Help needed, please…

I’ve been aware for a while now, the differences between girls and boys. According to Miss 7, girls have eyelashes. And this has been the case for the last few years. In fact, the colouring in she did just last week (pictured) wasn’t a female bird… until she made it one! Isn’t it great, the way kids see things!
But something that Miss 4 said this morning has me stumped. And if anyone has any clue as to it’s interpretation, I’d love some help with it!
“Mummy, some girls can be good girls, and they have lips. Some boys can be good boys, and they have lips. But some boys can be very naughty, and some girls can be very very naughty, and none of them have lips.”
What the?

Wish me luck!

Today is the day! This afternoon, I’m live on LEQ TV. 2 1/2 hours, explaining how to harness the power of digital marketing. Wish me luck!

On this day…

The time on my computer reads 1.00am. It is Wednesday the 25th of April, 2012. On this day, back in 1915, the ANZAC legend was created.

The clip above was from the Peter Weir movie, Gallipoli. (Unfortunately it was a bit buggy to embed properly, so I apologise if it doesn’t play for you. The link is at the bottom.) Below is a written account.

The original plan / what was MEANT to happen:

The ANZAC landing area was a broad, six kilometre stretch of beach from about a mile north of Gaba Tepe to a point near Fisherman’s Hut, north of Anzac Cove. It was officially designated “Z Beach”. (The five landing beaches at Helles were designated “S”, “V”, “W”, “X” and “Y Beach”). To attain surprise the landing would commence following moonset, about one hour before dawn.

The landing would begin with the arrival of a “covering” force to swiftly capture the area surrounding the landing zone and make it secure for the main force. The Australian 3rd Brigade was selected as the covering force. Three battalions were to seize the third ridge line as well as Gaba Tepe while the fourth battalion remained in reserve. Following the covering force, the Australian 2nd Brigade would land and move to the north, climbing to the summit of the main range at Hill 971 and protecting the left flank of the landing. The original plan called for the capture of Mal Tepe, halfway across the peninsula, on the first day but only if the landing was successful would this objective be pursued by the main force; the Australian 1st Brigade and the two brigades of the New Zealand and Australian Division.

The first wave of the covering force would come ashore from the cutters of three battleships which were to approach within five kilometres of the shore. The remaining waves of the covering force would be landed from seven destroyers which were to approach close in to the beach. The main force would land from transports.

What actually happened:

As the armada of Allied ships draw nearer, by 2.00 am it was spotted by various Ottoman observers who passed the information on to Maidos HQ. The 2nd Battalion of the 27th Infantry Regiment was ordered to be on the alert prepare for action to repel any troops landing on the shores.

The first troops to land were two companies of each of the 9th, 10th and 11th Battalions of the Australian 3rd Brigade. The companies embarked from three battleships. Each battleship dispatched four steamboats towing three row boats (launches and pinnaces)—a total of 48 boats.

The moon set at 3am and the battleships released the tows at 3.30am. Given the night was pitch dark, the tows headed due east and so relied on the battleships having been in the correct position when they were released. The journey of the tows became a shambles and numerous theories have been proposed to explain what went amiss. The southern-most tow kept a good course and was aimed correctly just north of Gaba Tepe but its commander found the neighbouring tows were heading northwards, leaving him isolated. He altered course to bring his tow closer and this may have caused a ripple effect as the other tows responded with a similar correction. As the shore was sighted, the headland of Ari Burnu became visible and some tows mistook this for Gaba Tepe and hence veered even further north.

For whatever reason, these first boats which were meant to land on a six kilometre front between Hell Spit and Gaba Tepe ended up concentrated about Ari Burnu, almost two and a half kilometres north of their intended landing area—in fact, in the landing area of the 2nd Brigade which was to follow. The area about Ari Burnu was defended by a single company of the 2nd Battalion, 27th Regiment, Ottoman 9th Division. The Australians began to come ashore at 4.30am. The first man to land was Cpl. Joseph Stratford #1179. 9th Btn. According to eyewitness reports, when he was waist deep in water, he disposed of most of his heavy equipment and charged towards the enemy, which cut him down in a hail of bullets.

The first troops to land were met by sporadic rifle and machine gun fire but casualties were relatively light. The 11th Battalion, which had landed just north of Ari Burnu, suffered the worst. The main enemy was confusion. The erratic course of the tows meant that the units had become intermingled. Officers were unsure where their units were or indeed where they themselves were; some thought that they had landed at Gaba Tepe. The geography was utterly unfamiliar and no objective could be identified.

Most of the troops of the 9th and 10th Battalions began to climb the first hill that confronted them, which unfortunately turned out to be the dead-end Plugge’s Plateau.

The time on my computer now reads 1.30am. It is Wednesday the 25th of April, 2012. On this day, back in 1915, the ANZAC legend was created. At this time on that fateful day, the men would have been looking out at the shoreline, using the last of the moonlight to memorise the distant shoreline. Fearing the moon setting, and impatient as well, so that the landing could be over. How many of them knew the circumstances that were turning against them? How many had any idea of just how bad it would be?

I am a proud Australian. Today is a very special day for me. I shall be posting this at 4.30am, the time that Corporal Joseph Stratford, the first Australian to land, was cut down while still waist deep in water, having not even made it to the sand. The first to die of 4,931 Australian casualties. It is my hope today that you, dear readers, may pause with me, and remember those who gave their lives for the liberties we enjoy today.

Lest We Forget.

Video courtesy Peter Weir’s 1991 film “Gallipoli”, uploaded to YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N87UwyRI1tk by fronteitaliana

‘Written account’ abbreviated from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landing_at_Anzac_Cove

CC Image courtesy louisemakesstuff at http://www.flickr.com/photos/louisemakesstuff/1185971424/

What am I worth?

From time to time, I google my name. Being probably the only ‘Ceridwyn Bloxham’ that’s alive on the face of this entire planet, I’m pretty sure that all search results on the first couple of pages are actually going to relate to me in some way. (And that’s pretty cool…!) But it hit me the other day that I’d never googled “KRidwyn” – my new(ish) twitter handle, and what I’m going by more and more recently, because it’s just easier, phonetically speaking.

SoI did. I ran a google search on KRidwyn – and again, most of the first page or so related to me (again, that’s pretty cool!) and seeing as I mainly use KRidwyn on twitter, most of the search results were for twitter analytics tools. ‘That’s fine with me,’ I thought. But then one caught my eye. It put a price on my account. Finally, a monetary value on my worth as a digital citizen! (Yes, there’s always Klout – where I’m hovering around a 48 – and I’ve played with, and given up on, 20ft as a way of measuring my influence… but this was a MONETARY value! And it was for $116.95!!!)

Here is a screenshot of the relevant section of the webpage. And yes, my value’s gone down in the last two or so days. I’d be sad if I wasn’t so bemused by it all!

Also interesting: you can input other people’s @twitter handles, and get their results. So I did. Apparently @PeteCashmore (at Mashable) is worth a shade under $40K US, @JeffBullas (a digital marketer in Sydney) is worth over $41K, and @JasonYormark (a marketing VP in Seattle) is worth over $62K! (And Jason Yormark has sent less than 4,000 tweets! I’m pretty jealous of that…! But I’ve tweeted more than @PeteCashmore… hmmm…)

So – want to try it? The site’s called “SNPros” (short for “Social Networking Professionals) and the image credit for today’s piece is at http://www.snpros.com/twitter/KRidwyn

Have a lovely day, all!

Inspirations

Earlier this year, I waited, impatiently, for a week while Pinterest processed my request to join them. Once accepted, I was an avid user. Several times daily I would hop on and browse. I loved the embedding feature, and used it both here on Hmmm… and on my work blog. But the growing number of tweets regarding Pinterest’s dodgy Terms of Service concerned me, and I finally made the decision to cancel my account after reading this blog post. It was a very sad day.

On the upside though, I was inspired by many images I saw in my time there. One such image inspired me to experiment in the kitchen. My kids were delighted with their dessert the other night, as it ‘drove’ out of the fridge and ‘parked’ next to their plates! Here was my first attempt…

… and, in case you’re interested, they’re not that difficult to make – even for #notagoodcook like me!

Have a great day, dear readers!

Wise furniture choices

It’s now coming up five years since we moved from Landsborough. We had built a four bed 2 bath brick and tile home there, back in the year 2000. After a couple of years, we extended it and enclosed a large patio, creating an entertainment room. We furnished this room with a lovely 6 piece outdoor setting – wicker-look chairs and tempered glass table.
Fast forward seven years and you see us moving house. To a cute (read tiny) place that definitely would not fit all of our furniture… well, not if we wanted to fit in there too. So we halved our furniture, keeping the outside setting and giving the dining table and chairs to Neighbours Aid Community Stores. Reason being, even though it was larger, the glass tabletop helped to not make our new dining / lounge area too crammed – and the wicker look fitted in with the holiday feel of our new place.
Fast forward again, to April 2012. Mr 3 has decided to develop the habit of spitting / dribbling any unwanted food out of his mouth – in full mouthfuls. Outside furniture copes well with this. Just take the chair outside, hose it off, wait half an hour, and then everything’s hunky-dory again. Bread, milk, cheese, tomato sauce, tuna, soggy chips, ice cream – it really doesn’t matter.
I was thinking about this, this morning after my little man decided to experiment with tipping his large cup of milk all over his right leg, and then screaming because he was surprised by the consequence.
Because it doesn’t matter if I hose off one chair, two chairs, or all six chairs in one go – they’ll still all be fine in about half an hour. And think that’s pretty cool.

Favourite “Speech” Apps

I was asked in a tweet the other day about the Apps I have. And I realized that I couldn’t reply in a tweet, as I have far too many! So I’ve decided to dedicate a few blog posts to the topic. The question related specifically to apps that help with speech development, so I have categorized this first list into ‘word recognition’ and ‘encouraging speech through interaction’. Hope it might be helpful!

Word / Sound recognition (simplest to most complex)

1. I Hear Ewe – three pages of common sounds with very clear, short explanations

2. My Preschool Word – my kids love unlocking jewels by listening to the song of the word they just met – and then putting the image onto crazy photos!

3. Dot to Dot Numbers & Letters – simple dot to dot, with clear number pronunciation

4. Baby Cloud Apps First Words Free – clear pictures with spoken object names

5. Melvin’s Marvellous Words – a memory game using words

6. Little Speller… Three letter words – learn to spell with large pictures and clear word / letter pronunication

7. My First Words; Flashcards – categories with large pictures and clearly spoken words

8. A1 Spelling App – eight categories, with the words spoken by a child instead of an adult.

9. Phonics Genius – clearly spoken words in word families. No pictures, though.

10. Articulation Station – divided into sounds, and the sound placement within the word. Examples are given in words, sentences, and stories. A very thorough app!

 

Encouraging speech through interaction

1. VidRhythm (pictured) – this app really encouraged my youngest to copy the sounds and words, to make the music video. Of this entire list today, this App would be my favourite.
2. Puppet Pals HD – make your own puppet show using up to 8 characters and 3 backgrounds
3. Play School Art Maker – theme-based, choose which characters and objects you want to play, and record videos of your play.
4. Talking Gina the Giraffe / Talking Tom Cat and similar ‘Talking” apps.

WordPress spam

I find some spam comments to be absolutely hilarious. Below is one of today’s. If you read it, really read it, it’s just so darn funny! (Or maybe it’s me, in my too-much-work, not-enough-sleep, exhausted and giggly state of mind at the moment…!)

Here ’tis:

You realize thus significantly on the subject of this topic, produced me in my opinion consider it from numerous varied angles. Its like women and men don’t seem to be fascinated until it’s something to do with Woman gaga! Your own stuffs outstanding. All the time maintain it up!

I mean, seriously?!! This stuff’s hilarious!!! I couldn’t make it up if I tried! (maybe I should just ‘maintain it up’ then??!!)

Readers

Miss 7, like most Grade 2ers, I guess, has readers. She doesn’t particularly like them. I don’t particularly blame her. Nevertheless, she needs to read them, so she does. She’s pretty good at doing what she’s told. And I like that.

So anyway, I started this blog post last night, while reading with Miss 7. I then set aside my iPhone, which I’d been using to blog (with the WordPress app) when I realised later that I had inadvertently published it. And I’m not entirely sure but I have a feeling that it sent it immediately through to both my twitter feed and my Facebook account. Whoops!

It (the above) was going to be the lead-in to a post on reading. And how Miss 7 doesn’t like it, and how I think that’s due to vision problems. Today, she had a second appointment with a Behavioural Optometrist, who confirmed it. Long story short, she chose some frames today and in a couple of weeks her glasses will be ready. She’ll be the first in our family. But as Hubby and I are both in front of our computer screens for hours every day, and as he’s gone 40 and I’m nearing it faster than I had hoped to, I doubt she’ll be the only for long…

Anyway, sorry for the mixup, dear readers – and for the email you received, my even dearer subscribers! I’ll be more careful when blogging from a mobile device in future…!

Fish tanks and fun

I wrote last week about Cuddles, Miss 7′s new, free (!) teddybear. And how he sits next to her new fishtank. I’ve written about her tank before, bout how she saved her pocket money for weeks and weeks, until she could afford a tank from the Caboolture markets, then she saved for the filter, and the fish, and so on and so on. We had the learning opportunities that came with overfeeding Whitey, and then a sad episode – his passing.
But the end of the tank itself, came rather unexpectedly. We got home from her swimming lessons, very late one hot Wednesday, and Miss 7 asked why the water had gone down from her tank. I looked at mine, noticed the water as gone down slightly, then started to explain about hot days, evaporation, and all things sciency. It wasn’t until I was in her room an hour or so after that I noticed that the carpet under her desk was wet. So was her chair. So we’re the papers she’d left on her desk. Then it clicked. That line, down the side of her tank, was not just Miss 4′s over enthusiastic penmanship. It was a crack. I was NOT impressed!!!
We’d been out all day. The kids, and I, were exhausted. The last thing I wanted to deal with was a fish rescue and wet carpet. Still, it had to be done, as Hubby wasn’t going to be home for hours yet, and there was the dinner to cook, kids to fed and bathe and get to bed…
So Miss 7′s fish went into my tank until I could get her a new one. She was worried that she’d have to save for it all over agin, but I thought I’d be a nice mummy and just buy it for her. Especially as I’d decided that a plastic tank would be all that she was getting!
Some weeks, and many many many shops later, all I had been able to find that was suitable was another glass tank. And I had exhausted all available alternatives. So glass tank number two was what we ended up with. And I’m just praying that it’ll last longer the glass tank number one did!!’