Question time

So boy-child has been pretty good all day. Not exactly normal but close to it. He spent much of the day playing with friends and fantasizing about life as a wrestler.
We spent the afternoon in the park with a rather group of friends sharing a picnic to celebrate Halloween. The plan was to let the kids eat too much junk food and run wild. In actual fact boy-child spent his time snuggled on my lap.
Afterwards I went to a friends for dinner but man-child took the boy home to rest. I am not long home and already his temp is up to 39.2 and not as hot to touch as last night (mine is currently 36.7).
The pharmacist was suggesting that over 38 was a trip to the emergency room. I am not sure though. Whilst hot he is not unwell. He is eating and drinking, he is hungry he is just hot and has a headache. I don’t know what to do. The emergency eo is likely to let is sit there all night saying it is just fever and ther is nothing they can do.
For now he is burning up andeatcjimg Toy Story 2, wondering why je can’t have popcorn. I think it is going to be another long night. Should I plan a trip to the emergency room or try wait it out?

More Plans Out the Window

I have grand plans for this weekend, plans that included sleep. I negotiated with the kids that of they wanted to go to the Halloween picnic they had to allow me to sleep in. Also as I still need to make/finish costumes I need them to clean up their room and put toys away as they do every Saturday morning prior to getting their pocket money. Once that was done we were going to make witchy fingers to take to the picnic. I even tried to circumvent the mess I anticipate will occour during the biscuit making so I pre mixed the dough before going to bed. And yes I made the dough to prevent mess not just because I wanted to snack on it!
Anyway, that was my plan. It was spimple really, how could it go wrong? Oh I forgot the moons have aligned in a most conspiritoral way again and I am spending the wee hours of the morning wide awake listening to the ragged, rapid breathing and delusional rants of boy-child as he lay beside me on the sofa bed in the study.
He woke up about an hour ago (about 3 hours after I went to bed) screaming. He has a headache, fever and by the sound of it a blocked sinus. Even after nurofen the poor boy is so hot it is like laying next to a radiant heater that can only be comfortable if draped over my body. I don’t think much sleep will be happening this morning

Grumpy Old Troll

That’s me, the grumpy old troll and I should live under a bridge.  I am not a very nice person these days.

I was just called upstairs to two very distressed children.  The cause of their distress – a moth that was flying around their room as a result of the balcony door being opened.  Instead of being all concerned about the kids fear I was annoyed.  I wanted to know why they were afraid of a moth, something that they would normally want to try and catch to make a pet, why were they so irrational.  Oh and why were they awake an hour after going to bed!  I was annoyed that I had to chase a moth around their room through all of their mess.  I was annoyed that it was me who had to fix things again.  Eventually I got the moth out of their room but not out of the house so I simply shut their door and said goodnight through the door and reminded them that they should be asleep already.  Then for good measure I reminded them that if they didn’t clean up the mess of their room tomorrow Halloween would be cancelled and stomped off downstairs.

When I got downstairs the realisation hit me – they are just kids, little kids, a 6 and 7 year old.  I really should show some more compassion and stop being a total bitch.  They aren’t the reason I am tired and irrational.  I really shouldn’t take out my annoyance on my family they don’t deserve it.  All this on top of being told by man-child that I am ‘officially nicer to the cat than I am to him’.  This grumpy old troll needs to climb out from under the bridge and morph into something that loosely resembles a person and ideally a person that can be a decent partner and parent.  Bring on the weekend and a slight possibility of sleep.

So Tired

I can’t remember ever being so tired. Everthing hurts and I am grumpy. I don’t like feeling like this or being this way I just don’t see any real lifestyle change happening in a hurry so I am trying to get more sleep.

I am in bed wanting to be asleep yet trying to wait for the kids to fall asleep first. I am willing them to go to sleep but it isn’t working. I could walk downstairs and ask them to go to sleep but that would require energy that I don’t have. Besides, hearing them giggle uncontrolably makes me wish I were young and energetic, filled with fun and excitement.

Perhaps if I shut my tired burning eyes I will drift off to sleep to the same sounds of laughter and it will lead me to a land of happy dreams…

Chatting with Children

Like many parents the journey to get the kids to bed of an evening involves reading a book or three and a chat about the day.  Some days it is stressful and frantic, other days it is relaxed and days like today it is simply entertaining.

After reading the first book tonight, girl-child complained of a head ache.  The conversation that followed went something like this.

girl-child, “I’ve still got a headache”

me, “Oh I didn’t know that you had a headache, where does it hurt?”

girl-child, “here and here” pointing to the side of her head and the back of her head

me, “so what does it feel like”

girl-child, “it feels like my head is too tight”

me, “is your brain growing even bigger and you are even smarter now that you are six?”

At this point boy-child, who had been sitting by quietly watching the exchange, interrupts

boy-child, “Nah, she isn’t getting smarter she has got that infectious thing that will make her brain explode.  I don’t want to clean up that mess!”

Oh the love they share.

Fortunately girl-child was happy with the concept that perhaps she was getting smarter now that she is six.  She was also really tired after another crazy week.

Weekly Winners #6

After a yet another crazy, exhausting, glad-it-is-over kind of week, it is time to move on.  More things that have made me happy this weekend…

Spring is finally here, summer is on the way and the weather was beautiful.  We had to drag out the umbrellas to make sure that we didn’t all cook in the back yard.  I am really looking forward to backyard barbies all summer long.

Ready for Summer

Exploring Docklands and all the art installations.  This one of girl-child’s favourite.

Balancing Act

Then there is my favourite sculpture I love the Cow in a Tree.

Cow in a Tree

And finally, the purchase of the day – an early Christmas present, paintings of Melbourne already hanging on our wall!

Beautiful Melbourne

Another great weekend, I wonder what the new week has in store?

Birthday Parties – Breaking My Own Rules

This week I have broken most of my self imposed rules, one of which relates specifically to birthday celebrations.  I ‘don’t do birthday parties‘ for the kids every year, instead the celebrator can take a friend and go to the movies and have a sleep over (hasn’t happened yet) or we have cake in the park with a few friends (generally 3 or 4) on the day and we always have a family and friends barbeque the following weekend.  Now that seems like it should be simple right?  Well when I found out that there were only 7 girls in girl-child’s class and she was inviting 4 of them to her ‘cake in the park shindig’ and then realised that another girl and her sister would just turn up and eat cake as she lives opposite the park there would only be 2 girls in her class that wouldn’t be invited.  That was when I relented and allowed her to invite the 7 girls.  Add on neighbours, walk-bys and siblings and all of a sudden the small gathering became a rather large gathering.  It wasn’t too much of a hassle, in fact it was fun, however I did break my rules.

Then we get to the friends and family barbeque that kind of grew larger than expected.  It started just as us, my parents, Lil Sis and Billy.  Being a school girl now, girl-child doesn’t often get to see one of her oldest and best friend who goes to another school many suburbs away so we have to wait until weekend to catch up so of course we invited her and her family over.  Surprising all of us was the other Grandma and Aunt who came to visit, something that happens very infrequently.  Then of course what is a barbeque without neighbours so add a few more families to the ‘guest list’ and before we knew it the house was overflowing and a real celebration was in swing.

All the kids ate and then jumped in to the hot tub to splash away the afternoon until it was cake time.

More Birthday Cake

So for someone who doesn’t do birthday parties I feel as if I have allowed girl-child to celebrate a little too much.  Now ordinarily going over the top wouldn’t be such a bad thing normally but boy-child has missed out entirely.  His birthday is in the week before the school year begins.  He wanted to invite a friend over for a wii day and maybe a sleep over but this ‘friend’ would only come over if another boy would be there too – another boy that I really don’t like.  Besides, what does it say if a kid will only come over if they can bring their own friend.

I had visions of boy-child being excluded and having a horrible day so we were able to convince him to postpone his celebration until school started back and he could invite new friends from his new class.  Of course as wonderful as that sounded, he didn’t really settle in well.  Before he had a chance to make any new friends he dislocated his elbow and broke his arm and became even more isolated.  By the time he recovered it was the middle of Winter, 6 months after his birthday and man-child’s birthday.  The following holidays the weather was better but he was back in hospital for more surgery so there wasn’t much point in having a party then either.

The poor boy did have a small family shindig but hasn’t celebrated his birthday with friends, he didn’t even complain when girl-child had a ‘real birthday party’.  I feel so guilty about him missing out that I know that I will continue to break my party rules and he too will have a real birthday party next year.

All the motherguilt aside, the birthday celebrations were fun, the weekend was great and exhausting.  Perhaps I need to review my set of rules, take a chill pill and just have fun.

1000+

I think my Reader is reflective of the state of my life at the moment.  It is currently reading 1000+ and chaotic.

I want to hit ‘Mark All As Read’, and then I panic that I am going to miss out on something really exciting so I am sitting here trying to multi task, skimming through my ‘must read’ folders, playing bingo with the kids and imagining that the cleaning fairies are working their magic in the mess I call a house whilst procrastinating about making dinner and wishing I were sound asleep somewhere in the sun.

Instead, I wonder what recipes Google can suggest using eggplant and rice?

Happy to be 6 or Weekly Winners #5 (a few days late)

I think that girl-child is happy to be 6!

Waking up as a 6 year old.

She was so excited to finally be 6, she couldn’t stop smiling.

Reading a Birthday Card

Instead of ripping through the presents she stopped to read a card.

ooooh, Shiny!

I bet I know what this is – I bet it is a new charm for my bracelet, yay.

Hooray!

Looking at the photos, girl-child had a great birthday playing with her friends all afternoon in the park, enjoying the sunshine.

When I tucked her in to bed tonight I asked her if she liked being 6.  I expected that she would gush about how much fun it is but instead she became quite introspective, paused for a second and then said she didn’t want to be 6.  She went on to explain that she couldn’t be everywhere when she is 6 and it isn’t fair that she has to share herself, she wants to be 0, 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 all at the same time.  Her reasoning was that if she could be all those different ages she could share herself with more people, that she could play with all her friends at the one time and everyone would have much more fun.

Happy birthday my beautiful Boo, I can’t believe that you are 6 already.  I love you, thanks for being so much fun.

Normalish?

Well I am finally heading towards normal.  It is Sunday afternoon and all is quiet and dare I say ‘drama free’ in the house.  Girl-child and a friend are upstairs destroying playing quietly in her bedroom.  Boy-child is outside playing wii with our latest family addition (the new student arrived safely this morning), man-child has wandered over to a friends for a drop of red and I am sitting down to enjoy a drop of red also, relaxing to some great music, smelling the wonderful aromas of dinner gently simmering on the stove.  Mmmm, red chicken curry.

Today has also included a flying trip to Ikea to get a desk and chair.  In the 90 minute round trip I managed to get the items I required, plus a laptop bag, 1 1/2 dozen glasses, a desk lamp, power boards, napkins for tomorrows picnic in the park if the rain holds off, as well as stopping by the florist for some much needed fresh flowers to brighten up the place.

Oh and speaking of tomorrows events, I have made Honey Joys to be taken into girl-child’s class to be shared by all (hooray for simple sweet food that meets the class allergy criteria list), and because they were so easy to make I made a second batch to be eaten in the park.  When that was done, girl-child and her friend and I made an ice cream cake for her party.  OK, so we didn’t actually make an icecream cake, we partially melted some ice cream, added choc ripple biscuit chunks and chocolate toffee pieces, poured it in to moulds to re-freeze ready for the party!  Now all that is left to do is chop up some fresh fruit and vegetables and the party food is covered.  As for activities I think I will take a pile of dress ups to the park and they can all run around as fairies, princesses, mermaids or puppy dogs and make their own fun.

The easy part is done, trying to get 8 hours of work done in 5 hours or less tomorrow will be much more interesting but it will be done.  Fingers crossed I will get a better sleep tonight and not one that is filled with dreams/nightmares of me being injured.  I dreamt the same dream over and over all night – Some incident would occur (the incident would change with each variation of the dream) where the outcome was me being taken to the hospital for xrays of a broken ankle.  Of course knowing that I didn’t have the time or energy to be injured I had the hospital staff put a cast on my ankle that was black.  I then put a heel on it so I could pretend it was a boot and I was able to go about my life and work unhindered.  Naturally my walk was very suspect and ungainly looking so people were always questioning me about my strange footwear.  I must have been holding my foot as if it was in a cast all night long because today my calf muscle is as fatigued as if I had run a marathon in ill-fitting shoes!

Hopefully sleep tonight, aided by a drink or three will be more relaxing and sleep like, ready for a day of celebrating girl-child’s 6th birthday.

Edited to add:  OK, so I am clearly not back to normal yet.  I decided that I should post a link to the Honey Joy recipe as I had touted it as being so simple and delicious for the kids.  Doing this I noticed that right at the top of the recipe it says Preheat oven to 150°C. Oops I forgot that part, I haven’t cooked them yet!  How awesome am I?  A simple 7 line recipe and I forget the first and last of them.  I had better go do that now before I forget again.