HAPPY BIRTHDAY WOMBAT!!!

Last Sunday was a very special day for us - not only was it Easter Sunday, but it was also Wombat's second birthday.

The next time his birthday and Easter will coincide will be the year 2228, so I think we can safely say this was a once in a lifetime event! I would apologise for the LONG post and the LOTS of photos - but since this is the only entry you are likely to get for a while, I thought I'd better make it worth your while. PS. Any comments about Wombat's hairstyle will be strictly ignored - we have already had the family discussion about "the next time Mummy gets the urge to cut his hair she will not make him look like a 17th century monk..." (It was getting in his eyes and ears and making him uncomfortable... and then he was very wriggly when I was cutting - excuses, excuses - point taken.)

The day started with our usual wander out to feed the chooks. (We swallowed our scruples and carted the cat who was causing all the problems off to the pound, the chickens went back VERY happily to their pen and the only squawk we have heard from them since is if a dreaded, dangerous butterfly soars overhead.)



Then it was back inside for breakfast and birthday presents. I'll let you guess which was Wombat's first priority :P Yeti and I decorated the house the night before with streamers and special balloons shaped like caterpillars and birds - Wombat LOVED the party feeling it gave.



His presents from us were pretty much divided into two categories this year, according to his latest obsessions: Bob the Builder and the Cars movie. I think he now has about all the merchandise any kid could want!!!



After breakfast we went off to church. I took him to the big church in Camden as our local church only had an open air Mass at 9am, and it was raining. Last year at Easter, he took one look at the crowd and screamed, refusing to go anywhere near them. This year he was a little nervous but allowed himself to be led through the hundreds of people standing at the back, before pulling me desperately towards the altar (we usually sit right up the front so he can see as I think that helps him behave better and be less distracted by other kids mucking up.) Luckily I was able to look pleadingly at a family who shuffled a little closer together and gave us a seat on the end of an aisle where Wombat could see everything and happily played with his new Bob machines. He liked the singing (which we don't get at our local church) and when it came time for the sign of peace, he insisted on shaking hands with everyone in sight - holding out his hand and saying "Somebody shake... somebody shake..." Needless to say, everyone thought he was cute and was happy to oblige.

After Mass, it was home for a birthday lunch. Nanna had cooked Wombat's favourite (roast turkey thigh) while we were out, and I had made a nice simple buttercake (using fresh eggs, of course) the night before, so while Wombat and Yeti played together, I prepared a quick salad and decorated the cake - whipped cream, lots of fruit and the piece de resistance - TWO Bob the Builder candles.



He couldn't take his eyes off them, waiting for the magic moment when they would be lit (and then we had to light them again because he wanted us to keep singing Happy Birthday to him)!



To my satisfaction, the cake proved extremely popular as well - we had some more after dinner and by the end of the day there was only one tiny little piece leftover. Wombat liked the fruit best, so most of his cake slice was left for Mummy (complain, complain...)



Then it was time for a shower and a lovely long snooze. (As a side point, Wombat has stopped wearing nappies to bed for his daytime snooze and is waking up dry every time... he still wears them at night but is dry in the morning every other day. He is getting really good about saying "I need potty" so by the time Bilby is born, Wombat should be nappy free! YIPPEE!!! Oh, mentioning Bilby, this little bumpkin is even more energetic than his brother - no shy soft-footed little bilby here - so I am going to rename him Joey, as it seems to better fit the baby boxing kangaroo I've got bouncing around inside me.)

When we woke up from our nap, Mummy said she thought she could hear the Easter Bunny hopping around outside, so it was time to get dressed and go hunting for Bunny eggs. Wombat was a bit cautious about suddenly meeting up with the Easter Bunny in person, but he absolutely loved searching for the little nests the Bunny had scattered around the yard - often in very strange places.







Cadburys sold a big bag of mixed chocolate, caramel and turkish delight mini eggs, so I scattered about 30 of them around in nests of three each - the last nest had a chocolate rabbit with it. Here's a video to give you a better idea of the excitement! (I had suggested that he might look under the tree we call his 'cubby house'.)





I must admit that after eating the first few eggs, the fun was more in unwrapping them, and several got pushed into Mummy's mouth (complain, complain :P)



No matter how appealing, though, Easter Eggs just couldn't compete with his favourite cherry tomatoes. He had to check whether any were ripe, and as usual, any that met the "it's red" criteria were quickly devoured on the spot.



He then insisted on watering them with his new watering can (one of his presents was a set of small gardening tools, to use when digging in the garden with Mummy).



The next day was raining heavily, so I brought out the fresh batch of playdough I had made, to go with his Bob the Builder "Dizzy" playdough extruder. This shot is mainly to show the decorations in the playpen - really a 'playroom' now, as it takes up more than half the loungeroom. The streamers were already starting to sag a bit, and by the end of the day, they and the balloons had all been pulled down and played with.



Here is Wombat, hard at work, making "Travis the tractor" faces in the playdough.



Soon afterwards, he insisted that he needed to "mix the colours together" so Mummy's carefully tinted rainbow of playdough turned into a tutti-frutti pile. Today (raining again) the process was finished off, so it is now all pretty much a uniform gray with a few purple and green swirls. I guess that's appropriate for making roads and rocks, which we seem to do a lot of lately ;P He is just as happy working with a single colour anyway, so that is how it will stay for another few months until I get around to making the next batch.



I really love my very simple and easy playdough recipe, so I will share it with you here:

1 cup of flour
1 cup of warm water
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon of oil
1/4 cup of salt

Mix all ingredients.
Stir over medium heat until thick (I keep stirring until I can hardly move the spoon).
Remove from pan and knead on a floured board until smooth.
Add colourings (and extra flour if it becomes sticky - I use Wombat's watercolour paints, but you can use food colouring etc).
Place in airtight container. (We are still on a mission to eliminate plastic as far as possible -hah, and impossible task - from Wombat's world, so I wrap it in greaseproof paper and store it in an old toffee tin.)

This playdough lasts and lasts forever if you wrap it up after each use - the previous batch I made was played with for more than 6 months before I finally threw it out, and then its only problem was the amount of foreign material (hair, fluff, dust etc) that it had collected...

And that, my dear friends, is the story of Wombat's second birthday. I am back to work tomorrow, so it will probably be a while before I get the chance to write again. Hope you are all well and happy - I think of you often, even if I don't get the chance to say so.

Bilby is....

a BOY!!!

Lots of pictures from ultrasound - she gave me a whole page - but must get to sleep as big day at work tomorrow... will try to scan them this weekend.

Felt a momentary twinge of disappointment, but then had to laugh ;D

Ultrasound operator's comment: "No doubt about it - a very confident little boy!"

Wombat will be happy :)

I was asking him this morning if he wanted a baby brother or a baby sister. He told me very determinedly "I like a boy!"

He must have known something :D

The prosecutor found my letter of representation in the environmental law case "very convincing" and has asked for an adjournment to consider whether to drop the charges. Tomorrow I appear in court for the first time (just requesting an adjournment in a DUI case with a plea of guilty while the client does a traffic offender program, but exciting nonetheless.)

Chickens are still living on the verandah... have high hopes of moving them this weekend - renovating & moving an old dog run for them. Should be secure.

LOL... why wouldn't I want another one of these???


Sailing paper boats on the dam - and throwing rocks to sink them...


Slippery-dipping...


Exploring in the 'jungle'...


Sailing a rubber duck in a puddle...


More exploring...


A 'butterfly' painting...


Learning to balance on the 'seesaw'...


My darling cutey!!!

I can't say I don't still want a little girl (maybe next time?) but I'm sure this new little boy will be as endlessly fascinating and adorable as his brother, and I must admit, I wouldn't change him for the world! :D

wet Wet WET!!!

Lots to tell, but must be a lightning fast update, which is very appropriate considering we have had non-stop thunderstorms for the last week, with more rain than I have ever seen!

I am SO busy at the moment, as I am sure you can imagine. I am working 9-5, three days a week and it is going very well. They are very pleased with my research skills and ability to write professional documents. So far I have been doing mostly criminal and family law - not very pleasant - but I have had the chance to work on one environmental law case - the clients are charged with dumping waste on their property, but it was all clean fill - soil, clay and rock - and I managed to find out that it is classified as "virgin excavated natural material" which is exempt from requirements for a waste facilities licence. There was no environmental impact from their activities as it was just a very bare paddock they were trying to improve after centuries of grazing. The lawyer I am working with is very impressed - now he can't wait to take the council to court, but it is more likely they will just drop the charges altogether.

Wombat is doing very well. The driveway is an absolute river, and on several occasions this week the causeway has been so flooded that no-one could get in or out. Even the four-wheel drives were giving up!!! Luckily it has always been down enough for me to cross (very carefully) on my way to and from work.

On Wednesday the rain was so heavy on the way home from work that I would have had to stop if there wasn't a van in front of me - we crept along at 40kms and I followed his tail lights as I couldn't see the road - there was that much rain beating on the windshield! Very scary & glad to get home safely (I found Wombat and Yeti happily watching Bob the Builder and ignoring the thunderstorm - very sensible)!

Wombat gets a bit tired of being cooped up, but enjoys the different activities (we made biscuits today - roosters, butterflys and teddybears - which was fun). Whenever the rain stops for a moment we go outside and splash in the puddles or sail paper boats down the driveway or explore the waterfalls where the water is coming across the road into the dam. I really need to take my camera and get some pics as he is getting very big now and I haven't taken any photos for ages - too busy playing with him on my days off!

I don't think I've mentioned the chicken saga - the little chicks we hatched have been doing well, living in Mitch's parrot cage on the verandah and are almost full grown. We got 3 hens and 3 roosters, in addition to the 1 rooster and 5 hens living out in the chook pen.

I was starting to get desperate to let the littlies out with the others as they are really making a mess of the indoor cage now they are getting big. Then tragedy struck. Wombat and I went out to feed the big chooks one morning and were met with an unusual silence. When we got in the pen we found one of the hens lying in a corner with no head. She had been attacked by a cat. The next day we lost another hen in the same manner. We then transferred Stevie (the rooster) and the 3 remaining hens into "the bunker" - a 1 mtre x 50cm steel cage in the shed. They lived there in safe if somewhat cramped conditions for nearly a month while Yeti blocked every hole and possible entrance point in the pen.

When we were sure there was no way a cat could get in, we released them back into their home. They were very happy for a few days, and then we came out one morning to find our handsome brave Stevie lying dead (VERY SAD!!!!), so it was back into the bunker for the hens.

Meanwhile the 'little' chooks on the verandah were getting bigger and the need for outside quarters more and more desperate. Yeti stretched another metre and a half of wire all around the top of the pen and carried out a whole pile of other improvements, until we were absolutely sure there was NO way anything could get in or out of that pen.

We released the hens and waited, holding our breath. They were ecstatic to have their freedom again, and we watched anxiously for a week and a half to make sure they were safe. When nothing more went wrong, and the hens seemed very relaxed, we released the 6 little chooks (now quite big chooks) for their first run outside. They were SO happy, scratching and pecking at all the grass in the pen. When I went to check them at lunchtime, they were all snuggled into little dust baths and it sounded like they were purring!!!

Then I went to check on them after Wombat's nap and.... you guessed it, another casualty. This time it was the smallest of the young roosters (thankfully not Wombat's pet, Joe). Well, we spent the afternoon chasing chooks, and all 8 survivors (3 big hens and 3 medium size hens and 2 young roosters) went back inside to Mitch's cage.

Conditions are cramped and yucky, especially as it has been raining so much I can't even put them outside in a temporary pen while I clean the cage - I have to scrape out what I can, when I can. Let me tell you that wallowing in chicken shit when you are pregnant is NOT the best fun I have ever had!!! I am very careful and so far everyone is staying healthy - one stalwart hen is even laying an egg every day!!! but OH I can't wait for them to have a new home.

Our only choice now is to cover the whole pen in wire (way too expensive) or take down the wire Yeti put up and use it to build them a new predator-proof home. If I knew which cat was attacking them I would strangle it on sight. I suspect Smoky, the stray kitten that MIL adopted. It grew up and had kittens, which we sold (keeping one - Fuzzy - for Wombat) and that's when the attacks started. We never had a problem before then, but I can't really accuse her without proof.

We just have to build a home for the chooks that she (or any other cat) can't get into - and with the rain the way it is, that's not going to happen anytime soon. *Sigh* They take so much less time to look after when they are outside, and it is so much better for them, but what can you do??? One side benefit is that they are much more used to being handled now, and will even let us hold and pat them. (Joe is the exception, he has been friendly from the day he hatched... as soon as his wings were strong enough to fly, he flew out of the cage while we were feeding them and landed on Wombat's shoulder. Since then, he has been Wombat's friend - though Wombat is still not quite sure about the relationship ;P )

Mitch is also less than impressed, sitting in his small wire cage watching the chickens poop all over his palace... but at least he gets to go outside every sunny day, so he can't really complain.

Here is a pic of Wombat with Joe in mid-December. He still has some of his baby feathers here, but two months later Joe is turning into a very handsome rooster, ready to replace his father Stevie. He has even started crowing recently!



Must go - Wombat is having his nap and I have a hundred things to finish before he wakes up. I'm really hoping to finish making him some waterproof overalls today, as changing his clothes 6 times a day is difficult when it is too wet to wash and dry them - we have several clothes airers sitting in front of heaters and the airconditioner at the moment!

Wombat is enjoying his days with Daddy, but is also very glad to have me home on my days off. The only problem is he often doesn't nap for Daddy, but we are working on that. This week he has also started using the big toilet. When I started work he had a few poopy 'accidents' which had not happened for months and months, but since we started offering to take him to the big toilet instead of using potty, that has all stopped again.

Hope all is well with everyone.

Finally, here is the long-awaited picture from the ultrasound - almost a month ago now! Everything is going well with the pregnancy and I feel quite healthy. I have even managed to squeeze in time to do my yoga each evening before bed, which makes a big difference after sitting at a desk or in court for most of the day - I am out of practice at doing that after spending so long chasing David around all day!

The first day after yoga, I felt great, so on the second day I really got into the stretches. The next day I felt like screaming everytime I moved - I really thought I had damaged my abdominal muscles, but that night I was very careful and did only one repetition instead of 7, and the next day I discovered I could make the pain go away if I just tightened my bum muscles and tucked my backside under to support the baby's weight on my hips. Since then all has been well.

Happenings

Well, I survived Christmas, and had lots of stories to tell and photos to post, but since I never quite got around to posting them, I guess I'll just move right along to this week, which has been rather hectic.

First visit with obstetrician was on Monday - she got out her tiny ultrasound, so I got my first glimpse of Bilby. Another HUGELY active baby who wouldn't sit still at all... but as the ob said, "it's there, and it's moving" and that's what we want to know! I'll be heading down for the full ultrasound early next week, so I might get a picture which I can compare to the one in the little box in my sidebar.

Ob was surprised to feel Bilby so far up, but my dates are pretty accurate... hope it doesn't mean another BIG bub. She did say it was often easier to feel baby in a woman who's had a caesarean. She's willing to support me trying to give birth naturally this time as I really want to avoid another caesar... she did warn me though - labour has to start naturally and progress quickly. They can't induce me or give any chemicals to hurry it up. If there is the slightest sign of a complication, I get rushed to the operating table, because they can't risk the scar from Wombat's birth rupturing. Here's praying it all goes according to plan!

In other news - of all those resumes I sent out, one has finally received a positive answer. I had a job interview yesterday with a local law firm. They are a small firm - only five people - but the three who interviewed me yesterday seemed very impressed with me. I am waiting for them to arrange a final interview with the principal of the firm.

Unfortunately, they are not offering me a paid position - it will be voluntary. But it is three days a week, and they are offering to give me a wide experience in a general practice, and to introduce me to the network of legal people in my area - most importantly of all, it will satisfy the 75 days work experience I require for the College of Law.

Bilby is due in about 28 weeks, and I should complete the 75 days in 25 weeks, so fingers crossed it will all work out perfectly. It is disappointing that they won't be paying me, as I will have to buy new clothes and there will be transport costs (petrol, wear & tear on the car etc) but at least it is local, and it is the best offer I have received so far. They seem very friendly & easygoing and they are fine with me being pregnant (their school-age children are often in the office). I will let you know how I go after the next interview.

It will be good for Wombat & Yeti to spend more time together, so hopefully Wombat will be less dependent on me when Bilby is born, and I'm sure it will be less physically stressful for me to spend 3 days a week in an office rather than chasing Wombat around!!! He likes gardening at the moment - which means digging with his shovel or new bulldozer in the dirt while Mummy pulls up weeds. When Mummy suggests it is time to take a break, he simply points at the weeds and says "MORE!". When I finally convince him it is time to go inside for a drink of water, he insists I empty the wheelbarrow full of weeds onto the compost heap first! Talk about a hard taskmaster!

That's all I have time for right now - Wombat will be waking up any minute, so I had better seize my chance and lie down while I can.

Bilby has strange tastes!

It's 4:30 in the morning, and here I am, suddenly woken up with a desperate need to eat a bowl of fresh pawpaw, dried fig and icecream... no - it's not a flavour combination I would particularly recommend! but it does give me an excuse to sit here and write an entry.

I consider myself very lucky that I don't really get morning sickness. I feel nauseous most of the time, but I don't go that extra step and vomit. When I was pregnant with Wombat, it only ever happened when I brushed my teeth. This time, it has only happened once... but Wombat is making it up for it.

Ever since I weaned him, my routine has been to give him a bottle of milk, lying in bed with him, to settle him to sleep. This happens after both lunch and dinner. Lately, he has been climbing into bed very happily, guzzling his milk as normal (I keep him sitting up until it's finished), then giving a couple of little coughs and WHAMMO... up it all comes again, bringing most of his food with it. It distresses him a little - especially if blanky gets caught in the melee - but once I've taken his ukky pyjamas off, he is perfectly happy to bounce around cheerfully with Yeti while I clean up and change his sheets... again....

This started to become regular - every other day after either lunch or dinner, and on rare occasions, after both! I was beginning to think I shouldn't feel so complacent about my own strong stomach :P

At first I blamed teething, then a stomach bug, because we both came down with a good case of the flu which kept us feeling rotten for two weeks (Yeti got sick as soon as Wombat and I started to feel better). Now I have decided - who cares what's causing it! It HAS to stop, immediately! The last thing a pregnant woman wants is to spend her naptimes scraping off curdled milk and doing (even more) loads of washing. So I sat down and had a talk with Wombat, just as I did before weaning him, and we have changed the routine.

Now, he has his warm milk cuddled up in Mummy's bed before he goes potty, so he has plenty of time to sit and let it digest properly - and an excuse to make Mummy read to him for an extra hour before bedtime (which he loves). When we finally get into his bed and he realises there is not going to be any more bottle, we are still having a bit of a whinge and a cry, but by that stage he is so tired that he generally zonks out mid-complaint. Fingers crossed, it is working so far!

Christmas is sneaking up very fast now. I bought Wombat a fantastic advent calendar - it is like a metal tray with a wooden frame, and the frame is made of little boxes. The tray has the stable painted on it with Bethlehem in the distance, and the 24 boxes contain all the characters - as little magnets! There are sheep, cows, donkeys, camels, stars, angels, wise men, Mary, Joseph and of course, baby Jesus. Wombat really adores it! In the beginning it was a bit of a battle to stop him trying to bring out all the pieces at once, but he has really gotten the idea of just opening one box every night. If he wants to play with it during the day, he can rearrange the scene (using the characters he has so far) in endless recombinations, telling little stories about them. The sheep have a tendency to want to fly with the stars, the cows like looking out the windows of the stable, and the wise men have to ride ON their camels instead of standing beside them... it's great fun watching his imagination emerge - I just can't wait until I can understand all of the narrative that accompanies it!

Today we finally put up our Christmas tree. It's not exactly a work of art :P We still like having a fresh tree, but we didn't feel like paying for a cut one and we couldn't finda good potted one this year. We have several from previous years growing out in the garden, and Yeti had plans for drilling holes in a post and inserting branches to 'make' one. Meanwhile, Wombat decided he wanted to walk the paths of my sadly neglected and overgrown garden, which necessitated me trimming back the Juniper tree. I looked at the pile of branches in the wheelbarrow, filled a bucket with rocks and soil, stuck in the branches and voila - instant Christmas tree. It leaves a little to be desired, but Wombat had a brilliant time telling me where all the decorations should hang, and that matters more than having a magnificent display!

Speaking of magnificent displays (or not), I spent today's (vomit-free) naptime baking my first ever gingerbread house. In tomorrow's naptime - though I guess it's today now - I get to build and decorate the house! Wish me luck! I only just had enough dough to make the house so the roof might be a bit thin, but so far it's been lots of fun! I'll post pics when it's finished.

Now it is quarter past five, and I can hear Wombat starting to toss and turn. He often crawls into bed with me at this time of morning, so I had better sneak back in and get some sleep while I can...

PS. The weather has been absolutely incredible - the wettest December we have ever had - it's raining almost every day. We have had about 5 days of sun this whole summer, and I have to tell you, a Wombat gets a bit stir-crazy when you keep him inside too much! I will write more on the ominous silences, and even worse, the "Oh dear, Oh dear, Oh dear, Oh dears" some other day... In the meantime, here is a preview to stir your imagination (and this was one of the easier ones to clean up!)

Sharing the excitement!

I know it's been a long time since my last entry, but I really need to nap, so I won't try and fill in the blanks. Wombat is so full-steam-ahead these days that I'm having trouble keeping up with him!

It's finally starting to feel real - I am pregnant! Coughing, spluttering, aching and exhausted, but pregnant! Today for the first time I went to the toilet without checking to see if my period had arrived (I had the positive test almost a month ago, but somehow I felt it was too good to be true.) Anyway, I needed to put my pregnancy tickers up so I could watch the development... hence a quick entry.

I had thought of lots of brilliant comments to share, but now I am sitting here I can't remember any of them - I'm just desperate to lie down before Wombat decides naptime is over ;P and I have to put on a load of never-ending washing first. There aren't so many nappies to wash these days as Wombat is only wearing them at sleep times, but there are three times as many clothes to wash - my boy LOVES playing in the dirt - there's some kind of magnetic attraction going on!!!

The inner housewife has gone into hopeless retreat... mothering seems to be a 52-hour-a-day job at the moment... Wombat is starting to talk very clearly though (still mainly single syllable words, but LOTS of them...) so it is quite entertaining.

I guess the next thing to do is decide on a nickname for this baby... at the moment I seem to be leaning towards Bilby or maybe Possum... hmmm... I have a definite feeling that this baby wants to be a Bilby... (though at the moment it bears more than a passing resemblance to a tiny dugong...)

Flying Poetry Friday

Lately I feel a lot like the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland - "No time to say hello, goodbye! I'm late, I'm late, I'm late!". I must rush off to get Wombat up from his nap, but first... since this is just a flying visit...

Bird

It was passed from one bird to another,
the whole gift of the day.
The day went from flute to flute,
went dressed in vegetation,
in flights which opened a tunnel
through which the wind would pass
to where birds were breaking open
the dense blue air -
and there, night came in.

[Pablo Neruda]

And another addition to my ongoing project...

Cupped hollow of grass and lichen,
bracken and bark,
breast-pressed.

Fragile curve of shell and spirit,
speckled, mottled,
nestled.

Secret growth of bone and feather,
eggs of the masked
lapwing.

[MW]

Today's Poetry Friday Round-up is at Semicolon.

First things first

Back to Covey's habit's this week - I am up to Habit Three: Put First Things First.

Spend time doing what fits into your personal mission, observing the proper balance between production and building production capacity. Identify the key roles that you take on in life and make time for each of them.
[Quick MBA]

Covey creates "a framework for prioritizing work that is aimed at long-term goals, at the expense of tasks that appear to be urgent, but are in fact less important. ... Important items are identified by focusing on a few key priorities and roles which will vary from person to person, then identifying small goals for each role each week, in order to maintain a holistic life balance. One tool for this is a worksheet that lists up to seven key roles, with three weekly goals per role, to be evaluated and scheduled into each week before other appointments occupy all available time with things that seem urgent but are not important."
[Wikipedia]

Here is a link to a blank weekly worksheet designed by Covey. Their way of scheduling doesn't really work for me as I am not available at consistent times, but I will be incorporating the ideas from it into the to-do lists which have become part of my FlyLady routine.

First I have to identify the roles which relate to my long-term goals (mother, wife, writer - to quickly name the most obvious ones) then I have to get into the habit of identifying three small ways to progress each role each week, and scheduling them into my weekly plan.

I also want to work on classifying my to-do list based on Covey's time-matrix. There are some more tools and ideas for doing that here, including a free spreadsheet - I just have to make sure I don't fall into Rimmer's trap (Red Dwarf fans will immediately understand) of spending so much time making elaborate colour-coded timetables that I never do any work!

This site has some more ideas on how to evolve a scheme of personal management that works for you. I was particularly struck by this quote:

In order to subordinate your feelings, impulses and moods to your values, you must have a burning "YES!" inside, making it possible to say "No" to other things. The "Yes" is our purpose, passion, clear sense of direction and value.
[ProfitAdvisors]

I also liked the way that site tied the first three habits together - being proactive is realising that I am the programmer; clarifying my long-term goals is writing the program; and now I come to the stage of executing the program - putting it into practice. Speaking of which, Wombat just woke up, and I still have to feed the chooks and the parrot before I can get him up, so I'd better get moving!

SMART habit progress:

• Waking up Wombat = working on finding a happy medium - he's not getting an instant response, but he's not (usually) being left there until he gives up on me either!


• Setting Long Term Goals = I've written out eleven goals, and have shared them with Yeti, so good!


• Being Proactive = realising that I am in control - autopilot responses getting less!


• Declutter = HABIT - made $25 on eBay so far this week selling old dressmaking patterns (and the auctions aren't finished yet)... and have burnt piles of treasure rubbish on Yeti's fires...


• My Work is to Love = feeling good


• Daily prayer = HABIT


• Positive Parenting = getting back in the groove - mainly lurking on the 4RealLearning Forum and thinking about homeschooling goals


• Exercise = HABIT - I miss a day here and there, but am getting fitter - now exercise-biking 4.5kms in 10 minutes, up from 2.5 when I started and the pulse rate is consistently lower ;D

Visit Lara at The Lazy Organizer to join in Smart Habit Saturday - it will change your life! (Find out more about Smart Habit Saturday here: Getting Started with Smart Habit Saturday.)

Waking up Wombat

A short break from Covey's habits... something else needs work!

Lately I have fallen into the bad habit of letting Wombat stay in his bed for anything up to an hour after he wakes up, while I finish what I am doing. I listen to him on the monitor, so I know he is not too upset. He has a big, safe bed with toys and books to look at, and although he often cries a bit when he wakes, he generally plays quietly and goes back to sleep for a bit. Even so I don't think this is a positive thing for me to be doing. I notice that he cries more often during the night and is much less cooperative during the day, whereas if I get him up as soon as he wakes up, he is so happy to see me and tries very hard to be good. This has been happening both in the mornings and his afternoon nap time and it's starting to stretch out longer and longer. The crunch point came this week when I caught myself turning off the monitor so I wouldn't have to listen to him Yeti wouldn't hear him whinging because his teeth hurt and he has a wet nappy and he wants his Mummy.

Naughty Mummy.

My new habit for this week is to respond to Wombat as soon as I know he is awake, and not to make him wait for whatever it is that I think is more important, because really, it's not. I just need to be better organised so I get the important things out of the way first, while he is soundly asleep, so I am only doing the optional, easy-to-stop things around the time I expect him to start stirring.

SMART habit progress:

• Setting Long Term Goals = needs more work


• Being Proactive = trying hard


• Declutter = succeeding beyond my wildest dreams - even Yeti is clearing out his spaces - a LONG way to go, but going to claim this as HABIT!


• My Work is to Love = most days, in intention if not always in practice


• Daily prayer = HABIT


• Positive Parenting = not reading or thinking enough... too much autopilot


• Exercise = HABIT - and starting to lose about 1/2 a kg a week... not much, but it's progress!

Visit Lara at The Lazy Organizer to join in Smart Habit Saturday - it will change your life! (Find out more about Smart Habit Saturday here: Getting Started with Smart Habit Saturday.)

The cockatoos are calling

Today's Poetry Friday Roundup will be held at Kelly Fineman's Writing and Ruminating.

The wattle is in full-flower, and the sulphur-crested cockatoos gather each morning to enjoy the sweetness of the new buds. They will stay with us right through the cycle, feasting on bugs attracted to the pollen-laden puffballs and then stripping the pods of shiny black seeds. In thier honour, I am offering an excerpt from a Banjo Patterson poem.

White Cockatoos

Then you hear the strident squalling:
"Here's the boss's son,
Through the garden bushes crawling,
Crawling with a gun.
May the shiny cactus bristles
Fill his soul with woe;
May his knees get full of thistles.
Brothers, let us go."

-A.B. (Banjo) Patterson

I have also rewritten my attempt at a poem for the cockatoo photo. It reappears as a villanelle...

In bright treetops white cockatoos screech scorn,
unheeding, scatter debris as we feed.
Our cacophonic chorus shreds the dawn.

We're raucous hostage-takers of the morn
demanding tribute - ripened fruit and seed.
In bright treetops white cockatoos screech scorn.

Is wattle scarce? Then feast on wheat and corn.
Whatever is in season suits our need.
Our cacophonic chorus shreds the dawn.

Get up, and feast! Come rend with beak and horny
claw. The time of plenty's here indeed!
In bright treetops white cockatoos screech scorn.

The spoilers soon will leave our chicks forlorn,
will satisfy with sharpened steal their greed.
Our cacophonic chorus shreds the dawn.

We'll strut and preen on monocultured lawn,
indomitable, the sulphur-crested breed.
In bright treetops white cockatoos screech scorn.
Our cacophonic chorus shreds the dawn.

- MW

Still not happy with it... but it's better than before ;P
As always, reading everyone else's brilliant offerings for Poetry Friday will highlight its shortcomings - it can only improve! I often feel my language is too literal for poetry... and yet I can't stop the urge to write or share it...

A birthday - and a brand new ending?

Saturday (August 11th) was my 34th birthday.


You know you're a mummy when you go out with hubby and son to choose a birthday present for yourself and come home with a pair of cute cherry-red boots and 10 Little Golden Books ~ and you're perfectly satisfied!


On a side note: I can't stand reading The Poky Little Puppy - negative, punishment based message all the way through, and then a grammatical double negative at the end... uggh! That one's going on eBay. Our favourites are The Colour Kittens and Where Do Kisses Come From... which have momentarily ousted Wombat's previous favourites - The Little Red Caboose, The Little Red Hen and Goodnight Little Bear (that last one has been amazing for awakening Wombat's imagination - as I read it, he acts out all the things Daddy Bear does while searching for Little Bear.)


On Sunday, we took Wombat for a birthday picnic to Symbio Wildlife Gardens. My Mum and brother came along as well, and despite some threatening-looking clouds, we had a lovely day. I hope you won't mind a long post with lots of photos - it might make up for my absence lately!


First, here is my darling Wombat enjoying his new boots.

He and I had a great time feeding the peacock that was wandering around the picnic area. I could spend hours staring at peacocks - they really are a walking embodiment of my favourite colour!

After lunch, we went for a walk to look at all the animals. My Mum fell in love with the Marmosets, who had apparently been sitting up against the glass talking to her just a few minutes before, but who suddenly became shy when the camera arrived.

The Meerkats were very cute as well, though Yeti thought it was a bit rough that they didn't have at least one wall that the humans didn't have access to. They seemed to like him, as wherever he stood, they would come running over and look up at him.

They weren't too impressed by the cold weather, either - but they did look gorgeous sunning themselves under their little heat lamps!

The most recent editions to the park were a pair of Red Pandas. They were busy having their lunch of fruit - looking very much like a cross between a cat and a bear - I have more photos of them climbing through their trees, but don't want to bore you totally ;P

There were lots of Australian native animals too. A pair of koalas who were quite friendly and climbed down to see Wombat (who was sitting on my shoulders at the time).

A very sleepy pair of Tasmanian Devils.

Lots of kangaroos and wallabies, many of whom had Joeys in their pouches.

Wombat particularly liked this female Eclectus parrot - the main aviary was closed for renovation, so we didn't get to see most of the birds. He didn't like the male so much, because it clung to the bars and squarwked at him ;P

Yeti's favourites were the two Eagles - though he would have liked very much to have seen Arnie, their Barking Owl, who must have been in the closed-off aviary.

Printing off the map of the park from their website entitled you to one free bag of critter food. I will spare you all the photos of feeding the sheep and other domestic animals. Here are some very greedy deer, who kept trying to snatch the whole bag of food in one go. Yeti hung onto ours, but another group nearby lost theirs within seconds! Wombat was too scared to feed them directly (probably a good thing as they would have taken his fingers off!) but he picked up little bits of food (and stones) off the ground and threw them in, and was quite happy that he was doing his bit to help.

Some of the kangaroos were also keen to get at the food, though most were happier to stay in the background. The camel seemed to be telling us he wanted some better sand to roll in - as dustbowls go, it was hardpacked and didn't seem as comfortable as it could have been.

At the end of the day we got to pat this fluffy little Dingo and watch him running around like any little puppy, which was the highlight of Wombat's day.

Here is Wombat with Yeti and my brother - the photo is unfortunately out of focus, but is the only reasonable shot I got of my brother, who was generally trying to stay in the background.

All in all it was a very fun family day out - and we are going back there in about a week, to take my mother-in-law.

In fact, there's a chance you might be hearing quite a lot more about Symbio. In our recent discussions about long-term goals and where we want to build our future, Yeti and I have decided that when we move from here, we need to move into a business - something that will provide the lifestyle we want for raising children. As we were leaving, Yeti asked the owner if Symbio was for sale - he said he had been working there seven days a week for seven years and was ready for a break. It is all just a big maybe at the moment, but we are seriously considering becoming zoo-owners! It would suit all of us down to the ground (except perhaps MIL, but it is only ten minutes drive from one of her favourite beaches, so there's a chance of convincing her to live nearby if not with us)! Yeti is overflowing with ideas for landscaping and improving the gardens (Steff, if this does happen, we are going to be having some long discussions with you about habitat enrichment!!!) and there would be lots of legal and administrative work for me as part of keeping it running and sourcing funding... I'll let you know what happens when we go back - at the moment there are just lots of unanswered questions but it is a quietly exciting possibility.

A sense of purpose

It has been quite a difficult few weeks, culminating in an explosion of tension. However, my new habit of being proactive has seen me through it (along with a lot of prayer) and I now feel ready to move onto the second of Stephen Covey's habits:

begin with the end in mind.

It is more urgent now than ever before for me to clarify my long term goals - I have a week to go until my 34th birthday - I still want to have two more children before I turn 40 - and we have decided that at 86, Yeti's mum should be enjoying herself rather than providing for us, which is going to require some substantial and imaginative reconstructing of family finances - in one way it is liberating to feel we will be cutting the apron strings and relying on our own resources, but in another it is petrifying, especially when we are contemplating getting pregnant and a major house move as well.

The change must start from within.

There are no short-cuts here. To engage in this habit, you need to have a dream, define your own vision and get into the practice of setting goals which will allow you to make measurable progress toward the dream. ... Until you have defined your vision - the big dream to which you will be working - you will be unable to move on to habit 3 which provides a basic framework for you to re-align your efforts so that you will ultimately achieve your heart's desire.
White Dove Books

It's time for this little energizer bunny to get out of her rut: "stuck on a wrinkle in the carpet… using a lot of battery power… but… going nowhere."

"Begin with the end in mind: Develop a principle-centered personal mission statement. Extend the mission statement into long-term goals based on personal principles."
[QuickMBA]

When I thought about what I wanted as my mission statement, I came up with... you guessed it... MY WORK IS TO LOVE!

So my new habit for this week is to start writing down what I personally want to achieve - the big gold stars I want to award myself - and more importantly, discussing them with Yeti.

I think I've been doing really well with the proactive habit - I'm amazed at how many niggling things have been disposed of. Things which have been waiting months for someone else to 'get around to' are now no longer on anyone's list - I've been adapting The FLYlady's advice to my own needs, and I'm amazed at how big a job can disappear in just 15 minutes! I still need more work on the stimulus-choice-response cycle, but I have at least thought before reacting a few times. I even have my timer ticking down now to make sure I don't waste spend more than 15 minutes on the computer before getting on with real life!

SMART habit progress:

• Being proactive = excellent & enjoying it (more work need on choosing my response to stimulus)


• Declutter = babystepping - the proactivity is really helping here


• My Work is to Love = ditto on the proactivity, and this week's habit as well - it's all coming together!


• Sacred Space prayer = fell apart with no computer or internet access, but I pulled out my weekly missal and am reading daily scripture for myself so excellent


• Positive Parenting = in my mind and trying to practise it, though haven't had time to read anything new


• Exercise = consistent 20 minutes a day - am going to add another 10 minutes to my afternoon routine starting today to celebrate losing 5 kilos since I stopped studying and reACTIVEated my life - wooohooo go me!

Visit Lara at The Lazy Organizer to join in Smart Habit Saturday - it will change your life! (Find out more about Smart Habit Saturday here: Getting Started with Smart Habit Saturday.)

Tales from toyland

It's been a while :) First my computer developed a bad case of the hiccups. Once it was up and running limping again, I had to spend every spare minute saving anything I wanted to keep onto CD in case its problem proved terminal. After that, the modem decided that being swapped back and forth between my computer and Yeti's was too much for it, so it took a couple of weeks off as well.

Surprisingly, I actually enjoyed my break from the electrical monstrosity, so correspondence from now on will probably be sporadic. I am no longer getting up at 3am, so there is less time to procrastinate in the mornings - and my routines for getting me and the house tidy take priority. Wombat naptime is likewise generally overbooked in the 'to-do' department.

Poetry Friday is here again, and I am jumping in with a short but punchy piece from Canadian Fantasy Writer, Charles de Lint.

Today's round-up will be held over at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

The Puppet

The puppet thinks:
It's not so much
what they make me do
as their hands inside me.

~Charles de Lint

If you have kids, you have probably heard by now about the Fisher Price toy recall, due to lead paint used in their manufacture. Yeti hunted around and buried deep within Mattel's site, he managed to find a list of the recalled products, with pictures for easy and fast identification. Elmo and Dora the Explorer seem to be the primary culprits, and it is confined to toys made this year, but if you've bought or been given any Fisher Price products since May, it's worth checking against your toybox!

We had an adventure this week - a three hour drive into town to visit a friend - who wasn't home - so we took Wombat to the beach instead.

Windswept, salt sand specked,
plucking snails from a rockpool,
stroking a starfish,
peeking at a purple-clawed
crab in a crevice.

~MW