Sunday August 19th, 2007

I know the main question everyone wants an answer to. Has Kylie had the baby?

No.

Our due date is still ten days away (29th August), so we patiently wait. We still don’t know if we are having a boy or a girl. The anticipation and suspense is excruciating! But we are really excited, and I’m sure it won’t be long.

Chanel’s preferred names for the baby are Ryan or Lucy. Abbie likes Christopher and Shella. Ella has suggested Peter and Barbie doll. Kylie and I really have no idea what we’ll call a little girl. You’d think that after nine months we would have figured it out! If we have a boy he will be Christopher William, after his two grandfathers.

Kylie is doing really well. She is a little sore and uncomfortable. It is very unlikely that we will be doing this again! And the way that Kylie has looked after the family and our home in the past couple of weeks while I have buried myself in uni work has been amazing. I am so grateful for her.

Wednesday was a public holiday in Brisbane for the show. Unfortunately the children were sick, and have been for most of the week. We tried our best to give them a good time but they were more interested in whining and picking on each other and depleting the psychological and physical capacity of Kylie and I. It was tough! Ella was cute though. She was bitten badly by a green ant and was obviously upset by it. As I carried her home on my shoulders she began calmly saying, “Ow… ow… ow… ow… ow” every two seconds. Very funny, but she was in a lot of pain.

It seems that today the children are finally out of the woods with their sickness. Fingers crossed, because it is no fun when they’re they way they have been.

Chanel is having her baptism on the 27th of October. Today she began planning. She is really excited about it. We call her the “events coordinator”. Nobody loves to make arrangements like Chanel. She is always trying to organise play time with friends, and often telling us what she has arranged with other parents without checking with us first! It keeps us on our toes. But we love her enthusiasm and forward thinking. Chanel will be a force to be reckoned with as she gets older!

Chanel has recently done her school spell-a-thon. This year she personally raised over $250! All by herself. We encouraged her to set a goal, but she did the rest. She solicited sponsorships, she followed up to get the money. It has been incredible to watch. When she was at $220 we thought she had exhausted her money raising avenues. But she found a way to reach her goal. Amazing!

Decision time is looming for me. In about 10 weeks I finish my degree. I still cannot decide what to do next year. The Ph.D. is beckoning. It is certainly the harder road to take. Three more years of study. However I believe that it may be the better road. The credibility it offers is immeasurable. My family is still young enough for me to do it, and it will only get harder over time. On the flip-side, work is going really well. I love the job I have, and I have a few bookings coming up for speaking and workshops for parents which really excite me. I think I’ll put this decision off as long as I can.

Once again it has been an enormous week at university. I came home between 9 and 11 pm every night. Long hours, since I am there by 7.30 each morning. On Friday afternoon I decided to have an early mark and left at 4.30pm. I felt like a naughty kid sneaking off. But my productivity has been through the roof, and the long hours are over for now. Lots of work is done, and good progress is being made.

I had one experience this week while I was testing participants for my experiment that was a real highlight. At the completion of the experiment I began to explain to this particular participant what the experiment was really all about and how it was applicable to our lives. As I did so, she began to realise that the things she had said in her responses during the experiment indicated some things about her that she did not like. We were able to talk about it for quite a while and she left feeling like she could be a much better person as a result of doing my study. It felt terrific. I won’t bore you with the details of the study right now. Perhaps in a later blog in a few weeks once I have calculated all of my results. But it was a really great experience.

Our lives continue to show that we are blessed beyond deserving. Our beautiful family is healthy (again) and happy (especially Abbie). We have loads of great things to look forward to in the coming days and weeks, and I’ll update you again next week.