Blue Sky

On our recent holiday to Qld we were able to catch up with our old friend Kylie and Micheal and meet their son Ollie. Nathan and Micheal are old school buddies and we have managed to keep in contact over the years. Just over a year ago Kylie and Micheal moved to Melbourne (about a year after we had left!). Anyway Kylie is having troubles with the Melbourne skyline. Apparently no shade of grey makes her happy and only shades of grey are offered in Melbourne. Except for the most fleeting glimpses of blue! Kylie and I were talking recently and we were both surprised at how we struggled with the muggy heat. I did at that stage let her know that Canberra has gorgeous blue skies. Even in the height of winter when it is minus 8 degrees outside the sky is a gorgeous blue!

So the day after we arrived home and I was admiring the blue cloudless sky at roughly 27 degrees, I thought of Kylie and took this photo for her!

And to compare. Kylie this is a Canberra winter sky of around 1 degree!

So Kyles and Mick any thoughts about moving to Canberra? It is only a days drive away from Qld!

Preparation

My friend Hayley, who writes one of favourite blogs is currently 38 weeks pregnant with her 2nd daughter. Her blog lately is all about her preparations for her huge upcoming event. As I open her blog every morning I hold my breath just waiting to hear that she has had her eagerly anticipated arrival. I find it funny because in this house we are busily preparing for a huge event too. This event as so different but yet similar. We are both looking at something that is familiar yet unknown. Her event is labour and delivering another beautiful daughter. Our event is delivering our eldest some to his first day of big school!
Matthew is jumping out of his skin in eagerness and anticipation. I don't share his reaction! (Most of the time!) I am nervous that I have spent the last 5.4 months raising our son and being the biggest influence in his life. On Monday morning at 9am i am handing over the reins to someone I don't even know! As of Monday Miss whoever it shall be will spend more hours with my son than I will. And she wont be the only changing influence. There will be 21 random children that will become nearly more important than me. I guess I should just have faith in my abilities in being his mother so far and know that I have taught him right from wrong and that will help him on his journey.
But even that isn't my greatest worry. I am going to miss my son. I love having him near me. I enjoy (95% of the time!) his personality. 5 is a great age. Starting school is almost like, thanks mums you've all done a great job through the tough years we will have your children now that they are happy, lovely civilised people now!
But I know in my heart that Matthew is SOOOO ready for school. His mind works overtime trying to work out how things work (does that sound like his Daddy?!) He tries to read the road signs. He asks how you spell things. He can read letters on shops and then asks what it says. (Today's one was exit starts with an X. When i showed him the word "exit" and asked him if he thought it still started with an x, he corrected himself, which then started a huge discussion on ee and x sounds!) Another way i know Matthew is ready for school is he is now using his brain for evil rather than good. The last 2 weeks his behaviour had been awful and it is plain to see that he is bored and unstimulated. So take that Mum! You cant even keep up mentally now!
So on Monday I will be brave. And dress him in his uniform. Pack his bag. Give him the confidence to walk into his classroom by himself. Then i will walk away and consume as much chocolate as I can! I'm not worried about crying as he walks away. I will be fine and proud and happy. I will fall apart when I pick him up and realise just how much I missed him and how independent he is now. And he will wonder what all the fuss is about!
And Hayley, I hope your labour is not too far off and you have your husband to hold your hand and it is as pain free as possible. I cant wait to hear that your 2nd little girl has arrived!

a new kitchen

The Rickard's came down to visit in early January. And apparently these people cannot sit still for five minutes and enjoy a holiday! No, they decided it was a great time to put in half a new kitchen! Last January it was a new entertainment area! However as much as i worry that they will both have a heart attack from doing huge home improvement project when they are SUPPOSED to be on holidays, I am so thrilled to have beautiful new pantry cupboards and my fridge in my kitchen!

Taking the doors off

Knocking through the wall and getting rid of the lovely arch. Bye Bye 1970's!

Installing new gyprock wall pieces. Nathan made one mistake all week when he measured his gyprock not once but three times cut it, went to put it up and realised he had cut it 10cm too short!

One new wall

Plastering the cracks

The first pantry cupboard

Installing the over fridge cupboard

Tidying up

Ta da!!!

Nathan still has to do the kickboards and the roof cornices but it is looking really good. So thank you to the Nana and Poppy Rickard. I really love watching Poppy and Nathan working together. They do make a great team. And maybe soon, when the house has been completely renovated they will be able to come and have a holiday and relax and recuperate! (Yeah right, not with my kids!)

2nd Christmas

And after 16 hours in the car this is what we had when we got home!

Ripping into it!

Obviously Daddy had been a good boy this year!

The big one (a 707) took him 2 hours to build. He took the opportunity to play by himself when the kids and I were sleeping. Other wise it would have taken 8 hours!

The 707 is nearly as tall as Benny

Nana and Poppy got the boys a tramp but no instructions so the engineer and his apprentices are putting it together. That took longer than 2 hours!

Obviously the engineer doesn't do any of the real work!

And they are away.

Zip them in and Run!

Christmas

Christmas this year was in Queensland at Nana and Poppy Rickard's place. They boys helped Poppy put up the tree and put the "celebrations" on. (Poppy's term not the kids!) We had the usual excitement getting ready for Santa's arrival. We put out some special reindeer food (oats and glitter!) and a bucket of water. Santa had a few timtams and a beer. They put the "special key" under the door mat so Santa can still gain entry to a house with no chimney. Then they laid out their Santa sacks and rushed up to bed. There was lots of squeezed shut eyes, you could see them willing themselves to go to sleep quickly! But that wasn't the fun part of the preparation. The fun bit was preparing the house for the intense inspection on every move "Santa" would make in the Rickard household. First of all Daddy only got to drink half a beer. Because apparently Santa isn't an alcoholic and couldn't possibly drink a full beer in every house he visits! But i do know why he is overweight! Because he did eat both timtams! (But then Nana Rickard didn't leave enough crumbs on the plate so Uncle Brenty had a go at leaving a few crumbs!) I drew the short straw and had to pick up the oats after they had been soaked in a thunderstorm! I also remembered to knock the bucket of water over. And I am so glad we did those things because a 4.30 AM!!! While we were waiting for Nana and poppy to get out of bed so we could unwrap Santa's stash the boys inspected every last thing. But guess what! The key was missing! We consoled the boys by telling them maybe Santa would keep it for next year. But guess what! When we finally arrived back in Canberra Santa had left it under our door mat! And he had left a huge amount of presents under the tree! Very lucky boys this year!

4.30am. Waiting for everyone else to get out of bed!

All the boys checking out the goods

Poppy

Hot wheels beat that! They boys are hot wheel mad! And this is just what they always wanted!

Could he get his head any further in his santa sack?!

They brought every gift they unwrapped over to show me. Like I had never seen tehm before!

Benny getting stuck into unwrapping

6am At Aunty Jackie house. 7 cousins, 7 aunts and uncles, 2 grandparents and 2 dogs! We had breakfast there then it was back to the Rickards for lunch.

Lunch. Who is missing?

Somebody couldn't hack the pace and fell asleep before lunch!

Now onto the poo stories!

I was quite pleased to hear over Christmas that people find my entries about poo rather amusing. So I would like to let you know that those stories only have a couple of months until we will have outgrown them. Benny is being toilet trained! He is rather like his brothers (and mother for that matter!) in that he will do ANYTHING for a smartie! However he is rather modest (must be from the rickard side) and he refuses to go pants less! With the others I just let them run around nude for a few weeks until they understood how it all worked. But poor Benny, the first time he had no pants on and a poo came out and he thought his bum was falling off! So apparently now is it very important for him to AT LEAST have jocks on so that they hold his bum on!

I lost my motivation

But now I am trying REALLY hard to find it. I have had a tough last month. I am not going to get into it, other than to say the things that I have learnt.
1. It is my duty as a wife to support my husband. I have thought I have done a great job of that until now! My support of Nathan has been unwavering for over 10 years now. First i supported him financially and emotionally through the last years of his swimming career. I supported him through his undergrad degree and then his masters degree. But support is more than being the cheerleader behind the scenes. Recently, my husband had to make a really hard decision that I didn't want to support but after talking it through i could see the reasons why he did what he did. I'm not sure it hasn't affected our marriage in an everlasting way but I now know with 100% certainty that Nathan and I can talk our way through any drama that life throws at us and we will come out the other side. Maybe not as the same individuals but certainly as a united couple. I have put a lot of thought into what it means to be married "until death do you part" and what it means to be a parent. Have the parents out there reading this blog thought about what happens after you have done the huge task of raising your children together. Do you know what happens? Your children leave you. Then they become a family with someone who wasn't part of your family. And what are you left with? Your spouse. I know at times on the journey of raising my children i have asked myself who do I love more. The answer to me is so clear now. No body can question how much I love my children it is so evident in everything that I do. But I love my husband more. He is my one true ally in this fight that is called life!
2. If you want a marriage to last communication is paramount. I have always been a great communicator (have you ever heard me shut up?!) Nathan not so much but he has learnt over the years. Not just how to say what he means (And he is still working on that!) but also listening to me and hearing what I'm saying. During our debacle i went to bed crying. The more I cried the more I realised i was angry at Nathan. When I realised what i was feeling and that this feeling could eat me up I said to myself "Jennifer Rickard you have 24 hours to be angry at Nathan but you have to tell him that you are going to be angry at him for that time and he has to cop everything you dish out." I eventually fell asleep and in the morning I told him I was angry at him and he said he knew I was and he could understand why. And then do you know what happened? I wasn't angry anymore! So he still overs me 12 hours of anger!
Anyway the purpose of this blog entry is to get all of this off my chest so I can move on with the funny entries about poo that so many people are apparently amused by! So here they come!


And by the way the debacle had nothing to do with Nathan hurting me or the children in case it sounds that way! He did nothing other than the right and moral thing in the circumstances. Just sometimes doing the right thing is not easy!