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.

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.