Five sleeps…

It’s five sleeps til Christmas!

Ah, Christmas. How I love to hate thee. Now, don’t fret, I’m not about to get all ba-humbug on you all. It’s just my love-hate relationship with this merry holiday of ours. You see, late on Thursday last week, the 16th of December, I discovered that OH! HO HO HO! I had made a teeny tiny oversight when ordering ALL the children’s toys for Christmas. All the nieces and nephews and friends kids and MY kid’s presents. Ordered from one shop. Or were they? I logged into said shop to check the status of delivery, as it was a weeny bit late in arriving. And there they were. All $400+ of toys sittin in my cart.

Surely not?

I frantically checked my email account for an order confirmation. No order confirmation had been received.

I zipped back to the open shop tab and stared, appalled, at this un-ordered treasure trove of toy heaven. I looked at the date, I looked at delivery times, I balked at the changes in price, as all the sale items I hate ordered had now returned to their usual amounts. I put down the lap top and saw to my daughter, who needed my attention for a few moment. Some 15 minutes later I returned and …… nothing. No cart. Empty cart. No toys. AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHH!

So, even if I wanted to reorder these precious items, I would have to go through and find them all again. And, after a phone call to the shop I discovered that the cut off time for delivery to my state had passed, so that settled that. After bragging to all and sundry about completing my Christmas shopping without setting foot into one shop…. I was going to have to go to. the. shops.

Fark.

I imagined it. I over-imagined it. Cranky shoppers, crying babies (mine included), rude shop assistants, out of stock items, long queues. It was going to be hell. I stamped and stomped and grumped about, and felt sick every time I thought about this late, late, Christmas shopping dash.

So, I booked Pebble in with her Daddy Day Care on Saturday morning, dashed to the shops ready for the doors to open and …… within three hours I was done. Not only that, but it wasn’t even that busy! AND everyone was smiling. Shop assistants were merry and sparkly and giddy with Christmas glee. Other shoppers were filled with Christmas cheer, “oh no, please, you were first, go ahead”. I even ended up getting some different gifts to my original list that I liked better than my first choice, and can’t wait to hand them out of Christmas day.*

So, excuse me while I write a note to self for next year:

Dear Me

Ba-humbug is boring and annoying and negative. Leave that shit behind. You will get to see everyone you love sometime over Christmas (even if not all on the one day) and it will be awesome. Don’t stress about shopping, the shops aren’t that bad – AND DON’T SHOP ONLINE. It seems like a good idea, but in reality it’s not for you. Don’t worry about things that haven’t happened, and if shit happens, then just think, in a few days you’ll be laughing about it, or at least using it for a story on your blog.

Merry Christmas

Love Me.

Ahhhhhh. That’s better.

Merry Christmas to all!

 

*still waiting on one last delivery of an online order which I have been assured has been shipped. From the UK. Where all that snow is. Yikes!

Cramming

Pebble and her big cousin, chillin’ 

A few tidbits to keep you up to date…

~ Paul and I had our first night away without Pebble on Saturday night. It was Paul’s work xmas dinner and we decided to make a night of it… and an early morning! We didn’t get to bed til sometime after four, perhaps closer to five. Not quite a catch up on sleep! But a catch up on life without baby, dancing, drinking, talking, eating, loving. We’ve decided we definitely need to do it more often, but a regular night in a hotel in the city just doesn’t fit into our budget. So we’re thinking we’ll just drop the cherub off at a grandparent’s house and head back home for a date-night-in. Sounds like bliss to me!

~ I had Pebble’s birth mark checked up on today. It’s on her back, a strawberry sized strawberry mark. I know that Google tells me all is ok, but I just had to have it seen to. It’s gotten a LOT darker recently and slightly bigger, and patchy in parts. The doc says it’s all good and 70% of strawberry marks fade by the age of seven.

~ I am staring at several (ten?) crates of school stuff that needs to be sorted in the next month – and it’s weighing heavily on my mind. I can’t wait to get stuck in, but there are lots of other things keeping me occupied at the moment – not least a toddling Pebble.

~ I’ve been doing some Christmas meal planning, and have been on the phone chatting up my local butcher today to get ready for the xmas eve dinner that we’re hosting. I’m going to do a roast pork loin, stuffed and rolled, and he’s going to sort me out with a lovely little piggy. I’ve never done it before, and Paul and I are being completely over prepared and doing a trial run – so this weekend it’s piggy Take 1. I’ll be sure to share with you, in picture form at least.

~ this week I’m looking forward to some family time, seeing my sister and her hubby while they’re running from here to there in a big move back to the city (or nearly the city – an hours drive away instead of over four). I’m so excited that they’ll be closer to us all again – AND I get to babysit my little 6 month old niece while they’re busy moving. Overnight! She’s one of the most laid back little bubs I’ve ever met and sleeps through the night, so all will be sweet.

~ fact: carrying a ten kilo toddler while vacuuming a house is not good for your back.

12 sleeps til Christmas!

What a way to make a living

This gave me a giggle – maybe it’s just a teacher thing… 

After a year of a little nagging  (ok sometimes big, overwhelming) thought in the back of my mind that I’ll need to return to work in January 2011…. the time has almost come. As most of you know I’m a junior primary teacher, and next year I’ll be returning to share a class half time with another teacher. We’re teaching a composite class of year 1s and 2s, that’s 6 & 7 year olds. 16 boys. 9 girls. I have a sheet of paper with their names on it, and yesterday I got to meet them for the first time.

The meeting was….. a little chaotic. Firstly it was an unexpected opportunity. I only found out about it sometime mid-morning yesterday. Without child care arranged for Pebble, she tagged along for the ride. Luckily (or unluckily!) my co-teacher (from here on referred to as Mrs Oz) also had her 16 month old son and 4 year old daughter with her.

So there we were, two frazzled mummies/returning to the workforce teachers, three kids under five and twenty-three* 6 & 7 year olds. All in a classroom that belonged to someone else on the third to last day of school (in school land that = crazy time). Given all of that, it actually went quite well. Mrs Oz had prepared letters to go out to each child from both of us, introducing us and our teaching plans for the year. We took photos of each child ready for different displays in the classroom and got a teeny, tiny glimpse of the personalities that we’ll be enjoying in the year to come. Best of all, they got to meet us, which I think is a huge relief to most students. It takes away the unknown before the summer holidays.

It’s quite odd sharing a classroom, especially when we’re both there at the same time. I think it’s going to be a challenge, but overall it’s going to be a blessing. We each have someone to share the load with and the students get two for one. They have two motivated and passionate teachers, each with their own strengths, and twice the observation and support in their learning journey.

Mrs Oz and I have been emailing each other nearly every day with ideas and plans for the future, and are busy organising ourselves to be both super-mums and super-teachers next year. After a year of small and not-so-small worries, I can finally say I’m really looking forward to returning to work. I can also say goodbye to good sleep! Thoughts of work have kept me awake since about 4am – oh well, at least I have a spare moment to blog!

*two students absent

That’s the stuff

This right here? This is the stuff that happiness is made of. My heart swells to look at this photo of me snuggling my giggling little girl, her toes dipped in the sea, in her floppy daisy covered hat, and covered in sunny yellow, sucking on her fingers and sucking up every bit of enjoyment from life while she’s at it.

Love.

Pebble: Babyzilla

I brought out the old baby play mat yesterday, for Pebble's little cousin to have a play on.
Last night Pebble thought she should make her feelings known about this baby play thing - and proceeded to annihilate it!
Babyzilla indeed.

Baking

It’s been a while since I baked, but this week I’ve found myself measuring out flour and cracking eggs more often than usual, and I’ve quite enjoyed it. I’m getting so bored with the food that I’m giving to Pebble, so I had a hunt for some baby friendly recipes online. I found this neat little cook book by the South Australian Government and their ‘Start Right, Eat Right’ initiative. Given that I have very little in the way of fresh food in the house at the moment, my options were limited! So I chose the cheese muffins – 15 minutes later they’re out of the oven and looking quite tasty. You’ve gotta love that!

I also found a recipe for pikelets. I know! Don’t laugh at me! No, I’ve never made pikelets, and yes, I actually had to look up a recipe for them. They were also easy peasy and are now cooling on the bench ready for afternoon tea. These tasty little morsels will make a good addition to the usual strawberries, peacherines, natural yoghurt, mashed veg and crackers and cheese that Pebble chows down on.

What have you been cooking lately?