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Still In the Running

2012-02-10T05:03:00.000-08:00

Don't worry, the reason for the title will become apparent....

Today, since we survived the first full week of school, we had some friends over after school for a play. It was another hot day here, so when I got home (followed very quickly by a couple of mums whom I am sure drove very safely and didn't race each other) we quickly got inside to the cool (ish) house and started getting snacks ready for the kids to eat. After about 15 minutes, when the kids were sitting down and eating I looked around and realised that George wasn't eating....which is very unlike him. I asked where he was, and there was a general incoherent mumble about where he was. At this point, one of the girls went upstairs so I asked her to tell George that there were snacks downstairs if he was hungry. A little bit later George still was no where to be seen, and this was when the girl told me that George was not upstairs. At this point I thought to myself "I should check the garage" so I did. George wasn't running around in there, but he was sitting in the car, soaking wet, red faced and with tears running down his face. As we had all arrived at once and been in a rush to get inside, George had ended up being shut in the car. With the kiddy locks on, he wasn't able to open the doors. He told me that he had been screaming and calling me, but I didn't come. Also, this same child that managed to honk the horn for about 10 minutes at school once (that is another story) was apparently unable to get the horn to honk today. Now, I am sure that not all the blame is mine ;) I know that I asked Sophia to let George out her door, and to get her bag out of the car....of which, clearly, she did neither. So some of the blame must be passed onto my 6 year old. Also, two other mums (whom shall remain nameless) arrived the same time that I did, and they didn't notice his lack of entry into the house either. I guess I was slightly better than them, in that I at least noticed his absence...even it it was after 20 minutes or so. Hopefully this is something that George will get over and not be scared for life from. In fact, perhaps now he wont ask me if he can stay in the car when I got to the shops. He always asks and gets upset when I tell him that he has to come with me. I suspect that now he might not be so disappointed about coming into the shops with me. The other silver lining is that with this effort (even though I had some stiff competition last year) I think I am in with a good chance to win Worse Parent of the Year for 2012. Leon doesn't know yet, so I if you read this don't tell him about it.

Return to Blog

2012-02-04T06:42:00.000-08:00

Well, lately I have been inundated with requests (3, possibly 4) to up date the blog. Curiously, one of those people was Leon. I am not sure what exciting things he thinks I get up to during the day that I am not telling him about, but I thought that I couldn’t leave these poor people hanging on any longer, so here goes.

First, I guess I should explain why I haven’t blogged for so long. I guess the main reason is that I am lazy and just haven’t done it. Most days I don’t turn the computer on, and have to confess to a lot of my spare time being taken up with reading very (non) high-brow books. Having just finished one such book I thought I would get on the computer (Leon turned it on today).

Secondly, what to write……..it has been so long that I don’t know where to start. I guess, as it has just been the Chinese New Year I could start with New Year Resolutions. I decided that this year the resolutions should be more attainable. With this in mind, I decided that rather than say I will lose weight, I will say that by the end of the year I don’t want to be any heavier than I was at the start of the year. I would have thought this was quite safe, but two weeks into 2012 and following the festive season I was 2 kg heavier!! Leon looks at my tummy and asks “what are we calling this one”. Anyway, in an attemp to counter this issue I have started doing Zumba, and I am really enjoying it. As some of you may know, I am turning 40 this month, and I am sure that I have heard it said that 40 is the new 20!! Apparently someone has forgotten to tell this to my body. Whilst the mind is willing, and I really am enjoying the Zumba, there are parts of me that are shaking that ought not be shaking, and my knees and ankles are not keen either.Hopefully these are things that will get better as I go.

For the turn of the new year, we were in Albany again and had a great time catching up with the family. George again asked continually “are we there yet”, but this time there were no questions about what county we were in and what language they spoke. Again, whilst it was hot in Perth, in Albany it was raining and coolish temps. It is good to know that our track record of having rain when we go away on holidays is not broken. You would think that we would learn to pack appropriately, but we were again lacking in suitable attire for the kids. Hopefully we will get it right one day. I have also heard it said that what you do on 1^st Jan is a good indicator for what you will be doing for the rest of the year. If that is the case, then Leon and I will be laying around the house, having afternoon kips with the kids and eating lots of chocolate, and, in general, too much food. The only good thing was that we were away from home, so perhaps that means we will be doing more travelling.

The end of last year and the start of this year has had catching up with lots of Family. One of my mum’s sisters is here from Italy and that has meant lots of family get togethers. I have actually really enjoyed them, as I get along great with my cousins but we don’t get to see each other enough. We had every one here for Christmas, and lots of photos were taken. Whist there were 30 people, I think we had enough food to feed at least twice that many. This meant that I was eating left over chocolate balls and pavlova for breakfast for the next few days. Not to mention all of the other leftovers. I am sure that nothing to do with the extra 2 kg though. Sophia and George enjoyed seeing all of their cousins, but especially their cousin Guy that is now in Brisbane. They still ask to see him, and George keeps asking me why he keeps going away for holidays and doesn’t stay here J

Sophia finished year one at the end of last year and she did well, and made some lovely new friends. George was happy to see the end of day care for a while as well. This week, just gone, saw the start of the new school year. I can’t believe Sophia is already in year two. She is in a “double class” so Leon and I are keen to see how she goes. Sophia was very happy to have all of her main friends in her class. George started Kindy as well, and he did great. There were no tears from him, although we did make a quick dash out of there as other kids started to cry, just in case it set him off. The first day was only for a couple of hours, so when I picked him up there were no complaints about me taking too long. In fact, he looked at me and asked “but mum, when are we going to do our school work”. I am not sure what he was expecting to do, but obviously it was more than the painting and playing that they had done.

To end, I will share with you one of George’s latest theories. Recently George announced, to anyone that would listen, that the reason he doesn’t get bitten by mosquitoes is because he farts. Apparently the smell of his farts kills the mozzies so that they then can longer bite him.He is very sharing, and has offered this protection to me as well, by sitting on my lap, then farting and telling me “now you wont get any mozzie bites mum”. On another occasion, however, he was unable to help. There was apparently a mozzie in the car when Leon was driving the kids one night. When Sophia saw the mozzie she said “quick George, fart, there’s a mozzie in the car”, to which George replied “but I am all runned out of farts for the day”.

The Great Southern

2011-10-13T07:46:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we decided to get away for a few days so we headed down to Albany. On Friday,after loading up the car with way too much stuff, we headed off. George, true to form, after about 15 minutes into our 5 hour drive asked us if we were there yet. Sophia, after about three hours of driving asked us if we were still in Australia, and what language people spoke in Albany. We told her that they speak Albanian, but that it was alright because my family could speak Italian and I could translate for her J

Before we left I had looked at the weather forecast and seen that we were too expect maximum temps of around 15 deg C, but that it would be dry. When we were about 50km out of Albany ( Margaret River) I mentioned to Leon that the car thermometer was read the temp as 25 deg, so the forecast was wrong. About 45km out of Albany the rain started, and it bucketed down, then the temp dropped to 17 deg. It was as if Harry Potter had cast a protection spell to keep people away. It seems as though I am destined to get rain when I go somewhere on holidays. Perhaps I should do my bit for the planet and go on holidays to drought stricken countries.

Anyway, despite the fact that it rained all of Saturday, we had a great time in Albany. George, who was upset about having to sleep at my cousin Nancy’s place on Friday night, didn’t want to go home on Monday. We all enjoyed catching up with both Leon’s and my family. The kids especially had heaps of fun with their cousins. As well as catching up with family we went to Emu Point to collect shells, saw the windmills at the wind farm and had a look at the Amity (Replica of the Boat that sailed to Albany). I will also add that we had coffee and dinner at a lovely restaurant called The Venice. Great food, great service and very family friendly.

On Monday we headed home via the Tree Top Walk at Walpole. It really is majestic there among the trees. Luckily it wasn’t raining so we were able to enjoy the walk at the top of the trees, and then through the base of the trees at the walk through the ancient empire. Our plan was to tire the kids out before we put them in the car again so that they would sleep once we left there to head home. The plan worked for George, but not for Sophia. After four hours of driving and listening to Sophia talk, George continually asking for food, as well as hearing the sounds of Angry Birds and various movies from the back seat, we were still an hour away from home. We decided to stop so the kids could have a play and some dinner before we embarked on the final leg of our journey. Considering this is the first trip in the car that the kids have done since being in Australia, they did very well. Usually if they were in a car for that long they would be in a different country and would have seen lots of different stuff along the way. Here are some pics.

George not happy with his photo being taken.

Playing on the Amity
Sophia filling out the Captain's log.
George happy to have his photo taken.
At the Wind Farm.

Walking amongst the trees.

Sunset on the way home.

Sunny Sunday

2011-09-12T05:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, since Leon had to leave again for work, we thought it would be nice to go down to the beach for breakfast. When we got to the restaurant (at 8:15) the waiter informed me that we had to vacate the table by 10 (they get very busy for breakfast on the weekends). I was going to say to the guy “are you kidding, with our kids we will be lucky to last as long as 9 o’clock”, but what I said was “shouldn’t be a problem”. It was about 9 when we left, and then we went down to the beach so that George could collect some shells. I had my camera with me, as I thought that it would be nice to get a photo of the kids at the beach. That is easier said than done. I took many photos, and not one of them has the both of them looking at the camera at the same time and looking decent!! George did get to collect many shells though, and has a need to show you every one of them, even though they can look very similar to the previous dozen shells just collected. Luckily was prepared and each child had a bag with their name on it for their shells. We had a lovely time at the beach, and it was a beautiful day. In the afternoon we took Leon to the airport to say farewell. Sophia was good and didn’t cry until we got home and I told her that she couldn’t do something. Then she cried and said that she missed her dad. I think at this stage we had been away from him for about 40 min. A bit later on I got a summons from George. In his lovely gentle tones I heard this “MUM, COME AND WIPE MY STINKY BUTT!”. At which point I thought that perhaps I should cry and say that I missed having daddy home as well J

As a quick aside, George has day care again tomorrow and we had a few tears earlier. He got over it though and said that he wasn’t going to cry anymore, so that was good. He did, however, tell me that “ I am terribly sorry, but I can’t go to day care tomorrow because I have too much work to do at home”. I guess I should give him points for trying.

Here are some of my attempts at getting a photo of the kids.

Well Done Sophia

2011-09-09T04:50:00.000-07:00

Today was Sophia’s school athletics carnival, and we are very proud of her for putting in a great effort, and especially for the First Place that she got in her 60m run. I am not too sure how she got first, considering she was looking everywhere except in front of her, but somehow she managed to do it. She was then in some team events, and whilst she got the points for her run, I think she was a big part of her team coming 4^th in tunnel ball. The ball hit her legs and rolled away. She then just looked at it for a while, willing it come back to her. When it was obvious that the ball was not going to come back on its own, and that no one else was going to get it for her, Sophia finally skipped off to get it. It had stopped in front of some friends of ours, so Sophia also stopped to say hi before skipping back to the team. She then ran around the team, to the front and threw ball into the legs of the kid behind her so that it rolled away again. Fortunately that kid was a bit faster at going off to get the ball. The next team event I saw her in she did really well, and the team came first. After that I had to take George home to get stuff ready for his birthday party.

Whilst we were at the carnival George was playing with some friends, and Emily even came back home with us for a bit while I got things ready for his party. George and Emily were very helpful and gave me lots of good advice regarding the decorating of the cake. They also managed to eat (just) a couple of the lollies along the way. I am happy to report that unlike the previous day, today the cake turned out well. It was the first time I had tried to make a chocolate shell to fit over the cake to make a Pinyata Cake. Now we have leftovers of yet another cake at home. I actually took some of the other left overs to school today so that the kids had some rainbow coloured cake for morning tea. I figured it gave them some extra energy for the carnival.

So, George had some friends over, and he and they had lots of fun playing together. George was very spoilt and loved all his presents and told me that it was a great birthday and “your Awesome mum” . We mums had a nice glass of wine and cup of tea with some snacks to start the weekend.

Happy Birthday George

2011-09-08T06:18:00.000-07:00

Today our little man turned 4. No longer does he need to tell people that he is Big 3, but he very proudly tells them that he is 4 years old, and nearly a grown up. Usually I am quite into getting ready for my kids birthdays, and organising them parties, but this year I really had no interest, so poor George missed out. I hadn't thought about a cake to make for him or anything. As it turned out I spent the last two days making, what is quite possibly, the sorriest excuse for a childs birthday cake that you have ever seen. It was a simple plan, and the test run on the weekend worked well first time. For the actual day however, after three attempts at making the cake I gave up. It looked like a dogs breakfast. When Leon saw it he looked at me and said "is that it?" and then burst out laughing!!! Sophia, as usual, was miss supportive and told me that it was great. George was non-comital about it. I also had the family over for dinner tonight, so whilst I was pfaffing around with the cake, my mother, who is recovering from a hip replacement and has arthritic hands, was busy getting food ready so that we would have something more than three versions of crumbled up cake to eat.

That cake disaster aside, George had a good day. It is a bit sad that I had no interest in his birthday, as it is the first birthday that George has showed any interest in. He has been saying for the last month that he wished it was his birthday, and for the last week he has been asking everyday if it was going to be his birthday tomorrow. This morning when we woke up he turned to me (I was sleeping in his bed this time) and whispered "is this day my birthday?". When I said yes he said to me "but I can't hear it. It doesn't sound like my birthday". I am not exactly sure what he was expecting. Unlike last year, he was happy to open his presents, and he loved all of them. For those of you that don't know, George is into collecting erasers (and shells), so he was given lots of erasers (or rubbers, as he calls them). He has this growing work of art in his bedroom that he adds all of his special things to to make a picture. I will try to remember to take a photo of it to post. If you move something and put it back in the wrong spot he is very quick to tell you that it doesn't go there. So it does seem to have some structure in George's mind. Tomorrow we have some friends coming over after school so that George can have some birthday cake with some friends. Hopefully tomorrows cake will work out, although I am not holding much hope for it!!

Caring Sophia

2011-08-30T05:37:00.000-07:00

For the past week, every morning when George wakes up he asks me if this is the day that he has to go to day care. Today was finally the day that I had to say "yes". Like the Queen in Snow White, when the mirror told her she was no longer the fairest of them all, George did not take the news well. I had a crying little man from 6:50 until I got him to day care at 8:20. He stopped occasionally, when he was distracted, but then he would remember again and start to cry. Sophia was quite nice about it for a while. She would try to say encouraging things to him. She told him that day care was lots of fun, to which George replied "not for me it isn't". After a while, I think Sophia realised she was fighting a losing battle, so she stopped trying to get him to stop crying and just turned the volume of the TV louder to drown out the noise. When Leon called in the morning we could hardly hear each other between the noise of the TV and the crying. When we were about to leave, and George was doing his "please don't take me to day car" Sophia turned to him and said "Geroge your still with mummy, so you don't need to cry. You can stop now and then start when you get to day care". I had to try not to laugh at that one.

With my spare time I helped out with school banking, at the school canteen and then went to help make some christmas decorations for the school fete. I figure that if I just go and learn how to make balloon animals I will be able to start to hire myself out for parties soon :)

Trifecta

2011-08-25T21:01:00.001-07:00

As you are aware, I had Georgie crying at day care twice this week. Well, yesterday I took him to swimming lessons and cried through all of that as well. The poor little thing was sitting there crying with his goggles slowly filling up with tears. It turned out not to be such a bad thing as there was a spare teacher in his class so he got to have her to himself, and from next week he will continue to have her and it will be a one on one lesson. Now I just need to make Sophia cry (which shouldn't be too difficult for a pro like me and a drama queen like Sophia) and perhaps she could also get one on one lessons :)

I was thinking though, that perhaps when I take Sophia to her Gymnastics class tomorrow I will make Georgie do that as well. He has done it once and didn't really like it, so maybe I can make him do something else that he doesn't like and get him to cry again. That way I would make it a trifecta and perhaps I would win the worst parent of the year award. (although, I do have some stiff competition for that one.....don't I Gay).

A Quickie

2011-08-24T07:15:00.000-07:00

Well George and I were both wrong. Today wasn't better and it wasn't the same at day care, it was worse.

George very happily came up to me this morning and asked if we could get changed and go and collect snail shells. I said ' No Georgie, we have to get ready to take you to day care and Sophia to school'. About 10 seconds later I looked at George and he had tears rolling down his face. For the next hour every time he thought about going to day care he started crying. One of the sad things is that I am ruining one of Georgie'a favourite things. He loves to watch the Octonauts so I let him watch it before we leave for day care. The problem is that as he knows that we leave at the end of the show, he starts to cry as it is finishing. I feel a bit mean about that. He is a little trooper though. When Sophia has been in this type of situation (recalling the first day of school last year) she screams and cries and refuses to do what we want he to do. We need to pick her up and she grabs on to door ways so you can't get through them and things like that. Georgie, whilst sobbing, will make his way to the car and get in it on his own, all the while saying "mummy please don't take me to day care". Even when we said good bye to him he was crying and sobbing and he waved his little hand and said "bye mamma". It is quite sweet really, and is almost enough to make me feel sorry for him. Almost...but not quite :)

As a quick aside, Georgie told me today that "maybe you can start to learn to say yes to me all the time instead of always saying no". Also, just to not let Sophia feel left out, the other day in the car Sophia asked Leon and I if it was hard to be a grown up. We told her that yes, it is hard being a grown up. She then asked us what was the hardest thing about being a grown up and Leon said "going to work is the hardest thing", Sophia then turned to me and asked "so whats hard for you then mum". I was going to say that not going to work and having to stay home and be nice to kids is the hardest things, but Leon was laughing too loudly for me to be able to get an answer in.

Day Care....a continuing drama

2011-08-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

Fortunately George was feeling well enough today to take him to day care, although if you ask George I suspect that he has a different opinion as to whether that was a good thing or not. Today we had tears from when I said “OK, time to get in the car to go to day care. He cried all the way there (about a 1 min drive), and was still crying when I left him. He seems to have gone to the school of “learn how to pull your mum’s heart strings” because whilst he was crying he was saying, “please don’t make me go to day care mummy”. “ I just want to stay home with you mama”, I love you mama, don’t go”. When I picked him up, he was actually crying again, but he apparently had stopped crying during the morning. I was told that every now and then he would remember that I wasn’t there and then he would start to cry again. When we said Good Bye to the ladies that worked there I made the comment that “maybe tomorrow will be better”. George looked at me and said, “Maybe tomorrow won’t be better. Maybe it will just be the same “. I guess we will just have to wait and see which of us is right J

Before George started day care I would imagine all of the things that I would suddenly be able to do and get done in my “me” time. That is obviously something that comes further down the track. In my time today I managed to change the sheets on the beds!!! I know that you all think that that is mundane, but I tell you it can be quite an adventure. I nearly lost a battle with the quilt cover!! It took me ten minutes of climbing inside that thing and nearly getting lost in there. At one point I thought that perhaps this was another lesser-known doorway to Narnia. I was very relieved when the quilt was finally organised and I got out of the thing!

The other thing that I have been doing lately is adding to my skill set, to perhaps get me gainfully employed. It is a different path that I have taken, and some might find it surprising, but I have been doing some face painting. Actually, I have somehow managed to get roped into being a face painter at the school fete later this year. I have now spent a silly amount of money on face paint supplies and I am madly trying to learn to paint things on faces that are recognisable to children and that don’t make them look like they are extras in a horror movie. The other thing that isn’t really helping me is that all of this “positive reinforcement” that we are now told to use with our children is coming back to bight me one the arse. I am someone that has always been quite comfortable and accepting of my inabilities, however Sophia doesn’t seem to be accepting of this. I blame the fact that we are all now being too nice to our children and we don’t tell it like it is. When they do a lousy drawing and give it to us, we don’t tell them that it stinks; we say, “that is great darling, I love it”. When they get upset that they aren’t good at something we tell them that they aren’t that bad at it and that if they practice they will get better. Well, now I have Sophia telling anyone that will listen to her that I am doing face painting for the fete, that I am really good at it and that I can draw anything that they want me to draw. I keep telling her that I am not a good face painter and she says “mum why do you always say that you are no good at things?” Anyway that knows me, will attest to the fact that I am, in fact, terrible at drawing. I am severely artistically challenged, and I am not entirely sure how I ended up in this situation. I have a plan though. I intend to be really slow at the face painting so that the kids will end up getting shuffled through to other mums. In another post I will put some pictures in of my efforts.

Day Care

2011-08-17T21:17:00.000-07:00

Since March I have threatened to get George into day car, yet for one reason or another (mostly me being lazy) it never happened. I went around and looked at day care places nearby, I talked to other mums and I even filled out enrolment forms....in March. I had good intentions but every time I said "I will go and enroll him this week" he would get sick and I wouldn't end up doing it. Then it was going to be too close to our holiday and I thought I would wait until we got back. Well, finally it has been done. Last week on Monday Leon took George to his first half day. I got Leon to take him thinking that it would be easier on George (because he loves his mummy so much !). We didn't make a big fuss about it, just sort of got him organised and took him, hoping that he wouldn't realise what was going on. As soon as he got there he saw one of the ladies doing stuff with glitter, and he sat down and got straight into it. Leon said a quick goodbye and raced out of there before George could realise what was happening. I got to do exciting stuff, like cleaning, without getting interrupted. Although I did take the opportunity to have a nice cup of tea and read my book for a bit...but don't tell Leon that as he thought I was working very hard at home.

Anyway, when the time was up I went to pick George up. He looked fine until he saw me, and then he looked as though he was going to cry. He came over to me and said "mummy you took too long to come and get me". The other thing that I noticed about George was that from Head to Toe he was covered in glitter and what looked to be glue! I asked him what he had done and he told me that they had used glitter to do arts and craft. No surprise there. The first thing I did when I got home was wash George's clothes. There were a couple or Leon's tops in there that acquired a bit of glitter, but I don't think he noticed :) When George was asked by anyone if day care was fun he said 'sort of'. I guess he didn't want to commit himself to it too early.

The plan was for George to do one morning last week, and then two mornings a week from this week on. However, the universe likes to scoff at my plans, so naturally George got sick on Friday last week meaning that he missed going to day care one day this week. The poor thing had a terrible cough on Friday night, and got up and came to our bed. Leon very thoughtfully took George to his side of the bed (the preference is usually my side), and faced George in my direction so that when he coughed he was coughing at me. I then spent a couple of nights sharing the bed with George whilst Leon used George's bed. On Wednesday I decided that George was well enough to go to day care again. His nose was no longer a tap, and he didn't cough that often. I was reassured when the lady told me that all the kids had coughs or runny noses.

This time, perhaps because I took George, drop of was not so good. He came up to me with tears running down his face and said "mum you didn't say good bye to me" at which time I pointed out that I was still there so had no need to say good bye get. When I did say good bye and told him to have fun he said " I wont, and don't take too long to come and get me". When I went to pick him up he informed me that I had, in fact, taken too long to come and get him and that he had been a bit sad without me there. Luckily I have a heart of ice (as my mother always tells me) so it didn't bother me. Perhaps we will have more luck next week. Oh, and it seems that Leon's plan worked. It appears as though I am now coming down with whatever George had.

Re-Return to Oz

2011-07-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

At the end of June we decided to go on a family holiday to Switzerland. We arrived in Switzerland exactly one year after we returned to Australia. We had four weeks in Switzerland, which was both work and holiday for Leon. Today I wont write about our trip, I will do that in bits and pieces of the next week or so. I just thought that I would write about our return.

Firstly, we are blessed with children that are great travellers. For the last month Sophia and George did not go to bed before 9.30, and they were usually asleep between 10-10.30pm. This meant that on the long haul flight they were awake for almost all of it. Yet somehow, I managed to watch three entire films on that flight. Some might say that it was due to neglectful parenting (Leon, in particular, might say that). I say that it was due to such good parenting that I was able to leave my children unattended for such a long time.

We were not fortunate enough to fly business class, but I would like to say that Singapore airlines is a great airline for economy class. It is also an amazing airline for Business Class, but despite Georges’efforts to sit in the seats at the front of the plane, we were just not able to. Speaking of George, he was like a little celebrity every time we got off a plane. He would walk down the aisle, doing a little jig and High-fiving all of the stewards as he went. It was quite funny to see. Also a bit nerve wracking as he sometimes misses on the high-5 and he can do it a bit hard.

Although the staff on Singapore Air are great, I do have one criticism of the plane. Now, I am not sure about everyone else, but when I fly these long distances I just assume that at the end I am going to look (and smell) terrible. If I am with Leon, I count on him to let me know if my appearance is not acceptable, as he seems to have no qualms about telling me such things. I guess if I had really bugged him he might let me go about looking hideous, but generally I think I would be quite safe. Having said that, I can see how it is nice to have mirrors available so that you can see how (terrible) you look, and how they can also create a sense of space in small places. However, I do not feel the need to view myself in a full-length mirror when I am going to the toilet! Perhaps those that are members of the Mile High club think it is a good idea, but I really don’t think that it is necessary.

Luckily the flights were uneventful, although a bit bumpy. Personally I love a bit of turbulence on the plane, and apparently, so do Sophia and George. We hit one patch while we had our meals infront of us and I think it is quite lucky that the trays did not end up on the ceiling!. The kids thought that it was great, and they couldn’t stop giggling. Another time there was actually a cheer from some other kids, so it was good to know that mine are not abnormal. Despite the bumps, we got home safe and sound. The kids were happy to be home and to have their own things again. Everyone else is sleeping at the moment, so fingers crossed that they don’t wake up in a couple of hours feeling wide awake and refreshed. I will get my photos sorted and I will send out some web albums, so don’t worry, those of you that the emails can look forward to way more photos than you really care to look at J

I haven't forgotten, I am just lazy

2011-07-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

Sorry to all the thousands of people that I am sure have been routinely checking my blog for updates. We have been a bit busy lately so I have been slack on the blogging front. Rather than fill you in on the details of what we have been doing, or not doing, I will skip June, and go straight to July.

At the end of June our family got on plane to return to Switzerland for a holiday. The kids were very excited to be going back to “their country” and were really looking forward to seeing their friends again. We left Perth on a cool and rainy Winters day, and arrived in Switzerland to a cool and rainy Summers day. It was the first plane trip for Sophia, George and I in 12 months, but luckily the kids were still great travelers. Although, we hadn’t even started to move on the runway when George asked “are we there yet?”.

We have had a lovely time here so far, and it has been great to catch up with friends again that we haven’t seen for a long time. It has also been nice to see shops and places that we used to go to a lot. It is especially nice to see Sophia when she remembers things. A look of recognition comes over her face and she start to tell us things that she remembers doing. It has also been great to see her just pick up where she left off with her friends. Especially with Ella and Kim. George keeps asking us when we are going to our old Switzerland. Apparently Switzerland to him is our old apartment. George has also provided us with lots of entertainment. One of his standard things seem to be to ask us “are we there yet” as soon as we leave to go somewhere, but one of my favourite comments from him was at the Zurich zoo last week when, after many hours of asking for an ice cream he said “my tummy hurts”. When we asked him why his tummy hurt he said “because it’s not full with ice cream!!”.

As Leon and I didn’t do as much sight seeing of Switzerland as we should have whilst we were living there, we decided to do a short family trip to see some sights. We had a long weekend where we went to the French part, and then up into some mountains. Switzerland with it’s different languages, as always, amazed me. It is a fantastic country because just by driving a short while you can feel as though you are in a different country as you are speaking a different language and the culture is also a bit different. For our weekend away we went to the town ofGruyeres, stopping at the Papiliorama on the way. The Papiliorama is a small Rain Forest zoo, with a butterfly enclosure as a main feature. The town of Gruyeres is beautiful, as is the countryside around it. We did a tour of the castle, had a drink in the HR Giger café (the guy who designed the aliens for the movie Aliens), did a tour of the Caillier Chocolate factory (complete with a tasting at the end) as well as the Gruyere Cheese factory. For those that may not be familiar with the Gruyere cheese, it is one of the cheeses that is used for Fondue. This means that the menus in all the restaurants in the town were filled with Fondue and other cheese options. The other thing that Gruyere is known for (which I didn’t realize before our trip there) is a double cream. They like to serve this with almost everything, especially Meringues and berries. I suspect that this could be the reason that I no longer need to where my belt with my jeans!!! That, or it could be all of the gipfli (croissants) and Swiss chocolate!!

From Gruyere we drove to Lauterbrunnen (near Interlarken) where we caught lots of cable cars to go up mountains and be rewarded with incredible views. The scenery was spectacular, and we were lucky to have had good weather. The highest point we went was up to Piz Gloria on the Schilthorn, which is 2970m high. We then caught the cable cart part way down and did a small hike. As usual we were completely unprepared for hiking. Unlike almost everyone else we saw, we did not have any of the appropriate attire. Fortunately it was an easy and short hike and the kids even managed it with only a bit of whining from George. At one stop Sophia was even able to touch the clouds. She has been asking about touching clouds for ages, and we were at a stop waiting for the cable car surrounded by clouds that were blowing pasted us. Sophia was very happy, and George wanted to do the same thing. I got him to touch the clouds as well only to have him start to complain that he couldn’t feel anything! Here are some pics from the weekend.

View from Gruyeres
Up on Allmendhubel
Playground on Allmendhubel
Up on Schillthorn
Cheese!! At the Gruyere Cheese factory.

Our Long weekend

2011-06-06T19:48:00.001-07:00

Well Sophia is back at school today after the long weekend, so I thought that I would do a blog and put some pics up. We actually had a nice long weekend, even though we didn't do anything exciting. The weather was beautiful so we got outside quite a bit.

As the weather is getting a bit cooler now, we have actually had a few Fondues!!! By Swiss standards it probably isn't cold enough, but we thought we would give it a go. We have done it twice already, and have quite enjoyed it. Alma came over on Friday night and we had Fondue again!! This was out of a packet though, "Matterhorn", and was not quite as nice, but OK for the three of us. It was nice to have Aunty Alma over and the kids got to give her her birthday present and we got to eat yummy cup cakes!! (recall my Blog about the expanding waistline).

On Saturday Leon left for Switzerland for work and the kids had a sleep over at Nonna and Nonno's place so that I could go out to dinner with the girls for Alma's Birthday (again...the waistline!!). Had a lovely time, but I have to admit it was a bit strange coming home to a completely empty house. It has been a long time since that has happened. When I picked the kids up on Sunday morning they were sitting on the couch watching TV and I asked "where is Nonna and Nonno?" My reply was a shrug of the shoulders and a mumbled "dunno". Luckily they were there.

For the rest of the weekend we spent a lot of time discovering new play grounds in the area and playing with the neighbours. We are lucky to have some great neighbours in the street with little kids as well. Across the road is a 6 year old girl that talks as much as Sophia (as hard as that may be to believe). It is great that the kids are there, although there is a down side. I am not sure if it is all children, but my kids have no sense of personal space. They would happily be knocking on the doors of the neighbours first thing in the morning and late at night. It is hard to get them to understand that you can overstay your welcome. In this regard though, we were happy when one of the other kids knocked on our door 8am Sunday morning last week, so at least it isn't just our kids!! It is very nice though, we all share the burden and the kids move as a group from one house to the next. This was the kind of thing we were hoping to find when we bought a house, so we are very happy to have it this way.

So to end off, I will put some photos that I took at the play ground yesterday. In Australia we say it is already Winter, but the photos have a bit more of an Autumn feel. I am not sure what it is with George at the moment, but his smile for photos makes him look like he is in pain. Poor Sophia also looks a bit like a Hill Billy with her teeth all over the place. I really need to learn how to use my camera though, and perhaps even do a photography course. If anyone knows of goods ones, please let me know.

Odds and Bobs.

2011-06-05T04:49:00.000-07:00

As I have been a bit slack on the blogging lately, I thought that I would do a bit of a catch up with random bits and pieces.

Firstly, that have been following my candidacy for Worst Parent of the Year might be interested to note my additional efforts in my endeavour to covet this prize. A few weeks ago Sophia had a birthday party to attend on a Sunday morning. The Saturday evening previous to this the Sophia and George were making birthday cards for the upcoming event. It was at this time that I started to think things over in mind (I know, it is not something that I do often, and if I had done it a bit more perhaps this story would have ended differently). The party was to be on the 21^st of May, and I had been to a party on Friday night that was on the 20^th. That would mean that Sophia and George were ,in fact, making cards on the Saturday night for a party that had actually occurred on the Saturday morning! The worst thing about this (actually, there are to many bad things about this) was that I hadn’t forgotten, I just had never put the event onto a calendar to realise that the 21^st was in fact a Saturday, not a Sunday as I assumed it was. Naturally Sophia burst into tears and cried for the next half hour, which for her is actually not too bad. I felt terrible, and very stupid, when I had to ring the mother to explain why we had not been at the party. Sophia was actually quite stoic and through her tears tried to tell me that it was not all my fault. I did set her right though and told her she was correct. If daddy had paid more attention to things she needed to do this may not have occurred J (I didn’t actually say that, I took all the blame). The only thing that perhaps would have been worse, was if I hadn’t realised and on the Sunday morning got the kids ready for a party and showed up at the house a day late. I can only imagine the scene we would have put on for our friends and all of their neighbours.

Also, the other week George fell asleep during the day one day. That night I was telling Leon that George had had an afternoon sleep and I made the comment “hopefully he slept because he is coming down with something, otherwise there is no chance of him going to sleep tonight before 10”. Leon thought this comment, hoping my child might be getting sick, was worthy of a Worst Parent nominee. Personally, I thought he was being a bit harsh.

Other than those little mishaps, things have been quite well for us. We are settling into our house and starting to do some entertaining. Last weekend we had people here on Friday, afternoon, Friday night and Saturday night. On Sunday morning the kids asked me “who is coming over to our house today?”. The entertaining has been nice, and helps us to feel settled a bit more. The problem with it though, is that I keep making desserts for visitors and then I have leftovers. All of the leftovers lately, as well as the Easter eggs we are still getting through, are not doing my waistline any good (unless an increasing waistline is a good thing).

On that note I will sign off now to have a cup of tea and piece of chocolate cake…or perhaps I will crack another Easter egg.

Karma

2011-05-29T20:41:00.000-07:00

Now those of you that watch ‘Earl’ (I want to be Joyanne when I grow up) will know all about the principle of what goes around comes around. If you are nice to others, others will be nice to you etc. I was reminded of Karma and myself recently when trying to teach George the difference between Lip Balm and Lip Bum.

Those of you that grew up with ethnic parents in an English speaking country might know where I am heading with this Blog. I grew up in a house hold where my parents spoke Italian, in a time when it was not trendy to be a Wog. I refused to speak Italian at home and was always trying to correct my parent’s English. One difficulty my parents had is with the “th” sound, as this doesn’t exist in Italian. Whenever we tried to get them to say it we would be in danger of getting covered in spit as my parents would produce this “Ter” sound. A particular problem was discerning if something was to happen on a Tuesday or a Thursday, which lead to the coining of the phrase/question “the Tuesday before or after Wednesday?” so that we would be certain to have the right day. Leon’s mum thought I was joking about this until one day when she was speaking on the phone to my mother and had to ask the very same question herself J

Another problem that my parents have is with saying A E and I. My brothers and I used to laugh as dad would correct mum and all we would here is “its easy. Aie is Aie, and Aie is Aie” with there being no discernable difference between the three letters. Little did I know, as I laughed with my brothers, that later in life I would move to a German speaking country and I would need to learn another language. In an early lesson we were doing numbers and as I said 5 “fuenf” the teacher would say “nein, Fuenf” and I was sure I had said the exact same thing. The teacher and I could go on like this for ages, with me certain that I was pronouncing words exactly as the teacher was, but the teacher obviously had different thoughts. Living in Switzerland also made me regret my aversion to learning Italian as a child. There were many people that we met that spoke at least three different languages and many others that spoke five languages or more. We were made to feel very inadequate!! If only I had not made fun of my parents and had listened to them a bit more!!!! I guess that might also explain some of the issues that I have with my own kids at the moment J

Innocence

2011-05-13T22:04:00.000-07:00

Friday morning when Sophia woke up she told me that she had lost a tooth during the night. This is the eighth tooth to fall out, and appears that she only has space for 4 teeth to replace them. I think we are going to need some sort of algorithm to work out where in her mouth the new teeth are going to grow out of. Leon and I also think that we should take her to the dentist as they might like to submit photos of her "adult teeth emergence" to a dental journal as a case study of how to fit in adult teeth that appear to be (if we are being kind) at least double the size of the baby teeth...Anyhow, I digress.

Back to Friday morning. It took me a moment to realise that Sophia had actually "lost" her tooth. It must have come out during her sleep and it was no where to be seen. I suspected that she had in fact swallowed the tooth. We decided that we were all happy to "suspect" this, and no one needed to have confirmation of the fact :)

The dilemma that we were then faced with was what to do regarding the tooth fairy. Not being familiar with the policy and procedures guide for Tooth Fairies we were not sure if a tooth being present was a requirement for payment of funds for said tooth. We decided that even though the tooth fairy needs the teeth to build her Castle (that is apparently what is done with them), we would leave a note in place of the tooth, and hopefully the Tooth Fairy would be happy with this and not assume that Sophia was fraudulently trying to get some money. Apparently a note works just fine, as this morning the note was missing and in its place was a gold coin. I guess we should not be surprised at the trusting nature of the Fairy, as they have special powers so they would know if a tooth had, in fact, fallen out or not. What did surprise me was that following the event, it did not occur to Sophia to perhaps try this note business again and see if she would get money, even if she did not lose a tooth. Perhaps she is wise and realises that the Fairy has great powers and she would not want to risk any further loss of funds due to bad behaviour. Perhaps we will try it when there is only one tooth left to come out. I suspect, however, that it is due to her being a sweet little girl that doesn't lie or try to do mischievous things (mum or dad being exempt) to other people. I can not remember being so sweet myself, so I wonder at what age it is that kids lose this sweetness. Whenever it is, I suspect that the age it happens is getting younger.

This Tooth Fairy and note business lead me to wonder how it would work for adults. I think that an adult tooth fairy system should be devised where we can leave IOU notes for teeth that we will lose in later life. When our adult teeth (which would be worth much more than baby teeth) did finally fall out, we could just leave them out for the Fairy to take and the Fairy would just need to sign off one of the IOU's!!!

Life Skills

2011-05-10T05:55:00.000-07:00

Since coming back to Perth I have been asked often if I am going to go back to work. I did some temporary casual work for a bit, which was great, although it was not the sort of thing I could do all day every day. When I think about going to work I realise that I am not too keen to do the same thing that I used to do (even though I was good at it), but I am not sure what else I would do. Also, having been a stay at home mum for quite some time now, I must confess that I don’t feel very smart any more, and I am a bit worried about going to work and having other people confirm my fears!!! I have heard people say that you can be surprised with the skills you are actually learning whilst you are at home raising children. This has made me sit back and think of what I am better at now, than I was before I was a mum. Upon reflection of this, I am not sure that my knowledge base has been expanded by that much, or that the expansion, in my case, is going to make me too desirable as an employee.

One skill that I have acquired as a mother is to fane great interest in what I am being told. Now, I know that this is a skill that most females have, but I think that having to listen to my children complain and tell me stories has pushed this to a completely new level.

Since being a mother, I have also become a connoisseur of bodily waste. I am not sure how useful this is in the job market, but if someone was in need of a person to grade the quality of poo (my grading system ranges from good to nasty), then I would probably be in with a chance. That said, I am not too sure that I would be interested in the job.

The only other skill that I think I have acquired since becoming a mother is that of interpreter. This is something that I already had some experience with since I was used to my parents Dinglish (A topic for another blog post I think), but having the kids language has helped to develop this skill further, especially with the Georgisms. It is sometimes amazing how easily I can follow a child’s conversation when those around me have no idea. Again, whilst this is a useful tool to have as a parent, I don’t really see how it transfers to the job market.

So, I guess that one could consider this blog post a CV of sorts. If you can think of any jobs that might require my particular skill set, please feel free to pass on my CV J

Happy Mothers Day

2011-05-08T04:54:00.000-07:00

To all the lovely, and even the not so lovely, mums out there, Happy Mothers Day. I hope you all had a wonderful day.

My day started off great! We went to a party last night, and the kids went to bed late so they didn't wake up too early this morning. At about 7:30 George says to me "mum, can you get up with me". I said "Of course not darling, it is my turn to sleep in". Luckily I said this loud enough to wake Leon up, so he (being the wonderful man that he is) got up and took George down stairs for breakfast. George bought me my iPod and settled back into bed with me thinking that he was going to get to watch a movie. He was very disappointed when I told him that it was my turn to use it and I was going to read a book!!! He was not to happy and said he was going to go and ask dad! Leon then tried to wake Sophia so that she could help with breakfast and get the present organised. Sophia had a late night last night, and takes after me when it comes to needing a lot of sleep. Without opening her eyes she said to Leon "daddy, how about if you get the breakfast ready and I will just keep my eyes closed for another 3 or 4 minutes".

A little bit later Sophia, George and Leon came into the bedroom with presents for me, and all that had been chosen by Sophia. I got some lovely flowers (Sophia chose hers because one was purple, George chose his because they looked like fire), a vase (again chosen by Sophia. She apparently chose a different one originally, but that was $700 . The one that George wanted to get was, in fact, a glass) a Donna Hay cook book and a lovely card that Sophia made at school. Leon had also gotten me a great bag on his way through Singapore aeroport a couple of weeks ago.

Sophia and George stayed in bed with me and took charge of the iPod whilst Leon got breakfast ready for me. I had Croissants, with ham and cheese, with jam and cream, some Bircher Muesli, OJ, cup of Tea and an easter egg. The kids also ate in bed with me which was cute. Leon was in charge of photos, so that means that we don't have any photos of the kids in bed with me eating yummy breakfast. It was a lovely start to the morning. Leon even took the kids to the play ground for a while so that I could have morning tea on my own!!!

I guess it wouldn't be a true mothers day though if we didn't get reminded of the true meaning of being a mother. To this end, toward the end of the day we had crying, screaming kids and one of them feeling a bit poorly. The joys of being a mother!!!

George

2011-05-04T21:39:00.000-07:00

Sophia is back at school again, so it is just me and George during school hours so I thought I would focus on him a bit. Compared to Sophia, he is less maintenance and easier to look after, but he is more clingy than she was. This last 8 months of being here and spending lots of time with me seems to have made him worse. I have forms to enroll him into day care so that he can get more interaction with kids, and to get him ready for Kindy next year. In an effort to prepare him for this I sent Sophia and George to a school holiday thing at a Gym nearby. It was a drop of thing and the kids stayed for 3 hours. The first time I left them George was all happy to be there. I went home put some washing on and sat down to have a cup of tea. Just as I finished my cuppa (luckily) I got a phone call to say that George had been crying and they couldn't get him to stop. I know that must mums feel sorry for the children in this situation and feel bad for having dumped the kids. I am not one of those mums. I find it annoying as there is no reason for him to cry. When I picked him up he was still sniffing with watery eyes. He gave me a big hug and asked why I had left him there. I asked why he was crying and he said "because I love you so much I didn't want you to go home". They obviously learn at a young age the right things to say to make the parents feel bad. My reply to this was a very loving " well that is just silly George. Sophia says she loves me lots too, and she didn't cry about staying there". Despite this effort I sent him along again yesterday, and this time he stayed the whole three hours and even said that he wanted to go again!!! He got lots of hugs and praise for that one!!! Although, as I walked in to get the kids I did hear him ask "when is my mum coming to get me?"

Today we went and had a look at another place for daycare, so now we just have to pick one and sign him up. Will be interesting to see how it goes.

Other than that, I am constantly surprised by things he says. In the car the other day Sophia said "now we are back on track". George then said "no we're not. We're on the road. Did you forgot Sophia, the cars are on the road and the trains are on tracks". This is the type of thing that can easily lead to an argument between the two of them, but Sophia was in good spirits and just said "your right Georgie. Clever boy".

If you read the post the other day, George is still fixated on the Lip Balm issue. Today he asked me again if it is made of "bums with lips on them". When I said no he said "mum, but it is called LIP BUM" I tried to get him to notice the difference between the words Bum and Balm, but it was not as easy as you might think. In the end we settled on Lip Balm being made of a special cream, but again I had to specify that no the cream did no come from bums!!

Something else that I noticed about my little man today, is that it looks as though he has inherited my gene for moles, the poor thing. I noticed two tiny little spots on his face today. He also has some others on his body. It appears as though my beautiful little boy is going to have his beautiful face marred with spots. I just hope he doesn't get as many as I have . I don't have many photos of me when I was little so I am not sure when mine started to appear. George will probably have a good record of his though as I tend to get a bit snap happy with the camera sometimes.

Finally I will sign off with a photo. The other night we got home and as I turned the lights on one of the RCD boxes kicked in and the lights went out. Leon asked me to go and a torch for him to go out to the meter box to flick the switch. When I came back with the torch he just looked at me and asked "is that really all you could find"....and yes, it was the only torch that had batteries in it.

Parents of the Year.....NOT!!!!

2011-04-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

This morning when Sophia awake from her slumber and sauntered on downstairs I heard her talking to Leon. I was not really listening until I heard her say "daddy, the tooth fairy didn't come last night". I then had Leon walk over to me and say (a bit accusatory I thought) "did you hear that mummy? Sophia said the Tooth Fairy didn't come last night". Being the quick thinker that I am (others might accuse me of just being used to lying to my children) I asked Sophia which box she put the tooth in. It was different to the one that the last tooth was left in, so we all concluded that the Tooth Fairy didn't know where the tooth was (fortunately in the past the tooth fairy has taken the teeth with her, so that was how we knew that this time she didn't find the tooth). My suggestion was to perhaps leave a very politely worded letter to the Tooth Fairy with directions to where the tooth was now kept. Obviously this would only work if the Fairy was female as a male Fairy would not follow directions. Sophia had the more simple solution of just leaving the lid off the box so that the Tooth Fairy will see it. I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens tonight. Either way, Leon and I figure that this, as well as no present for Sophia's birthday, means that we are in the running for "worst parents of the year". We are just awaiting the confirmation letter to be delivered to us by Owl Post any day now to say that we are in fact the winners this year!!

On another note, George informed me today that Lip Balm is made out of Lips and Bums (obviously he pronounces it a bit differently). I told him "no, that is what sausages are made of".

Royal Weddings and Princess Birthdays.

2011-04-29T06:44:00.001-07:00

Today Sophia turned 6!! I can't believe that she is getting so big. As it was the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton we decided that we would do a high tea with some friends from school, with the theme focusing on Weddings.

We (I ) decided that we would make a cake to look like a wedding cake. It is a bit difficult because I have try and not be a control freak. Sophia always likes to help me decorate her cakes and if I say no she replies with "but it is my birthday and my cake". To this I have to act like an adult and say "well then, I guess you should help", when in fact I feel like ranting and saying that I have spent ages on this cake and no you can not just draw all over it as it is not an art activity for you...etc. In the end, under heavy guidance from me, Sophia did help with the cake, as well as decorations and other food things for the party.

This morning started with Sophia waking early to tell us it was her birthday. She asked if we had a present for her, and being the horrible parents that we are, we said no ( we will go and get her something tomorrow). Luckily some friends from Switzerland sent some presents with Leon so she got to open them (which she loved). From 10am till 1pm today we had 11 girls over at our place for High Tea. The girls got to decorate some cup cakes (which looked beautiful), paint some plaster moulds and do some dancing. The surprising hit of the party was when the girls got to dress-up two of the girls with toilet paper to try and make it look like a wedding dress. I was a bit reluctant to do this as it is a waste of paper. But it worked really well. Actually, it wasn't so much that they enjoyed making the dresses, it was playing with the toilet paper afterward. At one point there was a roll that escaped and tried to roll away. From then, the other rolls started to slowly make their way down the hall way as well. This then lead to the girls collecting, ripping and throwing the toilet paper. It then wasn't long before they look the paper upstairs to dropped it over the railing downstairs. Now, usually if I ask the kids to go upstairs to put something away I get this bit story about how they are too tired to go up the stairs Blah blah blah. Apparently though, if they are collecting ripped up bits of toilet paper and taking them up stairs to drop over the railing, they are happy to go upstair. Again, and again, and again. This activity kept the kids busy for about 40min!!! Luckily there was no water involved, so it was easy to clean, and Leon stood upstair to make sure that nothing else found its way over the railing.

Once everyone left Sophia opened her presents. She was very spoilt and she loved all of the gifts. She also then got a phone call from her friend Kim in Switzerland and she was very happy to speak to her. Leon took the kids to the playground in the afternoon while I cleaned up, and then this evening we watched the Royal Wedding and got to sing happy birthday again with the grand parents. To end the day Sophia's friend Ella (from Switzerland) also called her say happy birthday just as Sophia got into bed.

Thanks to everyone that helped her celebrate, and that sent us birthday wishes. She had a great day.

Sophia ready for the party.

Sophia set the table

Sophia made the place cards
Sophia and George made these with their new friends Ella and Sarah

Cup cakes decorated by the girls

Tea Cups made by Terry. They were great!

Collecting toilet paper.

Time for Birthday Cake

Family Photo time

Happy Birthday again

George helping Sophia blow out the candles.

Lest We Forget

2011-04-25T07:55:00.001-07:00

Today is ANZAC day in Australia (Not sure if it is something celebrated in New Zealand or not), which (for those that aren't Australian) stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. It is a day when we remember all of the Service Men and Women that have served to protect and help our country. Sophia has been learning about ANZAC day at school, and when I mentioned to her that there was a service, she was very keen to go. Originally Sophia wanted to go to the dawn service. Although I am not a morning person, and nor is Sophia, I was willing to get up early to get her ready so that Leon could take her to the service. However, once we explained to her how early we would need to get up, she changed her mind and decided that we she was happy to go to the parade. George didn't really have an opinion on the matter, he just wanted to go where ever his sister was going. So, this morning we got up at a decent time and got ready to go to the parade. As it was in the city and parking would be terrible, we decided to catch the train into town. The kids were very excited about this, as they have never caught the train in Australia before. Actually, at one point when we were on the train George asked me if we were in Switzerland :) It was actually nice to catch the train again, and it took us right to where we needed to be. The kids then waited patiently for the parade to get to where we were. Sophia was very good and stood there waving her flag and clapping for the entire time. George was a bit over it after the first 10 min and then he wanted food and cuddles. The parade was very good, and it was great to see all of the older service men and women that served in WWII. Unfortunately I had my camera on the wrong setting so most of the photos are blurry, but here are a few that turned out OK.

As the weather was beautiful, after the parade we decided to catch the train into Fremantle where we had fish and chips by the water (a very Aussie thing to do) and got to watch a Canadian street performer as there is a Street performers festival in Fremantle this weekend. We then headed home to rest and get ready for some visitors. We were very excited to meet the newest of Leon's cousins, Liam. He is just over two weeks old, tiny and gorgeous. I think that when George was born his head alone weighed as much and was as big as little Liam was when he was born, or maybe that is just how I remember him after three days of labour followed by C-section. :)

Pics of the New House

2011-04-22T07:15:00.000-07:00

Well, I have finally got around to taking and posting some photos of the house. They are quite self explanatory so I haven't written any labels. There are also a couple of pics of the kids doing some easter crafts.

Personal Information

2011-04-21T04:50:00.000-07:00

When is it, do you think, that children start to get a sense of what information should be passed on to other, what should be left unsaid? This evening the telephone rang and Sophia answered. I hear her say hello, and then start saying "mummy got waxed and I had a hair cut......we got a package with some easter eggs.....etc". After a bit more talking she goes to pass the phone to me and ask her "is it daddy? " I assumed it was Leon calling before he headed to the aeroport to come home. Sophia says "no, it's Papou"!! I thought to myself, luckily she didn't come into the room with me and then tell Papou about where I was waxed. Now, I would have thought that Sophia might have mentioned to her grandfather that we had just been to the beach and she had a swim with George and then we had fish and chips. We had only been back from the beach for about 15 minutes, but apparently that was not as memorable as my going to the beautician for a bit of hair removal!! I didn't bother telling her that perhaps next time she might not mention to people my personal grooming activities, but I figured it would go in one ear and out the other. I just hope that it isn't too long before she learns the difference between what might be appropriate conversation and what isn't :)

As proof that we did go to the beach, here are a couple of pics. Sorry, no photos were taken during the trip to the beautician.

School Holidays Again.

2011-04-20T05:36:00.000-07:00

Well, today was the first day of school holidays for us (is it just me or do the kids get too many holidays!!). Sophia had a good first term at school, and we are very proud of her efforts. Sophia was awarded a Certificate of Recognition at the first assembly of term, and then was awarded the Most Conscientious from her class at the last assembly of term. As well as these two certificates, Sophia came home the other week with a “Family Values” certificate. She showed me the certificate after school and said “look what I got today mum”. I asked her “what did you do to get that”, and her reply was “I don’t know. They just gave it to me”. As though she was so used to getting certificates that she didn’t bother to keep track anymore. Actually, she has also earned herself another certificate for being well behaved, but she has to wait until the first assembly of second term to get it!!! More impressive than all of the certificates though is the fact that she has managed to keep her name off the white board for the entire first term. Often Sophia will report to me who had their name put onto the white board that day at school. I am curious to see if when (as I am sure it is bound to happen one day) it is her name on the board if she will be so keen to let me know that it has happened.

Sophia is also making new friends at the school, and we are slowly realising that there are a number of kids from her year at school that live in the same estate that we do. One friend lives just around the corner from us, so hopefully we will be have lots more play dates with them.

Although Sophia is making new friends, she is still wanting to see her friends from her old school, so we have also been having some play dates with “old school” friends as well. Leon has been away now for just over two weeks, so we have had heaps of play dates to keep us busy (and keep me sane). School ended yesterday and we had people over yesterday morning, yesterday after school and had family over here today. George has also been enjoying catching up with friends. Although, other than little Gus, it is always girls that he has to play with.

We had some Swiss friends come and visit though, and both Sophia and George loved playing with Nicholas and Benjamin. They never played together in Switzerland, but they had a great time together here. I think it was especially nice for George to have a bit more testosterone around J

Now we are counting down until Leon gets home. We are keeping busy by getting ready for Easter as well as Sophia’s birthday. At the moment we have Easter decorations out, and the kids have been decorating and painting plaster rabbits and eggs. All of sudden George is really enjoying painting and drawing. It is quite cute to watch him do his craft stuff, and his drawing has really improved. We still need to ask sometime what he has drawn, but often we can tell without asking. That now makes him just as good as me (oh how I used to hate playing Pictionary)!!

When Easter is done, it is Sophia’s birthday. This year Sophia is sharing her birthday with the nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton, so we are keeping it low key and will do a High Tea at home with some friends of hers.

It has been a while, so here is an update

2011-04-11T07:08:00.001-07:00

Well, we are finally in our own place. After 7 months of looking at (about 50) houses, in Jan this year Leon and I finally bit the bullet and bought a house that we had seen on the first weekend that we went looking at houses!!! It was a strange process that makes for an entertaining story if Leon tells it, but a bit long-winded if I write it, so I wont bore you with all the details. When we finally put the offer in on the house, so did some other people, so we did not expect to get the house. The next day we got a phone call to say that our offer had been accepted. At this stage, we had spent the evening certain that we would not get the house, so we seemed to focus on the negative things of the house rather than the things we liked. We did this so effectively that when the agents told us, very excitedly, that we had the house, we were actually a bit disappointed. I don’t think the agents knew quite what to think of us. The settlement process also had some dramas, as does everything we do. At one point there was a three-day period where each day we would swing from not wanting the house any more to thinking that it would be all right. I suspect that Leon and I might bring a bit of the drama on ourselves (more so Leon than me……I think Sophia must get her Drama queen traits from Leon). Eventually, in March, we settled and got the keys (quite unenthusiastically). In the middle of March our thing from storage were delivered to us, and the unpacking began. Again, I think it is us, but unpacking has been a very slow process. It made for some interesting first nights when we would have to manoeuvre through the obstacle course of boxes. During the night we would move things around to make it a bit more difficult for the kids to get to us if they woke during the night J The kids were very happy to see all of their things again. When George saw the furniture he started to hug it saying “mum, this is our stuff from Switzerland”. He then seemed to think that because it was our stuff from Switzerland that that meant that we were now in Switzerland. I would have thought that the blistering sunshine and 35 deg would have told him otherwise though.

Finally, nearly four weeks later, we are mostly unpacked and settling into the house. We still have not used the BBQ. Firstly because we have not read the manual to work out how to use it, and secondly (and most importantly) because it is barricaded in behind a wall of flattened boxes and large bags filled with butchers paper. The Swiss were very efficient with the wrapping of our things, and I now feel personally responsible for the trees being cut down to make paper!! It was incredible how much was used. (I literally became a paper pusher approaching strangers at schools and random places asking if they would like some paper from me). I think the best effort with the packing was three sheets of paper for one espresso cup. Whilst it was not good for the environment the plus side was that nothing was broken, and I guess in the scheme of things that is what is important.

Now that we are settling in are becoming happier with our purchase. It is very nice to have our own space again, and also to be living a bit more centrally. Having our own place also means that we are a bit more social now as well. People drop in more, and we invite people over more often as well. We have even had a visitor from Switzerland come and see us!.

Well I think I will sign off there. I need to go and get some brownies out of the oven…..

I will take and post some photos soon.

Things our kids say

2011-03-11T07:34:00.000-08:00

In the last couple of days my kids seem to be coming out with a lot of interesting things, so I thought I would write about some of the ones that I can remember.

I will start with Sophia. Yesterday I picked Sophia up from school, and asked her how her day was. It seems as though the teachers are getting the kids ready for ANZAC day, as they must have been giving the kids a run down on the 1^st World War. Unfortunately I didn’t do history at school, and I am absolutely useless at general knowledge (as well as lots of other topics), but I am not too sure that Sophia got the whole story correct. “Apparently mum, New Zealand had a war, and they didn’t have enough army men. The Australians decided that they are friends with New Zealand so they sent some army men over to New Zealand to help them fight, and together they beat the bad guys.” In the same conversation Sophia told me that before only men were allowed to be army men, but now women are allowed to be army men as well. Also, we are very lucky to have army men because they help us stop floods and earth quakes and things like that. I thought that I should point out that the Fire brigade and police officers also help people in trouble. That was when Sophia told me not to forget the Taxi drivers….because they also help!!!

Today when I picked Sophia up from school I told her that on Monday Leon and I have a meeting with the teacher after school. Sophia asked what it was for, and I told her that we get to talk to her teacher so that she can let us know how Sophia is doing in school. That was when Sophia told me “I’m doing great thanks mum!!”. I guess I can cancel the meeting with the teacher now J

Our little man George is bit of a clown, so he is always saying interesting and funny things. Unfortunately George thinks that anything with Poo or Wee in it is funny, so he says them a lot. Lately he also talks a lot about Robots. I get all sorts of random questions about where robots live, why they don’t have toes, why they don’t have hair, what colour they are etc. Today, in the car, he asked me about a robot in a movie, and he asked “where is the robots mum?” – “maybe he doesn’t have a mum” I reply, “Maybe he doesn’t need a mummy” George says. I then ask him, “do you need a mum?” “yes”, well what do you need a mum for ?” He thought about if for a little bit and then said “for cuddles!”.

Another memorable statement from our boy was last week, when in front of visitors he decided to announce “you need to put wax on your fanny” Luckily it was such a random comment that Leon and I were the only ones that understood him, and I managed to get him out of the room before he decided to clarify his statement. Leon of course just glared at me with a stare that said “I told you that you shouldn’t take the boy with you to the beautician!!”.

Also, recently, I went to visit Leon’s dad with the kids and when it was time to leave George didn’t want to go. Dad said to him “but it is time to go home” and George turned to him and said “we don’t have a home”. It was quite sad to hear but ,luckily, that has now changed. Today we got the keys to our new house, and when I told the kids I was taking them to the new house they were very excited. When they had raced through the house they both said that it was great and that they loved it. My next post will be about the house and I will try to add some photos as well.

Clean Fun

2011-03-09T03:26:00.000-08:00

At my mum's place, she has a vacuum cleaner that looks like R2D2 (I think that is what it is called) from Star Wars. The thing about this vacuum cleaner is that it also manages to blow out a lot of air. So much so that often I multi task and use it as a hair dryer to dry my hair while I am vacuuming. I am not the only one in the family to try to harness this force of air. Whenever I do the vacuuming, George follows me around the house standing next to the air flow so that his hair gets blown around. He also likes to get things and put them next to the exhaust so that they can fly away. It is interesting to see what objects he uses. The feathers and bits of paper fly well, the books and Zhu Zhu pets, however, are not things of the air and do not so much fly, as they do plummet. He was also disappointed to discover that Tinker Bell could not fly!! Luckily he seems to believe me when I tell him that certain things will not fly (like my mum's ceremic ornaments), and I am happy for the fact that my parents do not have any pet cats. Here are a couple of pics.

Here, George was swallowing the air, to give him more power. He wants to be a Super Hero, so perhaps if he keeps swallowing this air he can be "Gas Man"

Our long weekend

2011-03-08T03:04:00.001-08:00

As it wasn't a real long weekend for us (Leon went to work on Monday) we didn't go away. Instead, there was lots of time spent in the pool, and we made a visit to the Zoo. (Also, not quite so exciting for the kids, we also bought a new fridge to go into the new House !!!!)

Here are some pics that I am quickly uploading whilst the kids are playing in the bath unattended.

Beating the Heat

2011-02-25T03:55:00.001-08:00

Here in Perth it has been a long summer, and it has been an especially warm February, with no cool changed forecast at least for the next week. As it is also humid at the moment with temps around 38deg C, the kids needed to cool off tonight. They decided to help Nonno water the garden.....and I should have been suspicious when they asked if they could put their goggles on. I actually didn't mind that they got all wet, as it is very hot, except I would have preferred it had it not been bore water!!! At least the water here isn't too stinky. When the gardening was finished they used the water gun (which I filled up with nice water....although I didn't go so are as to use filtered water). As it is going to be a hot and humid weekend, I think we will be spending a lot of time at our summer residence (that is, at Leon's parent place with the pool and good air con).

Georgie Boy

2011-02-24T04:14:00.000-08:00

Today I thought that I would right about our little man. It seems that Sophia has had a bit more of the spot light lately, so it is time a mentioned the boy.

As you may recall, George started swimming lessons 4 weeks ago for the first time. It is incredible the difference 4 lessons ( and a pair of goggles) has made. At todays lesson not only was George putting his head under water, but he was swimming back to the edge on his own. He also started to float on his back, and then kick his legs so that he was swimming on his back. Now I don't want to sound like a bragging mum, but he was definitely the best in the class (However, I do think that he is the oldest). The thing we need to work on now is getting him to jump in the pool. It was cute though, at one point he wanted to show the teacher what he could do, and she was a bit far away from him. George said "excuse me, Fiona, look at me" about 5 times and she couldn't hear him. Luckily I got her attention for him, because that is usually the point at which George stomps over to you, glares up at you and says "what is wrong with you!!! I have been calling you!!!".

On the topic of George I will also mention that with Leon away at the moment, I have been sharing my bed with him rather than make him sleep on the air mattress (yes, we were only ever going to need it for "a little while" so we never bought him a bed). I am always amazed at how someone so small, can take up so much of the bed. It is lucky that I am short, as I seem to get allocated the "bottom" third of the bed (yes, I have to sleep horizontally across the bottom) whilst George gets to roam around the top two thirds of the bed. Also, during my sleep the other night, and after I work up, I found in the bed: one pencil, one birthday card (George's field journal), one river rock (George's iPod), one heart shaped eraser, a book (tangled), and a round disc from one of those slide viewing binoculars (George's round field journal)!!!! I am glad that he doesn't have any great affinity for large stuffed toys. Tonight he seems to have selected a different but equally numerous assortment of items to take to bed, at least I am forewarned this time.

To end the topic of George, I will add a couple of "George-isms";

1) Gobbles - worn during swimming (goggles)

2) Rollerskaders - cross between roller blades and roller skates

3) " mum, your number isn't 38, it is zero " - when he is angry with me and wants to insult me

4) "mum, your just a mushroom" - also used when he is angry with me

5) "gees, how hard is it just to eat" - said to another little girl when she didn't want to eat her dinner.

I know there are many more, but they escape me at the moment.

To end off tonight, even though it is about George, I would like say a thank you Leon, who is overseas (no I am not thanking him for being away) and sent me a lovely bouquet of flowers. They are beautiful, although I doubt they will last long in this heat! We are all looking forward to having him back this Sunday.

Well Done Sophia

2011-02-17T06:49:00.001-08:00

Today Sophia was awarded a Certificate of Recognition at school. We are very proud of her, and especially so, considering that she has only been at the new school for two weeks. Great effort Sophia!!!

Some Pics

2011-02-16T04:20:00.001-08:00

Well it has been a while since I have touched base. I don't have that much to report, but I thought that I would add some photos of a couple of outings we have had in the past work (both were "work" functions). Before that, I will quickly mention a couple of things though. We are very proud of Sophia, as tomorrow she will be presented with a "certificate of Recognition" at the school assembly. At first Leon and I wondered if it would be in recognition of her ability to argue, or to negotiate herself out of a bad position. After speaking to the teacher though, it is apparently awarded to children that have been working very hard in class, and it is quite a big deal.

Also, our little boy has also made us proud in the last couple of weeks as he has started Swimming lessons. He has only had two lessons, and he is doing great. The increase in confidence in the short time is incredible. I am also very glad for the lessons as now when we go to the pool the entry that I pay actually covers George to go in the water and play. Previously I was paying for his entry solely to go in and buy him an ice cream!!!

The first lot of pics that I have are from last week we had a BBQ down on the Swan River. This is a spot that I think is beautiful, and we were lucky enough for it to be across the road from the University we went to (and where Leon now works). Fortunately, we were also visited by some black swans, so I got to take some photos of them.

Here are some photos from dinner on Sunday night when we were at The Naked Fig, on the beach with some friends from Switzerland. Aunty Alma (who also lived in Switzerland for a bit) joined us as well. The kids were happy to see their Swiss friends, and had lots of fun playing with Jan.

Yasi

2011-02-02T04:55:00.000-08:00

I thought that I would start by wishing all of the people in Queensland that are about to face Cyclone Yasi good luck. I don't think there is anyone from there reading this, but everyone here in the West of Oz is thinking of you all and sending good vibes your way. Although damage to property and the loss of your possessions is terrible, we hope that it is limited to that, and that everyone stays safe and that there is no loss of life.

I also thought that I should mention that I was wrong, and that apparently I don't know my daughter all that well. We had her first day of school this year, at a new school, and it went better than expected. I had a reasonably long drive into school today, and as I was getting close to the school I though to myself "gee, that drive was actually quite painless, and almost pleasant". I was expecting to have to turn the radio up very loud to drown out the sounds of screaming and tears. It was at this point that I remembered that I was alone in the car, and that Leon had driven both kids to school....his drive was apparently not so "pleasant". Even though we did get tears, and had to encourage ( insert: drag) Sophia along to class whilst listening to her protests of "I don't want to go. Why can't I go to my old school", it was on a much smaller scale than the scene we had on her first day of school last year. At least today she got herself dressed (Leon and I had to physically hold her down last year) and ready for school with no drama, and even got into the car with no trouble. Tomorrow I do it on my own, so hopefully she will be ok.

When I asked Sophia how school was today, she said that she didn't like it. Leon didn't ask her how she liked it, he ask Sophia what her favourite part of school today was. Her answer to him was "when it finished" !!! Following school I had to race Sophia to the pool for her first swimming lesson of the season (once a week). I enrolled her into the same centre where she did her VacSwim so she was happy to go back there. She also had the same teacher, which was also good. Sophia did really well, and was able to do everything that the teacher asked her to do. I guess that swimming in the pool at Leon's parents place everyday for the last four weeks has paid off!!!

We made it!!

2011-02-01T03:54:00.000-08:00

Well, against my own predictions, we managed to survive the school holidays!! Today was the last day, and surprisingly we have reached this day with both kids intact and me still having some semblance of sanity (although there were a few close calls during the last 6 weeks). Unfortunately we did not have the holidays we had hoped to have, with the most memorable moments not being happy ones. We have to move on though, and tomorrow will be our next hurdle.
Sophia starts the new school year tomorrow, which in itself is not such a bad thing (not bad at all from my perspective), except for the fact that she will be starting at a new school. Leon and I are not entirely sure what to expect from Sophia, as she appears to be trying to lull us into a false sense of security. Sophia appears happy enough with the change, at times, and says that she is "excited about starting school". However, she is apparently also feeling a bit "sad and frustrated" at having to leave her old school, and she has warned us that "maybe she will cry just a little bit". Those of you that know Sophia well, will know that she doesn't experience emotions in portions of "little bit". Her saying that she will cry a little bit is like when a Swiss person says that they can speak a little bit of English, and then proceed to have a two hour conversation with you in perfect English (and during that conversation will let you now what all of the English Grammar rules are). Those of you that know me well, will know that I don't look forward to Sophia's varied emotional states. If I know that one is likely to occur I will attempt to postpone the inevitable for as long as possible, and then try to reduce the inevitable avalanche of emotion by using emotional blackmail or bribery. Even though I knew that Sophia would be changing school from the last week of term last year, I left it until the day before enrolment to let her know that it was going to happen. I was given an unexpected weapon to use in my defence, as the day before I had to enrol Sophia into School we had an offer accepted that we had made on a house (I will write about that later). This meant that I was able to use the Good News/Bad News technique. First I told her the news that we had bought a house. This made her very happy and allowed her to become somewhat elated. Once I thought that she was sufficiently elated, I mentioned that now that we would be moving to a new place we would have to send her to a school that would be closer to our new house. I was able to tell her all of this with a clear conscience, not even my Catholic guilt could make me feel bad (well, maybe just a little bit).
So, tomorrow morning I will have to awaken Sophia earlier than she has waken in the last two months, get her ready faster than she would like to get ready (that is anything fast than a snail pace) and drive through a lot of traffic (we can no longer walk there five minutes before the siren), and hope that she doesn't put on a performance fit for YouTube!!! Wish us luck :)

Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi

2011-01-26T05:03:00.000-08:00

26th January 2011

Happy Australia Day!!!

Today we had a lovely day. We had beautiful blue skies and warm weather so that everyone would feel like having a few cold ones to celebrate the day. We celebrated the day by having a lovely afternoon swim in the pool, followed by cooking some Lamb and prawns (Shrimp) on the BBQ, and then heading down to the River to watch the Fireworks. With the kids and there challenged attention spans we decided not to go to the main foreshore on the Swan River, right in the centre of the city. Instead to went closer to Leon's parents place along the canning river. I did this last year with the kids, and as I told Leon (when he asked if the view was any good) the return for your effort is quite good. No traffic jams and our entire time out was 1.5 hours.

As an aside, I have to mention how proud we are of Sophia and her efforts with swimming. In Novemeber last year she did her two weeks of swimming lessons with the school, and at the end of that she was good at singing Ring-a--ring-of- roses and gettting her face wet in the water. She just finished two weeks of VacSwim, and she is now jumping into Leon's parents pool at the deep end and swimming the length of the pool. She is good at floating, going unter water, and tread water a bit and can also do a backward sommersault in the water!!! Now I need to keep the lessons up as she seems to have the momentum and interest to keep going with it.

I will try and put some pics up later this week. I am having some issues with the computer I am using and can't work out how to make my pics smaller.

Till next time.

Farewell Yiayia

2011-01-19T06:47:00.000-08:00

Today we said our last farewell to Leon’s mum, who, on the 14th of January (her 65th Birthday), lost her 2 year battle with bowel cancer. We had a lovely service for her today where Leon said some lovely things about mum. He managed to put a smile on everyone’s face, as well as a tear in everyone’s eyes. Many people said to me that mum would have been very proud of him today. I pointed out to everyone that where Leon is concerned, mum was a bit biased, and no matter what he had said, mum would have been proud of him. I, in comparison, only had a small verse to read in honour of mum, and I got all choked up. I got through it though, and blame the fact that I had to follow Leon and he got me all choked up with his talk.
I thought that I would use this space, even if no one reads it, to say a couple of things that I will always remember, admire and miss about mum (or Yiayia as she is also known in our household).
Firstly, is the fact that mum (and dad) welcomed me into the family right from the beginning. Mum was always friendly, kind and accepting of me. I would have to interject here, and say that I have always had a knack with people’s parents, but it is never a given. What helped unite us was the fact that mum had a sense of humour that matched my own (so it must have been a good one), and we often laughed about things together. I am going to miss those sharp little comments of hers, and the glint in her eye that went along with them.
As a daughter-in-law, I was very lucky. Never did she try to interfere in how I did things, or criticise how I did things. There must have been times where she disagreed with how I did things, but she never said so. Instead, she was always supportive and helpful. Even with Leon and I married with children, I think she still felt the need to try and help us get ahead in life, rather than leave us to do everything on our own.
Something that I would love to have learned from mum was her amazing skills around the house. She was very good at having a routine and sticking to it, and this meant that her home, and everything she did, was always well organised. She regularly would entertain the family, with about 20 people, and she would make it look effortless. Never did she look to be rushed, or was the kitchen in a mess. This is something that I have never been able to achieve, and she left us too soon for me to learn it from her.
The final thing I will mention is mum as a Yiayia (grandmother in Greek). If Leon and I did (and do) nothing else right in our lives, we did provide our parents with two beautiful grand children. Yiayia absolutely loved Sophia and George, and it is the fact that she will not get to see them grow up that really upsets us. Yiayia and Sophia were especially close, and mum absolutely loved spending time with Sophia. Sophia could do no wrong, and the two of them were always together reading books, doing craft or just talking together. Mum often said of Sophia that “she has been here before. She is 5 years old going on 20”. When we told Sophia that mum had died she asked me why we hadn’t let her come to the hospital to see Yiayia. I told Sophia that Yiayia didn’t want her to see her like that, and that she hadn’t wanted Sophia to be scared of her. To which Sophia replied “mum I could never be scared of Yiayia, she would always be beautiful to me”.
So today we said a sad and final farewell to mum. We can only hope that she would have been happy with our efforts, although I kept thinking to myself that things would have been a lot more organised had we had mum to help us. It still seems very surreal to me, and I keep expecting mum to be there. It seems very unfair that she had to leave us so soon, and still with so much that she would have loved to do with her life. We can only hope that we made her happy while she was here, and we will continue to do things to keep her memory alive. Mum told me to “look after the kids”, so the last thing I can do for her is look after them and make sure that they will always remember what a wonderful and loving Yiayia they had.

New Year Resolutions

2011-01-10T06:38:00.000-08:00

Monday 10 January 2011

Well, I guess I am not doing too well on the New Year Resolutions. One was to be a bit more regular with the Blogging (no, that is not an euphemism!!) ☺

There actually isn’t too much to report. It has been a slow and hot start to the new year. Since it is the school holidays we have moved into Leon’s parents place for a while (another resolution is to get a home of our own). This move was in no way influenced by the fact that they have the good air conditioner as well as a pool, and the weather has been very warm. The kids have enjoyed the change of location and are certainly enjoying using the pool. Sophia has been doing great in the pool and it has helped a heap with her water confidence. Today she started her two weeks of Vac Swim and I was very proud of her. Initially I was annoyed as she was doing her usual “I don’t want to do the lessons mummy….I want to go home etc “. I thought we were over that hurdle, especially as she had done lessons at school. I controlled my impatience with her (another resolution is to try and be kinder/more patient/ less annoyed with the kids), and told her I had to go off with George as he wanted to have a swim. Without me around she was much better. I watched her without her realising, and she did great. She was able to do everything that was asked of her, including floating on her back by herself, which she has never done before. The lessons last for two weeks, so it will be interesting to see what she will be able to do at the end of it.
George has started the year in his usual form. Every morning he asks me the same two things as soon as he wakes up. In no particular order, he asks if he can have a chocolate and if he can watch the “Susan movie” (known to most people by its other name Monsters VS Aliens). My answer to these two requests is always ‘No’, and George always replies “why to do always have to say no to me!!”. It is a bit like living Groundhog Day. Other than that, he is doing well. Sophia and George have actually been quite good, and I have survived the holidays, to this point, better than I thought I would. Hopefully that holds true for the next three weeks.

Happy New Year

2010-12-29T21:45:00.001-08:00

December 30 2010

Well, Christmas is over, and the end of the year is here. We hope that everyone had a happy and safe Christmas. Our Christmas was not as we had expected it to be. Firstly, we had hoped to spend it in our own house, but that was not be. Santa didn't leave a house for us under the tree either, but he (or perhaps the Grinch) did leave an unexpected surprise for us.....a lovely dose of Gastro!! Leon started feeling the ill effects of it just after he took the first mouthful of Christmas lunch and spent the rest of the day in isolation. My parents and I followed on Christmas night with Sophia managing to avoid it (we think George had a mild dose if it a few days earlier). With this dose we seem have been like Typhoid Mary as we also infected the poor Cregan Family, as well as my brothers family. What made it a bit more uncomfortable was the fact that we had three days around 40 deg. Our punishment for the spreading the illness seems to be that everyone other than us has lost heaps of weight from it. Other than that, it was actually a nice Christmas. We had a good time with all of the family, and the kids had a great time with their cousins. Sophia's cousin Guy told her that Santa isn't real, and she told him "yes he is. On my present it said To Sophia, From Santa!!" She thought he was very silly for not believing. George was happy to open the present from Father Christmas, but it stopped there. After that we had to slowly open his gifts for him through-out the day and show them to him. He especially loved the water gun he got from Aunty Juliet and family. Sophia got lots more craft things and has been busy doing lots of arts and crafts. I think that the only thing she is missing now is a Bedazzler.

On Tuesday Leon and I took the kids to see Disney Live. It was a great show, where Donald, Goofy, Minnie and Mickey introduced three stories. We had abridged versions of Snow White, Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast. The show was really well done, and we were allowed to take non-flash photography. I was asked to not take photos with my Nikon camera as it was considered a "professional" camera. I wanted to point out that professional photographers would probably beg to differ, as well as the fact that I was unable to afford a professional camera. Leon also suggested that I point out that even if the camera was considered professional it did not mean that the photographer was professional!! Lucky I had the point and shoot in my bag as well. The reason that I had the big camera with me as that earlier this year we had gone to see the Wiggles and Leon didn't let me take my big camera (yes, I always listen to my husband). At that concert we nearly got nose bleeds from being so high up in the stands, and all I had was the little point and shoot when we were actually allowed to have the big camers as well!! Hence I have some very grainy photos that I thought I would put up for you to see.

When we went to do some post Christmas shopping the other day, the shopping centre had the "boingie" things there (that is what the kids call them) so of course the kids had to have a turn on them. Sophia absolutely loves it. This was her third time on these things, and she gets better each time. I think soon she will start to do some spins on them as well. George is a bit nonplused about it all. He was best the first time he was on it. When I down loaded the pics, I found a couple of other pics that I thought I would add as well.

Well that is about all for now. I suspect that I wont be blogging tomorrow, so I will sign off by wishing everyone a wonderful New Year, and I will sign in in 2011.

Happy Christmas Eve

2010-12-24T04:29:00.000-08:00

December 24 2010

Well, the kids are getting ready for bed. Sophia just told us that she needs to go to bed early tonight (Yes, anything before 9:30 in our house lately is considered early for our kids) because Santa wont come before she is asleep. I am kind of hoping that they go to bed early as well, because I need the kids asleep so that I can pack the presents!!! Luckily Santa is a bit more organised than me, so his presents are wrapped, but things for the stockings and from us are still hidden around the house :)
The lead up to Christmas has been nice. It seems as though the kids have been opening "Christmas Presents" for the last two weeks. Probably not such a bad thing as my parents seem to have a Bonsai Christmas tree and there isn't a lot of room for presents. Yesterday the kids and I spent a lovely afternoon with my cousins and their kids (and my Aunty and mum as well). We had a great time, and there were lots of presents opened. George, following in the same pattern of his birthday, seems to not to want to open presents. Even with the other kids opening presents and wrapping paper all over the place, he still had to be coaxed into opening his presents. Today we got to catch up with Mark and Inez and Aliana who are here from Switzerland for Christmas. It was great to see them again. George was cute when we told him who we were going to visit. He said "but they are in Switzerland". When we told him they were in Australia he then started to ask to see his other Swiss Friends!!
Well, I need to go now and help get the kids ready for bed. It is time for Leon to choose what "Santa" would like for a snack (I am guessing no milk this year as it will go off in the heat in about 5 minutes), as well as getting stuff ready for the Reindeer. We hope that you all have a Great Christmas and we will touch base soon.

Here are a couple of pics from when we visited "Santa Land" at Myers dept Store in Perth a couple of weeks ago. THe kids got gold tickets to ride the train, and they got to send and Email to Santa. George wrote a letter instead of sending an email.

Sophia's Last Day of School

2010-12-16T06:33:00.000-08:00

Thursday 16th December 2010

Today was Sophia’s last day of Pre-primary and the last day at this current school. Her first day of school there began with tears and screaming and crying, but she ended on a very happy note. Although she actually said that it was sad that school has finished. I am not sure that she quite understands/realises that next year she will be at a different school, but we are going to save that battle for later on :)
The last couple of weeks the things to note at Sophia’s school were Sophia’s report and the end of school concert. The concert was last week, and it had a Christmas theme this year. Sophia’s class sang “all I want for Christmas is my two front teeth”, and Sophia was one of six kids chosen to start the song before all of the others joined in. She was a bit shy, but she (and all the other kids) did really great. We were very proud of her and all the kids in her class. As I don’t like to put photos up of other kids, I am afraid that there are no pics that I can put up. I am going to try and make the video I took small and email that out. All the kids in the school put on a great performance.

(Sophia walking to school with a couple of friends, all ready for the concert.)

This week we also got a school report for Sophia. Apparently the pp kids haven’t had reports in other years, so we were surprised to get them. When I read the report I thought that the teacher must have gotten Sophia confused with someone else. Either that, or Sophia has a twin out there somewhere, and I have the evil one at home and the good one goes to school!!! Her report was great, and we were even more surprised about how good it was when we considered that she had missed half of the year. Apparently Sophia has lovely manners, can listen to and follow instructions, complete tasks and share well. Who Knew!!!
As today was the last day, the parents that had helped throughout the year were invited to a morning tea with the staff. I went along and it was actually really nice to speak to the teachers. They all told me that Sophia was really lovely girl, that she is very popular at the school, even the older kids like her, and they were sorry to see her go. The surprising thing was that they all seemed genuine when they said it. Perhaps Sophia is not so bad after all :)

Some Catch Ups

2010-12-14T06:34:00.000-08:00

Swimming

Well, it has been a while since I last posted so I thought that I would do a few shortish ones to update people on a few of the things that have been happening here. I will start by letting you know how Sophia’s swimming lessons went, as I am sure that you are all wondering about it J
Sophia had two weeks of lessons, of which she missed two days because she was unwell. I went along on the Thursday of the first week with George to watch and see how much she had improved. Well, the lessons were at lunch time, and it was a 37 deg day, and the kids were outside. I am not sure if it was the uncomfortable conditions that persuaded my opinion of Sophia’s efforts, but I came away thinking that she had not significantly improved in the four lessons that she had had. Now, I wasn’t expecting her be swimming 50m butterfly, but nor was I expecting her to be worse than she was before she started!!! There were things that I saw her not do, that I know she had done before. It was apparent to me that Sophia viewed the lessons as more of a Play Date as she was at the pool, with her friends splashing and prancing around in the water. At least she was having fun though :)
Leon arrived back from his trip to Switzerland during her second week of lessons, so on her last day we took George along to watch her again. Again, there was no obvious improvement to me, and again she seemed to be having lots of fun. At the end of the lesson all of the children (over 100 of them) got into the pool and created a Whirlpool. It was quite cool to watch. They had all the kids walk in one direction for a while, and then they had to stop and turn around and go the other direction. The teacher had to hold on to Sophia and a couple of other young ones as they nearly got swept away in the current. All the kids loved it. When the lesson was finished I went and had a chat to the swimming instructor. I asked her if she had seen any improvement in Sophia in the two weeks of lessons, and to my surprise she said yes. According to the instructor Sophia’s confidence in the water had improved a lot, and she was more willing to try things. The instructor even assured me that she had seem many kids that didn’t improve at all, and that she thought Sophia had done really well. We now know what things we need to work on before she starts her Vac Swim in January. We have also seen some evidence of her improvement as she has shown us a few times how she can put her face under water in the bath!!!

Communing with Nature.

One thing that I certainly did not miss about Australia whilst I was living in Switzerland was the insects, particularly the big ones!!! . We had a warm November this year, and that lead to a lot of creepy crawlies moving into the house. We had a particularly bad run in a short time span when the weather was hovering around the mid 30s.
It started one night when I was laying down in bed reading a book. All of a sudden I saw this dark shadow move in the periphery of my vision, and this was accompanied by a large displacement of the curtain. Thinking that a bat or some such large creature had somehow entered the bedroom, I braved myself to have a look. That was where my bravery ended. I then had to call for Leon to come and dispose of a cockroach that I am sure was as big as my shoe. I absolutely DETEST cockroaches, especially since the time I was asleep and had one crawling on my head!!! Luckily my brave knight in shinning armour saved me!!
Two nights later, I was again reading in bed when I heard a scratching noise. Again, I froze, panicked, and then called Leon. By the time Leon got to the room, the scratching had stopped and by this time I was envisioning a rat scurrying around under my bed. Leon did a search of the room but to no avail. Leon then got ready for bed, and joined me. For the next half hour every time Leon was almost asleep he was rudely awaken by a tapping. This was me tapping him awake every time I thought I heard something. Finally, I head the loud noise again, and Leon also heard it. We still could not see it though, so Leon emptied about half a can of fly spray (Yes Phyllis and Todd, such a thing does exist :) ) into the general vicinity of the sound but we still could not see the culprit. Again, we settled back into bed and I kept reading (I was too nervous to sleep). About 3 minutes later there was a scratching sound again, and again I was tapping away on Leon’s side. Using the light from my ipod (which I was using to read from) we scanned the floor and saw what was making the noise. Neither Leon nor I had every seen anything like it. It was about 5cm (2inches) long, with a body thickness like that of a bee, legs and pincers. It was disgusting. Leon drowned the thing in some more spray before smacking it with a shoe. A google search the next day informed me that it was in fact an earwig, but I have only every seen the small ones. I encourage you to do a search and have a look for pictures of big earwigs if you have never seen them. Apparently they “have wings but rarely fly”. I did not find the fact that they “rarely fly” very comforting!!!
The evening after that I went outside to do something and noticed that under one of the chairs there was a Red Back spider. That is actually not so note worthy around here, but just worrisome as they can be harmful to the kids. Unlike me, my children seem to like insects and I could just imagine them trying to catch the earwig or the Redback spider to take to news at School. Since then there have been no more large earwig sightings, but a few cockroach sightings. Unfortunately I know that they will continue to be around for the rest of our summer :(

Sleeping Angels

2010-11-16T04:51:00.000-08:00

16 November 2010

I am the first to admit that I am not a lovey dovey mother, and that a lot of the time my kids can annoy me. I am also not upset to be away from them. Every now and then, however, they can be adorable. Such as tonight.
George’s bedroom was a bit warm so I said he could fall asleep in my bed (and it would save him the trip there during the night ☺ ). Sophia wanted me to stay with her when she went to sleep, and I really could not be bothered to do it. Trying to kill two birds with one stone I told Sophia she could sleep with George in my bed. I must admit that I didn’t expect it to work, and I was prepared to go and drag George off his sister and send her back to her bed. Surprisingly though, after 5 min I realised I hadn’t heard any screaming or talking. I went closer to the door and listened, and I still couldn’t hear anything. When I opened the door to check on them, they were fast asleep. Not only were they asleep, they were both on their sides with one of Sophia’s arms around George and the two of them holding hands. They looked absolutely beautiful!! This just confirmed to me what I had already suspected, and that is that kids are all angels when they are sleeping ☺. I will have to hold that picture in my mind the next time the two of them are trying to kill each other. Unfortunately when I went to take a photo of them the good will had gone and Sophia had turned her back on George.

Finally!!!

2010-11-15T06:09:00.001-08:00

Monday 15 Nov 2010

No, we haven't finally bought a house, but Sophia has finally done her first swimming lesson!!! Whenever I had suggested to Sophia that she should do swimming lessons, she would always say that she didn't need to do it, and that she would never put her face under the water. When the school sent home a letter to say that there was swimming lesson coming up, I was very quick to sign her up. The thought of someone else taking that responsibility on instead of me was too good to pas up. Today was the first day of two weeks of lessons. Luckily, and surprisingly, there was one other child in her class that had also never done any swimming lessons, so it seems that the two of them got to do stuff just with each other. I am hoping that at the end of this two weeks of lessons she can do a bit more than stand in knee high water and sing ring-ring-a-rosie. The two of them apparently had to put their faces completely under water, and Sophia said she did it, but perhaps not completely. I told her that she can't take the entire two weeks just to learn to put her face in the water, she has got to be able to do that by Wednesday. She seemed to be happy with her efforts though, and happy that she got to do the lesson with a girl that she really likes. One thing that I didn't count on was Sophia's first words to me after 'Hello' when I picked her up after school. She looked at me and said "mummy, I know this isn't my top, but it was the only top left when everyone got dressed, so I had to put it on". I am not sure that I am happy with the 'help' that they had when it came to getting ready. Luckily I found her top (the friend that had done the lesson with her was wearing it), so it is actually someone else that is missing a top!!! I guess that is the one down side to wearing a uniform to school, everyone has the same stuff. And in case you were wondering, yes all of her stuff was clearly labeled. It just seems that you just can't rely on pre-schoolers to actually read the labels. Nor can we seem to rely on the adults I guess :) oh, It is a good week for them to be doing swimming this week. It is an outdoor pool and we have temps of 30-36 (deg. cel) forecast for the week.

I went Dancing !!!

2010-11-12T03:10:00.000-08:00

Well, for the first time since I can remember, I went dancing!!! Leon is away, so I took the opportunity to go dancing with some of the other mums for Sophia's School class. Actually, I went dancing at Sophia's school. It was the Pre-primary to grade 3 Disco :)
The sad thing is I actually really enjoyed the music and had fun dancing. And incase you were wondering, no I wasn't dancing to Hi5 and the Wiggles, they played kid friendly adult music. It was nice to see Sophia mixing with the friends. She, and all the other kids had a great time. She actually had a couple of friends come over and get ready with her, complete with tattoos, body glitter and eye shadow!!! George also wanted in on the makeup, but the girls wouldn't let him. At least he got some tattoos though. He also had fun, especially as he got to eat lollies, ice cream and chips, as well as drinking soft drink...nothing natural at all passed anyones lips.

Friday 12 November 2010

Other than that, there hasn't been much to report, hence the lack of blogging. Leon is in Switzerland at the moment. He had plans to travel light, but they changed when he came home to a bed full of things that I wanted to send with him. The is the first year that I have had Christmas presents and cards organised in November!!! I was very impressed with myself. It is amazing how the thought of spending money on postage can inspire you to be organised :)

Leon and I are still homeless. We are starting to think that it is us that has the problem. We have seen so many houses, but none quite right. I guess some time soon we will decided that we just need to make a decision. It is a bit sad that we wont have our own place for christmas though. I guess now we are working on having a place in time for the new school year in Feb 11.

Well that is it from me. I need to go and get the kids ready for bed. I am expecting the crash after all of that sugar and artificial preservatives to kick in any time now.

Happy Halloween

2010-10-31T08:11:00.000-07:00

Sunday 31 October 2010

Well, it has been a full weekend for us. As we had a Halloween party last year, the kids were really looking forward to Halloween this year. As we don’t have our own place yet we kept the decorations to a minimum thinking that my parents wouldn’t be too keen to have a house full of fake spiderwebs and spiders. We did manage to do a couple of things though. On Saturday we went to Toys-R-Us for a Halloween party. It was an hour and the kids went dressed up. They got to do some colouring in, some crafts, played some games (Sophia won one of them) and then they got to do some Trick-or-Treat-ing in the shop. Some staff were placed throughout the store with Pumpkins filled with goodies. Some poor unsuspecting shoppers got accosted by children shouting “trick-or-treat” at them because they happened to be holding a pumpkin in their hands. The kids all had a great time and Sophia and George were very happy for the treats that they got. Luckily for us we managed to get out of the shop without having to buy anything for the kids despite us having to walk the kids through all of the toys for the Trick-or-treat.
Saturday afternoon we also had our first birthday party from someone in Sophia’s class at school. It was good fun, despite the fact that there was some blood shed (luckily not from Sophia or George). It was nice to see Sophia playing with lots of other kids. She was really in her element. We also got to meet some of the other parents as well which was nice.
Today, for Halloween we started off by going to a local park for a “Dogs Breakfast”. People brought their dogs to the park where there was lots of things for pets. Vets to do Phsych evaluations on your pooch, as well as washing them and pampering them. There was even a bouncy castle and face painting, but that was not for the dogs, just for the kids. As it was Halloween, some of the dogs were also dressed up in costumes. It was cute seeing the dogs dressed up with Big Spiders on them, or as bats, as princesses and some even as cowboys. While it was very cute, I am not entirely convinced that the dogs like it too much. It would be very interesting to understand what they would be saying to each other about their costumes if they could talk J
This afternoon Leon took the kids to his parents place for a swim and I stayed at home. At mum’s we had a full house of visitors today, including my brother Giuseppe that has come over for a few days of work. When Leon and the kids got back the kids had dinner and then got ready for Trick-or Treat. It was getting dark by the time we headed out, and we finished in the dark. As it is not like the USA here, I felt a bit uncomfortable about knocking on people’s doors. I drove and parked at my brother’s place, and there we had some luck. We saw some other kids out and about so we figured it was a good place to start. One house had a front yard full of decorations including a Graveyard, hanging man, bats and lots of other things. I was not surprised to find that the owner of the house was American J Even though we were only out for about half an hour the kids got lots of treats and were very happy with their effort. George, of course, wanted to eat everything as we got it. Luckily I managed to limit him to only a couple of treats while we were out. We also had a couple of door knocks at my mums place. Luckily we were prepared for them, and the kids even commented that we had good things for them. Made me think that my American friends would be proud of our efforts J

Weddings and Wildlife

2010-10-24T05:14:00.000-07:00

Sunday 24 October 2010

It has been a busy but lovely weekend for us. Yesterday we went to a wedding for the first time in a long time. A cousin of Leon's got married so we got to catch up with some of the family. The happy couple were quite young so it was kind of sweet to see these two naive and happy people delve into a new phase of their lives. We thought that as an old married couple we should pass on some words of advice to them. Leon gave them the advice that if they were ever to fight, then they should fight naked. I was a bit more practical in my advice giving, and I told the groom to remember that no mater what, the wife is always right.
The kids spent the night with Leon's parents, so we decided to stay there as well. This morning some of the family came over for a yummy morning tea. Just now we used the calorie counter on my new ipod to see how many calories I had today. It told me that if I ate like that everyday I would put on about four kilos in 5 weeks.
As well as the wedding this weekend, we spent some time cleaning out the pool at my brother's place. It has been a bit neglected lately, and when we had a look at it the other day we noticed, quite easily, that it had turned green and seemed to have its own ecosystem. Leon went there yesterday morning to start sorting it out, and whilst he was bending down to clean some stuff out of it, her saw a pair of eyes looking back at him. Yes, the pool had a frog living in it. This confirmed to Leon that the pool water was probably a bit low in chlorine. Leon, after quite some effort, managed to catch the frog, and he brought it back for the kids to see. Today when we went back to the pool to do some more work, much to the kids delight, we found another frog. Leon caught this one a bit quicker as we had found the scoop. Also, i think that the chlorine we had added to the pool, and the acid was working to our favour. After convincing Sophia that we need to have special permission to keep frogs because they are so special, and that we would get in trouble if we kept them at home, we were able to take them to the local lakes to release them back into the suburban wild. At the lake near my brother's place the local ducks thought we were out to feed them. Perhaps they would have liked the frog, but it took off very quickly. The ducks came out of no where though and waddled on up expecting a feed. Luckily we had some bickies that George was happy to share with them. The second frog released was not so keen to get away, and took a little bit of convincing and probing from Leon to swim away. We have no doubt that they are both better off if they never see our children again.

Finally, I just want to add some advice that I learnt this week. If you plan to make a dramatic stand against your kids, then be certain that you are well prepared for it. This leads me to the second bit of advice\info......it is actually quite hard to snap a DVD in half. The other night, after a lot a threatening to throw out a DVD, I felt that I had to follow through with the threat. In a fit of rage I stormed off and came back waving the said DVD in my hand. I then prepared for the dramatic snap of the DVD, only to have if slightly bend in my hands. The kids looked at me and said, "that's not broken mummy". I then had to hunt around and look for some scissors to cut the DVD with. I did do it in the end, but it sort of lost the dramatic impact that I had hoped for. I just thought that I would put this info out there incase someone else decided to do the same thing.

Here a couple of pics from our weekend.

A Big Week

2010-10-22T06:03:00.000-07:00

Friday 22 October 2010

Well, it has been a busy week from our end. On Monday Leon arrived from his three weeks away. The kids were very happy to see him back, as was I :) I picked him up from the aeroport and dropped him off at school to pick up Sophia. Apparently Sophia came running out the room and jumped on him. For some reason she is never that excited to see me when I pick her up from school. Once home Leon gave us all our presents. This is a part of the deal of him going away for so long, he has to come back with presents. I did well this trip as I got an iPod touch and an iPad.....but apparently I need I share the iPad with the family :( The kids loved the iPad and with out any prompting from us were sliding their little fingers all over the thing. I will have to get Sophia to show me how to use the iPod.
Once we were done with the presents Leon and I went and signed some papers for the final settlement of our house. The sale went through on Tuesday so we are now officially homeless. With our new found homelessness we decided we should make more of an effort at looking for a new house. I took Leon to see some houses on Tuesday, but unfortunately none of them were right for us. We will have to keep house hunting and hopefully find something soon. Our things are slowly erupting all over my parents place, so it would be good to have our own space.
The other big news this week was that George had a TICK!!!! (Of the insect kind, not the Tourette kind) I couldn't believe it. All those years living in Switzerland with everyone talking about being careful of going for walks in the forests, and then we come back to Perth and he gets a tick. I have no idea where it got it from, and it is just so disgusting. The worst thing was that I first saw it on Sunday at Leon's parents place, but I thought it was a skin tag thingy. It wasn't until yesterday, four days later, that I realised it was a tick. As I went to give the kids a bath I looked at it and thought "that looks a lot bigger than it did the other day", I looked more closely at it and thought "they look like legs". How disgusting is that. This happened just as Leon got home and he confirmed that yes, they were in fact legs that moved as we touched the thing. I then did what we all do now days, and got on the Internet to look up info about ticks. I also called a medical help line to confirm what I was reading. The lady took all my personal details, and I had to confess that I first noticed the tick on Sunday. To distribute blame I wanted to tell her that my parents in law and an aunty, as well as my husband had seen the thing as well and not realised it was a tick. I didn't say that though, so I am now expecting a call from Child Protective Services to ask me why it took me so long to report it and seek help. Luckily George showed now adverse symptoms from having a blood sucking parasite attached to him for four days (or possibly longer).
Finally, today was my first day at work. My friend Alma needed someone to do some work for her, and she thought that I might like to do it. It is nothing too challenging, but I thought it was a good way to get my foot into the door and to test out going to work and leaving George with my parents. It all went well, and I know this isn't the PC thing to say, but it is great being away from the kids. I also know that I wasn't doing anything too challenging, or stressful, but it made me think that all us stay at home mums deserve a pat on the back, it is a very difficult job to do, and we do it with out much acknowledgement or praise. So here is to us stay at home mums!!!

Our Week

2010-10-16T06:53:00.000-07:00

Saturday 16 October 2010

Well it has been a week since I have written. My excuse is that it has now been three weeks since Leon left and after spending the whole day with the kids the last thing I want to do is write about them in the evenings J
Yes it has been three weeks since Leon left us, and he is due back in a couple of days. The kids are missing him and Sophia is really looking forward to her daddy being home (she is such a daddy’s girl!!). We managed to survive the school holidays, although I was very happy for it to have started again. I was expecting Sophia to complain about going to school on her first day back, but she was quite happy to go…..which I take as a good sign. We also had a friend of hers come over for a play date this week, which was nice. Sophia was quite sweet showing Cameron all the rooms in the house as well as outside. Since it has been so long since Sophia has hosted a friend she has forgotten some of her hostess skills (like sharing her toys) but hopefully she will get the chance to get used to it again.
Last weekend we spent the night at Leon’s parents place, and the kids had a great time. I am not sure about Papau and Yiayia though. I think they thought it was quite tiring. I was lucky and got to go out for a coffee with my good friends Alma and Tess and had a lovely time. I hadn’t seen Tess for ages so that was really nice. Being with the two of them was really good and it made me wonder about old friends and making new friends. During the evening I had Tess tell me that I looked too woggy with all of my gold on (one necklace and two thin bangles), and I told her that her hair colour was too dark (Alma wasn’t sure if she agreed with me). I have met some lovely new ladies at Sophia’s school, but I am not sure that I would call them friends yet. This got me wondering at what point is it that we think of someone as a friend? Is it when we feel comfortable enough to go and visit them, or go out with them, or is when we reach the point that we can tell them (ladies) that they have “Camel Toe”( I use this example because I made myself refrain from telling someone at school that she was displaying a bit of it). I guess there are “degrees” or levels of friendship, and telling someone they have ‘camel toe’, and they not minding, would make them a very good friend J
Today I took Sophia and George to a Princess party at a Toys-R-Us store. They have a theme for a party, and you register to go along, and the kids get to do a few activities and then parade through the store. I know it was a Princess party, but with Leon away I registered both Sophia and George to go. Now, I knew that there wouldn’t be many boys there, but I must admit I was surprised to see that George was the only boy (I am sure Leon will be appalled when he reads this). So there was George, the thorn amongst all the roses. In case you are wondering, no he didn’t go dressed as a princess but I did allow him to carry Sophia’s magic wand. George kept saying that he wasn’t a Princess, he was a Prince, and when they had to colour in a Crown to make, his was a very manly Brown (I was expecting him to use pink or purple). If he was a prince, then he was the Prince of Darkness. When I refused to go and buy him a Witch costume (he could see all of the Halloween decorations) he turned into a little monster and started screaming at me. At least Sophia was very well behaved.

Here are a few Pics. The first couple are Sophia helping my dad to pot some rose cuttings. My dad loves doing gardening, and Sophia is also very interested in it. Dad loves that she likes it, especially since none of his own children have any interest in it. George also likes it, but we prefer to keep him away from the gardening as his skills are more detrimental than they are helpful.
Sophia and George also got to go and decorate Gingerbread cookies during the holidays. I didn't have my camera with me when they did it, so by the time I got home to take some pictures of them George had already eaten his :)
Even though it is only the start of Spring, it was warm enough last weekend for the kids to go for a swim at Leon's parents place. Well it is was warm enough for the kids. (luckily) I didn't have my bathers with me so Papau had to get in with the kids. I am not too certain that he thought the water was warm enough.

School Holidays are Almost Over!!!!

2010-10-08T16:46:00.000-07:00

Saturday 9 October 2010

Well the school holidays are nearly over…thank goodness. I don’t know if it is just me, but I am not convinced that the kids really need school holidays, and certainly not for two weeks. This week has been filled with a couple of play dates and some school holiday activities. First up we had the Fly Motion on Thursday. This is the jumping on trampolines whilst connected to a harness and suspended from elastics. Sophia and George both loved it, and so they should for $10 for 4 minutes of jumping. I got my big camera out hoping to get some good shots of them jumping, only to realise that the battery was flat. I felt like a prat standing there with this big camera around my neck while everyone else had their I-phones out taking photos. I actually pretended to take some photos in case anyone had noticed me standing there for ages waiting with my camera. I then got my mobile phone out (not an I-phone) and took some photos whilst mumbling something about sending the pictures to daddy ☺
On Friday we had T-shirt designing at the local shops. The kids were given a T-shirt and some paint and set free to draw what they liked. The first obstacle I had was convincing George to keep his pants on. Our little boy went through a phase of wanting to wear Sophia’s dresses, so what we did was give him aprons to wear. The thing is, when he wears his apron he has to have his pants rolled up so that he can’t see them under the apron. Lately he has been taking his pants off (saves me continually rolling them up), and sometimes asking for his long knee high socks to wear. When the kids were getting ready to decorate the t-shirts they put aprons on. “Mummy, we have aprons. Can I take my pants off”, No George you can’t take your pants off. “No, people will laugh at me. Maybe we can roll them up then”. That done, my next challenge was to try and confine the paint to the t-shirt on the table, not the ones they were wearing, as well as confining George’s artistic talents to his own t-shirt. When they were in the swing of things I decided to take some photos. I got my big camera out again to take some photos after having recharged the battery. Unfortunately I had forgotten to put the battery back into the camera, so out came my phone again ☺ When we were done there we headed off to another shopping centre to see Garfield performing. The kids enjoyed watching him, and yes, I did take a photo with my phone again!!
As it was a lovely day, 30 degrees, in the afternoon we went to the beach for a play in the sand and water. I am not sure what it is about kids, or perhaps the problem is mine, but I cannot understand how it doesn’t bother the kids to get sand absolutely everywhere. I swear when I took the pants of them they were full of sand.
For our weekend we have some houses to go and look at, a sleep over at Yiayia and Papou’s, and a play date. Then there will be just one more day before Term 4 starts again.

Nothing Exciting

2010-10-04T21:37:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 5 October 2010

It has been a week since we have updated, but there hasn't been too much to write about. I had a panic when I realised that this is Leon's last trip to the USA for the year and I didn't have my Christmas cards ( I usually do them online and Leon pics them up for me). I rushed together a card, and you can all look forward to getting them knowing that I put about 10 minutes of effort into them :) (thanks Phyllis for your feedback). I also thought that I would order photos and in uploading my photos I reached my Monthly Limit for our mobile broadband. This is also why I haven't blogged as I have been too tight ass to pay for the extra traffic it generates. This also means that Leon has been deprived of seeing his children for too long on the Skype...something, unfortunately, that I can't say has been a problem for me. We survived the first week of the school holidays with two children still present and accounted for. We had a few play dates that helped to pass the time away. One thing that I miss about Switzerland is that the kids actually play together. We are having a bit of an issue here where all the kids have there own eletronic games (DS's...although I am not sure what that is) that they also like to play when they have visitors. It tends to make for a bit of antisocial behaviour and that is what I told Sophia when, from the back of the car after leaving a friends house, she asked me if she could have her own DS. I told her that when she could tell me what DS stands for I will get her one. Not really, I just told her no because I am sure she would find out before I do what DS stands for.
Another thing we have been doing is getting Halloween things. As we had a Halloween party last year Sophia seems to think that we will do the same this year. At this stage there are no party plans, but that isn't stopping us from buying Halloween decorations and things. Actually, the only thing stopping us is the fact that some shops have got Christmas decorations in rather than Halloween!!! The $2 shop still had their halloween stuff "out the back in the boxes" whilst the Christmas stuff was already out for display. I hated to point out the obvious to the lady at the store, that Halloween came first, but when I mentioned it she said that it was the way that the shipments had arrived. Absolutely ridiculous. I had to tell Sophia that we were not allowed to get anything for Christmas until it starts Snowing :)
Well that is about it for me. We have to get ready for a play date now. We have a couple more this week, and then it is ready to go back to School. Yippee!!

Sophia's First Assembly

2010-09-28T05:21:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 28 Sept 2010

We have a little bit to catch up on. For starters, last Friday was the last day of Term 3 of school and was also the Pre-Primary Assembly at Sophia's school. The theme was all things Teddy Bear so the kids did The Teddy Bear Twist, Rock-a-bye A Bear and Going On A Bear Hunt. One could have been confused into thinking that Bradjalina were going to show up with all of the cameras that were out and ready to take photos. I was also guilty of this and I took lots of photos and Videos of all the kids speaking....well all of the kids except for Sophia!! When it was her 10 seconds to speak I had issues with the focus of my camera and couldn't get it to work, so not only did I not record her I didn't even watch her do it as I was too busy messing about with my camera!!! One day I will actually learn how to use it properly, hopefully in time for her next performance :) The kids (and Teachers) all did a great job and the parents were all pleased that our children looked very cute and were very well behaved throughout the 1 hour assembly. Here are a couple of photos from the day.

Waiting patiently on Stage.
George waiting for Sophia
Doing the Teddy Bear Twist
When it was all over
Our little Teddy Bear

On Saturday morning Leon and I took the kids to our house to do some final checks on things that need to be done. It all seems to be in good nick and all sorted. I think that it will be the last time Leon goes there as Settlement might happen whilst he is away. I bought the camera along to take some photos of our little house as a reminder for us. In the afternoon we took Sophia and George to the theatre to see The Gruffalo. If you get a chance to see it, I recommend going, it was great!! The guy that played the Fox/Owl/Snake was a real Ham and he and the Narrator were very funny. But Leon and I were not the only ones that enjoyed it, the kids liked it to. We were not allowed to take photos, so there are no pics from the theatre, we were allowed to spend money on merchandise though. As we already had The Gruffalo (thanks Ann) we bought the kids the second book, The Gruffalo's Child. Here are a couple of the pics that I took of the kids at our house.

Playing on the front porch.
Playing in the garden with the sunflowers.

Finally, today I took the kids shopping to get some shoes. As it is school holidays the shopping centres have activities for the kids. Today it was the characters from Madagasca. We watched Alex and Marty sing and dance on stage with a couple of the penguins. The kids favourite was "I like to Move it Move it".

A Day At the Park

2010-09-20T01:47:00.000-07:00

Monday 20 Sept. 2010

Yesterday we had a lovely family day at one of the Parks nearby that was host a New Friends of Thomas day. In short it meant that we could pay money to ride on trains that had been done up to look a bit like Thomas the Train characters, and pay more money for the kids to jump on bouncy castles and go on rides. It was a lovely day, and there were many many children running around with various pieces of Thomas paraphernalia. It is a great park to go to with kids, and if you choose to not spend money there is still a great playground for them and some museums with kiddy things to do. The kids had a great time, and I thought that I would put a few of the photos up. So here goes.

Also, just thought that I should add that Sophia lost her second tooth today at school. Well, she didn't lose it, but it came out!!

Home Sweet Home

2010-09-18T05:11:00.000-07:00

Saturday 18 September 2010

For those that are following our relocation (and who wouldn’t, it is so riveting), we are in the middle of selling our house, and if all goes well the new owners will take over the place in October. Today we spent a big part of our day clearing out our garage/store room, well Leon and his dad did whilst I tried to keep the kids out of the way. It was the first time that Sophia and George had been to see the house, and sometimes it still amazes me how sweet kids can be. Leon and I still feel a bit nostalgic about the place as it was our first house, but we have outgrown it and in our eyes it is too small and not nice enough. Sophia and George loved it. They both got in there and started running around and playing in places that I never thought they would have liked. Sophia was very sad when I told her that we had, in fact, sold the house and that someone else would have it soon. She asked me why, and I said that it was too small and that we wanted to buy a house that was even nicer. To that Sophia said to me “mummy I think this house is really nice, there is nothing wrong with it. And its not too small mummy, we can fit in here”. Even when I told her that we wouldn’t have room if any visitors from Switzerland came to see us (hint hint) she told me how we could all fit in the house. The thing that got me about it all was that she was actually right. In the time when the house was built there were many families with houses like that that raised 3 and 4 kids in the house. I guess the kids learnt to play with each other and with neighbours rather than have a room full of toys that they ignore, and they stayed outside more. I am curious as to when it is that we learn to want more and more rather than be happy to have what we need. I hope that Sophia keeps her lovely view of things for a while longer. I, on the other hand, think that it is absolutely necessary to have at least four bedrooms, two bathrooms one with a double vanity and granite kitchen J I do realize though that it is not essential to have a pool.

Our Weekend

2010-09-13T07:53:00.000-07:00

Monday 13 Sept 2010

We had a busy but fun weekend. Leon had got back just in time for George's birthday last week and the kids were very happy to have him home after two weeks away. He was home on Tuesday and Wednesday which meant that he got to take George to Gymbaroo on Tues and he was the parent helper for Sophia's class on Wed. On Friday night the Kids and I took Leon back to the markets for "kids night". I know it is sad, but the kids enjoy it. This time George got up to sing on stage. He did his version of Twinkle Little Star. He gets stuck after 'up above the world so high" so he said "I forget the words" and stopped. As soon as he finished he said to the man "excuse me, can I have my lolli pop"....so we know what his motivation to sing was. Inspired by George, Sophia also got up to sing, although she had to take George up there with her for support. Together they sang "baa baa black sheep", and yes, George did ask for another lolli pop.

On Sunday we had a birthday party for George. That meant we spent most of Sat getting ready for the party. Sophia also was working on her cartwheels. Yes, she has now moved on from the monkey bars to doing cartwheels and has even told me that I have to find a place for her to go to learn gymnastics. For those of you that have heard of my experiences with Sophia and getting her to try to go to classes for anything (namely kushido), you will know that to date my experiences have been less than pleasant. I think that I have actually also sworn to never take her to any out of school activity and that if she ever asked to do go and do something that it would have to be Leon that will have to take her. Perhaps I can negotiate and tell Sophia that i will take to her Gym lessons once she starts to go to swimming lessons!!! That way I can be certain to not have to take her to anything :)

Anyway, Sunday afternoon came around and we had George's party. We had intended to have the party at a park but the weather forecast was not good so we changed venue and had the party at my brother's house. It turned out to be a lovely day, which was nice for George, and the kids kept themselves entertained with doing crafts, jumping on the trampoline and some games. It was lovely for us to catch up with some family and friends, and it meant a lot for us for them to come and share in George's birthday. He was very spoilt this year and got lots of great presents, and even some from overseas!! Even though he did miss having his little friends from Switzerland with him, he did have a great time and said that he had fun at the party. Sophia also really enjoyed hosting a party (I think she misses entertaining her friends and having them come over to visit her), and now she is asking if we can have a halloween party!!! I guess I will have to ask my brother :)

I will try to post some pics tomorrow.

PS: George has just come stumbling out of his room rubbing his eyes saying "I'm still tired". No wonder, he has only been in bed for two hours !!! :)

HAPPY 3RD BIRTHDAY GEORGE

2010-09-08T07:13:00.000-07:00

Wednesday September 8, 2010

Well today our beautiful little boy turned three. I can’t believe that it is three years since I had to put up with three days of labour and to get Leon to beg for an epidural (for me, not him) and then ended up having a caesarean because my little boy had such a buff head he wasn’t coming out…….but I digress. When I think back it is hard for me to remember him as a little baby, he seems to have grown so big so quickly. As I was inside a birthing room the entire day and night of his birth, I don’t recall what the weather was like that day. The two birthdays he had in Switzerland were rather lousy weather and I had hoped that that might be different here. That was not to be the case. After two months of mostly sunshine and blue skies the Winter weather finally decided to come just in time for George’s birthday. We had a mostly grey day that was a bit windy with rain. Hopefully we will have better luck for his party on the weekend.

George woke up this morning, as usual, in our bed and we wished him a Happy Birthday. When we got up we gave him his presents to open but he refused to!!! We could not get him to budge on this, he just would not open any presents, He kept saying “its not time yet”. I think that he didn’t believe it was his birthday because for the last couple of nights I have been getting stuff ready for his party and kept telling him to leave things alone as they were for his Birthday Party. As he didn’t see all of those things he didn’t believe it was his birthday J When Leon’s parents arrived with a present they couldn’t even get him to take it.

That aside we had a lovely evening with just us, the grandparents and my brother’s family. I had hoped that once George saw his cake (I was a bit lazy this year so it wasn’t anything fancy, although it still tasted good and George liked so I guess that is what counts) and we sang happy birthday that he would open his presents. Luckily that was the case, and after doing the birthday cake he was more than happy to open the presents, and even enjoyed it. He really got into it, and just loved everything that he got, not just the packaging. He was very lucky and was very spoilt. After opening the presents we ate the cake and then his cousin Phillip helped him to set up the toys. He finally got a Kung Zuh pet with some Zuh Zuh pet accessories. They were even a hit with the grandparents. I think my parents might feel differently when they keep stepping on this toy pet that is lying around the house though J

Thanks to all of our friends that sent birthday wishes, called us and sent presents. We feel very blessed to have you all thinking of our little boy.

Sophia's First Sports Carnival

2010-09-03T04:33:00.000-07:00

Friday September 3 2010

Sophia's school had it's sport carnival today. The pre-primary children are not really in it but all of the kids get to do one race. They just line the kids up, boys and girls mixed and in no particular order and they let them run. It is quite cute to watch as half of them trying to hold on to their hats, some are trying to look for their parents and some, like Sophia, take a while to actually take off. All of the pre-primary kids get a participation ribbon with no winners being recorded, then they got sit and watch the others for bit before returning to class. I went to see Sophia at lunch and they were having an 'inside outside' day where things that were usually inside were outside for them to play with as it was a lovely sunny day. Sophia enjoyed the whole event and had a great day at school. Her faction came second overall.

Tonight I took the kids to the local markets (undercover permanent fixture) where we had a lovely evening. It turns out that Friday night is Kids Night at the markets where the kids get up and sing Karaoke and they had some games for the kids to play. Sophia didn't sing, but George had decided to get up to sing just they stopped to start some games. I am not entirely sure what song he would have sung though :) Sophia did play some of the games though and she managed to win herself and George a lolli-pop. She was very happy with her efforts.

The F-Word

2010-08-30T06:50:00.000-07:00

Monday 30 August 2010

Today after school I was getting Sophia a snack. As usual she was nattering on about something and as usual I was trying to not listen to her. Then all of a sudden I hear her say “blah blah blah the F-Word blah blah blah”. She didn’t say the swear word but called it the ‘F’word and asked me what it was. After picking my jaw up from the ground I explained to her that it was a bad word that she was not to say and asked her who had told her about it. Apparently one of the girls in her class was talking about it. It was just today that I was talking with a friend about how some parents seem to be happy to say anything in front of their kids. I admit to being a potty mouth BC (Before Children) and I was know for calling people ‘ken idiots and saying “oh for @%$# SAKE” Since becoming a mother, however, I have changed my ways and have only a couple of times let a few minor profanities slip in front of the children. Through out the evening Sophia tried a couple of times to get me to tell her what the word was exactly. One time she even told me that she knew what the word was. When I asked her what it is was she said “fake”, and then continued to repeat any word starting with F that she heard on the TV. As she is learning to sound words out and read I considered writing the word down and then asking her if she could tell me what it was, you know, like homework, but I decided against that. She even tried to trick me into telling her by saying, in the middle of something else, “what was that F-word again mummy?”. So, anyway, I finally thought that it was over, and Sophia says to me “mummy, this is how you say the F-word with your fingers, You hold these two fingers up, and then you turn them around like that”. Just as though she had learnt it in a Sing-and-Sign lesson at school !!! I guess that these are the joys of kids going to school and interacting with other children.

George, on the other hand, as well as speaking in Yoda Speak has started calling me names. Lately it had been lots of “you’re a trouble maker mum” and things like that, but today he started calling me a ‘snake’. “that’s not fair mum, your just a snake”. I can only imagine what delightful things they will be saying by the end of the week J

2010-08-30T02:56:00.000-07:00

Some photos (in no particular order because I am having trouble working out the blog page and I don't have much time) of Sophia getting ready for School, face painting, petting some animals, and at the beach.

2010-08-30T02:40:00.000-07:00

A Busy Weekend

2010-08-29T08:50:00.000-07:00

Sunday 29 August 2010

Well, we have had a very busy couple of days at this end. Yesterday I took Sophia and George to the Cinema to see Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue. As it was such a beautiful day it seemed a bit criminal to take them indoors, but we have had so many beautiful days that I figured missing part of one wouldn’t kill us J The kids enjoyed the movie, (I didn’t mind it either) and we all enjoyed the Pop Corn. As Phyllis always used to say to me, it wasn’t fair in Switzerland that they would advertise with popcorn at the cinemas but you weren’t able to buy any. After the movie we had lunch, did a bit of shopping and then, as it was a beautiful day, I took the kids to a new playground that I had driven passed before and lots of people have talked about. It was a great play ground and the kids had fun. At one point I had a moment of panic when I couldn’t see Sophia. Just before this point she had been patting a puppy dog that some man had. When I had seen that all these dark thoughts crossed my mind about how that was a good way for someone to lure children in and how he looked a bit suspect. The poor man (whom I am sure is a lovely person) probably felt the bad vibes. Anyway, when I couldn’t see Sophia I immediately looked for the man and couldn’t see him, and it took me a while to find Sophia again. She was where I had last seen her, she was just hidden from view. It is funny how quickly thoughts go through your mind. I even recalled a conversation Leon and I had had once when we jokingly said that if anyone ever abducted Sophia they would drop her off at the next corner as it wouldn’t take long for Sophia to annoy them with her demands and instructions and yelling. Anyway, after that we went to visit my brother for a while before going home to have a night in watching Monsters Inc.

Today was another beautiful day and we started off with a birthday party for Wilson this morning. He was turning 2, and had the Cuddly Animal Farm at his party. The kids got to look at, hold and feed lots of little animals. Sophia and George loved it, and Sophia had a good play with another little girl that was there. From there we went to visit Aunty Alma to deliver her coffee machine to her. With Aunty Alma Sophia finally got to go the beach. She has been asking to go to the beach since before we arrived in Perth and I have been putting it off (well, it is Winter). With all of the sunshine we have been having it was hard to tell her that we couldn’t go, but I managed to convince here that we couldn’t go swimming. The kids and Alma got their feet wet (the water was way too cold for me), and eventually George got completely wet when Sophia “accidentally” bumped into him and he fell in the water. Luckily this happened to George and not the other way around. Had it been Sophia there would have been an Oscar winning performance of tears and screaming and blaming George. As it turned out I told Sophia off, not for her bumping into George but for her reaction. Rather than check that I had seen George in the water that was coming in over his head and starting to drag him out, or trying to help him up, she laughed at him. I was telling her that that was not appropriate and that she should have helped him and George was there, no tears shed, saying “but I am ok mummy. It doesn’t matter now” and “don’t tell Sophia off”. It is amazing how much he sticks up for his big sister. With George going in the water we quickly left to get the kids into some dry clothes and we headed back to Alma’s for dinner. After dinner we made a quick exit for a quick visit to Papou and Yiayia. We didn’t get back home until 9pm. Luckily Sophia fell asleep quickly so hopefully she will be good for school tomorrow J

Sophia

2010-08-27T07:11:00.000-07:00

As I wrote about George the other night, I thought that I would write about Sophia tonight. If I had written about Sophia a couple of weeks ago, this entry would have a very different tone to it, but for the last couple of weeks she has actually been a very pleasant little girl. She still has her bad moments, but they are a lot less severe and not too often. Sophia was quite sad to leave Switzerland and all her friends, so as bad as she was, it was not as bad as we expected it to be. Luckily she is kept busy at school so that takes her mind of Switzerland a bit. Leon is in Switzerland at the moment so that has made her think of her friends a bit more again, and she is missing her dad. She did enjoy wrapping presents for some of her friends though for Leon to take with him.

The main thing occupying Sophia is school and she seems to be going well. I had a chat with Sophia’s teacher this week and she surprised me by saying to another mum and I “Sophia is good and quiet in class, not like your daughter (to the other mum) who talks all the time.” I was amazed that Sophia didn’t spend the entire time chatting and for a moment I wondered if she had confused her with another child, but the teacher said that Sophia is quiet and good in class. Some of it is to do with a lack of confidence I think as the teacher said that Sophia doesn’t like to answer questions. She did say that Sophia is bright though, and she just needs to give Sophia a bit of warning that she is going to be asked a question so that Sophia has a chance to get ready for the question. I am not as confident about how Sophia is going with regards to making friends. When I ask her whom she plays with she talks about kids from the other pre-primary class and says she doesn’t play with the kids from her class. When we stay to play after school though she is sort of playing with kids from her class. She still has the issue of wanting everyone to play what she wants to play, and doesn’t always join in with the other kids even when they ask her to. She is loving the monkey bars though and doing flips on the bars as well. The other thing we are pleasantly surprised with is the difference in her abilities in just the few weeks she has been going to school Sophia is doing a lot better at drawing and her reading and writing skills have really improved. She is having some issues with some of the sounds of the letters though as she sometimes gets things confused with the German….which I think is kind of good.

Other than School Sophia is still pretty much the same. Sometimes she drives us crazy with her back-chat and whining. I am often amazed at the things she can find to cry about. It is almost like she has to do a certain quota of crying and if she doesn’t have a genuine cause for complaint she will find something ridicules to cry about. I am also often amazed at her ability to have a sassy reply to everything I tell her. One of her more common complaints is “I always have to do everything for everyone and no one ever does anything for me!!” I copped this one when I was busy doing something and dared to suggest to her that she could go and get her own pencils as she was the one that wanted to use them. The worst thing about this common complaint of Sophia’s is that George has also started to say it, even to my mother when she dared to not give him a lolly. Her other thing (that I find quite amusing) is to totally ignore you if she doesn’t like what you are telling her. She will actually tell you that she can not hear what you are saying to her. I am not sure how well that will go down if she tries it with the teachers at school J

Finally I must say that she is generally a nice girl and for all of her faults she can actually be very sweet and caring at times. Leon’s parents are always telling us that she is sweet and we are too hard on her. My parents are not quite so gracious, but they also enjoy her time. Sophia and my father tend to wind each other up, so often there is no love lost there, but Sophia is very sweet to my mum and always wants to help her. She is also (at times) very good with George and he just loves to play with her. Last night it was cute. Sophia got up a while after she went to bed. Mum had thought that Sophia had come to find me, so when she saw me alone she asked where Sophia was. We then found Sophia asleep with George in his bed !!! The thing was, Sophia had absolutely no recollection of doing it, and refused to believe it this morning when I told her about it (that part was not so cute). Perhaps I should have left her in bed with George, that way I may have had my bed to myself for a while longer J

Of all things!!

2010-08-27T06:55:00.000-07:00

Friday 27 August 2010

In writing about George the other night I forgot to mention something that happened with him a couple of weeks ago, some of you may have read the comments I made on Facebook.

There we were one evening, standing in the kitchen getting the kids a snack when all of a sudden George sort of cries out and we turn to look at him. Of all the things I may have expected to see what I saw was not one of them. The was our boy, whom many people have often said looks bright and advanced for his age, with his head stuck in the water dispenser of the fridge!! The water dispenser on the front of the door is right at his head height and George had been standing with his back to the fridge. Apparently at some point George thought that it would be a good thing to tilt his head back and see if it would fit in the gap. Well, his head did fit in, but it wasn't going to come out the same way it went in. So there Leon and I were holding up George's legs and trying to get him unstuck from the fridge. It was a good thing that we don't use the water dispenser anymore, so it was empty. Sophia got quite upset and worried, and she was crying as well. I thought it was quite sweet the she was worried about George. On reflection Leon and I were disappointed that we didn't get any photos or video of it. Perhaps we should have asked Sophia to get her camera. The night before this happened we had seen on TV a lady that was petitioning to get Battery companies to put a Chocking Hazard warning on their packets of small flat batteries. Leon and I were then thinking that perhaps we should write to the Fridge manufacturers and tell them that they should put a warning on the fridges saying that Children should not put their heads in the water dispensers.

George

2010-08-25T06:58:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 25 August 2010

As we have not been up to too much the last couple of days I thought that I would write a bit about George. He is very quickly growing into a big boy. Whilst he is missing all of his friends, he is settling in here quite well. My parents are having a great time with him, and he enjoys hanging out with nonno in the garden. Nonna is the “go to person” when George wants something special. Yesterday when I took Sophia to school I hadn’t even got to the door yet when I heard him ask mum for bread with Nutella. Apparently mum didn’t give it to him straight away so after a bit he said “nonna, you forgot my bread with Nutella. Mum isn’t here”. J

Those who knew George well in Switzerland would be familiar with the fact that he was very attuned to his feminine side. He was very keen to get dressed up and put jewellery on, and one of his favourite things was the vacuum cleaner. Since being here his feminine side has been less obvious. He now really likes robots and Spiderman and he is saying things like “that’s for girls mummy, and I am not a girl”. No longer does he cry because I wont buy him a dress or something with Princesses on it. That said, I was in a shop recently and George and Sophia were looking at magazines and asked for one. I said they could have one each and left them to it. George came up to me with his magazine of choice, and it was a princess one!! I couldn’t sway him to choose a different one. What had attracted him was that the magazine came with a little purple butterfly that had Tinker Bell on the front. Since then, he has taken that butterfly everywhere. He even has conversations with Tinker Bell and says that she talks to him. We figure that so long as Tinker Bell isn’t telling him to do anything bad to Sophia then it is ok J

George has now also been potty trained for about 4 weeks. He is very proud of the fact that he goes to the toilet. When Leon gets home from work one of the first things George tells him is “I did poos on the toilet daddy”. He also loves his Spiderman underpants. Once when I took George and Sophia to the supermarket after school at one point I turned to see George with his tracksuit pants down around his knees so that he could show Sophia his underpants. I let him know that that was not appropriate behaviour for the supermarket J Now that he is toilet trained he keeps asking me if he can go to school so I will have to get him into a day care soon. The other very boyish thing that George has developed is a love of Fart Humour!! He just loves to let one rip and finds it very funny if he does a loud one. He is very quick to take ownership of his work as well. The flip side of that is that he is also quick to deny it if he has not done anything. I have seen Sophia try to blame one on George and he was not taking a bar of it!!

In just two weeks George will be turning 3!! The poor darling keeps telling me all of the friends that he wants to come to his birthday party, and of course they are mostly in Switzerland so I have to tell him that they can’t come L Also, it was lucky he had a bit of a party last year as he gets a bit gypped when it comes to birthdays. His first birthday was a week after we moved into a new apartment and was organised very half-heartedly, and unfortunately his 3^rd birthday will be the same as we are not in our own place yet. Hopefully it will be good weather and we can go somewhere nice for it.

Clowns and Trouble Makers

2010-08-23T07:02:00.000-07:00

Monday 23rd August 2010

Yesterday, Sophia, George, Mum and I went to a Rotary Club Fair. It was a local one and it was a lovely day so we headed out. George was actually not feeling great so he sat in the pram most of the time and even had a little sleep. He did, however, manage to eat an ice cream, get a balloon (a pink Flower, just like his sister) and have his face painted. While he was sleeping Sophia had a turn playing on the Clowns (putting a ball into the mouth of the rotating head). I had not realised the rules, and thought that the higher the number you got (the balls fall into a slot with a number on it) the better the prize. Sophia Scored 8, and I was thinking that was an ordinary effort. When the lady came around and I told her that Sophia scored 8 she said "what, how did she get that" as though I couldn't add up. When I told her that 3x 1 plus 3 plus 2 make 8 she looked a bit miffed. It was then that I noticed the sign with the "winning numbers" on it, and 8 was one of them. They must have worked out the numbers that are difficult to get with 5 balls, and 8 was one of them. Sophia won herself a lovely soft toy whilst the big kids next to her got some little party favour things. She was very proud of her efforts (and I felt a bit bad for making her think that she had not done well :). Being at the fair, made me miss going to the Chilbi in Switzerland. Kids rides and things were all $5 each....can you believe that. And that is for useless little rides, nothing fancy. I was glad that George was alseep and not feeling great as that saved me a decent amount of money (not sure if that makes me a bad mum or not!!). After the fair the kids and I headed over to see Leon's parents and we even got to stay there for dinner. We also managed to have a Web Cam call with Leon. Leon was headed over to the Ritters for lunch with them and the Phippses.

George had a bad night last night, so today I took him to the doctor to be told that he is ok and to keep doing what I had been doing for him. I took him largely because both sets of grand parents had made me feel derelict in my parenting duty by asking me if I was going to take George to the emergency hospital, when I had had no intention of doing so. I felt better when the doctor said that there was nothing really wrong with George. I think that that was confirmed this evening when George kept asking me for Sugus (lollies/candy). At one point, after I had said no to any more lollies, George mumbled under his breath "stupid trouble maker". When I asked him what he had said he looked at me and said " I just called you a trouble maker" with this cute little smile on his face. My mother was standing there trying not laugh. Today I also managed to get our computer set up so that we can use the Web Cam on Skype, so hopefully we will start doing a few web cam calls with our friends afar :)

Leon Has Landed

2010-08-23T06:35:00.000-07:00

Monday 23rd August 2010

Yesterday Leon landed in Switzerland for a week of work (and catching up with friends) so I thought that it was time that I get the Blog going again so that he can keep up to date with what we are doing. If any of you are reading this, you will realise that I have been rather lazy this month. We haven't had that much of interest to write about, so I haven't been inspired. I got a message today telling me to get going again. That made me think that there are a handful of people reading so I should put in a bit of effort :)

In short this month so far has been filled with lots of minor but annoying illness, slowly working its way through the members of the house hold. Luckily Leon managed to leave here feeling OK. Sophia is still going to school despite her best efforts to do otherwise. She still thinks she can negotiate her way down to three days a week, and she is especially upset on Tuesdays when she has sport. It does seem as though she is making friends though, and the teacher says she is doing well. I have also tried to get involved in school activities when I can. So far there has been an Open Night, book fair and Fun Run. Next week we have the athletics carnival, Fathers day stall and soon after that the Pre - Primary put on an assembly. Lots to look forward to :) George unfortunately has spent a lot of this month feeling unwell. We have had a few play dates which have gone well, and he is enjoying his Gymbaroo and recognises it now when we drive past. Having been unwell means he has spent lots of time at home with Nonna and Nonno, and they are loving that.

Leon and I have also spent a lot of time this month house hunting as well as doing a lot of pfaffing about with trying to sell our place. We had an offer on our house which fell through after the potential purchaser caused us a lot of grief. Times like that make me wish I had those Sicilian Connections that people think all Sicilians have :) We are still staying with my parents as I am finding it convenient and easier, especially whilst Leon is away. That said, we would really like to have our own place with all of our things. We got a few of our boxes from the container the other day, and it was nice to see some of our own things. The kids were very excited.

Well that is us all caught up, so I can now write about our very exciting daily activities..........

Happy Swiss National Day

2010-08-01T08:28:00.000-07:00

Sunday August 1 2010

To all our friends in Switzerland, Happy Swiss National Day. We hope you had a great day and that Fireworks don't keep you up all night :)

As for us, we had another busy night last night. Leon and I had a lovely time at dinner and came home to find the kids and my parents all asleep on various couches. Leon and I moved Sophia and George into their beds, but that is not where they staid. It was Sophia that showed up in our room first, and she came to my side (usually Leon is her parent of choice) and climbed in. After a while of laying in the middle I could bare it no longer and I made her swap with me. Not long after that George climbed over Leon and Sophia and got into bed near me. Somehow, and I am not sure how, Leon is completely oblivious to all of this happening. With the kids in the bed I run out of pillow room. Rather than leave the bed (I worry George will fall out...again) I end up scrunching half way down the side and sort of sleeping horizontally so that my legs are beneath George and Sophia in the bed. This means that my face is often in line with George's feet and butt. After I had been slapped, kicked, headbutted and farted on in my face Leon finally realised that I didn't have much room and thankfully he moved Sophia back to her bed. After that we managed to have a sleep in, in relative comfort, which was nice for a Sunday.

We had another lovely sunny day today. Leon took the kids to see his parents this morning and they went out to a local play ground and Sophia showed Yiayia and Papou all the things that she has been doing at school. Yiayia had made some cup cakes so that was an added bonus. When they all got back Leon and I went to look at houses again. We saw one that we really liked to today, we are just not too sure about it because of the school catchment area. We will think on it a bit more. We then took the kids out again to a play ground and had a quiet night in while nonna and nonno went out.

As today was Swiss National Day we had hoped to do something Swiss in honour of the occasion. As we don't have all of our stuff yet we really couldn't think of what to do. I actually went the opposite way and did some washing and vacuuming on a Sunday as that was not allowed in Switzerland :) In the end the best that we could do was eat some chocolate. Perhaps next year we will do Fondue or Raclette. What we missed today was going to the local brunch and seeing all of the fireworks that people set off. Although we will not miss all of the fireworks that continue to go off late into the night.

Our Week In Review

2010-07-31T09:11:00.000-07:00

Saturday July 31, 2010

As you can tell, I have been a bit lazy with regard to my Blog. Many of you may have heard me complain that Sophia will never try anything new (not that we like to complain about our children). I am not sure who she gets this trait from, but it isn’t me (so I guess that leaves Leon). I am more inclined to try new things, but the difficulty is for me to continue doing it as I lose interest quickly J Unfortunately the same is happening with the blog, especially since we don’t do a lot of exciting things. J Anyway, for those keeping track of what we are up to, here is our week in review.

Sophia handled going to school better this week. Monday was not the drama we expected it to be. I only had Thursday morning where she complained that she didn’t want to go to school. That said, she still won’t admit that she likes school. She has told us that she doesn’t want to go to school and doesn’t like it and she is sticking to her story. She is nothing if not consistent (and stubborn) J I went along and helped out in the class on Wednesday morning. They ask mums to come and help out for a couple of hours. It was good to watch how things work and to see how Sophia fits in. As I suspected she was a little chatterbox when left alone with the other kids. I had to “remind” her to do her work and not talk so much a couple of times. She wasn’t the only one though, it was like a little knitting circle with the way they were chatting and gossiping. I came away thinking that teaching is not a job I would like to do, or be able to do. It is incredible how much power the kids can have over you if you let them. I would point out something that the kids should do (or so I thought) and they would just say ‘no, we don’t need to do that I am going to do this” and I just didn’t know if that was true or not J I think it is something that I will do on a regular basis as they look as though they can do with the help. I have been impressed with the sort of stuff that they have been getting Sophia to do though, and I am glad that we have came back in the middle of Pre School and not in the middle of grade one.

When we moved back here I thought that it would be Sophia that would be talking about her friends all the time, but it is in fact George. I think it is largely because Sophia understands that we aren’t going to go and visit a friend, as well as she is kept busy by going to school. In Switzerland we were very lucky to have a lot of friends with children both Sophia and George’s age. Here he is lacking his little circle of friends. He keeps talking about his friends and even offered to let Aaron borrow his new spiderman underpants. I also mentioned that one of his tops was getting too small for him so he said we should give it to Charlotte (as she got the trampoline that was too small for him). He has done really well with the potty training this week though, and we have had no accidents since Monday. Soon we will be able to get him into a kindy programme and hopefully he will make some friends. We went to Gymbaroo again on Friday and he enjoyed it this time, which was good. He seems to be one of the older kids though so I am not sure if he will make any buddies there. He is missing Sophia when she is at school, although he does like it when I take her. We are still with my parents and as soon as I leave the house with Sophia he asks my mum for bread with Nutella (and or course he gets it J).

No real new news for Leon and I this week. Leon is getting used to working in a different environment. He is apparently quite isolated and feels a bit lonely sometimes. I think he is still trying to find his Rhythm at work. Hopefully we will get our stuff soon and he can take his Nespresso machine to work and that will help him find his Rhythm. He is also hoping to start a German course soon. I think that he is missing the short drive between Work and Home as my parents live quite a distance from his work place.

I haven’t been up to much this week. I have actually had a cold this week so it has been a slow week for me. We did get to Skype with Anna and Kim on Sunday though and I had a nice chat with Phyllis on the phone as well so that was nice. I have organised a couple of play dates with some friends next week for George and I, so we are looking forward to those. Today we took Sophia and George to the cinema to see Abby In Wonderland (a sesame street version of Alice in Wonderland) and then we all went to look at a couple of houses this afternoon. The kids liked all of the houses and announced at each one that "we should buy this one". Unfortunately Leon and I were not so convinced. Leon and I are also planning to go out without the kids tonight, so we are looking forward to that. Perhaps, if we are not too lazy, we will finally move into my brother’s place tomorrow!!

Well, I think that is all for now, other than to mention what we miss about Switzerland. In taking Sophia to school and picking her up I have missed Anna J I am not sure if I ever thanked her enough for doing that for us, but it was great, and it was also nice to have her company when I went to pick Sophia up. At my brothers house last week we saw some packet Mac and Cheese, and that combined with the cold weather has made us think fondly of Phyllis’s Mac and Cheese..Yum. George is of course missing his friends and Sophia keeps telling us that she wants to go to Kinderkrippe. That said, we now have to think of something to do tomorrow for Swiss National day!!!

Smile for the Camera

2010-07-24T18:10:00.000-07:00

Saturday July 24, 2010

It has been a few days since a have blogged, so here is a bit of a catch up.

Sophia has finished her first week of school. After a very difficult Tuesday morning, Sophia was good for the rest of the week in the morning. We had an “episode” on Wednesday evening where Sophia again decided that she was no longer going to go to school. Leon promised Sophia that when he took her to school on Thursday he would ask the teacher if Sophia could go to school three days a week (Sophia always the negotiator). As promised he asked the teacher (he prefaced the question by telling the teacher that he had promised Sophia he would ask), and the teacher burst out laughing. When I picked Sophia up on Tuesday and Wednesday there were tears because she couldn’t get across the Monkey Bars on her own. By Thursday she had conquered the monkey bars so there were no tears. The teacher has told us that Sophia is doing well, so we will just have to wait and see. Sophia’s other big news is that she has her second wobbly tooth. It isn’t too loose yet so it will still be a few days before it comes out.

With Sophia at school George and I have just been doing some hanging out together. He is just adorable and lovely to spend time with. The weather has been great so we have just been outside a lot. He comes with me to get Sophia from school and has a play at the playground as well. He is a little show off and tries to impress all of the big kids. On Friday George and I went to have a look at a day care so that he can go to school as well. He needs to be out of nappies first so we have been working on that as well. Not going too well. I have been washing lots of underpants and tracksuit pants. Sophia was much better than George is. Hopefully we will get there soon. George and I also went to a Gymbaroo class on Friday. George was actually quite shy and didn’t love it (I must admit that I preferred Gymboree), but I have paid now so hopefully he will grow to like it.

On Thursday I decided to go to the first day of the Target Toy Sale. OMG. I couldn’t believe the place. Trolleys were piled high with toys, the queues for lay-buy (lay-away) were huge, and when I got there at 10:30 half the shelves were already empty. The one thing that I really wanted had already gone by the time I got there, but I still managed to get a heap of stuff that my kids don’t need. It is was like a disease in that shop, and it was very contagious J I did have a chuckle at one stage when the PA announcement in the store was looking for “Cookie Monster. Can Cookie Monster please come to the front of the store where Elmo is waiting for you”. I was very happy that I did not have the kids with me.

On Friday night Alma and I went to see Mamma Mia. It was nice to go out with her and we stayed for a drink afterward as well. Leon was very happy that I had been out as he got to watch what was apparently a great game of AFL between St Kilda and Hawthorn (they came a draw ). Leon was not happy, however, when I mentioned that I had my photo taken whilst driving his car home that night J There were three photos taken of me going through an intersection on the way home. I am sure that I was not speeding, and certain that I didn’t go through a red light so I am not sure what happen. After the first flash went off I had a look in the mirrors and there was a car behind me, as well as a car going the other direction through the intersection. If I get the fine I am already to contest it J

Today we moved some clothes over to Giuseppe’s house and then we went out to do some shopping at Karrinyup. After that we popped in to my brother Guy’s place (Juliets’s sisters also dropped in) where everyone liked my new car. We spent the evening at home where the Kids and I fell asleep in front of the TV watching Bee Movie and I think Leon watched TV and surfed the net.

Other than the great weather we are having (Especially when you consider that it is the equivalent of January in Switzerland, and we have not had a grey day since we have been here), the thing that I am enjoying here is using Glad Wrap. It is great to have cling wrap that is easier to cut (ie. it doesn't scrunch into a ball when you try to rip it) and that actually clings to things other than itself.

Sophia's First day of School

2010-07-20T18:16:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 20 July 2010

What a day!! Had we been living in Perth Sophia would have gone to Kindergarten (part time) last year, and she would have started Pre-primary in Feb this year. Today was the first day of Third Term, and Sophia's first day.

Now, we knew that Sophia (being the drama queen that she is) would not be happy about going, and that there would be some tears. I had hoped though that there would be some moments in the morning that would be ok and I would be able to get a couple of photos of her making her lunch, with her school bag, in her uniform...that sort of thing.

Well, Leon woke Sophia up while I was in the shower and the first thing she apparently said was "I don't want to go to school". When I got out of the shower she was very grumpily eating breakfast. This was when I made a mistake that lead to a downward slide into Hell!!

The mistake..........I got my camera to take a photo of Sophia. That was the end of any peace in the house. What ensued was about 45 min of Sophia screaming, crying, kicking and refusing to do anything. In the end Leon and I had to hold her down to get her dressed. My parents had never seen anything like it before (I had been the perfect child of course). At one point when Leon was telling her that if she were to stay home she would stay in her room all day. Sophia replied that the door doesn't lock so would let herself out. Leon then said that there was a secret way of locking the door. This was when George piped in with "wheres the secret lock daddy. I can't see it" as he carefully looked at the door handle :)

Needless to say, I didn't get any photos of Sophia. I did,however, get an amusing video of her refusing to look at the camera, slamming the door shut and crying behind the door with a few special comments by George :)

Anyway, when we finally got her dressed and carried her to school, the teacher had to pry her out of Leon's arms. I doubt the teacher has ever seen parents more happy to dump their kid off on the first day of school than we were. Had there been tears from us they would have been tears of Joy.

After that relaxing start to the day, Leon and I drove off to get my new car. Very happy to have it and be more mobile. I got home and George of course had been a little angel with my parents. First time he had been left without Sophia. Mum said with kids like him I could have a dozen of them. I pointed out that if I had a dozen kids like George I wouldn't have enough room in my bed.

George and I went out for a bit, came home to rest and then I went to pick up Sophia from School. The teacher said that she had been great all day (and it was a busy day with three or four different teachers. Sport and Music class as well), and of course she didn't want to go home. After being the last ones their playing on the playground we finally left when Sophia burst into tears again because she is apparently the only child on earth that can not go all the way across the Monkey Bars on her own. She told me that even one year olds can do it.

Following that we had a quiet evening in. We will see how things go tomorrow.

Sophia Starts School Tomorrow!!

2010-07-19T04:40:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of school holidays so we have had a quiet day around the house. We had the usual start to the day around the house. It was another lovely day so the kids played outside for quite a while as well as helping me to hang out the washing. I must admit that I am enjoying hanging the washing outside on a clothes line and have it dry in a few hours, in the winter time. After lunch I took the kids to the play ground and we played there for a couple of hours. Another little girl showed up and Sophia and George had fun playing with her. When the girl showed up and said hello, Sophia said to George "its OK Georgie.....she speaks English". We stopped at the shop on the way home, and then I got the kids bathed and fed before Leon got home. My plan was to have Sophia in bed tonight by 8pm at the latest, but is is now 7:45 and she is still playing with Leon. Not sure when we will get her bed. Leon has just sat with Sophia and written her name on all of her school things. If she gets through tomorrow with no tears it will be good, but then she will expect her lunch box to filled with Guetzli (treats) every day. In an attempt to make her feel better tomorrow (ie. bribe her) at school she has a freddo frog (from Yia Yia), a packet of Tiny Teddies, a packet of Chicken-in-a-biskit and a Cheese dip thing. No doubt they will get eaten tomorrow and she will come home with her sandwich and apple :)

Well that is it for now. Wish us luck for tomorrow, and I will fill you in tomorrow night. I just remembered the most important thing we need to do tomorrow. Once we drop Sophia off I get to go and pick up my new car.

PS: I forgot to mention in yesterday's post that when we took the kids to look at a house with us Sophia thought it was lovely and she wanted us to buy it. George was also happy with, and he spent the entire inspection trying to open all of the doors he came across in search of the Vacuum Cleaner.

Our Weekend

2010-07-18T18:40:00.000-07:00

Saturday 18 July and Sunday 19 July 2010

Saturday morning Leon and I were woken up by George chanting “wake up sleepy head” in our bed. We tried to get him to let us sleep in a bit longer, but it wasn’t going to happen. We got up, and then Zio Frank came over with his Ute and we moved a bed over to Giuseppe’s place ready for our move over there (probably this weekend). The morning passed quite quickly, and then Leon and I left the kids with my parents so that we could go and look at some more houses. We also stopped at Zii Tony and Maria’s deli to have a quick coffee in between house hunting. We saw a house that I really liked…but unfortunately it was in a new development and it didn’t have a big enough back yard for the kids L

As an aside, I need to mention that it seems that Sophia and George associate staying home alone with my parents with eating Fairy Bread (Bread with butter and sprinkles). Phyllis had started the tradition of having fairy bread for breakfast when you had a sleep over at their place, so we had adopted that as well at our place in Switzerland. Seeing as they are not having any sleep overs at the moment they have shifted this to being alone with Nonna. Nonna fell for George’s trap though. When Nonna asked the kids what they wanted for a snack George had asked for a “Nutella Nandwich”, and then Sophia had said she wanted Fairy bread. George then changed his mind “actually, I want Fairy bread too”. Nonna made them both Fairy Bread and as soon as George had finished his, he promptly asked for his Bread with Nutella!!!

Anyway, once Leon and I had finished our house hunting we went home and Leon took the kids out to a play ground for a couple of hours to enjoy the nice weather. We had a lazy evening in. We had Red Rooster for dinner and the kids and I watch “the Wild” on TV whilst my parents and Leon watched The West Coast Eagles win their first AFL game in ages.

Sunday morning George woke us up again, but with out the chanting this time. George got back in played and wanted to play for a bit. He made us hide under the bed covers (to get away from the Big Bad Wolf) and then he told me “your breath is stinky mummy”.

As we had nice weather again, Leon took the kids out to the play ground again, and I went and did my grocery shopping. After lunch Leon and went and had a look at another house, but it was not for us. We went back home, got the kids and went to look at another house on our way to visit some friends. We had afternoon tea with Jason and Yin and we got to meet the new little Emmalyn. The dads then took Sophia, George and Jaslyn to a playground and they had fun playing together. After that we went to Leon’s parents place for dinner and a visit, and then headed back home for bed.

What we have enjoyed this weekend about being back here is the nice sunny and warm(ish) winter days. It has been great for the kids to be outside and playing and not having to get them all rugged up with snow gear. They haven't even used hats or gloves or jackets!! One thing we do miss though it the Heisse Marone man in Cham. Leon's dad gave some Chestnuts to my parents and that made us think of the winter days and walking to get our Roasted Chestnuts.....YUMMM.

Musical Beds

2010-07-16T02:26:00.000-07:00

Friday 16 July 2010

I am Blogging early today so that I don't forget to do it later.

It has been another slow day around the house today so I am going to start by writing about last night, which had a lot more activity for me. No,…no hanging from the chandeliers, but a lot of bed hopping. The only bed I didn’t sleep in was mum and dad’s.

Since we have been back, I think that there may have been one night that we have not had George in our bed. It started with him waking in the middle of the night and coming in to our bed (we think because he was getting cold). The time that he arrives in our bed has become earlier and earlier, to the point where the other night he suggested that he just go to sleep in our bed and completely bypass his bed altogether!! We said no to that, but we should have probably just agreed J

Anyway, last night I laid down with George in his bed so that he would fall asleep, and he did. Off to a good start. About 20 minutes after Leon and I had gone to bed (I had just fallen asleep) Sophia walks into our room saying that she wanted someone to lay down with her…so off I went to her bed. After a while in her bed I went back to my bed, only to have George walk in and climb into our bed about 30 mintues later. Now, with George, how well he sleeps seems to be directly proportional to how uncomfortable Leon and I sleep, especially me. About an hour after George came into bed, Sophia came back into our room and climbed into bed next to Leon. We where then five in the bed (Sophia also brings Bunny with her), so after I had nearly fallen out of bed a couple of times I decide to get up and go and sleep in Sophia’s bed alone. That was all nice and good until Leon decided that Sophia needed to go back into her bed, and he bought her back into her bed with me (he says that he didn’t realise that I was not in our bed). After a couple of hours of sharing the bed with Sophia, I decided to go back to my bed, only to find George very comfortably splayed out on my side of the bed. At that point I gave up and went to sleep on the couch. All of that, and the day hadn’t even started yetJ

Today, what I missed most about Switzerland was the fact that Switzerland has no Cockroaches!! Today I saw my first cockroach since I have been back. Now some people are scared of Spiders, with me it is cockroaches. It is not that I am scared of them, I just think that they are disgusting and I can not stand the things. The cockroach today was of the big and brown variety. I swear it was about 10 inches long. Actually, that would be what men are usually telling us is 10 inches, it probably more like 3 inches. But it was a big one (for a cockroach J). I went and got my dad to come and kill it because the thing I hate more than a cockroach is killing one. Disgusting!!! When I mentioned that there was a cockroach outside, George and Sophia came racing out to have a look at it. Can you guess what Sophia said……”mum, can I catch it and put it in my insect jar to keep it”…..Can you believe it!!!

Other than that, not much to report. There has been lots of bead work and drawing today, as well as a bit of TV watching. Alma has just arrived for a visit and dinner, and that will be it for the day.

Bright Sun Shiny Day

2010-07-15T23:07:00.000-07:00

Thursday 15 July 2010

We are having some congestion problems with the internet so I am behind in my Blogging. The congestion is in the form of the server being busy, as well as the computer being occupied by Leon to look at houses (or so he tells me) on the internet. I usually fall asleep on the couch and then am too tired to get up and write the Blog.

Anyway, back to our activities of the day. Today the kids, mum and I went out to the shops for a bit. We had lunch (I had sushi again) and went into Big W to pick up a few things and so that Nonna could buy the kids some things too (I made them put a few things back as well ). It took us a bit longer than it should have as I had insisted on queering the price of something that I bought. In the end I went back and took the price tags off the shelf to prove my point. As it turned out the “special” had ended the day before (this was written in very small fine print at the bottom of the label.) but they still had the advertised specials labels on the shelves. It became a matter of principle to me, and in the end I got my money back!!! Had Leon been with me I am not sure if he would have been proud or embarrassed of my efforts J

When we were finished there, my parents, the kids and I went to visit Zia Emilia and Zio Frank so that Sophia and George could play with their cousins (my cousins children). It was a bit like a home day care with all the kids. Again we had beautiful weather so George and Sophia had a great time playing outside all afternoon with Lauren, Maddi, Holly and Jasi. Sophia asked if she could sleep there, so I think that she is missing having sleep-overs at her friend’s houses. When we left Switzerland she was upset that not all of her friends had been able to sleep over at our place.

For the Swiss thing we miss today, I am going to say “Aromat”. Sophia had started to use this quite a bit just before we left Switzerland and she loved it. Apparently at her Kinder Kripper they used to butter some bread, and then put some sort of Flower Petal on it (or you could choose to not eat the flower petals) and then sprinkle Aromat on it. Which is also known as Yellow Salt in our house. When Sophia told me that she was eating that at kinder kripper I couldn’t believe it. Firstly, I was surprised that they basically let them eat bread with butter and salt on it. Secondly, I couldn’t believe that Sophia..who has to be one of the worlds most fussiest eaters, would eat flower petals!! Pasta with red sauce..no way, but apparently flower petals on bread are OK…..go figure!!

Happy Bastille Day

2010-07-15T23:06:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 14 July 2010

Today was a quiet one. We had a lovely day weather wise, nice and sunny and even warm in the afternoon. This meant that I took the opportunity to do lots of washing. That meant we stayed home all day and the kids played outside a lot while I did stuff around the house. Sophia was disappointed that we didn’t go anywhere, but I told her to get over that. The other day she finally asked Leon and I “so, are we here on holidays or not?”. When we said ‘not” she wasn’t too happy about it, but at least she didn’t cry J

Seeing as we were home all day today, what we missed most about Switzerland today was our friends. We missed being able to walk for 5 minutes and then bumping into a friend and having a play and a cuppa L