Sunday June 27th, 2010
It’s been a full two months since I last wrote. As much as we’ve been immensely busy, I’ll try to keep the update to a reasonable length and focus only on main points.
Firstly, the renovation. In the past 10 weeks we have removed a staircase, two kitchens, three bathrooms, multiple windows, brick walls, and interior walls. We’ve converted a bedroom into a bathroom and a bathroom into a bedroom. We’ve removed a laundry and created a new one, put in a new doorway (or two), removed a front doorway, built a new kitchen and bathroom, and who knows what else! In total we’ve spent tens and tens of thousands of dollars. We’ve had ups and downs, tradesmen who can’t do things right, tradesmen who don’t show up when they should, and more costly decisions to make than anyone would typically make in a year – perhaps even a decade.
We’ve been forced to move out of our home for a little over a week because of a lack of water, electricity, and other facilities. We’ve stressed, sweated, and even bled (I cut my finger and got a few splinters) through this renovation. For all of the effort though, things are finally almost at a point that we can resume a sense of normality. Our kitchen was completed last week, as well as our laundry. Our en-suite was completed a couple of weeks ago. And if our tradespeople show up we should finally complete our other bathroom by the end of this week. From this point we only have cosmetic changes to make. We’ll commence them once we save some more money.
Despite the relative incompletion, we’re far enough along now to be thrilled with what we’ve done and also to be able to really enjoy living in what has become an entirely new home!
It would be ungrateful of me if I failed to mention the amazing help we’ve had throughout the renovation. So many members of the church have cooked meals for us and helped out in other ways. We’ve been given a home to live in for a week when friends went away. This meant we could get out of our unliveable house while friends holidayed. It was wonderful. In my last update I mentioned the help Kylie’s family had given, particularly her sister and mum. My folks have also been wonderfully helpful. And a family friend, an electrician, has donated countless days and expertise at no charge to completely rewire our home. I’m sure there are more people who have been involved in blessing us. We have been looked after so well, it’s humbling.
In terms of family, our precious Lilli Emma is growing perfectly. She is happy, healthy, and a big fatty! She loves sleeping and feeding. She does everything a 10 week-old baby should do and is a dream to look after. Her night time sleeps range from six to nine hours and we have not been sleep deprived at all due to Lilli. She is really laughing a lot now and making huge amounts of eye contact. Her smile delights us, and we hang on every moment we get to spend watching her in the hope she’ll give us another one.
Annie has struggled significantly through the past few months. The changes have been enormous for our precious two year-old. As the renovation progressed Annie became distressed that her house was “broken”. She wanted the stairs back, and the walls, and doors, and bathrooms and so on. It has taken until this week for her to finally seem satisfied that the house is being put back together nicely. For our angel Annie, the renovation has been coupled with a new little sister. This has caused some difficulty for Annie too as she’s come to understand that she’s no longer the baby in the family. We’ve seen her throwing a lot of tantrums. We’ve dealt with her becoming quite free with her fists and feet too, kicking and punching her sisters and even Kylie and I. Again, this is slowing down as she comes to terms with the huge changes, so we’re patient with her, knowing that she’ll work through things soon enough. Annie is still delightfully cute and keeps us staring in wonder at the amazing little girl she is.
The changes at home have had minimal effect on the three older girls. Ella is progressing remarkably well in her first year of school. She grasps all of the required concepts well, is reading far more proficiently than we had expected, and seems to be thriving. In fact, Ella has gone from being unable to recognise any words to participating in scripture study quite competently in just two months. She loves to shout out all the words she recognises as we drive, and when she doesn’t recognise a word Ella reads the letters and asks what they all spell! As has always been the case Ella is not doing so well socially, but again she’s above our expectations and seems to be doing reasonably well. She certainly could do a lot worse.
Abbie has been her usual quiet seven year-old self. While there is little to report regarding Abbie, she has continued to do well at piano and school.
Chanel, as the eldest, always seems to have lots of things going on. Her school experience seems constantly positive. Her piano progress has been amazing, and her passion for it is gratifying. I love the fact that Chanel cannot walk past the piano without playing a few bars of whatever song she is learning. It drives me crazy because of the constant noise and because she’s stalling on what she should otherwise be doing. But she just wants to play – all the time! Chanel loves it and is doing well.
Last Saturday night we had our Illawarra Cycle Club presentation night. We were concerned about taking the family because of our previous experience with functions. All too often people have carried on with behaviour we’ve felt was inappropriate and we’ve taken our children and left. We decided to give this one a go, and it was a real treat! It was a wonderful night. Chanel came home with four huge trophies! Motivation for cycling has been ebbing recently, partly because of the cold, and partly because riding a bike is actually pretty hard work. Now, with a fresh reminder of success Chanel is extremely motivated and itching to ride whenever she can!
Kylie is doing a remarkable job at holding our family together through the chaos. She looks after Lilli as well as the rest of us, maintains our home, and has still managed to cook meals even when we didn’t have a kitchen. I am amazed at the way she is able to keep us functioning in spite of our circumstances. Kylie has been itching to have some time to enjoy things herself too and it has been great to be able to watch her have a bike ride in the past week as well as attending a few functions and parties with friends.
For me, I’m making steady progress on my PhD. My teaching commitments are concluded, as is the marking I’ve done. I really hate marking. It’s the most painful thing I have to do. In the next couple of weeks I’ll be attempting to determine the degree of reliability a survey I’ve developed possesses. My entire PhD really hinges on getting this right. So it is an understatement to say that I’m a little nervous about what the next couple of weeks might bring. I start collecting data on Tuesday.
And that’s really about all. It’s been a huge couple of months. But today, with most of the work completed, I’m feeling relaxed. We feel blessed.
Oh, nearly forgot to mention... on occasion Kylie and I have shared a kiss together. Sometimes it has been in the car, or the kitchen. When we kiss, if there is a little pair of eyes looking at us we inevitably hear a sing-song chorus of little girls singing “Kissy, kissy, kissy! Kissy, kissy, kissy!” over and over again. We love each so much, and we love to be affectionate. We aren’t exhibitionists, but we love that our children can see our love for one another. And we love that they think it’s wonderful! I’m sure the response will be different in a few more years...
