metres, as I'm sure she was petrified I'd throw him over the edge of the view. It was also then that he started apologising for being naughty. It didn't help. He got a good hour of time out in his room when we got home. He needs new pants.

Ciao for Now, 365th Post Angry Dad. 2 to go!

Surfers Paradise

Today Aidan, Ethan and I went down to the Gold Coast to Surfers Paradise. We were all going to go, but I stuffed around too long in the morning and Callum fell asleep. Anth stayed home to look after him and have what she hoped would be a restful day. I found out afterwards it didn't quite turn out that way for her, as Callum woke up about 5 minutes after we left and wouldn't leave her side for the whole time we were away. Oh, well, they could have been on the beach with us making sand angels.

We spent about an hour wandering on the beach. Aidan decided that he would make a sand chicken nugget, which he'd had at McDonald's for lunch. It probably would have been as tasty. After about half an hour of constantly telling everyone that he met that he had the so called nugget, he decided to take a bite of it. This of course led to a mad dash down into the water to wash his mouth out with sea water. What a lovely way to cleanse the pallet and sand wash your teeth. We did make it down to Cavill Mall, and I got them to stand still almost long enough to take a photo under the beach sign for Surfers.

From there, it was up to Timezone to play some games. They have a great small scale bowling game with side bumpers which was perfect for the kids. The balls are slightly larger than tennis balls, and are rubberised. The kids could hold them in their hands, which made it easy for Aidan to play, although he does bowl very slow balls! They both thought it was fantastic, so I'm glad we went in to keep them entertained.

Ciao for Now, Gold Coasting Angry Dad.

The Best Christmas Card for 2006

I finally got around to looking through the Christmas cards we got this year and I came across this little gem. This was from our nephew Ben, who knowing my penchant for all things Simpsons, drew this number for us. He must have known that as soon as Anth and I opened it up we would be in hysterics. We have a pretty low brow sense of humour, which extends easily to bum jokes. Thanks Ben!

The weather here is playing tricks on us. The past few years have seen this week have temperatures up around 40 degrees Celsius. Today, its rained nearly all day, and has hardly made it above 20. The great thing is that it is raining, and hopefully a bit more will make it into the dams. Our lawn has recovered a little bit, so this has got to be good for that.

All the rain has meant a fair amount of indoor activity. For me, this is mainly watching the cricket on TV. For the kids, this has meant jumping on me whilst I watched the cricket on TV. They've also at times tried to entice me to listen to music, change the channel, watch them dance, fix their toy car sets, play with their toy car sets, fix their radio, turn down their radio, go outside, go inside, give them lollies, give them chips, provide lunch and act as a punching bag. At least Callum was distracted with his new tricycle. I just want to live, goddammit. Won't you let me live?!

Ciao for Now, Still Living Angry Dad.

Boxing Day

Today we came off the high of the past few days. We tried to sleep in, but we had two little friends who kept us awake during most of the night. The first was Callum, who woke up screaming. Anth managed to calm him down enough and get him in to our bed, but within an hour he decided that it would be fun to crawl all over mum and dad in an effort to get comfortable. When he nearly fell out of bed, I took him back to his cot. Soon after that, Aidan decided that he'd get up for the morning. His problem is the constant in and out of the bedroom, slamming the door as he goes. Well, maybe its not his problem, but it sure was ours.

So with tired eyes, we had breakfast, and jumped in the car for the Boxing Day pilgrimage to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Every one else in Brisbane seemed to have decided that they'd go out driving then too, as the roads and highway were packed. I told Mum that because we'd been eating heaps for the past few days, something light was in order, so we got a nice salad and cold meats for lunch rather than a full on cooked meal. This suited me fine. The kids also got spoiled with more presents, including a great ride on tricycle for Callum which we can push and control.

Aidan, Callum, Mum and I went down to Noosa Beach in the afternoon for a walk, whilst Anth slept and Ethan and Dad played games back at the house. It was overcast, although there were still a fair few people on the beach. Callum had a great time walking around in the sand, and Aidan loves it. I love it too, and would live on the beach if I could. I just need to starve myself for 6 months so I can get wash-board abs like most of the other blokes up there!

Ciao for Now, Ab-less Angry Dad.

Christmas Day

In true Aussie style, it was hot on Christmas Day where we live. Not stifling hot like it has been, but hot enough that we went for a swim this afternoon to cool down. We were fortunate that only one of our boys was up early this morning, so we made him wait for the other boys to get up before we got into the presents. This gave us an extra 2 hours sleep in from 5:00am, but made for a cranky Ethan most of the latter part of the day! We ripped into the presents from Santa almost straight away, with Callum the first who had to be placated. As you can see, he liked his shiny new wheelbarrow.

Ethan probably struck the most booty. He got a digital camera, amongst other things, as well as a number of new games and toys. Aidan had only one thing on his mind for the past month. His two favourite television celebrities are Jamie Oliver and Bert Newton. In particular, with Bert he has been telling all and sundry that for Christmas he was getting a Bert Newton DVD. Imagine my surprise when whilst shopping I actually found one, and could let Santa know that it was available. He therefore got DVD's of both of his heroes, and was happy for all of 30 minutes.


Anth and I were happy to get a sleep in. She got a massage iCush for Christmas, which we've all had a turn on. Its like a massage chair with speakers. As you can see, I got something for my lower mandible, also known as the chin, also known as my hairy fatty fat fat face. Christmas is a time for not shaving, so I haven't tried it out yet. I also got a biography on Ricky Gervais, who is a particularly talented comedian I like! All in all, a bloody good Christmas. Cheers!

Ciao for Now, Fatty Fat Fat Fat Angry Dad.