Crazy Hair Day

Don't you love it when the kids have an excuse for messy hair?

Blogtober Day 24: Pool fun!

We went to some friend's place today for a BBQ and a swim.  Love the coming warm weather after a cold winter......

Blogtober Day 23: Beaching it

We took off to the best dog beach ever this morning. I was set up with knitting and a camp chair under an umbrella, not obliged to mingle with horrible things like sun and sand. I love swimming in a big surf like at the Gold Coast, but hate sand. So I prefer not to go to the beach.

I was born in the Gold Coast, and as a child travelled from Brisbane back down every Sunday for Junior Surf Life Savers (Nippers) - which I totally rocked at mind you! I was always first in the swim, board and iron man.......and always dead last in the run and flags! Water = good. Sand = very bad. I remember the days of old which have set me up with a fair certainty that I will suffer from skin cancer at some point in my life. These were the days we were told to put on sunscreen, so we put a line of zinc across our noses and thought we were right.

Anyway, I digress. Today we took the dogs to the beach and it was most eventful.

1. We learned that we can not take our dogs to the beach. This dog beach is awesome! It's Leighton Beach at Cottesloe/Fremantle, and there are dozens and dozens of doggies running around off lead, jumping, playing, swimming, chasing........and then our dogs not wanting to go near the water, and one of them being very vicious with every other dog.

2. For the first time ever after spending a large proportion of my life on beaches at the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Burrum Heads, I saw a woman strip nekkid, go for a swim and get dressed again on the beach. Thing is, she honestly did it in such a non-event way that it wasn't even a spectacle. Nothing rude about it at all. The only thrill was that you really don't see that very often, so more of the curiosity of 'wow look at what she did' rather than 'wow look at the nekkid lady'.

3. For the second time I've ever experienced, there was a shark alert. The life guards drove down the beach waving everyone out of the water, there were helicopters, rubber duckies, boats, the whole shebang. About a month ago a surfer was killed by a shark in the Perth waters, so it makes it quite real. Apparently today there was a 5 meter white pointer shark circling the waters just off shore from where we were. I'm pretty sure the urban myth (or could be urban fact for all I know) is that dogs attract sharks, so we could have had a bit of a target on our heads I suppose. It was weird, because I'm so used to the Queensland Coast having shark nets to keep sharks away from the swimming areas, I didn't even think about sharks being able to get close. The only other time I have experienced a shark alert was one year as a Nipper one got through the shark net and the rubber duckie came panic stricken trying to pluck all the Nippers out of the water. That was kinda fun as a 10 year old - would scare the crappers out of me now I think.

Anyway, that was our day at the beach. We all got a little sunburnt in places - funny to see where the sunscreen missed skin in small patches. And everyone is dog tired, but sleeping fitfully after all the sun exposure. It was a lovely family day.

Blogtober Day 17: Lunch by the Beach

Still loving exploring our new(ish) city......

Blogtober Day 7: My kids

I have 4 children. All girls. And it is amazing just how the same parents and homelife can create 4 individual personalities so different to each other.

Ziana: My firstborn, my big kid. She's almost 12 now, and starting highschool next year, makes me feel a wee bit old. This person is amazing. She has a brain unlike any other. She is brilliant academically with a flair for maths and science like you wouldn't believe. She is also disorganised, scatterbrained, obsessive and naive. She doesn't really get along with her peers, but can interact so well with adults, she doesn't understand the social stuff at all. She does try though, once she did a poll of her class about 'What makes someone cool and popular' - broke my heart to hear that I tell you. She writes songs, writes the most amazing stories and can draw manga like a professional artist (in Mummy's opinion).

She has gotten into this super amazing gifted program they run here in WA which hopefully will see her achieve the best of her. Unfortunately she's had a bit of a rough start to schooling. Skipping grades, dropping back to peer grade, changing schools (she's on her 5th change already), social awkwardness and a diagnosis of Aspergers all have given her a bit of a rough trot. So I am hoping this GATE program she is in will be the stabilising factor for her and she can achieve what she has the potential to do.

At the moment she has an obsession with Bunnies, and is slowly working me down to get one of her own. She's very hard to say no to.

Brielle: This gorgeous little girl just turned 10 this year. She takes an amazing photo and I am truly scared of the boys in a few years. She is athletic and does gymnastics. All of a sudden since we've moved over here to Perth, she's taken on a new strength with the gymnastics and can do walkovers, back bends, kick overs, roundoffs, and whole heap of stuff I don't know the name of. I think it's because she's not been to classes since May, she starts again next week, so she had that time off for her brain to click into a new level.

She is friendly and likeable, but does seem to have a few issues with bossiness and temper. She has a bit of a social roundabout as a result. But she is a girlie girl through and through. She isn't the most academic of people, but she tries hard now and I think she's going to do just fine because she has no problem working for what she wants.

Jessalyn: My miracle child. This little person has more strength than anyone I know. She has been through more medical treatments than most people see in their entire lives, but she always has a joyous light to her mood. Her list of conditions are as follows: Biliary Atresia, Anterior Meningocele (a form of spina bifida), Tethered Spinal Cord, Anorectal Malformation, Sacral Agenesis and Duanes' Syndrome. She had her first operation before she was 7 weeks old which was a Kasai Procedure for the Biliary Atresia to literally save her life, without it she would have died by about 1 year old or needed a liver transplant. She's been hospitalised for a week at a time over a dozen times since for liver infections and other operations, including a PSARP and a MACE procedure. Despite all these conditions working against her she is almost a perfectly normal 5 year old little girl. She does have bowel washouts through her MACE every second day, but her liver is healthy for a BA child and her spine seems to work just fine for mobility.

But she is bright and sunny which is something I never thought would happen back in the dark days of holding down my screaming infant while the doctors pierce their 40th hole in her skin for that day trying to get a vein, or seeing her cut up with tubes everywhere drugged out on morphine after her Kasai.

I love this child more than my own life. She is my light and my fire. I would do anything for her and would move the heavens if she needed it. She is brilliant and funny and I don't think I could exist without her.

Kassidy: The baby. OK, so the baby is over 3 years old now and starts kindy next year, but she will always be my baby (I assume). She is totally addicted to me, has to have her hand on me most of the time, and still sleeps in my bed most of the time. I have been putting her to bed in her own bed for the past 2 months, but she bounces into my arms by about 10:30 every night.

This child has such a strong personality she is going to be something very powerful when she grows up. I've never come across such a strong willed infant when she was a baby, and now she still manages to get her way all the time (of course her parents are pushovers....). She is very tactile, even as a wee bub she would stroke my eyebrows and eyelashes to do to sleep, and now she still rubs up and down my arm. If she can't reach she goes into a bit of a panic about it until she finds something tactile to rub.

She's started growing up now, and doing very big girl things. She has a bit of a lisp which is just about the cutest thing I've ever seen. I'll most likely regret saying that in a few years I'm sure.

So, that's my girls. I am so happy to have been blessed with each of them. Although that's not always the sentiment which comes across in times of stress ;-).

Blogtober Day 4: Family Time

Yesterday we went for a gorgeous day trip down the coast to discover Bunbury.  We stopped at this little beach at Rockingham first, which was just divine and serene.

We had a delicious Tapas lunch selection at Bunbury which was just perfect - the marinated octopus was to die for!

Oh, and I super duper love my camera!  Thanks to Corey for getting it for my birthday last year!