Babies Born ~ September 2007 #70

I'm still here too but just feeling very busy and drained and I'm tending to just read instead of post in here, which I know is bad because I feel like I take you all for granted.

Arte, how does the school system work over there? I know in SA they can start school part way through the year too.

G that would have been full on! But so much fun for sure!

Cally, I was wondering how you all fared down there during the storms. I couldn't believe how savage it got!

Just poking along here. Pretty much same thing different day atm. But Uni is on a break till the 25th so I'm catching up on all the things I've neglected over the past few weeks. Still anxiously waiting for the letter to say whether L got into school or not. Hopefully it's not too much longer. I had a dream last night that we got the letter and it was a 'thanks but no thanks' one - sooooo hoping that wasn't a sign!

A had another speechie appt the other day. he is going really well. She has given me enough work to keep him going at home and he doesn't need any more appointments now either which is great. And he's a numbers man! Constantly counting and reading numbers everywhere. Not interested in letters much though :lol: The other kids were definitely readers and really into writing letters so this is a change for me.

Trill, your dream only means that you are worrying too much!! Of course L will get into the school, he sounds like a fantastic kid.
School here is start at 5 or before 6. In W's case being a sept bub he will go to a reception/year 0 class for the rest of the year and start year 1 next year.

I have to say I am super impressed that we have a bunch of math kids here!

Do they have a cut off Arte? Obviously for W only getting a few months of 'school' in before the end of the year wont matter so much, but for a lot of other kids there wouldn't be much point starting in September, or do the parents have the choice of holding back the end of year babies till the following year?

Hi ladies! Yep I'm here! I hit the deck running when I got back from Canberra, had a couple of large assignments to knock over, not to mention all the details of normal life that waited while I was off swanning around, fancy-free LOL. Like Trill I've been reading on my phone, but haven't had a chunk of free time on the lappy to actually sit down and give thought to replying.

Arte, I see your everything-is-broken patch and match it with oven door-dishwasher-rat infestation-washing machine combo going at our house. LOL. All resolved now except for the &*%$ing Electrofux washing machine which was *finally* collected for repair 2 weeks after we first rang them. Radio silence on its progress since then. Get this: it turned out cheaper for us to buy a 2nd hand toploader off gumtree than keep feeding the hungry hungry laundromat machines. Crazy. Anyway, after all that I still think you've got the raw deal with the heater not working, that's awful. I hope you've taken up eating chocolate again because you will need the extra calories to get you through without hypothermia!!!

BTW Pyjama day at kindy = awesome idea!

Ginger, your sleepover sounds like heaps of fun. Yep I would be freaked out if E was starting school this year, but we've got a three month grace period due to our school's entry windows. Phew. Though she's ready as ready now, I'm not sure I can handle seeing her in an enormous school uniform just yet LOL.

Cally, E is doing similar with the letters. She got hold of some of my little place-marker sticky notes, and wrote a heap of random things on them (although she does try to sound out the letters while she's writing) and stuck them all over the place yesterday. I was picking them up today and they all said words like onsie and ehtt and then all of a sudden I found one that said shop. LOL. BTW I was vaguely aware you had some rough weather coming but I totally missed all the news coverage afterwards re the aftermath. Perth's been copping it the last couple of days too I think.

Trill, when will you finish your degree? You seem to be powering through it. I finally feel like I'm making progress, scored a distinction for the last subject but I just feel like the semester flew past and I've ticked another one off the list, I'm one step closer. If I were to do 2x summer semesters I could have all the subjects done in 18 months with only the placement after that. Just not sure i can handle doing a subject when all around me is holidays and Christmas :lol: Funny how there's such a noticeable difference between the letters vs numbers preference with your kids.

Today we waved DH off for 3 weeks which is a little disconcerting because we had an incident with the drunken (and increasingly feral) neighbour at our front door threatening physical violence to DH on Sunday evening. Probably just booze-fuelled bravado, but you better believe I attended the police station and lodged a statement and I will have his sorry ass arrested if he so much as sneezes in our direction again. But it has rattled me, they seem to have saved up every grievance they had with the tenants that were here, even though that was FIVE+ years ago and we knew nothing about any problems at the time. But clearly it's all our fault and now every time we open the garage door/mow the lawns/cough we are trying to make their tiny hate-fuelled lives even more miserable. Oh and just to give you an idea about how classy this family is, about 6 months ago, their 14 year old daughter BIT our friend's very socially affable DD at school. WTF?! I need a Feng Shui cure for this, big time.

helloooooo lovely ladies!!

I am in a carpet-snake induced state thanks to eating non-stop for basically the last 5 days. Yep, have arrived in Bella Italia lol.

Arte: you have NO HEATING???OMG!!!!OMGOMGOMGOMG!! i would not cope. at.all. i hope you at least have some uggies and thermal underwear on hand...i am not joking lol. (or do you have any thick fur blankets ala 'winterfell' lol?)
man, pyjama day would be totally fun for Miss L. for some reason she has a thing for pyjamas...tries to wear them all the time :o

G: oohhh now that does sound like an action-packed (no)sleep-over hahaha. the last one we had ended in disaster as at close to midnight the girls were still running riot and the parents called and begged for us to take Miss L home :redface: (thankfully they were in the apartment next door!).

Trill: that dream was definitely the worry, not the result :hug:

Cally: there was a big storm?? man, i have been out of the loop the last few days (no internet until now basically since we arrived).

MD: :o eeewww feral neighbours....eeeewwwwww. i cannot believe she BIT someone hahahahaha (funny and sad all rolled into one). i hope that they move somewhere else soon. my mum is next door to a feral bloke and it is the pits. especially the LOUD music on a saturday night when he gets plastered.

AFM: well, after an excruciating boring and bumpy ride from LA through Zurich (man the swiss are a clean, precise mob...must be the watches) a boring-as flight to Rome and a LOOONNGGG drive (albeit in a very flash mercedes!) to Pisa: we arrived lol. jetlag has been awful beyond belief. Miss L has done suprisingly well out of all of us and just sleeps through the whole thing, but for the rest of us it is sheer terror hahaha. thankfully now we seem to have turned a corner. it's so nice having our own apartment here again (one of the conditions for coming here lol), i get to get away from family crap and the girls get space to be themselves and go nuts ITMS. it is right in town and tonight with the sun up until like 10pm we took the girls out at like 8.30 and got enormous piles of gelato to eat in the piazza. awesomeness.
spent yesterday picking cherries in the olive grove, a lesson in where fruit comes from :)

Miss L isnt really a numbers kinda gal, she is good with maths (can do basic addition etc), but LOVES her letters....but interestingly isnt that tuned into actually wanting to write words. just letters in random order lol. She is so incredibly excited about school starting next year. we have orientation in october, which she has decided she wants to count down on already hahaha.

Trill, the cutoff is 30 June, so kids starting at the beginning of the year go straight to Year 1 and the ones in the second half of the year do the Year 0 thing. A few of the parents with kids turning 5 in Term 4 are holding them back so they don't have just a few weeks of school and then the big holidays. I think because our 5 year olds go straight to year 1, we go up to year 13. From memory Aus has prep/kinder year when they first start and go to year 12?

MD, bummer about everything breaking! Must be the season for it! Still no heating here except for the borrowed oil heater. Hoping it stays rainy and doesn't snow.
Well done on the distinction! That must be a great feeling. Seems like so long to finish these courses. I still have two years to go and mine was only 8 papers. Never mind though because now I have found some post-grad qualifications that I would like to do so I realized I need to keep up a reasonable grade average.
Crappy neighbors are horrid. I am so happy to get away from dogs-keep-tearing-into-our-rubbish neighbor. I totally don't miss picking up a weeks worth of rubbish from all over the lawn on a regular basis.

Cass, I wish I was in Italy! Glad you don't have to live with the IL's.

MD that is very worrying about the neighbour! I hope he stays away while your DH is gone. I can't believe that a 14yo would bite someone! And well done on the great marks too!
I will be finished by this time in 2014 - so only two years left! But I am going to do part time study over christmas for the next two years so I can knock a whole semester off my study. ONce A is at school next year I am going to do two pracs because once I have done all of my pracs I can actually start teaching even though I will have some study left to do. So in theory I could be teaching by the end of next year which is terribly exciting!

Cass, I am relieved to know that you have your own apartment so you can get a break from the family LOL. It sounds so beautiful over there. I'm not so much jealous as I am wistful and wishing that I could do that and live overseas for a bit. What did you do with the merc? Do you still have it? I'd be terrified of putting my kids in a car like that and be constantly on edge worrying that they would wreck it.

Arte, that makes sense with the schooling. How cold is it over there atm? It's not all that cold here yet really and I'd be lost without a heater on at night. What sort of post grad study are you looking at? So many people I'm studying with are looking at doing their Masters of Teaching when they are done, but I don't know if I want to do any more study. If I did it wouldn't be a Masters degree that's for sure!

While we're talking about broken things, mine is such a first-world problem LOL. Our TV broke and then they turned off the analogue signal :lol: The TV we'd had for 11 years and it still works, but the remote for it died and then because the channel and volume buttons on it were never ever designed for constant and regular use, they broke so we couldn't do anything with the TV. So we took the tiny 34cm TV from out bedroom and are using that. Then the digital TV changeover happened and because DH thinks he is so morally superior to everyone else and doesn't watch TV :rolleyes: he wasn't going to get the antenna fixed so we could pick up all the digital channels. ATM we can only get what the set top box picks up on it's own which is seven, 7two and 7mate. I hate channel seven :lol: and I'm dying without my ABC! But he has promised that when we get our tax done and get the FTB top up I can buy a new digital TV and get the antenna fixed.

Trill, today it is 6 degrees and with the wind chill it is around 2 degrees. But the sun is out and it isn't too bad.
I am thinking of doing a masters of educational psychology, which is dealing with learning disorders etc. I may well change my mind before then, but this undergrad bit will be done right when Erin starts kindy so I will have a whole heap of half days to fill in so I will probably do that or something similar. I keep coming back to education type things because they are the only jobs that fit in with school holidays and we need someone home for the kids.

With you on the telly thing too - we haven't had any tv for about the last two weeks. The previous people left pay tv on for about a month but it got cancelled and we haven't tuned in our set top box. Apparently it is fiddly and time consuming so DH hasn't done it but we haven't really noticed. The kids have stuff on a hard drive to watch and I don't really watch it anyway. Lol, look at us - no heating, no tv, no microwave (died this morning), it is like the dark ages around here!!

Sounds like everyone needs to come to my place to do some washing, watch TV and cook (and enjoy the heater).

Cass - yeah, big storms here. Power outages, broken houses etc. Both the Monaro (mountain way) and Princes (coast way) Highways were closed for a couple of days because there was so much damage just over the border in Victoria. It coincided with a king tide and there were waves coming over the promenade in town!

Cally: :o dude. that is quite the weather system! i heard that perth also copped a battering too! storms in winter! far out!

Arte: and now the microwave?? is there an electrical issue there with the house?

i get to see our baby tomorrow for the morph scan :dance: so will be in hopefully with news of whether we are baking a pink or blue!

It is so a boy Cass! I have even named him already lol. How exciting!
I suspect there may be an electrical problem. The whole outside bit of the aircon needs replaced - it is only just a year old. So no heat until Thursday :(

Cally, that is crazy weather!

It is really late but DH is out for a work dinner and he was going to bring me home a dessert. I haven't had dessert for months!

WOW Cally, that was huge! I didn't realise there was that much damage done!

Cass that is excitement PLUS!!!!

I'm so excited Cass I'm going to wet myself!

Me too me too. By the way you are definitely baking a little prince.

Just checking. What is the time difference?

come on cass. i am seriously seeing myself here.
I'm thinking definite doodle in there.

i can't take this much longer.

Where is she?!

it's the crappy time difference!!!! the scan is not until 2.30pm here in italy and we are a whole 9 HOURS BEHIND!!! waaaaahhhh :wall: i have not slept. no seriously, i am so excited lol.

so how many hours is that from now? i have to set my alarm ;)

Does that mean we need to check in at 11.30 tonight? I'm guessing Arte's gonna get the jump on us, Ginger.

I'm excited to find out - but not setting my alarm excited! Will check on you first thing in the morning Cass!

Ginger - you sound like you need some Poise liners.....

:

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Ginger - you sound like you need some Poise liners.....

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:rofl:

....and the results are in!!!!

we are baking a....



GIRL!!!!!!!!!!

Definitely a hat trick lol!!! she is sooo cute (well as cute as alien-looking morph scans are hahahaha!!)

Yay!! Very exciting! Imagine being one of three sisters - how awesome! What a fabulous family you will have :) I love the way my girls play together.

Yay!how wonderful cass! Xx

Congratulations, Cass!!!

That is, unless that sonographer made a mistake, and you're really having a boy, cos ginger & arte and I said so!! :lol:

Congrats Cass! Thats really lovely that you're having another little girl :hug:

Congrats Cass. I was a tiny bit disappointed when I found out we were having a third girl, I cried just a little bit, but now I love it. I love that they all have each other. I longed for a sister. I love that the baby isn't a boy so spoilt twice as much for being both a different sex and the baby. I love that my birthday, mothers day, and any other event is unlikely to ever be forgotten. And I love how perfect and different each of my girls is besides being the same sex.
Congratulations on a third princess. You are three times blessed! X

congrats Cass. you must be so thrilled :)
are the girls excited about having a little sis?

As one of three girls, they will love having sisters! Congratulations!!

Time for a new thread. Please find it HERE :D