Irrational Fears

Husband thinks that my irrational (and nearly always illogical) hatred of certain things is hilarious.  The biggest one being rodents.

I.HATE.MICE.  I just do not do mice.  At all.  Ever.  I've been known to call my brother at 2am screaming into the phone that the big killer scary mice were after me and he had to come around NOW to save me (oh, and his niece, the Midget too)  My father in law has had plenty of pleading 'rescue me' phone calls too, back when husband was working night shift.

Husband, Midget and my Nan one year bought a fake cat toy-esque mouse for my birthday one year, which they hid in amongst my gifts.  They claim to have witnessed me jumping 84 feet in the air and at the same time jumping clean across the room in a bid to get away from the mouse.  They found it hilarious, I burst into tears.

Said mouse has since made several appearances around the house.  It's been hidden in the top of the wardrobe - it takes less than 1.5 seconds to get from the floor to the middle of the bed incase you were wondering, it's been in my handbag, in the pantry and the bathtub.

We've recently moved, and the Husband and I are involved in a box unpacking stand off, which has resulted in boxes being unpacked on a strict only-when-needed policy. I broke the potato masher tonight while making dinner, so went looking for my spare one, which just happened to be in Boxland.  The relevant box was located, the tape removed, and I started pulling stuff out.  Including that.f##king.mouse.  Naturally I screamed, like a little girl, and Husband must of guessed what had happened, because instead of rushing to my aid, Prince Charming style, he instead chose to convulse in fits of laughter.  Bastard.

I'd love to say the mouse is gone, but seeing as I refuse to touch it - and yes I do realise it's fake, and therefore not actually a mouse - that would be a lie.  I just hope it doesn't make any more appearances

Rainy Sundays

Winter is here, and today I was treated to my first 'real' taste of the winter weather I can come to expect, or so I've been told.  Torrential downpours.  Fun.

I'd briefly considered an afternoon trip down to the Valley Lake and the attached wildlife park, but had to turn to plan B instead - Cooking!  The husband, previously cursing the rain because it washed out the go karts was suddenly thrilled about the big wet.

I decided to start with Lasagne, for our dinner, and followed that up with a rather large amount of fried rice for dinner on Thursday night when the Midget has a late dance class.  The reasonably healthy-ish stuff aside, it was time for the good stuff.  Mars bar slice is a huge hit in our house.  So simple, and so yum.  And so already half gone.  Next came gooey chocolate chip cookies - Husband is a big biscuit-and-coffee late at night fan.  

By about 4pm I was bored, so I decided to do a test run of a new chocolate cake recipe I found and was planning on using for the midget's birthday cake in a few weeks.  If the mixture is anything to go by, they will be heavenly.  She has requested a cupcake tower, so I whipped out some royal icing, tinted it pink, added some sprinkles and voila.  She insisted on putting them on the cupcake stand I bought, just so she could see how they would look, and then insisted on getting in the photo I took of them

Mmmmmm cupcakes

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

INGREDIENTS

100 grams butter (at room temperature)

1 1/2 cups Caster Sugar

1/2 cup Cocoa powder

1 1/4 cups Self Raising Flour

2 eggs

1/2 cup Milk

3/4 cup Chocolate chips

METHOD

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees (celcius)

2. Line cupcake tray with patty pans

3. Place butter and sugar into mixing bowl.  Using electric beaters, mix butter and sugar until pale and creamy

4. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing well between each egg.

5. Sift in flour, cocoa and milk.  Beat until all ingredients are combined.

6. Using wooden spoon, stir in chocolate chips.

7. Fill patty pans with the chocolate cake mixture (approx. 2/3 full)

8. Bake for 15 minutes, or until top springs back when lightly pressed.

Enjoy!

Get to know the crew

Yeah, I know, it's possibly a few days too late to start introducing the crew, but I'm not a big one for convention, so I'll do it now instead.

Midget in action

Dubbed Crazy Little Midget by the Husband and I because a) her initials happen to be CLM and b) because as the picture above indicates, she really is crazy.

Our only child, aged almost 9 (I still refuse to believe it is happening dammit!) Loves books, and is well on her way to joining me at bookdepository anonymous.  Also loves dancing - Jazz, Tap and Ballet, and is a member of her dance schools U/10 troupe, Netball, Music, Sewing and Go karting.  Yes, I know, a kind of strange mix of interests, the go karting is kind of unexpected, but like I said, she is a rather strange child.  Major Diva and wannabe fashionista.  Appears to be made of elastic.  The sweetest child alive.

At the Zoo, with Funi

ElastiGirl

Next comes the Husband.  My husband is not Midget's biological father, but is none the less her much loved Daddy, and we all got married in a family ceremony in March 2010.  He gave both me and her a ring, and made vows to both of us.  A wonderful person 

Last, but definitely not least, would be me.  I'm 29, Midgets mum and husband's wife.  I'm slightly more of a book nerd than is possibly good for me, regularly going through around 3 to 4 books a week.  It makes the husband slightly nervous whenever he sees the parcel delivery van pull up in the driveway because it's nearly always more books.  I love to cook and bake, and work by the theory of why make 1 option when I can make 2 (or 3, or 4) and have recently been dubbed official family dessert supplier for all family functions (thanks to one of the husband's cousins after I turned up for easter lunch bearing 6 options for a 20 person lunch, whoops)  I get that from my Nan, who famously over catered every single event she ever hosted.  

Midget and I, many years ago in 2006

Also part of the family is BJ, our Blue Heeler.  Also known as Chicken dog due to the fact that every time you even pick up the hose he runs and hides.  It doesn't even have to be turned on.  He is quite possibly the worlds laziest Heeler, but luckily for him he is probably the world's cutest - but I'm not biased or anything :)  Also known to sulk if he doesn't get his own way, which is kind of hilarious.

And there you have it, an introduction to us.

She's here

In a very brief update to last night's ranting, my neice, Little Miss Moppet arrived this morning, via C/Section.  8 pounds 15, 53cm.  Big brother, the Little Dude, is very impressed with his sister.

So a big welcome to the family Miss Moppett.

Misery

Excuse me for a few moments while I channel your average 2 year old and chuck a tantrum.

Husband and I have been trying (and trying and trying and trying and trying) to have a baby for 3 long years now.  Last year, at 2 years and a handful of months, we finally succeeded.  Ecstatic doesn't even come close to our feelings at the time, but sadly our excitement was short lived, and I miscarried days later at just 5 weeks, on fathers day.

We'd talked on and off for 12 + months about fertility treatments, but were very fond of saying 'next month'.  Eventually we agreed to bite the bullet, and we made our appointments at the GP for our referrals.  Litres of blood (I HATE needles, it was hell) and a couple of very awkward sperm tests for the husband - who will kill me if he ever finds out I wrote that - we had our referral to the Fertility clinic.  Naturally, we had to wait what seemed like forever for our appointment, only to be told on our first meeting with our assigned specialist that there was nothing at all preventing us from conceiving.  We were just one of those unlucky couples that are medically perfect fertility wise, but are still unable to conceive.

IVF, we were told, was our best option, I needed more tests (more needles, fabulous!) and then we were free to start whenever we wanted.  For a very hefty price tag, naturally.  $9000 and change to be precise.  About $6,500 more than we had available to us at the time, so we went away with intentions of scrimping and saving as much as we needed in the quickest possible time.

Through my various googling research, we discovered another clinic, in Adelaide, that was run through the public hospital system, and was significantly cheaper, infact we were only a few hundred dollars short of their price tag, which meant we could start pretty much whenever we wanted.  I was on the phone in a matter of seconds booking our initial appointment, which was set for 4 weeks time.

Without warning, tragedy struck, and my step father was killed in a sudden, extremely unexpected and devastating road accident.  We were on the plane to Sydney, to my home town the next day.  Which just happened to be 2 days before our appointment at the clinic.

5 weeks after the funeral we packed up our small town life and headed south.  Leaving the fertility clinic 5 hours behind us.  Now what do we do?

We've debated long and hard, but the reality of the situation is that quite simply, we are just not able to manage heading back to Adelaide for fertility treatment.  There is such a small window of opportunity during a cycle that we would need to be able to head to the clinic at very minimal notice.  I can only take time off from work during school holidays, and it's more likely than not that holidays will be the wrong time for us.

Time to come up with a plan B.  Several more weeks of debate left us with what we feel is our only option at this point.  We do nothing.  Well not quite nothing, we will go and see another Dr, and see if any testing they can recommend will pick up something that the other Dr's have missed.  Something nice and easy to fix, preferably, but with our track record means that they wont.

Which brings us to the point of this post.

To put things bluntly, I'm miserable.  My sister in law is having a C section in the morning, bringing my niece into the world, 3 weeks and 1 day after my due date for our miscarried babe.  Meanwhile we are still wishing for a miracle.  It's been 38 odd weeks since the miscarriage, and it still hurts as badly as it did the day it happened. 

We started trying for a baby just before Midget turned 6.  She is just about to turn 9.  Back in our early 'let's plan our family' days, we talked about having a baby in 2009, and then planned to start trying for another in late 2010.  Oh how I wish.

Mid 2011 and still waiting.  And I'm over it.  Absolutely f**king over it.

I just want this ride to be over.  With a happy ending.  Surely that's not too much to ask for.

She's not blonde.........

Midget, who is 8, was sitting watching Glee when I got home from work today.  "Hey Mum" she says as I walk through the door "You know Mercedes, (played by Amber Riley) well is she really black, or do they just dress her up that way?"

This is on the back of her weekend effort, when at a birthday party for one of her cousins she spots their pet budgie sitting in it's cage.  She pointed at it, then asked "Hey, is that a bird?"  All the adults in the room went quiet, trying to work out if they really heard what they thought they did, then started roaring with laughter.  No, honey, it's a goldfish.......

I worry about that child some days

A very bestest best good friend

2 months ago we packed up our small town existance, and headed 5 hours south to a much larger, but somewhat isolated Regional city.  In the process, Miss 8 (aka the Crazy Little Midget) had to leave behind her very bestest best good friend, which broke both their little hearts.

We were hoping to be able to have Miss Bestest best good friend come and stay with us for a few days during the Easter school holidays, but sadly life got in the way, and once again I had a very sad midget when we told her that we just couldn't possibly swing a visit.  

Midget's birthday is coming up (let's not get into that, I swear it wasn't 9! years ago that I was giving birth, it's just not possible) and every.single.birthday list has had the same thing on it.  She wants Miss bestie to come to her birthday party and stay for a few days.  She's left notes in my handbag reminding me to ring Miss Bestie's mum, sends me emails asking if it's been organised yet - yes my 8 year old has her own email, no I won't explain my reasons why I allowed it - and on one memorable occasion just last night rang my mobile from the house phone when Daddy was out and I was in the shower, and left me a full 60 second voice mail message begging me to let Miss Bestie come to stay.  

She'll be very happy to discover that I finally got around to ringing Miss Bestie's mum tonight, and Miss Bestie is coming for a full week in July.  Husband is worried about his hearing, cause damn, can those girls talk, and he's normally reaching for the nurofen after just one afternoon.  He's spent the last hour googling for the most kid-tiring-out-activities our local area offers, cause he has this bright idea that if he takes them hiking up the Lake Tower in the morning they might spend the rest of the day to tired to be loud.  In the word's of Daryl Kerrigan "Tell 'im he's dreamin!"

I'll be working for a good portion of the visit, so my hearing is safe (as are my legs, the Lake Tower hike is deadly)