Have you any wool??

There is one person in the world who has had as tough a year with Miss 5 as hubs and I.  Miss 5s teacher.  The Universe smiled on Miss 5 when they assigned her kindi teacher.  We were blessed with one of the warmest, kindest, gentlest individuals that I have ever met.  We took the journey from bewilderment and frustration to Aspergers diagnosis together, and when I was beside myself with stress and grief she was a rock solid support, her positiveness and optimism never wavered for a moment.

A comment she made recently to my Mum has become my mantra when things are really tough.  "She has so much potential (Miss 5). It will take us a couple of years to properly unlock it, but when we do it will be wonderful."

She is so right.

There is no way I can ever fully express my thanks to that gracious lady.  But I did make this cross-stitch as a small way of showing our gratitude.

Thank you for everything you did for our little black sheep

Saturday afternoon in the garden

Miss 4 has been taking photos. Given her height and my height there were a lot which included my elbows, boobs and bottom.  Not a pretty sight when clad in grey velour tracksuit pants and a hot pink lycra top (what? its Saturday and I've been in the garden all day).

This thicket is the tomatoes.  They're fruiting all over the place.

And the washing on the line. I just love when kids take random pictures like this and they really work.

And then there are those that have questionable content.

:)

Random conversations yesterday

Walking past busy park to the car, with hands full of shopping bags, two cushions, and a shoe box filled with stuffed toys:
Miss 4: "Is that where babies come from."
Lunges to grab part of me where, indeed, babies did come from.
Me: "Argh." As I overbalance trying not to trip over Miss 4 or wipe her out with a shopping bag.  Drop cushions etc, which is good because they... er... cushion me as I land, quite gracefully on the pavement.
Miss 4, watching as I pick myself up: "Can we plant sweetcorn when we get home?"


Miss 6 around 2am: "I wet the bed."
Hubs gets up and does the sheet change. No biggie.
Miss 4 around 7am: "I wet the bed."
Me from near the teapot in the kitchen: "Snuggle in ours, no biggie."
Miss 4 around 7.03am: "I wet your bed."
Me, thinking about how last time we changed the sheets the mattress protector was still damp and we left it off: "Whose side were you on?"
Miss 4: "Daddy's"
As I pour a cup of tea. "No biggie."

:)

Putting Wheels Back On

What with conferences, a plethora of kids parties and school-y stuff thus far August has lurched along with much of my hard won organisation flushing itself down the toilet.  What has surprised/dismayed/stunned (pick one or all) me the most is how fast the wheels fell off.

I  was out-of-the-house busy from Wednesday to Sunday, missed making meal plans and shopping on Thursday. This led to three nights of take-away, everyone buying their lunches, scrounging to feed people over the weekend, and a heavy reliance on the egg pile in the fridge - which was great, but when you've not had time to make bread... sigh.

In my defence I tried to do the shopping on Sunday. Miss 6 had a party down in Mosman and I optimistically took myself to Mosman IGA.  Ah ha. Ha, ha, ha.  The. Prices.

I know they change the prices depending on the supermarket location but this was ridiculous.  In the end I bought the ingredients for dinner (spag bol), some orange juice (Miss 4 has mouth ulcers, poor little mite, so am upping vit C) and some teabages (Nerada, not even the fancy pants Twinings ones - that were priced at $15.99, and are $9.99 in our Coles) and the whole lot set me back $54.

So, due to all the take-away and unplanned spending the budget has blown out.  Thank goodness for Hubs who diligently kept the washing ticking over - though now there's a gigantic a clean clothes pile.  No surface of the house is clear, and the kitchen is a disgrace.

Been to Coles this morning, and right now I am multi-tasking writing this and cleaning and redesigning websites, plus I've got an extra kid-free hour up my sleeve today. So am glueing the wheels back on.  Slowly. And with much effort.  Much as I enjoy being around people, I always find it really energy sapping, and today I'm tired and want to snug in bed, reading all the Mills&Boons I picked up at the conference.  Yawn. Not be to though.

One thing the few days of chaos has reminded me of, is how I admire Mothers Who Work - full time, part time, anytime, anywhere.  I mean, yes, I work - writing and homemaking - but its flexible, and I have a high degree of freedom.  I do not have the pressure of working away from home, and ladies who do... I salute you.

:)

Me: What are you drawing?
Miss 4: Its abstract art Mummy. *Rolls eyes.*

Am twittering wheels-back-on-day. @caitlynnicholas

Injured Hand

Miss 4 burned her hand - despite a four inch high guard around the cook-top she somehow managed to put her palm on a hob that'd just been turned off.

Even worse it's her left hand, the one she uses to do everything. So the last few days have been filled with a lot of tv (thank goodness for iView). She is healing quickly and is immensely cheerful though.

Ikea - god help me.

So imagine, if you will, heading off to hand in part of your application to do a Masters, and this happens to be at a place you once worked.  Imagine also that you bump into old workmates and see familiar faces. Imagine as you leave you glance at yourself in the reflective window and think, "Christ, who is that over-weight woman? She's got her top on inside out."

Yes. That was how my day started.

Of course, I didn't take the hint and headed on to Ikea with hubby and Miss Nearly Four in tow. NINE DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS.  Look, like that perm I got for my Year 10 formal, It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time.

There was a lot of screaming. Not only were meatballs were thrown in the cafeteria, they were also spat. There was fake choking. Fluffy toys were ripped apart with teeth AND THEN we chose to go through the self-service aisle at the end of the whole horrible experience.

Which was mostly fine.

Apart from the woman who queue jumped in front of me pretending she couldn't see me over the gigantic mattress she was wiping out children, harried employees and furniture displays with. The HAG do you realise I stood there fantasising about strangling you with my bare hands - and I was NOT the only one I reckon.   And the security guard who chose to lecture us on the dangers of allowing children to ride on top of trolleys - I mean what sane person stops people who have just made it through the whole Ikea experience and are heading home to discover exactly which bits have not been included in their cardboard box of irritation, and lectures them?

Incidentally Miss Nearly Four has inherited the ape monkey genes from her father and its almost impossible to dislodge from anything unless she chooses to be dislodged.

The whole Ikea thing took 90minutes including the cafeteria tantrum - it felt like SO much longer.

Tomorrow I am going to finish my Christmas shopping if it kills me, or until I kill someone.  My advice is to avoid Hornsby Mall tomorrow. It could get messy.

:)

Day of Excrement

My day in bullet points...

• 2.30am Smaller screamie discovers every action has an attached consequence, ie, if you remove your nappy after lights-out then at some point you are going to wake up cold and soaking wet.
• 5.30am Cat needs to have a wee
• 5.37am Cat discovers it is very cold outside and comes back in
• 6.10am Cat needs to have a wee
• 6.15am Entire family gets up
• 8am Counselling - plum depths of subconscious, find nothing of interest
• 9am Swap cars/children with hubby; he heads off to mumndads for a day of manual labour, cups of tea and chatting (more of the latter than the former)
• 9.30am Take children to The Mall to buy cake for playdate
• 9.40am Leave The Mall with two gingerbread men but no cake
• 10am Drop off children to playdate
• 10.10am Run around like a headless chicken gathering supplies for our forthcoming Halloween party
• 1pm Pick up children
• 1.04pm Discover the Smallest Screamie has had an accident of monumental proportions in her pants
• 1.15pm Get home and spend a happy fifteen minutes in the bathroom sorting out the accident
• 1.35pm Find Larger Screamie has had a similar but slightly more daunting accident in the other bathroom
• 1.37pm Get back in the car to go to the second playdate of the day
• 3.37pm Arrive home from two hours of drinking tea, gossipping and eating caramel crowns
• 4pm Bribe children into silence with a gigantic bag of Cheese&Bacon balls (Yes, it seemed like a Good Idea at the time) - and attack both bathrooms with a lot of bleach and lavender oil
• 4.45pm Clean breakfast detritus from kitchen
• 5.30pm Attempt to feed hyperactive and over-tired children
• 5.45pm Feed children's untouched meals to dog
• 6.10pm Cook Laksa - using Ayam brand Laksa sauce
• 6.12pm Hubby gets home
• 6.13pm Taste Laksa
• 6.15pm Ring for Thai take-away. Never in my life have I tasted anything so vile as that laksa (well maybe except for the Aldi chicken stock that didn't have any chicken in it).
• 6.3opm Get home with take-away; Phone is ringing
• 6.31pm Take over bath time from hubby who is on important call
• 6.51pm Get everyone through bath time; smile tensely at lengthy Christmas present discussion
• 7pm Smallest Screamie wees on floor next to toilet
• 7.01pm Retire to television with dinner for the safety of rest of family
• 7.03pm Glance over to find dog eating cushion...

• 7.06pm Realise that the dog has done a wee on the floor next to where he killed my cushion - and yes, that is a lit fire at the top of the photo - its October and TWELVE degrees outside. Two days ago we hit thirty-four.
• 7.10pm Crack open the Violet Crumbles

• And now at 8.34pm I am feeling deeply queasy and going to bed.

sigh.

They happen in threes...

OH. MY. GOD. Excuse me, but I'd just like to make the point that SOMEBODY/ANYBODY should have warned me about the things your children dream up to age you faster. I mean seriously. They know I have a High School reunion in a few weeks and after the last week of my life, any lingering smugness that I may just look just a smidge younger than I actually am (let's say 35 rather than 37 years, 9 months and 17 days) has been vaporised.

I am convinced they're doing it on purpose btw (that's trendy youff for By The Way, Diana).

Oh I shouldn't make light of it. That would make me sound like a worse mother than I actually am. You see it was horrible and serious. Miss 3.5 was bitten by a spider. Mmm. Nothing quite like having your husband tell you that your child is hysterical because she has been bitten by a spider that she is describing as black and red and has fang marks in her arm. Trust me interwebs it ages you.

We calmed her down, and whilst hubby hit google for advice, I tried to ease the story of what happened out of her. No easy feat, as anyone who has chatted to a pre-schooler will understand. She was climbing a tree in our front yard, came inside and there was a spider on her, which bit her and she knocked it onto the floor. She is was red and black, but then changed her story and said it was gold with red and black on it.

Meanwhile hubby had done a heap of research, and we knew that if Miss 3.5 had been bitten by a red-back she'd be in serious pain by this point. She clearly wasn't. We kept her calm and under close scrutiny, but once a band-aid had been applied to the bite-mark she continued as if nothing whatsoever had happened. Okay, now with a very healthy respect for creepy crawlies, but fine nonetheless.

See here she is, just fine...

Of course, having two disasters in the space of a week (see below for visit to hospital story) has led to many many people kindly pointing out that these things happen in threes.

Weeeelll - as Sam from Bewitched used to say - actually the spider thing technically could be counted as our third disaster of the week. We did have another one. A poo disaster.

A poo disaster involving my personal nemesis - the playground equipment at McDonalds.

Many of you will remember the incident at McDonalds where Miss 3.5 took off all her clothes and refused to come down from the highest heights of the McDonalds play equipment. Full horrible story here. We do not eat Maccers much, but lately hubby was lured back by the McAngus burger.

Everything was going smoothly and so when Miss 3.5 asked to go and play I only hesitated for a split second before saying okay. Well, hubby and I finished our burgers and went to get her. Grinning from ear to ear she whizzes out of the slide and into our arms. Awww. A kodak moment.

Until I glance in the direction of her trousers, and wonder out loud to hubby, "What's that coming out of the top of her pants?" Pretty much at the same moment he says, "What's that smell?"

Oh crap.

We rush her into the bathrooms, and quickly ascertain that this is one that we're not going to fix easily. We stripped off her bottom half, bundled up the clothes and threw them in the bin - trust me, you'd have done the same thing - cleaned her as best we could, wrapped her in hubby's jacket and made a run for it.

I still have the compulsive urge to wash my hands every single time I think of it.

So. One week, three disasters. I've aged.

sigh.

Urgh - Afternoon at the hospital

I've been having dramas.

Yesterday afternoon I was potting out my tomato seedlings - oh how I want to rant on about my home made potting mix with compost from the worm farm in it - but I shall restrain myself. Barely. Miss 3.5 was playing the swing. She's just learned how to swing herself without being pushed and is as pleased as punch about it all.

Well, I heard an odd thump and glance up to see her in a crumpled heap on the ground. I'd like to say I kept a calm head and walked over to see what the problem was, but no, I sprinted over there, falling over the dog, swearing and yelling at hubby not to pick her up.

She'd fallen off the swing. She was swinging very high, and when she was at full height from the ground she'd let go - It was a two metre drop and she'd landed on the back of her neck. My god. There is no reality check like seeing your child lying on the ground. Not screaming or crying, just still and pale. She didn't fully lose conciousness, but was kind-of drifting in and out for a few minutes. After about five minutes she wanted to get up. I was fussing about neck injuries, but she wouldn't stay still.

Anyway, we got her inside on the couch in front of the fire, but 45 minutes later she was still a dreadful shade of white and listless - so off to the emergency department we went.

The emergency staff at Hornsby Hospital were awesome. They kept her under observation for four hours, checking her eyes and whatnot regularly, but as time went on it was clear she was improving. Her colour came back and her main complaint was that she was hungry - as they wouldn't let her eat or drink. She'd been complaining about a headache and chest pain to me, though she wouldn't admit it to the nurses - so I was so glad to be there, just in case something developed.

After hubby fed Miss 5 he brought her down and we ended up in the pedes ward with both girls tucked up in the bed together and us sitting and watching the goings on in an emergency ward on a Wednesday night. This kid, I'd say 13 or 14, in the bed next to us had come in, barely able to breathe with asthma and had not improved so they'd decided to put in a drip to get more steroids into him, but his parents weren't there. Where were they? Gone out to dinner - I ask you. Suddenly it felt like I wasn't doing such a bad job after all.

They discharged us at about 9.30pm, and we all came home and had a feast of warm milk and peanut butter sandwiches and then fell into bed. When I woke up this morning everyone was in bed with me and I hadn't even been disturbed when they arrived!!

Miss 3.5 is doing well this morning. She's insisted on going to pre-school, but we're picking her up in an hour as she really should be at home.

I'm not one for moralising or pontificating on about the things our children teach us about the world and ourselves. So let's just say that I've realised I'd rather have a child that thought my cooking was "disgusting" than no child at all. :)