Wednesday 14 April 2010

5 reasons I know I'm getting old

1. I like eating ginger
2. I have to know what the weather forecast is
3. I have no idea what young people these days are talking about
4. I talk about "young people these days"
5. All my TV and radio input comes via the ABC. I have managed to avoid Newsradio so far though, so maybe I'm not as far gone as I thought.

Tuesday 13 April 2010

Round and round

A special moment tonight - J and I sang our first canon together. We sang that lovely song "Round and round the earth is turning, turning always round to morning, and from morning round to night" which I taught the kids a couple of nights ago. Fun :)

Flat

J has been on at me for ages about getting some stencils, so today I finally cut up a cereal box and she chose some shapes for me to cut out with my frighteningly sharp paper knife. It scares me using that thing!

The kids had a ball using the stencils with their felt pens - even X managed ok and was very proud of his efforts. I'm linking this to the Unplug Your Kids monthly project (this month's theme is "flat") because stencils are flat :)



I had to include this pic - this is X's new "smile for the camera" face! Hilarious!

Dinner tonight

In the slow cooker at the moment I have a big chunk of lamb, a handful of rosemary, a chopped onion, 3 carrots, potatoes, lemon juice and a splash of white wine. Should be good I think, although I never think the slow cooker gives as a good a flavour as the oven / stove.

Last night we had Indonesian style (allegedly) beef in coconut milk. Even Jeremy said he liked it! (J isn't overly critical, he just doesn't normally notice what he eats - this can be a good thing!) I'm trying to use the slow cooker more after my sister told me it would change my life (or something like that).

Saturday 10 April 2010

From the mouths of 5 year olds...

Joanna told me last night that sometimes I'm like a stepmother (she's been really into fairy tales, so think stepmother of the Cinderella variety). Apparently it's because she gets given so much work to do. Ha!

I guess I shouldn't expect that mother of the year nomination any time soon then?

Friday 9 April 2010

What's working, what's not

Aaages ago I wrote this post about what was working for us and what wasn't and I promised myself I'd revisit it.

It was interesting re-reading it because my worries about J's eating (she now insists on being Joanna, not JoJo!) are largely resolved, partly because of her coeliac diagnosis - which happened about 2 months after I wrote that post. On the other hand I am going OUT OF MY MIND with X's eating. We are currently giving him gluten so that we can get him properly tested for CD ... I'm almost hoping he has it because if it does it might provide an easy solution to some of his eating / mood issues. Bad mother alert!

So...

What's working:

* I kind of hate to be part of the cleaning cult, but I've signed up for the Flylady emails and even though I don't do alot of it, the basic stuff is SO helpful for me.
* I'm trying to be more realistic about what I can actually manage in a week (ie not much!).
* Bizarrely, I find that overall it's a good thing that I have to drop J off and pick her up at school each day. I often have to wake M up for the car trip which isn't fun, but it give the day a bit more shape. I'd really love to be a free and easy no routines person, but I'm just so not.
* J being around to help with the kids' bedtime. This is so much better than when he was working.
Unfortunately that's kind of the end of what working at the moment - things haven't been the easiest lately!

What's not:

* X waking up TOO EARLY every day. He wakes up really hungry so won't go back to sleep and is too irresponsible to be up and about without an adult. Much as I don't want to be up at the crack of dawn, I don't have the heart to make a boy crying for food stay in his bedroom.
* The older 2 kids waking up at night. Most nights one or the other is awake at least once, which is a bit much given that I'm already up to M twice at the moment. Also, they often wake her up. Arghhh!
* Sleep deprivation (me). Can't imagine why.
* J working insanely incredibly hard.
* Too much time wasted on computer (me).
* Not being able to get to the physio (hello, joint pain my old friend)
* Not being able to get any exercise (J leaves too early for me to go for a walk before he leaves and X is too heavy for me to push in the pram).

Ok there's more but I'll leave it there before I get too sorry for myself!

Rhyme time

At the moment Mr X is obsessed with rhymes. A recent conversation went something like this...

X: HEY MUM!!
Me: Yes X?
X: Curtain rhymes with burtain!
Me: Oh wow, you're right, who would have thought?
X: And airconditioner rhymes with bairconditioner!!

Hmmmm.