When we were up in Atwell, we had the kids doing lessons at Stateswim.  Ashton would do good for a few weeks then lapse back to what represented a floundering old lady trying to swim, then she would improve again and the teacher would change.  It just seemed like we were pouring money into a big hole.  Then she would get sick with ear infections or would require more gromits and we would have to have a break.  So in the end we gave it a miss.  Jett was also getting nowhere and so we pulled the plug.

When we moved down here, I thought it might be a good thing to give a new swim club a try so we went to Kirby Swim. The difference in the technique taught is amazing.  The ease that both kids picked up swimming was unbelievable.  Jett has gone from someone who doesn’t want to even lay back in the water to going under the water and he is almost swimming by himself.  Ashton had an assessment about 4-5wks ago and almost passsed.  The teacher said she almost passed but has to swim the whole length of the lane they have set up for them (which is maybe 15m) without stopping.  She was gutted and thought she would have to wait for the next assessment week to pass.  Well today, the pool manager came and watched her swim and she was really impressed so she went up today.  She is now a stingray and mighty chuffed with herself.

Jett has a little way to go, I think once he starts swimming with confidence by himself he will be well on his way.  He just needs to believe in himself that he can do it.

I can’t wait for the day when Ashton will be too old to bring nits home from school.

I have suspected for a few days now that she had them and every time when she would scratch I would ask her to look at her hair and she would say it wasn’t itchy for nits, she was just itching.  I have had a look a few times in her hair but wasnt’ able to see anything and then she would pull away.  She has been in the past, pretty good at telling me her head is itchy so I let it slide.  Well, Saturday over the Easter Break I did her hair and what disgusting little creatures they are.  I have never seen so many, its no wonder she wasn’t carried away in the middle of the night by them.

She then went off to the footy with Brian and my mum and all that afternoon I was scratching, I straighten my hair pretty much every day and if I don’t straighten, I have the hair dryer out.  I really think this is what has kept me safe so far from the little buggers cause I read they don’t like that sort of heat. But I was still itching about 2 hours after they went so I did my hair.  Thankfully I never found anything which was a relief….  All mind over matter.

Just to be sure, I redid her hair on Sunday while she had large Easter Egg in hand, which was still bringing out a few of them still alive and again on Monday which was pretty clean.  I will do it again at the start of next week just to make sure  that we have killed everything.

Well then it was Jetts turn.  That mob of curls must have been hiding something in there but he wouldn’t let me have a look let alone run the nit comb through his hair so I gave him a ultimatum.  It was either the comb, just to be sure or the clippers…..  He took the clipper option and is now a bald nut like his dad.  If only Ashton’s treatment was that easy.

So yes, I am looking forward to the day when Nits will no longer be a problem in our house.  Not quiet sure when that will though.

So its school holidays, Janice (Brians mum) has asked to have the kids for a night or two.  The kids were all for it so we arranged something for this week.  I met Janice and Wendell in Bunbury this morning at Big W and they headed off down to Dunsborough and I returned home.

Since I have been home, I have done a bit of cleaning, cleaned the kids room and bathroom and done a bit of shopping. Other than that I have been walking around in circles wondering what to do with myself.  I realised on the way down to drop them off that this is the furtherest away from us they have ever been.  Sure they have had sleep overs before at my mums house and even stayed with Janice and Wendell when they use to live in Perth but now they are 2hrs away.    I was a bit shocked at how unsettled this made me feel.  It wasn’t cause I didn’t want them going, I know they will get spoilt rotten and have a ball, but just on the off chance that something happens to them we are 2 hrs drive away.

So then the next hurdle to over come…..  Brian and I have always been of the opinion that we agreed to have kids so we should be the ones looking after them.  Hence why I haven’t been back to work yet (fingers crossed that will change soon) and don’t agree in dumping our kids for the sake of dumping them.  I think the last time we had a night to ourself was at Dave and Natalie’s Wedding, which wasn’t really a night to ourselves as it was a late night and we were totally stuffed by the time we got back to the hotel room we just crawled into bed and was woken the next morning by my mum on the phone to say she had the kids in the car on the way back into the city.  Prior to that I just can’t recall.

Now we have a whole night to ourselves and we are both scratching our heads wondering what exactly to do with our time.  Our discussions have gone along these lines:

 What do you want to do tonight now the kids wont be home?

I dunno, what do you want to do?

I dunno, what do you think we should do?

Gee, how sad are we that we can’t think of anything to do that doesn’t include our children….

Yeah true….

So after much toing and froing we have decided to head out to the local tavern for dinner and come home and watch at movie.  Not exactly the most romantic night out but it will be nice and relaxing to have a meal minus the kids and come home to a  nice quiet house.

Now we have all been guilty of cooking and then finding hair in your food afterwards, or you are eating something a friend made and you find hair….  Its understandable, you know where it has come from and although you feel a little sick and repulsed about the whole thing you soon toughen up and move on…..  At least you know where it has come from right?

Well I can’t move on from what I found in my breakfast cereal on Monday morning.  I love nothing more than on a school day to get the kids ready for school, take them to school and then come home and sit down in peace and eat my breakfast.  I might read a bit of news online, write in my blog or catch up on facebook.  Its just a change from rushing around, usually with a bowl of cereal in my hand trying to get my kids organised for school.

So here I was on Monday, kids at school, house nice and quiet and I start preparing my breakfast.  I pour my All Bran Dual (which up until this point I had really started enjoying by the way) into the bowl, pour some juice, get the milk and just as I am about to pour the milk into the bowl, I see it.  I dark, DARK hair.  Now I have dark hair but this was almost black and short, not long like mine.  I went through all the possibilities.  Maybe it was mine and it just fell in, maybe it was in the bowl before I tipped the cereal in there.  I ruled out either of these possibilities as 1. I got the bowl out of the dishwasher all clean and 2. no one in our house has hair that dark or thick.  Plus it was right in the middle of the cereal sticking out the top so it must have fallen out from the box when I poured the cereal in there.

I have looked at the almost full box of cereal in the cupboard since that terrible morning and i can’t bring myself to eat it.   I am a little scared of what I may find next  So my breakfasts haven’t been as enjoyable this week.  I have had Cherios and toast which just doesn’t do it the same as my enjoyable breakfasts of the past.

I am hoping I can get over this and move on……

This afternoon I had my VT’s come to visit and they brought with them 2 little chocolate easter bunnies for the kids.  I told them they wern’t allowed to have them until after dinner.  So while I was making dinner tonight I started having this sneezing fit and started feeling pretty terrible.  It was at this point I had this conversation with Ashton.

 Are you OK Mum?

Yeah, I will survive

Well what if you die?

I don’t think that will happen

Well if it does and its before Dad comes home, can we eat the Easter Eggs?

OMG! Now I have visions of me karked it on the floor and the two if them sitting on me eating chocolate waiting for Brian to come home…..  So nice to know I am loved.  Then the conversation went back to who will die first in our family…

I am grateful that they aren’t afraid to talk about death and dying.

Last Friday we bought the kids electric toothbrushes as they seemed to be getting very lax on brushing teeth.  So Brian suggested a new exciting toothbrush might enthuse them into brushing teeth again.  Over the weekend, he has been in the bathroom with them especially at night, telling them how to brush and helping them.  He kept on saying you haven’t bushed your teeth if you haven’t gone longer than the count of 30 etc.

So this morning, I send them off to start brushing their teeth.  All seems to be going well, I can still hear them brushing teeth and there was no talking so it must have been all brushing.  Well then I hear one of the tooth brushes turn off and there is one still going.  So I walk past the bathroom and what do I see but Jett doing a little dance cleaning the bath with his toothbrush.   Singing “Oh yeah, Oh Yeah, Oh Yeah!!!!”

He is a funny little boy.  When I told him he should take his toothbrush and use it to clean the toilet he looked at me like I was very strange, rinsed the toothbrush off and put it back on the bench.  We then had a chat about where toothbrushes go and where they don’t go….  Fingers crossed I don’t find him in the toilet tomorrow morning and it has all sunk in.

Well Ashton passed her half grading last night so now she has a green tip on her white belt which is really cool.  You can see a photo of this here .

Usually when anything needs to be repaired in this house the kids automatically say “Oh look mum, this is coming undone, we better take it to nanna to fix”  Like one time Jett decided to see what was inside the bean bag and took to it with a pair of scissors.  He came to me and said “Look what I found inside the bean bag, I cut it with scissors, but its OK cause Nanna can fix it.”  So last night I decided I should get out the needle and thread – Yes I own a needle Brian and some thread- and start sewing on the green tip onto her belt.  It was all good, although a little rough but I still did it.  I figure I have a few more of these to sew on in the future so I should get use to it sooner or later.  When she gets older she can start doing it herself.  I remember sewing them on myself when I did tae kwon do although I was a little older than Ashton.

Jett has been really good of late taking himself off to get dressed ready for school.  I haven’t been checking up on him for ages cause he will finish his breakfast, go off and get dressed and usually will do an alright job.

Well yesterday, Brian was helping him get changed to go to Ashton’s Tae Kwon Do grading and he discovered he went through the whole day at school jockless.  He thought it was a funny joke, we all joked around a bit, I was thinking of his poor teacher and the possible view she may have copped while he was sitting on the mat cause his shorts are pretty floopy and loose.  Let alone what may have been exposed while he was out playing….  The mind boggles.

Well today when he went off to get dressed after breakfast I said to him to remember jocks this time.  His responded with “Yes mum”  and I didn’t give it another thought.

Well this afternoon when he got him he headed straight over to the garden and he did a wee, I suggested that he could have waited a few more minutes to get inside the house and use the toilet and he looked at me all funny.  Then he pulls his jocks down and said “Surprise, no jocks today……”   Hmmmm someone likes to swing free it seems while at school.  I just hope he hasn’t shown all his other friends that he didn’t have jocks on AGAIN today for the second day in a row……

The other day Brian was searching high and low for his thumb drive and made a comment that he hopped I hadn’t washed jeans.  I told him that I hadn’t washed the jeans yet and they were in a pile on the laundry floor, so off he went to have a look.  Last night, I got around to actually putting that pile of jeans into the wash and we had this conversation:

(ME) (Picking up two pairs of his jeans and putting them in the wash)  So you checked your Jeans for your thumb drive.

(B) Yeah there was only one pair there and it wasn’t in the pockets.

 No, there is two pairs here.  Let me check…..(pulling the jeans back out the washing machine)

Oh I only saw one pair

Oh look what I found, your thumb drive…..

His thumb drive was found….  Obviously he had a man look when he searched for it the first time cause he only saw 1 pair of his jeans sitting in the pile, where in fact two pairs of his jeans were sitting in the pile.

So, now all is good, I didn’t get the blame for washing his thumb drive (cause we have been there before) and Brian is now happy that he has his thumb drive back.

Well first off it was Ashton who was getting headaches and needed glasses for reading and school work etc, further details can be found here.  Now it is me who was tired of the sore eyes and thought I should practice what I preached for her and get my eyes tested.  So now both of us are wearing glasses, which is kinda strange.