The Woes of a Mother

You see this child?



Yes, this sweet, innocent child playing quietly with his toys.




This beautiful boy, my second child that I laboured and birthed in 2 and a half hours with no pain relief?


Well, don't be fooled.

This is what he did to me for weeks after his birth (I claim its payback for giving birth so easily). Reflux, just lovely. This went on for around 11 weeks until we got him onto the correct meds and baby rice.

He didn't sleep at night for 9 months. I then did controlled crying cold turkey. Call me a cold turkey if you will, but it worked. After 3 hours of perseverence, he slept. And has continued to do so. Until he decides he doesn't want to play that game any more.

Yes, he's wakeful when teething and sick, but any child is. That's what I tell myself when I've been awake for hours through the night and can't drag myself from my heavenly bed in the morning.

Yes, this child will be the end of me. Figuratively speaking of course, not litereally!

His new trick.....?

This is dummy number 4.

My darling 18 month old's response?

"Mama! Uh-oh...."

Uh-oh? Well my boy, you're onto the last one, cos they are $15 bucks a pair.

"Goodnight little man, sweet dreams. And DON"T chomp your dummy in half again!"

To top things off, visit to the docs today confirmed sudden onset of eczema all over his body (check rash on face in first pic), probably from the virus he had antibiotics for a week ago. Oh yes, and an ear infection in both ears. More antibiotics.

Lovely, just lovely.

My lovely boy :)

The child is weird.

Miss E, what's that you're eating?




Peas, Mum. Yep, no problem with kids eating their veggies in this house. Wait.... let me get a closer look at those peas Miss E.....

Closer please.

Frozen peas? Oh dear. Weird child.

My new friend

What do you do when you purchase a new camera? Well, I started with a self portrait. I'm just thankful my face sporting hormonal spots on my chin is hidden. This is a good thing.



Followed by a random shot of a native feijoa tree in our garden sporting its soon to be harvested fruit. Yuk, don't like them. Tastes like the smell of (huh?) germoline that mum used to put on our grazed knees. Fruit and that smell don't go together.




And a random shot of the tractor in the back garden.

Toy tractor of course, we live on a 700 sqm section.

I'm happy. Very happy. I can share my randomness with you again.

Hallelujah!

Oh yes!

Ladies and gents, let me introduce you to what I hope will be a very long lasting friendship. A friendship between me and my......



New Canon Powershot SX20 IS!

I'm super excited. All the functionality of a point and shoot digital with the opportunity to learn more going manual. It's only taken me a few months to review, decide, change my mind and decide again. But I did it! What?! You all know i'm a procrastinator.

Now i'm waiting for the courier to deliver it and hope that the website I ordered it from in Auckland isn't dodgy and someone is not running all over town spending up big on our credit card.

Hopefully it will be a "where have you been all my life" friendship. Time will tell! *swoons*

What do you think?

Hippety Hop....Shop 'til you DROP!

I'm preoccupied.

You see, for those that don't know i'm heading back home to Scotland for a visit with my family in September. For a month! The exclamation mark is there for a couple of reasons.

1. I am going to be free from my current home and daily grind for....a month!

2. I am going to be away from my cosy wee home here for....a month!

3. I am going to be back living with my wonderful parents and spending quality time with them for....a month!

4. I am going to be back living with my parents for....a month! (note to mum who's an avid reader - do not take offence, simply put yourself in the same situation with two small children and you'll get the point *mwah*. Humour Mum, humour - blame dad.)

5. I am going back to Scotland, the United Kingdom, and a Shopping Mecca......FOR A MONTH!(New Zealand is great, but you cannot compare the shopping unfortunately).

I am SO excited about all of these things, but I am super excited about shopping.

I think I may have even forgotten how to do it. I haven't done it well, um, gosh for such a long time. Shopping folks!

I've started making lists, mental lists of how much extra luggage will be required to bring my loot back.

Shoes, tops, jeans, boots, cardi's, trainers, underwear - OOOH! Marks and Spencer Lingerie Department, I've missed you so much! And Tesco for food shopping - oh, the variety. What am I going to do with myself, I think I may just be overwhelmed by it all.

Only 4 months and counting.

We've been invaded!

...by some of these.

Euch! Mice. I still can't believe there's (how many?) up in our loft/ ceiling cavity.

Of course they are quite hospitable guests through the day. Quiet, hardly a squeak (sorry), but when darkness falls those little fellows think that our house is one massive playground.

Bait has been laid, but the darling things aren't biting. Hmm. What do we do? Wait for them to leave of their own accord or evict them forcefully?

Little Miss E has been awake at 5:30am for the last 3 mornings because of the scratching above her room. We've had numerous conversations about getting rid of the mice. She gets very concerned that we're going to kill the little tikes and as every mother of a 3 nearly 4 year old will know, many, many, MANY questions later, we're no further forward with her concerns. It literally is like a vortex of interrogation. I'll stress my point again that children of this age should be used as interrogators by the armed forces. Not that I condone war or indeed that kind of interrogation, but hey they would be good at it!

So, here we are 3 days later and how many mice? How long is the gestation period for mice? If the poison doesn't work, then in 7 more days, how many mice will there be? STOP. NO. I can't handle this, I'll be having nightmares of the world being overtaken by vermin if I just don't stop thinking about it...

If the poison works then who will collect the mice? How will we know we've gotten them all? We don't know how many there were to start off with. There's a lot of space up there. Nooks. Crannies. *holds hand to head in dismay*

Before I do, here's the first verse to one of my very favourite poems by Robert Burns (famous Scottish Poet) called To A Mouse.


Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie,
Oh what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hastie,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an chase thee,
Wi murd'ring prattle!


You can read the rest of it here.

This is too much for me, I'm off to lie down.

Lack of Inspiration

I haven't been on here for a while as I found having no camera means that I can't capture my inspirational moments and write about them. I should be able to write without photos, but I can't. Here's a bit of what I've been up to or am planning to get up to.

Home

Some landscaping of a small area around our sandpit for the kids. This sandpit (which I would show you if I had a camera - argh!) has a wooden lid on it which Ella just loves to stand on and watch herself in the glass windows. She dances and sings and can while away many moments. Its so cute to watch, but don't get caught looking at her or you'll get two barrels! So now it doubles as a stage and a sandpit, two uses for the price of one.

Crafting

Had an awesome day with my recession busters/ Right at home group. We did scrapbooking which I've never done before. I started a little keepsake photo album for Ella and Leo and I'm inspired to get moving and do more now.

Kitchen

Still baking bread, although it's been a wee bit erratic the past couple of weeks. So some store bought staples are helping to get us by.

Music Man is an avid peanut butter fan and I just realised recently that its really easy to make. Simply peanuts and a little oil. So that's my next project. Just need to work out how to store it and how long it will keep.

Family

Still keeping up with family back home in Scotland and can't wait to see them all in Sept. Got some great news that my sister is expecting again. Not due until end Nov and I'm looking forward to it already. Mum finished her Chemo and has started on Radiotherapy and almost at the end of her short term treatment for BC; long term will be hormone therapy.

Me

Tired, stressed only occasionally and watching the weeks pass so quickly at the moment. Honestly, I'm starting to think about Christmas already, but its mid-April for goodness sake! Where has the year gone.

We're lucky that the weather here is still quite Summery most days and i'm quite happy about that, long may it continue.

For now, its over and out. Don't know when I'll be back, maybe later, maybe tomorrow, but soon hopefully.

Happy days everyone!