rachel.blog

Category: Uncategorized

  • Kindergarten Talk

    We got the kindy call for Elizabeth on Monday and she starts kindy next week. She is cautiously excited about it. We have spent the week visiting and getting familiar with the place (she does know it quite well from Daniel’s time there). For the first time in more than 6 years, I will have…

  • First Ballet Class

    Elizabeth had her first ballet class today and she loved it!    

  • Happy birthday, Daniel!

    Just before midnight tonight, 6 years ago, Daniel was born. Happy birthday, Daniel! He got to open his presents from us this morning. I crocheted him a solar system. It’s not to scale and the planets have eyes and smiles which is not very scientific, but he loves it.  It is now a project for…

  • Monkey in a rocket

    I feel sad today. A photo I saw this morning is to blame. It’s the widely publicized photo of a wretched monkey, restrained and sent into space in a rocket by the country of Iran. All the media articles I’ve read talk about fears that Iran may now possess the technical know-how to fire missiles…

  • The Curse of Western Park

    After two days of what many would consider dangerous activities – snow tubing and ice skating – today we opted for the somewhat innocuous activity of a picnic in the park. It did not turn out that way at all. We went to Western Park, in Freeman’s Bay Auckland, where there is a playground for…

  • Road works and Daniel's party

    Street Maintenance Auckland Transport has spent the last week ripping up the footpaths and kerbs on our street and replacing them with new footpaths and kerbs. I can’t think why they’re doing this as the footpaths and kerbs looked fine to me before. What I find even more frustrating is the absence of a cycle…

  • Happy birthday, Elizabeth

    Happy birthday to gorgeous Elizabeth, who turned 3 today! We had a lovely party for her at home with lots of good friends to celebrate with. I made her a koala cake: Freud helped open the presents: The decorations went up along with pin-the-nose on the koala: Yummy food: Family shot with Daniel showing us…

  • Santa

    We visited Santa at snowplanet today and the kids sat on his lap and discussed presents. They loved it.   Then we had fun snow tubing with Dad, Olivia and TJ. Even Elizabeth loved the experience and was in hysterics when slipping and sliding down the slope. A photo of us all:   Daniel has…

  • Scarier

    I enrolled Daniel in one of Rob McLeay’s cartoon workshops for the school holidays and he had it today. He produced this very cool drawing of a shark called “Scarier”. According to Daniel, when you touch Scarier, he eats you.  He also likes to eat fish which he finds by following their bubbles and then…

  • Congratulations to Ben!

    A big congratulations to my husband today who won the New Zealand Mathematical Society research award for 2012. He won jointly with another mathematician from Auckland, Tom ter Elst. Here’s a photo of father and daughter:

  • Annoying things and cute things

    1. Tents. They *never* go back in the bag. No matter how much you fold and press and squish them in, they never fit back in the bag they came out of. Our tent now occupies two bags. 2. Paint rollers. They are impossible to clean. When washed under the tap, they produce a never-ending…

  • Raglan and the C-barn

    We just spent the weekend in Raglan: a little coastal village on the west coast of the North Island, a couple of hours by car south from Auckland. It was great. The whole region was very picturesque with lush, green hills and winding roads. The hills were bigger than your average hill which made for…

  • What to do about a sore neck?

    For the past few months, I’ve had a sore neck. The pain was just on one side of the neck (right side) and spread down into my shoulder and the upper quadrant of my back on that side only. It wasn’t debilitating, but always there and so irritating. The pain in my back and shoulder…

  • You've got green hair

    I managed to get to sleep last night thank goodness. I’m still a zombie today though. It will take a while to catch up I think. Daniel had his long-awaited appointment with a paediatrician yesterday. It was all a bit disappointing. He got a diagnosis of ASD (autism spectrum disorder) which was nice to have…

  • Insomnia

    It’s Halloween today and I’m a zombie. Not because I’ve got blood dripping from my mouth but because this past week I’ve had the worst insomnia I’ve ever known. Last night I slept briefly for a time between the hours of 4am and 6am. The rest of the time was spent twiddling my thumbs and…

  • Tennis or Karate?

    First day back at school for Daniel today and we were all a bit sad about that. Daniel’s love affair with school seems to have waned lately, although he still seems moderately happy with the place. According to his teacher he was exhausted all day today and at one stage she suggested he should come…

  • Driving to heaven

    Elizabeth is missing our dog, Zeki. Yesterday she said to Ben, “Zeki has gone to heaven. Tomorrow we’ll drive to heaven and get Zeki”. She seemed to accept his explanation that we won’t be going to heaven to get him.

  • An unimportant job?

    Someone told me this week that I should get a job. Haven’t I got a job already? Is looking after one’s children considered so worthless by society that it’s not even recognized as being a valuable occupation? Sometimes I think about looking for paid work because I want the money, not because I don’t like…

  • My first iphone on its way!

    I have ordered my new iphone and it’s on its way! Thank you very much to my readers for their generous donations. I have been overwhelmed and managed to raise $813 in the end. I bought the iphone 4s for a total of $899, with Ben making up the difference as his gift to me.…

  • Unique and eccentric = good

    Daniel is better this week. The tics are still there but less pronounced and with longer periods of relaxation between them. I told him late last week that it was absolutely fine for him to have his tics and that he could do them as often as he wanted at home and I think this…