Today we met up with my sisters in the Park. Jenni and Rebecca came over from Vic for a funeral and before going home tonight we met up for a get together. Very emotional but the kids had fun...
Aunty Jenni and Joel
A very grown up Ashley...
My great niece Paige (yes I shudder at the great too)...she is such a sweetie...
All the cousins....
I will have to get the other photos, the batteries in my camera died so this was all I got :(
Where has the last six months gone????
Took some photos this morning of Daddy and Joel
Isn't he just the CUTEST!!!!!
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It’s just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.
* * *
©1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of the author.
I read this and though about it for a while and even though Matthew doesn't have a diagnosis he still has a disability and I enjoy tiptoeing through the tulips every day....though sometimes we get mud on our clogs.
We arrived home on Sunday and the kids wanted to get straight in the pool only to find that they had been beat to it....
This is what we found
Mummy duck had bought her 11 ducklings to our pool for a swim. They were too little to get out themselves so Darian and I set up a gang plank for the little ones to get up....they did and an hour or 2 later they were on their way...don't know where as we don't live near any water????
Its not often we get to take all 5 kids out, it involves lots of planning and taking 2 cars...and then the fights of who gets to go with who and sits where.....sometimes so not worth the effort.
Today we took the kids to Megan's school for their annual arts and craft festival. The kids make art work and the parents can purchase the art to help fundraise for the school. The catch is that you have to go on the festival day to purchase, this means while you are there you get to spend more money entertaining the kids....someone is very clever...
So we took the kids and boy were they excited. They were given 10 tokens each and got told....spend them how you like.
I took Matthew into the petting zoo for 3 tokens. He was even brave enough to pat a few, he especially liked the goat
Eloise chose a pony ride (what a shock) for 4 tokens
Megan went on the jumping castle for 3 tokens...couldn't get a photo of her inside so took one of her and dad instead...
Talia being miss scrooge really wanted to go on the Velcro wall but it cost 5 tokens...she didn't want to spend that much as she wanted to buy other things...she did know what though. I convinced her to live a little and here are the pics...she had a hoot..
We then went to the show bags and kids bought themselves a show bag for 5 tokens each...
Elosie and Matthew spent the last of their tokens on getting their faces painted.
Elosie ended being a puppy or panda...still not sure what its meant to be???
and Matthew got a spider web
The kids came home exhausted but happy.
I love moving house, its like a fresh start. New house, new life. I have moved 37 times in 34 years. This has been the hardest so far....5 kids and 2 adults even the removalist said we had a lot of furniture. We did all the boxes and light stuff and we got the professionals to do all the heavy lifting...it still took them 5 hours to do the lot. The best money we spent.
We have basically finished moving, all that is left is the fish tank and all the "stuff" that is lying around. The stuff that doesn't get packed in a box, just gets shoved aside when the removalists come. The stuff that takes forever to pack in the car and move....its the mess.
Once that is all gone, hopefully Monday as Darian has the day off we can get to and clean. Though when we moved in here the house was filthy, I mean disgusting.....ewwww. How people can leave a house dirty is beyond me. If anything I over clean because I am scared that I wont get my bond back.
So on Friday the carpets get cleaned and the windows get washed in the old house (this was in out lease agreement) I was moaning about it at first, but now I am glad as I don't have to do it. Then Monday 27th the keys get handed in and that chapter of our life ends and a new one begins....
Oh and for the record, I don't want to have to move for a VERY long time....
Matthew was in daycare today so we are going to go back tomorrow with a picnic...
Here are some photos from today
This weekend we have had beautiful weather! Spring is here, the days are warm and the nights are cool to sleep.
We bought the kids a water slide and they have spent the last 2 days getting soapy and slightly sunburned.....
Matthew wasn't that keen on the whole idea, you can tell he has 3 older sisters LOL.....pretty in pink
Eloise being so light didn't have to have much of a run up
Megan loved to slide on her knees
And Talia just loved to pull funny faces....
Needless to say they slept well.....
My baby is not a new born anymore. I took him to the child Health Nurse for his 4 month check up last week and he is 7kg and 66cm long.
Daddy and Joel.....
Yes its that time of my life again...we are moving.
Here is our new pool......
Our lease is up here so we looked around for something better in the same price range.
The girls will be moving school next term, but it is to a better school and they are pretty happy that it is only 400m from our house....
ohh and we have ducted aircon.... and a HUGE shed so all the clutter that drives me mad in this house can go out there....YAY
so we will be moving around the 16th Oct.....
now the fun of packing
OK OK I have been really slack in my updates, but when you have a household FULL of chicken pox, kids home from school and a grumpy mum things get put on the back burner for a while.
So this morning I took a photo of Joel and had him weighed at the local chemist. He weighs 6.8kg and is 64cm long. I need to take him to the Child Health Nurse and get his immunizations done but that has to wait until he is all better.
You can still see where he had chicken pox on his face...
Over the next few days I will TRY and back date a few posts about what's been happening around here :)
By the time Monday came both Joel and I were covered in chicken pox. The poor boy was miserable so we drove into Albany to find a chemist to get some stuff to make Joel feel a bit better.
While we were in mobile range the school rang to inform me that both girls had spots that were suspiciously like chicken pox. Great .... I had both girls and Matthew immunised back in Victoria. Which doesn't stop them from getting just lessens the severity.
So even though we were going to stay a few more days we decided to go home the next morning.
We thought as we had travelled 500km and 6 hours with grumpy child we might as well get out and do some sightseeing. Darian had never been to Albany before so we went and did the tourist things.
We first went to the wind farm, gee those things are huge and the blades make a great big whooshing sound as they rotate around.There are 12 in all and make quiet a impression being up close.
Once leaving there we went and saw the "Gap and Natural Bridge"
The sea was very calm so the swell wasn't that spectacular but I guess with small kids in tow it was better than 30 foot waves crashing above the top of the platform....
Poor Matthew who is terrified of heights was too worried to even look at the camera. He just wanted to go.
Darian finished up with his current job on Friday and since he had a week off before starting the new one we thought we would get out of the city for a few days.
I dropped the girls off at their dads on the Friday evening and packed enough stuff to get us through a few days in Albany. I was feeling pretty crook, bad headache and just feeling blah.
We headed off 9am Sat morn and got to dads place at about 2pm. We stopped quite often as Joel was grumpy and miserable. He has chicken pox and I was soon to join him.
We debated about going home straight away but dad didn't mind so we stayed.
The boy is growing fast, just seems like yesterday that I was writing a post about being 16 weeks pregnant. Time is going so quick.
Joel is becoming very social, loving to chat and he has discovered his hands. He is almost laughing but not quite there yet.
I'm not sure who is going to have more fun?
Daddy and Joel
Joel taking it all in....
Matthew ready to jump
We thought about a trampoline but this only takes 45 seconds to blow up, has a roof and is removable.....
We got the girls school photos back today...
They cost a small fortune but worth it...
I think this a nice photo of Eloise, at least she is smiling.
Poor Talia didn't want to smile and show her plate, plus I think the photo it self is over exposed.
Over the next few weeks I am going to post 12 of my most favourite things about each of the kids...
Of course in no particular order and I will start with Talia..
1. Her hair, I know she hates it and I empathise with her because I hated my curly hair as a child too. But it is just so beautiful
2. Her compassion and empathy towards others
3. Her optimism
4. Her caring nature towards others
5. Her love of books and reading
6. Her understanding that times and money are tight and the fact that she accepts this without real complaint or resentment . She is not a " I want" kid
7. Her sense of humour, its very dry, she doesn't laugh out loud very often but Its beautiful when she does.
8.Her eyes, they are so blue and soft
9. Her eyelashes, they are so very long, thick and dark
10. The fact that she "gets" Maths....something I never did and always struggled with
11. She will get up in the middle of the night if Matthew cries to be with him, and then only tell me in the morning that he was upset.
12. She has a strong inner strength and she will stand up for something she truly believes in,
13. Just because she is who she is, and I hope as she grows into an adult she keeps most of these qualities.
And I have been so busy. It has been about 3 weeks since I have done a proper "what's happening in our life" post so here goes.
Joel is now 14 weeks old, I had him weighed and measured last week but cant find the piece of paper that had them on. I think he weighs 6.4kg. Once I find it I will update properly. I have been that busy that I haven't even taken any photos these last 3 weeks...bad.
The poor little man ended up getting the cold that went through the house. He ended up being the sickest and on antibiotics for a ear and sinus infection, he was a very miserable boy there fir a week or so. He also ended up getting conjunctivitis in both eyes to add to his misery. He is almost over it apart from a bit of a cough.
He has now moved into his cot and we spent last weekend moving the cot out of Matthews room into Megan's room, so Joel now shares with Megan. He looks so tiny in a BIG cot...
Matthew also ended up- getting the dreaded cold and it went straight to his chest. So while fighting that he was having a block of speech therapy that has now finished and seeing the pediatrician to see if he could be eligible for the Language development centre next year, unfortunately he isn't as will be going to mainstream kindy (we are going to try for an aid for him)
He has now started a block of physio and OT. The physio did a full assessment on him as she was new and Matthew is very weak in his glutes, quads and hands so we will be working on those areas leading up to kindy.
Last Wednesday he had his 4 year old immunisation and yesterday we went to PMH for his Neuro appoint....YAY. We have some good news, his muscles are fine, no nasties there. So it seems that the reason for his poor muscles tone and balance is not the muscles at all but joint hypermobility. So it is off to see the orthopaedic team about his joints and spine (not sure what's wrong there but the physio mentioned it).
Took this photo the other day...too cute
