Our Happy Little Vegemites

Today is a stay at home do nothing kind of day - I don't even plan on getting out of my pj's. And so as I sit here and reflect on the past year it occurs to me that it has been pretty full on! So I thought I'd do a post on what happened, month by month. So much can change in 12 months, it's interesting to look back and remember things.....I wonder what 2014 will bring? January ...saw as it always does, Miss Emily's birthday and mine as well as a big cross country move! On the way Penelope gave us quite the scare before we knew she was Penelope that is, and proved to us that she really is destined to be a superhero!   My Dad and The Awesome One packing our shipping container for the move Driving across the Nullarbor Plain on the way to Western Australia February came and we found out that our Little Lord Nibbler was actually going to be Little Lady Nibbler! The kids started school for the year, The Awesome One set up my art studio and I star...

Last week was the final week of school for the year (yay!!). To conclude the school year, the primary school where the younger children go holds an awards ceremony. This ceremony celebrates the achievements of students who have worked to the best of their abilities throughout the entire year. Only two students from each class are given the award and a few weeks ago we received a letter from the school advising us that Miss Emily would be a recipient of one of these book awards! It's supposed to be a surprise to the children, they only find out on the day so we had to keep it a secret from her for a couple of weeks. She kept asking what was in the letter and was convinced she was in trouble for something! So last Wednesday I took myself and the Little Miss off to the school in the middle of the morning and watched the Awards Assembly. She looked so excited (and somewhat relieved that she hadn't done anything wrong no doubt!), and I was very proud of her. I loved the comme...

I need to talk about an issue that is bothering me in a big way. I feel....I'm not sure how to describe it. I feel upset, I feel angry and I feel cynical. Not for myself, because I had a better upbringing and childhood than I could ever have asked for. But for my Father, and for the hundreds of thousands of other people who suffered abuse, mental physical and sexual, at the hands of the people who were paid to 'care' for them. I'm sorry that this post won't be my usual fun and lighthearted one; but as the title says, my sense of injustice in the world is burning me so hard that it hurts right now. And I don't know what to do about that. So I'm doing the only thing I can do which is to share this story and hopefully raise some awareness of this issue. My Dad has written a book, which I know some of you already know about. It tells his story; of a 'childhood' spent in institutions, a 'childhood' that was absolutely robbed from him. In h...

It's no secret that Little Miss Penelope has never (in all her 5 months old life!) slept very well. She, dare I say it, is probably the worst sleeper out of all five of the kidlets. At first it was just that she hated lying down because she tended to get such bad reflux. This meant that we (I) would hold her at night from around 5pm right through until roughly 10 or 11pm when I would feed her and put her in bed where she would finally sleep for a few hours! And while I say it like that, she did actually sleep; but as you may or may not know having a baby sleeping on you in your arms hurts like buggery after a while! That tiny tiny little thing that weighs nothing, after a few hours feels like she weighs close to a tonne! Plus you can't really move or do anything if you want her to stay asleep for a while. So for pretty much the entire first three months of her life I would fall asleep on the couch at night while watching tv and holding her. I was awesome at finding just t...