Swimming Mid Winter

We are getting back in the groove again.  Levi is getting slowly better with his asthma but it has been an uphill battle this time.  It may just be that we are having a cold spell and with the humidity and mold around, it is playing with his pipes!  We had soccer again this morning and I took my camera again because we were having team shots and I thought that I might save some money by taking my own while the professional shots were being taken.  I ended up being busy at the time anyway, so I am going to have to cough up the money.  I don't mind but generally the shots are pretty ordinary and not really worth the money.  Levi was having an 'old' day.  One of those days where he could as easily be seventeen years old as seven. 

 

Then after doing homework, Ty came over for a play and a sleepover.  The kids had a blast and are now sound asleep in bed.  They had to have a fire by the creek again and I was happy to help them.  They played in the creek until they were blue and shaking and then warmed up by the fire and then got straight back in the creek!  Then we toasted marshmallows, poked at the fire a bit more and then I put them straight in the shower to get them warmed back up fully!

This is the other thing we did.  Any hints?  Yes, he spent all of the soccer game scratching his head, so I checked and he had some head lice.  We washed, conditioned and combed out his hair with a fine tooth comb!

RV Trip - Day 6

We were in what feels like a primordial forest.  As you are walking through, it feels as though it wouldn't be overly surprising to have a Stegosaurus walk out from behind a tree.  Some of it is the ferns.  Some of it is the drooping moss everywhere.  Even the trees themselves seem to be ancient.  This phone box was outside the ranger station.  Obviously with the advent of cell phones, the phone itself isn't necessary anymore but the forest is taking it over!  This was the Hoh River Rainforest.  Now you have to have a pretty good self esteem for a river, to hang around with a name like Hoh, but this was a big enough river to pull it off.  Icy blue from glacial runoff and running quickly it is just beautiful running through the canyon.  We took a long time to do the walk to see the river.  It wasn't that long a walk but when we got to the river, the boys just played and played.  Initially they tried to build a set of stepping stones across the creek.  Then we moved to a spot where they could get across by wading and they explored the island together.  Then Evan came back and he and I split flint to make 'shavers' and 'knives' to cut through wood.  It was just lovely!

Then we drove through Forks.  Notably the setting for Twilight, we however found the best playground!  They had an area for all ages.  Our kids played for a while and then moved to the exercise area and competed for, well, everything; number of chin ups, number of jumps, number of... well you get the picture!  Levi won the chin up contest but only because he had lots of help!  It even broke through with sunshine while we were there and that had been a rare sight in the last few days.

Our night ended on the coastline.  We had a campsite right on the beach.  There was a steep goat path down to the beach and an outlook that went for miles!  We lost all the boys for several hours in the afternoon.  OK, not really lost but they were not up at the camp.  They found a tiny stream on the beach that they worked to dam.  It is a rare time that I can just let Levi go like that and be so secure in his whereabouts.  I knew that the three of them were unlikely to find something that was urgent and then mostly they could deal with things themselves.  At one point, Levi made the trek up to complain about something that one of his brothers had done.  My answer?  "Annoying brothers? Check!"  He went back to play.

After a while Evan came up to try to make fire with his fire starter.  It is great to have some quiet time with each of them.  It is a good way to do that!  Stick everyone in an RV and go from there!

Creek Videos

Here are the videos of Levi and the boys on the boat and in the rapids!

Creek Play Again

It was a beautiful day today, hot as you would expect this time of year to be but otherwise it was just pristine. Luke and Nate were coming over to play in the creek again and we had planned a fire and a picnic creek side. Pete, Cheryl and I took turns dragging kids in boats through rapids and playing guard down stream. Really with the causeway almost dry, the creek is pretty safe. In fact, at one point we were all sitting there talking about how in our childhoods, we would have been unsupervised down in that creek at that age and most of the time, that was just fine!

The kids played in the creek for about four hours and at no time did they require us to provide them with ideas.  We provided food, fluid and surreptitiously safety but they didn't require us to think of things to do.  They love running water.  They love fire.  They love each other and rarely fight.  Really in their little books of life, this was a really good chapter.

One of the games that they thought up was to ride their bikes full tilt across the shallow water, shrieking with laughter the whole time.  They were so excited!

Then about five this afternoon, it rained hard.  I didn't pay too much attention because it stopped after about 20 minutes.  By six tonight, the causeway was above the one meter measure.  It means that in 45 minutes, it became completely impassable!  If you look at the photo below which is Levi sometime this afternoon, he is riding past the marker.  So by tonight, the water level was about level with his head on the bike.  My chances of catching the flight to Townsville at the crack of dawn tomorrow are slim to none at this point!  I am thinking that I will likely get there but not before afternoon at this rate.

Playing in the Creek

The creek is perfect at the moment, esp if you are a five to seven year old boy!  It is running over the causeway but only about ankle deep on me.  In fact, it shouldn't be running over at all.  The four big pipes that run under the causeway are mostly blocked, making the causeway into a dam of sorts, rather than a causeway.  The two right hand pipes are completely blocked and only one of the left ones is clear.  It means that the kids can run around in the water, splash each other, mostly) and throw rocks and wood into the water.  With an adult per child and water that you can stand in, it is incredibly safe with enough of an excitement edge to keep the boys happy!

We inflated the boat that Levi got from Jo for Christmas and the boys all took turns trying to row it to the corner and back.  Their co-ordination together left a little to be desired and generally the boat went round and round in circles until they started to paddle in a modified way, using the paddle straight on rather than to the side. 

Today when I went to the grocery store, I bought Levi a couple of glow sticks.  I am hoping that having a glow stick as he goes to bed will reduce his fear a little.  I am banking on his extreme fatigue being my best ally in all that as well.  Now as I go in to check him, it seems that for tonight at least, it has worked.  I hope that I can get him to sleep in the next week because I have to go on Outreach the week after and would prefer to have a strategy before sending him upstairs for a few days. 

Wet Weather Activities. Again!

So the week has continued about the same; rain, rain and more rain!  It is incredible!  After going down to let us out for Australia Day, the weather closed back in and stopped us getting out for school for Levi on Friday as well.  He is now fully a week down this term and hasn't met his teachers at all.  He is starting to get quite stressed about it all.  He is worried about going to school now but I think just because he is a bit nervous about going in and getting trapped out without me.  I keep telling him that there are many people who love him who are on 'that side of the creek' so even if he is on a different side, he will always be looked after.

We have been getting our way through activities here now.  I have a few activities still but it won't be long before they are all exhausted.  Today we built a wooden ship.  It was really fun and Levi did a lot of it by himself.  OK, wait; he did the painting and I did most of the gluing.  Levi has also been playing with the slime that he 'won' at Shark Bait Kids.  I have now googled; 'How to get slime out of clothes', 'How to get slime out of hair' and have also soaked a garlic press about two days to try to get the slime out of where it shouldn't be!

So I am really grateful to Pam for giving out the slime! She correctly reminded me that he was the one that picked the slime and as soon as it was out of SBK, it was out of her jurisdiction!  Thanks Pam!  Love you too! 

So that has been the last few days.  If we don't get out soon, things are going to get ugly!  If I run out of activities, it will get ugly faster!

Australia Day and Escape

The last few days have been very internal ones for Levi and I.  It has rained for the last few days and the creek has been swollen and impossible to drive through.  It has meant that I have worked from home and Levi has missed school.  Today is Australia Day and it was the first that the rain wasn't pounding.  In fact most of the day was muggy but dry.  After the creek starts to recede, it leaves a large amount of debris, sand, leaves, sticks, rocks and large amounts of flotsam.  So, after the creek goes down, there is still a large amount of work to be done before it is possible to escape!

 We worked hard this morning, shovelling the debris out into the flow of the stream.  If you wait until the creek has gone down completely, then you have to shovel much more and carry it much further.  Generally there is a large window of time, but still it is certainly better to dig as soon as it is possible, because the creek helps you more.  Levi helped by dragging some of the logs and throwing them out into the stream.  Jo and I shovelled and then the neighbour from across the creek, saw we had cleared enough and brought his 4WD over.  He drove over and back many many times, to wash the debris back into the creek and shortened our task by several hours!  These sorts of days are quite fun actually because you end up digging in the creek with many neighbours, all with a common purpose, to get out and get some groceries!

During the time that we were stuck in, I managed to break the kettle and lose the iPhone charger!  It meant that my phone was behaving badly and generally operating at about 10% battery life.  So Levi and I went out and restocked the pantry and made our fruit salad and then went to the greatest Australia Day BBQ that was possible!  Levi was so happy!  He had four boys all about his age to play wild games with.  He played wild games in the pool, wild games running around and wild games with the soccer ball.  Consequently he was so tired tonight, that I had to wash him in the shower and he struggled to get to sleep.  I think that he is also a little nervous about his return to school tomorrow and keeps asking to stay at home with me tomorrow, even though we will be able to get there.  I talk about how exciting it will be to meet his new teacher, but he isn't fooled anymore and I think just loves the security and the routine of the home.  He loves school and soon it will be the routine again!  Then he will be happy again!

Thoughts on Angelina Jolie

Tonight I am contemplating Angelina Jolie.  Actually, you will have to forgive me because I am writing this while watching Tomb Raider 2.  Hence why I am contemplating Angelina Jolie.  I feel enormous sympathy for her.  I think it must be so hard to live in the public life so completely.  She gets attacked no matter what she does.  I think that if I had $50 billion dollars as my net worth (and frankly I actually don't!) I would likely do exactly what she is doing; trying to save the world at a UN level and at the same time trying to save the world one child at a time.  I just feel sorry for her.  I see Levi have so naturally that her children will never have, the freedom to run around without judgement.

 She is so completely in the public eye it would be hard to find a way of being yourself.  She is so completely torn apart and glorified at the same time, finding yourself in the middle would be just impossible.  Her kids can't run around getting into trouble, falling into creeks (Yes, yes they did) and  scraping themselves on deadwood.  I just wish for her sake and theirs that they have a place like the creek.  Somewhere far from prying eyes, far from nannies and cameras.  I would hope that for their summer holidays they could find a place to run and be wild a little as our kids so easily do.  I can imagine them here, but without anyone else, just being kids.  It is so not fair on both sides of the spectrum.  Being in the middle makes for a great life for these boys.  They can be explorers with just enough fear to make it exciting.  Well her family would be welcome here but I suspect that I won't have to get organized any time soon.  I suspect that they will all be poorer for that fact!

The boys were so sweet together today, forging new paths and trying new ways.  They both had a very different outlook to problem solving.  Ty's theory was to never take a backward step.  Levi's was to stand back and decide which direction, even if backward was the most sensible to get around an obstacle.  They both got where they were going, but one was cleaner.  I think that Levi was more wary partially because, contrary to my last post, he is, in fact, sick again. 



He cooked again last night and was 103 something when he woke up.  I put him in his soccer gear but we never left.  He also said that he couldn't hear through one ear, so I suspect that it was blocked or sore as well.  Today he did well, but again was 104.3 just now.  I tested him as he fell asleep against me watching TV and well before his bedtime.  I am pretty over this illness and I think that Levi definitely is.  He is just getting so tired and we are only a few weeks into term. 

I think if it continues over the next week or so, I will have to crack and go to the doctor, to see if I can get it sorted for him.  I'm afraid that I'll just take him and it will be the whole 7 to 10 day virus thing.  It has been nearly three weeks this fever.  I hope that it is just a bunch of illnesses back to back.  I can hear him snoring from here, two rooms away.  I wish that he hadn't fallen asleep before I could give him meds.

Tomorrow we are supposed to have swimming but likely he will be too sick for that in the morning and I am certainly not waking him if he does by some miracle sleep in!

Still Hot

 Another day, another fever!!  This is the longest freaking fever that I have ever had to deal with.  We are on about day 4 and still the fever persists.  Actually it isn't a bad illness  to have to deal with because with the medication on board, he can still play and enjoy his friends but there is a limit.  A limit of about three hours.  You can see it in his eyes, even when he is coping and he has just started having his;

"eyes leak but I'm not crying Mum because I'm not sad"

We had another fun day of playing, first at Pine Rivers park again and then the kids wanted a fire down at the creek again.  They love just poking at fire and it is an easy thing to do, especially since the big floods in January deposited enormous amounts of driftwood that is now perfectly dry and high above the water line.

Levi is in his favourite shirt.  He wears it about every other day and any time that it is clean.  It is another shirt that grips my heart because his brother loved it too.  Levi is now in the last of Frankie's shirts.  Frank was just three when he died but the prednisone saw him increasing in size, sometimes by a size a week!  It meant that keeping him in cute shirts was an endless task.  After these shirts we just put him in hospital gowns, because it was too hard to get to all his lines in a Tshirt and Frankie didn't care.  I see Frank at times when Levi wears these shirts but I love that they both have the same favourite shirt.

 At the creek, as the boys played, I sat and enjoyed the moment.  There was peace in it all.  The boys playing happily and the creek doing what it had been doing for countless years; years before I was born, perhaps even years before Brisbane existed.  The creek has changed course even in the last few months and it is fun to watch it happen.  I feel trapped sometimes here but the creek can make it worth it all, just by being somewhere that you can go and talk to yourself, talk to God and sometimes even find answers

Playing at the Creek

Levi is still sick but it isn't really slowing him down.  Actually, more honestly, about 75% of the time it isn't slowing him down.  The rest of the time he is either due for medicine or has just had it and it still hasn't kicked in yet.  His temperature this morning was 104.6 F.  He woke several times last night and usually right as the Motrin was wearing off.  We had Ty and Steffi today (after warning their mum that Levi was sick), but I'm sure that partially the decision for her was easy as Levi got this illness from Ty originally.  You can still see in his eyes that he was only just coping and this was taken right in the middle of his 'good' time. 

 Also two boys came over with their grandmother for some time 'On the Farm'.  We took them to the creek and built a fire for them to have a picnic lunch down there.  They were very city type boys and they had never had a fire they could just poke around at and a creek to just throw rocks in.  They will remember the day for a long time I imagine.  It makes me remember how wonderful it is for Levi to grow up in this place, where he can run around barefoot and wield sticks and throw rocks, build towers and sculpt mud.  All without feeling like he is doing something wrong and without Someone watching over his shoulder all the time.

I just had to go and do the medicine again.  His temperature is better, only 102.4 now.  He wanted to switch back into my bed as well.  With Ty staying the night, I thought that he might sleep by himself but I think it was a bit much for a sick little boy. 

Snakes and Ladders

On Sunday we had a good day.  The causeway is still running over but it is really safe.  OK well, moderately safe.  The creek would still take out a non swimming child but not an adult and there were lots of adults watching them.  The water is very cold but I am known as a baby when it comes to swimming in cold water.  The kids, of course, didn't even notice.  I didn't notice either, after my feet went numb.  They all loved it and I enjoy watching 'city' kids do 'country' things. 

All the kids played on the cubby as well, climbing the ladders and the nets.  Levi remains very competent with his climbing.  While they were up the cubby, Jo found a snake in the front yard.  It was about 2 metres long and we are now sure it is an Eastern Brown.  They are really scary as Hell.  It was sighted several times that day but we haven't been able to kill it.  Since the weekend we haven't seen it again.  Actually I would prefer to get rid of it once and for all.  They are fiercely territorial and think that this one may have been chased out of his regular hunting ground by the rain, or washed down in the creek in the deluge.

Time Capsule

The river has receded a little.  You can now make it around the corner and see across the creek to the other road.  It was still well above anything that was drivable!  Where the road turns the corner, the creek eddies and deposits sand and debris, so deep that you have to shovel it out.  It is best to start shovelling while it is still covered by water because you can push out the debris into the flow of water and let it go downstream.  That is the theory.  Reality is slightly different.  If you don't push it out far enough, it all gets caught in the eddy again and redeposits.  The best bet is to shovel it to the side and let the water help you out.  Levi loves the whole 'farm boy' thing and is out there with his plastic shovel and boots.  It makes it quite difficult because you have to keep a really close eye on him.  If he loses his balance he will get washed out.  The creek wouldn't kill me at the moment but I would have to fight hard.  Levi wouldn't have a chance. 

 Levi's boots

 Helping to shovel

 Rapids where our road is

Time Capsule

Levi and I (mostly Levi) built a time capsule today and buried it in the garden.  He was very into it and I actually have no idea what is in the tine.  It is a metal flour tin that I sealed shut with clear packing tape.  Given that he will likely forget about it in a few days the real test will be to see if I can remember.  I think that I will 'remember' some day when he is bored or sick.  We can go out and dig it up and I will be able to find out what is in there.

I hope to plant something over the top as well, so it will help him to forget that it is there.  I am hoping that the tape will be waterproof enough.  Levi put everything inside into plastic bags, so we won't wreck anything even if the capsule itself fails.   My goal is to open it close to his birthday next year.  We shall see if it lasts that long!