Josie's Faux 6th Birthday & Mega Update

I know, I know! Its been ages!

Everyone and their mother has complained.

I'm updating, I'm updating!

So whats been happening.. lets work backwards..

I started my Xmas leave today so Josie & Becca and I went and saw Madagascar 2 this morning. The movie was awesome! Then I had to do some shopping so I dragged Josie around the shopping centre. She drove me absolutely crazy with the "I want that.." and "Can I have that??" and "I wanna push the trolley!!" and "Don't touch the trolley!!". ARGH!

The rest of the day was spent playing Wii, and Rummikub and watching cartoons ;-)

Yesterday was a very relaxing day for me. Josie went off to a birthday party in the morning, and then Tony took her to Granny's so that he could put up the new trampoline there. He didn't finish, but I had a great day sending thank you emails and editing photos and catching up on the Tivo.

Josie had her 6th birthday party on Saturday. We had a 'Magical Jester' who was a great hit with both child and adult alike. The kids ran riot, played on the park equipment, and were generally rowdy.


The cake was great, much better than last years!

After the party we went to Vika's for present opening and a sumptuous crab & octopus dinner. It was absolutely awesome! The present opening was lots of fun and Josie got a bunch of excellent presents.

Friday was an interesting day.

To adequately explain Friday, we must go back a week. Tony went to a regular eye check up last Saturday. As part of the routine tests, they discovered some discolouration on the back of one eyeball. After some furtive looks by the optometrists, and a strong suggestion he go see a retinal specialist, and soon, Tony was reduced to a freaked-out puddle of stress. Especially since it was on the same side of the face as the skin cancer that was removed several months ago.

That was Saturday.

Appointment was made for Friday with a top of the line, mega special retinal specialist on Macquarie St. (Ooooer Macquarie St apparently!)

Meanwhile.. Tony decided the internet was the place to alleviate his worries..

By Tuesday Mr Freaked-Out was near catatonic, so we went and saw Dr George the family doctor hoping for a prescription for Valium. Dr George delivered Tony. Dr George knows the family inside and out. Dr George refused to prescribe Valium and insisted Tony should take some Zyrtec. Uh huh.

While there we showed Dr George the retinal scans and Dr George scoffed at the C word and said it was definitely a vascular kind of thing. This made us feel heaps better! Well me anyway, Tony wasn't gonna feel any better till he saw Dr Macquarie St.

The week passed in a sludge of worry and sleepless nights.

Friday morning was a relief when it rolled around. The appt was at 7:40am. Yes, that's in the morning, folks. We had to wake up at 6am. That in itself was stressful enough.

So after finding parking right next to the Retinal Centre on Macquarie St in a parking station that charged $28 for the first hour, assuring ourselves we would only be about an hour and then choking a bit over the price.. we headed inside.

After getting more and more stressed over the waiting time, and watching the parking fees roll by, we finally went in to do the initial eye tests and have the drops to dilate the pupil. The lady doing the tests asked some questions about why we were there (couldn't she read the referral note??) and Tony told her about Dr George's thoughts about the shadow being vascular. She wrote it all down.

Then he got the drops and we went back out to the waiting room to wait for the pupils to dilate.

By this time, I was resigned to the amount of money we would be spending on parking that day. You can't put a price on health.. You can't put a price on health..

After what seemed like an eternity (and meanwhile noticing that Tony's right pupil dilated kind of funny.. sort of droopy in shape) we finally went into the room with the big machinery.

They took photos of his eyes, and scans, and then put dye in, and took more photos and more scans.. and at certain points Dr Macquarie St graced us with his presence, chewed out the assistants for not taking the right kind of shots, the shots being off centre or fuzzy etc, and then withdrew again.

Finally he came in and had a good look at the pictures, and asked about the referral (to which the assistant replied that he had only read the other lady's report and not the referral, which he got chewed out about as well).

Dr Macquarie St picked up the report and scoffed "What's this vasculitis stuff?? Pff! What you have is a small tumor on the eye".

Huh?! What did he say?!

I must have looked like I was going to pass out because he came over to me to see if I was ok.. Meanwhile Tony looked like he was about to pass out himself.

Doctors seem to always insist on using words that are very likely to scare their patients half to death.

After making sure that I was ok, he went on to say that the tumor was very small and at this stage we don't know if it was benign or.. not. We needed to do more tests and then we will be able to tell whats what.. in about 10 minutes.

So we waited around, and got the very good news that the discolouration is just a freckle and we would just need to monitor it in 6 months for any growth.

So after paying for our $660 freckle, retrieving our $65 parked car, we finally made it to work around lunch time, a lot less stressed (surprisingly) than we were on Thursday.

So that was Friday..

Nothing much happened through the week (mostly due to the stress), but on Monday was Josie's Kindy graduation presentation where she performed in the choir and received her graduation certificate. It was very cute, and also very sad.

We have told her that she will be going to a new school next year, and while she took it a lot better than we had anticipated, we're not there yet. That first month is still looking a bit scary.

But we have her uniform, and she has been going to the After School Care at the new school, so she knows her surroundings now, but it is still very sad to be leaving her current school, where she has been through 2 years of pre-school and a year of Kindy.

We have also started Josie on Violin lessons with her cousin Jacqui who started Violin herself when she was Josie's age. We bought her a 1/4 violin and she just loves her lessons.

That brings us back to last Sunday when we spent most of the day at Grandma Trudy's doing some massive gardening in her backyard. Well Tony & David did most of the work, with help from Carol, Philip, Jacqui and myself.

We managed to clear out a mountain of green, and unearth one very large Mummy Redback Spider & her flock.

Surprisingly, Tony didn't freak out! He just sent Carol for the spider spray ;-) Mrs Redback didn't stand a chance.

And that brings us back to Saturday again. Saturday night Vika, Becca, Tony & I went to see Twilight at Greater Union Gold Class. It. Was. So. Good.

So good.

Not as good as the books. Obviously. But good enough! And now they are making the 2nd book into a movie (New Moon) !! A.W.E.S.O.M.E !

And thats about it. I'm not gonna go further than a week cause.. well.. this is long enough ;-) I'd be surprised if you're still reading at this point.

So I think the next update will now be next year.

Have a great Xmas/Channukah/New Year !

And now..

Introducing Miss Kaylee Michelle Kwok Yee Hill..






Could you just eat her!?

Go Obama!

.. 'nuff said..

Welcome Kaylee Michelle Kwok Yee!

Well I am an Aunty for the second time. HUGE congrats to Mat & Wendy!

SMS's recorded for posterity (the black is Mat, the red is me)..

29/10/08 2:56:02 - Waters broken. At the hospital getting checked out. No labour yet.
29/10/08 11:51:59 - No labour yet. Ob/gyn's just been in. Wendy's got until tomorrow morning to go into labour and then they'll start talking to us about inducing.
29/10/08 19:43:11 - Just to clarify, if Wendy should go into labour at 3am, do you want me to call ?
29/10/08 19:43:30 - Yes!
29/10/08 19:44:09 - LOL. Okie.
29/10/08 19:48:05 - How is she doing?
29/10/08 19:50:26 - Bored. Been napping. Bought a Uno deck to play with her.
29/10/08 19:51:16 - ROFL!
29/10/08 21:25:23 - We have early contractions. But not regular yet.
29/10/08 21:25:51 - Woo!
29/10/08 23:14:39 - 3-4cm. Wendy's decided to go the epidural. Not yet headed down to delivery.
29/10/08 23:15:47 - Geez its gonna be a long night.
29/10/08 23:18:52 - Nah the first few cm are the slowest. It should be over in a couple of hours.
29/10/08 23:38:05 - Packed up ready to go down to delivery. Wendy's just had some pethidine. Waiting on a free room I think.
29/10/08 23:36:50 - Ok wimping out. Send sms updates but dont call. Going to bed ;-)
29/10/08 23:39:26 - LOL! You big wuss! This is shaping up to be a quick delivery.
29/10/08 23:39:31 - Ooo wonder if she will make midnight. Funny we both had night babies. Typical with you two.
29/10/08 23:40:28 - Is Ant going to be willing to bring mum and dad or should I tell mum to bring herself?
29/10/08 23:41:25 - Tonight?
29/10/08 23:42:45 - Mum will want to come tonight I think.
29/10/08 23:45:37 - Ok he said he will get your mum but your dad is still sick.
30/10/08 12:20:19 - How many cm? How far apart?
30/10/08 01:39:24 - 8cm. Epidural in.
30/10/08 02:23:34 - Oh yummy. Mucus and blood. Just waiting for 10cm now. Nearly fainted earlier for no adequately explored reason.
30/10/08 02:54:35 - Fully dilated at 2:50am.. and all you big girlie wusses are snug in your beds. Hmph!
30/10/08 05:29:23 - Everything ok?
30/10/08 05:30:37 - Coming out right now.
30/10/08 05:31:14 - Like now now?
30/10/08 05:32:33 - Wow and Zak just had a hairball!!
30/10/08 05:33:10 - Push! Push!
30/10/08 05:33:15 - Out. ;-)
30/10/08 05:33:51 - Woo!!

And thus Kaylee Michelle came into this world.. ;-)

The Young & The Newsless

Just a quick post. We will be posting our Holiday Story soon ;-)

Tony was sitting with Josie tonight as she went to sleep, listening to his iPod.
Josie [whispered]: Daddy?
Tony: Yeeeeesssss?
Josie: Are you laughing?
Tony [hesitates (knowing he's going to get in trouble from the little Hitler)]: ...yes
Josie [crossly]: Daddy! What are you laughing at?
Tony: Nothing.. a podcast I listen to.
Josie: What is it?
Tony: Nothing you would be interested in, go to sleep.
Josie [also crossly]: Tell me!
Tony [frustrated]: Its a podcast, its news, its about the news, you dont like news, you're bored of news.
Josie: No I'm not! I watch the news with Baba every morning!
Tony: What!? What news???
Josie: Uhm.. its called.. The Young and The Restless...

Tony groans.

Labour Day Long Weekend Update

So the weekend was long and involved ;-)

We started on Friday when we went to Uncle Mat's for dinner. Had a lovely time and even played Carcasonne a few times. When I started to doze off, we went home.

Saturday morning, my darling husband let me sleep in, and then didn't wake me up, so I ended up waking at around midday! We spent Saturday lazing around the house, and then went and saw Wall.E in the afternoon, which turned out to be a fabulous movie! Josie liked it too ;-)

Saturday night we watched a few episodes of Stargate. We have been watching Stargate almost all year now and have just started Season 9. Its actually quite exciting cause we watched the show when it was just out for about 6 years religiously, and then in Season 7 kind of lost interest, but it was still our favourite show so we had all the DVD season as they came out and we didn't really worry about it cause we could always catch up. Then this year we decided to finally catch up but we had to start from the beginning cause my memory is shocking. So the last Season or so we have been watching episodes as if they were new, which they are to us. Very exciting ;-) I know. Sad. But exciting! ;-)

On Sunday I decided to let Tony sleep in, since he had let me sleep in, but it was daylight savings, so at 11am, it was now midday, so I could wake him up at 11am and honestly say it was midday! Mwahahaha!

So at midday, after an hour or so of playing Uno (Josie loves it!), she and I went in to wake up daddy.. and make him play Uno too (he loves it too!). As we got settled onto the bed, a distant sound caught my attention. The sound was low, but close. It tolled like a church bell in a rhythm that stirred many childhood memories.

Mr Whippy! Driving down MY street! I suddenly thought of Eddie Murphy in Delirious (or was it Raw??) and yelled ICE CREAAAAMMM!!!! ICE CREAAAAMMMM!!!

After a few pointed looks at Tony, he sighed and hurried to pull on pants and a tshirt, Josie ran to get shoes, and off they hurried down the street after Mr Whippy, with me yelling "I want the nutty one, with the flake!!".

Fulfilling their mission superbly, the mighty explorers came back with the loot.

After scoffing down our melting soft serve chocolate nutty scoops of heaven (ok I exaggerate, but I'm in the moment..) we played a few hands of Uno (with Josie deftly hiding her cards and then winning the game on more occasions than I would like to admit), we went off to Uncle Mat's to help him (well for Tony to help him and us to 'hang out') with the nursery. The room is looking great with Josie's old cot and a new single bed in there.. not long now!! ;-)

We hung out there for a few hours before being invited out to dinner with Wendy's family. Dinner was lovely and Josie entertained the table with her hilarity and occasional tantrum ;-)

When we got home we watched another few episodes of Stargate ;-) Once we finish Season 10 of Stargate, we move on to Stargate Atlantis (an offshoot series), then move onto Xena: Warrior Princess (which we also didn't watch the entire series of), and after Xena.. well ask me in a couple of years ;-)

So that brings us to today. This morning I met Vika and Becca and we all (minus the sleeping husband) went and saw Beverly Hills Chihuahua. It was better than I was expecting. I even cried in a few moments (altho Vika started crying way before I did). After the movie we went and got Daddy and went to Vika's to hang out for the rest of the afternoon.

We first went to a park up the road from them, where we stayed for all of 5 minutes before heading back because:

a. It looked like it was about to rain.
b. It was getting cold.
c. Josie suddenly decided she was hungry.
d. Josie suddenly decided she needed to go to the toilet.

*rolls eyes*

We spent most of the afternoon playing Uno (Becca has a special Harry Potter set). Then we watched some Australian Idol. Then we played some Wii. Then Tony put Josie to bed, while we played some more Wii. Then we watched a bit more of Idol and then we went home. In amongst all that, Vika painted Josie's, Becca's and my toes and fingers. So now I am all ready to take on the Gold Coast ;-)


As we were playing Uno, Josie was getting more and more disgruntled at having to pick up cards (Daddy kept giving her pick up cards!). So out of nowhere, silently, daddy got handed the following note:

.. which was quickly followed by:

.. just so I didnt feel left out ;-) And she didn't actually write 'You suck my mum'. She was trying to write 'mum' but ran out of space ;-)

Josie has another Vacation Camp tomorrow, then is going swimming and spending the day with Becca, then is going to Baba's and then has another camp on Friday. Tony and I are taking Friday off to pack and get ready for the trip and then Saturday morning we are off!! Woohoo!

I am dire need of a vacation! ;-)

And SoThe Preparation Begins..

Some may know, some may not, but we are moving Josie out of the private school she has been at for the last 3 years, to a public school in our area. The private school fees were just doing us in.

We are just dreading the day that we have to tell her, and the first few weeks of term 1 next year. She has never been very good with change, and new situations. I guess like most 5 year olds, she is frightened of the unknown, and who can blame her ;-)

So we had and idea that might make the transition to the new school more manageable.

The new school has an after school/before school/vacation care center, right there in the grounds. Its very convenient and not too expensive. So we thought, why not introduce her to it this year. And taking it one step further, why not enrol her in a few vacation camps over the holidays.

So today was the first camp. It was a science camp, and I was having panic attacks last night, imagining the scene that I would have to get through when I left her there this morning.

So we've been telling her for a week or so now that she would be going to three days of camps over the first two weeks of the holidays. She was quite excited at first, she's been to vacation camps before, but affiliated with her current school and where some of her friends go. Last night though, she asked the fateful question: "Will Rachel be there?". And we told her "no".

I must say, she handled it well. She was upset at first, but then accepted it, and was... I wouldn't say happy to go.. lets just say.. tolerant of the idea. I was relieved. We gave her a mission, to find out about two kids and tell us their names and what school they go to. We are hoping she will form some good friendships out of this to carry on till next year.

Then going to bed, she started moaning that she didn't want to go and that she was shy. I was unrelieved.

This morning I was nervous about how she would react. I let her pick out what to wear (a skirt was the key ;-), I told her I would stay for a little while till she was comfortable, and she relented a bit.

I kept up a steady chatter on the way to the school. Its only a 10 min drive from home. When we got there she was introduced to another kindy girl there, Ella, and sat down to colour in. I went and signed her in, chatted with the supervisor, and then sat down next to her. She looked over at me and said: "Mummy, I'm a little bit less shy". This was promising. After a few minutes, I said to her, "You're looking a lot more comfortable now sweety, can I go?" and she said: "not just yet..". I waited a few more minutes, told her I needed to get to work, she rolled her eyes, said "Oh alright then" and went back to her drawing.

Drama averted.

I fretted at work. Even called up to see how she was going and was told that she was good, having a great time, but she had lost her toy dog, but she wasnt upset. Ahh well, if thats the worst that happened today..

I went to pick her up after work at about 530pm and could barely drag her out. She was colouring in, absolutely filthy, and her dog was found, buried under the bark in the playground. Blergh.

And there was a kid, who apparently moaned and cried for her dad from about 5 minutes after he left, till the end of the day. Josie seemed quite proud that she was ok.

As its Erev Rosh Hashana, we were off to Baba's for dinner so on our way we chatted about her day.

Mari: So did you have fun today?
Josie: Yes!
Mari: And did you complete your mission?
Josie: Yes I did! The two kids I found out about were Ella and Aiden and they both go to this school.
Mari: And were they nice?
Josie: Yep, I played with them allllll day! And I played in the playground the most, and I watched a movie! It was Garfield.
Mari: Thats great honey, I'm so glad you had a great day!

So I am incredibly relieved that it went well.

Dinner at Baba's was lovely, if not noisy. I dont think I have ever seen a quite day when Josie and her cousin Jayden are together. The two of them are just... loud!!

So after dinner, and once Jayden had left, I put Josie to bed, and went home. She is spending the day at Baba's tomorrow.

Hopefully next week's two camps go as well as today's did.

Night Wanderings

So we're getting a bit concerned that Josie is still in night nappies. She is such a heavy, deep sleeper that she just does not wake up when she wants to go.

In the last few weeks we have started putting her to bed in undies, and then getting her up and walking her to the bathroom to go to the toilet at about midnightish, when we go to sleep. She does (usually) a wee, and then we whack a nappy on her for the rest of the night. The last week or so she has been waking with a completely dry nappy, usually. So she has one, maybe two wee's a night.

When we get her up at midnight, she is usually so hugely groggy that we have to lead her to the bathroom. She usually cannot even open her eyes, and she wobbles all over the place. And afterwards, she usually comes in to bed with us.

So last night, Tony asked me to bring her into bed with us, and closed her bedroom door. When she came out of the toilet, she was so out of it, she went directly to her own room and pushed the door open. I asked her if she wanted to come into bed with us, and she stood there thinking for about 5 seconds before turing around and climbing into her own bed, turning over and instantly going to sleep.

Daddy was VERY put out.. lol...

And then the other night she wandered out of the bathroom after drying her hands, took a step towards her own room, changed her mind, turned around and walked straight into me, shuffled backwards a step, tried a couple more times without success before putting her head down and forearming me out of the way with a little grunt of inarticulate rage and frustration. She looked like she was muttering to herself and gesticulating as she stumbled around to daddy's side of the bed, got in and fell instantly asleep.

Mari's 6th 29th Birthday Celebrations

Thank you to everyone for their birthday wishes. I had a fantastic day this year.

First, my wonderful husband allowed me to sleep in, and got up with Josie when she woke up.

Then I got a call from Harri, and it was so good to catch up ;-)

Then I got to open some presents - a great set of hair accessories from Harri, Sven & Ella, and from my daughter an amazing iPod ready, audio synched, vibrating seat!

It has speakers up the top, and cables where you can connect your iPod, or connect the cable to your computer. And then, it has vibrating massage settings that you can set on Audio Sync (where it will vibrate in time to the music) or use three settings that vibrate in different patterns up and down your back and along the seat. It is just AWESOME!!

So after trying that for a while (I am using it right now!!), we got ready to go off to Yum Cha for lunch with mum & dad, Vika & Becca.

After trying a new Yum Cha place (East Ocean in Chinatown) last week for Father's Day, which we found to be as good as Marigold, we decided to go back to our old stomping grounds. East Ocean was very expensive.

Yum Cha was.. well.. yum.. and I got some more presents, the monetary kind from my parents and sister & Becca, and Tony gave me another present, a silver chain, he had gotten me a photo engraved silver pendant for Mother's Day this year that I didnt have a chain to put it on. Now I do ;-) It has a photo of Josie on one side, and Tony and Josie on the other. See below.

Afterwards, we went and voted (local elections) and then went home. We hung around at home for a couple of hours, and then dropped off Josie with Granny, and off we went to Mari's Birthday Mega Movie Marathon.

We saw three movies.

The Mummy 3 was good.. it came no where near The Mummy 1 & 2, bt it was entertaining. We missed Rachel Weiss, it was not the same without her. Jet Li wasn't in it all that much but he was good too.

HellBoy 2 was probably my favourite of the three. It was funny. The main Big Bad in it is played by Luke Goss! Who is Luke Goss you might ask.. well!! For those of you who grew up in the late 80's/90's, you should be ashamed of yourselves! Luke Goss, together with his brother Matt, asked the eternal question: When will I, will I, be famous?? Yes, after calling a halt to Bros, Luke went on to be an actor! I can't believe I actually recognised his name, but I still had to confirm with IMDB this morning ;-)

And then Tropic Thunder. Oh Tropic Thunder... the stupidest, most moronic, idiotic movie since Chicken Park. Seriously. It was so stupid I even laughed a lot. Usually I love Ben Stiller, in a sort of 'watching a car accident' kind of way... but this.. was.. just painful.. Tom Cruise was very funny.. Jack Black wasn't.. Robert Downey Jnr was just.. brilliant. Absolutely saved the movie for me.

We got home around 1130pm or so and watched an episode of Stargate, and then crashed (although towards the end of the episode I was so tired I was actually whimpering to go to sleep..). Had a lovely sleep in this morning till 10am, that never happens!! ;-)

So all in all, it was a lovely birthday, thanks to my wonderful hubby ;-)

Dropping Like Flies

Josie lost her second tooth on Sunday!

She now has a huge gap at the bottom of her mouth! And the new tooth coming through from the first lost one is clearly visible and peeking out!

Waaaaa !

In Threes..

Back when Tony had his operation, which was shortly followed by my mum having her thyroid out, my sister said to me that these things happen in threes.

I poo poo'd her.

So Tony is fine, his scars are healed and he is having 6 monthly skin specialist checkups (when he remembers to make his appointment!).

Mum is recovering from her surgery nicely. It was difficult the first few days post op, getting her calcium dosage right, the scar healing, the nausea and tiredness. Now she is doing better and the pathology on the thyroid came back non-cancerous. Excellent.

So that was two.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce number three.

Last Thursday, when preparing to go see mum in hospital, I was carrying some bags into the house, when I lost my footing, my ankle gave way and I fell (typically) face first, arms (typically) above my head, with an earth-shattering kaboom!

A bit shaky, got up and went inside and didn't think anything more of it (well except that Mat and Tony would piss themselves that I fell, and kick themselves that they missed it!). I felt a bit achy but I figured it was shock, and a badly grazed knee.

I went to the hospital and sat around with mum, dad and Vika waiting for them to take her to surgery. I started telling them about my fall (only cause I suddenly remembered about it when my grazed knee kept rubbing against the inside of my jeans), and suddenly realised that it hurt when I laughed. In fact it was hurting when I took a deep breath in.

I toyed for a while about popping into emergency for them to check me out but figured even if my ribs were fractured, the best they could do was give me some panadeine forte. So I bravely took the pain and tried to ignore it.

That night was horrific. Not only could I not sleep on my left side at all, but I couldn't lie flat on my back either. I thought I was going to go crazy. Every time I moved or turned or twitched I would wake up in agony. So Friday I decided to stay home and recuperate.

Friday night I was feeling a bit better so I decided to join Tony and Josie at our usual Friday night at Mat & Wendy's place.

By Saturday morning I was feeling much better, well not much, but not in constant agony. I just had to hold myself together a bit if I needed to cough or sneeze. Josie had a double birthday party Saturday afternoon and for a while I thought I would take her, but Tony agreed to take her instead because he thought I should be resting. I stayed in my armchair for most of the day and did my usual grocery shopping online. I did sneak out to get fruit and vegetables and deli stuff though. That was a bit of a mistake it seems.

Saturday night was again horrible and Sunday, while everyone went off to Grandma Trudy's, I again stayed home and tried to rest.

Monday I went back to work.. and well.. worked. Its a desk job, its not like I was doing anything strenuous.

On Wednesday afternoon, my body decided to punish me.

The pain from my ribs started to increase again, exponentially. To the point where I was considering, well Tony was considering, taking me to emergency. I decided to go to the Doctors the next morning to potentially get an Xray. That night I almost cried. After most of the night waking in agony again, I gave up and at 5am went to sit in my armchair and try to sleep there. At least I was upright.

I managed to doze on and off till about 7am when Tony started getting Josie ready for school.

At about 930am I went off to the North Shore to my doctors. They had no appointments available but very nicely squeezed me in. Robert listened to my sob story, felt me over, and told me that he wasn't sending me for an Xray. An Xray wouldn't show any fractures because the pain seemed to be too far down the rib cage.

He was sending me to get a CAT scan, because he was worried I had ruptured my spleen.

Huh?!

So an emergency scan was booked at Royal North Shore Private at 145pm. I had hours to kill though. I rang Tony who also listened to my sob story, although very attentively, and then told me to go home, he would meet me at the house and take me back to the North Shore for the scan.

Robert told me that if they found that my spleen was damaged they would admit me there and then. I took my Doomachka (little square pillow that my family have always used on top of the normal pillow, its a little Kleytman quirk, like calling eachother across noisy shops by going TSSSSS!).

The scan was unpleasant. First they made me put on this dark blue, what felt like paper, gown, which didn't tie up very well in back, and sit in the waiting room, with an old man in a wheelchair.

Unpleasant.

They then took me in, put me flat (and in pain!!) on this long table and injected me with this dye stuff that made me feel all hot and like I was going to pee my pants. Then they rolled me on this table through this round circle thing (think Stargate!) where I had to hold my breath longer than was comfortable!

Unpleasant.

Luckily it only took about 15 minutes all up.

After finding Tony, we went and had some lunch in the cafe, and waited for the results.

The results came back good. Spleen all good. Not even any fractures seen. Must be one hell of a good bruise.

So then Tony took me home, with strict instructions not to let me do anything, or go to work till at least Monday. That was yesterday.

So today I was home again, and giving this rest and recuperation thing a determined whirl. And all I wanna do is go back to work. I am SO bored. Tivo is all caught up and I have nothing to watch!

And that folks, was number three.

Hopefully I won't have anything that exciting to report for a while now..

Mummy's Baby Teeth

So here they are.. again.. and some close ups..

Its funny seeing the fillings.. these days they are white.. and if you look closely, some of the teeth had split before my dad glued them back together.

I can't wait to see Josie's teeth all set up.. in my set, dad had glued the teeth on in an exact replica of a jaw.. the top and bottom teeth both match up, the molars fit together.. its awesome ;-)

There also used to be some foam eyes, nostrils and a red tongue stuck on, eons ago ;-)

All I Want For Xmas....

... is my two front teeth!

My baby lost her first tooth today! It was her bottom left tooth and it had been wobbling really badly for a couple of weeks now.

Anyone who knows me will not be surprised that I have a little obsession with her not losing her baby teeth.


When I was a kid, my dad collected all my baby teeth, took an old jewelry box, filled the top and bottom with foam, and glued my baby teeth to it, to form a jaw. I still have it (and will update with a photo next week after I get it back from the GM of my department who insisted he had to take it home over the weekend to show his family because he had never seen anything like it.. long story).

And here is a photo of it:

Anyway, I want my dad to do the same thing with Josie's teeth. So its imperative that she not lose any.

So today Tony needed to buy some pants, so he took her to Bondi Westfield to do some shopping. I had to do grocery shopping so I didn't go.

Apparently he was standing at an ATM when Josie said "Uhh Daddy, my tooth is sideways!". Tony had a look and it was indeed sideways and hanging on by a thread, so he grabbed hold of it and yanked it out. Josie didn't scream, didn't cry, she was just SO incredibly excited and was just jumping up and down.

So we now have our first tooth safely in her tooth container, which is a little pewter dish with a lid that has a ballerina on it.

As Josie is sleeping at Baba's tonight, the Tooth Fairy is going to wait till tomorrow night to come visit, cause well, she doesn't know where Baba lives. Tonight however, the Tooth Fairy brought her a big black fish for her aquarium. She won't know till she gets home tomorrow.

We were talking to her in the car on the way to Baba's..

Becca: What do you think the Tooth Fairy is going to bring you for your tooth?
Josie: Money!
Becca: How much do you reckon you'll get?
Josie: 20 BUCKS!
Mummy: Thats a pretty expensive tooth... geez...

Its a MAAADHOUSE I tell ya!

Ok so now that I have been fully shamed into updating the blog.. here's the long awaited update.

Lets start with Tony's update.

He had his operation.. the skin cancer was cut out and the pathology report said there was no more skin cancer left. Woohoo! Now he has this scar.. it looks like a paddle.. he's like my very own.. pirate ;-)

But he's fine. Checkups every 6 months. And I'm relieved.


And the other big news.. well after getting a fairly nice tax return this year, we decided to get a Wii. Mainly because I wanted a Wii Fit, as a new and fun way to get exercising, but also cause.. well.. its cool ;-)

So once we had the money safely in our account I started looking around for good deals.. including Ebay.

You know, I remember Ebay a few years ago, and you really could get a good deal.. those days are over.. people are selling things over retail price, plus some! Its insane.

So anyway, I found that Kmart and Big W had their half yearly sales on, so all excited I rang around to see what deals they had. Unfortunately they were all sold out! But Target's big half yearly sale didn't start till the week after, which was last week.

So all excited, on Thursday morning, I stand, front and centre, in front of the closed Target doors, at 745am.

A M !!!!

So I'm standing there, and around me are about 30 people, and that number is increasing steadily. 75% of the people around me, are mothers, both hands firmly gripping shopping trolleys in front of them, their posture in the 'Ready, Set, GO!' position. (I can almost hear motors revving!)

Looking around, I feel very.. intimidated. Suddenly, my heart constricts, as I realise, that I don't actually know how to get to the electronics dept. I usually just wander around.. but wandering is for the losers who dont get their Wii Fit!! Luckily, right near the unopened Target doors, is a store map. I surreptitiously stroll forward to check out my route.

Route firmly in mind, I stand, ready to bolt.

I wait. I glance at my wrist watch. Its 755am. 5 minutes. Its tense. I look around. I scope out the competition. I inch forward.

Suddenly the doors start to rise! You can cut the tension with a knife.

I inch forward.

The doors are half way when a bunch of mid 20's make a break for it under the doors. The mothers with the trolleys growl and hiss after them.

And then we're off.

I got to the Electronics dept in record speed. But I was still about 10th in line. They had two registers open, and behind the desk were two huge metal cages, which I soon discovered were full of Wii bundles, DS bundles, PS bundles and Wii Fits!

I got to the counter and ordered my Wii Bundle and two Wii Fits (one was for a friend at work) and then smugly sauntered off with my trolley chockers full of Wii goodness ;-)

So then I looked around for a bit, before remembering that I was meant to get the Wii Play too because it comes with a remote and we wanted two remotes. So I look around, before it dawns on me, in a horrifying way, that the Wii Play, you also have to line up for.

I look at the line.

I groan.

I get in line.

Again.

Aaaanyway, long story kinda shorter, I get my Wii paraphernalia and then go off to work, to spend the rest of the day desperately trying to concentrate on something other than the Wii stuff in my boot!

The Wii Fit is sooo much fun! I love it!

And the other games I got in the bundles, Wii Sports, Lego Star Wars and Wii Play are all awesome too. Josie just loves the Star Wars game, although listening to her and her father play together sets my teeth on edge.

I have uploaded a bunch of photos to Flickr, so check them out. Oh and I am going to update Mat's post about the Ice Skating with some photos in a minute.. so check that again..

So thats that.. my update is done. Happy!?

Josie On Ice!

Ok since Mari is being lazy, I will tell of last weekend's exploits. At least those I was privy to. A couple weeks ago I suddenly was reminded that I hadn't been ice-skating in a while. No doubt a combination of seeing our cousin Jacqui (with whom I'd last gone ice-skating), and the current cold weather. And it also occurred to me that as far as I knew, Josie had never been.

So last Sunday we all went: Ant, Mari, Josie, Jacqui, Philip, Rebecca and Wendy and I. Being over five months pregnant, Wendy came to observe.

Now I expected that Jo would feel intimidated by the crowd of people. That she'd not like the cold of the ice rink. That she'd have the usual troubles first-timers have with ice-skating. That basically we'd be lucky if she gave it a go and then called it quits. Could ... not ... get ... her ... off ... the ... ice. She loved it!

She was nervous. Until the last half hour she wanted one of us on each side of her, holding both hands. But she was like the energiser bunny and Jacqui and Rebecca had to do a tag team thing as the second support person, while I was more or less in for the duration. In the last half hour Josie was feeling a little more confident and consented to skate around with just Rebecca or I holding one hand. She even went in a limbo competition - with her helpers in tow of course.

She'll need proper lessons before she'll master skating on her own but she looked like skating could be something she could really get into.

Mari, get into gear and post the photos.

(Ed: Yes dear.. ;-)

Jam Packed Few Days

Firstly, Happy Birthday to my dad, who is a sprightly 35 today. He is too! Really!

So a recap of the last few days.

On Saturday I had the onerous task of buying three, yes THREE birthday presents for Sunday. Thats two birthday parties for 3 kids!

So most of the day was taken up with present, and grocery shopping. I got some nice presents and then headed home to do my annual filing.

Throughout the year, documents pile up on the filing cabinet, until July-ish when I file everything away and prepare our documents for the accountant to do our taxes returns. This turned out to be a long and boring task which I happily finished about 2 hours later.

Meanwhile, Tony was cleaning out the spare room, finally! That took most of the afternoon, and now we can actually open the door, and walk into the room!! Woohoo!!

Sunday was long. The first party was for one of Josie's best friend's, Cade. Cade is about 6 months older than Josie, so she turned 6, and her party was at Plaster Master. Josie had a lovely time, and it was also the first time I did a drop off at a party. All the parents left so I did too, and went to mum & dad's for about an hour (where they had a secret stash of pickled tomatoes !!!) and then picked her up. She had ended up painting a plaster Princess, what a surprise!

After that it was straight to the next party at a park. This one was for two of Josie's friends, Ariel and Lily. This was a boisterous party, where there was a man, who turned himself into a clown and proceeded to teach the kids to juggle. This was also a great party and Josie had a ball.

During these two parties, I was approached by four other mums with suggestions for playdates. Next week is gonna be busy I think!

Monday was a normal working day, Josie was at Granny's, and went on a trip to the hairdresser and had her fringe cut, and her hair trimmed.

Which brings us to today.

Today was a very long day. Tony and I had the day off work, for reasons which will become apparently shortly. And Josie had a playdate set up with Cade. And another first, a drop off playdate. We were eternally grateful to Cade's mum, Basha, for taking Josie all day. Josie had a fabulous time, and was just raving about what a great time she had.

So a few weeks ago Tony went to see a skin specialist about a red welt that has been on the side of his head, near his ear, for the last few years, on and off. There was a biopsy done, and it was diagnosed as a skin cancer [Nodular Basal Cell Carcinoma -Ed]. This totally flipped me out and I had a semi nervous breakdown. After I recovered from the shock, Tony organised for the welt to be removed. That was today.

He had day surgery this morning where they cut out all of the cancer, and he will forever more have sexy scars on the side of his head. Awesome! ;-) [Er, hopefully not. That was the whole point of using a plastic surgeon instead of my Dermatologist (who is also a surgeon) -Ed]

Tony is fine now, out of the anesthesia, and on basic Panadol and Neurofen. We are now waiting for the pathology reports, which will report... something [Hopefully that there are no cancer cells around the outer edges of the volume they removed -Ed].

So that was our last few days..

Again, Happy birthday dad!

Movin' On Up

When I first started at my present job, in Dec 06, there were rumours flying around that the company was thinking of moving. They had outgrown the current premises and they were on the lookout to move.

Well that happened last weekend.

Over the last 18 months lots happened to prepare us all for the move. There was a website set up with great bits of information about the new sites (two sites, one for the office, one for the warehouse), colour schemes, floor plans, information about the area, and neighbours. It was awesome.

The office block we have moved into is brand new, only just finished being built. Ten floors (of which we have floors 5 to 9), and we share the building with one other major company and a small one that is on the 10th floor.

I am on the 8th floor, with amazing views of Sydney Airport, Port Botany and the eastern suburbs. Over the last week we have seen countless planes in the sky, and awesome weather changes. The floor is bright yellow, which is ok. Certainly better than the flouro orange that the 6th floor is.

We were told to leave all desktop accessories. We got all new things, including a new flat panel monitor (finally!). And the building has a small gym, and allocated parking (which we do pay a small amount for each month).

Its just awesome.

We have gone from a dark, dingy, 3 floor building, to a bright, fresh, new 10 story building. Awesome!

This job just keeps getting better and better ;-)