Mother nature

is a clever little chicken. In some ways anyway. Now there are a few things that are possibly less than clever, such as making the town in which I live alternate between varying levels of flooding with extreme heat and blazing sunshine with extreme heat and 98% humidity. Not the brightest idea. But then again there are some clever things, such as the nifty little things certain animals can do, or the way they look.

Cane toads are pretty ugly things aren't they? But they can hide very very well, as is proven when you go to take out a bag of rubbish at night only to inadvertently step on one. And yes, it does feel as disgusting as you would think.

Then there are those lizards that have the big wizard capes on to deter would be predators. That's pretty clever when you think about it, and my they look hilarious when they run too.....

Oooh actually I'm probably most impressed with chameleons. Anything that can change the way it looks purely to reflect and blend into its surroundings has my vote.

The one that does get me is the gecko. Gecko's are everywhere up here. No house is complete without at least one gecko. It may be your stock standard gecko coloured gecko, or it might be one of those translucent ones that just look odd. Little albino geckos. I can't say I have ever looked closely enough at one to see if it has pink eyes or not, but I have a fairly strong belief that they are albino and that's good enough for me.

Then there are the drop tail geckos. They have been given a mechanism by which if they are threatened in any way they can actually drop their tail. Ingenious. However, there are certain circumstances in which this mechanism is, for all intents and purposes, useless. One such example of this is when said gecko is trapped inside a zebra shaped tent with a 2 and a half year old child. Nature didn't plan on that one now did she.

Lexi has recently learned how to reach the sink and tap and as such she washes her hands literally dozens of times every day. As has been pointed out to me, yes, there are worse things she could be doing so it probably isn't the end of the world. It does however make for a treacherous path for miss Tabitha. For Lexi doesn't quite dry the hands properly and thus small droplets of water follow her wherever she goes. Tabitha also follows Lexi wherever she goes. Usually at speed. Our floor is lino. I think you can probably imagine the rest. Needless to say Tabitha's porcelain skin contains a fair portion of black and blue as well.

I'm no longer allowed to feed Tabitha. Much of the time she feeds herself anyway, but I would step in where things of a very messy nature were involved. Now, should I approach Tabitha with anything that looks like an eating implement I am confronted with the sound that one would imagine a cat would make should you try pull out its claws one by one. Not that I have ever done that, I'm not a cat person, but I can imagine. This realisation came for Tabitha upon the presentation of her plate of some incredibly messy looking spaghetti bolognaise last night. It was tricky bolognaise too as I had very finely grated carrot and sweet potato in there to give a sly dose of vegies. Worked a treat.

I have just been reminded that it is only 10 days until Christmas. I have absolutely no idea what we are doing and haven't even put the tree up yet. Might do that this arvo I think. If not, well, I'll do it at some stage. The kids will get a kick out of it anyway, hopefully not literally, although you never know.

Lexi is running in and out of the room and each time brings with her a tissue which she dutifully scrunches up before throwing it into the rubbish bin. We're up to the fourth or fifth visit now. And no, the tissues are not used. I wonder how many of those tissues are creating a yellow brick road from the tissue box to the bin.....and on that note I must explain to Lexi that tissues are not toys.....amazing the things you find yourself saying when you have children.......