MWNews 39

Christmas is over. I have posted the pictures so you should be getting an email about them soon. I didn't do as many as last year because I had to keep Maeghan opening presents or she would have just played with her new kitchen set. You cannot see it in this picture, it is off to the right, but I had to build it during the night and have it set up for her in the morning. More about the building process later. I did manage to film the beginning when the kids came in, but I have not looked at that yet, so I do not know how it turned out,

Juanita wanted to have everyone have breakfast before they opened presents, so they would not be getting hungry during the process. We bought the kids a special treat for breakfast, Fruitloops. They never get fruitloops because they are so expensive over here, over $8 a box, so it was something of a treat. The kids were too excited to eat, so that plan did not go well. We were going to then lead the kids in and let them see all the presents. We did not set all the presents out until after the kids had gone to bed.

It got confusing at that time as I was suppossed to be in the room ready to film but they led them in before I could get there. so we had to tell the kids to go back out and the first reactions, I did not get on tape. We thought Maeghan would immediately run to her kitchen but everyone was sitting down, so she sat in her new chair. It is the Pooh chair in the picture. The little lounge is for William, since Maeghan already has one. Maeghan sat in her chair and looked around. She started to get up and go to her kitchen, but Michael was in the way and he told her to sit down. We had to tell Michael to leave her and let her go to the presents so that is probably on the tape. She started opening the doors and looking inside everything and told us she had to cook breakfast for everyone and asked if we wanted coffee. She loves her new kitchen.

After that, Angela started handing out presents. Naturally, she did it wrong and just handed them all out at once. That is another reason I did not get many pictures as I had to help Maeghan, and open my presents, and then try to find time to take pictures. I know everyone always hated the rule of one present at a time, but all at once was not much fun, so next year we will have find some compromise.

Maeghan was really excited. I have never heard her squeel and laugh and get excited all at the same time. She loved everything. A lot of it she had already seen as she was with us when we bought it and it was stored under the bed and in the closet. She has been going by all the presents for a long time and telling us which ones were hers and which ones were Anna's and which ones were for someone else. She had begun to get upset lately because we would not let her play with them and it was getting frustrating for her. As we gradually wrapped each one, they would dissappear and she would ask us where her presents had gone. When she opened them at Christmas, she would say my so and so is back or now I get to play with it. I will list all her presents, or some of them, later.

It was hard to keep her opening new presents. She would want to play with each of them as they were opened. If I did not take them out of the box or packageing they came in, then she would go back to playing with her kitchen. A lot of things that she was really excited about in the stores and she was always wanting to play with when we had them 'hidden', are not getting played with now because she spends all her time cooking in her kitchen. And it is amazing how much she knows about cooking. She asked everyone if they wanted coffee/tea last night and when we said yes, she took out her pretend hot water jug, (an electric kettle) and filled it from her sink, (not real water), then placed it on the stove and got the cups out. She then poured coffee/tea in each cup and brought one to everyone. She then took her jug and put it back in the cabinet.

She was also cooking a duck, yesterday, in the microwave. We got the kids little stuffed animals to put in their stockings and hers was a duck. She said she was cooking the duck for dinner. She cannot really reach the microwave, it is too high for her, but she went and found her stool from her bed and used that to climb up and get things in and out of the microwave. She cooked the duck for most of the day. She would go check on it periodically. She would open the door, then set the duck down and poke it with her fork, and then put it back in and push the buttons on the microwave and let it cook some more. She knows which part of the kitchen is the oven and which is the fridge. she discovered that she can lift the sink and get into the cabinet underneath. She found something that way, I don't remember what, and she was really happy she had found it. Right now, she is making things for the baby. Juanita's mother is pretending to be the baby. Whenever Maeghan walks away, Beverly will scream like a baby crying and tell Maeghan she wants something. Maeghan thinks this is hilareous. She runs across the room and gives Beverly a dummy. When Maeghan walks away, she will spit the dummy out again and start crying and Maeghan will run back and give it to her again.

A list of things Maeghan got were her kitchen, a blackboard/chalkboard/fetboard aisle thing. A cash register, which she calls her computer. It has a scanner on it that beeps when you press a button. She likes to press and hold the button down so it makes a noise all the time. She got dishes and utensils and electric things to go in her kitchen. We got her a little toaster that has plastic toast with it and it turns out, we got her a set of things that has the exact same toaster in it. So now, she has two toasters. She thinks that is really neat. She got her plastic hot water jug and a writing board like an etch a schetch or something like it. She got a couple of new outfits. Not many but we have been buying her knew clothes for her for a couple of months now, so she has plenty. I can't remember what else she got. I know she got a flashlight and a ducky and some lollies in her stocking. No fruit and no airplane and no cards, but she got some stickers because she loves stickers. She always gets those from ballet.

Speaking of ballet, real quick. We went to get the photos they had taken for the ballet class. The ones where Maeghan was not smiling. She was still not smiling but the teacher's mother told us they had had really high expectations for the show from Maeghan. They said she was suppossed to be the star of the show as they thought she was the only one who was going to do the routines right and her being so small, everyone would have fallen in love with her. Of course, we know how it turned out but it is a shame that no one got to see our special little girl in her first play. We have all seen it, at home, but no one else ever did, besides the teacher. She was still the best one, even if she was crying and didn't actually make it up on stage. But enough of that, we were talking about Christmas.

I am not sure what everyone else got, either. With angela passing out the presents, and giving everyone all their presents at once instead of one at a time, there was not a chance to see what everyone else was doing. I know I got Juanita five sets of clothes and a bracelet, but I did not get to see her open any of them. all the other presents we got the kids and everyone else, I didn't get to see either, except for the occasional gift here and there.

Maeghan kept me pretty busy, squeeling all the time and saying her presents are back and oooh and ahhh and that's mine and all the other things she was getting so excited about. The ones she said were back were the ones she had seen all the time and had disappeared when we wrapped them. She would say my computer is back or my dolly's toys are back or if she was not really paying attention when I opened one of hers, she would say that's mine when I showed it to her and want me to open it so she could play with it. I can't really explain how excited she was getting each time. She really loved it all and she really loves her new kitchen.

Now, to tell the tale of me having to build this new kitchen for her, it took about six hours to complete. I started at around 10 in the evening and did not finish until 4 in the morning. Ok, maybe it was not quite that long, but it sure seemed like it. It wasn't really hard, except for the first bit where you had to put things together while holding it all upright, but there were a lot of pieces to put on. There were only 17 steps in the instructions but the first one took over an hour to complete and at that point, all you had was the refridgerator put together. I then had to put all the doors together and there are at least 5 of them, each with a different handle and different hinges. Once it was able to freely stand on its own, it was easier, but then I had the problem of either getting up and walking around it each time I wanted to add a new piece or turning the whole thing around so the piece I needed was on the side I was on. I think I should have been moving around the whole thing instead of lifting it up each time and moving it, but it is too late to reaslize that now.

Since it is a couple of days after Christmas, I can let you know I am enjoying my underwear. I haven't have a chance to wear my new socks yet as it is stinking hot over here and I have been wearing sandles. That has been one of the hardships of having Christmas down under, it is hot during the winter and cold during the summer. The part I miss most is shopping when it is freezing outside. Not that it is ever freezing where we come from, but it is at least cold and everyone is wearing coats and warm clothes. I like going shopping in the cold where when you get inside the store, it is a relief to be out of the cold and you can sit down and have a hot drink and enjoy watching the people walk by. And, the people seem a little more friendly during the cold when they are shopping. Not a lot, maybe, but to compare it to shopping when it is 100 degrees and everyone is hot, sticky and crabby from the heat, it is much better to have Christmas during the winter. Then again, everything about Christmas over here is about snow and winter and it being cold for Christmas, you just have to pretend it is not hot enough to leave you gasping for cold water. We still have a coffee when we go out and the best places to be are in the shopping centers, because they are air conditioned, but it is not really the same. I told everyone I was going to turn our airconditioning way down, so everyone would wake up cold and frosty, but I didn't do it. Mainly, because I was too tired after putting together Maeghan's present, but partly because it would have caused some kind of artic tremor to have cold weather during Christmas down here.

I might not have mentioned it but you probably guessed that Angela and the kids stayed for Christmas. Not by their own choice but through circumstances they seemed to ignore. (They did not have money for tickets and we did not give it to them.) So they are were here for Christmas morning, all except Jarvis who is still in Brisbane with his father. They did manage to leave Christmas night, at 6, so I had to have everything cooked and ready for lunch so they could have a chance to eat and then get ready to get on the train. The train would have gotten there the next day, but as we all knew was going to happen, Angela has failed to call us to tell us they arrived or anything, again. Last time, she went up there and we did not hear from her for three weeks, and her mother was in the hospital that whole time and did not get a phone call from her daughter to ask how she was or to tell her they got there ok or to ask about the baby or her mother or anyone else. Not that we hold that against her but I guess this means she remains consistant with the no contact.

We have no idea when or if she is coming back. She tells so many stories, it is hard to keep track of what her next one will be or is suppossed to be. I am really impressed she can manage to keep them all straight but then again, she doesn't really do that good of a job and you just have to ignore what she says most of the time and just follow what she does.

Natalie and Adam are here, although Adam did not spend Christmas with us. He went to his sister's or something and Natalie came here. As you can see, we had a really big Christmas, not as big as last year but they might have been about the same. It was so hard to tell, as I have mentioned once or twice, we did not get to see each other open presents, only open the ones we had. Its that whole one present at a time thing again. I think next year, I will have to insist on it, but then again, we will probably not be here for Christmas, so I will have to follow whatever rules are set up at the home we are at.

A couple of final things before I finish. We still do not know when the operation is and we will not find out until the second week in January. It could be at anytime but I am sure I will only have about a weeks notice before I have to go in. And then, there is the possibility that I could be bumped up or down in the list, depending on how many emergencies they have. I have heard tails of people checking into the hospital and then having to wait four or five weeks to have their operations. It just depends on what else is going on at the time. I did find out that I will probably not get paid for the recovery time I will have to take. It is still being discussed in the HR department, but the problem is the policy says one thing but when we called to confirm, they said another. So I will have to have my manager work it out. And since he is not in for the next three weeks, I will probably have to pursue it myself. But no matter, I can take leave time to cover it, I will just have to borrow from next year to cover the entire period. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

All in all, we had a very nice Christmas. We ate a lot and got drunk Christmas night, not really, but it was not for lack of trying. I made a really nice dinner from the leftovers the next night and we are just about finished with all of that. In fact, as i write this, I think they are finishing it off now. We did not have any of the traditional things we would normally have for Christmas or Thanksgiving because they are all warm weather foods. We had turkey and ham and shrimp but we only had salad and deserts to go with it. No dressing, no potatoes, no sweet potatoes, nothing that you would have to cook in the over, except the turkey. For dessert, we had cheesecake, which turned out yuckky, and something called trifle, and a big thing called pavlova, which is just a big sugery, meranguey, fruit topped thing. I didn't have any of that stuff but it all looked good. We didn't have enough shrimp as I set out one packaged of cooked and one package of uncooked and didn't realise it until it was too late. so we only had two pounds of shrimp instead of four.

I suppose that is enough for now. I have a lot of other stuff going on but if these get too long, they get boring. This is my last day off work for the holidays. I have to work the rest of the week and next week and on until I have the operation. I was suppossed to be off next week but I have to save my vacation time so I cancelled it. We are planning on doing our New Years eve boat ride again this year. We went out one year, I can't remember which but Juanita's parents were here, and rode all the ferrys in Sydney harbour during the day on New Years eve. We left before the crazyness started, which is usually around 4 in the afternoon. They start closing off the streets at 3 I think but since we are taking the train, it should not be a problem for us. I am going to have to check that the trains are running at regular times that day and check that they are not going to raise the price for the all day ticket, but it is really the best way to see the harbour and it is really cheep to do it that way. You can take the guided tours, Juanita and I have done that, but it is not really any better than being on the ferries. We saw the aircraft carrier that was over here for a while that way. I don't remember if I told you all that or not. I think it was the Kitty Hawk but I don't really remember. We took a guided harbour tour for that and they took us right up to the ship and everything.

Ok, I am really going now. Too much information and too much stuff to pass on in one go. I will make up for it the next time. Until then, I hope everyone had a merry Christmas and I hope everyone got to see everyone else and do all the things they wanted to do and receive all the presents they wanted to get.

Talk to you soon 

MWNews 38

Well, yesterday was the day of Maeghan's program. I will wait to see the video, but I would not be expecting a DVD from me any time soon. Maybe some pictures, but the DVD will be about 2 hours long and Maeghan might be in it, and then again, she might not.

I don't know if it was the crowds of people or she wasn't feeling well or maybe she was still tired since she had just woken up about 30 minutes before we went up there. But, she didn't do her dance. She was really upset and crying. We had to leave her with the teacher and go sit in the audience, but she was still upset and crying when the program started. She did manage to get into the room and even climbed up on the stage, but she was crying the whole time and the teacher had to go get her and hold her during the performance. She stood next to the teacher while the other kids kind of looked around and did something. I am not sure they actually did any of the things they were suppossed to do, but at least they managed to stay mostly on the stage. Some of them ran out to the parents in the audience but then went back. A couple of the little kids tried to do the things the teacher was telling them to do, but overall, it was just cute and cudley and the kids did the best they could. Maeghan stood next to the teacher the whole time, but she did stop crying and after they were finished, she came over to us and sat with us.

Most of the rest of the program was kids of all ages dancing. Ballet mostly, but I don't think you would have known it if they were not wearing ballet costumes. The only difference I could see between the age groups was that the older the girls were, the less they smiled. It seems you have to concentrate more to do the advanced stuff but I couldn't see any difference between the advanced stuff and what the younger kids were doing. Parts of it were ok, but mostly, it was just random walking across the stage and waving their arms.

They had a big finally at the end. Not really, it was just to get all the kids on the stage at the same time. Maeghan still did not want to go up there, so whe sat with me. They gave each child a little trophy for being in the class. Maeghan said she wanted to go get her trophy, so I moved up the front and waiting there with her. When they called her name, she walked up to the stage, but would not get up on the stage, and held out her hand. The teacher came over and gave her her trophy. Juanita and everyone else said she got the biggest applause when she walked up there. I knew she got a lot of applause but I couldn't really tell because I was trying to get her attention. When she walked back to me, walked past me because everyone was clapping and she didn't see me. I had to reach out and get her or I think she would have gotten scared again. I suppose it was a lot of applause because she is so small, the smallest by far of any of the kids there, and she didn't cry when she went up this time. She wasn't wearing her wings or her shoes, but she still had the purple costume and the things on her head. She might be in the video at that point, but since she did not actually go up on the stage, they would have had to move the camera to get a picture of her. The only other picture they might have would have been when she was crying and laying on the stage when her part of the program started.

She really liked her trophy. She told Juanita that it was a bubble blower. It is a balerina with her hands above her head and it forms a little whole like her bubble blower, so she said that is what she was going to use it for. She has it in her room now. I thought it had her name on it but it doesn't. Which is probably a good thing since in the program for the show, they spelled her name wrong. Both her first and last name. I guess it doesn't really matter, although they were charging a dollar for the program and all it was was a single piece of paper folded in half. We have it and of course, we are going to save it, even if her name is wrong in it.

At this point, I have to say how really, really happy I was when she was in the show. Even if she didn't actually perform, it was just special seeing her try to go up there even when she was so upset and everyone was oohing and aahing when they saw her. All the other kids were already on the stage and she came in last, holding the teacher's mother's hand and crying. Then she climbed up on stage but just laid there crying until the teacher came and got her. I was almost crying myself. Not because she was, but because she was so special being up there. It was really wonderful.

Naturally, when she got home, she started dancing and showing everyone her dancing and singing. I told her to do all the things she was supposed to do on the stage and she did them all perfectly in the living room. I didn't have the camera at that point but got it soon after and got about 10 minutes of her dancing and singing. I explained to her grandparents that they should get used to it because she dances and sings in front of the TV every night. It doesn't matter if you are trying to watch TV or not, she will tell you she is not finished yet if you tell her to stop and she will say she is busy if you try to tell her to move out of the way. It's lots of fun each night.

As you can tell, Juanita's parents arrived yesterday. Maeghan would not got anywhere near them but she was playing and letting Poss carry her around after a couple of hours. She will sit beside Beverly sometimes and let her hold her, but she will still not go near Juanita's father. She does acknowledge him now, where before she would just hide, but she has not gone over for a cuddle yet. That will apparently be the goal, to get Maeghan to give poppy a cuddle.

In other news, William is still sick, so he could not dance last night. He still has his little cold and he is miserable most of the time. He cannot breath through his nose and that upsets him, and he still wants to eat all the time, so that upsets him also. He is doing ok otherwise and has started sitting and looking around instead of sleeping all the time. He seems to be recognizing people and things and will look at you when you get close. He seems to like looking at things upside down mostly as he will tilt his head back and look around at things behind him.

Things haven't changed with me. Still waiting. Juanita is getting better, although she still walks slow and has pains when she does too much. She cannot climb stairs and has trouble pushing the trolleys and pram, but she is getting better. Hopefully, she will be ok by the time I go into the hospital. Juanita's parents may not be staying as long as we first thought. They might be going back in January. They haven't said anything yet, but we are getting that impression. Poss said she had to be back in January, but she did not say when in January. I suppose it is for school, but no one has said yet. So they may not be here for my operation. The two daughters might still be here then, but with them, you can never tell. We will just have to wait and see.

Other than that, everyone still has some Christmas shopping to do. They all decided I didn't have enough Christmas presents under the tree and they are going shopping to get more. I gave them a list of what I needed and hopefully, they will stick close to it. I would hate to have them all give me the same color socks. Maybe this year, they can get some variety. We were going to go to the largest regional market in Australia today, but it only stays open until 2pm and it would take us two hours to get there. I have no idea what the largest regional market in Australia is, but it sounded like something we wanted to see. Then again, it is only open for six hours, so how big could it be if you can cover it in six hours. Instead, they are going to Tuggerah to get me my presents.

We might have to take two cars to haul everyone up there, unless we leave Angela and the kids at home. I don't have a problem taking two cars but I tried to point out that we have trouble finding seats for everyone to sit together when we only have five people, how are we going to find places for ten or twelve. But, I will probably be overruled and we will take everyone anyway. I will have to hide anyway because they do not want me to see them buying me presents. So, I suppose, I could just take the computer and work at Starbucks. The problem with that is, I have been off for a week and I have forgotten my password. Normally, that is a fear when you go on leave but apparently, by not writing it down, I have actually forgotten it this time. I will have to go to work tomorrow and sit around until someone decides to come over and sign on to my machine and allow me to change my password so I can then log back in. I have no idea how long that will take, so tomorrow will be a wasted day, I am sure. Plus, most people will be on vacation, so the actual chances of getting someone who knows how to do it and having them come to my desk will make it almost impossible to get it fixed before Wednesday. Maybe I should have just taken vacation from now until I am all well. Too late now I suppose and they would probably not have paid me anyway. Then again, my boss did say as long as I have a doctors excuse, I can be off forever and still get paid. I think it is some kind of Australian thing, but I didn't want to test the theory, so I didn't take off.

I have to go now. Shopping is calling. I will let you know how things are going as we get closer to Christmas.

Talk to you soon 

MWNews 37

I've been on vacation this week. Actually, I have been home this week, not really a vacation. I have noticed that as I am typing this, I cannot type. Seems I keep fat fingering everything and have to retype it. I suppose I will muddle through though.

William is sick, or, he has a little cold. Nothing major but it is his first cold and he is having trouble with coughing and sleeping. We have a little bit of medicine for him, but there is not much you can do for a little baby. We are going to take him to the doctor today, just as a precaution. Juanita is going to take him to the doctor. I have to stay here.

We ordered a new bed for Maeghan about a month ago. They told us it would be in in two weeks. It is now over a month later and still no bed. They keep telling us it will be on the next truck that comes in but it never is. A couple of days ago, they said it was on the truck but when the truck arrived, no bed. So, we went looking for another one.

We need it because Juanita's parents get here Saturday. We have enough beds, but to make sure, we were trying to get Maeghan one of those beds that is a bunk bed, with a single on top and a double bed on bottom. Juanita wanted to get two of them, one for Maeghan's room and one for Michael's, but we decided to only get the one. After ordering it from the one place and not getting it, we had to try to find a place that could get it to us this week. With Christmas being so close, most places said they could not deliver until after Christmas and the ones that said they could deliver wanted twice the price we had originally paid.

But, anyway, we did finally find a place that had one in stock. They said they could deliver the next day, which was yesterday, and they did. But, we still had the other one on order from the other place. We had to go up there and cancel that one but keep the mattresses as we got a good price on those. We got a good price on the whole thing but since they could not deliver, we had to bet the bedframe somewhere else.

They are delivering the mattresses today, hence the reason I have to stay home and wait. Naturally, we have no idea when they will deliver it. And, I have to go off on another tangent in discussing this store we are having trouble with. We have bought three things from then, now four with the bed, and they have never been able to deliver on time and in some cases, even deliver what it was we ordered. The store is called Fantistic Furniture. They sell really cheap funiture and really cheap prices. They also have good stuff but they are known for their 'package deals'. This means you can get a whole houseful of funiture, living room, bedroom, kitchen for some ridiculously low price. The funiture is usually cheap and shoddy and isn't really worth the money you pay for it, but I suppose if you are just starting out, then it is a good deal. They also sell regular funiture and that is what we go for.

I hate the place and think they are a shoddy outfit and we should not go there at anytime. They have lost our merchandise before and, one time, they called us two weeks after we had bought our dining room hutch and told us the one we had bought had been sold to someone else and we would have to come in and pick something else out. Now, once again, after I told Juanita that they never deliver on time, we have ordered from them and once again, they have failed to deliver. I am hoping that this time, Juanita sees that these people have no intention of doing anything they say they are going to do and are only looking to lure gullible people into their showrooms with cut-rate funiture at cut-rate prices. I just hope the mattresses they deliver are the ones we picked out as they are the same ones we saw at another place for about $500 dollars more.

Ok, enough with bagging on Fantastic Funiture. One of our lounges is from there, the one that fell apart, our kitchen hutch and living room TV cabinet, our bed and now our mattresses are from there, so it is not like we should not have been warned and I apparently did not do enough warning and fell for it again, but maybe this time it will sink in.

William is now on his way to the doctors. It has taken me about two hours to type this, so far. He went to the doctors yesterday, but that was only to get weighed and measured. He has gained 500g in two weeks, which is a lot. They expect him to gain 150g to 200g in that time. Apparenly, eating every two hours is adding up. Of course, with what we went through and still go through with Maeghan, we are happy he is gaining weight. Maeghan never gains weight, or she gains it very slowly. She still doesn't eat a lot but most of what she eats is junk food. French fries and sausage and noodles are her main foods. She will eat the occassional chicken nugget and she does eat a lot of lollies and icee poles. Not that you would know what those are, unless you are actually in Australia, but just think candy and popcicles. There are lots of times when you ask her what she wants for dinner, she will whisper to you 'icee pole'.

One of her favorite things to say right now is 'And that's not very nice'. She says it, usually, after she has told you something someone else has done. Like 'Jarvis did this' and then she will pause for a little bit and say her line, 'And that's not very nice'. Of course, she says it in that cute kid way of saying things that I cannot duplicate here in print but it is very funny when she does it and we always start laughing and then she will say stop laughing at me and once again say, 'That's not very nice'.

Maeghan loves to play with William now. she is always trying to give him cuddles and give him a kiss and she will spend lots of time telling us the baby is awake, even if the baby isn't. If we tell her that the baby is not awake, she will try to wake him and we have to tell her not to.

She has begun to be very naughty since William came home. Not that she does anything bad, she just tells us no all the time and tries to do everything she wants to do, even if we tell her not to. I don't know if it is just the age or she is jealous of the baby. She is still really good and does what you tell her to do, she is just learning to fold her arms up and tell you no most of the time now. She usually does what you say anyway but all the time she is telling you no and you are not very nice. Most of this takes place in the shopping centers. She likes to run around and not stay with us or actually, she says she is hiding or playing a game and tells us to hang on, she is not finished yet. The strange thing is she only does it when both Juanita and I are there. When we take her out on our own, she doesn't do any of that. Maybe it is bacause the baby is with us when we are together and she is just trying to keep out attention. It gets annoying having to constantly tell her to keep up all the time but she does not like to ride in the trolley and doesn't really like to ride in the pram anymore. She does still want Daddy to carry her around all the time, or when she is getting tired, but Daddy gets more tired than she does and that doesn't last very long.

Maeghan's program is this saturday. She had her last class on Monday and I am told she had her last playgroup this past wednesday. Now, she does not have anything to go to for two months and since the grandkids are leaving, she will not have any other kids to play with. I know how much she loves playing with the grandkids but they will not be around anymore and I am not sure what we are going to do about that. When she goes to playgroup and ballet, she does not really play with the other kids, she only follows them around and will sometimes play with the toys they are not playing with. She has no problem if they ask her to play, but that does not happen very often and she just kind of hangs back until she sees an opening. I know that is part of growing up but without the other kids here to visit and play with all the time, I think we need to get her involved in something else. She will eventually have William, but that will be a while and no kids like to play with their brothers and sisters all the time. We will find someway to get her involved with others. She has friends, or Juanita has friends who have kids her age, but they all live in Sydney and further and it is an hour to two hour drive to see them. I don't know of any local kids around us she could play with, they are all older than she is. I guess Daddy will have to keep her entertained all the time now. Although, Daddy has not been much fun lately and our play time together has not been as often as either of us would like. Eventually, I will get better and eventually, Maeghan will have to find some new friends but for now, we will do what we can.

I mentioned that the grandkids are leaving. Without going into too much detail, they are all moving to Brisbane sometime soon. Before Feburary, bu they are going to Brisbane this weekend to spend Christmas with their father. Since they are having to move by Feburary anyway, the kids may not come back and only Angela will come back to pack her things. We don't know that for sure, but it might turn out to be the case. In any event, they are all leaving.

Natalie and Adam are suppossed to be moving down here. They will be here for Christmas and who knows how long after that. They are going to stay in Angela's place until Feburary and then I have no idea where they will go. I suppose we will have to wait and see. Juanita's parents are suppossed to be here for that long, but I don't know when they are planning on returning to Tassie. Feburary is when the airline tickets change, so they will probably wait until then.

We have all our Christmas shopping done. Now we are just working on wrapping everything. Juanita tells me I have to put all Maeghan's toys together on Christmas eve so she can have them on Christmas morning. I am not so sure about that plan. We bought her a big wooden kitchen that has to be put together. If I put it together by the Christmas tree, then I will have to take it apart to move it to where it will eventually go, in the rumpus room. It can't go outside as it is made of wook and will warp if it gets wet, but it is fairly large and will take up quite a bit of room in there. She also has a big drawing board that has to be put together and I think there are several other little things I have to do. I am just wondering who would have done this if I had been in the hospital during Christmas and if we can find that person, can they do it on Christmas eve.

Since none of the grandkids are going to be here, it will not be as big a Christmas as we had last year. I see no way they can take all their presents with them to Brisbane, but Juanita says they are planning on doing that. Since there are four of them, that is a lot of presents to be taking with them on the train. And, it is a lot of presents to be taking out from under our tree. It will look kind of bare under there without them. I guess they can always buy me another pair of socks to make up for one of the presents missing from under the tree. Juanita told me that all my presents were already wrapped and under the tree but there are not enough presents under there to be all my presents. They would have to be giving me everything under the tree if all mine are already there. And, there are no big ones there, so I am sure this cannot be it and they are just saving the big ones for later.

Juanita and William and Maeghan have just gotten back from the doctors. He said William was alright and just to keep an eye on his cough. I suppose that means I have typed enough for a while. Like always, there is always a lot of stuff that I want to write about what Maeghan and William have done but as soon as I start writing, I forget about it. And, Maeghan wants noodles, so I have to get up and fix them for her. As far as my health, we have not heard anything new. I will not know until January about when my operation will be so we just keep waiting. I go back to work next week, so I will have more time to write. I like to write from work so I get paid for it. The only problem with that is I do not have all my pictures on the work pc, so I cannot use anything new. By the way, I post new pictures to the Kodak site everyonce and a while. I don't think it tells you that, so I usually republish the entire folder but I might re-arrange them all so that you can more easily tell what you have already seen.

Anyway, I will talk to you later. 

MWNews 36

OK, I am back. It is the next day, but I am not sure that matters. I thought I had some more time last time but when I thought I had an hour, I only had half an hour. Then, when I got to work, I forgot that the meeting was changed to 07:00, so I actually had plenty of time. Of course, now that I have sat down to write this, I seem to be out of time again. We have to go shopping and the kids are getting anxious and rowdy, so I will have to make this one quick also.

My surgeon had a death in the family so he postponed two weeks worth of operations. This bumped me back to after Christmas and since they take two weeks off for Christmas, I will not be having the operation until mid-January. Probably Jan. 18, but maybe Jan. 11 and maybe some other time. At this point, I don't know, again. I am sure there will be other reasons for cancelling when I get close, like they have lost my records again, but for now, we are waiting.

The good news is I get to be here for Maeghan's program and be out of the hospital for Christmas. Maeghan's program is on Dec. 17. It is about a two to two and a half hour program, in which Maeghan's group will be doing things for about 5 minutes. They are doing a professional DVD for the program and we are getting one, but I am sure it will be mostly other kids. Maeghan's group is second but they have to wait around for the finale in which all the classes are included. I am not sure how you keep all those kids quiet and entertained for the whole program. The church where the program is, is very small. Not a lot of people fit into it. They have limited everyone's tickets to six but since they have already given all of them out, they said they have a few left over. The church looks like if only seats about 100, unless people are going to stand up in the back. Even then, it will be very crowded.

No camera's or filming are allowed, although everyone says they are going to do it anyway. That is what they do here in Australia, ignore the rules. I have tried and the teacher have tried to explain that it is a legal thing and once they sign the contract for the professional person, then the images are basically copywrited to the photographer. We will have to see what happens that night. Since we have already paid for the video, I am hoping the camera man does not refuse to do the work and keep the money.

The DVD will probably not be copied protected, so I can make copies and send them to everyone. I haven't sent any DVD's yet, so it remains to be seen whether I will actually get around to sending these. But you can always hope. I did make a video of Maeghan's pictures the other day and it turned out really nice. There are some glitches in it that I have to clean up, but for the most part, it works quite well.

Right now, we are waiting on our video camera to return as it was basically stolen from us by someone that borrowed it 'for the day'. They have had it for two weeks now and keep giving us excuses why they have not returned it. We told them we wanted it by today and are waiting for them to bring it.

I have to go now, I will probably write again tonight.

Talk to you later 

MWNews 35

Maeghan has her costume for the show. As you can see, she is a purple butterfly. This is taken in the house. We have some pictures from picture day, but she refused to smile even once the whole day. There was a professional photographer there and he could not get her to smile. We haven't received the pictures from him yet but she was not smiling in them either. At least she would sit still during the pictures. All the other kids would run around or follow their parents around and not sit for the pictures. They had a group picture done, we did not get to see it taken. They locked us out of the room. Apparently, one of the little girls refused to sit in the picture, so she is not in it. We will have to wait until the pictures come back before we see what they were like.

The teacher said she did alright. I don't know if I have mentioned it before but she is the smallest in the class. I think there is one girl younger, but she is definitely the smallest. Maybe when we get the group photo, I can post it and you can see what she is like with all the other girls. I am not really sure how many girls are in the class as they are never all there at the same time. I think there are four, but there might be five different girls. One of the girls is always late. We get to here how busy her mother is and she always forgets that she is suppossed to be there at 3:30, but it has been the same time for about six months now and you would think she would remember at least once. But she hasn't, she is always late. One class, her husband, although I am pretty sure she said she was not married, he brought one of the kids to class. It was the wrong kid but he was there on time. They actually have two daughters who go to two different classes and he brought the older one to go to the babies class. He said the mother and other daughter were asleep and he was trying to help out.

For picture day, she was there early. Picture day was for all the classes the teacher teaches. I think she has about six or seven classes. It started at 2:30 and went until about 5:00. They had different times when each class was suppossed to be there. Maeghan's, and the always late girls, class was at 3:45. I went up there, we live just around the corner from the class, to get Maeghan's tights. We had ordered her some new tights and they had not arrived yet so I went to see if they had come in. The late girl's mother was there complaining that she was there so early for the pictures and she was going to go back home and come back later. She didn't get back until 4:00 and we all had to wait for her before we could finish taking the pictures.

But that is enough complaining about this other girls mother. Except to say, the little girl quits every other week and then misses a week then comes back and wants to rejoin the class. We have no idea how they are going to do a program since all the girls are never there at the same time. We did get a sneak preview of part of the program as we were paying fees and they were teaching the class and we caught a glimps of them laying on the floor and then running across the stage. They then kicked us out and we didn't see anymore. We are still not allowed to see the program until the night of the play.

Speaking of which, it looks like I am going to get to attend. I went for my class the other day. This was suppossed to prepare us for the operation and what to expect before, during, and after the operation. It was all day long, although it really wasn't but there was a lot of waiting around to talk to each of the different departments.

And, I would really like to talk about it but I have noticed the time and I have to go to work. I will tell you that my surgery has been pushed back to mid-January, so I will be home for Christmas and Maeghan's program. I really have to go now. I will publish all the details of the day and when my operation will be when I get home, but for now, I have to go.

Talk to you later. 

MWNews 34

William and Juanita are home now. William is doing ok but Juanita is still in a lot of pain. She came home because she was tired of being in the hospital. I think, altogether, it was six weeks, give or take a few days. She still has the pain and can hardly move around but it made no difference that her sitting at home and doing nothing and sitting at the hospital and doing nothing. All they are giving her is paracetemol (Panadol) and that is just like aspirin, so she can take that at home.

She does have the problem of sitting in bed and not being able to arrange herself to feed the baby without some discomfort. She has now taken all the pillow and all the cushions off the couch and made herself a little sitting up place in the bed so she does not have to move around alot.

We bought the baby a new bassinet, or new to us, from the next door neighbor. She was selling it a while back and it is very nice. It is made of bamboo and has a large woven basket that sits up in a frame. It is very nice, except I am worried about the size of the mattress in that it is really thick and not quite side to side, so there is a gap between the mattress and the side of the basket. I have to stuff a blanket in the sides but I am told that is what you are suppossed to do and the gap is there for that reason. I will have to keep an eye on it.

Maeghan has grown accustomed to the baby. Before we left the hospital, Juanita asked Maeghan if she was going to sleep in her bed. She has been sleeping in mommy's bed with daddy. She said, no, she wasn't. So, Juanita asked her where she was going to sleep. She said in mommy's bed. So where is mommy going to sleep. In mommy's bed with the baby. So Juanita asked her where daddy is going to sleep. She said, on the couch. Apparently, she had already worked this out. So, last night, she slept in mommy's bed and daddy slept in her bed. When she got up this morning, I went in to play with her like we always do. She said no, she was playing with the baby and I could not tickle her while she was playing with the baby.

Natalie and Angela have come back. They arrived this morning. You can tell Angela and the kids are back as they stopped here before they went home and all the toys are strewn all over the house. And the main one, Jarvis, was not even here to help make the mess. He stayed with his father in Brisbane, which would indicate that Angela is going back sometime soon but she has not said anything yet. She always said she was going to be there for Christmas but I am not sure how she was going to swing that finacially. Maybe the father is going to help, but I doubt it.

Natalie is here indefinitly. We are not sure what her further plans are but she has apparently left her boyfriend, at least temporarily, and is going to stay with us for some time. She says she will be here at least through Christmas, so we are hoping that is the case. We haven't had Christmas with her since last year. That is a long time to go without having family around. If Angela and the kids do not make it back to Brisbane for Christmas, then that will mean a house full of people. It will still be a house full of people, but just not as many kids.

I have no idea who is going to cook for Christmas. With my operation, I am told I will not feel like it but then if I don't do it, who will. I know Juanita says she can and she probably could, but I don't know if she has had to cook for that many people before. Her mother will be here to help and while we won't say anything about Juanita and her mother in the same kitchen, I am sure it will end up with only one of them cooking and the other staying out of the way.

I will probably be well enough anyway, if I am out of the hospital. If I am still in the hospital, then I don't really care what they eat. But if I am out, and I should be, I am sure I will be able to do it. I won't be able to lift anything in or out of the oven but they do not expect anything fancy for Christmas dinner, so I am sure anything I make will be more than they expect. Since I do not get to cook Thanksgiving dinner, I like to try to make the same things for Christmas. The main problem with that is it is hot over here for Christmas, and they are predicting the hottest summer and Christmas on record for this year. Of course, their records only go back to 1950 or so, but still, it is suppossed to be really hot here this year. I don't know what that means, it is certainly not Texas hot, but since I am not used to Texas heat anymore, it will mean I will be staying inside most of the time. But, since most of the foods we cook for Thanksgiving or Christmas are hot foods and suppossed to be for the winter, then making them on a really hot day is not something they do over here. They mostly have cold foods or room temperature foods. Like cold ham and prawns (shrimp with the heads on them) and jelly (jello) and salads. Nothing baked or in a casserole and certainly not hot turkey and dressing and mashed potatoes. Although, they do have cold turkey. A lot of families go to the beach for Christmas day and have a barbeque. I think we have tried to do that a couple of years but finding a place and barrling all the flies is always a problem and not the way I want to spend Christmas day.

So we will stay home. I will stay in bed and we will have a quiet Christmas, or as quiet as you can with a house full of people. At least we will have air conditioning and I might set it to as low as it will go just so we can pretend it is cold outside. It would cost a fortune, but it would be a nice Christmas present, I am sure.

This will be the first Christmas where Maeghan knows what is going on. Juanita, against my direct orders, has already started putting up the tree and the ornaments. I told her she had to wait until her birthday, the day after Thanksgiving, but she will not listen. I have put the decorating of the Christmas tree on hold as I am the only one who can do the lights, so maybe I can delay it until Friday. I doubt it, but I will try. I know it is probably the same over there but there have been Christmas decorations in the stores for almost two months now. Maybe longer than two months because I remember Juanita and I commenting on it before she went into the hospital. We have pointed out all the decorations to Maeghan and now, whenever she sees the decorations, she says look, Christmas trees and does an ooohhh and aaahhhh thing. Now, when she figures out that she gets presents for Christmas, she will be really estatic and want to open them right away I am sure.

And, of course, it will be William's first Christmas. We got him a little ornament and a big teddy bear. The teddy bear is like the one we got in America for Maeghan in that it has the year on it. I think we might have gotten it from the same store as we got the one for William at Kmart.

By the way, I know I mention it all the time. The fact that when I am writing these things, I keep getting interupted and am usually doing something else at the same time. Well, this time, it is William interupting me. I have been typing this for about two hours now and William keeps making little noises where I have to go in and check on him and play with him for a few minutes. He is doing this about every fifteen minutes. Juanita is alseep on the couch. she only woke up to feed him once but since then, I have been typing and watching him in the other room. I put him on the floor, on a pillow, and he seems to like that. He is looking around and having the hic-cups. Maeghan is laying down next to him but she will not lay on the same pillow so I can take a picture. She is laying on her own pillow next to him and reaches over and kisses him every once and a while. I have pictures and will upload them to the Kodak site as soon as I can. I the meantime, I might include one of them in this blog but I have so many others to include, I might not get around to it.

William is feeding every one and a half to two hours. I don't think that is a lot, as I would do the same if I could, but Juanita seems to think it is a lot. I am sure he will slow down at some point but I seem to recall that Maeghan did the same thing. Maybe it is just faulty memory.

I think I mentioned earlier, that I do not have a date for my operation yet. That is another thing I did during this typing session, is call the doctor to find out if there was any news. They did not know and are to call me back but have not done so yet. I suppose I will have to call them everyday for this as I have to make plans and we have to make plans for when I am off work and when Juanita will have to make arrangements to do things. It also would help to arrange to have someone here while I am in the hospital, if we cannot find someone. That is not as necessary right now because the girls are back, but who knows how long they will stay and the more people Juanita has around her the better. Laura, my sister for anyone who does not know the family, has told me she will be here whenever I have a permanent date. I really appreciate that and I wanted to say so in here. I know it will not be a very fun trip, but I really appreciate it, not only for Juanita's sake, but for mine as well.

I think it is time to go. I did get some work done this morning but I need to do some more. If have not sent you a link to the pictures or have not included you in some list I have created, send me your email address and I will add you to the list. Don't pot it here, just send it directly to me. Most everyone has and address for myself or Juanita, so send your address there and I will get you added to the list of people who can view the pictures. Of course, if you are reading this, then you already know how to get to this list, so that is not a problem. I recently opened this up to anyone who would care to look at it, so if you ever see some strange comments at the end or stange things happen, it probably means someone has hacked into the list and done something and I have not yet had a chance to clean it up.

Ok, bye for now.

Talk to you soon 

MWNews 33

William Lee Jernigan (or William David Lee Jernigan). 3.54 kg (7 lbs 13 oz) 15 cm (17 in). Born Friday, Nov. 18, 08:59.

The little boy is here. Both mother and baby are doing fine. Everything went just fine and they are expected to come home either Monday or Tuesday.

I have lots of pitcures but I wasn't sure how to send them all. I might just put them on the Kodak site and have you look at them there. I will start uploading them as soon as I finish this. For some reason, I don't have a lot of good pictures of William, although he is in every picture. He is wrapped up all the time and all you can see is his face. There are a couple when he was unwrapped but they are not really very good. I'll take more pictures today.

Maeghan wasn't too happy at first. She would not talk to me or anyone else when I brought the baby back. I canme back before Juanita did and she let me pick her up and show her the baby, but she started crying as soon as she saw the baby. She wouldn't talk to me and wanted to go back to Michael. She started crying for mommy, but when mommy got there a few minutes later, she was still crying and would not talk to either of us. I had to pick her up and take her down to the kiosk to get a coke before she would start talking.

I don't know if she was upset about the baby or the fact that we had left her and I didn't come back with mommy or what the problem was. She got over it after I had spent some time with her and she then wanted to hold the baby all the time. She kept getting herself arranged so she could hold the baby but I had help her hold William most of the time. She still does not call the baby William and everytime you tell her it is William, she says it is the baby. She also calls William her, but she will get that after a while and we stopped trying to correct her.

I am not sure if she knows the baby is coming home with us to live. She always knew she was going to get a brother but I don't think she realizes that the baby is her brother. She kept telling us that the baby was making a noise and to go fix it when William would cry or make a little noise, so I think she is ok with having the baby, but maybe not when we bring the baby home.

William seemed big to me, but did not weigh that much and the nurses said they thought he looked bigger to them to and were suprised he didn't weigh more. He doesn't have the puffy cheeks Maeghan had and, according to everyone else, he has big feet. I don't know if they are big or not but that is what Juanita said. They keep him wrapped up so much that you can hardly tell you are holding a baby. All you can see is his head but I suppose they have a lot of practice at wrapping up babies, so they do it kind of tight. He pokes his tongue out a lot and doesn't cry very much. he cried a couple of times but only one little cry at a time and he would go back to sleep after making a little cry. Juanita says he sounds like Maeghan but I can't tell. He just sounds like a little baby to me.

Juanita says he has my nose. I don't know why everyone always says that but they said it with Rachael and then with Maeghan and now William. Juanita says he looks like her family. Again, I have no idea, he just looks like a baby to me. Today, we will get to go up and spend more time with him and take him out of his blankets so we can hold him properly. As far as I know, he stays in the room with Juanita but since she cannot get out of bed yet, I am not sure how that works. I know we put him next to her bed when we left but she cannot reach over and get him if he cries. Juanita said she will call the nurses to pick him up and give him to her when he cries but I don't know how often that will work and Juanita was sleeping most of the time. I have seen the nurses pushing babies around a lot, so maybe at some point them come and get the baby and take him someplace so they can watch him. I guess I should have found that out before I left, yesterday but I am sure I will find out eventually.

Now that Juanita will be coming home, I have to get started on cleaning the house. I need to make it look like I was doing that all along. I have to get William's bed from the next door neighbor. Apparently, we bought their old bassinet and I have to go get it. I than have to find a way to fit it into our room. Since we moved a tv into our room, there is not a lot of room to put anything else. I suppose I could move the dresser out and into William's room until we move him into there. I know it would be too much trouble to move the TV and besides, William likes TV and can't go to sleep unless there is something making noise in the room. At least, that is what he told me yesterday. He told me I could leave the TV in my room as long as I fixed the one that is in his room. So I have until he moves into his own room to get his TV fixed.

Maeghan went to sleep right away last night. That is an unusual occurance lately. She had even had a nap earlier in the day, so she should not have been that tired. She did have to get up really early yesterday to go to the hospital, but the nap should have taken care of that. Now that I think about it, she was acting a little strangely. She kept hiding under the blankets, something she normally does not do and always tells me to take the blankets off her. Last night, she would crawl under them and just sit there. Thinking about it, maybe it has something to do with William being wrapped up in blankets all the time. Maybe that is why she was doing it. I know I will have to try to spend more time with Maeghan, although we have been spending all day everyday together. I will just need to play with her more so she does not get jealous of William too much.

I suppose I need to be going now. I have a lot of stuff to do. I need to get some work done as I will be taking off starting sometime next week. At this point, I still have no idea when my operation will be but I need to start making preparations for it. Getting things in order and making sure everything is taken care of at work and at home so I don't have to worry about it. I already asked Juanita who we are going to get to cook while I am bedridden. She said she is going to do it but as she has not had to cook anything in about four years, I am not sure if she remembers how. Actually, Juanita is a good cook, she is just out of practice and I am not sure she will feel up to it right away. Hopefully, she will be fully recovered by the time I have to go to the hospital.

And, since Joanne called last night and I was asleep and I have no idea what she said or what I said but I know she mentioned this blog at some point, I assume she was calling about the baby and I need to tell her that everything is alright and the baby and mother are doing fine and if she wants to try again tonight or sometime later, I will try to be a little more coherent. It was a long day yesterday and I thought it was my work calling and I was confused when it wasn't. So, if the conversation was confusing, I appologise and look forward to hearing from you again.

For everyone else who might be reading this, I will try to call you as soon as we get everything settled and under control to let you know more about the baby and how the rest of us are doing. And, look for the pictures on my picture site. I still need to organize that thing as it doesn't use the same format that I have on my computer and I keep getting lost as to what I have posted and what I have not.

Talk to you later 

MWNews 32

No baby today. In another wonderful confidense builder in the Australian medical system, they forgot to put Juanita on the schedule for the ceaserean today. They found the note where the doctor said to do it but they didn't and now the schedule is full and she is waiting for an opening to occur in the next week. Maybe tomorrow, but probably not.

She is still in a lot of pain and cannot get in and out of bed without help. She cannot walk anywhere and has to be pushed around in a wheelchair. She has been put into a private room but there is a sign on the wall that says this room is used for emergency cases only and she is subject to being moved with no notice if someone with more problems than her comes in. I am not sure what that means but it does mean she has no one to talk to all day long. At least in the other room, there was a constant stream of ladies coming through who were waiting to have their babies. Now, there is no one and she does not have anyone to talk to. And, since she cannot get out of bed and no one comes by to visit her, she has to stay there all day long by herself.

So far, I am the only visitor she has had. Another reason we need to move away from Sydney and go someplace where we know people. Not that they would visit either, but at least there would be more friends around to help her out. I guess I need to get serious about asking to work from home on a permanent basis. I basically do it now, but it is unofficial and I need to make it official. It would make it harder for advancement in the company but that wasn't something that was likely to happen anyway. Being American, I am not allowed to work on Australian accounts and living in Australia, I am not allowed to work on most American accounts. Which only leaves management but Australia frowns on managers working from home.

So, we could move anywhere we want and it would not affect what I do now. Basically, fix problems that come up, hold meetings with people who do not report to me so have no reason to listen to what I have to say, and answer everyone's question about why things they do don't work. The last one would go away as if I am not sitting there, they do not approach me to solve their problems, so I would lose further touch with the people I work with. But, if we moved, we would be amoung more of Juanita's friends and she could have more support than just me.

I still say Tasmania would be nice but Juanita does have a point that if you actually live there, there is a very limited amount of things you can do once you have done everything. I enjoy visiting the forests and driving around the small towns, but there are only about four or five towns that you would actually want to re-visit and that would get old really quickly as there is not that much there in the first place. Hobart is ok, but I have driven through part of the other big city, Launceston, and it looked like there was not much there and what was there was built around the shipping industry and that is not really something you want to visit a lot. Plus, it is four hours away from Hobart, so it would have to be a long drive to a place you don't really want to see anyway.

Not that I am giving up on the idea. Maybe someday. For now, our best option is Brisbane. Not that I really want to live in Brisbane but someplace north of there or even south along the coast would be nice. There are some really nice areas near the Queensland/New South Wales border. It wouldn't be real close to her friends so it kind of defeats the purpose of moving there, but since she does all the visiting anyway, at least it is within the realm of possibilities. probably someplace north of Brisbane would be best. I'd like to go all the way to Moroochidore ( I have not idea how to spell that but since it is meaningless to everyone else, I guess it doesn't really matter.) That is about two hours north of Brisbane. Close enough for a day visit but far enough away to enjoy some space. Juanita has family that lives there and I like all those people, or all the ones we met. That is where we went to have Maeghan Christened. They are really nice people there and the area is really nice. We drove up there when family visited and showed them the ocean. We didn't look around a lot as I was recovering from a heart attack but I found out later it is a nice area.

We will probably end up someplace between there and Brisbane. Maybe even Redcliff, where we got married. And, Brisbane has the added bonus of being only an hour away from the Steve Irwin's zoo. You would know him as the crocodile hunter. His zoo is located just north of Brisbane. Not that I think he lives there anymore, I think he moved to Las Vegas to do some kind of show, but he visits every once and a while I am sure.

Brisbane itself is an ok town. About two million people live there. It is third largest in Australia. The amusement parks are near there, on the gold coast. I have only been to one, Dreamworld, a Six Flags wannabe. It was ok, but having to been to the amusement parks in America, it doesn't really compare. They also have a Sea World and a Movie World and a Wet and Wild, all in the same area, so there is a lot to do in the area. Plus, there are some large hills they like to call mountains but are not really anything that would approach real mountains. Of course, being from Texas, they look big enough for me.

Anyway, Brisbane has a lot to offer. The beaches are not as spectacular as they are here in the Sydney area, and if you want to visit anything in Australia, Brisbane is not on the way anywhere. Except maybe north to the great barrier reef, which is in far north Queesland. I suppose it is not any different that any other place in Australia but from Sydney, you can go north to Brisbane and south to Melbourne and then anywhere else you want to go. In Brisbane, you have to drive 12 hours just to get to Sydney and then another 12 hours to get to Melbourne and from there, you have already traveled two days and you are stuck in Melbourne. Not that I think Melbourne is a bad place. Juanita hates it and from what I have seen, it is big and sprawling and not a lot going for it, but I would like to visit it for real someday and find out what all the fuss is about. Sydney and Melbourne compete to be the best city in Australia and according to a lot of people, Melbourne has the best food but Sydney has the best attractions. Someday, we will spend more than a few hours in Melbourne and find out what it is all about.

Another place I would like to go is Adelaide. It is farther west from Melbourne and seems like it would be a neat city. It is designed in concentric circles, with each circle being a different zone. Like one for housing, and one for business and one for the city itself. That is what it looks like on the maps but I am sure it is not really like that. We will go there someday also.

One place we have to go before we leave Sydney is Canberra. That is the nations capitol and is in the ACT, which is kind of like a state in that Washington D.C. is a kind of like a state. It is about three hours from Sydney, four hours from where we live, and I have always wanted to go down there but we have never have had the time. I feel sure we will this time as Juanita's father has a relative that lives there and we always plan on visiting when he is here but never do. This time, I will try to make sure we find a way to do it. Canberra is not really a destination, so if we lived in Brisbane, we would not make a trip to Canberra. It is not on the way to anywhere, except the real Australian mountains, and if we were going to the mountains, something we plan on doing, we would not stop in Canberra.

But enough of the Australian travelogue. We were talking about William and when he is going to be born. Right now, I cannot say when. Unless she goes into labor, she is apparently not a high priority. She has an official schedule to deliver next Thursday, but I don't think she can last that long. She is just not handling the pain very well right now and has even started allowing them to give her morphine. She says it doesn't do any good but maybe it is because it is such a small dose because of the baby. If she has to stay on it for a week, then it might cause problems for the baby when he is born. So, we do not want that.

I didn't hear from the hospital about when my operation is scheduled, so it will be next week before they can schedule me for a class and then get me scheduled for surgery. Who knows when that will happen. Maeghan is getting board with playing with me all the time. She has started telling me she is busy when I ask her something or tell her to do something. That is what I say to her when I am working and she wants to play, so she is just repeating it to me. I suppose I have been saying it a lot to her lately because I have been leaving my work to pile up while I have been working from home. I need to get some of it done but she is always wanting to do something with me, so it makes it hard. We have been together, Maeghan and I, for over six weeks now. Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. I know we both enjoy it a lot, it is probably getting on her nerves as much as it is mine. I love playing with Maeghan and would rather do that than anything else, but I have work to do and she doesn't understand and I feel bad when I have to put her in front of the television and have her sit there for hours and not have anyone to play with. Hopefully, Juanita will be better soon and she will have William to play with and watch and I can get some work done so I can give her my full attention again. I know watching kids is something mothers do all the time but they do need a break now and again and I am ready for a break now or at least some time with Maeghan where I don't have to worry about all the other things I should be doing.

But it is fun. Maeghan and I still have lots of fun together and she is always wanting me to watch her or play with her or just hold her. I really do love doing that and wish it was all I had to do each day. And, I get the added bonus of her being so entertaining and funny all the time that I don't have to do anything else to be entertained. She was trying to sing a song last night and kept telling me to watch her. Whenever I would look away, she would stand in front of me and say here I am, watch me and keep repeating it until I said I was watching and would look right at her. She would then go back across the room and start her song again, until I turned away again. She would then repeat the process over and over again. The problem was, the song she was singing, she was making up as she went and it didn't really make sense and the dancing part of the show was nothing she doesn't always do. When I tried to sing with her or dance with her, she would tell me she was singing that and I had to sing something else and to stop dancing because she was dancing. She was being the ballerina and I was not allowed to do the ballerina stuff.

Maeghan also has this new thing where she will sing one song and tell you to sing another. I don't remember if I had told you that before. She will tell you to sing Twinkle Twinkle or Baa Baa Black sheep and then when you start singing, she will sing something else. I have no idea how she does that as I get confused when she starts singing another song and start singing her song, but she can somehow keep it straight and keeps singing her song, never missing a word or beat. She started that behaviour a while back when she would make up some of her sounds or words and then I would say them along with her. She will always tell me that she is saying that and then tells me what I should be saying. If she is saying grip grip grip, then she will tell you you have to say heep heep heep. And, when you do it together, she laughs and laughs and laughs and thinks it is really really funny. I think she gets it from Anna because Anna is always telling the other kids what they should be saying. Anna doesn't do the you say this and I will say that kind of thing, but she tells the other kids what they should say while she is doing something else. I think that is where Maeghan gets the idea from.

Well. Maeghan is awake now so I have to go in and get her ready. I was just going to tell you no baby today and then describe the picture I have included but apparently, I cannot create a short one of these. The picture is from camping and Maeghan is having her favorite meal of noodles. She still wants noodles all the time, although lately, she will ask for them but not eat them. She will eat everything but the noodles but she still asks for noodles.

We have to go. Maybe today, we will go visit Mommy early and then leave early. If I don't get there before 12:00, they tell us visiting hours are over and to come back at three. We usually get away with taking Juanita with us, so the time is not wasted but it really bugs me when they tell us we have to leave. They say it is because they want the babies and the mommies to have time together but I think that is a crock. The only reason they do it is so the nurses have time to do their work and not have to work around visitors and so they can have a quiet time so they can have lunch and coffee. It has nothing to do with the patients and the babies. I don't know of anyone in the hospital that does not want visitors, no matter what time of the day it is. If the patients would rather sleep, then they can say they want to go to sleep and the babies sleep all the time anyway, so why do they have times when no visitors are allowed. Is is just a way for the nurses to assert that they are the ones in charge and we have to obey their rules.

It is kind of like when they told me and the other people in the hospital, when I was in the hospital after the heart attack, that we were not allowed to get out of bed between the hours of 9 at night and 6 in the morning. They said those were the rules for the hospital and they did not allow us to move around during the night. I asked what if we had to go to the toilet and they said to ring them and they would bring us a bedpan. I told them there was no way they could make me stay in bed when I did not want to be in bed and got up every night just to piss them off. And, it worked, because they complained to the doctors and the doctors told them there was no reason for us to stay in bed and if we felt like moving around then it was probably better for us to get our circulation going instead of sitting in bed all the time. This visiting hour rule is the same thing. I know it is probably for the other patients so that there are not visitors all the time disturbing the other patients, but still, it is always better if you can make one patient feel better by having visitors than it is to not allow them and have most of the patients feel bad because they want someone to come visit them or at least to have their family around and not have them pushed out.

But again, I digress. It is just another thing I have against the medical profession. Not just here in Australia, but everywhere. And it pisses me off.

Oh wait, that is not a nice thing to say. I guess I will have to refrain from putting personnal opinion in these blogs. It is here for news and not editorial. But I guess we passed that point a long time ago.

I am going to get Maeghan ready now. If we make it before lunch, they might offer me some so they don't have to waste the food or whatever they do with the food no one wants.

Talk to you soon. 

MWNews 31

We have a date for William. He is to be born this Thursday, which I think is Nov. 17. Right now, Juanita wants them to take him even earlier but it is only two days away, so I don't see that happening. It is suppossed to be first thing in the morning but they take emergency cases first and then scheduled cases so it might be a while.

That means they should be getting out of the hospital by Monday or Tuesday so they will be home for Juanita's birthday. I would say Thanksgiving, but we know that is not a holiday over here and is not celebrated. I tried to do it a couple of times, but since no one else knows anything about it and therefor, doesn't come over for dinner and football, it really wasn't the same. So I stopped trying. We might go out to eat or something but with the new baby, that may not happen.

My surgery has been put up in the air again. Not that I am not going to have it but when I called to find out when, they said they had never heard of me. They are going to have to find my paperwork, again, and schedule me for the pre-op class. Once I take that, they will schedule the surgery. It could still happen, and probaby will, in the first part of December, but it kind of worries me that this is the third time they have lost my paper work and not bothered to call me and tell me. It has been three different hospitals that have done it, so it is not like one place is incompetent. It just means they are all incompetent.

The problem with this one was I did not go to the 'regular' lady that does all the scheduling for the surgeon I am seeing. She had just left when I got there and they had me go to a different person. I don't know if that is where the mixup happened, but when I called the 'regular' lady today, she had never heard of me and said she would have to go find my paperwork and schedule me for the class. She told me she would call me back either this week or next to tell me when the class is, but if they wait until next week and then have to schedule the surgery after that, then with the waiting list for this type of thing, I don't know if that puts me all the way back to Christmas or not. I am hoping I am not in the hospital for Christmas since it will be William's first and the first one where Maeghan really knows what is going on. But I do not want to put it off until after Christmas, so if that is when it is, then I will take it.

It does mean I might get to see Maeghan's recital. That is on Dec. 17, so I hope to be there when she does it. She is really proud of herself and really likes doing it. I am not sure how she will handle doing it in front of all those people, but hopefully, she will be ok. She is still the only one who follows the teacher. All the others never do what the teacher says but Maeghan watches and follows right behind her. When we were there the other day, they gave us her new costume for the recital. She is a purple butterfly. The ended the class early so everyone could try on their costumes and when they had all done that, she wanted to get back up on the stage and keep dancing. When I told her we have to go, she said she was not finished yet and she still had to sing. They don't sing in this class but she probably meant dance. We had to wait until everyone else had left before she would get off the stage and leave.

There are a couple of other classes after hers and some on other days. All of them will be performing at the recital. Maeghan's group is second onstage, but they have to wait until the end as all the students are in the final act. I think they just go up on stage and bow, but we are not allowed to see anything they are going to do until the night of the play, so we don't know what they are going to do.

I asked about video and photography. They are thinking about having their own video guy do a professional job, which means no one else will be allowed to do it. If they do, then it will cost $30 dollars for the DVD but I am sure it won't be copy protected, so I can make copies when I get home. It will be the whole program, which is about two hours long, but maybe I can edit it and only keep the parts with Maeghan in it.

I don't know about flash photography. I will assume they will discourage it during the performance but we can get pictures before and after, so that won't be a problem. They have a photo day on Dec. 3 where they have someone coming in to take pictures. We will get some then and make copies on the computer to send. I will take some pictures also, just so we have lots, and send them to everyone.

We are kind of worried about when I have my operation in that if ist is still going to be Dec. 7 or 14, Juanita will have to be here by herself to go through it. I don't want that to happen but I do not under any circumstances want anyone coming over from America. I will be fine. It is just Juanita having to go through it while watching William and Maeghan, and having to do it all by herself. When we find out the actual date, I will look at what options we have and make arrangements for someone to be here with her. her parents are not scheduled to be here until Dec. 17, but I can move their tickets up if we have to. I will also see if Natalie can come down for it but she is having boy friend problems and I am not sure that will be possible. Angela will probably be back by then, but she has four kids or her own to watch and I don't think having them all at the hospital will be a good idea. If she does come, then maybe Michael can watch a couple of the kids and Angela can take the baby with her to be with Juanita.

Like I said, this is for Juanita and not for me. I don't want anyone to come over and waste their time sitting around the hospital while I recover. If anyone is going to come over, wait until after I recover in a few months and then we can show them around and have a real visit but it is not necessary to be here for the operation. There is very little risk in the operation, even though it sounds like there is a lot, but they do this all the time now and it won't be a problem. I just worry about Juanita.

I was even thinking about sending her over to Tasmania so she would not have to be alone but I am sure that is not even a remote possibility as she won't leave. But, she could go over there, I could have the operation, and then she could come back when her parents come over. That way, she would not have to be alone during the operation and she could see me before I get out of the hospital and be there to bring me home.

I know that is not very likely, but I do not want her to be by herself. We will work something out. Hopefully, she will be fully recovered from the pregnancy by then and not have any lingering pain. I think the best option is to get her parents over here, but if we were going to do that, we should have done it before the baby was born so they could be here to help me take care of Juanita, the baby, and Maeghan. But, it is too late now.

I will let everyone know as the situation changes. William will probably be here the next time I write, so wish us luck with that. One lady that was in the hospital with Juanita and was a week behind her in the pregnancy, had her baby last night. So, it is possible Juanita will go into labor soon but probably not very likely. Juanita is jealous and called the other lady names when she brought the baby around but her baby is healthy and well so there should not be any problems with William.

Maeghan has just woken up from a nap, so I have to go get her. I will write as soon as the baby is born.

Talk to you next time 

MWNews 30

This email is more about me that the kids but some might say all of them are more about me than the kids. Maybe, but this one is definitely about me.

I just set up Skype on this computer but I do not have it starting automatically. I also have to share my headphones with Juanita on her computer but as soon as I set it up on there, it won't matter. I can send invitations but you might get annoyed with the Skype emails, so I can just include our address and if you get Skype, you can contact us there. It is catf1sh_gypsy. Notice that catf1sh is spelled with a 1(one) instead of an I(eye). Just look for catf1sh and it will find us, although it told me I could not use that as a user name because someone else already had it. I will have to setup Juanita's as a different number, I think, but I will do that later.

I am going to be scheduled for surgery. Probably on Dec. 14, but I do not have an exact date yet. Yes, it is bypass surgery, but I am not really worried about the operation. It is the recovery after the operation that I worry about and the being in the hospital and having anesthesia, which I have never had before. My mouth gets really dry at night and I panic when I cannot swallow and I cannot sleep on my back and all these things I am going to have to do when I am in the hospital and I just worry that I will be disoriented and panic and then do something that will cause a problem, so I am not looking forward to being in the hospital. And you cannot really explain that to the doctors and nurses so I will have to find a way to get around it. But the operation itself, I am not worried about.

They tell me I will be in the hospital for a week and then about 5 to 6 weeks rest before I can return to lite duties at work. Of course, I do not know what lite duties are when you work on a computer but I assume that means not working for long stretches at a time, which I don't do anyway. Since I work on a computer and work from home, I should not have any problems going back to work.

Anyway, when I know the exact date, I will let you know. I haven't been sending emails or adding to the blog because I wasn't sure what they were going to do. There is still the possibility that they will not do anything, but it doesn't seem likely. The surgeon got the pictures from my angiogram and he did not call me to tell me he had changed his mind, so I am assuming it is going ahead. It turns out it is the same three blockages that have always been there. The surgeon said they should have operated the first time they found them but he said cardiologist never seem to think that is the first thing they should do and usually leave it until it is too late to do anything. He said, in my case, it was good to do it now as they can see no damage to the heart and can only see the blockages. If they can fix them, then I should not have any more problems and I should be 100% better.

Everyone tells me I will be a new man and I will feel much, much better after the operation. They say I don't realise what kind of problems it is causing me now. They say you just get used to the pains and tiredness and problems and you do not notice them or you learn to live with them. But when they do the operation, you notice that you can do a lot of things that you just didn't do before, so you feel a whole lot better. I hope so. I hope it allows me to carry Meaghan and the other kids around more often. Right now, I can only carry them for short periods of time before I get tired and have to rest but after the operation, I hope I can carry both kids for as long as they want me to.

They are doing the operation in Newcastle, at John Hunter hospital. I think it is a new hospital but it doesn't look that new. I had my choice of going into Sydney or to Newcastle and I picked Newcastle because I don't think Juanita could have driven into Sydney to visit me. And, Newcastle is a lot closer, so it only takes about 45 minutes to get there. Then you have to find parking, which takes another 45 minutes, but maybe she can get lucky sometimes.

We are hoping she will be better by then. William is scheduled to be born on Nov. 23, but that might get moved up to this week after the ultra-sound she is having today. They are checking if the baby is ok and ready to be born. If so, they are going to try to move her up in the schedule but since they said the Nov. 23 date was the first one available, I don't see how they can move it up. She is 37 weeks as of this coming Thursday, so everything should be ok. I was, and still am, worried about them taking the baby too early, but everyone tells me 37 weeks is just fine.

Juanita is in a lot of pain and it is getting worse. She cannot get in and out of bed now and, depending on which doctor you talk to, the pain might go for several weeks or even months after the baby is born. If that happens, she will not be able to drive me to the hospital and back. I will have to take the train and a taxi or bus to the doctors. Juanita's parents get here on Dec. 17, so they can drive to pick me up when I get out but I will have to find another way to get there.

There is the possibility of having the operation on Dec. 7 or even Dec. 21 but the doctor said he would get me out of the hospital before Christmas, so that lets out Dec. 21, and they have a waiting list so Dec. 7 is not likely. I should find out for sure today or tomorrow. I have to go in for a whole day class before the operation. I was suppossed to go to one after the last operation but the only thing I went to was a thing that took about an hour and it was a waste of time. This one is all day and they even serve me lunch. I don't know how often they have the classes nor how many people attend but I guess they will tell me that beforehand.

Maeghan just called out to me. She is waking up. It is 07:30 in the morining here. She has not been waking up until 9 or 9:30 lately, since she has been home alone with Daddy. Of course, she has not been going to bed before 10:00 each night, so that is why she sleeps so late. Not that she doesn't want to go to bed earlier, she asks me each night to go to bed, but I am usually busy doing something and since she is sleeping in my bed with me, I have to go to bed with her and I am usually not ready until 10 or so. She usually asks to go to bed around 8:30 or 9 but if I put her in bed at that time, and I do not stay with her until she falls asleep, then she just wakes up and gets back up anyway. If I stay until she falls asleep, then I usually fall asleep too, so I don't get to watch my late night programs. Also, we just got the TV fixed in the bedroom, so if I try to watch TV while she is going to sleep, she does not go to sleep and wants to play all the time. I have to turn the TV off before she will sleep, which is really annoying, because when I am sleeping by myself, the only way I can fall asleep is to leave the tv on so I fall asleep while watching.

It is a real problem. I did have her sleeping in her bed but since I have washed the sheets and have not put them back on her bed, it was easier to put her in my bed. Maybe today, I will put her sheets on her bed and she can go back to sleeping in it. Then again, maybe not. I don't seem to have a lot of time these days to do anything. Juanita has been in the hospital for six weeks now, or maybe it is just four but it seems longer. I spend most of my days working in the morning, giving Maeghan and myself a shower when she wakes up. Getting Maeghan something to eat and getting snacks or lunch ready for us to take to the hospital. Then driving 45 minutes to the hospital, staying there for about 3 hours, then driving back home. When I get home, it is time to make dinner. I then make dinner, clean the dishes and by that time, it is time for one of my shows to be on, although lately, I have not been able to watch them, and then it is time for bed. It doesn't leave a whole lot of time for anything else, like writing emails or blogs or working or cleaning the rest of the house or doing the laundry or playing with Maeghan. Plus, we have to worry about Juanita and William and my impending operation and all the other things that happen, so we have a full day each day.

One thing we have been making time for is Maeghan's ballet and play group. I am going to miss her ballet play, which is on Dec. 17. I will probably be in the hospital during that time. Juanita says she will tape it for me but I am sure it will not be the same. Maeghan still loves ballet and it is just about the only thing she will do with other people and not have to have mommy or daddy around with her. We are not allowed to see the ballet rehearsals as it is suppossed to be a secret. We have a long list of things she has to have and do for the play. She has to have her hair up and new clothes, although they will be wearing costumes so I don't know why she needs new clothes. I bought her a new ballet outfit. It is a size three, which is the smallest they make, but it fits her better than the one the teacher made for her. That one is too baggy and bunches up in the middle and the elastic sticks Maeghan and causes her to get red marks all over her. Her new one has butterflies and sparkles on it. I still have to find her some tights and new ballet shoes. She does not have to have the ballet shoes as she wears her braces and they said that would be ok for her to wear her regular shoes but I want to find her some real ballet shoes and she can just forgoe the braces for one night.

She likes her new shoes though. They have butterflies on them and they light up when she walks. Now, people have even more reason to stop and stare at her when we are walking around. Not only do they stare at her because she is so cute, but they see her sparkly shoes and they stop and comment on them. Everyone at the hospital knows her as they all stop and talk to her everytime we go up there. She has gotten a little more comfortable with everyone there as she does not immediately go and hide when they talk to her but she still does not talk back to them. She spends a lot of her time in Juanita's room singing and dancing around and everyone that walks past stops and stares at her. She used to stop and sit beside me when they stopped and stared but now she just keeps on dancing. All of them comment on her shoes and say they have kids or grandkids or someone they know who would love to have sparkly shoes.

But back to Maeghan's play. It is on Dec. 17. We are only allowed to buy 6 tickets per family but since I will not be able to go, that will not be a problem. As I said, Juanita's family arrives that same day, in the morning, so Juanita will have to take the train to the airport, it is too long and complicated a drive for her to do by herself, and pick them up, bring them back on the train, then get Maeghan ready for the play by 6:00 pm. Hopefully, Juanita will not be in too much pain by then to do it. The train goes straight to the airport, so that is not a problem and she can park the car at the train station until she gets back. It does mean that no one will visit me that day but I would rather Maeghan got to do her play and they didn't have to rush anything for that than have them come up to Newcastle. The train ride is about two hours each way to the airport, so they should be really tired anyway. I just thought of the fact that I am not sure the train runs that early for her to get to the airport in time to pick them up on the weekends. I will have to check the schedule. I know it starts at around 4:30 am on weekdays, but they have cut back the timetables and it might be later on the weekends. She has to be on the train by 06:00 to get to the airport by 08:00, when they arrive. I will have to check.

Well, Juanita has her ultrasound today and I have to get ready to go. Maeghan went back to sleep so I will have to go wake her up and get her ready. I know it sounds silly to say don't worry about the operation, but I am not worried about it, so everyone else can try to not worry about it either. I know that is not going to happen, but it would be one less thing I have to worry about if I know you know I am going to be ok. I have been under a lot of stress lately, so anything I don't have to worry about helps.

I will write again soon, when I know the exact date. I am not trying to keep anything secret, I just wanted to have all the facts before I told everyone. I love you all and so does everyone else here. We look forward to talking and hearing from you soon.

Talk to you later.