Catch-up

So if you've read the letter that I posted yesterday then you'll know how I am feeling. It's been growing over time but came to a head on Sunday when I attended the Neighbourhood Support Meeting for the new group that has been started for the Whenuapai and Hobsonville Married Quarter patch. For a lot of reasons crime is growing in our area and we are a small community who I think falsely believed that we were quite safe. We are not behind the 'protective' gates of the bases but we have nice big signs saying "no entry except on defence business". And back in the day when Whenuapai had more than two military police men and a shoddy security company we used to have regular security patrols around our streets. In a community where our parters can be gone for months at a time this provided a sense of added security. And lets face it we needed it... if you really wanted to you could get into my house in a matter of seconds. We haven't got much that's worth stealing but that's not really the point is it. It turns out as I learned at the meeting that things are a lot worse than I thought. The meeting advertised that 'Base Representatives' would be there, and I feel mightily sorry for the poor RNZAF Policeman that drew the short straw on that job. Although I must say he seems like the sort of guy that would have come anyway because he obviously actually still gives a damn despite being on call 24/7 every second week! It seems obvious though by their absence though that neither the Base Commander nor the Base Welfare Facilitator care enough about our welfare to give up an hour or so on their Sunday afternoon.

So I posted the post and then I emailed it off to a few people. Ms Clarke's minions have already emailed back with their standard reply...
"Thank you for your e-mail message. It is difficult to respond to the many e-mail messages received. We do however read everything that is sent and if a unique issue has been raised or new information presented we will respond as soon as possible."

I guess they are least efficient.

We'll see what happens from here. And if Les freaks out big time over it all... some how I expect not I do believe he's been feeling very 'over' the RNZAF, his trade in particular, for quite a while now. And you know when that happens things must be pretty damn bad because he's a very loyal hard working RNZAF to the core sort of guy.

As far as life in General at Stockley HQ goes. While I have finished the finer points of Operation Fit Will In I still have to get rid of the side effects like the stack of magazines in the back of the car and the piles of stuff in the hallway that need to be rehomed. Will is NOT helping in this process at all. In fact he's been a rather grumpy and serious child of late meaning that 'spare' time is at a premium especially as he leaves me too tired at the end of the day to really do much more than curl up in a ball. (Hence the abrupt end to the Children's book week posts... don't worry they'll be back sometime) All I managed to do yesterday was to write those blog posts and read a couple of emails before it was time to pick up the kids and take Kieran to Hockey from which it's straight onto the bedtime routine. Which is why I am about to regurgitate an email I wrote over a week ago to give you the low down....

Yes it's funny how your perspective changes when you are not teaching... the end of the holidays was something I dreaded when I was teaching and now I found I was so looking forward to it. I don't enjoy the school run and sports etc but it's a lot easier than 24 hour parenting 3 children. The holidays were crazy... and Will really suffered the short end of the sleeping stick! My grandma provided a whole new sort of challenge as well, which I am trying to get around to bloging about.

I know what you mean about not getting much done around the place I'm pretty good at not feeling too guilty what drives me the most crazy is not getting time to create... it's my thing it keeps me sane and if I go to long with out it makes me real tetchy! Of course the scrapbooking table will be the last of the things to be sorted as part of 'Operation Fit Will In'.

What was Harry's due date? I ask because it seems like you will tell me about what you are up to and then Will will follow suit a week or so later... he was due on 1/1/08 (so almost 2 weeks early). So I was just interested to see if they are following a similar time line. Merenia was an early girl too and I didn't notice any difference but I find with Will... smiling and all sorts of other milestones seem to be 'late' or at least later than I remembered with the other two. Aren't they getting so big though... how did it happen? When did it happen?... he's just not a 'little baby' anymore... the new Will is really lovely too... but I was making a point of enjoying every second every little bit and some how I didn't notice that he was REALLY growing... I think the week when my grandma was here didn't help instead of doing a lot of his daytime sleeping in my arms he was in hers and my goodness I missed him!

So we have taken a few mighty steps back including adding in a midnight and a 6am drink as well as the usual 4am. (He could be hungry... he eats fast or at least takes short drinks compared to K and M who were generally at least 20 minutes if not more... Will is a 5 minutes and I'm outta here boy. I have queries about my supply as well... I think it's ok... but it is somewhat of a novelty for me to have to change the breast pads for hygiene reasons as opposed to full to over flowing in less than a day. With Kieran I was sleeping with a cloth nappy in my bra still at 12 months... I could have happily fed quads... so the feeling of having just enough is kind of strange to me. Day time we are still cranking out a number of short sleeps and I think that for now at least I may just have to deal with that rather than pushing for a couple of longer ones... 'resettling' is not in his vocabulary ... just because it doesn't suit my style of existing doesn't mean it doesn't suit Will.

We're holding off on food... I really believe in waiting till the 6 month mark. But I can see that it's not going to be hard to start between the pear that he eats with his reflux medicine and the doleful gazes at our mealtimes... I can see some desire there... he's gonna be sorely disappointed when he doesn't get the roasts, enchiladas, and Chicken Tikka that we've been having though... pureed pumpkin, pear and apple just doesn't stack up next to that all.

Les has been working nights as well as days this week as he is saving money to go to the worlds in Turkey next month and it has been good to see that I can actually manage Will and make dinner and have the kids ready for bed well before the allotted time. It's nice when we have stuff all sorted well before bedtime so I can do homework with Merenia in a relaxed manner and we can just hang together even if it is just watching telly... (before they go through the feeding and bedtime routine Kieran is usually off outside kicking a ball around and Merenia will be off creating some kind of mess somewhere- or prioritising TV over everything else- curse The Simpsons!) So it's nice to get them in and together before too late or else the evening just seems like a process... an assembly line to bed.... rather than time together.

So I'm sure there's a truckload more to tell you but I don't know what it is in my current addled brain state, so I'll finish up for now and leave you with this little dude in a rare "Awake, on my tummy AND Happy" moment. If anyone has some sanity send it my way. PLEASE.