Tag Archives: parenting

Let’s REALLY lose our minds and extend the house!

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Now that the school holidays are over (hurrah!!!) and our stress levels are returning to almost normal levels, I thought we should challenge the whole family by extending our house. OK – not quite true – the whole thing has taken about a year to mull over, design and plan but it would appear the time is now upon us to go for it.

My first thought is – ‘Yay – finally we are going to extend and FINALLY have some room! (and more than 2 cupboards in the entire house!)-  Yay, Yay, YAY!

My second thought is “Are you MAD???? WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU THINKING???!!

When the costs came back we looked around for another house but – nope. Nothing even remotely suitable within our suburb. And no winning Lottery ticket forgotten in my wallet (darn it) so no point looking closer to the city.  Oh, and we have a great local school sorted out for the rapidly approaching 5th birthdays, so – extending it is!

At this point I think it fair to mention all three boys LOVE builders. And diggers.  And mud. Actually, anything even remotely related to dirt or construction. The twins were swinging hammers like seasoned professionals by the time they were three.  (Mostly because the hours of whingeing, wailing and begging outside the shed where the hammers were stored eventually wore Daddy down). But they are pretty good now and can whack in the odd nail. And hammer the odd inappropriate surface (but that’s another story).

The best thing they have built was a walk- the-plank plank, hammered (with a mere two nails) into the top of an outside wooden storage seat/box that sits on our deck.  The whole ensemble resulted in a metre long drop to the grass below, so not all bad, but not great when I caught them trying to get the (then) 18 month old to walk it for testing purposes. Never good.

In summary, we can pretty much guarantee that there is going to be a whole lot of builder watching going on in these here parts in the very near future. And a whole lot of attempts to be really, really involved.

For this reason, we are building a large (read impenetrable) fence half way down the garden with a design brief that it must meet the can-only-be–scaled-by-ninjas test.  If this was not the brief, I can, pretty much, guarantee there would be a couple of 4 year olds imbedded in the concrete slab  at the end of concrete pouring day, the thought of which I am not even going to entertain.

We are also considering running screaming from the building and staying elsewhere throughout, BUT – oh so sadly – the budget is short by about – ooh – ten thousand dollars. Hate that.

So – wish us luck! As the builder said to us yesterday, ‘ Clients’ generally can’t wait for us to start but after a month they are wishing us gone’.  I think he may be right ;)

Crazy kids visit the Doctor

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So, I took the kids to the Doctor on Friday. Clearly the school holidays just not stressful enough for me, so I thought I would challenge myself and see if insanity really was one step away.

Now, I shouldn’t complain, because New Zealand has free medical care for children under 5, but we had to sit in that there medical waiting room for 50 minutes.  Have you ever spent 50 minutes in a Dr’s surgery with 3 kids under 5??  I cannot recommend it. And I know there are probably places where this is not a long time, but we live in ‘lil old New Zealand, where 50 minutes is a L-O-N-G time to wait.  In fact, the first time I have ever had to wait longer than about 20 minutes. Anyhoo – here is how it went.

Put the kids in the fenced off kid area.  Now, during the swine flu epidemic they removed ALL the toys, apart from the chalk and the chalk board wiper. Bless them. Good idea.  However, kids like to eat chalk. Especially mine. And ALL the sick kids in the neighborhood come in, get put into the kids area then touch/lick/eat the chalk. Ick. How many germs do you think live on that chalk?  Not to mention the chalk board wiper, which smelt remotely like cheese. OLD cheese. Old blue cheese. So, that lasted about 2 minutes.

The front door was open, as it was hot (it’s summer in NZ at present) so, as every parent knows, the kids think the street is SUCH a fun place to play! Not. So the remaining 48 minutes involved holding onto the 20 month old so he wouldn’t run outside into the path of an oncoming car. And he screamed. And screamed. At first, I pulled out all the stops. The contents of the handbag. Reading them ALL the books available. Finally, the smartphone (which I SWORE I would not let them touch (and destroy) like the 5 phones before it) and the women’s magazines, read with as much enthusiasm as I could muster.  That got me up to 40 minutes. Now, call me inconsiderate (and, at this point, there were only – like – 3 people in the waiting room at the time) but I thought “stuff it – scream away son!”.  The medical receptionists then began to look at me like I was a crazy mother. And they would be right.

Now, speaking of medical receptionists – is there, like, a Reception Pit Bull school they go to? They are a breed all unto themselves. Officious. Prissy. Forced, thin smiles. If you even smile at a Doctor walking past they look like they are going to throw the phone book at you. And EVERY time I call, they put me on hold. 30 seconds after the surgery is open, they put me on hold. 4 hours after the surgery is open, they put me on hold.  Must be Reception Pit Bull school lesson 101. Put the client on hold.  Always. But, I digress.

SO – after 10 minutes of screaming the Doctor saw us. Normally I am most gracious when he said “Sorry we are running late” but – not this time.  50 minutes is not OK with three sick kids. And germy chalk and a cheesy chalk board wiper.

Do you guys have some Doctor waiting room stories? Do share!

Calling all Parents! I could do with a laugh.

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Well, hello World!

It came to my attention today that, as a stressed out Mother of three boys under the age of 5, I could do with a laugh. And I suspect other parents could do too.

Love my little darlings through and through but CRIKEY, they are hard work at the moment. And the kindy holidays have been SOOOOOO LONNNGGGGGGG this year. And the twins fight allll the time.  Dear God, roll on the end of the school holidays!

So I thought I would write about it some. And maybe, if the planets are aligned, and the sleep deprivation is not worse than I thought, have you laugh along with me too.

Woke up at 5am with the 20 month old banging his head on his bedroom door. And that was after the twins (4 1/2) were both up once last night too. One toileting accident and one wanting to tell us he dreamt of a big cat.  Excellent. Cos you need to know that at 2am.  Needless to say the husband and I were a bit tired today – and grumpy – hence the picture. Which is a fair assessment of most of our day to be honest.  BUT – we never go to bed angry so, all good.

Anyway – this is my intro and I will write more soon.  Hope I made you laugh!! And lets hope it’s the start of something new :) :)