FOOD

Grocery shopping today.  I do love to grocery shop.
If my printer was plugged in, I'd have a full menu plan.  Why did I not just hand write it.
Tonight it something delicious that I am going to find at LaManna

Some things I need to make, summer veg and haloumi salad.
A roast of some sort
I need to finish that lemon slice.

OK time to get the boys up.  Daycare today.  A free day for me.

30 December 2012

Tomorrow is New Years Eve.

I don't care for NYE, never have.  Its not my thing.  I don't drink more than two drinks in any sitting, I hate (HATE) seeing drunk people, I'm not a fan of crowds and to be perfectly honest, fireworks are BORING.  We sort of want to go and stay in town, then the boys can see the fireworks and we don't need to be in a crush.  But I feel this is yet another pipe dream.  One we talk about but never actually do.

Funny stuff

I put a box of Favourites on top of the fridge.  Mr 3 is jumping up trying to reach it "I'm too little"

Adventures in grocery shopping.

I almost always shop alone.  Fast.  Relatively daily.

Today, I ventured out with my two youngest children.  Ben is thankfully still happy in the trolley.  Ryan now walks (he is 3 you know)

Made Ryan help!  He collected the carrots, cucumbers, picked the fruit.  He's still quite a bit short for a lot of things, but he loved helping.  He does this gorgeous thing with his hand "ala The Price Is Right" when he wants me to look at something.

Once we got home, I wanted to put up our "Santa Please Stop Here" sign.  I tried pushing it in.  Ground is too firm.  So I said "we need a hammer guys" inside we went and Ryan went rushing off.  He came back with his toy hammer, bless his little heart.

Its confirmed.

My youngest son is completely nuts.

He's the busiest person in the family.

a whole bunch of piccies.

A cute one of "the middle child"

 Mum, Dad and Ben

Mum, Mark, Ryan and Ben on the miniature train.

A bit closer of the same, poor Benny is a little squashed.

Action shot of the littlies

A super cool Ryan

Sophisticated Ben (unfortuanately he wouldn't give up the dummy for this photo), but on closer inspection, is this Roy or is it Ben?

Cuties in their toy buckets.

The most gorgeous bub in the whole wide world.

Photos

For some unknown reason I have stopped taking photos.  Haven't taken any with our real camera for months and months.  This is a bad thing when you have teeny tiny children.

But I do use my phone camera quite a bit and it goes everywhere - and I mean everywhere - with me.

I wish my three boys would sit nicely together somewhere so I can get a shot of them.  Maybe on the slide at the park.  That'd be a fun photo.

Appointments

I finally took Ben to the Maternal & Child Health Nurse today for his one year old check up (he is 16 months old).  This was the biggest waste of time I have almost ever experienced.

Firstly she didn't introduce herself or have a name tag on.  She coughed most of the time, fair enough you have a cold, but go get a drink of water to pretend you are doing something about it.  Was much more interested in her computer, sending an email to transfer us to her centre.

She got me to fill in a piece of paper about stuff I'm worried about.  Wasn't very interesting, but covered the basics.  Then we (I mean Ben) did a strip, had his fontanelle checked, checked his little balls were in the right place then a weigh and measure.

Although he is not yet 10kg, I am not to be concerned about his lack of height or weight, he is a small version of normal.

I said I thought he was bowlegged, but that is normal for developing walkers, after a bit his legs will go more knock-kneed, then straighten out to normal shape.

Ryan was reading a book, and was identifying all of the pictures in the book.  She said that was really good.

So I felt rushed, and pushed out.  Not at all what I was expecting from my local (Victorian) MCHN.

Olympics

I've always had Olympic fever.  Love it, become an expert on everything.

Not much of a fan of the coverage, was watching the womens 400m IM this morning and when Stephanie Rice was scraping in second last the commentary was still all "she's making good ground", not gee the Chinese girl Ye is going awesome.

I loved the opening ceremony and as a rule, I don't like them.  But English history is so amazing, so full, so rich that its ok.  The musical montage was great.  Also, as shown before, MR BEAN is fantastic.

So, tonight, I'll be enjoying some swimming, rowing (lots of row row row your boat - to get the boys enthused), hopefully some gymnastics.

Olympic Swimming Photos - Swimming Photo Galleries | London 2012

Olympic Swimming Photos - Swimming Photo Galleries | London 2012

Need to relax

I'm not convinced the title will live up to what I'm posting about, mainly because I don't yet know what I'm going to post about.

Everything is getting the better of me these day, my fuse is short and I don't like it.

STUCK

After a long time, Ryan is finally talking.  We have discovered he is a complete chatterbox with his volume set to 11.  On the way home from daycare in the car from the back seat I heard.

"Stuck, stuck, stuck"

"What's stuck Ryan?"

"ME"


Well duh, that is kind of the idea.

I like hosting shin-digs

Today we had our dearest little chap's first birthday party.

Just so hard to actually believe little Ben is one year old.  In some ways it seems so much longer.  This last year has been very, very intense.

Today was a "Milk and Cookies" themed party, which in all honesty didn't really take off.

When we lived here 9 years ago we used our back door almost exclusively as "the door" but this time around because of now having two dogs and two little people, its easier not to have to tackle the back gate and just use the front door.  Connie still uses the back, but she is the only one.  The sliding door is hard to unlock as well.  What does this have to do with the party you ask?? Well I set up the "dessert table" to face the back door, it was quite visually exciting, I had bunting, a balloon centrepiece, a cupcake stand and other deliciousnesses. It looked great when approached from the back door.  But everyone came in through the front!  SO when you turn around the corner it was nice, but not the WOW factor I was after.

We had sausages in bread, hamburgers and coleslaw for the main course.
A pretty spectacular cake (if I do say so myself) done in the shape of a 1.
Heaps of cookies, cake pops, m&m's and jaffas.
Sugar overload, let me tell you.

Presents were great too...

Nan & Pop = clothes
Margie & Frankie-Pop = coat
Dunn family = Tonka truck
Geary family = Moon car (to go with the rocket we already have)
Holloway family = Trike with a trailer
Pulcifer family = clothes.
We got him a tractor that makes an awful amount of noise.

11 Questions

1. What's your favorite place to shop? 
Absolutely 100% not a shopper.  I do love grocery shopping and am totally digging my La Manna supermarket in Essendon. 
For clothes, well I just suck at shopping, but do manage to get some ok items at Suzanne Grey.  I really want to check out Zara in the next week or so.  See if that is possible.  Might go into town early tomorrow before work.
  
2. What 5 people (dead or alive) would be at your dream dinner party? 
Not a fan of a question like this.  They'd have to be chatters as I'm not so good at keeping conversations going.

3. Who's your biggest style icon?
I'd love to dress like Elsie Larson.  Well not really, she does it a bit too weird for me.  But would like her confidence.  I really want to wear dresses.

4.Favorite band / musician? 
Yawn, music, sorry just isn't my thing.  I love LMFAO for the fun of their music.  I'm a bit of a fan of Pitbull, I think he's damned sexy, but completely and utterly gross at the same time.

5. Who's your favorite actor or actress? 
I always like Drew Barrymore. 

6.The coolest person that you've ever met? 
Penni Perrin Koster.  I totally have a girl crush on her.
 
7. What's your dream job? 
Job, don't really care.  Something that makes a lot of money, or better still, something totally worthwhile that I don't get paid for.

8. Your favorite snack food?
  Peanut butter and creamed honey sandwiches.  I could eat it for breakfast, lunch and tea (oh and morning/afternoon tea too)

9. What's something you wish more people knew about you? 
Everyone already knows too much about me.  I'm an oversharer.

10. One of your silliest moments?
I  love dancing with my boys, and the days I can get Jamie and Mark to join in too are just the best.

11. Your greatest accomplishment?
The three boys that are my sons.  OBVIOUS. 

Some tough times.

I have NOT enjoyed the past 5 weeks.  Not one bit.

Jamie moved away for work.  So essentially I've been a single parent and I hate it.  I hate the lack of company in the evening, I hate not being able to share the load.

Mark started high school and we had some major anxiety to deal with.  Over the past three days, he's been suffering from a spasm-y stomach, the doc thinks it might be "migraine stomach aches".

Ryan has become super clingy, we attempted to put him in the "big boy bed" but after two weeks of hell, I convinced myself that it was ok to put him back in the cot, so I rearranged the boys room for the 5th or 6th time and his sleeping pattern normalised.  Daycare has been a nightmare for Ryan, he doesn't enjoy* being dropped off, he screams and carries on, clings to me like a koala and pretty much needs to be pried away by the staff who always reassure me that the day improves.  Currently Ryan is sick, he has a double ear infection and congested lungs.  He is on penicillin and ventolin (via a spacer & mask)

Ben is still brilliant.  He cut more teeth without a fuss, currently has 4 top teeth and two bottom teeth.  He commando crawls very quickly and is very inquisitive and quite independent.  He's not a great fan of cuddles but will give a kiss if you "pucker" at him.  He is very smiley and loves the remote controls, 5c pieces and food!  Ben also has a bronchospasm and is on ventolin via a spacer & mask.

I didn't cope with agency work.  Being called at 5am to cancel a shift or be given one is just not my cup of tea.  Dropping the boys off at 6am and dashing to my work with Mr Clingy was more than I could stand.  Thankfully I am starting my "real job" on Tuesday at St Vincent's Private Hospital, I'm stupidly excited about it.  I just have a great feeling that its going to be good.  That our work situation will work out.  Jamie will find a contract job at the airport down here that starts at 7 or 8am, so he can do the daycare drop off... men handle it so much better.... or is that Jamie will handle it better than me.

* this is a super understatement.

First Day of Year 8

My biggest boy started school this morning, and as usual, nerves took hold.

It really looks like a nice school.  Very big, about 1400 kids from year 7 -12.  His old school had around 800 but only 7-10.

The uniform is nice, grey shorts/pants, a white shirt, white socks and black shoes.  Sport uniform is green shorts and a green shirt, which to me begs the question, why the heck are there two uniforms, make the whole lot the sport uniform and be done with it.

Changes from Waratah to Gladdy Park are:

• Lockers
• Your own personal copy of the text books
• Diary
• 6 classes a day, not 5

Gladstone Park appears to be the school Waratah wants to be.  There is a full gym (along with exercise equipment), 300 seat theatre, hockey, basketball, AFL, soccer, cricket, and handball areas.  Lovely grounds.

We did a dummy run yesterday - took us 40 minutes to walk there, Mark later in the day rode there in 10 mintues!

Today I drove him, tomorrow (depending on how today went) will be on the bike.

I hope he will allow me to take a photo when he gets home.  Fingers crossed.

Aches and pains.

38 so far has not been a good year for me.  I feel I'm hurting all the time.

• I broke my little right toe by kicking the door frame back in November, its almost fixed now, but can still be very tender.
• Sciatica - OWWW
• Sore shoulder from changing gears.
• Torn medial meniscus (my knee) causing strong pain.
• Tender back, I think that is from being stiff.
• Frequently have a "cricked" neck from sleeping wrong.

Hopeless that is what I think.

Masses of photos

 Mark looking very cool, and quite grown up.

Benno, my little cheeky chops.

A nice stylish photo of our Skye.

Chaos at the Storer side Christmas dinner

Starting to open the pressies.

Mark helping Ryan open his presents - the look of delight on his face.

Daddy and Ben with a gorgeous soft dog that he got for a present.

Ben working out how to open the presents, Ryan's face is saying "what its not for me"

Mark and Margie, they gave him this lovely keyboard.

Cousins galore.  That's Roy with the antlers on.

Sheena and Ben saying hello.

Christmas Day hail... yes that makes sense.

The bigger picture of the Christmas Day hail.

Mark changing Ryan's nappy... yes it was a doozy.

In the "big boy" bed.

Another one of cheeky chops.

Hello... can anyone see me?

Ryan on the tramopoline.

Selfies happen early these day.  Ryan taking a self portrait.

The fantabulous lemon tree.

Our Tulla backyard.

help, Help, HELP HELP HELP please

We're suffering, Ryan is not going to sleep at night. In the last months, lots of changes for him. Changes are as follows:

• Moved house - seems to have coped with that well.
• Lots of visitors - enjoys that.
• Mark went away for 2 weeks - but he loves Mark, don't go.
• Daddy went away - OMG he loves Daddy and now can't see him (last night he kissed Jamie's picture on my phone when he said goodnight)
• We moved him to a "big boy" bed the day before we knew Jamie had the job, and he left 5 days later and routine was not established.
• Started daycare 3 days per week.
• Changeable weather - can't help that one.
• Naps are erratic
• Mummy goes walking at strange times, leaving Ryan at home.

So with all that in mind, Ryan is having so much trouble falling asleep.
We do the wind down procedure,

• dinner - that is a whole other battle that I won't go into yet.
• bath - love love love the bath, its a frequent calmer down.
• relax in front of the telly, 
• story (ok I only started that yesterday, but they really enjoyed it, so it will continue *blush*)
• The kiss, tuck in and say goodnight.

The the drama starts, he comes out, he cries/screams, he comes out, he comes out he comes out.  All the time, Ben is in the same room, so his sleep is being disturbed.

I've done the "I've said goodnight, time to sleep, shut your eyes" He does this, then immediately returns.

I've growled, I've even smacked, I've been stony faced, I've been loving.  I've given a drink, I've given the silent treatment.  My main problem is when in the cot, he would scream, but in the bed, he just comes out screaming.

Help!

Next is the horrible wake up.
He wakes up screaming and thrashes about, yesterday he even butted his head on the ceramic tiles. This performance (which I try to ignore) goes on for 10-15 minutes.  If I cuddle Ben, he weaves his way in and pushes, hits or kicks Ben to get him out of the way.  Ryan is still essentially non-verbal, he will repeat words, but they appear to have no meaning.  He grunts and points, often at nothing in particular which makes it even harder.  Even Ben has taken to looking at him with a strange expression on his face.

I think the bed means he gets up before he wakes up properly and this is his wake up procedure.  When in the cot, I could hear he was awake but lay there and chatted to himself, even for half an hour before he "asked" to get up.

Mark is a big softie and any time he cries he wants to give him his dummy, even though we've made dummies a bed only thing.  His behaviour is making dummy-in-the-mouth an almost constant thing, which has given him an excoriation mark on his lip/chin.

Mark is desperate to help, but this usually means getting him out of bed for a cuddle, or hopping in his bed to calm him down, all of which will be a rod for Mark's back later on.

OMG, I'm suffering from lack of sleep.  Feeling guilt as  I have to give tons of attention to Ryan, so I feel I'm not giving Ben as much attention.  Its so hard.  I hate being a temporary single parent.  I want my webcam, but can't find it.

But at the moment, Marko is playing his xbox talking to his bestie,  Ryan is happily playing with a ball, Ben is wiggling around on the floor finding stuff to play with.

Like.... forever

PART ONE - THE MOVE

Hi there,
It sure has been a while.
What have you been up to?

I'm guessing no one really looks on here, but I'll write just the same.  So much has happened since the 10th of November, that I'm quite embarrassed to tell.

Firstly we moved.  It was awfully stressful and an event I do not wish to do again - ever (unless someone else packs and unpacks and there aren't renovations being done at the same time)

That obviously tells you that our renovation actually got finished.  Our home in Newcastle had a lot done to it over the 8 years we were there.  We repainted every room, re-curtained every room, put a built in wardrobe in the master bedroom, took out a floating wall*, demolished the kitchen and built a new one from scratch, re-tiled the shower, re-surfaced the bath, made a new bathroom vanity unit, polished the floorboards in the kitchen and re-carpeted the whole house.  It was a massive task, and although I have written that we did it, truth be told, Jamie did it, mostly by himself, some help from his parents and a few faithful fantastic friends, but essentially by himself.

Our house has been rented out, hopefully to a nice family who look after the place and want to be there for years and years to come.

We moved back to our home in Tullamarine.  Its pretty good except for the carpet in the lounge/computer room which has been destroyed.  Hopefully in the next month or two we will rip it up and polish the floorboards. I will have my work cut out for me in the sweeping department if that plan eventuates.  We have slate at the front door, tiles in the kitchen, dining, rumpus, laundry and toilet and in the near future will have floorboards in the lounge and office.  Eeek, so much sweeping.

We are loving the backyard.  It was pretty stark when we first moved back, huge lawn, high wooden fences and a lemon tree.  Since Christmas we have now got a trampoline (tramopoline), a kiddie pool, a slide and two pink cars. Along with the outdoor table, a pram or two, the dog bed and random car parts... its a full backyard now.



* What is a floating wall, its a term I made up, but the previous owners wanted to add a room to get more rental income, so a partition wall was created in our computer room, leaving a "space" without a light that contained the back door.