Taking time

Life with three 5 and under is busy. Doing what? Well a lot of the time I couldn't tell you, but I suspect at least half the time involves making food and eating it and the bulk of the rest some sort of 'settling', be it putting a baby to bed or simply refereeing the older two. I know there are people with more kids than me, people who work, or care for parents, or study etc. People who are maybe more organised...either way, three at home, together, all at once, each and every day - well let's just say the good times don't stop. It's a special type of crazy.

There are all sorts of requests, and the usual 'wait a minute', 'when the baby has a nap', 'just let me finish making dinner', or 'I just want to sit down and have this ONE cup of tea, MUMMY HASN'T EVEN EATEN TODAY YET, DID YOU KNOW THAT??!!! It really.and.truly never.ends. Throw in the washing, the cleaning (the what?), the endless bills and paperwork that mama takes care of. The grocery shopping, the kinder drop offs, the phone calls that can only be made when the baby is sleeping (or screeching in my ear). Getting the picture now?

Each day I try my best to sit down and do *something* with the kids. Read a story, jump on the trampoline, colour in or a bit of lego. Often days we don't make it. It's not so much that it's not a priority - it's just that everything else is too and sometimes it seems that the minute I am seated, poised at the ready to do something with the kids, the baby wakes, the phone rings, someone needs a drink.

On special days it all comes together. I get a chance to deliver on my promises. They really don't want me for much - are happy just to have mama watch and offer occasional assistance (that meccano is HARD)...but gosh I enjoy it so much that I wonder why I don't bump everything else daily for a bit of quiet, quality time with my lovelies.

Hold the gluten, please

Recently we have become a mostly gluten free household.

Did I mention F was having kinder settling in troubles? Probably not - we didn't have the net then. Well of course we had just moved, which is quite unsettling in and of itself, but I just felt there was something more to some of the meltdowns and behaviour we were experiencing. On an intuitive level it seemed to me there was something chemical involved. An underlying intolerance of some sort.

We are not a total stranger to food intolerances in this household. Fortunately nothing life threatening, although DH does suffer terrible hayfever each season and F seems to have inherited this amongst other things. I know how miserable I am with a head cold or heavenforbid sinusitis - so to suffer for literally months on end...well let's just say I'd be pretty grumpy and emotional too. We have tackled this in the past by limiting cow's milk when colds and hayfever hit and substituting with goat's milk or soy.

Anyway I digress. With the behaviours we were experiencing lately, I decided to try cutting wheat out of F's diet. This is a kid who would fall at my feet in tears if we ran out of bread and always choose a sandwich as a snack. On one hand, he may just be someone who loves bread, but to me, the response was so extreme, and immediate, well suffice to say it didn't sit well with me.

Initially we weren't super strict with avoiding wheat, just sticking to the main and obvious culprits such as bread and weetbix, but slowly it seemed to me F was more emotionally balanced. A few obvious slips, and the effect seemed almost instantaneous, and certainly there was a lingering emotional upset for a few days.

Because things have settled down a fair bit at home we couldn't be certain it was the dietary aspect of things improving F's mood but nevertheless for the last fortnight I don't recall F having any wheat, except for one day (an ice cream cone) and one ensuing mini meltdown. He has been truly a changed boy. Nothing or no-one could get him down. He has been happy, co-operative, agreeable and taken my 'no's' and any setbacks in his stride. It has been an amazing (and welcome) change. I'm sure he feels better too.

This weekend we had a few slips because we were out both days and lunch involved bread. Yesterday and today were definitely more challenging behaviour wise.

I know there are sceptics out there because I see it on their faces when I mention it. This isn't an exact science, and over time we may find the issue resolves itself...but for now we are going to stay mostly gluten free. For F and his well being, how could we deny him the opportunity to be his best self? Definitely it would be easier in many ways to pretend there's no problem - eating out can be difficult. But seriously the results are impossible to ignore.

Show day

We took the kids to the Red Hill Show today. It was the perfect day for it and the kids had a blast. Food was yummy too. I wish I'd taken some photos of the alpacas to share with you but my hands were always full with either a baby or a pram! DH took a few though (no alpacas...he obviously didn't see the appeal hehe)

On a lighter note...

Well sorry, I didn't mean to get all heavy or anything! I find venting my spleen once in a while quite cathartic...and no doubt I'm not the only person who finds the whole online friendship ambiguity difficult at times (ever tried to explain to someone who doesn't use the net who those people you feel you 'know' from the internet are?)



Anyway enough of that for now.

We wagged kinder to try to arrest the cold that is going around the house. I spent most of my time in the kitchen making chicken noodle soup for lunch, stew for tomorrow evening, and homemade fish and chips and coleslaw for dinner.




In between I did the usual settling of the baby. She is sooo teething...gah...



I never managed to make a dent in the housework - but that is life at home with 3 kids 5 and under...I really do think if they are fed and alive at the end of the day I am doing well (clean is a bonus).

My kids eat well. They certainly don't miss out on anything, although I do try to avoid most conventional 'lollies' and crap. Plenty of time for all that. I love that they consider this slushie a treat.





Excitement of the day (look away if you have an aversion to dead critters) was finding this fellow. This guy was moving. Dead and moving. You know what that means. He has been shovelled and quadruple bagged along with the larvae who made him home.

Finding the balance

I confess - I am a hopeless internet addict.

It all started years ago when I was living in a foreign country with no family, few friends and a partner who worked 12 hour shifts. For the lonely homebody the internet is a boon to be sure. The thing is I never have really been a lonely homebody - at least not until I moved overseas.

When I became pregnant I immediately joined Babycenter and jumped into an online forum (around this time I think I even used to frequent a Bold and the Beautiful forum *gasp*, as well as one for stepparents). Others like mothering.com followed. I eventually tired of my 'due date' group on Babycenter...but it's not as if I knew people on there in real life anyway. And for me these days, being part of the net really is wanting to meet people and participate in real life - a means to an end if you will. That's not to suggest being online and communicating via a keyboard isn't very real for many people. But honestly...I'm looking for relationships where I can pick up the phone, or have somebody call me, make plans to meet etc.

I love that there are people interstate or overseas who can comment on my blog and me on theirs - but if you live up the street from me and don't want to sit down and have a cuppa in person well what does that say?

Nearly five years ago I moved back to Australia - my home, with all sorts of expectations of picking up old threads of my life. Of course before I moved overseas I'd been single and sans child - and whilst my life here in Australia was freeze framed for me, friends lives had gone on during that time. A few friendships endured, and these will be my forever friends, but with a young child it was the company of mamas I most craved and sought out.

Through local forums I made some new and dear friends. People I care about but don't often get to see.

It's hit the point now though, where I feel like I travel on the periphery of some of these social networking groups, even though I've been a part of them for years now. Surely it would be more advantageous to be living my life, than watching other people live theirs? Here I was thinking I was a part of something, a participant - when really for the most part I'm just an observer, a lurker even.

I know I'm skirting around the point of this post. Suffice to say being without the internet for a month or so when we moved really wasn't such a bad thing. I need to find a way to pull back again and try to redress the imbalance.

Namesake

Did I ever tell you this was my baby girl's namesake?

Neko Case - a favourite and beautiful singer in this household...who also connects us to our time in Canada...love her! She is magic and mesmerising live.

Ditching the disposeables

Well after being a die hard cloth nappy type for almost 5 years, I confess I have had N in sposies for a couple of months now. It started about the time we started showing the old house and I just didn't want to have to keep on top of cloth nappies and smells emanating from the bathroom during showings!

It's easy enough to get hooked as they never seemed to leak, and I felt I could go out and about with just one trim spare in my hand bag. With the move and everything it's taken awhile for me to feel settled enough to handle an extra load or two of washing every few days so I've just kept with the disposeables. Not to mention N is a chubster and many of my naps have done four lots of bums now (have been loaned to friends etc) so even the ones that did fit were looking kind of shabby.

Enough is enough though really. Forget the money, and the little bits of gel stuck to Neeksie's hide...forget the fact that disposeable wipes don't work nearly as well as cloth ones. Nope the thing that really irked me the most was the rubbish. Honestly our rubbish output has doubled in the times I've been using disposeables, and it just feels so wrong to me to wrap up a nappy and chuck it in the bin. What a waste!

Don't get me wrong - I'm not casting judgement here. If you use paper nappies happily, more power to you but I'm ready to get back to cloth myself! So I've sorted out the shabby from the not so shabby and the ones that fit from the ones that don't...and heck if I have to buy a few hundred $$ worth of new cloth naps so be it, because I'll still be ahead of the game financially when all is said and done, and best of all our bin won't be overflowing once a day!

House Pix

OK you asked for it (Sif lol), so here is a picture heavy post. For some people perhaps this is just an old 50's house - but as I've said before, for me it's a dream come true.

I grew up with just mum and for several teenage years I not only shared a bedroom with my mum but a bed! I didn't think of us as 'poor' because really I had everything I could possibly need, but nor did I ever think of myself as grown up with a proper house because even when I did have my own bedroom mum and I mostly lived in flats or units (no yard).

So I've always wanted a house with some character, and most of all a beautiful yard. The beauty of the house is that all the rooms (bar one really) look out to the yard which has established trees and hedges. I love that even on a hot day some shade can always be found. The upstairs rooms actually span the depth of the house and have windows to the front and the back. This means that even though I'm in a much bigger house than before I can still monitor the kids in the yard which is important.

Anyway the house suits us perfectly.



Living room facing South (out the back)



Living room facing North (out the front)



Kitchen cupboards





Playroom (will become a dining room in years to come)



M's bed northside



F's bed southside



My two lovelies playing (conspiring!)



Looking out from upstairs balcony room (beach in background, Seaford maybe?)



Upstairs spare room



Patio outside living room looking over backyard



Back of house



Cheeky girl

I don't know where she finds the time!

Yeah that's me. Avoiding all the stuff I *should* be doing...ah well...saving the household some $$ by dyeing my own.

I'm Ba-ack!!

Oh so happy to finally have broadband! Oh so happy to be able to sit here and say hello :)!

Well the move went as good (or as bad...we almost lost a cat) as it could have. I could write an entire essay on the virtues or lack thereof of furntiture removalists - but suffice to say we are here, we have moved and we LOVE it.

The house has all manner of things wrong with it. The big rains last weekend culminated in a puddle inside the house, which I'm sure you would agree isn't quite right...honestly though it still is my dream house and I feel like a very lucky person to be here. There's enough room to have a mess if you like..(and just a bit too much room to avoid it to be perfectly plain). Oh and the kids and the pets, well they too seem to be in their element!

I'm loving the area too, only stepping out of it once in the last month to visit a friend and the market, but otherwise I'm quite at ease on the insular peninsula as it has been referred to by others!

Today we had a lovely afternoon at our neighbours a few doors down. This is a neighbour who brought me a cake* and roses from her garden the Sunday after we moved in! After holding on to her plate for a fortnight I thought I best not return it empty, so left it on her step with Anzacs last weekend. It was great to meet some more of our neighbours at a casual afternoon tea at her place, and the kids were quite rapt to run around with some bigger kids in her back yard. 'Twas just so nice. To think we lived at our old place for some three years and had next to no contact with our neighbours and here we are a month in and have thrice enjoyed each others hospitality...

*just to be clear the cake was not from her garden, just the flowers