Chores

Both Jay and Harri have chores that they have to do each day or they don't get pocket money at the end of the week. The jobs that they have to do is clean their bedroom before school, empty the dishwasher before school and set and clear the table at tea time. Jalen also has to take out the recycling to the recycling bin.

Kobe has decided that he also wants to be a part of doing their jobs every morning, and as soon as he hears the boys at the dishwasher, he rushes out to help them.

The boys have to be really quick as he will drop a plate or bowl if they are not ready to get it from him!

The other day I asked Harri to empty the dishwasher and came into the kitchen to find this!

I couldn't stop laughing as he told me that he was 'Luke Skywalker'. I didn't know Luke Skywalker had a mullet! :)

School Choices

This time of year is busy in schools as teachers are writing reports and organising classes for next year. At Punchbowl Primary the kids get to list three of their best friends that they would like to be in their class next year. We always talk it over with Jalen before they have to do it to make sure he is making a good choice, which he usually does. They aren't guaranteed to be in the class as the three people they listed, but they will usually get to be with at least one of those people. It was no surprise to me that Jalen wrote down that he wanted to be with Brayden, Katherine and his friend Rani. Unfortunately Katherine is a grade below him, so they may not end up together next year if there is no grade 4/5 at the school. I think in a few years time he is not going to believe that he chose to have a girl in his class!

For Noah he doesn't get to choose who he would like in his class, as he isn't able to make that kind of choice but Aaron and I have have to think hard about what would work best for him each year. When he was in Kinder and Prep he went to Punchbowl full time, but as he got older we realised that he would benefit from spending a few days at Newstead Heights School (special school ) as well. Up until this year he attended both schools with Di as his full time aide. This year we switched him to three days at Newstead Heights and two days at Punchbowl which meant he then lost his full time funding for an aide. He still had Di as his full time aide at Punchbowl, but at Newstead he was just a part of the class which usually has one teacher and three aides to around 5-8 kids.

There are pros and cons for this and I'm still not entirely sure if I have made the right decision, but think he is getting the best of both worlds. At Newstead it means that more aides get to know him, his routines, his moods, his health issues and he gets to know others as well. The downside is that he doesn't have someone with him the whole time. This means he doesn't get his daily physio at school which means we need to do more at home those nights, he doesn't have someone that knows him REALLY well, and they don't have a lot of time as they have to deal with 5 other kids as well.

Because of this they don't spend as much time 'toileting' him which can cause physical problems as they can't take the time to get him to empty his bladder fully. Doing it properly can take a lot of time -sometimes up to 10-20 minutes. If he isn't emptied properly he ends up getting urinary tract infections. Because all Di has to worry about all day is Noah she can take the time to give him physio therapy and spend time toileting him.

The downside of having Di as his full time aide at Punchbowl is that there is never anyone to do relief aide work if she can't be there as they have to be specially trained to do PEG feed, suctioning, toileting, how to deal with his seizures and how to lift him etc. There has been a lot of days when Noah has just had to stay home from school as there wasn't an aide to look after him at school.

Both schools offer Noah different things, so for next year we have decided to stick with him going 3 days to Newstead Heights and 2 days to Punchbowl. I thought by grade 3 (can't believe he is in grade 3 next year!) that we may have chosen to send him to Newstead more, as I knew the gap between him and his peers would be very obvious by now, but Punchbowl have been so great with him and the kids really love having him there. I feel that having Noah at the school benefits the other kids as much as it does him and the Principal and teachers agree with me. The kids have learnt so much from him and it's lovely to see how kind they are to him there.

At Newstead he will continue to be able to go swimming twice a week, which include hydrotherapy in the pool with physio therapists once a week. He also gets to participate in 'community access' which means he gets to go out on the bus with his class once a week to visit different places. At Punchbowl it is a bit trickier for him to go on excursions as they either need to have a special bus which costs the earth, get a maxi taxi or arrange for me to transport him.


Noah looks totally excited to be out and about ;) Kobe, Harri and I decided to join his class at Punchbowl a few weeks back and Noah either slept or yawned the entire time we were there!


Hopefully next year will be a good one for him at school with a great teacher and class at Punchbowl, as well as a great year at Newstead Heights (and very little time off school!).

Fashion Parade

For the last few weeks Aaron has spent every night doing things to organise his school's fashion parade. As the Prefect Coordinator it is his role to take charge of it, which meant he ended up doing most of it as he didn't want it to be 'a flop' as in his own words a lot of the students lacked 'initiative' in getting things done for it.

I would ask him if he could help me with something on the computer and his response for the last few nights has been 'after the fashion parade' as he has only had time to concentrate on that. The last couple of mornings he has left home to get to school really early. This morning he left at 6.40 am and didn't get home till 9 pm tonight as it was on today. Harri and Noah didn't actually see him all day except for when we dropped him off some tea.

Yesterday Aaron rang me with a lovely tone in his voice, which I knew it meant he wanted something :) He asked me if I could spend my morning today running around, picking up all the clothes from the shops, that were lending the school their clothes for the parade. Of course my first question was 'what about the gym!!!?', to which he went quiet which I knew it meant I had to skip the gym and help him out. He said he would keep Kobe at school for me so I didn't have to worry about him, so I thought that was an okay deal.

Kobe was very excited to spend the morning at high school! He straight away went off with a couple of girls and didn't care at all that I was leaving him in the hands of 30 high school kids for the morning!


I think I had the raw end of the deal as I parked in town close to one shop, but had to go to 5 different shops at different ends of town carrying huge gowns, boxes and even a wedding dress to the van! I could only do one at a time as they were so many clothes and I had to be extra careful with it all. After almost 2 hours of going back and forth to the van and driving here, there and everywhere, I finally got back to school with thousands of dollars worth of dresses, suits and clothes.

I was actually VERY nervous with it all as the shop owners would all say 'you are going to be VERY careful with it, aren't you' as they were trusting the school to care for the clothes so they could actually be sold once they were back in the stores. When I got back I cracked up at Aaron in his 'teacher mode'. I know it sounds crazy as I know he is a teacher, but actually seeing him with the kids is just strange as I still find it hard to believe he is a teacher! I now see where he gets his MC skills from as he has them all sitting there in silence as he is giving them this big lecture about caring for the clothes etc.

He sent them all out to the van to help me bring the clothes in and said to them 'by the way - check out the van while you are out there... it's available for the leavers dinner and we will give you a cheap rate', which of course cracked them up. The guys had to stand in front of it for a photo - I'm sure they would LOVE to arrive at the leavers dinner in it.

Kobe had a fantastic morning with Aaron and the kids, and would've been happy to have stayed there all day if I let him!

While I was dropping the clothes off, I said to Aaron I wished I could come and watch as a lot of the students that are now in grade 10 were in my Kindergarten class when I taught. Luckily Alison was available and willing to babysit for us (thanks Alison!) which meant Jay and I got to come along and watch together. It was a great night and they did a great job with everything - the modeling, music, and lights.





Jay kept reminiscing about when Aaron went in the fashion parade a couple of years ago and dressed up like a student. Jay thought it was great as Aaron came down with his shorts half hanging down, so you could see he was wearing Hawthorn boxers. The whole time he was acting like the students, texting, acting cool and saying funny things. Jay was disappointed Aaron didn't do that this year, but loved the guys dressing up in the girls netball outfits and pretending to be girls, walking around with a lot of hip action etc.

The girls then dressed up in footy gear and acted like guys - flexing muscles, grabbing parts of their body, and basically just being idiots :)

After the parade we hung around to help pack up. Jalen spotted a strobe light flashing and straight away went over to do some MJ moves.

It was nice to spend the night out with just Jay and to relax knowing that the boys were in bed (all except for naught Noah who stays up WAY too late!). It was fun seeing lots of my old students up there and seeing how they have changed (or actually not changed much at all!). Now hopefully we can get Aaron back for a little while as he can stop stressing about it and know that it was a big success.

The Way You Make Me Feel

Last week Alma (our Step class instructor at our very cool gym) asked us if we had any requests for this week's class. Sarah said she loved the track 'the way you make me feel' that we had done before. At the beginning of class we noticed Alma had an extra step up on the stage, and thought she must've been doing some funky track where you got to use two steps.

She told Sarah at the beginning of class that track six was her request, so we were waiting for it. Just before the track started she moved her step closer to her other one and asked us if we noticed the extra step. We said we did and she then motioned to Sarah to go up to the front with her as she was going to be doing the track with her on the stage up the front!! I couldn't stop laughing.

Sarah went up and said straight away 'you had better not have your camera', and luckily I did have a camera as I always have my mobile phone with me in case I get a phone call from school about Noah. She did a great job - even putting a few little hip shimmys in here and there with the 'cha cha cha' move which cracked us up.

We now know to never request a track ;)

BTW Sarah - you made me feel hot and sweaty!

where did you come from!?

I'm not sure what is up with the weather at the moment, but having the temperature around 30 degrees in November in Tasmania is unheard of. It's supposed to be like it all week, but I'm not holding my breath as the weather just seems to not stay nice at the moment for any length of time. It was so warm today that we decided to go or a swim after tea.

It was a beautiful night and the water was really nice. Noah had already been for a swim at school so he sat and watched and listened to all the sounds.

Kobe loved the water but wasn't too keen on being in the outside pools - not like Harri who was hanging out all day to go to the pool. He kept telling me we should go (Harri, Kobe and I) and that he wouldn't tell Jalen if we went as he knew he would be sad.





Kobe kept looking longingly at the 'bucket' pool inside. He absolutely loves it in there, so we gave up trying to keep him outside and went in for a play. The last couple of weeks he has been loving going on slides - especially at Mum and Dad's house. Aaron took him down the slide a couple of times and he just about wet himself laughing. He didn't even care when he got sooo wet at the end or had the whole bucket dump water on top of him!


After a few goes with Aaron he decided that he wanted to go on his own. At first we weren't quite sure if we should let him, but decided to have one of us catch him at the end.

Oh boy - he was sooooo excited! He laughed all the way down and then wanted to go straight back up and do it all over again, and again, and again! I have no idea where he came from as Jalen and Harri were not at all like him as toddlers. He is such a dare devil and has NO fear at all.

Wherever he came from, it's nice to have such a fun little man in our family. He definitely brings a smile to our face every single day with his crazy antics. As Jalen said last week 'he's gorgeous, but is the devil in disguise' :)

Billy Cart Challenge

The last couple of years I have heard about the 'Billy Cart Challenge' that the youth have at church. It seems like every year it gets bigger and better. I was excited to be able to go to it this year to see what all the fuss was about. I have to admit I was actually a little scared about people getting injured and couldn't really work out how we would be allowed to have race with billy carts as an activity, but not a game of football! There were some awesome looking billy carts. The Deloraine girls had done theirs out in pink and even had a number on the back!

This year it was held at 'Pop's' river flats - it isn't owned by Pop anymore, but will always be his river to us. I was excited to go down there especially as it was such a beautiful day and we thought we may go for a swim afterwards. When we got there everyone was pumped and ready to go. Burnie had gone all out this year and even had special t-shirts and pom poms!

The boys from our ward (East) always seem to be working on their billy cart for mutual and were raring to go.


This year there were three different challenges - cross country, uphill and then downhill. Kym hadn't arrived in time for the cross country race, so Bonnie asked me if I would steer the billy cart for their girls as they had to have a leader in the cart while the girls pushed. I have to admit I was a little bit scared, even though it was a pretty flat course.

I was very glad that I was the one driving it rather than pushing it as it was very heavy.


The Deloraine girls took out the cross country challenge and then every other challenge as well! They were pumped as they won the whole thing last year as well. They have to be cheating somehow - drugs (chocolate fix beforehand of course!), not actually having a leader in their cross country challenge, or maybe it's just because they are clever and have a really light billy cart. Either way East Ward were robbed again!

After each of the girls races, the boys then did the same race.

I'm so glad I didn't have to go in the uphill challenge! It looked like a killer.

Poor Leia was a bit worse for wear after the uphill challenge as she made contact with another billy cart and cut her leg really deep. The girls cracked me up as they were saying 'we need first aid!' and I reminded them that THEY should know first aid after learning it at our boot camp. Bonnie patched her up, but later on she ended up going to hospital and had to get 5 stitches! Ouch!

The downhill course was the scariest as it was quite steep and they had to go around a bend. I was surprised that there was only one big crash with Aley flying out and getting quite hurt. Luckily she was okay.

Jay and Harri came down with us and had a great time watching the races and playing with their friends.

Aaron thought he'd start a small water fight which I was very happy to stay out of after the last time with the girls.

Harri and Jay thought it was fantastic and were trying to get in on the action as well. Harri kept coming up to me to show me how wet he was and would yell at everyone 'get me, get me!'.

The funniest thing was Harri going to the porta-loo or 'dial a dunny' as it was called. He kept yelling out 'there's NO flush!!!' as he didn't know how to flush it.

After all the billy cart races had finished lots of people raced down to the swimming hole for a dip. The day was really hot so we were all keen to cool down. I shocked myself that even I went in - and it's only the beginning of November!

The water was absolutely freezing, but once the numbess set in it was fine :)

Harri was asking if we were going swimming and we would tell him we were. While we were driving to the swimming hole he asked if we were going to the aquatic centre. We told him we were swimming at the river and when he saw where we were swimming he yells 'I don't want to go to this pool - I want to go to another one!!!' and was not impressed at all with the swimming hole. He sure is a city boy like his Dad!

It was lots of fun hanging out together. It makes me really miss the river and the good times we have had there. There were a lot of people getting splashed or thrown in.


Since Pop sold it, the owners have put a great platform on the other side that you can jump off.

It actually doesn't look very high until you climb up and then it is very scary. Makayla and I decided to jump off together and it took us a long time to finally count to 3 so we could jump!

It was a fantastic day and especially nice to be able to relax as we didn't have to chase Kobe around or worry about Noah and med and feed times, or whether he was okay or getting too hot etc. Both of them stayed with Mum and Dad and had a great time. Noah relaxed and slept under the trees outside all day.

Kobe loved it so much with them that he refused to have a sleep. Mum taught him how to climb up the ladder to the slide and was a pro at it by the time we got back there. I couldn't believe how good he was at it. He just seemed to little to be able to do it so well. He would just go over and climb up by himself and then get onto the slide by himself and fly down and wet himself laughing and do it all over again!


Thanks Mum and Dad for watching the boys for us. It was nice to not have to worry about whether Kobe was going to be run over by a billy cart!

We are looking forward to next years billy cart challenge, when East Ward will hopefully stop the Deloraine girls taking out the trifecta :)