Growing Family

A Great Day

I am not on twitter or instagram, but I have gotten totally hooked on Pinterest (an online pin-board that provides hours of eye candy covering just about anything you could be interested in). I am the kind of girl who used to have 503 tabs open in my browser because I wanted to come back and look at something again. 

I love Pinterest because beauty makes me happy, and it instantly gets my creative juices flowing. Also, I read a few design blogs and am constantly noting things I want to revisit.

One problem, however, with my new found inspiration, is that it seems like MOST of the world is blogging/pinning/posting from the northern hemisphere (can I get a witness Down Under!?). 

Everyone is chattering about spring florals, and summer vegetable gardens, and the swimsuit for their summer holiday. The mommy bloggers are talking about summer vacation ideas for the kids, and the food bloggers are whisking up perfect warm-weather concoctions.

Here, in Sydney, we are layering up our clothes. We are raking fallen leaves in the garden. We are piling an extra quilt on top of the doona at night. We are pulling out the scraggly, ragged remains of the summer garden to prepare for the winter crop. We are getting chestnuts in our weekly veggie boxes, and cooking hearty soups served up with dense breads.

At the shift of the seasons, there tends to be a bit of a disconnect from the rest of the online world, and it is in full effect by the time we have winter opposite summer. 

No matter, today I had the best day.

Hours in the garden, tearing out shrivelled cucumber vines, and pruning all the fruit trees in my back garden were extremely satisfying. Three apples, two citrus, and two stone fruit. If you could see the size of my garden, you would be scratching your head as to how they all fit...they don't. Hopefully the hard pruning I gave them today will boost their health and keep their size in check. 

The Captain helped me out after spending some time sleeping on the trampoline (an ultimate weekend indulgence he earned by taking Small Sun to his 7:45 AFL game, 45 minutes away!). He climbed up into the stone fruit trees with lopper and a saw and took care of what I couldn't reach on my bright yellow two step stool (we really need a ladder).

We cleared all the cuttings out, raked the lawn, and dug out some other non-essentials. Now the back garden looks perfect for our autumn schemings: a fire pit for regular sausage and marshmallow sizzling. We may not be flitting into springtime, but we're having jolly good fun Down Under!

Finch on my Shoulder

In recent weeks Finch has had some ups and downs and is currently driving me crazy. 

First the girls were here and he had the experience of suddenly losing the little pet position in the family. Then, he became quite sick with a chest infection and stopped eating. At one point you could have overheard The Captain and I pleading "we will give you a vitamin if you please eat this chocolate pudding...just one bite...please eat some pudding!" 

He finally rallied from his weak and frail state and still has an eye infection/stye/something that weeks of working with eye drops, ointment and antibiotics is still not improving.

And the big kids are home on school holidays, so our whole routine is upended in the most delightful of ways.

It should make perfect sense that my almost-three-year-old would be rattled by all of this, but I am struggling to keep seeing it from his perspective.

From my perspective-

He is waking up repeatedly in the night, often wheedling his way into our bed.

He is waking up early from naps, and comes out crying just when I am settled into "my time".

He has developed an intense fear of the house falling down and asks me about a kajillion times a day "house won't fall?" despite all my efforts to calm his fears.

He is suddenly also afraid of thunder, and any other loud and rumbling noises that might indicate our house it about to fall down.

He would rather hang around my legs than play with the other kids.

He insists on being taken to the toilet, even though he is perfectly capable of going on his own. 

At first it was deliciously sweet to have him climb into my bed while I was reading at naptime, stroking my face and talking in his lilting little toddler-talk. He adores me with a million cuddles and wants me near. It's sweet.

It was sweet. It was pure delight until his cloying attentions became slightly manic and overly needy.

I pendulum swing between trying to give him extra hugs and cuddles for reassurance, and wanting to scrape him off me like gum on sneakers. His frantic voice ringing out "Mom! Where a'You!!!??" when I take five steps from him is about to put me over the edge.

He's lucky he's 300% cute.

At least he is in this picture...in real life he is disintigrating into a puddle on the floor crying "I sit-a-yo-lap! Let my in!" And then he pulls out the showstopper "poo poo! Come!" and I do, reassuring him "house won't fall" as we go.

2012 First School Holidays

Thanks to each of you that went and voted for my blog. For reasons that involve politics I am not involved in (thank goodness), the Circle of Moms has cancelled the competition. Oh well. It was fun to be nominated, and to have people vote, and to see my blog traffic spike in a significant way, so thanks for that!

We are in the second week of Term 1 school holidays. I LOVE the holidays. In Australia the school year is broken up into four (roughly) 10 week terms, and between terms there are two and three week holidays, alternately. 

By the end of the term we were just dragging, especially with two extra kiddies in the house. Now we are sleeping in, watching movies, I am curling up in my bed during the day to read The Hunger Games for hours, it is delightful.

This last weekend we went up the coast to camp with friends at a gorgeous little holiday park where our tent opened up to a view of the water. The kids ran around playing in the dirt and trying to build fires while we read magazines from our camp chairs, sipping tea.

We are just letting it all. hang. out. It is so wonderful to have a break.

Here are some gems from our hols so far:

 Good Friday at Narrabeen

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 Apple Picking at Bilpin

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 Round the house goodness which included my 31st birthday

Camping at Soldier's Point 

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 Whatever you are doing this week, I hope you find the joy and beauty around you!

Top 25 Adoptive and Foster Moms - 2012 list on Circle of Moms!

Imagine my surprise and delight when I received this in my email "Your blog Growing Family has been nominated to the Top 25 Adoptive and Foster Moms - 2012 list on Circle of Moms!"

I read so many of the other blogs nominated, and they contain so much rich wisdom and experience, in addition to lots of humor and fun.

Adoption and Foster Care are both amazing, and it is great to be part of a community while navigating the process, and life afterwards. 

You can vote once a day until April 26th, and I'd love to get my blog "out there" a little bit more, so please go vote for me! Thanks lovelies!

Vote for Me!

Foster Care, Placement 2

Taking care of a baby is bad for my blogging mojo, obviously. Or is it taking care of five children? Either way, I seem incapable of maintaining my blog when there are extra little people in the house.

The girls left yesterday, and we have our second foster care placement under our belt.

Last night I was sitting on Sprout's bed, tucking her in. "Does it bother you to be sleeping without Blossom in your room?" I asked. "No. She always wants to talk to me! She kept saying 'uh-oh' and then wanted me to say 'a-o-u' back to her. She woke me up in the morning and kept talking!" was her quick response. "But will you miss the girls?" I wonder, aloud. "Yes," she answers.

That is pretty much the sum of it. We are happy to have our tight family unit back, and to be free of the responsibility of two little people who need lots-lots-lots of special care, AND we will miss them.

At about the two week mark, Blossom, who is two, finally relaxed with me and started spontaneously running to me for hugs, kisses, and affirmation. She kept calling me "mama", and clung to me when she was hurt or upset.

Letting kids go is the worst part of all. Not because I want to keep them for myself, but because I am afraid of being another person in the list that is too long, a person that they began to trust and love, who then passed them on. For Blossom and her baby sister, Bud, I was the fourth in their very young lives.

I don't know that there is much more to say than that.