For the holiday to the Gold Coast I’d bought a theme park fun pass to the three Warner Bros theme parks, Seaworld (which we’d just done), Wet’nWild and Movie World. The fun pass lasts for five days from the first day you use it so you can do each park with a rest day inbetween. This is what I’d recommend for sure as these parks are huge and involve a lot of walking.

After a rest day on Tuesday with watching Ice Age 3 in 3D we were up for theme park number two. The weather wasn’t looking that great  for the whole week so I just decided to get Wet’nWild out the way. It was a bit cool, about 17 degrees and overcast and fairly windy and I traipsed around the park in my wet bathers - after the first ride anyway. With no firm plan in mind we started off with the Tornado. This ride means you have to lug a large and fairly heavy raft thing up heaps of stairs and it’s hard to do with just one adult and one kid. We were really struggling but luckily someone came to our rescue and helped me carry it up.

JJ got on it and went down. I was in front off JJ as we backed down the last chute before we went into the main tornado bit and the scared look on his face was priceless - I wish I could have captured it on film. That feeling of not being in control of what comes next is what makes these rides so much fun in retrospect.

We went around the park and systematically did most of the rides with a  couple of spa visits inbetween to warm up as it was pretty chilly. It’s not really worth taking a towel around with you because it would just get wet and you wouldn’t be that warm with a wet towel either. We hired a locker to put all our stuff in and got the waterproof wristband with a bit of extra money on it to buy food. We ate a lot of chips on our holidays as these theme parks idea of healthy food is pretty non-existent and Wet’nWild had the best hot chips and we hooked into them like there was no tomorrow when we got them. All that climbing up numerous amounts of stairs made for two very hungry people.

The Black Hole was our favourite. It’s pitch black inside these tunnels but it wasn’t too scary and it was warm in there. I imagine in the heat of summer it’s too warm, but in winter it was perfect. We did it twice at the beginning and once or twice before I changed back into warm clothes.

A word of warning if you go down the slide that doesn’t require some sort of raft or mat to use, if you’re just wearing a normal bathing suit you go really fast. This happened to me and my legs and arms ended up flailing all over the place and I bruised both my elbows and wasn’t ready when I landed in the pool at the end and got water up my nose which wasn’t pleasant at all.

I was lucky that JJ is tall enough to go on all these rides - I can’t remember the height requirements but most of the rides need a pair of people as well. Like all the theme parks, there is a younger kids section too which we didn’t visit. Because of the weather though, there weren’t that many brave (stupid?) people there so we didn’t have long waits for the rides we did go on  which was a good thing. The cooler weather also meant that some of the rides alternated in their opening times.

After I got changed JJ went into the wave pool.

There were showers in the changeroom but there was no hot water. I couldn’t believe it. I was shivering and cold and couldn’t even warm up under a warm shower. I had to wait until I got back to the hotel for that.

With all this exercise during our days meant I had fairly early nights during our holiday. JJ went to bed about 9pm every night and because we were in the same room I just laid on my bed reading while he went to sleep. I knew that if I put the tv on he’d watch it and never get to sleep, although on the Wednesday night he went to bed at 8.30pm and was still awake at 9pm when The Chaser started. I watched it and had to muffle my laughter to not disturb him as he was going to sleep.

The one thing I liked about our resort was that they provided basic shared facilities for doing your own meals if you wanted. There was a toaster and a microwave so for breakfasts I could have my toast and JJ had his cereal and that was one meal a day we didn’t have to buy. I bought snacks and some fruit from the supermarket, but other than that JJ pretty much lived on fish and chips because that’s his favourite meal which just about every establishment we ate at provided. Oh well, when on holidays….

I think I’ve got two more parts left of this holiday tale. Any questions? Please ask in the comments.

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Upon some reflection on our holiday, it was a damn good one. There, that’ll do won’t it? No, you want details…..

In summary, we had six days on the Gold Coast and a theme park fun pass to use within five of those days so as you can imagine we were busy. Seaworld was the first port of call because I knew that was the closest and the easiest to get to. I’d booked JJ into the Kids Club at the hotel at 4.30pm that afternoon so we had to leave about 3pm or so to get back but after having been there for five hours I was glad to leave. We traipsed around that park for those five hours and hardly sat down to just relax.

We went on rides through volcanoes and tunnels that involved just a bit more water than I would have liked. We went on the corkscrew rollercoaster twice and the scariest part for me was the corkscrew part that happens twice in very quick succession. The ride is over so quickly you’re not quite sure what happened. We didn’t do the jet rider one. We saw the dolphin show, had a front row seat at the lunchtime water ski comedy 50s act. We rode the monorail twice and the skyrail once. The polar bears were asleep. I shed a tear during the dolphin show from a combination of the music and the gorgeousness of dolphins. I wondered how the dolphin trainers get a job there. Phew, we did a lot and that was just part of day 1.

A couple more photos below.

Rewind to the day before though. We left home at 7.30am to catch the plane after having spent the previous afternoon at an AFL football match. It’s hard work being a footy yobbo but I think we all played the part quite well. The direct flight from Adelaide to the Gold Coast is a good one and I wouldn’t fly there any other way unless I was absolutely desperate. We arrived at the Gold Coast just as the marathon was finishing so when I told the bus transfer desk person where we were going she said because of road closures we’d have to be dropped off at the next suburb and walk a kilometre. At first I thought she was joking but she wasn’t. When I asked the bus driver he said, no problem, he’d drop us off right round the corner and we wouldn’t have to walk a kilometre. Phew! Even with wheely suitcases, they’re quite heavy, and that’s without the hand luggage, including for some reason my laptop. All I used my laptop for was to add photos ready for uploading to Flickr and I hardly managed to do that. Laptop’s staying home next time!

When  we got to our room JJ was really excited to inform me that there was a hair dryer in the bathroom and I was glad to see two beds so we didn’t have to sleep together and listen to each other grind their teeth and snore. We stayed at one of those full-on kiddy/family resorts and if you were child-free you would not want to stay there because it was a festival of children. Unfortunately the children took over the spa so there was not even respite from them there. I told one kid that if he kept splashing he’d be out and it wasn’t even my own child.

When I started this post I thought I’d do a quick few sentences and pop in a few photos but it’s turned out longer than I expected and we’re only on day two.

Speaking of photos I took my new camera with me and I wouldn’t have been able to get some of the photos I got with my old camera. I love that I can turn the camera on and it’s ready to go very quickly. I also love the continual shoot. Now, to get off the AV setting and explore a bit more will be the next step.

If you want to see more photos I’m gradually uploading them to Flickr.

There’s so much more that I’ll have to save it for subsequent posts but what I do want to say before I forget is how I felt myself acting when I got back Monday evening. It was action stations and I was barking orders like a sargeant until I realised that I was only acting like that because of the horrible thought of being back in the routine and doing the daily drudge. I’m trying to change my attitude to how I react to each day from a sometimes negative one to a more positive one and to try not to sweat the small stuff. I’ve slightly changed our routine for the rest of this week and the wheels haven’t fallen off but I’m more relaxed than when I got back Monday night. Let’s wait and see what happens when school starts back, and sport, and scouts……..

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I’m a big user of vinegar and bi-carb for my cleaning also. I just read today that before you go on holidays you should put some vinegar down the drains. I wish I’d done that as things smelt a bit musty in the bathroom when we got back.

I’m having a hard time adjusting to being back from holidays. We got home at 7pm last night and it was straight back to work for me today. Apparently I’ve missed a week of rain nearly every day. I certainly noticed the chillier air last night compared to being away up north. The holiday was great and it felt like we were away for longer than nine days - which is good.

For the post holiday post you’ll have to wait a short while.

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I’ve just had a person round from a solar panel place to talk to me about getting solar panels on my house so I can contribute electricity back to the grid. Luckily I got in early enough before the government stopped the $8000 rebate. I’ll end up paying some money over this rebate but it will be totally worth it to get paid for electricity rather than having to fork out money for the privilege.

The cute salesman was very impressed that my electricity usage is quite low - about 4.5kWh consumption on average. He said that some people he sees consume about 22kWh which must mean they have everything electrical on in their house all the time. I’m so conscious that I even turn the microwave off at the powerpoint when I’m not using it. Same for the stereo, and the TV goes off at the TV rather than being left on standby. I don’t use the air conditioner until I absolutely have to and I have a habit of turning off lights in rooms that aren’t being used which is quite dangerous when you have a black dog that lies in high traffic places.

Enough about me, my holiday, and my electricity frugality. I have a giveaway of ‘green’ cleaning products and some yummy chocolate. You’ve got a week and a bit to enter this one by leaving a comment.

As I’m away for just over a week my blogging might be a bit light on during this time as I tune out of the internet and go analogue.

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I gave him his presents and he read the card first.

He then opened the main present.

He then realised what it was. He’s been hassling me for a Nintendo DS for ages and I finally caved in. I even bought the DSi.

He opened the second part of the present which included a game.

And before too long he was occupied playing it. I realise that now that he’s got a DSi he’ll be hassling me to play it all the time. It’s not one of those things that he can have whenever he wants and so far I think he accepts that. He asked me today if we can take it away with us, and of course we will be.

Just a small technical note about the DSi. It accepts an SD card so you can store music and photos on it. I would have expected that you could put the SD card into the slot and it would be recognised straight away like in a camera but this isn’t the case. You have to connect to the internet before the DSi will recognise it. I’m fairly technically savvy but I had a bitch of a time trying to connect it to the internet using my wi-fi broadband at home.

I’ve got my security setup with WPA and the default for the DSi is WEP - ie two different kinds of security. The documentation I found said that you could setup the internet with WAP security but damned if I could find it. The manual didn’t mention anything that I could find and then I finally (after nearly two hours) found that if you used connections 4-6 on the DSi you could select more than just WEP security. Finally I connected to the internet which I hadn’t really wanted to do anyway. I just wanted the thing to read the SD card.

My lost two hours could have been much better spent organising the birthday party for the Sunday. JJ hasn’t had a birthday party since his fifth birthday and that was a huge one number wise but this one felt more stressful - probably because it was at home and probably because I wasn’t quite sure how I would entertain these children for two hours.

Nearly half an hour after they arrived I was still the only adult there and I was starting to freak out. My friends were supposed to be there for two o’clock and they were seriously late. One of the fathers offered to stay but he had to go on a quick errand before he came back. By the time he did come back my other friends had arrived but he still stayed.

We started off with Pass the Parcel which was surprisingly hard work. The kids (five boys) were really over-excited and very hard to control. It was JJ times five. Note Monty in prime patting position!

We then did musical statues outside which was great to get rid of some of that energy.

I found a game called Mummy Wrap on the internet and I really didn’t hold out much hope for this game because it required standing still. The boys paired up and had to wrap each other like a mummy.

To their credit they all did a really good job with a bit of help from some adults.

Here’s one nearly completed.

Here’s me directing some toilet paper pickup after the first round. The toilet paper I got came apart quite easily so it was a little bit hard not to rip it.

They then swapped and we judged the best wrapper, although they nearly all won a prize.

To get the toilet paper off they had to do star jumps.

And then wrestle each other to the ground.

After some food, some more jumping on the trampoline it was time for the birthday cake. JJ wanted me to make my cheesecake (the Superb Cheesecake from the Quick and Thrifty Readers Digest recipe book). I bought some Smarties so the boys could decorate their piece.

And then they all left and I sat down and breathed a big sigh of relief. It was all worth it though because JJ had a great time and I’m pretty sure his guests had a great time too.

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He’s been a bit better since then and so have I.

Moving on then. It’s his birthday on Friday and he’s having a party on Sunday which I’ve been stressing over. Really it won’t be that stressful and I’m sure it will be fine on the day. We’ve got a list or three of what games to play, what I need to buy, and what we need to do. I tell you, being a mum makes me even more super organised than I used to be. I often think that if I go for a job interview and they ask for examples of my organisation skills, not only can I use work ones, but I can use motherhood ones also.

So, back to the party, we’ve got about five children coming over for two hours and we’ve organised some games for them to play and I’m hoping that we have enough to occupy these little rascals for that time. So any ideas for fillers are very welcome, especially ideas for things to do inside.

Bless my son’s heart, he’s so excited about his party and he’s gonna wet himself when he gets his Nintendo DSi on Friday. I’m gonna have some great leverage when that comes into play.

In addition to the normal parenting, work and home duties I have a three more things that are going to be on my plate, and already are to some extent. They are extra work outside of my paid work.

Firstly I agreed, in a weak moment, to do a website for a friend’s business. I’m going to do a Wordpress site for her rather than build from scratch. We met about it in March and it should have been done and dusted by now but it’s not. I’ve told her that I’ve got some other things coming up and I really want to get hers out the way. I’m going to have to lay down the law and say I won’t do it if she doesn’t hurry up. I’m being paid with treatments from her (she does shiatsu).

The other thing is that I do some freelance work through work and they’re doing a big website revamp which will involve a lot of work on my part. I’m being paid handsomely for it but there will be a fair bit of time involved.

And lastly, a business opportunity has come my way. I’ve been approached by a friend to join him and two others for a web-based startup. I can’t say too much about it at the moment but they’ve really done their research and it sounds quite promising. Naturally there’s work involved there too so I’m quietly panicking.

A while back I’d started playing with the idea of starting my own business but was really hesitant because I would have to do it all on my own and I know my own limitations. Working with others can have its pitfalls but also its strengths. I’ll definitely keep you posted on that one.

Anyway, time to go, lots to do.

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Yesterday I was the devil mother. Everything my son did was wrong and whenever he did anything wrong in my eyes I told him off. Therefore yesterday I constantly told him off and I even raised my voice more than once.

Yesterday evening saw me wound up so tight that I paced up and down the path near the side of my house because I couldn’t leave him alone in the house while I went for a walk.

My behaviour as a parent was woeful and I know it.

Fortunately not long after I finished pacing outside the house, I dropped him off at the babysitters and went to a party. If not, it would have been an early night for him. I had a fabulous time at the party catching up with some friends I don’t see that often, drinking slightly too much and dancing just the right amount. As I said to JJ today I even told some friends I know I behaved abominably as a parent. He was surprised that I told them it was me who misbehaved and not him. Don’t worry, he was no angel yesterday but it’s no excuse.

Even though I didn’t get that much sleep last night today is a new day and it’s a lot better as I knew it would be. It seems that nearly every time I take my eye off the ball as a parent, I drop it. My eye’s back on the ball and I’ve remembered some of the things the psychologist said when we were seeing her last year.

I’ve come to the conclusion that kids are smarter than us poor, unsuspecting adults, and if we let them they’ll run rings around us and sometimes do.

What do you do when your kid/s is driving you round the bend and you can’t leave them to get a bit of perspective? Do you turn into the mother from hell, or do you have a foolproof, failsafe method of not letting that happen? Just so you know, I don’t always turn into the mother from hell. I usually handle it. What I’ve described above is reasonably rare.

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We go to the local farmer’s market just about every Sunday morning to get our fresh produce and usually only spend as little time as possible there. However, there is a kids club that has different activities.

A couple of weeks ago JJ participated in the kids club doing the edible garden. The edible garden involved watering plants as you can see above, picking plants that were ready and then planing some new seedlings.

JJ was happy with everything he was doing and looked interested so I was able to dash off and quickly do some of my shopping.

Kid’s club usually involves eating food and this time they ate some very cute little round carrots they’d picked and drank some apple and carrot juice that a nearby market stall donated.

We also got a bag of silverbeet and rainbow chard which I used in a stirfry. And all this for free. We don’t usually have the time to stay around for an extra hour but when we do, the kid’s club is a great activity and we’re very lucky to be able to participate.

I would love to do more gardening but I don’t really have the room and I don’t really have the time. We grow herbs and that’s about it. My tomato crop from this summer was decimated by the extended heatwave we had so it was a waste of the water I used to try and keep them alive. We do have a local community garden and I’d like to get a plot there one day when I’ve got more time. One day.

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At any other time he absolutely loves the dog to pieces and he can’t get enough of her but when it comes to having to get up on a cold and dark morning he whinges about it.

While my nephew was living here finishing off his last two years of high school I could walk the dog by myself a lot of mornings and it was great but now that he’s gone I have to take JJ with me. It’s so tempting to leave him at home tucked up in bed but I know he’s too young at the moment. When would he not be too young? Any ideas?

I told JJ this morning, as he put his helmet on because he takes his scooter, that soon the shortest day of the year would be here and the morning will start to get lighter. It cheered me up saying that. Once we both get out there we’re fine and the whinging generally stops.

By the way the aforementioned nephew has just about finished his basic training in the Navy, or boot camp or whatever they call it. He’s having his passing out parade this Thursday and my niece and nephew are going but because it’s in Victoria apparently they have to have a week off afterwards just incase of this jolly Swine Flu thing.

I wonder when all the people in the neighbourhood walk their dogs? When the weather’s warmer there’s lots of them at the local oval in the morning so many of them must do it in the evening during winter. I wonder. If you have a dog, when do you walk it? Do you have a regular time, or is it more ad-hoc?

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They have - sort of.

In the last few weeks JJ has had two time-out slips from school. A kid gets a time-out or a detention slip for all sorts of reasons including violence towards other kids.

The first one a few weeks ago said that he’d kicked someone in the shins and then when this kid fell on the ground he stomped on their back. I was pretty horrified but I kept my cool. When I questioned him about it the full story came out. A bit of background. JJ is pretty tall for his age and he towers over most kids in his class except for the one he kicked.

But, the full story. This kid had wanted JJ to join his ‘club’ but JJ didn’t want to. This kid swung JJ by the arm into a tree and kicked in the balls (JJ’s words). That’s when JJ kicked him back but he never stomped on his back.

I wrote this down on the time-out slip and sent it to school with JJ. JJ was really pleased that I believed him and that I was doing something about it which made me feel a bit mean because in the past I haven’t always believed him. That’s what happens when you occasionally do lie to your mum!

The upshot was that this kid also got a detention.

So, on to a more recent incident. The time-out slip said that JJ kicked another kid in the shins (kicking in the shins is popular) and it wasn’t the first time with this kid. We sat down for half an hour and quite a different story emerged. I won’t bore you with all the details but JJ promised that he didn’t kick this kid in the shins but this kid had hassled him and when JJ went away and told two teachers - they both said to ignore him. By the way, this kid does Scouts with JJ and I witnessed him kicking JJ for which I told him off.

I spoke to the teacher yesterday and explained to her what JJ had told me. All the versions differed which is what happens in any account of anything. I also explained that JJ feels lonely at lunch time and consequently has nothing to do. Unfortunately he attracts kids and vice-versa that are trouble when they mix.

His teacher was really good and has made some suggestions for lunchtime activities for him. She’s also going to get the pastoral care worker to come in and do some work with him and others. I also mentioned that JJ had gone up to two different teachers and being told to ignore the person that’s hassling him obviously doesn’t work. I suggested that the yard duty teacher direct him to do something as a distraction. I don’t know if this will happen and if it it happens whether it will work or not.

It’s small small steps with this school yard politics but he’s getting there slowly.

In the meantime his birthday party invitations have been distributed. I’m a bit worried that only a couple of the six boys JJ’s invited will be able/want to come. Apparently one (the ball kicker above) said that he probably wouldn’t come because his dad thought JJ was mean. I’m sure his dad didn’t say that so it will be interesting to see if he does come or not. And I thought I knew some bitches.

We’ve planned the games, and the birthday cake so hopefully the weather’s kind.

If it’s all too much at least we’ll be going to Queensland a week later to recover. If any of you live around the Gold Coast, northern NSW we’ll be there early July for a week or so. We could do a bloggy catchup perhaps?

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