This and that and a 'broken' toe

A friend recently announced she was pregnant with a girl. I was happy for her. I think I'd feel a bit daunted and thrown by that news now though. We are so inundated with boys I wouldn't know what to do with a girl anymore.

The girl family that we do know always get's their hair done by me when they visit though. (shame and every time Griffin's fringe gets long I scoop it to the side and see what he'd look like with a little clip! - I recently even tied it in pig tails as a joke!).

We had a beach breakfast a couple of weeks ago to celebrate a 2 year old's birthday.There were 4 couples there and each of us have 2 boys! The odds are definitely skewed in our circle of friends...

I am so annoyed because having being lazy recently (well if you call working to the point of exhaustion and then not being able to get up again after hitting the couch lazy...?). Anyway I have been eating and drinking more and exercising less, and have put of a few kgs this winter. I thought it didn't really bother me, but on the beach I didn't feel completely comfortable so it clearly does.

So on Saturday (2 weeks back) morning I dragged myself out of bed before the first party of the day and told myself I needed to go for a run. I reluctantly got dressed and then when I tried to walk around my bed to fetch my tackies I caught my toe on the side of the bed and heard a loud
crackling sound (even DH heard it). OUCH.

I was convinced it was broken, because it was standing out a weird angle. I had to hobble around the whole of Saturday, through 2 parties the school concert and some impressive vomiting by Griffin...

It's now 2.5 weeks days later it is still swollen and sore, but does seem to be getting better rather than worse, so I guess it's not broken.

I have discovered that there is a high staff turn over at my company because there is so much to do and the guys end up working 10-12 hours each day (sometimes week-ends too). You can only do that so long before you burn out, and that's even if you are single with no other commitments... I will see how it goes until the end of the year I think, and then I'll reassess the situation... One of the problems is that my manager is very intelligent, very driven and very fast... he also has high expectations and is rather terse on-line (understandably). So next to him everyone feels like a failure.

Strangely enough he is very nice in person, but in the work environment on-line he is relentless. But he has a huge amount of pressure, as the responsibility of getting ubuntu working and out there every 6 months falls squarely on his shoulders... he is also the one who has to challenge Mark, when Mark has a crazy idea... shame ;)

I have also realised that although I have been finding it very stimulating and challenging I am not used to working with so many very bright people. I am used to working will average Joes who are neither very bright nor very driven, and I have always managed to excel easilly and with minimal effort. This is not the case here, and it's daunting. I often feel inadequate. I know I could learn all this stuff, but the barrier is still fairly high as I am having to figure stuff out on my own, and with very little time to do it.

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Quinn's Grade R teacher has still been trying to discourage me from sending him to big school next year, after she found out about the assessment at the concert. I am a bit annoyed with her, because I think she has been manipulating Quinn as well... every now and again he will say he wants to stay in her class so he can be her main helper etc... So I think she has been trying to encourage him to not want to go etc. However when we got to the concert he ran up to her to tell her that the 'special doctor' said he IS ready and he wants to go... she did finish the conversation by acknowledging that it's our choice and she'll respect whatever decision we make...

The teacher's one concern is that Q can get distracted in class and is influenced by his peers, but I am not sure if that will change in a year's time. That's his personality... I also asked her how she would differentiate between a child who was distracted and not completing tasks due to finding them boring and too easy, and a child who wasn't coping... she says she can tell the difference.

Oh the places I have been...

and the things I have seen...

well these are the countires I have visited so far. (Including Canada, where I will be going in just over a month).



create your own visited countries map

Karate Kid

Quinn had his first karate grading 2 weeks ago. We all went to watch and it was so special. I felt so proud watching him. Some of the kids were clearly VERY coached, and seemed fairly pushed by their parents. I have not got all that involved at all. While I talk about it and some times ask him to show me his moves I didn't actually know what they were doing for the grading.

He listened very well and did everything as instructed. Hehad to follow by watching others with the more complex movements but mostly he was very good on his own. He managed to earn 2 stripes.
2-3 of the really good ones got 3, but many only got 1. He may be able to do well enough to move on to yellow belt if he practises hard.

Very sadly not a single photo taken of the event came out, and they are all plain black :((

Here is a photos taken at another event.

Time for school - and therapy

Quinn had his appointment to assess him for school readiness this morning. I dropped him off at 9am, and went back to get him at 11am. He seems to have had a lovely time with the psychologist, working and playing etc.

We still have to go back in a few weeks to get the full report and feedback, but she has already said he is ready for school and it's fine for us to send him. It's nice that my feeling has been validated, and that it's not me 'pushing' him. She also pointed out that we don't even have to apply for an exemption, because although he is on the young side he IS in the acceptable age group to start grade one. I started talking to him about getting school uniforms etc on the way home - exciting, and more than a little scary! :)

Griffin has been going to weekly physio play session for 2 terms now and the physio is happy with his progress so he will be ending at the end of the term. He may go on to have some (Occupational Theraphy) OT too if it's deemed necessary. He is also having weekly speech therapy sessions now, which he also loves and his speech is improving nicely. Interestingly his speech problem is purely a muscle tone issue (as with the physio), he was tested at having sentence construction, comprehension and grammar use of a 6-7 year old (he is not yet 4) !

It was picked up through his assessments that his primary problems were lack of confidence rather than real lack of ability, and both 'Doctors' have really helped him with this. He now sees himself as a 'Bog Boy' and will try things even when they are a bit hard, whereas before he would avoid things he didn't think he could do. I am very proud of him, and it's been lovely to see the transformation.

I am wondering if his problem originated at birth as he had a slightly slow and stalled labour and so we were marking time to see if I'd progress further without intervention. When I thought something had happened, I was told to hang in there and wait for the designated time before we checked again (and got possibly got disappointed). As it turned out when it was time for the check I suddenly started pushing and he was out mostly unassisted in 6 minutes, except for his stuck shoulder needing to be dislodged and turned, and he was a bit blue at birth. I am now wondering if he had a bit of oxygen starvation in that time?

Either way he seems to be catching up with the intervention now and has gone from not colouring in at all, or doing very light and half hearted strokes to full colouring in with no white visible through the crayon colour... He is also talking about being interested in trying some of the physical extra murals next year (gymnastics, karate etc) - this year he only wanted to do music.