The reason I don't watch the news

For anyone who doesn't know, my husband is a news junkie. When I first met him he would happily watch the 5pm news on one channel, switch to the 6pm news on a different channel and possibly throw in a 7pm news for good measure. I could never understand it. I mean.. it's the same news!!

Anyway, in recent years (probably since having Annabelle) I've developed a particular aversion to watching the news at all. For starters, it's not really "THE" news, is it? It's what the programming people want us to see. And it's ALL bad. So when Annabelle wants to sing and dance to the Wiggles and Mel is having a meltdown about missing the news, I say to him "Of course I see your point! Why would we have laughter and sunshine in our loungeroom when we could have all that death and destruction??!" (And usually he's happy to leave it on the Wiggles.)

But last night he texted me and asked me to watch the news at 6pm because he wouldn't be home yet. He said there have been power outages across Adelaide due to the heat wave and I figured that was a good reason to tune in, to see if it might affect us. Bear in mind, we are up to our 3rd day of mid-40 degree heat. Adelaide is hot, tired and cranky and we don't need black-outs.

When I turned on the news, here is a rundown of what I saw:
- The 40+ temperatures are here for at least the next 7 days (excellent)
- Some homes have lost power for 15 hours. They have had to throw out the entire contents of their fridge and have had no sleep for two days. Many of these people are pensioners.
- Several thousand other homes have lost power for up to 45 minutes at a time (across 50 suburbs) due to the extreme overload on the power suppliers caused by the heat wave
- Last night, a couple's house burned down due to the air-conditioner being on 24 hours a day. It overheated and caught fire in the ceiling. (Did I mention our own air conditioner has been running 24/7?)

But it's not all about the yucky heat wave. There IS other news of course....

- A 4 year old girl was thrown off the Westgate Bridge in Melbourne by her dad and later died.
- A 50 year old cyclist from McLaren Vale was killed by a drink driver, leaving his wife and two kids behind.
- A 5 day old baby was abducted by her father and had been in the searing heat for more than 3 hours before being captured by police.

And that's when I changed channel and resolved not to watch the news again.

Celebrity Spotting

I arrived at work this morning knowing that the Tour Down Under was starting in Norwood Parade just a few kilometres from where I work. I really wanted to see the start of the race, so I set about sussing the girls at work to see who wanted to come with me. Although one was keen, she had other things to do, with a client who needs a lot of support. I also had other things to do (same client!), but you know what? I'm always making appointments with these girls and being stood up. So this time I thought bugger it. I knew the client was being taken care of and I was going to bloody well see Lance Armstrong make his comeback.

I actually expected to not be able to get a carpark and have to deal with crowds like in Sydney (ie. no parking for 10km and crowds 50 person deep) but even so I was prepared to risk it. I was bedazzled by the celebrity factor, there's no doubt about it. Lucky for me I'd forgotten that this is Adelaide and crowds don't actually exist! Ha! So I parked 5 minutes walking distance from the start line and the crowd was 3 person deep. :)

I stood not four feet from Lance and I saw him take the start line. He signed autographs right up until the gun fired, bless him. And then the race started, with music blaring and a blur of coloured jerseys whizzing past me.

I was back at work within 30 minutes of leaving. Girls were totally jealous. And the most I got was a glimpse of Lance Armstrong up close, but it was so fun and I'm glad I decided to just do it.

Update..

I start uni on 27th January for the summer intensive program, which goes for about 3 weeks prior to the start of Semester One. I'm half looking forward to it, and half really not looking forward to it at all! I'm only doing one subject for the Summer Intensive when you're supposed to do two, which means I'll only have to go to uni in the afternoons. That means I can keep working in the mornings just for that month, and I couldn't do that if I was doing both subjects. Then after the summer intensive, I'm taking a week off and having a bit of breathing space before I get right into the swing of it.

I'm not sure what's going to happen with work once first semester starts. My boss has been great and is hoping to keep me on as a part-time manager and employ youth workers to do the day-to-day stuff, with me overseeing. So it could be ideal, it just depends how many spare half-days I have once things start to ramp up. I'm thinking of only doing three subjects, but I might end up doing four. I dunno..

So before I start, we are heading up to Sydney for the Australia Day long weekend. It was a last-minute thing and I'm looking forward to getting away. This time instead of sleeping in a cheap dodgy motel (which I normally do, just to be in walking distance from all my mates) we're going to live it up in a one-bedroom apartment down on King Street Wharf. Nice.

Not much other news. It's been a hell day after a very, very early start (thank you Annabelle) and I'm tired and want to go to bed. More later.

It's a funny thing..

...how you don't appreciate something until it's gone. Or you don't realise how good you've got it until things get worse.

We kept Annabelle up about an hour later last night and took her to her bed at around 7.45pm instead of 6.45pm. She took almost an hour to get to sleep, and this used to drive me mental but last night I did not even care. Just as long as she sleeps all night. Admittedly, we got through without all the meltdowns and protests we've sometimes experienced so perhaps it wasn't so bad. Her little eyes were rolling around in her head but she just couldn't seem to get to sleep. Anyway... just after 8.30pm (ie just in time for Mel to miss the start of House. D'oh!) she finally dozed off. I sent many prayers to the universe for her to please, please, PLEASE stay in her bed and sleep through the night.

Still, I made sure I was in bed early *just in case* because God knows if I have another night like the last few I could be a danger to society. You know how they say in certain circumstances you shouldn't operate heavy machinery? Well, that would be me.

Sometime during the night, I heard her call for Mummy. I looked at the clock and it was 2.30am. Dear God, No. Not again! She tossed and turned a little and asked for Mummy again. I crept over and patted her a bit until she was quiet. All of about two minutes worth. Then I covered her with her blanket, went back to my own bed and eventually went back to sleep myself. The next time I heard from her was 6.11am when she got up herself and climbed into our bed.

I never thought I would be so happy to be woken at 6am. I feel like a junkie who just got a hit. Sleep, glorious sleep. Never leave me again, baby.

ARGH

Four nights in a row she's gone to bed at 7pm and we were so damn pleased with ourselves. We thought we'd nailed it. Previously if she'd had no day sleep she'd STILL be up till late and then end up a feral, screaming, frothing, slapping, growling, overtired mess. And I did not like that one bit. And no, not because it's awful to deal with but because I felt guilty for letting her get to that point of tiredness. It can't have been fun for her at all. So now, we get her to bed early and she goes to sleep with fairly minimal fuss. Hallelujah. We have had the night to ourselves, eating dinner without interruption and enjoying the extended daylight instead of being inside with the blinds down to simulate "night-time". It's been good.

However, for four nights in a row, she has stirred at various times of the early morning (was 3.30am, 4.30am, last night 1.30am!!!) and then not been able to go back to sleep for OVER AN HOUR.

KILL.

ME.

NOW.

Can you imagine being up at 4.30am one day, being dog-tired all day and praying for a decent sleep the next night... only to be woken at 1.30am again? And to be kept awake until 3.15am?!!!! Let's just say I think Annabelle's going to be coming out with some new words as she pats her babies to sleep at daycare. It's going to be something along the lines of "Here dolly. Go to sleep. Ssshhhh. Close your eyes. DOLLY!! For fuck's sake!! Just go to fucking sleep!!"

So now in the light of day, it seems obvious to me that we need to re-jig the sleep time. 7pm too early. Will keep you posted if I haven't been committed in the meantime.

Let it be a lesson to you

When your kid likes doing something, and is happy doing something, and you're happy for them to do it, for God's sake keep doing it! I first learned this lesson (painfully) with swimming. I took Annabelle for a few months when she was 10mths old. Then the weather got cooler, I got bored with it and we stopped. I admired people who kept up the monotonous swimming routine all year round and kept thinking we really *should* get back into it - for her sake, and also just to have a fun activity we could do together.

Eventually, we moved to Adelaide and after a few months orienting ourselves, I found a local swim school. Rang up, booked her in, turned up the next Sunday ready to dive back into it, so to speak... picking up right where we left off.

Little did I know that in the 18mths that had passed, Annabelle had forgotten all about swimming and what fun it is to splash and sing in the warm water. She absolutely, utterly, flat-out refused to go near that pool. There was crying, screaming and literal digging in of heels. No amount of encouraging, cajoling, begging or bribing would work. She just Would. Not. Swim. In fact, she wouldn't go through the glass doors to where the pool is. After around 30 minutes of this, we left. Meanwhile we had handed over $50 for the monthly fee and been told that sorry there are no refunds. (It's ok, I fought that one and got my money back).

We resolved that she needs to spend more time around water before we attempt lessons again, but of course we haven't found the time to do that so I'm looking forward to how she reacts at her first school swimming carnival. NOT.

Fast-forward to today. Mel and I both own ridiculously expensive mountain bikes. We bought them at a time we couldn't afford them and are ashamed at how little use they get. Of course mine is the one with the toddler seat on it, and for a long time the reason mine didn't get ridden was because Annabelle wouldn't have a bar of it. She wouldn't even leave her helmet on, but that was kind of to be expected because she was just a baby. But earlier this year when she was a little older, we put her in her seat, whacked the helmet on her head and surprise surprise, she didn't protest! We happily pedalled down to the beach, had coffee, played on the glass on the foreshore and revelled in the fact that we could be one of those biking families that you see out and about on the weekends. This made us happy.

Then winter came and the bikes were put away again. Until today. I asked for some proper mountain biking shorts for Christmas and Mel happily obliged. (note: they have the lycra on the inside but on the outside look like normal shorts. Far more aesthetically pleasing than your standard bike shorts.) This morning it's a beautiful day, so we excitedly planned an outing riding our expensive bikes, with me wearing my new shorts. Annabelle literally dragged me off the computer this morning, pulling me by the hand. "Come on, Mum. Let's go, let's go!" We put her helmet on and strapped her into her toddler seat while it leaned up against the front fence. Then I moved the bike away from the wall to climb on... and it was all over. Just like that. The tears were very real and she looked visibly frightened. She cried and asked to get off the bike RIGHT NOW!

So we rode while she walked along beside us in the park and we offered several times for her to get on and told her how fun it is, but she said no thank you very much, she'll just walk. She actually ran along for a while and that was quite cute. "Look mum, I'm running!" "Want to ride the bike?" "No, I just run". Then I said "How about you hop on for just a bit and you can hop off if you don't like it?". She replied "No mum, I just hop off. I don't like it".

Bugger.

Christmas update

Better late than never.. but here goes!

Christmas for us this year was really, really good. We decided not to go to Queensland (to my family) because it would have meant using all my/our available Frequent Flyer points, annual leave days, dollars etc. for just a few short days at least two of which would have been spent travelling, and we preferred to put all those things towards what we perceived to be a more worthy cause ie., a trip to Fiji!

Of course the trip to Fiji is not looking to be a sure thing at all anymore (that's another story) but regardless, I think we made the right decision to stay in Adelaide. We woke up to open presents with just the three of us, then packed up the car for our couple of (very hastily and last-minute booked) nights at Victor Harbor where we had friends also holidaying. Here's a few obligatory Xmas morning snaps, and yes, that is a fireman's calender I'm holding up. My husband bought it for me. And sorry, pics are in the wrong order.

After leaving the house, our first stop was Mel's mother's cousin's place. Got that? Mel's mother's cousin. Richard is a man in his 70's, married to Helen, and with a grown daughter, Jenny and HER daughter, Georgia, both living at home. Jenny is a qualified chef (now a cooking teacher) and she makes a bloody fantastic Christmas lunch, let me tell you. This is the second year in a row that we've been fortunate to spend Christmas with the Reeves family and we think we'll be back if the food keeps being that good. Jenny has an enviable herb/vegetable garden out the back - all organic of course - and much of the Christmas feast is created with ingredients picked fresh from the backyard. SO fresh and delicious.

Of course Georgia adores Annabelle and vice versa. To Georgia, Annabelle is just like a real live little dolly she can play with for hours and to Annabelle, Georgia is someone who adores her and is happy to play with her for hours, so they're a match made in heaven.

Then off to Victor we went. We stayed at the McCracken Country Club. The word McCracken always makes me laugh. I was engaged to a guy once who was about the funniest person you'll meet. His name was Brook Shaxson (Shacko to his mates) and we were great friends until we ruined it all by trying to make it romantic. But anyway, we often had steaks at the Norman Hotel in Brisbane. The Norman was famous for its steaks, and when you ordered you had to leave your name so that you could be called when it was done. "Ms Lyons, your bbq is ready. Ms Lyons". So Brook would delight in coming up with witty pretend names that weren't funny to anyone else, just so he could have a little giggle to himself when his fake name was called. One of the regulars was McCracken. Phil McCracken. oh ho ho. See? Not that funny. But I digress..

So the restaurant at the McCracken was closed Christmas night, therefore they phoned us the week before to ask if we'd like to order an antipasto platter or a seafood platter. I decided to make the most of the last remaining days of the year and order the antipasto since I'm officially giving up red meat and chicken in the new year (properly, not half-arsed) (and I have). We were so impressed when it arrived that we took a picture.

The next day Mel played golf, we socialised with friends, came home and went to bed early. Then on the last day, we drove through another little seaside town and stopped for breakfast. It was quite lovely and relaxing but of course, too short.

And now we're back. I went back to work for three days this week but had the day after New Year off, so two long weekends in a row which has been very, very nice.