Category Archives: Family

Just Hanging Out

Yesterday afternoon the garbage bins were almost full, the atmosphere was right, the roast was in the oven and wouldn’t be ready for a good hour, so Muddy Hubby and I loaded the kids in the ute, chucked the garbage bins on the back and took the kids to the local tip. Now it may not seem like such an exciting thing, but a trip to the tip on a Sunday afternoon can also mean a detour via the local pub on the way home.

The Muddy Kids had their choice of an ice cream or a packet of chips to share, the ice cream won hands down. So we perched them up all in a row and while Muddy Hubby and I enjoyed a quiet bevvy and a chat with some locals the kids devoured their ice creams.

It was just us as a family hanging out, just damn lovely really. The joys of living where we live, where a trip to the tip is a highlight.

Somehow I think in 10-15 years time they’ll still be perched up at the local pub all in a row, just not with ice creams.

The day they saw my bra

After all her initial bravado about catching the bus my Muddy Puzzler has turned all that on it’s head and it has become a battle to get her on the bus in the mornings. It’s not that she’s crying, it’s not that she doesn’t want to catch the bus. Her answer when I ask her why she’s upset is ‘I just want you’.
 
Yesterday was the worst day we’d had, I ended up climbing on the bus with her (those steps are big steps), sitting her down on the seat next to a little Kindergarten girl while I tried to peel her hands off me and she kept repeating ‘I just want you Mum, I just want you’. In the process she has pulled my top down and every kid on that bus copped a look at my bright purple bra (no, I kid you not, it was purple).
 
It breaks my heart, but the bus driver and the other kids on the bus tell me she stops ‘crying’ just after the door closes and she’s fine the rest of the trip, it’s just the actual getting on the bus that seems to be the hard bit. The bus drivers are wonderful and the preschool staff are always so good at getting her off the bus and onto it in the afternoons, I’m just not sure how we overcome the actual first bit of the bus trip. At the moment though I cry each time the bus drives off as I’m wracked with mother guilt. I know that if I start driving her in (which isn’t always possible) then it will be back to square one and even harder when she next has to do it, so for now I’m sticking to my guns and you can be sure I’ll be wearing high-necked tops from now on!
 

The Safety Blanket

My Muddy Organiser has a safety blanket, not a literal safety blanket but a little friend who has always been by her side. Her Best Friend is the one she can always rely on, the one who has always been there to do things together with first, from preschool to school to ballet and birthday parties. Everything is always OK because she knows no matter what her safety blanket won’t be far away.

Over the last few weeks I’ve realised that my gorgeous, soft-spoken Muddy Pixie has lost her safety blanket, she had one, just like my Muddy Organiser did, a buddy who has been there since she was a baby, and she still is there, but she has shot ahead in leaps and bounds and with her extrovert personality has made countless new friends and my Muddy Pixie has found this a bit too overwhelming.

So, I’ve made it my mission to take a bit more time to help foster new friendships for her, to have some play dates with some other little friends to see if there is anyone she takes a shine to, another little girl that might be feeling lost like my Muddy Pixie is. Someone who can maybe be that safety blanket for her. It may not work, she may not like her, she may not like them, who knows what goes through their heads when they make a decision on something, but I figure it’s worth a try. It breaks my heart when I see her looking so lost and I would dearly love to put some light back into her life and give her that safety blanket I think she needs.

Do your kids have a safety blanket, a friend they can rely on? Are they new friendships or old? Any ideas for good play dates?

Crutching Time

At the moment we are crutching our sheep. Basically this means shearing some off around the head and the bum. It helps stop the sheep from becoming wool blind and helps to prevent flies. We get the sheep into the yards the night before and then in the morning they’re run up into the wool shed into each of the pens the shearers use. This year Muddy Hubby and his brother are doing their own crutching, and Muddy Hubby is whinging about how sore he is before the day starts, just at the thought of crutching. It doesn’t stop him though, he gets in and gets them done.
 
The Muddy Kids help out when they can, they’ve each got a small broom and depending on who is home they practice picking up the wool after the shearer finishes and taking it to the wool table to pick out the stain and dags and put the remaining good wool in the bale.The sheep are then slid down the chute and into pens under the woolshed, to make their own way out into the sunshine.
 

8/52

 
Muddy Baby Boy – Enraptured with the sheep running out of the pens after crutching.
 
Muddy Pixie – Insisted on wearing a singlet just like Muddy Hubby does in the shearing shed, learning how to pick up the crutchings and pick them, has made me so proud this week.
 
Sadly this week I only have two images of my Muddy Kids to share. I agree with Jodi when she says once they are at school, it is so hard to capture all that you want of them.
 
Joining in with Jodi from Che and Fidel for 52 – A Portrait a Week for 52 weeks in 2013.
 

Grateful for bits and pieces of our holiday

We have had a lovely relaxing week away, just us, as a family hanging out together. It’s rare and we have soaked up every bit. My Muddy kids have done really well, trying to get along and help each other when they need it, play together more and more and just enjoy being together.
 
Over the week though there’s been a few things I’m extremely grateful for.
 
I am Grateful for my Muddy Hubby who is not afraid to get himself dirty to help the kids have the most fun. He will sit in the sandy shallows and help them enjoy the surf, he’ll let them bury him in the sand til he has sand everywhere and then he’ll turn around and help them bury themselves.
 
Consequently I am grateful for the beach showers, which meant I could shower off most of the sand and it didn’t have to be carted all through the cabin we were staying in.
 
I am grateful for the shells on the beach that kept the Muddy Girls entertained for hours, collecting them, washing them, sorting them, talking about them and finally sharing them by showing them off.
 
I am grateful for the abundance of parks on the coast which meant the kids didn’t get bored with the same one over and over.
 
Overall I am grateful for a relaxing family holiday, it’s been long overdue but we have soaked up every second and made the most of it.

Linking up at Village Voices for 52 Weeks of Grateful, hosted by the lovely Bron. Please stop by and check it out.

Jumping Pillow Fun

With a beach a 100m from our cabin door, a pool, a playground, rainforests and waterfalls to explore, the Muddy kids are of course always requesting the jumping pillow! Luckily at the moment the holiday park is quiet, so they have had a good run at it whenever their heart desires.
 
Each time they request the jumping pillow though my calves say ‘Thank You’ while my pelvic floors say ‘squeeze tight’, I really must remember to keep up with those exercises!
 

Grateful for the bus driver

I love the excitement of a first day, all that nervous anticipation, the barely contained nervous laugh as they try to contain both their anxiety and their excitement. We had three kids start school and preschool this week, and I am breathing a sigh of relief as we slowly return back to the normality of a routine (almost).

Amongst the return to normality was my Muddy Puzzler’s first day at preschool. We were dressed and organised early, I was going to take her in, but we pulled up at the bus stop for my Muddy Organiser and out she jumped backpack on ‘I’m catching the bus Mum’. Now of course I was incredibly apprehensive about this, incredibly. I talked her through it all, changing buses and where the bus would stop before it got to preschool, including the fact that once they stopped at my Muddy Organiser’s school, that she would be on the bus on her own and the bus driver would drive her straight to preschool where I would be waiting. ‘Yes Mum I’m going on the bus’ was her constant reply. On she jumped, not a problem in the world, happy as Larry until of course every other passenger got off the school bus, then the tears started and did not stop til she got off the bus at preschool where I was waiting.

So this week I am very grateful to the lovely bus drivers that drive my kids to school and safely home. To the bus driver who calmly talked to my Muddy Puzzler while she cried her little heart out. I am so very grateful that he has decided to change his bus route just for her and drop her off first before he does the other school drop offs so she won’t cry again on him! Yes he is that lovely and I am so very appreciative of his kindness and care for my kids.

And rest assured my Muddy Puzzler was quickly calmed down and off to do craft within minutes of arriving at preschool, confidently telling the staff that she’ll be catching the bus home!

What are you grateful for this week? Make sure you check out 52 Weeks of Grateful over at Village Voices where Maxabella hosts a lovely link up each week.

Facebook and Puppy Power

 

Generally when Muddy Hubby, his Dad and Brother have dogs they try to have the same sex ones, so we don’t have any fraternising amongst the dogs and we don’t end up with puppies we have to find homes for. Sometimes though we end up with both sexes and the result of course is some very cute puppies.

The problem with puppies though is that you have to then try and find homes for them. We had already decided to keep one, friends were taking another and that left 3 puppies for me to find homes for. They are kelpie pups from good working parents, I wasn’t asking any money for them, I was just happy to find them a home.

I saw an ad on the local buy swap and sell Facebook page where somebody was looking for a free puppy, so I got in touch and they gave one puppy a loving home. That left me with two. I posted an ad on the local buy swap and sell page offering them free to good home, I had a person interested, but then no follow through. I rang the vet and they didn’t know of anyone interested, so I asked the vet what the best thing to do was, they replied honestly with ‘Have them euthanased is probably the kindest option’, apparently there are just too many puppies around at the moment, that there is no way to find homes for all of them. I asked about taking them to the RSPCA and the response was similar, you could take them there but they have way too many puppies as it is and they would probably be euthanased anyway.

I asked around and sure enough somebody had been turned away from the RSPCA when they tried to take animals to them. So, I was getting desperate, we couldn’t keep them, we have no need for that many dogs, I didn’t want to have them put down, so I resorted to Facebook, I put the call out to all my Facebook Friends that I needed to find homes for these two puppies to save their lives! Yes I used desperate words, but I wanted them to be loved. Lo and behold the response was amazing (for me anyway) I had offers for people to look after them until we could find homes, I had people sharing my status to all their friends to help find homes, ad within a couple of hours the last two puppies had loving owners.

For me social media continues to amaze me, the power it can have, the response it evokes from people, if we ever end up with puppies again it will be my first point of call to find homes for them.

When friends come to play

I have been promising my Muddy Pixie for a while now that she can have one of her ‘best friends’ over for a play date. Finally I got myself into gear and organised it. It was set to be a great day, she bought her bike and her swimmers and her mutual love of craft. It didn’t take long for things to turn pear-shaped.

You see, what I hadn’t counted on was that my Muddy Organiser also considers this little girl her friend and they would start fighting for her attention, for who got to ride their bike next to her, or sit next to her for morning tea and lunch and who got her to play their game of choice.

I tried reasoning with both of my Muddy girls, I pleaded with my Muddy Organiser to just give the Pixie and her friend a little bit of time (even a few minutes), but it didn’t stop the tears and the distress.

By the end of the day I was exhausted from keeping the peace, dancing then craft seemed to heal all wounds and keep us occupied for a good 90 minutes before we changed activities and then the day was over.

I am really not sure how to broach the play date in the future, it’s not a problem we’ve had before when we’ve had friends over to play. Maybe I try to lessen the numbers and organise activities elsewhere for one or the other, or maybe I just have to let them at it and they’ll sort it out.

How do you handle this kind of thing? Or is it something that only happens in our house?