Pictures from Ethan's 3rd birthday party

are available at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=107064&id=750294732&l=687d41a2e5

If that doesn't work, let me know. Hope you enjoy the pics as much as we enjoyed celebrating our Little Man!

Ethan's Angels

Since Ethan's arrival into the world nearly 3 years ago, our family has been Blessed with wonderful helpers. These girls (aka nannies aka ANGELS) have saved all of us from sleep deprivation, bored children and domestic disasters of all types and kinds. Thanks ANGELS.

And where are the angels this weekend rather than being here celebrating Ethan's big day? Tenai's in Sydney for the weekend (she will forever remain Ethan's first love), Melissa's in Coffs Harbour on holidays, Autumn is back living in New York, Aurelie is currently living in Hong Kong and Saint Sawah (known to the world as Sarah but to Ethan as SaWah) is in Emerald this weekend. Don't worry girls, we'll eat a cupcake or two on your behalf!

p.s. Pictures above have loaded in reverse order of timing. The beautiful girls are St Sawah, Aurelie, Autumn and Tenai.

p.s. Melissa, why can't I find a picture of you with either of the munchkins?????

Old, ancient and positively archaic....

Two things happened today to remind me that I'm screaming towards 40. Yes, come August 2010, the 40 milestone will be something else I can mark off my 'To Do List'.

Thing 1 - We were at a Max and Milly concert this morning. The children loved it they sat there MUTE for 45 minutes. A little dancing from Ethan but no taking her eyes off the stage for 'The Big G'. She looked like she was studying it all very intently. Back to the story.....in the line outside before the performance, I looked at the guy in front of me and realised it was someone I went to University with. I said Hi, he looked at me intently and then said 'I remember. But c'mon Michelle, it was over 20 years ago!'. We graduated at the end of 1999. So in my Accounting opinion, that is not yet 20 years. But wow, 20 years? Gee it sounds like a long time ago.

Thing 2 - Georgia just can't get her brain around the fact that there is no button in Daddy's car that can make the windows go down. How do you explain to a 6 year old the concept of car windows that have to be WOUND down? No buttons to push, no parental help possible from the driver's seat? I felt like an absolute fossil chirping away saying 'When I was a little girl not only did we have to WIND down the car windows with the handle, we had no AIRCON either'. I felt one step up from the Flinstone's who used to have to run the car along with their feet!

All of this and I'm not yet 40!

Walking

Yesterday I realised that this weekend, Ethan, is two years and 50 weeks old. So? Two years and 50 weeks is one of the most magical numbers in my life.

That is the age Georgia was when she walked for the first time. Georgia, the girl that we were told by so many esteemed medicos 'should walk' or that 'probably would walk'. And yes, based on her ever so slow development the signs were that she was going to walk. But until she did it, part of me didn't believe a word they said. I didn't want should walk, I wanted could walk and I wanted it right there and then.



So at age 2 years and 50 weeks, Georgia walked. She walked off a plane and all but ran into the arms of my Mum. I can see it in my mind as if it were yesterday. And two weeks later for her third birthday, she ran. She told us that her friend Jackson was running so she did too. Talk about an answer to prayer.

So here I was reflecting this weekend at how long Ethan has been walking at his current age of 2 years and 50 weeks all the while thinking how truly Blessed our family was that Georgia won the 'walking lottery' and God gave her the skills to walk. And then I found it.



Georgia's first disability parking permit. And its mate from 2007 too. Shoved in the glovebox of our car. And as I picked them up today and reflected on the 'walking lottery' I said a huge thank you to God for the gift of movement, a huge thank you to Georgia's OT and physio from those not to fun days who not only helped her walk but emotionally supported me while on the rollercoaster of having a child who couldn't walk, to friends and family who looked after us until Georgia's 'walking lottery' numbers came up. And after I realised I was sitting mentally thanking just about everyone that I'd ever crossed paths with I realised I was so just grateful. Grateful to everyone for everything.



Beside the pic of Georgia's disability parking permit is a picture of Georgia I took last week. She was hanging, upside down, from a piece of play equipment at Ethan's kindergarten. She'd got herself up there and she got herself back down too.



Her undies cover up her pull-ups so don't get too excited as we are still waiting for her numbers to come up in the 'toileting lottery'. But I have learned that God has a plan and I have to be patient and wait. He'll show me that He will send her the jackpot for that when He's good and ready. And in the meantime all I can do is be grateful and reflect on just how lucky we truly are :)

Three months without mutterings?

I am sooooooooo sorry dear blog readers for THREE + months without mutterings. What is the world coming to? I deeply and profusely apologise and would love to vow that it will never happen again. But who knows what the rollercoaster of life holds so instead I'll say that I'll TRY and ensure it doesn't happen again. Hope that means all is forgiven?

So what has been happening in our world since June? Wow that seems sooooooooo long ago.

There was supposed to be a small period recovery after Georgia's party but that didn't happen as tickets decided to get busy. Not just busy but busy, busy, busy, busy. Thankfully it was just for a week or two but it was enough to hit my immunity for sixteen.

At the same time as Georgia's party recovery + busy with tickets + being in full swing with fundraising for Georgia's school Fair + it was winter and all sorts of bugs/colds/viruses were lurking around.....and I got sick. Not just the little cough/cold/sinus infection type of thing BUT I had infected just about everything. Pick a point above my navel and whatever body part you choose, it had something wrong with it.

I think the list ended up being something like chest infection, throat infection, double ear infection, sinus infection/s (why have just one when you can clear up one and get another??), conjunctivis and I'm sure there was more but the list seems mighty long enough so I'll leave it at that.

My ears were so painful that when I was on course three of anti-biotics, I went to my Doctor and asked her to perforate my ear drum so I could equalise my ears, stop the pain, smell and taste. She told me to wait a week, gave me stronger meds, some acupuncture, I went and had a massage, lots of steam inhalation (hate inhalations with a passion!) and POP, a few days later my ears started to clear. Note for future reference, acupuncture into the area of clogged sinuses doesn't tickle BUT I'm sure it helped the healing process.

August was lost in a blur of trying to get better and finalising the silent auction for the Oakleigh State School Fair.

September 5 was Fair Day and after it rained up until 7.50am, it cleared into a magnificently sunny day. The silent auction and art union that I co-convened made $22 500 profit of the $60 000 Fair profits. As the profit from the Fair, in total, last year was only about $30 000, to see it double this year left a lot of smiling faces at Oakleigh. A big thank you to my support team who helped me out so I could fundraise through May, June, July and August :) You know who you are.

The last two weeks of September have been school holidays. The lack of routine during holidays is lovely. But more on that another night.

In the meantime there is something I have to share so I'll do that now and will get back to mutterings another time.