Anthony Malloy

I made scones for the first time today. I forgot to take a photo but you’ll have to trust me that they were delicious. Light and fluffy on the inside, just the right amount of crunch on the outside. On second thoughts you don’t have to trust me, ask Marita, I made them for her. We had them with jam and cream and a nice cuppa tea. A lovely way to spend the day.

I am in such a wonderful mood tonight after a fantastic afternoon. Today was Bert’s first football game at the MCG and he loved it.

The parking gods were against us but thanks to the stellar efforts of The World’s Best Brother In Law And Uncle, Rob, who parked that car, Bert got his face painted and we were able to see the boys run through the banner. He was full of confidence until we walked in to the stadium proper. It was the biggest building and most people he had ever seen, and then when the roar went up for the start of the game he didn’t know what to do. He clung tight, a little overwhelmed and unsure of where he was and what was going on.

As the first quarter unfolded, and Uncle Rob found us, he began to warm up and not cling so tightly. When we moved upstairs for cover he really began to enjoy himself. He watched the game, played with Uncle Rob, clapped when we scored a goal and even yelled out ‘Go Richo!’ at random times. We kept him going with snacks and drinks all day and a  little footy and ‘I Heart Tigers’ badge from the shop made him smile. He’d had enough by three quarter time so we walked back to the car, grabbing him a jam donut on the way.

Thanks Rob, Bert loved having you there and it meant a lot having you as part of the day. The best moment though came as we drove home. Without prompting he piped up “That was fun.”. My boy is now undeniably a Tiger and while he’s too young to have this day as a memory it’s an afternoon I’ll never forget.

This weekend is the last weekend of my long service leave. I’ve been at home for six months with the kids, managed to survive a cold winter to see Spring announce its arrival over the past week or so and become very comfortable in my new uniform of jeans and windcheater. So, after this time you think I’d be beginning to get organised, beginning to feel down at the thought of leaving the kids, beginning to think corporate as opposed to kids again.

But I’m not doing any of these things.

On Friday morning I resigned from my job.

After 16 and a half years I’m leaving Cabrini.

It was both an easy and hard decision to make. I loved working at Cabrini, it is a great employer and a wonderful place to work. I’ve made lots of great friends there and the people are the thing I will miss the most. I’ve had great opportunities since I started in the food service area, setting up patient trays and cleaning them off when they came back. Seems such a long time ago now.

So, with four kids to feed and both rent and mortgage to pay why on earth wouldn’t I go back? It’s the modern working mothers problem – childcare. If I was to go back to work full time we would have to place all three kids in full time care. While we could get places easy enough after we ran the figures it turned out that I would be working for a dollar an hour. And that’s without taking day to day costs in to consideration. This realisation also came as a relief. We know the child care where they would have been going and how wonderful they all are but I hated the thought of the kids being in care for so long, five days a week. Call me old fashioned but I much prefer the idea of them being at home with me.

So, how on earth am I going feed the family and pay the mortgage? That’s easy, I’m leaving it to Rae while I lie on the couch and watch Dr Phil and Ready Steady Cook. Nah, couldn’t do that. Until the kids are all at school I will be juggling child care duties with running my own web development and management business. We have a nanny for a few hours a couple of days a week and nana another so I can get work done uninterrupted, then there’s evenings and weekends. It will be tough replacing a full time income with one built around two or three days work a week but we will make it work.

It’s going to be a scary and exciting time ahead so if you know anyone who needs a web site, small (see www.mightier-than.com), medium (www.melbourneice.com) or large (www.cabrini.com.au) tell them to give me , Between Coffees Web Design, a call. Or if you want to meet for a coffee I’ll be free pretty much any time.

Now it’s time for a deep breath, look forward and here we go.

If you have three kids in your house aged three and under then is most likely what the underneath of your couch looks like.

And if it doesn’t, I want to know your secret.

From www.willdrawanything.com.

He nailed it. All I asked for was ‘me between coffees’.

Time to spice up this blog a bit and to let you all in on a bedroom secret. This is what Rae and I did last night in bed.

We went through the list of our wedding guests and counted up which football team had the most supporters present. How’s that for spice!

For the record it was Essendon with 6 followed by a draw between the Tigers and Bulldogs on 5 each.

Last week when Veronica and Steve had a look at our house (and Daniel and Marita tried to) we were happy that one wall of our garage had bricks on it and there were a few bricks down one side. As we drove out for our weekly inspection this morning we weren’t expecting much, it has been an atrocious week weather wise and the most we hoped for were a few more bricks down the side.

Didn’t we get a shock.

Bad weather or not the house has suddenly had a massive spurt and we were like giddy children running around looking at all that had been done.

In this past week the garage wall was completed, the side wall was completely bricked up, most of the back and other side are well under way, insulation had been installed in all of the walls, the central heating unit was installed, the evaporative air conditioning has been installed, all power points and light switches have been wired, flexible ducting is in place for the vents and some plastering has commenced.

Wow.

 

Twice this week I’ve had the comment made to me along the line of I must be happy to go to work and leave the kids with mum to look after. Both times I’ve pointed out that actually it’s Rae who works and I’m home with the kids. Both times there’s been the slightest look of surprise before the person regained their composure. Makes me laugh.

Rae’s out tonight so I’m home alone.

SThe kids are all in bed so it’s aged cheddar, bottle of merlot and The Stepford Wives (if you have to ask which version, shame on you).

6 weeks after they were first promised we finally have bricks!

There’s also water and gas pipes and it looks like the plaster goes up this week. Our house is coming along, just ask Veronica and Steve who got the tour today.

Update. Just found out Daniel managed to find the house without a map – that’s impressive Daniel.