In the Night Garden

How many of you have heard of the BBC show In the Night Garden? It’s one of the most ridiculous children’s television programmes I have ever seen. It was made by the creators of the Teletubbies (need I say more?) and 100 episodes were commissioned by the BBC with a budget of £14.5 million.

To our horror, In the Night Garden has become Tyler’s favourite show. The characters are Iggle Piggle, Upsy Daisy, Tombliboo and Makka Pakka.

And do you know what Tyler has done? He has renamed each member of our family with one of these names. That’s right, I am NOT Mummy, I am Makka Pakka. Rob is NOT Daddy, he is Iggle Piggle. Tyler is Upsy Daisy. Ethan is Tombliboo.

* Iggle Piggle always carries a blanket with him. So Tyler very kindly gave Iggle Piggle (Rob) his blankie. He gives it to him at bedtime, and then calls out about 1/2 hour later because he can’t sleep without it. Sigh.
* While Rob was away, Tyler would say “Where’s Iggle Piggle?” and “When is Iggle Piggle coming home?”
* Each morning when Tyler wakes up, he calls out “Iggle Piggle! Iggle Piggle! Come on, you can do it!”
* If Ethan or I accidentally call Rob “Daddy”, we are severely reprimanded: “He’s not Daddy! He’s Iggle Piggle!” We are similarly chastised if we call Tyler by his actual name. We must call him Upsy Daisy.
* Last Friday Tyler and I visited Rob at work. Tyler called him Iggle Piggle in front of his workmates. I’m thinking Rob’s going to be getting some serious stick about that one.

Tyler seems to forget my “name” though. He’s all about Iggle Piggle (he always HAS been a Daddy’s boy). He forgets that he has renamed me Makka Pakka, so he’s been calling me Wakka Who. I don’t know where it came from, but that’s what he calls me.

This is what it sounds like in our house these days:

“Wakka Who, where are you?”
“I’m in the kitchen, Upsy Daisy. Can you please tell Iggle Piggle and Tombliboo that dinner is ready?”
“OK, Wakka Who. Iggle Piggle, dinner is ready!”
“Coming, Upsy Daisy.”

I sure as heck hope that TVNZ did NOT buy all 100 episodes.

Missing my man …

Rob has gone snowboarding for a few days, and I miss him!!

We really haven’t spent that much time apart since we got married, so I really miss him when he’s not here. I know some couples need/want plenty of time apart, but we are not one of those couples! We simply enjoy spending our time together.

As much as I really enjoy “me” time, girls-only shopping sprees and girly nights out every now and then, I would still choose my husband as the person I would prefer to hang out with on a Saturday night.

I’m excited that he is coming home tonight. It will be late when he gets home, but I will wait up for him. I don’t sleep very well when I’m on my own. When I went to Canada for 12 days last year, I slept terribly. Despite having a HUGE comfortable King-sized bed, beautiful linen, soft pillows, blackout curtains and air-con in my flashy hotel room, I found it hard to sleep. A small part of it was probably jet-lag – not feeling tired at night because my body clock was out of whack. But mostly, I was just missing my man!

Sorry if this sounds ridiculous to those of you whose partners are often away on business for extended periods. I’m sure it seems a bit OTT for me to be missing Rob so much after such a short time apart. I’m just thankful that I don’t have to do this very often … I really doubt I could handle it!

Scrapping contest

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m taking part in Scrapbook Essentials “Ultimate Scrapbooking Champion” contest.

I was excited to discover this morning that I was placed 1st equal for challenge #3, which was to create a layout using no photos.
My layout is called “Notes, notes, notes”. I just HAD to scrap all these little pieces of paper that Ethan practices his words on – I find them all over the house!

The journalling reads: “Shortly after he started school, Ethan began to write all his new words on little pieces of note paper and leave them around the house. I love his enthusiasm for writing. He always wants to learn more words. I am so very proud of him.”

Oops, I just realised I haven’t yet shared my layout from challenge #2, which was to scrap an aspect of Everyday Life.
I did my layout about working from home. It’s part of my everyday life now!

The journalling reads: “Not having to drive to work everyday is awesome! I just LOVE working from home! I love the freedom and flexibility it brings. I’m doing a job I love, with the best work/life balance imaginable! My everyday routine consists of coming downstairs and starting up my PC! I can work when I want, fitting in other things that are important to me.”

Pay It Forward

Pay It Forward (P.I.F.) is a really neat concept. I was completely taken with it from the time I saw the movie starring Helen Hunt, Kevin Spacey and Haley Joel Osment. If you haven’t seen it, rent it!

Now P.I.F. is happening in blogland, and I think that’s great! My name was drawn by Roo. Now, as a recipient, it is my responsibility to continue the chain.

I will send a small gift to 3 randomly-selected people who leave a comment on this post. Then those 3 people will “pay it forward” by doing the same thing on their blogs.

I’ll draw the names on Monday, so you’ve got a couple of days to leave your comments and be in the draw!

P.S. This is open to my overseas blogging buddies too. I am perfectly happy to post a small gift to you, no matter where in the world you live!

*EDITED* It’s now Monday. I’ve done the draw, and the 3 names I pulled out are … Ilka, Karen and Kami! I will email you to get your addresses (I have yours, Karen). And remember, you now have to PIF!

Cross Country

I just got back from Ethan’s first Cross Country!
It was supposed to be last Friday, but it was postponed because of the awful weather. What a great decision — today is a beautiful day here, just perfect weather for it.

Ethan has been So. Very. Excited. since they started “training” for it 3-4 weeks ago. He’s been counting down the days, and was quite disappointed about it being postponed. This morning he was jumping up and down with excitement, and was a little put out when he arrived at school and realised they wouldn’t be running until after lunch!

Rob and I both took time out of our workday to go and watch Ethan run. It was the cutest thing to watch all the Year 0/1 kids! They started off doing their jumping jacks to warm up, and they looked so cute! The girls raced first, and then the boys.
Ethan’s face lit up when he saw us. A couple of times during the race I saw him start to slow down a little, but then he would look up and see me (or more likely Rob, who’d climbed to the top of the fireman’s pole for a better view) and he would smile and pick up his pace again.

He finished somewhere in the back half of the pack. He’s not the fastest runner in the world, but what made me proud was how he tried his best and how much he was looking forward to it. He’s doing really well academically, so it’s encouraging to see him getting really excited about a sports event and taking part so enthusiastically. I really want him to be well-rounded and to enjoy all aspects of school.

It was difficult to get decent photos of him running, as all 5-year-old boys look the same from a distance, and they were moving at a pretty fast pace! But here are a few photos I managed to snap:

The Year 0/1 boys waiting to start:

Ethan coming through the finish line:

Waving “hello” at the end of the race:

Sitting down for a rest — ya gotta love those flushed cheeks!

He makes me smile

Ethan drew this picture yesterday:

As soon as I saw it, I smiled! Isn’t it cute?! I love the picture of Rob, complete with curly hair and striped shirt (just like the one he was wearing yesterday). And what a gorgeous sentence: “I like the way I am.”
So do I, buddy. So do I.

He wrote it all by himself. The only word he needed to ask how to spell was “way”. He knew all the other ones.
He’s learning about 10 new words each week. He teaches himself new words on a daily basis – he sees them in all sorts of places, and then adds them to his repertoire. He writes them in his notebook, or on pieces of paper. He spells them in the bath with the sticky letters. He points to them in books, on TV, or on signs.

Each morning when he gets to school, he loves to grab a small whiteboard and write as many words as he can. All the kids are encouraged to do this, but most of them just play with the toys until the bell goes. Not Ethan! This morning he wowed his teacher by writing 3 or 4 new words that he had taught himself over the weekend: bee, egg, little and Rob. She said he’s a visual learner. I think that’s true. He will see a word he doesn’t know, sound it out, ask us what it is and then proceed to spell it out loud and write it down somewhere. Then it’s in his head to stay.

Last week he got another certificate from his teacher. He had a reading test on Thursday and was put up another 3 reading groups. Since he started school in early June, he’s gone up 7 or 8 reading groups. So he got a certificate for making a great “leap” with his reading.

I’m obviously very proud of him, but more than that, I am fascinated by him. I’m fascinated watching the way he learns. I guess it’s the way all kids learn, but since he is my eldest child and I’m not a teacher, I haven’t seen it firsthand until now. When I think about how much they learn at this age, it’s just mind blowing! They truly are just little sponges, soaking everything up and wanting to know more all the time. I love it!!

Ear infections

Tyler has a double ear infection.

There’s a bit of history here that you should know about. He had grommets (tubes) put in when he was 18 months old. You can read all about it here. And here. And here.

Since the surgery, things have been pretty good. One of the grommets fell out after about 9 months (bummer!) and he got a couple of mild ear infections after that, but thankfully they cleared up on their own. I say thankfully, because Tyler doesn’t respond well to antibiotics. Probably because he was on them constantly for the first 4 months of his life due to repeated urinary tract infections. He eventually had an operation to fix that problem, but in the meantime he’d built up somewhat of a resistance to the normally prescribed children’s antibiotics. Stink, huh?

Anyway, Tyler has had 4 colds in the last 6 weeks. We had taken him to the doctor sometime during cold #1 or #2, just to check his ears. One of them looked a bit “dull” so we had to keep going back every couple of weeks to check it. Rob took him on Monday, and it was still looking dull. The doctor gave us the usual line: bring him back in 2 weeks, or earlier if he gets another cold. The next day, he got cold #4. So it was off to the doctor the next day. One of his ears looked normal, and the other one was “just starting”.

The doctor wanted to take a watch-and-wait approach, so we had another appointment 24h later. As soon as she saw Tyler the next day (yesterday), she said “He’s full of beans!” (he was!) and “I’m sure his ears will be fine, but we’ll just have a quick look”.
She almost fell off her chair when she looked at his ears. The one that was normal on Wednesday was “absolutely horrible” and the one that was “just starting” was even worse! Oh, and the second grommet has fallen out (bummer again!) She was shocked that he was so bright and chirpy, and had slept all night! Well, that’s what both my boys have been like with their ear infections. I’d never know if I didn’t make the doctor’s surgery my second home!

He’s now on antibiotics. The doctor agreed that we wouldn’t even *try* the usual ones (aka the ones that never worked in the past). Instead, we’d pull out the big guns. Augmentin. The diarrhoea started less than an hour after his first dose. Nice.

Now we have a hard decision to make. Do we get the grommets put back in?
The doctor said if this infection is recurrent, or if he gets another one before winter/spring is over, then we probably should get them put back in. But she’s hoping that we can get him through the winter months without any more. And by the time next winter rolls around he’ll be almost 4 and his eustachian tubes will be bigger. That’s what happened with Ethan, he grew out of them before he turned 4.

I really don’t want to go through another operation.
He’s had 2 already, and he’s not even 3! It was traumatic enough last time, and he wasn’t really old enough to know what was happening then. At age 3, I shudder to think about how he’d handle it.
So I’m thinking of looking into some alternative therapies, if necessary. A few things have been recommended to me: Bowen therapy, tea tree oil, ear candling, echinacea, cranial osteopathy, homeopathic ear drops, etc.
I’m the kind of person who needs to research things well before trying them. I’m also the kind of person who believes in the power of prayer. So if you’re a believer, have a word to the Big Guy for me.
He’ll be listening.

In other news, Sharon has given me the “Rockin’ Girl Blogger” award! Thanks, Sharon!
I’m not going to nominate anybody this time, as quite a few people on my blogroll have already received this award. Besides, I found it hard enough choosing recipients for the “Nice Matters” award, and I’m worried that I upset some of the people I didn’t choose!

I’m a nice person!

At least that’s what my blogger friend Merri thinks! She has very kindly awarded me with this “Nice” award. Thanks Merri, I am honoured to be chosen!

Choosing 5 people to pass this onto … now that was difficult! I really wanted to choose everybody on my blogroll. But that was against the rules, so here are my nominees:

1) Christi – she is a very special friend who I believe I was destined to meet! We met through blogging almost 2 years ago, and discovered that we lived only 5 min away from each other! Then 6 months after we met online, we decided to meet in real life. And we’ve been great friends ever since! Christi is such a generous person, and I appreciate her lots.
2) Jenn – we first met on a Parenting forum when we were both pregnant with our now 5-year-olds. I had the pleasure of staying with Jenn and her family when I visited Toronto last year. She is just the sweetest person evah!
3) Lara – she is getting this award because of the incredibly encouraging email she sent me yesterday (she knows the one). Thanks, Lara!
4) Kami – she is one of my newest blogging buddies! Kami is such a lovely person, so humble and REAL and down-to-earth. And very, very funny.
5) Michelle aka Mrs Frizz – who leaves me the sweetest comments, and who was kind enough to take time out of her evening to meet up with me on our recent holiday in the Deep South. I’m so glad I met her.

And to my other readers: you are NICE as well! I wish I could have picked ALL of you!

Quotes & Sayings

I love quotes and sayings. I have so many books of them! And I always write down quotes, poems and little sayings that I really like in my journal.

I’m not sure what it is about them that I love so much. Perhaps it’s just reading something that immediately speaks to you, or feeling encouraged that another person feels the way you do about a certain thing. Perhaps it is my love of the written word. Or the way I tend to look at things slightly differently to “normal”.

Anyway, today I thought I’d share a few of my favourites:

“Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for doing it.” – Katharine Whitehorn

“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” – Aristotle

“I suspect the happiest people you know are the ones who work at being kind, helpful and reliable – and happiness sneaks into their lives while they are busy doing those things. It is a by-product, never a primary goal.” – Harold S. Kushner

“There is hope in dreams, imagination, and in the courage of those who wish to make those dreams a reality.”

“Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” – Aesop

“Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” – Franklin P. Jones

“A stopped clock is always exactly right twice a day, at least.”

“Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends … So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” – 1 Corinthians 13 v 4-8, 13

What is YOUR favourite quote? I’d love you to share them with me!

Christi … it’s you!

After being chosen as the Guest Jacker over at Jack Me Up last Sunday, I received an email letting me know whose layout I had to “hijack”. So imagine my surprise when I saw who it was?! My very good friend Christi!!!!

It was extremely difficult hiding the news from her for almost a whole week! Especially since she asked me a few times how my Jack was coming along! It didn’t help that one of the conversations was face-to-face, not via email, as I had to try and use my best poker face! It was hard!

Anyway, I loved doing this Jack. Neen is right, I really did complete this the SAME NIGHT I found out which layout we were jacking!

Here is Christi’s:

And here is my take on it:

I was inspired by the title of Christi’s layout (WISH), the handcut flowers, as well as her trademark use of 4 different patterned papers.
There is hidden journalling behind the photo, which talks about how I always dreamed of being “capped” and how hard I worked to get my Bachelor of Science degree. And I thanked those who supported me along the way – my parents, Rob, and my friends. It wasn’t always easy, but it was SO worth it!