then it just wouldn’t be our life now would it? lol

After getting a phone call at lunch time yesterday to say that there was work starting at 7am this morning for hubs, we made a few quick calculations and snap decisions and decided that TJ and I would accompany PSLS  for his first week working in Vic and leave the teen queens with the grandparents.

In the space of a few short hours we did a little shopping, reorganised some things, took care of some mid week errands, gathered up all the paperwork we would need for housing applications, visited TJ’s school to speak to his teacher about what we were up to, bought PSLS some new work clothes for his new work, packed a couple of suitcases and were off.

We were running an hour or so later than we had hoped, but we were on our way.

Three hours into our trip, we were overtaking a semi-trailer when the battery charge light came on…

*insert dramatic music* bah, bah bahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

By the time we got to Henty our car was running incredibly rough and after pulling up to check, stopped and would not go again.

Then the funniest thing happened…

While sitting in the car waiting for PSLS to return with a mechanic, the people in the house we were stranded in front of came out to check if we were okay, invited us in for a cuppa and to warm up by the fire, offered to make phone calls for us and were just generally inviting,  welcoming and helpful.

When I mentioned where I was from though, the lady of the house blanched and whispered a name, a name I was quite familiar with. Turns out that this chick’s uncle is the father of some of the elder children of my crazy bro’s (now ex) girlfriend’s kids. What a small freaking world! They think L is a nutter too and, like us, are not allowed anything to do with the children. Sigh. Turned out we had quite a bit in common with these folks and was a very pleasant 45 minutes spent warming ourselves with their hospitality by their fireplace.

One hour, many pats of the puppies, and one cuppa later, $130 poorer, with new bushels in our alternator, we were on our way. Our faith in human kindness restored, our wonder at the smallness of the world sparked, our bellies and fingers warmed, and a renewed sense of optimism about our plans.

We were a good two hours late getting to our accommodation by this time, but the really nice manager was absolutely fantastic about being hauled out of bed at midnight to book us in and give us our key laughing off my apologies and offering to split our bill for the week into two payments to help free up some cash for us until we got paid again.

So, hubs is as work, TJ and I are catching a few extra zzz’s before heading out to spend a solid few days harassing real estate agents into showing us more houses, and organising his school transfer and everything is good.

It’s amazing the difference that the kindness of a few individuals can make to a situation when you are stressed.

Now if  a house would just fall into our laps we’d be all set!

to be as absent minded and clutzy as I am…

Take Friday for example.

I go to school to watch TJ get an award at assembly for being such a great classroom community member.

I meet up with one of the chicks who will be taking over my role as clothing pool coordinator and show her my domain.

I promptly lock the school’s copy of the clothing pool room key AND TJ’s merit award in the clothing pool room  and am unsure where my own key is.

Thankfully my key surfaced today.

But still, my kind of skills are teh awesome!

Do your kids have a favourite toy or comfort blanket?

Something that had to be carted everywhere, was a drama to wash or repair and that they just wouldn’t sleep without?

Meet Teddies.

Teddies is a Winne the Pooh and Tigger light-weight doona (comforter) that we bought TJ when he was still a wee babe.

As a toddler he just loved it. It was so warm and soft and snugly. He started calling it Teddies because it had Winnie the Pooh on it who he also called Teddies (cos all bears were teddies) and the name stuck.

Now Teddies got dragged everywhere with him. All over the house and yard, in the sandpit, playing tug war with the dog etc though we had to swap it for it’s pillowcase to take to preschool for nap times as it was a bit big and bulky for his bag. It took some convincing to leave Teddies on  his bed and only take the pilowcase, but in time it worked. The pillowcase would also trek around the  yard, the shops, to Nan’s……. anywhere we went really. All that is left now is a ragged piece that I framed but he still has that doona.

Teddies is frequently the only thing on TJ’s bed. Doesn’t matter if it’s summer or winter, he’ll be curled up in a ball with Teddies wrapped up around his chest, shoulders and head (during winter we just chuck extra blankets of top of him). When he was littler on days that I had washed Teddies TJ would frequently disappear. Once we’d convinced him to stop pulling Teddies off the line and let him dry, I’d always find him sitting on a stool under the clothesline with the thumb from one hand in his mouth and the other hand pressing Teddies to the side of his face.

Teddies is always the first thing TJ packs into his suitcase to take on trips even if it means not having enough room for clothes. Teddies is also a bugger for inducing thumb sucking in a boy who has otherwise outgrown it. He only does it these days when sitting somewhere with Teddies up near his face.

Unfortunately Teddies is now getting so old and worn that he no longer provides much warmth.

And I’m getting afraid to wash him for fear he’ll fall apart.

But TJ still won’t give him up.

I’m not sure what we are going to do when he finally falls completely apart.

TJ’s loose teeth that is, not my own.

He cannot tolerate loose teeth in his mouth. If they have the slightest wobble they HAVE TO come out AS. SOON. AS. POSSIBLE!

Why?

Because they annoy him.

Yesterday morning he discovered that one of his molars was loose. Stupid me didn’t think it was wobbly enough to come out for a few days yet.

Last night he was so determined to stop it annoying him that he pulled it out snapping part of the offending tooth off at the gum line.

This is the first time he’s broken one of his teeth off in his attempts to remove them.

He has freaked my mother out before though pulling a tooth out while at her house. Bled like a stuck pig that time.

He’s also done it at school before too bloodying up one of his books.

Thankfully the rest of them have been at home where the only person he’s been able to freak out is me.

Because I feel like less of a bad parent when the only person he freaks out is me dontchya know!

This is the first loose molar with all the rest still to go.

Sigh.

Can’t I just have TJ put to sleep and all his baby teeth removed at once?

A week to celebrate all that is good about books and reading and imagination.

Those celebrations often include character parades where children are invited to dress up as their favourite character from their favourite book.

Being the awesome mummy that I am I did of course make help TJ make a kick-arse costume……….

Presenting for your book character loving pleasure Tom, son of Taladon the Swift. Hero of Avantia!

You may (or may not) recall me posting early last year about finding a series of books that captured TJ’s imagination and really helped get him motivated to read. The series of books has turned into multiple series and we are steadily working our way through them so the main hero of the tales was a natural choice for TJ’s choice of character to dress up as.

I’ll explain his shield for you. In the first series ‘Beast Quest’ Tom has to find and defeat the six beasts of Avantia which have been turned evil by a dark wizard and are now terrorizing the realm instead of protecting it. As Tom defeats each beast they are released from the wizard’s spell, return to the ‘good side’ again and give Tom a gift that imparts mystical powers.  Each gift is placed in/on Tom’s shield.

Ferno the fire dragon gives Tom a scale that protects him from fire, Sepron the sea serpent gives Tom a piece of tooth that protects Tom from rapid water and drowning, Arcta the mountain giant gives him an eagle feather that protects Tom from falling from heights, Tagus the horseman gives Tom a horseshoe fragment that enables Tom to travel very fast, Nanook the snow monster gives him an enchanted bell that protects Tom from icy winds and extreme cold, and lastly Epos the flame bird gifts Tom with an enchanted talon that heals wounds.

Didi you get all that? lol

Why yes. I did make everything except the feather from aluminium foil. And yes. I was too lazy to paint them any other colour. lol But I also made his green tunic and a scabbard for his sword!

At least he’ll have  to plenty to talk about when it’s his turn to explain his character choice and costume

on red licorice – we’ve always known that TJ had problems with food colourings.

We also know that TJ is fairly well trained in what he can and can’t eat.

He knows he can’t have things with artificial colours. We’ve all heard him question brightly coloured foods or he’s come home from school to tell me that they are having such and such for a treat at school tomorrow and he told Mr O he can’t have that so Mr O said to bring his own. He is very conscientious about the whole thing for a ten year old boy.

BUT

He is only ten and bound to goof up from time to time or to want to experiment or to just do what all the other kids are doing (eating red licorice) and that’s ok. I just wish he’d done it closer to school holidays or in school holidays when it’s not going to interfere with his ability to concentrate at school and only drive me nuts with the extra fidgeting and noise making. lol

It’s funny though. When one of our kids is acting vague, fidgety, extra noisy, extra silly, extra clumsy or moody the first question we ask is “what have they been eating?”. Food choices are THAT important in our house to our kid’s behaviour. Well to the eldest and youngest ones anyhow, the middle one can eat whatever she likes till the cows come home with no ill effect.

It does make the two that react hyper, which is often followed by a period of hypo behaviour. Hyper and hypo and increased impulsivity I can handle and they can handle fairly well too. That tends to pass within a few days to a week and is done with. They are just either a lot more active, fidgity and noisey to start with them more lethargic and harder to get moving to finish with.

The fuzzy headed  bit is not that they are hypo, but rather that their brain function is interfered with. They can’t think as clearly, mix stuff up more easily, are more forgetful, distracted, less able to follow instructions. Basically it takes all TJ and Lou’s learning difficulties and multiplies them by ten. We call it being fuzzy headed.

Even after the initial hyper and resulting hypo behaviour have passed the fuzzy headedness can remain for up to a month depending on how badly their system is out of whack and that is a big problem. After a little bit the kids notice it themselves that they aren’t thinking as clearly as usual. They grow increasingly frustrated with themselves which leads into them becoming increasingly moody, emotional and down on themselves. Not a nice time for anyone.

No our kids do not have ADHD.

I know this because we’ve had them checked for it seeing as how it runs in my side of the family (two brothers, father and various uncles all classic examples of the condition) but bad food choices can make it seem like they do (which makes me wonder how many kids out there are incorrectly diagnosed and on medication as a result of bad diets?)

TJ has the strongest reaction to food colourings. Miss Lou reacts to food colourings and preservatives and salicylates and she’s lactose intolerant and she had free food range for the years she was living with the freak so isn’t taking very kindly to being told now that she shouldn’t be eating red licorice or drinking blue slush puppies.

I know I have it a lot easier than other parents do with their gluten/dairy/nut/etc allergic or intolerant kids. I don’t have to make/bake everything from scratch and source alternative flours and other ingredients and it’s a lot easier to find some alternatives in the supermarket these days than it was 14 years ago when we first started eliminating foods from Lou’s diet but still, finding out recently that Aldi was banning some of the worst food colourings from their Aldi branded foods was welcome news.

The food colourings Tartrazine (102), Quinoline Yellow (104), Sunset Yellow (110), Carmoisine (122), Ponceau Red (124) and Allura Red (129) are being reported can be as detrimental to children’s development as lead according to a study published in the medical journal The Lancet in Septeber 2007.

Think about that for a minute.

Lead.

We all know how dangerous that can be.

We could be inadvertently poisoning our children with all this crap that has been added to their foods to make it ‘look better’.

And I haven’t even started on the preservatives.

Actually I get the willies just thinking about all the unnecessary crap in all our food.

I would encourage everyone to think about how many chemicals your household consumes in a day. Even if you don’t think your child is affected by food additives you may find yourself taking care of or entertaining a child who is.

If one of my kids came to play with your kids would they be safe to eat the food at your house?

TJ has been vague as all hell the past few days.

So vague that his not-so-observant dad even noticed and asked me what was wrong with him.

We asked him to get the broom which was propped up against the back shed and he came back inside half an hour later with eggs. His crippled sister asked him to get her a drink and he was found half an hour later with the mongrel marauder playing cars in his bedroom.  His shoes, glasses, and socks were almost impossible to find all weekend and his hair was reminiscent of a bird’s nest. He perfectly fit the picture of our very own (mini) absent minded professor.

On Saturday after yet another round of bungled instructions and fuzzy headed mayhem we pin him down (literally) and ask him what he’s been eating at school.

His sheepish answer – Red Licorice.

At which point we kicked his arse (figuratively).

Yes, he has felt a bit fuzzy headed he says.

We gasped in mock horror at that statement before kicking his arse (figuratively) again.

I wonder if I can get his name added to the list of ‘Do not sell this to these kids” on the school canteen wall?

I know it’s not life threatening, it’s not going to make him sick, but the loss of attention and ability to process instructions is incredibly frustrating for all concerned.

I found myself warning his English teacher this morning that she may not get much work out of him today. Or the rest of this week for that matter.

Hopefully the red colourings will have soon worked their way out of his system and all will be back to normal or the next few weeks are going to pretty much be a write off from a learning perspective………. except for that red licorice is teh evil zombie boy maker and the only cure is not to eat it!

Now where is the canteen manager’s phone number…………..

My 12 year old has a new fascination

She did not realise that pop corn did not come from one of these

but could in fact be made by putting these

into a suitably sized saucepan with a little oil and heating

“This is how we made popcorn in the olden days” I jokingly told her.

A fact she proudly repeated to her brother this evening.

Meh,

Whatever

but it sure is funny watching them come running to watch the kernels popping in the saucepan everytime I make some more!

with regard to the whole moving thing, a spanner gets thrown into the works.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still boxes everywhere, but not near as many and I was starting to feel like we were making some headway.

Poor TJ though has decided that he really doesn’t like his room.

He’s always looking for an excuse not to sleep in it. For the past few nights he’s been sleeping in his sister’s room while she’s bunked in with me.

He has a night light. He has his electric blanket. He has his music. His room is mostly unpacked. He just doesn’t like it.

We tried sitting down with him to talk about why he doesn’t like it and he says ‘the walls are rough’. I don’t know what to say to that.

I think the problem may be more something to do with that if he does wake up through the night that it’s not a straight run down to our room like it was in the old house (where his room was actually further away from ours). In this house he has to make a few turns and light his way as he goes. For a kid who is still scared of the dark that’s a big deal. I’m also wondering if being closest to the sliding glass back door is also wigging him out a little.

We are going to have to do a bedroom swap giving CJ the bigger back bedroom and TJ her smaller front one that is right across the hall from ours.

Argh! More moving!

Showing off his first place award for his piano recital piece at eistedfodd on Tuesday

ahhh my boy……… today we leave the ‘little’ years behind and enter double digits! The big TEN today!

No longer just my little man, but becoming a young man. And a fine one at that.

I love that you have just as much fun playing the piano or playing board games with your mum as you do playing footy with your mates, playing the Wii or hanging with the guys at the fire station.

taking the field

Other people comment to me that they can see you maturing before their eyes and about how responsible you are. They tell me how you never talk badly to or about anyone and always show concern for others. Your teachers tell me how you always try, even when you get frustrated and I beam with quiet pride. Things aren’t always easy for you my son, but you do try and you are greatly compassionate and caring towards others and we couldn’t ask for anything more.

I have to say that I am enjoying having my affectionate child back again after the feral horror that was 8 and 9.

And even though you keep hugging your sisters  to freak them out, just be aware that they really do like them and will need genuine ones somedays

But I still say that we need to put bricks on your head to slow down your growth because after you grew 3 cm’s in a bit over a week last week and make me feel like old mother hubbard with no food left in the cupboards…….. I have no idea how we are going to feed you as a teen! Perhaps we can hire you out to wasteful families as a food disposal unit?

‘Mu-um’ I can hear you say

*shrugs*

I’m just thinking out loud…………..

Besides, if you don’t like the idea of bricks on your head or becoming a food disposal for hire then you’d best bring back lots of gold from your school excursion to the gold fields today! lol