My new garden...

Thanks, Gardening Fairy!

Spot the odd thing in the photo....

No... I'm not talking about Turtle.... although he is not looking his normal self in the photo. Spot the opened but uneaten bag of jelly-snakes on his lap! When I took the photo it had sat there for 2 hours.... obviously something wrong!
The poor boy has a mild case of pneumonia which has made him feel very unwell for a couple of days, to the point of turning down the lemonade and icecream I tried to tempt his appetite with.
Today he got some antibiotics which should hopefully set him right in a few days.

farewell, mummy - welcome back Little Possum!

After a week of the bandages, we are so happy to see that the treatment was successful. LP's skin has improved all over and she is not as itchy anymore. Hopefully this is it, unless we have another flare-up. We spent the day at the children's hospital being reviewed and having tests, but there was some time for fun in between. The hospital has a wonderful playroom where LP had a "hand facepaint" (as LP put it) and did some colouring. Later we visited the library where we read stories on the appropriately named "the Mem Fox storytelling couch". We crossed paths with many very sick children who were obviously in hospital for a longer term visit, and I felt blessed to watch my little girl skipping around the hospital, and to be able to bring her home with me again at the end of the day.

Beware the mummy!

This is the week of our wet bandaging treatment for LP's eczema. It was supposed to be an in-patient thing, but when we arrived at the children's hospital, they offered us the "Hospital at Home" scheme instead so after the initial assessment and treatment at the hospital we left the wombat room and headed for home.

LP was such a little trooper, standing patiently while all the bandaging (3 layers) was going on... and she still managed to give me a kiss afterwards!

The nurses will come to our house to do the dressings this week, and we get to have all the comforts of home. LP is a little disappointed, she rather liked the look of the playrooms at the hospital. But, we are doing well at home.

Penrith Lakes

On Saturday we (minus Doodlebug) headed out to Penrith for a bit of an outing, driving through Windsor and Richmond on the way. We should have continued on to the Blue Mountains, but will save that for another time. In Penrith we found the lakes, with the Olympic rowing lake and white water park. There's a biketrack all around the lake which is 5 km around and we were interested to see how LP would go for that distance. Easy peasy... must be all that rope skipping she's doing :)
I really should follow her exercise regime! Running everywhere, never sitting still, skipping rope at any given opportunity....

Mem Fox, books and more

Yesterday I went to Total Learning's annual showcase. This is where the new catalogue is introduced and we get to see all the new products that are coming in. (And.... there are some fantastic new books and products coming!!!) . It is a treat to attend, as there are usually some interesting presentations and speakers. This year was extra special as in addition to the head of Dorling Kindersley Australia, we had Mem Fox visiting. She is one of my favourite children's book authors and many of the books she has written are favourites of my children. Turtle loves "Sleepy Bears" still and LP loves all of them. Mem read several of her books out loud to us and you could have heard a pin drop, the room was so quiet. It was like I heard the stories for the first time. Amazing.

Mem Fox also champions early reading. I first read her book "Reading Magic" a couple of years ago and found several inspirational sections about the importance of reading to our children and the effect this has on their development. There are also some great tips for making our reading aloud even better. Mem Fox talked more about this at the showcase, she talked about the importance of giving happiness through reading. When we read to our children daily, we affect their hearts as well as their minds. This is something that I have always believed, because I can see it in my children. I have been reading to my children daily since they were babies. Now we see the fruits of this in many ways, my children love books and reading, and I get reports from their teachers that they are using wonderfully expressive language in their written work. (I credit Enid Blyton with many of their current adjectives and superlatives....... )

It was a great privilege to be able to meet this amazing woman and to thank her for all those wonderful books we love to read. I had brought LP's copy of "Where is the green sheep" with me, and Mem Fox kindly autographed it for her.