March success

Well that was a busy month. I missed a couple of days but otherwise managed to write something every day. And it didn't become a chore either! I think I might have my blogging mojo back. I hope so!

Times in the Burn household are only going to become busier as the year goes on, I suspect. The boys will get more and more into their schooling and school work. We'll start getting term-long projects (argh! Curse them!) and more homework (perhaps). Elora will progress through her "troublesome threes" (as opposed to the so-called "terrible twos" which never happened)... It has already begun.

The biggest change around here will be in the second half of the year when Dan begins his PhD. He has finally started the ball rolling, happy to at last be fulfilling a lifelong ambition (to become Dr Dan) but nervous about the stress and workload, understandably. I don't know many people who embark on a four-five year higher degree with a full time job (even if it's related somewhat) and three young kids at home. We will all have to pull our socks up.

See you in April!

Kicking on

It's been three days since the wedding and we are still suffering the after-effects from the late night and busy days (in the lead up).

But we kick on. My head is aching; the bug I've been fighting is trying to get a foot-hold. Hurry up, Easter. We need a break.

Wedding goodness

It was the most wonderful of days. Everyone was happy and excited and of course the bride looked incredible. We had a fantastic time. The kids were great - over excited (and then way over tired), boisterous but above all else, happy and friendly.

Some pictures, mostly taken by a family friend with a much nicer camera (a couple taken by me). Click on the photo for an enlargement. More of my photos can be seen in my flickr set.

Gorgeous boy in his suit and green tie (self-chosen).

Atticus and I. Gosh I love my boys in suits and ties.

Shy flower girl. She eventually got there, grabbing onto her grandmother's hand as she walked the bride down the aisle. So sweet! (That's me hiding behind the tree.)

Looking older than his years (in my opinion). Photo taken by me, links to Flickr.

Happy couple at the "altar" with bridesmaids and flowergirl looking on.

My beautiful little girl!

Mr and Mrs M.

Proud brother of the bride. Photo taken by me, links to Flickr.

Later in the evening... boys gettin' rowdy on the dance floor. There was much running and wrestling (here). Atti on the left, Ollie, the ring bearer and groom's nephew, on the right. They got on so very well!

The little miss had to copy. This is more like what she looked like for most of the evening (not lying down, but dishevelled and shoeless).

Two suits, one flowergirl dress

Today's the day. Dan's sister is getting married this afternoon!! Stressed much? I can't imagine how she must be feeling right now. Well, actually I guess I can, having gone through it 6½ years ago!

It's going to be a late night for us. More pics tomorrow.

Now that's a better fish tank

There's a bit of "fish tank" culture here at my work. i.e. There are lots of offices and labs in the building that have tanks. It's wonderful to see! And I guess it's easier to look after them in a building of scientific research since there are taps and sinks and ph measuring tools and lots of very smart and dedicated people.

I got my first fish tank a long time ago. Let's see, I've been here ten years, so I probably got my tank 9½ years ago! It held guppies then. Caught from a tank upstairs. Probably very inbred.

When I went on maternity leave to have Elora I put the tank away. Sent the fish to another happy home upstairs and packed the tank in a box. I came back to work to find out that my office was being taken over by an instrument (a multi-million dollar very large magnet, to be exact) so I didn't set up my tank again, deciding to wait until I was properly set up in my new space.

So I moved office in Sept '08. And finally, at the start of this year, I got around to setting up my tank. We visited our friend's fish farm in late January and I came away with 5 goldfish. Only once I'd caught them (how cool to fish for your own gold fish!) did we work out where the tropical fish were kept but I was happy to keep my guys.

Over three weeks I lost three of the 5 fish. Can you believe it? They had lice! I've had enough of lice with my kids, and then to see them on my fish was extremely icky.

But now the population (of two) has stabilised and the goldfish are fat and happy.

Today I installed the final touch. Some bits of Lego, of course. Needed some trickery to keep them down (did you know Lego floats? I didn't!) but in the end I think it looks great!

Post Script

I forgot to add.

See that last post? The one with all the pictures of the boys in their orange shirts?

See that shirt that Dante is wearing? It used to be mine. It still fits me, although a little tight (but it was meant to be).

It fits Dante perfectly.

I never thought he'd fit into my clothes aged nine! How long before he's taller than me??

On second thoughts, don't answer that last question. I don't want to think about it!!

Still on the hair theme...

Today was Harmony Day at school. Also known as "Mad Hair Day". Wear orange and go crazy with the hair gel and coloured hair spray. It has always been tricky getting Dante's hair to stay "up" and crazy. It's just too straight and thick. Like mine. Atti's curls make life a lot easier. We need to get more orange hair spray.

Sorry for the repetitive pictures but this photo series cracks me up!

Chop, chop, chop

I recently talked about my hair and my impending haircut. Finally today was the day!

The lovely Nathan and I chatted like it had NOT been two years since we last saw each other. I think it's amazing that he can remember so much about me since really we've only met a handful of times. I started seeing him in 2004.

We didn't do much. Everyone instructed me to leave it long. I was fine with that. I like it long. Easy to style in the morning (i.e. comb my fingers through it or tie it up in a pony tail!!), makes a good scarf on cold mornings!

When I returned to work afterwards hardly anyone noticed any difference (until I pointed it out). But that's okay, I guess. Can't be too radical these days, eh?

And now the pictures. Before (taken by my colleague's iphone):


And after (taken just before putting the kids to bed - sorry for the bad lighting):

Dream, dream, dream

I don't know why I do it to myself, but every Tuesday I cannot resist looking through the inner-west property guide that comes with the herald. It's huge! With lots of pictures of unaffordable houses in the suburbs I want to live.

Today there were TWO houses I would buy instantly if I won the lottery. The mega-massive-once-in-a-lifetime-ridiculous lottery (which will NEVER happen - I know this for a fact because I never buy lottery tickets!)

The first is just down the street from Dante's best friend. How happy would he be if we moved there?? It's still a drive in to school and work, but less than half the time it currently take us. Its 6 bedrooms just might fit us and all our stuff, too.

The second is in my dream location. The area I have always loved and wished I could afford. Not as big a property as the first but in a much better location! Next to a park, with the possibility of a rooftop terrace! How cool would that be??

So, anyway, I've thrown that paper away now. There's not a chance that I'll ever have a house like these. But it's nice to dream, right?

Red in the morning, red in the evening

It was nearly 35°C today. Nearly a third of the way through Autumn! Too hot to do much of anything, unfortunately. Although I did have 9 children (6 of whom were 5 and under) in my care for a short while. It was, amazingly, stress- and chaos- free. The wonders of heat exhaustion and computers to keep kids quiet.

And just because it was so amazing, I have to share today's sunrise and sunset. The morning glow was a deep crimson-scarlet red that I have never seen in the sky before which rapidly turned orangey-red as the sun crept above the horizon.


At the other end of the day the clouds were sparkling, glowing as the sun went to bed. Simply spectacular. If only I'd been at a better angle to capture it. And had a better camera!

Productivity... tomorrow

For the second night in a row I have fallen asleep on the floor of Elora's room whilst putting her to bed.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before but for three years she cried, screamed and yelled when I put her to bed at night. There were probably a handful of occasions when she didn't. And I was SICK of listening to her crying, even if it was only for a couple of minutes. It was the persistence that bugged me and I would be annoyed for the rest of the evening.

So upon her third birthday I changed tactic. Now I sit in with her, leaning against her bed or lying on the floor until she falls asleep. Makes for interesting Monday nights when I am alone with the kids. But it has worked. No more screaming girl every night. She even says to me now, "I want you to sit with me tonight. I will cry if you go."

But the downside of it all is that if I am the slightest bit tired, which I have been lately, fighting a bug that's trying to take hold, and if Elora takes a little while to be still then as soon as I stop and relax, even uncomfortable on the floor, I fall asleep. Tonight I may possibly have fallen asleep before the girl did. And didn't wake up until after 11pm, way past my bed time, with a sore neck and aching hips. I got up, went downstairs and said goodnight to Dan and crawled back into bed. And now I'm blogging about it.

--

So because of all my sleeping I missed a day of my one-post-per-month thing. Oh well, one day out of 18 ain't bad and I certainly have no intention of stopping now.

In one week's time we will have a full house - ten heads under this roof as Dan's cousin and her family are coming to stay. The house needs a good scrub before they get here! Dan's sister will be Mrs M this time next week. Tomorrow is going to be my day of cleaning. Actually, it was meant to be my weekend of cleaning but I made brownies instead this afternoon, and napped and shopped (for Dante's suit - it ended up being cheaper to buy than hire!)

Hence "productivity tomorrow". Watch me!

One less than ten, one more than eight

At this time nine years ago I was lying in a hospital bed in a ward (four beds, two occupied) with this squirmy wrinkled three-week-early boy child completely in my care. It was a shared room so Dan couldn't stay. I remember vividly the feeling when he left at the conclusion of visiting hours. "Well, I am on my own. I've had the baby. WHAT ON EARTH DO I DO NOW?"

Thank goodness for the wonderful midwives. I rang the buzzer and whimpered at them. "I have no idea what to do! What do I do if he cries?" And they helpfully advised, "Well, he'll probably either be hungry or dirty. Don't forget to burp him."

Nine years later and he's still usually hungry, dirty and definitely burps a lot. The dirt is not nappy-related at least! Just school boy-related. But I still have that utterly helpless feeling at times. "What do I do if he cries?"

--

Times lately have been challenging. Dante has anger management issues. So do I, to tell the truth. Things I say to him come straight out of his mouth later. This afternoon Dan and I had a meeting (with the boy) and the after school care co-ordinator and one of the carers. There was an incident at school last week (during aftercare) and I quote the co-ordinator: "I've never had a child injure a staff member before".

However, it came out well in the end. Dante was extremely apologetic and regretful. In fact when questioned he couldn't even recall exactly what went on. Either that or he has become a very accomplished liar. I don't think so. The carers were incredibly wonderful. And Dante was so composed and responsive in our little meeting. It all went really well, was such a positive experience. I was quite concerned and worried. The relief poured out of me in tears afterwards. Bah! What a sook!

But it was more than relief. Guilt, I guess. We always take the blame for our children's behaviour. I mean, who else are they going to learn from? I've got to try harder.

Even after nine years there is so much to learn. It's exhausting.

Why eat when you can sculpt?

Elora's dessert-cucumber* didn't get finished... I had to show you. I love it! And then I ate it.





* Doesn't everyone give their kids cucumbers after dinner??
Only kidding. This was her dessert but we don't do this every night. Sometimes there is jelly or ice cream (or both!)

Into the wild?

When we got home this evening all three kids were fast asleep in the car. We woke them one by one and brought them inside for dinner.

On his way inside Dante stopped off at the garden for a whiz. I was half-horrified, half-amused. When Dan queried him about his actions, his response was this

I'm practising my survival skills.

Ha!

Doolittle goodness

Me, the Pixies stage (before they came on)...
Look closely and you can see the trademark "P" on the drum kit.
Last night Dan and I went to see the Pixies at the Hordern Pavilion. We bought the tickets last September or thereabouts and I have been looking forward to it all this time. Booked my mother in for baby-sitting way back then and had to keep reminding her, even up to yesterday afternoon! (That's the thing when you see them every day...)

The concert was, in a nutshell, awesome. I wasn't HUGELY into the Pixies when they first started but they are such an incredible band, still together (back together) after all these years, an influence on so many bands ever since, that I couldn't not go. Plus, this was the Doolittle tour. Their greatest album, played through from beginning to end (with a few b-sides added in before and after).

Even though the band members are all getting on a little (I mean, that's life, right?) they put on an amazing show. Some bands can be disappointing when you've listened to their album over and over and see them live years later (I'm looking at you, Violent Femmes) but the Pixies rocked. Their playing was flawless, Frank Black and Kim Deal's singing spot on.

And I don't know if it's because I'm getting older or if it's the crowd at a concert like this, but it seemed to me a much more pleasant and polite audience. Of course there were a few over-the-top folk who just wanted to jump and bash into people but most of the crowd was better than that. Enthusiastic, happy, and excited. And polite! A tall guy briefly stood in front of me early on and I said "I hope you're not going to stay there all night - there's a bevy of short people around you" and he was very nice about it. Another guy moved in later on but I noticed he did try to duck down and made sure I could get a view. And then another chick pushed her way in next to me near the end. But I didn't mind. There was room! She saw me look at her (actually, I was looking past her to our friends) and started apologising... "Kim Deal is my hero!" she exclaimed and also kept making sure that I had room and a view. All the time happy as punch. I loved looking around at all the people around me and seeing the joy on their faces and in their dancing.

It's such a different experience to the days when you'd go and be surrounded by 6'+ tall guys who couldn't care less and who'd squeeze you out or squash you if you tried to hold your ground. It would often nearly ruin my night. Last night was so much more pleasant, it amazes me. Also I have to say that the smoking ban in venues made things MUCH nicer. Gawd, I am turning into an old fogey aren't I?

I do wish I'd brought my camera (the above photo was taken with my friend's iphone) - heaps of people were taking photos, some of which looked pretty good from what I could see. But this morning I found this slide show - if you're interested!

I'm so glad I went. A night out, kid-free (although we did see a family group! Parents and their two teenage kids, obviously underage, sitting in the stands. How great! What cool parents!) It was well worth the wait and the money (tickets aren't cheap for big international acts, unfortunately). Yay!

Go away, daylight savings

Daylight savings. Putting your clocks forward or backwards an hour depending on the season. Dan loves it. He says "Daylight savings should be on all year 'round". And I don't mind it in summer, when the sun goes down at 8:30pm and comes up at 5am.

But now, now that the days are getting shorter and the mornings are getting cooler, now I cannot stand it and cannot wait for it to end. As I've written before, I like to get out in the morning for a run or a walk (when I'm feeling particularly tired or lazy). But the last couple of days, it's still dark when I'm ready to go and I have to sit around waiting for more light to filter through before I leave. I mean, I could go out while it's still dark but worry about the safety issues a little bit.

Some of you might say "Just go out later" but the problem is that if I leave it too late, the children are all awake and ransacking the kitchen when I get home.

Like this morning. When I walked up to the (glass) back door Elora was standing in the back room and immediately scooted off when she saw me. I came in to find Atti rifling through the fridge and Elora hiding out in the lounge room with a grape and a lolly (don't know where she found that!)

Well, in three weeks we'll get that hour back. It will be good. Except that the days will be even shorter than now! Oh well, can't win them all.

Gourmet cooking? Not tonight.

After all the recent baking, I really am a bit tired of cooking. And cleaning! So tonight when Atti suggested we have tinned spaghetti for dinner I was happy to oblige. Tinned spaghetti and baked beans, just to add to the variety. And toast with butter.

Well, the kids ate it, that's the main thing.

Tomorrow I'm thinking of trying this.

The wedding clothes dilemma

Dan's sister is getting married in two weeks' time. It's all very exciting. We're heading off to the venue for the rehearsal tomorrow morning. Elora is going to be a very cute flower girl.

Our problem, then, is our boys! What do I dress them in? Dan suggested just putting nice shirts on them, but with jeans? You can't wear jeans to a wedding! And shoes? You can't wear sneakers/dunlop volleys.

So I'm thinking about hiring suits for them. There's not really any point actually buying outfits, is there? This is about the only time they'll wear them before they outgrow them. Suits AND shoes. I have no idea about the cost... but then again, this is our last major wedding in the family so it's worth the effort, right?

Argh.

Ten days, so far so good

You may have noticed that I've been making a bit more of an effort to write this month. Every day so far, to be precise. And here I am today, day eleven, and I'm reduced to writing about my writing. Ack! Can I have really run out of ideas so quickly?

In truth I have not. I have simply run out of time this evening.

I will be back on track tomorrow!

A terrific success

Wow. The cake stall this morning was amazing. In all the years i've been doing this I have never seen it be so successful. I didn't really do much with this year's stall. It seemed that it was all organised well and I was glad to take a step back. I simply baked and ate and sold a few. The stall made nearly $900 in 3½ hours!

Afterwards I had a fairly pleasant day at work followed by a wonderful night meeting up with some crafty peeps. Does pulling apart some knitting that I'm unhappy with count as starting a new project??

Bakin' time again

Last year I got busy making cup cakes for the annual child care cake stall. Tomorrow it's on again! I've been busy all night making banana cup cakes with cream cheese frosting and a new recipe - Chocolate Mud Cupcakes from this book.

As an aside, have you heard of BetterWorldBooks? A great place to buy books online - new or used. Good prices, excellent shipping fee and to top it all off, part of the takings (maybe all of them?) go towards funding world literacy.

Sorry, no pictures tonight. I'm so tired I can barely stand up. Icing these guys will have to wait for the morning.

Following the hair trail

I've got an appointment to see my hairdresser in a couple of weeks. He's a very popular guy - bookings three weeks in advance! Not exactly cheap, but I'm willing to pay the price since it's been TWO YEARS since I've paid him a visit. People have been commenting a lot lately about the length of my hair. It easily reaches to my bottom and I can wrap it around my neck like a scarf!

A bit hard to find recent photos that fully display its length. Here's one from Christmas.

Me and my Ma, Xmas 2009
So then I got curious. Trying to remember my different hair lengths over the years. Started going through old photos, pre-children...

So now I present to you some embarrassing pictures of Jen through the late '90s. Most of the pictures were taken at parties. Lots of (too much) alcohol was consumed at this time. Not many pictures to choose from (our first digital camera was a 1.2 megapixel beast which cost >$1,000! and our biggest memory card was a whopping 16Mb!) and I was pretty good at hiding from the camera. I apologise in advance.

1995 - Third year at Uni. Working at the computer lab at Uni - obviously working, if you look at the computer screen. Hair mid-long length, played with a bit of bleach. A year or two before, that bleached bit was dark blue.

1995-ish

1997-98 - or thereabouts. This was taken at a friend's 21st. Dan and I were together by then. My hair was long, long, long. Nearly as long as now. Again with the bleach and the blue.

1997-98

June 1999 - Turned 24. Got rid of the blonde bits (dyed my hair black - ha!) but still hadn't lost the bleach bug. I bleached a nice straight line across the bottom of my hair and dyed it red. Started working at my current job not long after this. They still talk about my hair sometimes! Finally found a picture.

June, 1999

Nov, 1999 - For some insane reason I decided to get my hair cut short. I guess I needed a change. I did sell it to a wig maker for $20/ounce. I got $140 for it. More than paid for the haircut. Here's the bleach again. I just couldn't let up, could I? I'd forgotten how much I coloured my hair. It wasn't that often but bleach is permanent! This pic is me at a '70s party. Hence the dress.

Nov, 1999

May, 2000 - The last big cut. Dan and I were about to head off to Egypt so I cut my hair short. Boy-short! It was nice enough on the first day, possibly the first week but afterwards, so terrible! I'll never do that again! Especially at a cheap hairdresser! This was our combined birthday/going away party. My hair is blue, but it was hairspray. It was a costume party. Monsters.

May, 2000

That concludes our trip down memory lane. Thanks for laughing as I cringed my way through that! I don't think I'll be doing anything too drastic in a fortnight's time. Winter's coming (apparently... didn't feel like it today) so I might want to keep my hair-scarf!

Those creepy eyes

The other day, perhaps it was last weekend - I couldn't be sure - Atticus grabbed an empty toilet roll, drew a face and requested arms and hair. I happily obliged. I love it when he gets creative and crafty. Elora, of course, quickly followed suit. And repeated it a few days later. (Hey, we have four toilets and five people in this house - we get a lot of empty toilet rolls!)

Their creations are great! Nifty! Neat!


But those eyes. The eyes Elora has drawn give me the creeps... Almost as much as this creation last month. The white clay face was made by Dante at school or aftercare. She added the weirdo baby dolls.


Again with the creepy big eyes...


Shudder.

The tiniest snail

My mother found this in the garden this afternoon. Must have just hatched. So new that its shell was transparent and its body/foot was white! The shell length would have been about 3mm.

Elora was fascinated, of course. Her first instinct was to run and grab a leaf for it to eat. Atti just wanted it on his hand.


Here it is on my mother's thumb. Take note, ladies and gents. That thumb may look pink but it is in fact the brightest shade of green. Plants grow like crazy at my mother's touch. You name it, she can grow it. You almost kill it, she'll revive it. My brothers and I are constantly bringing sorry looking specimens to "plant hospital". She is a wonder, my mum.

Tonight's gem

Travelling home in the car tonight Elora came up with this, out of the blue.

"If I eat lots of cucumbers, because I like eating lots and lots of cucumbers, then I will shoot lazies out of my eyes and shoot them at everybody."

The newest school boy

Atticus started school on Jan 28th, the same day he turned 5! What a momentous occasion - and only now do I find a chance to write about it.

To be honest, I was worried. I mentioned it before. Last year at pre-school was interesting. Troublesome. Terrible. Well, not that terrible - could have been a lot worse. But, after seeing the paediatrician we got him off the medication which is known to cause behaviour problems, over a period of three months. He was completely meds-free a week before he turned 5 and started school (and got a hair cut).

The first day of school was a little fretful (for me, not him - he took it all in his stride, with only the slightest amount of worry glimpsed) and even though it wasn't a really huge step for us (since we've already got a kid in school and Atti has been attending the place for a year, albeit in a separately fenced area) I still found that I got a little emotional that day. No tears but definitely a bit of a lump in my throat. His wonderful godmother came with us that morning, too. How delightfully sweet! Thank you, Anna. It meant a lot to us that you did that! (Just to be fair, though, Dante's godfather did the same on his first day.)

It struck me that up until that morning, Atti did not seem to me to be a small child - he was a big boy, half a head taller than his sister. But seeing him in that red uniform, surrounded by lots of other kids in that same red uniform, he suddenly shrunk! He looked so little! The wonders of perspective, hey?

Now, it's been over a month since he began kindergarten and I have to say, the change is INCREDIBLE. Yes, I'm capitalising that word because I cannot emphasise it enough.

He has just grown up so much! He listens (most of the time) to us. He writes his name beautifully, he colours in inside the lines, draws terrific pictures. He gets himself ready for school in the morning. He doesn't whinge and cry when we tell him "It's a school day." Lately he has started getting really excited about letters and words. "Munching Mike!" he'll exclaim when he sees the letter "m" and "Munching Mike's mum!" when he sees a "M". Also, "Slippery Sam" and "Annie Apple" and I don't know who else. The other night I noticed him looking at the alphabet chart in his room with renewed interest.

I love that alphabet chart by Jan Pienkowski. I loved his drawings when I was a kid. I couldn't resist buying that chart a long time ago. It's a little torn now but still makes me happy and even more now that Atti has taken to it. Not too long ago he asked me to remove it from his room!


His teacher, Sandy, has amazed me, too. She is efficient and friendly but also won't put up with any of Atti's antics. A surprise because she used to be the dance teacher at school and took his class last year at preschool. And he never used to participate. I guess having her every day is very different to having her for one hour once a week.

And he loves being a big boy now. The other day I found something he'd broken at some point and asked him about it. "Oh, yeah. I did that when I was four. I was naughty then but I'm five now."

Dante is a little embarrassed because Atti likes to play with him and his friends at lunch time, but I've also noticed that the boys do play together at home a lot more these days. A couple of weekends ago Atti had a nap and Dante wandered around the house looking a little lost and asking when Atti would get up. It's lovely to see, at long last!

So that's it, in a nutshell. The change has been mind boggling. Exciting and amazing and I am completely floored by it. And so very happy. I feel like a huge weight has lifted from me. I know he'll start to get tired towards the end of the term but I hope things will only get better from here in.

Atti, my little big boy.

Big brother always knows

Have you got a big brother? Or two or three or four, like me? And do you have that unwavering, persistent innate feeling that your big brother(s) is/are omniscient? All knowing? Like me? (A lot of the time, anyway!!)

Yesterday I was talking about classical music with a friend and it brought to mind a memory of my second oldest brother playing his favourites whilst sitting on the floor of the lounge room reading the broadsheet (and having to constantly shoo the cat away - they always like sitting on newspaper, don't they?? Amazing how they know exactly what section you are reading, too). A particular piece came to mind but I had no idea WHO it was by or WHAT it was called.

So I sent off an email to my brothers.

"What's the name of that 'bom' piece? The one that goes dah-da-da-dah... bom."

And sure enough, big brother knew exactly what I was talking about. I knew he would!

Happy birthday, older and wiser big brother Chris!



Rachmaninoff Opus 32 no. 10 (Largo) in B minor

Nice sunrise, beautiful morning

Saturday morning's sunrise. It was a gorgeous morning to be out and I couldn't resist taking this picture with my poor old mobile phone. Still, the natural beauty of the clouds reflected in the (dirty, polluted) river is not entirely lost.

Just thought I'd share.

The tyrant mother

Hello there world. It's me again.


I know it's been a while. I'm sorry. I've missed you, blog. I've been meaning to write, honest.

The post title? Well, it's how I feel sometimes. How I felt after bedtime tonight. I feel like I'm constantly yelling at the kids. Especially that eldest boy who's big enough to argue back. Which causes me to get mad. And yell more. It's a rapidly descending spiral to the depths of... something dark and deep.

I had a great big long whingeing, whining post written in my head earlier. That's where most of my posts get written and unfortunately stay, these days. In my head. Luckily for you I'm not going to go there. I know the solution.

But I thought I'd drop in and say "Hi" anyway.

Lots happened in February. And late January. Boy, it's really been quite some time, hasn't it?

Atticus turned 5. And started school. And came off his anti-convulsant meds. All within a week. Actually, the first two on the same day. He has grown up so much that I am completely floored when I think about it. One day I'll write that post.

Elora turned 3! We had a biggish party at home. She was delightful. Now her latest "thing" is writing. She can write her name. I'll write her birthday post too, I hope.

Also, I actually got some crafting done. I made a quilt for the most beautiful Miss Holly who turned 1 on the same day that Elora turned 3. God sisters.

And the rest? Life moves on. Keeps us busy and tired.


Now for some inspiration.

Here's a blog I found today. A beautiful mother of four beautiful Eurasian kids (I'm a sucker for Eurasian kids - can you blame me?). She's happy, talented, quirky and fun. She takes such lovely photographs. And she's so young! It was one of those blogs I just wanted to immediately take in from the start. She's possibly a bit too Christian, but it doesn't come across in her blog. Hey, nobody's perfect. And her faith makes her happy, so who am I to judge? Have a look, anyway, even if it's just to see those gorgeous kiddies.