An Egg with an Umbilical Cord?

Scientific breakthrouth!! Nahh, just a weird egg. We found this little number in our chook pens and could not quite work it out. I did touch it before I photographed it and it broke off so I had to sit it back where it was for this photo. It left a hole in the egg but otherwise the egg looked and tasted normal. Weird eh?

Meet Peanut

This is the newest member of our family, Peanut. A baby cockatiel that has a constant surprised look on its face. I love that crest. He or she cost a whole $20 and the cage I got from the dump recycle shop for $10. I am such a cheapskate.... get it CHEAPskate....oh yeah, I am so-o-o funny. (Not according to my family). I am hoping this baby will tame and talk.

The Lovely Husband said a very foolish thing recently when I thanked him for not complaining about yet another pet, and I quote "You can get as many animals as you like". Holy cow! It is lucky that I am a mature and sensible person otherwise I might take advantage of such a statement.

I have not worked out how to get a clear photo through cage bars yet so excuse the fuzziness of this one.

Depression and the Teenager

When the Dynamic Daughter started high school we were confident she would be socially OK and do well with her school work. What we had not counted on was her developing anxiety and depression. The Dynamic Daughter is young for her school year and was a little immature for her age.

Year 7 began for her with a heightened sense of stress and a perception of pressure to perform. This little person was in all the top classes and, as it turned out to her horror, she was not the smartest person in these classes. We had warned her but I don't think she really believed us. Her confidence in her ability was soon undermined. The Dynamic Daughter and I attended the parent/teacher interviews in second term. Her teachers were aware of her fears and insecurities and tried in vain to assure her. As an example of her insecurity, she received 12 and of 20 for a science quiz and immediately asked the teacher if she could retake it as her mark was not good enough. Once retaken she achieved 15/20 and was still not happy but chose not to say anything.

Towards the end of term 2 the Dynamic Daughter became quieter and was easily brought to tears. This little person would tell us that she hated high school, no-one liked her and she did not think she was very smart. Eventually she came to the conclusion that she was depressed. We knew she was not managing emotionally. I spoke to the school counsellor but holidays were a mere four days away and he would talk to her next term. The holidays were good, she became happy again and relaxed.

Term 3 began and the Dynamic Daughter went downhill fast. The counsellor began seeing her every week. He thought she had reactive depression. The Dynamic Daughter was hanging around some year 9 girls she knew and shunning her age group. I spoke to a friend about this who suggested that if she was comforted by this than let it be. The counselling continued for the rest of the year. Towards the end of the year her symptoms seemed to ease but she was at her best when not at school. Weekends and holidays were a huge relief for her. The last term was a successful one in the social arena. The Dynamic Daughter had finally established a group of friends in her class and year and seemed to be bonding well with them.

Unfortunately our finances were very strained and we had to pull our offspring out of the private high school and enrol them into a public one for the following year. The timing could not have been worse. We felt terrible guilt but could no longer afford the school fees.

Year 8 in the new high school began with a negative attitude by this young person. Again she hated high school, no-one liked her and she wanted to go back to the other high school or leave school altogether. The Dynamic Daughter had always gotten on well with her brother but was now angry with him all the time. He had settled in to the new school beautifully and actually preferred it. As much as we thought the previous year was stressful because of our financial issues this year was very hard emotionally. We hated having to move the children to a new school but sometimes we have to make these choices through necessity.

This was the year (2009) we took her to her paediatrician. Our daughter was diagnosed with depression and cyclothymia. The relief we all felt with this diagnosis of cyclothymia was amazing. Her emotional state was explained and we knew she was not alone. He referred her to a psychologist for treatment for her depression. It would take eight weeks to get in to see the psychologist and in the meantime her depression became quite profound. There is nothing quite as scary as a young teenager with depression. We were there for her in every way we could but we could not cure her. It was time to act. I took her to a counsellor in a family health clinic. It was just an interim solution until we could get into the psychologist.

The Dynamic Daughter bonded well with the counsellor. She had been very sorry to leave the school counsellor from her previous year and she quickly clutched onto this kind and understanding man. Unfortunately, as much as he helped her he also hindered our plans for seeing the psychologist. He wanted us to have family counselling, when in my and my Lovely Husband's opinion there is no issue with the family. As they say, "if it ain't broke, why fix it?". Without sounding conceited we have a healthy and supportive family dynamic and were not willing to mess with it. He also agreed with our child that she would be better off staying and seeing him instead of going to the psychologist as recommended by the paediatrician. He tried to tell me that "teenagers are often the best judges as to what is best for them". This little person was barely 13 and had never been to a psychologist in her short life. She was distraught with depression. How could he think to give her that kind of power? This is not a matter of playing a card game, it is the mental health of our daughter. He effectively made it an issue between our daughter and ourselves. He was less than professional when he rubbished psychologists and I was glad to be leaving him behind when the appointment for the psychologist arrived.

Depression is not magically cured, it is not necessarily a short term illness. The patient cannot always see the light at the end of the tunnel and finds it hard to believe that there is one.

The Dynamic Daughter visited the psychologist for most of the year. He was very patient and competent, friendly and understanding. Even so the young teen was resistant to his suggestions and ideas for coping. She did give some things a go but not with very much enthusiasm. Our daughter had become a half glass empty person. The sessions, which included myself or her father, were frustrating and enlightening, amusing and sad. But on the whole they were worth it. She was typical of a teenager in therapy apparently and eventually, with a lot of time and talking behind us she started to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

The Dynamic Daughter, who used to be involved in everything and anything, had stopped enjoying her friends, school and after school activities. She now has some beautiful friends at high school, quite a few of them know about her cyclothymia and accept her as she is. She has become involved in a charitable/social club at school and has taken up keyboard, singing and drama. She is writing songs, poems and now has enthusiasm for life. It was almost two years of hell for her, far too much for a young person to have to deal with. The two teenagers in our family get on beautifully once again. They laugh and talk together and share their possessions. We knew to have faith in the family and it has proved to be so. Instincts, sometimes, are worth believing in.

The Dynamic Daughter has matured during the one and a half years of difficulty, she has a new understanding of mental illness. Her ambition has returned, her laugh and her sense of caring for the world and the people in it and we are very proud of her.

The Emotional Rollercoaster that is our Girl

The Dynamic Daughter will be 14 soon. She is a delight to have around but she can also be emotionally exhausting. She has been diagnosed with Cyclothymia in the last 12 months and this has been an excellent explanation of her whole life. Cyclothymia is a mild form of bipolar. She has always been extreme in her emotions but unlike bipolar these extremes come and go fairly quickly. The paediatrician who diagnosed her also said that these people usually have an incredible empathy for others and a willingness to help and this is so true of her. Like any teenager she can be selfish, rude and difficult but her ability to care for and think of others is amazing.

Her birth was, as was her brother's, not easy so after 14 hours of unsuccessful labour she was born by cesarean section. It was a lot less traumatic than her brother's birth and she weighed a healthy 9lb 6oz or 4250g. But unfortunately, we had to have drama didn't we? At the age of 3 days the Dynamic Daughter developed a fever and started to twitch and jitter. For the next four days this twitching baby was kept in a humidicrib and subjected to all sorts of tests. Her life was never in danger but her quality of life was in question. It turned out to be a virus and she recovered from it. It took a few days for the Dynamic Daughter to stop flinching when she was touched because she had had many heel pricks for blood tests and a lumbar puncture.

When the Young Negotiator was a baby he was relaxed and happy when I left the room. He would amuse himself beautifully with his fingers, toes or whatever. Not so the Dynamic Daughter. Illogically, I thought they would be the same but they could not have been more opposite. The Young Negotiator, who was almost three when she was born, and I called her the hungry hungry hippo. Luckily he had plenty of patience. I was feeding this baby every 1.5 - 2 hours. Her appetite was insatiable. Her ability to be alone was negligible and her reaction to my leaving a room was instant. She screamed! But she was more or less a healthy and happy baby. After checking with the early childhood sister I started her on solids at three months just to get her to fill up.

Cyclothymia explains her early life beautifully. I think if I had had 10 children I would have realised she was extreme but I only had the two. People often said that boys are so much harder than girls to raise and I would always laugh at that.

At the age of three the Dynamic Daughter developed a habit of fainting. The first time she did it was at daycare while I was at work and she even stopped breathing. She had a battery of tests but all seemed normal. Eventually we worked out that the fainting was associated with blood or the discussion of blood whether it was hers or belonged to someone else. The nurse at daycare also realised that she was not walking properly. Through more referrals and physiotherapy visits it was discovered that she had a left-sided weakness and her fine motor skills were poor. Like her grandfather, uncles and myself the Dynamic Daughter has a tremor in the hands. All of this was not insurmountable. It was to make life interesting though. There were many faints up until late primary school age and then for some reason they stopped. (They have come back with the advent of hormones and when she experiences extreme anxiety). If we were quick enough we could talk her out of them. I know one day we were crossing a road on the way to the movies and I was holding both their hands. All three of us had been fooling around but when we started to cross at the crossing I asked them to stop. The Dynamic Daughter chose to ignore this advice and continued, only to trip me up. I fell on top of her on the road. My fall was cushioned by her little body but she unfortunately was bleeding and under my weight. Her injuries were not serious but she kept saying "I'm going to faint" over and over. We were in the middle of the road, it was hot, I had a little boy on one side and this over dramatic person on the other and I am thinking I don't think I can carry her (my back was crap). In my bestest and sternest voice I told her that if she fainted she would not get to go to the movies and we would just go home. The Dynamic Daughter recovered in record time.

When she was about four I took her to see The Hooley Dooleys concert (like the Wiggles) with a friend and her daughter. The concert was excellent and the kids loved it. The Dynamic Daughter was so excited that in the middle of a song where all the kids were dancing she commenced screaming louder and louder and more hysterically until it was like her head exploded and she collapsed in a sobbing heap on the ground. We were stunned. I held her on my lap and she cried and trembled for a good five minutes. That was the cyclothymia, it makes sense now.

At primary school she was over enthusiastic and her extreme excitement and enthusiasm made it socially hard for her. She had friends and got on with some of the other kids but would go into overdrive making it hard for some kids to cope. The Dynamic Daughter would come home from school and talk in such a manic way about everything that it was exhausting. But in a matter of seconds her mood could change to absolute sorrow and she would be crying inconsolably.

This little girl had amazing ambition and did very well in school. One parent told me that she would be voting for her one day. Her future plans were many and varied but were always very elaborate and exotic. The one ambition I remember her having was to be a Super Hero.

Children can learn fairly quickly what their peers will accept and adjust accordingly. The Dynamic Daughter took a little longer than most. As she got older she was able to adjust her behaviour to fit in. This change in personality in itself was tough, it was not the real her and this could possibly have lead to the depression she was to suffer for nearly two years in high school.

RIP Boris ......Ya' bully

Boris had to have his head removed from his body. My most naked necked of naked neck roosters became aggressive, but only with me. I raised him and his siblings from about 15 days old, fed them, cared for them, took their baby photos. Out of five chicks we ended up with four roosters. What are the chances eh? We gave one away which left us with three. Two more had to go but I was actually going to keep Boris. Until one day I turned my back on him and I felt a 'thump' on the back of my leg and turned around and there he was standing up to me. I ignored it once but it became a recurring thing. I was nervous around him. He would even run, in the way only a naked neck can run (which is quite funny), across the paddock to have a go at me. I did try walking purposely towards him but he would not back down.

Little featherless *^%#@~*! He had to go. That was a job for the Lovely Husband. He does not like it at all, poor bugger, but all is peace and tranquility again.


The young negotiator (my teenage son) tells me that he was not attacked because he is the alpha chicken. He does have the poultry following him every evening to put them away, it is very cute. The shirtless wonder with his earphones in his ears totally oblivious to the chickens and geese following adoringly to receive their share of scraps and grain.

We still have Norris and Frank. Frank has to find a new home but there is no hurry. Both roosters are well behaved. The teenagers have named the naked neck hen Steve. They say it is a rugged, tough name. She is the smallest of all the hens (I think she is a bantam) but the fastest out the door when it is opened and the first to get to the scraps/grain. She is a real chicken!

Birth of the Young Negotiator

The Young Negotiator is 16, turning 17 this year. He is a nice person, quiet and unassuming. He does well at school but his 'effort input' is quite sluggish and relaxed. He is not argumentative or difficult to get along with but he negotiates, man does he negotiate. It is all very polite and calm but every time we require something of large effort or of a big time user he has to negotiate with his father or myself. He has always done it. Even as a little fella' he would negotiate. I remember when he was preschool age he negotiated with his swimming teacher who stood about 1m in the water from the edge of the pool, where our little negotiator was holding on with firm determination, and asking him to swim the distance to her. "What if I just move along the side of the pool and I will get to you that way?"

His negotiating started in-utero. He was a large baby and was not coming into the world before he was ready. He was ten days late! Typical of him, no rush, no stress, no fuss. Had he been delivered on time or early he may well have fitted through my birth canal but no that was not to be. I was in labour for 48 hours because he was negotiating as to whether it would be warm enough or perhaps a bit bright for him out there. We went through a couple of shifts of the same staff at the hospital. The birth did not progress so they called in the obstetrician on call, who we shall name Dr Efficient but also Dr Lacks Bedside Manner. My strength was pretty much shot by this stage and so Dr Efficient tried a forceps delivery. Not successful, but when he tried to remove the forceps, one forcep arm did not want to come out. So off I go to have an emergency cesarean to have said forcep removed and, of course, the baby.

With the help of an epidural I had no feeling from the waist down. Dr Efficient had trouble getting the forcep out because the baby had threaded his arm through the loop at the end of the instrument. It was shiny and new and the baby liked it obviously. The baby was hard to get out because the contractions had wedged him tightly into the pelvis and he was LARGE and my pelvis not. I could feel no pain, like I said, but my body was being tugged and pulled at during the extraction of the little negotiator. (He is stubborn like his father). The first thing Dr Lacks Bedside Manner said when the baby was finally released from my battered body was "What a whacking huge baby!" He weighed 10lb 3oz or 4620g and he was 56cm long. Our firstborn had a concussion, split chin, footballers' eyes (swollen and nearly closed) and a paralysed left arm. My body was not much better. He was never in any distress before, during or after the birth. He had stitches in his chin and slept a lot. He fed four hourly and filled his nappy as babies do. He smiled and was easily amused. As babies go he was a dream. Nine months of physiotherapy fixed his paralysed arm. He had minor nerve damage but it is all good now.

We moved into our little cottage on the farm when he was six months old. The house is old and at the time needed renovating, rewiring and a functioning kitchen. It also needed screens on the windows. We had redback spiders, wasps and mosquitoes to deal with. It is not a project I would recommend to take on with a baby. For his first birthday we gave him (not literally) a set of kitchen taps. They know nothing at that age and the proud grandparents made up for any parental slackness.

Nothing much bothered him as a toddler, he loved to wear his sand bucket on his head and carry a broom so we called him Mr Bucket Head for a while. He would be easily amused and was happy with his own company from the beginning. His comprehension of life seemed amazing but I think children always amaze their parents.

He had a couple of minor mishaps. I had an old pram I kept for the paddock and our clothesline at the time was in the paddock with the cows. He sat in this pram while I hung out washing and the cows often visited him. A young cow rested her head on the shelter on top and fell asleep. One day I took him in this pram across the paddock to visit my neighbour. I was running, giving him a thrill. I assume he was smiling when the pram wheels unexpectedly hit an old and dry cowpat. The pram stopped suddenly and tumbled over, I fell to the side and the pram was upside down in the grass. I picked it up immediately to discover that the little negotiator's face had found a very new and fresh cowpat. The aiming could not have been more accurate. He started to splutter and spit and was tempted to cry. I cleaned him off as best I could and we commenced the run across the paddock again. He forgot to cry.

We used to have a male turkey, from an adjoining property, visit our chook pens and I knew nothing about them until one day it attacked the little negotiator and it was no longer welcome. There have been the odd rooster go him (they lived a short life) but all in all his life was pretty normal.

The young negotiator has tried different sports over the years. He is not a natural in the sporting world but has tried cricket, gymnastics, swimming, karate and is now a field hockey player. He has played hockey for about 6-7 years now. The only other sport he stuck at for any length of time was karate. He was only little and was inspired by those heroes of the screen, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He enjoyed the sport, he lacked the concentration and commitment required to achieve big things but was happy enough. His first sparring was memorable. He chose to spar his instructor who was a very tall teenager. We assume he picked the instructor because he knew that injury was unlikely to occur. On commencement of the fight the little negotiator rushed in, wrapped his arms around the young man's lower legs and sat on his feet. He sat there giggling and looked very pleased with himself. This is the kind of rumble that would happen at home with either parent and this obviously overrode any karate moves that were in his head. The funniest thing was that the instructor looked quite perplexed and had no idea how to respond. This little boy was not following protocol and it confused the instructor. We consider the little negotiator's first spar a win.

This year the young negotiator travels to Vancouver and LA for hockey. He applied to an organisation that takes teenage sporting teams overseas for different sports. It is not skill based but the simple act of applying and paying for it. He has a casual job in a supermarket and has paid for it himself. We are very proud his achievement. His team will be made up from teenagers from all parts of Australia and they will not meet until they travel together on the plane. They will play for the first time together in the first game against a Canadian team. He is beating his mother overseas! He has a passport. I don't have one. Cheat!

I'M BACK

Had a huge break over Christmas and New Year but am ready to get back into the swing of things.

Had good and bad Christmas. Had lovely friends, family and food - the three Fs. It was not stinking hot as it can be and we had fun.

On the down side my cat Cous Cous ate my canary Mr Peabody. My own fault. I left the cage door open by mistake and all I found was one satisfied cat and a few feathers. We were calling her "canary killer" for a few days. He was a lovely little guy.

My horse (the aforementioned Piece of Poop) has now been retrained and going beautifully and will be sold. She has been staying with a horse fanatic I met at a book launch. She was the author of a horsey book and when I emailed her about my Piece of Poop she wanted to meet me and we discussed her future. She is too much horse for me but would be an excellent pony clubber or ARC mount so she is on the market. This also saddened me as the outcome was decided the day after Mr Peabody's demise.

Mind you, we still have two miniature horses, geese, chooks and roosters, dogs and the cat. It is not as if I have any shortage of animals around me is it? But is it enough?

The geese, Bruce and Fanny, have me wrapped around their little webbed toes. They are so gorgeous and they love me you know. They are always excited to see me. They wait for me in the paddock if we happened to be walking in the same direction. These crazy geese have a very interesting habit of greeting our incoming or outgoing vehicles by running along side honking and flapping their wings. Apparently our vehicles leaving or entering the property is cause for celebration in the goose world. Our driveway is about 80 metres long and when we arrived home recently in one of our cars they came down to tell us something really exciting about their day of eating and pooing. They ran and flapped and called out to us with gusto but unfortunately they are not very agile. We had to stop the car suddenly to avoid a head-on with these crazy birds, one managed to veer off to the left but the other collided with a feathery thump on the other side of the car. Car and goose were undamaged but they are a bit more aware of the dangers of playing with traffic.

Every morning when I let Bruce and Fanny out to graze for the day I tell them at least two or three times that they are not coming into the yard as we walk together to the gate. Perhaps, four days out of the seven I mean it. They look at me, they talk to me, they wait patiently for me to open that gate for them. Damn it is hard. The best way is not to make eye contact.

We have a rescue greyhound who must not be fast enough on the track. We fostered her in 2006 and ended up keeping her. My daughter wanted to name her Layla (a lovely name indeed) but I like to give my animals names that I would not name a child. Anyway, having short-term memory loss at the time I could never remember the name I had picked and all I heard was my daughter calling her Layla. She learnt her name in one day and so did I.

This dog has been locked up in an old but comfortable shed at night when we go to bed ever since we adopted her. She has a lovely big bed, a biscuit and water. During the day she is with us in the house or in the yard with the other dog. Layla has developed separation anxiety. I don't know what happened but suddenly it was the worse thing in the world for her to go to bed at night. I don't think I appreciated the extent of her anxiety until I inspected the back of the door that faces into the shed. She had bitten and scratched it like a dog possessed. There is now a rabbit size hole in the bottom of the door. Her cot mattress that we picked up second hand for her to sleep on was ripped to a hundred pieces. One of the pushbike tires was removed from the rim and the tube destroyed. Wow, what a woman!

We decided to let her roam free in the yard at night for a few nights which we do not like doing. She is very well behaved but we did not want her bothering any wildlife and she tends to bark at the fruit bats, the possums, the wind, the imaginary axe-murderers, the foxes, who knows what! We lasted two nights. She wanted to come inside as well. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. She is one very loyal but large dog. We would be tripping over her in the middle of the night because she has to be as close to you as possible and that means your bedside.

We had to work out what to do with her. We decided on tough love. Controversial sure, would it be successful? We had to try. We can be tough you know. We have chased foxes through the paddock in the middle of the night to get our goose back. We chained her to her bed in the shed. I put an old piece of industrial carpet on top of her bed to protect it, we moved the bikes and we gave her bones instead of biscuits to take to bed. I even gave her an old stuffed toy. Does this sound tough enough to you? Man we were bristling with toughness. I would give her cuddles, a gentle talking to, her bone and leave the door open in case there was some claustrophobia happening. She cried, she whaled, she barked and then for good measure she cried again. I visited her once and told her to think good thoughts. This was our night time routine for almost a week. She is one stubborn hound. Eventually she eased off and has since stopped altogether. Told you we were tough. She still would prefer to stay in the house but will go out voluntarily now and I still give her cuddles and a little advice and she is back to the biscuits. Just don't look into their eyes I tell you.