How Not To Ruin Easter For Your Child

This is a sponsored post - but it's more of a community service announcement

about how NOT to tell your kids about the Easter Bunny. You're welcome.

You know how you have those defining moments in your life that you can recall back in vivid detail like it was yesterday? Well the Easter of 1988 was one of those defining moments for me...

I don't have access to a squiggly fade and airy music, so you'll just have to picture that for yourself while I stare dreamily off in to space as is the norm for any flashback.

Picture a six year old (adorable) Glow waking on Easter morning full of excitement. There was no sluggish yawning and stretching like there is now, it was instantaneous waking and bolting to the lounge room in my truly, truly outrageous Gem jimjams to see if the Easter Bunny had been.

My eyes practically bulged out of my head at the sight of all the chocolate and the giant bites out of the carrot we'd left out for him. HE HAD BEEN!!! HE HAD BEEN!!!

Brightly coloured foil covered eggs in a basket, a chocolate rabbit and... oh my... a note!

I picked it up carefully and examined it the little card. A hand drawn carrot on the front and inside it read:

"Dear Glow,

I love carrots! Yum!

Love The Easter Bunny" 

My face sank, there was a problem... it was my mother's handwriting.

Instantly I became a sobbing mess as it dawned on me that if the Easter Bunny wasn't real, then maybe, just maybe, that fat bloke at Christmas wasn't real either.

I was devastated. Easter was ruined (well for five minutes before I was distracted with the chocolate).

Let my (fluffy bunny cotton) tail tale of woe be a lesson to you. DO NOT write letters from The Easter Bunny yourself if your child is old enough to recognize your writing. Instead, you can get coupons for great Easter bargains like personalized mugs, Easter baskets and, more importantly, personalized letters from the Easter Bunny!

Do not ruin Easter, find online codes here and learn from my mother's mistake.

Nyeerrrr, what's up, Blog?

How did you find out about the Easter Bunny? Or have I just ruined Easter for you with this post?

2011 in a nutshell

I thought 2010 was a huge year what with Tricky being born and having surgery and blah blah blah... but I think it's been trumped. 2011 has been full on. Some amazing things, some sucky things. So here is Glow of 2011 in a nutshell:

Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck. It's me in a nutshell!!! I'm hilarious.

But really, here's 10 things I got up to in 2011:

• Ranted about breastfeeding choices (setting the tone for a ranty year!)
• Tricky had his second lot of skull surgery for Craniosynostosis
• Took on my 'foster baby' FlogYoBlog Friday
• Was 'cured' of depression
• Won the Mummy Blogger with the X Factor Award and an iPad
• Watched my Dad get really sick and eventually have open heart surgery
• Celebrated my first ever Mothers' Day by Tricky almost breaking my nose
• Managed to find the biggest asshole paediatrician in Perth
• And the most incompetent GP in Perth too
• Celebrated Tricky's first birthday in swashbuckling style with an awesome homemade pirate cake
• Had a breakdown in Melbourne airport over a Mars Bar
• Stood at my Pop's bedside as he drew his final breaths
• Then got really Emo and ended up back on medication
• Got a writing job and a sales & marketing job
• Posed nekkid on the internet to much support and only a teeny tiny bit of flack
• Got flown to Adelaide for brunch
• Became addicted to baking
• Embarrassed myself in Vlog form (then again whilst tipsy)
• Mocked Hitler for my own enjoyment, then Magneto Bold Too and Woogsworld just for good measure
• Celebrated turning 30 with a tattoo, a kick ass rainbow layer cake a massive $3000 giveaway!

Busy, busy, busy! So busy that my list of 10 became a list of 20. Can't wait to see what 2012 has in store for me! My New Years Resolution is to... um, ya know... do stuff.

Was 2011 good to you? Or rather sucky?

10 Things You Didn't Want To Know

The fabulous St Murphy tagged me in a post aaages ago and I figure it's about time I got on with it and created this fab list because this little corner of the blogosphere is getting way emo lately.

So here it is. 10 things you didn't want to know about yours truly.

1. I can turn my arms around almost 360 degrees. It's an awesome party trick and is great for creeping out people but I cannot for the life of me remember how I figured out I could do it but I'm bendy like a pretzel thanks to hypermobile joints. I'll vlog it for you one day.

2. When I was little I used to think the emergency stopping lane next to the freeway was actually an emergency shopping lane. I imagine that if you were on your way to someone's house when you realized you'd forgotten to grab something for morning tea you could pull in to it and it would lead you directly to the shops.

3. I have been known to eat slices of apple dipped in Nutella. Actually sometimes I don't even bother to cut it up and just slather it over the outside. I come away with a bit of a Nutella mo' but it's totally worth it.

4. Going in to a toilet immediately after a woman and finding the toilet seat up kinda freaks me out a bit.

Yes, this is my toilet.

5. Sitting on a chair when it is still warm from someone else's bum makes me dry retch. I realize there has been no touching of flesh but the idea of my bottom stewing in someone else's farts just does not sit well with me.

6. I'm scared of anything that moves unpredictably. This includes cockroaches, jumping spiders, crickets and drunken teenagers. 

7. I've never ever had a credit card. It's less about being responsible and more about not having any trust in myself to resist shiny things.

8. I generally take really short showers, like a few minutes at the most, and I have no idea how people can stay in there any longer than that. Don't you get bored?

9. I am a snorer. Of the chainsaw variety. When looking for roomates for Blogopolis I was shitting myself that I would not be able to find another person willing to admit their nocturnal noises weren't the prettiest. Until I found Kelley. Except she says I make cute snoring noises. I think Map Guy would disagree with her.

10. I watch movies that I love over and over and over again until I know all the words. If it's a sad movie though I'll fast forward through the sad bits and just pretend it didn't happen.

Now that your life is complete from knowing these 10 things, it is time for me to pass the torch...
Miss Pink @ The Mummy Autobiography, Jen @ Four Bees at Home, Lil @ Going Left and Kellie @ The Good, The Bad & The Unnecessary. Go forth and tell me 10 things I didn't really want to know.

Tell me something about YOU that I don't need to know.

Bubba Glow

No, I'm not pregnant, you can all exhale now.

I've been looking through stacks of albums and piles upon piles of shoeboxes at my parents' house recently for my own baby photos to attach to the bio I can't write for the project I can't tell you about (are you keeping up? No? Me neither). If you wanna help me pick, the top six are here to be voted on.

Anyway, tucked inside the album was one A5 page of milestone notes (third child, the novelty of note taking had worn off) and I had a good read and here are the best bits about the perfectly average little ol' me:

___ . . . ___ . . . ___

17.12.81 - Born at 2:11pm, weight 4.35 kg (9.6lb), length 53cm (BOOMBAH BABY!)

3 days old - Fully bottle fed (And I turned out fine. No really, I mean it. Stop laughing.)

Six months - Can sit by herself for about a minute

Seven months - Crawls in a fashion elbows first then moves along (Commando baby)

Nine months - Took her out of the walkers as she fell face first on to the floor. Cracked her lip. Crawls properly. Can say "Dad Dad" and wave bye bye. Has four teeth.

Ten months - Glowless now pulls herself up on all the furniture, has five teeth, can say "Mum Mum" and "Hello" but it's more just a singing sound. 

Twelve months - Glowless now walks fully by herself

Fourteen months - Can say "Nanna" "Bye bye" "chasey". Climbs on everything. Gets up to mischief. Brat. (What a loving mother)

Eighteen months - First trip to the dentist - broken teeth. Very good at going to bed at night, wakes up once or twice

Twenty months - First sleep in her new bed - hates it. Takes Jimbalyn (my doll) with her. Hassles.

Two years - Had two year old test - is advanced in talking - mother's side - clever (and I haven't shut up ever since!)

Two years - Have had second opinion on Glowless' teeth. Two front teeth must come out because she has abscesses.

Nawww I was cute!

___ . . . ___ . . . ___

Ahh, isn't she lovely. And now you know where I get my sense of humour from.

And I wonder why she just rolls her eyes at me when I complain about Tricky climbing on the coffee table and dancing.

And for the record, I was waaay slower at reaching milestones than Tricky and I turned out awesome. STOP LAUGHING!!!

Have you looked through your baby notes? Were you a brat?