Category: Rockhampton
Talk about a cool change!
People have been asking me for months how I’ve been coping with the heat and to be honest, up until three weeks ago I was going okay. Then it got hotter and I got bigger and all of a sudden I feel completely sapped of energy and patience.
Monday and Tuesday this week were particularly hot and humid and I was on the brink of tears for most of both days. And actually reduced to tears towards the end of my parenting day yesterday. 5pm meltdowns aren’t just for kids I tell you. We had the a/c cranking last night while watching a movie and kept it on as I fell asleep.
Then the rain came and the temperature dropped and I’ve had a spring in my step all day. Well comparatively anyway. Today has been so lovely. Rainy and cool and just what I needed for a break from the heat.
I’m not sure how long it will last but I promise I will be enjoying every minute.
UPDATE: It didn’t even last until school pick up ? I walked outside and almost gave up on the spot. Back to teary and cranky.
Aah Hogs Breath…
…you never fail to disappoint.
Now don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a Hogs-bash. Quite the contrary. It’s almost impressive how, no matter which Hogs Breath I go to, and I’ve probably been to only a few, and no matter how many times I’ve been, maybe only a dozen in my whole life, the food is always the same lacklustre quality.
They do not know how to cook a good steak. They don’t even know how to cut a good piece to cook! They pretty much always overcook their steaks, which I think was demonstrated by the language used by the 10 of us ordering tonight:
“I’ll have it as rare as I can.” The steaks still came out close to well done. Seriously. All of them. Hubs’ had the tiniest tinge of pink if you squinted, as did mine (I ordered mine medium).
And can I just say those curly fries aren’t all that? You can buy them in the frozen section at Woollies and cook them yourself. I didn’t even get them – I saw sweet potato wedges and was all over that goodness. They were the best thing on my plate by far. And I can probably buy those exact ones at Woollies too.
Look I’m honestly not complaining. My expectations were met. Those expectations just happened to be very very low, but hey! I wasn’t disappointed. Just underwhelmed.
And we still had a wonderful night as we were with good friends who had organised a night out, and I didn’t have to cook or clean up.
The only thing that did leave a bit of a bad taste in my mouth was that it cost $80 for two mediocre steaks and a drink each. I don’t want to brag, but Dad brought up some super thick rib fillet steaks last time that Hubs cooked/smoked on the BBQ and I tell you what they were some of the best we’ve ever had.
So thank you Hogs Breath for remaining underwhelming and for helping us appreciate what we have at home.
Home scream home
Look I’m not going to lie. It’s good to be home. Even though a couple more nights with Hubs in Syds would have been amazing, I did miss the the kids and was keen to get back to them. I think part of that is because I have a renewed energy to do more with them; a great desire to be more present and to just play with them more.
Enter the screaming banshee.
Darby has literally just entered into a screaming phase and boy can this kid scream. Your first impulse is to throw your hand over his mouth just to stop the noise as quickly as possible. Not an ideal solution but an effective one in the short term.
And I don’t know if it was the thunder storm that rolled in this afternoon, that I’d been away, the fact that studies have shown that kids do in fact behave 800 times worse when their mother is in the room, or a combination of these factors, but the kids pretty much went feral and bat sh*t crazy this evening.
Just for me.
I’ve been assured by my parents that the kids have been perfectly well behaved in my absence, apart from a bit of screaming, which obviously is a relief but is also entirely unfair.
They saved it all for me. Aren’t they just darling? I certainly didn’t get eased back into family life but it’s what I’ve come to expect, and now that they are all in bed, sound asleep I can feel grateful for my wonderful kids.
Come home quickly Hubs. Your kids are missing you!
What did we ever do without it?
Our deck I mean
Hubs and I were lazing around drinking our coffee together when I said to him “seriously what did we used to do before we built the deck!?”
We would carry our coffees downstairs like chumps and sit in the yard and look up at our house and say “we really need to get that deck built.” That’s what we used to do.
Now we sit up on our deck, looking down at our yard and say “We really need to get rid of all the crap in the yard.”
It’s never-ending.
Parenting is…
…when you have hung out three loads of washing and the kids are upstairs playing with Hubs and you realise you could get away with sneaking a chocolate Paddlepop ice cream from the fridge downstairs and take 5 minutes to sit down and enjoy it, only to hear your daughter calling you when you’re halfway through it and she comes downstairs to find you so you have to gulp down the second half of said ice cream and give yourself a brain freeze in the process.
It’s also giggly cuddles with this guy
It’s learning how to braid hair and finally starting to get the hang of it
It’s feeling your heart burst when you watch your oldest looking out for his sister and brother
There’s absolutely nothing that can prepare you for parenting. No books, no warnings, no friendly advice. It’s not until you’ve experienced the utmost highs and the deathly lows that you really get what is it all about. Some days I just want to hide away and not deal with the kids at all. But honestly every single day I can look back at at least one joyful thing that happened. Even if it only lasted a moment.
Today’s thing was reading to the kids at the end of a huge day/weekend. Quinn took herself off to bed after the first book. Then Darby fell asleep in my arms while Chance and I read a book together. That moment with just the two of us (and a snoring Darby) was quite lovely and definitely something I soaked up.
That and the chocolate Paddlepop.
It’s the little things.
The new face
In case you have been living under a rock and you didn’t know, our 2 year old son Darby is a clown.
Seriously.
Such a clown. He does things for the sole purpose of getting a laugh, and when he does, he repeats that behaviour.
Behold “Darby Eyes”
This look has had a lot of air time. Pretty much any time I would pull my phone out to take a photo, I was met with this face. It was hilarious because he couldn’t hold it if he started laughing so you could see him really trying to keep the straight face.
Then there was this face that he tried out for a couple of weeks but it didn’t quite get the desired reaction so it got dropped from the repertoire.
Both of those have been replaced with this beauty. It may not look like much but I’ll explain below.
It’s kind of a mix between when you tell a kid to “freeze” and they open their eyes really wide and grit their teeth in a smile. He does it when he knows he’s doing the wrong thing and we tell him to stop. Like yesterday morning when he was putting a comb in the pedestal fan blade protector while it was running. Every time we’d tell him to stop he would pull that face.
He was also doing it while we had the neighbours over for dinner and he kept throwing his cup off the deck and then saying “cup fell off”.
He is just such a clown.
Naked downward facing dog on the deck? Why the hell not!?
What a cutie.
A clean out
Hubs and I have had a DAY! He worked late shift over the weekend which means he started at 3:30pm at the hospital, would clear the board, get home around midnight, then hope no one would call between then and 7am, when his shift finished. This happened on Friday night but no such luck the next two nights when he had to go in at 2am both nights for a couple of hours.
He had today off and even though he must have been exhausted, he was in a decluttering mood, and I wasn’t about to stop him.
His room of choice? The combined toy/Lego room. He was ruthless. I was ruthless. And we could be since we weren’t under the watchful eye of our toy-collector Chance. We can’t get away with throwing anything out/giving anything away when he is around.
But it needed to be done. Between the boys’ birthdays, Christmas, and Quinn’s birthday all in the space of 2.5 months, we had accumulated a lot of extra toys. Hubs went through every single box on the shelf as he does.
We put away a huge box for rotation in a few months, but we also got rid of a lot of broken bits and pieces, and stuff from garage sales and op shops that have been forgotten about. There are still a lot of toys that, even though they don’t get played with often, have sentimental value that I can’t quite part with. Plus there are some baby things we put away for later on too.
It was a very productive day I must say! And even though it was pretty stinking hot, we managed okay. Believe it or not this is the after shot!
Those Snugglers nappy boxes sure do come in handy!
Happy Birthday Quinn
Wow wow wow. My baby girl. You are just the sweetest, sassiest little miss in town. So much spunk and independence, with so much love and compassion.
You went through a phase where you refused to smile for photos, or even have your picture taken. I’m so glad you’re over that now.
I know you so desperately want this baby in my uterus to be a girl so you can have a sister, but I also watch you with your brothers and know that, no matter what, you are going to adore and look after your new sibling when he or she comes along in a few short months.
We love you Quinny. You are such a bright star and we can’t wait to see what you have up your sleeve this year.
Getting back into it
Since Christmas and our holiday and then my chest cold hit, there hasn’t been a lot of fit mum’s action I’m afraid. And I’m afraid to get back into it tomorrow! Ha ha. Except not really. I’m super keen, but I know the first week is going to be a hard slog.
I’ve been here before, sure, so here’s my top 5 tips for getting back into it after a bit of time off.
1. Just do it. I know that the longer I leave it the harder it will be so just do it.
2. Plan to walk in between sessions. Fit mum’s is now on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings (used to be only 2 mornings per week) which I’m so excited about. I’ve been trying to push a bit harder with the weights over the last few months, which means I’m pretty sore in between sessions. I really need to make a big effort to go for a walk on Tuesdays, Thursdays and a weekend day just to keep things loose.
3. Fuel my body better. I know that I feel better when I eat certain foods and avoid others. Breakfast is especially important at this time!
4. Be accountable. I’ve told people I’m going to be there and I’ve lined Hubs up for school drop off in the morning.
5. Plan for it. I’ve discussed the week with Hubs and he happens to have two of the mornings off this week so I’ll be child free which means I can really concentrate on getting the best out of my workout.
So that’s it folks. It’s not rocket science. Just hard work that is always worth it in the end!