17th annual

I feel amazed that we have had 17 Australia Day BBQs in a row.  Old friends new friends young friends blue friends - they turn up with meat and drinks to chat and slide.  It is wonderful to see everybody - what a deep network we have.  The weather held off for most of the day  - yay!

I wonder how many more years we will do this?  Must make it at least to 20.  25.  30.  Imagine the 50th annual Pines Australia Day BBQ- I'll be ummmm.... older.

And I am completely addicted to the number one in this years hottest 100.

Thanks everyone for coming.  Please come again.  Even if you live a long way away.

gift of the gab

I have been meaning to write this post for a while, but trying to think of the correct phrasing is tricky.

Gab was an elective mute until about the middle of grade two - and she still has significant difficulties talking with new people (she is currently in grade four).  As an extroverted speechie it has been quite a journey having an introverted, slightly sensory defensive, elective mute daughter.

When she was a tiny thing she only spoke to immediate family.  And sometimes tradesman.  She was right on developmental norms for starting her talking - single words at about 12 months, words together at about 22 months.  But she steadfastedly refused to talk to anyone at church or kindy or at parties. She would cling onto my neck or crouch behind my legs and whisper constantly 'when are we going home'.

Gab age three.  On my lap - default position.

At kindy her teacher was desperate for Gabby to talk with her and would try every trick in the book.  Gabby's red ringlets and big green eyes invited comment and conversation.  But the more she pushed the more Gab would clam up.  She was nervous and anxious, and exercised her control by her silence.

Her Sunday School teacher was also very keen for Gab to speak to her.  I asked Gab 'Why don't you talk to Mrs ____'.  She replied "I will talk with her when I am four'.  Her birthday came on a Sunday, and her teacher had prepared a cake and a present and a party hat, and said 'Mum told me that you were going to talk to me when you were four'.  And Gabby said 'Yes.  Hello.'  And that was it.  No more talking for the rest of the year.

Many adults have tried and failed to get Gab to talk with them.  Here is what I did with my elective mute daughter:
- checked her language and speech and hearing was okay (fortunately I could do the language assessments myself, and I got her hearing checked at the audiologist) - all developmentally good - some children can be electively mute because they have significant speech difficulties
- ALWAYS expected her to reply and left space at the end of my comments, even if she didn't fill them in for a long time
- didn't MAKE her talk to new people - I think I instinctively realised what a big deal it was for her with anxiety and sensory issues
- encouraged her gently when she did talk with someone but didn't make a huge deal out of it
- took her to dancing - which I think was a big confidence builder for her where she had to perform in front of people but not talk
- made youtubes and recordings of her talking at home to send in to her prep teacher/year one teacher so they could do assessments with her language
- remembered that she is introverted and needed recharging time at home playing in her room (unlike Annika and I who need people all the time)
- let her teachers lead the way with her progress and their expectations at school, and she has had some really good teachers who look after her
and recently I have enrolled her in horse riding where she needs to use her voice to control the horse, and be quite firm with it.

In the last year she has really started talking with new people - she will rarely initiate a conversation but will reply well.  And she talked about joining the drama club at school this year!  Last year she needed to practice her school orals about 50 times.

I think her slight sensory issues also have something to do with the elective mutism - she is picky with her food, she wears particular comfortable clothing, she gets upset with sand and dirt and insects.  But she overcomes all this most of the time and deals with it well.

At home she is the funniest person I know, and the loudest and one of the most imaginative.  She is very caring with young children and she wants to be a paediatric nurse at the Mater when she grows up - I can see this happening as she is determined, a good listener, not squeamish at all with body functions and injury and loves babies.

Gab age 5

She is an amazing unique person - and I can see why everyone is so desperate to have Gabby talking with them. You just have to be allowed in.


Gab is a gift.

friends...

I have known these girls for ....ummmm..let's just say since before we were twenty.  All three of us speechies and all three of us completely different personalities.  We have watched each other through travel, living overseas, coming home again, changing relationships, babies, almost teenagers, job changes and all of life's emotional waves.  But yesterday when we hung out at the beach and prevented out children from being sucked out to sea down the Caloundra passage it was like we were young things again.  The rhythms of the conversation and the giggles.  The gentle questions and the unspoken support.   To find people in your life that stay constant like this is a precious gift.

I remember the first day I met Susy.  My first day at university - fresh faced and completely nerdy (actually that has not changed too much).  I found out she was in the same course as me, and I said - do you want to go to the first lecture together?  She said okay - and we were pretty much joined at the hip for four years.  She has an astonishing gift for making friends in new places, and she is cheery for my soul.  We shared many lollies up the back of lectures, I helped her find the notes and instructions for assignments, and she instructed me in how to get along at uni.

I met Katy not long after, and man does she make me laugh.  She is my scrabble buddy and a perfect introverted fit to mine and Susy's needy extrovertedness.  She is wise and I have watched her grow so much in the last few years.  And through some wonderful quirkiness her daughter and my daughter have become best friends.

And Susy has produced this wonderful child (her other wonderful child was running too fast for me to catch a photo!).

I could just gobble up his sturdy chubbiness.  Susy didn't notice that much when I tried to convince him to be my third child.

I am so grateful for these girls.  And all the other wonderful friends God has dropped into my life.

and just like that...

my long service leave has ended. 

It went quickly, and when I look back it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what happened to that four months.  I know I held babies, and supported friends, and expanded our world in China.  I know my faith grew and I had time with God.  I know that we didn't have takeaway and the garden looks whipped into shape.  I know that my daughters talked with me and we grew together.  I know that I was able to do more puppetry.

Tomorrow I commence back at work.  It ticks all the boxes for a job - interesting, flexible, part-time, helping change lives, ability to wear shorts and no make-up.  But I am not that excited about starting again.  I have disengaged from my job - and I think it will take a few weeks to get back into it.  Or maybe when I start it will be as if I had never left....I have some paperwork that needs immediate attention (sigh).  I will be more grateful and thankful for my job.

I will be more grateful and thankful for my job.

I will be more grateful and thankful for my job.

(repeat.   and breathe.)

Today we wandered around on the mudflats at Brighton.  Gab freaked out about the crabs.  I wished I was a better photographer.  Scooter went nuts.

Tomorrow....work.

it shouldn't be a surprise

It should not astonish my children that bedtime comes every night.

she sleeps upside down like a bat.   No...not really - just couldn't work out the photo orientation

 But it does.

For, oh let's say, all of their lives there have been complaints about bedtime.  And coming out.   And cries of - 'but surely it is not time yet!' (astonishing language from a 12 month old).

from 2008 - when they were babies.  Unlike now.

I don't feel I am being an unreasonable parent by requesting that they go to bed.  At a reasonable time.  But often my unreasonable voice has to come out before they are finally shooed into bed.

We have tried reward charts and ignoring and threats and sleeping with them and sleeping apart and both in the same room and both in different rooms and music and stories on CD and bedtime routines and warm milk and 'JUST GO TO BED ALREADY!'.

What worked well for a time was the Ladder Of Impending Doom.  This was a ladder on the fridge of 10 minute increments from 5.00 pm to 8.30 pm with a magnet representing the child positioned on the ladder at a certain time eg 7.30 pm.  If the child was difficult going to bed, or had any other misdemeanors during the day the magnet would descend the ladder, and that would be the next night's bedtime.  Gab was so revolting one day that her magnet got all the way down to 5.20 pm - and that's when she went to bed the next night.  She was very good the next day and her magnet went a little bit up the ladder.  Currently their ladder positions are at 7.40 pm.

We will continue with the Ladder Of Impending Doom - because it is fun to have on the fridge - and because I think probably the key with all this is consistency.  And I am determined that Annika will get enough sleep this year  to try and cut down on her feeling overwhelmed and anxious.  I am setting the boundary of sleeptime and she will push and rail against it like she always has.

Surely, they have been in this world for 20 years combined.

Bedtime should not be a surprise.

when the time comes

Today we attended the funeral of a lovely gentleman from church.  It was a beautiful service as we remembered him, and I was thinking as I sat there 'I will see him again in glory'.  We saw photos of him as a younger man, and I found out things about him I never would have guessed - only knowing him as a retired gentleman.

When the time comes I would like to go as Doug did - surrounded by his family, 89 not out, quickly (no rehab for me with some young speech pathologist saying have you done your exercises Mrs Pine) and with the sure strong hope of heaven. 

And he chose John 14:1-4 - 'do not let your hearts be troubled...'.

When the time comes...

For now I will make the most of what I have here - there is plenty of work for love to do.

this is what happens to maths homework from last year

We make paper.  I had flashbacks to making 100 wedding invitations out of recycled paper - and I insisted on them being maroon.  I made recycled paper until my hands were dyed pink and my friends couldn't look me in the eye because I would fuss to them about paper pulp.  Katy and Pippa - true friends of the paper pulp bride.

We chucked in some lavender from the front garden.  Hopefully there were no beetles.

We paper mached. 

There are plans for a paper mache pig.  I am not sure what the cylinder will be...

Holidays are slipping away, receding like a wave, leaving behind the jetsam of time well spent in the summer - tanned legs, craft projects, laughs with friends, iceblocks and BBQs.  I can feel the need for school coming - the girls spent much of today playing a 'school game'.  Their books are covered, their pencils are labelled, and thir tummies are wriggling with the newness of an unknown teacher and class.

But for now we have one more week to make our own time.

Roll up!

I have negotiated that the girls do one 'paid' activity over the Christmas holidays. They both chose three days at Flipside circus.




Oh to be young and to fling your body around on a trapeze and jump on the trampoline. It is ironic that they have been doing this for three days and I have put my back out again so I hobble in to drop them off.




I think they have dreams of joining the circus - there is certainly enough performance, leaping off the couches and living life upside down here.









Fun times.  Recorded with terrible ipad photos.  I forgot to bring the camera to pick them up.

I declare...

that there is not a really good word in English for an adult that is a friend and not a teacher and not a relative but you still need to show some respect for the adult.  Mrs Surname is too formal, and Shazza is not respectful enough.

I learned today that there is such a word in Afrikaans as I was having a cup of tea with my lovely South African friend at our annual book covering party support group (as a side note all books are now covered for the school year with relatively little bubble contact action and much use of the new label maker).

The word is 'Tannie'.  An aunty who is not a real aunty but a friend aunty.

So from now on I will encourage my children to call adults friends using the address 'Tannie "insert name here".

I forgot to ask if this was for both male and female adults.  We could offend the Springboks if we yell out at a game 'SCORE TANNIE "insert current Springbok player name here".

yes it has finally turned hot here

 " Oh you mean this pool was not set up specifically for me?"

The crickets humming where the air hangs heavily in our backyard, and I chase a breeze around the house.  For a few days each year I wish we had air conditioning, and then we get creative about beating the heat.  We play water games and lie under the fan and make almost unnecessary trips to the shops to be in the air conditioned car.  We chase comfort over jobs.  The grass gets higher and our clothes lie in a puddle in the bathroom.  We eat salad and call it dinner, and wait for the clouds to build in the south west, to rumble and rain.  We are on a holiday schedule.  Which is none.

Ahhhh.

reasons why children are handy

1. they can drop back the library books into the slot without you having to leave the car (I have taught them to drop their shoulders as they roll out of the car to prevent injury)
2. they can find the remotes so you do not have to leave your carefully positioned mountain of cushions of the couch
3. they can be taught to make you scrambled eggs and a cup of tea in the morning (an occurrence that is wonderfully frequent on the holidays)
4. they can knock up a quick powerpoint for you for church while you are in the shower on a Sunday morning
5. they can dart all over the supermarket getting items while you stroll along with the trolley
6. they can read the street signs when you don't wear your glasses for driving
7. they can feed the dog and collect the eggs from the chooks.  Sometimes without being asked.

I need to remember all these qualities as the fourth week of holidays comes to an end, and the sibling fighting enters the thousandth round.

art it up

I took the girls to the Gallery of Modern Art - as we are only doing Free Things On the Holidays (apart from the activities I paid for before the holidays when there was still school on and still some extra money before Christmas).  In between cries of 'what do we do?' and 'what's next?' and 'here we are now entertain us' (only not sung or smelling like a teen spirit) I heard myself proclaiming quite loudly 'WE ARE HERE TO LOOK AT THE ART AND APPRECIATE IT SO SOAK UP THE ARTINESS AND BE THANKFUL FOR GOMA'.

We looked at the art.

We walked through the art.

We posed with the art.

We made the art.

We marvelled at the art - tiny bits of coloured sugar (interesting choice in a kids art exhibition - very difficult not to touch and taste - and I am 38.  Imagine the self restraint required for a three year old.)

We walked past the art.

We went outside and enjoyed God's art by the river while having lunch and cartwheels.

great sandy island

We took the opportunity of days off from Chris in between Christmas and New Year to go camping at Fraser Island.  This was my first camping trip there - we had visited for one day on our honeymoon - and the first run of the new tent for our family.  The tent held up well in the rain and wind.

It was an awesome trip filled with games and sand driving and swimming and lots of food.  And the moment in the morning in the tent when you are busting but weigh up for about twenty minutes how much your bladder can hold and is it worth walking the 200 metres to the campsite loo.

And the moment when I kind of broke the car a bit driving in soft sand - we lost acceleration for a day when I took some bumps too fast - sky! sand! sky! sand! children hitting their heads on the roof in the back seat!

Fraser is a wonderful place to see the creativeness of creation unspoilt.  I thank God that I was able to spend time in this wonderful place with my family and some great friends.

Here are just a few of the many many photos I took at Eli Creek, Lake Berribeen, Lake Wabby, Lake Mackenzie, Maheno Wreck, Indian Head, Dilli Village, on the barge etc etc etc.

Love Fraser Island.