And its that time of year again....

Back to Smelly-bourne and reality with a thud...

School into its last term - which is good on one hand as it means the year is almost over and very bad on the other as it means i have 26 reports to write - the amount we have to write is huge (essays practically) and I worked out whilst writing my mid year reports that I write about 10,000 words in total - so a thesis really. These end of year ones are even bigger. Ah well. They are due in 2 weeks and i have so far written 3 comments. Each child needs 6 comments (comments being about 15 lines) and so I fear i have a long long way to go!

Chloe has settled back in to life here fine, but does keep on saying that she wants to go on the big plane back to Hong Kong to see Nanna and Grampy. I also think she has been listening to me as she keeps announcing that "...we don't like Melbourne do we mummy - we like Hong Kong..." Oops!
Chloe's social like continues on - visits to the park and teddy bear picnics are recent forays we have had. Keeps me on my toes I guess and keeps me young as well (nothing like rolling down grassy hills with a 2 yr old to keep a gal honest!)

Weather is doing the usual Melbourne thing - 4 seasons in one day - cold, warm, hot then cold - we have even had some rain, but not enough to stop the drought. Spring is in the air and so i have planted the tomato plants and sorted out the herb patch so all should be good.

Now to convince my reports to write themselves!

Hong Kong Daze

Trip to HK has been great so far - as usual have just got back into the pace of life here. Caught up with my dear friends Sam and Rebecca and got our assorted offspring together. Have also been into China to play some golf with Daddy and relax by the swimming pool.

Chloe loved China - and even tried to use chopsticks - shes a born natural!

As usual Chloe has taken all in her stride - sleeping well and playing with whoever is around. Grandparents are delighted to have her around as well. So much in fact that Grampy is taking her to Disney land on Friday and Saturday and has organised her to meet Mickey mouse (although I am convinced she will be mentally scared for life!!!!)

We are off to Stanley today to go clothes shopping for Chloe and Freya, should be fun if the rain stops...

2 weeks till Honkers

I am now in firm countdown mode till I go to Honkers for the annual visit. This time is going to be wierd as due to the delights of Facebook I am now in contact with heaps of people that I went to school with and we are planning a reunion to get together. Reunion is planned for Smugglers Inn in Stanley, an old stomping ground as the first pub we all went to , Thingummys, has been razed to the ground (and anyone who ever went there would say THANK GOODNESS).

Spent the weekend this end with Chloe enjoying the early spring weather. We went to the shops as usual for the now traditional milkshake/park trip. We did some more weeding, cut the grass and went to the park again. At the park we met Chloes friend Sophie and the girls proceeded to cause chaos by chasing each other around. Great fun.

This week we have Student Led Conferences at school - so am frantically finishing off their portfolios so they can share them with thier parents etc. Nothing like a deadline!

New bedroom

Have spent the last few weeks changing the old study into Chloes new room - for a few reasons butmainly because it is nice and light and airy and also has a patio door to the outside so when she is older she can sneak in late at night and not disturb me (I joke....honestly). I have put curtains up, sewn butterflies onto said curtains, hemmed the bloody things, set up her new bed, lugged furniture around....but Chloe loves it and tonight is spending her first night in there...mainly because she split her water all over her old bed. She looks very small in her big bed - and ver grown up!

We had dress up day today for book week at school and my teaching partner and i went as the Bananas in Pyjamas...bliss the whole day in my pjs..... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
The scholl was overrun with Harry Potter, Hermopine Grangers and the like but a few older characters, including the twins, Sabre and Jaegar (and no I did not make those names up) in year 4 who crossdressed and came as Goldilocks and Red Riding hood.....

3 weeks left of this term and then I am off to Honkers for a few weeks. Due to my recent addiction issues with Facebook , I have made contact with a few peeps I went to school with and we are going to have a mini reunion at an old pub of ours whilst I am there. Will be a huge mind buzz to see some of them as I graduated school in June 1991!

Gee I feel old now!

Cure-tastic

Saw The Cure last nightin concert and...wow!

BEST ever concert i have seen - 3 hours of absolute pure joy!

All the old favourites played and a few new ones as well. Robert Smith was inspiring - his voice is great and sounds better live than it does on records. Gallup did his usual jumping round the stage like a maniac whils Pohl did a great job on the guitar filling in keyboard bits and the like. I had forgotten what a great live band they are and also what an "ax-man" Robert can be on the guitar - he rocks.

Crowd was predominatley in thier 30s/40s a few "baby-bats" and Emos around. Was quite funny to watch the younger generation as they got excited over the "well known" songs like Boys dont cry etc whilst us older lot got exceedingly overexcited over old favourites like Night in Cairo. 10.15 Saturday Night etc. Sitting just in front of me was a couple in their late 60's early 70's - and they were rocking all night long - every word sung as well. Also a few kiddies their with parental units - and thats great to see as well.

Set was amazing - 3 encores as well and concert finished with a "kick-arse" version of Killing an Arab.

I danced, I sang, I remember younger times and I reignited my love for The Cure.

I firmly believe that there is a cure song out there for any occassion - go on - ask me!

When I got home - Chloe was on the sofa - apparently she had convinced her Auntie CHoc that sleep is for wimpos and had fallen asleep at 10pm! As soon as she heard my clumpy feet she was awake and crying - not much sleep was got after that -as she was over tired and I was overexcited!

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie... oi oi oi?

Just been told that I have been accepted as an Aussie citizen - how exciting....
So I better get practising on my aussie skills - any suggestions blog buddies????

Addictions

Was introduced to facebook a whils ago by my sister and for a while only had 1 friend - my sister. But recently there has been a flurry of activity and now Ihavelots of friends - and most excitingly most of them are old school friends who I have not seen of heard from in years. It is most cool to get back in touch with old peeps!
I ahve also decided to go back to HK for the September holidays - and will try to meet up with the HK crowd and reestablish some contact! Coool

Snot-tastic

Been a trying week here - my class have started the AIMS tests (every yr 3 kiddie in Victoria does them) and so it has been a little stressful.
Chloe has also developed the most feral and snotty cold ever - and in her kindness - passed it on to me. So I have spent the weekend thus far sniffling, shuffling around in my pjs and comparing snot rags with a 2 year old - yes blog buddies its all action here in Bentleigh!
On the up side though we recently discovered the presence of Playhouse disney on FOXTEL and various kiddie friendly shows that it has on it - Chloe is wrapped - but to our horror we only had it on preview for a week - long enough for it to become part of pur and chloes lives. I switched it on the other night to watch the Wiggles to (HORROR!) find that it was back to being blocked - i panicked and called up the FOXTEL peeps, arranged for it to be added - only to be told that we woudl also get a few other channels - fine I yelled - just as long as Chloe does not have to go through Wiggle cold turkey. So basically we now have almost every channel ever invented (minus the movie ones) including the Sci-fi channel so I can finally embrace my inner geek. Yes, yes, yes, Buffy repeats - every day - on rotation - ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Day off hijinks

Had a good day here. Chloes school was shut so we went off to the Aquarium with Freya and Rebecca for the morning - Chloe loved all the fishes and the train ride. All went well - Chloe loved the starfish she saw (her new favourite animal in the whole wide world) and joy of all joys there was one for her to touch.

Chloe loved this and touched gently to begin with but ended up trying to take the starfish home with her.... not a great look.

She also loved seeing all the different sizes of fish - look mumma a big one, look a small one. Eels, sea snakes, Nemo, sharks, spiders, HUGE crabs, starfish, turtles - all were taken in with a two years old aplomb..

When we got to the big shark tank at the bottom there was a diver in there - hooked up to a microphone thingy and he was giving a talk an audience about his job etc... cut to 2 rather intrigued 2 yr olds going right up to the glass of the tank. Chloe then was heard to say - Hello man - what'ya doing?????

On the way out of the aquarium we went into the shop and purchased a starfish toy (to replace the real one Chloe tried to grab) and a squeaky shark - as I feel you are never to young to love sharks.

We grabbed some lunch at the casino (well the food court bit not the actual casino) and then headed home - neither girl had a sleep... Reb and Freys came to have a cup of tea and whilst they were here, Freys decided that she wanted to sit on the toilet - for ages - reb almost dropped dead of shock. So we all got back in the car and headed off to Baby Bunting to purchase a cushie tushie for Freya to have at her home. Not the best idea we have ever had... we had a few baby meltdowns in the shop and then on the way home Chloe dared to lift her hand up in the air - Frey thought she was going to (horrors of horrors) invade "HER" space and it was on.... tears, more tears and yup more tears...

Chloe also came into the hairdressers tonight and had a trim before I got my hair done - she was ok about it - not entirely convinced but it is a start...

Back to school - booo

In approx. 10 hours I will have to enter the sliding doors to school again....not something that I am looking forward to after having seriously enjoyed my holidays - well except for the painting bit - but at least the house is looking almost normal again. I wonder what this term will bring.....

Park Life

Beautiful saturday morning - so after the now traditional walk down "the leigh" for a morning milkshake, Chloe awaited the arrival of her bestest friend Freya so they could go and cause havoc at the park.

There was hardly anyone there - except for 2 boys from Chloes school - who preceeded to ignore the girls (they start young these days) - nevermind, the girls got down to some serious swinging, climbing, and general tearing about.

Chloe can now clamber over the majority of the park without the need for me to hover incase of a fall, so at last after 2 long years I can finally see the day when I can sit on my arse on a seat and relax whilst she tears around like a banshee.

Dr Who tonight was great ... some really great lines in it. One where the Dr was described as magnificant....a sentiment that I strongly agree with. Phwoar that David Tennant is so so yum.

He will be mine...oh yes... he will be mine.

3 legged donkey

Today saw us driving 3 hours north to Wangaratta to watch Stranger Danger run in a horse race. Run is a verb that I use with a bit of sarcasm as he found it difficult on the "heavy & slow" (thats race speak) track. Dear Strange ran his little hooves off but just did not do well at all - 6th out of 12 I think... trainer was heard to mutter words that sounded like glue and knackers yard upon Stranges return to the stalls.

However, I love Strange as he is a cutie inthe looks departement.

See...

Hes also got character....

Too bad he would rather eye up the chickies at the track than run around it at top speed.

Chloe was impressed with him and kept saying "hello little guy" to Strange...not sure that did any good to the horses ego as he really is a little guy in height!

Anyway I did manange to shoot a rather impressive picture of Strange cantering past the finishing post- if you forget that there were about 4 horses that came before him it almost looks like he is coming second!

Go Strange! (hes the one with the yellow jockey on top)

Chloe enjoyed the day and was suprisingly good in the car - we did have to listen to an incredibly annoying song called 5 little starfish on repeat for about 200 miles - but thats ok - she was quiet and happy! She has also discovered sunglasses and is perfecting her "I'm a star leave me alone" poses.

Glaswegian Kisses

Went over to visit my scottish friend Judith and her daughter Iona today. The girls have not seen each other for a wee while but took to each other quickly and were soon tearing around the house, jumping on beds and generally being crazy.

Iona had the best toy seen for a while - see below post for pic and proof.

Chloe is now sporting and impressive bruised nose due to a collision with Iona. One was running up the hall the other down same hall and they collided midway - both girls lay sprawled along the corridor screaming blue murder, but Chloe sprouting an impressive blood nose - or in her words "look mumma - red boogies!!"

I berated Judith for teaching her daughter to beat up other innocents girlies and we both then continued our catch up gossip whilst Chloe and Iona went back to the business of bed jumping and couch leaping off.....

Finger puppet fun

Found these online - Chloes friend Iona has the Mr T at her house and Chloe was quite taken by it. She found my impression of Mr T quite hilarious, I also had great fun growling "I pity the fool" at her repeatedly...ahhhhh A-Team memories.

Quite frankly I always loved it when a plan came together.

Monday = Playdays

We got picked up this morning by Rob and Freya and headed off to an indoor playroom called playdays - to meet the old mothers group - really should call it a parents group seeing as Rob comes along but old habits die hard.

Playdays is basically in a really big warehouse and is full of all the toys and strucutres that you would love to buy your child, but never do. It also has the most impressive blow up slide.

Rob is standing to the right of the slide and he is at least 6 ft plus - so very big slide.

Rather hideous looking as well nes pas? but vvvvvv attractive to the under 5's set that frequents this place.

Chloe thought it was ace and proceeded to climb, slide and wheeeeeee with the best of them.

Witness exhibit 1 and 2.

The funny thing is that they provide tables and chairs for mummies and daddies, and they all just sit there whilst the kiddies run amok. Seeing as it is school holidays here there was a lot of amokness taking part and Chloe witnessed a few incidents between kiddies that she thought were most interesting.

However I think a wee course in self defense may be needed before we playday again.

Old blog

For interested parties - old blog can be enjoyed at http://ozpom.livejournal.com

I've arrived

Decided to move to blogger due to a number of reasons - peer pressure being one of them and disillusionment with live journal another...
Will it make me a more dedicated blogger???
time will tell.....