I Feel Old

The cupcakes I made for my birthday

It was my birthday on friday. I turned 28. Everyone keeps telling me that I'm still just a baby, but I tell you, I feel old at the moment. The weather is making my knees hurt, I just want to curl up in the corner and knit. Or die, that would stop the pain.

I'm not looking forward to next birthday, but I am looking forward to a few months time when the weather heats up and the pain recedes a little. Also, there should be FLOWERS!!

Until then I'm laying claim to the blankets and the asprin. And the chocolate.

Garden Prettification

One of the things* that excited me most about this house when we bought it was the garden potential. There are flower beds around the front of the house, filled with roses, irises, various protea, and a couple of natives - a grevillea and a lillypilly. The front of the yard, where a fence would go, is on an extremely steep angle, perfect for turning into terraced garden beds. The back year has garden beds around the edges, surrounding a yard large enough for a trampoline AND running around space, and theres a corner tucked away behind the garage** that's invisible from the house and therefor off limits to the children, but exactly the right size and position for a vegie patch. Sheltered on three sides by fences/trees/wall, but full sun most of the day. The eventual aim is to severely limit our reliance on the grocery store for vegies and herbs.

Unfortunately, the garden has not been top priority as far as expenses go. We had to buy furniture/kitchen things/laundry things. Then the oven died and we had to not only buy a new oven, but get an electrician and a plumber in to change it over from electric to gas. Then winter happened and this house is cooler than the other and we discovered we needed more bedding. Add that to the constant expenses of food, utilities, mortgage, car payment, clothes... The garden has been sorely neglected.

But recently things have started settling down. We found a new place to do our groceries, where a trolley containing 8kg of meat, 12kg of flour, 9kg of fruits/veg and various sundries only costs $130,*** and there is an Aldi right across the road from the market, so the weekend after hubby gets paid we stop in there as well and I stock up on the stuff they have super cheap - cheese which goes in the freezer until its needed, sultanas, canned tomatoes, cling wrap, etc. Combined with our new credit card****, we have a lot more wiggle room in our budget now, even with interest rates going up.

So we're prettifying the garden.

The easiest and cheapest prettification was the front garden beds. Pruning the roses, removing the agapanthas (they're everywhere, I hate them, and I think I might be allergic to them. They had to go), general weeding. It looks so much better, and cost absolutely nothing.

The biggest change was cutting down the trees in the back garden beds. Some moron planted a pine tree about 6 inches from the fence. Presumably the same person either planted, or at the least didn't remove, a camphor laurel. DUMB. Along with a couple of palm trees, and some other scraggly looking things, hubby removed 6 trees from the back yard, giving us (tiny) views of the lake, and space to eventually plant something attractive and useful - like citrus, or apples. And more than 6 inches from the fence.

The most exciting was discovering the banana tree is fruiting. Technically we didn't have anything to do with that, as it was here when we bought the place and they fruit on their own, but HOW COOL IS THAT??????

The most expensive thing has been the addition of some plants. In pots. Which made it even more expensive. But now we have 8 tomato plants, a lavender, a blueberry bush, and 2 pots which will have parsley and coriander planted in them as soon as it warms up a little bit. We also repotted the thyme and one of the basil plants that we already had.

We're not expert gardeners. I've managed to kill everything I've ever tried to grow, except the basil and the thyme. They just won't die. I can even kill lavender, and its supposed to be unstoppable. I suspect the tomatoes don't have enough space, and we discovered we'd bought the wrong soil for the blueberry, so its sitting forlornly on our deck waiting to be put in its pot. But the garden looks better, and if we kill the plants, we can always try again. Seeds are cheap, and we already have the pots.

But most of all, the children will get some experience in growing things, and hubby and I had a fun time tending our garden together. I think its the best date I've ever had.






* The others included the massive deck with potential views of the lake, an inside laundry, decent sized kitchen, 2 living areas, and a 2 minute walk to the local school. OH YES.

** Currently unusable due the third shed and massive amounts of junk/concrete/WEEDS, but hey. The space is there once we clear it up.

*** I know this is going to sound insanely high to Americans. But when you realise that COUPONS DO NOT EXIST, and the CHEAP price for chicken breast is $8/kg (about $4/#), well. Food is more expensive here. Shopping elsewhere, the meat alone could have cost that much.

**** My first ever. And yes, I know credit cards are generally a bad idea. But hubby sometimes has to go away for work, and he does NOT have a company credit card. Which means he has to spend our money. Which means I'm often left $300 short, with no chance of seeing it back for anywhere from 2-4 weeks. With the credit card, he can spend as much as he wants on customers without impacting on our ability to feed our children and pay for our house.

Not the Answer I wanted, but an Answer nonetheless

I have two absolutely beautiful children. Gosling is 18months old, and Critter will be 6 next month.


Gosling is slowly learning new words, with all people having become 'daddy' (Tall person with hair on his face who throws me in the air? Daddy. Other tall person with long hair who stays at home and feeds me? Daddy. Random people I meet at the shops/on the street/at the brother's school? Daddy), and all objects having become 'dut' (especially if they are yellow, say "quack" and like water), except trucks, which are brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrm. She has a doll cradle, and is constantly putting her babies (dolls, bunnies, teddies, trucks, books, blankets, cooking implements) in, rocking them vigorously, and taking them out again. Lather, rinse, repeat. And repeat. And repeat, repeat, repeat. She tries to be gentle with the cat, and loves to do my hair. She's also become very interested in birds, and is constantly pointing them out to me whenever we are outside. She is my shadow, and wants to be wherever I am, and do whatever I am doing. From cleaning the windows, to wiping up spills, to sitting on the couch listening to music. Now if only her hair would thicken up so I can do cute things with it...


The Critter, my big boy, is a very smart little thing. He is reading at a level far above every other child in his class - well enough to have been pushed into the 2nd highest reading group in the 1st grade class. He is in kindergarten. He can read words like laughter, lamington, crocodile, and amused. I change the channel when the news is on because he reads the headlines and asks me what murder means and why did that man do it to his three children? He is interested in everything, and I find myself answering a never-ending string of questions on everything from how a jet works, to why there are so many different types of flowers. He is amazing with lego, and has been doing the 7-12 age group stuff since before his 5th birthday. He plays Auskick - kids version of AFL (aussie football) - and has kicked some very good goals. He loves to dance. And sing. And run, and jump, and do flips and play on the trampoline and play with the hula hoop andplaywithtrucksandreadandwatchtvand.. you get the picture. He loves life. He loves everything. He loves vegetables. We bribe him with broccoli to get him to finish his meat ('If you eat three more pieces of your steak, you can have daddy's vegetables.'). We fight a constant battle against eczema, and have a variety of asthma and allergy medications in the cupboard. Every time he encounters a new food, he asks if it has eggs in it. Or chicken. Or nuts.

He is the sweetest, most beautiful boy I have ever known. He hugs me when I am sad, pats my head and wraps his scrawny arms around my neck, and tells me that its OK and he loves me. He picks me flowers and draws me pictures. He wanted to marry his sister because 'she is so beautiful'. He wants to play with her all the time, and is always telling his friends about all the amazing things she can do - like walking, and eating her own food, and talking.

But ever since he could walk, the Critter has been running. Everywhere he goes, he runs, skips, or jumps. He climbs trees (I had to wash his hair before it was due the other day because he was covered in ants from climbing trees), rolls down hills, and jumps off steps constantly. The more he runs, the more energy he seems to have. The trampoline is in almost constant use when he is at home, and some days, it is the only thing that keeps me sane. He can not sit still, constantly jumping into and out of his chair, whether he is eating, playing lego, watching tv, or doing his homework. Every time he sees something, he gets distracted by it. It takes him 25 minutes to put on a t-shirt and trousers in the morning, over half an hour to brush his teeth, and he takes nearly an hour to eat a sandwich.

I do not remember the last time he actually ate all his lunch at school. Usually, at least half a sandwich gets eaten when he gets home, because he didn't eat it all before the bell went at lunch time to go outside and play.

He sits at his own desk at school, because he gets distracted too easily if there is another child sitting near him. He tells them how to do their work, wants to play, and does not keep his hands to himself.

There is a square taped on the carpet where he is allowed to sit, and none of the other children are allowed inside his square.

He has been kept in at lunch for playing instead of doing his work, telling the teacher what to do, and not keeping his hands to himself.

Again, he is in KINDERGARTEN.

Even when he's kept in, he still doesn't manage to eat all his food.

He has lost his jacket at school more times than I can count. He's on his third one now, the other two having vanished, and he's left it behind at least twice already.

He loses things at home too. I don't know where half his lego is.

He seems to find it impossible to actually look at people when they're talking to him. In the time it takes to tell him to go brush his teeth and get his PJs on, he will have changed his line of sight at least 3 times, probably swung at least one arm around like a windmill, and moved about a foot to the left - after being told to stand still with his hands behind his back, and Look. At. My. Eyes when I'm talking to you please.

When he was younger I assumed all children had boundless energy and didn't know how to stay still for more than a heartbeat. His teacher thought it was boredom and has been giving him harder and harder work, because he is a bright boy, and he does need more advanced work than a lot of the others in his class.

In my bible study last week, when we were each asked for things we'd like to pray for, Critterbug was mine. That we would find some way to help him, something we could put in place that would stop him being disruptive in class, help him find a way to concentrate, and bring a calm to our lives that we've never known.

Yesterday, I got my Answer. His teacher says a his behaviours are very similar to other children with ADHD. Giving him harder work to alleviate boredom has not worked, it simply makes him frustrated at the harder work. He recognises that he can not function at a table with other children and needs to be on his own, but it upsets him that he has to be separated, and he still has concentration issues. Lots of concentration issues. It is practically impossible for him to stay still. Ever.

Looking at a typical day in Critter-world, at the things he does and the things he can not do, and having looked at lists of symptoms of ADHD, I'm coming to agree with the teacher. While he doesn't do anything to the extent of the "troubled ADHD kids" you see on the TV* - hitting, screaming, climbing onto roofs, running non-stop, throwing things around - he does do a lot. He gets distracted constantly, can't stay still, flits from one thing to another, loses things a lot, fidgets, runs and climbs all the time, has NO volume control (actually, he has three volumes - shout, shouted-whisper, and so-quiet-he-can't-even-hear-himself), talks/sings/hums ALL. THE. TIME. (the only time my house is silent is when he is asleep or at school. even when he's eating, he's talking), doesn't seem to hear what people tell him, and interrupts a lot.

He's a good boy. He's sweet. He's bright. And he tries.

This was not the Answer I wanted for my boy**. This is not the Answer I wanted for our family. But it is an Answer with an answer***, with things we can do, if doctors agree with his teacher's suspicions.

And it's looking like the only Answer I'm getting.



*He actually does have a cousin like this, though I've only seen him post-medication, where he looked like any other 5yr old. Hubby tells me that before his nephew was medicated, things were pure insanity.

**After looking at everything I possibly could to prove to myself that there's no way Critter has ADHD and the teacher must be wrong (yeah. that failed), it actually looks like this is a possible answer to me as well. It would explain a LOT of my childhood behaviours, and a lot of the problems I have now, in regards concentration, distractedness, and forgetfulness. For example, I don't think I ever once did my homework on time - not because of laziness, but because I could never remember that I even had any, and the only way I can come even CLOSE to keeping the house in order now is to have a list of 3 to 4 things to do each day, taped to the fridge so I'll get distracted by them every time I walk past it. It works a little bit.

***The more times I write "answer" the more the word looks wrong. Do you ever find that?

Bananas

In our backyard. Fruiting. Excellent.

P-a-l-n. Plan.

Today's plan, in not-necessarily-correct- order:

• eat breakfast (yes, I really do need to remind myself to eat breakfast) (done!)
• get the boy safely to school (done!)
• vacuum the whole house
• comfort Gosling because the vacuum is a scary hellbeast
• find something to do in the bathroom while Gosling sits on the loo for half an hour refusing to 'go'
• make applesauce
• sleep when Gosling sleeps
• laundry - kid clothes
• laundry - nappies
• knit more of Gosling's blanket (and possibly finish the last 2 fingers on the glove)
• get the boy safely home from school
• work on some maths with Critter
• bathe both children
• leftovers for dinner
• spicks&specks, 9pm, ABC2
• make the husband choclate cake for dessert (microwave mugcake)

I suspect they won't all happen. The main ones are vacuuming, laundry, and Critter-school related. You think bathing should be a priority? My kids have just as sensitive skin as I do, and if they (or I for that matter) bathe everyday, there is much dryness and itchiness and pain and rashing. Skipping a day for baths is not a problem. Bathing them too often IS a problem. They get washed everyday - hands, feet, faces (and backside for the girl because hello, nappy changes) - but they don't have a BATH everyday.

Tweet Tweet

There is a bird nesting in my garden.


She is small, not much bigger than a sparrow, but there's no mistaking her for such a drab bird. She is mostly balck and white, with splashes of brilliant yellow, and her eye is bright white.


Her nest is tucked in the back of the grevillea, squashed up against the house. At first I thought it was died-back branches, but she nestled down into it, and became almost invisble. The spiky plant will presumably help keep predators away, even though she is barely 2 feet of the ground.


The small bowl of twigs, when she vacates her hiding place, reveals an unexpected inside - a thick white wall of fluff, perfect for cradling delicate eggs, of which she appears to have a pair.


She spends a fair amound of time out of the nest, and I don't know if this is normal, or if she isn't really that into being a mother. I guess we'll find out in a week or so, when there will either be small tweety things in the nest, or it will become simply an abandoned bowl of twigs.



We get a lot of birds around here. On any given day, as well as my little nesting friend (a New Holland Honeyeater) and about a dozen of her kin, I am likely to see any or all of the following (and I'm sure I'm forgetting some, AND there are more than I don't see, and can't identify by song):

• Masked Lapwing


• Laughing Kookaburra


• Rainbow Lorikeet


• Crimson Rosella


• Magpie


• Willie Wagtail


• Black faced Cuckoo-shrike


• Red Wattlebird


• Some sort of honeyeater, probably a Litle Wattlebird, but its hard to get a good look


• Sparrows


• Magpie Lark


• Indian Myna


• Crested Pigeon


• Spotted Dove


• Pelicans


• Silver Gulls (the proper name for those annoying seagulls - the Australian ones at least)

There are also Black Swans and a variety of other water birds in the lake about 3 blocks away, and the neighbour has chickens. It is never quiet around here.

Chicken Soup

Gosling, my girlchild, is 17 months old. It seems like only yesterday that I was told her heartrate was far too low (I originally thought the monitor was picking up me, because her heartrate was about 70bpm), and I needed a c-section NOW. They never used the word 'emergency', but not counting my husband, my son, and myself, there were about 15 people in that room hovering over the heart rate monitor, and muttering quietly amongst themselves as I changed into the hospital gown.

Critter, at 4-and-a-half didn't know what was going on, but he picked up on our stress and fear, and wouldn't stop crying. I wouldn't allow myself to cry, not in front of so many doctors, not in front of my already terrified son, but I felt like my heart had been ripped out of my chest. My husband looked, if possible, even more scared than he did after Critter was born, and I lost so much blood that you literally couldn't see the colour difference between my face and my lips.

A few hours after her over-dramatic entrance into the world.

Apparently, the sprog likes to play tricks. She started yelling as soon as she was out, and I heard a very surprised "good set of lungs" from one of the multitudes of doctors, midwives, and anaesthetists standing at the ready should anything go awry. She was pink, and alert, and round as a pumpkin, and her APGAR was 9. They did all sorts of tests, on cord blood, and placenta, and uterine walls, and never could figure out what happened. Apart from an ear that looks like its had an earring ripped through it (it hasn't, she was born like that), my girl was perfect (if a little smaller than I remembered babies being).

The not-normal ear. As well as a bifurcated earlobe, the top is pointy. Her other ear is perfectly normal. She is certainly asymmetrical.

She has remained, in all ways, a perfectly normal child. She started crawling later than critter did, and walking, but still well within the normal range. She said her first word - her brother's name - at about 9 months, and is slowly picking up more recognisable words to go with the constant babbling.

Very pleased with the new-found mobility crawling gives, at 10months.

She has remained beautifully round (her upper arms are about the same size as her brother's - and he'll be 6 in two months), despite her charts saying she is at the low end of her age's weight range, and she looks like she's going to be tall like the rest of us. She also has the funniest spiral belly-button I've ever seen.

Come on. Tell me thats not adorable.

She 'helps' be with everything, handing me pegs when I hang out the washing, and random utensils when I'm cooking dinner, and if I clean up a mess from the floor without giving her a rag to help, she sits down and cries.

She steals my favourite scarf and tries to wrap it around her shoulders, walking around the house looking like an apple-green ghost with it draped over her head.

OOOOH!!!!! Its a green ghosty!

She will spend surprising amounts of time putting her dollies and teddies and bunnies and chickens in the doll cradle, patting them, rocking them, and then taking them out to put a fresh dolly/teddy/bunny/chicken in.

It's hard to believe how much my urgent c-section squalling pink girl has grown in the past 17months. A few weeks ago (or a few months? I never was good at keeping up with the passage of time) I started letting her use a spoon to feed herself. Now, she gets upset if I give her food without a spoon. Even if its toast. She's got really good with her spoon, and the only things that she still gets fed are yoghurt, and chicken soup.

Until today.

Today, I gave her a bowl *cough*ramekin*cough* of soup and a spoon, and she ate it all. Granted, I gave her mostly the lumps, with very little of the broth, and yes, her shirt was quite wet when she was done, but she did it. She ate a bowl of soup by herself, without help.

Watching your children grow into independent people is one the best feelings ever. But I think I'd like to keep her dependent for a little longer please.