I like to call it Happy Hour

This morning the Muddy Kids and I packed ourselves up and took off for a morning playdate at the house of a little boy that Muddy 1 goes to Pre School with and a little Girl that Muddy 2 and 3 go to Day Care with. Now this house it set up for kids, there are 4 little cherubs living in this house, 3 girls and a boy, a family made up just like ours, except in different order. It was such a lovely morning, Muddy Bubby was happy to chill out for a bit before his bottle and the Muddy Girls were more than amply entertained both inside and outside the house with an abundance of play equipment and toys. It was a just lovely morning, no fighting, no crying, just good old fashioned happy playing. With the added bonus of a couple of cups of good coffee and a yummy morning tea for us Mums.

The other side of a lovely morning out, is the sleep factor. We live 30kms out of town, we were headed 5 kms out the other side of town, so, by the time we got there Muddy Girl 3 was sound asleep, and of course woke up straight away so as not to miss out on anything. Now one would think that the trip home would send all 4 cherubs into a nice snooze, but alas only Muddy Girl 2 nodded off. Now we're home and all 4 cherubs are ready to continue partying. We've tried the quiet lying down, some joint lying down in the lounge room and even a boring TV show, but alas they are all awake still! No rest or quiet time for me today.

Three very awake Muddy Girls

It's not the lack of any respite today that concerns me, it's as the dinner, bath, bed hour draws closer that everything will go pear shaped due to the lack of day time rest. I have friends that call it Acid Hour, or Cranky Time etc etc, but for me I prefer to call it Happy Hour, because if I just focus hard enough I can imagine in a few time when they're all a bit older and able to function a little better with no daytime rest or quiet time, that this time of the day will for me be Happy Hour, with a glass of chilled white wine, some nibbles and good friends around!! So rather than call it something yucky I am already focused on the good times ahead.

Ahhhh good times ahead

For now though I need to refocus on being organised for the rest of the day and the happy hour ahead, to minimise the impact, early bath and dinner and some quiet reading before bed. However as they say the best laid plans........



Not a great start

Tomorrow we were supposed to head north 100km to the block we share farm to get started on our big wheat harvest for 2011. We've cut the Canola and picked up some of it, and yesterday the Header tried 30acres of wheat here at home in the front paddock, our 3 Muddy Girls and Muddy Hubby were pretty excited, even though the wheat was too green and we had to knock off. Anyway it's all over for the minute as it's raining. This does definitely not make for a very happy Muddy Hubby and it makes for a big day of entertaining 3 Muddy Girls inside.

This morning it wasn't too bad, we went and shifted sheep, stopping at the local silos on the way to get a sample of wheat tested, and then on the rain came as we were headed home. VERY unhappy farmers around I can tell you and everyone is a little bit on edge due to last year's big rains and looooong drawn out harvest.

The Graincorp Sample Stand through the rain

On the bright side, being stuck inside this afternoon has meant some productivity in the kitchen, cooking up some harvest meals to send north, and some muffins and cupcakes to stockpile for the duration of harvest. I think Muddy Hubby has also made some headway on reading this week's Land Newspaper (his bible).

Harvest meals are a challenge to cook, Muddy Hubby and the boys head north to a block where they sleep in a caravan, or in Muddy Hubby's case he sleeps in the road train, they use a generator to run a microwave to heat up meals, they have a TINY gas run fridge, so limited cold storage and a couple of hot plates and saucepans. Given they're normally up there a few weeks there's a few meal runs up and back for supplies etc. Today I cooked up rissoles, mashed potato and veggies, so at least some of the time they're getting veggies. Muddy Hubby has put a special request in for lasagna, so that will be this week's cooking task. At least the girls enjoy cooking, and are happy if we're inside cooking for a small part of the day, or in the case of today all afternoon as it rains down on our harvest plans! If I was a church going kind of person I'd be praying right now for the rain to go away!! Not sure that we'd cope with another wet harvest year like last year.

Rissoles and Veggies

Muddy Girl 2, fun with cupcakes

Cupcakes in our oven

Not so easy!

It's getting hotter by the day here and with the foreboding of rain coming (PLEASE NOT ANOTHER WET HARVEST) it's all steamy and sweaty, so I've been putting Muddy Bubby in some cooler summer clothes. Now pretty much all of Muddy Bubby's clothes are hand me downs or loaners, my Muddy Sister-in-law has 3 little boys and has kindly gifted us with boxes of their clothes which they've outgrown. As with 3 Muddy Girls we didn't have much blue in the house.

Funky Muddy Bubby

 Anyway one of the very cute items we have been dressing Muddy Bubby in is the Bonds Easysuit, it is way cool with a white background and funky shades of blue spots. The only problem I'm finding is that the Bonds Easysuit ain't so easy! It's got elastic so you put it over the head and then stretch it to pull on over Muddy Bubby's feet.

The Stretchy Elastic

Now I'm thinking this thing was not designed by someone who regularly uses it, or dresses kids, because they are bloody hard to put on! Every time I pull it out because I want Muddy Bubby to look cool and funky he starts screaming as I squash his chubby legs up in an effort to stretch the leg holes over his feet. So really, the Easy Suit isn't so easy. Don't get me wrong I absolutely LOVE Bonds stuff, I wear VERY comfortable Bonds Knickers, as do my Muddy Girls and Muddy Hubby, and the Muddy Girls lived in Wondersuits, and Muddy Bubby has been given some gorgeous Bonds suits that he is yet to grow into, it's just Bonds have really disappointed me with their Easysuit.

Muddy Bubby's Chubby Thighs

Some days I do wonder if I'm doing something wrong, if I've got the technique wrong or I'm putting it on back to front??? Because surely someone wouldn't design something that is so hard to put on?? Please Mr Bonds if I'm doing it wrong let me know!!

Mother Guilt

From the moment I had my first Muddy Baby I experienced Mother Guilt, this terrible feeling (which for some reason manages to escape the Dads) of guilt over actions or decisions or care for my Muddy Babies. Now I've experienced a lot of Mother Guilt over the last four and a half years the reasons for which have varied from stopping breastfeeding, to returning to work, to being late for a day care pick up to something as simple as I couldn't be bothered feeding my kids vegetables for a night. It unfortunately can hit at any time for a wide range of reasons, I have found that there is simply no escape and for me the best way to deal with it, is acknowledge it, sometimes discuss with my friends and fellow mothers.

That was until my WORST experience of Mother Guilt so far. Muddy Girl 1 goes to Pre School in town twice a week, we live 30kms out of town so Muddy Girl 1 catches the bus in (no this is not the bad bit) and home. We slowly built up to this, catching it first with friends around the corner from Pre School, then catching it with the neighbour (a little boy born the day before Muddy Girl 1), we still do this in the morning. However since I started maternity leave Muddy Girl 1 now not only catches one bus home, but changes buses and catches the second bus to the end of our dirt road (still not the guilty bit).

On Wednesday the bus reached the end of our road, there was just one problem, Muddy Girl 1 WAS NOT ON THE BUS! The driver just shrugged and said he didn't know where she was, while all the school kids on the bus were calling out to let me know that she was still on the first bus sound asleep! Yes MOTHER GUILT in the extreme. I am a very lucky Muddy Farmwife as I have the most wonderful friend and neighbour who was collecting her little boy off the 1st bus and collected Muddy Girl 1 (who by this point was in tears, waking up and realising she'd missed her stop for changing buses), we were straight on the phone to each other and met along the road for a changeover. But this still did not assuage my Mother Guilt.

I felt (and still feel) like the worst mother in the world for making my 4 and 1/2 year old not only catch the bus (and it's a big bus with a lot of school kids) but also making her change buses to catch 2 buses. So many thoughts keep going through my head - Am I a terrible mother, should I be driving her into town in the morning and driving in of an afternoon to pick her up?

Next year Muddy Girl 1 will start school and will be catching the bus every day, in letting her catch the bus (and she was dead keen to do it) I thought it was a nice introduction to something that she's going to be doing for the next 13 years, or until she gets her licence! For lots of city kids buses aren't even a realistic choice until late primary, early high school, and even our town kids either get dropped off or walk to school, but for us it's the way life is. At the end of the day I still have extreme Mother Guilt over this, but I figure if my Muddy Hubby survived it as a child then our Muddy children will too, and I am now tied to the bus drop off and pick up, until Muddy Bubby finishes school, which equates to about 1/4 of my lifetime!

The only time I won't have to do the bus run is when our road is flooded out like December 2010,
then we don't go anywhere.

Mail Day

One of the small joys we have 3 times a week is the day we call 'Mail Day'. 3 times a week the postman brings our mail and deposits it in the mailbox. Even more exciting is when there is one of those little cards saying you have a parcel or special letter that you need to come into the post office to collect. I live for these little cards as they're either a present or surprise being sent or (and this is more common) it's my online shopping arriving! Now I hadn't had one of these little cards in a while and I had been expecting several things in the mail, most importantly Muddy Bubby's birth certificate and my new Inner B Diary that I ordered.

It had been 8 weeks since I applied for Muddy Bubby's birth certificate, and I thought that was a fair amount of time for the registry of Births Deaths and Marriages to get my form and print out the official certificate, so I contacted them and they printed a new one and sent it again, presuming it was lost. Again 2 weeks pass and no little card. Then I am anxiously awaiting my new diary, as appointments for 2012 are already coming in thick and fast, but again no little card. I checked with the online shop, yes it's been sent, it should be there..........but no little card for us on mail day :(

So, not being an overly patient person I call the post office, 'yes there is a parcel here for you, no it's not that consignment number!', so I start to ask about the birth certificate, 'yes it's here, actually there's 2 here, oh and I just found your parcel!' I was so excited, not only was Muddy Bubby's birth certificate there, but I would get my new diary and a bonus parcel on my next trip to town, which was today.

You know what.......they lost my precious parcel with my new diary in it. 'I'm really sorry we can't find it', despite the fact that 2 days ago you told me it was here and it definitely wasn't in our letterbox yesterday (I wouldn't have missed a parcel as our letterbox is too small!). I was very disheartened by my mailman, as he is the one that sends out the little cards, but obviously hadn't been (does he not realise just how happy those cards make me???), not only that but he has managed to lose my diary how is that possible in a not very big country post office??????

Turns out.......it fell behind a cupboard. The post office just rang and they've found it, THANK GOD! I tell you what this Inner B diary better be worth it! I'll let you know if it is.

Inner B

It's almost that time of the year....

It's November and for us November is definitely a month we associate with harvest! The big H, the most important time of the year for us, other than sowing and shearing. It's the time of the year where the really big machinery comes out in force, you can't drive anywhere far without encountering a header (Harvester and Combine if you're American) on the road. Now these big pieces of machinery always make it a challenge to overtake, they don't have a really high top speed, generally around 40km/hr depending on whose driving (Muddy Hubby likes to take it slow and take in the scenery, whereas Muddy brother-in-law likes to get into it!). They are long and cumbersome and definitely take up more than their own side of the road (no staying on the left hand side with these babies).

When I first moved to the country I was in awe of the big machinery on the road, then I'd get frustrated because I could never overtake, now the shoe's on the other foot and I love it, I move over to give the Header enough room, I sit patiently behind until I am able to overtake and think how lucky we are to live where we live and be a part of something as exciting as harvest (I will NOT be saying this in the next drought, or if it rains and floods like last year, but for now it's all good).

The other thing that's important (especially if you ask a 4 year old) is what colour is your header? Do you have a Green header, a Red header or a Yellow header or another colour entirely. For Us, we're Green - John Deere, and trust me, it takes a lot to change colour, especially if you've had a green one for as long as Muddy Hubby can remember! As we start to get geared up for harvest there's an excitement in the air, it really is a great time of year! (Ask me again in 2 weeks and I will probably have a totally different response)

Header getting ready to hit the road

On the road

Cutting Canola

The Cup

Today is Melbourne Cup Day!! I'm not sure why, but I always get a little bit excited when it's Melbourne Cup Day. It's not like I grew up around horses, or horse races or placing bets or anything like that. Actually come to think of it, horses and I have never ever got along very well, they either spit on me, throw me off or go anywhere but where I want them to! So really, by rights I should be turning off the TV at 3 O'clock and forgetting there is even a horse race on. But alas, it draws me in EVERY YEAR!!!

I always like to place a little bet if I can, the problem being that as an at home Mum at present, my options for betting are very limited! It's not like I can run a sweep with my Muddy Hubby and 4 Muddy children, nor can I just pop down the street to place a bet (wouldn't that look good, a Mum with 4 kids betting!) when town is 30kms away, it's not worth the trip. That leaves online betting! I did try this, a couple of years ago, I felt very seedy doing it, almost like I was trying to hide a gambling problem (must be all that advertising sinking in). It's actually very easy to set up an account, you give them your details and then credit card details and a few mouse clicks and your bets are made.

So, you ask, why don't I just do that again? Well you see after you initially set up your account they then send you forms and info and request that you go and have your identify verified to maintain your account. I got countless emails about this, but decided that I didn't actually want to be the proud owner of an online betting account, so I let it slide, but come today when no-one is heading into town who can place a bet for me, I'm kind of wishing I did have that account!

The Melbourne Cup for our household really does mean drop everything and watch, the girls know where the hands on the clock need to be before we turn on the horse race. I think it's actually a bit nice to have this one Australian tradition carried on by my Muddy family, even if it only means a few minutes of joint attention of cheering on our horses, it's still Muddy family time.