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My morning ritual is to make a coffee at the kitchen counter with a window looking out over our backyard. Usually I am the first up and the house is still, filled only with the sounds of animals other than humans. Peeping of small hatched chickens inside, the raucous morning squawk of my Amazonian parrot, and the clucking of hens right outside the window. Sometimes my wife is up first and out in the yard tending to her chickens, and sometimes my youngest daughter is up (often she rises to the sound of the coffee machine) and then I am bombarded with her inquisitiveness.

i gaze out the backdoor and i see the comforts of home. The familiar clutter of bikes, the BBQ lawnmower, birdcages and chickens.

Zooming in as the chickens come for their food we see each has a personality, a pecking order and they are “so adorable” as the girls say.

This is where I live.

My family is my familiar clutter, my girls are my background noise. Yet I need to remember to zoom in. Focus on the individuals amongst the crowd and noise, listen to the request for love an attention and provide that as a husband and father. Sometimes I neglect this. That is not what I want to do. This reminder is good.

And this morning my youngest (the teens are all in dreamland) was excited to show me her new rip stick skills so out in the middle of the street I lie with my camera – giving her attention.

This is where I live.

This blog is part of a blog circle.  Our theme for this month is Where I Live.  Please come back this week, and read the posts of the others in my circle: 

Live Love Laugh Hope

Captured Bits of Beauty

Pollywog Creek

Breathe Deeply

What Marty Sees

Mercedes is mad keen on bugs.

Pretty much any time of the day you can find her with a plastic cup or container with some sort of bug on it, or an insect. moth or spider of some kind crawling on her hand while she oohs and aahs over it.

Today she has a woodroach in a container with some dry dog food. It is her pet. She is going “Oh roach” and “come here roach” and having little conversations with it. I suggested she feed it to the dragons but she indignantly exclaimed - “No its my pet!”

Photo courtesy of InsectsAway

I love having weekends off. I decided not to work this weekend and it was a great time.

I am going back to Thursday, because I took Thursday night off as well. After work I went to the park in the late afternoon / early evening with the kids. I dug a big sandcastle with the shovel including a tunnel through the castle wall. The kids had lots of fun playing this – and the games they thought up were amazing.

Friday night I also took off and we watched a movie together before I watched the tour De France with a mate.

I just had the most awesome conversation with my baby - well she's not my baby more; "I not baby I 'cedes". 4 year old Mercedes just climbed onto my knee and proceeded to talk to me and tell me a while bunch of stuff, some of which I understood clearly and other stuff I am still confused about but it doesn't mater.I enjoy listening and she enjoys talking. But my baby is growing up...