grr

I'm currently on hold to Centrelink.  Enough to drive someone to drink!





We've had a super busy weekend, and physically I'm paying the price.  Aches in my knees, hips, back and shoulders.  Not happy Jan.

Currently I live in a massively messy house.  I need to organise the kitchen so its habitable, the laundry (which is seconding as our bathroom) is full of shit (oops I mean stuff).  We have bare floorboards in every room, along with staples and dirt.  OH THE DIRT.

I need to de-staple Ryan's room today, Jamie will sand the walls tonight and then we can paint is either tomorrow or Wednesday.

Went shopping today, bought (or is that brought) 4 t-shirts, 2 shorts and 5 socks for Mark as he appears to have grown on the weekend.  Everything is too small, too tight or worn out.

Got myself 3 tops and a pair of fashionable shoes, quite excited about the shoes actually.

Halloween mask and some cookies for Marko's party / get together tonight.

Photos of the Munchikins

This is from tonight (19th October), Ryan was happy to have his picture taken, but Ben was not feeling very safe.

Starting out having solids, rice cereal is pretty yuck, but he does seem to like pumpkin and apple.

Morning tea time at Speers Point Park.

Ben at Speers Point Park.  

It must be annoying being stuck in the pram,
when everyone else gets to play.

Mark and Ryan in the water play area.  This was a tap that kept on running and gets recycled around.  Ryan was enthralled by it.

Ryan with Christian's scooter.  (Christian is Mark's friend Damien's little brother).  Ryan LOVED this scooter, it's essentially a bike without the pedals

Ryan with the rocket launcher.

Ben after a bath.

Moving

 In 6 or 7 weeks we will have packed up our home in Shortland and will be on the road to our new/old home in Tullamarine.

Its a massive move.  We've been here for 8 years, we've almost doubled the size of our family.  We've accumulated, oh how we've accumulated.

When we moved up here, we had approx 50 boxes of stuff.  I'm most intrigued with how much we'll have this time.

So far I've packed the china cabinet, trophy cabinet, photo albums, Mark's stuff (he did that himself) and half of the book case in the lounge room.

* * * * * * * 

We also need to finish off the renovation!

Soon, we are getting new carpet in the four bedrooms, the hallway, the lounge room and what we have renamed the "rumpus room".  The bathroom is halfway done, the kitchen still has 5 things to be done.  Ryan's room needs to be painted.  Might need to replace the clothesline, paint the "post" on the front porch, weed the garden and tidy up the backyard.

Getting it off my chest.

Currently not coping with my lot.  I don't want to sound ungrateful, I'm terribly grateful.  I have a man who I love.  3 healthy children. A good job. Money. Family.  So please don't think I don't appreciate all that, but some days you just need a good moan.  So for this post, I don't plan to punctuate every sentence with "but I really love him" as that is a given.  This is straight up saying how I feel.

I'm not happy.

I'm not coping with my Ryan, he is 22 months old and at the moment it feels like he is never happy, he is sooky, selfish, grumpy, annoying and a poor eater.

Today he woke up at 5.30am, I gave him his milk in a cup and then put him back to bed.  He talked to himself until we got up at about 7am.  That is pretty good.  He isn't unhappy in his bed.  His breakfast this morning was poor, wouldn't eat half of his (one) Weetbix, sultanas and a drink.    Anything not eaten is thrown on the floor.  He is refusing to go into his highchair, back arching and screaming when I attempt it.  As for going out, don't get me started.  I'm hating leaving the house with him, he has become "that child" the one that screams.  He doesn't want to be in the pram any more (and I don't blame him, he's nearly 2), but I'm not entirely ready for him to walk.  When he walks, he runs away.  If I can get him in the pram, it feels like child abuse, pushing him in the chair.  Awful.  So how am I dealing with this.. by not going out without Mark or Jamie, or waiting until Jamie comes home and leaving the boys at home.  Hence they are not being socialised and not learning the proper social skills for out of the house.

I'm very stressed about his lack of language skills.  But am not willing to do anything about it until after our move.  Maybe I will.  Oh dear.  I'll call a speech path today and see what kind of cost/wait it is.

I'm stressed about Mark.  He is addicted to the xbox and I can't seem to stop him playing it.  That feels like a cop out as he's only 13 but its the truth.  Yesterday at the end of the day he calculated that he played for at least 7 hours.  That's not good.  I can't get him to do homework without threats and I don't like that.  This afternoon he needs new shoes, so we'll go shopping and then he can do some homework.

Ben is a dream except he has nappy rash which is making me feel like a bad mother.

Jamie is working so hard and I'm just riding him harder.  He have to have everything finished in about 6 weeks now, but I thought about it yesterday, he knew all year that we were moving, he's known for 3 years that we were renovating our kitchen.  I don't need to feel guilty about him doing 15-18hr days at the moment as it should have already been done!  Harsh but fair.  Plus when we get to Melbourne, he most likely will not be working, so can have a break then.

Sometimes things just happen

And you haven't made a conscious decision about it.
Take Ryan for example: he now only gas one nap! Surprisingly this works.  I don't recall thinking the two.naps are gonna be over soon.
And take Ben: all of a sudden I was carrying him on my hip, not in my arms.....
Weird.

WOW

I'm almost at 500 posts on this here blog.  Who would have thought?


Mark:

Today starts the beginning of Term 4 at school.  Mark went off this morning in a mostly happy mood.  Challenges this term will be getting to bed on time (he believes he is 16 not 13), prioritising correctly and limiting time on the blasted xbox.

I asked him yesterday what his priorities in life were, after a bit of thinking

1. My brothers
2. Doing well
3. xbox

Do wish xbox wasn't on the list, and wish that I was on the list.  But that seems fair (and quite sweet).

This term I believe will be the same as the other terms and there will be bugger all homework, I have a feeling that Waratah High School is catering to the lowest common denominator  and not pushing the children. Last term he had weekly Maths homework and one other assignment.  Most of the parents I know have rules that are

1. Homework 
2. Chores
3. Blah blah blah
4. TV or video games.

If there is no #1 it makes it hard to enforce it.  So I'm thinking that there will be limited homework again.  So I want him to make time each day to walk the dogs, do the chores, do some reading which he is really lacking, do any homework and THEN play xbox.


Ryan:

Is 22 months old now, almost 2 years old.  He is a strong willed little fellow, who is a bit whiny and cranky these days.  His main problem (I believe) is his speech, he lack almost all speech, except for MUM and UGH.  He has said "thank you", "I don't know", "football" and others.  But those were one off's. 

His eating is still pretty poor and his ability to drink from a cup (just embarrassing).  But mostly he is a happy guy, likes to kick balls, tap balloons, dance to his favourite song "Party Rock Anthem" by LMFAO still!

Haven't decided whether to move him into a big boy bed yet.  My heart says NO, so I think I'll listen to my heart.





Ben:

Ben is gorgeous.  He's super happy, barely makes a sound, so much so, that when he does cry, we don't know what to do.  As he is six months old now, we've started him on some solids.  Yesterday was good, he had rice cereal in the morning and mashed pumpkin for dinner.  This morning the cereal didn't go down well.

He's trying to roll, trying to sit and can be quite noisy (which is a contradiction) but its happy noisy, so that doesn't count.  Loves looking at his brothers and when he's allowed to hold a toy, he likes it.

His whole body smiles when he smiles and we all adore him.


BIG NEWS:

We're moving back to our home in Melbourne.  I've resigned from work, last shift on the 13th November.  Jamie is due to resign any day now.  We are moving any day of the week commencing the 5th of December.  So home for Christmas!

It'll be really sad to say goodbye to the friends we've made up here in Newcastle, but it was never supposed to be permanent.  This year became the year to do it.  Very happy with the decision too.