Bloggy Love....

I received an award today! The wonderful Lani from Me & Boo gave me one.... which prompted me to realise that she also gave me one back in October. One which I instantly forgot about and didn’t acknowledge. I’m so sorry Lani. I can only guess that I was a bit stressed at the time.

So today I’m acknowledging the first one....


.. This one has a questionnaire attached. So, here goes....

1. Have you had the same friends since childhood?

No. I lived outside Australia for too long in the years prior to email and lost contact with most of them. When I came home I found that we didn’t seem to have much in common and so I didn’t put the effort required into re-kindling the friendships. That shortsightedness on my behalf saddens me now.

I do, however, have friends from my late teens and early twenties. And I have kept pretty much every friend that I made when I lived overseas.

2. What do you value most about your friends?

Honesty. Trust. Kindness. Acceptance. Laughter. Our differences.

3. Are your friends your sounding boards?

Not all of the time. I’m actually mostly pretty uncomfortable when it comes to talking about myself in the real world. I think that’s why I’ve taken to the blogging world so eagerly.

4. What is your favorite activity to share with your friends?

Fun stuff. That includes, but is not limited to, indoor games, outdoor activities, sharing meals, holidays, e-mails. I’m not good at talking on the telephone. Oh, and I’d rather eat live maggots than go shopping with a friend. (What a cheerful girl I am today!)

Now... I am supposed to award this to four friends, but I’m going to give it to every one of my readers who is doing NaBloPoMo. We need all the help we can get!!

I’m saving the other award for another NaBloPoMo struggle-day.

PS. She’s home. A bit wobbly, but so-far so-good. Thanks for all support and good wishes. I know they all help.

PPS. Thank you Lani for all the bloggy-love!

Welcome to the next 6 years of his life.....

Tonight was the Welcome evening for the Class of 2014 at the school that Toto will be attending next year.

It is a beautiful small Cathedral school in the centre of the city (read the story of Toto’s interview and acceptance here) and every time I visit I love it more and more.

The emphasis is always firmly placed upon the well-being and happiness of the boys, whilst quietly giving examples of academic, sporting and musical excellence as almost an afterthought. This approach to raising the men of tomorrow suits me well.

He will be the only boy in the entire school to come from the north side of our harbour (a big dividing line in our city) and one of just a handful of boys who won't be beginning his high-school career with friends from his primary school. The boys come from over 200 different suburbs, and because the school is literally right in the heart of Sydney, many of them travel long distances. The school has a tradition of having Year 12 boys accompany the Year 7 boys on public transport all the way home for the first week or so. They won’t be able to do this for Toto as there are no Year 12 boys going in his direction. They have offered to have a teacher accompany him, but I have decided that I will be the one to do that for his first week. Maybe for his second week as well.

Oh hell. Do you think I could do it for the first year?

I am finding this all very emotional. My baby boy is going to be in high school, and travelling into the city everyday by himself. I myself went to school in the city and I remember loving the independence that the travel allowed me. But somehow Toto just doesn’t seem as savvy as I was at his age.

Or am I just having trouble letting go?

Toto in Pre-School

2001

Cross everything.....

Things have been so great with "her". She is due to be discharged tomorrow, and so I went to visit her for a last "hoorah in the hospital".

And she received a phone call.

The kind of phone call that would send you spinning even if you were the healthiest, strongest person on the planet.

Her daughters' school telephoned. To tell her that her daughter threw her lunch out today, and refused to eat in front of the school counsellor.

Yes, her daughter has been required to eat her lunch in front of the school counsellor every day for the last month or so.

Because she has the beginnings of an eating disorder.

"Her" husband has taken their daughter to the doctor about it, after receiving a phone call from the school saying that teachers and pupils were concerned with her non-eating and weight-loss.

Today's phone call was an accident. The school was meant to discuss this only with her husband, and really messed up by calling her.

And she is in a spin. She is so close to the edge. Thank God I was there when she got the call.

Her husband and daughter came in to the hospital this evening to talk to her and her doctor, and nothing much was said.

I feel pleased that her daughter has been "found out" this early in her journey, and am confident that she will get the support and help that she needs to get through this before it becomes a major illness. I also think that this is a big cry for help from a 13 year old girl whose Mum has been so very ill and absent for such a long time. I feel that as "she" gets stronger, her daughter will also feel less out-of-control.

I am, however, extremely concerned about the impact of this news upon "her". The timing simply couldn't have been worse.

Please keep her in your thoughts.

A sewing day...

P.S.....

Happy Birthday to "her"!

Yesterday's Childhood...

Do you remember riding your bike along the streets of your suburb and hanging out with your friends until you heard your mother ringing the bell that signaled dinnertime?

Do you remember taking your 20 cents pocket money to the milk-bar and buying peppermint creams, paddle-pops or redskins and feeling like the richest kid in the world?

Do you remember walking to your friends’ house and knocking on the door to ask their parents if they could come out to play?

Do you remember putting your roller-skates, terry-toweling wristbands and shorts and knitted legwarmers on and roller-dancing to ABBA and/or Olivia Newton-John songs?

Do you remember listening to 2SM’s Father Jim’s talkback radio on Sunday nights when you were supposed to be sleeping?

Do you remember when a take-away meal was a “The Lot” hamburger (with egg and beetroot) from the above-mentioned local milk-bar?

Do you remember when the whole family sat in front of the one and only telly on Sunday nights to watch “Countdown” and then “Bill Collins’ Golden Years of Hollywood” or “Walt Disney”?

(I know the above list is VERY Australian, but I’m sure you can all get the gist)

I wonder what our kids will remember...

Mine can’t ride their bikes along our streets.... way too many cars.

Mine can’t buy their favourite things with their $5 pocket money as DS games cost about $80 a pop.

Mine can’t have a play-date without pre-planning and parental phone calls and checks.

Mine would dress up and roller-blade an avatar on a video game, but wouldn’t be caught dead doing it in real life.

Mine listen to tunes on their iPod after lights out.

Mine are torn for choice on our rare take-away dinners. But wouldn’t be interested in anything as healthy as a “The Lot” hamburger.

Mine disagree about what programmes to watch as a family and therefore would rather watch a DVD in their own bedroom.

I wonder what their kids will remember....

Sixth & Sixth...

A few days ago, the wonderful Guera from A Roaming Aussie Mum tagged me for a photo meme.

The idea is that you go to your Flickr account (or equivalent) and find the sixth photo on the sixth page. And then (as Guera did) you go to your photo folders on your own computer and find the sixth photo in the sixth folder.

So, here goes...

The sixth photo on the sixth page of my Flickr account is this one, of Boo in our local Chinese restaurant...


... and the sixth photo in the sixth folder in my Pictures directory on my computer is this one of me trying to hide behind my hair ...

And now, of course, I'm going to tag six people!

Fairlie at Around the Traps and Before Our Time

Lara at DiscoKnitter

Ali at Callapipper Tree

Tracey at Just Another Mommy Blog (thankyou for being my shiny-newest-commenter!)

Le at Third On The Right

Shirley at Rhubarbwhine

.... for being the most recent people to give me blog-love!

I had a whole 'nother post planned for today....

(see? I am finally beginning to think ahead!)

.... but I needed to share with you the 9 (8.5?) most precious words in the English language....

Her: "Hi Fe. I think I've turned a corner!"

.... and by tone and content, she most certainly has! The ensuing conversation went something along the lines of ..

Fe: "Holy &*^%! That's wonderful!"

Her: "There's no need to swear about it!"

She sounds SO much better. And she FEELS so much better. And although there may still be some more dancing before we're outta there, I am just jumping with joy because this feels like the first time that I have had a conversation with the REAL her since before she was hospitalised.

Oh man! Today's a GOOD day!

When I was a little girl...

I wanted to be happy. I didn’t want to be a doctor, lawyer, nurse, mummy or anything specific. Just happy.

When I was in my early twenties...

I wanted to NOT have my own children and therefore add to the over-population of the world. I wanted to focus on my career, continue to spend my life living in countries other than Australia, contribute to help make the world a better place, find a kind and funny partner to love and then possibly adopt an unwanted child from a third-world country.

When I was in my late twenties....

I wanted to make my marriage the best marriage that had ever existed. I wanted to have babies and continue contributing my skills to those less fortunate than me. I felt blessed and almost guilty for being so happy.

When I was in my early thirties....

I desperately wanted to fall pregnant. I suffered miscarriage after miscarriage and felt that I had failed at the one thing that I was supposed to be able to do easily.

I wanted to fulfill my husband’s greatest wish as well. He SO wanted to be a father, and my failure to do that easily (yes, medical tests proved that it was all my fault, not his) became a fissure in our relationship.

When I was in my early to mid-thirties....

I wanted to die. I had failed at everything. I failed at being a wife. I was a hopeless mother. I was unable to work. I was convinced that I had had my run of happiness early on, and had nothing but sadness and difficulty in my future. And then...

I thought I was going to die. My cancer diagnosis threw me into a dread that I would leave my boys when they were too young to remember me at all. I wanted to shake their father into changing his priorities and becoming more involved in his sons’ lives. I wanted to live.

When I was in my late thirties....

I wanted my boys to know happiness. And I created a world for them which I hoped would allow them to develop self-esteem and confidence and a knowledge that they are loved. But I was very sad.

Now I am in my early forties.....

I want to be happy. Truly, deeply content. Without concern for the actions of their father. Without a stinging sense of injustice for the experiences I have had with him, with family court, with child support. Without a partner. Without depending on having financial security, but hopefully with a career that can support us without ongoing financial stress..

I want my boys to know that they are enough.

In the nick of time....

I forgot. Yep, that's right. I almost forgot to blog today..... which would have meant that I had "failed" the NoBloPoMo task.

"She" is talking a lot about failing right now. Her doctors are talking with her about when she can go home, and the reality of that has sent her spinning into "magical thinking". In other words.... if THIS happens, I'll be okay. But if THAT happens, I'll have to kill myself. "And it will be okay because you will look after my children."

So I had to dob her in again. Geez I hate doing that. But I feel no guilt. Just sadness.

She IS getting better. But it's so slow, and it's such a dance (one step forwards, two steps backwards) that it's hard to see it as progress.

Sometimes words ARE enough...

It was a really lovely birthday. Great friends, family, food and laughter...









and then I came home to home-made cards from my boys. Toto's was full of wonderful drawings and "I love you Mummy" and Boo's said "Happy Birthday. For 43 years the lovelyest (sic) woman on earth has lived." Awwwwwww....

Honestly. Makes up for every sleepless parenting night.

Thanks to all of you too, for all the lovely birthday wishes. You're the best!