Bless This Kid

Last night after brushing Mac's teeth he started gargling some water. I have never seen him do this before.

So I ask him, "Mac who taught you to gargle?"

"Mr Bean" he said.

Do you think he watches too much TV? If he is watching Mr Bean goodness knows what he will do next. Stay tuned....

He has also started winking. Like, all the time. When I picked him up from school today his teacher tells me I need to take him to the Doctor, she said he has been winking all day. I told her that he is doing it a lot, just to be cute. Such a cheeky boy. Lets hope thats all it is.

When we left school today he asked if we could take his fav teacher home with us. Imagine having your very own grown up to play with that will let you do just what you want all the time. Oh, hang on, he has and her name is Margaret.

Time To Be Grateful

Ok, Today is a new day and enough with my "Pity Party" from two days ago.

It's time to be Thankful. Sometimes it's so easy to see the bad things that life deals you and harder to focus on the good. So for me it time to be "Grateful" and give thanks for all the good things God blesses me with on a daily basis.

Clean Fresh water

Good food

A wonderful hard working husband

Sweet kids

Sunshine

A comfy bed to sleep in

Amazing experiences

A driver and a car to get around these Indian roads safely

Margaret, my rock and god loving maid

A wonderful school for my kids

Moisturiser, lipstick and mascara

True friends

Supportive Family

My Sister always there to encourage me

Coffee

Chocolate

So it looks like I have heaps to be grateful for.

What are you grateful for?

Trouble in Paradise

Today has been a typical TII ( This Is India) day. Haven't had one for awhile so I figured it was about time to have another annoying, difficult, frustrating day in paradise.

I am struggling with a chest and sinus infection at the moment so that didn't help my temperament.

The first issue with my day was when I went to the ATM to withdraw RS 15000. The ATM would only give me 40 notes at one time. This meant 40 Rs100 notes at a time. So after having to make 4 different withdrawals I was getting a tad peed off. Especially when I ended up with 160 notes bulging in my purse. Then to top it off the woman who had so rudely pushed in front of me in the cue, tries to hand me her business card. A weight loss center. Oh, how rude can these people get????? I then go into the bank to make a complaint and wait in line for 10 mins. My phone rings with a call that I had been waiting for, so the lucky complaints guy got out of a good old ear bashing from me.

I got home to find my favourite nightie has got stuck in the activator in the washing machine and the door handle on the fridge has broken off. So I make a call to the Westinghouse call center to get a repair guy to come and rescue my nightie. As usual the call center girl and I have much difficulty understanding each other, I hope someone will be here within the next 24 hours. We will see.

When going to use the phone I find it also is not working so another call to a supposedly English speaking call center. Oh the joys. The complaints operator told me someone would be here to rectify the problem before 11.30, was that am or pm?

Next thing that happens is the cable guy comes to collect the money for our cable bill and of course I have used every last RS100 note. I tell him he will have to come back on Thursday, the date that the bill is due to be paid. They are not silly every month they come a few days earlier than the bill is due and this means in the long run so far we have probably paid for a extra month easily....

Thank goodness tomorrow is a new day.

Desperate Measures

Reading my local Aussie newspaper online this morning I came across this........Hilarious


Man sues after Lynx fails to attract girl
news.com.au
2 November 2009
AN Indian man claims he has been cheated by the cosmetics firm that makes popular deodorant Lynx after failing to land a girlfriend for the past seven years.
Vaibhav Bev has been using Lynx deodorant since 2002, in the hope the company's promotional campaign - which features scantily clad women throwing themselves at men - had some basis in real life. Mr Bev is suing the maker of Lynx - marketed as Axe in his home country - for more than $100,000, seeking compensation for "depression and psychological damage". "I used it for seven years but no girl came to me," he told the Daily Record. Indian compensation lawyer Ram Jethmalani advised the company that makes Axe, Unilever, to settle out of court. He said any claims by Unilever that Mr Bev failed to find a girlfriend because he was unattractive were unlikely to succeed. "In fact, some of the best-looking women have been known to marry and date absolutely ghoulish guys," he told the Daily Record. Unilever has so far declined to comment on the case.

Mac the Fish

We can't believe this little boy of ours. He has no fear and after a week in Thailand his swimming has improved so much. He spends more time under the water trying to duck dive to the bottom that he does above the water.

Now to try to teach him not to dive into the shallow end.

A Spooktacular Halloween

The kids are getting to experience all sorts of new fun things while going to a multicultural school. Friday they got to dress up and celebrate Halloween.

I put my hand up with a bunch of other Mums, to help out in Sams class and do a Halloween craft activity and afternoon tea. The kids all had so much fun dressing up and doing a lap of the school Trick or Treating.

Eliza being in year 7 got to attend the Middle School Halloween Dance. By the sounds of things it was a fun night (not that I get told much these days) and they too had fun dressing up.

Eliza and her friend all dressed up for the Dance

Today the Halloween festivities continued and we all attended a Halloween Brunch at one of the bih hotels in the city. It was organised by a few of Mums from school who did an awesome job. Once again the kids got all scary and had heaps of fun doing lots of scary crafty stuff.

Mac and Ryan the Superheroes

I got the chance to have a cuddle of a dear little 8 week baby named Brooke. So sweet. Mac would have love to have taken her home with us. I take my hat off to Brooke's Mum and Dad, what a huge thing it is to have a baby, let alone doing it all on your own in a foreign country. They are doing a great job. So I had my baby fix and got to hand her back.

Andrew and I even went out on Saturday night on our own for dinner. Eliza got paid very well to stay home with her brothers and 'brothersit'. All went well, no fights and we were really proud of them. We were only 10 mins away and we had got Mac to bed before we left so it was only Sam that Eliza had to deal with. It was so nice to be out, having a meal in the company of other adults with no kids falling asleep at the table.

Andrew, Graeme and Adrain with one of the waiters at the restaurant.

They were giving these Devil's horns away at the night club where we were out for dinner, I couldn't help myself. The kids love them

So that was how we spent a very busy week in Chennai, between rolly polly balls and scary kids I'm bushed......time to put my feet up.

United Nations Day

Thursday the 29th Oct we celebrated United Nations Day at AISC. And what a big day it was. The kids all decked out in their country's national dress and the Mum's all got on board and produced food on mass, enough to feed 1000 we were told. For us Aussie Mum's that meant rolling hundreds of rolly polly balls. I took on a friends batch also, as her schedule was fast becoming outrageous and so Margaret and I stood and rolled about 300 balls. Thank heavens for her, we are quite the team, her rolling, me coating. All done in no time and the mess cleaned up pronto.

The day started with a parade of the different country's flags and Eliza got the honour of being a flag bearer along with 2 other Aussie kids, one from High school and another from Elementary school. Then we were blessed to hear some lovely singing from a 3 different grades and the school choir. 'It's A Small World' and 'We Are The World' never cease to bring a tear to my leaking eyes, especially when miles away from home.
(Oh, ok, I even cry at St Anthony's assembly's)

Then we Mum's got to work and set up for lunch to feed the school. It was great to see so many Mums getting on board to help. Us Aussies teamed up with the Brit's so it was fun to share the day with a great group of Poms...

We had the pleasure of being placed next to the Korean Mums and their Noodles and Sushi rolls, boy are they a funny bunch, one woman couldn't take her hands of our Cricket Bat and the rest kept pinching our Balls. (Rolly Polly's)

The kids are filed through with their plates overflowing, some more game to try something new and others happy with their own familiar food.

Here is a list of the food we all got to sample,

KOREA
Kimbop (rice roll)
Japche (noodles)

INDIA
Vegetable rice and raita (yogurt)

LATIN AMERICA
Totopos (chips) with salsa

EUROPE
SPAIN - Tortilla
DENMARK / SWEDEN / FINLAND - meatballs
FRANCE - Crepes
GERMANY- bread
ITALY - cold veg. pastas
U.K. & AUSTRALIA
Cucumber sandwiches, cottage pie, shortbread and rolly polly balls

JAPAN
Fried chicken and omelet, Vegetable and shrimp pancake and rolled sushi and sushi rice

U.S./ CANADA
Cookies and brownies
S.E. Asia
MALAYSIA – Lasilamak (Coconut Rice) with veg and non veg side dishes
THAILAND – Veg Phad Thai Noodles
SINGAPORE – Me siam (noodles)
PHILLIPPINES – Chicken adobo, Eggplant (Brinjal) omelet

TURKEY – Traditional Turkish Food