(Special) School Assembly

Noah hasn't had a great week. He's not sick, but he's not himself and we think that a lot of it is hay fever. He's hardly slept at night for two nights in a row and has needed a lot more suctioning than usual.  After two really bad nights, he finally slept okay last night, but then woke up and started crying ten minutes after Aaron got him out of bed.

I rang the school bus to tell them not to worry about picking him up for school, as he would be staying home with me, and then half an hour later he settled down.  I had a busy day planned, so decided he could just stay home with Kobe and me and do what we were going to be doing. 

During the morning his school was having a special assembly to share their work they had been doing on different countries, so I decided to take Noah along to join in. 

Noah's class have been learning about Papua New Guinea, so his teacher talked about all the things they found out about it.

  

It was nice to actually see his eyes open for it most of the time.

He did start dozing off before the end though.

Kobe wandered around most of the time and loved it, but hated it when a couple of the kids would scream on top of their lungs.  He also gets a bit worried about the kids who use walking frames.  It makes me laugh as to him what Noah does is totally 'normal', even when he has seizures, coughs and splutters or yells for half the day, but other kids with special needs still make him a bit nervous.

At the end we got to try different foods from the countries that the classes had talked about.

It was nice to be able to join in, even though Noah wagged school for the day.

Couldn't Resist It

For the past five years we have had a tradition that we take a photo of the boys in front of a tree outside our old house, when it is in blossom.  Harri started calling it 'the possum tree' instead of the blossom tree, so we still call it the possum tree.

Today I went to pick up the boys after school and thought I'd do a quick drive by our old house.  The tree was finally in blossom (it usually starts blossoming later than other ones on the streets around it) and I just couldn't resist taking the boys there after I picked them up, to get a photo.

I told the boys we were going to the possum tree, and Jay was like 'oh no, not again!!'.  I told them it would be super quick as I didn't even have my camera on me, and was just going to use my iPhone.  We pulled up outside our house and Kobe kept yelling 'me old house, me old house!' and was so excited to be there.

Someone has recently bought it and are doing a lot of renovations to it as it was very old inside. I would love to go in and check out what they have done.  There was  a tiler right in front of the tree mixing up some grout, and Jay thought he was getting out of it, but I went up to the guy and told him we were just going to take a quick photo and explained that we used to live in the house and for the past five years, we have taken a photo there at the same time of year. 

He asked me if I wanted him to take a photo so I could get in too, and I was like 'um nope! thanks anyway!  I only ever take one of the boys together to show how much they have changed during the year' and he said 'that is really cool'.

Harri is still growing like a weed as you will see from the photos.

I asked Jay if he will still let me take photos of them in front of the possum tree when he is in grade 10 and he said yes! I told him I'm writing that down so he can't go back on his word! We will see what he says in a few years when getting photos in front of a tree with your brothers isn't so cool anymore.

What am I going to do...

...when my little model starts school!? 

I love being a stay at home mum full time and have been so for the past 12 years (wow - that's sounds like forever!) but lately it's been hitting me that I only have another 18 months or so at home and then Kobe starts kinder.

I can't even imagine what it will be like to have all four boys at school.  I LOVE being home and love that I get to spend each and every day with Kobe.  Of course there are some days when I think I'm going insane from the same routine day after day, but I wouldn't want it any other way.  

I am looking forward to Kobe starting school, as I know how much he is going to love it, and it also means that I'm going to be starting a new phase in my own life.  I just have no clue what that is just yet. What I decide to do depends mostly on Noah and his health, but for now I'm going to dream that I will be a sought after photographer who just fills my days with taking and editing photos.  

Last week I had a photo shoot, so that morning Kobe and I went to check out the location.   He was hilarious as he saw me fiddling with my camera and then started to do all these silly poses for me. 

I'm sure I'll find something else to keep me busy, but in the meantime I'm enjoying having my little model with me every day.

It's hard to believe that he is growing up so fast. 

Spa Saturday

When we were building our house (who am I kidding - it still isn't finished so we are still building it!) I was really, really excited about our bathroom.  I really wanted to have a bathroom that was big enough to move Noah around safely in, and especially wanted to have a deep spa.  Those who know me well know I LOVE laying in the bath for ages, but I especially wanted it for Noah so he could relax in the water, while the bubbles blew on his tight muscles.

He usually has showers using his shower chair during the week, but on the weekend he has a special treat because we have more time and often gets to have a spa.  It's actually raelly hard to get him into the spa as his hoist doesn't actually go high enough to clear the top of the bath, so we get him as high as he can go and then have to try to carefully lift him physically over the top without hurting him or my own back (or breaking any bones which I'm always so worried about!).

All the hassle is worth it though to see how relaxed and alert he is in there.  His eyes always get really big as he feels the bubbles on his body.   Don't you just love those fat rolls! :)

I usually let him stay in for ages as he loves it so much- like half an hour sometimes.  After I wash his hair and body, I get busy cleaning the bathroom, so he can just lay in there and enjoy the bubbles.

The worst thing is getting him out.  I know he hates getting out and hoisting him with the portable hoist is such a pain. Sometimes he will start crying as soon as he is out, which breaks your heart and you wish you could just let him stay in there all day long.

I just wish we had time to have Spa Saturday everyday.

I cringe

everytime I hear a certain word, and this morning I heard it from Harri which I couldn't believe.   He didn't even know what he was really saying, but has obviously heard it being said at school.  He was watching something on TV and didn't like the singer and what they were singing so he said

... 'that singer sounds retarded'. 

I asked him if he even knew that that meant and he said 'it means that he sounds dumb'. I explained to him that saying something 'is retarded' is a way of putting down someone and is especially a way of putting down someone who has a disability, which means he is putting down Noah. He then started crying as he realised it isn't a good thing to say. 

After Noah was diagnosed with hydranencephaly I really noticed how often I hear the phrase 'you are retarded'  or 'what a retard!' being used as way of putting down to someone else.  It's particularly common for teenagers to say it to each other and I cringe every time I hear it, and I actually don't think they are really thinking about what they are saying when they actually say it, just like Harri this morning, and I don't believe they are necessarily meaning to put down people with disabilities either, but are just by saying it.

Aaron says at school he always hears kids say it to each other and he will pull them up and will say 'my son is actually retarded and I don't like hearing that', and they are straight away embarrased and apologise to him about it.  I even hate the word 'retarded' even when it is used in context.  Yes, Noah is retarded in his development, but I think because the phrase is used so often as a put down, that I hate using it at all.  Instead I prefer to say 'Noah is disabled' or 'Noah has severe disabilities'.


Even though society is a lot more accepting of people with disabilities these days, there is still a long way to go before people with disabilities are really accepted and loved, the way that we love Noah.

Big Brothers

Kobe loves his big brothers.  He follows them around all day long and annoys them until they've had enough of him, and it's usually then that the fights start.

But they are also very patient with him and teach him a lot.

Hopefully Kobe will be as caring as Jay always is to his little brothers, when he is older.

Little Gym Buds

Kobe has had a sad two weeks as his friend Charlotte hasn't been at the gym as Kell and the kids have been sick for ages.  Whenever we would pull into the gym Kobe would ask me if 'Harlotte' was there.  I would tell him no and he would burst into tears.  We have missed them a lot and are so glad to have them back this week.

This morning we pulled into the car park and Kobe asks the usual question 'Harlotte here today Mum!?'.  When I said she was he was so excited and started yelling 'me love Harlotte, me love Harlotte!' and couldn't wait to get inside and see her.

As we were leaving today they were so cute - grabbing each others hands as they walked out.


We are happy to have our gym buddies back :)

Our Blockaholic

Those who know me well know that I love a good reality TV show.  I love The Biggest Loser, Australia's Next Top Model, The Amazing Race, Australian Idol, My Kitchen Rules, Masterchef, Survivor and I hate to admit it but even The Bachelor, The Bachelorette and Big Brother when it was on.

When The Block started up again this year I was excited to get into another reality TV show and started watching it every night.   All of us started to get into it and had our favourite couples (Go Polly and Waz!!) but what surprised me was how much Harri started to become obsessed with it.

It seems that when Harri loves something, he REALLY loves it and eats, drinks and sleeps it.  He just can't get enough of it.  The show is always on after Harri goes to bed, so the next day day he would watch it online, not once, but twice or even three times if he loved the episode.

He has his favourite episodes which he watched about five times each - the one where they built the dog kennels, and when they were running around the maze.

The only problem is that he watched the episodes online so much that he ended up using up all our monthly data for our internet, so we are stuck with super slow internet for two weeks.  It's driving us crazy, but Harri just laughs and says 'it's my fault!'.

When The Block magazine came out earier in the week he begged and begged me to buy it.  I am happy that he wants to read, so went and grabbed it for him the first day it came out.  He even took it to church with him today!

He is definitely a Blockaholic.

I'm not sure how he's going to cope now that it is over.  He's already excited for next season.

How can you not love it!?

Today was the 2nd birthday at our gym which meant there was an aerobathon plus lots of fun things happening all day long.

The aerobathon was to raise money for St Giles and the Heart Foundation and people could either sponsor someone for the amount of classes that they participated in, or just donate money.   Simone and I decided to do our two favourite classes - Body Attack and then Body Pump, and Bonnie joined us for Pump.  It's great to have Simone back after having some time off after having Flynn.

Pump was lots of fun with Thomas and Caroline dressing up in awesome 80s gear to get us in the party mood. 

They were giving out prizes and said that the first person to put up their hand to wear a leotard for a track (g-string mind you!) would win a $100 gift voucher to Snappers Restaurant.  I straight away put up my hand as I knew I could handle a little embarrasment for a night out.  Luckily I was up the back of the room!

Simone decided to put her hand up for the next prize.  We cracked up as her prize was a free spray tan which she actually won at another class we did last year, and still hasn't done.  She will be looking super tanned this summer once she gets them done.

I can't believe we used to wear these in the 80s! I should've saved all of mine so we could keep wearing them to the gym! ;)

This is why we go to the gym - so we can look like these guys!  Pity we keep having babies and eating too much! :)

It was lots of fun and as Simone said 'how can you not love it?'.  We were both saying this morning that we can't understand how people can't love going to the gym.  We love everything about it - the way exercise makes you feel, the group classes, the great instructors and the awesome music that keeps you wanting to work harder.  We both agreed that if we were left to ourselves we wouldn't push ourselves half as much and just wouldn't bother exercising.

I'm sure we ate double the amount of caloires that we worked off with all the free party food.

Can't wait for the 3rd birthday celebrations when Lisa will be back with us :)