Lightening Online

My eldest heads off on his first school camp this morning.

He’s excited.

Me?

Not so much.

In fact, I’ve been giving him LOTS of cuddles this past week.

I’ve got the “what if something happens and I never see him again” jitters.

Cos NO-ONE can look after MY child like I can!!!!

Right???

*sniff*

It’s okay. The staff going are FABULOUS. I’m sure he’ll be fine. But I just have to have my little “mummy moment” here.

He’ll be back in 54 hours and 23 minutes (give or take)…..

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In other news:

I wrote a post called Opening Rain on Aussie Bloggers this week. Pleeeeaaaasssseee take a minute to pop over there and leave me some comment love. Cos you know how I love me some comment love. And it’s a much more uplifting post than the drivel you’ve been putting up with here for the past few days.
We could sure do with some “opening rain” around here. Both the wet kind of the “fresh start” kind.

* image courtesy of www.jumpingpillows.com.au “I’m taking Trailer Boy on the jumping pillow“, I said to my older two children through the car window. I had promised earlier that day that I would come for a jump with them. Both faces lit up and they quickly put away their gameboy and nintendo and jumped out of the car to follow us.When we arrived the playground area was empty. It seemed that word spread like wildfire around the caravan park that “an adult was on the jumping pillow” because kids started to roll in within minutes of my arrival (yeah, I’ve just got an overinflated sense of importance ).

One girl in particular seemed to stick quite close to me and peppered me with questions and information about herself.

It started with “do you know how old I am?” and continued from there. Thankfully, while she told me her age, she didn’t ask mine!!!!

Before long, Farmboy decided that we were having too much fun on the jumping pillow and joined the rest of us. Plenty of laughter (and puffing) ensued.

Farmboy started some kind of game on the pillow and more children arrived asking “can we play too?”

Things continued along for some time, with Tami* sticking close to my side. Wanting to play and yet mostly unsure of herself to some degree.

Eventually Farmboy collapsed on the nearby grass only to end up with a pile of kids jumping all over him. That wasn’t too bad when it was OUR children. But other people’s children?

This is where things can get really sticky.

I spent half the night lying there thinking about Tami. She lived in the town where we were staying. It was a “holiday” to come and stay in a cabin at the local caravan park. With a carer. Her mother lives some 400km away. No mention of a father. My understanding was that she also lives with a carer (as in foster care).

Farmboy really struggled. She was making comments to him like “I’m ticklish too” when he was tickling our kids.

It just seems so unfair. Unfair because it was all innocent fun and yet in the back of Farmboys mind constantly was “I can’t touch this girl or it might get misinterpreted”. Unfair because what she really wanted (needed?) was a bit of attention and to feel like she was part of the fun.

When it was time for us to head off for tea. This little girl (she told me she was 9) ran up and threw her arms around Farmboy. He graciously put an arm around her in a brief embrace. She then gave me a huge hug.

Part of me wanted to pack her up and take her home with us. The other part of me was kind of relieved I didn’t have to. She was a rather draining child. I imagine she was trying to cram what might amount to a number of years of adult attention into those few minutes we gave her.

I guess it brought home to me how IMPORTANT it is that children are given attention from adults. Adults that they can TRUST.

I don’t know what this child’s future holds. I hope that the love we showed to her might somehow warm her heart. I pray that she won’t go looking for love from the wrong people in life but fear that she might.

I must admit that I learnt a lot from that 30-minute episode in my life.

The look on my own children’s face brought home to me how much they value me doing things with them. Something as simple as jumping on the jumping pillow with them meant a great deal to them (and it wasn’t a bad workout for me either).

I was stunned at how the children gravitated to the pillow with adults on there. I’m not sure if it was a novelty factor or what the reason was.

I was concerned with how quickly a young girl latched on to a complete stranger simply because they gave her a few moments of their time.

* Not her real name.

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You may have guessed from the above post (and maybe my lack of response to comments???) that we’ve been away for a couple of days. We didn’t go far but we took our camper trailer and it was a FABULOUS couple of days “off”.The kids were really well behaved and seemed to have a GREAT time. And they didn’t fight!!! Well, not much anyway.

Naturally though, it’s nice to be home!

We had a lovely weekend away.

Trailerboy was concerned as we drove down to the campsite. We were towing a trailer but NOT the camper trailer. He doesn’t understand the difference between “camp” and “camping”. It was beyond him to understand rooms full of beds instead of sleeping in the camper trailer.

He was very excited to sleep next to one of his buddies. Even more so that they were wearing IDENTICAL pj’s. They looked so cute!!!! And I didn’t take a photo???? *sob*

In fact, I took the camera (and even remembered to recharge the batteries). But didn’t take one. single. photo.

I had my own little cabin next to the main campsite. Not quite up to a complete weekend of people with no breaks in between yet. Plus I need lots of sleep. Not really conducive to a campsite environment. So it was nice that I could go and be a part of the camp but have my “respite” as required.

Friday night we began the camp with some excitement. The kind a mother can do without. Trailerboy (who is 4) decided to chase a boogie board that was floating out to sea and got out of his depth. He ended up being fine but was most upset about the boogie board so Farmboy went for a swim to try and recover it. Not an easy feat given how quickly the wind was blowing it out to sea.

Saturday was overcast which was great for being on the beach throughout the day. We had a number of canoes as well as a boat with a biscuit (okay, I don’t know if you spell the ski “biscuit” the same way you spell the eating “biscuit).

For those who don’t know what that is, it looks something like this and gets towed behind the boat.

It was a lovely relaxing weekend of being together as families and enjoying the warm weather at the beach. And of course, eating too much food!!!!

We seemed to avoid too much sunburn other than a few of the kids getting sunburnt right under their eyes (the part where you can’t really put cream).

Coming home wasn’t much fun as it’s about 10 degrees hotter here than where we were staying.

Although it WAS lovely to come home to all the lovely comments and participants in this week’s Smiley Saturday. Thank you everyone!

It’s no surprise really that Singstar Princess is a lot like her mother when it comes to getting easily overwhelmed by organisational tasks. I often feel quite stressed when I take a glance into her bedroom. If the thought of having to tidy it up makes me feel ill, is it any wonder she feels the same way?

We have quite a dilemma when it comes to her “stuff”. On the one hand, her room gets out of hand because she has TOO MUCH stuff. On the other hand, the fact that she actually PLAYS with all that she has is a big contributing factor also.

Leighton’s room has always been a lot easier to keep under control (either by me OR him). That has a LOT to do with the fact that his toys tend to stay in his cupboard because he doesn’t USE them.

So it somehow feels wrong to take away toys that Singstar Princess is constantly making use of.

Part of her problem is also procrastination. She seems to always leave stuff out. Or she’ll dump something on the floor NEXT to her clothes hamper instead of putting it INTO the hamper (sound familiar??? ).

Keeping kids bedrooms tidy is a dilemma faced by many parents. *sigh* I’m not a perfectionist when it comes to my children’s bedrooms (heck, I’m not a perfectionist when it comes to MY bedroom). But I can’t STAND to walk past and not be able to see the floor. I don’t think it makes for a happy environment for anyone in the family.

At this stage, we only insist that they tidy them up once a week - Saturday mornings. They have to be tidy enough to give them a decent vacuum. Princess Singstar is a bad asthmatic so it’s kind of important.

And you can SEE in their demeanour how much better they feel once their bedrooms are tidy.

This is something that used to be overseen by me. And I would often get into their rooms during the week to make sure they didn’t get *too* out of control in between.

But since my nervous breakdown, Farmboy has had to oversee the kids bedrooms. Which makes life harder on everyone.

1. He’s not quite as soft tolerant as me.

2. He doesn’t seem to understand the “overwhelmed” feeling - he’s a “get in there and get the job done” kind of bloke (but he’s learning).

3. He doesn’t have the time to get in there during the week to keep things under control.

Plus, the kids are getting older now so we expect a little more of them.

Anyway, after months of tears and trying to get Singstar Princess to do her bedroom in 15 minute stints with a break in between, I finally got my brain back into gear and wrote her a nice long list to follow - breaking the whole “tidy your room” down into tiny babysteps.

It would appear that it worked. Farmboy was most impressed this Saturday just passed to see Singstar Princess get stuck into her bedroom without any tears. There were a few by the end of the task but it was a vast improvement.

Basically I broke the room down into 10 steps, although each step has some mini instructions.

So it went something like this:

1. Clothing

* put dirty clothes in the hamper

* put clean clothes in the drawer

* anything you’re not sure of, hang on the end of your bed for mum to check

2. Barbies

* put all barbie things into barbie box

* check there is nothing in the box that doesn’t belong

* put lid on and slide under bed

…. and so on.

I was actually worried the finished length of the list might be overwhelming but she seems to be working her way through it reasonably happily. One of these days I will get in there and do a proper sort out and cull and hopefully that will help too.

It’s not easy being a “part time mother”. But at least we’re making progress on that front.

Wonder if I should write myself a “10 Step List” for cleaning up my bedroom????

Overheard Conversation…..

The Bomb: My foot is blood

Farmboy: Perhaps you’d better stop riding your car down the slide

The Bomb: But it’s FUN!!!!

Farmboy (to me): You do realise if it weren’t for the blog, you’d be freaking out right now instead of telling him to do it again so you can take a photo….

Lightening: But it’s FUNNY!!!!

Note to Child Protection Agencies Worldwide: The “blood” was the tiniest graze on his foot from hitting the grass at the rate of knots. We did ensure a “safe” environment by moving the slide from the stones to the grass. We’re not totally HEARTLESS parents you know!!!

He’s a smart child. He’d enlisted the help of Leighton to hold onto the car while he climbed aboard. He seems to know his limits well. Let’s hope it stays that way!!!

My baby (aka The Bomb) put his teeth through his tongue on Sunday evening.

It bled for ages and every time I saw it I thought I’d throw up.

It doesn’t look so bad today.

Wanna see?

This photo doesn’t really do it justice but he wouldn’t let me take a photo the day it happened.

He was so brave too! Okay, he cried. But he still managed to eat dinner etc.

According to the hospital (Farmboy did call them), there wasn’t really anything they could do.

Apparently tongues heal themselves quite well.

I can already see that. This looked MUCH worse just after he’d done it.

How cute is he holding his tongue out for me so I can take a photo!

Do you think there’ll be a support organisation for kids of blogging mothers one day??? To help them recover from mother’s saying “Oh cool, that’ll make a great picture for my blog. Just wait there while I grab the camera”.

No, I didn’t really say that. I wasn’t even there when it first happened. I did wish I had my camera on hand when I did rock up though. After I’d given him some sympathy and almost lost my lunch that is.

One whole decade ago today.

A mother was born.

It was 10 o’clock at night.

I’d had an ante-natal check up in the morning and the midwife had said that my blood pressure was up so I should go home and rest.

I was cross.

It was only 10am and I’d been having such a good morning that morning. The floors were washed and I was looking forward to a very productive day at home. I didn’t want to rest.

I was scared.

High blood pressure was a bad sign. Wasn’t it?

They introduced me to the new doctor. A young guy. Just here for a few months to get some experience working with our regular doctor. The doctor that I had seen about 3 times the whole pregnancy. My care had been almost all midwife based.

He commented on how blue my eyes were. The midwife pointed out that was because I was upset over the high blood pressure. He seemed nice. He seemed very young.

I phoned my DH when I got home and he came home. To be with me while I rested. Even though I felt like doing housework. For the first time in my life.

We were half way through watching a video. I had what I thought was a show. I rang my mum. We’d already had false labour once. I wanted to be sure this time. No contractions. Just a show. She thought it was time. This time.

During ante-natal classes we were told that if we went into labour in the evening, we should ring the hospital so the midwife on call could head to bed and get some sleep before she was needed. Small country town. Not many midwives.

I rang. They told me to come in. I didn’t want to come in. I wanted to stay home and watch the end of the video we had started. They said they wanted to give me a sleeping tablet so I could get some sleep before labour kicked in in earnest.

What did we know? We figured we’d better go in. Even though I wanted to stay home. I rang my mum. They were all packed and ready to leave. They were sure this was the real thing. With a 5+ hour drive they were coming regardless.

The doctor came in. The guy. The new guy. Not the female I had known for a while. The male I had just met. I thought I would care. I thought I would want the female. But I wasn’t allowed a choice. It didn’t matter. I thought it would matter. It didn’t.

The midwife told him to go home and get some sleep.

They put the most painful thing in my wrist. To give me drugs if I needed. I took the sleeping tablet they gave me. DH was given a fold up bed. I think.

I slept. I woke up with each contraction to find the midwife on one side and my DH on the other. Then I went straight back to sleep. I got more sleep than my DH that night. He didn’t get any. I couldn’t stay awake.

They gave me Pethidine. The midwife called all the shots. I didn’t have a clue what was happening a lot of the time. I didn’t really care all that much.

I hope the doctor enjoyed his sleep. They sent him home at 11pm and called him back at 1am. The long labour they were expecting with a first child seemed to be progressing much faster than expected.

I wanted to push. They told me “NO”. Like I can NOT push???? An examination revealled I was 8cm dilated. They figured perhaps they should move me to the labour ward. No broken waters yet but they’d move me just in case.

My parents arrived. Did I want to see them? Sure. Stood Up. Another contraction. Maybe not.

Gas. No good. The gas made me want to push more so they took it away. Don’t push? Why don’t you just stop breathing? That’s about how hard the command seemed to me.

I pushed. My waters broke. The head engaged. They let me push. The baby was on it’s way.

A boy. A tiny little boy. We didn’t know the sex in advance. Couldn’t have known even if we wanted to. The company that did our ultrasound refused to speculate. They’d gotten it wrong in the past.

A BOY!!!!! Our boy! I thought maybe I wanted a girl first. Not because I didn’t want a boy. But because for some reason I *knew* I’d have a boy. I wasn’t sure if I’d have a girl. Did I care? No. Did I feel like I would love him more if he were a girl? My heart was so full of love I couldn’t imagine there being any room for more love.

I wanted to cry. But I was too tired. Too emotional to even cry. He was sleepy. Very sleepy. A tiny little sleeping bundle. So totally dependent on us for his every need and desire.

A baby was born. A mother was born.

This week’s Smiley Saturday post was going to be about my Singstar Princess turning 7. Kids birthdays are usually a great time for smiling and laughter. Well, it still is about her birthday. But not quite in the same way I had originally planned.

Something happened yesterday morning that almost made me cry. Happy tears though. Leighton, who is soon to be 10, asked if he could give his sister his gift first. I had some idea of what his gift might have entailed as he’d asked me where his wallet was first thing this morning.

What I wasn’t prepared for though, was him handing her a $5 note. To put this into perspective, he basically gets $7.50 a month which is his to spend in whichever way he would choose (there is another $7.50 a month but that is allocated to various other projects - like his untouchable bank balance etc). So he gave her nearly a month’s worth of his spending money!

It kind of blew my mind and part of me wanted to say “no, don’t do that, it’s too much”. The other part of me was just sitting in awe of how wonderful and generous my son is. We’ve seen signs of it before and yet he still manages to leave me speechless at times. The world needs more people like him. I hope it’s a trait he continues to show his whole life. It certainly was what I’d call a “proud mummy moment”.

Now, back to the birthday girl. She got a new bike for her birthday. It’s a Disney Princess bike. You can’t see it in great detail here but it is a beautiful bike. It actually has pictures of Disney Princesses along the main frame!!! And a gold bell!!! (And does her mummy wish she had a bike just like this when she was a little girl? ABSOLUTELY!!!!! )

I really wanted to give you a larger picture this time around but I’m still learning when it comes to editing in this program. Please click on the picture and it will take you to a larger view. Doesn’t the look on her face just make you smile???? The bike came with the tiara that she’s wearing. Oh, and she’s just about to leave for swimming lessons which is why she’s wearing her bathers!

Friday night we had a family birthday tea together (just the immediate family). My children get the choice of what they’d like to have for tea and they generally choose to have a “party tea” which involved party pies, fairy bread, salad platter, chips and whatever else I come up with at the time. I remember as a child if my Grandma asked me what I’d like for a special birthday tea I’d always choose the same! I’m a HUGE fan of fairy bread!!!! We had a lovely time together in the afternoon baking her love heart shaped birthday cake. She then went on and iced and decorated it herself.

Come tea time, she wanted to set the table and was very busy throughout the meal serving others and making sure everyone had what they needed and wanted. It was so special to watch. Not “wait on me, I’m the birthday girl” but “I want to make sure you have a nice meal”.

Not to be outdone by his older siblings, our 4 year old has been very kind and thoughtful lately, sharing some lollies he had leftover from Christmas. Tonight when I complimented him on his good use of manners he says to me in the most grown up voice “you’re welcome mum”. It was very cute. Then after tea he informed me that he and his sister had made sure they’d left some chips for “the boys” (meaning his father and older brother) and for me. I was awed by his thoughtfulness.

I am a very blessed mother indeed. I sure have a LOT to smile about! Some days my kids have me tearing my hair out. Then you get days like yesterday where your heart could just burst with pride at the way they behave and treat one another. It was certainly a day worth remembering!

If you wish to participate in Smiley Saturday, feel free to leave a link to your post below. And as always, link back here so your readers can see what others are smiling about this week.

This is my second attempt to write this post.  The first appears to have disappeared into the great wide blogosphere - perhaps never to be seen again.  If you see something similar to this, let me know!

Anyway, I’ve been thinking of doing this for a while now and figured a new year was a good time to finally get “roundtoit”.  I’ve decided to “name” my family members so that I’m not constantly referring to them as DH, DS….. etc.

Farmboy - this is my DH who most of you are probably aware is a farmer.  My DH looks like he was born to be a farmer.  It’s hard to explain why, he just does (he also looks HOT in a blue bonds singlet but don’t tell him I told you that ).  If you’d like to know more about my marrying a farmer (and how I had determined NOT to marry a farmer, you might be interested in reading my guest post on Snoskred’s Life in the Country).

Leighton - my firstborn is very passionate about sport of any description.  But it would seem that he is quite a whizz when it comes to tennis.  Not that I’d know - I don’t even know what the rules are let alone how to play!  He’s tiny, likes wearing his hat in all kinds of strange angles (including backwards) and would LOVE to one day be some kind of Leighton Hewitt.  So it seems fitting.  Oh, and he turns 10 in January.  But please don’t tell anyone I’m old enough to have a child in double figures!!!!   Sometimes I lovingly refer to him as my “absent minded professor”.  He’s quite bright but can lack some simple common sense at times.  Apparently that’s quite “normal”.

Singstar Princess - our only daughter turns 7 in a couple of weeks.  She is VERY passionate about singing and given any opportunity will perform.  She’s also my little princess.  We were able to purchase a Singstar for the playstation the kids got for Christmas so now she’s able to be a real “Singstar Princess” - and LOVING IT!!!!

The Bomb - my 4 year old son has been rather a shock to the system after having 2 reasonably quiet children.  He attacks life at a flat out pace!  It amazes me how observant he is though.  He picks up the tiniest of details when you don’t even know he’s watching!!!  He LOVES anything that moves (cars, boats, planes etc) but his real passion seems to be trucks - especially road trains - and anything with a trailer.

Lightening - well that’s me (obviously).  I’m passionate about my husband and kids and of course, blogging (in case you hadn’t noticed! ).

So that’s us.  Assuming I don’t lose this post as well, when I return, I will add a page with descriptions that can be referred to as needed.  I’ll possibly add to the characters if I find there are others I refer to often on the blog.

Here is the first birthday cake I made for DS’s 4th birthday. He chose what colour I put in the icing (yellow seems to be a favourite at the moment). The lollies on the top are little lolly cars. (Yeah, I know, they look like frogs don’t they? At least, that’s what DS thought they were lol). Chucking a few lollies on a number cake is my idea of a birthday cake - nice and simple!

I had to include this photo as well (carefully edited to remove as much of my “first thing Saturday morning hairdo” as I could manage lol). Doesn’t he look so excited when he sees the Lightning McQueen Beach Towel?

I love kids birthdays - they’re so much fun!!!! I’ll be back tomorrow with some photo’s from the party.