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.

On constant rotation

I've been listening to The Postal Service's album almost constantly lately. It's got a good beat for running. And one of my favourite songs.

Just thought I'd share.

Running, running

Looking back at my archives, I don't think I've really written much about my new early morning thing... Getting up and out for a morning walk/run most weekends and every day (almost) during the christmas break.

I can't remember when exactly I started doing it but I remember that when we went away to Hawks Nest in January last year I was able to get out a few mornings and run up to the beach.


Some people (especially my night-owl-definitely-NOT-a-morning-person husband) might call me mad but I really do enjoy the solitude, peace and freshness of the early morning. The birds are busy, especially the water birds in the river which I travel alongside.


If I'm early enough (a bit harder in summer!) I can catch the sun popping up over the trees, and in winter I can glimpse frost on the grass on the particularly cool days. Not that exciting compared to those living under bucketloads of snow right now but it's not that common here in Sydney!


But now the time has come where I feel that I want to step up a bit. Today I bought an iphone application (for my ipod touch - wish I had an iphone!) to get me started. Couch to 5k is an application that helps people get moving and training (in half an hour runs, three times a week) to be able to achieve running a full 5km, over a period of 9 weeks. Actually, I bought the "Couch to 10k" app first (which seems to have only been released two days ago!) but with one hour workouts in that plan I've decided to start with the 5k and work my way up.

I'm hoping to start tomorrow morning, nice and early before there is any stirring in the house. So nice and early to bed for me tonight! I'll keep you posted.

New kid in town

A week and a half ago we lost our dear pet, Flopsy. We'd only had him for 5 or 6 months and had just gotten to know him and love him.

We weren't sure if we could face another rabbit, but the kids were keen and we had the food and the set up already. But we were still thinking. Then a friend got in contact - her brother had found a bunny lost in the bushland near his house (but still in suburban Sydney) and he was looking for a good home for him.

How could we resist? THIS is the way to gain pets. They come to us - we don't buy them from shops. Here was an animal in need of good home, not a baby (which are much easier to sell), but fully grown.

So we went and got him.


He's still quite timid, still getting to know us. He's very different to Flopsy, who was also a found rabbit but younger, I think. Definitely ate a lot more and got to know his way around (bossing us and the cats around) quite quickly. But slowly this new guy is getting there.

And his name is Barney... (sounds like "bunny" - get it??).
Some videos are on my flickr account. More pics to follow.