Sugarworldlandchestertinvaleville

Izzy's been home since Thursday! It's been so nice, I could really get use to having my two boys under one roof again. Paul's girlfriend has moved up from Sydney so Iz has been giving them a bit of space to settle in together before he goes back over to the unit.

Took the kids to Sugarworld on Saturday. I was totally working those corners on the Banana Bender and only received one blow to the head in the Flying Fox, unlike my friend Tiffany, I dunno what the hell she was doing but she ended up with bloodblisters on her back, shattered vertebrae, multiple concussions and fractures... bit of an exaggeration but you get my drift.. The kids totally wore themselves out - Izzy was fast asleep by 6 o'clock. Tiffany and her family were suppose to come back to ours for pizza and risotto but they all flaked out too.

Anakin has been such a little honey to us lately, tells us "I love you guys, so much" and to me "you're really beautiful Mummy". Oh my God, what a Darling. A bit of a contrast to how he treats people on the perimeter of his life though. He growls at other peoples kids to "get back in your trolley!" at the shops, we have to pull him up for being bossy and antisocial a fair bit. He's just totally in love with his family at the moment and doesn't care too much for anyone else. He's had this persistent cough that's been waking him up at night making him sound like all the other kids at Daycare so after yet another sleepless night I called them to let them know he wasn't coming back and did I rejoice after that phonecall was made. Nick said she'd take him for me on Thursdays which is such a load off my mind. Although Bub was getting a little bit better there each time, he still screamed hysterically every time I left which would just about give me an instant migraine and it was as if he missed every second week coz he picked up the latest round of snotty nose syndrome. Yuck. I'll have to take him to playgroup or something so he becomes a bit nicer at making friends but I think I'll try leave the whole dropping him off to school on his own for as long as I possibly can, or until they're at least over licking toys and coughing over one another's food..

I've picked up another 3 and a half hours a week at the school, taking some remedial groups for reading and grammar, luckily I can do it on a Friday when Greg has his RDO. Well that's until the crushing season starts and then I'll have to sort something out for him.

Persimmons are in season! HURRAY!!

Creme de la Creme and the little Blue Shark

Had a day with Izzy over the weekend, we spent it in Cairns and it was nice to have a long drive with just him for company. His comical stories about higschool were characteristically hilarious - I think he has real perception when it comes to accessing people and the way he expresses his view of situations makes you feel totally in the moment. He told me about a group of kids he hangs out with at the library - their manual is a book on Rancid Livestock Diseases and they call themselves names like "Master Sprinkles", "Creme de la Creme" (that's him) and "Master Fairybread-Pink-Unicorn". He tells me about all the brawlers and different kids who spend all their free time pouring over their copies of PC Power Play. Sometimes I wish I had a dictator on him so when he becomes a standup comedian in the future he'll have lots of old material to work with.

Anakin is still permanently role playing. Lately he's moved into an Incredible Hulk phase. When his mask is off he's the reasonable and calm Bruce Banner, then he slowly lowers it and Hulk is unleashed. He warns "Watch out Mum, I'm going to wreck your house!" and he throws things, swings punches and roars! At the moment he's riding around the house being a postman delivering cheques from Gold Lotto. And now he's a little blue shark that eats fish and ducks. Yep, he gets very specific. He gets a bit carried away in his fantasies sometimes too - so many times when he's being an "Adult" he gets outraged when we refuse to let him drive the car. And if he's "Daddy", then why the hell can't he have a beer and as many salty plums as he likes??!

Photo Tag

Thanks Vanilla for giving me something to do.
The rules:
1. Go to the section of your computer where you store all of your photos.
2. Select the 6th folder.
3. Select the 6th photo from that folder.
4. Post and explain about that picture.
5. Tag 6 other people

My Photo
Is from a folder called "Artists/Artwork" and is full of images of people who's artistic talents I admire. It has inspirational pictures of Eddie Vedder, Zac de la Rocha, Alanis Morrisette, Frida Kahlo, Marchesa Casati, Anais Nin, Gustav Klimt, Elsa Shiaperalli, plus just pictures of spunks like Cameron Flowers, Mark Ruffolo and again Eddie Vedder!

Picture number 6 is of Frances Farmer. I picked up her biography "Will There Really Be a Morning" from a secondhand book shop on my first and only trip to Byron Bay. And from the sounds of it she had an incredibly tragic life. It's difficult to picture the groomed, sad, girl in the picture in a mental institution being thrown into ice baths and chewing holes right through her lips from the cold. She suffered through some really horrendous situation but still tried to keep hope and make the most of things. I used her picture as a colour study in painting when I was at Uni. I think she's incredibly beautiful.

I Tag LTWIS, Tiff, Ruth, St Clare, Elemental and Kim.

Never too old.

Weekend was great. Spent it in Cairns and had a night out clubbing for an old mate's 30th. It was really lovely to be out in town hanging out with friends, drinking and dancing, like old times (except now I check my phone every 5 minutes for missed calls from Nan and Pa's!)

Greg was a beautiful and attentive date. Last time we were out socialising I had to spell it out for him that you don't pull up a chair time and again next to some chick promoting herself as a pagan hedonist, who wants to get away with mass-murder and shag lots of old people when she finally makes it into a retirement home, or any other random chick for that matter when there's a seat empty near your woman! And what happened to the way we always presented ourselves as a united force (in my case -to be reckoned with!!), so no one would get the wrong idea or have an opinion that they could divide us? I never want that to change!

Maybe my message sunk in, or maybe I was just looking too irresistible for him, or maybe I was just too busy socialising myself to become worked up over who Greg was bumming cigarettes off every other moment he wasn't with me... Give me a break, I've already admitted to being a jealous freak and a hypocrite... Doesn't really help when my man is the biggest head turner in the room who only began to realise his magnetism over woman once he'd already hooked up with me and after a whole adolescence spent feeling like the opposite to a ladies man.

Anyway I woke up with big inky patches all over myself from the stamps I was sporting on my wrists and wore them proudly all the next day. I even stayed sober enough to drive home. (Coz after much protesting some friends convinced my to start budgeting and my budget certainly doesn't include $20 taxi rides!!! Or too many expensive drinks!)

The only sad thing was one of us (I'm saying it was Greg) forgot to close up properly before we left on Friday night and a night tiger got in while we were gone and ate our beautiful budgies : (. First mission when we got home yesterday was to catch the bloody thing! I swear our eski has had more snakes in it then beers!

Check. Check.

Thanks to Facebook my blog has been very neglected but it was only going to be a matter of time before I could no longer ignore my invalid photo's and the disappearance of my trillion Hershey kisses. Greg has taken Anakin down to the boat ramp to catch some bait fish so I'm using the opportunity to try and keep myself distracted from the fact that it's croc infested down there, not very successfully obviously... That little boy is going to be into fishing, diving, rock climbing, exciting survival stuff ... he named his goldfish after Bear Grills... so I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to get use to these things...

I'm loving Greg's 4 day weeks. Every Friday during the slack he has an RDO, so it means sleep ins and big pancake breakfasts for all of us. Well except Izzy, he doesn't even live here anymore.. sob, sob! Actually it's strangely peaceful...

He only lasted a day in the Catholic school. He was stressed out and uptight about it, so on the second day instead of driving him up there to sort out his dismal locker situation, we busted him outta there completely. Stopped at Maccas for breaky and drove him straight to the local public high school, where he's been completely satisfied ever since. Thank the Lord! It was such a relief to me to get him settled in somewhere he's happy. Speaking of which he loves it over with his dad. He reckons he's actually got a life now and grumbles about having to spend time here at home. Little shit. They're a pretty good fit those two. Me and Izzy conflict a lot sometimes and stress each other out, which is really sad when you look at all his baby movies and see what a Mumma's boy he once was.

We'd been wrestling with the thought of selling the block and then we went for a swim out there (listen to me: "out there", "over there", "up there") last weekend and it was just that beautiful after the floods. The water was crystal clear and the sand all washed clean, total paradise. We just thought no way. Every now and again we just need a reminder that until Bub's in school and I get to work full time things are going to be a little stretched, but hey, it's all worth it.

Did you see that nasty piece of work on telle last night trying to convince parents to give newborns 4 hourly feeds in between 3 hour stints in the garden "and shut the door too - you don't need to hear their little noises", "and don't cuddle them while they're having a feed, you don't want them to get too cozy". What a friggin bitch!!

The Burn's Deep

I dragged Greg and Bubby out of bed this morning to put my pushbike in the boot and drive me about 50 k's from home so I could ride all the way back again with my Mum (she's always giving me these physical challenges). Greg's like "are you mentally prepared?" and I'm all "I don't need to be. It'll be a nice." My legs don't feel too nice right now! About 8 or 9 k's from home I'm asking Mum "how do YOUR legs feel" (she'd ridden that far the previous evening as well!!), she replies casually "Oh, they're sort of a little bit sore" and I'm going "Well mine aren't sort of, a little bit anything. They're KILLING me! It feels like I'm doing permanent damage to the tendons above my knees!! They're on fire!! They're BURNING!!" She left me collapsed on the ground, phoning home for Greg to come rescue me. (Rowan warned me I could be road kill with flies buzzing around and she wouldn't stop and turn around to check on my condition, now I've got a sneaking suspicion he might not have been exaggerating.) If we hadn't have stopped half way for an iced coffee and chips n gravy in the air conditioned cafe maybe the lactic acid wouldn't have caught up with me...

Izzy's Dad, Paul, is back up and they've been approved to rent a nice townhouse at one of the beautiful beaches on the other side of town. It's such a beautiful place to live. Izzy will have mates close by and his cousins when they stay with their Dad will be just up the hill, plus he'll be in walking distance of an actual shop, which will be a complete novelty for him. Sells fish and chips and everything ;) So my 12 year old is moving out of home tomorrow and making a life with his dad :( They better invite me over!! I'll be majorly worried though, Paul's about as broke as they come, doesn't know how to cook to save himself.. I don't know how they're going to go but at least I'm not too far away.

Anakin had his first day of daycare last Thursday and has been chronically sick ever since! He was suppose to go back today but is still blowing snotties. He's been in superlative health for months and months so I guess was due for a bit of a lurgy. He was pretty good there, I stayed for about the first hour and then left to play tennis with Mum just across the road, I spied in on him a couple hours later without him knowing and they told me he'd had a little cry for me but they distracted him with the fish tank and building car tracks and stuff. He had a sleep there and everything!! Me and Greg picked him up right on three o'clock - I couldn't get there fast enough! He'd just woken up and was sitting up in his little bed when he saw us at the door. Little baby. He's such a sweetie! He just seems like this beautiful little shining light to me and honestly I didn't want to send him back amongst all these other green boogerie nosed little creepazoids. I suppose we'll get use to them and they'll start to look less like a little bunch of onions. God, I'm mean. But honest. You know what I mean anyway. Your own kids just look... better! Anyway I'm a bit worried because I thought I had another day to settle him in but next time he's due to go I'm actually back at work! (Thank God coz all the trips to the op-shop and the beautiful pairs of shoes I bought over New Years has left me scraping the bottom of the barrel!) As soon as his cough is gone I'll go back with him for a big visit so it's not a whole 2 weeks between. We role played every Daycare scenario in the leadup to his first day, everyone in the house took turns at being the group leader Danielle enthusiastically welcoming Anakin to his new daycare, followed by "washing hands", "snack time", "outside play time", "nap time". He rehearsed key phrases like "Danielle I need to do a wee!" and "Danielle, these grass seeds in my pants are making me itchy!" (The gardener isn't too reliable.) He couldn't have been more prepared than he was. (I suppose we could have dosed him up on echinaccea or something!) I'm so grateful work is just right across the road! And Nick will be around if anything goes too haywire.

Nick's having problems in paradise if you know what I mean. And whenever she's emotionally upset she stops eating. I think she ate like a bunch of grapes and a bite of chocolate for two and a half entire days! It's a big worry. I can't be that cruel to myself. That's just deprivation. She's like half a head taller than me and 50kilo's! She got right down to 47 at one stage and the shape of her teeth were practically showing through her lips. She's gone to spend the night at Nana and Grandads so I hope she's eating dinner!

I think my hope of a leg rub is pretty much non-existent since it's gotten so late, but I better get to bed I suppose just in case. Night.

Compression

Geez it's been so long I hardly know what to write!

I've got Greg and his old man in the background watching 9-11 conspiracy documentaries. Greg's as always trying to rattle his dad's sense of .. I dunno what... I've forgotten how to express myself.. civil rest, peace of mind.. something...

Christmas n New Years was spent like most people do around here - surrounded by family, weekends away, swimming or sweating, admiring christmas lights and fireworks, playing cricket on the lawn and in the park, tennis, ten pin bowling, eating too much good food... Actually the overwhelming thought of trying to capture all the stuff we've done since last time I wrote has been the reason I haven't written at all! So I'll just add a couple pix and skip all that. Okay with you?