Andrew wants to die a slow painful death ...

or maybe that's just my interpretation of the way he keeps reminding me of my, in his opinion, extremely advanced age.

Example one:

"I'll help you set up your sewing machine Mum. I know how to thread them and everything."

"OK but be careful. My machine is a bit different from the ones at school."

"You're telling me! Wow, this thing is ancient! Does it plug in or do you have to pedal it?"


Example two:

"Mum, did you watch this program when you were my age?"

"No darling. It wasn't around then."

"Oh. What did you watch?"

"Whatever my parents wanted to watch because we only had one TV."

"Oh. Were you guys like poor or something?"

"No darling. We just had one lounge room and that's where the TV was."

"One lounge room and one TV? I'm so glad I didn't live in the olden days!"


Example three:

"Mum did you have electricity when you were little or did you have to use candles for lights and go to bed when it got dark?"

"Yes we had electricity and we only used candles when it wasn't working .. same as we do now."

"Wow! Electricity really has been around for a long time hasn't it?"


After delivering these little gems, he usually looks at me with an innocent face before registering my reaction, then running for the relative safety of his room before I come over all weak and decrepit and start demanding my dinner at 4 o'clock in the afternoon with "it had better be mushed up so my poor old teeth can take it sonny boy" added for good measure.

Now I know why my mother always looked so upset when I asked her about what type of dinosaur she rode to school.

Kids .. gotta love 'em (I think it's a law!)

I have no idea what I'm doing here so I'm just going to ramble for a while ...

I'm feeling the urge to update this little ol' blog but can't think of anything interesting to update it with. And by 'update', I mean write something wonderfully witty or at least faintly funny (shows how sad things are at the moment, I'm resorting to alliteration to satisfy my OCDness!) As nothing is presenting itself for inspection, I'll just have to resort to giving you the rundown on school holidays so far ...

Saturday/Sunday: Now I know lots of people don't regard Saturdays and Sundays as part of the school holidays, as they are days we would normally be responsible for our own offspring. I do count them because of the slight major attitude change that takes place at the final siren on the last day of school. It seems to change the children into some sort of otherwordly creatures .. a kind of a cross between a sloth and a locust .. you know, something that wants to lie around all day yet still manages to consume every food-like item in your kitchen, seemingly by osmosis as they don't appear to move, all the while complaining that there's nothing to eat.

So now we have that clear, Saturday and Sunday went almost exactly as expected for the first days of the holidays .. minor skirmishes as they re-established the pecking order of the home, then all out warfare for control of the TV remote.

Monday was better as there was a small amount of extra oestrogen, in the form of Debbie's daughter Amy, to help ease the testosterone overload. They all played (relatively) well together with no blood, broken bones or trips to the emergency room and I even got some biscuits made for me! Actually they weren't specifically for me but my house, my kitchen, my ingredients, therefore my biscuits! Seems fair to me...

Today, I managed to drag myself bounce joyfully out of bed, get dressed before 8am and was writing an appointment I had just remembered on the calendar, when I noticed that the boys had a dentist appointment at 9am. Figuring I still had plenty of time, I woke Alex for the first time and sent the other 2 to have breakfast and give their teeth an extra good brushing.

At 8:30am, I woke Alex again telling him we were leaving in 10 minutes and that he had to be up and dressed with his teeth brushed properly. We finally left at 8:50am and arrived in plenty of time after freezing ourselves half to death in the car. (Don't you hate it when the car trip is not long enough to heat the engine and therefore the heater doesn't work?)

Got the dentist over and done with (nobody needs any fillings .. yay!) then decided that seeing as we were already all dressed and out of the house, we may as well do a couple of things on my to-do list.

We went to a favourite plant nursery of mine (wholesale prices for much larger/healthier plants than at the local hardware store) and got a load of plants to try and make the house look a bit more presentable for sale. Then it was on to Spotlight (fabric/craft/haberdashery store) for some curtain material for the ensuite, bathroom and toilet (again with the 'more presentable' thing). Just happened to find myself in the scrapbooking section after buying the curtain material .. not at all sure how that happened! .. and spotted a border punch I've been trying to find for a while. Treated my self and then treated the boys at McDonald's for lunch as they had behaved themselves beautifully all morning.

After finishing lunch I felt all inspired to get outside, despite the cold (still only 12 degrees according to the radio news), so of course I dragged the boys along with me. They helped me weed, shift excess dirt and plant most of the new plants. The ones that weren't planted have been given a lovely drink of wetta-soil and placed in the sun for some warmth. Now all I have to do is get some mulch to keep the weeds away and it will look lovely.

Now I think I should spend the rest of the afternoon trying to find my sewing machine and dig through the deep dark recesses of my mind for the ability to use it, so that I can honestly say I have done something towards selling the house. Though exactly how a toilet curtain is going to sell the house I'm not sure but .. meh .. it sounded impressive just for a second!

Hope you're all surviving the school holidays!!

Oh yay .. it's school holidays!

19 days of fun-filled, full-on, in-my-face time with the boys (I'll leave it up to you to determine whether I'm being sarcastic or not!) and it all started so well ...

I had, when in a state of mind most people call insanity, offered to have a friend's two boys over yesterday afternoon after work/school to entertain play with my three boys. Then a different friend rang and asked if I could have her daughter for the afternoon as she had an appointment. No worries said I breezily and made appropriate arrangements for food and drink, causing the lady behind me in the supermarket queue to ask if I was a scout leader or something. After assuring her that the quantity of snacks was only for six children, she launched into protracted praise of mothers with more than the standard 2.4 children and congratulated me on bucking the trend. It was quite sad to see her face when I informed her that only 3 of the children were mine and that the other 3 were 'blow-ins' for the day.

The mother of the two boys came and collected them at 5:30pm after only a few instances of raised voices and threats of bodily harm (which I stopped making when I realised the neighbours were listening!) and then settled in to enjoy a lovely chat with the second friend (we'll call her Debbie .. Hi Deb!) over an extremely healthy dinner.

During the afternoon/evening, there had been some conspiring amongst the children and after some cute puppy-dog-eye looks, Andrew ended up spending the night at Debbie's house. I arranged to collect him at around 9:30am and went off to bed at a relatively decent hour for a great night's sleep and sleep-in the next morning.

After a bit of a mad panic to get out of my clown pants pyjamas, I went on my way to collect Drew, leaving the other two at home with strict instructions to stack the dishwasher before I returned, knowing full well that it would probably still be sitting there emptier than my bank account at Christmas time when I finally deigned to re-appear. A girl has to have dreams, right?

Anyway, I collected Andrew and headed to Kmart to attempt to lay-by some items for Christmas (mission accomplished), checked out the clothes sale at Miller's (nothing caught my eye enough to make me buy it) and then headed for home to make the children work spend some quality time with the children outside in the backyard.

Alex managed to start the lawnmower and mow the lawn; Bradley and I swept the patio area and got rid of some things things that had just been hanging around and Andrew pulled some weeds and helped Alex with the emptying of the lawnmower catcher. Very productive effort with a lovely result .. the patio and backyard look much better. Everyone worked well together with very few arguments discussions as to the merits of particular methodologies.

After finishing up, I told the boys the rest of the afternoon was theirs and set them free. Of course they all immediately headed back inside (I think I'm raising vampires!) and to the comfort of their electronic entertainment.

Things then took a turn for the worse when Alex tripped over his laptop computer, which was on the floor in the TV room after being told repeatedly not to leave it there, and has now broken it beyond any sense of redemption I could offer. The only thing that would have kept him away from his brothers, yet still occupied, has now gone to laptop heaven.

He has spent the last half an hour crying and throwing himself very dramatically onto his bed (silent movie heroines have nothing on this kid and his over acting abilities!) but is now laughing maniacally at something his brothers are doing .. one extreme to the other in ten seconds flat .. welcome to my world!

So now, as I sit here listening to the replacement washing machine trying to remodel my house by knocking out a few walls, I am in a bit of a quandary:

Do I attempt to have his laptop fixed to save my sanity over the next 18 days or do I let him suffer this natural consequence?

Do I spend money on getting the laptop fixed or on Valium and other sedatives to get us all through the next 18 days?

Or do I just give up and go chocolate myself to death?

Hmmmmm? Which option people? Let me know what you think ... please??!!

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... because if you lie on the floor and pretend the ceiling is the floor, everything looks so much cleaner and tidier.

Except for the chocolate milk stain near the dining table (too much vigorous shaking resulting in a minor explosion) and the shoe print on Andrew's ceiling (put there by Alex when it was his room) and the numerous daddy-long-legs spiders that have taken up residence in every available corner and the fact that the now-ceiling has oodles of stuff on it making it very uncomfortable to lie on and that seems to be defying gravity to create an obstcle course of mammoth proportions and ... let's just leave it there shall we?

I have enough to do today as it is!

I'm back ...

... working at the canteen, for the next two weeks anyway!

The canteen manager called me on Wednesday and asked me to work Thursday to which I said yes, of course. Any extra money is good money! While I was at work on Thursday, she then asked me if I would be able to work Friday as well. Once again, I said yes with all the speed of the Road Runner .. beep beep! .. and thought to myself how great it would be if I could work at least one day a week for the next two weeks, as we could really use the money at the moment, but at the same time resigning myself to that not happening.

You can probably guess where this is going by now, but for those who aren't with the program (hurry up people!) today I was asked to work three days a week for the last two weeks of term, which just happen to be the next two weeks. So as of next week, I'll be working Monday, Thursday and Friday while I continue my search for a 'real' job (one that involves more than 18 hours a week and hopefully heaps of extra money!)

Speaking of searching for jobs, I have just found the perfect one for me so please cross all applicable body parts and send good vibes my way. Cheers!!

Brain teaser time

See if you can figure out what these words have in common:

1. Banana
2. Dresser
3. Grammar
4. Potato
5. Revive
6. Uneven
7. Assess

Are you peeking or have you already given up? Give it another try.

Look at each word carefully.

You'll kick yourself when you discover the answer!

Scroll Down ...





Answer:

In all of the words listed, if you take the first letter off, place it at the end of the word and then spell the word backwards, it will be the same word.

And today's mascot is ...

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The good, the bad and the just plain annoying

The good:

We are in the process of cleaning up around the house to try to make it more saleable so that we can pursue my dream of building a house that will be miles too big when the kids leave home but won't ever be big enough 'til then.

After checking out the laundry side of the house, with my eyes open for a change, I realised just how many triffids weeds there were and decided to put Alex to work helping me clear them out. Whilst he approached this task with all the enthusiasm of someone going into surgery to remove their brain via their rectum without anesthetic, we have managed to achieve a lot. We have filled the trailer to overflowing and apparently now I need to take it to the tip and empty it by myself, because he has 'other things' to do. Hopefully one of them is to study for the exams he has to sit as soon as he gets back to school ...

Anyway, what started out as a punishment, in conjunction with the suspension, has turned into some good one-on-one time together, where we are discussing anything and everything (when I can get my brain to keep up with his!)


The bad:

The usual worry about whether I'm doing enough to help Alex, the endless list of things to do and trying to find a job.

The just plain annoying:

Our fence was damaged in a storm (for those Perthites .. THE storm) back in March and the neighbours and I have been trying to get someone to fix it pretty much since then.

We had a few guys come out and give quotes, who surprisingly enough were on time and which weren't inflated past the stratosphere, but when it came time for them to come out and do the actual job, they all seemed to vanish quicker than chocolate during PMS time.

"I'll call you when I can fit you in."

"Next Wednesday .. definitely."

"Sorry. Can't make it then. Have to make it Tuesday .. week after never."

"What do you mean this is an insurance job? I don't want to wait for my money."

So in which part of "I need a quote for my INSURANCE company to be able to replace my damaged fence" did he hear "Sure. I have a spare three-and-a-half thousand dollars just sitting around for you to have up front"? Because I'm positive that I said the words 'insurance claim' at least four times during our conversation and specifically asked if he was OK with dealing with the insurance company at least twice. (Can you tell I've been burned before?)

Yet he still managed to misunderstand and rang me the night before he was due to start, to tell me that cash was preferable for the full payment, due as soon as the job was completed. When I said that I didn't have access to that much cash, he said to ring him when I had it all together and then he would be out to do the job.

At that point (Wednesday evening), I gave up on him and rang someone else who was only too happy to take an insurance job and who could fit me in Friday. I then spoke to the neighbour to let him know what was going on, only to find out that all four guys had rung him on Wednesday wanting to do the job on Friday. Never rains but it pours!

So ultimately the whinge is what is so hard about doing the job for the agreed price, under the agreed conditions on the agreed date? Apparently all of it!

One step forward ...

... and five steps back again!

Alex has been suspended from school .. again .. for having an altercation with another student. He is four years older than the other child, along with a few other factors that I would rather keep to myself, so the school has taken a rather dim view of things and suspended him for five days. We are very lucky that he wasn't just expelled this time, especially given his past history.

I totally understand the school's view on this and am in total agreement with the punishment, but I am struggling with what to do about his continuing impulse control issues. I have tried to seek a referral to a different doctor, to see whether changing medications or dosages would help but they are all so busy, we'll be waiting a while for an appointment, even with private health insurance.

When I went to pick him up from the school, I was able to have a 'chat' with him before the deputy principal came in. I didn't yell, threaten dire consequences or rant and rave. I simply sat down and told him how disappointed I was to receive another call from the school when he had been doing so well. I told him how using the excuse of "I have a bad temper" just wouldn't cut it in the real world after school and doesn't even cut it now.

It was about this point that I began to cry as I talked him through my fears of having a phone call or a visit from the police to say that they had him in custody for seriously hurting or killing someone. Or that he himself had been injured or killed as a result of an argument probably started over something small. And that I wasn't sure what to do to help him as I can't be there to watch over him every second of every day 'just in case'.

Please don't get me wrong .. I'm not trying to paint him as the innocent victim in all of this (not by any stretch of the imagination!) and am extremely grateful to the school for taking mitigating factors into consideration. I'm just at my wit's end and am totally out of ideas of what to do to help. I'm so tired of this constant fight with the world because most of the time it feels like I'm fighting him and not allowing him to just 'be'. I feel like I'm constantly having to defend his right to even be here.

I know that we all have to conform to a certain degree to survive in society and I'm scared that he won't be able to do it. I'm scared that he will always be like this and will be bounced from one bad situation to another and not have the skills to get himself out. I'm scared that he will end up being in the wrong place at the wrong time, because he can be so easily led down the wrong path without even realising it.

I'm terrified that I'm failing him; that I'm not doing enough to help him get the right skills to deal with these sorts of situations. That I should have pushed harder and earlier for help. That I should have done this or that differently. That I should just let him figure these things out on his own (but given the severity of this incident, that isn't really an option.) That it's all too hard and I want to just scream "Stop the world! I want to get off!!"

And then I look around me and see how I don't have it anywhere near as bad as some others. And I think I should be grateful that he is healthy, (overly) verbal, mainstream schooled, intelligent, capable, wonderful, loving, helpful and all the other good things that make him who he is .. and I am grateful. He is who he is, I love him and I will continue to fight for him.

I'm just so scared that I'm not enough and I won't be able to help him.

I'm just so tired of this battle.

And then there were two ...

... teenagers in the house!

Happy Birthday Drew!! (or do I have to start calling you Andy like everyone else does now that you're a teenager?)

It's another case of 'where has the time gone?' It seems like only yesterday .. OK maybe last week .. that he looked like this:

and now he looks like this: (protecting his birthday cake from everyone!)

At least he still wants to receive hugs from his dear old mum!

When he was asked what he would like for his birthday dinner, he very seriously replied that he would like to continue the 'tradition' of going to Sizzler with the extended family ... a 'tradition' that was started with Alex but I suppose they all have to start somewhere! Then he asked Peter "seeing as it's my birthday, can we take the (motor)bike to dinner?" After establishing that he didn't actually want to take it inside the restaurant for a meal "duh Mum!", we agreed that he could ride there with Peter but had to come home in the car with me. I also had to continue the tradition by making a cake and decorating it with a number 13 done in rainbow style with mini M&M's. Ta-dah ... the finished product:

We managed to get just about all the extended family together for dinner and all had a great time especially when it came to singing happy birthday... it's been a while since I saw him that embarrassed! After eating some cake and dessert .. hey it was a birthday party! .. we headed outside for a photo and then I made the executive decision that he could ride home on the bike too.

We're going to let him stay home from school tomorrow for a day out with Mum and Dad (another part of the tradition) and hopefully get him a decent watch that he can keep.

All in all, I'm very proud of the young man he's becoming (even with the occasional bit of attitude!) and hope that he continues to be true to himself. Love you Drew!!

Computers suck!

More precisely .. computer problems suck!

My desktop had been running more and more slowly over the past couple of weeks but I had put it down to the fact that the boys had always been on the 'net at the same time I was. Last Monday it decided to turn itself off in the middle of my morning blog reading session and hasn't been playing at all since then.

I tried using Alex's laptop but it didn't want to let me have access to my posting page, Andrew's laptop has the ominous blue screen of death appearing at random times and Bradley's laptop didn't have internet access so I have been unable to post for a while.

I have finally managed to get Bradley's laptop to talk to the internet and the printer so I am back .. when I can wrest it away from his vice-like grip. Apparently, playing games is ever so much more important than allowing your mother her internet fix.

After a little 'chat' (give Mummy the laptop or she will go even more crazy than usual!), he agreed to let me use it on the proviso that I "don't break it as well." According to him, I have the computer death touch .. I touch it too much and it dies. We have yet to negotiate exactly what constitutes too much but hopefully I will be able to get mine fixed before his dies. Then we can share again ... oh what joy!!

Thank you Brad for being nice to your internet-deprived mother and allowing me to hog your laptop while you are in bed! I promise I'll try not to kill it ....

And this is why my blog is called 'life, one day at a time'...

If you met Alex this afternoon, you would never guess he was the same changeling child teen that was causing me to want to tear my hair out just the other day. I realise this is the nature of a teenager, never knowing what you will get from one day to the next but it was nice to have my happy obedient child back, if only for an afternoon.

Alex doesn't have an aide officially assigned to him at school, as the structured environment does more to help than having someone constantly looking over his shoulder ever could. However, one of the special needs aides does check in with him and his teachers on a regular basis to ensure he is coping and fulfilling his homework obligations. She, angel that she is, also volunteers her own time one afternoon a week to help guide him in the right direction with any longer-than-overnight homework assignments. Betty drops him home after these 'study sessions' as she lives just around the corner and today stayed for a chat.

She started by praising Alex for the amount of work he had managed to achieve this afternoon and went on to give more praise for the vast improvement in quality. Without any prompting from either of us, he thanked her for her help then voluntarily went and finished the project he had been working on. I was flabbergasted and jokingly asked her what she had been feeding him during the afternoon to make him listen to her.

Her reply was "I didn't feed him anything and the only reason he listens to me is that I'm not you. Haven't you figured out that teenagers never listen to their own mothers?" We both laughed before she added "Anyway, he's a really good kid and has beautiful manners. You're definitely doing something right."

And that is what I mean about taking life one day at a time. Each day is a new opportunity start over and to remind yourself to rejoice in the good things.

A recipe ...

... for a lovely picnic for Mother's Day a very stressful day.

Ingredients;

Absent husband (due to being away for work)
Me
11 year old boy
almost 13 year old boy
14.5 year old boy ('Slightly' autistic is best. Even better if you can find one with ADD as well!)
My Mother
Sister and Brother-in-law

Method:

Mix Me, Mother and Sister together to make arrangements for a lovely day out at Araluen Botanic Park for a BBQ and picnic to celebrate Mother's Day. Bask in glow of expectation of nice day out, in good company, with good food.

For the week before, prepare 14.5 year old repeatedly for the prospect of going out in public with no electronic device to entertain him or bed to throw himself onto when he doesn't get his own way. Repeat process (and expectations of behaviour) numerous times in days leading up to minor 'obviously huge' event.

The night before, ensure that 'Me' gets little sleep, due to a bed-hogging 11 year old and a slightly totally psychopathic dog, who barks like the four horsemen of the apocalypse are trying to break in at 2:30AM, when it was just a pot plant waving in the breeze outside the window. Allow 'Me' to feel small amount of resentment towards peacefully slumbering children, especially the 11 year old who is hogging all the blankets and most of the space in a queen size bed.

Have 'Me' return to bed, only to toss and turn for at least an hour before finally falling asleep. Allow 11 year old and 12.5 year old to energetically wake 'Me' up at 7am with many hugs, kisses and several gratefully received and appreciated presents, followed by 14.5 year old making his way into the room resembling a drugged sloth soon after. Enjoy some family bonding time before going to have breakfast at McDonald's.

Have 'Me' fight through the crowds at the bakery to get the boys the treat food they have requested for the picnic then have a mild panic attack at the prospect of not being able to purchase the main item 'Me' was asked to bring: hot dog buns. Relax slightly when hot dog buns are found, then make trip to pick up 'Mother.'

Enjoy short visit with 'Mother' before 'Mother' being interrupted by a somewhat upsetting phone call. Console 'Mother' then corral boys and 'Mother' into car and drive to picnic destination. Endure constant repetition of "He's in my space", "He's touching me", "Now he's leaning on me", "Mum, make him stop touching me!", "I didn't touch you! I invaded your space but I didn't touch you!" from the boys and "how much longer?" from the voices in Me's head.

Park car and let out the passengers. Find nice picnic spot and settle in for quiet, enjoyable time. Upon review, realise that the 14.5 year old has managed to combine teenage attitude, over-stimulation by somewhat busy surroundings, a sense of deprivation at being removed from the usual mind-numbing electronic entertainment and mild hunger, with his autism and ADD.

Prepare 'Me' for 'not-quite-so-relaxing picnic' and then rapidly downgrade to 'Lord-grant-me-patience-because-if-you-give-Me-strength-he-will-die!' Make allowances, within reason, for 14.5 year old's repeated button pushing as well as physical pushing of 11 year old and almost 13 year old. Allow 14.5 year old to play in creek until large rocks start rising from water and landing too close to picnic table. Distract 14.5 year old and endeavour to keep entire party on even keel.

Soon after, adjust 'Me's mental state to one of 'ignore-ignore-ignore' then pray for people hogging BBQs to hurry up so 14.5 year old can be fed something other then simple sugars. Praise 'Mother' for pushing her way onto corner of BBQ plate, then curse laws preventing BBQ from being hot enough to cook sausages in less than 30 minutes. Finally mix 14.5 year old with food then pack up so 'Me' can retreat to sanctuary of friend's house.

Place boys and 'Mother' in car for return trip. Endure another round of "He's in my space", "He's touching me", "Now he's leaning on me", "Mum, make him stop touching me!", "I didn't touch you! I invaded your space but I didn't touch you!" from the boys before depositing 'Mother' at home.

Reluctantly decide that 'Me' would not be very good company right now, due to lack of sleep and homicidal tendencies and retreat to study to write long, whiny blog post. Insert occasional verbal outbursts about extreme level of noise and lack of chores being done, then stew for an hour or two. Cook dinner (or not!) then send boys to bed before their normal bed time. Sit back and try to enjoy 'Bones' on TV without falling asleep.

Happy Mother's Day!

Sometimes I ...

• ... don't answer the phone at home because I just want to be left alone.
• ... wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn't been able to have the kids (as the doctors predicted!)
• ... let people take advantage of my generous nature and I always end up angry at myself for letting them.
• ... wish I had travelled more on my own before settling down.
• ... hide special treat food from the kids just so I can have it to myself.
• ... wonder 'what if this is all there really is?'
• ... just have to laugh at the stupidity and ignorance of the people I seem to encounter on a regular basis, but only because homicide is still illegal.
• ... just don't want to and you can't make me!
• ... wonder when I got so cranky.

Let the bridge crossing commence.

Remember how I told all and sundry about my new job in this post? And how I was so happy to finally stop contributing to our financial decline be helping with the boys' school fees? Just in case you missed it (tsk, tsk!), here is part of the aforementioned post:

I will be working Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays for the rest of this term, unless the other part-timer wants the hours back, in which case I'm back on the scrap heap. Let's cross that bridge, climb that mountain, whatever else you can think of to symbolise 'getting over it', if and when we get there. Almost all the money I will now be getting paid will be going straight back to the school to pay the fees, but it's better than having to find it myself!

I would like to draw your attention the section I have oh-so-conveniently made bold for you. Apparently, she does and I will be at the end of the week.

I'm off to climb the mountain, cross the bridge and find some chocolate.

Oh Lindt, Lindt, wherefore art thou dearest Lindt?

I need to share some good news and vent as well!

Good news first:

I have been volunteering in the canteen at the boys' school for most of first term and was hoping to get a job there (oh so convenient!) when one of the other girls left at the end of the term. Unfortunately (for me) it was offered to another part-timer who already works in a different part of the school who, much to everyone's surprise, agreed to do it.

She had some health issues but thought that she would be able to cope with working the extra hours but, as she confided to me later, she hadn't realised how much standing up for 6 hours straight would affect her. She decided two weeks ago that she wasn't coping as well as she would like so told the bosses that she was just going to do her original job at which point we all thought that I would be offered the position. The bosses decided to wait it out as there are plans afoot to outsource the whole canteen, but soon realised that they needed the extra person as they couldn't rely on the volunteer (yes singular volunteer! I am the only one!!) to fill the gap.

So, to lengthen an already lengthy story, I received a phone call last Thursday as I was on my way to pick up the boys from school. I won't tell you how I broke the law by answering the phone while in charge of a motor vehicle (it was stopped at the time, just not turned off) but I will say that I very eagerly grasped the opportunity to be paid for something I had already been doing for 3 months!

I will be working Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays for the rest of this term, unless the other part-timer wants the hours back, in which case I'm back on the scrap heap. Let's cross that bridge, climb that mountain, whatever else you can think of to symbolise 'getting over it', if and when we get there. Almost all the money I will now be getting paid will be going straight back to the school to pay the fees, but it's better than having to find it myself!

And now for the vent/whinge/pity party for one ...

I am sleep deprived. So, what's new you ask? I mean I'm really sleep deprived as in I only got 3 hours sleep last night in half hour lots. I'm the kind of person who needs at least 8 hours, preferably 9 or 10 hours, to make any sort of sense and be nice civil non-homicidal to those around me. I haven't been this bad since the days of babies and snoring!

Background to the current episode of sleep deprivation: I offered to have two of the boys' friends over to spend the night on Friday. These are the same two boys who have stayed with me in the past, while their parents were interstate or overseas, or just so the boys could have their friends over for a sleepover. Both of the boys fall on the autism spectrum (admittedly at the high functioning end) but they know the rules of my house and follow them, especially the one about 'when I say lights out, that means lights out or I'll put your lights out permanently' (j/k!).

Friday night was relatively late for the boys (10:30pm) but when I said bed, all five of them quietened down and went to sleep (or at least faked it well and, more importantly, quietly!) They slept all night and when I awoke, by myself not by them, at 7am, they were all playing as nicely together as five boys of different ages are able to.

Last night was a wholly different scenario. I had lost one boy to a friend's house for a sleepover and gained one extra, not related to me and who is also apparently not familiar with the concept of 'go to sleep and stay that way for at least 8 consecutive hours'.

Now this child of 11 years is a good kid. He generally follows the rules, has manners, and plays well with my youngest. His mother is a friend from my working days and we have similar attitudes to parenting, which generally makes having someone else's child in your home a much easier proposition.

However, for some reason last night, neither of the boys could get to sleep, let alone stay that way for 8 hours. Once again, I had let them stay up later than normal (to maximise their playing time), and fully expected them to go to sleep soon after lights out at 10:15pm. I crawled into my own bed and, after fighting the dog for more of the doona, was asleep in nanoseconds.

I was awoken by Brad at 12:27am complaining that he couldn't sleep. I dragged my sorry self out of bed, went and checked on the conditions in the room and, upon finding that someone ('not me' or 'Mr Nobody') had left the climate control set at 26 degrees, fixed that, threatened dire consequences if they didn't go to sleep and crawled back into bed at 1:02am.

The threat of dire consequences obviously had no effect as after that I was awoken approximately every 40 minutes with some complaint or another, with the best one being at 3:52am when I was informed that guest child had waited too long to go to the bathroom and peed all over my carpeted games room floor. Bradley had already done a pretty good job of cleaning up what he could so there wasn't much left for me to do, apart from the few little bits he missed, do my best to reiterate the importance of sleep and head back to bed.

There were two more wake-ups after that one which I did my best to ignore, then it was time to get up and wait for Drew to be dropped off at 8am. I'm sure I look like death warmed up, with steamer trunks instead of just bags under my eyes, but I have so far managed to function due to the help of my wonderful eldest child, who has been making me yummy cups of tea without being asked.

The real injustice of the whole situation is that guest child is now fast asleep on the lounge in the games room and, despite the amount of noise we've all been making, is sleeping the sleep of the almost dead. I think nothing sort of an earthquake combined with a nuclear bomb would wake him now!

Hmmm ... I wonder if his mother knows he's turned nocturnal?

Saturday 10/4

Over a leisurely breakfast, we discussed where to go and what to see today. Alex was pushing (really hard!!) to go to the Powerhouse Museum so we decided to head into the city on the train and take it from there.

We arrived at the train station to see one just leaving and were a bit concerned that we would have an hour's wait for the next one. I was looking around for a timetable when I realised there

was actually a manned (personed?) ticket booth with a friendly helpful looking person inside.

After overcoming my shock at there actually being someone around to help (a very unlikely situation on most Perth train stations!), I asked if there was such a thing as a family daytripper ticket. Miss Smiley Face in the booth (whatever she was on, I want some!!) replied that indeed there was and proceeded to sell me one at the jaw dropping price of $45.40. It was about then that I realised we weren't in Kansas Perth anymore. The same thing in Perth would cost less than $10!! Thinking this over later, I did come to the conclusion that there are a lot more trains, buses and ferries in Sydney than Perth could ever aspire to, so maybe the cost was justified after all.

The 9:40 double decker train on the 'light blue' line arrived soon after and the boys were fascinated with the seat backs that flipped over so you could change the direction you were facing. We did a deal with them that we would travel on the bottom level into the city and the top level on the way home, but only if they stopped changing all the seats and just sat down.

It took us just over an hour to get to the central station (there's something like 9 stations in the main CBD) and, after fighting our way through the lemmings people who knew where they were going, we emerged from the bowels of the Earth into the sunshine and headed for the Powerhouse Museum. When the tourist guides said that it was an easy five minute walk from Central, they must have used one of the Olympics' competitive walkers as a guide, because fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the very non-descript building and made our way inside.

I paid the $30 for us all to get in (forgetting to use the discount coupon I had specifically brought with me .. duh!) and we set off to explore. It is the kind of place you could easily spend a whole day or two in and still not see everything. Of course some things didn't interest the boys, or us, but we had a great time checking out the 'Back to the 80's' exhibit. Many great memories for Peter and I and the kids had wonderful fun trying to play all the old video games like Frogger, Space Invaders and Donkey Kong in their original formats on the original equipment. There were so many kids there, all fascinated with the fact that this was as good as it got back then! We spent about 3 hours wandering around, had a quick snack then checked out the souvenir shop. Total and utter waste of space unless you wanted designer home wares or very expensive toys. It was like a high-end department store instead of a souvenir shop. Not one thing was branded as coming from the Powerhouse Museum which kind of defeats the purpose of calling it a souvenir shop, in my opinion.

We walked back to Central station and caught the train over to Darling Harbour to check out the Harbour Bridge (from the ground this time) and The Sydney Opera House. It was getting quite warm so we treated the boys to an ice cream as we walked around to Bennelong Point, where the Opera House is.

There was some sort of triathlon going on, so a lot of the walkways were fenced off to protect people from the bikes speeding past, but we managed to get the boys onto the steps of the Opera House for a photo. If you squint really hard, you may be able to see them up there somewhere...

We then took a walk around to the other side of the Opera House to get out of the sun before heading back to to the train station. We had planned on taking the train across the Harbour Bridge to visit Luna Park, but Peter suggested we take the ferry instead. As you may or may not know, Peter has a 'thing' about boats so this was a very generous offer on his behalf and the boys jumped at the chance. We caught the 3:45 ferry and I realised why Peter thought he would be able to handle the trip .. it took literally five minutes!

We took the obligatory tourist photos out the front of Luna Park and then made our way inside (something with free entry .. yay!) to check it all out. The last time I came here as a kid, it was closed for the season, so it was good to be able to go in and see what all the fuss was about.

I'm still not sure what all the fuss is about, as everything costs an arm, leg and a kidney and was so crowded, there was a 20 minute queue for a bag of fairy floss, let alone the rides! We gave the boys some money but they were soon back complaining that it wasn't worth spending all their money on one ride .. taught them well! .. and they didn't want to wait 40 minutes for a five minute ride. We grabbed some food instead (goodbye kidney .. it was nice knowing you!) and then sat down quietly for a while.

Andrew had started complaining of feeling unwell, so he had a rest on Pete's lap while the other two and I browsed the souvenir shop. Peter got a travel mug with Luna Park on it, but the boys couldn't find anything they wanted so we left and just managed to catch the 5:31 ferry back across to Circular Quay. It was a lot rougher crossing the harbour this time and we were all glad to get off at the other end. After we got off, I noticed that the ferry was named Alexander so that may explain the difference!

We walked back up to the train station and managed to get seats together on the rather crowded train headed back to Glenfield. Drew was still feeling unwell, so he leaned on me until about halfway 'home' when he got a second wind. Then we I had to contend with all three four of them being hyped up and playing silly games, but luckily we had most of the carriage to ourselves so it wasn't too much of an issue.

It was well and truly dark by the time we got back, so we went to find the car (still where we left it thank God!) and went 'home' for dinner and a movie (Underdog). We all went to bed when it finished and I was asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Friday 9/4

The bed in this unit is nowhere as comfortable as the one in Queensland but we managed to get some sleep before being fully awake at 6:45am (otherwise known as OMG-it's-still-way-too-dark-o'clock). We all had breakfast while we continued our discussion of what we wanted to see while in Sydney. The final decision was that we would head out to the Blue Mountains to see the Three Sisters and whatever else took our fancy while we were there.

We arrived in Katoomba in time for morning tea at 10:45, after negotiating enough roadworks to rebuild an entire third world country's road system. We managed to find two bakeries in the main street so the kids had a hefty dose of sugar treat each then we went out to Echo Point to view the rock formation known as the Three Sisters.

As all things are apt to do, the area had changed dramatically from what Peter and I remembered from our childhood visits. The lookouts are actually safe now! We took a lot of photos then decided to take a drive along the tourist scenic route in hopes of finding somewhere nice to have lunch.

We stopped at Leura Cascades which, at first glance, appeared to be a drain 'cascading' into a very small creek. Turns out that that was the rainwater run-off from the road and the actual cascades were about 1.3kms down a hiking track. Seeing as my twisted knee was still giving me plentiful amounts of grief, we walked a small distance along the track and found this little cascade before turning back to the car.

We finished the tourist drive and went over to Scenic World to check out the 'rides'. Had a look around the rather extensive souvenir shop and left without buying anything or taking any of the rides. Managed to get this lovely photo though:

On our way back to Sydney, we stopped at a little roadside stall selling, of all things, ugg boots and cow hides. Peter wanted to buy a cow hide rug for the 'country estate' but I managed to talk him out of it on the grounds that shipping it back to Perth would cost as much as the rug. I liked the design of some of the pieced rugs but resisted the temptation, satisfying myself with a picture instead:

One of our main reasons for coming to Sydney was to show the boys where their dad grew up so, seeing as it was still quite early, we headed for North Ryde. Peter had a great time showing the boys his old haunts: where his house was (it has been demolished and replaced with a set of units), the old corner shop (also no longer there), the lane way he walked through to get to high school, the six-lane highway he had to cross to get to high school (complete with a fence down the middle to discourage pedestrians which he, of course, just jumped over daily!) and his primary school. The high school has been demolished but here's a photo of him in front of the primary school:

Grown up just a little bit since the last time he was here!

After that trip down memory lane, and a few wrong turns down other streets, we asked the GPS to get us 'home'. It directed us through the city at the beginnings of peak hour and we ended up going through the Harbour Tunnel, as well as almost every other tunnel possible! At least the kids can say they've been under Sydney Harbour but it took us 1.5 hours to get home. The GPS doesn't work in tunnels so we nearly ended up taking exits to heaven-knows-where on more than one occasion!

Once we got 'home', we had to find parking (in the car wash bay again!), then had a quiet dinner and were all in bed by 9pm. All in all though, a very good day out.

Thurs 8/4

Up early this morning to clean up and pack. I had serious doubts about fitting everything into the cases from whence it came, but we managed .. just! Better not buy too many souvenirs in Sydney or we'll be paying excess baggage for sure. Maybe we could just leave one of the kids behind and put the extra stuff in their seat .. hmmmmm, food for thought. Will get back to you on that one ...

Managed to get everything shoved into cases and cleaned up by 9:30am so we headed over to Mark and Bec's to give them the leftover food and to say goodbye. Had a quick chat then got into the car and headed into Cairns, where we had a (very) early lunch at McDonald's (blech!) on the Esplanade. I wanted to do a bit more shopping browsing but we had run out of time, so we went to find a petrol station, to avoid paying the $3 a litre the rental car companies charge!

As I mentioned before, Cairns airport is undergoing a major renovation/extension and as a result, the directional signage was open to interpretation. As you can probably guess, our interpretation was wrong and we ended up delivering the rental car to the right area .. if we were flying international.

The international terminal is not that far from the domestic terminal .. as the crow flies. As we aren't crows, we had to walk there and it worked out to be about 1.5kms. Now I can hear you saying "1.5kms isn't that far" but with our four suitcases, five backpacks, CPAP machine and Peter's 'manbag', as well as the fact that a lot of it was outside, over rough surfaces and in the rain, by the time we fronted up to check in, I was sweating like the proverbial pig (has to be the proverbial pig, because real pigs don't sweat!)

After giving the nice little man at Qantas all of our suitcases and assuring him that I wasn't going to pass out or worse, throw up, from heat exhaustion, we went up to the thankfully air-conditioned departures lounge to await our flight to Sydney.

We took off from Cairns at 1:10pm and had a nice smooth flight until we started our descent into Sydney, when the plane turned into a possessed metal bucking bronco, determined to rid the bellies of all of those in its belly of their lunch. According to the captain, it was mild turbulence. but according to my insides, it was the kind of 'mild' you get after eating a five alarm chili meal .. nothing mild about that people! I'm not normally a nervous flyer but it was enough to have me gripping the armrests on my chair whilst thinking to myself: must.not.scare.children. do.not.show.fear. Luckily the children were distracted by the injustice of only two out of the three having window seats.

Andrew managed to get this shot of Sydney Harbour as we came in to land:

Once we'd survived the mid-air rodeo, landed and walked halfway back to Perth, again, to collect our bags, we then tried to find the rental car office. The office inside the terminal was unattended and had a sign that told us to make our way to their carpark office, with no directions on where that was. After getting caught up in the parade of lemmings crowd of people heading for the exits, I managed to spy the competition's office and figured, quite rightly, that our hire company couldn't be too far away.

We happened to walk in on someone returning their hire car and having a major hissy fit about the fact that they were to be charged for some damage to the vehicle. She was arguing that the damage was there when they picked the car up and that the staff had failed to notice it before it was given to them. She then started spouting on about how they hadn't done their jobs properly and why should she be late for her plane just because they were all stupid. I resisted the urge to point out that she wasn't going to win herself any fans, or any assistance from the 'stupid', inept staff and just had a nice little dialogue in my head instead.

"Did you not read the instructions on your rental form? You know, the ones that state to please inspect the car before leaving the lot and report any damage not noted on your copy to the office staff? The same office staff who were available to you at the ungodly hour of 2am when your flight landed, just to make sure you would be able to get your car? The same office staff who are now staring at you with disbelief and pure loathing while managing to keep their thoughts to themselves?

While you're noticing those looks, you may want to take a look at your partner's face. Can you see that expression? The one that says, 'for heaven's sake, shut up! You know we did that damage so for the love of all things holy, shut up before you get us arrested for making a scene'? Can't see that one? Well guess what sweetheart, everyone else can! Leave while you can!!"

After watching that little meltdown and telling the very apologetic woman who served us that some people just needed a good kick in the pants, we managed to get the keys to our car. this time we ended up with a Ford XR6, with Victorian license plates. Andrew was happy because he's a Ford man. Peter was happy because having the Victorian plates meant the NSW drivers would stay out of his way.

We found the car, inspected it (see stupid lady .. that's how you do it!), then spent the next ten minutes trying to work out how to open the boot. With the Commodore, you push the boot unlock button on the remote and the boot actually pops open. With the Ford, it just unlocks the boot but you still have to find the button on the boot itself to open it.

With that sorted, the boot fully loaded and the GPS programmed, we headed off into the organised chaos that is Sydney traffic. The GPS asked if we wanted to avoid the toll roads and knowing absolutely nothing about the toll system here, we decided to take the safe option of avoiding the toll roads and the possible fines. I worked out that we went an extra 19.7 kms to save what turned out to be a $5 toll. Better safe than sorry though!

We arrived at the unit (one in a complex of 25) and found the garage way too small for the car. After a quick look around, we parked the car in the car wash bay and lugged everything inside. Peter was getting very cranky at this point, so I made the executive decision that it was now officially time to get food.

We went back out to the car to find it was raining quite heavily. Must have brought it with us from Queensland! Headed off to the local shops hoping to find somewhere to get some dinner and found a food court. After a heated 'discussion' with the oldest and youngest boys about what they could have (Peter had decreed no more chicken nuggets and chips), I ended up storming off to find out what else was there and returned with two extremely healthy Wendy's hot dogs. At least they ate them and didn't complain!

Did a quick food shop for breakfast and lunch the next day, then headed back for a shower and bed.

Wednesday 7/4

Slept in this morning .. isn't that what holidays are for? ... then decided to take another trip up to Kuranda to see if we could actually see Barron Falls this time.

It was fairly overcast but there weren't too many low-lying clouds so, after a trek along a lovely rainforest path .. puff, puff, pant, pant, that's my exercise for the year! .. I managed to get some photos of Barron Falls in almost full flow. Taken from the top lookout:

and the bottom lookout: The lack of rain made it so much easier to take pictures but also made it so much more humid so after trekking all the way back up the rainforest trail .. puff, puff, pant, pant .. we poured ourselves back into the air-conditioned comfort of the car and headed for Kuranda.

We sent the kids one way (with their mobile phones of course) and we went the other way. It was lovely to be able to just wander through the shops on our own, especially when we came across a fudge shop! Had to buy some, just to compare to WA fudge. Very nice but not really anywhere close to Candy Cow fudge but I may have to try them both again just to be sure.

It was starting to get quite warm so we poured ourselves into the car again and headed back down the hill to the air conditioned shops in Smithfield, where Peter bought himself a rash vest and new swimming shorts. A bit late considering that we leave tomorrow and won't be swimming in Sydney .. too cold! .. but at least he's got them now. Then it was back to the apartment for lunch to try and use up the rest of the food.

After lunch we went down to the pool with the crocodile slide for a swim .. and for Peter and I to see if the girl that was checking Alex out last time was there again. She wasn't :-( I think he was relieved that he could just enjoy a swim and some more hot chips!

We headed back up to 'our' pool where I jumped inched my way into the freezing water with Brad and Drew. Well, I inched my way in .. they, already being dripping wet, threw themselves in with gay abandon, blue lips and chattering teeth. Can't let a little thing like cold stop them!!

They were just attempting to drown me .. exhibit A: ... when Peter came back from a visit to Mark and Bec to tell us it was time to get out and get ready for our walk down to the pub for dinner. We raced upstairs for a warm shower and quick change and met them downstairs and headed off to Palm Cove via a mangrove boardwalk and the main street along the beach.

Along the way, I spotted some 'sleepy plants' .. no idea what their real name is but we always called them that because the leaves close up and go to sleep when you touch them .. and Alex had great fun showing Lachlan and Kathryn how they worked.

The reason we picked the pub for dinner was that kids eat free .. every little bit helps people! .. but of course it was one of those "one-free-kid's-meal-with-every-adult-meal-purchased" deals. Alex, being a growing boy young man, wanted more than just the usual fare of nuggets and chips, so we ordered him a 300g rump steak, thinking that if he didn't finish it, Peter would. Just for the record, Alex is not a big meat eater; not in the form of steak anyway. He'll quite happily eat mince, sausages, kebabs, etc but not usually a hunk of meat of its own. Peter didn't even get a look-in! It was inhaled in record time and thoroughly enjoyed too, if the expression on his face was anything to go by. File that away for future reference .. Alex likes his steak done medium and hot!

Poor Bec didn't get much of a chance to eat her dinner as Mackenzie was rather unsettled and only wanted Mum; not even Dad would do. I remember those days and am so glad they're over! The rest of us enjoyed our meals and dessert (pavlova nest with white chocolate mousse, berries and cream ... very naughty but extremely yummy!) and then started the walk back.

Why is it that the walk back always seems longer? Nothing to do with the fact that we were now loaded down with food and drink and tired from all the exercise (sorry for the bad language!) of the morning. I was carrying Mackenzie for part of the way home. I had totally forgotten how heavy little ones get and when Bec told me she only weighed 13 kilos, I realised that she was only part of what I've already lost. I couldn't imagine carrying an extra 20 kilos around again!

Mark and Peter stirred poor little Lachlan all the way back by telling him there were crocodiles in the bushes along the beach. Every little noise was attributed to these fierce boy eating crocodiles .. "they only eat little boys because they taste better" .. and by the time we got to the mangrove boardwalk, the poor kid was just about jumping out of his skin. So when Uncle Peter disappeared from the back of the pack, right before the boardwalk, he was quite worried. I threatened to send Peter over to deal with the inevitable nightmares at 3am and funnily enough, he reappeared, none the worse for his ordeal. Apparently, he wasn't tasty enough 'cos he's too old!

In all the commotion at the back of the pack, no-one noticed Alex had gone missing too. Just as we reached the end of the boardwalk, Alex jumped out of his hiding spot and frightened the daylights out of Brad as well as Lachlan. In the ten seconds after he did it, I think Alex thought he was going to get in trouble, but when we all roared with laughter, he relaxed and had a laugh along with us. It was so good to see him being a kid and having fun with his cousins.

We finished the walk back, put all the kids through the shower again and then fell into bed for a well-deserved sleep.