Busy making butterfly stuff....

....for Rosie's birthday party coming up this weekend. She's been proudly telling everyone for the last few months that she's "almost three."

Thank goodness for the internet at times like this when you're a non-crafty type like me. I found both these ideas online. Tonight I spent the evening gluing tiny eyes onto clothespegs for the party bags. I was wondering whether to let the kids paint them themselves with glitter glue pens but I don't think they'll dry in time so it looks like I might get to have fun doing that bit as well. So I might let them attach the little antennae on the day with some adult assistance.

School signs spelled wrongly....

It's not quite as bad as the one pictured above, but our school's sign regularly has spelling errors on it. I think it's because the school handyman puts the messages up. I like to see how long it takes someone to mention in the office that it's incorrect and for him to then change it to the right spelling. Usually it's done within a couple of days.

The message being put up today said "Good luck athletes at the distrit carnival."  As I was driving off after dropping off the kids, I saw the guy putting the letters on and wished it wasn't too busy to wind down the window and ask one of the boys to tell him how to spell "district" as they were going past.

I am a bit of a spelling nazi, and seeing words spelled incorrectly on signage does grate on me a little. Not usually enough for me to tell anyone about it though. Obviously it annoys others more since they actually do tell someone. Or maybe one of the teachers picks it up and has a quiet word to get it all sorted.

Tuesday night television revival

Usually I find Tuesday evenings on television to be a bit of a graveyard. Not such a bad thing since I've been putting aside that time to prepare whatever topic I'm tutoring about for the week.

But last night the ABC was on fire. First up was the final of Race to London, the final in a six part series about six potential Olympians. I particularly enjoyed the Paralympians they included. I discovered that the guy who coaches the wheelchair rugby team was a bloke I prescribed a wheelchair for once in a long-ago job. Prescribed is probably too generous a way to describe it really. He came to me, told me what he wanted, and I filled in the paperwork so he could get it through the government's equipment supply scheme. An easy customer in the often complex world of wheelchair prescription.

Then Foreign Correspondent had a great documentary called "Globesity" about the spread of the obesity crisis from the Western world into less developed countries. Some of the statistics on the rise of diseases like Type 2 diabetes in countries like India and Mexico were incredible. Junk food companies like to talk about "the individual's responsibility to maintain good health" but in countries where the history has been of a lack of rather than abundance of food, I think the companies need to take a good hard look at themselves and their marketing techniques.

And finally, on Artscape, a fantastic story called Margaret Olley: A Life in Paint (image above from here). Amazing insights into the way she worked. There were interviews with Margaret and with her close friends about her life and art. She died the way I think I would like to one day. She created a beautiful painting, then went to bed and passed away peacefully in her sleep at the age of 88. Well, I probably won't be creating the great painting. But it sounds like a lovely way to go.

Some money from her trust was donated to our local art gallery after her death and they are going to use the money to build an extension called the Margaret Olley Art Centre, which will include a recreation of her studio and include elements of her home and artworks. I think it will be amazing to see when it is all finished.

A very interesting evening, all up. And in amongst all of that quality viewing, I had to find time to learn how to use crutches for this week's Uni tutorial. In my opinion, a useless skill to teach occupational therapists because I have never worked anywhere that an OT has been allowed to prescribe and teach clients how to use them. That's what Physios are for. I would have been pretty hopeless at teaching them anything about this, but fortunately my helpful husband physio was on hand to borrow crutches from his workplace and show me what to do with them. I'm not a very co-ordinated type so I think another evening of practice lies ahead. Stairs are still challenging.

This one's not bad either

I love listening to good piano players. And the cello man's cool too.

Here's a cool cover of Adele...

This song has had so much air play, it's become a bit boring. This version makes it bearable again.

Being sick....before and after having kids....

Before having kids, being sick meant taking a day or two off work, foraging in the fridge for whatever I could handle the thought of eating, sleeping for ages, maybe even reading a book or watching a DVD or two as the fog of being unwell cleared away.

Not these days.

I'm still not feeling great. I've been mildly unwell for several days, but yesterday afternoon my sore throat and stuffy head took a nosedive into something more full-on. As in struggling to move off the couch, unable to face the thought of the afternoon round of jobs kind of sick. And Rowan was sick too. As in not keen to feed, constantly whingeing and miserable kind of sick.

The difference between being sick before kids and being sick now is that somehow, you still need to keep functioning so the rest of the family can stay afloat. When I finally summoned the strength to get outside to bring the washing in yesterday afternoon (three days worth because we're catching up from being away over the weekend, and a lot of it needing the tumble dryer), Rowan pulled the folded up playpen over on top of him while he was crawling around exploring and whingeing. He needed a lengthy cuddle to sort that out, plus another few minutes to offload him onto one of the bigger kids to stop him from getting into anything else. Having to put some kind of semi-healthy meal together for all the less sick people still had to be done even though most food is tasting like cardboard to me at the moment. Fortunately my husband arrived home from work as the dinner was almost ready to put in the oven, so he could take over with the evening routine (much appreciated, Chris, if you're reading!).

It's hard to stay patient when your head feels like it's about to explode. Not that it's all that easy for me even when I'm not sick. But that pre-kids ability to crawl off into the cosy cave under the doona and recover is a distant memory now. Now if I'm lucky enough to manage to get into bed when I'm sick to start with, I'm likely to be clinging the whole time to the 8 month old's ankle to stop him escaping. And keeping an ear out for what the two year old might be getting into.

Deb wrote a great post about being angry with your kids

Read it here.

I feel like this. Often. But I love the way she points out that dealing with this issue isn't about us becoming a more competent parent. It's about acknowledging our dependence on God:

"I am dismayed when I think of the stupidity of my anger and temper. But the solution is not going to come from me. I thank God that I’ve found a source of grace that covers all my failings. In the end, I want my patience to come not from me becoming a stronger and more competent person because the truth is that is always going to be a shallow pool from which to draw. I want instead to become a much more dependent person, drawing whenever I need it from the ocean that is God’s grace and patience. Then I’ll never run dry."