40 posts from 2008

Partner had planted some zucchini plants in the backyard a couple of months back.  I have not really given them much attention.  I haven't really had much success with zucchinis in the past so didn't hold out much hope of any produce.

Was out watching the kids bounce a couple of days ago (on the new trampoline what Santa brought) and thought I'd have a look to see if there was anything growing and lo and behold, there was!

Am performing my usual post-Christmas role of being home alone with the kids whilst partner is off at the Sydney - Hobart Yacht Race.

Dropped him off at 7.45 on Boxing Day and he flies back on new year's day at 10.15pm.

He's done 10 on the same yacht with the same crew in the past 11 or so years, but this year he's been sailing on a different boat.  Apparently they've made it (according to the website), so I should be expecting a slightly drunken phone call at some stage today.

I am not ready for Christmas yet.  I still have a bunch of shopping to be done.  The house looks like a bomb hit it (which, you know, I can't entirely help seeing as how as soon as a clean one area all three kids move in and mess it up again, but such is life).

I have to drag the kids out to the shops this morning to try and find something for their cousins.  Also some food.  Apart from the Coco Pops I bought yesterday, there is no other food in the house.

So I still have so much to be done, and a very limited amount of time in which to do it and am feeling singularly unmotivated about it all.

Although I guess a start would be to actually get changed out of my pyjamas.

How are you making the holidays merrier for your loved ones?

With this:

Coco Pops

Yesterday I bought a big packet of Coco Pops for the boys.  I asked them what they would like for Christmas breakfast and that was their answer.  I am a great mum.

Why will Vox not let me read and/or respond to comments this week? 

The Youngest Child is not the best of sleepers.  She has always been very insistent about needing to be rocked/cuddled to sleep and for the sake of peace her father and I have always just complied.  We've tried to encourage her to go to bed on her own but it has never seemed to work.  Her non-sleeping has been compounded by the fact that her cot is still in our room, owing to lack-of-space issues.

But last night, she put herself to bed (as she has actually done a few times in the last week or so) and instead of waking at around 1 or 2 am and demanding to come into bed with us and then spending the rest of the night wrestling with us both, or lying on one of our heads, or crawling up and down the bed, she slept through until 6 am.  Like I said, it's a Christmas Miracle!  And we have this little guy to thank:

She is mad keen on the BBC series In The Night Garden, and I had bought her a little cuddly Igglepiggle from Target last week.  He has since become her constant companion, coming on outings with us, being read stories and has enjoyed one or two baths in the cat's water bowl.  He also goes to bed with her and she has been happy just to hop into her very own bed cuddling him after her usual routine of stories, songs and cuddles with mum or dad.

Let's just hope it lasts!

Yesterday the boys taught their 20-month-old sister a new word, and she can say it perfectly.  "Stormtrooper".  Awww.

I sing. 

I am not the best singer in the world - that I admit.  But I have been singing for as long as I can remember.  There is a recording floating around somewhere of me singing when I was about 2 or 3.

I love to sing, but on the other hand, I have a hate-hate relationship with my voice.  It doesn't always do what I want it to.  As an instrument it's extremely fickle, and I find that the older I get it's more prone to hormonal influence.  Damned hormones.

A couple of months ago I was wondering to myself what the hell I was doing?  Why was I bothering?  Who's listening?  And if they have listened, do they even care?  And I decided that I wouldn't bother any more.  Once my Christmas gigs were over, anyway.

And I stopped singing.  I didn't want to, so didn't bother.

And then last week, I suddenly wanted to again.  And now I can't shut up.  This evening one of my sons asked me to stop because they would all like a bit of peace and quiet and I was too loud.

Ha!

... blue shoes!

We are planning on moving to a bigger and better place in the not-too-distant future.  Well, not necessarily better, but definitely bigger.  We are in a 3-bedroom home currently but it is just not big enough for the 5 of us (do not ask me how my mother coped with 8 kids - yes 8 - in a 3-bedroom house because I have absolutely no idea).  We are noisy family and there is just no escaping one another in our house.  Actually, we are not as noisy as my new neighbours who seem unable to communicate with one another without the whole extended family (because there seems to be several adults as well as the kids) chiming in and it eventually escalates into a massive screaming match so that I end up wanting to pop my head over the fence to add my 2c worth by shouting "SHUT THE F--- UP!"

But I digress.  So we have been looking at the same area for a while.  Our plan has been to buy an investment property with a view to fixing up our current place and moving in about 6 - 9 months time.  That plan was scuttled last weekend when we saw a place that we both just loved, rendering it necessary for us to sell our house NOW!  So this week has been a frenzy of meetings with mortgage brokers, agents, calls to banks, storage places, furniture rentals and I've basically been running on pure adrenaline all week.  The real estate agents I've consulted assure me that we can get the place on the market before Christmas, because being such a highly multicultural area the majority of people don't celebrate Christmas anyway, so it pretty much makes no difference to the housing market.

Until this morning.  When I woke up thinking "I am not going to put myself through 2 weeks of hell attempting get this house sale-ready when I HAVE NOT EVEN DONE MY CHRISTMAS SHOPPING YET!"

I know it means kissing the house that we both really loved goodbye, but, you know, there will be other houses that will be just as nice, maybe even on the same street.

I can't tell you how mature I feel for having come to this decision.

So here I am.  Instead of madly weeding and scraping paint and packing boxes for storage, I am at leisure to waste time on the computer.