Grateful for Friday

Today I am so grateful it is Friday.  Grateful may not be quite the right word, but man I am thanking the Lord it is!  Everyone in the House of O is exhausted.  The end of the term cannot come fast enough for my Little Man.  He is on a tired and emotional roller coaster ride.  I got called back to school this morning because he burst into tears and needed a hug.  This was after captain obnoxious had been present for the entire hour beforehand!  Unfortunately his first Soccer game is tomorrow morning, but after the that a lazy, restful weekend is planned.  He just needs to make it through to Thursday...

I am super grateful that my exam for my current unit is untimed and available online for 10 whole days.  I have already logged on and printed that sucker out.  Odds are good that I will submit my answers on the last day with a record breaking attempt that lasted 240 hours!  I need this assistance.  This topic is killing me, it is so intense.  The convener was so kind to allow this little loophole!  It will never happen again and I so making the most of it.

Even though I have had a private grumble and multiple daily showers, I am also grateful for this unseasonally warm, but humid weather.  How nice is Autumn this year in Sydney?  I may even see a rare sunny day for my birthday this year.  It has not occurred many times in my lifetime, I usually get rain.  Fingers crossed!



Take yourselves over to Maxabella Loves... or Kidspot for a bigger dose of Grateful.  It is very good for the soul!!

The Letter of the Week, R

I was worried that with this weeks letter being R, I would be pressured into buying a rabbit.  I'm burnt out, I would so easily have caved in.

Luckily he did not even mention it, not even when we were checking out the bunnies in the pets hop this week.

This week he procrastinated.  He did suggest that I should bring his brother in as his name starts with R, but I explained that was not something Mrs M, his teacher would approve of.

So he left it until Tuesday evening.  He then decided he would do R is for Rocket and he would make one out of Lego (at bed time).

Anyway,  I made him his sheet with the word on it and some images found on the Internet and he told me what we was planning to say.

His points were:

• Referring to an image on the back of his sheet of Saturn 5, he has going to tell the class that this type of rocket went into space before his Mum was born (nice) and that those rockets could be unmanned or manned but the rocket did not come back to earth because it burned up in the atmosphere, the men came back in capsule that dropped into the sea.
• The next thing was that rockets put satellites in space and he made a Lego satellite to go with his rocket.
• The final point he had was about building rockets with Lego.  I'm not sure exactly what he had planned for that!!

Anyway, I dodged a bullet and did not purchase a new bunny for the House of O!  I am sure there is one in my future though...

Next week it is the letter, O.   That could be interesting.

End of Term Burnout

I am completely burnt out, so are my kids.  This week has been just mad.  I have not cleaned my house beyond the bare minimum of the kitchen.  That is a major indicator of where my head is.  I like my house clean and tidy, I can't cope if it is not.  And man I am so not coping at the moment.

It's OK, We have a Fire Engine, we can put out the fire.

It has been such a busy week and being so close to the end of the term we are all really tired and very tetchy (great word, I love it).

I'll give you an example:

Today I dropped the boys off by 8am and normally that would see me heading home via a coffee purchase, for a quick tidy and a day of study, especially as I have an online test opening tomorrow and I am nowhere near ready to do it.  Today that is not going to happen.  Today I have to go and get weird stationery items for a project that I am involved in but have no interest in, then I have to wrap up my donations for the school gala day Tombola so I can take them to the school where I am meeting The Little Man's new OT for his mini assessment before he starts with her next term.  Once that is over I need to go and pick up the winter uniforms that I ordered online (and already know I need to change some items thanks to feedback from other parents) and try to find a secondhand jumper in the uniform shop because they are out of stock of new ones.  By the time this is over I should just have enough time to run into the pet supply store for kitty litter, cat food and a heater for Freddy, the fighting fish before I head back to the school to pick up The Little Man and take him to Soccer training.  Finally I will whizz over to the pre-school to get the Munchkin just before they close and have to get my very tired boys fed, bathed and into bed.

Where is my study day??

Tomorrow I will have to study my butt off.

Saturday will be soccer and I am supposed to be having my scrapbooking workshop in the afternoon, but I am already thinking that it would be best to drop my boys at Mum's as if I were still going and head home to clean and organise the house and get caught up on my study.  I definitely think that would be the best move for my family.  I don't think any of us can take the stress of this week all over again in week 10 of the term.  Which reminds me I need to buy Easter Eggs...

These are all such first world problems.  I am really struggling with my time management this year.  I used to be so good at it, now I stress out by just listing the stuff I need to get through and am almost incapacitated by the weight of it.  I think a massage, facial and Mani/pedi is required. STAT!  I wonder if I can fit it in to my weekend.  It might be the thing that saves us from total chaos next week!

I always wondered about this phenomena of end of term burnout people talked about.  Now I am living it and I am in shock at how badly it is kicking my usually, happy butt.  Just another wonderful thing about your kids starting school that you have to live to fully understand!

How is the end of Term 1 treating you?

Wordless Wednesday

Post Haircut Cafe Break

Linking up with Trish from My Little Drummer Boys for Aussie Wordless Wednesday.



A Flat Post About Being Flat

Today I woke up flat.

Digital Arts Flat Person

No motivation. No energy.

A house that looks like a couple of bombs went off in it (guaranteed to make me feel worse as I love a clean and tidy house more than pretty much anything else).

I have an exam on Friday.  I have about 15 hours study to go before then.

I need to do shopping so I can cook and we can eat.  That is seriously just way too much work.

The Munchkin just wants me to read him book after book.  The positives here are I get to do it sitting on the lounge and he is happy.  The negative is nothing is getting done to improve what I mentioned above.

I am so flat today that I cannot even muster outrage at the leniency of Kyle Sandiland's wrist slap by the ACMA.  I find it very disappointing, both the slap and that I cannot find the energy to be outraged.

I don't DO flat.

Do you get days like this?  How do you get out of it?  Help!!

Linking up with Jess at Diary of a SAHM for IBOT today.

Soccer, a Test of Parenting

The Little Man had his first grading/training session for his soccer club on Sunday.  He is playing soccer with two pre-school friends that have gone off to other schools.  They are very excited to see each other twice a week for soccer.

The Little Man in Goal

It was quite a day.

As first timers, the under sixes, get a ball, a drink bottle and shin pads as part of their registration.  I then forked out for shorts, socks, a training shirt and a polar fleece pull over.  Expensive this organised sport thing, isn't it?

The actually training session is run by Kickstart and was well managed and the kids had a lot of fun.  The Little Man was exhausted by the time his team got to the last station and pretty much just sat it out.  Seeing this my Mummy instinct kicked in and I planned to get us into the car and home ASAP to avoid tired issues.

The Workaholic had different plans.

While the Little Man was training, he had been kicking a ball around with the Munchkin, for an entire hour.  It is pretty safe to say that the Munchkin was also exhausted.

Anyway, instead of following my lead and heading directly for the car, the Workaholic decides to get into the sausage line and then the soft drink line, all the while the Little Man has started emotionally collapsing.  He cried because they had to line up, he cried because his sausage was not straight, he cried be3cause the Workaholic did not get sauce on his sausage, he basically was so tired he was no longer in control of his emotions.

When he decided not to listen and got into the first line, I decided that I would take the Munchkin to the car.  He then decided to start screaming, like only a two year old can.  My gut said, "get him to the car", the Workaholic made me stay with him and the bawling five year old.  I was fuming.

By the time we left for the car, the Munchkin was out of control and I had to carry him kicking and screaming the 800 metres to the car.  The Little Man was crying to be carried by Dad because he was too tired to walk and I was still silently fuming.

Once in the car, I was still quiet.  Somehow I managed to control my temper even with the screaming and tears in the back seat.  I lost it though, when the Workaholic decided to jump out of the car while I was doing a three point turn.  I drove away.  I left him 5km from home in an area without public transport.  He walked home.

I am now worried that this has set the mood for soccer for us in the House of O.

The Workaholic came home and admitted to me that he was being juvenile getting out of the car (duh) and that he really should defer to me when it comes to these parenting situations because I am the full time parent (duh again).

Does your part time parent get you into these awful situations?

Growing Feet are Expensive Feet!

On Friday while the Munchkin was still at pre-school, The Workaholic and I took the Little Man to buy his soccer boots.

My plan was to spend $30.   Extra wide feet foiled that little plan, as usual.

Of course they had to be blue...

So we walked out of the shop with $70 soccer boots, for a five year old.   I guess my winter wardrobe from last year will make it through another season...

The worst part of the entire experience was the discovery that the shoes we needed to purchase are one and a half sizes larger that his school shoes and school runners.  Yep.  His school shoes are too small and I bought them one and half sizes too big.  At least I know  why he keeps telling me they are too small!  They ARE!


It is the end of week 8 of Term 1!  Not even a whole term out of them.


There is definitely no new winter wardrobe in my 2012.  All my money will go on replacing school shoes!!

Heading into the end of Term 1, how are your kids school shoes holding up?

Google Images and Traffic

Do you have a post that gets all sorts of traffic?

I do.

Previously I realised it was the image on the page getting all of the hits via google so I changed the image.

Problem solved, I was back on real traffic stats.

Of course, Google being Google, it eventually caught up and guess what?  My post is back in high rotation again.

This is the post.   It has a couple of clip art pictures of bananas.  I didn't credit the images because they came off my PC clip art.  I don't get why Google ranks them so highly!!

Now, personally I hate the inflated traffic, it's not real, but does it really matter? Do I change the image yet again?

What do you think?

52 Weeks of Grateful - Joining in late...

I have not written a post for Maxabella's 52 Weeks of Grateful since, well since it became 52 Weeks of Grateful!  This week I have been reading through my own blog and decided I should re-enter this linky as it is a good thing to think about being grateful instead of just letting the good stuff in life pass you by unnoticed.

Reading through one of the things that struck me is the sadness I have about the negative situation that exists with The Workaholics family.  See these posts here for a bit of the back story if you are wondering, but feel free to avoid the negativity!  It is sad that my boys don't have a functional relationship with their cousins, Aunts and Uncle or Poppy on that side of the family, but I am so grateful for the family that we have made and chosen for ourselves.  The people who we have chosen to be in our family.  The friends that we consider our family now.  Some of them are our cousins and their kids (isn't it weird how sometimes you need that little bit of distance to appreciate a family tie?).  They are real constants in my kids lives and I think that is really important and I am grateful for that every single day. 

Alain Pelletier

I am grateful every day for our continued good health.  I see situations around me where a parent or a child is ill and it breaks my heart.  I pray we can continue without one of these stories being included in our family history.

It was a struggle for me to be completely comfortable with the choice of school that we made, but it turns out that it was a good one and I am so grateful that people pushed me into it.  The Little Man is thriving.  His teacher is in tune with him and his specific needs.  He is blossoming.  It is like finding something that had been lost for so long you almost forgot what it looked like.  The Little Man is back.  So thankful for the weird and twisting route that led us here, I can not imagine him anywhere else.

Grateful can not describe how I feel about the Workaholic's work situation.  He has been so pro active and even though he could not find a job in Sydney, he chose not to go interstate and instead made himself a job.  So great.  Such a relief all round.  I don't think he or the kids would have liked him working away.

On a similar note, I am so grateful for all of the people who supported us over the Summer of Unemployment both financially and spiritually.  You can really tell who your friends are in times like these.  I love you all, especially you, Mum.  My Mum was so in tune with what was happening she would somehow manage to be on the phone before I even knew I needed to talk to her.  In my Mum's true form, she would have answer to whatever the problem was, prepared and ready to put into action.  She is AMAZING.

Anyway that's a few of the things I am grateful for this week, there are many more of course but I am a bit teary about the last one and I need to stop.

Take yourselves over to Maxabella Loves... for a bigger dose of Grateful.  It is very good for the soul!!

The Letter of the Week, D

D turned out to be an easy one.

The Little Man decided last Friday that he would take Dominos.

So I had an easy week. I produced this:

I made sure it and the Dominos were in his school bag on Wednesday morning.

That was it!

Next week it is R. Let's hope he does not decide he must take a rabbit and spend the entire week pestering me for one!!

Wordless Wednesday

"Look Mum, I'm Nanny!"

Linking up with Trish from My Little Drummer Boys for Aussie Wordless Wednesday.



Straight to the Pool Room...

Yesterday the Little Man came home with a merit award.  Not just a sticker, a bona fide, part of the school's official merit system, signed and sealed (with a star sticker), on a proper printed piece of board, award.

What for you ask (I certainly did)?

"his excellent effort and positive attitude towards his writing."

Where did it go?

Straight to the pool room of course! Well it would have if I had a pool room in the House of O.

It is totally unexpected.  The Little Man is not known for his co-operation in the classroom and his teacher has been battling with him on many different issues.  Knowing this, I did not expect him to enter the schools merit system, especially not in term 1.  Well done Little Man!  It is always great when one of your children surprises you in a positive way.

Sadly now I find myself thinking that he only has 4 more Bronzes to go to get a Silver...  Pressure much?  Overachieving Mum here!!

On the pool room front, today a friend posted this on Facebook because she knew it would totally appeal to me.  So here it is for your entertainment!  Enjoy!

Today I am again linking up with Jess at Diary of a SAHM for I blog on Tuesdays.

Privacy

The Workaholic has privacy issues.

I don't.

The House of O is full of conversations that go a little like this:

Workaholic: "You had better not have photos of the Little Man in his school uniform on Facebook".
Me: "Do you really think I would respond to that?"
Workaholic: "Do YOU?"
Me: "Oh shut up."
Workaholic: "Don't put our lives on the Internet."
Workaholic: "I mean it."
Workaholic: "YOU HEAR ME?"
Me: "Yeah. Whatever."
Workaholic:  "You are sad you know. Your friends are all online. You have no life."
Me: "Personally, I think you have that backwards. I have friends.  Where are yours?"

Then it gets really ugly...

I try not to respond and I try to respect his issues, here and on Facebook.

He has only ever referred to Facebook.  From this I am concluding he has not realised I have this blog.  I find that a little strange as I often look at his browsing history, doesn't he do the same?  I leave myself logged on for ease of access.

This blog would probably send him over the edge.  I wonder if I should mention it?

I'm going with, "Hell no!"

Do people close to you know about/read your blog?

I have not actively promoted mine amongst my friends or relatives.  I started it with nothing more than a bit of a whim and have kept it up because I like writing stuff here.  I have no real focus but somehow writing here gives me some structure that often is the thing that gets me going when I am felling overwhelmed or unsure of what I need to do in my day to day activities.  I have a couple of friends who also blog and they know I am here, but as far as I know, that is it.

I fear that as people discover it and I find out they are reading it, I will focus too much on them as the reader and less on what I find value in just writing for myself.

I like to be able to talk about my kids and the Workaholic freely.  They are the centre of my universe and pretty much what I am about.  What would I do if I did not use them for content?  It would change my focus and reason for blogging.  At the moment I feel that I am covering all our needs, but I doubt he would see it that way.

Do you have someone like the Workaholic who have such extreme and opposite views on privacy and the Internet to you?  Do you take it into account in your posts?

The One Where I Swear off Alcohol

Friday evening I hosted an Envy jewellery party for my friend who is starting her Envy business.

It was fun.

The preparation was all of the usual doubts that anyone would come, then wonder at how many yeses I had received, followed by the last minute run of cancellations.  In this case the weather was fantastic and I lost a few to Balmoral Beach and impromptu BBQ's by their pools!

I decided to do an antipasto platter, a few bottles of bubbles as well as some soft drink and juice options followed by some choccy biccies and mini macaroons (found at Woolies and very nice) with coffee and tea.  All very simple and low stress, which was lucky because I felt like doing absolutely nothing on Friday.  It was lucky I even managed to clean the loo!

Anyway, without much effort myself and seven friends had a great evening, bought some jewellery and somehow, I still can not work out how, I managed to drink a little too much wine.

image from here

Saturday was a write off.

I cannot remember my last hangover and quite frankly I am not keen to repeat the experience.

I have an exam to do this weekend.  Yesterday I could have finished the reading and this morning while my boys were to be at soccer I could have done the test.  Now, soccer is cancelled and I have a house full of energetic males.

Woe is me.

The Workaholic has no sympathy.  He calls it alcoholics remorse.

Whatever it is I have it.

I see a late night for me tonight while I do the reading and my test in one hit just before the cut off time.

I am at an age where I can not see the benefit of alcohol consumption anymore.  I must be old.  A boring old fart.  But I am never drinking again.  I cannot afford the recovery period!

So, how was your weekend?

Lightening the Load

2012 has seen some big changes in the House of O.


First, the Workaholic went back to work after his Christmas break and was retrenched from the job he took for some security.  That was pretty awful and did nothing for the atmosphere around here!  Luckily he has found enough work to keep us going but is still on the look out for a REAL job.  Anyone need a Construction or Project Manager??  Big load.

Anyway, the big changes we were anticipating before that horrid turn of events, was the Munchkin starting Daycare, or pre school as we call it and the Little Man starting Big School.  Both of these were extremely stressful on our substantially reduced income.  Luckily I had bought uniforms, stationery and backpacks before Christmas so it was just the fees we had to find funds for. Managed, but the load just got bigger (on the credit card).

Probably the biggest change though, and the reason I didn't just save on childcare fees and pull the Munchkin out of his pre school, is me returning to study.  It sounds so self centred, but believe me, this house revolves around Mummy.  If I don't do it, nobody does.  This has become abundantly apparent since the Munchkin and I have been sick this last month.  So much reading, I feel buried under it!



The load

Today I have finally faced the fact that if life is going to have any semblance of relaxed and a bit normal, I cannot possibly do two units.  The reading alone has me weeks behind, in both my study and the household tasks.  It's a tough call to make fore someone who did their bachelor degree in three semesters so I would not lose interest!  So, I withdrew from the unit that has the most reading today and I instantly felt the load rise off my shoulders.  I am reinvigorated and will approach the remaining unit with new vigor this weekend, when I finally get the study time I am missing out on today due to assisting the Workaholic across Sydney (in peak hour traffic) with his office I.T. problems.

Sometimes the choice seems so tough, until you make it.  This is definitely the best thing I could do for my little family and most of all myself.

What have you done to lighten your load lately?

Brought to You by the Letter of the Week, F

This weeks letter of the week was F.

The Little Man worked on Me all week for this one.



This weeks News card. He added
'Boy' and 'Girl' next to each diagram.

He asked me to buy him a Siamese Fighting Fish so he could take it in and be King of the News, again.

He knows me well.

We had bargaining and guilt laid on thick, but ultimately the reason I gave in was that on Friday I had met with his teacher and she had shown me a picture he had drawn.

Of the school on fire.

His suggestion of a Fighting Fish replacement was a Fire Engine. Um, no, not a good idea.

This was how I was sold.  I went out and bought the Fish and the accompanying paraphernalia at the first opportunity.

Then we researched them so he had his three unique points to talk about.

1. The male fish are the most colourful and have the long fins.
2. The males fight if they are in the same tank.
3. They can live in a puddle of water and have an organ which lets them breathe oxygen from the air.
4. He was also impressed with the fact that they can jump and therefore need a lid on the tank, so he went for 4 points this week.

I suggested he name it Frankenfish because it is a mish-mash of all of the colours Siamese Fighting fish come in, in one fish, but he went with Freddy.

So Freddy the Fighting Fish is now having a little time in KM, being ogled by all the Kindergarten before coming home at the end of the week to his new residence somewhere in the House of O (not near the Goldfish, he tried to get them through the glass the other night, so apparently species identification is not a talent).

Next week is D and he is already throwing ideas out there for consideration!

The Little Man it seems, is a News overachiever.

Do your kids take their News this seriously, or do I need to seek professional advice?



Wordless Wednesday

Batman was camera shy,
even while wearing his mask...

Linking up with Trish from My Little Drummer Boys for Aussie Wordless Wednesday.

School Lunch

School lunch box posts are always interesting to me.

People have such good ideas.

I remember my own school lunches as Vegemite and cheese sandwich for lunch and two homemade biscuits for morning tea with the odd trip to the tuck shop thrown in.  No drink bottle, in fact no lunch box, just a couple of plastic sandwich bags.  This was exactly the same for every day of primary school and changed in high school to a tuna and cheese sandwich for lunch on the days I actually took lunch and no morning tea.

I have stored all of the lunch box posts over the last few years in my brain with visions of making great things for the Little Man this year.

Lunch preparations in the House of O.

Foiled!  All he wants is a Pecks Anchovette paste sandwich, everyday.  Morning tea he leaves up to me but watermelon and a cheese stringer would keep him happy, everyday.  Seriously.

At least his Mickey Mouse lunch bag come homes home completely empty, so really I can't complain.

So how are your lunch boxes looking in 2012.




Linking up with Jess from Diary of a SAHM for I blog on Tuesdays.  Check it out, we are an awsome bunch.

Sunday Night Dinner

In the House of O, Sunday night used to be roast dinner night but it has evolved into Daddy cooks bolognese night.

It was THAT good!

Usually it is great. This week with two very tired children he made a mistake.

He listened to their requests.

This resulted in him cooking bolognese with fettuccine for he and I, spirals for the Munchkin and boiled eggs and soldiers for the Little Man.  This is where it all went horribly wrong.

There was only one egg left in the fridge.

So he had me watch the first lot of pasta cook and he dashed off to the local shop to buy some.

While he was gone I drained the pasta and put on the fettuccine.

He came back and took over.  Boiled and promptly dropped the eggs on the floor.

The overtired child whined and he made some more.

Meanwhile he fed the Munchkin and I our yummy bolognese.

Eventually he settled the kids and ate his own dinner, leaving the mess for me to clean up, as usual.

I don't think he will make this mistake again!

The Workaholic cooking for us on a Sunday night is a really great little family ritual.

Does your family have any rituals like this?

A Wander in Taronga

Yesterday morning, I made the decision to take advantage of the totally unexpected spectacular Sydney weather.

Spectacular weather, spectacular view.

We are Zoo friends thanks to my lovely Mum giving us memberships for Christmas each year and usually go to the Zoo a lot.  This year though a combination of the weather and the Little Man starting school has conspired against us.

Anyway I suggested the visit to my boys at about 9.30 and they were dressed and in the car by 10.  A bit of an amazing achievement.  They really wanted to go.

We packed some water, snacks and the sunblock and hit the road.

We discussed the fact that it was not an all day trip and decided on a path to take and what to see while we were driving through the usual traffic in Mosman.

One thing we almost never do is the seal show.  I went with the Little Man when the new area was first built, but I thought it was a really bad design and found myself worrying about exits and emergencies like a crazy person (I can't help it, the Zoo is a place I find infuriating as a Mother, I'll tell you why in a post soon, but lets just say I am constantly sending feedback to the Zoo), we have not been back since.  So yesterday, the weather had me in such a good mood I proposed a viewing.  The boys ended up loving it.  I thought it was a bit preachy about eating sustainable fish, but that's my personal issue, I hate being told what to do!!

So the highlights of our impromptu Zoo visit according to my boys were, the seal show, the baby tigers (getting big, but still so cute!), the tawny frogmouth who engaged us in conversation and of all things, the guinea pigs & bunnies.

I see a guinea pig in the House of O's future

All up my day cost me $6 for parking in the Zoo carpark.

Did you do anything with your kids this weekend?

Back to O.T.

Mrs M, the Little Man's teacher asked to meet me yesterday afternoon.  She wanted to talk to me about his fine motor skills issues.  The Little Man was premmie and we did a lot of Gymbaroo and some O.T. with him to get him up to speed.  He seems pretty normal for his age most of the time.  But it is now that he us in the serious learning to read and write stage that he is showing he is still behind.

Basically his brain is outstripping his hands.  I did take him to a few sessions of O.T. after it was suggested by the pre school, but he hated the woman so much that she felt his behaviour was the problem and that his pencil grip, while immature was OK and would mature in it's own time.  So I found it all too stressful and stopped going.

I have my own views on this stuff.  It annoys me that every second kid is referred to an occupational therapist (I know statistically incorrect and I am exaggerating, but it does seem over prescribed).  It annoys me that we as parents are expected to do so much of the teaching (and me with an education degree, go figure).  It annoys me that kids are expected to achieve stuff in kindergarten that we did in first grade (I was shocked when I saw his text books - the same as my first grade ones).

I am racking my brains now about just how I can make this a game to him so he will co-operate.  I am also trying to stay out of it as much as possible.  I know he and I have a personality clash, it is why I would never consider home schooling for him.

Anyway I am going to have to bite the bullet and get him into the O.T. so he can write down what is in his head and doesn't get disillusioned by it all and just give up.  Luckily his school has an on site O.T. who works closely with his teacher.  It seems like the perfect solution.  I'm hoping there is no personality clash this time and he works with them to improve his fine motor skills.

Another Baby?

My friends C & T's soon to be here bub.  She has attitude, like her Mums!

I have two beautiful little boys.  Both IVF miracles.

I also have two little frosty embryos in storage.

I am turning 41.

I think I should donate the embryos.

The Workaholic does not.

It's an ongoing point of, um lets say, discussion in the House of O.

My kids have hit an age where they are to some extent self sufficient.  I can sleep through the night.  They can get into the car and get their seat belts on or at least ready for me to clip in, in the Munchkins case (yeah I know, it's a weitd thing, but it really makes me happy).  I don't need to get the pram out of the car every time we go anywhere.  They can shower on their own.  They can even get dressed on their own.

Do I want to go back to the baby stage?  Do I want to go through morning sickness and the unrelenting tiredness of pregnancy?  Can I even cope with broken sleep anymore?

It's a tough one.  If I had had my kids younger this would not be an issue.  I would have happily had four kids.  But I am old and tired now.

The Workaholic is all heart.  My head has kicked in for this one.  My heart is with him.  "Let's try for another baby" says my heart.  My head says "NO!".

Babies are fantastic, I have great memories of my boys as bubs and it is sad that that is all over, but realistically, I am just not sure I can live through the pregnancy and baby stage the way I feel right now.

How do I make this decision?  Time is not on my side.

Bought to You by the Letter of the Week, I

So this weeks letter for the Little Man's news has been difficult.

Something beginning with the letter I.

I put out a call for aid on Facebook and Twitter.  There were lots of great suggestions to run past the Little Man for the final decision.

Icing Sugar
Indian Flag
iphone, ipad or ipod
Impy Ink from letter land
Iguana
Insects
Instruments
Imagination
Iron
Idiot
Idol (apparently a photo of me would suffice)
Imaginary friend

I thought they were amazing and that he was spoiled for choice.

So he jumped in the car Tuesday afternoon and I told him that I had a list to go through with him.  He said "No, it's OK Mum, I'm going to take some information books."

He even picked books about the Inside in the the title for another "I"

Well that was surprisingly easy in the end.  He pulled out some of his favourite non-fiction books and told me what he planned to say and that was the end of it.  His teacher tells me that it was a brilliant presentation again.  He loves News.  I think he loves an audience.

I hope he continues to like preparing for and presenting his news on Wednesdays and that my level of involvement remains this low!!

A Message for my Outlaws

I just spent a couple of hours crafting a post to the Workaholics family.

I just deleted it.  The Internet does not need to know the whys or hows of our situation.

If you are one of my in laws and you have discovered my blog and are reading this, please note the following points:

• The Workaholic is unemployed.  Don't push him. You know what I am talking about.
• The Workaholic is unemployed.  Broke people, no income. Nada. Zip.
• You have another brother, he is actually at the root of the current family situation, how about you remember that?  He could do with a good kick up the butt.
• My kids are your kids cousins.  They are innocent.   It would be nice for them to see their Poppy and cousins once in a while.

So sad.  But if you had not unfriended me on Facebook, I would have had a more private method of communication.  Your choice, not mine.

Wordless Wednesday

The Little Man and a dino friend...

"Mum birds came from the dinosaurs you know."

"See that looks like a bird."

Linking up with Trish over at My Little Drummers Boys again this week.  Check out her Aussie Wordless Wednesday.

Murderer of Tadpoles and Frogs

Over the Summer holidays I offered to tadpole sit for my friend N and her three kids.  "No problems," I said, "I can manage that, my fish and cats are living proof I am capable of sustaining pet life."

It started off well.  They became a feature and every child that passed through our house in the Christmas/New Year period was suitably impressed by them.  Then on the day of our last holiday visitors, I (luckily) checked on them before showing the two eager little boys.  They were dead.  Guts up to be precise.

Now to be honest the day I picked up the little blighters there compardre was guts up in the salad bowl they were calling home, so I am not ALL responsibility here, (Those tadpoles were sick right? It was my awesome tadpole sitting skills that kept them alive for almost three weeks...) but man I felt DEVASTATED.  I swear it was so ridiculously out of proportion to the size of the little buggers who went into a zip lock bag and into my freezer to be handed over on my friend N's return so they could be buried under a tree in her front yard where apparently all the dead pets in their family go.  I made sure I kept them because I had heard about the other murderer friend who had made the mistake of disposing of the fish that had not made it in their care during a previous holiday.

The absolute worst part of this story is that I could not tell my friend N.  She was having the holiday from Hell with her in laws and I was worried about contributing to her misery.  Each time she sent me a text about the latest hellish happening, I cringed and pushed those tadpoles and their evil little faces (I swear they died on purpose, they HATED me, you'd understand if you saw the looks they kept giving me) way out of my mind and sent back a supportive comment and a good dose of psychic sunshine.

I tried to replace them.  I found a creek on a friends property, but alas, no tadpoles.  One friend suggested I go with the tale that they hopped away as happy little frogs...

Anyway, when they returned my friend N and I took quite a while to catch up face to face due to our oldest kids starting different schools and all of the related hulabaloo associated with that.  Finally, we arranged a Friday night Max Brenner date and I offered to drive.  On my way  to her place I realised she still did not know about the demise of the taddies.  I freaked out.  As soon as she got in the car I blurted it out.  A bit of a shock but other than calling me a murderer (jokingly, I think), we got on with it.  It seems our friendship can endure the death of a few tadpoles.  Good to know.

Yesterday morning I found this poor little guy washed into our pool by the torrential and relentless Sydney rain, no doubt.  It looked like he'd made it to the steps but even though the pool is almost at capacity, he could not get out.  Drowned froggy.  Sad boys here.  We gave him a funeral and took a couple of photos for the Little Man to show his class.  (Yeah gross but in a house of boys it had to happen.)

The thing is, I remembered that the last frog I saw in the backyard was moments later annihilated by the electric eel...

So it seems I am a disaster area when it comes to amphibians and yes, my friend N took delight in ribbing me about it. 






Linking up with Jess at Diary of a SAHM for IBOT today.  Check it out!

Fear of the Online Quiz

The mess I am making attempting to study, says it all...

Having returned to study this trimester (UNE what is wrong with semester??), I have been struggling to get through the online reading of the discussion forums, read the texts and keep up with the gazillion assessment tasks there seem to be in the two subjects I am attempting to do while being a Mum and Wife.  But by far the one thing that is proving to be my Kryptonite is the online quizzes.

They scare the pants off me.  I have always hated tests.  It's pretty weird as I have mostly studied quantitative subjects like, maths, physics, mechanics etc and they are all assessed via tests.  As I write this I have hit the final 48 hours of an 11 day test window for one of my subjects.  The fact that I have blogged daily this week speaks volumes.  I suspect I may get down to the last 2 hours though.  I just can't bring myself to log on and complete the test.  I have done the reading and all of the exercises associated.  I like the subject.  I just can't do the bloody test!!

They stay online for 11 days.  I have two hours to complete them once I log on and start it.  This should be way more time than I need.  What is my problem??

This is a serious problem.  I have realised that it is the major contributing factor to my incredibly out of character, inability to organise myself this year.  There are lots of these quizzes in both subjects.  If I can't work this out now I might as well just withdraw.

Anyone studying online that can help with ideas for me on how to conquer this crippling fear?

I Hate Ironing

Another thing I should have considered when choosing a school with a uniform that needs ironing, daily. 

I do not buy clothes that need ironing as a rule.

I hate you

I regret not thinking about this more.

Especially, as I am about to go to bed and I remember that I have not done the uniform yet.

Every. Fecking. night.

Hi Ho Hi Ho a Scrapping I Will Go!

It's Scrapbook workshop day!

My desk at last month's workshop.
Yep I'm a messy but prolific scrapper, 15 pages that day.

This month we are having two and I just cannot tell you how happy that makes me!!

Today I am finally going to start on the baby albums.

They have been waiting patiently for almost two years.  I have been unable to do them while I had so many great current photos to scrap.  Now I am up to date and actually excited to start their baby albums.

I have a list of pages I want to include, but I have not allocated photos yet, so my plan is to spend today doing photo selection and some design planning with just a little scrapping and use the second workshop this month, after I get some enlargements done, to do the bulk of the actual scrapbooking.

Happy Saturday All!

What have you got planned?

Where O Where Have my Time Management Skills Gone?

I'm not sure what is happening to me in 2012, but I am STILL struggling with time management and settling into our new normal.

I have worked out how to get the Little Man to school on time in the morning, but that is without taking the Munchkin.  The Workaholic will soon go back to his early morning starts and I will need to get the Munchkin up and going as well.  He will not be happy.  He usually sleeps until well after the Little Man has started school for the day and does not take kindly to being woken up.

Each night before I go to bed I make up the lunchbox, iron the uniform, polish shoes and lay out undies for the morning.  It means that all I have to do in the morning is feed the Little Man his breakfast and while he dresses, have a shower and get dressed myself.  We then get into the car and drive over to his school.  Including the grumpy two year old into this mix is going to be a disaster!!!

Currently I have the Munchkin home with me on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  I have worked out how to get him fed into bed by 12.15 for his nap so we can get back to the school in time for the Little Man's teacher to march the class out onto the oval.  During his sleep, I try to do a little housework and get in some Uni work, with child free Thursday and Friday for the bulk of my study.  Most days  so far I have not dane any study and this week I have the Munchkin home all week with a chest infection so I have lost my child free study time.

Today I managed to submit an assessment.  I was so happy.  Then as if on cue, the reminder I have in my phone for the next assessment task due chimed completely ruining my buzz!!  Of course I then realised it was school pick up time...

Now the Little Man wants to play soccer with his mates in a Saturday comp.  Training is on Thursday afternoons.  There goes another chunk of my time if I let him, which of course I will.  The Workaholic can't do either day.  I am sooo not a soccer Mum!!

I think I need some sort of time management refresher course.  I swear I don't remember ever having this much trouble getting organised when I had a job!

How's your time management?

Brought to You by the Letter of the Week, T

So in Kindergarten (at our school anyway) these days they get the kids to give a couple of verbal presentations each week. 

One is a news item and each week it is to be something starting with the letter of the week.

The other is a verbal book review of the one of the two library books they have had out for the week.

He has both on the same day, Wednesday.  The Little Man loves Wednesdays.  My future politician love to present to the class.

Now as I mentioned earlier, here, I am rebelling against homework but we do read the library books and I help locate and think up three points to talk on for news time (usually in the car on the way to school). So far We have done a couple.

M for Millipedes, which we collected and popped into a Chinese takeaway continer with some decaying leaves.  Together we looked up some information about millipedes on the internet and printed out the word for him to take along.  He was declared News of the Week by his classmates for that one.  Oh the pressure.  Starting high.  Bad move.

Image from here

Next was S.  He really wanted to take slugs but I took pity on his teacher Mrs M, who found the millipeded rough going and encouraged a skateboard instead.  We googled the parts of a skateboard and printed out a diagram of them for him to use in conjuction with the skateboard.  He was happy.

This week it is the letter T.  I am failing miserably.  Nothing I suggested floats his boat.  I've taken myself out of the equation.  T has defeated me, and I don't care.

So what did he take?  A  Toy Tiger.  Two T's, he's very impressed with himself.


I feel I have been duped into participating in homework afterall.