Bribery for under 5's 101

So, after a long period of study, completing my Master's in Clinical Psychology as well as a Degree in Physics, to particularly study Quantum Mechanics. I think I may just have learned what it takes to bribe my two children to clean up after themselves.
I have learned that the thing they begged me for yesterday, may not neccessarily hold any fascination today, ie:

Thursday:

-"Mum! Mum! Can we buy some chocolate donuts with chocolate sprinkles?!"
-"No!"
-"Please Mum. I'll DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE if I don't have one!"
-"No!"

Friday:

(After asking, threatening and cajoling for 3 hours)

-"If you guys pick up all the blocks that you've strewn around the loungeroom, and even scrape the melted ones off the heater, I'll buy you a chocolate donut with chocolate sprinkles".
-"*sigh*.... nah..."

So instead of folding and accepting the old adage "If you can beat them, join them (together with a roll of gaffa tap)", have finally learned to offer them something they never thought they wanted.

The equation goes a little something like this...

They may not have realised that they wanted to go to the park this afternoon, but now, thanks to many years of studying the human mind, quantum mechanics, rocket science, Oprah, and with a bit of blind luck and mother's inutition- they do!
Chalk another one up to Mum!

Does bribery work with your kids all the time?

My brother the chef

My brother is a chef. He should be a celebrity chef.

He should have a show called, "How to fatten up your relatives whenever they visit your restaurant, because they obviously have no idea what food is, they've never eaten before, so you MUST give them all the nourishment your kitchen can provide. And that means finding your largest serving platters to use as plates and pile them high with every item on the menu".

He fries up the contents of his kitchen freezer whenever my children go to dine at his salubrious establishment... Have you ever seen an 3 and 5 year old trying to eat a wheelbarrow full of chicken nuggets? Or 3 milk crates worth of calamari rings? Or a 44 gallon drum full of cocktail franks? He has no children of his own, so assumes they eat as much as a growing teenager with worms, a double jointed esophagus and a 3 metre long duodenum.

His adult servings are really special too. I actually think there are some smaller religions that worship the cathedral that is his Porterhouse with garlic mash (the red wine jus, used in their baptisms).

I'm just saying he is a very generous man, generous to a fault, and could take on any other celeb chef in the world in generosity of the plate and spirit!

My brother, the chef (who, according to my youngest son, looks like Kanye West...must be the oversized sunnies and the goatee... and the awesome RnB sound!)

Surreal Sunday

This morning I woke up and decided to take the kiddies for a walk. I got dressed in my favourite jogging gear of roman sandals, headdress from Rio De Janero, footy socks, my Nanna's best chenille dressing gown, and I merrily jogged off down the street... I remembered then that I don’t jog (due to an old snorkelling injury, and I also don't possess a correctly fitted jogging bra... just an old training bra, 4 elastoplast bandaids, a coathanger and packet of frozen peas shoved down my top) and settled into a leisurely stroll (plus jogging was dislodging my Mardi Gras style head attire, and it had nearly perforated my left eyeball).

Perambulating further on down the track I was merrily greeting passers by screeching “Bake me a cake!” at them like a fish wife and painting a green stripe down their back (with my handy dulux tin I carry everywhere), then following them back to their house, making myself cinnamon sugar on toast and then leaving (stealing their junk mail).

We arrived at the park and Jasper told me he was hungry, so while the kids were on the swings, I tracked and hunted some Grouse and roasted it in my portable grouse roaster (luckily I had it on me as I wasn’t going to bring it. I was going to bring my portable Icypole freezer, just incase I wanted to pick some Icypoles for my Icypole arranging class)(Icypole is a good word isn’t it? I like the word Icypole).

We were all a bit tired by this stage, so we headed home, singing all the national anthems of the countries of Africa, with Jasper accompanying me on the ukulele and Atticus on the nose flute.

T'was a lovely stroll, will try to go for another tomorrow. I Will keep you posted of the events of that one.

Movies about Merkins! So hot right now!

Inspired by Mrs Woog's Marvelous Merkins along with some red wine and trying to make #merkins trend on Twitter. Merkin inspired films were all the rage last night, not just in Paris and Milan, but in Australia.

So, today I got out my patented dodgy photoshopping gear, and decided to make...

MERKIN MOVIE POSTERS!

Gentlemen Prefer Merkins:



Good Merkin Hunting:

Men Who Stare at Merkins:

My Big Fat Greek Merkin: