Going Quackers

It was THE Saturday night that Dragon had been waiting for. The big kindy night where they do their end of year production. It was to be combined with my church's Carols by Candlelight under the rain trees and mango trees in the playground. Up to 300 people attend most years. Dragon had a speaking part too. He was to be the inn-keeper. You know the one  - the good inn-keeper who didn't kick the young pregnant mum out on a winter's night, but let them stay in his warm stable.

Mummy McTavish thought it would be a good idea if Grannysaurus went along to help with the boys since Wolf McTavish had to go to work. So it was all planned until...   I received an email from my church letting us know that the evening had to be cancelled due to the possibility of rain. Mummy McTavish wasn't entirely convinced because she had not received notification from the kindy, so we decided to go ahead as planned and resort to plan B if we had to.

We arrived at kindy/church to find the kindy teachers sending everyone home because it really was cancelled. Big disappointment for the boys, but when we told them about Plan B they quickly recovered.  Plan B was to go back to the Dragonlady Grotto, pick up some stale bread and head down to the river to feed the ducks, turtles and fish.

It promised some great photo opportunities with the boys in their Christmas shirts. Wrong(ish)!
Three excited boys standing still for more than 0.5 seconds - impossible!
Three little blow flies all looking at the camera at the same time - impossible!
Three little comedians all smiling angelically at the same time - impossible!

I took a few photos, but not the carefully composed family groups that I had in mind, so I decided to put them in a slide show for you.

The most exciting part of the afternoon for the boys?  What could be more exciting than a shopping trolley dumped in the river by vandals?  To think - some poor kids only get to go to Sea World and Dream World. They don't know what they are missing out on.

Oh, and the rain? Check out the sky in the photos, but it did rain eventually - late that night and the next morning.

"Picnik Show"

Create a free slideshow with Picnik!

Merry Christmas

As usual I had a bit of fun with photoshop creating this year's Christmas card for our business.  That's Mr Sunshine on the top left.  Romeo on the top right and Grannysaurus on the bottom right.  The other 3 are who we had left of our staff due to the global financial meltdown.  In fact the young woman bottom left has now found other employment also and I have had to learn to handle all of the clerical side of the business.  It has been a steep learning curve.  Office work and I go together like oil and water.  So now there are just five of us where there used to be eight workers - not counting myself as initially I had no role to play and I was still working for the church.

Fortunately the last couple of months have seen a turn around in demand for our work and things are starting to look more hopeful.  We are not entirely out of the woods yet and we have a huge amount of catching up to do to repay our debts (mostly to the bank, the tax man and ourselves - especially ourselves), but we can see a light at the end of the tunnel and we are hoping that it is not the headlight of an oncoming train.
The truth is that in spite of the dificulties, we have many, many blessings to count.  Five lively, lovely, healthy grandchildren and three great kids who have great spouses and are happily married and all of us healthy and only a five minute drive from each other is more than many families have and we are grateful for all of it.

Christmas is a little more austere than we have had for a while, but the good news is that we are not beaten yet.  And we are certainly not starving - too many friends and relatives for that :)

2010 is looking okay so far.

I hope the coming year is a good one for all of you and that 2009 will be looked back on as a just a nightmare, bad dream, an interesting learning experience. 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

And so that was Christmas. . . the day after

I know the title is a little clichéd, but the trouble is that the tune of "So this is Christmas" has been buzzing around in my head all day as ear worms do and maybe the only way to get rid of it is to write about it.  Some of the problem is that I think I'm suffering from several seasonal diseases/syndromes.
There's the Christmas-anticlimax-syndrome because it is the day after the big day and all of the mad rushing and shopping and stressing is suddenly over.  The Christmas-anticlimax-syndrome usually goes hand in hand with the I-shouldn't-have-eaten-so-much-syndrome.
Then there is the avoiding-all-the-work-that-I-should-be-doing-syndrome.  Having had so much to do and been so busy for weeks, now is the chance to catch up in the garden and house, but I really don't feel like it.  If I was an athlete I'd say I "hit the wall".  Maybe I hit the mental wall?  I might have the balk-at-having-so-much-to-catch-up-on variety of this disease.
Of course, this being a regular steamy hot North Queensland Summer day, I'm also suffering from the heat-has-sapped-my-energy syndrome.
Oh well, I think I'd better get started on something. . .    right after I go and have a nice cold drink with Mr Sunshine out on the patio in the shade.

Merry Christmas to everyone out in blogland!
I hope you enjoy the caricature that Andrew Fyfe did of our work crew. We thought it was great. Have a great holiday, remember whose birthday celebration it is and stay safe.

Motherhood guilt at Christmas.

For some reason I had one of those nights when I thought about everything that has made me, as a mother, feel guilty in the last 30 years. It's a little more than that since I found out I was pregnant for the very first time. What got me started was thinking about how undeservedly blessed I am with my children, their spouses and my grandchildren. I wasn't depressed or beating myself up over anything - just being honest with myself about my stuff ups. Let me list some:

*I drank heaps of coffee (12-16 cups a day) throughout my first pregnancy. It's a wonder Chimera made it through the pregnancy.

*All 3 kids had colic and reflux to varying extents, but very severe for baby no. 1 (Chimera) - so much pain and discomfort and tears and we could do nothing. No medicine did more than take some of the edge off the pain. Most did not even do that.

*Letting daughter no. 2 (Mummy McTavish) go to sleepover party at the home of a paedophile. He was her friends stepfather and of course we didn't know he was a paedophile then. He had been trying to entice little girls into his car with lollies. Fortunately he wasn't there that night, but the guilt still sticks.

*Not realising that the reason daughter no. 2 was crying every day about going to school was because she was being bullied.

*The many times when adventurous toddler-son climbed the fence and ran away from home as soon as he could walk (about 9months old) and even managed to almost make it to the highway on one occasion.

*All of the times I disciplined to harshly when something more mild and loving would have sufficed.

*The times I didn't discipline enough and let bad habits take root.

*The times when I said, "That's not bad" when I should have said, "That's great and I'm really proud of you!"

*The times when I should have hugged and kissed more.

The list goes on, but you get my drift. The thing is that guilt seems to be part of the human condition. No one has tried to make me feel guilty. I just did it to myself. Motherhood has given me so many more opportunities to feel guilty, that I wouldn't have had otherwise. I'm sure most mothers would agree.

The Church, Christianity, has often been blamed for inflicting guilt on people. It is true of some individuals within the church that they have a knack for burdening people with guilt, but it is not true of true Christianity.

One of my favourite Christmas cards declares "Kid born in shed saves world". Saves the world from what. . . true guilt. I believe that when we trust and follow Jesus, we are no longer judged guilty. The Bible says that the baby Jesus grew up and dealt with our guilt forever at the cross. That is what Christianity is really about- not inflicting guilt. The guilt is already there. Because of Christmas and Easter we are saved from guilt, not just motherhood guilt, but all guilt.

May you have a guilt-free Christmas.