If you happen to follow my blog regularly, you may have noticed that all has been quiet in this corner of the world over the last few weeks. Unfortunately, uni stuff was getting on top of me and was taking up way more of my time than I would have liked.
Since getting home, I've had two physics assignments due and countless online quizzes to do for both physics and human body systems. This is all on top of my normal family life. The really sucky thing is that I misread an e-mail from my physics lecturer while I was in Rockhampton. I thought that he had given us a week's extension on our second assignment (the first one was done earlier in the term), which suited me because I hadn't finished it while we were in Rockhampton and it was supposed to be due the day after we got home after driving for four days. Turns out that it was for a tutorial and not the assignment, as I found out when I went to submit the assignment a week late. Fortunately, my lecturer said that he would still accept it.
The third physics assignment was due on Monday night just gone, two weeks after I finished the second assignment. In true Sidetracked style, I left it until the Sunday to start it. Fortunately, it was a lot easier than the second assignment. Still, I was up until 2am on Monday morning working on it, then finished it early Monday evening. After I had submitted the assignment, I set to work on the nine multiple choice quizzes that I had also left until the last minute and were due in that night. I ended up finishing those just after 2am (turns out the cut off time was 5:55am). I was very thankful that Seagull and Wombat chose to sleep in until 9:30am that morning. I had also finished eleven multiple choice quizzes for human body systems the week before.
My human body systems exam was on Monday (yes, I was sitting up until the wee hours doing physics work instead of revising for my exam). I thought I was pretty well all over it, but there were some really curly questions in the exam that I wasn't expecting. Still, I reckon I did well enough to pass, and you know what they say, P's get degrees.
My physics exam was on Thursday and I was pretty stressed out in the lead up to it. I knew that I had done nowhere near enough study and was really worried that I wasn't going to pass and would have to repeat the subject again next year. When I got into the exam, I was pleasantly surprised. All of the questions were a straight cut and paste out of the multiple choice quizzes and our assignments. In fact, one of the questions that was worth 25 marks in the exam was exactly the same as one of the questions in the third assignment. I was all over that one like a rash, making sure that I answered it. It was meant to be a three hour exam, but I finished it in just over two hours. It was such a good feeling.
I don't actually find out my final marks for my subjects until 1 July, but I'm feeling a lot better about it all now than I was at this time last week. Given that I'm going to be doing three subjects next term, I'm going to be using my down time to do a bit of reading on next term's subjects before they start. I don't want to get behind again, especially as I'm doing one more subject than what I usually do.
Friday, 10 June 2011
Last stop Rockhampton
After spending a couple of days with our wonderful friend in Brisbane, it was time to continue on with our trip. I managed to get everything packed the night before and convince Thunder Maker to load the car up so that we wouldn't have to do it in the morning. For once, we actually got away when we said we would.
On the drive, we noticed signs for a place called Sexie Coffie. I thought it was rather amusing and Thunder Maker is always sucked in by a gimmick involving a picture of a pair of legs and a cup of coffee, so we went through their drive-through at Marybourough. All I can say is best. chai latte. ever. Seagull was pretty impressed with his big babychino too. Seagull is a real sucker for a babychino. We can't get coffee/chai latte for ourselves without getting him a babychino.
By the time we got into Rockhampton, I was ready for a lie down. I made Thunder Maker go and get the key. There had been a mix-up and the family sized on-site caravan (how deliciously bogan, I know) that we were meant to be staying in had been given to someone else. The van that we ended up with was way too small for all four of us, so the caravan park manager kindly offered us an on-site cabin for the night at no extra cost.
The cabin we ended up in was actually the same one Thunder Maker, Seagull and I had stayed in 18 months previously when we were last up that way. The only reason we weren't staying in the cabin for the length of our stay this time is because half of their cabins had been washed away/damaged in the floods and the other half had already been fully booked out for part of the time we were staying up there by the time I had gotten organised enough to make the booking.
The next morning, we were able to move into our family sized van. There was a double bed and a single bed in the van. The double bed was on a platform that was supposed to be up against the wall of the van, but part of the wall had buckled out, so there was a slight gap in between the two. Me, having a typical mother moment, went to have an afternoon nap and forgot to take my mobile phone out of my pocket. You know where this is going, don't you? Yep, my phone fell out of my pocket and down the gap while I was sleeping. The gap was too small for me to get my hand down and there was no other way of accessing it. To cut a long story short, the caravan park manager had to drill a few holes in the floor of the caravan with his hole bit from underneath the van and reach up into it to rescue my phone.
I started my residential school the next morning. I got the times mixed up and thought that I had to be at the uni for an 8am start. Turns out that we were actually starting at 9am. Fortunately, I wasn't the only person who mixed the times up and I got chatting to one of my classmates. It turned out that she was doing the same two subjects that I was, so we agreed to pair up for the lab work for both subjects.
Meanwhile, the boys were all having a whale of a time without me. In the time that I was in classes, Wombat became a lot more aware of Seagull and vice versa. For the first time, Wombat was interacting with Seagull. As Thunder Maker said, trips to Rockhampton are a real bonding experience for the males in our family. Even when I got home of an evening, the boys would quite happily muck around with each other on the double bed.
At night, I was sharing the double bed with Wombat and Seagull and Thunder Maker had the single bed to himself. One night I was woken up by movements and the sound of giggling. I rolled over to look, and there was Wombat and Seagull mucking around and playing with each other in the middle of the night. The funny thing is, I'm pretty sure Wombat rolled over and hit Seagull gently until he woke up to get him to play.
The day after my res school finished, we started the long trip back home. Rather than boring you with a whole post all about the drive, I'll just mention a couple of highlights here.
While we were packing up our stuff to leave, a couple of rainbow lorikeets landed on the ground right next to our car. Seagull loves birds and thought that the lorikeets were wonderful. After a couple of minutes, they went across the road to one of the other caravans. We had been chatting to the occupants of this particular van when we passed them over the last couple of days, and when they saw that Seagull was interested in the birds, they got out a piece of bread for him to feed them.
Thunder Maker and I were conducting a highly scientific social experiment. We were driving past a lot of roadworks and Thunder Maker hypothesised that the friendliness of the lolly pop people at roadworks sites is directly proportional to their proximity to an Esky. With the hypothesis in place, we set out to test it by waving to every lolly pop person we saw. For the most part (there was the odd exception in both cases), the closer a lolly pop person was to an Esky, the more likely we were to get a smile and a wave in return.
On the second day of our journey, we were driving through a small northern NSW town and Seagull became rather animated. His talking went something along the lines of "Hello birdies, hello trees, hello bogans!" to a couple who happened to be minding their own business walking along the footpath. Just in case Thunder Maker and I were in doubt as to what he had said, Seagull then proceeded to say "hello bogans!" again about ten times.
On the drive, we noticed signs for a place called Sexie Coffie. I thought it was rather amusing and Thunder Maker is always sucked in by a gimmick involving a picture of a pair of legs and a cup of coffee, so we went through their drive-through at Marybourough. All I can say is best. chai latte. ever. Seagull was pretty impressed with his big babychino too. Seagull is a real sucker for a babychino. We can't get coffee/chai latte for ourselves without getting him a babychino.
By the time we got into Rockhampton, I was ready for a lie down. I made Thunder Maker go and get the key. There had been a mix-up and the family sized on-site caravan (how deliciously bogan, I know) that we were meant to be staying in had been given to someone else. The van that we ended up with was way too small for all four of us, so the caravan park manager kindly offered us an on-site cabin for the night at no extra cost.
The cabin we ended up in was actually the same one Thunder Maker, Seagull and I had stayed in 18 months previously when we were last up that way. The only reason we weren't staying in the cabin for the length of our stay this time is because half of their cabins had been washed away/damaged in the floods and the other half had already been fully booked out for part of the time we were staying up there by the time I had gotten organised enough to make the booking.
The next morning, we were able to move into our family sized van. There was a double bed and a single bed in the van. The double bed was on a platform that was supposed to be up against the wall of the van, but part of the wall had buckled out, so there was a slight gap in between the two. Me, having a typical mother moment, went to have an afternoon nap and forgot to take my mobile phone out of my pocket. You know where this is going, don't you? Yep, my phone fell out of my pocket and down the gap while I was sleeping. The gap was too small for me to get my hand down and there was no other way of accessing it. To cut a long story short, the caravan park manager had to drill a few holes in the floor of the caravan with his hole bit from underneath the van and reach up into it to rescue my phone.
I started my residential school the next morning. I got the times mixed up and thought that I had to be at the uni for an 8am start. Turns out that we were actually starting at 9am. Fortunately, I wasn't the only person who mixed the times up and I got chatting to one of my classmates. It turned out that she was doing the same two subjects that I was, so we agreed to pair up for the lab work for both subjects.
Meanwhile, the boys were all having a whale of a time without me. In the time that I was in classes, Wombat became a lot more aware of Seagull and vice versa. For the first time, Wombat was interacting with Seagull. As Thunder Maker said, trips to Rockhampton are a real bonding experience for the males in our family. Even when I got home of an evening, the boys would quite happily muck around with each other on the double bed.
Seagull and Wombat
At night, I was sharing the double bed with Wombat and Seagull and Thunder Maker had the single bed to himself. One night I was woken up by movements and the sound of giggling. I rolled over to look, and there was Wombat and Seagull mucking around and playing with each other in the middle of the night. The funny thing is, I'm pretty sure Wombat rolled over and hit Seagull gently until he woke up to get him to play.
The day after my res school finished, we started the long trip back home. Rather than boring you with a whole post all about the drive, I'll just mention a couple of highlights here.
While we were packing up our stuff to leave, a couple of rainbow lorikeets landed on the ground right next to our car. Seagull loves birds and thought that the lorikeets were wonderful. After a couple of minutes, they went across the road to one of the other caravans. We had been chatting to the occupants of this particular van when we passed them over the last couple of days, and when they saw that Seagull was interested in the birds, they got out a piece of bread for him to feed them.
Seagull feeding the birdie. If you like his hoodie, check out Mm is for me.
Thunder Maker and I were conducting a highly scientific social experiment. We were driving past a lot of roadworks and Thunder Maker hypothesised that the friendliness of the lolly pop people at roadworks sites is directly proportional to their proximity to an Esky. With the hypothesis in place, we set out to test it by waving to every lolly pop person we saw. For the most part (there was the odd exception in both cases), the closer a lolly pop person was to an Esky, the more likely we were to get a smile and a wave in return.
On the second day of our journey, we were driving through a small northern NSW town and Seagull became rather animated. His talking went something along the lines of "Hello birdies, hello trees, hello bogans!" to a couple who happened to be minding their own business walking along the footpath. Just in case Thunder Maker and I were in doubt as to what he had said, Seagull then proceeded to say "hello bogans!" again about ten times.
Thursday, 19 May 2011
Onward to Brisbane
The next thrilling installment in my saga is our drive from Sydney to Brisbane. We thought that it would be easier to drive a couple of hours north to visit my Dad, stay there overnight, then continue the rest of the way the next morning. I don't know that it was any easier in the end, but it was great to catch up with my Dad and the rest of the family.
We ended up getting away from Sydney a little later than I had wanted (story of my life), but only by an hour or so. We still managed to get out before the Friday exodus hit the F3.When we got to Dad's place, we were greeted by him, my sisters and my Grandma. Dad's wife, The Fitness Junkie, was at a Step Into Life fitness class. Technically, The Fitness Junkie is my stepmother, but she doesn't like being referred to as that because it makes her think of the evil stepmother out of Cinderella, so if I'm not referring to her by name, I always describe her as being Dad's wife. I have always gotten on really well with The Fitness Junkie (which surprises a lot of people) - she makes Dad happy and that's all I have ever wanted for him. It helps that she is also a really cool person with a good sense of humour. The Fitness Junkie started going to Step Into Life classes a bit over a year ago and has lost a shedload of weight since then. I'm actually finding her to be a bit of an inspiration to make more positive changes in my own life.
Anyway, we decided to go to the local bowls club for dinner. Once The Fitness Junkie was home, showered and ready, we all loaded up in our various cars and headed out. We spent our evening eating Chinese for dinner and watching the royal wedding on the TV's around us. Dad had set up the VCR to record the wedding for us at home, but the channel he had it set up for cut over to the football halfway through. The boys had a great time spending the evening with their aunties. To be honest, I love that their aunties love spending so much time with them because it means that I get to tune out for a bit. My sisters are much younger than me - 11 and 9 years old. I love getting to catch up with them and it's great that they are still young enough to want to play with Seagull and Wombat without thinking that it's uncool. I'm going to lap that up for as long as it lasts.
We set off the next morning via my Aunty and Uncle's place. The last time I had seen them was when Seagull was about 6 months old. It was only meant to be a very quick stop, but my cousins and aunty love babies and little children so much that an hour had passed before I realised. Funnily enough, it's my 16 year old male cousin that loves babies the most out of my three cousins. The one that wants to be an infantry officer in the army. Go figure.
Once we got on the road again, it was only about another hour until we had to stop for lunch. While we were stopped, Thunder Maker pointed out a "huge truck" to Seagull. For the rest of the trip, every truck we saw was a "huuuge truck".
That evening, in the middle of nowhere, Wombat decided that it was dinner time for him. Unfortunately for him, we made him wait another 20 minutes until we got to Ballina. Of course, it started pissing down rain the instant we pulled up in the McDonald's car park, so I had to get Wombat out of the car whilst trying to keep us both as dry as possible. As soon as we got inside, it settled down again. Seagull had had a gutfull by this stage, so I told Thunder Maker to take him outside to play in the play area while I got some milk into Wombat.
Fortunately for us, both boys were getting sleepy by the time we got back in the car. I called my friend that we were going to be staying with to tell her where we were and she told us that we were still about 3 hours away. Given that we weren't going to get to her place before 11pm, I told her that if she wanted, she could go to bed and we'd call when we were about 10 minutes away.
The last time I'd been in a car that was driving up that way was about 12 years ago, so I was really freaked out that there is now a bypass from Tweed Heads South into Queensland, so that you don't need to go through Tweed Heads itself or Coolangatta. In fact, the motorway was a really nice drive at the time we were doing it - hardly any traffic at all. I was operating the GPS setting on my phone and it ended up working out quite well. It helps that all the exits off the motorway were conveniently numbered.
We spent the next two days visiting our friend. She is originally from Sydney, but moved up to Brisbane at the beginning of this year. We had all been lamenting that we wouldn't get to see each other very much any more, so she was really thrilled when we asked if we could stay with her for a couple of days. We all had a great time catching up and Seagull had a wonderful time playing with her dogs.
While we were there, I decided that Seagull needed a pair of sandals. It was way too warm for the poor child to be running around with socks and runners on (it was getting up to 27 - 28 degrees during the day) and he had outgrown the pair of sandals he'd worn through summer, so I set out on a mission to find weather-appropriate footwear. After much searching, I found a pair of sandals at Payless shoes. He will have outgrown them by the time it gets warm enough to wear them again, but I figure that for a pair of shoes that got worn for two weeks, Wombat can have them when his feet are large enough to fit in them.
By the way folks, if none of this is making much sense, I apologise. My head feels like it is stuffed with cotton wool at the moment - all fuzzy around the edges. Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment of our trip - Brisbane to Rockhampton.
We ended up getting away from Sydney a little later than I had wanted (story of my life), but only by an hour or so. We still managed to get out before the Friday exodus hit the F3.When we got to Dad's place, we were greeted by him, my sisters and my Grandma. Dad's wife, The Fitness Junkie, was at a Step Into Life fitness class. Technically, The Fitness Junkie is my stepmother, but she doesn't like being referred to as that because it makes her think of the evil stepmother out of Cinderella, so if I'm not referring to her by name, I always describe her as being Dad's wife. I have always gotten on really well with The Fitness Junkie (which surprises a lot of people) - she makes Dad happy and that's all I have ever wanted for him. It helps that she is also a really cool person with a good sense of humour. The Fitness Junkie started going to Step Into Life classes a bit over a year ago and has lost a shedload of weight since then. I'm actually finding her to be a bit of an inspiration to make more positive changes in my own life.
Anyway, we decided to go to the local bowls club for dinner. Once The Fitness Junkie was home, showered and ready, we all loaded up in our various cars and headed out. We spent our evening eating Chinese for dinner and watching the royal wedding on the TV's around us. Dad had set up the VCR to record the wedding for us at home, but the channel he had it set up for cut over to the football halfway through. The boys had a great time spending the evening with their aunties. To be honest, I love that their aunties love spending so much time with them because it means that I get to tune out for a bit. My sisters are much younger than me - 11 and 9 years old. I love getting to catch up with them and it's great that they are still young enough to want to play with Seagull and Wombat without thinking that it's uncool. I'm going to lap that up for as long as it lasts.
We set off the next morning via my Aunty and Uncle's place. The last time I had seen them was when Seagull was about 6 months old. It was only meant to be a very quick stop, but my cousins and aunty love babies and little children so much that an hour had passed before I realised. Funnily enough, it's my 16 year old male cousin that loves babies the most out of my three cousins. The one that wants to be an infantry officer in the army. Go figure.
Once we got on the road again, it was only about another hour until we had to stop for lunch. While we were stopped, Thunder Maker pointed out a "huge truck" to Seagull. For the rest of the trip, every truck we saw was a "huuuge truck".
That evening, in the middle of nowhere, Wombat decided that it was dinner time for him. Unfortunately for him, we made him wait another 20 minutes until we got to Ballina. Of course, it started pissing down rain the instant we pulled up in the McDonald's car park, so I had to get Wombat out of the car whilst trying to keep us both as dry as possible. As soon as we got inside, it settled down again. Seagull had had a gutfull by this stage, so I told Thunder Maker to take him outside to play in the play area while I got some milk into Wombat.
Fortunately for us, both boys were getting sleepy by the time we got back in the car. I called my friend that we were going to be staying with to tell her where we were and she told us that we were still about 3 hours away. Given that we weren't going to get to her place before 11pm, I told her that if she wanted, she could go to bed and we'd call when we were about 10 minutes away.
The last time I'd been in a car that was driving up that way was about 12 years ago, so I was really freaked out that there is now a bypass from Tweed Heads South into Queensland, so that you don't need to go through Tweed Heads itself or Coolangatta. In fact, the motorway was a really nice drive at the time we were doing it - hardly any traffic at all. I was operating the GPS setting on my phone and it ended up working out quite well. It helps that all the exits off the motorway were conveniently numbered.
We spent the next two days visiting our friend. She is originally from Sydney, but moved up to Brisbane at the beginning of this year. We had all been lamenting that we wouldn't get to see each other very much any more, so she was really thrilled when we asked if we could stay with her for a couple of days. We all had a great time catching up and Seagull had a wonderful time playing with her dogs.
While we were there, I decided that Seagull needed a pair of sandals. It was way too warm for the poor child to be running around with socks and runners on (it was getting up to 27 - 28 degrees during the day) and he had outgrown the pair of sandals he'd worn through summer, so I set out on a mission to find weather-appropriate footwear. After much searching, I found a pair of sandals at Payless shoes. He will have outgrown them by the time it gets warm enough to wear them again, but I figure that for a pair of shoes that got worn for two weeks, Wombat can have them when his feet are large enough to fit in them.
By the way folks, if none of this is making much sense, I apologise. My head feels like it is stuffed with cotton wool at the moment - all fuzzy around the edges. Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment of our trip - Brisbane to Rockhampton.
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
Sydney or bust
You may have noticed that things have been very quiet in the Mother Moments corner recently. Maybe noticed some tumbleweed rolling past, that sort of thing. The family and I have just returned from a holiday/my uni residential. Normally we would fly up to Rockhampton, but as my res school was so close to Easter and Thunder Maker wanted to go to Sydney to spend some time with his Mum, we decided to just continue driving.
Our three week sojourn started with a drive from our home in Victoria up to Sydney. We've done it in one go a few times before and it normally takes us about 10 hours. I had a very carefully arranged schedule of everything I wanted to get done in the lead-up to going away. I did not take into account the fact that I always get very stressed out prior to leaving home and my usual mode of operation in these situations is to go into ostrich mode. Long story short, I left everything to the last minute and instead of getting away at 7am, we finally pulled out of our driveway at about 11am.
We stopped for a few hours on the way at my Mum's place. It was great for my Mum and stepfather to see the kids - they last saw us in January and Wombat has grown a lot since then. It was also great that the kids got to spend some time with their Granny and Pop. Mum cooked us a really awesome dinner - we had a combination of cold prawns and chilli and garlic prawns for starters and salmon on a bed of cooked tomato and some other veggies that escape my memory. We discovered that Seagull is a big fan of cooked prawns. Leaving Mum's place coincided quite nicely with when the boys would normally go to sleep, so they slept for most of the way up to Sydney, only waking briefly when we moved them from the car to inside.
When we stay in Sydney, we stay in a really nice two bedroom unit that is owned by my mother-in-law. We're very fortunate that she has decided not to rent it out and it stays empty except for when she decides to stay there or we are up in Sydney. Thunder Maker used to live there and I moved in with him when I moved to Sydney. It's always nice to go back there, especially with our boys. It's especially nice to have our own space when we are in the area. We would drive my MIL absolutely batty if we stayed with her for a whole week. As much as she loves to see us, especially the boys, she really likes her private space and we are the same.
We spent most of the next week visiting my MIL. The boys really enjoyed spending time with their Omi. My MIL is from Germany, hence why she chose to be called Omi. We have all been pretty worried about her, as she was really sick at the beginning of the year. After a couple of weeks spent in hospital, the doctors worked out that she has Wagner's granulomatosis. Basically, it's an auto-immune disease that attacks the lungs and kidneys and the diagnosis is determined when a whole heap of other stuff is ruled out. Sometimes it only affects the lungs and that's what we were hoping for at first, but it became evident a few days after the diagnosis was made that my MIL's kidneys were affected too. She was on dialysis for a few weeks, but has since been taken off it and seems to be coping quite well without it. Anyway, we are now more aware of the need to make sure that she gets to see the boys as often as we can manage it. It's hard, given that we live so far away, but we would really like to make sure that the boys have as much of an opportunity as possible to develop a relationship with their Omi.
While we were visiting my MIL, we tried to show Seagull the little ring tailed possum that had taken up residence in the wisteria vine covering her tennis court fence. I'm not too sure that he could really see it, even though it woke up and looked at us all. Our dog certainly noticed it though. Fortunately, it was up too high for her to get at. We also had a surprise visit from the boys' aunty and uncle. They are both teachers and were supposed to be away on holidays, but they decided to come back home early and dropped over to my MIL's place one day to catch up with us all. The funny thing is that Seagull was saying their names that morning, even though it has been ages since we have mentioned them to him. I was telling him that we wouldn't see them while we were visiting, then they just happened to be there that day when we got to my MIL's place.
We also decided to take the boys to the Sydney Aquarium. As you may be aware from one of my previous posts, Seagull loves "fishies". He was very excited to see all of the fish at the aquarium. He especially loved going through the walkways where the roof and walls are all part of the tank. He loved it when the sharks and zoom fish (sting rays) swam overhead. I loved it when the dugongs swam overhead.
At the end of our week in Sydney, we started to make our way up to Rockhampton. Over the next however many days it takes me to get around to writing it all down, I'll write up more about it, including some classic one-liners from Seagull during the drive.
Our three week sojourn started with a drive from our home in Victoria up to Sydney. We've done it in one go a few times before and it normally takes us about 10 hours. I had a very carefully arranged schedule of everything I wanted to get done in the lead-up to going away. I did not take into account the fact that I always get very stressed out prior to leaving home and my usual mode of operation in these situations is to go into ostrich mode. Long story short, I left everything to the last minute and instead of getting away at 7am, we finally pulled out of our driveway at about 11am.
We stopped for a few hours on the way at my Mum's place. It was great for my Mum and stepfather to see the kids - they last saw us in January and Wombat has grown a lot since then. It was also great that the kids got to spend some time with their Granny and Pop. Mum cooked us a really awesome dinner - we had a combination of cold prawns and chilli and garlic prawns for starters and salmon on a bed of cooked tomato and some other veggies that escape my memory. We discovered that Seagull is a big fan of cooked prawns. Leaving Mum's place coincided quite nicely with when the boys would normally go to sleep, so they slept for most of the way up to Sydney, only waking briefly when we moved them from the car to inside.
When we stay in Sydney, we stay in a really nice two bedroom unit that is owned by my mother-in-law. We're very fortunate that she has decided not to rent it out and it stays empty except for when she decides to stay there or we are up in Sydney. Thunder Maker used to live there and I moved in with him when I moved to Sydney. It's always nice to go back there, especially with our boys. It's especially nice to have our own space when we are in the area. We would drive my MIL absolutely batty if we stayed with her for a whole week. As much as she loves to see us, especially the boys, she really likes her private space and we are the same.
This is the view from the lounge room of the unit.
We spent most of the next week visiting my MIL. The boys really enjoyed spending time with their Omi. My MIL is from Germany, hence why she chose to be called Omi. We have all been pretty worried about her, as she was really sick at the beginning of the year. After a couple of weeks spent in hospital, the doctors worked out that she has Wagner's granulomatosis. Basically, it's an auto-immune disease that attacks the lungs and kidneys and the diagnosis is determined when a whole heap of other stuff is ruled out. Sometimes it only affects the lungs and that's what we were hoping for at first, but it became evident a few days after the diagnosis was made that my MIL's kidneys were affected too. She was on dialysis for a few weeks, but has since been taken off it and seems to be coping quite well without it. Anyway, we are now more aware of the need to make sure that she gets to see the boys as often as we can manage it. It's hard, given that we live so far away, but we would really like to make sure that the boys have as much of an opportunity as possible to develop a relationship with their Omi.
While we were visiting my MIL, we tried to show Seagull the little ring tailed possum that had taken up residence in the wisteria vine covering her tennis court fence. I'm not too sure that he could really see it, even though it woke up and looked at us all. Our dog certainly noticed it though. Fortunately, it was up too high for her to get at. We also had a surprise visit from the boys' aunty and uncle. They are both teachers and were supposed to be away on holidays, but they decided to come back home early and dropped over to my MIL's place one day to catch up with us all. The funny thing is that Seagull was saying their names that morning, even though it has been ages since we have mentioned them to him. I was telling him that we wouldn't see them while we were visiting, then they just happened to be there that day when we got to my MIL's place.
We also decided to take the boys to the Sydney Aquarium. As you may be aware from one of my previous posts, Seagull loves "fishies". He was very excited to see all of the fish at the aquarium. He especially loved going through the walkways where the roof and walls are all part of the tank. He loved it when the sharks and zoom fish (sting rays) swam overhead. I loved it when the dugongs swam overhead.
At the end of our week in Sydney, we started to make our way up to Rockhampton. Over the next however many days it takes me to get around to writing it all down, I'll write up more about it, including some classic one-liners from Seagull during the drive.
Saturday, 16 April 2011
Things I love about my kids
Like any parent, I have times where my kids drive me absolutely insane. Particularly Seagull. I know he's only 2 and he can't help it, he's learning how to talk and he gets frustrated easily, but it doesn't stop me from getting rather irritated by it all. It occurred to me the other day that it would be a good idea to sit down and think about all the things I love and appreciate about my kids. It's easy to let the little things get to you, which makes it that much more important to remember those moments that make you go "aw!"
The things I love about my kids include:
- Snuggling up to Wombat on a cold night and feeling him burrow in to get that little bit warmer.
- Waking up to "Hello Mummy!" from Seagull of a morning. Or "Hello Fishies!" if he happens to spy my phone.
- That Seagull has started to grab random bits of clean washing to put in the box that forms the base of our cats' scratching post and pretends that it's a washing machime (yes, that's a deliberate misspell as that's how he says it).
- How Wombat is so chilled out most of the time. I always thought that Seagull was pretty good as a baby, but Wombat is even cruisier (please don't hate me). I'm sure he's going to be just as difficult as Seagull once he hits the terrible twos, if not worse, so I'm going to enjoy him being chilled out while it lasts.
- The quiet times I have spent with both of them over the years as I've breastfed them. I get a certain sense of achievement and awe that I am completely responsible for their nutrition in the early months and that it is solely because of me that they get so adorably chubby.
- How cuddly my boys are. Wombat is such a snuggly cuddler. Seagull has always been the sort of child where cuddles are very much on his terms, which just makes the times he does come to me for a cuddle all the sweeter.
- That Seagull is so analytical. He has always been interested in any toy that has moving parts and he loves sussing out how they work.
- When Seagull says "I love Mummy. I love Daddy. I love Bubby".
- The way Wombat has an extra special smile when he sees his big brother. I really hope that my boys are good mates as they get older.
- How Seagull will sometimes lay down next to Wombat and give him kisses, stroke him or generally have a little play with him.
- How cute Wombat looks when he rolls onto his tummy, pushes up on his hands and looks around and grins at everyone.
As much as I feel worn out by my kids at times, they are the light of my life and I wouldn't have it any other way. I never got to spend much time with my Dad growing up due to Mum and I moving so far away after they separated, so most of my Dad's parenting experience has been with my much younger half sisters (henceforth referred to as sisters). He and my stepmother waited a few years after they got married to start their own family, but Dad once said to me that once they'd had my sisters, he didn't know how they ever lived without them. I feel exactly the same way about my boys.
The things I love about my kids include:
- Snuggling up to Wombat on a cold night and feeling him burrow in to get that little bit warmer.
- Waking up to "Hello Mummy!" from Seagull of a morning. Or "Hello Fishies!" if he happens to spy my phone.
- That Seagull has started to grab random bits of clean washing to put in the box that forms the base of our cats' scratching post and pretends that it's a washing machime (yes, that's a deliberate misspell as that's how he says it).
- How Wombat is so chilled out most of the time. I always thought that Seagull was pretty good as a baby, but Wombat is even cruisier (please don't hate me). I'm sure he's going to be just as difficult as Seagull once he hits the terrible twos, if not worse, so I'm going to enjoy him being chilled out while it lasts.
- The quiet times I have spent with both of them over the years as I've breastfed them. I get a certain sense of achievement and awe that I am completely responsible for their nutrition in the early months and that it is solely because of me that they get so adorably chubby.
- How cuddly my boys are. Wombat is such a snuggly cuddler. Seagull has always been the sort of child where cuddles are very much on his terms, which just makes the times he does come to me for a cuddle all the sweeter.
- That Seagull is so analytical. He has always been interested in any toy that has moving parts and he loves sussing out how they work.
- When Seagull says "I love Mummy. I love Daddy. I love Bubby".
- The way Wombat has an extra special smile when he sees his big brother. I really hope that my boys are good mates as they get older.
- How Seagull will sometimes lay down next to Wombat and give him kisses, stroke him or generally have a little play with him.
- How cute Wombat looks when he rolls onto his tummy, pushes up on his hands and looks around and grins at everyone.
As much as I feel worn out by my kids at times, they are the light of my life and I wouldn't have it any other way. I never got to spend much time with my Dad growing up due to Mum and I moving so far away after they separated, so most of my Dad's parenting experience has been with my much younger half sisters (henceforth referred to as sisters). He and my stepmother waited a few years after they got married to start their own family, but Dad once said to me that once they'd had my sisters, he didn't know how they ever lived without them. I feel exactly the same way about my boys.
Friday, 15 April 2011
We got our car back!
A bit over two months ago we were involved in a car accident. It happened on a highway through a town about 40 minutes from home. It was dual lanes in each direction and we were in the right lane. There was another car in the left lane. As we were driving along, a car pulled out of a servo exit straight into the left lane. He realised that there was a car in the lane and managed to back up in time. I maintained my speed rather than slowing down because I didn't want to end up in the other driver's blind spot if they decided to try to move into the right lane. Next thing I knew, Thunder Maker was telling me to "watch out". As I looked to the left, I realised that the vehicle that had been trying to leave the servo before was now immediately to my left and was going to be in front of me in about 2 seconds. I hit the breaks, but didn't even have time for them to engage before I hit the side of the nose of his car. It all happened so quickly, yet so slowly at the same time. I remember thinking as we impacted "Thunder Maker is going to kill me!" After all, it was his car I was driving.
Both children had been sleeping in the back at the time, but they weren't asleep for long. I heard Wombat squeaking in the back and Seagull was shrieking in distress. Once I knew that everyone in our car was OK, I forced my door open to get out and check on the people in the other car. I saw them both get out as I was opening my door. Once my feet hit the ground, my knees very nearly joined them. The only thing keeping me upright was that I was hanging off the car door. My attention turned to Seagull at this point. He was still screaming and I really wanted to get him out of the car and give him a cuddle, but I couldn't make my legs work to walk the three steps to his door to open it. By this stage, there was a really nice bloke who had witnessed the whole thing who had stopped to offer whatever assistance he could. He told me to go sit down on the bench seat that was on the other side of the road and he'd bring the kids over.
Once the police came and took statements, we were left to organise a tow. We also had to organise to get back home. The bloke who had been helping us out offered to drive us back home, but we couldn't use the kids' car seats due to them being involved in the accident and he had none, so we had to decline. I ended up calling a friend of mine who has two children about the same age as mine and asking her to come get us.
We had to wait about 6 weeks before finding out that the insurance company had approved the repair of the car. Thunder Maker had been to the smash repairer and explained to him that we really wanted the car back (we wouldn't have gotten enough back to buy a new one if it had been written off), so he made the extra special effort to prove that the chassis wasn't bent and that it was going to be cheaper to repair it than to pay us out.
Today, Thunder Maker and I had separate places to be and he had misplaced his phone. We were hoping to hear back about the car today, so I dropped in to find out how the car was going. They were in the process of doing up the last bolts and were going to clean and polish the car before giving it back. The smash repairer told me that it was lucky I hit the other vehicle square on, because if I had have hit at an angle, I would have bent the chassis.
It was a very sweet moment picking up the car this afternoon. It's going to be very odd not having to juggle our movements and working out who gets to take the car any more. It's going to be very good being able to put the children's car seats back into the other car. My car is very small and Thunder Maker is very tall. He has to sit in the passenger seat turned to the side when I am driving because Wombat's car seat is behind the passenger seat and is rear facing, so the passenger seat has to be right forward to fit the car seat in. The best thing of all is, we are actually going to be able to go away for Easter and my uni residential now. Can anyone say "road trip?"
Both children had been sleeping in the back at the time, but they weren't asleep for long. I heard Wombat squeaking in the back and Seagull was shrieking in distress. Once I knew that everyone in our car was OK, I forced my door open to get out and check on the people in the other car. I saw them both get out as I was opening my door. Once my feet hit the ground, my knees very nearly joined them. The only thing keeping me upright was that I was hanging off the car door. My attention turned to Seagull at this point. He was still screaming and I really wanted to get him out of the car and give him a cuddle, but I couldn't make my legs work to walk the three steps to his door to open it. By this stage, there was a really nice bloke who had witnessed the whole thing who had stopped to offer whatever assistance he could. He told me to go sit down on the bench seat that was on the other side of the road and he'd bring the kids over.
Once the police came and took statements, we were left to organise a tow. We also had to organise to get back home. The bloke who had been helping us out offered to drive us back home, but we couldn't use the kids' car seats due to them being involved in the accident and he had none, so we had to decline. I ended up calling a friend of mine who has two children about the same age as mine and asking her to come get us.
We had to wait about 6 weeks before finding out that the insurance company had approved the repair of the car. Thunder Maker had been to the smash repairer and explained to him that we really wanted the car back (we wouldn't have gotten enough back to buy a new one if it had been written off), so he made the extra special effort to prove that the chassis wasn't bent and that it was going to be cheaper to repair it than to pay us out.
Today, Thunder Maker and I had separate places to be and he had misplaced his phone. We were hoping to hear back about the car today, so I dropped in to find out how the car was going. They were in the process of doing up the last bolts and were going to clean and polish the car before giving it back. The smash repairer told me that it was lucky I hit the other vehicle square on, because if I had have hit at an angle, I would have bent the chassis.
It was a very sweet moment picking up the car this afternoon. It's going to be very odd not having to juggle our movements and working out who gets to take the car any more. It's going to be very good being able to put the children's car seats back into the other car. My car is very small and Thunder Maker is very tall. He has to sit in the passenger seat turned to the side when I am driving because Wombat's car seat is behind the passenger seat and is rear facing, so the passenger seat has to be right forward to fit the car seat in. The best thing of all is, we are actually going to be able to go away for Easter and my uni residential now. Can anyone say "road trip?"
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
Seagull's new shoes
When Seagull first started walking, I noticed that he seemed to be favouring the outside edge of his left foot. I wasn't sure if it was something I should be worried about, but I thought I should take him to see a podiatrist. Then I forgot all about it. Or more to the point, life got in the way and I figured that I'd get around to it at some point.
One day when I was dropping Seagull off to childcare, one of his carers commented that she had noticed him walking funnily on his left foot. I figured at that point that if other people were noticing, that it was time to take Seagull to see a podiatrist. I went to work, dug out the phone book and made a call. Seagull was booked in for that Saturday.
The podiatrist that I took Seagull to see was a really nice man. He was probably around about my age, certainly no more than a couple of years older. He explained to me that Seagull probably had metatarsus adductus. That means that the big long bones in his feet that connect the ankle bones to the toe bones were turning inward. It is something that is more common in first babies and occurs when their feet get squished up in-utero whilst forming and growing. Unfortunately, there are no paediatric podiatrists in the area, so he was going to have to refer me to someone down in Melbourne.
We went to get x-rays done the next week. I was expecting Seagull to want to run around and generally not co-operate, but he was surprisingly good. I had to hide away from the x-ray equipment because I was about 18 weeks pregnant with Wombat at the time. The x-rays confirmed the podiatrist's suspicions and actually showed that Seagull's right foot was more affected than the left foot, even though it was more noticeable in the left foot because of the way he walked.
We had to wait about 6 weeks before we could get in to see the paediatric podiatrist. She was wonderful. She explained that we could either treat Seagull by casting his feet or putting splints on them at night. Casting treats them faster, but she wasn't prepared to recommend it as I was pregnant at the time and she didn't want Seagull kicking my pregnant belly with casts on his feet. We made an appointment to see her boss/mentor the following week to have the splints made up. We were also asked to get Seagull a new pair of shoes. They had to have a firm sole and the inside edge had to be as straight as possible so that there was no room for his feet to turn inward.
The next week, Seagull had splints made up for his feet. He was not amused. However, he didn't mind putting them on at night. I had forgotten how much he loves shoes. I ended up calling his splints his bed shoes and he would quite happily toddle over to me to have them put on. He even got quite proficient at walking in them, which was no mean feat, given that they're not designed to be walked in.
One day when I was dropping Seagull off to childcare, one of his carers commented that she had noticed him walking funnily on his left foot. I figured at that point that if other people were noticing, that it was time to take Seagull to see a podiatrist. I went to work, dug out the phone book and made a call. Seagull was booked in for that Saturday.
The podiatrist that I took Seagull to see was a really nice man. He was probably around about my age, certainly no more than a couple of years older. He explained to me that Seagull probably had metatarsus adductus. That means that the big long bones in his feet that connect the ankle bones to the toe bones were turning inward. It is something that is more common in first babies and occurs when their feet get squished up in-utero whilst forming and growing. Unfortunately, there are no paediatric podiatrists in the area, so he was going to have to refer me to someone down in Melbourne.
We went to get x-rays done the next week. I was expecting Seagull to want to run around and generally not co-operate, but he was surprisingly good. I had to hide away from the x-ray equipment because I was about 18 weeks pregnant with Wombat at the time. The x-rays confirmed the podiatrist's suspicions and actually showed that Seagull's right foot was more affected than the left foot, even though it was more noticeable in the left foot because of the way he walked.
We had to wait about 6 weeks before we could get in to see the paediatric podiatrist. She was wonderful. She explained that we could either treat Seagull by casting his feet or putting splints on them at night. Casting treats them faster, but she wasn't prepared to recommend it as I was pregnant at the time and she didn't want Seagull kicking my pregnant belly with casts on his feet. We made an appointment to see her boss/mentor the following week to have the splints made up. We were also asked to get Seagull a new pair of shoes. They had to have a firm sole and the inside edge had to be as straight as possible so that there was no room for his feet to turn inward.
The next week, Seagull had splints made up for his feet. He was not amused. However, he didn't mind putting them on at night. I had forgotten how much he loves shoes. I ended up calling his splints his bed shoes and he would quite happily toddle over to me to have them put on. He even got quite proficient at walking in them, which was no mean feat, given that they're not designed to be walked in.
This is similar to the splints that Seagull had to wear.
Just imagine it in a child size.
Seagull had to wear his splints for about 4 months until just before Christmas, when we were given the OK for him not to wear them any more. This is not the end of our journey where Seagull's feet are concerned though. We still have to be very particular about his shoes so that we don't give his feet enough room to turn inside the shoe. To add to our issues, Seagull seems to take after me in the small foot department, which makes it just that little bit harder to find shoes for him.
There is a really good shoe shop near Seagull's podiatrist that I don't mind making the drive down to Melbourne for. Of course, I plan other things to do as well. I'm not going to drive for 2 hours just to get shoes. We happened to be down that way a few weeks ago, so we stopped in and got Seagull fitted for a new pair of winter shoes. As they cost less than I thought they would, I decided to stop by a shop that sells sports shoes and pick up a pair of runners as well. The guy there talked me into getting a size larger than I had wanted to get, telling me that Seagull will grow into them.
A couple of days later, I put them on Seagull. He took three steps and tripped over his shoes. When I checked them, I realised that they were a good couple of centimetres too long for him. I knew I should have stuck to my guns and bought the smaller size.
Yesterday, I decided that I was sick of Seagull trashing what I had bought to be a good-ish pair of shoes and took him down the street to our local sports store. They had the froodiest pair of black and yellow runners and they happened to be in Seagull's size. At last, success!
I'm not going to lose Seagull in a hurry when he is wearing these.
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