Fathers Day bust..

Scorpio was still recovering from his migraine so the best present he could get was to be left alone to sleep it away.
So I dragged the children down to the shopping centre to stock up on art supplies for a day of craft. If the weather wasn't so bleak I would have given them some poster paint and unleashed them on the cubby house. That keeps them going for hours and only lasts a few months so you can re do it and get time to yourself a few times a year.

We stocked up on coloured poster paper, cardboard shapes, glitter glue and these funky foam stickers. Butterflies and frogs for Betty Boo and pirate ships and treasure chests for the Cyclone. I like the idea of the stickers because there are lots of themes to choose from and it totally eliminates the need for scissors and glue. Betty just likes to squeeze big gobs of glue everywhere and you just can't trust the Cyclone not to cut someones hair, clothes or curtains. Was rapt to pick up a 3D dinosaur puzzle on special for $5 - score!

I also love the glitter glue. I love sparkly things as much as the next blonde and it's harnessed in tiny tubes - free range glitter should be illegal. It gets everywhere, permeates everything faster than Ebola and is just as dangerous. That stuff can and does get lodged in peoples eyes and clearly from my previous entry, I'm just not up for another visit to casualty.

So off we go into Sunday crafty heaven, and after awhile I check on the masterpieces. My left eye starts twitching - oh why does it bother me so much that the pirate ships are in the sky and the frogs are sitting on the butterflies covered in fat blobs of glitter glue?? I imagined sweet landscapes of frogs by ponds and butterflies landing in blossom covered trees. I repress the urge to say 'no sweetie, the frogs should go here by the pond, the pirate ships should be in the sea not the sky'..Am I really this OCD?

45 minutes later I realise I am sitting alone hunched over teeny tiny pieces of dinosaur and going blind trying to fit them all together whilst the children are sitting in front of Spongebob like any other day.

Could have given them some magazines, told them not to rip them and saved myself $40...

Cheers

Another hospital visit...

What a sleepless week.
Betty Boo has had temperatures all week, which means she has been sleeping in my bed, which means I get kicked all night.
She seemed on the mend so I kicked her back into her own room but she woke that night with a really weird rash. Sort of mozzie bites on her feet and face but her back looked almost stained with pink. 3 phone calls and 15 texts to my friend Miss Neurotic and we decide it's off to casualty because you just can't mess with the possibility of meningicoccal....
She was seen almost straight away, everything deemed safe and she just charmed the coats off everybody there. No wonder she feels right at home though - she has been there enough times.

You would think it would be Cyclone in Emergency every 15 minutes wouldn't you?

So apart from being born at the birth centre attached to the hospital Betty Boo has also had her head glued together after a fall on my hard floors (gumboots on the wrong feet will make kids more unco than usual), we have also had to race her up there for xrays and these are the results.

Yes, it's a butterfly. She swallowed a charm from her bracelet. It was just a dress up type thing, nothing to solid or metal. Once it was established it wasn't lodged in her throat, the doctors said to let nature take it's course - then ran into the tea room to show the rest of the hospital. She was slightly famous for that one.

Sigh

Do not mess with The Cyclone. Seriously.

Rearranging

Something happened the other day. I just snapped. I've been waiting for a spring day to spring me into spring cleaning but the clouds came over and haven't left for days and days.
I couldn't wait for the perfect day and I couldn't keep busting veins over the unfriendliness of the kitchen.

So I cleaned out the linen closet in the hall and removed all sheets and bedsets into the bedrooms to which they belong.
Then I moved the pantry items from the teeny cupboard over the stove into the linen closet.
Then I moved the glasses/bowls/mugs from the stupid bottom cupboard to the stupid teeny cupboard over the stove. This hopefully means I won't find any more items in the backyard covered in mud.
Then I moved most of my baking stuff to the stupid bottom cupboard because its under the bench and far more accessible. This should also reduce the amount of teeth grinding and swearing when I start baking to distract the children from drawing on the walls.

This is a boring entry - I can't wait to start on the actual redecorating/painting and post up fabulous before and after pics but you always have to wade through the boring stuff to get to the good bits....

Pearlers from Cyclone

My wild, funny boy child. My Cyclone.

I never imagined myself with a son. I always believed I would have three little girls. Then again I used to dream I was having girl, boy, girl triplets so it wasn't far off.

Cylcone was born Zen but when I brought him home he didn't stop screaming. For 4 months I barely left the house. We rocked, patted, paced and cried with worry. It might have been colic or reflux, it might have been the stress of losing my brother whilst Cyclone was in utero - who knows but my precious boy arched his back and flung his little arms around so much we started to call him Flay-ling.

He eventually stopped crying,walked right on time, started talking and never stopped. He finally slept without a fight when he was three and at five years old wears his mumma out with his sheer energy and meltdown tantrums.

He attends Kindergarten now and loves it - but it isn't everyday. Last time I had to remind him that Kinder wasn't on that morning he yells "I'm going to lock you outside NAKED". Yes enough for the neighbours to hear.

When it was time for the television to go off, he argued it should be left on but it was futile. He considered his options, sat down quietly and said "Mum, I'm not your kid anymore". Deadly serious and you can't laugh, smirk or stifle a giggle or it just escalates from there.

Today he announced he was leaving home, never to return. "I'm going to the shopping centre, I'm catching a bus to the sea then I'm driving a boat to my island where there are coconuts with chocolate milk. You'll never see me again.........ponders........until I come and get you and daddy and Betty and I'll take you all back to my island in my boat and grow candy trees.

Luuurve.

Although he can be very funny and tell wonderful stories I worry about how he will go at school next year. He is so rigid, must be the boss and will send a thousand curses on those who dissent. I have had some terrific success with treating him with Bach Flowers though. He laughs more, he shares, the tantrums are less and he manages to pull himself in before he hits Def Con 9 in the tanty department.

It's hard sometimes to know if it's a phase, if he is 'growing out of it' or not, so I stopped the treatment and it's been scream town again. A long week.

I'll mix up another batch, add one more remedy and lets see how he goes. I might even post my notes because its really interesting to watch it happen.

cheers

The Chalkboard Brain

One of the best things I have done to this house is made a great big chalkboard. A tin of chalkboard paint and a wall close to the kitchen and my brain is outside my body.

I just cannot retain information like I used to. My thoughts are constantly interrupted by little people (no, not leprechauns) and my previous habit of writing phone numbers and notes on the back of envelopes just wasn't working. Half the time I wake up and can't remember my own name or what day it is until Play School comes on.
Other times I have so many thoughts flying around that they risk being lost forever so I have my Muggle version of Dumbledores pensieve and it works a treat.

The children LOVE being able to write all over the wall with mummys blessing (although Cyclone always likes it better if there is no blessing - hence the crayon in the hallway), so I have made it big enough for EVERYONE to have a turn and high enough that my reminders cannot be erased by anyone but myself.

Highly recommended.

Boobie Queen

That's my Betty Boo, my baby girl.

Born calmly and peacefully into the water to the song Seeing Angels by the John Butler Trio, my last baby took to the breast like a champion - and never wanted to let go.

I was working part time when she was about 18 months. She would walk around the house wearing my bra sobbing for her boobies to come back. When I got home she would scream "BOOBIES!"
She very reluctantly weaned when she was three. I was tired and needed my body back.

Till this day she says Good Morning to the boobies, if I'm in the shower she rips open the sliding door to say hello to the boobies. She sings to the boobies if she is sitting on my knee before bed and last week after being sent to her room pouted "I don't love you mummy, I only love your boobies".

She has a great new song now and is perfecting a dance routine to match. There is only a chorus so far - "boobieboobieboobieboobie DRAMA QUEEN"

Love that kid.