Time passages

• 5 years ago we were waiting to leave for China to bring home Rosie.
• 5 years ago today exactly, we received our consulate appointment.
• in 9 days time, the baby that was waiting for us in China, will turn 6
• 5 years ago Lily was only 5 and had the squeakiest high pitched voice I had ever heard 
• my babies are getting very big very fast.

5 years ago Lily looked like this

Lily 5 yrs old. Our last mummy and daughter day out together before she became a big sister.

and I don't know what Rosie looked like 5 years ago today because I hadn't actually seen her but she looked something like this, which is her referral photo

I fell head over heels in love with this photo

and this, which is her on Gotcha day....not her happiest of days. (have no fear she soon cheered up)

Rosie at 12 months. The Civil Affairs office in Guandong Province PRC.

Time flies when you become a parent, enjoy every second of it, savor each moment, make the good times far out weigh the bad, laugh at your mistakes but above all remember YOU are the parent, you are NOT a friend.

thank goodness for blog readers that are on the ball and can add. It wasan't 4 yrs ago but 5. Duh.

Lily

I think I have mentioned before what a fantastic art teacher the girls have. Every single time they bring something home it's pretty darned impressive which says alot because Lily, although very artistic, creative and artsy is not one to draw, free hand. Mr. T just brings it out of them, that or he does it himself. LOL


Last week they had to do self portraits. That would immediately throw me into a panic. They all had mirrors, Lily knocked hers off of her desk and smashed it, bloody clumsy oaf but still managed to pull of the assignment. Lily, for one so slight and delicate is as clumsy as I was as a child which is saying alot.

She bought this home.

I think it is really rather good. The only thing that I questioned her about were the eyebrows. I asked her who did them. She told me she did so I asked why she did them like that and she replied in her typical, I'm a tween tone, "seriously Mum, would you have drawn these and why do Chinese people have such weird eyebrows? "

Ummm, I don't know why they just do Kiddo and I don't think you have weird eyebrows I think you have 2 caterpillars living above your eyes.

Teeth, everywhere.

Last night as I was inspecting Rosies teeth after she had brushed and flossed I spied the crown of a tooth at the very back of her mouth. I knew she would be so excited so before I said anything to her I took her into my bathroom, planted her firmly in front of my huge mirror and told her to open wide. I ran my finger to the very back of her mouth and then showed her where to look.


Oh my! Rosie nearly had a fit she was so happy. She really can't believe she is getting big girl teeth. Nah, me either.

Lily didn't get one 6 year molar until she was 7, Rosie doesn't turn 6 for a few more weeks.

Lily wasn't at all impressed. She is convinced Rosie is going to be taller than her. I offered her some reassurance and went back to celebrating the occasion with Ro. Kidlet doesn't have enough room in the mouth for the teeth she already has so the 2 at the front that are wobbley better leave soon.

Gah, my baby is getting so big.

Another one of those.

I had this marvellous idea 2 days ago to drive 3.5 hours today to meet up with someone I have never met and have lunch. Oh and just in case said person was a total freak I would drag my kids along for good measure. Then I thought about it some more and called another friend who I know, knows this person and asked if she wanted to come along for the ride with her kidlet, she did.

Tammie and I have known each other for a few years through our FCC group but I had never met Fliss. I followed her blog as she waited for Shauna and followed her when she got home, then we switched to Facebook and once I knew the girls had a long weekend I decided to drive up to meet her.

What is it that with some people you just click. First we went to lunch and then once that was done with we headed to a park so that the girls could play. They all played so well together that we sat and chatted and laughed. We laughed so hard. I would try and tell you what we laughed about but I fear you might call the authorities. We are mad, the 3 of us together should never be left alone. I know some of things that cracked us up but most of it just happened and we moved right on to the next thing that killed us.

It's the sort of day that when you get into bed and are falling asleep you just start to laugh again because you remembered something that happened.

All the girls were filthy dirty by the time we left the park and just sat very still in the car on the way home watching a movie. They did not talk.

Just a little chocolate with lunch.

Rosie and Erin playing basket ball

Erin the monkey

Shauna the Monkey

Shauna, be still my heart.

My big, big girl

Fliss the cleaning fairy. I busted her cleaning the equipment. Did my OCD heart good.

I have no idea what got into Rosie today she was a maniac. She even straightened out a little girl that kept coming over and picking Shauna up. That was one of the funniest moments when the Asian posse was running the park

I really cannot wait to meet up again. It's going to be one of those friendships.

Dream a little dream with me

Image courtesy of Google Images

Recently I have become a really bad sleeper. It must run in my family as my sister is dreadful but I used to be fabulous. Now 4 hours is great nights rest. I have never been much of a dreamer but I have always had weird dreams where I think I am awake.

I can tell you everything that is going on around me, I can hear people talking, feel the bed move when someone gets in it, feel the kids touching me etc etc and I open my eyes and even see them but then it turns out it's all a dream.

More times than not those dreams involve someone being in the house, an intruder and I get scared to death, petrified in fact. I have had these type of dreams my entire life and it happened again last night. We had a cold snap move in so I actually went to sleep with the bathroom window open a little bit as opposed to the usual which is everything sealed up tight as a drum and the a/c on.

I woke up (at least I thought I had) because I heard someone walking in the hallway so I listened to see which kiddie it was and waited for them to come in the room. They didn't appear. I reached over and glanced at the clock and was surprised to see I had only just fallen asleep, it was 12.40. I then heard footsteps again so I looked at the door and was surprised to see it was open, I always push it closed but not shut. Then I got scared. I just lay really still and waited and waited, wide awake. No one moved. I got up and went into the bathroom and then checked on the kids, and I know I did this and then got back into bed. I left my door open and a few minutes later it was closed again. By this time I am am nearly paralysed from fear. My heart was beating so loud that I was surprised that I didn't wake up the girls, 2 rooms away.

I finally went back to sleep after convincing myself that no one was in the house and that everything was fine.

I woke up this morning and everything was fine but dammit I am sure it wasn't a dream. Urghh. Does this happen to anyone else?

 I also woke up with a freaking twitch in my lip from getting so stressed out. I looked a bit like Elvis. Lily thought it was hilarious.

She flies

The swim team that the girls belong to is called the Flying Fish. Tonight Rosie was diving into the pool off of the boards and I had to giggle because it looked like she was attempting to fly.

She is getting there. She no longer goes in feet first which is a big improvement but there is still a long way to go. Diving in for a race and actually "diving" are a million miles apart, so I am told. I swear I know nothing about swimming. I used to think I did but since these 2 got really into it I have had to throw out everything I have ever known and am learning from scratch.

Rosie far left

Launched!

We have take off.

Kidlet is still finding it so very chilly. Most nights she is a bit blue around the edges by the end of her lesson even with the core suit, sometimes she doesn't make it to the end she gets evicted. The pool is heated!

Why I need to join Weight Watchers

I don't weigh very much. I have gained 8 lbs since I stopped smoking almost a year ago but really when you add that to, not much, you still aren't going to hold down a couch in a breeze. Today the girls and I went to Fairchild Tropical Garden with a friend. We are so lucky to have such a fabulous garden on our own doorstep.

The garden always has some fabulous art work being displayed and this year is no exception. The artists being displayed now are Dale Chihuly, Yoko Ono, John Chamberlain and the one that is really prominent is Chapungu.

Rosie saw this statue........

Spirit man/woman by Chapungu

......Rosie walked up to it, Rosie walked around it and Rosie announced in a large Rosie voice, "this one looks just like mummy, except the hair".

 Lily and Becky laughed, a lot. I think I may have called Rosie a few million names, under my breath, so that only Becky could hear them. I actually laughed to a whole lot.

Tomorrow I am signing up for Jenny Craig, Weight watchers, lap band surgery, butt reduction and a personal trainer but lord knows I am keeping those big boobs.

More on our fabulous day at Fairchild tomorrow.This deserved a post of it's own. If you follow me on Facebook then you know already that I changed my profile pic to this big Chonga Mama.

Playdates

When Lily has a sleep over it is only considered fair, in a certain little sisters eyes, that she gets to have a play date.

I might not necessarily agree with her idea of "play". It was a bit chilly today.

Playing lasso with the hosepipe. Sadly the windows reflected my hands. I wasn't going anywhere near that cold cold water.

The water lasso really got going

Hmmm, washing her friends feet after her friend washed her everything. 

dry clothes and a quick spin down the road

Cami pulling a really weird face. She's concentrating on some patterns they were making each other do.

Lily and Paula stayed in the house, they were rather low key. Turns out it was yet another unsleepover. Lily was asleep tonight at 7.30 bwa ha ha ha. We didn't get home until 7.19. I think she had a great time.

I am my Fathers daughter

This morning I woke up shortly after 5 to the sound of running water. I knew it was coming from the air conditioning cupboard and for a moment my heart sped up and my stomach did little flips. I then decided to be rational and told myself that gushing sound had always been there but I had just never heard it before.

I got out of bed and discovered water cascading, yes cascading down the wall, and ran and grabbed some towels while swearing under my breath. This is not meant to happen. This unit is fitted with a kill switch which will turn it off if it starts to back up. I flicked the unit off and the water stopped. I disconnected a pipe and blew into it. You don't want to know what happened next! The water tasted like cr*p.

I took the kids to school, headed to work and on the way home I stopped at Home Depot for a Wet Dry Vac. I figured nothing else would happen while I was gone.

I am not sure how much it costs for an A/C service call now but it only cost me $29 for the vac and my A/C is fixed and chugging along merrily. The snot ball that got blown clear across the garden was enough to gag a maggot but at least I know the problem is solved.

My father would be proud of me. He fixes anything himself and I always like to take a stab at things myself before calling in the pros. I had this problem many years ago and watched the chap do the exact same thing so I knew it was worth a shot.

Cha Ching......I think I'll spend the money saved on some shoes.

Notice anything?

what is different?

Yes, indeed. She has glasses

BUT  they are not prescription glasses, oh no. They are fake glasses, uh huh. Weirdo Child has had an obsession with glasses for quite a while and started, a couple of weeks ago, wearing sunglasses all the time and I mean all the time. She was wearing them 24/7. I was worried that they would hurt her eyes and was also worried that she would fall down the stairs as some of the pairs that she wore had really black lenses in. Things only got worse when she got her American Girl doll and hooked her up with a pair of specs also. In Rosies mind everyone in her family wears glasses apart from her.

I went online and found fake glasses for kids and got her some. Weirdo Child thought she had won the lotto. Talk about the best gift ever!

So now the little fruit cake has her very own glasses and feels like she fits right in!
It's so very hard not to giggle at that face.

Mojo-less

For the first time ever I am away from the girls. They are on a four day vacation with their father and as much as I always thought it would be pretty darned amazing to have a tiny Mummy vacation I can honestly say it suckety suck suck sucks. I have only ever been away from Lily for one night and never been away from Rosie.

As he drove away with them Rosie was in tears, no surprise and Lily was yelling, I'm going to miss you so much Mama. Urrgh. Tear my heart out, why don't you?

I came in the house and made a list of all things I was going to clean and organise and immediately set too. That was Wednesday morning at 11.30. By noon I was over that and feeling quite blue so I picked up the phone and called a friend. I haven't really been home much since. It's too quiet here and way too clean. No toys everywhere and no bickering, no laundry to be done and no cooking, no drinks being spilled, well you get the picture. Thankfully when I am home my wonderful family have been skyping me non stop to check on me.

Last night I was still awake at 3:40am......groan. The kids didn't call before they went to bed, their dad turned off his phone and his lap top and and since I am not sure where they are staying exactly I couldn't call them. I then decided something must have happened to them and couldn't sleep. Yes, I am aware that is was ridiculous but by now you should know that my middle name is, worry.

I have made the most of my time alone but haven't liked it much. I feel sort of MoJo-less. They come back tomorrow and it can't come soon enough.

Fresh and new.

Last night the girls and I rang in the New Year here at home. We had fireworks, fancy food, noise makers, hats and bubbly, theirs was sans alcohol, oh wait, so was mine! I asked the girls if they wanted to get dressed up. Lily immediately took off into her closet and came out eons later and Rosie dashed off, threw on her favourite shirt, red leggings, a couple of necklaces, appeared 2 minutes later and declared herself a diva.

Oh my!

She knows what she likes and she doesn't like dresses.

This one on the other hand, can't stand anything BUT dresses.

love

My girls

A fresh new year, what could be better?

I love to wake up on the first of the year and just stay very still, pondering all my dreams for the upcoming months. Some of them are ridiculous and some of them realistic but either way it is always nice to look ahead at the road yet to be travelled. The girls and I have are facing some big hurdles in the next few weeks and I know that we can get through it all but it isn't going to be fun. Allowing myself to look beyond the immediate and into the future helps to jockey me along. But, I can do anything!


This time last year I decided that I was going to post on my blog every single day for a whole year. Due to my, "I can do that" personality, I did but it was so hard and I have noticed that my blog has suffered. there is nothing of substance on it just a bunch of crap. This year I am returning to posting when I feel like it and I must say that I will enjoy it so much more now that the self-imposed pressure is gone. {phew}

So here is to a year that will bring peace, calm and happiness, health, healing and love.
Happy 2013