I voted

Today I am proud to say I voted

I know we have compulsory voting here but even if it werent I am confident that I would be moved enough to participate in the ultimate democratic right that so many people past & present have fought for.

Although I am looking forward to my tv ads returning to 'normal' after a 5 week political campaign, I am glued to the ABC tonight hanging on every prediction that is being made.

Today I helped to shape the future of this fantastic country & its looking like such a close race that we will have to wait till tomorrow to find out who will lead us for the next 3 years.

QLD here we come - Pt 1

Kent decided to marry the love of his life Callie, but more on that later.

The important thing for this post is that they decided to tie the knot in QLD & there was no way we were missing it.

We made the somewhat ambitious choice to drive the 2100kms from Adelaide to Brisbane. So on Saturday 9th July we piled the kids & all our summer clothes into the car & were on the road by 9am. By 11am the DVD player was on & we were praising the brain that invented such a life saving device.

Our first stop was Pinaroo for lunch.

Our first night on the road was spent in West Wyalong which is about 900kms from Adelaide which was further than we had hoped to make it on the first day. We slept in the only accomodation that the caravan park had available.... an old railway cart. It was long, annoying to navagate but pretty cool.

Xander was kind enough to time a nappy stop with a drive through Parkes so we took the opportunity to stretch our legs at "The Dish" (made famous in The Dish).

Our second night on the road was spent in Warwick which was just 2 hours out from Brisbane,. Notice the t-shirt in the middle of winter, oh QLD how I love your winter weather.

We were originally planning to do the trip in 3 days but because the kids did SOOOO well we were able to do it in 2 with just an extra 2 hours on the third day. I love the adaptability of those kids, I must remember to commend their parents for a job well done in that respect!!!

Since the kids were such troopers on the drive we decided to head straight to Dreamworld but there are a whole lot more photos for that so I might save that for tomorrow.

Uganda & Neil

A couple of months ago Neil was given the opportunity to apply to join a group of 8 other professionals on an aid mission to Uganda to build a house 8 orphans & a house mother. As well as building the house their aim was to take toys, books & clothes for the communities & provide aid at the ground level.

So after much thought he applied & was successful - YIPPEE!!!! Kain C+C are the fantastic organisation behind this.

One of the things that Neil was most interested in/excited about was meeting and helping an Australian woman who has a "walking medical clinic" that takes medical aid into the communities for those that would otherwise not get any medical attention because they are unable to get to a doctor.

The agreement was that his firm would cover the cost of flights & accomodation but Neil had to raise atleast $2000. So as his main funraising event he organised a bike ride. You could choice 1 of 3 distances to ride (40, 60 or 100 kms) & pay a registration fee accordingly. All donations and ride sponsorships were also accepted & all funds raised go directly to the cause.

Neil did the 100 kms & almost $4000 was raised - PHENOMINAL EFFORT!!!!! Fun was had by all & luckily it wasnt a race.... This is us waiting, waiting, waiting for Neil & Brian to come in, by this stage almost all the 48 riders had left, even Phil, who was following behind in a car incase anyone needed help, had given up and come back for a drink.

They finally came in & despite the late hour we were all really proud of him & ALL the other riders.

However, the trip is not to be... yet. He was meant to leave saturday just gone (7th Aug) but the Somalians have got their knickers in a knot about something and have the bombs to prove it so the trip has been postponed until next year but all funds raised will still go to the cause since it is such a fantastic one.

the first of many update posts

my intention is to do 1 post every day until I am up to date.

let me start with 22/6/2010:

On an impulse I decided to get the kids hairs cut by a professional, this goes against everything inside me that says "They want how much to cut a childs hair. Ingrid, you can do that yourself!!" but I know that in the past there have been times where Olivia has had to put up with some pretty bad hair. She had finally grown out her fringe to a decent length & Xander's hair was way past his "glasses" (neils test to determine if he needs to visit to the hairdresser). So I made the appointment & then prepped Olivia for it. She was OK with it as long as Xander could go first.

So he did go first but everytime the scissors went anywhere near him he would turn his head to get away so the only thing I could think to do was feed him while the hairdresser cut his hair. 5 minutes later the boys hair was respectable again.

Then is was Olivias turn, at first she wasnt too sure & I thought she may need some coaxing but then she started feeling like a big girl & loved the feeling & attention. She had about 3 inches off (since when do I think in inches) & now her "fringe" is the same length as the rest of her hair & it looks soooo much better.

Doesnt everyone love a trip to the hairdressers...

So....

Olivia has an Expressive Speech Disorder.

That does NOT excuse her behaviour in relation to hitting (please ground swallow me up & let me hide from the shame of it), horrible noises instead of speech & tantrums at 6 am because she is not getting what she wants (I realise that no one is thinking rationally at this unearthly hour).

That does NOT excuse my breakdown at OT today after I had to put Olivia in timeout for trying to take a headband out of my hair & refusing to quit it despite my best "calm yet authoritative voice". It was just the last straw on a difficult week.

There have been many times when I have left a situation, turned around or put my dark sunnies on to shed a tear or 2 for MANY different reasons, but I could do none of those things today. I fear that my 10 year old niece now knows how unstable I am.

I love you Lolly girl, tomorrow is another chance for us to get it right.

But while you sleep tonight I will attempt to make a pact with you - if you dont wake me before 7am I promise to have more patience tomorrow & maybe, just maybe, instead of time outs & escalating arguements you can ride your bike to the park & tell me a story along the way. (BTW - I will take sleepy silence as agreeance)

QUACK

I take too much for granted. Sure its all relative. My good days are someone elses bad & vice versa.

But QUACK is a big deal is this household, or atleast it was tonight.

I'm sure ducks take their "speech" for granted but in this house, tonight, any duck would have been proud of my 4 year old who until now has not ever been able to form her mouth into K.

We have sat in front of the mirror repeating it over & over again so that she can see how I form my mouth & then how she forms her mouth to try the same sound. I have tried to hold the front of her tongue down while she attempts the sound. I have tried to explain how to make the sound (give it a try some time, it is extremely hard).

But for some reason it just clicked with QUACK this evening (& only this word). Then she lost it again for about 5 minutes, so we pushed on & she gave up so I pushed some more & then it returned.

Smarties were handed out & many praises sung. The fact that it was at the end of the word was the icing on the cake. For the last 5 months we have been concentrating on sounds at the start of words but in the last 2 weeks we have moved on to the end of words.

So for her to get this sound at the end of the word is well deserving of a little happy dance & a smartie.

a post full of things I want to remember always

firstly.... yesterday was Ailish's 10th birthday so we all went up to her house for dinner (burgers were awesome Kristie, thanks). We had just finished dinner & the kids were all running around when all of a sudden there is a crash & Olivia has tripped over *NOTHING* & her head has broken her fall by colliding with a metal suitcase (you know, the ones that your ancestors took to war...). We all jumped up & Neil was the first to reach her. Apon inspection of her forehead it was obvious that we would be leaving & on our way to the ER very shortly.

So we left the party & took ourselves down to Womens & Childrens hospital where we were seen straight away in a "see & treat" area where they literally glued her skin back together & we were on our way back home.

I was really proud of her. Despite the fact that she would not allow me to touch her head to even mop up the blood & the fact that she screamed ALL the way down the freeway right until she started to fall asleep when we were just about there, she let all the nurses & Dr's have a look & fix up her wound. We were sceptical & warned everyone to expect the worst so they brought in an extra nurse to hold her down if they needed too. But it wasnt needed in the end. I lay on the bed with her & 1 nurse lightly held her face still while the Doc applied the glue. She was soo brave.

See that tongue... she sticks it out when she concentrates, just like her Dad.

So, while we were waiting for the nurse to come back in the room last night we were singing songs & playing games to distract Olivia. Olivia & I were clapping and Xander decided that looked like fun & started clapping too. It was the first time he has managed to co-ordinate his hands enough to do it. It was a bit exciting & we were all suitably impressed. (I wish I had a photo of it).

The last thing (for now) I want to remember always is this:

I hope its obvious who wrote it.... She did it this evening while I was preparing dinner. It was the first time she has written her own name all by herself (can you see the little l between the O & i). We have been practising for a little while & although I had written it out for her to copy she really didnt refer to it. She loves being able to write her name & gets so excited when I suggest that we practice. i love it!!!

another time maybe...

2 days before I was due to fly off to New York I went to the docs, Xander's nose had been very mildly runny that week & I wanted to make sure he was OK before we went to the states. Well as it turns out he had an ear infection & the docs recommendation was that I not risk the 28.5 hour flight so that was the end of that trip.

So I missed.... the inflight movies, the experience of an entirely new (to me) continent & country, wearing a bathrobe at a heated rooftop bar, a broadway show, central park zoo, times square & I dont even want to know what else.

Instead I.... got to have mothers day with BOTH my kids, celebrated Lolly's 4th birthday, got to see my friend raising money for charity by standing in underwear in a shop window (very modest I promise), made sure that Lolly got to have kindy photos

This photo was taken the day before we were meant to fly out, (ignore the horrible pink slipper in the background), notice how he doesnt even have the decency to look sick!!!!

Happy 4th Birthday my first born love

Yesterday, 12th May, my baby girl turned 4. She celebrated the day with many of her favourite things, an early morning bike ride (on a brand new bike), a morning at kindy (with a marshmallow caterpillar to share), a picnic in Botanic Gardens with Nana, Grandad & Auntie Mandi (with the requested giraffe cake), followed by an afternoon at the zoo (where the 2 wombats were the star attraction).

This last year has been a big one for her, she has firstly adjusted to being in childcare full time, followed by being home full time & then having her mum time rudely interrupted by a little brother who seemed to take a while to get the message about who runs the show around this place (dont worry he has learnt that lesson many times over now). The introduction of Xander to this family was initially welcomed but after the honeymoon period of about a week she realised he was here to stay & thats when the "issues" started. Oh not much, just pushing his head into his seat if we were going out, or pushing/hitting him when I was feeding him, or taking stuff away from him so that he didnt have anything to play with. When I think about it, Xanders place in our car is very representative of his place in Olivia's heart. Before he was born we asked her where she wanted the new baby to sit, "next to me" came the reply, once he had been here for a few weeks she demanded that he be moved so that there was space between them, once he had been here for a few months the request came to move him back. The other day I caught them sitting silently holding hands. He is now firmly implanted in her heart & her in his. They do so love each other.

Her speech has come on in leaps and bounds with a long way still to go. Even at the start of this year she would miss a lot of words out of sentences and would only say the main sound in each word (generally the vowel). After a lot of work on her part she now has "d" "p" "f" "l" "t" "th" all down pat, the next thing to do it work on shortening the gaps between that sound & the rest of the word. But progress is progress and I am so proud of her every day.

Kindy is the other big thing this past year. She started in Jan & has been excited to go every day since. Within the first few weeks she was invited to an exclusive party by a girl at kindy & that gave me so much hope for her time there. It took her an entire term to really get comfortable enough to start talking (even to the adults) but now even the kids have told me "she is talking lots more now". Her eyes light up each day when she is has something to show me for time there & her "hard work" is paying off, she can almost write her own name unassisted & she drew an animal for the first time the other day which had a definate head, body, legs, eyes & mouth. It was the day of her birthday so she was also able to show Neil her fantastic drawing & that was her present to us for the day. I am a little anxious at the thought that she may get into a special speech & language kindy program for term 4 and then have to more centres and build brand new relationships only to do it again 3 terms later for school but hopefully the benefits outway the anxiety.

Each day she is a gift to us and can make me laugh or cry at the flip of a coin but I dont ever want to do anything else or be anywhere else other than here with her.

Now for some photos of the day:

mastering her first "real" bike

everyone at kindy ready for some marshmallow

getting smoked out by the sparklers

  

(notice the non donkey/thyroid horse/wombat-iness of the cake this year)

We love you Lolly-girl

life is good

Xanders trick of the moment is pointing. When Neil picks him up in the morning the first thing he does is point at the door, when we put him in bed at night he points at his cot. From morning to night that boy is pointing.

Except tonight. Mum had come with us to the shops & when we got home Amy informed us that Xander had fallen asleep, turning the car off caused the interior light to come on & woke the poor little man. Just as we were saying "aaawwwww" he looked at us, grinned the biggest grin & stuck out his thumb.

Life certainly is good.

yay, all is not lost

apparently all i needed to do to get my elements back was "upgrade" my template, yippee for that button!!! now to solve the rest....

i'm just having one of those days/weeks

this week i decided that I was a bit tired of my blog look so I went looking for a different template. I found one I loved & took the plunge & used it. Well it seems that its better then devil you know.... I lost the nav bar at the top so everytime I want to "sign in" I had to go to the kitchen comfort blog & sign in from there to be able to do ANYTHING on my blog. I also tried to change the photos at the top but they were massive & all you could see was a tiny little piece of the top of each photo.

So today I decided to go have a play around to correct it & am totally regretting it. In the end I just wanted to take it back to how it used to be but now I have lost all my "elements" and cant add them back in & I cant seem to change my template again. oh man this is the last thing I need today....

I am going away on Saturday & am feeling a bit anxious about the flight with Xander & the fact that I am leaving my Lolly-girl & Ron Ron behind. I am going to miss Mother's day, Olivia's birthday & there is a good chance that Olivia will miss her first ever "school" photos because of my trip. I have found a million things this week that I should be spending the money on rather than a frivilous holiday & I feel like other aspects of my life are running out of control with no clear direction of the best way to resolve it.

to top it off, after a couple of solid months of word games I have lost motivation to play the same games twice a day with Olivia, i dont even have the energy to deal with her frustration when i try to correct her speech in conversation. She NEEDS the games & my attention for her speech to improve & she has come such a long way since Jan. however, this week mummy is starting holidays, so tv is going back on & you can eat as many "treats" as you want & drink as many warm milos that your little belly can handle.

i will deal with the consequenses of this week when i get back from NY & hopefully the week away is exactly want i need to restore motivation & get back on track with the blog & the life....

So for now blog, you have won but I promise that you have not seen the last of me!

Oh I almost forgot. I finished my first ever quilt. Olivia's first quilt was made by my Nana but she unfortunately passed away in May 2007 & so I wanted Xander to have something as well. I love it & so does he....

I could not have done it without Amelia or Kristie, fantasticly talented women to learn from, thanks.

I'm just hoping this is going to work

bear with me while I play around with my blog....

oh to be almost 4

when not running into your friend on the trampoline is the biggest thing you need to worry about...

proud as punch

See all those buttons on my baby girls pyjamas - well just imagine there are 4 little pink ones all in a row right down the front, next time I will remember that she is holding "baby".

2 days ago she achieved undoing them & I thought that was a proud moment but I now realise that was nothing...... tonight this little munchkin mastered doing them up, now I know what it feels like to be asked to be the first person to walk on the moon - PROUD PROUD PROUD!

Well done Boo Boo Ba Loo, I hope you never realise how difficult it used to be.

just a few photos cause I can

any girl can be a fairy or a princess but it take real power to be a super hero. She was the cutest Superman (who had a cape resembling more like Little Red Riding Hood) at kindy.



And after a fantastic suggestion by Kristie we now have 2 super heros in the house



Neil came home early from work yesterday & we just love it when he surprises us like that



And this is how we have spent Good Friday so far, painting with our fingers



And our noses

now we are off to the zoo.

blog envy

Sometimes I feel unworthy compared to those surrounding me, but then I remember that I dont have to measure up, I just have to be the best me for myself & my family.

Having said that I so badly wish I had the ability to write like my cousins wife (even writing that sentence took me 5 minutes to think of the right words). She says everything I wish I knew how in relation to her gorgeous kids & husband. Everytime I log onto my blog & see that she has posted something, my eyes immediately start welling up because I just know she is going to fill my heart with love for hers & my own family.

Maybe being married to a Smylie is better than actually being one......

This is her blog & I do hope her blogging energy remains once that new baby girl of theirs has settled in.