January Fly on the Wall

Welcome to the very first Fly on the Wall for the year. I participated in this fun party once last year, and then promptly forgot to sign up for subsequent months. As a result you guys have missed out on some cracker stuff that gets said around here when no one is watching. So I decided to once again open my house to all the people who wanted to see what goes on in a mad house all the time. So please feel free to be the flies on my wall (what's a few more added to the million that have already made themselves at home around here? Stupid summer) and once you're done, buzz over to the other websites that are participating in the Fly on the Wall posts this month and keep the festivities going.


Me: Interesting fact, mouldy bananas smell like pee.
Mum: Hmmm, it's not that interesting.

Me: I think it's time to feed the cat. Shall we give him his dinner?
Miss K: Yes
Me: Ok you take Bertie to the laundry so we can feed him.
Me: NO DON'T THROW THE CAT!!!

The joys of summer

Mum: There is a fly in here and it's doing my head in (while looking around the lounge for the can of fly spray)
Me: It's in the kitchen, you want me to get it?
Mum: What, the fly is?
Me: Yes mum, the fly is in the kitchen. I'll bring it in here so you can squash it.

Number 2043 of things I never thought I'd have to say to my daughter

Me: MISS K, GET OUT OF THERE, THAT'S THE CAT'S TOILET!!!! Yes I scrubbed her hands with anti-bacterial soap right after this.

While scrubbing her hands after her excavation adventure in the cat litter box

Me: You can't touch the litter box because Bertie's poo has bugs in it. Do you want to get bugs?
Miss K: Yes.
Me: You do? Well too bad because I'm not letting you.

Number 4476 of things I'm tired of having to say to my daughter

Me: Would you stop licking me please? It's super gross.

One of Kim's friends commented that the way she was speaking about me was pretty mean. I had to inform him that when I'm not listening she tells her friends I'm the tattooed lesbian of the family. With sisters like this who needs enemies?

Listening into my sisters drunken phone calls

Kim: You never drink. Even if there's a fire.

Later on in the same conversation

Kim: Hey Anton, how's your small wang going?

Mum got a phone call. Afterwards she had to explain the reason for the call to me.

Mum: That was Kim on the phone. She asked me what that one wheeled thing in the garden is called?
Me: What?
Mum: A wheelbarrow. When I told her she cracked it because she's been calling it a wheelburra all these years, and Stacey finally corrected her tonight.

I was later informed by Kim that she also calls Soy Sauce sorry sauce, she can't say asbestos and she pronounces crayons crowns.

Me: There's a UV alert today from 9:10am to 5:40pm.
Mum: What's the time now?
Me: 10:55.
Mum: Damn I've missed my chance to go outside naked without sunscreen on for the day.

I had sent Miss K to her room after one too many temper tantrums, and realised that her crying had stopped and there was now no noise coming from her room.

Me: It's quiet in there. Too quiet. Mutilating the kitten quiet. I'm going to go check on her.

Number 2044 of things I never thought I'd have to say to my daughter

Me: DON'T CLEAN THE POTTY WITH YOUR TOOTHBRUSH!!!!

More pearls of wisdom from Kim

If I had to choose one word to describe you, it would be Matchbox 20.

In an attempt to get Miss K to form full sentences, we now prompt her with the words she needs to say, and she parrots them back to us one at a time. This was just too easy to turn around as a method of torture...

Me: Can
Miss K: Can
Me: I
Miss K: I
Me: Have
Miss K: Have
Me: A
Miss K: A
Me:....NOOGIE!!!
Miss K: NO NOT NOOGIE, DRINK!!!!!
(I'm hoping everyone knows what a noogie is, but just in case you don't, that's when you grab your victim and rub a knuckle across their head. Of course given my victim is 2 this is always done very gently.)

And lastly a photo. The other day my three year old niece slept at our place as her mum had an appointment in Melbourne to check out how her pregnancy is going along. During the day I sent Miss K and her cousin outside to play and left them to it. After a while I noticed it had gotten very quiet outside, which is unusual for both of these girls, so I had to go investigate. I'm glad I took pictures of them once I got them inside, because these are going to get pulled out every time she brings her friends home once she's a teenager.

Guess who decided to go digging in the dry and dusty garden?

You can't really tell from the photo, but my niece had a dirt mono brow, and there was not an inch of skin that wasn't covered in dirt. Needless to say I chucked them both in the shower and washed away the evidence before her parents could come pick her up. Of course not before snapping this picture and uploading it onto the internet thus incriminating myself anyway. Mother of the year!!!

Well that's all the madness I can fit into one post for now. I'll let you guys go on to the next website now. Tell them I say hi.

http://www.BakingInATornado.com                Baking In A Tornado

http://www.therowdybaker.com                       The Rowdy Baker

http://www.justalittlenutty.com/                       Just A Little Nutty

http://themomisodes.com                                  The Momisodes

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/              Spatulas on Parade

http://thesadderbutwisergirl.com                       The Sadder But Wiser Girl

http://followmehome.shellybean.com               Follow me home . . .

http://stacysewsandschools.wordpress.com/     Stacy Sews and Schools

http://thelazymomcooks.com/                           The Lazy Mom’s Cooking Blog

http://www.menopausalmom.com/                   Menopausal Mother

http://victoryrosevintage.wordpress.com          Victory Rose

http://www.pinkheartstring.com                        Pink Heart String

http://www.spinstersnacks.com/                        Spinster Snacks

Use your words

Hello and welcome back to my corner of the world. It's pretty hot here right now, like face meltingly hot. The barometer hit 44 degrees this afternoon (111 farenheit for my imperial friends out there) and today is day five of blisteringly hot weather, so we're all feeling pretty miserable down here. Add to that the bushfire in a town just 11 km away from where I live (6 miles) and I could use a distraction right now. Luckily for me the lovely Karen from Baking in a Tornado has come up with a new blogging game, so sit back and relax while I introduce you to Use Your Words.

So for this post, all the participating bloggers were asked to provide 4 - 6 phrases or words that must be used in a post. These are then given to another unsuspecting blogger and it's up to them to turn their list of words into some semblance of sense. Today we have been asked to post our stories, all at the same time. This is the first time all of us get to see who got our submissions, and what direction they decided to take with the words we picked for them. The possibilities for fun are endless.  Before I go any further I'll introduce the rest of the group of players. Please be sure to visit them all and see what everyone else has done with their submissions.

http://BakingInATornado.com                   Baking In A Tornado

http://www.JuiceboxConfession.com    Juicebox Confession

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com           Battered Hope

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com          Spatulas on Parade

http://www.eviljoyspeaks.wordpress.com               Evil Joy Speaks

http://stacysewsandschools.wordpress.com/          Stacy Sews and Schools

http://www.justalittlenutty.com                         Just A Little Nutty

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com     The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://followmehome.shellybean.com                   Follow me home . . .

http://dates2diapers2.blogspot.com                         Dates 2 Diapers

So the phrases I have been given to use are...He saw the white coat ~ Hello ~ OMG WHAT WAS THAT NOISE? ~DON'T EAT THAT ...and they were submitted by Dates 2 Diapers

I had always thought my life was pretty ordinary. I had my daughter, my job and my hobbies to keep me busy, and that was all I needed. I watched other people have dramatic and exciting lives, but I was happy to stay in the audience and watch all the fun from the sidelines. But one night that all changed with a visit from a stranger. 

I have tried to explain this night over and over again to many people, but no one ever seems to believe me. It has gotten to the point where I'm just that crazy lady that mothers warn their children to stay away from. But it wasn't always like this, once upon a time I was ordinary. 

This night was ordinary at first too. I'd finally gotten Miss K to bed after three requests for extra drinks, one request to use the potty, and five requests for another story and I was getting ready to settle in for a night of watching mindless television before crawling into bed when there was an almighty thud outside my living room window. I jumped up and screamed OMG WHAT WAS THAT NOISE? My heart was in my throat from the fright, but I decided I needed to investigate in case someone had gotten hurt. 

I went outside into the darkness and waited for my eyes to adjust. I scanned the front yard and the nature strip where my car was parked, but at first I couldn't see any evidence of what the heck had made the noise. "Hello?" I called out in the night, hoping somebody would answer me so I didn't have to go any further away from my door. At first there was silence, but then I heard a quiet moan from around the street lamp outside my fence. "Darn it" I thought to myself as I headed towards where the moan came from. At first I couldn't see anyone, but once I got closer I noticed a lump on the ground at the foot of the pole. I rushed over, noticing how small the lump was. Almost too small to be an adult. "What is a kid doing out this time of night?" I thought as I left the yard. By the time I got to the lump it was starting to stand up, and the first thing I noticed was that this was no child. It wasn't even human. 

This is the point where I start getting weird looks from the people I tell the story to. If I hadn't lived it myself I wouldn't believe it either, but standing in front of me that night next to the lamp post was a giant rabbit. And I'm not just talking an over sized, well fed rabbit, I'm talking a four foot tall rabbit. A very woozy four foot tall rabbit. I stopped dead in my tracks as I tried to process what I was seeing, but as I did the rabbit swayed a little bit and started to fall over again. I raced over and grabbed him before he landed on the ground. The jolt seemed to wake him up and he looked up at me, clearly having difficulty focusing. 

"What on earth...?" I managed to choke out, not trusting my ability to speak any further in case I screamed.

"Ooooohhh" said the rabbit, "Where did that lamp post come from?"

I nearly dropped him back on his head, as I finally let out a little scream.

"You can talk" I cried

"Well spotted" he replied, with more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice

"But....but rabbit's aren't supposed to talk" I managed to say

"Ah yes, but I'm not most rabbits," he said proudly, "I'm the Easter Bunny."

"The Easter Bunny? but it's February. Don't you normally come out in April?"

"Do I look like I'm delivering eggs?" He snapped. I looked around and couldn't see any baskets around so I shook my head.

"I'm actually on holidays at the moment." He continued. "I was having a race with a leprechaun, but I didn't see that lamp post there, and now he's probably already celebrating his victory at the pub. Stupid drunk."

I was beginning to feel woozy myself and tried to sit down, forgetting that I was still cradling the Easter Bunny's head in my arms, so we both ended up toppling to the ground. The Easter Bunny gave a cry of pain as we tried to untangle ourselves. I apologised profusely and invited him inside to get a drink. I figured it was the least I could do since it was my lamp post he had crashed into, not to mention having probably just made his injuries worse.

We came inside and he started sniffing around the lounge room while I got a glass of water from the kitchen.  When I came back to the lounge he was investigating my couch, where I had left my white fur coat earlier in the day. He saw the white coat and screamed. 

"What?" I screamed back, surprised at his sudden outburst

"You killed a yeti!" he yelled back. "You killed a yeti and turned him into a coat!"

"Ah" I said relieved. "First of all yetis aren't real, and second of all that's fake fur."

"Exactly." said The Easter Bunny angrily. "Where do you think all the fake fur in the world comes from?"

"From factories?" I replied confused

"No!" yelled the Easter Bunny, "It comes from Yetis."

Totally bamboozled by this stage I flopped down on the couch to try and wrap my head around everything that had happened in the past ten minutes. I noticed some jelly beans on the coffee table and absently started eating them. Suddenly The Easter Bunny looked over at me and jumped up.

"NO! DON'T EAT THAT" he yelled, but it was too late, I'd already had three.

"What? they're just jelly beans" I said defensively.

"They're not just jelly beans" he replied impatiently, "they are sleeping tablets. I give them to kids who are still awake when I come to deliver the eggs. It stops them from interrupting me while I work."

I was about to open my mouth to protest but things started going dark. I tried to fight the feeling of exhaustion that had washed over me, even for just a few minutes to tell The Easter Bunny how irresponsible it was to drug small children, but it was just too strong.

I woke up with the sun streaming onto my face, still fully dressed on the couch. I struggled up and tried to remember why I hadn't made it to bed the night before when I noticed a sheet of paper on the cushion next to where my head had been. I picked it up and began to read the unfamiliar handwriting.

"Sorry about drugging you, didn't your mother ever teach you not to take lollies from strangers? Thanks for the hospitality. EB"

Images from the night before came flooding back and I rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands, trying to tell myself that everything that happened last night was just a crazy dream, but the note in my hands was making that impossible. I called my big sister and tried to tell her about my adventure, but she laughed uncomfortably and told me it might be time for a holiday. I told my mum, my little sister, even my boss. None of them believed me and my boss even told me I needed to stop working so hard and take some time to relax. 

And so that's how I became the crazy lady around here. But I refuse to give up. I've started a support group for others who have been visited by fictional characters, and I hope one day someone else will come forward and admit they too have met The Easter Bunny.

Secret Subject Swap - Fry up

Hello again my lovelies, another month has passed and it's time again for yet another Secret Subject Swap. For any of you who haven't heard of this phenomenon, each month 12 bloggers get together and swap topics with each other with thanks to Karen from Baking in a Tornado. Then on a pre-determined day we all release our posts at the same time so that the rest of you can enjoy. Before I get into the action, I'll introduce the other bloggers participating in the swap today. Once you have finished reading my slice of the fun, be sure to visit everyone else and share the love around.

http://www.BakingInATornado.com                     Baking In A Tornado

http://followmehome.shellybean.com                   Follow me home . . .

http://themomisodes.com                                  The Momisodes

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/                     Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://aworkingmomswhoas.com/                        A Working Mom’s “Whoas”’

http://www.eviljoyspeaks.wordpress.com              Evil Joy Speaks

http://xcartwight.blogspot.com                            Go Momma!

http://www.juiceboxconfession.com                     Juicebox Confession

http://stacysewsandschools.wordpress.com/          Stacy Sews and Schools

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com                  Spatulas on Parade

http://www.smalltalkmama.com                          Small Talk Mama

So today my topic is You have the opportunity to meet with any celebrity for coffee, dead or alive: who do you choose, where do you go, what do you talk about?

It was submitted by: Confessions of a part-time working mom     

So anyone who knows me will know how much I love to talk. I love it so much I kept getting work in call centres so I had an excuse to talk all day without anyone being allowed to tell me to shut up. (Ok neither of those are true facts, I got the jobs because I'm not fussy, and I still got told to shut up ALL the time.) But one thing I find that goes great with talking is coffee. Give me a cup of java and someone to talk to and I am happy as a pig in muck. Given my love for both of these things, I think the best person to go on a coffee date with would be Stephen Fry.

I am hoping desperately that you have all heard of this gentleman, and aren't all just staring at your computer screens blankly, as Stephen Fry has had his fingers in so many pies that surely even people who don't watch television must have heard of him. Good friend of comic geniuses like Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson (and a comic genius in his own right too), writer, actor, director, and the owner of a golden voice, who lends his talents to kids cartoons and video games alike. (For any players of the game LittleBigPlanet you are looking at the narrator of all the games right here.) He is the quiz master of QI, one of my favourite quiz shows of all time, and he has worked alongside my future husband David Boreanaz on the set of Bones which is just a bonus in my book. He is also vocal about his struggles with depression and suicide, which is an important topic for anyone to understand.

Now for our coffee date I'd chose somewhere quiet and out of the way for us to meet up and meld minds. I'd love somewhere in London with low mood lighting and classic movie posters on the walls. Chandeliers would be an added bonus. We'd get a corner table out of the way of any other customers who come in and I'd order a cappuccino (because I am completely unimaginitive and refuse to try coffee without milk) and Stephen would have....is it wrong to assume that he'd have tea because he's British? Well given this is my coffee date and not his I'm going to give him a short black. (Apologies to the real Stephen Fry if I've gotten your order wrong, feel free to correct me :-D) Once we've gotten our drinks we can stop with the small talk that always happens when you don't have a cup in your hand and get on with the real conversing. The topics will be vast and varied, as I have chosen one of the most well rounded people I know of to accompany me in this fantasy. We can talk about current technology, (Stephen is a lover of all things Apple and was one of the first people in Britain to own the Apple Macintosh computer back in the eighties.) literature, the evolution and then devolution of the English language, Oscar Wilde, and anything else we can think of. I will try my hardest to make him swear too, because if there is one thing I love, it's hearing people with a posh British accent drop the F bomb. It is almost like the auditory version of finding a unicorn. 

The date would only end when the barista kicked us out because they need to close up for the evening. We would be sad for our chat to end as there would still be so much that we hadn't discussed, but we would button up our winter jackets and head out into the chilly London air, I to the airport because I really can't afford to stay in London for longer than one coffee date at a time, and Stephen to his flat. The world would seem slightly flat and boring after my one chat with Stephen, and I could only hope that I was able to add a little sunshine into his life too, even if only for one afternoon. I would remember my afternoon with my hero for the rest of my life, and would slowly bore and alienate all of my friends at parties as I bang on and on forever about the day I shared a coffee with Stephen Fry. So perhaps it's best for my social life such as it is that this all just happened in my head and not in real life.

Well that's all from me for now, be sure to visit the rest of the swappers if you haven't already, and be sure to tune in again next week when I take part in a new series that Karen has cooked up for us. 

New Year Old Me

As always I'm a step behind the rest of the blogging world when it comes to timely posting, but I know you guys will forgive me as always because I'm just that awesome.

So yesterday I wrote about what happened in December 2013, and why it was by far the worst month I've had for a long time. But December was only one month. What did I think about the rest of the year I've just had? To be perfectly honest I can't remember the past 12 months too well, probably because I was just too damn busy to stop and store much in my long term memory, but according to my phone's calendar and photo gallery, below are some of the things I managed to accomplish this year.

I kept Miss K alive for another 12 months

So according to the photos on my phone, the last photo I took of Miss K was on 24th December in the emergency room at Sunshine Hospital while she was driving dangerously. (Luckily if there was an accident we were surrounded by trained professionals.) But according to the lump in her bed she's still very much here so I'm considering that my biggest accomplishment to date. Anyone who has kids will tell you exactly how hard they are to keep safe, with their desire to touch everything they shouldn't touch, and jump off all the things you don't want them to jump off, so every day you can get them to bed in one piece is a win. Miss K and I have had a lot of ups and downs this year, a few major changes to our routines and quite a bit of stress and worry, but she is definitely blossoming into a beautiful child (despite her love of temper tantrums) and not a day goes by when I don't feel proud of her.

I finished my schooling

This one I still remember pretty well (probably because I ended up taking my final exam at McDonalds.) I have since gotten my final results, and while I didn't get a perfect score for the exam, I am pretty sure I got enough to pass the unit and I'll graduate along with everyone else in March. I haven't heard anything from my tutor to say otherwise, so I now just need to sit back and wait for my certificate to show up in the mail. I'm pretty proud to say the least that I managed to stick it out with this course, and I will finally have a piece of paper to show people that I know stuff about things. I still don't know if I'll ever actually use my new qualification outside of taking payments from clients, but at this stage that doesn't really matter as much as the fact that I actually managed to finish something.

I got a job and managed to keep it

So for anyone who saw the post I wrote when I first decided to try going back to work, you will know that the last time I worked for my boss I made it through 6 months before quitting and moving to another town over 100 Km away. (Not because I was scared of my former boss, just because the pickings are richer out west.) Well the 6 month mark came and went in December and I managed to ride out the storm and not quit my job this time. To be fair though I had no intentions of quitting this time, and given that I am older and wiser than I was in 2007 it wasn't hard to stick around this time. The work is still challenging, and I see more horrible things in a week than I ever wanted to see in a life time (such is the way when people start fighting over their children), but my boss is super generous, totally understanding about how hard it is to juggle kids and employment, and brilliant at her job, which makes my job easier. I still have to wear a monkey suit to work every day, and now I've been told I'm not allowed to put my hair in a pony tail while at work, so the demands will never stop, but I'm determined to keep my head down and just keep bringing in the moolah.

I started a business

Yes I am still a business owner, even though things are pretty quiet on the business side of things, but I managed to hit a pretty big sales target that Kaszazz give all new consultants and I'm loving all the perks being afforded to me as a consultant. We have officially gone multi-national so any of my crafty readers out there, check out the link and come see the awesome things you can do with our products. (Ok sales pitch over, I'll go back to being a blogger now.)

I got my teeth fixed

So this one I never blogged about, partly because it was too awful to talk about at the time, and partly because I hate my teeth, so talking about them is never high on my list of things to do. But I did get sick and tired of all the holes and pain so I gave in and visited a dentist. Two extractions and seven fillings later I'm still in pain while I continue to heal, but at least my smile looks normal. There was also one fun visit where the anesthetic wore off before the dentist was finished, and being the scaredy cat I am, I didn't have the nerve to tell her to stop playing with my teeth and drug me up again. That tooth took forever to stop hurting, and there is now a lump on the gum directly above it, so I need to go back to the dentist again this week to get her to check it out, but I'll get my teeth cleaned at the same time so it's not all bad. Seriously guys, brush your teeth every day. It saves you a hell of a lot of pain in the long run.

Miss K started day care

I know I swore black and blue that I would never send my daughter to day care and let strangers take care of her, but as always life had different plans for me. My big sister Sam has valiantly taken care of her for the past 6 months while I went off to work, and she did it without a single complaint (ok that's not entirely true, my daughter is a handful) but the strain of taking care of her own two children plus mine did get a bit much in the end. So I decided for her sake, and also to help Miss K learn to socialize with children who she isn't related to, that the time had come to put her into a program. We had a few weeks of orientation in December, which was actually timed perfectly because they came right after Sam's brother in law died, so she was really too busy taking care of her own family and didn't need the worry of Miss K as well. Orientation went super smoothly and Miss K is loving going to day care two days a week. She starts again on the 6th of this month while I'm still on holidays so if anything goes wrong I'm still close enough to deal with it for the first week. Sam's baby is starting school this year as well, so she won't know herself, being totally child free while Miss K is in day care, but she'll still get her one day a week, plus pick ups the rest of the time, so she won't be totally deprived of her time with Miss K. (Her words not mine)

I met long lost family members

So again this is something I didn't discuss at the time, but I actually got to meet one of my big sisters for the first time. I've mentioned before that my dad had 5 children with a previous wife, and I had met all of them except one. Well the Gods of fortune smiled on us this year and nearly 20 years after I met the first of my half brothers and sisters, I finally met the last one. The meeting was strange to say the least, as I could see the similarities that come with sharing a genetic bond, but given that her and her brothers and sisters were fed lies about our family their whole lives, things were slightly strained at first while we tried to figure each other  out. But my big sister and her partner are lovely ladies, and great mums and I am proud to be able to say I now know them. Miss K also got to meet a missing link in her family tree when Ady and his father finally reconnected after I don't know how many years of being estranged, and things there are going great. We make sure to pop in to visit him every month while we're down visiting Nonna, and while she has no idea we have anything to do with him (Ady hasn't gotten up the nerve to tell her and I refuse to get involved), it is lovely watching him develop a relationship with his only grandchild. He spoils her absolutely rotten any chance he gets, but he also genuinely loves her. He drives trams for a living, and lives very close to the route he drives, so any time a tram passes us as we walk down the street, they stop where they are so they can meet Miss K. It's fun watching my daughter disrupt Melbourne traffic and get away with it. If only she knew exactly how much power she held.

I made some wonderful blogging friends

So for anyone who has read anything before this blog, you'll know I have a blog crush on Karen from Baking in a Tornado. This lady just comes up with the best ideas for blogging, and I look forward to taking part in her blog series every chance I get. I get three chances this month, so I'm over the moon excited right now. But she certainly isn't the only wonderful blogger I've had the joy to cross paths with this year. From Vanessa at Babbling Bandit who writes about her daily struggles with depression with such raw honesty you can't help but feel her pain, to Stephanie at The Pursuit of Normal who makes me feel so much better about my own screw ups, and everyone else I have spoken to this year, (there are too many to mention), I will just say you ladies are all wonderful, and your writing has touched me so much over the year, so thank you.

Well I think that's a pretty good year. I'm sure other things happened too, but if I really gave you a play by play of the entire year, we'd be here until 2015 so I'll leave you now with my absolute favourite photo of 2013, Miss K as a fairy.

Before the new, a bit of the old

Happy 2014 my lovely people, I know I've been pretty absent the past month but things around here have been CRAZY busy these past weeks, and sadly when the chips are down this blog is the first place to get ignored. So thank you all for your never ending patience while you waited for me to get my head above water yet again, and to reward you all I have decided to grace the interwebs with yet another nugget of sparkling wisdom.

So to say that December was the worst month I've had in a long time seems like a slight understatement. There were pretty sad lows, a few health scares and lots of tears. My big sister lost her brother in law to suicide at the beginning of the month, and the whole family are still trying to come to terms with their grief and loss. I knew her brother in law, having gone to high school with him for a few years, and I even did my debutante ball with him back when I was 16. He very kindly stepped in to be my partner when all my other potentials fell through, even though by that stage he'd moved to a different school. As an added bonus, when his big brother finally married my big sister we were partnered together again for the wedding party and I already knew he was a good dancer. It was a life cut tragically short and his absence is strongly felt by everyone who knew him. My heart has broken time and time again for my big sister and my brother in law this month watching them feel such pain and I can only hope the day comes soon that this all becomes a little easier for them.

Also receiving a major hit was my sister in law who discovered in November that she would need to get her leg amputated. She had a bad infection in her foot and it hit the bone. It shouldn't have been so urgent except that she also discovered that she is pregnant again in November (Yay!!) and infections tend to be pretty bad for developing babies, so they had to chop the leg off. No one knew what was going to happen to the baby, whether or not it could cope with the anesthetic and the shock of major surgery, but luckily both mum and baby came out the other side OK and we now get to welcome a new baby into our family later this year. I have already advised I will not be joining her in getting knocked up this time (Miss K is 3 months younger than their daughter) but I will happily watch her swell up from the sidelines.

Then Miss K and I had an emergency visit to the Sunshine hospital on Christmas Eve after she fell and hit her head on the tiled floor at Nonna's house. I didn't see the actual fall as I was in the laundry doing some washing, but Miss K's Nonna insisted that the fall was only minor and took Miss K off for a drive to cheer her up. Unfortunately for us Miss K has a habit of falling asleep in the car, and sure enough she dozed off this time too. For anyone with basic knowledge of head injuries, you'd know that you never let anyone with a bump to the head go to sleep, as you can't properly observe a sleeping baby. Sure enough Miss K woke up with vomiting and dilated pupils and we rushed her to the emergency room to make sure everything was ok. The staff at Sunshine hospital were absolutely amazing, and knew exactly how to examine a sick two year old. There were stickers and bubbles and everything else a little girl could love, and she didn't even realise she was undergoing medical tests. Luckily for us she only had a mild concussion, there were no signs of bleeding to the brain or fractures to the skull so we were given permission to give her some pain killers and after watching her tear around the emergency room in a Cosy Coupe for an hour and a half they were happy enough to let us go home. For Ady and I the visit to the hospital was an awful trip down memory lane, as it was nearly three years ago we made our first visit to an emergency room when Miss K got meningitis. As horrible luck goes, Ady's car broke down that morning so he couldn't even drive us to the hospital. I had to throw Miss K into Nonna's car and get her to take us to the hospital and Ady caught up with us there. Watching him walk up to our bed on the ward was the most relieved I had felt since the whole disaster started and I burst into tears. By then we had been told that she was going to be ok, but I still couldn't relax until we were allowed to go home and I could see my mum. Of course for me, home was still more than two hours away, so it was a white knuckle trip home. Poor Ady tried to make conversation the whole drive but I was too busy waiting for Miss K to throw up again to really talk.

Despite having taken a knock to the head, Miss K did bounce back pretty quickly, and because I was waking her up every 4 hours to take more pain killers, her Christmas started at 2am when she saw her first present, her very own Cosy Coupe, which my little sister Kim had been putting together while we were driving home. It was just dumb luck that she had already spent the better part of her afternoon screaming around the hospital in one the day before so she knew how to drive it, but I'd had the car on lay by for a whole month before Christmas, because I am just an awesome mum.

Pictured: The daughter of the best mum ever!

Christmas went pretty smoothly despite everything I've mentioned above, we had lunch at our place with almost all the family, Ben and Tristan decided to spend Christmas with Tristan's family so we won't get to give them their gifts until they come down for mum's birthday next week, but Ady did get to come and spend the day with his daughter, and watching the two of them play together was a wonderful way to spend Christmas. She got more presents than I could possibly find homes for, including a kitten, which has been named Bertie Beetle (because why not?) and he is quickly becoming one of the family. 

He's pretty cute for a fur ball.

Given that I am very allergic to cats and usually go out of my way to avoid them at all costs, I will admit that he's pretty cute for a cat, and because I am the one who feeds him and cleans his litter tray, I get most of the cuddles off him, but Miss K is trying her hardest to get him to play with her, even if her methods are rough to say the least. Surprisingly enough Bertie puts up with most of her rough housing, only crying when she grabs him by the tail or the legs. I have had to rescue him from her death grip on more than one occasion but I'm sure they'll find their groove soon enough.

So that's pretty much summed up the past month. Ady is still in town, so Miss K has been spending time with him every day this week, much to her delight, and I'm loving it because it makes a wonderful bargaining chip for me whenever she refuses to go to bed. Any time she gets up one too many times I tell her she can't see dad tomorrow if she misbehaves and it pulls her head right in. I've also gotten some much needed quiet time while they go off together so I'm feeling almost relaxed at the moment. Except that we're also trying potty training right now so there's always something to worry about.

Well I'll be back again tomorrow with more gems for you guys, so stay tuned for that. Also I'm taking part in three blog series put together by Karen from Baking in a Tornado this month, the first one coming up very soon, so keep your eyes peeled guys. But until then, as always, stay awesome and happy new year.