It is what it is

Onwards & Upwards!

2008-04-07T22:15:00.001+10:00

WARNING: YET ANOTHER WAY TOO LONG, DRAWN OUT POST FOLLOWS THIS WARNING!

I’ve started and restarted this post several times on the computer, and a lot more in my mind. It’s been almost 2 months since I’ve posted anything here, and a hell of a lot longer since I’ve produced anything design related. I’d love to avoid a long bare-all personal kind of post, and just start posting again and be done with it, but while I don’t have a large amount of blog readers (and that isn’t actually why I keep a blog anyway), the few I do have mean a lot to me and I feel I want to give just a couple of explanations and apologies. I don’t really know what to say, but it’s a little bit of a goal of mine that I work it out today – these sort of things that one has procrastinated about have a way of getting harder and harder the longer you leave them!

When Travis was 8 months old, I was diagnosed with post natal depression by the clinic sister at the early childhood clinic here. She suggested that I make an appointment with my gp, which I did…. And promptly cancelled when my dear hubby had a very male moment and made it clear in no uncertain terms that he wanted me “happy” because I was happy, not because I was on some sort of medication.

I know that sounds very harsh, and will have a lot of people cursing him, but really it was ok. I found other ways that were temporary fixes, and it wasn’t like he would have stopped me had I wanted to seek medical help, he was just making his views, and perhaps fears and insecurities, known. I read a lot on the subject of depression and post natal depression, and implemented a lot of self help strategies and attempted with no success to implement a million more.

I got by, and it really wasn’t too bad.

Then life threw one of those bum steers in the 6 months that followed August 2005 ( and yes, I’ve been here on my blog before so I’ll skim over it really quickly). Hubby was fired from his job, unemployed, but lucky enough to have the best part of 6 months in entitlements. He did go through one or two other jobs at the end of that time, but the end result was, despite my incredibly strong objections, we bought a franchise business (I still don’t want it and we’ve had it for 2 years in May…LOL).

Everything declined and declined, things were quite rocky, life wasn’t that great! A few months after the purchase of the business, hubby said he was wrong (not about buying the business – that one is still coming…LOL) , but wrong about the depression, and that something definitely wasn’t right. It was then I seeked help from my GP, probably about 5 years after the first diagnosis.

I received medication, and I did notice the difference, although I’m not sure I was ever completely right in hindsight. I obviously felt reasonably well, because I went on to fall pregnant with Brodie not long after this.

When I stopped taking the pill, so as to fall pregnant with Brodie, I got out of the habit of also taking my anti depressant. I suppose I also thought I was ok, which we all know pregnancy hormones at the beginning of a pregnancy, I probably was! LOL. Later on in the pregnancy when things started to slide a little, I tried to start taking them again (which for all those throwing there hands up in horror at taking that sort of medication whilst I was pregnant, it was ok to be doing so). But the initial sleeplessness and nausea of getting them back into my system, on top of the pregnancy in general, was just more than I was ready to cope with. So I stayed off them.

Having a child is a funny thing. Everytime I have had a child I have been unreal for the next few months – getting everything done, staying on top of things, a neat home, a caring Mum, and loving wife. But I guess everything that goes up must come down.

By the time last Christmas rolled around I knew I was way out of my league again. In fact, I even mentioned to several people that I was going back on the medication, but I put off going to the doctors once again. Over the last couple of months it has just gone further and further downhill.

A couple of weeks ago, I began talking to Andrew a bit more about it again, and found myself saying things like “I feel like I’m half a person” and “I so love being a Mum, but there has to more to it than this”. One morning I was helping Travis get ready for school – and Travis and I have this thing where we often talk about (not in the hearing of other children) how all my children are really special, but he is also really special as he is the one that made me a Mummy. While we were getting ready that morning he mentioned this again and I agreed. He turned to me and said some words I will never forget “But you don’t really like being a Mum, do you?”

Needless to say, I corrected him and told him how much I do love being a Mum, but I also did explain that it is just quite difficult at times, which I believe he understands. But I knew that it was time that I made that trip to the doctors.

So…here I am, accepting of the fact that clinical depression will possibly be something I struggle with for a long time. Why it was so hard for me to go back to the doctor’s I’m not sure – my doctor is a fantastic man, whom I really hold on a pedestal especially where the children are concerned, and after I had spoken to him the first time about the depression, I’d had this immediate sense of relief and improvement just by knowing that help was on it’s way and I now had a “line of communication” established about it with someone in the medical profession. All the same, I found it really difficult to go back to him, and plead for my happy pills back…LOL! He of course replied with “Ab-so-lute-ly” when I asked if I could go back on the Zoloft, and then spent the next 15 minutes rousing on me for not coming to him sooner.

I’ve been back on the tablets 4 days now, and though it will take a while longer for them to kick in completely and rebalance all the chemicals that are supposedly out of whack, I’m starting to notice a couple of little improvements already. And probably due to a placebo affect more than anything – I’m filled with a new enthusiasm and a lot of positivism, and an excitement that while I know having three kids is a considerable amount of the reason that I don’t achieve a lot (not that achieving a relationship with them is not worthwhile or the most important thing anyway), I may just improve enough over the next couple of weeks to become more of the achiever I want to be.

Why did I feel the need to bare all and post all this? Not for pity…not for excuses…I really do feel quite ok and excited about the fact that I am back on the medication and can become a “whole” person again. And I really am cool bananas with the whole depression thing – people undoubtedly struggle with various things over the course of their life, and if my weakness is clinical depression, well I won’t accept it lying down, but I will accept it. But one of the hardest things about depression is that you’re left at the end of it (if it in fact has an end), having to face the fact that you have let a lot of people down, have broken a lot of intentions, have shied away from anything at all social or communicable with other people because it was uncomfortable and you really just didn’t have the energy, have seemed not interested for so long, have seemed not commited for so long, have been unreliable and have not always played your part.

Don’t misunderstand me, I sure can’t pin everything about my life on “clinical depression.” The bottom line is I have always been a procrastinator and am not the most organised of people. But I do believe several things about the depression.

Firstly, it has slowly but surely turned my house into one BIG dump! LOL. Not that I haven’t been trying and having great intentions, I have seriously had no time to scratch my bum and have been working at it from the moment I rise to the moment I go to bed. But it has all been in one big non prioritised, foggy, non focussed, and non productive kind of way. At the end of every day I haven’t stopped – yet – I’ve achieved not a thing!(Well for the most part anyway). Focus and productiveness have been absolute Z-E-R-O, and although I’m “normally” bad, I’m kind of hoping I’m not that bad. Now there are a whole heap of self help measures here, and believe me I had them all going through my mind…I had a plan for the best “stay on top of housework” idea you have ever seen, but the thing I personally find very ironic and difficult about depression, is you almost need a certain amount of “wellness” before you can implement these things. I had ideas galore, but hopefully without sounding like a cop out, had not been “well” enough to make a start.

Secondly, it has resulted in a very fluctuating relationship with hubby, he has probably been doing more than his fair share a lot of the time. I know I’m snappy at him when I’m “down”, I know I take almost everything he says as criticism, I know I run hot and cold with my moods, and I know I should have been biting my lip more than I have.

Thirdly, my care for myself and my health have again been ZERO. Which then becomes cyclic…the less you care for yourself and health and fitness, the further I believe you fall.

Fourthly, as a designer I have S-T-U-N-K. I have been incredibly fortunate enough to have wonderful store owners and an even more fab and understanding creative team. But I have lost count, as I’m sure they have, of the amount of times I had something new coming out next week when in all reality I haven’t done much at all since Brodie was born. Oh, the things I said should be done by the weekend are all sitting here on my hard drive, half completed. If I do manage to pick myself up completely in the next couple of weeks, and finish off all these little bits and put these ideas down, there should be a massive influx at Carole Neale designs. And when I said I thought they would be done by the end of next week, I really did think they would be, and they should have been able to have been. But again, the fogginess…the non-productiveness….the non-focus. I am still a designer, I am still a scrapper…. the interest is still very much there, I have had ideas for both designs and layouts a plenty…but being focussed enough to get them down and out there….well….it hasn’t been happening to say the least. I’m not going to make a heap of promises right now today, except to say I am quietly optimistic and hopeful….

And lastly, and most importantly, my gorgeous kids have lost the Mum they once had. By all means, I have still been here, still fed them, clothed them, fixed their hurts, read to them, helped with homework, cuddled them, protected them and even played with them … but that real genuine non rushed, interested consuming quality time has undoubtedly been lacking with my unsuccessful efforts in staying on top of everything else. Waking up to them during the night, or even in the morning, has been a massive challenge…and when I have woken I have been stiff and sore and tired and grumpy and anything but refreshed. I’ve had headaches more days than I haven’t, and haven’t always (not that anyone is expected to be ALWAYS) been as patient and loving and tolerant and calm as I once was with them. I haven’t been interested in leaving the house particularly (truth be known I’m a homebody anyway, but I’ve been a lot worse than usual) so the kids have missed out on a lot of days out and experiences. I guess it’s a good thing kids are forgiving and love as unconditionally as we do.

More than enough about this…I really didn’t want to blab about this so long, but I did feel the need to say something. It really isn’t meant to sound negative or a plea for pity… while I have been told not to expect major improvements for a week or two yet, I do have a mindset at the moment which is reason in itself is quite liberating. Today is the first day of the rest of my life as they say, and Onwards and Upwards I say!

Now….4 pages on…back to the regular scheduled programme of this blog.

I’d left everyone cold with answers as to how Travis was doing, but I’m pleased to say he is doing considerably better. While I say that, it is something I believe we will have to keep an eye on with him – he definitely is prone to these sort of moods, and to gloominess and sulkiness, and if you are wondering if I wonder if it is some sort of genetically passed down proneness direct from his Mother…than yes, I do at times. Once he was really back into the swing of things with school, and being more challenged, his mood and outbursts definitely improved. There is still a lot of trouble in getting him to spend time on activities that aren’t computer related, without us being a direct part of them.
We implemented a happy book, both him and I, where we jotted things or drew little pictures of things that were positive during the day, or that made us smile. Cooper joined in as well, with Travis’ permission. We did our “happy books” daily for a little while, and it slowly lessened to now when it’s been quite a while since we have drawn anything in them.
Andrew and I have talked a lot the last week or two about an afternoon activity or two for Travis. I still find it hard to come up with something (especially in our regional location) that is just the right “fit” for Travis. Some sort of musical instrument would probably work very well, but right at the moment we wouldn’t have the funds to provide one at home as well. He himself is showing quite a bit of interest in Karate – which I am considering. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the idea, and even though I have tried to explain it, I’m not sure he understands that it IS NOT fighting. But still, if he is showing the interest that has to say something.
Has anyone had any experience with scouts? I have always been quite anti scouts – probably for no good reason at all, but it popped into my head the other day, and I’m thinking it may be one of the best fits I can come up with right now. (I of course wouldn’t be “making” him do it, if he didn’t want to). The younger groups, as far as my knowledge goes, don’t require large physical skills, but will improve on them and give confidence with them. The activities change constantly, which would suit Travis a lot better than playing the same game of soccer week in, week out. And I love the fact that the competitiveness of scouts is more competitive against yourself, rather than against each other. When we first started talking to Trav about an afternoon activity for him, he wanted to be “making things”, “something crafty”… and there isn’t a lot I can find that fits that bill, but scouts, especially the younger groups, have that element included. I also feel scouts may just give him an added sense of belonging, more so than other afternoon activities, that could be beneficial. The community mindedness, the morals, the comraderie, the discipline…. So much of scouts I feel could either be a good fit or largely beneficial for Travis’ character.
I am at the moment delving into two books – in a non-focussed, best of intentions kind of way (see long whine above). They are Bringing up your Talented Child by Geoff Lewis and More Secrets of Happy Children by Steve Biddulph. I can’t say I have really read enough to warrant a comment as yet, but I will endeavour to get back to commenting on these books.
Travis is really doing quite well considering he has a lot to deal with at the moment for a 6 year old. He is facing a 2nd lot of surgery to correct his eye squint on the 2nd Wednesday of the school holidays, and this time they will be operating on both eyes, not just one. I won’t go into too much details right now, as it’s getting kind of late, but maybe, just maybe I might post more about this in a day or so.
Also, we have just had a hearing test completed for Travis recently, which was one of those very bad Mum moments where I was expecting an answer that would allow me to say “There’s nothing wrong, the doctor said, so make an effort to listen a little better.” The answer I in fact received was that his hearing is slightly below average in his left ear and considerably below average in his right ear. Now this isn’t anywhere near as bad as it could be…they aren’t a permanent “deaf-ness” kind of hearing loss, but more a temporary trouble-coping-with-fluid-behind-the-drum and poorly-functioning-eustacean(sp?)-tube kind of hearing loss that absolute worse case scenario is further surgery for grommets. I’m yet to go follow up with the GP on his hearing report as it was only just recently carried out, so I’m sure you’ll hear a lot more on this as it progresses. Whilst he does ok, and gets by, he is probably using a lot of visual clues in class and such and even at home, and it is undoubtedly one more cause of frustration for someone so young.

Brodie is doing well, or at least if you’d asked me last week I would have said that. This week she broke our 6 year long run of having children and never having had to use the emergency department of the hospital. I took her in (which was a very scary drive by myself! LOL) at 5 on Tuesday morning, suffering from Croup, after a night of listening to her wheeze and struggle to get each breath in. That sounds horrible that I waited that long, but I knew she was getting enough oxygen (and that was confirmed when we got to hospital) and it was sooooo cold outside that night I was worried that taking her out to get help straight away was more of an evil than waiting until daylight and a little bit of warmth. Anyway, come 5am, I had listened to her struggle as long as I personally could, either way, and it wasn’t improving. She spent only 3 hours at hospital (which is marvellous for our local emergency!), hates nebuliser’s with a vengeance, had a dose of steroids with 2 more doses to come, and came home before the boys went to school already breathing a lot easier. There was a lot of sleep deprivation on both hers and my account over the next few days. She is still quite sick at the moment, just with a residual cold, but most of the croupiness has gone. Cooper, on the other hand, now sounds croup-y, but at this stage is coping quite ok with it, and not having the same breathing trouble Brodie was, so we’re just watching it closely over the next day or so.

I could and should probably update on so many other things, but it will all have to wait till another day. If anyone has read this far, thank you so much for bearing with yet another long painful drawn out post. I’m sure I’ll get better at this blogging thing one day, and learn to be a little more selective about it’s inclusions! LOL

Rolls

2008-02-13T19:53:00.002+11:00

Rolls on your thighs are the new must-have-accesory! Haven't you heard?

A gorgeous photo of little Holli, daughter of Annette inspired me to post this pic I took of Brodie in her first skirt.

Hoping to get back here to post tonight - but yet to see whether it happens or not :)

continued....

2008-02-11T10:52:00.001+11:00

This whole thing with Travis is so utterly consuming to most things I'm doing and almost everything I'm thinking at the moment, that it's probably all you will be hearing about for a while. I'm not sure when it got so bad, or why it just hit me the other night, when in hindsight, it's been coming on for a while.

Yesterday was marginally better. But I'm not deluding myself that the fact that it was the infamous "nintendo day" (kids are allowed to play Nintendo on Sundays) helped a lot.

We tempted them both away from it for a while in the afternoon for a family trip to the local park. This park inparticular I had mentioned to hubby a while back would be a great place to help Travis with his bike riding, seeing as it is something he still can't successfully do in our backyard (which granted doesn't lend itself well to bike riding for young'ns.) The park has a long curvy path going diagonally through it, that is smooth and only slightly downhill on one way, and obviously therefore is a slight gradual uphill travelling the other way. So we threw Travis bike in the back of the suby and headed off.

Travis did really really well with his bike riding and the hill was actually a lot longer and harder than I originally gave it credit for for someone with not much leg strength. But he still persisted and he did great. He'd leave it and come and have a climb and a slide, and then be back off to the bike again with no pressure from us. He worked really hard, and he enjoyed it.

I discovered last night that I had several private messages over at pickleberrypop that I had been unaware of, regarding the whole situation. Aparently, I was banking on the fact that my user settings were set to notify by email of private messages and they weren't. So so many people have offered words of advice and comfort, and shared similar things that they have been through with their children and how they have or are overcoming it. It really is such a comfort. Everyone has said something worthwhile, and something I feel I can put in place to possibly help me out here. I truly feel blessed to be part of such a wonderful forum and group of ladies, and some of the very personal and moving experiences they have shared with me, well, I really feel honoured, humbled and appreciative.

One private message I received in particular I read thinking to myself - YES - that's exactly what I mean. The words "created the habit of being unhappy" and "unbearable, no self esteem, no self motivation, was either very angry or very sad" are EXACTLY the situation. The private message shared with me how this family have been working to overcome it, and I'm very much thinking of going down the same track.

One thing I will be doing is starting a "happy book" with Travis, which I had actually conceived the idea before I received the above mentioned private message. I had this idea, to help him see that good things to happen, and the positive side of things, that him and I together (so that it doesn't feel like something I am picking on him about, and in honesty, it would probably be a beneficial practice for me too) draw pictures or write simple sentences about the good things that have happened to us on that particular day. I don't want it to become something he "HAS" to do everyday, but if we could do it together most days, that would be great. The other thing I am doing is currently pouring over this wonderful site I have found.

I mentioned it to him this morning, in a very casual "I'm thinking about starting to do a happy book....hey...I know, why don't you do one with me" kind of way. After discussing what a happy book would be, he seemed quite keen on the idea. I threw some ideas in about what could have gone in it for yesterday....nintendo day, the mario kart where you came first, the trip to the park... and he addded "oh, and riding my bike". So I was glad that that was a winner! LOL

He seeemed quite ok and relatively cheery this morning, until it was time to go to school. Then he didn't want to go to school, he didn't like school.

Mum: Really, you've always loved school, why have you decided you don't like school?

Travis: Because I don't like the work.

Mum: Is that because it's too easy?

Travis: No, it's too hard.

Mum: Really, Are you finding it hard? I didn't think you found the school work hard?

Travis: It's just the colouring in. (I know for a fact Travis hates colouring in, always has)

Mum: Is the colouring in hard though, or just boring and takes a long time.

Travis: Just boring and takes a long time.

Mum: But there is so much else that happens at school, colouring in is only such a small part of it. What about seeing your friends, computer time, making the orange juice you're going to make with Mrs. Carroll today? That's all good stuff isn't it?

Travis: (Shrug)

Mum: Is there something else other than the colouring in which is making you not like school?

Travis: No, just the colouring in.

Mum: Nothing else is happening? If there was something else that was happening that made you not like going to school, you know it's ok tell me and I'd want you to tell me, and we could possibly do something about it.

Travis: No nothing else is happening, I just don't like the colouring in.

I tried to check again, in a couple of other subtle ways that nothing else is going on. I don't think there is. It's definately nothing I can get him to admit to me if there is. Again, I feel he has just created a "habit of being unhappy" about things. Being glum. Seeing the negative. Finding things hard and having no enthusiasm or motivation.

The conversation did continue and I said "But you have always loved school, mate." He looked at me and said "Is that what you think Mum? Because I haven't."

Now I know I'm supposed to be listening to the child, and not just believing what I have thought to be the case, but I know that isn't true! Travis has loved school, and have had a thirst for learning since the day he was born. It's just his nature. So where does that leave me now???

Anyway, we finished up with a "Well, we can do something fun when you come home from school, ok?"

I'm strongly thinking about involving the school counsellor. Part of me would prefer not to, as I know hubby is objecting to the idea (although I was surprised he was very "for" my happy book idea) . He tends to be a typical male about any counselling/psychology type ideas and involvement, but we'll see. If I feel Travis needs it and isn't making an improvement with anything I can do, then I'll be able to sway Andrew, and even if I can't, then I would be doing it for Trav's good anyway.

Ok, that's enough thinking out loud for now. I'll leave with a couple of pics from the park. I'm abl to get some really nice shots of Brodie now she is sitting so well. I just love the last one in particular. I love the shot of Cooper as well. Unlike Travis, Cooper normally just pretends to be snarly. It really is a "cooper-personality" shot.

The search for a happy Travis continues

2008-02-09T21:07:00.001+11:00

So I received an email from a web friend with some very valid points and questions regarding Travis! Questions like how is his relationship with the other two kids and has the situation with Travis been since Brodie's been with us. I thought about them and no, I don't think it's directly related to Brodie's existence, sure it may be a little worse, but Travis has been prone to this long before then, and I feel now, that it's been coming on since before then too. His relationship with the others I'd describe as normal - absolutely doting and caring and smitten with Brodie, and Cooper, well, I think all brothers that are close in age and share a room would be very similar. Either fighting like cats or dogs or getting along like a house on fire and giggling together and helping each other - more often than not, the latter.
The question that hit home hard was does he get much one on one time? And then followed up with does he play much with friends after school?
No, he doesn't get a lot. And I kind of tied those questions together, because yes he does play a little with friends after school (not a lot, granted, but a little), but more importantly when he does, at least when he has the friend here, Cooper plays with them as well. So even that isn't one on one time with his own friend, nevermind his parents. So many of the friends he sees at school and plays with afterwards are family friends, that when they do come over, Cooper is use to playing with them as well, so helps himself to joining in. In Cooper's defence (or mine???), Travis doesn't seem to object to this at all.
I'm not saying it's necessarily the problem or necessarily the solution, but I'm sure it would go a long way. It sounds stupid, but I guess somewhere along the line I'd forgotten about one on one time. Cooper had started growing up, and is quite intelligent himself, so he became capable of playing the games we play with Travis, albeit with help from us. There came a point where I insisted that Travis and Dad started letting Cooper go on trips down to the shops with them, I guess because he was growing up and becoming more aware he was missing out, and the whole worry about middle child syndrome and such.
But then it's tough being the eldest too. Especially when it's the eldest to a volatile Cooper who is triggered into rages by little things. Travis is often asked to help Cooper with tasks or to "just let it go" because Cooper is only 3. He does this so beautifully and gently and happily, to the point that when Travis is given that bit of responsibility or ability to help he is in his utmost prime. But then on the other hand, because of Cooper's volatile-ness, we stop Travis from "being the parent". He is not allowed to tell Cooper what to do or point out what he may have forgotten to do or problems with his behaviour, because Cooper doesn't take it well coming from Travis. Now I know that helping out (what he is allowed to do) and coming down on a smaller sibling for poor behaviour for example (what he is not allowed to do) are very different things in one aspect, but it could be as confusing as all buggery to a 6 year old. And go along way to a child having difficulty finding a place or knowing where he fits, which was another valid point in the email I received.
The fact that he has gone to school, 5 days a week, for a year now, would have had massive impacts on one on one time too. And now that Cooper only sleeps a couple of times a week, we have encouraged Travis (not that it usually works, due to Travis' need for adult company or play all the time) to do his own quiet activity by himself during that time to give everyone a break, instead of cashing in on the time with Travis.
So I did, until all hours last night, what any concerned parent living in this century would do, and googled "one on one time". LOL! Then I *really* started reading stuff that I could relate too or that hit home hard.
Like this....
One evening as I tucked my 4-year-old daughter into bed, she said wistfully, "Mommy, I didn't have any time with you today."
Huh? Astonished, I replied, "But we went to the library and the supermarket and had dinner together."
"But we didn't have any fun," she countered.
With a guilty gulp, I realized what she meant. I hadn't really focused on her--or her brothers--for weeks. Sure, I was ferrying the kids to preschool and playgroup, amusing them with trips to the mall, and reading the requisite books before bed. But I hadn't spent much time playing the games they wanted to play, relaxing the way they like to relax, talking about topics they wanted to discuss. With work deadlines looming and our house on the market, I scarcely had time to shower!
"Many parents are so overscheduled that they lose track of where their child fits into their lives," notes Stanley I. Greenspan, M.D., a child psychiatrist at George Washington University Medical School in Washington, DC. What's more, parents try so hard to make the most of what little time they have with their kid that they often overcompensate with "enrichment" activities.
But there's a big difference between chatting with your child in order to build her vocabulary and striking up a conversation just because you like her company. "Kids know when they're being 'worked on,'" says Stanley Turecki, M.D., a child psychiatrist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York and author of Normal Children Have Problems, Too. "Some of that is worthwhile, of course. But if it characterizes your every interaction, something vital is missing from your relationship."
[taken from this page]
and
I am still trying to figure out how to manage days that are no longer mine with deadlines that definitely are!
[taken from this page]

But the following video was probably my favourite. Except for the title (To a Child Love is spelled T-I-M-E) it probably isn't as relevant to me as some of the stuff I stumbled across in so much that I have never seen spending the time with the kids as "wasting time", but it is incredibly incredibly moving all the same, and I would urge anyone who is a parent to watch it.

http://www.tacmovie.com/

So where does one go from here?
Something obviously had/has to change, for the benefit of everyone but especially Travis, but at the same time, I do have 2 other children, one who is a baby, commitments of my own, business to run and a house to keep clean-ish. I didn't want to do a "one extreme to the other" kind of thing, or over do it.
This morning when it was time to get kids changed before breakfast, I called Travis into his room. "Firstly, give me a cuddle." We cuddled and tickled and laughed for 10 minutes or so before I said we had to get changed. Now, let me say, that I cuddle and tickle and laugh with my kids a lot, but not necessarily in a one on one kind of way. I mentioned to him that I'd snuck in there for a cuddle while the other two were in the loungeroom. It wasn't much, not much at all, and Travis put on quite a performance when I said it was time for him to get changed now, but it was a first step at making the conscious effort to change things.
After breakfast, he asked to use the computer, which normally would not be something we do in the morning, nor something I want him starting on so early in the day. But I thought about a compromise. He often watches me doing artrage and wants to do it, perhaps I could steer him in that direction, which he was thrilled with the idea. He could even have a go using my tablet, rather than the mouse. And that could double as a "thing for us/thing in common" kind of activity too. He has a lot of knowledge of artrage from school, but normally hasn't been using it at home (as he was asking before I was aware he was familiar with the program), so I suggested that if he wanted to use the computer then he could show me how clever he is at artrage. He was happy with that. I sat down with him for a while, and showed him how to use the tablet, and how I "do the thing with the photo's" and watched him do it for some time before I had to go feed Brodie and give her a sleep, and do washing, and unload dishwasher...and so on and so on. After a while, he wanted to just play games, and we, at least I thought together, decided on that he could have half an hour of his choice on the computer now. I warned him when his half an hour was almost up, but it didn't stop the incredible sulking and "life's unfair" outburst when the time was over
I hadn't fully decided whether I was going to, or whether I should be, discussing any of this new direction with him, but when I went into him later, it just kind of happened. We talked about how I'm worried about him, and how I want him to be happy. How the most important thing to me is being a Mummy, and I love all my kids the same, but there will always be a little special something about him and I because he was the one that first made me a Mummy. We had more cuddles. We talked about the various things I absolutely must do, and the reasons why they NEED to be done even though I'd probably rather be with him. And then I talked about how I wanted to, and would be, spending more time with him, not just the time playing with all of us that we normally do, but more time with just him and I, and that maybe we could play a game together this afternoon when Cooper was asleep. And I also said that I would be spending time like that with Cooper and Brodie as well.
Well, Travis being the clever little one he is, proceeded to use it against me all morning. Or at least that's how it seemed. If I was doing the washing, one of the things we discussed why it NEEDED to be done, it was "why aren't you spending time with me?" I reminded him that these things needed to be done, he needed clean school uniforms for Monday and that I couldn't leave it because it was raining and was going to take a lot of work to get them dry. When I was making lunch, it was the same. I reminded him that talked about how we need him to have time as well where he is able to play a little by himself, so that we can get these things done. You know, it even occurred to me to wonder how much he is playing on all of this because it is helping him get his own way. Is the utter misery possibly a little bit fake at times when it suits him?
When the younger kids were in bed this afternoon, we played Mouse Trap, his choice, as promised. 2 games, 2 hours, I lost them both...LOL! We had fun, and I was happy to be playing with him. It was mentioned, but no big thing was made of that fact that "I was spending time with him" or "see, I'm doing something with you now" - I didn't want it to be me earning brownie points kind of thing, just me playing a game with Travis because I wanted to be. When Cooper woke up just before we finished the second game, I secretly cringed at the fact that his whole nap was now gone without me achieving any of the millions of things on my to do list. Cooper watched the end of our game, and then wanted me to play again with him. I said I couldn't play anymore just now, but later on, I would be able to do something just with him.
Travis returned only a minute or so later, "I know Mum, later on, how about you do something with Cooper and I and not just Cooper."
"Travis, I need to spend just a little bit of time with just Cooper and I too."
"Fine then!!!" And he storms outside. He's sitting in my new hammock chair, saying deliberately loud enough for me to hear him, "if she isn't going to care about me, then I won't care about her either." I ignored it, but did find myself wondering again, how much of this he is playing on deliberately.

Good thing I knew that if this was going to be the solution, that it was going to be something that gradually improved over a month or two once quality one on one time was re-introduced, and not an instant fix. We'll just keep plodding on :)

Andrew just did lots of rolling eyes throughout the whole day at Travis' playing on it and using it against me. Whilst he is in agreeance with me that no, the children aren't getting a lot of one on one time, he is also very strong on, and he is 100% right, that the kids are absolutely loaded with love, attention, affection, and play and that those "qualities" are always there, just more as a family group. He is worried, and I probably am too in all honesty, that I'm going to wind up more pressured, more overwhelmed and more tired, when he believes this could be just Travis' nature, or just Travis being clever enough to play on it, and it won't make much difference. In my eyes, regardless of whether or not it is the problem or the solution, I have always known that one on one time is important, and their entitlement, and it has been missing, and it does need to be re-introduced.

And now that that is all recorded and off my chest - I'm signing off. It's 11:30pm, the dishwasher still needs emptying, I have a baby that I'm almost certain will have her second tooth come the morning and has so far woken at least every hour, if not more, and the boys will be awake at 6, if I'm lucky! :)

Thanks all for comments, again, and feel free to keep adding them if anyone has any insight!

Every day is a winding road... :)

2008-02-08T21:13:00.000+11:00

Thanks all for your replies - I know, there doesn't look like many comments there, but several people have been kind enough to email me or share some thoughts elsewhere. I'm so open to anything, I don't want to be naive enough to not see what an outsider sees, iykwim. I have felt somewhat less desperate today than I did last night, and Travis was less depressive too, though the issue is still very much there. I'm mulling a lot of things over, and brainstorming with hubby too, and I hope to be coming up with some sort of a plan as to which way to go. I'll post more on it in a few days, but thankyou everyone, and please feel free to still go ahead and offer input! Believe me, it's still required.

Both boys were at school today, and Andrew gave himself a day off, so we had some fun doing some crazy things with Brodie like letting her ride Cooper's push along trike

And her first go at the computer. I opened up a word document and let her have a bash at the keyboard, which she loved! Must take after her Mum. I believe it went (in fact, I know it did because I printed it.....LOL)

jjgasbrodieaZa3zxkA:A; zzxfrsdwshj ZA ;MMM
m .ahm nnntg

(Ok, so Andrew typed the brodie a few letters in, but she did all the rest. Notice the clever use of caps lock too!)

She is sitting well enough now for photo's, though not well enough to be left, and well enough to have made a new friend with her christmas present from us

And for the finale.... she *FINALLY* rolled from her tummy to her back! Yay...you clever baby girl, you, I knew you could do it! Though I'm sure the house is not ready for it, hopefully it will do wonders for her entertainability (Yes! That is a word!)
Though Cooper is toilet trained, he goes through big periods of not being bothered, so he has developed this needing a "treat" when he comes home from preschool and has kept his pants dry, which I must say he is doing super well at the moment. Well, due to a temporary rather large cash flow problem, the house isn't exactly full of special treats at the moment, so this afternoon Travis, Cooper and I had to make our treats. And it was a fairly fun exercise that I think we all (yes, even Travis) enjoyed - and gave some fairly cute scrapping pics too!

Lastly, Travis and I (and at times Cooper and hubby) spent considerable time this afternoon looking through baby pics. That was a nice activity as well, and one Travis does enjoy, absorbing the old house he doesn't remember, and guessing who babies were and such.... Sometimes, with my three kiddo's guessing which one it was isn't always easy. When Cooper was born we jokingly told Mum not to bother coming to the hospital, that it looked just like the first one. Of course there are differences to some degree, but this is the three of them, each at give or take 6 months of age.

I'm going to be uploading and sharing a smallish freebie in the next day or so, so make sure you check back! :)

Exactly my point with Travis!

2008-02-07T19:53:00.000+11:00

The situation with Travis feels like it is escalating almost daily. I cannot say how frustrated I feel with it all at the moment. The happenings of this morning highlight exactly my point that I touched on in my last post.

Travis, upon my getting out of bed, asked if I could put new batteries in his remote control WRX (which was a gift from us a couple of years ago). Despite the fact that it was a school day for BOTH boys this morning, which is always a major rush, if Travis shows interest in something that is non computerised, typical of his age group, and as an added bonus, a single player game, I do my best to encourage it. He very very seldom wants to do anything like this, so I gladly changed the batteries.

Unfortunately, the car had been sitting there for so long without being touched, it had battery acid all through it, and for some reason (which wound up actually having nothing to do with the leaking batteries) wouldn't work. I told him we would have to leave it for now, but Dad could take a look at it this afternoon and see if it was fixable.

That prompted a minor whinge about it being unfair, but the morning continued and we rushed around and got changed and had breakfast and such.

After breakfast, when I was struggling to now get Brodie changed and fed on time to get boys to school, Travis then asked if he could do "Its your turn", which is a website (a good one too, I might add... www.itsyourturn.com ) where he plays boatzee (like yahtzee) and battleboats (like battleships) against his Aunt and gets email notification when it's his turn to move.

Mum: Yep. Just do your turn and come out of the office though. Comptuer's on.
Travis (a few minutes later and coming from the office) : WHAT??? I don't have any turns to do.
Mum: Have you clicked on game status?

I headed to the office to help him out. Sure enough, his Aunt, my sister, hadn't had a chance to do her moves, so therefore it wasn't Travis' turn to move.

Mum: Sorry kiddo, Auntie Net must not have had a chance to do her moves last night. We'll try again when you come home from school.

Prompted mini meltdown and ultra whinge about things not being fair #2.

Now out of the office...and back trying to feed Brodie

Mum: Why don't you go pop your shoes on now to save the last minute rush with that?

Travis: I want to drive my remote control. What's the point of even having the car if I can't drive it? (Yes, they were his exact words...I get a lot of "What's the point.....")

Mum: I'm sorry sweet, there's nothing I can do about it now , but Dad has said he will see if it's fixable when he gets home this afternoon.

Travis: But what if it never ever works and I can never drive it. (melodramatic, seeing the negative....)

Mum: Well then if you still really want one, you could use some of your birthday and christmas money and choose your own one.

Heading off to get his shoes

Travis: I want to go down the backyard but I'm not going to be allowed cause it's too close too school.

Mum: That's right. You need to think of that to do this afternoon, it is to close to school now, but it's a good thing to do after school. (again.... Travis doesn't like outdoors too much, isn't very good with physical activity, so we go out of our way to encourage it where we can)

Travis: Oooohhh..I'm never... (ultra whingey voice, hands over face all melodramatic like, beginning to cry...didn't catch all of what he said)

Mum: Travis, don't start whingeing please.

Travis: FINE!!!!! (stomps off, exit stage left!)

And that was all before 8 this morning, after he had had a good nights sleep! This is permanently how it is with Travis at the moment. I am at breaking point, desperate, don't know what to do and where to turn with him or how to help him.
It's the ultimate feeling of failure to sit back and realise your 6 year old child is not happy, but... he is not happy.

To him, life is always unfair, always against him. He doesn't like any of his toys (his words!). All he likes is Nintendo and computer (again, his words!). I've described Travis for a long time now (not to his face) as a "loiterer" - he doesn't play, he doesn't do anything, (unless he is allowed to use computer or Nintendo at that time) he just kind of "loiters", restlessly picking up one thing after another. Asking for something to be got down for him to play with, or set up for him, for him to play with it for a maximum of 5 minutes (no exaggeration!)

Even when he does play Nintendo or computer, there is repeated "what's the point in playing if I'm not going to win" or "that wasn't fair", and quite honestly, he is a sore loser, which despite trying, I can't seem to change.

He cannot self amuse. He does like most of his two player, advanced games, like scrabble junior or monopoly junior or crazy eights, but I can't play hours upon hours of those games with him every day. To colour in, which he doesn't like to do (his words again), he needs someone to come look at every stroke he draws, rather than complete a bit and then show someone. When he does sit down to do a puzzle, he needs someone to look how he is going every few pieces. I know that sounds like an attention getting or low self esteem (which he quite possibly does have) situation, but we DO lump praise, encouragement, compliments and affection on our children, probably especially Travis.

Every time lately we have visited somewhere, he has been overcome with major sulkiness and "life-isn't-fair-attitude" over something. At Alison's birthday dinner, which he was excited about and looking forward too, and was held at a chinese restaurant so some sort of decency of behaviour was required from the kids, it was because "what was the point of the party if he just had to sit at the table" (the table had about 10 other kids at it) "I don't know most of the kids so there is nothing to do". At my Mum's the other day, it was because his cousins didn't want to play noughts and crosses with him - they are more typical of there age and wouldn't want to sit still for that long so I explained to him that it wasn't Travis they were rejecting, but the particular game he was suggesting. I could come up with dozens more examples.

So many people have suggested too me that it's because of his intelligence. Travis is incredibly, incredibly, intelligent - but text book intelligent, not street smart type intelligent. Last year in Kindergarten, they didn't have home readers in the school appropriate for him, and would send him to the library to choose his own. He went to one of the year 2 classes for his reading, english and maths. He plays chess, somewhat with help, but he can do it. He does crosswords (he has a go at mine if I let him!) and sudoku. But at the risk of sounding like Travis, what is the point of the intelligence if it causes such discontentment with life in general?

And it's very difficult because, yes, he was going to year 2 for those subject, but physically, co-ordination-ally, and all activities requiring gross or fine motor skills, he was still very much Kindergarten, if not less.

I really don't know what else I can do for the kid. Do I just let him play computer and nintendo whenever he likes - and subdue the monster inside my head that says it's not healthy. At the moment, he has a couple of afternoons a week where he can use the computer for a large period of time, and Sundays and school holidays we are allowed to use the nintendo.

I tried to have a big discussion this afternoon with him, which was prompted by him not eating his food at lunch, and the fact that whatever I put in his lunch box there is a reason as to why he couldn't eat it. It's too hard too open. I don't like fruit. It's a bit too messy to eat at school. Everything he says just has such a discontented undertone. I began to try to explain my frustrations to him, and that I don't know what I can do to make him happy, if there is nothing he likes to eat (we were trying to find healthy options that weren't I don't like...or too messy....or too hard...or too crunchy) and nothing he likes to do.

The whole conversation was going nowhere fast.
I explained that we needed to find healthy options, particulary seeing as he didn't do a lot of exercise. The only exercise he wants to do is my treadmill, and I won't let him use it. (He is very well informed, prior to today, on healthy foods and exercise and such, his attitude to it all is just making him look like he isn't). I explained that exercise didn't have to be on equipment - it could be playing chase, swinging, trampolining, kicking balls, riding. He then suggested he only likes to do that if we will take him to parks (which we do semi regularly, but he also have slides, 2 storey cubby houses, sandpits, swings, trampolines, a couple of options with bikes, soccer, tennis, cricket, skateboards, totem tennis, frisbee, pogo sticks and so many other options in his BIG backyard.)He wouldn't look in the toyroom for things to do because that would mean pulling things out and then he would have lots of packing away to do - I tried to explain that I was about to make the family dinner, but that was going to make lots of mess that I had to clean up, so should I just not do it? I tried to explain to him the psychology of "happiness being a choice" but the conversation finished when he said "Well, the only thing I want to do is play the computer, so can I?" to which I still said no.

If anyone has any words of wisdom or experiences, please share. I'm going out of my mind. This is consuming my thoughts. I've walked around half the night either crying or feeling like it, with a massive cracker of a head ache. Travis is the most beautiful, sensitive, intelligent, funny, caring and affectionate child. He had always been really well behaved, he was/is the child that as a toddler, you know he wouldn't leave the side of the car as you were putting groceries away and you knew you didn't have to shut toilet doors or lock cupboards or ovens because you told him not to touch and he didn't and he was never a problem at shopping and has still never had a typical tantrum... but seeing him like this... and the frustration it's causing to the whole family is intense. I really have no idea which way to turn. Do I just give him free range of computerised games? Do I put everyones wants and needs on hold to be free to play the two player games ALL of the time, for the sake of reducing his misery? This has been coming on to this point for a couple of years now, but I'm thinking it's really hit a maximum. HELP! I cannot cope with knowing that my child, at the age of only 6, is so discontented and miserable and pessimistic with life!

Not much else happening today, probably thankfully. Headed on down to sit for half an hour in the little take a ticket line thing they have going at the RTA to renew my licence. Continued with my "I'm creating a habit" trend I've got going on a the moment of unpacking the dishwasher at night to avoid the chaos in the morning and making beds in the morning so at least they look nice (up until a few days ago, I almost never made beds! LOL). At least I'm feeling good about that :)

Thanks again for baring with me and my rambling!

One BIG catch up post :)

2008-02-05T23:19:00.000+11:00

Oh my goodness…how behind have I got? And me being me, I just have to fill you in on everything! Before I go any further though, the plan from here on in, is to avoid 2 hour posts every month and go for a 5 minute-r every day or so.

The end of November, which was about the last time I was here, had us caught up with so many things. Hubby had a minor operation, which went very well but had him out of action for a week or so. School was coming to a halt so there were so many assemblies and discos and performances to prepare for and attend. Travis turned 6 on the 12th December, which seemed to tie up the whole week with either visitors, small parties which were really just a few friends coming over to play, preparations and cakes to make. The cake, his choice, I think probably for all the wrong reasons and to impress his friends, actually came out fairly well, if I do say so myself, so long as one doesn’t look too closely!

I was very insistent that Travis wasn’t having a party this year, if for no other to reason than to prove my point that unfortunately, he wasn’t going to be able to have a party *EVERY* year. We settled on just having a few friends over to play for the afternoon, after school. He, of course, still got ridiculously spoilt, in a good way, by all, and once we had exchanged the “deal or no deal” electronic game Brodie had given him for one that actually worked, all was good! We gave him an AFX slot car set and Cooper gave him a huge bucket of lego. The day went very well, aside from one of his friends locking himself in our toilet and being able to unlock it again, to the point Andrew and my brother pulled the door apart to rescue this poor child, who thankfully, remained unscarred and I don’t believe even reported the incident to his parents, which not that it was my fault, but I was kind of grateful for. For the first time, and all scrappers can freely throw stones at me here, I forgot to take a birthday photograph! Yes, I have cake cutting ones and such, but I have always taken a really nice “frameable-type-quality-with-a-nice-backdrop” photo of my children on their birthdays, but between many things, mainly this being the first birthday one of my children have been to school all day for, it skipped my mind until a good while after!

Around this time, Cooper was going through a horrible phase with nightmares. There were several nights we were awake with him from 2-5 in the morning, with him refusing to go to sleep because the bad dreams come. I would go into him when he woke crying and he would be screaming at me to tell him “where is the middle of the bed” and “but where is the coloured bit” and to “just carry me to the middle of the bed”. No amount of telling him he was in the middle of the bed helped, and his brightly coloured wiggles quilt was far out of the way as it is summer anyway. This horrible recurring dream about the coloured part of his bed, and the fact that bad things happened when he was on it, like his younger cousin Nicholas throwing vegemite at him, just would not go away. Even now, though we are mostly over it, I had another round with it only the other night as he was going to sleep, but he was soothed with a lamp that was left on until they were asleep. One night, I wound up sleeping in Trav’s bed, and sent Travis into mine, just to be with Cooper, which helped a lot, but no one got much sleep in the other person’s bed. If you know me, children sleeping in my bed, or myself lying in theirs with them, or switching bed’s for the night, is just so not the done thing around here, but I was desperate that night, aside from anything, Travis was needing to go to school the next day. Christmas eve we had set a rule that they were allowed up earlier the next morning than usual and we all decided 5:30 was reasonable. Yeah, well that didn’t work, because Cooper refused to sleep from 2am onwards. You can imagine the state my children were in by the time we finished Christmas celebrations that night! Uuuugh!

There were Christmas photo’s to take

And a new Christmas stocking to make for the new member of our family – the downside of continually adding more children to this family!

And Christmas cards to make... (Card is a premade card by Shabby Princess)
We put up our brand new Christmas tree – we had disposed of our old one at the end of last Christmas and I had splurged this time on a good quality one that looked the part, from MyerDirect, rather than a so-so one that didn’t look that great and was just going to fall apart. So one Friday lunch time, I start setting this thing up – you know, one of those artificial trees that need you to bend and contort all the wire branches into the places where they look right. I was so excited to have, for I think the first time in my life, what I considered a *really* nice Christmas tree, even if it was artificial, and then I poked myself in the eye with it whilst I was arranging the branches at the bottom! Andrew had just gone out for a bit at the time, and it seemed the tree had left some remnant in my eye as I couldn’t hold it opened at all. Not to mention it was quite painful. So I washed it…..and washed it….and washed it. Mum called in at that time and couldn’t see anything in it, but I knew there was….you know when you involuntarily can’t hold your eye open if an eyelash or something has made it’s way in it. And it was watering, constantly, gushing tears, trying to wash something out. So I folded up some tissues and taped my eye closed for a while to just let it do it’s own thing and wash the eye it’s own way. No good, didn’t work. Andrew came home and couldn’t see anything either. I had a sleep for a few hours because it didn’t hurt that way, and that was the ideal way for it to clean itself. When I woke up a few hours later, it still hadn’t cleaned itself. It was late on a Friday afternoon which meant medical help was going to be limited over the weekend, and Andrew was insistent that I couldn’t go on like that. Taking me to emergency, his suggestion, seemed such a dramatisation, and just too difficult with three kids in tow when we all know how long you can wait in emergency for! I conceded when he suggested he at least call them. He started the phonecall with… “just an enquiry…this is going to sound really silly but my wife has poked herself in the eye with the Christmas tree…” Well, I’m relieved to say, and for my own dignity, that they ensured him they get dozens of phonecalls like this every Christmas and that it really wasn’t that silly after all.
Anyway, so as to not make an already too long story even longer, it turned out I had scratched the surface of my eyeball. How come it doesn’t hurt like that when you scratch your arm? LOL – don’t ever underestimate it, the pain was intense. I wound up having to go to the after hours medical centre (hospital has said I could go there, but the wait would be shorter if I went to the centre) and get two lots of eye drops.
I sat in the waiting room, blinking and squinting and grimacing and dabbing at my eye with a tissue as inconspicuously (sp?) as I could, still unable to hold my eye open. Then like magic I went in to the doctor’s room while the rest waited outside – and came out with my eye open! Doctor ensured me, and it was the case, that 36-48 hours would see it become bearable, until then I lived on antibiotic eye drops and anaesthetic eye drops (the latter every hour or two!) just to be able to open my eye! And from now on, I decorate chrismtas trees with my sunglasses on! J
Around this same time, I took Cooper to the doctor for a rash (which very quickly became great big pus filled blisters) that appeared on his hands and feet, suspecting hand, foot and mouth – as you would. Apparently for it to be hand, foot and mouth, it does in actual fact have to be all three – so it wasn’t that. Other than now knowing Cooper’s system has decided to hit us with massive cases of dermatitis – we still really have no cause, but my heart went out to the child over and over and over. Aside from having 2 weeks off school while everyone tried to work out what it was, the poor child felt like a leper – not to mention was incredibly itchy. When the rash subsided, we thought that was the worst over, but then his hands and feet began to peel. Not just sunburn type peel, but really thick large chunks that must have been dozens and dozens of layers of skin – in great big 1” square chunks. It took probably a month to really get it under control for him, and all the time holding his hands, they felt like he was 80, not 3! To this day, if we miss a day of sorbolene (at least now it’s only once a day, at first it was about 4 times a day), his hands and feet begin to lightly peel. I guess dermatitis has just set in for the poor little mite until his system decides to outgrow it. I have had countless numbers of people tell me they have never seen dermatitis like it – at one stage, every time I had to do anything with his hands or feet, Cooper would cry and scream and yell things like “I don’t want my hands to be scary anymore”.
Christmas day was nice (if you forget about the fact that it started at 2 in the morning with Cooper’s nightmares!). The boys woke to find AWESOME presents from Santa – a fisher price smart cycle for Cooper, a spiderman sapien for Travis, and an awesome little contraption for Brodie which is kind of a walker that doesn’t actually walk, with activities and interesting things all the way around it, in which she can spin and bounce, and later, convert to a figure 8 car track by putting the base and the top side by side

The kids scored from us a board game pack for Travis (mouse trap, junior scrabble, junior monopoly and smart mouth), and a programmable lightning McQueen car for Cooper, and a roll-a-rounds dinosaur for Brodie.
Andrew’s family came in for a brunch-come-lunch kind of a thing, and they all got spoilt a little more. After insisting on a small nap for Cooper while I whipped up a pavlova and coleslaw, we headed out to my Mum’s for our bbq Christmas dinner, where, you guess it, the kids were spoilt again. We had to rethink outfits at the last minute, at least for Brodie. I was so in love with the “Christmas Day Outfit” I had bought her, but alas – far too cold! And would you believe after two boys, and her being the first granddaughter for Mum after 8 grandsons, the outfit I had bought was blue!
Andrew was pleasantly surprised with my super big splurge on him – a pre-fab layout for his model trains that cost more than I like to think about. And I was suitably spoilt too – an icecream maker, George Foreman grill, first three seasons of “everybody love’s Raymond” on DVD, tupperware’s electronic kitchen scales, and a hammock chair that the kids just love (well ok, so do I, I chose it myself – but I normally have to fight the children for it!) (Mind the contrasting stripes on the pic of Brodie in the chair, it wasn’t good planning!)

While this was all going on, my fur babies of course continued to grow, and to grow their friendship. They learnt to share the kennel, and learnt to get in a lot of mischief together – and I’m not sure if I have referred to this here before, but they will, from this day forth be known as dumb and dumber – just not sure which is which!

Lucy now sleeps outside with Emma at night, which is just lovely for everyone, especially me not having to clean the laundry down every day. Emma has always been the dog you can leave the gate open and she won’t go out of it – well, at least for the most part – but just in the last couple of weeks we have rescued Lucy from the front yard twice! As we live on a fairly busy road, it’s a little worry, and one that we are still trying to think of a way around.

I guess that get’s to bringing us up to the new year! New year’s eve was really quiet. In fact, I spent the first half of it, after discovering for about the fourth time that we were still fighting headlice after thinking we had conquered them, treating everybody’s hair. I cannot tell you how sick of this I am. I cannot tell you how many hundred’s of dollars (literally!) we would have been spent on treatments and combs and such – and how much time I have spent combing and treating! This was my last attempt – I would do it then, again in the 6/7 days that is recommended based on the life cycle of lice, and if that didn’t cover it – then we were having crew cuts! Well I did it that night, and when only a couple of days later Travis was scratching again slightly I didn’t even bother with the follow up. We did the crew cuts! Now let me just say, how much it broke my heart and how much I really detest the fact that I have given my children that haircut – but it was school holidays, and summer, and I figured, better now. I myself went short again too (and I mean SHORT – like shorter than the average man’s hair cut!) – which I was a few years ago, and hubby has constantly asked me to cut it short again anyway, so he was kind of rejoicing. The crew cut dealt with it nicely for the boys, Andrew hasn’t been affected that much by it all other than initially, and I’m hopefully – almost on top of it for myself, though it obviously has required treating more on my hair, as it isn’t crew cut short like the boys (they had a number one – apparently anything longer isn’t necessarily an effective mechanical means to get rid of lice!), but it is short enough now that I can deal with it effectively. And with my new home remedy (Listerine mouthwash for 2 hours followed by vinegar for 1 hour followed by A LOT of combing) I feel like I’m having the most success I have so far! Seriously, if anyone out there needs to know anything about lice or various suggested methods for dealing with them – I am now informed! I have done countless hours of research on the little buggars!

Shortly after new year’s we had my girlfriend and her family over for a lovely little bbq get together – and I began to teach her to scrapbook, digital style. We’d both been getting increasingly excited about it, and although I only taught the absolute basic functions of photoshop (like starting a page, opening and copying elements and papers and such), moving them around and resizing, and adding shadows) I think she is going to pick it up quite well. The really really super exciting bit about it for me is that it renewed the excitement and love of it enough for me that the next night I literally said BUGGER IT – forgot about the house and the business and everything else and did a long awaited first layout (that I have done anyway, my gorgeous friend Beth had done a few for me previously – see previous blog posts) of my sweet baby girl.

I’m actually stoked with the way it turned out – I love it. Hubby hates the black paper with it, but I think it needed something rich to go with the red wrap I used in the photo’s. The layout itself is a scraplift of a gorgeous teddy layout over at 2peas. I was a little naughty and haven’t written down exactly what I used from where, but I can tell you it was all either Christina Renee, Shabby Princess or Kate Pertiet (I can get exact credit’s if someone would like to know *exactly* where something came from – I’ll edit this post with them shortly), Kellie Mize for the alpha, and Atomic Cupcake for the rolled tear action.

It’s funny how 6 weeks of school holidays can go by so quickly, and we haven’t really done anything. January, unfortunately, is our business’ busiest time, so day trips as a family (and I don’t drive far by myself) were very limited, but we still managed to get quite a few fun activities in. Lots of playdates, dinners with friends, a beautiful sunny afternoon with the race and slide the kids got for Christmas last year and had never used due to water restrictions (we had the water in the tank for it this time). It’s a very convenient toy – when the kids get thirsty they don’t need to go inside for a drink.

That’s getting close to bringing us up to date (*thank goodness* you say!). Travis has just returned to school the last week – and trust me, that’s a mighty good thing! He is ultra happy about about a couple of the kids that have wound up in his class, and I’m ultra happy about 1 or 2 kids that haven’t. LOL. The last half of the holidays, Travis and myself have been clashing heads quite a bit. He is the sweetest of sweet, gentlest of gentle, but he is also a incredibly bored child who has a tendency to see the negative in everything! I feel somewhat responsible for the latter, as I know I’m prone to that myself and try my hardest to keep it in check! When he becomes “woe is me” I have been sitting down with him and showing his the positives. But the boredness brings me undone – especially just following his birthday and Christmas. I am told it’s a standard “intelligent child” symptom, but unless it is computer orientated (computer games, Nintendo, etc), he is not interested in anything, unless I can do it with him (hence the board games for Christmas that he loves so much)! I am also told also, that children in this situation normally do find that “toys” do eventually catch up with them and the problem rectifies itself, but seriously….WHAT DO I DO IN THE MEANTIME? And I’m determined to stick to the household rule that Nintendo is for Sundays and school holidays only. I don’t want him coming home every afternoon to 3 hours of Nintendo!

Brodie has done so much growing! Much to the dismay of the majority of professionals, she began solids at 4 months of age (I like my Drs. theory of children needing solids when they reach double there birth weight – that is generally around 6 months, but for all three of my children who have just packed on the kilo’s, we have only made it *JUST* to the 4 months without food, which coincindentally, was when they were double there birthweight!). Because she was so young, I kept her just on lunch for quite a while, then she began breakfast mid January, and dinner just in the last week. She loves all food! Other than home made apple, which is a little too concentrated for her, I don’t think I’ve found a taste she doesn’t tolerate well. I would have to say that Pear is her fave though! She rolled onto her tummy for the first time on New Year’s Day, but at 6 and a half months old, still refuses to believe she can get back! So standard routine is, put baby on floor, baby rolls over, baby looks around for a minute or two, baby screams. How do you teach a baby to roll back? LOL.

She is sitting quite well by herself, but not by any means stable enough to be left like that as yet. She loves her toes. She loves squealing. She loves her brothers. She has one tooth, as of 10 days ago. She has pretty much outgrown her Bumbo, unless I’m desperate, and isn’t really using the pram as a seat around the home much now either. Playing in the high chair has become one of her favourites. As has sitting in the rocker, that she wasn’t too keen on earlier, to watch some TV (I know – terrible isn’t it! But it’s always Brainy Baby series or Baby Bright she is watching, honest!) She no longer sleeps through the night, although she is becoming pretty good again now. She went through the stage of refusing to eat during the day when there was so many people to talk to and so many things happening, but happily – her, not me – waking up 3 times a night to have a good feed then. She is just gorgeous, and a delight to have around! She has her moments, of course, and you pretty much know that if we have to take her out at night, she is going to wind up overwhelmed, overtired, and damn near impossible. I dread nights out at the moment, I usually wind up retreating to a dark corner where ever it is that we may be, baby in arms, to calm her down. Thankfully, it does work!

Cooper is back at pre-school again. Thursdays and Fridays again. I was really disappointed to see the one good friend, Nate, that he had made at preschool last year (which unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to know the family or the child) isn’t there with him again this year. Cooper is Cooper. Everybody falls in love with him. He is the child in our family who disagrees for the sake of disagrees, who gets to dictate how we cut his sandwiches because it just isn’t worth it if we do it wrong, who is prone to tantrums, who is a handful to take shopping, who doesn’t eat a good portion of his dinner even though his older brother at the same age had to, but he is “too stinkin’ cute” about everything he does, and he is such a charmer. And in a lot of ways, he really is quite easy to be around, because when he isn’t throwing his tantrums, he will happily amuse himself when I’m busy. He’s had a rough time lately with his nightmares, the dermatitis, and he hated the crew cut, become very unsure around unfamiliar places or people – but he is still Cooper. The child with the smiling eyes – if there was ever a child who’s eyes smile – you know, the kind that you could cover up the rest of their face except the eyes and still know when they were smiling – it’s Cooper.

Ok, enough rambling. That’s a big enough recollection, for the purpose of my memory in years to come. Does anyone know if there is a record for the longest blog post? LOL.

Do you to-do?

2007-11-14T23:17:00.000+11:00

Did all you blogger people see the write up about the to-do blog on the blogger buzz page? This is sooooo addictive - reading other people's to-do lists! No, I don't have that much time on my hands, but it is nice to know that I'm not the only person who has to put "Lunch" on their to-do list to make sure you actually remember to eat. Go here!

For the U.S.'ers amongst us...

2007-11-14T08:19:00.000+11:00

read this in relation to previous post.... :)

fete = probably comparable to your fair

fancy bikkies = bickies, being short for biscuits, is equivalent to cookies.

Show bag = uuuummmm.... maybe sample bag? either way, a bag filled with Trashy goods
available from shows and fairs/fetes etc, that you usually charge a fortune for.

kindy baskets = simply the stall that kindergarten (our first year of primary school, at least in New South Wales, anyway) was organising for their contribution to the fete (see above.....LOL). The parents filled and wrapped a basket with themed goodies (could have been a gardening basket, an afternoon tea basket, a-nice-printed-version-of-your-fave-recipe-and-the-ingredients basket, a pamper-yourself basket, etc etc) which were then sold at the fete.

I hate fete's.....BUT....

2007-11-13T21:19:00.000+11:00

It's official! I hate school fetes! Travis' school fete was Friday night and though it had been raining shockingly all week and I had put the hard word on Travis that we would have to miss out if it was raining, alas, wouldn't you know it? It stopped raining. The weather was still threatening, and the ground was terrible, and it had been raining a lot of Friday - but the good mother in me dragged myself there all the same. I admit it wasn't all the good mother in me, because I had still tried to get out of it - BUT.... like Andrew said (and occassionally, he is right), Travis needed to see the outcome. It was the fete for the first year he was in primary school, it had been the talk of school for months, and would be for the next few days, and he (and I! LOL) had done a lot of behind the scenes work such as colouring in posters, announcing the "Kindy Baskets" stall over the school PA system (love having the only child in kindy that reads like a steam train - he gets all the cool jobs!) and making our very own kindy basket for the stall (complete with hot chocolate, some fancy bickies, and a couple of really nice cups) - he just had to see it all come to fruition. I also did want to support the school as well, and do every chance I get - someone had put in a lot of behind the scenes work and volunteered a lot of their own time to make it happen. (Although I could justify that too with the fact that I had already spent $30.00 on all the behind scenes extras like kindy baskets and grocery donations before we even went to the fete!)
So the fete was starting about 4:30, we get there about quarter to five, with the plan of staying an hour, letting Trav see it all, putting kids on a ride or two ($3.50/ride! x 2 kids, Brodie was happy just riding in the pram), and then heading home, grabbing something for dinner on the way. All rides were ticketed from one booth, and the line by the time we got there was a mile long. The $20.00 "all-you-can-ride" passes that I had refused to spend that much on (taking into account the x 2 children again) were being handed out from that booth at that time, as well as the buyers of "one-ticket-at-a-time" who were already in queue.
We headed into the hall where there were a few stands set up. Kindy baskets were almost already sold, which is fantastic for the school, and the show bags, of which there were originally four varieties, only had the fairies one left. That prompted whinge number one (from the children, not me this time! LOL)
Face painting! Face painting is good. Line isn't too long, makes a good photo, and Travis will now allow it (and want it) to be done, where as he wouldn't for years. Cooper still wouldn't/won't, but that's ok. So Travis had the adorable bat seen above painted on his face with Dad, while Cooper, Brodie and I perused a few other stalls.
Lucky Dip! That's got to be almost as good as the showbags they missed out on. I offered Travis, who was still getting his face done, that Cooper could choose one for him too, in case they ran out like the showbags, but Travis rathered be optimistic, and have the chance at having the "dip" himself, which was fine. So I let Cooper have two dips - the first was a bag of empty party bags, like from a party supply shop. What the???? His other was a set of wiggles stickers - that's good! Travis then had his turn after and pulled out a pack of stickers that has saying such as "100% fart free zone". Once again, what the??? LOL
Ok, so back to join the queues. We bought six tickets straight up at the ticket booth, rather than be in that line more than once. Travis had a rather successful ride on the cup and saucer ride. He is growing up hugely - I think it was the first ride he has been on that I haven't all but "put him on" myself... he walked through the gate, and gave his own ticket to the man, and found out himself where he had to go....all with us standing right back. I watched him, and you know, sometimes a little peer pressure can be a good thing. He was sitting in a tea cup with another, slightly older boy, that we didn't know. Travis has taken a long time to come good, and he is only part way there, with physical activities, gross and fine motor skills, rides, and the confidence that is needed for all those things. Had he been on that ride completely by himself, as much as he wanted to go on it, he would have lost it in the first couple of "rounds". I could see in his eyes he wasn't comfortable and didn't like the sensation. But I could also see in his eyes his need to hide it and "hold it all together", mainly, I suspect, because of the older boy. So I'm madly calling his name on the sidelines, with the thought if I can just make eye contact and flash a reassuring smile, he would feel a lot more secure, but it wasn't that easy. He could hear me, but not find me, between all the people, and the whole ride spinning around, and the individual tea cups spinning around, were making it hard to follow direction. Now don't get me wrong, I don't want my child to succumb to peer pressure, and I want him to be able to speak up and say he is uncomfortable with things, nor do I want him to feel forced to do things or forced to not show his emotions. BUT... that little bit of peer pressure, or whatever you want to call it, got him through the first few rounds of the ride, by which time he had become comfortable with the sensation and began really enjoying himself.
Next was the big slidey jumping castle like thing - which both boys wanted to do. The queue was horrendous but seeing as it was the only thing Coop wanted to do, we joined it. 50 minutes later they had their turn! Apart from Cooper getting squashed hopping off at the end by some older children who obviously were too full of self importance to care for the littlies, the ride went very well for both of them.
But standing in queue, with all the noise and lights and 4 hours from last feed, had taken it's toll on Brodie, and it was now 7pm. We normally eat at 6, and boys are normally in bed at 7:30 - especially on a Friday night. So when Andrew suggested that he put them on the actual jumping castle (as opposed to the slidey jumping castle thing) seeing as we had the tickets, I said by all means, but I was taking Brodie back to the car to feed her and give her some peace and quiet. The boys did the jumping castle, which only was about 20 minutes, combined wait and ride, and they met us back at the car. I suggested to Travis, who had been busting to see his face, that he take a look in the side mirror of the car. Andrew dropped us home (just down the road) and then went to get the dinner.
Back at home, I'm running around, changing Brodie, setting tables for dinner, washing hands and faces....blah, blah, blah, and Travis sulks into the room I'm in, bordering on a tantrum. He throws himself slouching in the corner, pulling that fake-sniff-sniff-I'm-about-to-cry-and-that's-why-I-need-my-hands-covering-my-face stint he pulls that infuriates me so much. "What? What's the matter now?" More sniffing, more face covering and a bit more sniffing. "Well in the car I looked scary, but now in my bedroom mirror I just look like a stupid old bat and I don't look scary any more". Oh for heaven's sake!
So I, in all my wisdom and glory, after initially flying off the handle about it, tell Travis (and it is the truth!) that I don't think bats are scary anyway, I think they're cute! WELL! Isn't that the wrong thing to say to a 5year old boy! Anyone with a boy approaching 5 make a mental note that bats are indeed definitely scary and not to be reconned with! MOST DEFINITELY NOT CUTE!
So if I hate fete's so much - and am going to whinge about it so much on my blog - why do it?And why go on so much about something I hate so much - to you, my few and far between blog readers.
Because I'm creating my children's childhood memories.
I once had a phone conversation with a friend about this very topic, and I always remember it. We are the same age, only 6 days apart, were friends all through school and even before hand at Sunday School, and even now, though we don't talk or catch up a lot, when we do, we take off right where we left. We having a reminiscing talk about all the "stay-over's" and such we did as children, and the memories from school, and the way all her family would play board games together (which my family never did, well ok, only once just before Dad died do I remember playing a board game as a family - it was pictionary and it kind of all fell apart when Dad had to depict in drawing the word "prick" - he couldn't get us to see it by drawing needles going into balloons or fingers).
By the time this conversation took place, both she and I had two boys, both similar in ages. She then made a very profound statement. "That's what is so magical about this and what blows me away to think about - we are doing that now for our kids. What we are doing for them now will become there childhood memories that they talk about when they are older."
I so need to remember this more often. And make an effort every day to do AT LEAST one thing with my children, no matter how busy I am, that is the very thing childhood memories are made of. Whether it be rolling down grass hills together, cooking with them, or playing board games, going to a park or somewhere else, or simply singing songs and dancing - we need at least one thing a day, with all the kids, individually and together, that is the very essence of childhood memories. I only get one shot at this, and these will be the memories the kids have for life.
I remember just after I'd finished school - when my first 3 nephews were passing baby and toddler-hood and becoming small children, that (and call me egotistical) they adored me. They would look at me in wonder as I bounced on the trampoline with them, or played games with them, or swang in the swing beside them rather than just pushing theirs. I was the adult for them that had the time to do that sort of stuff, that could still be a kid for them. They would often say to me things like...."You can't bounce on the trampoline" and I would look at them and say "Why?" In their life, adults didn't do that - but I did.
But now, with my own children, I too often fit into that general "too busy, too old, too serious" stereo-type - and I don't want to. I always did it for my nephews, and I owe the same to my kids. They are my absolute world.
Somewhere in my pile of unfinished objects, there is a cross stitch I must pull out. It has a verse on it, which I'm sure most people have heard, but it goes....

One hundred years from now,

It won't matter what car I drove,

What kind of house I lived in,

How much I had in my bank account,

Nor what my clothes looked like,

But, the world may be a little better

Because I was important in the life of a child.

On that note, a little more about the children. I put Brodie in her first dress the other day and attempted to take some real girlie-girl pics. They still need a fair bit of editing and filtering to get them something special....but here they are...

Most of the time, mind you, she just wanted to lift the dress up and eat it. Will have to teach her some "ettiquette", right after I learn some myself...LOL

Travis melted my heart the other day when he sat down and read to Brodie. I had to get the pics. It was one of those touchy feely type books and he even stopped and made sure she felt all the textures. He is right in his element with this sort of stuff (his teacher has him read books to his class all the time....no joke!) and Brodie was so absorbed in it.

And lastly, here is a couple of ever so cute pics that hubby snapped the other night. Still to this point, the boys have no idea these pics were taken. (Perhaps I should be censoring them for internet, but I just had to share them the way they are.....so cute!)

The nicer side of Andrew...

2007-11-07T21:50:00.000+11:00

Ok, well he has lots of nicer sides but with all the whining I have done regarding my darling hubby later, I feel obligated to show the world one of his more beautiful sides.

Those that followed my puppy story from the start will know it all started when my darling best friend Allison bought a boxer puppy, now named Scooby-Doo, or just Scooby in day-to-day talk. When Allison brang Scooby here as a little 7 week old pup, I fell in love, investigated the boxer breed, fell in love a little more, went shopping and came home with my first Lucy, who happened to be Scooby's sister. My first Lucy died from Parvo and Scooby came down with it as well, but he was lucky to be one of only two dogs from that litter who survived. I think because we had already lost our Lucy by the time Scooby came down with any symptoms, we were all on the look out for it and were able to get him the help he needed a little bit quicker.

Allison is a beautiful soul - as is the rest of her family, and they love their dog to bits. For instance, I would never allow a fully grown boxer to be in bed with me! She does! But Allison and her hubby also do it very tough - he is earning a very honest, but very low income, and Allison is a SAHM with 2 littlies. Scooby is inside during bad weather when he can be, but because of the restricted budget is still without a kennel at other times. Kennels have been priced so many times, but commercial kennels are so expensive, and her hubby unfortunately doesn't have the building know how that my own little handy man has.

This is where my Andrew comes into it! We'd been to-ing and fro-ing about making Lucy a kennel, but we've decided to hold off for now, as Emma's kennel is big enough for the two of them. We had had a couple of conversations with Allison as to whether Andrew would give her hubby a hand to build a kennel if they were to buy materials, but I know that still would have stretched them.

So Andrew comes to me a few weeks ago, with a "what if I just 'happened' to have the stuff lying around and I just made Scooby a kennel?" One of those precious moments where you just fall in love with your husband all over again - such a beautiful gesture. And so "operation surprise kennel" was put in motion.

Today, after Allison had been here this morning, looking at the gloomy sky and stating that her baby was outside, and how bad she felt about it, the kennel was delivered. Complete with S C O O B Y in black mdf lettering above the entrance, just for impact. Well I had warned Andrew that Allison would cry (I've never quite understood the happy tears concept, but Allison has perfected it - man, if I had a dollar for every time I've made that girl cry!) - and cry she did!

We don't donate to many of the ten million charities that ring up right on dinner time every night, but if everyone could help someone less fortunate then themselves out in the way my hubby helped Allison and her family out tonight, the world would be a much better place. It took Andrew 6 hours or so to build, and although we did have a lot of the frame work timber and flooring laying around, the timber we used for the panelling on the walls wasn't cheap, but really, it doesn't matter. I would have spent double on it. And even though a kennel may not be a life or death issue like a lot of the charities around, to see that look on the face of a friend in need, and see her crying and saying that nobody has ever done anything like that for her, well I just think my hubby can be one of the greatest blokes around! :)

Oh, and an update on the hot water issue - turned out to be only a shot element. (Mind you, he has warned me that the whole system is on it's way out - uuuugh!) . So nothing too drastic, a few minutes and $180 dollars later and I was on my way to a hot shower again last night!

Where's my undies?

2007-11-06T09:52:00.000+11:00

Another mothering highlight not to be forgotten! (And to bring up at Travis' 21st.)

At almost 6 years old, Travis is slowly starting to catch up with his physical capabilities, though it is still a field he struggles with. But for the time being, he has decided that he is capable of organising his own clothes in the morning, and dressing himself without us knowing, or laying his clothes out.

So taking him to school this morning, just about to drive out the driveway, running a few minutes later than I normally do, but still with plenty of time to get him there before the morning assembly and bell. I'm sitting in the drivers seat (obviously), Travis is next to me in the passengers seat. He puts his hand down the front of his pants for a "rearrange" or a "scratch" (as 5 yr old boys do...actually, I don't think they grow out of it, I've seen my 30yr old hubby do the same).

"Oh man, I forgot to put undies on."

Now, pray tell, how do you forget to put undies on? And even if you did, wouldn't you have realised 5 minutes before when you went to the toilet before we left for school. When I looked across at him, and this is where I should have noticed before hand, he was actually wearing just plain black tracksuit pants as well, rather than his navy blue tracksuit pants (have I mentioned before I'm slightly colour blind - truth!)

So back in we go! LOL! And a few minutes later again!

Just rang the hot water guy, they are coming late this afternoon. I don't think I'm going to have a hot shower tonight either (I *NEED* at least one hot shower a day!) and on top of that, I think it's going to be expensive!

4 week dinner challenge!

2007-11-05T21:58:00.000+11:00

So I find myself embarking on a 4 week dinner challenge!

The scene that set the challenge - last night sitting around our 3rd non-home-cooked dinner in a row! Not quite as bad as it seems (albeit still really bad). Friday night is our regular "take-out" night, so that was ok. Saturday night I was visiting a nephew for his birthday, a little distance from here, after dinner, so to save time and still get my children to bed at an hour closely resembling their bedtime, we had dinner at McDonalds closer to there house. Last night, just absolutely no organisation, ispiration or motivation to do anything about dinner until at 10 to 6 I simply said "oh buggar it, just get a bbq chicken, some chips and some salads". The salads was my attempt to at least make it a little healthier than the previous two nights!

The conversation that set the challenge -
Myself to Andrew - "I wonder if I could go a whole week being organised and prepared in advance for dinner?"
Andrew - "Just for a week?"
Me - "Yep."
Andrew - "Yep, for a week you probably could."
Me - "Two weeks?"
Andrew - "I don't know"
Me - "Three weeks?"
Andrew - "Not a chance."

The challenge - For four weeks, starting today, have some sort of a meal plan in my mind, (retaining Friday nights as "take away" night) with shopping all done in advance, so as to avoid that 5:30pm "Crap, I should have dinner on and I haven't even thought about what we are having."

For four whole weeks. Typically me. Andrew said not a chance to 3, so I'm going all out and doing four. He walked in after work tonight to see dinner being prepared and all organised and such, and then I spoke about dinners for the rest of the week, to which he just shook his head and mumbled something about "You don't do things by halves, do you?" But he did also say he was impressed.

Tonight we had a really yummy Bacon and Roast Vegetable Penne , except with baby spinach instead of the fennel. Tomorrow I have planned, with shopping done, Baked Lamb with Crispy Potato (probably with carrot and beans) and Wednesday, a yummy Chicken and cashew plum stir fry. All of that, I have shopped for.
Thursday, I have bought a fresh frittata, so will either have that and salad , or else a nice steak with an instant sauce, and vegetables and honey sesame carrots. Whatever we don't have, I think we'll have next Monday. I'll keep Thursday fairly easy. Friday is some sort of take away. Saturday I have planned, but not shopped for, Balsamic Roast Chicken with the potatoes and tomatoes that it suggests in the recipe and probably some greens of some sort or maybe some corn, and Sunday, I have an easy carve mint and herb lamb roast that I'll do with some baked veges.
How does that sound for week one? This isn't too difficult...LOL! Please feel free to comment and tell me whether you plan meals, or how you organise them and shopping, in what sort of time frame, or whether you just do the day to day thing.

I must say, seeing as I'm so inclined to whinge about them when they are being difficult, that during the big grocery shop today, Cooper and Brodie were both nothing but faultless! It doesn't happen often, but they were both a complete pleasure to have with me. Cooper was not only "behaving" but he wasn't even doing all the irritating 3 year old stuff like alternating between walking and riding on the trolley every 2.3 seconds.

Moving right along and glorious dinner over - kids all in bed - and I'm hanging for a long shower. Normally my shower is an hour or two after the kids go to bed, but tonight, all but literally as I was closing Brodie's door, I said to Andrew that I thought I'd have a shower straight up tonight, before I started anything else. Well a freezing 10 minutes later I emerge with a big fluffy dressing gown around me, shivering, teeth chattering, stating that we have a problem.

Andrew - What is it?
Me - We have no hot water. It isn't freezing icy cold, but I wouldn't even call it warm, and that was just with only the hot water tap running.
Andrew - Why?
Me - I don't know. I've only really done one load of washing today, and that was on cold, I haven't really used water for anything else.
(Andrew gets up and walks out to the hot water system, I follow, still in dressing gown with teeth chattering)
(Andrew plays with system for a few minutes, and pulls that little valve thing-y.)
Andrew - We have no hot water.
(I walk back inside shaking my head and wondering if I had actually said that aloud or just thought it)

So here is to tomorrow - with another organised dinner and hopefully a hot shower!

Digital Scrapbooking Day

2007-11-03T14:45:00.000+11:00

Part of celebrating Digital Scrapbook Day is celebrating our own unique styles!

Well shopping is no different!Extend your style to your shopping as well,

you choose how and where to shop!

And not just for DSD, either.

Take a look at these -

When you shop at scrapdish.com between November 1st and November 12th, you can save 35% on all of my products, Including the fabulous collaboration kits “Leroy Brown” and “Curly Sue”, designed by myself and Beth Hesselberg.

When you shop at pickleberrypop.com between the 3rd November and 10th November you can takeAdvantage of two fantastic deals.

DEAL ONE – When you place all three of my graph papers in your cart, pay for only two!

DEAL TWO: Place my “Charlie” kit in your cart along with any of my templates you desire, and all the templates willAnd the templates will be half price!

Thanks so much for taking a peek, and Happy Digital Scrapbooking Day
To everyone everywhere!

The sweetest thing...

2007-10-31T21:47:00.000+11:00

My dear, dear friend Beth Hesselberg absolutely made my week this week and I just have to share! After mentioning to her about the slight sadness I was feeling that my little girl was three months and I was yet to scrap a layout of her, I woke yesterday morning and turned my email on to receive this surprise!

papers by Berna Datema

wordart by Jen Wilson Ten Very Random Titles kit

felt frame by Ronna Penner Spoonful of Sugar kit

flowers by Holly McCaig Designs Shea Drive kit

paper by Beth Hesselberg Darling kit

word art by Jen Wilson

flowers by Holly McCaig

felt frame by Ronna Penner Spoonful of Sugar kit

word art by Audrey Neal / Audacious Designs

quickpage by Sausan Designs Sing Spring quick pages kit

What makes it even more special, other than the fact that they are from Beth, is she hasn't scrapped herself in a while either! I was so touched.

Beth's not only a great scrapper (and awesome friend and the sweetest of sweet ladies!), but she is an awesome designer too. If you haven't ever checked out Beth's kits, you must! She makes the most stunning and origianl papers!

Thanks again Beth! I'm so glad to have your friendship (and not just for the layouts....LOL) and I'm going to buy you a coffee or 27 as a way of thanks when we meet in Paris after all our kids have grown up. (Think we decided on 2018 didn't we?)

Primary School Kids & Poo

2007-10-31T20:54:00.000+11:00

Not together, two separate topics - although, I do often think Primary school kids are too obsessed with poo, simple things like changing the words of a song to end in poo or calling people "poo" type names.... go figure!

But seriously, why can primary school kids be so mean! Travis came home the other day asking if "Chinese Burns" are bad. Do you remember those? They're where someone puts both their hands around your wrists, with both hands held close together and twists there hands in opposite directions.Yeah, they're bad. Some kid had been giving him chinese burns (obviously not too well, or he would know they were bad!) at school. I tod him yes they were bad and that no one was allowed to give them to him, to which he informed me that I was "too late" and that such and such already had. I explained to him that it was very similar to hitting in that it could hurt someone, and people were not allowed to do it, and if he needed to, to get a teacher's help.
It just breaks your heart that they are learning about this stuff when they are only in kindergarten! That first year of primary school must be the steepest learning curve there is (except maybe becoming a mother for the first time...or the second....or the third...and I predict the fourth isn't much better!). I guess it's all a thumbs up reason for home schooling, but I know I don't have what it takes for that!
The last week of last term, and I'm pretty sure I haven't blogged about this but forgive me if I have, he had a lunch order. Now, Travis really looks forward to these lunch orders as he is only allowed one a week. He enjoys the process of choosing it out from the menu, picking it up from the canteen, thinking about which day this week he will have it (menu items are different for each day), and obviously eating it. That afternoon, on the way to the doctors, he casually menitons "so my lunch order didn't go too good today." A multitude of things go through my head...he forgot to put his order in, it was cold, they didn't have the item and substituted a vegemite sandwich, they messed up the order....but no, from his order of a combo wedge pack (3 chicken wedges and 5 potato wedges) and a finger bun, he had only managed to get 1 chicken wedge, a couple of the potato wedges and a couple of bites of his finger bun. 3 charming girls played the "you won't come to my birthday party if you don't give me some" game, and when you're in kindergarten and your status is measured by how many parties you get to go to, that means you give up over half your lunch even if it makes you miserable inside! I think my foot hit the accelerator a little too hard around about now - I was fuming! It's so unfair. I know a little of the fault lies with Travis, for being a vulneralbe, gullible sort of kid, but that's what makes Travis Travis! So I explained all the different angles.
1) These girls have mother's and families and need to get there own lunch orders if that's what they want.
2) These girls may have allergies that you don't know about and by giving them some you may accidentally make them sick.
3) That it's a special treat for you, that you only get once a week, and you shouldn't have to give it away.
4) That you need the energy and food to get you through the day and keep you feeling well.
5)And that anyone that uses those sort of bribes is not being your friend anyway, and will not invite you to their party, they are just being mean.

I went on to say that he was to say no to them, and if need be, to get a teacher's help... and then I topped it off with and "if I find out it happens again, there won't be lunch order's for the rest of the year" (which I later got in trouble off from my mother-in-law cause apparently that means he just won't tell me now, but with Travis, I don't think that is the case, although I understand the point she was making). I was so mad, and talked about it for so long that eventually poor Travis was saying "ok ok Mum, can we not talk about this anymore". I would have bought that and settled down, but when I finished it with the "and if I find out it happens again there won't be any lunch orders for the rest of the year" he tried to finsih it with an "ok, but at least I'm going to there birthday parties"......uuuuuugh! Here we go again. Whether you go to their parties does not depend on whether you give them your lunch order but
a) whether there Mum's let them have a party that year.
b) who they are friends with at the time, not this week.
c) How many people they are allowed to invite.

At the beginning of the year he had a couple of older girls teasing him a little about his eye (he has a squint which we are awaiting a second operation for). That was fairly hard on him too, and we advised him all we could about just ignoring and it won't be fun for them, and getting a teacher's help and such if needed, people are all the same on the inside, think funny things about them and just say nothing, .....all the usual things.... and then one day the two girls in question simply came to him and apparently told him they weren't going to tease him anymore. No teacher had ever been involved, so I'm still yet to understand the psychology behind that one, but grateful for it none the less.
None of this has ever stopped Travis from loving school to the maximum - it's just hard watching your little ones learn these social lessons. I'm sure it is beneficial to them somehow, in the long run. Right now Travis has just been moved into 2nd grade for his reading groups - I'm really happy about the move as they weren't giving him home readers at all, just asking him to choose his own library books, as the home reader system doesn't go up far enough, and during reading group time, were simply sending him to "play" on the computer as the majority of the other kindy kids are at the c....a....t....um...cat type stage. (And that is nothing against or intending to insult the average....I still don't know where Travis learnt to read because I sure didn't teach him!). I am sure happy about him reading with the 2nd grade for now, I'm just hoping that within time, it doesn't become more leverage for teasing.

Back to the poo! Have you ever wondered how much time a SAHM or WAHM spends obsessed and occupied with poo. And I don't just mean changing nappies and wiping bottoms. Just thinking and worrying about strange poo's, or frequent poo's or lack of poo's? Between the dogs and Brodie, it seems it's all my last week has been consumed with! LOL! Last Friday morning, Brodie filled her pants in a big way! You know, the sort of content that made me yell out "hey Dad, come and look what your little girl just did!". And that was it. Until today. 5 days of no poo-ey nappies! I rang the childhood nurse yesterday just to get reassurance that I wasn't being too complacent. Which she agreed that I could happily let it go another day or two without worrying too much. I knew within myself that Brodie had seemed happier and more settled the couple of days proceeding the phone call then she had been in a week or so, so there was no obvious pain, and I knew the theory that breastfed babies all but can't be constipated, but the change, and the ability to hold it for so long, had all happened overnight! She'd never missed a day before, and hardly even missed a few hours before. Anyways, all ends well, she made up for today with the three biggest nappies I've even seen (well....almost) within the time slot 5am-12pm!
But the poo doesn't stop there!
This gorgeous little innocent boxer pup I now have.....eats her own! And I'm pretty sure she has corrupted the labrador into giving it a try too! Not straight away, she usually comes back to it if I can't get to it to pick it up straight away, or goes "poo-hunting" under the trees where I normally dispose of picked up piles. So between worrying about Brodie's lack of, I have spent the majority of the rest of the week, picking up doggy-piles and sprinkling them with Cayenne Pepper, and not a light sprinkle either, on the vets recommendation, before I dispose of them. It's working in part - but if anyone has any other suggestions I'd love to hear them! When I say it's working in part, they are definitely not eating any sprinkled product, in fact, I've seen "pieces" that have obviously been picked up, and then put back down again. But I don't think they are getting the message that "eating poo is not a pleasant experience!" as I'm pretty sure any that I'm missing, or that rain may have cleaned up, or for some reason or another doesn't have Cayenne Pepper on it, are still disspearing.

Anyway, I forgot to mention that last week Brodie did her best yet of going to bed at 8pm and not waking at all until 6:30am! That's just something I wanted to mention to have those little things to look back on later. She quickly reverted to the around 5am feeds, and the last couple of nights has even woken at 2am again. I haven't stopped to try to work out if it's actually a feed she wants or whether she just stirred and had trouble going back to sleep - I figure if she is awake I may as well feed her (especially as I still get really paranoid about the dreaded milk loss happening again!). The last couple of days she has really really giggled! Up until now she had mastered what I call the "audible smile" - lots of sighing and gooing and gaaing whilst smiling at the same time - but the last couple of days, 100% genuine giggles, especially when I'm kissing or blowing rasberries in her neck! She's semi holding a rattle now, if I put it in her hands, but the awareness isn't completely there yet. For a week straight now she has sat in her bouncer holding her two hands together and learning all about them, so it's coming!

And on that note, enough rambling from me! Thanks for bearing with me!

Silver award!

2007-10-30T23:02:00.000+11:00

(frames are Robin Carlton's from the recent Sweet Shoppe Designs Goody Bag)
Crappy pics they may be, but I just had to share that I went to Travis' school assembly today to see him awarded with this silver award! I'm still struggling to understand why you get five gold awards - and then, after you have got "gold" you then go back to silver, but hey, someone had a reason when they developed the system, I'm sure. Me, I think you should have to get 5 silver to get a gold!

Either way, Travis got his silver award today, followed with a voucher for an iceblock at the canteen, and will also be rewarded with afternoon tea with the principal (Oh yay.... bet that one won't still excite him when he is 16!) at a later date!

Yay for Travis (and yay for Cooper who was most well behaved during the assembly!)

Time to say Goodbye - Blow out Sale

2007-10-25T12:22:00.000+10:00

Well, it's time.
After two beautiful years, and due to personal commitments,
I'm saying goodbye to my
first home
digiscrapshak.com.

AND WE ALL KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!

From now thru Saturday 27th you save 50%
on all my products in store!

Although I will be continuing my stores at PickleBerryPop
and Scrapdish,
not all products are available there
and quite a large number will be discontinued for good.
SO HURRY AND GET THEM NOW!

Thanks so much for taking a look

9 years ago today

2007-10-24T21:58:00.000+10:00

9 years ago today I married Andrew.
For 6 years or so of it, maybe more, we never had a bad day. But it's funny how 3 children, a house, work commitments, a business, bills, 2 dogs, tiredness, familiarity, complacency, chores and all the other aspects of life I haven't mentioned have had a way of changing that.
But I think the hard times also make us appreciate and celebrate the anniversary even more.
I admit, given the hard times we have had the last year or two, and especially last week (see post below!) that it was kind of hard writing on his anniversary card. But it was the kind of card that didn't need a lot. The front of the card stated "After all this time....you're still the one" and seeing as our weding song was Shania's "You're still the one", it was perfect. And he is still the one.
We simply traded small present - I received a couple of boxes of chocolates and I'd put together for him a 6 pack of imported beer as a different angle on the "sweet treat" kind of theme. We managed a dinner out too - to one of our regular haunts "Argyles" - even if we did have 3 children in tow. But it would have been just as nice (and I admit to feeling also a hell of a lot easier) had we just shared take away Chinese or something similar at home.
The little arguments, the lack of dinners out, the constant work, the no time to ourselves - none of that really matters. Sure they are important and play there part, but in the grand scheme of things we can cope with all that for a while. What matters is we are still together.
9 years ago today, I married my best friend.

Time just flies so quickly. Only yesterday, Brodie was 3 months old. Don't they lose new born status at 3 months? My goodness, I must have another baby - NOT - but I did make that joke to Andrew. I can't believe she is 3 months. It seems to have gone so quickly, but at the same time, I can't imagine a time before we had her. 3 months - she is in the third size up of huggies, has been in the cot now for about 10 days, smiles, laughs, sleeps from 8pm thru to 5 most nights, and has us all wrapped around her littlest of fingers!
Although one day soon I'll be complaining she grew up too quickly, I'm gettig fidgety for her to do more. You would think it's my first child - I've completely forgotten, and had to start looking things up, when you can expect babies to do various things. I want to be able to do more to entertain her. Give her different toys to play with. That sort of thing. But that's only me. She is perfectly content at the moment (well, in the regards to entertainment, anyway). She has no interest in rolling or holding on to toys or turning to her side - there is far too much to still look at and learn about directly above her (mental note to self - stop putting play gym above her and put more toys to side!) Feel free to leave a comment telling me when your child/ren rolled or really first consciously started holding on to and investigating toys and rattles and such. I have put toys in her hands, but at the moment she is completely oblivious to the fact that she is even holding them. Ah, life is so simple at 3 months old - except all the pooing and vomits and wind and tummy pains.
These photos below I took only a couple of days ago. The photo's themselves are very below average - but the suit she is wearing has relevance. I bought that suit as the first piece of baby clothing I bought for myself before I had Travis - I think, actually, before I even fell pregnant with him. It was on sale in a Myer Direct Catalogue and I loved it. Remembering that Brodie is my Mum's first grand-daughter out of 9 grand-children, 6 years later it is finally getting worn! I was surprised to see her in it, and this is partially why I took the pics, despite that fact that the suit is (GASP -SHOCK - HORROR) "Blue", I don't believe I have seen Brodie looking more feminine. Andrew commented today, and I think he is right (it happens occassionally), that she is looking less and less like the boys as babies as she gets older.

I am looking forward to tomorrow. For week after week, I have intended to make a Thursday or Friday (when the boys are both at school) one big ME day - aside from dealing with Brodie's needs, I've been intending on finding one of those days to immerse myself in organising scrapping supplies and doing a few other odds and ends needed on my laptop and with my scrapping/designing. Up until now, something has always come up. But tomorrow is the day. Andrew is able to take both boys to school - and pick them up - I'm not leaving the housework, and I'm not doing housework or business stuff. Now that I've said all that, Brodie is bound to have a shocker of a day - LOL!

Oh, and there may be a designing announcement, and possibly a sale announcement here too - so keep your eyes peeled!

The Funniest Thing...

2007-10-20T21:57:00.000+10:00

Ok, venting is all over and everything is ok now. LOL - well it has been a better day anyway. With it being the weekend, I think the focus was off the business a little and Andrew and I were able to be quite civil to each other. Not that we fight - even when we are fighting, we don't fight. We just kind of get annoyed with each other, take it out on everything else, and avoid each other. But things have been somewhat better today!
And the funniest thing happened...I was able to have a little sleep today! Yes that is funny, but it isn't the funny part :). While I was asleep I had a dream, just one of those normal "now where on earth did that come from" kind of dream that made no real sense at all, about a friend of mine (hello Leanne...waving...) that I have not spoken to in a long time. Probably in about 12 months, since just after I fell pregnant with Brodie. Anyway...when I woke up, I went straight to my laptop to check my emails (as you do, right? Please tell me I'm not the only one) to find that she had googled me (I love that! LOL) and found and commented on this very blog! How much of a blow out is...no word of a lie, right at the same time, give or take an hour! I then proceeded to call her, and it was fantastic to catch up! (Leanne, really really enjoyed chatting, and I'll have to make more of an effort to keep in touch! Thanks so much for your comment!)
While I was speaking to her, we spoke of my birthday a few weeks ago (I can no longer say I'm 20-something...sniff,sniff) and it reminded me that I had wanted to post this pic and blog about this. It also reminded me that I need to make more of an effort to blog about the good as well as the bad, cause I do have a heck of a lot of good in my life right now...
Andrew and I have had a little joke for years with me asking when I was getting an eternity ring. Well, guess what I got for my 30th! A one-off design from a nice little jeweller in Kiama. Isn't it gorgeous?

Here are the pictures I'd mentioned of Brodie and myself. I'm kind of happy with them...remembering that I've taken these myself, with no body to assist with getting smiles out of the little one. They came out fairly noisy (still playing with manual settings!) and I've been able to fix them up quite a bit. They will probably never enlarge well, but I don't really want a large picture of me on the wall or anything anyway. They were really only taken so I have them, and so I can scrap them!

Thought I'd also share a couple of Dumb and Dumber (aka Emma and Lucy) now that are use to each other a little and stop wrestling long enough to pose. There is also a series of pics of Cooper taken at Nowra Animal Park during the holidays which I just love - they are so typically Cooper and also a picture of my girl's first bath in the big bath which also happened to be her first bath with her brothers. All three of them loved it, the boys were thrilled to bits to have her bathing with them.

If I do nothing else this week, my one goal is to scrap a picture of Brodie. I have honestly barely scrapped a layout since Christmas, although I have been doing a lot (or maybe not so much, but some) of other design and scrapping related things, but it really is starting to cut me that my little girl is almost 3 months and I'm still yet to scrap a layout of her. So, saying it here so I am now accountable, before, let's say next Sunday night, I am to scrap a picture of Brodie...now, off to decide which one and remember how to scrap a layout!

Utter Chaos

2007-10-19T20:40:00.000+10:00

So please tell me there are others who feel there life is out of control as much as I do mine?

And it isn't really the "three kids" that are doing it. They're not too bad at the moment. I mean, yeah, ok, I guess they are what is making me busy. But it will seem like I have some time to get something achieved or a plan for the next few days to get through my list of things to do - and there is always something that comes up!

For instance, the boys have just had there school holidays, and like usual, spent a night out at their Grandma's. Now, pre-Brodie, that 2 days.... and believe me, I made it as long a two days as I could, dropping them out there after breakfast on the first day and having dinner out there and then bringing them home on the 2nd, was always my time. Scrapping, sleeping, heck, I even put a colour through my hair once! LOL! Realistically, I knew this time would be different. Seeing as Brodie doesn't like going 5 hours, never mind 2 days, without breasts, I was still going to have her. And because of the addition of her, I knew I would have to play catch up with housework and the business for some of the time. So there was a plan..... day one, house work and business (in between Brodie, of course) and day two, me! It isn't a complete whinge, cause I altered parts of it from the norm - ie: instead of folding wash routinely, I treated myself to watching Dr Phil and Oprah, both of which are the only two shows I would watch all the time if I did watch TV, while I folded and packed away washing. And it was great. But when it got to 3pm on the 2nd day, I still hadn't done a single thing for me, Brodie wasn't settling and only had an hour tops before she would want feeding again, and there was only 2 hours left before I would need to leave to get the boys, I felt like crying!

I know it's just life, and it is that way for everyone.... but I start almost each week thinking, ok, I've cleared the back log, this week will be different and I find myself fighting headlice (which a few weeks and a good couple of hundred dollars later I think I have won!) or there are a heap of visitors or there is lots of unexpected shopping trips (which have a good habit of taking half a day for each one!) or Andrew does a heap of quotes for the business which need entering or so on and so on....IT NEVER ENDS!

And like I said, at least on the surface, I can't really blame the kids. I mean, Brodie is in somewhat of a routine, and yes, is having the odd unsettled day but as a rule is doing ok. She goes to sleep quite easily, amuses herself well a lot of the time, and at night - well, she is sleeping from 7:30-8pm through until 4:30-5:30am most times, and has been for a few weeks (except for last week when she was waking around 1 or 2 again). Travis still can never amuse himself what so ever when he is home - in fact, he is still down right useless at it, but he is at school five days a week. And Cooper is at school two days a week too.

Be warned, the following paragraph is going to be one big "hubby" gripe....LOL

Andrew and I somewhat having difficulties again. Over the same old, same old....ie: the business.
I can't stand it! For those reading this that don't know the history, this is a fanchise business we bought against my wishes in May last year. Everyone, including myself and Andrew, has always joked about Andrew's ego and arrogance for ever - but it is only now I am actually seeing it a negative way and not an amusing harmless way! I'm just finding it so much easier not to talk to him - in all honesty, I'm not even wanting to talk to him. Don't get me wrong, I love the guy a lot, I'm just not feeling it much on the surface at the moment. Everytime I open my mouth about anything, he appears to have this attitude that I am automatically wrong before I even say anything, that he is always one up on all the information, that he knows best about everything. We can't (and I do say "WE") define our roles within the business successfully. Even though I never wanted the business, it was always said that if we were doing it, we were doing it together. So on paper, he is the service guy and the sales rep, and I am the receptionist-come-operations-manager. But since we have bought the business, I have realised what a control freak my husband is. Now I am going to be the egotistical one for a moment, and say, that IMHO, anything I have ever done, I have done fairly well. Anything that falls into the operations manager/receptionist role, I am more than capable of doing - and doing well. I would even go as far as to say in all my past jobs, especially the pharmacy before I had Travis, I have excelled at customer service and relations. But where as we started the business with me in that role, booking the jobs with the customers, supposedly ordering and such.... bit by bit, I have become faceless and voiceless in the business. I feel like I'm trusted to put a stamp on a letter - but that's it. And the bits Andrew does "let" me do, I feel I'm being watched over and checked up on - we are definitely not equal in his eyes. And it hurts. It bugs me! He'll watch over my shoulder as I'd doing things - picking up on little things before I've finished, questioning things. To hear him talk about the business... to either outsiders or people in the head office during audits and such... it's "I've got", " I do", "I have",....there is no "us" or "we" about it. He almost seems chauvanistic! Yet to hear him talk about other couples that own franchises within this business, for instance, lets say the couple is called Fred and Mary, he almost talks like "Mary" is the primary owner and the one he contacts should he need to. I do appreciate that in those cases, the other wives within the business have older children and that possibly makes a difference. The people in head office never correspond with me at all.... I thought for a long time that they were the chauvanistic ones and all old fashioned, but now I'm feeling that they are only responding to Andrew's attitude that the business is his, and that I'm not really an active part or know any of the information, or couldn't possibly accurately know what we need to order or tell them what we need to know or pass information on correctly. So rather than call the office phone here, they call Andrew on his mobile while he is with customers doing either services or sales! I could so go on and on about this!
Now I must say, that in so many ways Andrew is wonderful. He is supportive generally speaking, fantastic Dad, helps out more around the house and is happier to do so then any other man I know. But through all the problems we are having with the business, I have come to see a lot of this as negative too - and I know that's my short coming. But when I go to hang out the washing and he does it - is that because he does it better or I am not capable? Gosh, I know how ridiculous that must sound! When he is asking if there is anything he can do - is that because he doesn't think I can manage?
I'm not innocent here. I know I'm not. I have become so "obsessed" and paranoid about this attitude of his, that I know I "look" for instances of it, and am over reacting to a lot of things that normally wouldn't have worried me. I know I have, and am, unintentionally putting him in a position where he feels he can't win or do anything right. And he is really really trying! He is trying his hardest to find things I can be "let" do and such.... he even asked one of our suppliers to put me and the office number as their contact details.... he is making himself stay out of the room for the most part when I am working so he isn't looking over my shoulder... I know he is really trying. But it isn't the attitude behind it that is changing.
Oh man, I must sound so hard to please and I'm sure I'm not really painting the picture I want to paint here - they seem like such pedantic things in writing.
My best gf is always saying to me "Why do it then? Let him do it.... tell him to stuff it and you can do then what you really want to be doing." And she is right in a lot of ways - if he is so determined to be the control freak and have upper hand on everything and he is always right and any opinion of mine is wrong before I even give it, then maybe I should just "let it be his baby". But seeing what he was like managing someone else's business, ie: a McDonalds store, I know there is no way (and this is going to be the most stupid sounding thing I've mouthed off about yet) that I can compete with a business that is all his unless I am a part of it too. That's why when I "lost the fight" about buying it in the first place, we made the deal that if we were doing it we were doing it together. He already has it in his mind all the time and can't switch off from it, if he was doing all the fiddly little paperwork too, we would not see him. Without this sounding like we are heading for divorce court or anything, cause I'm sure we won't, unless we can do this together in some way, I don't think we can make it.
Now, we just have to find a way to make it work together. And I know there are faults on both parts. Biggest one being that right at this moment, I don't even particularly like talking to him or looking at him, not to mention, working alongside him. OMG, that must sound so horrible, but it's true! I do believe we will make it... both of us were getting married for good and for the long haul when we got married ... but this is sure putting a dampener on things. Up until we bought the business, our marriage was always wonderful. When we first bought it, and in the couple of months before leading up to the final contracts and such, and things between us really were the pits, a good friend of mine said "Carole, how do you get back from here? How do you get past this?" And I really don't know, but I do believe we will. I thought for a while we had done it, but apparently not. We will though, it's just going to be a mighty long road.

Anyway, enough whingeing! It probably isn't the sort of stuff one is meant to share on a blog, but seeing as this is doubling as my personal journal to look back on stages further down the track, I figure why not!

And it certainly isn't all as bad as that up there is making it all sound. I am so in love with my children right at the moment. The boys have just had their school holidays as mentioned above, and we really managed to do quite a few quality "things" this time. We took a trip to Nowra Animal Park once again, as the major outing, but also had outings to the local soft play centre, their Grandma's, they had a day at Nanna's, lots of fun things at home. We really had quite an ok time. Maybe it's because of the other troubles, but I find myself playing with and looking at the kids all the time at the moment, all the while thinking to myself "You are my world." And they are!
Cooper and I particularly have done quite a lot of bonding. I've really been able to work with him well the last few weeks, rather than against him which is so easy to do with Coops. And I've been rewarded for all the creative parenting it has taken with a little voice beside my bed at 2 in the morning saying..."Guess what, Mummy?" "uuugh...uh...what Cooper" "I love you".
Travis has bought this little saying home from school that goes "missed me, missed me, now ya gotta kiss me"....and we've had a lot of fun with that. Gets me kisses and giggles all the time!
Picked Travis up from school today and the kid was seriously that bursting with pride I thought he was going to cry. He walked up to me, in true Travis style, awkward as anything, with his bag still open and lunch boxes and such spilling out cause he'd had difficulty managing to get everything in the bag well enough for the zippers to close easily, but there clutched in one of his little still ever-so-chubby hands was his 5th gold certificate! What that means is a silver award (yes, I've always wondered why "silver" is better than "gold", but it is at his school) at a later assembly and an afternoon tea full of ice cream and such with his principal. I am so proud of him!
Brodie is gaining weight very impressively. Almost too impressively...LOL! From 3kg born, exactly, she is now 5.85 at 11 weeks and 1 day (more than that now). Although I wouldn't say she is "giggling" yet, she is definitely, what I call, "audibly smiling". She hasn't learnt a lot of tricks yet, by any means, and somewhere between child number #2 and child number #3 I've kind of forgotten when to expect everything anyway, but she is generally speaking a happy little thing and a pleasure to be around.
And Lucy is gaining a heap of weight too. She is now in the backyard with Emma most of the day, with just a little break for the two of them around lunch time. They are very quickly being coined "dumb and dumber" - I mean, come on, I own a boxer and a labrador. They have to be the two most unintelligent "looking" species of dogs there is! LOL. I can see even though Lucy is the younger that she will wind up the dominant. She ventured into Emma's kennel today (Lucy doesn't have one as yet) but seeing as Emma rarely uses hers, even at night, Emma was not phased. Luc is taking the top rung on the stairs though. Emma has always sat on the top step to the verandah.... especially when there is something to be barked at and she feels she is protecting the place. Well Lucy is sitting there now and Emma is not impressed. She won't actually "challenge" Lucy for the position, but she is growling from the lower position to let Lucy know she isn't happy - not a savage growl, just a "I'm not happy about this new seating arrangement" kind of growl. Just now, they are getting used to each other enough that they aren't wrestling all the time and I am able to get some nice pics of them "cuddling" and sitting together.
Speaking of pics, I got sick of waiting today for someone to take some pictures of me and my little girl together, so I have taken them myself. And let me tell you, I was buggered by the end of it. Jumping up and down with her to keep setting the self timer.... it actually took a lot of work. But I was happy with them sort of. Or at least the ones I am keeping. I am still working on taking manual pictures which I am really happy about - but they have come out with a lot of noise on them. Other than that, they are great. So I'll finish editing them, and then come back to share.
Anyway....my bed is well and truly calling....
Apologies for the venting.... :)

A week in pics...

2007-10-11T07:24:00.001+10:00

Yep, real life has got in the way again! I promised these pics about a week ago, so they're kind of old now! (well, at least a little bit anyway)

I'm really pleased with myself that I am, now, slowly learning a little about the manual settings on my camera. It's been on my to do list for about 18 months now. Admittedly, the majority of any good shots I am getting, are more good luck then good management - but I'm learning and have made a start - and at the moment that is what counts.

Most of the time I'm taking shots of stuff I already more or less have similar shots of, so if I miss them and/or the photo's are useless - that's ok! And if it's something really important to catch in some way or another, then I have the option of flicking back to auto settings on the camera.

Here's a few of my little girl - I love some of these pics! I'd been trying to get a decent pic of her smiling for how long now??? Probably six weeks or so - I'm fairly happy with this one. It's a shame that her "first smiles" photo was so long after she actually began smiling, though. The series of her in the little pink top I just love - she's just like a doll, and well...the yawning one...well that one just cracks me up!

And Travis with our play in the park next door. We are so lucky to live next door to here - it's not a park with play equipment, just more of a walk the dog or ball sports kind of park, but it's beautiful - when it rains a lot it floods and becomes a lake, which is even more gorgeous to live next door to, but it takes so long to dry out afterwards that we can't use it for ages afterwards! Take a look at the frisbee in the first shot - so tickled pink with that one! LOL

And Cooper... always so stinkin cute and photogenic, yet, it is Travis that will happily get his pic taken! Isn't that always the way! The top photo he was beginning his roll down the hill.

And my gorgeous other little girl...And finally, for those that asked for a peek at the new do..... It's definitely not inspiring, for those looking for inspiration. It's still fairly plain Jane/Girl Next Door - but it's just enough of a change for me. (The fringe is new, and it's a little layered now). The first pic is after they styled it - it will never look like that again until I go back to the hairdressers, not because I necessarily hated it looking like that, just because I can't do what they can do. The 2nd is hugely underexposed, but you get the idea!

Crummy Mummy & More...

2007-09-29T21:45:00.000+10:00

I've officially, at least temporarily, titled myself "Crummy Mummy".

So Travis had his first concert at school this week. We were all leading up to it for a few weeks, Andrew and I had discussed when and how we would go (they were doing a matinee and a night performance) - we could only go to the night - and we were still in two minds about whether Coop and Brodie would come with us. I had the "tickets on sale" day marked in my windows calendar. Travis was excited as anything - as the one child in his kindergarten year at school that can read adnormally - and I'm mean *REALLY* read adnormally - anytime they need to throw a kindergarten child in front of a microphone, Travis gets it! So yet again, Travis had the only "speaking" part for kindergarten in the concert, introducing their 3 songs, and I don't mind adding that I feel just a little tickled pink about it.
Friday he came home saying there were signs up that the night tickets had sold out! "Sweetheart, it's ok, they don't go on sale until Monday", I told him. Afterall, I had it in my calendar. So Sunday night I decide to check the newsletter, and lo and behold, they went on sale the previous Wednesday (which was the date I'd entered in my calendar, I just hadn't rechecked it and had it in my mind wrong). That means he was right, which I should know by now not to doubt him, the night tickets were sold out. Aaaaargh! How on earth do you tell your son who is so incredibly excited about it, that because of your mistake and carelessness, his Daddy was now not able to see his very first school concert?
I have never felt worse in my life, I'm sure. His very first concert, him with the only speaking part. He had been so excited. Aaaaargh. He was already in bed when I realised my error but I just wanted to go in and wake him up and hug him! I didn't. But first thing in the morning, I called him to me and started the grovel..."Honey, Mummy's made a really really big mistake and I am soooo sorry......". I could go to the matinee, but Daddy couldn't. And none of us could go to the night now.
His initial reaction was hysterical. The poor little guy thought that meant he couldn't do the night performance either. But once I'd explained to him that he was the star and that the people on stage didn't need tickets, and not only could he still do the night performance, but in fact, he had to - they needed him, he was actually ok about it.
I'd come up with a plan that he was in support of, that I would go without the kids, including Brodie which I was kind of uncomfortable about seeing as she is breastfed and won't take a bottle, and I'd video every single second of it. Then everyone could watch it. We could have a "concert video showing night/dinner" with Grandma. Daddy could see it. I could watch it over and over again. Heavens, Travis could even watch it. Travis thought that was a great idea, and all morning he kept saying to me "I really really do forgive you Mum". What a sweetie!
From then on it went as planned. (Mind you, the little ratbag! I forgot to put a spoon in his lunch box the next day for his yoghurt and he had to get one from the canteen - that night he was saying "that's *TWO* mistakes you've made now Mum, but I forgive you for both" - WHAY? Are we now going to count every mistake I make until you're 21?)
I video'ed every minute of it, include the Year 1 and 2 parts - I stood at the back on the steps to do it, so no heads (for the most part, except one lady, but we won't go there, she was just rude and inconsiderate!) were in the way and let me tell you, my arms and shoulders were about to drop off by the end of it. But I did it.
Travis was fantastic - I was so stinkin proud! Mind you, he didn't look overly happy through out it. When I picked him up from school only half an hour after the concert finished, the poor kid had done the concert while he was burning up with a temperature and having cramping pains in the tummy! What a trooper, but the poor little guy. He'd been to the doctor's the day before, Brodie had her shots, and Travis was supposed to get the chicken pox one, but he had had temperatures (the same thing Coopy had last week) on and off for a few days, and was actually burning up with a fever while we were at the Doctors. The doctor cleared him and said he was fine to go to school, it was no big drama just give him some panadol before he went. Which I did - but it obviously didn't quite stretch the distance!

So that's why I'm a crummy Mummy. But it actually did work out ok, even better, I think in Travis' eye's - cause now he can see the video too! And we had our chinese Take away dinner, concert showing night with Grandma last night too.

That was the highlight of our week, obviously, but typically, a lot else happened that I want to ramble about as well and I feel I've barely sat down.
The Sunday was when Trav first came down with the fever. I had decided, hesitantly, cause I knew I'd resent the back log of housework to "kick this joint" on Sunday and attempt to break the cycle of bad behaviour and tension, and screaming at the boys all the time for no REALLY good reason. By saying that, they have been quite naughty and difficult, but I know not really *THAT* naughty and difficult. I didn't have the energy for a really big day, so I made a plan that we would visit my sister-in-laws to drop off her birthday present and see my nephew, followed by visiting my Mum's, so the boys and myself could see her house that's in progress of being built (on the same land they are living on now) followed by a trip to a yet-to-be-decided local park for which we had tether tennis, frisbees and balls in the back of the car. We got as far as Mum's when I realised that Travis really was not feeling well. In the ten minutes home from Mum's he was falling asleep in the car, which for an almost 6 year old, is a fairly big thing. He was burning up with a temp by then, so we came straight home and skipped the park - had hot chip sandwiches for lunch, a sleep, and some panadol for Travis.
We still made it to the park later, but we just ducked to the park next door so we'd be close by, and the boys did some rolling down hills, throwing frisbees and kicking balls while I rocked the pram and practiced some more "action" photography.
Monday, I had to take Lucy to the vets for her boosters. Emma had had to go the week before. How I haven't wound up taking the kids to the vets for theirs and the dog to the doctors still surprises me! Getting Lucy's shot was a big relief for me - I'm going to get a second booster done for a precaution in 4 weeks time, but now that booster is in her system, I'm almost guaranteed she will be free from Parvo unlike our first Lucy!
Tuesday was the day the kids went to the doctors for their shots, which I mentioned above. And I was dealing with Travis not being well again that day. I couldn't help but think, gee, Brodie must really be a girl! LOL! The boys never really complained about their needles as babies, maybe letting out just one or two quick cries, but poor Brodie screamed - and cried and screamed the 20 minutes home in the car too! I swear she had a temperature too by the time she got home she was so worked up in the car. I was going to stop at a local park and let the boys play while I fed her a "comfort" feed, but in all honesty, I really really needed to pee, and I wasn't going to be able to feed her until I did! And not only do I have a thing against public toilets in parks (although most parks here don't have them anyway), and the logistical nightmare of trying to watch the three kids while I used them, I kind of figured that by the time I did go to the toilet, got three kids out of the car, and got ready to feed that I could have had her home anyway. She settled down quite quickly once we did get home and she had a nice feed.
Wednesday was hectic with the concert. Running Coop and Brodie to my gf's so she could watch them, back to school for concert, back to school to pick up Trav, and back to gf's to pick other two up. And then rushing to get dinner ready so Trav could be back at school by 6:40pm. And then ducking back to get him when he'd finished.
Thursday - NIGHTMARE! Remind me next time I have a dilemna or am worried about something to trust my intuition and not listen to what other's say. One word - headlice! (or is that two?) Travis had started scratching a little while before, maybe last week? I checked him then, not the proper conditioner check admittedly, but had spent a long time with a comb looking for eggs and such. Found nothing. Decided I'd treat anyway so had thrown the kids in the car quickly before the shops shut that day and went to the pharmacy I used to work at. My ex-boss, who is a wonderful man, even checked Travis for me. Now, not only does he have years experience in pharmacy, he also has the experience of SIX children, and he assured me Travis just had a little bit of dandruff, so ok, I felt better and we bought the necessary stuff for that. (In hind sight, all his scratching had "flaked" the little bit of cradle cap that he still has from time to time). After a couple of goes with the recommened dandruff shampoo, I was saying to Andrew that he was still scratching and there was no flaking or dry skin there. Andrew, this time, assured me that it was just because there hair was so long and I hadn't taken them to the hairdresser yet (yes, I said it like that because it is so obviously entirely my fault in his eyes!) and that he gets itchy too when he is due for a hair cut. Now he is right to an extent, the boys hair is disgusting at the moment - they normally make it holiday to holiday, but have really not quite made it that long in between haircuts this time - they are booked in for next Tuesday. Coop had started scratching a little by this stage too, but ok, so his hair is disgustingly long at the moment as well. But then....Thursday, Travis brings a note home from school advising parents there have been cases in his class and could we all check and treat if necessary. Uuuuugh! I could scream. So this time I do it my way, and do the proper conditioner and lice comb check. Yeppers! Both boys have live crawling "guests"! Sooooo frustrating! And I feel so stupid - yet at the same time, I know I had initially done the right thing and had had a "professional" look at them too! I spent more than 4 hours Thursday afternoon, which I really didn't have, combing and conditioner-ing, and then when Andrew got home from work with the shampoo I'd rang and asked him to pick up, doing the medicated shampoo as well! And you know what is even more frustrating - Andrew and I are now both scratching as well, and will be doing our hair when he gets home from work, and even more frustrating, the stuff I have used on the boys hair I don't think has killed them! I'm using something different on Andrew and I, a natural procut, as I've been recommended not to use the chemical one while I'm breastfeeding, so I'll see how that goes and I may be doing the boys heads again with that in the morning!
It infuriates me - it is so time consuming, so expensive, yet some people don't try to eradicate it. I've since spoken to one of the mother's up at the school that I often chat to - her child is in a different kindergarten class, and she goes in to that class and helps out with their reading groups. She commented after reading group only a week or so ago that one particular child had scratched constantly the whole way through the group. The teacher's comment/reply - and I'm not saying she is to blame, she is simply stuck between a rock and hard place - "We know, we're aware, but we can't do anything." Other then send generalised notes home saying there have been cases and could they please check and treat, the teachers really can't do much about it. So you have some people struggling and struggling to get rid of it (not talking about myself necessarily, but other parents I have spoken to), yet our children are just going to have to go straight back to school, where other children and their parents, are seemingly not doing anything! If anyone has any tips or ideas on getting lice free heads - please let me know! Especially with Coop's fear of lying back in the water or having water on his head. I've still been unable to locate any eggs in the boys heads, but have found critters in both of theirs.

Ironically, that was only part of the "hair" stories for Thursday. I actually got my hair cut! And not just trimmed! It's been years since I've had my haircut. Brodie cried through the whole appointment, which made it a little less relaxing than normal, but it was fun. Mind you, apparently I'm not actually entitled to get my hair cut. Andrew's and Travis' reaction to me telling them I had an appointment was "Why?" . Even when I said I felt like a change, and the entire rest of the family gets routing hair cuts and it was about time I had a turn, the general consensus was still "why?" And on top of that, Andrew hates it....LOL! I had quite a bit of length taken off, slightly layered and a fringe cut in. The fringe is the bit Andrew hates, but I think it has a softer "prettier" look.
Friday was quite ok - that was our chinese dinner/video night with Grandma. I had a lovely morning with my bf Allison, sitting in the sun on my back verandah chatting about anything and everything while her kids were at daycare, Trav and Coop were at school and Brodie was happily asleep, drinking take away cappucino's Allison had bought with her. I did have to sign an accident report when I picked Cooper up - he had tripped outside and an easel had falling on his head - they iced it for 10 minutes and did all the concussion checks - but to be honest, and maybe it's just because of their ice, I couldn't even find the slightest lump, and hey, this is Cooper, these sort of things happen when he is around.
The real good news for the week is Brodie has settled back down quite considerably and is being a lot more managable and happy. Smiles and laughs are plenty! She's taking the dummy a lot better now too, which I may well regret one day, although it never worried me with the boys *too* much because they were only allowed it for sleep anyway - Travis' dummy was gone when he was three, and Cooper gave his up himself when he was not much over one because he lost the dirty torn mouldy disgusting dirty one and wouldn't accept the new one that was exactly the same brand, shape, size, pattern and everything. And he wouldn't accept a different one either.

Once again I have rambled and rambled. I don't seem to find the time daily to do the smaller updates even though I have grand intentions. I probably miss stuff I want to document this way. But oh well! Thanks again for bearing with me and all my griping! I hope to come back, maybe even tomorrow *fingers crossed* and share some photo's from the last week! I finally, FINALLY, got a couple of ok ones, nothing special, but ok, of Brodie smiling - she's only been smiling for how many weeks? LOL!

Totem tennis is a Reality Check!

2007-09-15T21:14:00.000+10:00

Thanks to those who commented on yesterdays post with words of encouragement!

Today was marginally better, mind you, it started much the same. Everyone's body clock (except for mine and DH's) must have been perfectly synchronised this morning cause Travis and Cooper arrived on the foot of our bed exactly the same time Brodie woke up screaming with hunger and Lucy started jumping and yapping at the Laundry door to be let out. I was so not ready to wake up and so things started out a little agro on my behalf.

I took Cooper (and Brodie by default seeing as she is kind of attached to me at the moment) to Jayden's Birthday party - Cooper's first party invitation just for him from one of his preschool friends - at the local soft play. That was ok, and nice Cooper and I time. My arms and back kind of got a little sore from carrying Brodie around for most of the two hours but that's ok too. Cooper was funny, he was really out of sorts to start with, he wound up screaming 3 times in the first 15 minutes. He is used to going to that centre, but usually during the week when it's quiet. This was during the weekend, with two parties going on simultaneously, one being an older child's so they were a bit rough, and there were kids and noise and screaming and chaos everywhere. Up until now, Cooper has been a rough and tumble, get's knocked down, get's straight back up again, nothing going to phase me kind of guy. But I think he has reached the stage in his development where he is appreciating that things can be scary. All of a sudden we are having episodes over the noise of the blender or a whipper-snipper (that one the teacher's at preschool had to deal with) or over a fly in the toy room, or like today, the chaos of kids running everywhere. I was feeding Brodie over at the side of the room when I saw Cooper appear in the middle of the room. He looked completely lost. He was screaming, you know, that kind of screaming where there are tears and the mouth is wide wide open, but no noise is coming out. When I called him over to me and asked him what was wrong, he snuggled into me and said "I didn't know where I was going." I was so glad I had made the decision to stay at the party rather than pick him up after. I assured him I would be right in that chair if he needed me, and after another two episodes in the following 15 minutes, he was then right. He had found his feet there, so to speak. All was good until it was time to go and then there was HUGE HUGE drag-him-by-one-arm-kind-with-everyone-feeling-they-should-help kind of tantrums when it was time to go, but hey, this is Cooper and I'm fairly well used to them by now.
The younger two were asleep this afternoon and I decided for my feel-good-parenting for the day that I was going to join Travis in the backyard where he was playing totem tennis and have just a couple of quick games with him. He was sulking a little because I wouldn't let him play Nintendo, but we have a rule here that Nintendo is for a little while on Sundays and school holidays only. This is where the reality check comes into it. I took three steps into the backyard, and he looked at me and said "Why are you down here?" Ouch! How long had it been since I'd played with them in the backyard! A LOT longer than the 8 weeks Brodie is old! When I had my first 3 nephews they adored me because I was the older person that would join in their games, or bounce on a trampoline with them, or swing just as high as they could. They saw most of the older people as "too old" or "too busy" to bother doing those things with them, yet I didn't let that stop me, and they loved it. Yet, here I was not doing those things for MY OWN CHILDREN! Travis was very right! So I looked at him and smiled and said "It's my backyard". To which he said "It's mine too, but really, what are you doing down here?" I told him I'd come to have a few quick games with him and his face just lit up! Now you have to understand that Travis is very much an academic and needs a TON of time, help, patience and encouragement with anything physical, from cutting and pasting and getting dressed to the more gross motor kind of activities like Totem Tennis. But we had a ball - pardon the pun! He did quite well. But to really bring the reality check home I lost track of how many times he stated how much fun it was (And it was!), he was just so stunned I was playing with him, and he was really really revelling in it. And then reality check item #3, he even looked at me at one stage and said "Mum, I haven't heard you laugh like that before". It was obviously a child's exaggeration, but it shows how "absent" I have been to my children lately. Anyway, we went on playing our self-invented totem tennis come duck-duck-goose for an hour! Seriously, I kept meaning to go inside, and kept warning Travis is was my last one - but I was having soooo much fun. Travis and I clash something chronic an awful lot the last year or so, but to enjoy his company so incredibly much, was one of the most remedial things I've done in ages.
I took a couple of pics to scrap the moment as some stage down the track, but I was playing with manual settings and trying to learn my camera, so they aren't that wonderful.
And we still spent more time, Andrew, myself, Travis and Cooper (Brodie was sleeping) out the back after helping the boys with their bikes. Travis still can't ride his bike really anywhere other than the verandah, partly because the slopes and such in our yard make it really difficult, and partly just because of Travis' difficulties with the strentgh and such required for things like that. But he did really well, he was pushing his bike to the top of the hill and coming down himself, and did a little "practising" on what little level grass we have too.
Brodie was still difficult most of the day, but only took an hour or so to get to bed tonight. Andrew still had to work tonight so it all got a little crazy and agro then too. And I discovered Cooper has a fever (AGAIN! really rare for my children!) 5 minutes after Andrew went to work so I had that to deal with too. But all in all, it was really quite a positive day, and has really inspired me to take them to the park or something tomorrow if the weather is just as nice!
It's so important to be spending the time with them! It will go ten fold in making things better around this place. I look at Brodie, and here she is, almost 8 weeks old, and not fitting in new born nappies anymore and almost needing to be in the cot rather than the cradle, and they just grow up way too fast! Let my house be a mess - see if I care! (Not sure about all the work for the business and the desinging but I'll deal with that another day!)

T.G.I.F

2007-09-14T20:42:00.000+10:00

Thanks God It's Friday.

Times 2. It's the last two weeks I'm glad are over. Not just one.

Tomorrow morning I'm putting Lost and Found posters on the local telegraph poles, offering a reward for my sanity.

Firstly, I hereby make a rule that from this point forward, babies and puppies come one at a time in this house! She isn't a "bad" puppy - but she is a puppy, so by pure definition their is mischeif, puddles, yapping, nipping, biting at clothes, absconding with toys, poo, barking to be let out, barking to be let in, and children that lost interest and patience with her beyond a couple of minutes at a time from day two onwards.

Isn't it funny how you believe you are busy - and then life gets busier and you realise that you weren't really that busy after all. :)

Last Monday-Wednesday, I could feel the pressure physically, emotionally and mentally. Brodie had started being fairly difficult late in the day by this point, Lucy was causing unbelievable worry, and my list of things to do was not even getting looked at. For those two days I had zip, none, zero and nada breastmilk - or almost. I tried to offer a couple of supplements with formula - but it turns out my little girl is fairly fussy and didn't want to know about that anyway. Thankfully, that situation has seemed to right itself a little, but I'm watching things closely.

Back to the worry Lucy was causing. After explaining in previous posts about the track record in trying to get this puppy and how she has become "Lucy the third", she came home on the Friday, and was only somewhat interested in her meals on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Come Monday, she did not eat a single biscuit all day. And I didn't see her drink really either. She didn't even have her puppy milk. And on top of that, there was doggy-diarrhoea everywhere (which apparently my stomach doesn't handle too well...LOL,....the cleaning up thereof that is), she was soooooo sleepy (what puppy continues to sleep and can't be woken with three toddlers crowding her bed and poking her), and from three metres away you could audibly hear her tummy grumbling, yet she still would not eat. And we had kept her diet the same as what she had been on at the breeders. It just felt like it was happening all over again. I knew she couldn't have caught parvo from our place - one, surely it had been more than enough time for that not to be an issue, and secondly and mainly, she hadn't been with us long enough for the symptoms to be showing yet if she had come in contact with it whilst with us. It would have taken at least 7 days, if not, up to two weeks. I barely slept Monday night, absolutley sick with worry.

Tuesday, thankfully, she woke up and ate a full breakfast. But I was still worried. There was still her messes everywhere. She still seemed far too lethargic. My husband, in one of his less supportive moments, drove me crazy! He asked if I was worried about her. Like, of course I was worried about her. I had one puppy die because I didn't take her to the vet straight away. (I did take her back to the pet shop straight away, but later found out they are useless, did nothing for her and lied constantly about it!) So, and this is where his supportiveness really shone through, on a day where I had to take Travis to school, race Cooper to a girlfriends place who was kindly looking after him, fly to Bowral for my six week check up, come back, go through the whole "I have no milk - should we supplement" conversation with Andrew, then sterilise bottles and such like mad while Andrew flew down the shops to get some formula and new teets so I could make a bottle there and then, race to the primary school to watch an assembly that my sons classing was conducting in with him being the "lead" so to speak, then race back and pick up Cooper before two cause my girlfriend had a Drs appointment for her little girl, come back home for 20 minutes before putting younger kids back in the car to go pick Trav up from school, all with a hungry-not getting enough milk-new born baby in tow, he says "if you are worried about her, take her to the vet, but I think YOU need to do it." Aaaaargh....when? And how? How do I carry a dog carrier, a baby capsule, and keep Cooper in line? He was "free" so to speak, up until the assembly part of the day, but no, because he felt "I" was the one worried, so "I" was the one who needed to take her, I was more or less kind of forced not to.

Anyway, as it turns out, she was ok, without going to the vets. She has been eating fine since, the diarrhoea hung on for a couple of days, but has been fine now for a week or so too. I'm guessing she was probably going through an adjustment "pining for Mum" sort of scenario and was unable to eat emotionally. That diet change caused, again I'm guessing, the diarrhoea and the lack of energy. And seeing as she has done nothing but get into mischeif and drive me batty every since, yeah - she's fine and settled now.

I got on top of the milk problems with Brodie quite quickly once that all settled down. But somewhere during that week, Brodie started being quite difficult to put down at night. For instance, Andrew worked 4 nights straight, which I'm finding almost impossible to tolerate at the moment doing homework, dinner, bed, babies and puppies without him, but he had to do what he had to do. (And he has had to do it again this week!) During those four nights, she went to sleep great 2 of them, and took at least 2 hours of "work" to get to settle properly the other two nights. From then on, it's been starting to "put her to bed" at 7:30 after the boys go to bed, and finish "putting her to bed" anywhere up until 11:30! I can't cope with it, I so desperately need that "me" time without the kids. Mind you, she sleeps 6-7 hours in the first block at night once I do get her to sleep, so I am really fortunate in that aspect, but in a lot of ways, that 4 hours of getting her to settle is more exhausting to me, with losing the me time, then getting up 4 hourly to feed her.

One night last week, I woke up to her twice during the night to feed her, and both times I was completely out of it. I wandered out into the hall from our bedroom having no idea where the noise was coming from, or which child it was crying, or which light switch I needed to turn on to deal with it. When I worked it out and was feeding her, I'd be dozing off, then waking up again, having no idea whether I'd fed her from "both sides" yet or whether I had changed her nappy or still needed too. And the part that really REALLY got to me - and I beat myself up afterwards over it quite badly - I realised when I went back to bed and got my head around things, that I had not realised it was Brodie. I had thought it was Cooper as a baby - it was like I'd completely even forgot we had had Brodie. And as a mother, "forgetting" that, even if it was due to exhaustion and not being fully awake, just makes me feel sick to the stomach. And so absolutley guilty towards her.

You know, we've gone through, over the last couple of weeks, all the questions and problems with babies. Overfeeding? Underfeeding? (Not possible with the weight she has and in putting on) Wind? Needs more play time? Colic? Sick? and so the list goes on. But I've reached the same conclusion that I reached several years ago with Cooper, but not before I lost my breastmilk with him. And that's just that it's simply a phase, albeit a difficult one, that she is going through in her growth and development and that for the time being, she justs needs feeding as constantly as she wants it, rocking and loving when she needs it, and she will sleep when she is ready. Sure, I can see things that definately do not help. She tends to be a snacker as the moment. She gets in the cycle of lots of little meals rather than four hourly big feeds, which means I'm constantly feeding her during the day. Because of that, she is always either feeding, burping, or regurgitating - she is still getting over the effects of the last "snack" when she starts wanting the next. Or at least thats the way it seems!

She also isn't too keen on the dummy - and that's with us buying different "brands" trying to find "the one". She will take it sometimes if I really push the point, but more often than not, it comes straight back out again, or she gags on it. And the times she does take it, it really doesn't soothe her as much as it soothed her brothers. It's funny - despite the hospital supposedly not supporting the use of pacifiers/dummies/soothers, both my boys had come home from hospital already addicted to the dummy, on a midwife's recommendation to give it to them while we were there. Travis, fair enough, he was a very jaundiced baby who spent some time in the crib, and it really was beneficial for him to have it. Cooper, I think not - if I'd received the same advice with him that I did with Brodie, that being that he was just trying really hard to get my milk to come in sooner - he wouldn't have needed the dummy and chances are, it wouldn't have set up the situations that caused me to lose my milk 8 weeks later. Yet with Brodie, I was desperate to have her come home not with a dummy. I didn't mind if she wound up with one later, but I at least wanted to "bring her home" not already "on it". Which I did, and it's only been the last week we have been trying to give it to her. But ironically enough, because she wasn't used to it from day one, is probably the reason she isn't that accepting of it now. So for the time being, I guess I'm going to "be" her dummy! LOL

It's rough, but even though it's seems like "forever" at the moment, it won't be long and we will look back at this whole phase with her and realise that it was only for 2 weeks, or 4 weeks, or whatever.

Monday night, the story continues, we went to my sister-in-laws for her birthday. We came home slightly later than the kids bedtime, and I got stuck in the 4 hour put to bed routine with Brodie. While I was doing that, Andrew ducked out to the supermarket for me, only to put his tow bar through the front guard of another car when he was reversing out of the parking lot. Turns out the car belongs to a lady who was working at the supermarket, whose husband rarely lets her drive to work and rather drops her off and picks her up. So the one night she does drive..... it would only happen to us, I tell you! Anyway, she's ok about it, and they swap details and such (Andrew's ute isn't scratched at all mind you!) but she warns Andrew to expect an abusive phone call the next morning cause "that's just the sort of guy her husband is." Well yeah, he never waited until the next morning - he was ringing Andrew with all sorts of accusations at 11pm that night! I know he didn't ask for someone to wreck his precious car, and Andrew was in the wrong, and these things are an inconvenience...but really, what a jerk! Andrew did the right thing by going into the supermarket and finding the owner, we are insured, he swapped details, and really when it comes down to it, these things do happen!

Tuesday, Travis went on his first school excursion. Quite an emotional day for me! All of kindergarten, all 100 of them, went by bus to Taronga Zoo, 2 hours away. They had an awesome day, and had really been looking forward to it. But for me, it was really funny and weird. Now, I've always been ok with sending kids off to school - first day of school doesn't worry me at all, if anything, I'm one of those bad mothers and I looked forward to it. Leaving them with a baby sitter doesn't worry me, as long as it is fairly necessary to have them looked after and not just a "dumping" scenario. Having them spend a night at their Grandma's in school holidays doesn't phase me, in fact, I get back in the car after dropping them off and I'm all but cheering! But putting my son on a bus to go all the way to Sydney, with people I barely know, without Mummy or Daddy there to take care of him.....now that's weird. Especially on September 11 and the week after the Apec convention - I mean, this is Sydney, anything could happen....LOL! But despite my caution, the day was fine, and he returned safely! I think I told him that morning at least 100 times that the most important thing was "to listen and stay with your group." I was even making him repeat it to me. I felt a little better when one of the other Mum's said she had going to write her phone number on the inside of her son's arm...LOL!

Wednesday, Cooper had a fever and was really really not well. He wasn't vomitng or anything, but everything was a struggle for him and he was moaning like every movement hurt. He just kept trying to go to the toilet crying "Mum, my tummy is all full of poo". I dont' think it was, he was just confusing the feelings of being not well with the feelings of needing to go to the toilet, but it didn't stop his distress everytime he tried and the poo wouldn't come out and I was telling him that I couldn't help it come out he'd just have to try again later. He just started feeling a little better, and Travis came home from school scratching his head like crazy. I haven't yet had to deal with Lice, but I very quickly started looking, not yet knowing what I was looking for. Andrew was starting 4 nights work again this night so I had all these thoughts about how I get time to do go down to the shops to buy the stuff, and do a head lice treatment, sometime that afternoon/night, while dealing with all the other goings on. It turns out it was all ok - he has insisted on washing his hair more frequently lately which has dried out his scalp and turned his cradle cap - which he still has a little bit of at almost 6 years old - to dandruff. I could see he had flaking, but trying to work out whether it was all the flakes were in fact that or some lice thrown in for good measure, was doing my eyes in.

And yesterday was quite emotional with Brodie meeting her Great Nanna for the first time. My Nanna was put into a home for dementia patients just a couple of months ago, and I really hadn't been looking forward to going there, but my Mum had asked me to, and I knew it was the right thing to do. She really is still too "well" for the place the majority of the time, but the times she isn't she is going walk abouts at 3 in the morning and other similar events. It just wasn't safe for her to stay at home. Truth is, I've never really been close to my Nanna at all, but I knew I had to take Brodie to meet her and vice versa. And I have some lovely photo's of the occassion, even a four generations one which will be very special. It sounds quite horrible, but I don't know I'll go back, which means yesterday was quite possibly the last time I'll see Nanna. She is fading fast, I know she is, and the faster she "fades" probably the easier for everyone. I've explained previously to Travis about "the sort of sick Nanna has" and that she lives in a hospital now, and when I told Travis we went there he asked if I could take him one day. I just had to tell him no I wouldn't. I explained to him that it's a nice place for Nanna, but it really isn't a nice place to visit at all, and that I wouldn't take him or Cooper there. Brodie was a little different given her age and that she slept through it, and he seemed to accept that. But it's all so simple in a child's eyes. I talked about the "illness" with him again, and that one day soon, Nanna will forget who I am. He just looks at me and says "but you can just remind her, Mum."

Anyway, that's my life in a nutshell! Brodie has gone straight to sleep at 7:30 tonight, which has been beautiful! I've actually washed my hair! Yay! But she did have a very unsettled day which escalated for the last few hours.

I just want to start coping with it all better, and I know I'm not at the moment. Yesterday, everytime I was in a brightly lit room, or driving to the nursing home in the sunlight, I had a chronic migraine type pain behind my right eye. It seems a little better today. But I know I am soooo agro at the boys all the time, I have no patience what so ever for their "sillyness" that goes with their age at the moment, and I seem to constantly be yelling at them for something or saying "No" , "not at the moment" or "go find something to do". I'm going to try my hardest to break that cycle tomorrow - cause it is a cycle. It's not the Mother I normally am or want to be, and the more I am like that, the worse their behaviour is, the more stress it places on me......and the more I am like that. They really are quite understanding about it all for their age, but they are suffering and it is showing in their behaviour. I'm really going to try to break that one tomorrow, but I've been hoping to most nights lately.

I heard a quote this week....and I'm not even sure who it was that said it or which show or whatever....

"I KNOW I TALK A LOT, BUT IT'S ONLY CAUSE I HAVE A LOT TO SAY".

Here are a couple of pics to leave you with of my four legged babies.... the one of Emma on her back and covering her face, I have been trying to get for ages now, but she always sense when I get the camera and she really doesn't like the camera much.

The best part of the party....

2007-09-10T10:54:00.000+10:00

IS THE LOLLY BAGS!

Pickleberrypop has turned one - the party is almost over and it's time to give out the lollybags. And just like all good lolly bags, the contents are a surprise.But I can tell you this lolly bag contains 6 individual "packages", over 230mb of scrapping fun, and for only $2.50 AUD (only $2.07 USD) is one of the best value lolly bags you'll find!Something for everyone. Check out the lolly bags from the other pickleberrypop designers as well. You can see mine here

Third time Lucky - Lucy the 3rd!

2007-08-31T21:57:00.000+10:00

(tags used above in photo are Kate Pertiet, DesignerDigitals)
Anyone who knows me or has read back in this blog a little, will know at least the beginning of the story of our quest to get a new family dog, and a friend for our labrador Emma.
The top picture above is Lucy the 3rd. The other picture shows her along side the first two pups we thought would be the long awaited puppy.

Lucy the first we bought from a pet shop back at the end of November last year. She came home from there, unbeknownst to us, with parvo virus and was back there 3 days later. I won't go into the whole story, it is further back in blog if anyone wants to read about it, but basically we were lied to about her constantly for four days. They said she would be coming home, they said it wasn't parvo, they said vets were seeing her....none of it was true. I'm not sure how many puppies died because of that pet shop in those few weeks, but I believe it to be a minimum of nine. After she had been there a few days and I started to see through their lies, I took her at my own cost, to our vet where she stayed overnight, but was put to sleep the next morning at only 2 months and 2 days old.

Lucy the second came about 6 months later, although never actually made it home. The pictures of her (bottom pup on left) were taken by a breeder (we learnt our lesson about pet shops) we were buying her through when she was 5 weeks old. In my opinion, she is still the cutest of the three, but it's probably an unfair judgement as she was that big younger, and we all know the younger a pup is the cuter they generally are. Anyway, a week before we were due to bring her home, she had a couple of days of not eating properly so the "puppy pick up" date was delayed. She began eating again only a couple of days after she went off her food, and the breeders anticipated only a week, 2 at the most, delay in picking her up, while she caught up the weight she lost over those couple of days. She never did catch up that weight, even though she was eating, running around like crazy, bossing the other pups in her litter around even though she was the smallest, and at about 10 weeks of age, the breeders informed us they would not be parting with her as she was still the size of a 6 week old puppy, and even though they or their vet could find no problem with her, they were worried she did have a problem or that a problem with her health would eventuate earlier. It hurt, but I was sensible enough or sane enough at the time to know we really didn't want a pup that could have health problems, and also, as we had only spent a couple of hours with her when she was 6 weeks of age and she never actually came home here, we weren't as attached to her as the first Lucy.
(Just for the record, she ended up going to live with a vet nurse, she is now called "Mouse" and is passing all test with flying colours and is almost normal size. Ironic, huh?)

The breeders gave us a couple of other options with litters they were expecting soon, one litter which would be ready to come home when Brodie was about 6 weeks of age. There was also another litter that was due to come home a couple of weeks after Brodie's birth, and therefore a couple of weeks after my operation as well, but for some funny reason, I felt I had to say no to that one. Anyway, we made a deal that she would reserve for me a red bitch if one was born, and contact me a couple of weeks before this litter was due to come home to see if I felt I could cope with the baby and the pup. Which obviously, all has happened! The baby and the pup IS going to be a stretch timewise, I know - especially between the hours of 4pm and 8pm when Brodie is usually quite demanding and difficult at the moment, but at the same time, I had Andrews support and promised help - and I really didn't feel like I wanted to pass it up. So here she is!
She was born 20 days before Brodie (Brodie 23rd July, Lucy 3rd July) so they will be growing up together, and the boys were absolutely thrilled with her when they came home from school. I had decided not to involve them this time, in case for some reason it didn't eventuate. I figured they didn't need the dissapointment again, and to be honest, I think I'd decided that if this one didn't eventuate, that I didn't need the dissapointment again either. She was one of a litter of six, and is just absolutely gorgeous, with bright white socks and a tiny little white tip on her tail. And of course, the obligatory sad boxer dog eyes. She is stunningly healthy at this stage, and I'm hoping and trying to ignore my paranoia, that she will stay that way.

And that is the story of the evolution of Lucy the third.

She looks so sweet running along side the labrador - they spent a good while slapping each other over the face and poor little Lucy got absolutely pumbled several times. The one time Emma did give it a rest and laid down for a moment, Lucy started sniffing around her face, which Emma was tolerating - and then you almost saw the change in Lucy's eye like she was scheming something and she took a big dive across Emma's side trying to clear her in one bound. Needless to say, that was never going to happen and she landed smack bang on top of Emma's side, which then, of course, meant it was on for young and old again.

Other news for the day is Travis lost his 3rd tooth at school today. Cooper was lucky enough to have a travelling zoo come to his school so came home talking about crocodiles and dragons. I think the dragon was a lizard, from what I can ascertain. He brought home a gorgeous painting of a man and some footprints.

So....a *BIG* congratulations to Pri and LuAnn for guessing the secret. Isn't she sweet?

Thanks for your company :)

Lunar Eclipse & More...

2007-08-30T22:05:00.000+10:00

Here is a picture from the Lunar Eclipse we had here in the land of Oz the other night. It was quite a phenomenon to watch, though the pics aren't that fantastic. I still have no idea how to take a photo - LOL - so it was just standard night view shot on my camera, using the tripod.

We got game and did the photo shot with the three kids on Saturday, and I was right, it was very painful! Cooper is such a photogenic child, but refuses to cooperate, and Travis will cooperate, but is at that age where he cannot smile naturally for a photo. He also has the eye squint that tends to show up quite bad in some photos. And just to top things off, Brodie wasn't too cooperative either. So we took 204 photo's - just randomly snapping - and I've kept about a dozen! And those dozen need some pretty heavy editing. Here is the one I love - edited with two different finishes.

And here are my other favourites...still needing *A LOT* of editing...

One of the things I've become very inspired to use my blog for is recording all those beautiful snippets of conversation with the kids - so here are a couple courtesy of Travis.

Travis - "Mum, when I grow up I want to be really rich"
PAUSE
Travis - "And go to the ATM every day"
PAUSE
Travis - "And take out $100 every day"
(and yes, I was thinking to myself "why don't you just go on Mondays and take $700 out - it would save a lot in time and petrol"

and another...

(Travis was lying on the floor, face to face with Brodie, playing with her)
Travis - "She is copying everything I am doing Mum. She must think I'm the leader of this family"
Mum - "Is she?"
Travis - "But Dad is, isn't he? Cause he's the oldest. (PAUSE) And the meanest (PAUSE) And the smelliest.

I took Brodie to clinic today. From 3000g at birth, to 3580g at 1 week and 3 days to a whoppin' 4700g today at 5 weeks and 3 days. I told Andrew the other day she would be 4500g - and he laughed at me! She has also grown a few centimetres - my little shorty is now equivalent in length to what Travis was born at - 53cm. Her strength and head control and muscle tone are all outstanding! Her developmental milestones seem right on track. We are watching her knees - she has "clicky" knees - which seemingly is really no problems as long as it isn't her hips, which it's not. I also mentioned to the clinic nurse that she seems to take a long time to recover and breathe again (when I say a long time it is only a few seconds) after a cough or choke or gag. Again, it's probably no big drama, and definately isn't to the point of turning blue or anything, which was the nurses first question, but can be a little alarming to watch in light of all the things one keeps in mind with babies.

and finally - I am so excited about tomorrow. Something very special and long awaited is happening tomorrow - fingers crossed - but ssssshhh, I can't tell you just yet! :)

Today is the Day!

2007-08-24T13:40:00.001+10:00

6 months and 28 days...how long my poor blog has been neglected for! Well today is the day, and I'm going to ramble and catch everyone up a heap, so if you aren't prepared, click on the little cross up the top corner!
Thanks to the couple of girls from my Ct, namely Jo and LuAnn, who have not been so subtle in reminding me that my blog existed for the past 6 months! Man, has it really been that long! But in all honesty, this is something I want to do for me too, I just need to find a way to get better at it - remembering to do it and finding time to do it, that is! If for no other reason than to get better at recording those precious kiddy moments I'm having so many of at the moment!

Firstly, to celebrate my "blog reopening" I have even dressed up a little! Remember my boring run of the mill standard template blog from last year? Take a look at that snazzy little header up the top - and I've even updated my "blurb" to include my newest little bundle! Kinda proud of myself really! LOL! We won't mention the fact that I had set a goal to do all this before my daughter was born at the end of July, and she was 1 month old yesterday!

Ok, so catch up number one - the biggest catch up! My family is a family of 5! Brodie Shaye, born on the 23rd July, broke all traditions by being one of those pink babies! To explain about the breaking traditions, my mother now has 8 grandsons and 1 granddaughter. She has been buying and putting aside girl-ie stuff with every pregnancy within the extended family since my first nephew (her first grandson) was born 14 years ago! But now there is Brodie. She was born by caesarean section on the 23rd July at 8:51am weighing a tiny little 6 pd 10 or 3000g and measuring 47.5cm. The operation itself was just absolutely gorgeous - and hopefully without offending anybody, I must share some photo's.

Ok, so these pics might seem fairly standard to most people, and really don't differ too much from a vaginal birth, I guess. To me, they are one of the most precious and special things I own, and something I was so sure I never would, and it's going to take a bit to explain why I say that, but I'm going to anyway.
All three of my children have been born by caesarean. With Travis, it was an emergency caesar, at 3:11 in the morning, due to "failure to progress" (said that way just to make the "failed" mum feel extra dignified) and also, foetal distress due to the amount of oxytocin they were pumping into me to try to get things moving. Despite all this, and the unexpected shock of it, the operation was quite enjoyable. I was awake, no pain, not feeling at all terrible once I got over the initial tears, and Travis was born healthy. I was advised by many, but not all admittedly, medical practitioners that I should just go caesarean again next time as based on the first experience and stats with Travis, the same would just happen again. Based on the opinion of the majority and my determination not to do a day of labour followed by what was quite a good and enjoyable caesarean, as well as the semi casual approach of "well the scars already there, may as well keep other bits in tact" - I did decide to do caesarean 2nd time around with Cooper. I knew at the time though that my obstetrican would not allow me to attempt a vag birth after more than one caesarean, so by making that choice with Cooper, which mind you, I now semi-wish I hadn't, I was also making that choice for children after him as well.
So Ok, operation number one was a success and as far as operations, especially emergency ones go, quite enjoyable. All in all, a positive experience became of what didn't start that way.
Cooper's operation however, couldn't have been more the opposite. Throughout the operation I constantly gagged. Lying in front of a whole operating theatre full of people I didn't know, paralysed from the chest down, I had no choice but to lie there and continually "gag" into mid air, and received a total of 4 stemetil injections throughout the operation just to get me through. That was the better bit. I also felt like I was dying, which I know must sound extreme, but I had this massive sense of my chest and throat and collar bones all tightening and closening in, and it felt like I was struggling to breathe because of it. I also couldn't feel any of the procecdure at all, which I know sounds ideal, but generally with a caesarean under epidural or spinal block/tap, you should have a sense of the "pushing and pulling" and such, but without any pain. Much the same as dental treatment. And I now realise it's actually kind of reassuring to feel all of that. After Cooper was born the anaesthatist said she was going to make it a little more comfortable, and proceeded to give me a full anaesthetic for the stitching up part of the operation. Although it didn't register with me that the full anaesthetic was what she intended when she said that, I didn't mind at all that she did it. The experience I'd been having up until then was one of the worst I've ever had!
Andrew, and his father, have always been convinced that I was overdosed via the spinal block. I've chosen not to ever give much time to that thought. Investigating it further or trying to prove it or even believing that I was, was never going to change the experience, and at the end of the day, it ended up no worse than a horrible memory, but one that I have a delightful little boy (on his good days) to show for it.
Moving right along now to Brodie's pregnancy - I had an underlying fear the whole way through of the same experience. I was scared, to say the least. I re-confirmed with my obstetrician that he wouldn't allow me to try a vaginal birth. So I spoke to him about my fears and the last experience. This is where it gets interesting...LOL! He immediately asked me which anaesthatist I had for Cooper's birth and when I told him, all he would say, on each occassion we spoke about it and there were quite a few, is "she isn't my favourite, you won't be having her". I could tell by his attitude and the things he said that there is a history there, but I obviously wasn't supposed to ask about it, and wouldn't have been told, I'm sure, even if I had.
The morning of the operation, the anaesthatist came to see me, this time, the same anaesthatist I had had with Travis. I spoke to him about it all, to which he called up the hospital records and said there were a couple of different things he could try. When I told him that although it wasn't what I really wanted, if I started to go the same way again, I would prefer to finish it with a general and be asleep for her birth than go through the same thing again, I was told he wouldn't do that, as there are risks with the spinal block and risks with the general and to use both was taking unnecessary risks. He also told me, without my prompting, that the anaesthetist (and I'm deliberately not mentioning ANY names or places) I had with Cooper must have placed the spinal block too high in my spine, hence why I was paralysed and losing function and such, so high up.
As we were heading up to the operating theatre, my doctor (surgeon), whom I have developed by this time quite a good joking and lighthearted relationship with, said casually "so hubby's coming up with the camera is he?" Magic words I will never forget! I didn't realise I was allowed to do that - I thought camera's in Operations were a big no-no, because then I could end up with evidence to sue and prosecute and such (like for instance, if someone was to put the spinal block in too high...LOL). It had never even occurred to me to ask! But here was my doctor offering, and not only that, he then arranged to have the anaesthatist's nurse take the photo's for us, so that Andrew was still free to do what Dad's do. And he "posed" the pics for us too - he stopped just for a second as he pulled her head out from my "tummy" for the photo to be taken - and the lights in the theatre have given the photo's a magical "sent from heaven" kind of feel.
The operation was beautiful - better than Trav's! We had a light joking manner all throughout (but not in a scary not-concentrating kind of way), there was only the slightest wave of nausea at one stage which I barely even got time to mention. I had the perfect operation, with the perfect "team" whom I just adore and am so grateful to each and everyone of them. Because of the situations around the previous two caesareans, I had never really got the chance to hold any of my babies until a few hours later. Brodie was placed between Andrew and I for quite a while before they needed to take her, and I could also see the "table" over at the side where they "worked" on her, so for the first time I could also see the cord being cut by Andrew and all the other things that go on over there. I never NEVER in a million years after it became apparent I would be having my children via c-section thought I'd ever get to see them being born (albeit via photo's). Or hold them immediately after. And never thought I'd have photo's of the occassion, and now I do, and the photo's I do have are just wonderful too, in my opinion.
I don't know if all of that really explains why I feel the way I do about the photo's, but still, one month later, I continue to look at the photo's almost daily with the attitude that they are the most special photo's I own, and ones I didn't think I ever would. And to top that off, I have beautiful memories of Brodie's birth on top of it, everything was perfect!

Brodie has been beautiful. I have to agree with Kate on her blog (whose blog has given me a lot of inspiration about re-starting mine, and very much worth a read) about the whole good baby/bad baby syndrome - and the fact that I have always found it ironic because I don't believe a young baby can be "naughty" as such. Difficult or fussy, is how I interpret those questions. And no, she hasn't been overly difficult. Yes, she is starting to have a few more *moments* than she was, but a newborn baby, almost by definition, is going to have *moments*. She poos all the time with her nappy off, sometimes all over me, she gets hungry at innapropriate times, and then doesn't feed properly sometimes, she "overflows" enough that I'm carrying a cloth nappy over my shoulder to catch all the milky dribbles and sometimes clean up projectile vomits all the time, she gets fussy for periods of time with wind or gas or some other unknown baby problem, she has diminished my free time to almost nothing and eaten away my sleeping hours slightly, and oh yeah, a blocked tear duct that needs freguent squirting with breat milk (much harder than it sounds!) - but all of that just allows me to fall in love with her, like I wasn't already, and to be the mother that soothes her and helps make it all better, or at least just a little more bearable.
And then of course, there are moments like the day before yesterday where you are lucky enough to get her first genuine smile, followed later in the day by her second. They have still been few and far between but she has now smiled, other than all the gorgeous "I'm getting sleepy and dreamy smiles", twice for me and once for her father. Or the moments when she is laying in her pram contentedly looking around and taking it all in, while the rest of the house seems to be falling apart around her. Being a parent is precious. Already I can see a "person" developing - she doesn't like being put in her capsule, she looks around for voices, parituclarly mine, after the initial shock of the water hitting her skin, she likes her baths and finds them very relaxing. And of course we get to witness her brother's and their caring loving beautiful side with her! She is developing her own collection of nicknames - from me, there is "MissyMouse" "mouse" and "mousekateer" and from her Dad, much to my disgrace, "Midge", as in, short for Midget!

So wow - such a big update there alone! Boy, can I ramble. But there has been more happen than just her.
On a designing front, I now have stepped out a little wider. You can now see my designs not only at digiscrapshak, but also, pickleberrypop and scrapdish. It's very busy, and at the moment time is a big issue - but still I'm loving it.
I have created quite a few new things since I last updated my blog, the most recent being my "Charlie" kit, which I used to create the header up top.

Also, a brand new range of templates, available at all three stores. Four in a Flash - with lots of extra's included to make using templates even easier!

Both Travis and Cooper are doing quite well, very much each with their own ups and downs, but I'm going to come back at a later stage (hopefully within the next week or so, but I won't say that aloud as we all know what I'm like!) and do a big ramble about them and their ages and stages, as much for my own "record keeping" as anything else.

I'm going to share some more pics of Brodie, if I may...LOL! Of course I can, it's my blog! I was getting distressed by the fact that I wasn't taking as many pics of her as what I had hoped, so I've consciously set up a few "shoots" the last couple of weeks, the last two being yesterday. I'm not a photographer by any means, and these pictures are *completely* unedited, uncropped, un-colour corrected (ones with the teddy have too much blue in them) and unfiltered at this stage, but all the same I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. I'm yet to have a good photo of Travis/Cooper with her, but I'm trying to psyche hubby up to helping me out with that one tomorrow - I just know it's going to be a hugely painful process. Anyways....here are some pics of my little girl. Now I just need to remember to take more pics of the everyday moments with her!

Aint she cute??? In actual fact, she is just a feminine version of what the boys were like as babies - exactly. They have all looked that closely identical it almost isn't funny.

Anyway, given that in between kids this has taken me hours to complete, I will leave the "big update" there for today, but expect more long winded rambling posts in the near future....I hope. No, really this time! LOL! I fully intend to do an update post about Travis and Cooper in the near future, as well as a update post about what finally eventuated with the whole puppy saga. Expect to see all my designs and layouts, not that either of those are many at the moment, showcased here in future, as well as my THREE beautiful children and all their little moments I want to remember.

So many days lately I'm going to bed feeling like I haven't achieved a thing all day - well tonight I can go to bed knowing I have. I have reached my goal of "re-opening" my blog, albeit over a month late!

Thanks for your company! :)

My poor neglected blog!

2007-01-22T11:06:00.000+11:00

Aaaack...was the 1st December really the last time I posted here??? One day, I'll be more dedicated and get better at this whole blog thing!
I'll have a go at making up for it today. I have 2 new products to share with *LOTS* of samples from my oh-so-fab creative team . I also am about to start the new sketch challenge contest at digiscrapshak so have the template to share for that as well, which I think you'll all love this time!

We had a great christmas, fairly quiet, but great all the same. Once again, I've rearranged the whole house just to make room for christmas. I admit to being the most guilty party but my boys are spoilt rotten! It's becoming a post xmas tradition to discard some broken toys and think better about storage and organisation just to be able to fit in the new stuff.

Travis is now getting really excited at it's only 10 days or so till he starts big school! He surprised us all with a loose tooth a couple of weeks ago, which he duly lost while biting on a dirty face washer in the bath (eeeesh!) the night of the 17th! His first lost tooth! He screamed hysterically for 15 minutes with all sorts of worries about what if the tooth fairy doesn't really come and what if he wakes up to go to the toilet while she's here! He is such a stress head and it's constantly a battle with him! I ended up just saying to him...look honey, I don't know the tooth fairy and I don't know the answers to a lot of these questions, all i know is what happened when i was a little girl - and she always knew I had lost a tooth, she always came, and it didn't matter whether or not I had to wake up once to go to the toilet.
Needless to say she did come...and inflation is such a wonderful thing. I use to get 20c in a jar - he got $3.00!!!!
For those that have been following this blog for a little while a couple of updates:
1) Hubby has his license back! It was a horrible awkward *expensive* 3 months, but I have to admit, not quite as bad as I would have thought. And I also crossed a couple of *fears* that I otherwise would not have crossed such as driving to the city (campbelltown....hahaha....lol...I know *big* city) and driving his ute with the trailer on!
2) Bubs in tummy seems to be going well. 1'm at 13 weeks now and have had my 2nd appointment with the Dr. It was still too early for heartbeats or any such thing, but blood test results were all great, weight gain (uuuugh!) is there, and he could feel the uterus! Morning sickness has been *almost* non existent, but I think I've made up for that in tiredness! Andrew's grandmother is convinced I'm having twins - not very likely! (I guess you'd argue that, huh, Jo?)
3) My beautiful puppy was put down at only 8 weeks old on the 6th December in one of the hardest things I've been through. I won't go into big details - I think most of the people reading this would know them anyway - but little known to me, she had been in contact with a "bug" whilst in the pet shop, and that bug turned out to be the parvo virus. She was taken back to the pet shop (as mentioned in previous post) only 3 days after we got her with this mysterious bug they apparently had no idea what it was. For the first few days I was told yep, she's doing fine, she's heading in the right direction, she'll be home Monday or Tuesday, and then all of a sudden when I was ringing they were saying things like If we don't think she will make it, do you want the chance to come see her and things like We could replace her with a golden retriever just before christmas which would help with the boys pain...I didn't want a golden retriever, I want my Lucy Boxer back! I went and took her from them at my own expense, she looked revolting like a neglected dog from animal welfare, and took her to my vet where she was placed on a drip and diagnosed with parvo with 5 minutes of being there! I was sooooo angry. The pet shop lied constantly to cover up the fact they have had parvo in there store! That night she was on a drip of frozen plasma (VERY expensive stuff) in one last effort to turn her around, but it didn't work. She was too far gone, and was just slipping away further and further and the decision was made that she had been through enough.
4) As an update to point 3, my new puppy is on order, this time through a reputable boxer breeder (very reputable, as it turns out, with plenty of international champions to their name). I had to wait a little, as my house and yard is now contaminated with the deadly virus, and can take up to six months to clear! The breeder has serveral litters due during February, and providing one of those litters include a beautiful little red/fawn boxer just like Lucy, in the female variety again, our family should have ourselves a new Lucy! By the time she is ready to come home, it will only be a couple of weeks short of the six months recommended "de-contamination" time, and if needed, the breeder will keep her for those couple of weeks too! I feel funny calling her Lucy too, and wasn't going to initially. But that is what the boys (especially Travis) want, and it *was* just the absolute perfect name! Cooper now has a, and this is entirely his idea, dog teddy called Lucy, that sits on his bed head at night!

Ok, thanks for bearing through all that! On to the good stuff.

I created these fantabulous Year in Review Templates totally out of no where and on an inspiration I had, and I just love the way they turned out! My CT can't say enough about them, and have produced some absolutely rocking layouts with them!

I've had it put to me since I released them how versatile they really are - think baby's first 12 months, the 12 years of school, and then there are AAM layouts such as 12 things I'm obsess about, 12 favorite anythings, 12 things I cannot live without....etc etc. They are in the store here and for only $2.95, I believe are a real bargain! Here are what my CT has done with them!

Layout by Priscilla aka digisddict aka scrapnz

by Lesley aka tchualessn

Layout by Lesley aka tchualessn

Layout by Priscilla aka scrapNZ aka digiaddict

Layout by Priscilla aka ScrapNZ aka digiaddict (we did tell her she had an OCD with using these templates...:) )

Layout by LuAnn aka wildblueeyez

Layout by Jodine

And next, I have just released this week, a kit that I confess to being absolutely thrilled with how it turned out!
Introducing Candy Girl

And again, some wonderful layouts from the girls (and myself as well, this time!)

Layout by Me

Layout by Me

Layout by Jo aka Zebette

Layout by Jo aka Zebette

Layout by Alane aka aka Marnie4two

Layout by Sondie

Layout by Lesley aka tchualessn

Layout by Krista aka kristaky

Layout by LuAnn aka wildblueeyez

Again, the girls have done a fabulous job!

Lastly it's time for the January Sketch challenge contest to begin! This is the template you have to work with some time and you can get it here

I haven't completed my layout for the challenge as yet but will endeavour to do so. You can see more details of the challenge in this forum here, (within the next few hours, anyway) which is where you also need to post links to your layout. Your layouts need to be uploaded to this gallery to be eligible for the contest.
At the end of the challenge period, the creator of one of the layouts will receive their choice of any 2 of my template packs from the store. The creator of another of the layouts will receive their choice of one of my template packs from the store. All my template products can be seen here This challenge contest will finish on the 20th February.

family is expanding...:)

2006-12-01T22:23:00.000+11:00

Hi all - no business this time, just wanted to quickly share a couple of layouts with you all - it seems my family is growing 2-fold!

This is my newest addition! I went to the Drs. to have my pregnancy confirmed, went via the pet shop on the way home and came home with a baby and a puppy...LOL! At the moment she has gone back to the pet shop for a couple of days, which is breaking mine and my kid's heart - she came down sick and stopped eating, and apparently a couple of the litters at the shop had had a bug, so she is back there and on antibiotics and re-hydration "stuff"Template is Fhung's at stampf and kit is Lucky star by Gina Cabrera. fonts are times new roman, typewriter and LD Debonaire.Journalling says: Name: Lucy NealeDOB 4th Oct 06Age: 8 WeeksOrigin: BoxerGoal in Life: to be loved by allWhat is itwith me??EverytimeI fall pregnant Ibuy a puppy... is it the need to have something tohold for the nine months of waiting. But this little girl is as sweet as candy! And after only3 days, she has returned to her old home to receive treatment for a “bug” she developed while with the litter - thebest place by far for her - but I’m going out of my mind. Leaving her there was like a child starting school for thefirst time. How can something so little be such a big part of the family and loved by all after a mere 3 days!TFL!

This is my newest addition-to-be! The kids are more excited by our puppy, but I guess they can see it! If you are wondering why it's photographed on a $20.00 note, being pregnant won me a little bet with hubby! LOLLyrics are from Clint Blacks "Little Pearl"When I heard the news,There'll be baby shoes,Waiting and wondering pink or blue,Either gonna be a little me or you,If I can see inside heaven knows we've tried,Looking though the belly on a TV screen,Don't have to tell me what her heartbeat means.Had to dry my eyes, writing lullaby'sI'm gonna sing her every song I knowGot to get ready for a whole new show.'Cause I know ole father time's not wasting me,With a brand new tiny little branch on the family tree.Journalling on tag says these 2 little lines won me 20 dollars and will change my life forever for the better.Template is Pattie Knox at designerdigitals. Kit is compassionette by Fhung at stampf. jewels are mine. FOnts are LD Glorious and century gothic.TFL

Just a quickie...

2006-11-28T06:54:00.000+11:00

to share an email I got this morning from LuAnn regarding the paint can labels. Here is her example - she did a great job!

She also added this: I threw one together this morning. I didn't laminate this one. Was in too much of a hurry LOL.... they really need clear laminate sheets over them before applying to the cans. Just peel the back off your laminate sheet or contact paper and stick over un peeled label. Then cut around and "size up" against your can. Trim around the holes first then the top of the can to get the best fit. To put on the can, line up one of the holes where the handle goes and slowly apply over the can keeping the top edge of the label as close to the rim of the can as can be. Smooth from the center of the label out once to the egdes once in place. takes practice. I usually peel and restick several times before getting it just right LOL...

Hope you are all having fun making your own! :)

Cheers!

A couple of treats for you!

2006-11-27T20:48:00.000+11:00

Have I mentioned how wonderful my creative team is....???

LuAnn Spang (aka Wildblueeyez from my CT) has used my "A doodly Christmas" kit (and template from www.sassyprints.com) to make the cutest little altered gallon paint can and has very kindly chosen to share it with all my blog readers.

Here are the images of the two pieces needed to create your own altered paint can.

You can download the full size files here:
http://www.mytempdir.com/1085821

Following is the instructions that LuAnn has given me:

These are labels for gallon paint can that you can buy "new and never used" at hardware stores.
Print two of the side labels, cut out the notches to go around the place where handle goes into the can. I put cookies, girlie stuff like nail polish, make a movie can, etc. there are lots of ideas on the internet. Print on full sized sheets of label paper then laminate either with laminating sheets or contact paper before putting on the can.

LuAnn can be contacted, either if you have questions or would like to thank her personally at wildblueeyez@comcast.net or you can leave her a message on this blog and I'll make sure she sees it.

Now I did say A "couple" of treats - but there is a catch, the other one you can't get quite yet. Next month, at digiscrapshak.com I will be the featured designer of the month - yay - very exciting and I'm thrilled. So I have made up a little goodie for all our members that you can get only via the December Newlsetter at digiscrapshak. Here is a preview of it: -

You can subscribe to the newsletter on the frontpage of the website.

All from me for now - think I'll be getting an early night!

And the winners are....

2006-11-22T13:41:00.000+11:00

Of the October sketch challenge contest, that is.

Once again, I had more trouble than I expected making the decision. We're very lucky that the world is filled with such talented digi-scrappers!

First place goes to windgefluester with her layout Santa Baby. Everything on the layout from the buttons to the felt decorations to the title just looks so incredibly realistic, and a "make my heart melt" gorgeous baby to top it off! Windgefluester wins two of my template packs of her choice. Congratulations and thanks for playing.

And I just couldn't go past the colours and peacefulness of susalov's Relax layout for second place. Susalov wins one template pack of her choice. Congratulations, and again, thanks for playing!

The layouts truly are both beautiful, be sure to leave them some love if you havn't done already!
Click on the layouts themselves to see full credit details for the products they used.

I think I'm going to be saying this a lot, but I am just thrilled to absolute pieces with my creative team! They are just such a support and so wonderfully talented. Here are some layouts they have done with my new A doodly Christmas kit. (you can see a preview of it down further in the blog) Haven't they been busy!

By Krista

By LuAnn

By Jo

Ok, this one's mine, I snuck it in thinking no one would notice! LOL

By Pri

By Krista

By Pri

By Sondie

By Jo

By Lesley

Do I have the most awesome team or what!

Lastly I'll share a couple of pics I took today! I went to the shops and finally (been meaning too for years) bought myself a really nice backdrop for photos. (Can't say how much it cost in case hubby sees this...LOL) And we did our christmas shoot - the boys weren't *overly* cooperative, but all in all we got a few nice shots!

Thanks for putting up with my loooong post! Maybe I am getting better at this blogging thing....Nah.....:) Have a good day/night depending on where you are !

New sketch challenge/contest is up!

2006-11-21T22:52:00.000+11:00

It's that time of the month. I've got a great template for you this month, and once again, it will be a contest. At the end of the challenge period, 20th Dec, Winners will be decided. The winner will receive 2 template packs from my store of their choice, and 2nd place will receive one template pack from my store, again their choice. More details on the challenge and correct places to upload layouts to and such can be found here

Here's the template for this month...

(just click to download, or go here
http://www.mytempdir.com/1074099)

I have yet to do a layout with it, but it is on my dreaded to do list for the next couple of days!!!

Don't forget that when you have participated in the challenge, it will qualify as one of the four challenges you need to play to receive the months free challenge kit. This months is absolutely gorgeous by Claudia Campbell and details can be seen in this thread here.

I want to share a couple of pics I took today - the first two are of my "early" christmas present. We have refurnished the loungeroom with a new lounge and a tv unit. I'm so excited by it. The 2nd photo is an adorable one of my boys, that they actually volunteered to have taken! WOW

Aren't they just the sweetest.

Travis has this joke he tells at the moment that goes something like this...

Knock Knock
Who's there
Red
Red Who
Knock Knock
Who's there
Red
Red Who
Knock Knock
Who's there
Red
Red Who
Knock Knock
Who's there
Orange
Orange Who
Orange you glad I didn't say red!

LMAO - he is obsessed with jokes!

Anyway, 11:10 and hubby is bugging me about stopping "working", so I'm going to try to be back tomorrow to announce the winners of last months sketch challenge, and to share a little work from my oh-so-wonderful creative team!

P.S. If you haven't checked out my new kit yet, A doodly Christmas, it is now in the store! I love it. Check back tomorrow to see some awesome layouts my team have done with it!

Ladies, we have ourself a team....updated

2006-11-18T09:27:00.000+11:00

I'd like to congratulate and welcome the following wonderful scrappers as my first group of star scrappers aka creative team.

(apologies to LuAnn {wildblueeyes} who was originally "missing" from this list, but was one of the star scrappers chosen! Sorry LuAnn, forgive me???)

Congratulations to you all and I can't wait to begin working with you all. Thankyou to everyone who took the time to apply.

For those who haven't been to the store recently all the new doodle range is up and running.I have received a lot of wonderful feedback on this that I really appreciate. The collection is huge and the following is only a little part of it....

And finally, I'd like to give you all a sneak peek at my new kit that will being hitting the store very shortly. I hope you all love it as much as I do.

Go on, apply....you know you want to!

2006-11-05T20:57:00.000+11:00

Well it's finally happening. I've thought and talked and debated for a long time - and have now decided I'm going to step up this designing "career" and to start, I'm forming my first creative team.

So I want to hear from EVERYONE! I'm so excited by it! And fully pumped!

And...I've finally finished my "new way with doodles" series - now, it's going to take me a few days to get them into the store - this series is HUGE! But here is just a SMALL sneak peek... I've put an incredible amount of time into these and I'm stoked with how they all turned out, they are so versatile, and they were SOOOOO fun to do!

Don't you just love them?? I can't wait to see them in the store.

On another note, the boys and I have all had a stomach bug this week. Changing bed sheets in the middle of the night (the boys bed sheets, not mine) because of diarrhoea attakcs - oh, the joys of being a mother.
In fact, we had a big week all round. Travis had his two morning of transition for the primary school that he will be going in to next year. I know so many people going on to that school from pre-school next year, yet hardly anyone we know has wound up in Travis' class. I keep telling myself that given a week of full time school next year, he is going to know his "new" friends just as well and that it won't matter one iota, but it would have been nice to have a couple more familiar faces there for him, especially Zac's. As they say, a stranger is merely a friend you have yet to meet.
All my christmas shopping is D*O*N*E - how clever am I? And to make me even clever-er - (yes, it's a word, I just invented it) I had to drive myself to the "big bad city", ok, so it was only Campbelltown, but it's city traffic in my eyes! I have never driven in that sort of area before, but with Andrew conveniently losing his licence, I have found myself towing trailers and all sorts of things I thought I would never do!

Calling it a night now - and an early one! Please, go on and apply for the CT if you have any inclination at all. You just never know if you are the "one" I'm looking for. And I'd love to know what any body reading this is thinking of the "new way to doodle" series! Hugs to all!

Winners are Decided

2006-10-24T23:29:00.000+10:00

Phew....that was hard. After a lot of consideration, and then taking the decision to the rest of the DSS team, the winners of the September sketch challenge contest have been decided. Mind you, even after taking it to the team to help with the decision for 2nd place, it took a long time for a clear favourite to emerge, and even then - I've called 2nd place a tie.

So now for the drumroll.....tadataratatata...... (how on earth do you type a drum roll? Anybody?)

First prize goes to jklmscrapper with her Our Escape layout. If you haven't seen this one yet, take a look. What she has done with the pictures just makes my mind boggle. Fantastic creative work, jklmscrapper, and congratulations. You have won 2 template packs, of your choice, from my store - watch for the pm over at digiscrapshak.

2nd Place, as I said, has been named a tie. ScrapNZ with her gorgeous bright layout JUMP and marymac_s with her sweet sweet layout Sleeping beauties have both won one template pack of their choice. Again, watch for the pm ladies!

Thanks so much to everybody who played. This months challenge has been named a contest as well - be sure to see previous blog entry and pick yourself up the awesome template so you can play along!

October 20 Sketch challenge is a contest! :)

2006-10-22T20:20:00.000+10:00

Ok I am so much worse at making entries in a blog than even I ever thought I was going to be!!! Once again, it's business as usual!

The new sketch challenge is now beginning at digiscrapshak.com and you can pick up the freebie template right here . I really love this one, and equally love the layout I have done with it! :)

Credits for my layout are as follows (can you tell designerdigitals are having a special and I've just spent a fortune...don't tell hubby!!)
Kit is a boy kit by Jackie Eckles
Date stamp is by Katie Pertiet
Painted alpha (rocker) is by Mary Ann Wise
Ghosted alpha (Oh I) is by Kellie Mize
Between lines alpha (Punk) is by Katie Pertiet
and the font is Amber script by Kimberly Geswein, which I believe is now available at PDW.

Again I will be running this as a contest, for anyone who wishes to play - with first prize receiving 2 template packs of mine (your choice) from the store, and 2nd prize receiving their choice of one of my template packs! So please if you are going to download the template, jump in and play. Your layout needs to be uploaded to this gallery to be eligible, and members of DSS team are not eligible to win. Place a link to your layout, or find out more details on the challenge, in this thread here .
Don't forget also about the challenge incentive at DSS too - participate in any four of our challenges over a months, link to your layouts in this thread here and receive this wonderful kit by Rebecca C.

For those that are waiting to hear the winners of last months, hang in there for a day or so. I had so many wonderful entries I'm getting a little help from the rest of the DSS team in deciding 2nd place!

So I'm hoping to see lots and lots of layouts using the template - and I'll be back in a day or so with winners from last month :)

Winners!

2006-10-05T14:28:00.000+10:00

I must confess to being somewhat dissapointed in only receiving 2 entries into the birthday layout contest! None the less, those 2 layouts were awesome, and really made my day! There is no way I could decide between the two of those layouts - they are both so bright and cheery! So congratulations to Jodine and Kanike - you are both winners!I will be pm'ing you just after I finish here for your choice of products! Here are the layouts for you all to ogle at:

Cody's 7th Birthday by Kanike

Jess' 8th birthday by Jodine

Thanks so much girls - I truly love both the layouts!

My birthday kinda had another dampener put on it, with a visit to the dentist. I am so sick of this - it has been going on for over 12 months now but I guess that is what I get for spending the first 28 years of my life never visiting a dentist. I have another infection in my tooth which is chronically painful, and I will be getting it pulled tomorrow. Yay! In the last 12 months I have had so many infections in my teeth and I swear it hurts so much more than caesareans do! This time tomorrow I will have had removed the final tooth that can cause this much trouble. All in all, the count will be 3 wisdom teeth and 2 molars removed in the last 12 months. And hopefully all this terrible tooth trouble will be far behind me. Wish me luck, I'm looking forward to it like a hole in the head!

Other than that my birthday was ok. Quiet, fairly standard, but ok. Those that may have been following my stories - it was also the day DH lost his license. So the 3 months from hell has begun...LOL! It actually is a little worse than we thought - cause we had a friend who was unemployed lined up to be his chauffer - helps both of them out. Well he got offered a full time job the same day Andrew lost his licence! There goes plan A. On to plan B. Oh that's right - there is no plan b. So Andrew has a business he travels 200km for on any given day, no license, and now, no chauffer either!

But the boys were sweet on my birthday. Coopy told me Happy Birthday Mum no less than 643 times - and I think Travis was only a few behind that. Travis had wanted to give me either a necklace or a heart jumper - so they settled for a lovely heart necklace. Coopy gave me a dolphin necklace, and Andrew, amongst other goodies, a pair of gorgeous pink diamonte hoop earrings.

Congratulations again to kanike and Jodine!

Freebie and Competitions!

2006-09-23T21:05:00.000+10:00

I so need more hours in the day! I really am intending on updating this more often with a little more "personal" stuff so you can all get to know me a bit better - but once again, I'm just quickly ducking in here for business only! :(
But look on the bright side, you get a freebie template out of it!

Make sure to visit the shop at digiscrapshak and but a couple of tickets - the odds are better than what you think!

Time for the new sketch challenge! You know, the one that begins on the 20th and it's now the 23rd - yeah, that one! LOL. You can get the layered template for the sketch here . You can get more specifics on the challenge here

I was really quite happy with the layout I have done using it. I used Shabby Princess' new Autumn Chic kit. I went on such a shopping spree in her shop today! Ooops! Font is KGD Tamara by Kimberly Geswein at digiscrapshak.

Don't forget about the new challenge incentive going on over at the site. You can get the finer details of how it works here but basically in a nut shell, complete 4 challenges in any one calendar month, post your links and get this awesome download - "Celebrate" by Amy Cheese. Amy, your stuff is the best! I'm very quickly becoming one of your biggest fans!

Isn't it awesome and huge! September is coming to an end far too quickly, so grab it while you can. Only 4 challenges, and there are plenty to choose from!

Ok, so I promised competitions, and so far you've only seen the camera.

I've been wanting to hold a contest for a while - and it's got the better of me - so here are TWO!

COMPETITION ONE!

Simply participate in the sketch challenge mentioned above! Download the template, and play! All layouts (excl. digiscrapshak team members, sorry girls) posted to this gallery by the end of October 20th, when the next challenge begins, will be eligible. I will be picking two "favourites".
First prize will receive any 2 of my template packs (colour blocking or layered) from the store. Runner up will receive any one. I will PM the winners through Digiscrapshak to find out their choice - and post the winners and their layouts on this blog. Good luck!

COMPETITION TWO!

My goodness - I am getting closer and closer to 30 by the day! On the 3rd of October I will be turning 29! And I'm comiserating a little because it is also the day I become my hubby's chauffer for 3 months, as he is losing his licence due to speeding! So in an effort to keep it a good one - I developed a plan! I want to see your birthday layouts!

Using any one of my birthdaze templates from the store (yes, this comp requires a purchase, but they are only $2.95!) upload a layout to digiscrapshak before midnight on 3rd October (and to keep it simple for me I'm working on Aussie time!). Again I will be picking a couple of personal faves - and I may even get the team at DSS to help me!
1st prize - Any 2 kits + any 2 template packs from store
2nd Prize - Any 1 kit + any 1 template pack from store
3rd Prize - Any 1 template pack from store
I am going to ask the powers that be over at DSS to set me up a gallery for this, so I will let you know where to post those layouts in the next couple of days - keep an eye on this blog! Again, team members are ineligible to enter! And again, I will PM, at DSS, the winners to find out their choices, and post the winners and their layouts on this blog within a couple of days of the competition closing!
UPDATED: MERKEE HAS KINDLY SET ME UP A GALLERY FOR THIS - PLEASE POST YOUR LAYOUTS HERE

Both Competitions are able to be entered as many times as you like, and prizes for both are relevant to my products only!

Hope everyone wants to play! Good luck to everyone who does join in on the fun! Thanks for bearing with this long post!

Freebie sampler!

2006-09-10T14:56:00.000+10:00

I have had such a busy week with the grand opening celebrations over at digiscrapshak.com. New to the store if you haven't seen them as yet I have 3 layered template packs, plus quite a few more colour blocking template packs in time for all the celebrations.

Where can you find them? You can find them here

As part of the other celebrations, Jana and Jannylynn graciously had me at their chat yesterday - and I realised there were quite a few questions surrounding my colour blocking templates. So I thought I'd come and do a quick "business only" kind of post - and offer a freebie!

So if you are wondering if they can be used in your program, if it is something you could do, how exactly do you use them, or how they differ from regular layered templates - this thread is for you!

WHAT IS A COLOUR BLOCKING TEMPLATE??

Unlike layered sketch templates, colour blocking templates are not layered and are not a PSD document. They are a transparent png grid, in 12x12. They are still just as easy to use, and though layered templates have some advantages over blocking templates, blocking templates have some advantages over layered templates.
1) You choose how many photo's to use. If you want to have 4 photo's, then dedicate 4 "blocks" to pictures as opposed to papers. If you want only one photo, then only dedicate one block to pictures.
2) You choose where you put the photo's. If the photo's are great, use the biggest most prime position block and really bring attention to it. If they aren't so crash hot, or there are a lot of "secondary" photo's, slip them in the smaller blocks, tell your story in the bigger blocks, and embellish away all over the rest of the layout.
3) I believe colour blocking layouts always look modern - where as the in thing with non blocked layouts is "strips" at the moment, colour blocking is easy to modernise and make trendy. Simply use trendy colours, trendy and fashionable elements, make it graphical or shadowed depending on trends, leave some blocks as white space depending on trends, etc etc.
4) Again, in my personal opinion, I believe colour blocking templates are slightly easier to "make your own" and appear different from other layouts using the same template.

SO ARE THEY EASY TO USE??

You bet. Couldn't be any easier. Great for beginner to advanced. And full instructions are included.

HOW DO YOU USE THEM??

Here is a copy of the instructions that are included with every pack.

1. Open the chosen template. Immediately SAVE AS another name (perhaps the name of your layout) to prevent saving
over the original template. Rename the layer "template" for ease later on.

2. Paste your chosen photo into the document as a new layer. Place that layer under the layer of your template.After
deciding which "block" you would like to designate for that photo, Use your move tool, line the photo up, adjusting
the size as necessary so it sits how you would like it in the "frame" of your chosen "block"

3 With the original template layer now active, select your wand tool, and click in the open space of the chosen "block".
Shift+Ctrl+I to invert your selection.

4. Return to your photo layer and press delete. Your photo should now match the size and shape of that "block's" window.

5. Repeat as necessary with as many photo's/paper's you will be using.

6. After "filling" all of the blocks as desired, turn off the visibility of the frame. Add a few shadows as desire and you
have a colour blocked layout!

DO THEY WORK IN MY PROGRAM??

As far as my knowledge goes, These templates should work in any program
that is capable of transparency, layers, and has a wand selection tool

TIPS FOR MAKING THEM MY OWN???

Sure.
*Like layered templates, colour blocking templates are fully rotatable. This means you have 4 different options for every template straight up.
* Try leaving a couple of the "blocks" out as white space. Here is an example of what I mean.
Template

Layout

I have left the blocks in the top and bottom right corners free, and really think it added a lot to my layout once I did that.

* Consider splitting a photo over two or more blocks. Here is an example.

* I have found that sometimes if the layout doesn't appear to be quite working, it can help to add some sort of edge over the finished layout to unify it. This is by no means usually necessarily, but it does achieve another look that you may like to play around with. Here is an example.

* Try the graphical look. Traditionally, you would remove the grid when the layout is complete, and add shadows to the blocks. I have had a lot of success and fun by removing the grid, and not adding shadows. Thus achieving a more graphical look. Here is an example

* Try leaving the grid there for a bold appearance as in this layout.

The grid can easily be changed in colour as well, to suit your layout. Changing it to another colour would produce an effect not quite as bold.
* Alter the background colour. Don't forget you can still place something behind the blocks other than just the white background of the document. In the autumn layout above I have a brown piece of paper behind the blocks.

CAN I SEE A COUPLE OF LAYOUTS USING THE SAME TEMPLATE??

Ok. The one above, unmistakable, uses the template that was given out at the chat yesterday. Jana and Jannylynn have made gorgeous layouts using the same template.

1st Birthday by Jannylnn
Lilly in the Garden by Jana

CAN I HAVE A FREEBIE TO TRY BEFORE I BUY??

hmmmm....of course you can! Download Sample here
http://www.mytempdir.com/920854

If you still have questions, feel free to ask here or alternately mail me at carolegn@hinet.net.au

Sorry this was a business only post today - will update on the rest of my life very shortly! Famous last words!

Silly Blogger....

2006-09-01T12:42:00.000+10:00

I've just spent the last 15 hours trying to get into this thing to update - ok, fair go, though, alot of it wasn't blogger who was being silly and difficult, but me!Thanks to the gals at digiscrapshak for helping me work it out! :)

Firstly, I'd like to also thank Jo (zebette) for her not-so-subtle reminder the other day about this thing needing updating! I've been frantic with preps for the grand opening which is about to begin over at www.digiscrapshak.com - you *MUST* check it out - so much in store for you all!
It's a new era for digiscrappin.biz - a new owner, a new look, new store, new name - and it all rockin' so much you wouldn't believe!

I'm allowed to give a couple of sneak previews, so here goes -

One of the things I've been busy working on is the *awesome* digiscrapshak metal pack. Not only was I able to contribute to this, I was also given the honour of compiling this preview - and let me tell you, I now know this kit backwards and with my eyes closed - and if you miss.....well let me just say you don't want to miss it.

If you want to take advantage of this - do it now - Only $5.99 til October 1st, and then it goes to regular price. 319 pieces + 6 Alpha + 12 bonus! Unbelievable.

Want more - keep your eyes posted around digiscrapshak between Sept 1 and Sept 10 for the hidden pieces of our scavenger hunt! This kit was worked on by a stack of us designers - the colours are to die for - it's huge - it's versatile - it's "Me and You - Friendship Collection". Are you ready for this????

Ok, well that is supposed to animate - and it's not! So it will have to be a secret- but let me tell you it is worth it! Silly blogger once again - am I limited to the amount of pics I can put in one post here?? I tried also to upload just my contribution to the kit as a sneak pic, and it won't let me do that either! Mustn't be my day! After I publish this post, I'll come back in and edit and try to add them then - maybe that will work, so if you are reading that the pics aren't here, but they are - that's why!

What else can I tell you - There will be a giveaway of a digital rebel 8.0 EOS camera - and three ways to win it! I can tell that there will be random $5.00 coupon giveaways. I can tell there will be action in the store (little cryptic!), a fantastic new challenge incentive, lot's of special chats and lot's of sales! You'll have to keep looking!!!

Keep checking back here during the next week or so! :)

I might try to post a little more tonight, but for now - kids are calling!

Wow...what a response...new link added

2006-08-05T08:24:00.000+10:00

Oh my goodness - that link is expired. Here is a new one!

From my best bud's kit

Thanks to all who have shown interest, and especially those that have left comments!

Dawn Wilson's Creative team and freebie quickpage!

2006-08-04T22:45:00.000+10:00

Ok, so I can spill the beans now that Dawn has made her announcement - I made Dawn's creative team! Her products are unreal. I love them. She has given us several links over the last couple of days for the products she has recently put in her stores - and I've just had one big scrap-a-thon the last 2 days! I haven't scrapped this much since I was doing the album for my
mother-in-law in a rush to get it ready for christmas! 7 layouts in 2 days - and I LOVE every single one of them. Wanna see???

You should be able to click on the individual images for details as to their credits.

I'm so happy to be part of the CT team - even if we have had our work cut out for us the last couple of days...LOL, thanks Dawn. I'm actually looking to be on another - just one more - especially if you have a tendency towards "Boy" kits, so if you are looking for someone and like my style, give me a yell...... carolegn@hinet.net.au .

Back to the issue of my husband's licence - it's gone! He still has it for now, and will have for probably about 4 weeks or so while we wait for the RTA to issue the date when he will officially have it suspended - but his lawyer returned his called today, and his advice regarding whether Andrew appeals it or not, was just to wear it. It's going to be 3 l....o....n.....g hard months, but not by any means as hard as some people have it. There a couple of small issues, like his WORK, that I'm not sure how we are going to get around yet - he travels up to 3 hours in almost any direction for our new business. Then there is the issue of his part time job at the restaurant - I think I'm going to have to be waking the kids up at 11 at night when he finishes just to go get him - they aren't going to like it, but it's only 1 or 2 nights a week and only for 3 months! I have, btw, told him if he EVER comes home with another speeding fine again.........

On to the good stuff - in celebration of my entry into the creative team world as well as being a designer, and also on my "digi kit of the day" and "digi gallery of the week" on Melissa's blog the other day, I have decided to offer a quickpage .It was made from my Best Bud's kit and is available at digiscrappin.biz. It was the winner of the scrappers choice awards Best new release kit that month.

Here is a pic of the page I did with the quickpage, and a pic of the kit preview

Thanks for stopping by and checking out my new blog! Remember to leave a comment if you are snagging the goodie! Hope you enjoy!

Exciting Toots...

2006-08-02T22:12:00.000+10:00

It's been a little bit of a dream of mine since I began designing, wondering whether I would ever have a kit make it to digi kit of the day on Melissa's Blog! Today was the day! I woke up to an email from Beth with the link to it! The kit that Beth and I spent so long working on was chosen by Melissa! This is it:

But it gets better! Melissa also chose my whole gallery as her gallery pic of the week! WOW! So in one day my count has gone to 4 digipick layouts of the day, 1 kit, and 1 whole gallery!

Can you tell how excited I am! Here's to my next kit of the day! :)

Just when things were going well...

2006-08-01T21:14:00.000+10:00

Ok, I really intended for my blog not to be a "woe is me" type story - that's not normally how I see my life. But today has just been one of those days that gets thrown at you that you really didn't expect and you aren't sure right now how the hell you are ever going to deal with it.

Wondering what I'm talking about....??? If you can bare with me, I'll just quickly recap the last 12 months....
August last year - my then 3 year old son has an operation to fix a squint in his right eye - very draining stuff. We get through it ok though - he was incredibly brave.
10 days later - we go away for a nice weeks holiday for the first time in a while, myself, hubby and the two boys. Nice. 2 days into it I get an absyss on a wisdom tooth I had put off doing anything about for a long time, which turns into lock-jaw. For the next 6 weeks I have numberous courses of antibiotics, trying to clear up the infection, so I can open my mouth and they can remove the teeth, all the while living on soup, toast, and McDonalds french fries because that's all I could LITERALLY fit in my mouth! Randomly and without warning my mouth spasms as the jaw tries to open - bringing me to tears each time, mind you, the pain was worse than my 2 caesareans. Eventually the dentist takes the option that infection or no infection, we had to get it out.
Ok, so that got a little depressing after a while.
2 weeks or so, after originally getting the infection, Andrew loses his job as a restaurant manager at the local McDonalds - being the sole bread winner of the family! OUCH! But we both knew it probably would end up being a blessing in disguise - his previous employers and himself had had enough of each other a long time before that! Luckily, they pro-rata his long service leave that he is almost due for, and all up he ends up with about 16 paid weeks without work to find a new job.
Which he does. In the end I think he got 2 jobs on the same day - but it did take quite a while. He started working part time as a waiter at a local upper classed restaurant, as he was wanting to go into management in a "real" restaurant as opposed to McDonalds, and was being told time and time again that McDonalds, despite all his management experience and certificates, doesn't really qualify him, without at least a little bit of experience lower down in the chain in a fine dining restaurant. He also starts full time work managing a food wholesaler/distributor warehouse. Much to my surprise, he loved the waiting (i thought his ego, which is kinda large, would really take a knock being fairly low down the heirachy) and still does it to this day a couple of nights a week.
The other - he didn't like.
(So sorry about this long winded whinge!)
So he starts looking at his dream of one day owning his own business - and finds a franchise that deals in mould and bacteria treatment (i know....glamorous) of commercial coolrooms in hospitals, pubs, clubs, restaurants, butchers etc etc..... Now let it be said that during this period of looking at the franchise and going through their application process, I'm really REALLY against it - I'm crying everyday, I threaten to leave, we fight like cats and dogs, for the first time in our 8 years of marriage I can see us possibly not making it and it scares me! But....he is a man after all....so what does he do? He bought the business! Uuuuuugh! I still don't want it...I'm just having to learn to live with it now.
So we re-adjust our lives to cater to that - mind you on any given day with this business he could be travelling 200km's either direction - that is the size of our franchise territory. I learn to live with 2-3 hours extra work a day doing the computer, books, scheduling jobs, invoicing etc etc.
Around about now I reach absolute breaking point!
Fast tracking back again to just after my now 4 and a half year old son, Travis, was born. I was diagnosed by the early childhood nurse locally with post natal depression, and encouraged to make an appointment with my GP. I do. I tell Andrew. Andrew becomes a typical male and hits the roof giving me lines like "I want you to be happy because you are happy, not because you are on medication". I cancel the appointment.
Back to the almost present (are you confused yet?), 2 months ago, after purchasing the business and being in tears daily and at breaking point and withdrawing from life, I make that appointment again. In his defense, Andrew is now admitting he was wrong - and there isn't many times I've heard a man say that. I'm diagnosed with clinical depression, from untreated post natal depression - and I'm given a prescription for "happy pills". I walk out of the doctor's that day - feeling somewhat better before I have even got the prescription filled. It was such a relief to know the lines of communication were open - my doctor (who I admire tremendously) knows now, so even if these tablets I almost have in my hand don't work, it isn't going to be as hard to go back and say "nope, no good, not working" as it was to walk in and say "I'm not coping".
They do work. I'm feeling a lot better - still not always easy - but definitely in control. Andrew and I are getting along great and I am so in love with him again. I'm not spending 27 hours a day yelling and screaming at my children (maybe only 1 or so now...LOL...is that normal?), which I hated, I'm enjoying spending time with them again, and I'm getting things done. I'm getting on with the business, even though I still don't want it and wish we had never bought it, without complaining, and actually enjoying some of the work. Life is not too bad! I'm even thinking I can start considering that 3rd child that I thought would be years away if we bought the business.
Then today happens!
We find out that the speeding fine that my dear darling Andrew recieved a few weeks ago is going to cost him more than just some money - he will be losing his licence for 3 months at a date still to be determined by the roads and traffic authority, but probably in a few weeks time. What does one do, when they have a business that is only just enough to live on at the best and is in the "growing" stage....a business which requires a ute load of gear for each job....a business that spans what seems like half of the state of New South Wales in Australia....without a licence??? As well as a part time job that has finishing times of 11-11:30pm?
I'm actually feeling not too bad and staying remarkably calm - must be the happy pills - but I really don't know what our game plan of getting around this is. And I know I'm being incredibly selfish as well - I have been spoilt with Andrew - he will often do Travis' preschool runs, the shopping, take the kids out to give me some time by myself, etc etc - and I'm going to lose all that for 3 months. And am I going to have to wake them at 11 o'clock at night to go pick Andrew up from the restaurant - ooh - they aren't going to like that. Let me tell you that Andrew does not normally show stress - he has today.

But good news -I still won't mention any names until an announcement is made - but I made that creative team! I am now a member of a CT team.....woohoo! happy dance! I'm actually really really thrilled and excited - like it somehow confirms that I can actually scrap ok! I'm stoked - and can't wait to begin "work".
And more "feel good" stuff, I've received a couple of emails over the last few days from a scrapper who has been sharing some layouts she has completed with a couple of my kits. They are gorgeous. I don't think I will ever lose the buzz of people using my designs - she stated in her email that she doesn't normally buy kits, and has bought 3 of mine in the last 10 days! Good ego material! Thanks if you are reading this - you really made my day right when I needed it!

Just a fairly routine day - other than all the BIG news - with Andrews help got fairly caught up with housework and business paperwork, as well as having "Send in the Clowns" hit the store and a lot of advertising for that done. Despite my life feeling like it has been turned upside down AGAIN - I'm feeling pretty alright! And hey, I'm a CT team member for an awesome designer!

(Wow can I talk for someone who doesn't normally blog - I'm sure the novelty will wear off! Off to let everybody know I have a blog now so someone actually reads this!)

Cheers!

HELP!

2006-07-31T20:54:00.000+10:00

I've been converted...I have a blog! I must be on some journey of succumbing to peer pressure - the other day I downloaded and installed "hello" after being the only person in the digital scrapbooking community who didn't have it....and now a BLOG! When I asked my hubby, Andrew, what I should call my blog, he just looked at me and rolled his eyes in the way men do so well and said "Are you doing that now too?" The only suggestion he came up with was "Yummy Mummy" following a text message he sent me today - he has such a unique way of being sweet and showing he cares (so unique that most of the time it can't be seen...Doh!)

So why blog? Peer pressure....yup! Everyone else has one....yup, that too! Something else to stress over that I'm never getting done or keeping up with...probably!
But also somewhere to journal my journey (does that make sense?) as both a scrapper and a designer in the digital scrapbooking community. Somewhere to ramble and rave. To kid myself and pretend I have friends that will actually read this...LOL! Record and remember the trials and tribulations of being a WAHM. Show off my wonderful family. Share photo's.

But as the title of this post goes....HELP! I have no idea what I am even doing. I've barely even read blogs before, never mind looked into creating one. How do I get a big fancy title - like a mini layout???

Anyhoo....sneak preview at my newest kit - to be released in the store in a couple of days. I'm lovin' it - it's called send in the clowns.

And a layout I have completed with it that I love just as much....take a look....

Wow....just when I was about to give up. I must have tried to upload that 25 times! Yikes!

But seriously, what do you think? I love it - If anything, I normally struggle to scrap pictures that aren't of great classic quality - you know, birthdays, amusement parks, those sort of things. But I was really happy with how this came about. I must also give credit to Kimberly Geswein for her font Jodi from digiscrappin.biz , and also to Scrapartist for the sketch, and in particular scraprascal, whom I pretty much lifted her interpretation of the sketch.

Poor Coopy - he struggled to maintain composure all the way through that ride - the first time we went around the guy operating the ride put his foot on our tea cup and spun it really fast - and then he caught on to what was happening with Cooper and he hardly touched us after that - just a really gentle spin at the most.

So what is happening with me designing wise at the moment apart from this wonderful kit? I'm a bit torn at the moment between being a scrapper and a designer - I keep getting this urge to be on creative teams - in fact, I have applied for one, but I'll keep the name confidential. I'm really hopeful - but if I was the designer, I'm not sure I would want another designer on my CT team. So I'm telling myself if I don't make the cut, not to take it personally. And the part of me that is torn towards being a designer is toying with the idea of attempting to sell elsewhere - probably as well as digiscrappin.biz - I couldn't imagine leaving there, it's a great community and I love all the gals too much! But then I go through the typical motherhood guilt of "well do I neglect my children too much as it is?" Do we ever know the answer....ho hum

And I have a wonderfully exciting new project in the making - but ssshhhhh...I can't say what or someone (if someone is actually going to read this.....LOL) may steal my idea! It is a competitive field, after all. All I can say is it is a B............I.............G project, something a little different for me.

Ok, well I think you are actually only supposed to write a line or two on these things - so I've well and truly gone over my quota for the day.... oh, and if anyone is reading this, and knows how I can make the name of my blog a picture.....feel free to let me know.

Anyone stumbling across this for the first time, and wondering who I am and what I am talking about, you can see my store here

Cheers for now!