Anaconda

This is another recycled instalment for your reading pleasure.

If you're not a fan of snakes look away now.

My Step dad told me this story and I am still seriously haunted by it.

A guy my step dad works with has a sister and this is her experience. One she'll never ever forget I am sure. In fact one I'll never forget and I heard it third hand.

I have no idea why anyone has a snake as a pet, I have no idea why anyone has any reptile as a pet if I'm completely honest. They're not cute, they're not fun, they're not nice to stroke and frankly they really don't wanna be friends with us humans.

Anyhow Step dad's colleagues sister (Who is clearly insane!) had an Anaconda, which is an exceptionally unsociable kind of snake, for fun they like to curl around a live animal, crush it to death and then eat it all up. (Why wouldn't anyone want an Anaconda as a pet?) She happily let her Anaconda sleep on the end of her bed coiled up each night.

One day she became concerned when she noticed her pet had lost his appetite and promptly took him to the vet for a check up. The vet said he didn't have much experience with snakes but said to keep an eye on him and if he still hadn't eaten in a month to bring him back and they'd have another look.

A month went by and the snake still hadn't eaten so she went back to the vet as he requested. She explained how he still wasn't eating and that he'd recently had an odd change in behaviour. He'd always slept coiled up at the end of the bed and had recently started sleeping outstretched on the bed alongside her instead.

The vet said "Well I don't know much about snakes, one thing I do know, if they're laying stretched out like that, they're sizing you up to eat you!"

So this clever snake had been starving himself to get ready for his super size meal of his lady owner. Stretching himself out alongside her to see if he could fit her in, after he'd kindly crushed her to death first of course.

So there you have it, reason 3421 why people shouldn't have snakes as pets!

As if I needed any more convincing.

Invaded

We are currently dealing with an ant invasion. Lucky us. Where? In the garden perhaps? Nope, in the house and even better (and even more hygienic?!) in the kitchen. We have dealt with this before, two summers ago, but unfortunately neither of us can recall what we did to kill (literally) the problem. Last year we didn't have any of our ant friends come to visit us for their summer vacation so we thought our unwanted house guests were firmly in our past. Wrong....again!

Thomas and Eli both think it's tremendous fun to have all of these fun 'ant pets'. I'm glad they are so easily pleased. Rob gets itchy all over whenever he comes across one but me, I am totally unfazed after turning up in San Antonio to work at EFY and being greeted and given a can of Raid to kill any unwanted visitors that might be in my bed for the duration of my two week stay. Delightful, and what a welcome!

So we're left with tackling the invasion all over again. (Which currently involves killing each one at first glance.) Now if only I could get Eli to stop dropping whatever he eats all over the floor constantly I'm sure we'd see success far sooner. But, maybe , just maybe I'll have to call those friendly folks in San Antonio and get them to send me some Raid.

Invasion may be a bit on the dramatic side (so unlike me of course) considering really it's only 6-8 ants a day (which is 6-8 more than I'd ideally require taking up habitation in my kitchen). I'm just simply not up to scratch on what is actually defined as an invasion and what clearly isn't. But I feel invaded so I'll continue to refer to it in such dramatic terms, I just wouldn't be me otherwise.

Deja Vu......Didn't We Just Have a Baby????

This is Eli. (Excuse what we refer to in the extended Siswick family as his Wilbs) This is Eli's natural state. He's not a conventional child, he's not a conventional anything. During a recent viewing of Jungle Book we realised he is a Man Cub, a child who appears to have been raised by wild animals. Despite all our best efforts to encourage him otherwise.Six months after Thomas was born we decided it'd be a good idea to attempt to enlarge our family once again. (At this point we still had some faith in the doctor who told us we'd never conceive naturally so figured it'd take a while as it did with Thomas). So I found out when Thomas was 7 months old that he was gonna become a big brother in 8 months time. We imagined the new addition to be just like Thomas, laid back, calm and nice to cuddle.

I should have known this was no ordinary baby when half way through pregnancy my lovely straight locks started growing as curly hair in random sections never to recover. (Though he has the same hairdo and it suits him perfectly).

The new addition arrived on May 24th 2006 weighing 6 pounds 9 ounces and immediately he looked just like Thomas. Days passed and we soon realised this was a very different child we were dealing with. We joke that Eli is what you get when you mate a monkey and a rhino. The kid is pure hilarious. Loves to make people laugh and totally knows he is funny. He has a pout to rival Posh Spice when he's not getting his own way.

Eli is also a biter (which is 100% Rob's fault although he would never admit it). He is also ultra lazy, deciding to not walk until he was 16.5 months old. So this is where the biting came in handy for him, if someone annoyed or frustrated him he'd wait til they were passing by and clamp his little chompers on whichever appendage was closest. Thomas of course became his numero uno victim. I didn't mind so much when the biting was confined to our family. One day when he was about a year old I took them to the playgym. Eli was playing on a slide trying to climb it from the bottom up when a girl his age went to investigate. They seemed to playing quite nicely so I was quietly basking in the glow of how wonderfully sociable my one year old was. Suddenly I heard a scream and knew the biter had struck. I made it to the slide at the same time as the girl's mother where incidentally the girl was sitting at the bottom not letting Eli climb, this is what activited the frustration reflex, (ok so thats not a rational reason to bite someone but at least the attack wasn't unprovoked). I expected a bite to an appendage as was the norm but no, I guess girls are God's ultimately annoying creation to Eli cos he'd taking a lovely big bite out of her juicy cheek. No bleeding but already a big bruise appearing. Of course I felt like the leper of the local mothering community. I was now the one of the mothers I judged for having kids that had inexcusable behaviour. (When Thomas was recently bitten on a play outing I was perfectly composed telling the mother that these things happen and no permanent damage had occured so no need to feel bad, pre-Eli I would've reacted very differently indeed).

Needless to say there was no mention baby number 3 when Eli was 6 months, in fact we're still coming to terms with the man cub addition now.

Good job he's so cute or we'd have put him on ebay by now!