I took the kids out yesterday. As my car has not been going for a few weeks now they have only been to school and back so thought I'd take them on the bus to the shops. They had their Santa photo done (the one now displayed) and I was pleased my eldest decided to join in. She had told me she was not going to have a photo with Santa, saying, "what if my friends from school see me?" Anyway, she changed her mind. I told 'Santa' she had been reluctant so he got her to sit on his knee, lol. Anyway, it turned out to be a lovely photo, I'm very pleased with it :) The best part was the photos did not cost me a thing! The kids are in a 'Kids Club' at the local shopping centre and were sent vouchers for a free 5 x 7 photo each. So, with 3 kids, I got 3 free pics and have scanned them and printed some off for family.

If you live in an area with a major shopping centre it's worth finding out if they have anything like a 'Kids Club'. Each school holidays the kids get sent information about what's on at the centre during the holidays along with vouchers, which often include movie vouchers!

After the photos I then took them for Baskin Robbins ice cream - yum! yum! We all enjoyed that! After that we looked around the shops and had lunch at the shops, too, which I wasn't going to do but decided to really treat them.

It's going to be another hot one here today so better get the housework done before it warms up too much! Have a great day! :)

I had to see the doctor today who did more tests, bloods and a chest x-ray. She said they are not sure what has caused the swelling in my neck. It may have been a blockage that cleared itself though she said she doesn't think it was a blockage because if it was I would have had trouble eating which I did not. It may be something as simple as an insect bite that I didn't notice. She did the chest x-ray to cover all bases - she wants to make sure everything is fine there. The lump has reduced down to the size it was when I first went to the doctor so at least I know the medication is working.

Grandma's funeral was today. My brother and father rang earlier and said it was a lovely service. I so wish I could have been there. They are going out to dinner with some family members they have not seen in quite some time, another reason I wish I was there. Oh, well, I told Dad to give everyone my love and to have a drink for me (Dad said no problem at all to have a drink for me - he'll have a drink for anyone, lmao). My brother also said Grandma has left a bit of money for me so I have to ring the solicitors involved tomorrow. I kind of thought she'd leave something for me, but I also didn't expect it. It's because of what my mother would have gotten but she is deceased.

For my dear Grandma: you will always be in my heart. I will love and miss you. Fly with the Angels darling. All my love. xx

Due to the pain in my neck I have not been sleeping much. But last night I slept very well! The antibiotics are obviously working, thank goodness! The lump is a bit tender this morning but at least it didn't keep me awake.

I feel a lot better about everything actually. My friend's little boy is much better :) He is on ventalin which he doesn't like but at least he's fine now. And as for Grandma, well, I figure I'm just not meant to go to her funeral. When I was told she didn't have long left to live the kids and I went with my Dad up to see her. I think I'd rather keep that memory of her in my mind. If I was to go to the funeral and look at the coffin I'd fall apart. I've always be very close to Grandma, more so than any of her other Grandkids. She loved all her grandchildren just as much as each other but always said I was her favourite. She had me, and my brother, around a lot when growing up (her other grandkids lived far away). When I grew up and got my licence I would take her to the club for her bingo days and take her shopping. She's always been there for me and even more so when my mother (her daughter) passed away from cancer 17 years ago. After I moved away I'd call her, or she'd call me, every Sunday. I miss talking to her. I will miss her dearly. But I know she's not suffering anymore and she is reunited with her husband, my mother, and 2 other children she lost when young (a baby at a few months old and a son who drowned in a tragic scout accident).

Well, the washing is done so better go hang it out. It's a lovely day here today which I'm glad about so can get the clothes dry. Take care all.

A few days ago I wrote about going to the doctor due to a lump in my neck. Well, by Friday it had gotten worse, the whole side of neck was puffed up. So I went back to the doctor. He told me to go to the hospital where they would most likely give my antibiotics via a drip. So off I went. I got there about 10.30am. I waited..and waited..and waited...and finally got into a doctor. She sent me to x-ray, saying that if there was a stone it may show up on that. I went around to x-ray and waited, though not too long. Then back to emergency to wait again for the doctor. Once I did get back in, she said the x-ray did not show a blockage so to keep my appointment for the ultrasound I had told her I was booked in for on Monday. I was given antibiotics via drip and was told I had to wait for the registrar surgeon to look at me. **sigh** more waiting! Once he came I was only too happy for him to check me out .. talk about ya regular little hottie, hehe. He decided to get me into ultrasound. So more waiting. I finally got in .. oh, it was 4.30pm by this time! .. and he came in to look at the screen as it was being done. He got another doctor in to look, too, and he was a spunk, too! So, there I was, flat on my back, looking up into the faces of not just one but two hot docs! What more could I ask for? lol. Anyway, they decided they couldn..t see enough on the scan so wanted me to have a CT scan. So off I went, again, for more tests, again, and more waiting, again **sigh**. I just wanted to get home to the kids! (oh, they were with my friends and neighbours so were safe and well-cared for).

After all this I was put back on another drip with more antibiotics and left to wait for the CT results. By the time 7pm came round (yes, that..s right, 7-bloody-pm) I had well and truly had enough. The drip finished so I told the nurse to get the damn cannulas out of my arms as I was going home! She removed them and left me to dress (yer, I had to have one of them horrid gowns on). When she returned she said the doctors had just been looking at the CT results and wanted to admit me in order to continue with the antibiotics. I told her no, I was not going to be admitted, I had kids to get home to! So I signed a form to say I was discharging myself against medical advice. I didn..t have a stone. They said it..s just infected gland and if I didn..t continue treatment it would become more toxic. So look out folks! I..m toxic! lmao! I told them I..d go back in the morning which I did. I got a lift up just after 6am. This time I did not have to wait quite as long and was given a bed so got a bit of rest. I was given another 2 doses of antibiotics and placed under Amblatory Care which means they come to my home instead of me having to stay in hospital. They changed the antibiotic to one which covers a wider range of bacteria and given a script for another antibiotic tablet to take .. so I have those to take, 3 times a day, plus each morning the nurse will come and administer the other antibiotic by needle into a canula which has been left in my arm (it..s bandaged to protect it). I will also have to go to the hospital to the Amblatory Care unit to be checked by the doc some days, the first of which will be on Monday, but at least it..s an appointment so won..t have to sit around waiting as much.

Thank goodness I have such great friends as my neighbours to help me out with the kids. I..ve always thought that, if a time came where I had to stay in hospital, I..d call my Dad to take the kids for a few days. But he is heading off, along with my brother and sister-in-law, to Grandma..s funeral which is on Monday. With the Amblatory care thing it..s OK this time, anyway.

Of course, I cannot go to Grandma..s funeral. I wish I could go, but at least I did get to see her when I was told she didn..t have long left. The money I had put away for it will go on the kid..s Christmas presents, which I know Grandma would prefer me spend it on anyway. I..m handling Grandma..s passing better than I expected I would. I guess that..s because I have known for so long that it was happening. I..ve cried many times for her. In a way I am relieved she has finally gone as I know now that she is not any sort of pain, and not just laying in that bed waiting to die. She had been ready to go for so long that she would have welcomed it. She..s now at peace.

My Grandmother passed away this evening. It was expected - she was given 6 weeks to live back at the end of July! She last much longer than expected. She had been losing blood for a long time and would need transfusions. The last one she had (back in July) was her last as the doctor said he could not give her anymore, her body could not take it.

I have a dilemma now. She lives about 8 hours drive away. The plan was to stay with friends who live where she is but at this stage I cannot go as I do not want to pass on my flu to her kids. This is really upsetting. I don't want to miss Grandma's funeral but I have to do the right thing by my friend and her kids.

The money I have saved to go up would certainly come in handy as I'm so stressed over how I am going to afford xmas. Things have been really hard on me financially. Maybe me being sick is a way of someone telling me to use the money for the kids - I know Grandma would think that way. But she is so important to me. Oh, god, I don't know what to do. I guess all I can do is wait a couple of days and see if I improve.

I picked up Jess's xray today and she's fine. The doctor examined her again and said the pain is muscular. She dances around in her room so has obviously strained herself in doing so. Will that slow her down? No! lol. And you should hear her! My god! Her room is upstairs and when she's dancing I hear the floorboards creaking and the thump thump thump of her jumping around. I swear, one of these days she'll go right through the damn floor! lol.

I got the doc to look me over, too (I hate doctors). The glands in my neck are swollen on one side and there's a big lump in it. And it hurts! (sympathy, please, lol). The doc said it's either an infected gland or a blockage in the saliva gland - if it's a latter, it may mean I have a stone in it (I told him I didn't eat any stones, lol). I have to have an ultra-sound on it on Monday to see which it is. In the meantime, I have antibiotics (which will clear it if it's just infected gland) and mersyndol forte. Yay for drugs! lol.

My son's class had an assembly item today so I went to watch. They sing some cool songs these days! Today they did 'We Will Rock You' and 'Ain't No Mountain High Enough'. Ben spoke on the microphone, too, and he did really well. Lauren attends the same assembly and her name was called for Student Of The Week awards. Students names are called who all get an award, but one is picked for Student Of The Week - Lauren missed out on that one, but was pleased to get an award anyway. She's doing so well with her awards!

Well, enough prattling for now... chow!

What a day it has been! I took Jess for an xray as she's had pains, mostly when she breathes, so the doc wants an xray. He said it's probably a virus but best get an xray done. On the way my friend and neighbour rang and told me her 10 month old is in hospital. The poor little darling has a bronchial infection. She took him up yesterday as his breathing was very shallow. She said his heart rate was up, oxygen levels down, and he couldn't keep any food or drink down. So he is on oxygen, tubes stuck on his dear little face. Once Jess had the xray done we went to the hospital to see how he was going. He's a little better, being a bit more smiley then his mum said he had been. We came home and I am minding my friends' 3 year old so it's easier for them to be with their baby.

When I picked my other two up from school Ben said a girl, Alex, had just punched him and run off. This Alex is a little shit who, according to the teacher, picks a target for the week and goes out of her way to annoy them. Ben has had trouble with her before, too. What annoys me most is that the teacher started talking about things Ben has done to others - well, that's fine to tell me that, but what about what is done to him? She said Alex has been spoken to many times, they've had her mother at the school, and that she still keeps doing it. Well, then I say suspend her! Any other child who continually picks on kids gets suspended, so why not her? I told Ben if she does one more thing to him I will go to the Principal and tell him exaclty that - why doesn't she get suspended? Teachers really infuriate me at times!

So does the weather! It's been a real shit of a day. It started off nice, became humid, rained, cooled down, warmed up again, became windy, cooled back off, has warmed back up, but is still windy - I'm just waiting for the snow, lol.

I am very sad as I just read (on ninemsn) that Belinda Emmett died this morning. Belinda is an Aussie TV personality, married to well-known Aussie TV personality, Rove McManus, who has been battling cancer for a long time. She first got breast cancer back in 1998. She overcame that and then got bone cancer in 2001. She lost her fight with her illness this morning, with Rove at her side. My heart goes out to Rove and Belinda's family.

I lost my mother to cancer in 1989. It's a very traumatic exprience, watching a loved-one die. My mother was diagnosed around Feb/March in 1989 and passed away in August of the same year. It's sad that my children never knew their Grandmother - she would have absolutely adored them. I tell my kids that she is their Guardian Angel watching over them.

RIP Belinda. A beautiful, kind woman. Fly with the Angels.

What somebody said about Mothers.....         This is beautifully written...                  Somebody said it takes about six weeks to get back to normal after you've       had a baby         somebody doesn't know that once you're a mother, "Normal," is history.         Somebody said you learn how to be a mother by instinct .         somebody never took a three-year-old shopping.           Somebody said being a mother is boring ......         somebody never rode in a car driven by a teenager with a driver's permit.           Somebody said if you're a "good" mother, your child will "turn out good."         Somebody thinks a child comes with directions and a guarantee.         Somebody said "good" mothers never raise their voices .....         somebody never came out the back door just in time to see her child hit a       golf ball through the neighbour's kitchen window.                Somebody said you don't need an education to be a mother.         Somebody never helped a fourth grader with her math.         Somebody said you can't love the fifth child as much as you love the       first.         Somebody doesn't have five children.         Somebody said a mother can find all the answers to her child-rearing       questions in the books .         somebody never had a child stuff beans up her nose or in his ears.         Somebody said the hardest part of being a mother is labour and delivery.         Somebody never watched her "baby" get on the bus for the first day of       kindergarten....           or on a plane headed for military "boot camp."           Somebody said a mother can do her job with her eyes closed and one hand       tied behind her back.         somebody never organized four giggling Brownies to sell cookies.         Somebody said a mother can stop worrying after her child gets married         Somebody doesn't know that marriage adds a new son or daughter-in-law to a       mother's heartstings.                    Somebody said a mother's job is done when her last child leaves home ....       Somebody never had grandchildren.           Somebody said your mother knows you love her, so you don't need to tell       her Somebody isn't a mother       

     

Why Women Are Crabby

We started to "bud" in our blouses at 9 or 10 years old only to find that anything that came in contact with those tender, blooming buds hurt so bad it brought us to tears. So came the ridiculously uncomfortable
training bra contraption that the boys in school would snap until we had
calluses on our backs.
Next, we get our periods in our early to mid-teens (or sooner). Along
with those budding boobs, we bloated, we cramped, we got the hormone
crankies, had to wear little mattresses between our legs or insert tubular, packed cotton rods in places we didn't even know we had.
Our next little rite of passage (premarital or not) was having sex for
the first time which was about as much fun as having a ramrod push your
uterus through your nostrils (IF he did it right and didn't end up with his little cart before his horse), leaving us to wonder what all the fuss was about.
Then it was off to Motherhood where we learned to live on dry crackers and water for a few months so we didn't spend the entire day leaning over Brother John. Of course, amazing creatures that we are (and we are), we learned to live with the growing little angels inside us steadily kicking our innards night and day making us wonder if we were
preparing to have Rosemary's Baby.
Our once flat bellies looked like we swallowed a watermelon whole and
we peed our pants every time we sneezed. When the big moment arrived
the dam in our blessed Nether Regions invariably burst right in the middle of the mall and we had to waddle, with our big cartoon feet, moaning in 

pain all the way to the ER.
Then it was huff and puff and beg to die while the OB says, "Please stop screaming, Mrs. Hear-me-roar. Calm down and push. Just one more good
push (more like 10)," warranting a strong, well-deserved impulse to punch the %*#!* (and hubby) square in the nose for making us cram a
wiggling, mushroom-headed 10lb bowling ball through a keyhole.
After that, it was time to raise those angels only to find that when
all that "cute" wears off, the beautiful little darlings morphed into
walking, jabbering, wet, gooey, snot-blowing, life-sucking little
poop machines.
Then came the "Teen Years." Need I say more?
When the kids are almost grown, we women hit our voracious sexual
prime in our early 40's - while hubby had his somewhere around his 18th
birthday. So we progress into the grand finale: "The Menopause," the
Grandmother of all womanhood. It's either take HRT and chance cancer in those now
seasoned "buds" or the aforementioned Nether Regions, or, sweat like a hog in July, wash your sheets and pillowcases daily and bite the head off anything that moves.
Now, you ask WHY women seem to be more spiteful than men, when men get
off so easy, INCLUDING the icing on life's cake: Being able to pee in
the woods without soaking their socks...
So, while I love being a woman, "Womanhood" would make the Great
Gandhi a tad crabby. Women are the "weaker sex"? Yeah right. Bite me.

The weekend is here! Yay! Sleep in time. Well, can sleep in a little bit anyway. Still have to get up to get the washing done, then there's the rest of the housework. With 3 kids, it never ends. I really wonder where the mess comes from at times, though. I mean, I clean up the loungeroom, then the kids come home from school and within 5 minutes it's a mess again! Well, being the weekend, the little darlings can help clean up there crap! lol. I have the washing on - make sure the uniforms are done - so will hang that out soon. I have clothes to fold, vacuuming to do, washing up to be done, floors need washing. OK, time to delegate. My son loves to vacuum (yer, scary, huh? lol), my eldest is now on washing up duty (much to her disgust, lol) and my youngest can help fold the clothes, which she likes doing.

Oh, they want breakfast. Geez, feed kids one day and they want feeding again the next! How rude! lmao! Just kiddin' - better go feed the little darlings, lol. Have a great day all!

Baby Bear goes downstairs and sits in her little chair at the table.
She looks into her little bowl. It is empty.
"Who's been eating my porridge?!!" she squeaks.

Daddy Bear arrives at the table and sits in his big chair.

He looks into his big bowl and it is also empty.
"Who's been eating my porridge?!!" he roars.

Mummy Bear puts her head through the serving hatch from the kitchen and yells...
 "For Goodness Sake, how many times do we have to go through this with you idiots?
It was Mummy Bear who got up first,
it was Mummy Bear who woke everyone in the house,
it was Mummy Bear who made the coffee,
it was Mummy Bear who unloaded the dishwasher from last night,
and put everything away,
it was Mummy Bear who went out in the cold early morning air to fetch the newspaper,

it was Mummy Bear who set the damn table,
it was Mummy Bear who put the friggin cat out, cleaned the litter box and filled the cat's water and food dish, and now that you've decided to drag your sorry bear-asses downstairs and grace Mummy Bear's kitchen with your Grumpy presence, listen good, coz I'm only going to say this one more time...

I HAVEN'T MADE THE F**ING PORRIDGE YET!!!"

My eldest, Jessica, will have her year 6 farewell next month and I've been trying to work out how I will afford an outfit for her. My neighbour and friend asked her sister to borrow the dress she wore for her year 10 farewell as she and Jess are the same size (14). We got the dress today - Jess tried it on and, oh, my god! talk about grown up! The dress is black, has shoe-string straps, is long, and the bottom is layered - it is lovely. I know black is a bit 'old' for a 12 year old but I will add coloured accessories to bring it down to her age. Like, at the moment the plastic beads, bangles, and earrings in bright colours are in so I will get her those, probably pink - that looks nice with black.

Oh, tea is here. I cheated and got pizza tonight, hehe. Biaz!

Look! Another entry already! Wow! I'm good, aren't I? lmao. Well, I just thought I'd vent my frustration at Lauren's teacher.

Lauren has an excursion today. She had to go straight to the classroom this morning (rather than lining up) so I took her up. She had her lunch in a small carry-bag. Her teacher was annoyed with me and other mother's as she wanted the children to take their lunch in a plastic bag. Now, the thing is, Lauren gave me a note yesterday with info on what to take and not take on excursion. In BOLD letters, it states: ' the following items are banned from...' and in the list of those items is, yes, you guessed it, plastic bags!

Another mum and I pointed this out to the teacher and she said she had told the children to take plastic bags. Now, I don't know about you all out there, but if my child tells me something different to what is on a note, I take notice of the note! Children often mix things up so I go by whatever a note says! Also, these kids are only 7 year old - how many do you think would remember what the teacher told them they could and couldn't take anyway?

Another thing that annoyed me was that I told the teacher that Lauren had the bag she had as it contains an ice brick to keep her drinks cold and food fresh. The teacher said, "oh, they don't need ice bricks." Well, I'm sorry but just because they are children does not mean they should have to drink warm drinks! And what about their food? Lauren had ham, cheese, and lettuce on a roll - that was made at 8am and they have lunch at, oh, let's say 12 - that's 4 hours! Would you eat such a roll if it's been left out for 4 hours? Bugger that! Granted, today is not a hot day, but the way the weather has been changing here lately it could warm up, and it does get humid.

I am dumbfounded by the way some teachers think. I really do think a lot of them have no common sense!