Embracing The Fail

Over the years i've taken to many thing like a duck to water, abseiling, canoeing, water skiing, hunting, video games ete etc.

But

But there are some medial everyday tasks that I just suck at. I'm not fussed by this, as a matter of fact I have embraced it. Here are a few:

Cooking Pasta
I cant tell when pasta is done, It tastes the same to me whether it is just wet or has been in the pot for 10 minutes.

Ripping Perforated Paper
You know those magazines that have like a special lift out section, I can never rip them off in one piece, there is always a little hanger that gets left behind or more rips off than I intend to. A subset of this is opening the washing powder box, but nobody can rip those in one piece.

Hand Writing
I used embarrassing photos of third grade teacher to black mail her into giving me my pen license. My handwriting will never be the standard that my 9 year old currently is at.

Cracking Eggs
Nope cant do it without breaking the yoke, ok I'll admit I'm currently sitting around 70/30 failure rate. But Mamma bare makes the best fried eggs so the worse I am the more I enjoy hers.

Remembering Names/Numbers
I'm brilliant with faces, I never forget a face, but names and numbers I suck. You better hope if you meet me you have a less common name. I have had brain farts remembering my pin on my EFT card when shopping many times. Dates are another shocker, most of my children need 2-3 birthdays notched up before I remember the date. The Exception to this would be music, I'm pretty good at "who sung what".

Touch typing
12 years working in IT you'd think I could. I type several thousand words a day but I don't touch type, I'm what I call a hybrid touch type, I'll use 2-3 fingers on the keys and my thumb on the space but I have to look where I'm typing. But it doesn't stop me from typing quickly though, I look scan between the keys & the screen so spelling typos are usually fixed on the fly.

Wolf Whistling
Mamma Bare rocks at this, but alas I can barely whistle a tune let alone break windows. Mr B can whistle better than I can.

Hammer In Nails
I have soft computer hands, and very long fingers, these aren't the most ideal recipe for laying flooring. When i re-did our kitchen and dining are at the old house I must have hit my finger/s 100 times throughout the days required to lay sheeting. If I need to do lots of nailing on the new house I will start with a nail gun.

Until Next Time, I'm off to practice my paper ripping.

Birthday Bizzo Part 2

This came in the mail today.

It needs to be said - MY WIFE IS TEH AWESOMENESS

Birthday Weekend

I turned 31 on Saturday; it’s hard to believe it has been another year already. I had a bit of a party for my 30th, 50 or so peeps and a delicious spit roast cooked by yours truly. This year was more relaxed (but just as awesome).

Friday night kicked off to my surprise with me being presented with my birthday gift of aftershave, this was done early as apparently Not just Mamma Bare but all the billy Lids smelt very manly so it was hard to disguise the fact that they had been sniffing numerous eau de toilets all afternoon. They settled on some that everyone liked and so do I.

We then progressed to with pizza making. I like doing home made pizzas every few weeks, I used to do it all myself but in keeping with my “Embrace the Chaos” motto I involve the children more and more. Our oven kind of sucks and sometimes they don’t turn out as good as I’d like but the kids love them regardless.

This time I had some help from Miss P & Mr C. Unfortunately we kind of disagreed on a few techniques for rolling pizza dough, a brief (but intense) flour fight broke out & hilarity ensued. It was sooo much fun, there were little white foot prints all through the house and in bed several hours later I was still picking flour out of my eyebrows.

Saturday morning started off with lots of wrestling in the bed with the little ones followed by a coronation ceremony (me receiving a crown made by Mr B, presentably L).

Me Being Regal

We then proceeded to our normal swimming session for half the day followed by an outing to a lovely little town near where we are building our house for a bakery lunch. The bakery also happens to be beside a saved/reclaimed timber saw mill that will be the source for a lot of the unique lumber used for the house I’m designing.

One of the features of our house will be a rather large dining room table made out of one single slab of timber. Similar to this I intend for it to be left as is and just stained and coated in clear, rough edges and knots and grains included. Beside the timber mill they have picnic benches made out of similar slabs (though not as big) it was great to have a meal at a table of the similar design to what I’ve had in my head for so long. Stay Tuned on that one.

After Lunch we hit up some op shops, Some of the purchases included an antique make up case for miss L (not for make up though) some clothes and some cooking stuff. We also brought some handmade goats milk soap from a little shop which I am pleased to report is really really nice to wash with and hardly tastes of goat whatsoever.

Saturday evening we hit up one of our local (to where we are building not where we currently live) pubs with Nanna & Poppy (Mamma bares Parents) for delicious meals like chicken parmas, pasta, wedges etc etc washed down with a few pints.

Me After a few Pints

Mamma bare drove home and we picked up an ice-cream cake (hey I’m a big kid what can I say?) but we decided to do that Sunday night after dinner as it was late and half the children had fallen asleep in the bus on the home journey. We snuggled up in bed and watched some united states of tara on my laptop in bed.

Sunday I got Up early to go for a ride with a fellow bike forum member, I will detail this on my motorcycle blog, in summary it was an awesome ride, despite some interesting moments in the wet and on a few occasion icy roads. Winter is certainly on its way.

Some Ice Obligatory Fuel Stop Shot
I got home just after 2pm and although we had intended to check out a new park we saw last week we opted for lazy afternoon in. The Children watch the new Alice in Wonderland Movie, which actually looked quite good. I watched “Edge of Darkness” a thriller with Mel Gibson & Ray Winston which was awesome I’d give it a 9 out of 10.

Sunday dinner was the children’s favourite – Pasta Carbonara followed by the long awaited ice-cream cake dessert. Fun was had by all as expected

Mamma Bare and I curled up in bed and watched “Valentines Day” not bad, certainly nowhere near the calibre of our favourite rom com “Love Actually” but not bad.

All in all a great weekend, I like it when the weekends are full but not busy (if that makes sense) I am looking forward to checking out this new park next week, from what we have seen on a drive by recon mission it looks awesome.

Until next Time…..

First Tissue Expander Fill Up

C did Really well today, I expected him to get scared & upset but it didn't seem to phaze him one bit.



40ml was put into the expander, he also had almost all his sutures out. It was a long morning though, we left at 8 and got home at midday, I hope to make better time next week though.


Until next time.....

Crafty

I need to pimp the wares of the creative Apwool.

My birthday beanie is awesome!!!!!

Hosital Visit #1

C and I had a follow up at the dressings clinic on Thursday, all is healing well. We can start getting the scars wet in an effort to dissolve the sutures.

He did quite well, we had the same nurse we did 2 years ago, she remembered him and commented on how more calm he is now, when he was 2 years old he was non stop running up and down the ward, this time around he was more easily amused with things like the Nintendo DS and was a little shy with some of the new faces.

Next Thursday we will be back to have any remaining sutures removed and probably the first expand.

In Other news its been a nuts fortnight, I've had a few nights were I've been really late home from work and have fallen off the coke wagon a few times but I hope to be able to switch back to water come tomorrow.

Until next time....

Tissue Expansion Has Started

Mumma Bare, Miss H & I Took Mr C to the RCH last Thursday morning for his next op, He had to fast from 8am so we got up early (6:30) and had breakfast, unfortunately this is at least 2 hours earlier than his normal breaky time so he wasn’t really peckish. We packed a bag and hopped in the love bus and headed in.
Sleeping in the bus

BEFORE

The wait is a killer, its mainly to ask all the relevant questions, sign forms and observe the child is in good health but for a 4 year old who had had 2 mouthfuls of cereal to eat all day its torture. He finally went in around 3pm so Mumma & I were able to get some food into ourselves also.

After about an hour and a half it was all done, we were paged to come to recovery. I know I left MB behind as we walked in as I was so anxious to see him, in his previous ops he has been all bandaged up so when I first laid eyes on open suture lines it was upsetting. Due to the scarring last time the doc wanted his stitches left open.

He was extremely groggy but wanting to rub his face this made things difficult. I had to help the Nurse hold his hands, which he hated, in the end we thought it best he sit on my knee and eat an icypole to occupy his hands. Most of the remaining Nevus on his check was gone, and beneath his blonde hair you could see where the expander sat. He was soon transferred to the ward. I think by this stage it was about 6pm, he was still pretty groggy, we tempted him with jelly but he only had a mouthful then fell asleep.

Mamma Bare & Miss P headed home, so I sat on the Chair beside the bed and tried to get some rest. C woke around 11pm and wanted to go to the toilet, he was given some pain relief and then had some more jelly. Whilst eating he felt his face and his head and asked me where his birthmark was. I explained that it was still there, but some of his cheek has been removed and that he had a balloon under the skin on his head (we had shown him numerous photos of his last round of expansion) He wasn’t happy about this, he said “I want my birthmark back, I don’t want a balloon, its ruined” What can you say to a 4 year old who drops this bomb. I immediately felt the wash of guilt come over me, It was our decision to put him through this. I didn’t know what to say, I just hugged him and cried.

The moment was broken by him bringing up his jelly and pain meds, I leant him forward and missed his pyjamas but the bed was messed up. I sat him on a chair in front of the hand basin while I nurse changed, cleaned and remade his bed. He quickly fell asleep and I moved him to his bed. He slept well, I cant say the same for myself, our room was noisy and bright. He woke around 3 AM and started to touch his stitches so I laid beside him and held his hand until he fell asleep again. It was good to be able to get sleep for a few hours.

Morning came around, he devoured his breakfast and quickly started asking to go home. I tried to kill time by walking the corridor and when the activity room was open we did some painting and playdo but he wanted out. After a clean of his sutures and a prescription we were off.

Mamma bare was already on route but we decided to walk (he really wanted out of the hospital)

We decided to take the opportunity of only having 2 children to our advantage and did some shopping. C picked out a bumblebee transformer and we got a gift for each of his siblings.

AFTER

Taking his anti's

That’s about all I can recall from the hospital.

Until next Time……..

Another Day Another Birthday

Mr C turned 4 today
Its been a whirl wind 4 years too, moving 3 times, renovating our house, selling it, buying land.

Its also been busy for him, 2 Surgeries, 3 months of expansion treatment. He has now had more operations and stitches than any other member of our family of 8 put together.

I love his love of cars & motorcycles, and how when he sees one he immediately attributes a transformer to that colour/style. I love that he makes up the soundtrack to our day through his own renditions of such classics as the transformers theme, the starwars themes (imperial death march in particular), indianna jones theme and the list goes on.

I love that his smile can make a 14 hour day easily forgotten when I walk in the door.

I hope that when he is older he will not remember the parts of his 4 years that have not been easy, or at least understand why. I hope he does not feel animosity towards me for those times when I have had to hold him with tears streaming down my face while a Doctor puts a needle in his head.

Today also marks the occasions of his last day before the next round of tissue expansion

Last time was the first time, we didn’t know what to expect, there was much more build up. It was the reason we moved back to our home in VIC from QLD, it was the reason I changed jobs. There were numerous specialist’s appointments and consultations for almost 2 years leading up to his last operation which in many ways seemed to make the time go slower. This time around we had a 1 year consultation and his surgeon basically said “ok lets put him on the list for the next round” and that’s all that we have had to do.

This will all change tomorrow. He will be having one expander inserted under his scalp and another section of nevus excised from his cheek.

IF last time was anything to go by we will then have visits every week to fill up the expander for around 12 weeks then he will have another op to remove the expander along with another section of nevus tissue. He wont have to endure the stares of strangers because he is still young and innocent, he wont have to field questions from other children answering whats "wrong" with his face. His older brothers have that base covered.

I'm not looking forward to whats to come, but its only 12weeks out of our life, its also winter so we wont be doing the same activities we did last time (the treatment ran over summer)

We are still debating documenting the process for him but how and in what form I dont know

Until next time.....

Mmm Beef

Its been a while since I did a food post so here is tonights dinner.

Very easy to make beef curry.
Heat some olio & worstershire sauce in the good old elec frying pan

Cut up the spuds and throw them in the steamer

Throw the beef in the pan and brown it.

Next put about a tablespoon of curry powder in a small container. Mumma bare puts in 1 tablespoon (I like more so I usually pretend to sneaze or something and "accidentally" put 2-3 tablespoons in)

Mix in a bit of warm water

Throw it in the pan with the meat

Doing this with half a dozen children in the house while your wife is out on her walk means you have plenty of offers from potential apprentices

Have your apprentice stir on occasion

Next up grab about 2 tablespoons of gravox

Add 3-4 cups of warm water and have your apprentice stir it all together

Pour in with the meat

I usually add peas & corn and on occasion carrots

Simmer for a while (however long it takes for the spuds to cook usually)

Mash the spuds with some butter & milk

Serve

Its quick, easy and tasty. Ok so it doesn't look that appealing but the best part is my eldest boys dont like it so there is always plenty when I make it. Sometimes we substitute the spuds for rice or leave out the curry and just have the gravy base sauce.

Untill next time.....