Waterparks and Ambulances

Today we went to the water park.  Well yesterday anyway but I am blogging in the early morning so it is close enough!  We went to the water park and the water was freezing!  OK the water wasn't freezing, it was heated but it wasn't heated much!  The water was 27 C/80 F.  That is way too cold for me.  The boys all had a blast because they had turned on the water slide.  We put them all into wetsuits so they would last longer and the frantic sliding, running around and climbing stairs helped to keep them warm as well!

 There are a bunch of other water play things as well.  Most of them are 'too young' for the boys now that they are confident swimmers, but Levi and Luke played a really fun game of hide and seek.  Well fun for them!  It is a little hard to be the one who was watching them and they kept disappearing! 

The mood of the day changed in a heartbeat though.  Natey had a big allergic reaction to something.  Who knows what and he went red and welty and then progressed fairly quickly to lethargy and disorientation.  This was followed fairly quickly by unrelenting vomiting.  It was well above our level of comfort, so we called an ambulance.  I took Luke for the rest of the day and Cheryl took Nate to hospital.  It is at moments like that I recall what is really beautiful about a Public Health system!  No one ever asked if he had insurance and he went straight to a hospital! 

Nate did fine in hospital and they kept him long enough to make sure he didn't have a second response.  He was very tired when I saw him in the afternoon but I think that a good long sleep will restore him.  Now all we have to worry about is the random allergy.  The most likely suspect at the moment though is an allergy to the Cold.  He was freezing but nothing else was really new.  We shall see.  That is in the allergist's hands now anyway!

Today Levi and I are going with Zac and Alex to play on the bike track.  I am hoping to get some great 'jumping' photos but regularly, my mind thinks that I am a better photographer than my shutter finger does!

Thursday already

This week has crawled by and flown by.  The days seem to drrrraaaggg along at a snail's pace but now suddenly it is Thursday.  Today I left work early because I was tired.  Well, tired of working more than anything.  It is school holidays and Levi was in vacation care for the "Take your bike to school " day.  I had some time by myself at home.  It is a novel event for me to be at home but not have Levi.  The original plan had been to do some yard work, but right as I left work, it poured with rain, making it impossible.  Yeah!!

Spring is certainly on it's way.  There are animals everywhere.  The last few days as I drive to work, I frighten a mob of wallabies off the driveway near the causeway.  Today there were Cockatoos in the Jacaranda trees.  Now there is a very different response to these poor birds depending on where you are from.  the Australians reading this are all thinking;

"Oh poor Sue, Let's hope they don't stick around!"

And if you are from anywhere else, you are thinking;

"Wow how lucky, they are so beautiful!'

Now they are very striking birds but I am afraid that they are a destructive force as well.  Cockatoos chew like puppies.  They chew off linings on windows, destroy Windshield wipers.  They strip trees quickly and they chase other native birds.  Other than that, they are beautiful!

I went and got Levi early today from Vacation care as well.  He can have some quiet time.  The kids all wear down during term and because I have had to work so much this holiday, he has been full on at friend's houses.  So today and for the next few days until he goes back to school, we are going to try to do earlier to bed, because I can assure you, he has the early to rise thing down pat!



Monday

It has been a busy week already.  I spent the 'extra' day on the weekend doing those home things that needed to be done.  I mowed and mowed.  At least the yard is looking presentable at the moment.  I tend to lose the battle as the summer gets closer, as my ability to tend to the yard gets overtaken by the yard's ability to grow.  At the moment though I have some satisfaction before the grass starts to look ratty again. 

I entered a competition the other day; a photo contest.  It is about finding a photo that shows off what Australia has to offer for travel.  This might get you straight to my photo.  I am not expecting anything but it is fun to enter these things and have a little fun in my mind, dreaming of travelling in style.  I love to just have a few things on the burner.  I love to be able to dream a little dream, be it travel, or winning the lottery or any other whimsy that keeps me happy!

Levi has a great few days.  He has friends places to go to while I work.  I will have to take him to work at some point because I need a random 6 year old to photograph for a school and he, at least is compliant to photographs and loves going to my work.  They all dote on him there and who wouldn't love that!  Today Levi went to Zoe's house and we stayed there for dinner.  I found myself trying to remember the last time that I had dinner with a few adults without feeling like Levi was being shafted.  We ate, drank a few wines and then went home.  It was lovely.  It was lovely to laugh and joke with adults.  It was lovely to have someone else make dinner just because they thought I might be tired coming home.  It was lovely to watch Levi playing happily while I chatted.  But one thing, I am full!!

Camping

Levi Lakeside

Boys playing 'Mud Fight'



Boys playing on the roof of the car



We are back from camping.  Yes, it is a day early.  Levi had a sore tummy so we came home early.  I am completely wiped out so here are some photos and I will (if I remember) write more about it next time

Packing

Tonight I am busy packing for camping tomorrow.  I am dropping Levi at his friend's house and they are all driving to Elanda Point to set up camp.  I am working all day and then I am driving home to hitch their catamaran to my car and then towing it north.  We are camping Thursday night through to Sunday morning.  I am not totally looking forward to it, although Levi is beside himself with excitement.  I think that it will be fun for a couple of days but I hate being sort of stuck in one place with no exit strategy.  I am not sure why I always like to have an 'out' but there you have it.  I am sure I will have fun but four days of camping, when there is so much to do at home is likely not my priority.  It is what you do for your kids though., isn't it.

It will be great for Levi to have some down time.  It will be great, to have some time for me to chill out and not actually be able to do all the chores that need to be done, no matter how much I stress about them still being there when I get back.  I have the tent and the airbed but my neck doesn't really enjoy the airbed.  Now I am done complaining now.  Really it will be fun!  If I say it enough I will start to actually believe it!!

Swimming

Today I had some of Levi's friends over for the day.  They played beautifully and had a picnic on the floor of the living room.  They rode bikes and jumped on the trampoline.  They played 'surf school' (Don't ask!).  They all played without needing parental intervention most of the day while I helped one of their parents with things that she needed done.  The kids all just acted as if they were on holidays.  They were and they deserve this time of freedom.  

The weather is still suddenly summer.  It remains hot and muggy.  Queensland continues to burn.  The 340 fires that were burning across the state a couple of days ago have been reduced to a mere 40 but the air is still ashy and cloudy.  I hope they get them under control soon.  It is hot enough that the kids wanted a swim so this afternoon, we went to Ty's house and they took turns jumping in and climbing back out again.  They swam in the pool until dinner and consequently Levi is sound asleep again.  Oh do I love holidays! 

There were other spectators at the pool this afternoon.  This kookaburra watched the kids for a long time until a flock of little birds drove him away!



First Day of Holidays

Levi spent all day at a friend's house and they have a pool!  He played in the pool until they were shivering and blue and then got out, had lunch and went back into it.  Consequently, this happened early tonight.

New Baby

This little guy is only an hour old.  He was born today and many people came over to celebrate his birth or more accurately watch and comment.  He is huge for a baby goat and it may be because he was a singleton, when twins are more usual amongst goats!  He was very sweet and tolerated multiple kids picking him up and cuddling him.  He unfortunately is a he, which reduces his chances of reaching a ripe old age by a large factor.  We ended up having to get the vet because after the baby came out, it took too long for the placenta to follow it!  Of course, as soon as the vet's truck turned the corner, it all worked out for itself! 

It has been a busy weekend.  I have been doing yard work which is really a huge job at the beginning of Spring.  I was Weed Whacking all day yesterday and was entertained by all the locals coming around to watch me, or more specifically profit from my labours!  I have worked out that the birds know the sounds of the equipment.  The Whipper Snipper attracts the Kookaburras.  They are getting very brave and yesterday, one dropped to the ground about a foot from me and grabbed a huge spider that had been exposed.  He had grabbed a leaf at the same time and it was fascinating to watch him manipulate his beak until the leaf dropped out and the spider stayed there!  Butcher birds all follow the mower because the animals exposed are all smaller and therefore easier for the smaller bird to swallow.  But yesterday I was also joined by another local.  This guy showed up as well.  Now goannas can be really big and this one was probably only about 4 feet long, but he just stood there watching, and waiting for the food train!

Today with all the excitement of the goat and the mower breaking down (again!) I didn't get a lot of work done!  The day was nasty because people were burning off all over Brisbane.  Smoke hung everywhere and you could smell the ash in the air.  The only silver lining was that the sunset was beautiful!

Levi and I went up and sat on the fence and watched it going down!  It was a lovely moment but only a moment, before Levi had leaped off the fence and was running around like a mad thing again.  He is excited as well, because his vacation bedtime is an hour later than his school day bedtime.  It is exciting when you are six to be able to stay up until 8pm rather than 7pm!

Sick? Probably Not!

Today was going to be really busy from the start, actually from well before the start.  The day had been scheduled that way and there was barely time inside that for any wriggle room. 

And then.

And then, Levi woke up and told me he was sick.  Now most of the time I can tell before he tells me, but this morning, it all seemed a little questionable.  Anyway, he said his tummy hurt.  He said he had diarrhoea.  I was not about to question him, but it was going to change everything.  I had to be at the Children's hospital at 11 to see a little boy from the Outback.  Queensland is a very large state.  It is twice the size of Texas.  It is a full quarter of the Australian land mass.  If Queensland was a country it would be the 25th largest in the world.  Now imagine that size.  Now if you put a pin on the bottom right hand corner, that would be Brisbane.  Now put a point as far away as you possibly can from that pin.  Now, that is where this boy was from.  He comes down once a year, to see the doctor, to get some tests and to see me.  So I had no ability to call in sick.

In fact there are not many worse days in a year that Levi could be sick.  Anyway I took him to work.  Our office manager and pretty much everyone else helped watch him, while I went to the hospital.  Levi loves my work and pretty much bounced off the walls.  I was cranky.  Not because he wanted a day off, but because he pretended to be sick. 

I had a dentist appointment at 1pm, to fix my back teeth.  I needed four fillings and one of them was really hard, because my tooth was splitting down the middle from the pressure of the grinding at night!  Man, I need to find a way of stopping that or decreasing the stress level.  Well, today didn't help!

Tonight when we were cuddled up as Levi was in bed, I told him I was disappointed in him.  I said that if he had just said that he wanted a day off, we could have discussed which day would be better and then I could take the day off with him.  I understand the need for time off, but I also don't want him to think he has to make something up to get it.  Levi had a little cry and then buried his face in the pillow for a while and then he gave me a hug and said he was sorry.

I think, had I challenged him this morning, I might have been more angry than I really was, just because of the logistical nightmare I could see coming.  Instead, I waited until I had cooled down, chatted on the Internet with a friend, changed my perspective and then talked to him.  I need to remember to do that more often!  

Now I think I am going to bed.  My jaw aches and my tongue is bleeding. 

Happier Photos

I am so busy at the moment, I feel like I am drowning.  I can't get ahead at all but I can just place one foot in front of the other.  I am tired and I am stressed but I think the next few weeks will be easier.  Tomorrow is Levi's last day at school and then he has two weeks off.  Hopefully at the end of that two weeks he will be more relaxed.  He too is tired and stressed.  He is fighting bed and waking early, which is not helping either of us. 

This weekend is a yard work one.  I am looking forward to doing some work outside.  The people up the driveway are selling (Thank Goodness) and I want the driveway to be looking fabulous.  I am happy to help them sell!

At the moment we are doing the kid swap shuffle for the first week of vacation.  Levi is booked in for Vacation Care for the second week but I am going to try hard to find friend's houses he can go to for the first three days.  Thursday is a great day at Care so he will go and I have Friday off.  That is the two weeks. 

Double

Today.

This beautiful little boy was exactly double



This beautiful boy's age.

And it is breaking my heart.

I am missing you Frankie.

Water Parks

OK, these are the last Cairns photos and then I am back to trying to actually stay fairly current.  The last few days in North Queensland were in Cairns and the best Caravan Park on Earth!  They have two jumping pillows and that was about enough to do Levi's head in.  The Caravan Park was through a boom gate with cameras and pass keys.  Levi could go off on his own 'make friends' (his words) and play and then come back when he was tired, or hungry, or thirsty. 

He loved the freedom.  I loved not having to watch him every second.  I love watching him get more independent and these sort of trips are a good step in that direction. 

Levi gets some real airtime on those jumping pillows.  He can jump and jump!  I went out one morning and jumped with him.  You can go about half an hour and then your calves about die!  Levi can't go a lot longer than I can.  We deteriorated to playing Red Rover with just the two of us.  It became a complicated game that disqualified you if you stepped onto the sand.  After about five minutes of that, we had a few random kids join us and then a few more.  After about ten minutes I sat down and the game had become self sustaining.  It is lovely watching kids just be kids.  It is lovely to watch that many happy, healthy kids all just getting along!

 So we would go off during the day and do fun things like snorkeling or Kuranda and then when we got back, there was at least as much fun back home!  The last day we just stayed at the Park and played.  I think that was Levi's favourite day anyway.  He really did just need some time where 100% of his Mum's attention was on him.  He has had the short straw a few things lately.  Outreach has been hard on him and coming one straight after the other compounded it.  I have been distracted at times as well with babies and children that I love being sick all over the globe.  I too, needed some time to just jump.  I needed time to just feel the freedom that I see in Levi's face in these photos.  Just joy.  Joy in life.  Joy in feeling your muscles work under you.  Joy that, for all the kids in trouble in the world, there are more kids who grow up happy and healthy.  Kids who are well enough to just take life and growing out for granted.  How I wish that were true of all kids!

The other thing that the park has, is a water park/splash park.  It starts at 10am and goes through until 6pm.  The water is too cold for me but really most water is too cold for me.  It is still early spring here but Cairns never gets cold enough to even turn off the waterpark.  Levi wore his wetsuit.  I love this wetsuit.  I remember Ross in that suit and Evan.  I see those little boys and remember them at that age.  It won't last much longer.  Levi barely fits it anymore but I squeezed him in, because I can wait and get him a new one at the beginning of fall next year, giving me a few more months in it, for my fast growing weed ...... sorry ...... Child!

Levi had an absolute blast!  There was a big bucket at the top that gradually filled up.  Just as it neared the top, a bell would ring and then the bucket would upend and dump water everywhere.  As the bell rang, kids would come racing around and stand to get the full blast.  

There were taps to turn on and off and all sorts of equipment that shot water or caught water.  There were troughs to dam and to redirect flow.  There were a myriad of slides.

And by the end.  He was trashed!

 

Bad Day

I am having a bad day, so for the first time in about two weeks this is a post written today, about today.  I will come back to the last of Cairns when I get a chance.  I was having an OK day but then when I got to work, I discovered that one of my little clients died last night in his sleep.  Interestingly, to me, I am OK with his dying.  He (for want of a better way to put it) needed to.  He was happy and interactive and a bright little boy but he fought for each breath and couldn't cry without choking on his increased saliva.  I am more sad for his parents.  They have fought for him from the beginning and only now face the long wait to see him again. 

I wish that life followed it's pathway the way that it is supposed to.  I wish that the childhood killers of SMA and DMD just didn't exist.  I wish that the myriad of other rare diseases didn't either.  It saddens me that I am incapable of stopping the juggernaut that the disease becomes.  The best I can do is to soften it's blow and help to alleviate the pain.  The most I can do is hold their parent's hand and walk beside them.  Just yesterday I was talking to one of our new Physios.  I said that;

"It is a fact of life that most of our clients have life limiting conditions, but the magic is making those lives as functional and as fulfilling as possible"

Yesterday I believed that.  Today I am struggling again.  It is magic to make these kids more functional.  It is magic to help their parents and their siblings, before, during and after their death.  It is magic to be a part of their lives and to help them in the toughest stretch.  It is magic but it sucks.  It is magic but it is tiring. 

I am sending peaceful thoughts to his family tonight.  I hope they find comfort in this time.  I hope that they know that there will be happiness again.  I hope that they find hope again.  I am sending them love

Kuranda Day

Levi trying to convince a butterfly to sit on his hand

Mike and Levi on the train on the way down the mountain.

Still a long way behind today.  This is Kuranda.  We went there last Thursday but I have finally downloaded the photos.  So I am really behind, but hey no big deal.  The Kuranda day we went up the mountain on the Skyrail gondola and got to look out over Cairns and the coastline.  The day was pretty hazy so we couldn't see out to Green Island but we knew it was there!

In Kuranda we did the tourist thing again.  We went to the Butterfly house where Levi had an attention span of one of the butterflies.  He was tired I think from the day before, but eventually I just took him outside and he climbed trees until Mim and Mike were done.  The Bird house held his interest a little more and the Candy store was riveting.  You know the way to this boy's heart that is for sure.

Lorikeet

Green Island

 I am still running a few days late. I am now back to work but I am talking about holidays and it is almost as good. We went snorkeling last Thursday. Green Island, no less.  It was perfect weather and the perfect day!  We found a sailing boat that went out to Green Island and moored off the island.  It allowed us to have our own snorkeling space.  Initially Levi was all pissy because he wanted to go diving and not snorkeling but once we saw the dolphin playing in our bow wave he forgot all about it.

We had a couple of hours snorkeling and then we were dropped on Green Island by tender to play on the beach for about an hour.  Levi and I built a castle with a complicated series of dams and moats and we played in the water. 

The tender came to pick us up and as we were driving back to the boat we saw the most beautiful sight.  There was a huge humpback breaching over and over in the distance.  The skipper of the little tender gave us all the option;

"Snorkeling or Whale watching?"

It was unanimous.  We all wanted the whales.  As we got a little closer (Not too much - there are lots of rules about boats and whales), we could see a littler shadow following each breach.  It was a mother humpback, teaching her new calf to breach and jump.  There was a huge jump and splash, quickly followed by little shadow and a smaller splash.  Breathtaking.  I feel so much joy watching that demonstration of motherly love. 

On the way home Levi was just exhausted.  I gave him a towel as a pillow and another as a blanket and he quickly feel fast asleep.  It was a warm space on the deck.  Well for a little while!  The sailing boat's bow dropped into a wave and water poured over the deck.  Standing on the deck, it felt like someone had emptied a swimming pool onto our heads.  It was enough that it soaked the skipper in the back.  The water poured over Levi, soaking the towels.  Levi didn't even wake up.  While we froze on the deck, because we were soaked and in the wind, but after sliding a hand in to check Levi, I realised that it was like a sauna in there.  He was fine!

Parrot fish eating coral

Getting Back to Cairns

The next day ( I think it was Wednesday) we drove from Undara to Innisfail and then to Cairns.  Levi and I went to a Crocodile Park and because it was a small one we were able to wander around pretty much undisturbed for much of the morning.  The lady at the desk let us in cheaply because we were 'locals'.  I asked what that entailed because we were obviously not locals!  She said it was because we could actually pronounce Cairns properly and that was enough in her books!.

There were wallabies to pat and lots of other animals.  It was a Croc farm and I had a long talk to one of the handlers about their method of getting the eggs.  Now Croc Mums are pretty fierce and defend their nest well.  Croc Dads are just as happy to eat the babies, so they can't leave them in there, but he will defend his mate!  They said that two people distracted Dad with food while three of them sat on Mum and one other person quickly grabbed the eggs.  Now I am glad that I am not the OH&S officer at that farm!

 Because it was so quiet, we got all the time in the world with the animals.  Levi got to hold a snake, which you can see he was fairly nervous about.  Right after this photo and in the next (Which Blogger for some reason won't load), the snake dropped further around him and started to squeeze a little.  As Carpet Snakes are constrictors, it was a bit much at this point for both myself and Levi and the snake got given to the next person.  I think the snake was a little disappointed that the only morsel that it might have been able to tackle was taken from him!

I got to hold a baby Saltwater Crocodile.  The baby they gave me was way too strong and feisty for Levi and would have been free in about a microsecond and biting him a minute later.  They are incredibly powerful for their size!  Overall though it was a fantastic day.  Levi took the photo of me, which is why it looks as if it was taken about hip height.  It was! 

I was wearing Tie Dye in honour of a family back in Oregon.  I am sure the little boy barely remembers me.  But I remember him!  Here's wishing his family peace!

Undara

This is where we stayed the next two nights.  A railway carriage!  It was a great idea on paper but it was a bit squished.  The beds were in a tiny room together and the refrigerator was about 1/2 a kilometre away in the camp kitchen.  The area was fabulous though.  The walks and the tours were fabulous!

The lava tubes themselves are the biggest in the world.  They are certainly a lot bigger than the ones that I have walked through in northern California.  There was a story there about NASA finding markings on Mars that they said were proof of water, but this lady who had seen these tubes said;

"They could be just lava tubes"

To which NASA said;

"Lava tubes don't get that big"

And she said;

"I don't know about that.  Our lava tubes are twice that size"

NASA has since changed their findings to report lava tubes and not past river flows.

The lava tubes are enormous and they are cool places in an inferno.  At the moment too, they are wet places, with crystal clear water from the floods in January.  In fact six weeks ago one of the tubes that we waded through was chest deep and inaccessible!

Here is Levi wading through the tube.  It was just over my knees which placed it well up on Levi's thighs.  We took his shorts off and he waded like that.  He loved it!  We walked several tracks that day and was very happy to be cooled down.  Frankly my feet were numb from the moment we started wading so I can't really tell you the real temperature!  I am a baby about cold water at the best of times and even Levi who will swim in anything, was cold in this water.

Right after all that walking, Levi played at jumping in the pool.  I was a big baby and was soaking up the sun watching him!  We spent two days in Undara and then headed to the coast.  I am running several days behind in reporting because Undara was another place with zero internet.  I am trying to report in chronological order so bear with me!

This is the lava tube with water in it!