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.