Home of Slightly Cracked Dreams

Things are definitely getting into a routine here. Miss Moo has successfully completed the migration from 2 day sleeps to 1,  and is much more predictible with her routine.

So here’s how things currently look:

6:30 - 8:30 Morning Routine (including getting 2 loads of washing out on the line)

8:30 - 9:00 School and/or daycare dropoffs.

9:00 - 11:00 Errands & cleaning with Miss Moo underfoot

11:00 - 2:30 Cleaning/study/work that needs to be done WITHOUT Miss Moo underfoot. Including lunch for Kiki and any other odd things that need doing.

2:30 - 5:30 School/daycare pickup and after school activities. Sometimes in there I can get other things done, like on Monday’s putting the bins out, and Wednesday any specific shopping that can be done without venturing too far from the jazz lessons

5:30 - 7:00 Dinner, cleanup, kids bathed, pyjamad and ready for bed.

7:00 - 8:30 My evening routine, including putting clean clothes away, tidying our bedroom, bathrooms and something nice for me.

8:30 - 10:30 TV or study.

So that’s my rough routine these days.

Now to stick to it….

I did a menu plan this week, but didn’t get around to posting it on Monday. As it turns out, I may as well have not bothered.

After years of agonising on my part about her behaviour, eating habits (or lack thereof) and general health, an allergy test yesterday showed Kiki (and likely Miss Moo) is allergic to: weat/gluten, all dairy (including sheep and goat dairy) and soy.

If you can imagine, that pretty much exludes so much of her already limited diet of yoghurt, milk, cereals, breads, cheeses, pastas and rice.

The doctor has been fantastic, and loaded me up with reading material, lists of books to track down (including recipe books) and a promise of a referral to a dietician if we see an improvement with replacing or cutting out these foods.

On the plus side, I have so far found gluten, dairy and soy free: bread mix, milk, pasta, biscuits, butter replacement, flour, cereal and noodles.

Kiki is excited about the prospect of these new foods (which she helped me shop for) and the fact her stomach is likely to stop hurting in a week or so. To be perfectly honest, so am I.

It has been a long road to get to this point, starting I guess when she was 6 weeks old and I was crying on the phone to the health nurse because she wouldn’t feed or sleep or stop screaming. She has only started reliably (ie more often than not) sleeping through the night in the last 18 months. If she eats too much lactose or rich foods she vomits.

She is still complaining of a sore tummy today, but she is already much happier and loves a lot of her new food (most of which she has eaten before anyway.

So now I’m on the lookout for new recipe’s to try for the whole family (I figure if 2/5 of us have it, it’s likely the rest of us will feel better if we all eat this way) and ways of modifying my favourites (the doctor has already given me a variation for my apricot chicken I’m keen to try) in keeping with our new diet.

If you have any you would like to share, or websites you know of, feel free to leave links to them in the comments (or use the contact form).

With exams and assignments coming out of my ears - this week will be a week of basics, and slow cooking.

Monday - Spaghetti Bolognaise

Tuesday - Chicken Casserole

Wednesday - Lasagne

Thursday - Beef Stroganoff

Friday - Noddles

Saturday - Breakfast for dinner

Sunday - Crumbed Chicken

What’s on your menu plan this week? Do you have a menu plan? If not, check out my How to Menu Plan post and then head over to Orgnaizing Junkie and post your menu and see what everyone else is eating this week.

2 blocks of chocolate

2 bowls of cauliflower soup

8 cans of Pepsi

2 cans of Lemonade

2 packets of pretzles

1 frozen lasagne

and 60 hours later the take home exam is done. I’m now a total expert in the Native Title Act 1993, and its 1998 amendments, the Fauna Conservation Act 1974, and the ficticious Save the Turtles Act 1980.

Here are 5 posts that caught my attention this week:

1. From Planning Queen, Beef Stroganoff Slow Cooker Recipe
2. From Redneck Mommy, her hilarious description of her daughters cat giving birth on her bed - not for the faint of heart, or stomach. Or if you’re eating. You’ve been warned.
3. From Frogdancer, Mother’s Day with older kids. Her boys are turning into such delightful young men.
4. Kelly, who this week got her eyebrows waxed because she broke a nail.
5. Lightening posted her thoughts on Paid Maternity Leave, which prompted me to post my thoughts.

What caught your attention around the blogosphere this week?

If I’m MIA a bit these days it is because I’m trying to study. I have a take home exam this weekend which needs to be completed in just 80 hours.

Despite my best intentions I spent most of last weekend working on an assignment that was due on Monday. I actually finished the first draft on Saturday afternoon, but spent Saturday evening, a few hours on Sunday and a couple more on Monday morning getting it under the word count.

Now we’re not talking silly word counts here. The assignment called for 1500 words. My first draft, lacking an introduction and conclusion totalled over 1900 words.

After hours of reading, re-reading, re-drafting, and proof reading by 3 different people, I managed to get to total of the body down to 1200 words, which actually left me with a few more than needed to write a killer introduction and conclusion.

But why do words count so much? Why do I have to spend more time trying to get my answer under the word limit than actually doing the assignment?

I get that I prattle on a bit, and I was somewhat repetative, but even removing all the guff I’m used to writing because Business subjects ask for 3000 word essays and I totally always went for the +/- 10% rule (ok, the minus part of it anyway) in those but apparently they don’t do that in law and when they say 1500 words they mean a maximum 1500 words and not a single one more, I was still sitting around the 1600 words.

And yes, reading hundreds of answers to the same problem must get terribly tedious, but this is an exercise in answering a legal problem, not paring an answer down to the absolute minimum number of words possible to get your message accross.

I removed quotes, cases that I thought were relevant, but simply did not have the room to leave in, and spent hours with my step-mother rewording things to cut just a few words from each sentence.

Wouldn’t it have been better if I’d had that time to make sure I actually had the right answer in the first place?

With the 2009-2010 budget handed down last night, finance nerds like me are busy pouring over newspaper coverage and figuring out what it all means.

Over on Lightening’s blog yesterday she posted why she’s against paid maternity leave.

Today I’m going to share my thoughts and explain why it’s really a bit of a non-event.

1. We are behind the times. The only developed nation without a paid maternity leave scheme now is the USA. Even Afghanistan has a program of paid maternity leave.  Support it or not, this is one area we have lagged behind the rest of the world.

2. We have other maternity payments. A $5000 baby bonus is currently paid for families where the primary carer earns less than $150,000 a year. There is also the ongoing Family Tax Benefit A & B payments as well as child care benefit, child care rebate and immunisation allowance .

I’m generally in favour of these payments. Having children is expensive, and however much Baby Boomers complain about it, someone’s going to have to be working to care for them in their old age, and pay taxes so they can have their pension.

Women, in persuit of a career, are putting off motherhood, increasing the need for fertility treatments andthe likelyhood of multiple births. Having children is becoming a financial decision - do you have them young and sacrifice a career and a solid foundation (ie a home and sable incomes) or do you wait, and face increased costs in the form of fertility treatment and potential multiple births.

What these payments do is take the financial aspects out of the equation. If people don’t want children, no $5000 bonus or 18 weeks paid maternity leave will encourage them. On the other hand, if people DO want children, the additional money may make it more feasible and allow them to choose the time to increase their family without basing the decision on financial considerations.

Having said all of that, this scheme is a paid maternity leave in name only.

$544 a week less tax (of $62) is $482 a week for 18 weeks, or $8676.

For women who don’t qualify for this payment, there is still the $5000 baby bonus paid in 13 fortnightly payments, and the ongoing Family Tax Benefits A & B, potentially bringing the amount to a total of $7484 in six months.

Either way you look at it, there’s a fair amount of money there to help take the sting out of the costs associated with welcoming a new family member, be it the furniture required, or the drop from two incomes to one.

In reality, this is a scheme that simply renames money mostly already being spent and fulfils a government promise at little to no additional expense.  However, it is a change that is long overdue and brings us in line with the rest of the developed world.

What do you think? Long overdue or are we not ready for it? Is it too much? Too little? What should they have done differently?

M&M in particular has always had a thing for soccer. I have pictures of her and Kiki when they were 24 months and 10 months respectively, playing soccer in the front yard of our house.

Our trip to the UK in 2008 also helped. I don’t quite know if they know who any of the teams are, but the soccer thing has always been huge in our house. Not that DH and I watch it at all. He’s more of a Rugby fan and I’m a Rugby League girl from birth.

Sill, not being one to rain on her parade, when I saw an ad at school for Under 6 players needed for a team I rang up and told them I had two very excited little girls who were desperate to play.

Well, they’re loving it, M&M especially. Kiki has her moments, she isn’t as keen on the games, which is kind of understandable as in some cases she’s 2 years younger than the teams we’re playing, and so far have only played against one team with any girls.

Still, the six-a-side, half field, no entering the circle, no ref, coaches on the field version of under 6 soccer has merit, and I can see so much improvement in co-ordination and confidence (M&M’s even had a turn at being goalie) that it’s hard to see a downside.

Except for training.

Training at 4:30 may have seemed like a good idea at the start of the season, however now the days are getting shorter, and the kangaroos are hovering at the edge of the field for the dusk feed from about 4:45 onwards. Doesn’t leave a lot of time for practice. And our team needs a lot of practice.

Nearly all the team (6 of the 8 players) can make it to train at 4pm, but neither the coach, or his backup (both fathers of players) can make it until 4:30.

What to do? (you can see where this is going, right?)

So as of this Thursday, I will be taking training for the 6 players from 4-4:30 when a real coach arrives.

Watching the game on Saturday (which we only lost 2-0 - go team!) I made a list of skills that we should probably work on (no, I’ve never played soccer before….).

Dribbling, passing, stopping, tackling, kicking. Umm, so basically everything…

I think I might start on some dribbling,  stopping and kicking this week and see how we go.

Now if anyone knows any sites that explain to me how to actually play soccer, that would be great!

In the lead up to Mother’s Day I was almost certain I was in line to be spoiled. Hubby boasted that he had actually bought a present for me, and M&M and Kiki at school and daycare had been letting things slip about what they had been up to. Including the $5 I gave to M&M to buy something at the Mother’s Day stall at school.

Helping out in M&M’s class I was no stranger to the work that was going into Mother’s Day. I recieved a beautiful invitation to her Prep classes “Mother’s Day Spa” on Friday afternoon which involved a crown and necklace presented to me on arrival, with a glass of “prep champagne” (punch and ginger ale). At the day spa there was head and shoulder massages, hand massages, a nail salon and a makeup centre (I heard a rumour that one of the other prep classes had a foot massage as well, and whilst I was jealous, I’m so ticklish on my feet it probably wouldn’t have been a great idea. Before the session was over we were also presented with our gifts - a photo frame and beautiful photo of our kids.

Sunday came around and I duitifully stayed in bed after hearing everyone get up and sneak down to the kitchen (although for M&M & Kiki, sneaking might be not the right word to describe the yelling and jumping…) and actually managed to go back to sleep.

I was woken just before 8am (bliss!) to a pancake specialty (cream cheese filling and berry sauce) and a cup of tea, as well as presents from everyone!

In addition to the traditional card from daycare from Kiki, M&M had bought me a box of chocolates, and Hubby had bought me a new dressing gown (I’m actually allergic to the one I currently have, so it’s not very effective…). I felt thoroughly spoiled.

When we were all dressed, packed and ready we headed off to Brisbane for lunch with my step-mother and siblings. Despite the traffic delays getting there it was a wonderful afternoon. The kids had a jumping castle, animal nursery and face painting to keep them busy, and a couple of boys had some soccer balls which of course my girls loved kicking around.

But I guess the best part of the afternoon came when we bought tickets in the meat raffle. $8 worth in two draws.

And then we won! And these were not scungy meat trays like I’m used to. I weighed it when I got home and it was 2.5kg of prime rump steak from a top Brisbane butcher. But not only that! I got a $40 TAB voucher, which I though I may as well save for Melbourne Cup Day, but later discovered I can redeem for cash, so I might just keep it handy and cash it soon and go and buy myself something nice. There was also a box of Rose’s chocolates which we all shared with tea and coffee before coming home.

All in all a fabulous day, and this is one thoroughly spoiled Mum!

I hope you all had a Happy Mother’s Day!

Menu Plan Monday

Firstly, I need to say a big Happy Birthday to my baby brother! He’s 22 today. (P.S. Thanks for the wine yesterday - mwah!)

But onto the menu plan for this week. It’s nothing really exciting actually, but I’ll see what I can do about that as I go…

Monday - we’re out, hopefully eating some $7 roast at the local bowls club because after the $9 kids meals and $30 steak meals we had yesterday I’m feeling the need for some cheaper meals since we’re having to be out. We’re off to our first Lions meeting at a potential club. Hubby’s parents were members there before moving north and judging by the number of phone calls we had they’re looking forward to meeting us (personally I think the just want the extra membership numbers and more people so they don’t have to get up at 4am on Sunday mornings for the markets anymore….)

Tuesday - Spaghetti Bolognaise. Which I’m going to attempt in the slow cooker. And doing a double batch. I think if I brown the mince in the frypan and then dump everything into the slow cooker it’ll work out all right, but this is an experiment. Even so I plan on doing a double batch.

Wednesday - I’m out at a meeting again, so planning some sort of chicken casserole in the slow cooker. I can definitely see the slow cooker living on the bench this winter.

Thursday - Lasagne using the other half of the slow cooked bolognaise sauce from Tuesday. I have thought about putting it in the slow cooker (the lasagne recipe I use is actually a slow cooker lasagne recipe) but I think if I just assemble before soccer training and throw in the oven when we get home we should be able to eat by 6 :30 which isn’t too late.

Friday - Bangers and Mash. The last thing I feel like doing on Friday is cooking, but something this easy could work. I’ll let you know if it actually gets cooked.

Saturday - Steak and veg. Or possible a pasta bake of somekind.

Sunday -Toasted Sandwiches

What’s on your menu plan this week? Do you have a menu plan? If not, check out my How to Menu Plan post and then head over to Orgnaizing Junkie and post your menu and see what everyone else is eating this week.