'The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.'

'Before I got married, I had six theories about bringing up children. Now I have six children and no theories.' Earl of Rochester


I like this quote as it reminds you how idealistic you start out as a parent and how all those ideals can go out the window when you have children. Parenting can be such a challenge. The lack of sleep, all the washing and feeding that needs to happen, the lack of free time, the lack of appreciation the crying, whining, arguing! Of course, not that I am saying that happens in my family, I have just heard that it happens. (If only that were true!) So I always appreciate anything that makes me laugh about being parent.

This is a great quote: 'The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.' Jack Hardy

Josh, his cheeky face.

Hayden has just gotten off the 'Winnie the Pooh' ride in Disneyland. How happy does he look! I was looking for some frowning pictures too, but I guess I don't think to photo the kids when they are in a bad mood.

Mark and I have have discovered some great books by Michael Carr-Gregg (no this is not an add, just something that I love that I recently discovered). He is a psychologist that talks a lot about children's issues. Using lots of humour, which makes you feel like what you are going through is normal.

This is video of him talking about parenting. Its 10 minutes long and takes a couple of minutes to get into it but its really funny. I like some of his comments in it: 'If you are haven't upset your teenager three times a week then your just not trying.':D Also that not one ounce of your self esteem should be wrapped up in what your teenager thinks of you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWCR9tHSdFM&feature=related

We borrowed out a couple of his books on teenagers a the library they are great!

Just a Mother

I am so grateful that I can be at home with my boys and not have to go into the workforce. It is something that both my husband and I have always valued and worked towards. Life is so busy trying to keep on top of things with the house, shopping, washing, homework, school commitments, work, church and family commitments, trying to stay fit and go the gym, I don't know how we would manage if I did work. Well I can imagine, life would be stressful and pretty chaotic!

I don't like the term 'stay-at-home Mother'. It sounds like all we are doing is sitting in front of the TV watching soapies. Where as most of us are up at the school, at the shops, cleaning, looking after children and other family members, exercising, creating, organising, supporting.




However so many people dismiss you as having no intellect or skills because you are at home. You almost feel like you are bring lazy or a drain on your husband if your are not bringing in income. But being at home with the kids can also save their family a lot of money, not having childcare fees, being able to shop for specials more and have more time to do things which save money. Like cooking the meal instead of eating out for example.

Anyway all this is brought on by something happened at the school this morning. When I was helping out change the books for my sons year one class. I had my readers all ready to scan and then a teacher aide pushed in front of me. Saying she needed the computer now as she was a teacher aide and being paid and I was 'just a Mother' and I had more time on my hands. She then went on to criticise on how some Mothers, couldn't put the readers away properly and didn't know what they were doing.

'Just a Mother' hey. I felt at the time that I needed to be a teacher aide or teacher feel like a legitimate person, to be intelligent enough to do a simple take like change some readers over! Why do people put Mothers down? Why do we get treated like we are so stupid. Little did this lady realise that I had a really busy day, with appointments and a long list of things to do. That as a volunteer I should be more valued that I can do the same work for free!

Why do males not like to shop?

What is it with males and shopping? One very sad thing about an all boy family is the lack of appreciation for shopping. Even though lots of shopping is required to feed everyone and keep people clothed, nobody from the family is keen to be involved. Although my second son will come to help me do the groceries- provided he gets a treat, which I always appreciate. My two youngest refuse to leave the house if there is even the slight mention of shopping. My husband and I decided it was best not to ever go shopping together to save our marriage. After about 1o minutes in the shopping centre his mood becomes grumpier and grumpier. I noticed the same thing happened with my brother when I went shopping with him one time. On the few times Mark and I have gone to the supermarket I always laugh as he tries to talk me about of buying things, like milk and bread!

My husband was recently talking about going on a skiing holiday to New Zealand and spending 5 days skiing at the ski resort. When I suggested that it would be also fun to look around the town at some museums and do some shopping he looked at me in surprise and said 'what could you possibly want to shop for?'

Have you ever been shopping in the United States? Well I think it is fantastic, it has so much more variety then here in Australia and some things are quite cheaper too. Well two years ago when we took our family to the States and I was so excited about going shopping there for the first time. My hubbie and I took the kids to WalMart to have a look around and buy a few things. After that I suggested we go to another shop to which my husband said ' all you want to do is shop all day!' Like that was the most horrible idea in the whole world :). So we went we went to a park instead. However I made up for it the next trip, when I was visiting my sister and my husband was back in Australia. I shopped in the mall all day and brought so much stuff I almost couldn't carry it home! Fun times!

An All Boy Family

Having all boys wasn't my initial plan in life. I was hoping my first child would be a girl. When I was pregnant for my fourth time, I was sure it was a girl and even brought girl clothes. So much for a mothers intuition. At the ultrasound I was told it would be another boy and I do admit I had a little cry. (When I apologised to the ultrasound lady, she told me 'that was nothing, you should of seen the man who came in with his wife and found out she was having his 6th daughter, I've never seen a man cry so much!' Apparently he was a tradie of some sort and wanted to pass his business down a son.) Anyway, needless to say, my fourth son has been such a joy, I wouldn't swap him for anything.


There are some challenges having an all boy family. There is the outnumbered factor. For example we do a lot of sport here and watch a lot of action movies, but do very little cultural activities or watch 'chick flicks' or crafts or anything. There is mutual disinterest in shopping, sadly.


Not having a sister around to remind brothers about using deodorant or wearing matching clothes means the sole responsibility of this falls on the Mother. Although this can be stressful at times I think if there Mothers doesn't help them, no one else could. One child was going through a particularly rough patch, where he was even coming out of the shower smelly as he wouldn't use soap! I regularly pick up a friends daughter the same age as my son. She gets in the car perfectly groomed and smelling of perfume. How come girls get the hygiene thing? *sigh*

Of course there are lots of joys having boys. We have heaps of fun swimming, cooking, eating, having movie nights, bowling, going to the parks and all sorts of things. There antics are always good for a laugh. They always try to be kind to there Mum.

Blah! My kids are sick!

I love to look after and fuss over my kids when they are sick. I am so glad I can be home to look after them. But mate, it wears me out! Getting up through the night, extra hugs and cuddles, washing sheets, giving medicine, organising different food for them makes you extra busy. Unfortunately I don't hide this too well. When I was asking my son this morning if he was too sick to go to school he said, 'But if I stay home Mum you will have a bad day.' Poor guys, look like I don't do a great job at hiding my stress. :)

Trying to understand child behaviour when a child is sick is tricky too. For instance today, I was working on my computer and the two youngest, who were home sick, were going extra crazy. Teasing each other running through the house and slamming doors. I thought 'might be a good time for a little trip to the chemist'. Get us out of the house for a bit, buy something nice for us for lunch. Anyway we get there and I start talking to the pharmacy assistant about what medicine I needed. Anyway she looks at my 6 year old and comments 'poor thing, he is so white, like Casper the ghost.' Soon after he makes choking nosies, goes green and starts to vomit all over the floor! The chemist was quite busy at that moment and all the customers were shooting me dirty looks, like how irresponsible I was to bring such a sick child out. My 10 year old was so embarrassed he suddenly disappeared behind some shelving. The pharmacy assistant was so helpful though and even insisted on cleaning it up herself, poor thing. We finally paid for our items and escaped home. My poor little one went straight to bed, pulled the blankets over his head and went straight to sleep.

Sometimes you can't win as a Mother. When my youngest was younger he would get tonsillitis, ear infection and bronchitis all together and lie around the house sick and tired. Yet when we got to the doctors he would run around as happy as could be. I would take him into the doctor and tell him what was wrong and the doctor would look at my son and say, 'well he looks happy enough.' But when he had a look he would see he had an infection. Then of course my little one would be tired and lying around again as soon as we got home. I almost feel like saying to my kids sometimes, 'if I take you to the doctors, ACT SICK!'.