Thursday, March 25, 2010

Oh my ears!!

I am sure that it is not just my kids, but kids in general that love to make noise. I remember seeing a T-Shirt a while ago that had "Pots and Pans Band" on it and I always wanted to get it for Paige as she loved to play the pots and pans with the plastic chopsticks. Especially cute was the fact that she would put them all on the coffee table and play whilst Charli (who was about 3 or 4 months) would sleep on the floor next to her.

Exhibit A:
Paige and her Pots and Pans Band


Just yesterday, Charli decided it was her turn so after helping me to make jelly, she got out the pots and pans and the plastic chopsticks and away she went.

Exhibit B:
Charli and her Pots and Pans Band


As long as they have fun and put it all away it doesn't bother me and the best thing is they have a ball doing it. In fact, Charli is banging away right now as I am writing this. I think I may need earplugs.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Would it be OK if I throttled them just a little bit??

This afternoon was one of those days that makes me think it may have been a whole lot easier to just buy some trained monkeys rather than having kids, they were making me crazy. I think that maybe they forgot to "exercise the crazy out" this morning or something, but the result was that we missed the bus home and had to wait for an extra 1/2 hour and they didn't get to go to a friends house after school.

A word of wisdom my father once told me was to never threaten your children with a punishment that you wouldn't carry through on and I have always kept that in mind, especially when they are making me crazy and my inclination is to dream up some bizarre and complex punishment for them.

As usual after school, we head to the playground as it is 20 minutes before the bus comes. Also as usual, 5 minutes before we need to leave, I asked them to get out of the sandpit and get their shoes on. Apparently their ears were broken. I got the impression that it was a school wide epidemic today as there were a number of mum's with exasperated looks on their faces whilst they tried to coax their progeny out of the playground. Many a "come on, we have to get to swimming" was heard yelled across the yard, more than once. The thing is, I have this 3 strikes policy, if I ask them to do something 3 times and it doesn't get done, then they get in trouble. I think today they got 3 lots of 3 and in the end they got the "if you don't do it now, you will not go to (insert friend's name here)'s place tonight for a play"....still, no movement, at least not in the direction I wanted.

When I finally got them to pay attention, they were full of remorse, but by that time it was too late for them. Luckily I am immune to the pleas of 2 very insistent little girls as they tried the whole way home:
"but what if I be good for the rest of the night" - possible, but unlikely
"but I will make my bed and tidy up my room" - as if!!
"I promise I will never not listen to you again" - HA!!

When we got home, PJ had to call her friend and apologise for not being able to come over and then they had to clean up all their toys in the lounge room. Lesson learned...for tonight, not forever :)

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Hit me with a stick!!

The Scene: Paige and Charli are playing outside.
Paige - Mummy, Charli wants to hit me with a stick!
Charli - no I don't!
Daddy - Well sometimes I want to hit you with a stick!
Me - roll on the floor laughing

A Big Whoops

Last night Charli had to survive without Puppy No-Eyes. We were at a friends place (a few houses away from ours) and when it was time to leave, Puppy was nowhere to be found. Charli couldn't remember where she left him and 3 people searching everywhere for at least half an hour couldn't turn him out. I even went home and looked for him but couldn't find him anywhere. Eventually I just told Charli that she would have to go without him until the next morning as it was too dark to search properly.

The whole drama is that Charli has had Puppy No-Eyes for nearly 4 years and has not gone through a night without him and has never lost him. She sucks her thumb, but only when she has Puppy, no Puppy, no sucking the thumb. The biggest problem was that she lulled me into a false sense of security. Charli went off to sleep without any dramas and really quickly. Then when I was almost asleep, she woke up crying and nothing could calm her, she cried hysterically for about half an hour before she went back to sleep. She woke up at about 8am which is early for her and then asked me every 10 minutes if we could go and look for Puppy yet.

At about 1pm we headed over to our friends who had already located Puppy in the front yard near the mud hole the girls were playing in the night before and Charli did not let him go for the rest of the day.

That was a close call.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

My Nan

My Nana died last night. She was awesome.

These are the things I thought about today.

We had a great Christmas this year. For the first time in 3 years we went back to where I grew up for Christmas. We had a wonderful time with the family and as always when there is a family get together, Nan, or BigNan as she is know to the littlies, was there. She loved it. She was legally blind so she couldn't really see anyone or anything very well, but she loved to just be amongst the noise and chaos. The 6 kids all playing together all day with barely a disagreement, something that she commented on often. They loved her too as we all did.

I remember when we were little all of the family gatherings were at Nana and Pa's house which was about 5 minutes drive from our house. I know for a fact that she was always there, as she is in all of the photos from the birthdays and gatherings, special occasions and unimportant occasions. Many of the photos of me as a small child were taken at her house.

I remember that we used to go there for sleepovers. We used to turn on the overhead sprinklers in her shadehouse and run around in there when it was hot. We used to eat icecream with her, dessert always had icecream because Nan loved icecream. I remember we used to go and visit her at work. She worked in a hardware store and in the winter wore this brown parka. I remember once I ran up to a random guy and hugged him because he was wearing the same brown parka that Nan used to wear. I remember that one time my mum and her sister were doing the dishes after a meal at Nan's and they washed all of the paper plates and hung them up on the washing line to tease her because she liked to wash and reuse the plastic ones. I remember the day I got my license and I told my mum and dad that I would drive myself to uni and instead I drove to Nan's and spent the day with her.

I remember the laughter.

I know that she loved me, she had this way about her that you just knew that she loved you, you could tell by the look she would give you, the way you always knew she was proud of you, no matter what. With all the hardships of her life, and there were many, she was a strong, independent, loving, caring woman who was also my Nana.

I remember the laughter.

I love you. I will miss you. Thank you.


(Written 17/03)

Saturday, March 13, 2010

A Visit to the Hopstible

Tonight I took Charli to the Emergency Department at the Austin Hospital. She has been feeling unwell for a few days and has been a bit off, not really eating or drinking and a bit snotty. The thing is, she hasn't really been all that bad. Last night she got a fever and today she was complaining that her neck (throat) was hurting and I did notice that her breath smelled weird. Tonight she was sleeping on the couch when she woke up crying. Every time we asked her what was wrong, she would just cry more. She was hot so I took her temperature which was at 37.7C so we decided on a shower, that was when I noticed that she had a large welt on the back of her left hip and a few on the back of her right arm. Judd and I decided that I would take her to the hospital as I didn't want to take any chances after going through Staph scalded skin with PJ.

The triage nurse and the the 2 nurses and 2 doctors who saw to her in the hospital were excellent. We were in and out in about 1 1/2 hours and they discovered that she was having either an allergic reaction to possibly something that bit her or more likely an immune reaction to the fact that she has a sever case of tonsillitis. She was really good, as always, she had everyone around her finger in about 30 seconds flat and she has been sent home with a dose of strong antibiotics and orders to rest.

And that is what I am now going to do, give my eyes a rest until the morning.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Again with the Drive-In

Saturday night, we once again made our way to the drive in, we all love to go so it is alot of fun. The girls love that they can watch a movie and eat junk and sleep in the back of the car which acts like a bunk bed (see this post for explanation if required). Paige really wanted to see Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief because of the way he clicked his pen into a sword on the ads. She loved it and the next day she wanted to spend her pocket money on a sword. The funniest part of that decision was she was telling me about it before The Boy got up, once he did, she was all "Daddy, I want to spend some of my Polly Pocket Moneys" and his immediate response was "You are not buying a sword!" He didn't even hear the conversation, that is how well they know each other, scary. Anyway, that would have ended badly....for Paige anyway, when Charli clocked her over the head with it.

The point I was originally making before I was distracted by the whole sword thing was that we went to the drive in. This is the first time that we have had to line up to get into the place. We got there early and everything and it took us 25 mins to get into the field and the movie had just started. Oh well, didn't miss much and still got a fairly good park. On the upside, the guy at the gate only charged us for 1 movie for 2 adults so that saved us some money. We ate junk and watched 2 ok movies, the aforementioned Percy Jackson and Valentines Day which was a romantic comedy and everything that implies, predictable and sappy, but I liked it and The Boy didn't hate it so we will call it all good.

We got home at about 2am with both the girls strapped in but sound asleep across each other and thoroughly happy with their evening. They didn't stop talking about how much fun they had until late yesterday so I will take that as a good sign and patiently wait for some more good movies so we can go again.