An eggy kind of week

More eggplants from the garden today.

This week we all tried to get back into the routine of things after the past couple of weeks of sickness. I attempted to be a 'domestic goddess' in my half of a house that seemed to have a steady flow of workers through it, tools laying all over the place, and tiles falling through roof as a new roof was put on. However, after asking Dan if it was safe to stay inside and being told sarcastically "yeah honey you and the kids just sit under the dining room table for the rest of the day" - I knew I would have to abandon the goddess within - the cleaning could wait (hooray), cookies would be bought rather than baked, and instead settle for a week in parks, at mums and at any ones house that would have us.

Fynn decided this week that he would like to begin his day at around 1am. After attempting to persuade him otherwise and miserably failing to get him to sleep after 2 hours last night I contemplated starting my day at 3am, blogging, reading the rest of my book, maybe cook some pancakes or even take the dog for a walk why not even wash her I thought. It all seemed quite do-able at the time until I started to think about the very long day ahead...dealing with Myles' crazy Saturday mood, dance class, a 5 years old party I had to go to, Myles' after party sugar highs and lows, and a very tired Fynn. So I just decided to give in and give him more milk and get some more sleep. Thankfully he went back to sleep and so did I for an hour or so until I was awoken with what I thought sounded like someone whipper-snipping the edges of our lawn at 4am. I nearly got up to investigate who the hell would be doing such a thing at that time of the morning (perhaps another mum with a child that doesn't like to sleep) until I realised it was actually Dan snoring.

I think I'm just staying up late tonight because I'm scared about the night ahead, I know it doesn't make any sense to stay up late and I should be getting all the sleep I can before he wakes up but I seem to get a second wind at about 7pm and get motivated to do all the things I cant in the day and nothing ever makes much sense when your sleep deprived.

So if I have to start the day at some ridiculous time tomorrow morning I think I'll look up some eggplant recipes - "how to cook eggplant seven different ways".

EGGS.....WE HAVE EGGS.........FINALLY

Finally, the girls have pulled through, after the loss of a couple of friends to our pet dog Kooly, lice infestation from the visiting minor birds, numerous threats of being made dinner if they didn't start laying, a few pep talks and more importantly a change in diet and bedding we are getting eggs daily. What a wonderful surprise it was to come home from hospital with Myles and lift the door open and see two beautiful eggs. We now have a new mid morning ritual - collecting the eggs and don't forget to always thank the girls.

todays a new day

this week has been........,well, eventful - going from mediocre...... to bad.......to frightening.....some personal fears were dragged from the fearful depths of my mind in to reality when Myles was rushed to hospital and after an extremely anxious wait we were told he had Scarlet Fever and thus spent the next two nights sleepless in hospital, anxiously checking he was breathing every five minutes, seeing if his temperature had finally gone down and the red blotches had in any way subsided. Its been a week that I could say I would rather leave behind, but I think after everything that has happened this week, I'm taking away from it the fragility of my precious little life, and how much bigger it could be, how a mothers intuition should never be ignored, how very deeply I love my family and how today is a new day that needs to be filled with joy.

following the trail

Today, after being cooped up inside for a couple of days with sickness and beginning to feel sorry for myself , I sought refuge at my mums . After Fynn attempted to destroy her house, touch, open, push and prod every thing he knew he couldn't I decided it was a good idea if we got outdoors for some fresh air and a stroll. It didn't take long for Fynn to find a mass of ants to lay in and closely observe as they crawled all over his hands and up his pants. Myles and I decided to find out where these ants were coming from and where they were so busily going. We began with the mass of ants Fynn had found at the front gate and followed their trail over and under trees, through tunnels so small only an ant could clearly fit through, up a branch of a tree, along the edge of the fence, down a crevice of bricks and finally we reach it.......their palace...their castle....their home. then the questions began - How have they built it, how do they get it to stick to the wall, what are they carrying in there, what do they eat?

I love to get down to the kids level and see the world as they see it, a small tiny busy world of ants building their own castles, cities, and towns, to shelter in, to store food in, a place to have and shelter their future generations. Ah....the imagination can wild in place like this.

Lessons

Thanks to my little helpers in the garden and lots of chicken wire erected to keep those pecky chooks out, we finally picked our first eggplant and watermelon on the weekend. We were all extremely excited by the watermelon and there was much anticipation as Daniel cut it open. I had plans to go outside and have a seed spitting contest, much laughter....pink faces dripping with watermelon juice. I had been wondering when to pick it and by the size and colour of it I thought it was definitely ready for eating, however, from the look on Dan's face once he had made the first cut and his little sigh....I knew it wasn't ready. It had only just started to go pink in the middle. I'm going to have to get the books out and find out when to pick them.

So to get over the disappointment Dan decided to make pizza bases with Myles whilst I had a shower. I left them happily weighing out the flour and talking about what toppings they were going to have. Little did I know that when I left this happy little father son cooking adventure I would return to a kitchen that looked like a pizza dough oven had exploded - water all over the floor, pizza dough on the walls and floors and a large pile of goo on the table - apparently pizza dough. (I'm still finding bits of pizza dough around the kitchen). I'm not going in to details, but it involved a temper tantrum, some bad instruction and lots of paper towel. However, miraculously, the pizza dough was salvaged and we had delicious pizzas for dinner and will try again next week.