To make sense of this story I first have to tell you about two different stories from my childhood.

In the first, on a walk I once took with Mum and Dad when I was very little. Perhaps I was 5 years old. We were just up by my primary school at the end of our street. Walking past some pigeons. I don’t know exactly why he said it but it was probably because I begged them to get me one for my birthday. Or just because.

My Dad told me that if I wanted a pigeon all I had to do was catch one. I could keep it if I did. And to catch it he said, all I had to do was throw salt on it’s bum. This, apparently, makes it so the pigeons can’t fly or walk. Because the salt on it’s bum stings and its bum muscles squeeze in real tight and they can’t walk properly. Then all you have to do is catch it.

For YEARS I believed him. I actually thought it was true. And in grade five, I had other kids convinced of this too.

In the second story I am seven years old. I was yabbying under the bridge at the Euroa caravan park. I had thought it a good idea to leave my line with it’s steak on it over night. To see if I could catch something in the morning. That was all good and well except that when I went to check my line in the morning there was no yabby. Instead, when I pulled on the line it seemed to be stuck. So I pulled harder. And when I finally got the line to move closer to the surface, there at the end of it, holding on to that bit of steak for dear life…was a turtle.

From that point on, for the rest of our 5 week holiday, I begged Mum and Dad to get me a turtle. They DID!

I, being the original character that I am, named it Myrtle. Dad and I built it a pond with a fence around it and I would wonder on down each day to feed it.

I don’t know how long we’d had this turtle when we went to my cousin’s 7th birthday party. I don’t think it was long. But when we came home, Myrtle was gone. It ran away. It climbed it’s little fence (I vaguely remember that it COULD climb the fence) and disappeared. Never to be seen again.

And now to present day. Where I start wondering about my turtle. Thinking about the salt and the pigeons and the turtle. Wondering, if maybe my turtle died. But Mum and Dad didn’t want me to get upset so maybe they lied and said it ran away instead. Just like you hear people telling kids about their dogs who “ran away” when really Mum or Dad backed over it in the drive way. All the while, the kids are so young and trusting that they believe everything their parents tell them. Like, how you can catch a pigeon by throwing salt on it’s ass.

Yesterday I had to know. Because if I could believe Dad for years that I could catch a pigeon by throwing salt on it’s behind, then how easy would it be to believe my turtle “ran away”?

I sent both Mum and Dad a text asking if Myrtle had died and not run away. Now that they’re divorced they’d either both say the same thing, or they’d each tell a different story.

Dad replied first. He tells me the turtle really did run away. And when I said I didn’t want to be one of those gullible kids that believed their turtle had run away when it was actually dead and that I was having trouble believing him because of the pigeon story, he STILL tried to tell me you could catch a pigeon with salt…as long as you got close enough. But the turtle really did run away.

Then Mum replied. Like Dad, she swears the turtle ran away and that we never did find it.

I’m still unsure. They each have told the same story. But Tim and I discussed this and perhaps, when I was very little and lying in bed, Mum and Dad stood over me with dead turtle in hand and one said to the other “She can never know about this”

Or maybe, when they got divorced it was a part of their settlement. You can have the couch, but the girl never finds out about the turtle. Take it to the grave.

I just have this image in my head of my head stone when I die. It will probably read something like this.

Here lies Boo.

Wife. Mother. Daughter.

Gullible turtle owner to the end.

We decided to take a quick trip to Grandpa’s before Tim returns back to school. On the way we thought we were in for trouble. Jaxon kept insisting that Dookie had to come home with him. We actually thought we might have to fight Jaxon to leave him there with Grandpa. But within the first minute of our visit we knew we were safe. That was the minute of Jaxon’s blood curdling screams as he CLIMBED UP Tim’s body as Dookie very innocently came rushing out to greet them.

We had a lovely day. We had lunch. Two walks to the beach. Two walks to the park. And one of  us got to see a burning car on the drive home (that would be Tim, who, being the driver of the car…had to keep his eyes open)

Jaxon has accepted Dexter in to his home and heart as if  he has always been here. I didn’t think it was possible but the way he loves his little brother has made me love HIM even more. My brother was my best friend and I was blessed to have such a close relationship with him so I’m so thankful that so early on I can see that Jaxon is never going to let anyone or anything hurt his little brother. Just like Terry did for me.

You have no idea how close we came to losing the family blog. I have been SO UPSET all week.

The reason we wanted to change hosts was because our contract with the old host had expired. They sent us our new bill and I looked around for a better deal. Instead of having to pay $7.95 a month to host with the old host, I found a new one to host for only $3.25 a month.

So it’s logical. To save some money, we decided to change.

We followed all of the directions down to the last letter on how to change hosts. We backed up our database and files. And according to the new and old hosts all we would need to do would be to restore them in the new host control panel.

Well! We did that. And it did not work! If you’ve visited since Monday you may have come across a number of different fatal error warnings.

The new host is local to us. Australian. They boast 24/7 support.

They LIE!!

Each time I would send an email off and tell them exactly what I had done and what was happening (or not happening) because of that. And they would take their sweet time to reply. If you have 24/7 support, how can it take 8 hours to reply an email? I would say “I have done x,y and z and now I get a fatal error that says a,b,c. I don’t know why that is happening. Can you please tell me what I need to do to fix this?” and they would reply “Yes certainly we can help you. Please browse your web site again. And feel free to let us know if you have any further queries”

It seemed the angrier I got about their lack of support the less they replied. So I started calling them and even then, their support was anything but.

Last night, I decided that the only thing to do would be to renew with the more expensive hosts. I did not want to risk leaving my old account so long that they would delete discoverboo from their servers. So this morning I got up, tranferred the money from our savings account and paid up.

And here we are. Two hours later. Back. On. Line.

Crazydomains can go to hell. I would not recommend them to ANYONE.

You’ll have to excuse us for a moment, or three.

We are currently changing web hosts and this may or may not take us off line. We don’t know yet.

Since we have no clue what we’re doing (this is far harder than running a blogger blog where everything is done for you) this may take longer than it would take someone else to do.

If you visit over the next week or so and we’re not here, there’s a good reason for it and HOPE it doesn’t mean we’ve LOST the site!

I don’t post about being pregnant often. And that’s because up until about 8 weeks ago, I really had no reason to.

Jaxon’s pregnancy was fairly tough. With cramping so painful I couldn’t walk, a threatened miscarriage,  heavy swelling from 18 weeks on and of course gestational diabetes, I would have had plenty to bitch about back then.

But this pregnancy has been rather mild. All until I hit the second trimester. When the gastritis, heart burn AND MORNING SICKNESS STRUCK!!

Of course it’s any time of day sickness around here. It could be early morning, late night or even middle of the night.

I am SO over throwing up and still feel like I have so long left before baby arrives. I don’t know how I am going to cope with all this chucking and indigestion!?

Grandma came to visit all the way from Darwin a couple weeks ago. I KNOW!! You don’t need to remind me of how slack I am getting. But all I can say is that after nearly 4 years of blogging…it gets HARD!

I took these photo’s as an absolute last minute thought. We went to the Melbourne Aquarium, had a BBQ  come surprise baby shower at my old friends house and did all sorts of little things during her four day stay and yet I didn’t take many photos. I even FORGOT to take the camera to the Aquarium… a photo opportunity that I normally would not miss. Boy was a pissed at myself!!

In the days to follow I’ll try to get you catched up.

I’ve been thinking about this post for a LONG time now.

I just haven’t come up with a fun or witty way to put it forward to you. So I’ve sat on it, waiting for that perfect moment in my head where everything just fall’s in to place and the words just flow effortlessly from my mouth.

Some people suggested I just leave it until such a time that, well…it would just be very old news. But that has never been my intention. So I wont do that.

It started out as waiting for the “safe” period to pass. And then, week by week…it’s increased to “ridiculously late for letting people know”

So I have decided that the perfect time for me to tell you has long since past. And that the perfect words are probably never going to just flow from my mouth. So here it is.

Drum Roll please….

I’M PREGNANT!

Ta-Da!

Every night Tim, Jaxon and I have a big bath together. We don’t all squeeze in to a tiny little tub. We have a two person spa that fits us all perfectly.

Recently, Jaxon took an interest in my, a-hem…nipples.

I didn’t lie to him when he asked what they are. I told him they were nipples. And I pointed out that he has nipples…and Daddy has nipples. We all have nipples.

Well, for some reason, he called them kettles for a few days. He would point them out on me, and Daddy and himself and say “Mum has kettles, Jaxon has kettles and Daddy has kettles”

He’ll even rattle off every other person he can think of asking “Does so and so have kettles?”

Well!

The other day we visited Nanny and Poppy. And we told them all about the nipple/kettle conversation.

Towards the end, he ever so politely (manner’s and all) asked Nanny to show him her nipples.

For some reason, she didn’t.

I was sort of glad for a while that he was referring to them as kettles. It meant that I wouldn’t get a call from day care telling me he needed to be picked up and that he was suspended for asking his teacher to show him her nipples.

So over the last few months, Tim and I have found a small selection of foods and drinks that  should not be given to Jaxon.

They include musk sticks, licorice (that long stuff, not the small chunky stuff) and lemonade.

If Jaxon has those things, he JUMPS OFF THE WALLS! He’s unbearable to deal with. Not because he get’s all moody or anything, but because he’s way too hyper and way too smiley and LOUD.

It’s just….annoying.

So last night when he started jumping off the couch and springing right back up, or running back and forth from his bed room to the lounge room…Daddy looked at me as if to say “What did YOU give him!?”

So I say “I swear, all he’s had is a freddo frog and some cordial”

And Jaxon, as if to say I was lying started squealing “frog and corrrrdial frog and cooordial frog and cordial” over and over and over again like maybe he’d had a kilo of chocolate and a liter of cordial without water in it.

I swear.

It was JUST a frog and cordial. But we shall keep in mind for future reference that perhaps the combination of freddo frogs and cordial should be left for times when he’s visiting family. Without us.

In light of my last post, the warning about the doom and gloom to come…I should say, that it’s not just doom and gloom.

But FRUSTRATION too!

As a result of Tim’s MS we get a 17% discount on our power bill. It’s called a Medical Cooling Concession and basically it’s because for people with MS, heat tolerance is drastically reduced. The 17% discount is presumably to help cover the extra cost of cooling over summer.

So the other day we’re sitting at home and get a knock on the door. Not two days after that 17% discount has been added to our bill and we feel a little better about being able to pay it.

The man at the door is about to install a smart meter. Having a smart meter installed means nothing at all to us. But it sends our electricity usage to the company’s every half an hour, instead of having the power meter read every three months.

At the time, we have a friend over. And she tell’s us that they had a smart meter installed a few months back and all it meant to them was a 30% increase in the power bill.

WELL! That pisses me off. Because we’ve only just got the 17% discount and if what she says is true, then it’s been made completely redundant by this stupid smart meter. No matter how you look at it we’re getting a 13% increase.

So she also tells us some ways of saving money on your power bill. And these seem fairly easy and well, regardless of what our bill is or the discount we’re going to get…I get to thinking that it couldn’t hurt to save some money right??

Right!

All she does is turn everything off at the power point when they’re not in use. The microwave, so you don’t pay for the clock. The DVD and TV so you don’t pay for the little red light they have to say they’re on standby. Everything but her fridge and freezer get turned off at the power point over night and if they’re out. She said it has saved them heaps on their electricity bills.

So I woke up the next day determined to make a difference to our power bill. When we left the house for a considerable amount of time, I switched the DVD player and the TV and set top box off at the power.

We came home three hours later, and when we tried to turn the DVD player back on…it wouldn’t. It was BROKEN!

I cried for half an hour. And on and off all night I would break in to spontaneous tears. Because I was simply trying to make a difference. Trying to save some money. And all it got me was another bill. A DVD player replacement bill.

It just seems to me that some times, when you really try to make a difference, something works against you.

I held my arms up high in front of me and I yelled….why do I bother!?

(side note: that didn’t make a pinch of shit of difference. It didn’t even make me FEEL better about having to fork out money we don’t have for a new DVD player. But I did it anyway!)

It was terrible weather. Windy, rainy and COLD!

But the family had spent most of the day locked up inside and we needed to get out.

We packed a lunch. Jaxon’s went to the “squeegulls” whom he decided very quickly he did not like.

I couldn’t help but post this since I watched Shrek the 2nd with Jaxon tonight.

Has anyone else noticed the resemblance of the human Shrek…to Jack Arnold (Dan Lauria) from The Wonder Years?