A good week

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Things are great when the kids are back at school – everyone is busy, but purposeful and the house is much quieter!

We’ve spent the past few days trying to eliminate the nits that infiltrated our peaceful home! Our special friend from over the road constantly has them and it is small wonder that we’ve not had them here before now. So we discovered them in Holly’s hair on Wednesday night, treated her and she was ok. But the funny thing is that as soon as you think about nits in the house, you get really itchy! I was paranoid, and Justin is hopeless at identifying anything abnormal like this, so I doused for louse anyway. Silly me did it in the morning and had to go to school mass and concert with oily slicked back hair. I looked like Jaime Lee Curtis in “True Lies” when she tipped the vase of water on her head before going to dance for Arnie. I was super self conscious, but my friend assured me I looked like I had fancy product in my hair and was going for an ultra cool look! The house is now nit free, but I have a massive amount of washing to contend with that I am not looking forward too.

I managed to tie up all the loose ends with the end of financial year paperwork and it is now ready to go off to the accountants. Sigh of relief all around!

The girls glasses are ready to be picked up. Holly has hard a hard week at school without them, but because she is fairly mild it was not detrimental. If that were me at primary school with no glasses, I wouldn’t have been able to see anything. But, even though I had them at a young age, I don’t remember ever losing a pair or having them broken, and I certainly didn’t have a spare.

Justin wants to take the girls to the snow on the weekend. There is a park just out of town that has snow and isn’t too far away or too busy with fancy skiers, so we’ll go there, have a play and come home. We have no proper snow gear, so it will be short and sweet. I wonder who’ll be first to crack it when they discover that snow is cold and wet. I’m betting on Jess!

I’ve booked a couple of flights in the last few days. Holly and I are going to Melbourne for 4 days to stay with Kate. Some Mother/Daughter special time. And Justin and I are going to Brisbane in October for Emily’s wedding. In September Jess and I are going to see Dora the Explorer stage show as our special treat together. Meg came to Sydney with me in the holidays, so that was her thing. It really is expensive having so many children!

Have a great weekend.


School’s In

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Good thing that the holidays are over. It was fun, but I am totally exhausted and very much over bring the 24/7 adjudicator of big fights, little fights and everything in between as well as the babysitter for various children in the neighbourhood. I’ve now put J and A to bed and am enjoying the first bit of peace and quiet in 2 weeks.

So what did we do in the holidays?

Sleepovers, friends over, visits to friends houses, Kung Fu Panda, baking, trip to Sydney, birthday parties, Kate over for a stay, my birthday and Mamma Mia. There’s lots more, but those are the standout things!

My 36th birthday was good fun. Went to the Pancake Parlor for breakfast (17 of us) which was lovely! Get it….the Pancake Parlor…Lovely!! Anyhoo… and then that night Justin graciously took me to see Mamma Mia which I loved. I cried so hard I was heavy sobbing in the part where the daughter is in the mirror and the mother (Meryl Streep) is singing about how she was once little and grew up so fast and is now grown up and embarking on her life. Cry Cry Cry. I just kept thinking about my girls and how this I what I think all the time. They do grow up so fast. I should cherish every moment and yet they drive me so crazy that I get lost in that. At the moment I have aching in my chest from how furious I was this morning. I have just bought new makeup, blush and powder and it was all missing or broken this morning when I went into MY bathroom. My mobile phone is lost because Amy takes it out of my bag and walks around with it. Holly has lost her glasses and Meg’s are broken, hanging on by a thread, but she couldn’t find them this morning either. We had to buy them new glasses on the weekend, this will be Meg’s 4th pair in 6 months.

I’m not freaking out that I am 36 or anything like that. I am embracing my mid 30’s and am proud that at this point I have 4 children, a beautiful husband, no grey hairs, one stretch mark and a fabulous bunch of family and friends.
I do however, feel that I am on the precipice of something new but I don’t know what it is. Amy is out of her baby stage and is a toddler, so maybe I am just feeling that. Things should be easier now that she is getting bigger. I bought a book called “A New Earth” which Oprah raves about, and says that if you are ready for an awakening in your spirit, this book is your guide. I need something baby – cause I’m in a rut with the now. Lisa and Kate bought be a subscription to Oprahs Magazine which I am thrilled about. Can’t wait to get my first copy.

I just took a deep breath and it felt like the first one I’ve taken all day. I am way to pent up! Time to sit and unwind. I’m crocheting some baby blankets for all the babies that are being born in the next few months, so I’ll get stuck into that for a while.

Have a good week and pay no mind to my whinge!!


New Financial Year

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30th June now gone and so have a few of the headaches that go along with finalising the End Of Financial Year stuff for our business. Now we just have to get the stuff to the accountant and pray for no big boo-boos!

We have had a busy few weeks here. Jessie’s 4th Birthday came with much fanfare and excitement as she was desperate for rollerskates. Got her those and also a trampoline (that one was for everyone under the guise of Jess’s birthday!). They have loved it and because it is inside (in the playroom taking up a corner) it is used all the time. Amy only likes to go on if there is someone with her, and then she just runs around the mats protecting the springs and bounces off the netting that keeps them all safe inside. Great concept these news tramps – not like in my day when we fell off and over about 100 times onto the grass!

So my little jess is now 4. She is a gem. She is so much more physical than the other 2 were at this age. She doesn’t like to sit and draw, but would rather be following her sisters around or running and playing, or her other fav past-time watching TV! She is so friendly and inclusive and just loves being around other kids. Having said that she is also a big home-body and would rather be here than anywhere else. She has a way with words that just makes you want to laugh or to give her a huge cuddle. She is such a joy and with those big brown eyes she is adorable too!

Holly was “Student of the week” for her class last week, which made her very proud. She is in her final week as SRC Rep as someone else gets the chance to do that job next semester. Even though she lost the badge in Week 2, she has still done her job well!

Amy has a rotten cold at the moment. She is not sleeping well so that means we are not sleeping well either! Thankfully no big plans for this week, and today we are staying in and not going outside at all. We had popcorn for morning tea and chicken drumsticks for lunch. Nice warm food for a cold windy day. Amy is trying so hard to talk. She prattles on and sometimes I can work it out. It is funny when she says the same jumble over and over. She obviously knows what she is saying. She can say all our names and lots of others and all the parts of her face and body. She loves reading books and has a few favourites. She can even count to 3! Jess’s skills are coming along as well. She can write ‘Jess’, spell Jessica, recognise numbers and some letters and play on the computer. She likes colouring in games on the computer and matching games. She has a good memory as well!

Meg’s reading is coming along and she can recognise lots of words, but spelling is by sound! So she has the phonetics but not the right spelling. Holly is still like that with lots of words that she is working out. They both got good reports for Semester 1 and are happy at school so that is all I can ask!

Lisa roped me into a Self Defence Class which we started on Monday night. Hopefully I’ll never need to use it, but if the skills are there I might be more confident to fight back! I’ll practice on the kids!!

I just got some cheap flights to Melbourne so Holly and I are going to go for a weekend visit in August. Holly is feeling a bit left out as I tend to spend the least time with her because she is the most capable. The others need me so much more. I’m really conscious of trying to do things with her and we are reading the ‘Folk in the Faraway Tree’ every night as some time for us only. There is so much emphasis on this “Tweenager” phase, and Holly is a good girl so I want to keep it that way. I can see things going astray if I don’t pull her in and get her doing stuff with me that makes her feel positive about our relationship. I’m stressing out about this already – how will I be when they are all teenagers!

Ok, enough for now – might go see if I can convince Jess and Amy that watching Oprah is a good idea. They hate it! Might put them to bed and watch it in peace 🙂