my 3yr old had a fall when picking big brother up from school, poor kid fell on the cement and grazed his knee……. (first time seeing his blood) well! this happened at 3pm at 8pm that night the tears were still rolling. calling me every 10mins (from his bed) full of orders drink,food,movies covered in dirt from playing in the yard all day there was no chance of getting him in the shower so i decided that my only option was to give him i wipe down, when i took his shirt off he realized he also had a scrape on his arm….. OMG! needles to say IT WAS A LONG NIGHT!

It all affects us one way or another, when winter comes along so does Mr Sniffles and the winter flu. I have 4 sick kiddies at home at the moment, with less than 2 weeks to go until school holidays come along again, I just want the kids to kick the flu and get back to the good old happy selfs running around and playing.
Not to mention get some school work done while they can.
It’s always busy on the school holidays with swimming lessons, footy training and footy games.
Lets hope all kiddies and parents have a safe and healthy school holidays.

I have 2 very tired and slightly overwhelmed (a preschooler and preppy) who are feeling the long school term. They are so ready for the school holidays, just for a break and to catch up on some much needed sleep!
Miss 4.5yr old is coming home from kinder very cranky and more often falling asleep in the car before making the end of the block. The poor dear is exhausted by the weekend and I’ve taken to sending her to bed earlier and letting her sleep in a little later in the mornings.
Master 6.5yr old is becoming more defiant and pushing his boundaries recently. I’ve taken a step back from punishing these behaviours, as I understand he too, is just so exhausted and SO ready for a short break from school.
Poor kids. I remember being this age once upon a time ago I’m hoping the holidays will give them a chance to regenerate their energy levels to tackle the next 10 week term!!

This weekend we get treated to the most ‘super’ supermoon of 2013! On the 22nd-23rd of June, not only will the moon be full, but it will be at its closest point to the earth for 2013. The next time it will be this close will be in August next year. So rug your kids up, take them outside, and enjoy this beautiful natural wonder together. My kids are fascinated by the moon and stars. As a child, I remember my mum sharing her love of the moon with me, and now I’m sharing it with my babies. Just one of many ways to teach them to appreciate the beauty of nature <3

My little darling is not crash hot on the sharing aspect of life, but she is slowly learning.
I try to enforce the lesson whenever we are at the park and she is on the swing or flying fox and another child wants a turn, or when there is a queue, she knows 2 turns of the flying fox only.
I also make sure she is aware (ish) that if she takes her toy into the park, other children might want to play with it too. At which point she usually puts the toy back in the car.
Therefore it is so frustrating when other parents will either allow their child to hog the play equipment, or worse, leave toys scattered around then get highly indignant and huffy if another child picks one up.
A few weeks ago, we had an incident with this dreadful woman screamining hysterically at my daughter for running off with her sons toy car.
Today we went to the park, and the same woman was there again. I nearly turned and left, but thought no, I am not teaching my child to run away.
So we marched in, and mine went straight for the swing. 10 seconds later, her boy is at the swing, with her there demanding we get off and let him have a turn.
For once I was a naughty mummy. We spent half an hour on the swing! I kinda felt it was justified!

I struggled with the idea of how to get charity to the proud older generation in our town that I know really needs it – then I stumbled on something that maybe you can try too – I was shopping in the op shop and went to purchase my items and found an extra $20 in my wallet ( BONUS!!) so as I paid a light-bulb went off in my head – I handed the newly found $20 over to the woman and told her that whoever comes in next their purchases are paid for and use that $20 till it runs out – after she got her jaw off the floor she grinned at me and just said one word – “Sneaky”

What would you do?….you make the choice. Don’t look for a punch line, there isn’t one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made the same choice?

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its

Dedicated staff, he offered a question:

‘When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does, is done with perfection.

Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do.

Where is the natural order of things in my son?’

The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. ‘I believe that when a child like Shay, who was mentally and physically disabled comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child.’

Then he told the following story:

Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, ‘Do you think they’ll let me play?’ I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, ‘We’re losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we’ll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning..’

Shay struggled over to the team’s bench and, with a broad smile, put on a team shirt.. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son being accepted.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay’s team scored a few runs but was still behind by three.

In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay’s team scored again.

Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game?

Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat. Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn’t even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the

Plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay’s life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact.

The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed.

The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay.

As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.

The game would now be over.

The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman.

Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game.

Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman’s head, out of reach of all team mates.

Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, ‘Shay, run to first!

Run to first!’

Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base.

He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, ‘Run to second, run to second!’

Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base.

By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball . The smallest guy on their team who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team.

He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher’s intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman’s head.

Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home.

All were screaming, ‘Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay’

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, ‘Run to third!

Shay, run to third!’

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were on their feet screaming, ‘Shay, run home! Run home!’

Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team

‘That day’, said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, ‘the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world’.

Shay didn’t make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

AND NOW A LITTLE FOOT NOTE TO THIS STORY:

We all send thousands of jokes through the e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages about life choices, people hesitate.

The crude, vulgar, and often obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion about decency is too often suppressed in our schools and workplaces.

If you’re thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that you’re probably sorting out the people in your address book who aren’t the ‘appropriate’ ones to receive this type of message Well, the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a difference.

We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the ‘natural order of things.’

So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice:

Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?

A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it’s least fortunate amongst them.

While in line at the bank one afternoon, my kid decided to release some pent-up energy and started to run amuck. I was finally able to grab hold of him after receiving looks of disgust and annoyance from other patrons. I told him
That if he didn’t start behaving himself right now, he would be punished. To my horror, he looked me in the eye and said in a voice just as threatening, “If you don’t let me go right now, I will tell Grandma that I saw you
Kissing Daddy’s pee-pee (d@#k) last night!? The silence was deafening after this enlightening exchange. Even the tellers stopped what they were doing! I mustered the last of my dignity and walked out of the bank with my son in
tow. The last thing that I heard as the door closed behind me was the screams of laughter.

The man in the Top Hat is a story I’ve heard before from a close friend. He said he’d seen him many times for many years. Says that the shadow figure follows people wherever they go. As of late (last 3 years) hes made no mention of seeing him. He has made peace with his life recently… Maybe he has rid himself of the entity. One thing is for sure, seeing that entity is a sign. My friend was hit by a car one night when he was going home from drinking at a bar in the winter. He died twice but was brought back, he currently lives with brain trauma and PTSD. He wakes up screaming or gasping for air just about every night. But… He doesn’t see the black figure anymore.

2 years ago I was giving a presentation in front of my class in front of around 100 (which is a surprisingly good attendance) students, a few TAs and a Prof. The presentation was pretty boring (no surprises there). Suddenly out of nowhere a Gtalk window pops out saying ‘Motuuuuuuuuuuu’ (fatso). (It was a friend of mine who calls me that affectionately. I am not fat; I am just big) Everybody started laughing all of a sudden. I was pretty embarrassed. The prof silenced everybody and then asked me “Girlfriend ?”

I said “No sir. Just a friend.” Then he said “Talk to her.” with a big grin across his face.

That sonovabitch made me chat with her for like 5 minutes and all the while everybody in that lecture hall was laughing his/her (Yeah. We do have girls in IITs) ass off. He made me write all types of cheesy messages and my fellow classmates gave some really nice suggestions (Those bastards).
It was a week before people started calling me by my name otherwise everybody called me ‘Motu’.

I was really embarrassed that day but when I look back, It was one of the funniest things which happened to me during my stay at IITK. That Prof rocked man. Big time.

Well we finally sold our house in April, as we could no longer afford the mortgage with me being off work and my parents kindly offered us their house (they had moved out) at a reduced rate of rent to help us out. We are in a position to buy our dream block of land and sit on it for a while til I am ready to return to work so we can build again. Now I really didn’t think I would be stressed but how hard is it to find a decent block of land!!! I know we have all the time in the world but there hasn’t even been one block that had potential for our family. Yes petty problems but wow, attempting to ‘live the dream’ is rather hard…

I was dreading the call but it had to come. My grandmother had been having trouble for a few weeks and one day lost the ability to care for herself. She had her wits about her almost up to the end. She was very lucky. No major health issues, 5 great kids, 11 grand kids and 8 great grand kids. I will miss her phone calls. I would call her every few weeks and she could talk for 2 hours before complaining her throat was dry. She did some amazing stuff in her life. I told her I was expecting my third baby and she said I’ll have to stick around for that. Little did I know within two months of my baby being born she would be gone. She was my best friend and I will miss her.

I started my first day of volunteer work for the salvation army yesterday and loved it, the ladies were all very sweet and welcoming. All interested in seeing photos of my daughter and feeding me up with tea cookies and chocolate cake. It was such a great change from the usual mummy duties that fill my day, the adult interaction alone was well needed. I have always been a donator to the salvos, giving my unneeded clothes, books household goods etc. I just wanted to ask everyone out there who donates to please wash your clothes before bringing them in and if there broken, ripped or stained throw them out.

Work, play, kids, sleep…. Balancing everyday life and its many responsibilities can be difficult. I study full time and have two toddlers at home. On a low income and with limited hours in a day to spend doing anything that’s not on my to do list…I too find it difficult to balance sometimes. So take time out for you! Schedule it in! Make sure you have some “you time”, to just sit and read a book, call a friend, have a coffee, a nap…or just to sit and relax. With life getting busier as we edge into the “digital age”…we all need time away to just be ourselves.

TRUE LOVE ..(A Doctor’s note)

It was approximately 8.30 a.m. on a busy morning when an elderly gentleman in his eighties arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He stated that he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9.00 a.m.

I took his vital signs and had him take a seat. I knew it would take more than an hour before someone would to able to attend to him. I saw him check his watch anxi…ously for the time and decided to evaluate his wound since I was not busy with another patient.

On examination, the wound was well healed. Hence, I talked to one of the doctors to get the supplies to remove his sutures and redress his wound.

We began to engage in a conversation while I was taking care of his wound. I asked him if he had another doctor’s appointment later as he was in such a hurry. The gentleman told me no and said that he needed to go to the nursing home to have breakfast with his wife.

I inquired about her health. He told me that she had been in the nursing home for a while as she was a victim of Alzheimer’s disease. I probed further and asked if she would be upset if he was slightly late. He replied that she no longer knew who he was and she had not been able to recognize him since five years ago.
I asked him in surprise, “And you still go every morning, even though she doesn’t know who you are?”
He smiled as he patted my hand and said, “She doesn’t know me, but I still know who she is.”

I had to hold back my tears as he left.
I had goose bumps on my arm, and I thought, “That is the kind of love I want in my life.”

True love is neither physical nor romantic. True love is an acceptance of all that is, has been, will be, and will not be.