Boys Will Be Boys

I have 2 boys and I am going to let them be boys.

Every mother wants to wrap their child up in cotton wool until they are bigger to keep them safe, but you have to let them grow and experience.

If my 2 want to roll in the mud, then I will help to bath them afterwards.
If they want to try a jump on a small ramp with their bikes, then I will clean the cuts and grazes when they slide off.
And if they want to do something that ends up with them breaking something, I maybe won’t stand around and watch them partake of it, but I will escort them to the emergency room to get them patched up / stitched up or plastered up afterwards.

Boys will be boys and there is no stopping them, but who would want to?
Doing all this boy stuff is good for their coordination, balance, timing, trust, mental agility, bone and muscle growth and general overall knowing what their bodies can do.

Or at least that is what I am telling myself 16 hours after Alex (5 ½) has fallen 2 ½ m out of a tree at the caravan park!
Yes that is right, I watched him up a tree and then I saw him slip and fall like a rag doll to the grass below! Narrowly missing a parked boat nearby by ½ m!

How is he ............fine.
A little shaken and shocked, maybe a little bruised, a nice little fat lip inside where his teeth went but other than that fine.
Luckily, as mentioned, he fell like a rag doll and so landed on his whole body and not just one area so the whole impact was distributed.

We did the usual stuff......check for bone breakage, movement, bleeding, time and place knowledge, eye movement, speech etc
We kept the neurological checks going all evening and he is still ok.
An hour afterwards he was fine and running around, sort of like nothing had happened but still a little quiet. Occasionally (every 2 hours or so) he would lay down and say his tummy and head hurt, but palpation of his tummy came up negative and his time and place were accurate and his eye movement was fine.
He would then suddenly perk up again and go out and play, running around riding his bike etc

Although it hadn’t stopped us suspecting a mild concussion and therefore muggings here just spent the night sharing a bed with him so I could wake him every hour or so to check he woke up, that he didn’t have any pain or wasn’t feeling sick. As advised to us by the on call medical person on the phone, because as I mentioned, we are at the caravan and the local medical centre is for a very small township and therefore is not manned night and day, come 8pm if you want a doctor then you either dial 111 for the ambulance or you drive the 45 mins to Tauranga Hospital.

Also, even though we are both nurses ourselves, it is always reassuring to get someone else to say what they think and realise that you were doing the right things and were thinking the same things.

But of course he is fine.
So of course boys will be boys and I am not going to stop my 2 being boys.
Although just as long as they let me get through the next 2 weeks of our holiday with no more heart stopping moments then I will be ready for the next time they need me!

No Stress

It is Christmas Eve and I really have no stress.
I still have a huge amount of things to do but nothing that is worth stressing out about.

I am still at work, and probably will be until about 4pm. Sadly patient's don't want to be in Hospital anymore than we want to be working here, so we are doing our best to get people sorted with their procedure so they can go home tomorrow.

The boys are now at home with Steve, and they are the ones doing all the last minute shopping, not that we need much. Although Steve has just announced that he can' t find his bank card, so maybe at 2pm on Christmas Eve he is going to fight his way into the bank to get it sorted. have checked the account and there is no suspicious activity showing, so we think he has left it at a shop when paying for something!

The presents are all wrapped and ready to go, although we are considering putting up the climbing frame tonight so the boys can have that part tomorrow and the swing part they can know about but will go up after the Christmas holiday rush. Sure they will survive.

Although last night we realised that maybe we had a few too many presents for them, so some are not being shown the light of day and will stay hidden under the stairs and used for birthday presents through the year. I love buying my boys presents but there is definitely only so much that they need in one go.

So as the day is closing in and everyone is coming together, I hope you are all ready and have a pleasant few days with your family and loved ones.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and I will catch you on the other side of 2011

Numbers

18 post titles written on piece of paper reminding me of all the posts I want to write

8 more Christmas presents I need to buy before Saturday

3 dishes I need to cook on Christmas Eve to take with me for lunch on Christmas Day

30+ Christmas Cards I need to write and dream about getting in the mail!

2 children I have in tow with me to stop me from achieving all of the above today.

1 child who is not feeling too well and keeps having a temperature, even though the house is very hot and the humid wet outside is even hotter

90% humidity currently reaching in Hamilton

23 temperature currently recorded

22 is the age a dear friend has turned today...Happy Birthday Jessica

49 is the age my husband turns on Boxing Day, so must remember to buy him a Birthday present in amongst all those Christmas presents!

Oh yea....

3 sleeps till Christmas!

Shopping, Presents and Carols

Today, like many others, we ventured down town to do some last minute shopping on the last Saturday before Christmas. Well, the boys wanted to get each other a present.
The place was not too over run and we managed to get done what we wanted with no hassle at all.

As it was food time, we stopped for a little snack in the shopping centre.
As we made our way to the table I noticed an older couple stood off to the side with black clip folders under their arms. My immediate thought was "what are they going to talk about when they stop people, let's just keep moving!"
However then I noticed another couple stood outside of another shop, and a few more over by the food court.
I, however, then got distracted from these people, by a solo carol singer starting up at the otherside of the foodcourt by the Christmas tree. She sounded really good

Suddenly she started to sound even better, because this stereo sound of carolers suddenly was all around us. It actually seemed like suddenly half the people in the shopping centre had joined in with her....but they hadn't!

Yes, that is right....all those people stood around with black clip folders were actually part of the choir and they had all started singing and were now making their way, from every direction possible, towards the tree in the far corner. The sound and the effect was awesome.
People singing, but looking like they were just casual shoppers, just made the whole place light up. Because you could hear the singers but not see them all very clearly, then everyone stopped what they were doing and were looking around for where the noise was coming from, so suddenly the whole shopping centre went still and quiet as the members of the chior slowly, whilst singing, made their way to the correct place.

The choir was a very good one and they sang all the good songs, including my favorite one "Oh Come All Yee Faithful" they even managed the descant (a group of the choir singing the same words but in a different way that compliments the original verse) to the last verse, which I know and love.

Sitting in the middle of it all was awesome and had a wonderful Christmas feeling, really putting you into the Christmas spirit.

This spirit must have got the right place, because when we went into K-mart, I noticed their Wishing Tree Appeal. This is where they have a tree up in the store and you can leave presents for the Salvation Army to give to less fortunate people at Christmas time. So I took 4 tags and made sure we bought and left 4 presents before we went home.

Busy Busy

Like everyone else around me, life is busy busy at present.
What with it coming to the end of the school year here, summer fast approaching round the corner and one other thing that I can't quite remember........oh yea, Christmas and the fat fella in a suit!

Last Wednesday on my day off I had a list of chores as long as my arm. I managed to take everyone to work and school at 8am and then managed to never return home until I picked everyone up and we all got home at 5pm.
It was mega madness the whole day. Sad thing about it all is I can count on my fingers the amount of hours I have left in the next 2 weeks to get everything done that I want to achieve.

We are having a secret santa gift swap at work and muggins here decided (I must have been mad at the time) that I was going to.......wait for it.........MAKE my present for my secret santa person!! I know it will only take me a few hours to do it, but I have to find the few hours of peace to be able to do it!

We have Christmas/End of Year parties springing up all over the place. This weekend I have been to my cousin's wedding (gorgeous by the way and a fabulous family catch up, pictures in another post) and today the boys and Steve had their end of year Judo family fun day, so lots of playing silly games and having a great time.
On Wednesday I have a leaving do for one of the Doctors and on Friday we have our works Christmas party.
So all go as usual.

However, there are some saving graces. One of the shops I had to use on Wednesday last week was good enough to keep all my purchases and have them gift wrapped whilst I was a way at an appointment and not make me stand around and wait for them, made the day run smoother.
Another saving grace was the fact I was unable, in my well planned rushed state, to get to a library to drop the books off. So all I did was log on to their website at the end of the day and renew all the books. Now, even though we are finished with the books, I can return them at a better pace and in my own time knowing we are not going to incur late fees!

So it is all go here, as I am sure it is in your house too.
Keep your chin up and try not to panic, it really is not worth it. If you don't manage to get the turkey for Christmas day, well then make do with the little frozen chicken in the freezer. At the end of the day you will still have a nice meal with family and that is all that matters.

Me, well I still have some shopping to do, luckily I am seeing them all on Christmas day so no worries about having to post them anywhere. Still not sure what I am buying, but they are old enough to know that gift vouchers work well. Although I did manage to get a present sorted for my Dad and even managed to give it to him before he leaves on Tuesday to go back to China. How organised was that?

Judo

As you may remember, the boys have been doing Judo since April and they love it.
At the end of June we let them attend a little fun day that was held at our Judo Club and they had a ball competing at it, Ben even walked away with a medal.

Since then they have wanted to compete in many of the little fun days that have been held around the region by local clubs. They have both again thoroughly enjoyed competing in them. Ben has walked away with a medal of some description from just about every day, whereas sadly Alex has not quite got there yet.

They have both been asking recently, as well, when they will get a yellow belt.
We have been answering that one by telling them that their Sensei is always watching them and when he feels they are ready for it they will be graded and achieve it, hopefully.

This weekend, our club decided to hold a little fun day for just our club, no other clubs were invited, so everyone knew everyone and it was a well supported event.
They decided not to place the children in weight groups this time but have them go in height and build groups.
This actually made for a much fairer mix of competitors.

Alex in his little group

Alex had 2 other people to fight against, 1 little girl who I knew he would beat and 1 boy who he would have to work against. He easily beat the little girl and with a bit of work also beat the boy too. That meant he had secured his first medal and a gold at that too. We were so proud. He was pretty chuffed too.

Ben however had a taste of his own medicine and had a large group to fight against and some of them were not a walk over, he really had to prove himself and work hard at technique during these fights, oh and he also had to manage to not laugh and giggle when being held on the floor! Just goes to show that he loves what he is doing and is very relaxed with it.



Ben's little group



He managed to win 2 of his fights and lost 2 or 3 more, so all over he had managed to secure a Bronze medal. Which is all he needed really, because I think this time he took away more understanding about technique than actual winning etc.

Getting Gold

Ben's larger group

After all the medals had been awarded the Sensei started calling little groups up and informing them they had achieved enough to have a small yellow strip placed on their white belt, thus meaning they were either 1 or 2 steps closer to a yellow belt, however he never called either Ben or Alex up for either of these first 2 groups. My emotions hit me a little and I suddenly got very worried for them, but within about 2 secs my mind caught up and I realsied that Ben and Alex would not be getting little strips on their white belts towards their yellow belts because they were no longer going to be wearing white belts!

Yes, my 2 darling little fighters had just succeeded in securing themselves 'Yellow Belts'

Way to go boys, we are so very proud of you and all the hard work you have put into Judo over the last 7 months to achieve this awesome award.

Several other people in the club got promoted on their belt colours and it was a wonderful successful day for lots of people at the end of it.

Not Perfect

I will be the first to admit that my house is not perfect.
I will also be the first to admit that I do struggle with keeping a house and working 4 days a week!

I have the perfect sign in my house that describes it perfectly....

On a day to day basis things only get done on a very small scale.
Things do get left around, the place is not spotless 24/7.
However, if the place does get the once over, then everything gets done with the exception of 3 areas...

1. Main kitchen surface
2. Study
3. Our bedroom

Surprisingly it is #3 that bugs me the most.
Yes #1 bugs me, especially as this is the only one on full view of all visitors, plus the area should be a breakfast bar and we have, as yet, never used it as that!

However, since having those 2 gorgeous offsprings children, our bedroom never gets touched.
I go in at night, go to bed, usually already counting the amount of time I can sleep until the alarm goes off for the next day. In the morning I get up, get dressed and leave the room and never return until bedtime when the whole cycle starts again.
When I have laundry to put away, then I admit that I remember to take it up as I am going to bed or earlier in the evening, if I remember, but I find I usually rush it upstairs whilst doing something else and so therefore just leave it on the bed.

It comes down to, plain and simple, out of sight out of mind!

When Alex was 6 weeks old, we had to attend a funeral. I noticed several weeks later, in the middle of the night whilst feeding him, that the shoes I had worn were still on the floor by the unit and not in the wardrobe.
I had managed to walk past them for weeks, but I had never picked them up and placed them the 4m into the wardrobe.
It again simply came down to the fact that when I went in the room at night, I got ready and fell into bed and when I got up each morning I got dressed and left to deal with the children.

Now that I have set myself those 100 challenges, I am also going to try my hardest to put my laundry away when I take it up.
What is odd, is that the boys laundry gets put straight into their draws when it goes in their room. I have always put it there and now we are encouraging them to do the same, regardless of the fact that I don't do the same!

So on top of my 100 challenges over the next year, I am adding this one as a challenge to achieve continuously always.

A Poem for Women

With time, women gain weight because we accumulate so much information and wisdom in our heads that when there is no more room, it distributes out to the rest of our bodies.
So we aren't heavy, we are enormously cultured, educated and happy.

Beginning today, when I look at my backside in the mirror I will think,
"Good grief, look how smart I am!"

Happy Mid week to you