Two sleeps to go

Dan's heading off to San Francisco on Saturday. Just two sleeps away! I'm absolutely dreading the next two weeks. So worried about looking after the kids by myself. Really, I have no cause to complain. My super helpful parents are just next door and willing to lend a hand (or more like an arm, no, a whole body)! I should be excited for Dan going off on another overseas adventure. I am. But tempered by the worry. I'm sure we will be fine and he will, too. He was having some passport issues but I'm sure it will all work out and he won't get sent home. That would be a real bummer.

So, anyway, thankfully I have plenty of crafty projects to keep me busy. Take tonight, for instance. It was a bit of a sneak peek into my evenings for the next two weeks. Dan crashed out in bed after the kids went to sleep so I sat myself down in front of a soppy chick flick (with Gerard Butler and the guy that plays Denny Duquette in Grey's Anatomy) and knitted to my heart's content.


Working on this Chevron Scarf as a gift for my niece, since her parents brought the book back for me from NY (where I had it shipped from Amazon). It's coming along nicely - has grown since I took this picture last week. I'm not quite sure how long to make a scarf for a wee lass but I reckon it should be done by the weekend. Then to start another for her sister! It's such an easy pattern but looks lovely. And they'll certainly have a use for them - the weather here in ol' Sydney town has been absolutely atrocious lately. Cold and wet. No good for laundry, but wonderful for our dams.

Teeth

Toothy happenings around here recently.

Elora has had seven teeth for the last 6 months at least but just got five more in the space of four weeks! Another one at the bottom front (four up top, three down bottom) plus her four first molars have come through. Things have been a bit miserable for her, the poor thing, but at least she'll be able to chew better.

I went to the dentist today (a follow up from an appointment last week) to get an "occipital splint" . It's like a mouth guard type thing that I have to wear at night because I grind my teeth. Erk. Hopefully it'll stop these constant killer headaches that have been plaguing me.

And finally, I took Dante for an overdue check-up as well. Eek. He has a hole in his tooth. One of his back molars that obviously hasn't been getting brushed properly. I can't believe it. He's only seven and he has to have a filling. I feel like a complete failure as a parent because of this. How could I let it get so far?

Warm warminess

Winter seems to be making its appearance around here lately. It's starting to get chilly.

But we have a great trick to ease the "climbing into icy cold bed" blues and I thought I'd share it. Because it's delightful. (Not as cosy as flannelette sheets but Dan won't have them!)

1. Climb into bed and lie with your knees bent.
2. Pull the covers over and make a cave with your arm at the entrance.
3. Put a blowy heater in the opening.
4. Bask in the warminess for a few minutes. Be careful not to block the vents of the blowy heater as it may over heat and switch off which means no warminess.
5. Once you are warm, pull the heater away and pull the now warm sheets and blankets snug around you.
6. Smile and congratulate yourself on your cleverness.
7. Go to sleep in comfort.

Some people might tell you to get an electric blanket or something sensible like that. That might work. But it's not as fun!

My heart swelled

Tonight Dante performed with a group from his school in a Schools Dance Competition. Every year our school enters a few groups. Some of them are picked for the finals, some of them are not. Only a select number of kids from each class participate and finally this year Dante was chosen to be a part of it. His dancing has become good enough for public viewing, apparently!

They did an interpretation of Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. Is there anyone out there in the Western World that doesn't know this classic children's book?

The kids were divided into three groups - the trees, the fish and the Wild Things. D was one of the latter. They had wonderful costumes!


One of Dante's friends did an incredible job as Max. Dressed in a furry suit of "Sully" (the main character from Monsters Inc.), he looked cute and added fun and vivaciousness to the role. When the curtains opened onto their performance, the entire audience simultaneously let out a huge "Awww..." and he certainly made the show.

We got to see the rehearsal beforehand:


And watched the actual show afterwards (at great expense - they make a killing out of us sucker-parents). Our kids were the first act of the night. And oh! they were so amazingly gorgeous up there on the stage. We had great seats right up the front. But since we got there just as the lights dimmed we stood to the side.

I giggled. I clutched Dan's arm, my face lit up with pride. Tears even came to my eyes. It was the most wonderous thing. I couldn't be more proud, not just for our boy but for all our kids.

It was a great end to a long day after a week of wretched illness.

A few more backdated posts.

Slowly getting back on top of things.

Dante turned 7.
Booked a hair cut.
Funny thing wot Dante said.

Hello, world

Seems like I've been taking quite a blog break this year. I think the trials of working and bringing up three kids have taken their toll. Just recently we got into a bit of trouble with Dante's school for being late all the time. 25 partial absences so far this year (that's what gets recorded when you're late, even if only 5 minutes). But it did give us a good kick up the bum and we haven't been late since. Heh!

Now the problem is that I've become tired and run down and have caught some nasty bug that has knocked me about for a good week and a half now. I think I'm on the home stretch (certainly hope so). The boys are okay, the girl's ill (nasty rash all over her body and extremely clingy) and Dan's coming down with it, too. Ack! Winter is definitely here. (Or, as Dan would say, "Stupid Ice Weather".)

In other news, Dan's heading off to the Apple World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco in June. For two weeks! (He's going travelling for a week afterwards). I'm so excited for him but wish I could go, too. Things will be interesting back here while he's gone.

Anyhow, I haven't been doing nothing during all this time. I've taken up knitting. I was knitting before but lately I haven't been able to put the needles down. Each night after the kids are in bed, instead of doing the dishes or folding laundry I sit down and knit. I went to a sock knitting class at the end of April and have successfully made a pair for Elora (sort of - they're uneven cause the first one was a bit small) and half way through a toe-up sock for me. I'll post some pictures when I'm up to date with my Flickr photo uploading!

Hopefully I'll get my blogging mojo back soon and you'll next hear from me within a month!

Backdated posts

I've been busy with the backdated posts. RSS readers are probably terribly confused by it all and, as Dan said, think that I've had the busiest weekend ever!

Here's a summary:
Mat leave craft round-up
A successful week
Lucky me!
Happy Chinese New Year!
A year old
An eternally young baby
Two big birthdays
Road trip
She walks

Happy reading.

Random stuff from today

Dante came in to work with me this morning due a Stop Work Meeting at all public schools today. He entertained himself with Ben 10 games on the computer, and then we had chocolate cake for morning tea (which I made last night - and almost burnt when I fell asleep on the couch while waiting for it to cook).

My father had a bit of an operation today. We were a smidge worried, just because he had to undergo a general anaesthesia but he came out of it rip roaringly well and my mother had to stop him from carrying buckets of water around (his hobby) when he got home! Funny man :)

And this evening the kids ate their dinner wonderfully, bathed and showered (the latter due to a mishap in the bath... won't go into it suffice to say it wasn't pleasant to clean up) and went to bed without issue. How wonderful that it is dark at bedtime now that daylight savings is over!

And then I went through my wardrobe looking for something to wear to a Fancy Dress wedding we are attending on Saturday night (sans kiddos). I have to say that I am so relieved that the pretty (but modern) cheongsams that I bought when I was in Hainan two years ago fit me again! I've still got to work on this wee pot belly of mine (I'm sure exercising would help somewhat) but otherwise they were okay. Yay! I loved that particular shop and bought two dresses, two shirts and a skirt from there. I would have bought more except i) they were closing, and ii) I ran out of money. I need to find an Australian outlet. I wonder if one exists, and I wonder how much more expensive they will be. One of my dresses cost 398 RMB which is equiv. to $66 Aussie bucks and would easily sell for twice that here. Woohoo! So happy with those purchases, and as I said, so happy that I can wear them!

Will post pictures on the weekend, after the wedding. I think I'll go as a Chinese assassin, or something like that. Dan's going as a Pirate. heh.

Finished off the evening with Dan putting on "samplers" of music from the 1993 Triple J Hottest 100 (he was fixing up their ID3 tags). Boy did that bring back a lot of memories, good and bad. Quite an eventful period of my life - final year of high school and first year of Uni...

I lied

I said that I would post some back-dated posts and not be so slack with the blogging, didn't I? Well, obviously I lied because I have been incredibly neglectful of this poor old blog and of you, my readers.

My plan tonight was to finish that big post about the wonderful Australia Day weekend that I had over two months ago which has been holding up the rest of my blogging. But now it is 11:30pm and I am so tired I feel like throwing up. Or maybe I'm just coming down with something.

Anyway, I'll see what I can do this weekend. Dan's going to go and see some films at a Horror Film Festival tomorrow night so I may have some time up my sleeves to tend to this poor old online journal.

In short, I've been back at work since the end of January, full time at first but part time now. It's going okay - part time is nice but the workload is still full time so things are falling behind a bit. The kids are still growing at an incredible rate. They've all had a birthday since the last proper post (in January)! Things have been busy but same-same-y. The house is messy a lot. I'm tired a lot. Dan's tired a lot. Life goes on whether we like it or not.

Dante's latest preference

"Remember, Mama, I don't like chocolate in candy bars on Sunday afternoons."
"Lucky that it's Wednesday, then, Dante."
"Yep."