Runnin' ragged

A few of us baseball wives decided last week to take our kids to an indoor playground in Geelong in an attempt to run the bejesus out of them! The boys weren't playing baseball today (was supposed to be tomorrow but the other team subsequently pulled out), so it was an ideal opportunity for us to all spend time as families. The playground was called Run M Ragged and I don't know who gets more worn out; the kids or the adults.

The play equipment

Apart from the obvious - the fabbo playground equipment - two things rated very highly in my books. One, the entry cost is only based on kids that are walking - adults & babies are free! A real turn up for the books. Our entry cost was $8.50 (for Thomas) and we spent 4 hours there. And two, the admission fee is for all day. So if you have to leave and want to come back, then you don't pay again to get back in. Wonderful. Truly refreshing to see such value for money. And let me assure you, it really is good value for money. The kids go crazy with delight once they get in there and apart from the occasional crashing into other kids, there is very little that can be the cause of their undoing. In fact, the only tears you may experience all day are the ones that are shed when you are attempting to get the child out of the buidling and into the car. We did.

Mark & Tom

Hannah, Richelle, Mark & Tom ready to descend

At first, Tom needed Daddy's support to get his courage up, but after a couple of goes, there was no turning back for him. I reckon he went up and down that slide about 50 times!

Almost airborne!

High in the sky

On the jumping castle

There is a seperate area for babies and toddlers, not because they are not allowed on the bigger equipment, but more to keep bigger kids out of an area designed for just them. But Tom and his friends Hannah and Kyle, were just as happy (maybe even moreso) to mix it with the bigger kids and the really big kids (aka their dads) on the slides, jumping castle and obsticle course. Even Bridie took a turn at going down the big slide, courtesy of her godfather.

Bridie playing in toddler area

Bridie & Mooka going down the big slide


Tom & Alfie in the toddler area

If you have kids that like mine, just never seem to run out of batteries and you haven't been to one of these playgrounds, I suggest that you drop everything and get to one. Now! Whilst I cannot say that the battle to get them out of there will be easy, the ensuing peace for the rest of the day and evening is truly something to behold.

If it doesn't rain.....

After months of not going anywhere, not doing anything out of the ordinary, seeing the same old faces day in day out, doing the same old thing.....all of a sudden our social calendar is simply bursting! And quite frankly, I am overjoyed by it!

It started with my trip to Sydney to attend the scrapbooking retreat. To paraphrase (and apologies to) Paul Keating, this weekend away was the break I needed to have. I think the whole migraine episode and the subsequent long recovery after it was due in part to simply being overstretched. I was trying to do too much in the small amount of time allocated to me in a day. Starting my days at 4.15am to feed demanding calves and not finishing my days until around midnight was truly attempting to burn the candle at both ends. The weekend was fantastic and I really enjoyed catching up with the ladies that I had befriended last year and meeting new ones this time round. And I also managed to do more work this time too! This layout in particular I quiet like. Having the opportunity to see firsthand other people's work helped me identify and categorise my own work. I would have to say that I definately fit into the "clean and simple" box. My work tends to focus on the photo rather the embellishments and whilst this example doesn't have much journalling, as a rule, I do tend to favour a bit of text on the page. Mind you, this beautiful photo of me at 38+ weeks pregnant with Bridie taken by the ever talented Wal Slow really helps to create a lovely layout.

The following Friday night Mark and I went to Melbourne to watch Melbourne Storm thump Sydney Roosters at Olympic Park. Mark was given 2 tickets to the match which included entry into the Robbie Kearn's Jim Beam Lounge (thankyou Lachie & Bec). Free food and drinks and a fantastic view of the game. Of course, with all that free grog, we simply had to make a night of it and we stayed in Melbourne. Mark was playing baseball the following day, so we hightailed it back to Colac so he could play, but I also had to take Tom to a little friend's 3rd birthday party. The rushing about didn't stop there either as we had a surprise 50th the attend to that night.

This weekend we are off to one of those indoor kids adventure playgrounds with some of the other baseball families, and then the following weekend we are headed back to Melbourne to watch Emma do her deb. Three weeks after that we are back down to Melbourne again to celebrate Bernadette's 50th birthday (which also happens to be medieval themed...sooooo looking forward to that!!). I will scarcely have a moment to draw breath! Before I know it, we'll be celebrating Bridie's first birthday!!

It must also be the season for babies. A friend of mine had a baby boy earlier in the week, another had her 4th baby - her 4th girl! - yesterday and my good friend Lou has just informed me that she is expected #3 early next year!

And on the subject of new life, we have committed to purchasing a puppy. In a first for both Mark and myself, we will be actually spending money on acquiring a pet. In the past, we have both relied on the fact that there are a plethora of animals out there that need a good home and the vast majority of them are being given away. But, as much as it goes against my grain to purchase a dog, I have to admit that it is all quite exciting. Our vet, Mike, has a family tradition of owning Australian terriers. They only have one at a time, and as each one is replaced, the successor is given the same name as those that have come before it. "Tiny". I don't know which version they are up to (maybe v.5??). But we have had the good fortune to see this particular breed in a variety of circumstances and they really are a good temperament dog with kids, whilst at the same time, having a bit of guts about them. I am not a small dog person, but I think that this dog is going to fit very well into life here at Craiglands.

The pups (2 bitches; 2 dogs) were born while I was away in Sydney, and on our way to the rugby, Mark and I called in to see them and possibly decide on which one we would have. Apparently, the pure red ones are rarer, but there was only one black and red one in the litter and I thought that this one was a bit "spesh" so we have decided on taking that one. It is also a dog, which is good. Because they are from a stud and are pure bred, they all get papers. We get to provide a couple of the names for it's papers. Oh Lord...I have a hard enough time trying to name some of the cows, let alone now having to do it for a damn dog! 'Werireds' is the name of the dog stud, and we figure that it should have 'Craiglands' in there somewhere as well. Now we just have to decide on a third name for the papers. Maybe something to do with the Olympics????????

'Thelma' with her brood

Our little man...fits snugly into Mark's hand!

Migraine madness

As I mentioned in my last post, I hope to avoid the migraine that plagued me at last year's scrapping retreat. And it seems that I may just do that. Because I got one EARLY! I spent most of last week in either the doctor's rooms or admitted in hospital, being jabbed in the bum with pain relief, hooked up to IV drips and being pumped full of antihemetics. Lovely. Whilst a couple of days primed full of pethadine may sound like a real treat, I can assure you - and any doctors out there that think that true migraine sufferers that ask for peth are just abridged junkies - that through the haze of it all, you can still feel the pain of the migraine. A lot. In fact, more than a lot.

Many people think that a migraine is a really bad headache. Ahhhh, no. Definately, 100%, no. It is extremely difficult for migraine sufferers to articulate what it is like to have an attack. Even many medically trained professionals are unable to empathise with you. Which makes for an extremely unpleasant time when you are at your most vunerable, puking the lining of your insides up, trying to simply concentrate on convincing yourself that the pain in your head really won't cause your brain to explode or leak out of your ears. And doing all this whilst recapping the past 10 years of your migraine plagued life to a doctor that seems unable (or unwilling) to read a damn history chart!!!! Arrghhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Tom showing concern over mummy's ill health

But I'm all better now, thanks. And a good thing too, as I am only days away from going to Sydney. Now if I could only recapture the days lost last week so I can get everything done here before I have to leave.

The Luckystrike cow that we were priming to be flushed, has completed her fertility treatments and on Monday she gave us 9 beautiful embryos. I am so proud! We had organised to have 10 recipient cows prepared, but simply putting them through their own fertility treatments does not alone mean that they will actually be recips. The vet doing the embryo transfers feels their ovaries and uterus and makes a determination as to their capacity to hold a pregnancy. You will never get 100%, and we knew that we would have some rejected. In the end, 5 out of the 10 were suitable and they all had embryops implanted. The remaining 4 embryos were frozen and they will be implanted next week into cows that have natural cycles.

So the upshot of all of this, is that we are crossing our fingers for possibly 4 or 5 live calves in 9 months time.

2 embryos under microscope

12 days and counting....

This will be my second year that I am dumping the family and disappearing into the wide blue yonder.....to go scrapbooking! And I can tell ya, it's GREAT! No kids, no husband, no cooking, no organising, no calves to feed, no chastising, no bedtime rituals....and most importantly, NO NAPPIES! For approximately 60 hours, I am free. Liberated. Able to be creative. Think of no-one else except for myself.

And I'll probably miss the kids to bits! (Oh ok, and Mark too :) )

I fly out for Sydney on Friday 8th and return late, late, late on Sunday 10th. Hopefully this year, I will avoid the migraine that plagued me at last year's Little Scrapbook Shop (LSBS) retreat. But then, I was 20 weeks pregnant and leaving Tom for the first time over such a long period. But nothing disintegrated whilst I was away, no-one sustained any permanent injuries, everyone was fed and clothed and looked after. No doubt, they will all have a ball without me again this year. So I feel much more relaxed about going. My only niggling concern is for Bridie who is still breastfed and will need to make the transition to formula for the weekend. She's had a couple of cracks at the bottle already and I'm confident that she won't starve.

Calving has officially finished for this year - well the rearable heifers at least. We ended up with 128 heifers, 8 bulls and 2 Belted Galloway calves that will grace our freezer in a couple of years time. I sent all our registration stuff off to Holstein Australia, so we should get a mammoth amount of certificates come through in the next few weeks.

AI (artificial insemination) has commenced with about 40 cows already done. This year, for the first time ever on our farm, we are flushing one of our cows. Our show cow (Craiglands Luckystirke 2843) failed to get into calf last year, so we decided that we would flush her. For those that don't know, this is where you give the cow drugs to superovulate her (produce lots of eggs), then AI her, then a week later, flush the embryos out and then put them into other cows (known as recips or recipents). The benefit of doing this, is to get as many calves as possible from a cow with desirable genetics and type, in the shortest amount of time possible. So instead of getting one calf per year (and hoping that you get a heifer), you can potentially get 8 calves in one year with all the same genetic merit and increase the chances of getting heifers amongst them all. I have to admit to being unnaturally excited about all of this. I just love this cow and I am so keen to have some offspring from her that we may be able to take into the show ring.

at the Colac show 2007

She has already commenced her fertility treatment, and will be AI'd on Sunday. The flush is scheduled for Monday 4th August. Maybe I can take a heap of photos of the flush and scrap those the following weekend.............

Getting creative

Over the past week or so, a couple of friends have done their bit to increase Australia's population by giving birth to healthy babies. One had a boy and the other a girl (nicely evened out!). So I got cracking and whipped up a couple of cards.

Recently, I have discovered Snapfish. For those that are unaware, this is an online photo processing group. Cheap (but not cheap in the nasty way), quick and good quality. I tend to print photos off at home on our own printer as I need them, but I have recently had cause to print a lot of photos at once. This gets mighty expensive when doing it at the local photo shop or the electrical stores. So Snapfish has saved me a lot of money in getting snaps printed off. One of the prints I had done, is the only one of the 4 of us, taken just after Bridie was bought home (it is also the photo I use in our profile on this blog). It's not a bad one, so I thought I would scrap it. It came up really well.

Our house has also been hit by some lurgy lately. Both Tom and Bridie have been suffering with croup - in Bridie's case, badly enough to see a doctor. Mark complained of feeling unwell and I too wasn't feeling 100%. Just that time of year I guess.

AI (artificial insemination) of the cows begins next week, which means that basically we move from one busy period straight into another. We've almost got 130 rearable heifers for this year's calving (whoo hoo) and with the birth of some cross bred calves, calving season is almost finished. For me at least. Which means, more importantly, that I won't have to get up at 4.30am every morning for much longer (even bigger whoo hoo!!)

Happy Birthday Thomas!

Yes, 3 years ago today, I was in hospital having just gone through a scheduled c-section (for a breech presentation), feeling the worst for wear as the drugs were wearing off, looking at this small wrinkled little bundle and thinking "Oh my God, what have I done!?"

I had never held so small a baby (not without any direct supervision anyway) and here I was, being allowed - nay being EXPECTED - to be the indirect life support for this tiny human being. I felt overwhelmed, nervous, unsure, frightened, full of doubt.........but I would honestly lay down my life for this creature without a second thought. And that was in the first hour of meeting him.

I could not in good faith say that the past 3 years have been a fairytale cohabitation of our family, particuarly in the recent 8 months or so, when the "terrible twos" really started. I'm not sure that they have officially ended now that he is 3, moreso just evolved into something else that is going to test us and make us doubt our abilities as parents. The person that coined the phrase "life wasn't meant to be easy" was obviously a parent with a toddler. But even on the worst days, he will say something funny, or give you a look, or a kiss, or a smile and everything is once again right with the world. For 5 minutes at least.

Today was his day though, and he thoroughly loved it. I know this, because as I was putting him to bed tonight, he said "I has a good time at my party mummy and all the dinosaurs and kids". Awwwwwww. Makes all the running around, shopping, food preparation, loot bag organising, cleaning, decorating, spending, [sharp intake of breath], worthwhile.

He is good for about 1 weeks worth of brand new dino wear at a time. The DVD can play new dino shows non stop whilst he plays with new dinosaur PlayDoh. He can introduce new dino figurines to a re-creation of Jurassic Park (although he could probably tell me that not all the dinosaurs he has lived in the Jurassic period). At bedtime, he can be lulled to sleep under a handmade dinosaur quilt, by my dulcit tones reading from one of the many new dinosaur story books . You get the drift of what our house looks like don't you????

The other cool present he received - from mummy and daddy! - was one of those Fisher Price kids digital cameras. I've had it in the cupboard for the past 8 months or so intending to maybe give it to him for Christmas as I wasn't sure if he would "get" it or not. But for the past few weeks, he has been carting around my tripod saying "click" and giving us the imaginary photo. He has wanted to use my digi SLR, but this is never going to happen, so we figured he would be ready for a real thing of his own. And it has proved to be a real winner. He is more than capable of working it and I have to admit that there are a few photos that he's taken that are quite good. However, after downloading the images off the camera and onto the computer, I was scrolling through them when I came upon one of my boob!! He'd obviously snapped me when I was feeding Bridget. Needless to say, we will have to be careful when we are in the shower from now on.

All the commercialism of birthdays aside, I am just so happy that he is healthy, bright, happy, developing normally, smart (sometimes too smart!) and for the most part a great kid to be around.

HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY THOMAS!


the start of many dinosaur presents


Say cheese......


Quilt made by Nanny


cake made by mummy


Hip hip hooray!

PHOTOS TAKEN BY THOMAS ON HIS NEW DIGI CAMERA


Daddy


Mummy


Biddy - a captive model (she can't run away from the lens!)

Tick, tick, tick...

My life has seemed to be ruled by the clock this past week. Or should I say more accurately, the calendar. End of financial year is a little bit like "hurry up and slow down". You know that you need to clear a lot of debts to manage tax, but on the other hand, you need to make sure that you have enough cash on hand to pay for ongoing things too. Add to this, the fact that on July 1st we changed over to a new record keeping software package which will include payroll (something we have done manually since the inception of staff in our business), trying to get the finishing touches done to our new office (including new computers, lines, phones, office equipment etc), implementing a new herd recording software package, updating all the calvings for this year to be registered in the coming weeks, getting things organised for Tom's upcoming 3rd birthday, making a flying dash to Melbourne to attend a 1st birthday party....it's no wonder that I came down with a migraine last week.

On Thurday morning I felt a bit 'off', by Friday I was really starting to suffer. Come Saturday afternoon and I really had the makings of a migraine and on Sunday I spent the day either hunched over the toilet or trying to convince myself that my head was really not going to explode. I should have gone to the hospital for a jab, but with 2 littlies I just couldn't face it. So I ate panadeine forte and tramal like lollies.

To top things off, last week one of Mark's wisdom teeth gave way and he had to get a temporary filling. Turns out he needs to get all three remaining ones removed, but he needs to see a specialist as they are fairly well embedding in the jaw bone. After getting the temporary filling, he ended up with an infection in the gum line and had to go back to the dentist for antibiotics and some emergency work which involved some excruitiatingly painful treatment (so I'm told). He walks into the house yesterday morning and says "Panadeine forte....NOW". Ahhhhhhh, bit of a problem there. I took the last one for my migraine. Fortuantely, I did have a script so I filled that and have been dosing him up on antibiotics and painkillers for the past 24 hours. Poor bugger. He doesn't usually even take panadol, so for him to take such strong pain killers.....it must be damn painful. I'm so glad it's not me.

The dinosaur party is rapidly looming. It is this Sunday and I haven't done a thing. Shopping and house cleaning tomorrow, cake baking/decorating and other food preparation on Saturday. Isn't funny how the time spent in getting organised for such a small event is disproportionate? I mean, I'll probably spend 10 hours all up getting prepared for a party that is going to last 3. But at least the kids will be happy and after all, that is the MAIN thing.

ETA: I just remembered that due to my migraine, I have neglected to record a significant milestone for Bridie. She is now on solids. On Thursday last week we started her on farex and breastmilk. She loved it (as you can see in the picture!). She is now just over 6 months and I think she is really ready for solids. Unlike Tom who started solids a little earlier and it was sometimes a battle to get him to eat. Bridie was weighed on Thrusday as well at the MCHN and she weighs 6.220kg.


Yum yum....