When To Worry July 31, 2009

As a parent, a relatively new one at that, it is hard to know when to worry about your child. Ask my husband, he will tell you that in the past I have been one huge worry wart. I worried about things I didn’t even know about! You would think that would be a recipe for disaster, or at the very least ulcers, when the time came to be a mum.

Strangely enough, the opposite has happened and I find myself being less of a worrier. I should clarify here, that it has taken me 13 months to get to this point. There was a period there when any time someone else had my son, I thought, “What if I never see him again?” and that was not a pleasant feeling. But yesterday we took Nicklas to the emergency room (more on that in a second) and it was me telling my husband that everything would be fine.

I think I’ve just finally come to the realisation that there is no use worrying over nothing…there’ll be plenty of time for worrying when there’s something to actually worry about.

Last night, while my husband was giving Nicklas his bath, he called me upstairs to look at something. I thought Nicklas must have been doing something cute, like always, but instead Mike asked if I thought Nicklas’ belly looked bigger than usual. We got him out of the bath and started to get him dressed and his belly did seem rather inflated and felt quite hard. He was showing no signs of discomfort or pain, and was actually giggling whenever we poked his belly. But a quick google search of “swollen hard belly” brought up nothing good. It never does! So off to the ER we went, still not even sure if there was any swelling.

Now, we live in Australia, where there is both public healthcare and private. We have private healthcare, not necessarily by choice, but we have it. So off to the private hospital we went, thinking our wait would be much shorter than that at the public hospital. We were in, seen, x-rayed and home within an hour of leaving the house, so that part was great. The not-so-great part was the $200 bill and the doctor’s look of “What are you talking about? This child is in perfect health!”

We should get some of the $200 back from the public healthcare system, but it will probably be less than half. I guess my lesson here is that unless he is upset, seems to be in pain or copious amounts of blood are spewing from his body, it can probably wait until the morning when the dr’s office, who bulk bills, is open.

That said, a virtual friend of mine has since mentioned that her daughter’s only cancer symptom was a swollen and hard belly. She was otherwise in great spirits. So it just goes to show, sometimes you are better safe than sorry!

Neighbours, Everybody Needs Good Neighbours July 20, 2009

We have never really spent any time with any of our neighbours – a few small conversations here and there. Well last night Mike spent an hour with one of our them…digging up pavers and dirt! We have a burst pipe in our back yard and our kind neighbour helped hubby locate the leak.

I am so frustrated. Why do little things like this have to happen? Now I’m sitting at home waiting for the plumber to call back and hoping that he’ll be able to get by here today.

As a thank you to our neighbour, I baked some banana bread this morning and took it over to them. I hope it was good, I didn’t cut it to check the inside because I wanted it to look like the perfect loaf of banana bread. Oh well, hopefully if it was bad they’ll realise its the thought that counts. HA!

Its just a shame it takes something like this to making a connection with your neighbours. I remember growing up with knew several of the people who lived in the cul-de-sac. But as an adult I have never been overly friendly with any neighbours. I guess that is a sign of the times though. I think people move more often now, and are too busy with their own lives to think about those around them. Last night I was glad for our neighbours…hubby never would have found the water shutoff if it wasn’t for them!

Donations and Karma July 18, 2009

A quick karma story for you…

We were on our way to our friends place for a late lunch/early dinner this arvo, and we stopped at the liquor store to get some wine. I saw the lifeguard standing out front with his bucket, collecting donations. I always feel bad not giving to the lifeguards because they do such a thankless job. They volunteer their time to save lives, most of which belong to idiots who probably shouldn’t have been out in the ocean in the first place. But I digress.

On the way in he said, “Good afternoon, welcome to Dan Murphy’s.”  I said thank you and smiled and went in. Standing in line I realised I had about $3 in my wallet that I wasn’t going to be using, so figured the least I could do was put $1 in the bucket. I had the $1 in my hand on the way out, dropped it in the bucket and headed for my car.

As I got to my car, I saw a small gold coin on the ground…$2! What goes around comes around! I don’t think giving the lifeguards $1 makes me a good person, but it just seemed like a message from the universe that good deeds do get rewarded. Some faster than others. And we should remember that one day, it might be us that needs someone to show us some good faith.

Busy Times July 14, 2009

I started to say its been busy around here, but I don’t know how much of it is busy-ness and how much of it is just time flying by?

I often feel like I do “nothing”, but we were recently selected for a public roads/transport survey (as a side note I’m sure they delivered them to everyone in hopes that at least a few people would complete the actual survey) and I sat down to go over it. It asked you to fill out a travel form for just one day, and it gave you the day of the week to use. You were supposed to complete a form for each member of your household over 5 years old. The form gave space for 15 “stops” in the day, and you had to record your every movement.

My day was Saturday. So as they are coming back next weekend to pick the survey up, I used last Saturday. At first I thought, “This will be easy, we don’t go anywhere!” I completed my husband’s form and it was easy. He stayed home doing household chores in the morning and watched Nicklas in the afternoon while I went out.

I moved on to my form and realised just how busy I had been. Saturday morning I dropped Nicklas with nanna while I went to take engagement pictures of my sister and her fiance (they got engaged last Tuesday so probably lots of bridal-themed blogs coming your way!). I then went to pick Nicklas up, took him home, had lunch, went to tennis, stopped at the grocery store on the way home, cooked dinner, ate, went out to a local restaurant to meet some other mums (no husbands and no children allowed!) and came home. It is no wonder time is going so quickly!

This week I enrolled in my first class for my Graduate Certificate degree. I’m officially a student again and am wondering what on earth I have done? Classes start in a couple of weeks and the class I’ve enrolled in is Friday afternoons, 3-5:50 pm. I almost enrolled for a Thursda 6-8:50 pm class but since we’ve been home, I’ve been asleep before 9 pm more times than not.

I have also been getting more and more into photography, and have started a blog over at blogspot to keep track of some of my photography. I’m hoping to see improvements in the coming months. I’ve also finally added a new post to my photocards blog.

Now I HAVE to get some cleaning done and hang out the laundry while Nicklas is asleep!

Because The Rest Of The World Is Talking About Him… July 7, 2009

Michael Jackson’s death will be one of those, “Where were you when…” moments in time before we know it, just like the 9/11 attacks, Princess Di’s death, JFK’s shooting, space shuttle Challenger, et al. Whether we like it or not, his death marks the end of an era. Granted, he had been mostly out of the spotlight and out of the music industry for some time. But his legacy has and will live on and he will go down in history as one of the most successful artists of all time.

To be honest, I was never a huge MJ fanatic. Sure, I like some of his songs, but I think there’s probably a lot of them I would never have heard before. I don’t think I have ever owned a MJ tape/CD/record but I can respect the fact that he was an incredibly talented and gifted artist.

I think his personal life was a complete tragedy. I feel sorry for him that he never got to have a normal childhood, that he was put on show by his father and family at such a young age. Really, he never stood a chance. I think from the time he started performing until he died, and even after his death, he has been used by his family and taken advantage of by them. I feel like the people who were supposed to love and protect him failed miserably at their job and as a result he grew into an adult without ever growing up.

I think the media, who were quick to judge him and label him a child molester when the accusations flew, are enjoying the circus that his death has created. They harrassed him in his life, and they are harrassing him in his death.

It doesn’t matter anymore if he was guilty or innocent. His judgement day has come.

I can’t wait for his memorial service to be over and I hope that it won’t be long before the media frenzy dies down and we can get on with life without having to hear about him every day. I hope his kids will be safely guarded and not allowed to be taken into custody by the poor excuse for a mother Debbie Rowe? She is nothing but a surrogate to those kids. She gave up any right to being their mothe the day she signed away her rights to them. But that is for another day.

RIP Michael Jackson. I hope you find more peace in death than you were ever afforded in life.

Now What? July 6, 2009

What do you do when you have 3 mouths to feed, a growing boy to clothe, and you have $20 in your bank account to last until pay day, four days away? You trim the grocery bill, cut out your unneccessary luxuries, look for ways to spend less. But what about when you’ve done all that? Then what?

The only luxuries we have are internet and mobile phones. We don’t have cable TV, we don’t have a car payment (although that may soon be a necessary evil given the state of our car), so where do we cut expenses? Cutting internet and mobile phones isn’t very practical, and would save approximately $40/week. Right now things aren’t that desperate that $40 a week would help us.

I look at jobs online, and see cleaning positions at private schools, or 5-star resorts, and can’t believe that I am contemplating applying for cleaning positions. I mean no offense to cleaners, its just not what I thought I’d ever have to consider doing. I hoped that I would be the one sending my kid to a private school, or staying in a 5-star resort, not the one cleaning these places. At the rate I’m going with job applications, I probably wouldn’t even get those jobs anyway.

I have applied for 3 jobs in the last week. They are casual positions, so hopefully a little more flexible with hours for someone working around the schedule of a 12 month old. But the last job I interviewed for had over 500 applicants. How do you compete with that?

Might be time to start eBaying some stuff.

Family vs Career July 3, 2009

When I was a teenager, and even into my early 20s, I always thought I would be a career woman.  The thought of having a family rarely entered my mind until about my mid 20s. The idea of a boyfriend or “partner” to share life with was appealing, but the idea of being a soccer mum was pretty much the furthest thing from my mind.

Around my mid-20s, something changed. I don’t know if it was because of friends who had kids, or if it was because of my now neices or maybe it was because I realised that working was a pretty crummy way to spend life. At some point I decided I not only wanted to have kids, but I wanted to stay home with them, if that was at all possible.

Now I’m about to be 31 years old, and I feel like my life is on hold and I’m worried about whether or not I’ll ever have a job or a career again. Its been almost 2 years since I last worked, and with the global economy being in the shape it is, there obviously aren’t many jobs out there.

I received my enrollment package for grad school in the mail this week, and I need to take a closer look at it all this weekend. The thought of going back to school and in a few years looking to start a new career, at my age, is terrorfying. By the time I’m ready to start a new job, a new career, I’ll be competing against 20-something year olds who will have less wrinkles, more energy, no sick kids or soccer games to schedule around…what are my chances? Maybe I’m better off just looking for a dead-end job now that will at least provide some income?

At the moment I feel like my life is going nowhere. I wish I had worked longer, saved harder, been smarter about a lot of things in the last 5 years. Is that how all parents feel? Why is it so hard to find a good balance between work and “life”? Why do those of us who stay home feel worthless, like we’re not contributing? And those of us who have to go back to work feel guilty that we don’t spend more time at home? What is the answer?

I bet those people who won $50M in the lottery this week have an answer.