Nathan spent the last half of last year wishing for a wobbly tooth since several of the kids at school had lost a tooth, so it was a very excited Nathan who realised in December that his tooth was loose! However, it also caused him a bit of pain. It was a dead tooth, one that had bled too many times as a toddler who face planted the ground at playgrounds on too many occasions. There was a big red lump on his gum when the tooth first became loose, but it wasn’t bothering him too much at that time so I just decided to wait and watch what happened with it (the dentist had told me to visit if the dead tooth looked like it was becoming an abscess). The red swelling went down but his tooth did bother him quite a bit on occasions.

The loose tooth became a distraction for Toby when he was upset. If Toby was crying, Nathan would just walk up to Toby and open his mouth. Toby would wobble the tooth with his finger, and then giggle, whatever was upsetting him forgotten for a moment.

Nathan was so excited, though, about the tooth falling out. He had all sorts of plans, like looking at it under the microscope and keeping it in his special collection. So yesterday, after lunch, it was a completely devastated little boy who discovered that his tooth was gone and he didn’t have it.

Nathan: I hope it is sunny every day
Me: Why?
Nathan: So I can wear my sunglasses every day
Nathan: It’s summer!
Me: It’s not summer yet. It’s still spring
Nathan: But spring is the start of summer
Me: No, spring comes before summer
Nathan: Spring is the dawn of summer.

We had a lovely sunrise…we are well and truly awake for sunrises these days. Toby is waking up at around 5:45 am and Nathan not much later. Naturally I’m not allowed to sleep once they are awake.

We had pancakes for breakfast and then Nathan and Toby went visiting while Andrew and I cleaned up. Then we all went down to the riverbed to look at the rocks and walk along it a bit. The rocks were really interesting, with some rocks consisting of layers upon layers that could be easily broken apart. Andrew found one particularly interesting rock with lots of small circles and swirls on it. It looked to us like fossilized shells.

When we got back we discovered that Toby had left his hat somewhere, so Nathan and Andrew went back to look for it while I made some morning tea. The hat was found and we had morning tea in the riverbed before the kids decided it was time to ride the bikes. Unfortunately for them, though, they both had a flat back wheel. I fixed the tyres (Nathan had two punctures, Toby only one) while Andrew did some wiring in the car to install some cigarette lighters in the passenger footwell for charging technology.

We had a late lunch after all that, and then we went for a drive to have a splash in some water that we had crossed yesterday. We went to the Aroona ruins and found that there was water from available from a spring. Nathan and I walked up to the ruins while Andrew looked after a sleeping Toby. We woke him when we got back to the water though Toby wasnt interested in getting his feet wet. There were lots of tadpoles in the water.

Back at the campsite the boys went visiting on their bikes. The school girls were coming back from their adventures in groups, and every group that went past all yelled hello to Nathan and Toby. I didn’t realise that they had talked to so many of them that they all knew their names!

Dinner was stir fry chicken and veggies with rice, camping style. It wasnt something we had had before, but it seemed to work ok. It was a bit dry as there was no sauce, but otherwise yummy. I had marinated the meat at home before we left and then frozen them in vacuum packed bags.

Sunrise

Emus

Shale

Goodbye Subaru Outback, the car that has taken us from Sydney to Melbourne, has taken us camping in the mountains and to the farm in SA. The car we bought when I was pregnant with Nathan because we needed something more comfortable than a WRX with tight suspension and barely enough clearance to drive over an egg (ok, it WAS fun to drive, but I found it pretty uncomfortable to be a passenger in). Oh, how well I remember how I thought the Outback was such a lemon until a decent Subaru service place finally fixed our issues. Oh, how I remember the dodgy Subaru service place accused us of sabotaging our car after our many visits to get things sorted our with our 3-month-old car. It was long ago forgiven for these issues and it served us well over the last 5 years.

But, times move on and now that we have a camper trailer, we needed a more capable car to tow it. So, goodbye Outback and hello Prado! Hello to our big, truck-like, diesel car (that is surprisingly slightly more fuel economical than the Outback). May it serve us well for the next episode of our lives.

We are staying with Shirley and Silver for a few days. The kids are having a ball being ‘farm boys’ as they love to call themselves. Nathan has become Shirley’s little shadow, and Toby often isn’t far behind. There has been some quad bike riding, fence fixing, grape eating, dog patting, grape eating, chicken feeding and egg collecting, quad bike riding, grape eating, cat patting, dog feeding and patting, bicycle riding and grape eating. I think there will be more grape eating and quad bike riding during the next few days.

What a month it has been. Nathan started preschool, which was pretty traumatic for us all really. Nathan didn’t take well to the separation. He screamed and screamed while I (or Andrew on one occasion) had to walk away crying to myself. Apparently he calmed down quickly, but that is all relative, i think. Ten minutes to me is a long time, but not to the teachers, apparently. Toby’s afternoon sleeps are now really disrupted, so he has had his own screaming sessions when I have had to wake him to go and pick up Nathan. After 4 weeks of walking out on a screaming Nathan, he has finally made some friends and feels confident enough that I will come back to get him, and the crying and screaming has stopped. It really is a horrible way to go about things though, I have hated the last 4 weeks. In hindsight, I think we could have worked through this better without so many tears by staying some sessions with Nathan, but I felt obliged to leave after some time there. I also had Toby to get to sleep too, making it hard to stay in the afternoons.

In early Feb Andrew had 3 days in Tasmania. It doesn’t sound much, and we did cope without him, but it is just that much harder to get the kids to sleep, as just one example, when he isn’t around. Then everyone ended up sick….one, or another, or all of us at the same time….for nearly 3 weeks. Toby had some weird fever thing that only came at night and he seemed his normal self during the day. Then Nathan had gastro which quickly passed around all of us, and then we came down with one mother of a cold. We are now on the recovery, but both Andrew and I have been feeling so drained, tired and lethargic for quite a while.

In the middle of all this, my big boy turned 4 years old. I didn’t even have the energy to blog about his birthday. We had planned to go camping at Tidal River, but with Toby sick we decided to postpone it a couple of weeks. He was given a couple of smallish presents, and Andrew gave him an iPod touch, essentially so that he has a camera to play with instead of constantly stealing mine. However, I didn’t think it was an appropriate gift for a 4-year-old, so I rarely let Nathan use it which I feel is mean because it was given to him, but he gets more than enough screen time as it is without adding another piece of technology to the mix. The last thing I want is a child who is constantly hunched over technology instead of playing with things that stimulate the imagination, interacting with others, and running around. Can you tell there was a big difference of opinion about this gift between Andrew and I?

Our weekend at Tidal River was last weekend. It was postponed from a weekend with dreadful weather to one that was hot and sunny. A bit too hot and sunny when we had little shelter from the sun, but we had a fabulous time even if we were feeling a bit drained still. The water was gorgeous, the kids adored the sand though both took a bit to warm up to the water and waves. The river at Tidal River was at high tide during the day, and I can see why it is such a popular spot for families. The campground was packed, and while it isn’t my favourite type of camping, it really is a lovely spot and worth the crowded camping experience.

So that’s our February. I’ll post some photos below.

Birthday present

Andrew and Nathan have been building a Lego space shuttle

First day of kindergarten

Looking for soldier crabs at Tidal River

It was a hot day, and we took refuge from the heat at the local pool in the afternoon.

I just bought five chicken carcasses (for making chicken stock) which weighed in at about a kilogram, for fifty cents. I have been astounded at how much chicken carcasses cost near where we live. The most expensive I have found has been $2.50 a kilo, but usually it has been around $2.00.

Fifty cents…..what a bargain!