Meet Malachi on the left and Finlay on the right. These little guys are both crazy dudes running around full of life never still ready to take on the world. Which is good because they both have to. Both of these tiny little men are battling cancer, I would just like to say cancer sucks and I hate it.

Malachi has just been diagnosed with Bilateral retinoblastoma, cancer in his eyes. He will be spending today at the hospital for final tests and the results of the ones he had last week. By the end of today his parents will know the extent the cancer has spread and the treatment plan for there son. I can’t believe I’m asking you to pray for a second little boy with cancer.

Finlay, who I have asked for pray for before, here and here, has stage 4 Neuroblastoma. He will also be spending today at the hospital. He is in for a bone marrow biopsy and has to fast for this test. This is the second time he has fasted for this same test. Last week after fasting for 26 hours the test was cancelled, please pray it all runs smoothly today. This is oh so much more important when you know he has to gain weight, he has to gain 500g by today or he will have to be supplied with nutrients through a nasal gastric tube. no little boy wants a tube down his nose so please pray that he has gained enough. 

It would be wonderful if you could pass on their stories to everyone you know, add their names to your pray chains think of them when your world becomes quiet we need to cover these boys in pray.

Fight Neuroblastoma is a face book site bringing awareness to this awful disease.

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1. Please pray for Finn
2. The reason I am Sad

The girls had a blast, all the colours of the rainbow, music, games, food but most of all friends. Those special people that make our eye’s sparkle and our hearts leap whenever we see them. Sharing lifes moments with those ones, some so dear to us that holding them in our minds and chattering about them daily is a natural as sucking the air in and out of our lungs. That is what birthdays are all about.

And a chance to express ourselves, that’s what birthdays are about. A day were we are aloud to paint the world the shade we want it to be. When you are 5 and 8 that colour is dazzling.

oh and don’t ever forget the cake, birthdays are about cake. This common desert becomes a testament to the desires, dreams and fascinations of the year gone by. I can’t wait for those future conversations with Lani  the ones that will go like this “look there’s your rainbow cake, I remember when you were hooked on rainbows. You should have seen the socks you made your grandma buy you”.

Birthdays are also about change. They are a moment in time when I, the mummy, catch my breath and panic a little inside. Look how big they have grown, how long those legs are how mature those faces seem. Have I really been blessed with such an amazingly fantastical job as to help this bunch become big?

Birthdays are about family. Birthdays are about friends. Birthdays are about people, and people celebrate.

So to my darling girls I say this. Don’t ever forget the joy, don’t every lose the sparkle you are amazing creatures celebrate who you are. One gentle and mothering one spirited and adventurous, don’t change, don’t ever be afraid of you. Find your trail and follow it and take all of us along for the ride.

And to my God I say thankyou, thankyou for naming me Mummy.

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Alanah and Lillian are March babies the same as my sister and I, what can i say it’s just the best month ever. Also as you can imagine a very full one. The only blessing in all this March madness being that the girls love the idea of combined parties. Which is the reason I am still sane because I could not do this two weekends in a row.

This year the girls have requested a rainbow party, which doesn’t sound to hard till you sit down and work out how many little plastic garden pots need little wire handles. All this fiddly wire twisting is because, as all good fairy folk know, you can’t have a true magical rainbow without a pot of gold at its base.

Don’t worry I whinge in jest, I actually find repetitive monotonous craft preparation soothing, sort of.

Besides how many of you out there can say in all honesty that you have all your smarties in order.

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Thinking of creative ways to help Lilly learn her letter sounds and form. This has mostly involved food and has all been Lani’s idea, she even asked if we could have eggs for lunch and she has never liked them, go figure.

Plasticine Dotty Dolls on D Day.

Our Letter Land tree.

We are in the middle of moving rooms, it’s a bit like placing all members of the family in a blender and pressing ON.

Lilly and Eli will end up together but at the moment while we paint he is in our room with the baby and the furniture, toys and other paraphernalia that used to live in his room is now in the passage way. It makes going to the toilet in the middle of the night so much fun.

Oh yes and the lawn mower broke so we have to keep sending our search parties to locate Sabrina.

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1. The story of a toy and a gorgeous little boy

I don’t like to whinge and complain on here, not that I’m a saint, it’s just that massive emotional purges in public places tend lead right into the inevitable regret that slaps you in the face a day or two later when you re read what you wrote. 

So I’m just going to tell you a story instead.

Glenn finally talked me into having an operation. Not that I didn’t need it. I’ve been having bouts of excruciating pain for the last 5 years, it’s just that the idea of someone knocking me out and turning my stomach into a patchwork quilt has never been top of my list of Fun Things To Do This Week. But after my dysfunctional gall bladder interfered with his love affair with Thai food we had that little talk.

So I agreed to join the waiting list secretly revelling in the tales of extended periods of waiting that everyone I have ever met who had an operation had to endure. I however got in on a cancelation, um, yay…so all of a sudden I was in hospital leaving Mum and Dad to look after three older kids and a not so happy, yet to be weaned Sabrina.

The operation itself actually went as well as being knocked out and having your stomach turned into a patchwork quilt could go. I totally freaked out and tried to go home, Glenn pushed me into the waiting room and then they ran a few test to make sure my heart that had jumped out of my chest and danced a highland fling on the floor was just stressed and didn’t have a permanent problem. Turns out I just have a stressed personality.

Thankfully God filled the waiting room with incredibly nice chatty people that kept me distracted one was even a home schooler which was kinda cool, a bit like meeting someone who grew up in the same town you did only I don’t know where all the cool hang out spots are yet.

Then it was time, the doors opened Glenn looked into my eyes and said “ If you choose to face it, you must do it alone. I cannot interfere” no, wait that was Yoda, I knew watching star wars before surgery was a bad idea.

I could say after that it was all a blur but that wouldn’t be true, I remember it quite well but it’s pretty boring so I’ll spare you the details save to say that when the anaesthesiologist said very apologetically that he was going to give me something that would make me feel a little out of it I couldn’t feel happier. Anything that would make me feel blasé about the whole thing was welcome by me.

Ok after that it did get blurry and then black.

When I woke up I was so out of it, it was really funny. My eyes kept rolling up every time I tried to focus on anyone. I vaguely remember talking to people but not really. in fact the next day when I was being released I realized that I hadn’t talked to the surgeon post opp only to be told that I actually had, answered questions and everything but I have no memory of it.

I started to feel nauseous just as home time rolled around but a very forcefully chipper nurse assured me that if I just pulled it together I’d be fine.

So then I was on my way home. Yay, I thought, that went better that I expected. And then I threw up.

And then I threw up.

And then I threw up.

you get the picture.

So we were back of to hospital. After a 4 hour wait in emergency I got to have my blood pressure taken. Then I got to go back to the waiting room. then after another hour or so I got to see count Von Draculdoctor. I’m sorry is that mean? She was really very nice only I couldn’t help laughing when in and thick Slavic ascent she took my arm, stroked it with a wipe then said “ Rright my Dee-ar I am gowing tooo taaake your Bluuuud” After prodding around in my arm till it turned a lovely shad of purplely green she followed my advice and used the gigantic and very close to the skin vein in my wrist, what a novel idea! She also gave me a shot of Maxolon then guess what, I got to go back to the waiting room. See they break up the boredom now with jabs.

Eventually I was given a bed and a list of tests as long as my arm. There was some sort of debate about whether this could still be a reaction to the anaesthetic or if it was something else. But I really couldn’t have cared less what it was as long as they let me lie down and kept me topped up with fluids and Maxolon I was happy.

Then Count Draculdoctor popped her head in to say that she thought I was pregnant and the indescribable look that warped Glenn’s features was so priceless the whole experience was worth it. I assured her I couldn’t be but Glenn made me take the blood test anyway. So we have some news, I am totally and officially not pregnant.

In the end I think I won though because I got to have a reasonably peaceful night at the hospital with lovely people waiting on me hand and foot and Glenn got a blackout and 4 terrified of the dark hysterical children.

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Lani: “Shouldn’t he just borrow it”

Me: “Huh?”

Lani: “It’s nicer”

Me: “Yes it is but Nine isn’t nice, he’s always stealing one from the other number”

Lani: “Well my Nine doesn’t he just borrows it!”

I think we may be missing the point here.

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Lucy wasn’t in her web this morning, we couldn’t find her for a while mainly because we were looking up. Then I spotted her in amongst the dead leaves in a plant pot under her web. I had wondered a little about her the other day when she moved from her permanent position in the centre of her web to climb into the rafters. If a spider could look tired and worn out this one did, like she and lived her fill and now had one last job to do. I read Charlotte’s web as a child so I know what was coming once she made the slow climb up and disappear inside a crevasse for a while, I just hoped the kids wouldn’t feel quite as bad as Wilbur when the spider said good bye. 

It was all rather morbid really, whenever the kids curiosity or mine got the better of us we popped out to say hi and see how she was going. Eli said once “I think maybe she’ll climb back up now” but I said “No.”

Then when we checked on her after lunch she was still, her spark had left and she was gone. Literally within seconds the ants appeared clambering all over her body, taking positions in small groups around the base of each leg. Lani wanted them to leave her alone, and for a moment I was there with her. Visions of me chasing the nasty ants away from our friend and us giving her a proper spider burial filled my head. Instead I just talked quietly to the kids about the raw and harsh reality of world we live in. And after we said good bye we left the ants to their meal preferring not to starve another creature because of our sentimentality.

We chose instead to marvel over the craftsmanship Lucy showed in her web…

…and remember her hanging about in there keeping us company.

Good bye Lucy the Golden Orb Spider who spun us such an amazing golden web.

I’m thinking maybe its not such a good Idea to name all the creatures we observe for nature studies, what do you think???

Just as the sun was setting the kids called me out to look at Lucy’s web and there in the middle was this little guy not much bigger than a fly we choose to believe its Lucy’s.

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1. Introducing Lucy

Alanah’s spider face.

Sabrina’s spider face.

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Please, as you go about your day tomorrow as you plod through the run of the mill activities that comprise the extent of your daily lives, please pray. As you buzz around getting from one place to the next, as you prepare food, eat food, clean up after food, pray. Pray for little Finn the Fighter because tomorrow is a big day for him. Tomorrow he has surgery to remove  the neuroblastoma tumour that hid itself in his little belly.

Finn is a gorgeous little boy, brim full of pent up energy and strength beyond belief. I posted about Finn and the quest for a blue zebra here. He is a fighter and has taken every stage of his treatment in his stride, and his stride is fast, non stop. But there are some big steps ahead, surgery and recovery then stem cell transplant. I wish I had the skills of the doctors and could rip the ugly thing from his body myself but I am lacking, without, useless. So I will pray and I will hope and I will ask you to do the same. Please pass on this prayer.

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We found Lucy on New Years day, I’m thinking she’s a Golden Orb Weaver. She has strung up her massive web in the sun room and we have been studying her daily ever since. In this photo the children are learning that Orb Spiders do not eat noodles. Eli thought he would share his lunch with her as he thought her choice of Fly Sandwich wasn’t very appetizing. However she thought the same about his noodle and once she finished sucking on her fly she deftly removed the offending human food from her web and threw it back on the table.

Lucy a few weeks later and almost twice the size. The kids were amazed to see her catch a dragonfly larger than herself and eat it. Mind you if you want to see what the giant Orb can get up to have a look here, that’s Australian wild life for you. We have also noticed she’s not the best at house work never cleaning her web instead preferring to leave trophy carcases in a long line behind her. 

Interest in our new guest has sparked a lot of trampoline entomology lessons. Look at that Science/ nature studies/reading and I haven’t had to plan a thing.  

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