Haircut!

Haircut!
Originally uploaded by billyjoebob.

It is with sadness, punkin, that I report that your father has bowed to pressure and permitted your flowing locks to be shorn.

It should, however, be duly noted that selfsame father was adamant (ant musiiiic oh oh oh oh) that your mullet should remain, and remain it did.

You were surprisingly tractable during the haircutting process, although eagle eyed readers will no doubt have already seen the car clutched in your hot little hands. What's interesting about this car in particular, according to you, and in a very interesting vocal development, is that it's YELLOW.

We've been pointing out colours to you for some time, your grandma and grandad gave you a book about colours when they were here in January, but we weren't sure that the whole idea was sinking in. But it has, to a certain extent, which I will endeavour to explain.

The thing is, punkin, that while you're adamant (ant musiiiiic oh oh oh oh) that SOME things are YELLOW, you're also fairly positive that other things are yellow. notably things that are green. And blue or red.

Love you.

cows go moo

cows go moo
Originally uploaded by billyjoebob.

It's something of a shock, bramble, to find a farm in the centre of town. In Collingwood, to be precise.

But once we found it, we knew what we had to do. You have been telling us for weeks now, that cows go moo and that sheep go baa. You did not, however, I think, have any concept of what these animals looked like in the flesh. One day, we'll explain to you about the way that the ice cream you ate while the cow was being milked came to be, but for the moment you were content with just watching.

There were chickens and ducks and sheep and goats and pigs, but you were definitely the most impressed by the cows. We were reliably informed by you a number of times, that they go moo, and the look on your face when you first heard the noise was something I'll treasure for many years to come.

Overall, we had a fabulous time, it was a beautiful day. The battery on the camera died before we got to see some of the animals, so we're going to have to go back again to get some photos of you with pigs and goats and sheep.

Certainly, it's a venue that lends itself to revisiting.

There is a farmer's market some days, and it is thought that the children's farm would make a spectacular place to have a pickamanick.

With the ever increasing number of people we know who are becoming bechilded, we are starting to think about places that people can go that will give adults a place to lounge, relax and imbibe while children such as yourself are able to... free range.

Love you,

a fan letter

Mr Carey,

I am not, in the immortal words of one Elwood Blues, the kind of guy who writes letters. I’m not the kind of guy, especially, who writes fan letters. I am inevitably content, when reading the written word, to find for myself the slight inconsistencies, the tiny flaws, and content myself in the idea that this, then, is something I could have done myself. This book I read, in the moments before sleep, or rattling along on a tram, is something I could have come up with, if only I’d had the idea, and the plot, and managed to flesh out all the characters and find the denouement properly and clean up the second act and use the gun from the first and carry that on for 50,000 odd words.

Whenever my friends, relatives and assorted hangers on asked, Mr Carey, about why I didn’t write, me, who writes thousands of words a day, I told them with conviction that “I write all day, why would I want to write when I get home?” I also told them, and half believed it myself, that I didn’t have anything to write about. That there was no story in me trying to get out.

That changed for me the day I found out my wife was pregnant. Of a sudden, Mr Carey, there were words in me struggling to surface. There were things that I knew I wanted to tell this tiny being that couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t wait.

I started then, in August of 2005, to write a letter to my as yet unborn son. I’m still writing it. It’s on the internet, annotating dates and events, illustrated with photographs of my beautiful son.

I took it seriously. I TAKE it seriously. This ability for me, now, to speak to him, then. This ongoing one sided communication, that transcends the communication we’re able to have now. I felt, Mr Carey, wonderful about what I was doing.

Our children, we are convinced, are unique. Our feelings for them must therefore also be unique. They are not.

The fierce love with which I gaze upon my child, the total awe in which I hold his every movement, smile, giggle and jump, these are feelings that a million fathers before me and a billion afterwards will have.

Reading your book, I think, was the first time that I’ve been totally floored by another father’s eloquence in describing those feelings. I read your book in one sitting, in about 15 minutes, between the top and the bottom of Brunswick St on a sunny Monday after work.

You’ve touched me deeply with the love you’ve expressed to your wife and your baby, and I felt compelled to thank you.

Warmest Regards,
Bill Dennis.

Is the plural of museum musea?

P1030922
Originally uploaded by billyjoebob.

There are many, as you discovered the other day punkin, interesting things at the museum.

Naturally, being as you are, the Bram that you be, chief amongst those things were anything with wheels. This red truck was the first thing you saw when we came up to the ticket counter, and your mother was forced to accompany you in your headlong rush towards it.

As we journeyed around the rest of this magnificent cultural icon, we found some other cars and trucks for you to look at, which, to be perfectly frank, was the only thing you were interested in.

The children's section of the Melbourne Museum is truly wonderful, and you had a blast there. Sandpits, wind chimes and things to jump around on abounded, and there was a particular set of boxes that made noises when you jumped on them. These kept you amused for some time.

Once your dad figures out how to use the animation tool in Photoshop, we'll have something groovy to show everyone, but for the time being we'll just have to imagine it..

In other news, it's Monday again, and I'm busy sorting out the things on my desk into piles of "urgent", "very urgent", "extremely urgent" and "oh gosh".

That's not really what the last pile is called, but this is a G rated blog.

Love you,