Changing ones mind.

As a mother I'm allowed to change my mind and realise my mistakes.  The hard part is explaining myself and holding true to myself.

I've stuffed up with Marko and his damned, stupid, irritating, life-sapping xbox.  I allowed him to play war games, I purchased them for him.  These are not just war, but graphic, realistic, blood splattering, violent war games, ones that are rated MA15+.  Not sure entirely why I ignored the rating when I got the first one.  He said "all my friends are playing it" I believed him and truth be told they are "all" playing it.

The latest and greatest of the Modern Warfare series came out this week.  I heard on the telly that England is trying to ban it due to its extreme violence, realistic graphics and scenes that are obviously based on the Underground bombings in London several years ago.  Mark is desperate for this game.  Desperate to the point of tears when told NO.

There are two reasons not to purchase this game in particular.
                             The violence.
                             The cost.

Mark's response is: "Its exactly the same as my other games"
Me: "You don't need it then, play the ones you've got"
Him" THis one is better"
Me: "Oh well, too bad, I've made my decision and its NO"

Tears! Slamming of doors! Aggression!  (Yet he swears black and blue that he is not being affected by these games).

He wants to know why he's allowed to play the old games and not the new one.  So I've offered to sell them all.  Didn't get a favourable response to that one.

I just don't know what to do at the moment.  I feel hypocritical.  I'd love to sell the whole damned system.  I want him to be a kid, go outside and play.  He is only interested in killing people on that stupid console.  Tomorrow we MUST put the timer lock onto it.  He has no self control with time.

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.

Heating up

Well only sort of...

Today was at least 30 deg and it was warm.  I didn't mind it though, I love wind and it was mighty windy.  It was windy enough for Newcastle City Council to evacuate the Art Gallery because of the fig trees.  

I've had Mark at home for the past two days, he's had a cold and hay-fever.  Its quite nice having him around, but he really needs to go to school.  Driving me freaking nuts... he is highly addicted to his Xbox, Jamie and I are really wishing we didn't buy it for him for his birthday.

The babies are gorgeous.

Turning 38

Saturday was my birthday.

I wasn't expecting much.  Jamie always forgets to prepare.  Mum had been in hospital, so couldn't send a card, Dad wouldn't send a card.  The rest of the family are not "senders" either.  Sure they'll call, but send a card, ahhh no.

Saturday morning, 4am, Ben woke up for a bottle.  I had a pain in my chest, it hurt when I breathed (get it, hurt all the time, but was worse when I breathed in).  The pain went through to my back, I thought it was my back-pain playing up.  Then my mind wandered, the pain when I was breathing, was this a pulmonary embolism?  Best plan... ignore it.

5am Ryan woke up, the pain was worse, I felt I had to "hold my chest" which is not an easy thing to do.  I ummed and ahhed for a bit, by 5:30 I had woken Jamie to ask him what he thought.  I had a pain in my chest, all over my right side, my back, felt nauseas and a bit sweaty.  Jamie consulted his "first aid" book and then we both decided it would be best to call the ambulance.  We did and one was here in about 15 mins.

The worst/ best part was the pain went away - before the ambulance came.  They did an ECG, blood pressure etc, all looked normal, but we decided I'd go to the hospital anyway to be checked over as I had never had any thing like that before.  Plus all the advertisements say "don't wait when you have chest pain"

They took me to the Mater Hospital, and the nurses were sneery at me.  I'm sure the ambo handed over "Here is Christy she had chest pain ***whispered*** but its all in her head ***returned to normal volume*** we've done an ECG" blah blah blah.

The nurse did another ECG (my skin has reacted to the adhesive!).  Within 5 minutes the lovely Dr David arrived and he took my history and some bloods.\

Then Dr Katie (I think) she was an intern on the Renal side when I was largely pregnant with Ben and was completely thorough and wonderful, she remains so.  She came and had a long chat with me, explained that I hadn't had a heart attack, didn't have a blood clot and now I'm thinking it was an anxiety/panic attack.  I was home by 9am.

Good start to one's birthday don't you think?

The fellas picked me up, gave me a lovely card and a Lotto ticket, my real present is a ticket to Dolly Parton for later in the year.

I ended up not going to work, had a snooze in the afternoon as I was feeling *heavy and down.*  We went to the Shortland Pub for dinner with my dearest Terese and her boys.   It was very nice indeed.

So Happy 38th Birthday to me.

Why???

Why do things have to change?  Blogger looks different and I don't like it.

Emails.

Email is a fact of modern life. Different people use it, well, differently.

In our family, email is at the top of the ladder of communication. Emails are read promptly, answered promptly and most definitely kept!

When people ask for help, it is provided, but then they don't respond for two days... why ask for the help unless you actually need it. Then PLEASE say thank you, so we know you have received said help.

Its hard to put yourself in someone else's positon and know their regard for email. I feel everyone should be that same as me... surprise surprise.

What is your email philosophy?
What is your Facebook philosophy?
What about Twitter?

I quit Twitter because it was too constant and far too flirty for my liking. As a lot of your will know, I love Facebook, I feel its my home in a way. I respond to a lot of stuff, and it confuses me when people don't comment on your comments. Maybe I'm craving attention... oh I know I am.

The toddler's baby.

Ryan loves his teddy, Roger. He is quite obsessed with him at the moment. Started about 3 weeks ago. Roger had to be taken everywhere, given super tight cuddles and is really treated as his baby.

Roger has an incontinence problem, so is normally seen wearing a nappy. He is sometimes dressed in a onesie. He is put in the rocker. He is put on his tummy for tummy time. He requires to be wrapped before bed, sometimes he needs a longer sleep than Ryan, so we must creep out of the room, so as not to wake him. Roger likes a drink of pretend milk out of a bottle.

I love that Ryan has this imaginative play. Mark was not big on it. He preferred to push a car around. Ryan is not a "player", he likes to run around, and throw/kick balls. He is also VERY big on playing Daddy to this bear of his. I'll upload a video in another post (from my phone) of this morning play... very cute.

Tuesday Rants.

I feel a rant coming on.

#1. Motorbike insurance.
In NSW you need "Compulsory Third Party" (CTP) insurance, also known as a Green Slip. This is to cover injury in an accident. In Victoria this is a general insurance called Transport Accident Commission *TAC* and it is a part of the cars registration. In NSW, they have privatised the CTP part, so you need to shop around for it as well as your comprehensive insurance. That is the back story!
Jamie rides a motorbike to save money on petrol for going to work. It was up for renewal this week. The Registration costs $111 for the year, CTP is $421 and full insurance is $374. We have to do this for 3 vehicles every year. Jamie shopped around for his CTP, found a better price (our previous company wanted $50 more), but he was informed that the CTP will NOT cover at fault accidents for his own injury (I'm pretty sure that is what he said). So in the very unlikely event that Jamie would cause an accident on his motorbike....

Just read the fine print. Jamie got me in a tizz for nothing. Most of the greenslips are a "no fault" argh.

Coping with a 20 month old.

I think I'm having trouble with the gorgeous Ryan. I have just admitted in writing here that Ryan is hyperactive, aggressive and destructive. Its completely true as well.
It's not all the time. Most of the time he's affectionate and sweet (always hyperactive though). But its the aggression that is worrying me.

Reading what Courtney said in the link above, and I shall quote:

In considering Pudge's behaviors, we could definitely classify most under two categories:
1. Behaviors that occur because she doesn't have the communicative skills to appropriately express herself (i.e. slapping an adult across the bottom or jabbing a peer in the chest to announce her arrival instead of using her voice to do it.)
2. Behaviors that occur because she is sensory seeking. (i.e. emptying toy boxes and laundry baskets and any drawer in the whole blessed house she can reach, tackling her brother, body slamming the shih tzu, etc.)

Pudge is an almost 3 year old girl with Down Syndrome, so her challenges are different. That being said, Ryan is still non verbal, he grabs me by my jeans and pulls or pushes me until I'm where he wants me to be, I know there is a voice in there, just want him to say "come here Mummy". The sensory seeking part is very very true (just wish I knew what it meant), he opens everything, pulls out stuff, goes through any open door, escapes at every opportunity. Ryan is also similar to Pudge in that he has a high pain tolerance. Give him a needle, he'll give you a dirty look. Fall over and get an egg on your head, rub it better and just a little cry. Smacks on the hand are greeted with amusement "why the heck did you do that?"


But onto the aggression. Mark is rough with him. Mark is very rough with him. They "play" constantly, in a throw you around, pretend to hit, trip you over, yell in your face. Mark never (well hardly ever) uses real words when around Ryan, its all "arrrrhhhhhh" and stupid laughing. Whenever Ryan starts to cry because Mark has taken it too far, "I was just trying to make him laugh" Who freaking cares about him laughing. Its teaching a wrong behaviour. Ryan is learning that aggression is ok, because Mark does it. Ryan will then choose his target - Ben. But Mark (sort of) knows when to stop, Ryan is still very young, and doesn't yet possess the skills to say, oh this might hurt Ben.

I seem to be stuck on a record player saying "time to calm down Mark", "stop screaming Mark", "that's enough Mark". What if my younger boys only remember me being angry with Mark?

The hyperactivity is crazy. He runs from the minute he wakes up. If he sits down, he will want a blanket on his knees (its cold here at the moment and we don't use our heater, we put blankies on our laps). Instantly the blanket is pulled up, he is standing up again, spins in a circle, sits down and does it all over again. This can happen 10 times in the space of one minute. The only relief Ryan gets is when he is in his high chair, bed or car. I wish sometimes he would just relax, but he doesn't seem to be able to. I take him outside to run around and kick the ball, but I never do it for long enough, so then there is a tantrum.


At least he still sleeps fantastically. 7:30pm until 7ish. Then a 2-4 hour nap in the day time. PHEW. But last night he woke at 12:30 and was awake until around 2:30am... strange.

Is it because of this challenging behaviour that I'm almost relieved to be going back to work? I feel a bit of a failure as a parent at the moment, I know I'm not. But the lack of talking is really getting me down. Last night our friends daughter said "I love you Daddy". She is about 3 months younger than Ryan! BUT she is a girl, the eldest and her mother is a trainee primary teacher.

Advice is most welcome.

Confused.

Mark, Ryan, Ben. Ryan, Ben, Mark. Ben, Mark, Ryan.

Too many names. Oh there is a good one, "Jame, I mean Mark"

What the heck do you call them??

Gorgeous little boys.

Happy 4 month birthday to my little dude Ben Arthur. Time has gone so quick.

So being 4 months old means he had needles today. He's currently sleeping it off. He was really good about it, so good in fact that Ryan got a lollypop!

Ben is getting quite chunky, his face is filling out, he is full of gorgeous expressions. I just love him to bits.

Ryan is a handful, but then he's 20 months old. He's getting taller (just). But its his understanding that is amazing. As you know, we've restricted dummy usage. Now when he gets out of bed, he hands him dummy to me and we place it on his dresser. He also gets to suck on it during nappy changes (a trick that Roy taught us), this morning I asked for it back after his nappy change and he wouldn't open his mouth. So I said to him, its either give me the dummy or you go to your cot. No handing back of the dummy, so I put him to bed and he fell asleep. Also yesterday, I was sitting on the floor feeding Ben, I asked Ryan "please give mummy the remote" and I pointed to it (it was on the next chair) he walked over, picked it up and handed it to me. Excessive praise given. He's a smart cookie.

Mark is a teenager! He's totally obsessed with war video games, they are very *very* violent, so he spends most of his time killing people! As always, he's great with the little boys, although sometimes a little rough. Food and filling Mark is an issue. I feel I want to say another story, but I can't remember it.

I must find my camera cord, I need to upload photos.

Today

This is a post about the Today show. (I was going to do it on my phone, but I'm at my computer now, so will do it here - quicker)

I spent years hating the Today show, I was a firm fan of GMA (before it was axed) followed by Sunrise. I loved Kochie and Mel and their antics. But then they started to sour on me. I think it was during the coverage of the Christchurch earthquake when Kochie was standing in front of the Grand Chancellor Hotel and you could just see him wishing it would fall down so he could be in the footage.*


Then I saw/read that Karl Stefanovic was up for a Gold Logie. Not that dickhead Karl I thought. Then I switched. He is very funny, I love Georgie and Ben. Lisa is the weakest link I feel, but still think she is great. The things that irk me about the Today show.

• They sit so close together on the couch, I know its so they both get in the shot. But I don't even sit that close to Jamie, let alone someone who isn't my husband.
• What is Richard Reed laughing about all the time?
• Why is Richard Wilkins still on tv?
• Why is the weather readers job the best on tv?
• How come they spend so little time on each topic, surely some things deserve a little longer than three minutes.
• I think its funny when the segment "Girls on the Grill" comes on, Karl starts with a "Good morning to you Lisa and Georgie" yet they have all been talking and sitting together since 5.30am and the segment is at 8.30am

And I shall leave my Today discussions there.






* I don't know whether he was actually wishing that, but it sure looked like it.

Blogging on the go

Now have installed Blogger on my phone. More silly typing on this touch pad.
Sitting here watching Masterchef, once again frustrating the hell out of me. None of them have ever skinned a chook before, but they only give them the bare basic time. Why why why?
I was talking to Jamie yesterday asking about this conflict that "they" say is necessary in reality shows. Who wants conflict? Who wants this stupid pressure? Not me, I'd rather see them do it well and see how to cook the dishes rather than super complicated food.

Today's cooking.

I'm making Beef Stroganoff for dinner (minus the mushrooms).
Dessert is going to be some sort of apple puff/turnover, need to find a recipe for it.

I played secretary for MyNetHost this morning, two of our clients needed some help, so I did phone support and got them through it. Very satisfying that. It also baffles me in this day and age that I rang a client and they gave me their credit card number no questions asked. I still have it written in front of me. If I was another person (ie my evil twin or just plain criminal) I could do some online shopping.

Babies are both asleep. Neither really napped at all yesterday, so I am looking forward to a peaceful day.

I was sick overnight, that was yuck. All better now.

A week in the life.

I'm starting this on Monday!
The idea/suggestion came from here.

The idea is to write down the nitty gritty of day to day life to document it.
Although my life is quite mundane, it'll be interesting in years to come to look back at how I survived the two under two phase (with a teenager).

So I'm putting my *memory joggers* in a display folder with my camera and I'll document it all on here too. Yay, that should be exciting.