Doing the hard yards

I don't think I have ever met a parent that has said the job has been easy. I always thought that as your children got older the job got easier. I am here to tell you that does NOT happen! Well it doesn't happen if you choose the hard way. I have been reflecting over my week that was and I have had some major battles on my hands. I could have chosen the easy option this week and given in to my children. It would have meant my stress level would be MUCH lower but it would also mean i would have to battle the same battles over and over again. I do believe, for us, that that if we nip the problem in the bud whilst they are still growing plants our mature plants will be spectacularly beautiful. What wasn't beautiful this week was Ryan, Ben and myself all throwing a tantrum over a misplaced shoe and being 10 minutes late for school. But i don't plan on being the sort of Mum packing her child's university bag. And to ensure that i must teach my children how to prepare themselves for school independently. Same with the swearing issue. Add in the fact that Nathan was away, I could have ignored what Matthew was doing. But by doing that I would have been setting a precedent that swearing in this house is acceptable when it isn't. So I sucked it up and did the hard parenting.
I always recall my Mum saying to me that whatever punishment she had just dished out was as hard on her as it was on me. Now all of these years later I really understand that! But I think she underestimated it, I think it harder because you then have to deal with the guilt at inflicting the punishment on this child that you love so much. And it goes against your instinct to protect your child. But if I wasn't to punish my children what would be the result?
It is always close in Nathan and my minds that our goal as parents is to produce happy, healthy, well adjusted, independent adults. We spend alot of time discussing the best course of action to achieve this goal. We are a united parental unit. It is something that I am very proud of. It is something that our children try and test all the time. I was surprised at how young our children were when they didn't get something from me they then went straight to Daddy. One of our offspring tries this on more than the others. He still thinks he just might pull one over us. He doesn't realise that we talk about all of this sort of stuff when they aren't there. We even have a system! If one of us has said no but the other parent wants to say yes we will discuss it and if their opinion is changed we go to the child together and say we have had a chance to discuss it and have change our minds because of this reason. Its funny because we often discuss how we currently live by the mantra "Mummy and Daddy know best" but our aim is to develop these children to such a place that they can be involved in the decision making process. What i really want to know is how much longer will this "moulding" stage last? Because it is really hard work!
Anyway I think I am just rambling on reflecting about a really hard parenting week and expecting another one but this week will be single handed as once again Nathan is travelling! I am selecting my battles this week! As usual one battle I have no intention of fighting while Nath is away is dinner. When he is away we eat what they like. Vegies will not be on the menu this week. One week without them wont kill them! Hopfully by taking this one off the battle plan I will have more energy to fight off the bigger ones like getting homework done and reinstalling peace,law and order! Wish me luck!

Hot Chilli Sauce

Recently i had a discussion with a friend about the merits of using Chilli Sauce rather than soap as punishment for a potty mouth. Today in my house i had to bring out the Chilli Sauce! Matthew decided today, five minutes after his father left for a week away to teach his younger brothers a few swear words!
I knew I had to do it and i knew that Matthew would HATE it. But I held him down and poured Chilli sauce into his mouth. And do you know what I know for a fact? From this day forward no Rickard boy will be game enough to swear in front of his mother. I know this because Matthew cried and cried and gagged and dry reached. (Matthew is NOT a sauce guy of any kind and absolutely, certainly NOT Chilli sauce) But the added benefit of this little exercise of discipline was that Ben was horrified! He cried for Matthew and was terribly distressed. My response to his distress was: "Buddy swearing is totally not acceptable and needs to be punished and this is the punishment you receive when you swear. Do you think it is good idea to say swear words?" He is absolutely certain he will NOT be swearing any time soon! Ryan was mildly interested until he witnessed Matthew's reaction and he also doesn't think he will be trying out any of the words Matthew said any time soon!
Me, I really hope they don't come up with any other swear words. I don't think my heart could take it! This parenting is hard work! But the alternative of letting things like this slide sounds so much worse to me. So I will suck it up, princess, have a chocolate and repeat to myself I have done the right thing. They wont be adding THAT word to their vocabulary any time soon, I am sure!

I'm too big for an afternoon sleep!

But not too big to fall asleep on the floor mid playing with my cars! After this picture I picked him up to put on my knee for a snuggle and he wee'd on me!

Birthday Pictures

The marble run that Mummy and Daddy got him
Thanking Cleon for her present which he wont put down!

Pulling Shaun the sheep's tail! He shakes!

A Pirate Party

Captain "No Beard" Benjamin Rickard

Looking out to the stormy seas

Finding it hard to look with just one eye!

The scariest pirate around!

The scariest pirate around with the smallest cutlass!

Treasure has been found we just need to bash it open!

A tiring captain no beard

Captain "No Beard" and his best friend Pirate Eli

Pirate Cake

Captain No beard and his brother Sheriff Ryan. Trying to keep law and order in a room of 20 3 year old pirates!

The other Sheriff and Pirate Uncle brenty (That is a pirate squint by the way!)

What pirates look like all partied out!

We have had an awesome day despite the rain! We searched for buried treasure and found it in Benny's bed (not the sandpit as we would have liked!). And we played pin the "X" on the treasure map. Everybody has eaten until their tummy's were over full. And now all little pirates are having a good afternoon nap! Including the scary one!

Happy Birthday Ben!

Benny turns 3 today! My baby is now a boy. Not even little. I have been reflecting over this, the loss of my last baby this week and came across this video that i just have to share. Ben must be nearly 12 months in it and inside that baby is Ben , the individual. You can see his personality as clear as day!

Another tricky one!

Matthew: "Mummy why cant you pull your skin off?"
Mummy: "Because it is all one piece."
Matthew: "But what about when you get a cut? It's not one piece then, there is a hole in it. How come all of your skin doesn't fall off?"
Mummy: "Because your skin is super glued to your muscles!"
Matthew: "Oh!"

The joys of boys!

Today I drove to school with my head out of the car window! Ben dropped his guts inside the car with the windows up and the heater on! I nearly lost my breakfast...... they thought it was hysterical. My dry reaching was met with "Mmmmmm smells like icecream!" My yelling "Ryan that was gross" was met with three boys falling over themselves all the way to Matthew's classroom talking about how great it was and laughing and laughing and laughing!
BOYS ARE GROSS!!!!!

Ouch!

Do you remember how my lovely mother in law sent me to the dentist for Christmas? Well she should get her money back! The tooth that the dentist filled split in half last night! I am left with a sharp filling and the front half of the tooth. I am not sure that it will be able to be repaired either as it broke off above the gum line.
I really really don't want to go back to the dentist. Please don't make me. I don't deserve two tortures in 8 months! I'll be good! I will only eat soft lollies! (I cant promise to give up coke, I need to have at least one vice to help keep me sane!)

We are really ready for Spring

I do believe that the boys have had enough of winter and are ready for Spring. So much so they decided to give it a helping hand!

They are clumps of grass that the boys have thrown into the tree to "green" things up a bit!

The other explanation of these pictures could be they had to fight their way through the long grass to get to their back yard!

Strawberries

When Benny spotted this at the fruit market we just had to get the whole punnet!How do you feed three boys with one strawberry?

Daddy was just a little bit worried that he might lose a finger... or arm!

Rocket Jocks

Boys! No explanation necessary! Just play the clip!

Tramp-a-skate

Caution: there was only one child hurt in the making of this video and Mummy made it better with kisses and cuddles!

It is only going to get worse!

After finishing my grocery shopping this week it occurred to me that it is only going to get worse. This is what $200 worth of groceries, $60 fruit and veg and $60 worth of meat looks like a fortnight. All of this and still the most frequent thing out of my children's mouths is "I'm hungry!"

The shelves are groaning under the strain!
There is 12 litres of milk in there and it doesn't last one week! There are 30 green apples and 25 red ones (I know this because by getting Ben to count them as we put them in the bag he cant be trying to take bites out of them!) There are also 3 dozen eggs and half a dozen beers carefully hidden by pancake mix. And just out of screen my stash of coke. That and chocolate are what hold me together!
By the time they are teenagers i think an industrial fridge may be in order!

Hail Storm

It has been a very Melbourne like day today. we have had sun, rain, hail and storms......and the heater on all day! The first hail shower was around 1 when i was trying to convince Ben to have a sleep (I didn't win by the way!) then we had a huge storm. It was winding up just on school pick up time! The roads were coated with ice balls! Canberra drivers are dumb enough without putting their cars on skates! Matt's school is half a k away and we saw a huge accident. The car park was nuts! Worse than usual! But we survived the trip there and back and when we got home i let the boys loos on the hail. I have the funniest video but i am still having issues with videos on my computer. I should hopefully have it sorted tonight!

Tramp-a-skating!
Slide anyone?

Matthew throwing hail balls at me!

Matthew saying "Ryan you can eat them!" (What a Rickard thing to say!)

It was falling pretty heavily!

Just like Melbourne......sun, hail and rainbows

After it was all finished there was a huge rainbow. Ben excitedly exclaimed "Rainbows are so beautiful. Girls like rainbows because they are beautiful. And rainbows are beautiful just like Mummy is!" (He is going to kill them with his lines!)

I'm sorry Cid!

On Sunday Cid's family were at our house. Treb was helping Nathan put up a roof in Cleon's shed. I was preparing lunch and Cid was outside with the kids. Benny came up to her with a flower and handed it to her. She was thinking what a gorgeous, beautiful boy until he said "Can you give this to Mummy!" The poor lady was devastated!

Its a love triangle!!!!

Kayleigh might love Matthew, but Matthew loves Caitlyn!!!!!!!!
He even drew love hearts! He came out to us a little while ago to ask what made the "oo" sound. So i replied oo but he was trying to spell "you". I have also given a little motherly advice on how important it is to get your girlfriends name right too! This is possible the cutest thing I have EVER seen!

Love letters

I didn't start writing love letters at school until like grade three. Matthew received his first yesterday! From Kayleigh! Love is in the air at Kindy Vollmer apparently. Miss Vollmer got engaged on the weekend. That means your in love apparently! Also Thomas and Tamika are in love too. But not engaged. And did you know when I quizzed Matthew about love and Mum's and Dad's. He didn't think we were in love because we are the mum and Dad! And he is certainly not in love with Kayleigh and he cant help it if she loves him!
Ahhh LOVE!

Having Problems

I have been having issues with my blog page. I have my technical director working on them currently and hope to have it functioning normally soon. I really want to show you all an awesome video have taken of the boys!

Lightning McQueen

I'm going to sue Pixar! In 15 years time when Ryan is learning to drive and keeps trying to "turn it hard enough left and you will find yourself going right."
This morning i faced a thousand questions about driving. I answered them all honestly and in detail. First of all he enquired about the brakes and braking system, this lead into the steering system, which then lead into how Doc says you have to turn left to go right, which led into which way is right Mummy! I turned to look at him and i could see him picturing himself driving my Magna hard enough left so he can turn right!
Needless to say I will be putting the car keys up REALLY high from now on!

Homework

Term three has seen the start of weekly homework. This week Matthew's task has been to cut out a photocopied sheet of numbers from 0 to 11 and then there are some number games i have to play with him. He is a big kindy boy now so i sat him up at the table while I started to prepare dinner. When i went back to check on him a little time later he had cut along the black lines and he was just trimming up where there was visible lines remaining. When Nathan got home some five minutes later Matthew had persisted in trimming. I think he was trying to straighten out the cut lines. He does after all take after his father in his perfectionism. However what we were left with was this.......
So now we can start at zero, half of one, two and so on.

Now poor 2 got eaten by one of his brothers. So the excuse in this house will be "I'm sorry Miss, my brother ate my homework!" (You cant see it in the photo but the teeth marks are so clear i could match them up with the culprit!