Archive for April, 2008

Could our reno actually happen, you know, this decade?

April 10, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged ,

Something of a small miracle occurred this week – the planner from council called to say he’d be doing the site inspection this week ahead of making a decision on our development application. He actually wanted to come right at that moment, but I was in the midst of putting both kids to bed and the house was a bombsite, so he said he’d make another time this week.

Of course, it’s Thursday now and he hasn’t called back, but it’s progress, right? Sorta? Tomorrow will be seven weeks since we submitted the application. The statutory requirement for determining a DA is six weeks (I think). I am hopeful we’ll have ours signed off before the 10 week mark, but wouldn’t bet on it.

Meanwhile, the director of the agency I work for has suggested she make regular payments into my account and we can adjust when I submit my monthly invoices. This is good because it I’ll have a regular payment history when we eventually get around to applying for an increase to our loan.

The bad news is that analysts are predicting a huge property market crash in Sydney. On the news last night they were suggesting prices would fall by up to 25%

Our financier operates on a maximum 95% LVR which means that our property has to be worth at least $25k more after the renos in order for them to give us the money we want. This would not have been a problem before – the renos would have added around $80-$100k value.

But if the overall value of our house drops by 25%, then the renos would suddenly have to add waaaaaaay more value to maintain the LVR. So there’s yet another reason we may not be able to borrow as much as we’ll need.

I do have considerable savings, but not enough to cover the entire cost of the project, so we need to be able to get at *least* $15k from the bank (we’re asking for $60k).

Why must it all be so difficult, time consuming and expensive? What we thought would be a one-week turnaround with a complying development application has morphed into a seven-week marathon that is not over yet. And we still don’t even know what additional paperwork they need for the construction certificate application so that whole dance won’t even start till the DA is signed off.

I will be surprised if we get the final go ahead, with the builder locked in and the finance sorted, before June. At this rate we’ll be lucky to have the job completed by Christmas.

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Preschool update

April 10, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged ,

After last week’s harsh rebuke from her little friend, Hunter has been pretty reluctant to go to preschool. She’s been telling me she wants to stay home and that no one wants to play with her. I know that’s not true, but it still breaks my heart a bit when she says it.

Fortunately, she’s been okay once she actually gets there. Yesterday, one of the kids immediately came over to play with her (this girl’s a bit of a troublemaker and usually I secretly wish Hunter was playing with someone else, but yesterday I was glad to see her). Today she was doing her own thing when I left but she was fairly content.

As a bonus, Jorja came over looking to play and Hunter didn’t even notice her standing there. I know it’s incredibly petty and awful but I was glad she had to wait for Hunter to choose to play with her. Oh, I am terrible! I feel embarrassed to admit that, but there you have it. I hold grudges against four year olds.

Meanwhile, the preschool AGM was last night and what a boring event that was. Two hours of my life I will never get back. The worst part is that I somehow ended up on the management committee.

The committee requires four parent representatives and I was adamant I would not be one of them. I knew they’d be pressuring me to join because it’s hard for preschools to get parents who are willing to be involved, and by just showing up at the AGM I was setting myself up for the hard word. I had my excuse lined up and fully intended to be resolute about not nominating.

But I had a look at the other parents who had showed up (including one who hadn’t realised that an AGM wasn’t for children and one who raised a concern about the possibility of the preschoolers staging a violent intrusion…) and decided that I’d rather inconvenience myself than have the preschool overseen by fools.

The director assured me there wouldn’t be a lot of work involved, which is good news because I have no spare time whatever. She said I’d mostly be called on to sign cheques, which I could do when I was taking or picking up Hunter. There’s also a management committee meeting every six weeks and I hope they are quicker and less excruciatingly boring than the AGM – though I am not hopeful.

There are a couple of areas I’d like to work on. The preschool generated a measly $1,000 through fundraising last year and I think it could at least triple that. And they’re setting up a webpage so I thought I’d volunteer to help with the content – I confess mainly so that I can go all Grammar Police and correct errors before anything is published.

The first committee meeting is Tuesday

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Our fabulous picnic

April 10, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized

The monthly Rainbow Babies picnic was scheduled for last Sunday. There’s an understanding that in the event of rain, the picnic is simply called off, because it’s too hard to coordinate a Plan B. Last month’s picnic was rained out and we were really looking forward to this month. Hunter was all excited about seeing her friend Georgie again.

We checked the forecast and it predicted a bit of rain in the late afternoon. The skies were clear in the morning and it seemed to be shaping up to be a lovely cool, crisp day.

So we got ourselves ready and headed to Harris Farm Markets to buy up some yummy picnic goodies. We loaded up with camembert and wafers, rocket & cashew dip with turkish bread, salami sticks, apples, bananas and Italian sugar biscuits (which I felt guilty about later because they are imported). It all looked so good and we couldn’t wait to get there and enjoy.

Since we live quite a way out, we set off about 40 minutes before the start time, under blue skies.

About two blocks from the park, we got a little sun shower, but it was over in a minute or two. We drove around, found a parking spot …. and the heavens opened up. Thick black clouds rolled over and it poured down. The view through the windscreen was the one you get when you’re in the car wash. Within a minute or so there were rivers gushing through the gutters and the whole road was ankle deep in water.

We sat there for a while wondering what to do. The rain was so heavy we didn’t really want to drive in it, and we were holding onto some vague hope that it would be heavy but quick and maybe the picnic could be salvaged.

After a few minutes, Leigh decided we needed a snack. She put the stroller rain cover over her head (great look) and waded to the boot for the food. And we sat in the car eating dip and camembert and laughing as the rain kept pounding.

And when we finished the food, we drove home! We’re still laughing at ourselves for driving 40 minutes to have a picnic in the car outside some stranger’s house.

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Mean girls

April 4, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged

I left poor Hunter crying her little eyes out at preschool this morning.

She was so excited when we arrived because Jorja was there. She loves Jorja, though I don’t know why, because Jorja is very often mean to her. This morning Hunter said “Can I play with you, Jorja?”

Jorja got right in her face and shouted “NO!”, gave her a little push, then turned away. Hunter cried and cried and cried.

It was awful. She didn’t want me to leave and was clinging to me, begging me not to go. She didn’t want to play with any of her other friends.

I eventually persuaded her to go off with one of the teachers, but she was very reluctant and still really upset when I left. I rang a little while ago and she’s settled down, but uggh.

I feel like grabbing that kid by the collar and saying “you’re a nasty girl and you don’t deserve any friends”. (of course I would never do it. she wasn’t even wearing a collar…)

Yes, yes, she’s four and they all do it – but does she have to do it to my baby?

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The cruel tricks our subconscious minds play

April 2, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized

There’s a teacher at Leigh’s school who works in various faculties, depending which area’s short. So Leigh knows her a bit, but not well.

Yesterday this teacher was delivering a message and she mistakenly thought it was meant for Leigh. It was not meant for Leigh.

It was meant for Ms Gay.

Leigh was amused. The other teacher was mortified.

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Stop biting me already!

April 2, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged , ,

Hugo has become an unrepentant biter. I am running out of ideas and undamaged body parts.

He started out giving me the occasional nip when he was breastfeeding. It usually happened when he was very sleepy and I am pretty sure it was unintentional. I’d give him a calm, stern, “no biting”, and it seemed to work for a while.

Lately, he’s biting all the time. He’s broken the skin twice while feeding (OUCH!). He’s left bruises on my arms and shoulders. And we have a row of little toothy holes in our leather couch. Those fangs are sharp.

Last night he bit while feeding. I was pulling him away and telling him no biting – and as I was doing it, he started laughing and leaned in and bit me again. He clamped on, it hurt like hell and I had a tough time dislodging him.

I’ve been pretty consistent with him. I try to divert him if I sense a bite coming. I remind him to be gentle. When he does bite I try to respond calmly (success at this depends on the depth and location of the bite). I tell him we don’t bite, tell him it hurts, and I put him down and walk away.

When Hunter went through her biting phase, this approach worked very rapidly. It doesn’t seem to be having much impact on Hugo. He’s gone to bed twice this week only half-fed because I have refused to let him back at the boob after he’s sunk the teeth in, and still he persists.

I’ve already had to put him in a kind of modified football hold when he feeds on the left side because he’s broken the skin and it hurts too much to feed him in a cradle hold.

I’m not about to wean him over this but sheesh, I wish he’d cut it out already.

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Why the three-year-old shouldn’t babysit

April 1, 2008 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged

We have an enclosed rear verandah that is much like an extra room, if you can look past the aluminium roof and the concrete floor.

With the doors shut it’s totally closed off. There are full size doors at either end, and a little door on the back wall at the top of two concrete steps that opens into the back yard.

I’ve never let Hugo play out there unsupervised even though I leave him in other parts of the house, but today he and Hunter were playing happily out there and I needed to get dinner started.

So I left them, and called out about every 30 seconds to check that Hugo was okay. Hunter reported back each time to tell me what he was doing (she’s good about coming to get me if he’s eating something from the floor or otherwise getting himself into trouble).

About the fifth time I called to check I got no answer so I went out to see for myself, expecting Hunter to just be engrossed in what she was doing.

There were no kids out there. The little door was open – the one at the top of the concrete steps. Hunter had decided to use the outside toilet (attached to the back of the garage) and had left the door open. Hugo had got himself up the steps and was sitting in the back yard.

I am so glad he didn’t attempt to come back down the steps – it would have been a trip to the hospital for sure.

So, no more babysitting jobs for the preschooler.

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