Tissue expansion, nevus & the many changes faces of C

Seeing though C has finished his tissue expansion i'm re-tagging all my nevus related posts as..... well nevus as it will be ongoing. Whilst there wont be any more rounds of expansion there will be more surgeries. Nips and tucks as I call them, to fix up his eyebrow, his cheek etc etc.


We've been on the waiting list for the next op for over a year now. The waiting for his first op was excruciating but all ops since I've swayed more towards a "whatever,whenever" attitude. Its not like its something to look forward to, taking your child to hospital, having to sometimes restrain them as they go under and comfort them after they come out. I try not to think of it, just casually remind C with a stroke of his cheek that we will see the doc again to sort that out.I recently went back and looked through our old photos from when he was born, it blew me away just how much he has changed. His nevus has lightened considerably and I cant help but feel anxiety about the what ifs. What if we left it, his hairline would be more natural, he'd have both eyebrows but then I also look at him now and see the changes for the better. Maybe its in my mind but while he still never feels the cold he doesn't seem to overheat as much as he used to. I know the expansion wouldn't have created more sweat glands just spread them out over his scalp but I like to think its made a significant improvement. MB sees it more than I do..


Self Portrait


I joke with family and friends and say he is my favorite, I know i'm not supposed to say such things but he and I share a closeness that I don't have with my other children. I still feel guilt for the emotions I had when he was born. I think that my guilt combined with what we've been through together makes me show him extra favoritism and lenience when he misbehaves. He really has turned into quite a cheeky little boy, spoilt by his father for sure and you know what? I wouldn't change that ever.


Some of the shots give you an idea of where he is at and can show his scars, man it was tuff trying to find imnages


Showing the hypertrophic Scarring
We've decded that he is best with longer hair so when it gets some length this time around we will start taking him to the hair dresser (as opposed to me shaving his head) and get them to shape it to suit his scars and skewed hair line

Looking Back 5 years its quite a surprise to me the various color changes within the nevus I think it definitely got darker after birth then lightened up. Maybe its just me

Dark

Lighter
DarkUntil Next Time....

Drawing on Harvey Mckay

“Find something you love to do and you'll never have to work a day in your life”

I’m in a bit of a rut professionally at the moment. I don’t enjoy my job; it wasn’t a career I chose. I fell into by chance as I tried to get out of my chosen career. It was only meant to be temporary. But 12 years later I find myself miserable at work. I work for a great company and enjoy what I do but do not have the greatest of managers which turns a positive situation negative in so many ways.

I find there is often a difference between doing something you love & doing something you’re good at. Unfortunately the latter can sometimes be more of a curse.

In early high school I was passionate about design. Graphics was my favourite subject and if I was drawing I could see hours go by and feel like minutes. I soon realised it was the design and build process that I enjoyed as opposed to the artistic side.

A bad placement on work experience made me change my mind and look at other career prospects. Midway through high school I was really enjoying biology and human development and started consider options of careers in nursing or perhaps as a paramedic. By the end of high school the pressure from my parents to go straight into university pretty much made my mind up for me and I studied Nursing. I worked as a nurse while I studied and thoroughly enjoyed the contact with people and helping those who needed it, but felt my size & strength made me more prone to be used as a lifting machine.

I made the decision to leave that profession and lined up an IT support role and did some additional studies and soon found my niche and 12 years later here I am. I did choose to quit a job I was working about 6 years ago and obtained the necessary qualifications to work in security at night allowing me to be home in the days and mamma bare could teach, but ultimately found myself looking for what was familiar and went back into IT.

With children comes responsibility and I have always put the importance of supporting the family over my career satisfaction and the perfect reward at the end of a stressful day and slow commute is hugs from your little ones. I've set career goals regardless of my level of passion for the work I do. I had a salary goal for when I turned 30 and reached it at 28, I set another goal for 35 and will be on track to reach it by 32 but money doesnt motivate so here I am applying for roles.

My parents never gave me the freedom to do whatever I wanted. Who knows if that was the case I could be a teacher now, or maybe build houses or any one of a dozen other fields that interest me. In the mean time i'll stick with what i'm good at and maybe look at contracting, working 6-9 months of the year and doing what I truely enjoy for the remainder

A quick poll of my eldest 4 on what they would like to be when they grow up
B 10 Years - Something with elctrical stuff or electronics
T 8 Years - Police Officer
L 6 Years - A Mum(Her mothers daughter clearly)
C 4 Years - Metal Bean Chicker

This list will no doubt change completely time and time again, the important thing for me is to support whatever is on it no matter what.

Until next time.................

RIP Sweet Canon

Our trusty IXUS took a bath on the weekend, it had served us well delivering over 5000 images.

Photos will be disparate for the next few days.

Eight Legged Freaks

I'm a man. A 6'7, big, ugly, hairy, mean (when I want to be) man. I have super powers, one such power is the power of transformation.

I have the ability to transform from a surly dude into a squealing little child at the site of a huntsman spider.

I don't have issue with red backs or white tails or even the common house spider (which looks mean as hell) and especially not daddy longs legs'. But you throw a huntsman into the mix and I'm scared, there I said it SCARED.

Unfortunately in my house everyone is scared of all spiders & bugs so along with disposing of all manner of creepy crawly I'm also charged with dispensing of the big, fast moving brown curses know as..........................................the huntsman spider.

Huntsman Facts:

• Huntsman's have a life span of approximately 90 years
• Huntsman's can jump at least 3 meters
• The venom of the Huntsman spider is powerful enough to knock out a horse. It will not kill the horse, simply tranquilise it for long enough for the huntsman to devour it whole.
• A Huntsman Spider can devour a horse whole
• Contrary to popular believe huntsman spiders are actually trained in scare tactics.
• Huntsman spiders prefer to feed on the eldest born child of any family
• Huntsman's can be found all over Australia but prefer to reside in OUR FREAKIN HOUSE
• The ground up remains of a dead huntsman spider can be used as a hallucinogen
• Huntsman spiders enjoy walking across your face while you sleep
• Huntsman spiders are faster in the water than they are on land
  

Here are 2 of some of the suckers encountered in our current house. This first one was above the Toilet, T noticed it while B was sitting there. Can you say freak out?

This one crawled up the wall while Mamma Bare and I were watching a movie, I had to tear the lounge apart to get at it. Note the toys and array of DVD's discovered under the couch

And as if 8 legs wasn't enough what the freakin hell is this thing????

Until next time...........

Striving to Promote Independence.

One of my favourite Everclear songs has a line “I think you are blind to the fact that the hand you hold is the hand that holds you down”.

Firstly YES I still listen to 90’s music & you should deal with it and move on. That reminds me I should do another music related post, more on that later lets get on with it.

I was reading the Herald Sun website the other day (seriously I’ve bought like 7 newspapers in my entire life - who doesn’t get all their news and current affairs online these days?) There was a piece on Lenore Skenazy and raising Free-Range kids. The concept of Free-Range kids essentially means loosening the parental leash in an effort to promote independence, strangley enough no poultry is involved during this process.

While I can’t say I would go to the extremes of dropping one of my children off in the city at age 9 and expect them to make their way home I can certainly agree with the concept of promoting freedom. I really liked Lenore’s suggestion of taking your oldest living relative to a baby superstore to get a gauge on how society has changed.

I realise that modern materialism is partially to blame for this switch in bubble wrapping our children. We live in an age where products we didn’t know we needed are invented and pushed upon us daily. If you take that spin on it then this cotton wool approach to parenting is directly related to money, “buy this $1000 pram because it has features X, Y & Z, its S A F E R!!”. Safer than what? Pretty sure none of my children have injured themselves or been injured on Mum or Dads back in a sling. Don’t get me wrong I aint hatin’ on prams, man the only way to carry the plethora of stuff associated with a family of 8 sometimes necessitates a pram or stroller. That and our children are all huge and while their parents are superheroes their carrying abilities are limited.

Parents these days are more cautious than they used to be. Is it because of advertising? Is it because we live in a time of innocence lost? Or is it more deeply engrained in the forming of a parents instinct to protect their offspring. I’ve often chuckled at parents priorities wen it comes to safety, specifically the avoidance of physical dangers. Don’t let your 12 year old son climb that tree but by all means let him watch a movies with excessive swearing or portraying disrespect towards women. Or maybe restricting your daughter from playing a “boys sport” but then promote lipstick and makeup from a young age.

I noted the herald sun poll listed 83% of readers were “for” Lenore’s parenting philosophy & 17% were “Against” it. If 87% of people who voted that they agreed with Lenore on principle I’d love to see what percentage would actually leave their child in downtown Manhattan as she did though. There is always risk in everything and I’m cool with that. Because with risk comes the need educate on safety.

Safety isn’t just physical. I see some of Lenore’s points and had a grand old laugh at the mainstream parenting comments on the herald sun article but I cant help but look at some of the many clichés like ”Children are wrapped in cotton wool” or on the flipside “Children aren’t children for as long nowadays”. People are so quick to quote thing slike that but they are just that, pointless clichés. 100 years ago kids weren’t kids for longer than they are now, they were made to enter the work force younger, there was a higher mortality rate, children of working class parents at best had 1 toy if they were lucky.

Nowadays parents spend what would be the equivalent of a years salaray 100 years ago on a video game console. Kids aren’t older now, they don’t grow up faster or slower than they when we were children, or our parents were. Children are children, the’re noobs on their life apprenticeship. You don’t let an apprentice carpenter loose on the circular saw and nailgun on their first day do you? You set a basis of appropriate training, brief him/her on the safety aspects, shadow their use of the power tools until thay have the confidence to go it alone

Unfortunately these days the most common approach to portraying alternative ways of parenting in the media is by taking the most extreme example. Whenever it comes up in general conversation that we home school and attachment parent our children most people say “Oh I saw that 60 minutes story on Attachment Parenting blah blah” - Cue Daddyo’s retreat from the conversation.

Its these extreme ends of the spectrum that have seen the popularisation of adding words like radical in front of an activity. “Oh yes we’re radical un-birthing natural home free-educators”. I just tell people we had our kids at home and we school them there too, no further explanation needed. It’s this choice of raising and educating our children that enables us to pick and choose from many parenting methods and education practises which ones we choose to adopt. More importantly tailor what works and doesn't to the childs needs. Something they wont receive in school.

Promoting freedom or independence (I feel like braveheart) isn’t about leading by example either, I love my horror movies, I play video games like Call of Duty. But I shelter my children from them, if the sun is out the computer and the television are off. This leads on to what some people perceive as being strict, but its not the case. For example my eldest assists with lighting the fire each night, he can explain the triangle of fire to me and knows appropriate safety measures when dealing with fire.

Unfortunately despite agreeing with a lot of the principles of Free-Range kids I cant help but feel that portraying it via the most extreme of uses (Lenore was dubbed ''America's Worst Mom'') works towards a good ideas detriment.

Sometimes the hand you hold can hold you down but it can also lift you up, it can guide you, it can light the way. My Free-Range children are given room to grow, to learn, to succeed, and to fail. They utilise their freedom to explore and are guided when the they ask for it.




Until Next time............





Cool or Crazy

Lenore Skenazy

Short Vent

Over the past few months as I have made the daily trip to the RCH with C and I have been forced each time to enter the hospital via a 2 stage set of pedestrian lights out front. I’ll be honest one set is painfully slow. You have to wait for at least double the time of the other set. What amazes me though is the amount of people who J-Walk WITH THEIR CHILDREN. I’ll be the first to admit I have J-Walked in my time, but never with my children beside me.

Witnessing parents committing this act has also made me look out for it more. Its not just parents and older children, its toddlers and even once I saw a man and woman jog across as cars approaching carrying what appeared to be a rather fresh baby. I then had to pick my jaw up off my lap 2 weeks back when I watched a mother and her 2 young boys cross all 6 lanes of the highway I commute on. They ducked and weaved between cars waiting at the red light then ran across the next 3 lanes in front of on coming traffic, the 2 boys ran at their own pace as the mother tried to keep up.

The thing I don’t get is if you asked someone to carry their 50” plasma screen or their Mac book pro and J-walk across the road they wouldn’t do it. Why do people do it with their children? Surely people value their children higher than material possessions. I’ve always been a hoon in the car or on the bike but with my children in the car I’m a transformed man, I have my life’s work sitting in the back seat, my most valuable things that mean more to me than anything materialistic. Yet you see people driving & speeding, smoking, tailgating cutting lanes etc etc all with Children in the back seat o the car.

Anyhoo that’s more of a vent than anything else. Until next time I’ll be pointing J-Walking parents out to my children saying “What are they doing wrong?”

Forty Before Forty

So the beautiful wife dobbed me in for a bit of a list, not a bucket list just somethings i'd like to do before i'm forty. So in no particular order here they are.


40. Learn the piano. (Oh man I can see how corny this list is going to get) I have always wanted to play an instrument (I don’t count the recorder) and I think the piano is probably my favourite sound and hell it might help me with my touch typing. Hoping I can squeeze this in with one of the children learning.

39. Read one book per year. Sad I know, unfortunately my reading is mostly motorcycle & home building magazines with the odd technical book thrown in. I am already 3 books behind (Richard Hammond’s auto biography, Sydney Poitiers auto biography & the Ducati story) from consecutive birthdays so I better get started.

38. Buy a welder. As A child I grew up watching my father making all sorts of things from trailers to sidecars in our garage, I have always loved working with metal and would like to buy a MIG and possibly do a short course or two and make useful things for the new house like a fancy front gate.

37. Grow A Full Beard. I'm facial hair inept, I have tried growing a beard several times but I just cant seem to shake the 3-4 week mark, the itchyness drives me nuts.

36. Buy a kayak. I grew up canoeing up and down the ovens river and have always wanted a kayak. I hope as the children get older and their swimming is up to scratch it could become something we all enjoy

35. Organise my tools. Moving house and not having decent storage is partially to blame but it’s still a worthy “to-do”. I have all my tools spread across 3 large chests so I’d love to be able to organise them in one easy to access spot.

34. Speak Publicly. I’ve done numerous presentations in front of CEO’s and entire departments at work but with the exception of a wedding speech I’ve never spoken publically outside of work. I would love to do like a guest speaker talk, not sure what on though. Maybe first time dads.

33. Go back to school. I’ll never go back to the field I originally studied in but I would like to do some further studies, maybe business or accounting. Or maybe even something that sets me up for a career change when the house is completed and I want to be closer to home.

32. Go camping at least once a year. To date its been once with Mamma Bare EVER. I miss around the camp fire under stars with no sign of civilisation, I used to camp and hike and have all sorts of fun in scouts and would also camp for 6 weeks at a time with my family every Christmas - maybe when the children express interest in it (I know mamma bare probably wont).

31. Buy motorcycles for my children. It pains me that B is 10 and hasn’t ridden. By age 10 I was on my second bike and had been riding for 6 years. Granted this has been hindered by not having anywhere to ride; this will change when we build our house.

30. Shirk Technology. Not fully, just a little bit each day. As much as I’d love to go feral I still gotta pay the bills. Obviously in today’s world it’s near impossible not to be connected but I can see myself in the new house in a room only lit by open fire with a glass or red chatting with friends and family. No technology in sight.

29. Save & Restore something. It may be an old car at the wreckers or a piece of furniture left out for hard rubbish collection. I’d like to take something that someone has or is about to throw away and make it useful and appreciated again.

28. Repay my wonderful In-Laws. They own a butcher shop and in 10 years of marriage we have never had to pay them for our meat. Its such a saving and I really appreciate it. I have taken off a week in December this year to help out at their shop. It’s the busiest time of the year in the week leading up to Christmas and they don’t know that i've booked holidays to help out. I may not be able to do it every year but its something.

27. Do a track day down at Philip Island. Hearing my Ducati at max RPM without fear of a speeding ticket, need I say any more?

26. Lose some more weight and get fitter. I’m sticking 6 months on this one. I hate how unfit I am at the moment and need to do something about it.

25. Take up a new sport. Following on from #26 I’d really like to get more flexible, I have been over 6’7 tall since I was about 16 and cannot remember being able to touch my toes since primary school. Something like Brazilian Ju Jitsu would be awesome but who knows, I’ll re-address this when I’m closer to my goal weight.

24. Catch up with my school mates more. I see my three oldest school friends on average once a year. It would be great to make it a little more regular. They are several years behind on the whole “married with kids” thing so its honestly my fault I don’t see them as often as I’d like.

23. Practice patience every day. I work in a stressful job but always keep my cool. I deal well with the chaos of 6 children but often feel its at the side effect of having less patience for them. I hope to be able to take a deep breath and not lose my cool (even if it’s the 15th time I’ve been told a fact about Lego, or Star Wars or Harry Potter)

22. International Travel. Ok just an NZ ski trip for starters, we want to do a trip with the whole family in a few years. Other international destinations can wait.

21. Go to Tasmania Twice - First with the family (driving), then again with mates (riding).

I’m impressed that I am half way already. I was stuck at 37 for like 2 hours

20. Get Some Pets. Firstly a dog, I always had a dog growing up, it hasn’t been feasible for us to date as we were always either fixing up the house or moving. Hopefully soon though, I don’t want an average dog, it has to be me-sized so it will be a great dane. I’d also like chickens. But definitely not cats, I’m allergic.

19. Renew Our Wedding Vows. I wonder if she wants to do it at the same kind of place I do though? On a beach with our children present. (Hint - Cape tribulation)

18. Swim in the Crystal Cascades with my wonderful wife. These are a series of rock pools that a river flows through in far north Queensland at the base of the Kuranda ranges. We both swam there at different times in our high school years but I’ve always wanted to go back there together. Possibly at night, and hopefully naked. ;)

17. Nude up (Building on from #18). Maybe not pose for an art class or streak at the tennis but do something in the nude. I don’t know why, I cant see Spencer Tunic coming back to Melbourne anytime soon so I’m open to suggestions. I once skinny dipped in the main beach at Noosa under full moon light. The water was so clear and it was awesome, it could have been romantic but I was with the 3 mates mentioned in #24 (read male) so although strictly non-sexual it was still invigorating. Maybe a nude beach perhaps….

16. Complete My five bike dream garage:
Primary Bike – Aka my Ducati Hypermotard
Sport Bike - Paul Smart LE My Favourite bike ever
Trail Bike – Something like a husky 610
Cruiser – Some sort of Harley tourer
Chopper – Oh where do I start, I hope to integrate this with #38 & #29

15. Complete a straw bale house building course & build our dream house. I’m keen to do as much as possible with our dream house and really get a sense of building it with my own two hands. While I’ll probably leave the frame, roof & electrical to the professionals I want to do the straw bale walls, carve out niches, integrate reclaimed timber myself. In 20 years time I want to see my finger prints in the render and remember the work and perspiration and the jopurney our family took to get there.

14. Attend both Moto GP & World Superbike Races at Phillip Island – Not necessarily in the same year, I was suposed to do one this year but time ran away from me, I’d love to do the Ducati experience where ui get to sit in a special marquee and go through the pits.

13. Tattoos Tattoos Tattoos – As mentioned by Mamma bare we have talked about getting matching tattoos for years. I currently have an arm band and the children’s names up my inner forearms but I’d like some more. I’d love a full sleeve but it might not be feasible in my white collar workplace. All my current tatts are black so I’d like some colour too.

12. Build my own spit roaster. Again tied in with #38 this would allow me to do more catering gigs and not borrow the father in laws. And have one at home for use whenever I see fit.

11. Volunteer for a charity. Corny I know but seeing Mamma Bare rally for birth choices inspired me. I am not really passionate on any political issues so the next best thing is helping a charity I’m interested in. Not sure which, maybe I need to also put “Get interested in a charity”

Wow top ten already, I did from 20 to here in like 5 minutes

10. Take better care of myself. I plan on being here for my great grand children, while I have never smoked and I drink probably once in 6 months unhealthy snacks and coke are my enemies. I do not like my current size and realise staying at this weight will shorten my life.

9. Build a gaming PC. I know at #9 this seems sad but this is in no particular order so I have put it here. I used to play Call Of Duty and thoroughly enjoyed it but blew the video card in my laptop twice so I have stopped for about a year now. With so many cool games out I really need a decent PC with at least a 30’ hd screen. I plan on involving my oldest son B in the build as he is very tech-savvy and would benefit from it immensely.

8. Get a helmet cam. 6 children doesn’t allow for all that much seat time on the bike so I’d like to get a Go Pro and start recording some of my misadventures. I enjoy editing videos, adding music and the like so it would tie in nicely with #9.

Ok I’ll admit I got stuck here and almost emailed the list home to continue filling it

7. Stay overnight in the city in a nice hotel with room service. Believe it or not we have never done it, We have stayed in motels and hotels around the place but never gone into the city child free and stayed in posh hotel. If there is a pool and health spa this is also an added bonus

6. Get Mamma Bare Drunk. In 16 years together I have seen her tipsy once and drunk once, both were at least 15 years ago. It’s a small hurdle that she doesn’t drink, but I’m sure I can over come this with the right choice of alco pop.

5. Try new foods. I tried pickled chickens foot last Friday, it was positively disgusting, it tasted like cleaning products. I washed it down with durian ice-cream which was as expected (I had Durian 15 years ago and hated it) also equally disgusting, but at least I tried them. There will be more of these tales to come

4. Get back into swimming. I used to swim at district level, I mainly stopped to focus on basketball, which was inevitably ended by breaking both my arms so I have always missed it. I get a fix each Saturday at the pool with the children but I’d really like to train and be at a point where I could compete again in events like the Lorne pier to pub or something similar, hold off on the English channel just yet.

3. Learn to play poker. I don’t know why, it could be fun, I may even hate it. At the moment my card repertoire is pretty much Uno & skip bo so a traditional card game would be a welcome addition

2. Introduce as many of my childhood interest to my children. We already do this with movies but there is so much more out there, I hope living in the country serves as a doorway for them to enjoy their childhoods as I did.

1. Spoil my wife more. She is without a doubt the most selfless person I know and is so easily pleased. She always puts other before herself. If putting up with my motorcycle habit isn’t enough there is the countless bike gear I have occupying the entire spare wardrobe not to mention the fast cars (2), 4x4’s (2) that I have had over the years and the added costs of building & maintaining them. She has put up with my expensive clothes (its not buy choice though - you try finding nice shirts with French cuffs for a 1 meter long arm under $180) yet is content buying a $20 pair of trousers from an op shop or waiting a “few more months” for that digital SLR she has wanted for years.

Happy Un-Australia Day

Ok I'll admit it, when it comes to Australia Day I am most definitely "Un-Australian". I don't see the point of celebrating the anniversary of some people landing in Sydney Cove a few hundred years back.

I dont see how its relevant to modern day Australia, if you ask most indigenous Australians they see Australia Day as day of mourning. Also know as "Invasion Day" the anniversary of the beginning of the end of indigenous culture at the hands of British Colonisation.

Now you wont see me protesting on the subject down at the tent embassy in Canberra I do feel the original tennants of this great southern land make an interesting & valid point. Combine the days "sensitivity" with the indigenous community & increasing trend in recent years of turning all manner of things into an Australian flag and I cant help but feel the day now represents little to nothing.

While not a fan of our current flags design (eager to see a republic as a matter of fact) I do respect it as our national flag (as all should). I respect what it stands for and while I am very much anti-war I also hold the utmost respect for those who died for our country and more importantly what our flag means to THEM. I grew up with the strict teachings of flag code, I've marched on ANZAC day and for me, for some reason seeing it adorned on a pair of board shorts or a bikini top is highly disrespectful. Its this trend that has in recent years seen our flag stoop to a mere fashion accessory, driven by retailers hoping to cash in on a previously un-tapped market that adds to the demise of the Australia day.

I read a quote once: "The American flag unites, the Australian flag divides". I couldn't agree more, not that we should regularily heed advice fro the US of A (Hello Healthcare) but with the increasing amount of racism in Australia spearheaded by what is now clearly bogan culture & the whole "Fuck off we're full" mentality its become an ugly side of our great land that seems to get its time in the limelight every 26th January

Why? Well for one its definitely increased in recent years mainly due to images plastered ovr the news of the Cronulla riots. Is a 17 year old drunk male wearing an aussie flag for a cape screaming racist slurs at a drunk Lebanese 17 year old drunk male something we want to portray as "Australian"? I also struggle to see the significance of the southern cross, we share this with at least 8 other countries flags so why is it so tied in with national (read bogan) pride nowadays?

So this Australia day I will be spending quality time with my Family and friends, you wont see me getting a southern cross tattoo on my forhead or attaching cheap plastic flags to my car. I may BBQ some lamb and will definitely have a beer & most certainly dream of an Australian independence day.

Happy Un-Australia day Everyone, til next time.....