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!

Soccer Afternoon

Wednesday is supposed to be my early day.  Actually it is my early day but that is just about work.  I left work, got home in time to grab a water bottle and some clothes for Levi.  I picked him up from school and took him to soccer.  There is a program at school that teaches soccer on the oval after the day ends.  Soccer mad Levi wanted to do it, even if it was the same day as his regular soccer. So, it was one soccer and then the second at the big fields.  If this all sounds complicated and frenzied, it is.  If it sounds like I arrive just slightly late to every thing, you are right.  However Levi has a blast and that is what keeps it all going.  In the first soccer he has Ruby and in the second he has Matthew and Zoe. 

Then we got home and finished off the fish tank.  We set it all up and finally Dibber is swimming happily.  Ultralord is doing his snail job and so is the new Ultralord 2 (OK we don't have very unique names around here!).  Actually, just between you and me, Ultralord is new too but Levi has forgotten that the original died.  I am happy that he is loving it.  He went to sleep watching the fish tonight.  Another calming influence.  One of my friends, Jac asked him today if he liked his dragon.  He told her that it gave him good dreams and that it chased away his bad ones!  I don't want to get too ahead of myself and jinx it but I think (touch wood, heck touch anything!) that the dragon experiment worked and he is proving to all of us that if you believe in something strongly enough it becomes real.

 As you can see, Icy still plays a big role in his protection as well and even though Icy is getting a bit scruffy from repeated washing, he has already become 'real'.  

Our life continues to cycle busier and busier, yet soccer on the weekend has not even started!  Levi is in full blown packing mode.  We are going to the coast with my friend and one of Levi's Godmother, Julie.  She lives in Cairns and is coming down for work Thursday and Friday and staying for the weekend.  Of course, anytime we are going anywhere, for any length of time, Levi packs.  Unfortunately, he packs randomly.  In random little bags everywhere and in big bags there is 'packing'.  Oh I can only hope that at least one bag has clothes!

Mother of the Year

Today I won a competition from the radio station that I listen to. I won 'Mother of the Year', well for the week anyway. I had written out the story about stealing from Levi's piggy bank to pay for his tooth fairy money. They loved it and I won $50. Win win!  So maybe I should give some of that money to the tooth fairy, because she was the one who earned it!

Levi is going through another stage.  Thank goodness it isn't a bad one.  He has started tying knots in everything.  I go into the room and am stopped by a long rope tied between the bunk bed and the double bed.  I try to untie it but in the dark it is just impossible.  I go to get into bed and there is another tied from the head of the bed to the foot.  I think that I have to enrol him in scouts or something, so that he can learn to tie knots that can actually be undone without cutting the rope. 

I had a really long day today.  I had a meeting at the home office at 3.30 which puts me home around about 6pm.  I got a call from the school just as I got to Corinda, telling me that Levi was in sick bay and he had a tummy ache.  I hate being that far away at that stage.  I asked why his tummy hurt and he said he drank a lot of water and ran around and started to feel sick.  Really? Anyway I got Levi picked up fairly early anyway because you can never be sure but was racing around on his bike when I got home!  I'm thinking his tummy was much better by then.

Our fish, Dibber (or Dabber, still not sure which is which) outlived his tank.  This is a miracle for me.  Most fish I have had in the past, barely outlived the week, let alone had the tank fail first.  anyway this fish is the Methuselah of fish and yesterday I bought him/her a new tank.  Levi wanted to help put it together and so we did it tonight.

Maybe that will make up for my Mother of the Year award!  If not at least he has something to complain about to his Psychologist when he is older!

Fish Anyone?

On the weekend we found Dabber floating upside down.  So now our fish tank is down to Dibber and Ultralord (the snail).  I was interested in Levi's reactions.  I thought of several possibilities, but when it came down to it, he surprised me again.  He looked at Dabber reflectively for a while and then looks up at me and says;

"It's a pity he's not a bit bigger, because then we could eat him!"

Definitely not expected, I can assure you.  I laughed and explained that we weren't sure what had killed him anyway, so eating him was probably a bad idea.  Then we discussed what to do with him.  Finally we decided to flush him.  we get to the toilet and Levi's only question?

"Big flush or little?"

So there are no lingering concerns now about how he would cope when the fish died!  That and I think we both actually like Ultralord the best anyway!

Dipper and Dapper

Today we welcomed two new members of the family.  I hope they are robust and long lived.  Levi was ecstatic. 

When we came back from USA, I promised Levi that we would get a dog as soon as we were able.  He had grown up with Kazi, the first year and a bit of his life.  He wanted a dog since she died.  I figured that when we came here, I would buy a little house and we could get a dog and a cat.  Of course, once I bought into the farm, all ability to get a pet for him failed.  There is a dog here, but Pippy is old and frankly a bitch to any other dog.  Pippy is Jo's dog and when she spends too much time downstairs, Jo gets all depressed and "no one loves me"!  I spend time trying to send Pip back upstairs.  Even after Pip dies, we won't be able to get a dog, because it will always be Jo's.  I prefer dogs more trained (and trainable) than Jo as well, so I think that it wouldn't even be the same type of dog.

 

We can't get a cat because Jo is allergic and so that is out as long as we live here.  This leaves little to actually get that doesn't have more drawbacks than attributes.  So Levi and I talked about fish.  He was very excited and I figured that we could give it a shot and see how robust they were. 

The tank that I found has a great feature that it also runs a night light through it.  So it solves several things at once.  A nice little bubbly sound to sleep to and a muted blue light.  I took these photos with the iphone, so they aren't particularly good, but it shows him sleeping soundly behind the tank.  Of course Levi had to get up a few times to use the toilet before sleeping.  I hope that the bubbly water noise doesn't increase the chance he (or I) wet the bed!

The other big revelation that I have been having a fun chat on facebook about is that Levi got a couple of new teeth in the last week.  He assures me that he told me about it and I will say that I do remember something along that line.  He had been complaining about his mouth the last few weeks and I have been, well, ignoring it.  Finally last night I took a flashlight and actually 'looked' in his mouth.

I found this great website about Tooth Development.  It shows in animation how the teeth come in and when they come out.  These new teeth in Levi's mouth are huge!  They must be adult tetth and it amazes me that they fit in his mouth and it certainly makes me think that it really did actually hurt a lot for them to grow through.  We still have two more to go.  I will be a little more sympathetic for the next two at least.

Oh and I forgot, Levi named the fish Dipper and Dapper, which I think is quite good.  The snail got a name as well but was much less memorable and so I promptly forgot it.  I will have to check it again in the morning!