Yep, he quite likes toast

Conversation between two 5 year olds, the Little Guy and Noisy R.

Noisy R: "Have you got any milk?"

Me: "Yes, water or milk."

Noisy R: "Milk please."

Little Guy: "Do you have soy milk or cow's milk?"

Noisy R: "Coooow's milk!"

Little Guy: "I have soy milk cause I'm toasty-tolerant."

OMG too cute. I rang my Mum and told her quickly as I am so bad at remembering the cute things said/done. I'm real good at remembering the crud though. Ma collects Little Guy stories to tell to Gramps. He gets a kick out of hearing the funny things the Little Guy says and does.

And yes, the Little Guy is lactose intolerant (just like Gramps). If you have a child who frequently complains of a sore tummy and sleeps very badly, it may be worthwhile cutting out cow's milk - it worked for us!

Speaking of Grampies, he's deteriorating slowly ... more confusion, more pain and less wakefulness during the day. I'm heading to the hospital on the weekend to relieve Mum and spend some time with him.

If it's purple, it's done.

1. Started your own blog.
2. Slept under the stars.
3. Played in a band.
4. Visited The Great Barrier Reef.
5. Stood under the stars in the outback, the real outback – think Uluru.
6. Given more than you can afford to charity.
7. Been to the Gold Coast’s theme parks – any one, you take your pick.
8. Climbed a mountain.
9. Held a praying mantis.
10. Sung a solo.
11. Bungee jumped, jumped out of plane, been paragliding or hang-gliding, hot air ballooning – you get the idea, you’ve been hundreds of metres about earth in a seemingly flimsy contraption.
12. Visited Melbourne.
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea.
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch.
15. Had a child. Raised a child. Worked with children.
16. Had food poisoning.
17. Been to the Snowy Mountains.
18. Grown your own vegetables.
19. Visited the Brett Whitely studio in Surry Hills, Sydney.
20. Slept on an overnight train or bus.
21. Had a pillow fight.
22. Been backpacking.
23. Taken a mental health day.
24. Been buried in sand with just your head and toes sticking out.
25. Held a possum, kangaroo or koala – or any other native Australian animal.
26. Gone skinny dipping.
27. Been in a fun run.
28. Been on the Blue Mountain cableway.
29. Seen a total eclipse.
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset.
31. Played, or watched, summer cricket.
32. Sailed, kayaked or canoed our beautiful waterways.
33. Seen the Daintree.
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors.
35. Visited an Aboriginal settlement or mission.
36. Learned a new language.
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied.
38. Toured the Sydney Opera House.
39. Tried rock climbing (indoor or outdoor), abseiling or just simple bush walking.
40. Visit Queensland’s Gallery of Modern Art.
41. Been to the Tamworth Country Music Festival.
42. Sunbaked at Bondi.
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant.
44. Visited Broome.
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight.
46. Been transported in an ambulance.
47. Had your portrait painted.
48. Gone fishing.
49. Seen Tasmania’s old growth forests.
50. Been to the top of Q1, on the Gold Coast.
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkelling
52. Kissed in the rain.
53. Played in the mud.
54. Gone to a drive-in theatre.
55. Been in a movie.
56. Driven the Great Ocean Road.
57. Started a business.
58. Taken a martial arts class.
59. Visited Norfolk Island.
60. Served at a soup kitchen.
61. Sold Girl Guide biscuits.
62. Gone whale watching.
63. Got flowers for no reason.
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma.
65. Gone jet boating.
66. Visited Port Arthur.
67. Bounced a cheque.
68. Flown in a helicopter.
69. Saved a favourite childhood toy.
70. Visited the Australian War Memorial.
71. Eaten Caviar.
72. Pieced a quilt.
73. Stood in Federation Square.
74. Been on the Murray River.
75. Been fired from a job.
76. Travelled, or climbed, over the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
77. Broken a bone.
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle.
79. Seen the Three Sisters at Echo Point, Katoomba.
80. Published a book.
81. Visited St Mary’s Cathedral, in Sydney.
82. Bought a brand new car.
83. Been to Hermannsburg.
84. Had your picture in the newspaper.
85. Read the entire Bible.
86. Visited Parliament House.
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating.
88. Had chickenpox.
89. Saved someone’s life.
90. Sat on a jury.
91. Met someone famous.
92. Joined a book club.
93. Lost a loved one.
94. Saved a pet.
95. Been to the site of the Eureka Stockade.
96. Swum in The Whitsundays.
97. Been involved in a lawsuit.
98. Owned a mobile phone.
99. Been stung by a bee.
100. Read an entire book in one day.

Gimme an 'I', gimme a 'V', gimme an 'F' - hang on, I don't want that.

Follow-up appointment with the Lovely Dr L. today.

This time I took my long list of questions so I could get answers to fertility bugbears that have been bugging me.

How often should we do the deed? Every 2nd day is enough.

I have little EWCM - does this matter and can I take something to make more (like Evening Primrose Oil)? It matters a little but is not a big deal and there's nothing proven to help make more.

Should we have a 3rd SA done for the Big Guy to get an average? No, no point doing that because there's no treatment for abnormal morphology so it doesn't matter about confirming the diagnosis.

Will Menevit and slow-release Vitamin C actually help improve the morphology? No. There's lots of anecdotal evidence but there's no scientific proof that vitamin treatment significantly improves morphology.

Can/should either of us drink at all? Sure, in moderation and not if pregnant.

Can/should either of us drink coffee at all? Sure, in moderation and not if pregnant.

Should I have an ovarian reserve blood test? No point, there's no treatment to improve eggs.

Can one get a positive OPK but not ovulate? Yes.

Does mittelschmerz mean I am actually ovulating? Yes.

Is it a sign of cruddy follicles and bad eggs? No.

Is my oestrogen low? No.

Does he think I am ovulating? Yes.

I have lighter periods since the birth of the Little Guy, is this an issue? No, doesn't matter and the endometrial sample he took during the lap showed an appropriate endometrium.

What's our chance of getting pregnant naturally? Well, at the beginning of all this when I was 35 our chance per month was 10% each cycle. Now that we've failed to get pregnant in 14 cycles and I'm 3 months off 37, our chance is significantly lower than that.

What's the Lovely Dr L.'s diagnosis ... idiopathic subfertility and his recommendation is to go straight to IVF. But I don't wanna! He said that it's subfertility, not infertility and probably if we keep trying we'll eventually get pregnant. So we're going with that.

And can I just say here, fuck this trying to conceive business. I hate it, it sucks and I was right - it is a nightmare and its one the has unfortunately come true for me.

Grrrrr.

He said that the turkey baster optin (IUI) would not give us much extra help so to head straight for IVF. And if we were going to, then I wouldn't bother with IUI, I would go straight to IVF.

I feel like crap about it. Part 1 of me wants to leap onto the IVF bandwagon immediately and start start start. Part 2 wants to bury my head in the sand and forget it all. Part 3 wants to keep TTC naturally. Part 1 keeps saying that Part 2 and 3 are stupid. Part 4 wants to wind back time and try to convince DH to have a baby with me earlier. I'm a mixed up muddle of a Sybil-ly-self really.

I always said we wouldn't go the IVF route because we had kids already, but now that the Lovely Dr L says it's the best route to take I am wavering.

The Big Guy analogises that we were in a bingo hall (low cost, low risk TTC) and that now we're thinking of heading off to the casino with a large sum of money and some 30-70 odds. We need to think.

We got an information pack about IVF, we get to pay $125 and attend an information session to learn all about it and decide if we want to go ahead. I'm going to spend that at the periodontist instead because my gums are screwed up too (thanks Granny for giving me your genetically poor gums).

More grrrr.

Too much on

The Little Guy has started school, my Gramps is getting sicker, my Honours project has me screaming and running for the hills, work wants a website and also for me to do all my regular work.

I am a bit overwhelmed at the moment. And as usual I am hoping that the Big Guy and I have nailed it this month (apparently the cycle after a lap can be extra-fertile).

I went up to Brisbane last weekend and stayed two nights in the hospital with my Gramps. It was wonderful to be able to do this, the nurses (mostly) appreciate families staying over and my Gramps certainly did. He kissed me more than he has ever kissed me in my life. I read to him a lot and chatted about general stuff and adored him up close. He's not awake much - only a few hours a day, and he spends a lot of this time somewhat confused. The pain meds are heavy duty so they leave him in a daze a lot, but he does have sharp moments and he knew who I was at all times.

Leaving him was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

He was eating lunch listening to Dean Martin sing "Arrivederci Roma" at full volume and we both cried a little. Too awful to be flying 2000km south and away from him when all I wanted to do was to stay by his side forever.

At the moment he cries a lot as he looks at pictures or talks about the past. He is very emotional and that is so strange. He's been a very loving man, a strong sensitive type who has been sparing with his emotionality and his physical affection. But now, at the end, he is super affectionate and emotional. I wonder if it is an effect of the drugs, relaxing his inhibitions or if he is simply relaxing his guard and feeling everything as much as he likes.

My Granny and Mum and Aunt don't like him to cry, they say he needs to be kept on an even keel and to distract him from his tears. I'm not sure about that but it afforded us a secret laugh on the first night when he was crying as I read/sang Banjo Patterson's "Clancy of the Overflow". He cried gently and then I was too and I said "You'll have to stop that or all those women we love will be up in arms and they'll banish me from the hospital!" He giggled through his tears.

Arrgghh. It's too awful. One ought not have to suffer at the end of a life lived well. Pain and drugs and a protracted illness are a terribly unfair end. Why isn't there a switch or a button or a choice!

Enough for now.

Surgery hurts!

The Lovely Dr. L. did a laproscopy, he inspected my every fertile crevice with a tiny camera, he pinched out a sample of the endometrium and he flushed out my fallopian tubes to see if there were any blockages. All of this under a general last Friday.

Did he find anything to explain our failure to become pregnant? Anything he could fix with a swipe of a laser or a scrape of a curette? No. A resounding NO. Apparently my girlie bits are in fine working order.

Which fills me with a stupid sense of sadness. I really wanted to be blocked up. Then the Lovely Dr, L could have lasered and scraped and fixed me right up and The Big Guy and I could magically, instantly conceive our long-awaited baby.

But apparently the universe has other more mysterious plans for me.

Among those plans are having me finish Honours before a baby is born. And in a way that's good really. At least I will have totally completed my undergraduate Psych studies before taking a year off. And if I had conceived when we started trying this time last year I would now have a tiny baby and that would be difficult to deal with while my Grandfather is so ill. I need to be able to hop on a plane and fly to Brisbane at a moment's notice; I cannot do this easily with small screaming person in tow. So, I guess it's a good thing that I'm not pregnant or holding a little one right now. I guess.

Speaking of little ones, The Little Guy said something cute the other day.

He has been having swimming lessons daily for the last week and he did not like his teacher much - she was a bit stern and didn't have much fun in the pool with the kids. One day when she corrected him, he burst into tears. He thought she was cross.

Anyway, in the car the next day we were talking about what happens when people are cross and how it's good to avoid doing things that other people will be cross about. We were talking about all the people in The Little Guy's life that he obeys instantly and tries desperately to please and I asked how come he didn't care so much when I was cross with him.

From the back seat comes a chuckle and a happy voice says "It's because I like you and love you Mum!"

It's confirmed then, when a child really truly loves you and is totally secure they really don't care too much if you're cranky.

Oooh I am the Mistress of the segue today ... speaking of cranky with children ... check out these interesting parenting articles:

Alfie Kohn's "Five Reasons to Stop saying 'Good Job!'" and "The Case Against Time-out"

I like 'em!

Beginnings and Endings and Lifetimes in between

Today I had to go and have my Mum's little dog put to sleep. Mum is still away and I collected Isabella from the kennels on Saturday. She'd been there since the 26th of December.

When we collected her, she was quiet and seemed miserable and the kennels-man said she hadn't eaten that day and was emotionally flat.

She sure was, and by Sunday afternoon she still hadn't eaten and she'd started throwing up water if she drank.

We took her to the Animal Emergency Centre and they put her on a drip and ran some bloods and urine to see what was going on. On Monday, they said she'd had an attack of pancreatitis and would probably get better. The pancreatitis came on due to the diet change - home to kennels. At home she had been on a low fat diet kibble and had lost the required amount of weight (Christmas '07 she was overweight). So Mum and I thought it would be ok for her to eat regular food while at the kennels. Instead all the extra fat caused her pancreas to go into meltdown.

Then when I called for an update late on Monday night, the vet said that Isabella had developed a heart arrhythmia and they were doing an ECG. The arrhythmia wasn't causing any clinical symptoms (fainting, shortness of breath) so they weren't too worried. But when I called this morning the vet said they had found a large firm mass in her lower abdomen. They didn't think it was a blockage, nor related to the pancreatitis but rather a cancer that Isabella had kept hidden by having a very tense abdomen. Since Sunday she had been on heavy duty pain medication and this had allowed her to relax her abdomen and for the vets to feel the lump. At that point we decided that Isabella should be euthanized.

Arrgghhhhhhhhhh.

How awful it is to lose this beautiful doggit.

My Mum is presently in Kempsey (halfway between Brisbane and Sydney). She's there because she didn't want to go too far from Brisbane in case my grandfather took a turn for the worse.

Because, as the fates would have it, my beloved Gramps, the father of my heart, has terminal renal cancer and is in palliative care at the moment. Usually my Granny and Gramps live in Sydney and spend a month in Brisbane over Christmas with family. Last October Mum and I had decided to go up the Brisbane and spend some time with them over/after Christmas and then a week before Christmas my Gramps was diagnosed.

So my Gramps is very ill, in quite a lot of pain and they have stayed in Brisbane to stabilise him. Granny wants to go back home to Sydney with him and Mum left Brisbane a couple of days ago and is staying with her oldest and dearest friend while life plays out.

It is so terribly unfair for the dog to have died in this time. My Mum and I have suffered so much loss through our lives, I want to scream at the heavens for it all to stop. Now we have the grief of Isabella's loss to contend with while we try to deal with Gramps's illness.

I'm delighted with Beginnings, I love Lifetimes but Endings suck.

RIP Isabella Rockafeller - you were the best dog a person could wish to share life with. I love you and I will miss you terribly.

Charts and chores and getting kids to contribute

We found a great way to help our kids understand how to be helpful, polite, kind and responsible. I mean we raise them to be like that but they're kids and really - all they want to do is play.

So we made up these sheets that are stuck up through the house - Expectations and Consequences. Now everything is spelled out in very straightforward terms and everyone knows where they stand. We had a family meeting and discussed the new system and the kids helped brainstorm the consequences. So far, we've had a great response - far less anger in our house and things are getting done with fewer problems. Only one consequence is applied to any infraction and we haven't really had to use many of them.

EXPECTATIONS
•    Be polite and have good manners
•    Be positive and kind towards other people
•    Remember important things without prompting
•    Help contribute to the family and household without complaining
•    Do your tasks regularly and without prompting or complaining

CONSEQUENCES
•    Cleaning Tasks
 - Cleaning Windows
 - Cleaning Skirting Boards
 - Cobweb removal
 - Mowing a section of lawn
 - Sweeping the outside verandah
 - Tidying a room or area that is messy
 - Clean toilet, including wiping walls
 - Clean bathroom vanity unit

•    Reparations
 - Do-overs (with modelling from parent and then a sincere apology)
 - Pleasantly play game of other person’s choice for half an hour

•    Reflection Time
 - Time in room or on back balcony to reflect
 - Write a ‘reflection sheet’ (why it happened, what went wrong, how I could have behaved differently, what I will do in future)

•    Removal of privileges
 - Treaty Tuesday
 - Toy, or collection of toys
 - Book/Books
 - Night-time reading from parent
 - Reading-in-bed time
 - Nintendo/iPod/Computer Game/Phone
 - Miss out on next treat – all children get treat except  you


For example, the Perfect Princess is 9 and she knows that if she stands right beside her 12 year old brother and sings loudly in his ear he will get annoyed (not being kind towards others). He used to yell at her (not polite) and then he’d get in trouble for being rude while she got away with it. Now, the Middle Guy knows that instead of being rude to her (which will earn him a tedious consequence) he is to come and tell a parent rather than addressing her. Which he recently did. Then the parent can appropriately dole out consequences. TMG gets tPP removed and has no consequences because he behaved politely and alerted a grown-up. TPP got to wash all the little window-panes in one of our internal doors and think about why she shouldn’t annoy tMG on purpose. No one got angry, no one yelled, no one sulked. It was amazing. Or, the Little Guy has this bad habit of running at me with his teeth clenched to flail at and violently land on my body when he's feeling particularly cross. So the other day I said oh no, now you have to have a consequence, it's not kind to run at people to try to hurt them - say goodbye to your costumes for a day tLG. When he responded that he didn't care, I upped the ante - two days then. He got the picture, he lost his costumes and he hasn't run at me and landed on me since.

The other great thing I came upon was the How I Contribute to My Family chart. Each of our kids has one and they are aware they have to do jobs each day.  Ours includes: pack dishwasher, empty dishwasher, tidy toys away, help with washing, rubbish - in or out, clear table and set table. Having a list of expected jobs displayed for all to see and a dot to mark when you've done a job has somehow made jobs more palatable for the kids. In fact, now, as they sit down to dinner they're saying "Dibs on clearing" so they can be the one who gets that dot. It's bizarre but it works. (We laminated ours and use a whiteboard texta to colour the dots each week.)