Aftermath

Today I was hoping that Levi would sleep in after the festivities of yesterday.  Of course not!  What were you thinking?  He got up at his usual time but we had one of those more fragile days.  He had a new friend from his class over for the day and that was lucky and unlucky.  Lucky, because it gave Levi a distraction.  Unlucky because it was a bit much after yesterday.  Plus the kid's family didn't pick him up until way late (I had started dinner) and it meant that by that stage homework and chill out time was not going to happen.  Levi and his friend had lunch up in the cubby and as I went up the ladder realised that a large chunk of the railing is rotting.  So much for treated wood!  I have no idea what caused the wood in that area (and just that area) to rot.  The wood either side and with the same amount of rain is just fine.  Who knows but I have a bit of work to do fairly soon!

Today I cleaned up the backyard.  I found two eggs that hadn't been found.  Levi has decided that eating them whole is the way to go and he managed to knock off most of his egg stash today, esp as he very sweetly shared them all with his mate from school.  Other than the last bits of clean up there wasn't much to do.  We had to clean out the fish tank.  Poor Dibber now flinches anytime anyone comes near the tank after a sweet and well meaning two year old fed him a year's supply of food yesterday.  Actually that's an exaggeration, he only flinches if you go anywhere near the food container! 

Dibber is happily swimming around in his new tank water and continues to live despite all efforts to the contrary.  When you talk to the people at the pet store, there are all these things you have to do for your fish so it doesn't die.  I think that we have done none of them and yet Dibber continues to swim happily and grow exponentially.  We feed him a tank full of food so you can't see through the water and Dibber ignores it and swims happily (and apparently) healthily around.  I tell you, this is the strongest fish on earth.  Even the snails; Ultralord and Ultralord 2 are happy!  Maybe we should feed them once a year at large volume.  They are thriving on it!

Egg Hunt

Today was the big Easter egg hunt.  After raining fairly consistently for the last about two weeks, it really was touch and go until the last minute.  The day didn't disappoint though.  It was beautiful and sunny all day; not long enough to dry the ground completely but enough to make the day lovely.  It was a fantastic day.  The kids all had a blast.  The parents are all very relaxed together and it is a pleasure to have them here.  It is great when you are relaxed that all the parents there are as happy to pick up a random kid and kiss them and dust them off after a fall, as discipline them.  You never have to keep a close eye on your child, because really, everyone there has their eye on him.  Naturally with that many kids of different ages, real falls are common and then you just pick up said child and find one of their real parental units! 

I love watching the kids all having fun and playing together.  The big kids all really got the rules about leaving the blue eggs for the little kids to find.  In fact, one family got there late and after the hunt; and the kids instead of hoarding the eggs, all gave up some of their eggs, re hid them and enjoyed watching the hunt with the rest of us.  I love that they are turning into empathetic little people.

Overall we had fun and all agreed that the best part of an 'Annual' event is that at the end, you can always look forward to the next year.  Levi is still a bit sick, mostly from asthma coughing at night now rather than an infective type process.  I would like to see him grow out of that little nasty.  Even though it isn't too bad for him and he doesn't often need medication and never needs hospitalization, I would love to see him be able to sleep the night through without wheezing quietly in the background or coughing himself awake.  You can see he faded a bit at the end of the party and got really fragile by the photo but he still loved every minute.  The other upshot of a relaxed party like that too is that jobs get done without ever asking anyone.  After the party was winding down, I went inside and the dishes were all but done and there were two friends, elbow deep in hot water!  Oh that is a true friend! 

Exploding

Levi said at the end of last week that his face hurt.  I dismissed it as 'boy pain' and didn't really think about it.  Then an hour or so later he said;

I feel like my face is exploding from the inside"

I didn't stress much about it, as he has a flair for the dramatic but did give him some Motrin to help him out.  Then I really looked at him and realized that his face was changing shape.  Not as dramatically as he was saying but still, I noticed that the gap between his teeth is widening.  Where two teeth fell out, leaving a gap of just over 1 cm there was now a gap of 2.2 cms.  As his big teeth are coming down they are forcing his upper jaw to widen at an impressive speed.  His face really is exploding from the inside and that was a very apt description.  I think it must be like the pain when braces are put on for the first time and your teeth and jaw have to change rapidly.  Today I measured again and he is nearly at 2.4 cm (nearly an inch) so I can almost see his jaw growing.  He has a cute speech pattern at the moment, lisping his 's' sounds and dragging his 'th' sounds as his tongue refuses to do what it is supposed to without the teeth to guide it.  Luckily I think his jaw growth is slowing down and you can see both adult teeth coming down.  I will try to be more sympathetic as they do!

I am organizing the annual Easter Egg Hunt at our house again this year and the creek may not co operate.  It is still running over and as it rains on and off during the day, the creek level is fairly steady and so the name has been altered somewhat;

The Annual

‘Brave the Creek Crossing’

Easter Egg Hunt

Anyway it is a fun task to organize and it will be great if the weather will hold out long enough for the kids to have a little play!  I am getting about a dozen eggs per child.  We put them all out and then all the kids run out and search at once.  It is a bit like organized mayhem but really fun!  The kids search eggs by color and the color based on age.  The youngest kids search for any color.  Then over four year olds search for all but red (which are just laying on the grass for the babies).  It means that the parents can stay in some semblance of control, which will be hard this year as it has become bigger than Ben Hur!