The voice of an angel

I'm going to encourage you all to visit this site by clicking on the wee orange guy:




Jenni is quite possibly the most talented singer I have ever heard. And she is in an online karaoke challenge. Currently she is in 2nd place but we want her to be first. And that's where you guys come in - could you listen to a bit of her singing "Whatever Lola Wants" and vote for her? She stands to win a small prize (an Ipod) and given that her dog mistook her one for a chew toy I can only suggest this is a good thing!

Thanks guys :)

Are you more cat? or more dog?

A couple of my friends have tried this on their blogs, so I thought I would play along:

You Are: 60% Dog, 40% Cat

You are a nice blend of cat and dog.You're playful but not too needy. And you're friendly but careful.And while you have your moody moments, you're too happy to stay upset for long.

Are You More Cat or Dog?

Bugs. I curse them ALL!

Warning small rant coming up....

Viruses. Virusii? Virii? Anyway I digress. What I mean is the little greeblies that get into your kids from some other kids in their class. Starts as a bit of a cough. You think nothing of it as dry coughs = asthma to your family.

However it morphs into headaches, hot and cold chills, listlessness and sleepless nights. For her and for you. So you organise two days off school for her, and a rotation of carers between you, your husband and your angelic father in law.

After a few days rest she looks better - still coughing, but eating and full of life again.

Only as only bugs can they've moved onto their next prey. Me. UGH. My head feels like its in a vice, my lungs ache right through to my shoulder blades, and every time I cough I think I'm going to throw up with the force of it.

And up the hallway I can hear her 10 yr old brother hacking up a lung.....

Fark it's going to be a l-o-o-o-o-o-n-g week.

Catching Up

Not quite sure where to start this blog. The past eight weeks have been emotionally, and physically exhausting.

First let me say however my dad does NOT have throat cancer. This is fantastic news, although the specialist is not happy about the changes in his cells from one visit to the next (a month apart) so he is on monthly visits until further notice. He has traded his ciggies for Eclipse mints. And to be fair, for a man who has smoked for over 45 years he has done EXCEPTIONALLY well. With one setback.

His mum died :( my last remaining grandparent. She would have been 95 next month. It's brought the whole mortality bites thing home for dad, and did cause a few lapses in his anti-smoking efforts.

As a family (mum, dad, me and my two brothers) we travelled north for the funeral. That pretty much sucked the life out of me - 12 hours each way (including 3 on the ferry) in 72 hours. I managed to come home with a rotten headcold. However it was great to catch up with some cousins that I hadn't seen since we were all kids growing up in the 70's and 80's.

Family dynamics are an odd thing - one cousin didn't come because she was in a snit with her parents. Another was 'too hungover' *insert rolling eyes here* This reiterated to me that much and all as I think our branch of the family tree has issues, really we're reasonably normal.

Work is... well frankly work is a sh!t sandwich and I'm stuck right in the middle of it. If it wasn't for the fact we actually rely on the $$ I'd be telling them to stick their printing right up their laminators. Sideways. With sauce. Cretins. Grrr. See now I'm all peeved again.

Of course it's winter - it's cold, wet, and we've had snow and hail and all kinds of nasties. Where there is winter there is winter colds, and this week my 8 yr old daughter started coughing. Nothing startling - she's asthmatic, dry coughs are what she does. Tonight it's turned chunky. Coughing, blocked nose, sore ears, sore throat. And her 10 yr old brother is starting with the dry cough. I foresee some time off work soon. Actually given my motivation towards my job maybe that's not such a bad thing LOL

Other big news - we've set a date to put our house on the market! 1st of September come hell or high water. Hold me now *sob* big step for us, we've been here over 9 yrs, came in with two small preschool boys, will walk out with 3 school-aged children. Scarey. We haven't seen anything we want to buy yet but we are compiling a wishlist. We haven't ruled out renting short-term either.

So there in a nutshell is the chaos of my existence. Tired reading it? Try living it *self-deprecating laugh goes here*

Why so quiet?

I know you all want to know - who silenced Nic? Well I'll tell you, but its a long tale of woe, so pull up a chair, help yourself to a coffee and a Tim-Tam and I'll tell you all about it.

About a month ago my dad had a sore throat. Not so startling in and of itself, but what is startling in and of tiself is that eventually it got so bad he saw the doctor. And from there he had a "throat-a-loscopy" (you knnow what I mean - camera on a hose down the throat). Well THAT led to a referral to investigate some growths on his vocal chords.

Being a public health service, we expected a long wait. And then he was told pre-op in 3 weeks, operation in 4. We thought that was lucky - must have been a short list! Imagine our surprise when he was called last Wednesday and told to be there Friday morning, with a view to surgery later that same day. Now call me a cynic, but when you get in that quick I think it indicates there's something of concern.

He fronted up, and duly went under the knife. He was told he'd be in overnight, and to take 4 days off work to recover. The operation went well, they sent away a sample for testing and put him into a ward. He lasted 4 hours before he (against doctors orders) discharged himself and went home. His reasoning? "I'm BORED!"

He sat at home Saturday, reading the papers, watching TV and the boredom grew. Sunday he got up, put on his uniform and fronted up at the bus depot - "someone must have called in sick - can I have a shift?" My mother is a nurse - you can imagine at this point she is flat out of sympathy! The man is a stubborn old bugger and no mistake.

Test results should be back about the 17th of this month (which coincidentally is the day they initially set aside for his op!)

What with all that drama, and the ensuing "do we/don't we tell the kids" its been a stressful few weeks!

Ice - 1, Small Boy - 0

When the permission slip came home from school I hesitated. You see, somewhere along the line the klutz gene was going to cross over to one of my kids. And I did think 'why tempt fate?' But I signed, and pushed to the back of my head the times I'd fallen at ice-skating as a child.

So I wasn't REALLY surprised to get a call at lunchtime to say that Matt had met the ice, up close and personal. In fact I was surprisingly calm about it, left the bank and walked back to work. Got there and started shaking.

Thankfully the ice-rink was closer to Craig's work than mine, so he went and got him, then me, and took us home. We lodged the accident at the doctor's and filled in the required ACC paperwork. Matt wrote the description of the accident on the form himself, as follows:

I was ice-skating, and my friend stopped in front of me. I fell over, and hit the ice with my face. According to Thomas I was airborne, and didn't have time to put my hands out.

And for the last bit, I'm eternally grateful. He'd have likely shattered his wrists. Instead we have the puffer look going on.

My baby girl...

... is a baby no more :(

This is Aleisha at 4 days old. To look at her you would never guess she'd just spent three days in NICU, on IV antibiotics and oxygen, being fed via a tube would you? And yet she had.
And last weekend she was 8. Tall, lanky and thin like a string-bean. Not at all reminiscent of the chubby cheeked, black haired 7lb 9oz angel we were blessed with.

Her delivery was not normal, but hell none of my babies were. She took the cake though. Not content with messing us round ALL day, when they finally called an ambulance and got us ready for transfer she decided now was good. This led to a rushed delivery, on an ambulance trolley, in the hallway/and then in someone ELSE's recovery room. The poor ambulance driver had laughed at my assertion I needed to push. Until Craig pointed out that last time I said that I delivered two minutes later. Laugh gone, replaced by stunned mullet expression.

Sure enough there she was. Lightest of all three of my babies, and the only one to come on time. In her haste however she'd swallowed meconium, necessitating the NICU stay. Her lung still bears a small patch of scar tissue, however the asthma she had struggled with seems to have abated (fingers crossed!).

Happy 8th Birthday Aleisha! :) We love you!