Loving the Holidays

A few months ago my gorgeous sister, Maz, moved to Napier with her partner.  These holdiays we were lucky enough to be able to stay with them in the their new house (which they had been in for only a week when we got there).  As Maz is not working at the moment, we got to spend lots of time just chilling out with her and seeing the sights of Napier.  The weather was near perfect with crisp cool mornings and gorgeous warm days.

Maz lives at Bayview, backing onto a vineyard and just a stones throw from the beach with it's glorious sunrises.  We took a trip up Te Mata Peak and went to Clifton beach for lunch and reminisced about the time we took the tractor ride out to Cape Kidnappers.  We had coffee in Ahuriri and the kids played on the playground.  We drove around some of the art deco buildings and walked along the waterfront.  We looked sadly at the closed up Marineland and wished that they could get some new dolphins and open up again.  We drove by Splash Planet and the kids cant wait to come back in summer to go on the slides.

We are so fortunate to have such a wonderful holiday destination so close to home and we count our blessings that now we can go there every holidays to see my sister.

Attempting to link up with Paisley Jade this week.

Winter Ills and Hospitals

When Emma came home from school yesterday she looked pretty tired and within about 15 minutes was asleep on the couch.  She had been at a ripper rugby tournament all day, so I thought she was just exhausted.  She hadnt eaten much all day either.  After a few hours of dozing on and off, she ate a little bit of dinner.  While I was putting the other two to bed and having a fun time, hubby was sitting with Emma.  Then he comes up and says "I'm really worried about Emma, she just drifted off mid sentence...". 

A quick temperature test showed she was up to 39.5 C and we cant get more than a vague groan out of her.  A quick call to healthline said get her to hospital.  A dose of pamol and the ambulance guys turn up, temp already coming down 38.6C.  A trip to North Shore Hospital, temp continues to come down, bloods and urine taken.  Bloods come back clear but urine shows a UTI.

Its about 12.30am now, the dr says she is happy to admit her for observation but we will have to be transported to Waitakere - I'm like, you cant be serious that's like over 1/2 an hour away.  After talking with Emma's Doctor, I decided to take her home and do the observations myself.  They gave her antibiotics on discharge and her temperature stayed down.

Because of her medical history and especially because she is on Methotrexate, the doctor contacted Starship and we now have an open letter so she can be taken straight to Starship by ambulance should she get sick again.  Methotrexate is an immunosuppressant drug so her body cant fight illness like others can.

There is no peadiatric facilities at North Shore hospital now, not even an over night observation room, or a pediatician yet the ambulance still has to take sick kids to North Shore hospital as it is the closest, then if they need admitting they have to go to Waitakere, not Starship which is about 15 minutes away, because North Shore is part of the Waitemata Health Board, not the central one.  How crazy is that. 

Fussy Kids, Food and Famine

I've been stewing over this for a few days now.  A friend of Emma's has been making comments to her recently about the food I give them for afternoon tea when she comes to play.  "Why does your Mum always give us fruit for afternoon tea?".  Well this week it got worse.  She didn't want to come to our house, prefering to go to another friends house where she knows she will get chips and chocolate.  Now I love chips and chocolate too, as do my kids, but in our house, you gotta eat the good stuff too. 

We eat fruit for afternoon tea because the kids dont like it in their lunches much.  So I usually put a platter of cut up fruit out as soon as they get home from school. My kids have little bits of fussyness with fruit - Bear doesnt like bananas and Dan's not a fan of grapes and Em is allergic to kiwifruit.  After compulsory fruit eating, there is always something else, it may be some home baking (muffins, scones, slices, biscuits), or crackers, sandwiches, toast, crumpets depending on what activities are to follow and what time dinner is going to be.  I dont think that this is unusal food to offer after school. Do you?  (Of course this food is put out only once lunch boxes have been inspected to make sure they ate all their lunch - if not, they must finish that before they get anything else).

I have been reading a few other blogs recently where people are struggling to find food that everyone likes and my kids have fussy friends and to be honest it just plain bothers me.  We deal with restrictions on food daily, yet we all eat the same dinner every night.  If dinner is not eaten, they cant complain about being hungry later, and there is no pudding or milky drink on offer.  Again they have fussiness - Em cant stand stirfry, but will happily eat all the veges raw with the cooked meat and rice/noodles,  Dan doesnt like mushrooms, so he picks them out and passes them to his sisters,  Bear just knows she has to eat it and usually does, she's not big on meat, so I only give her a little bit.

My kids are really good eaters (I mean really good, they think brussel sprouts are awesome and Em always picks them up and begs for them when we go to the vege shop....or is that just plain weird???)  as are most of our extended family, yet my kids seem to have lots of fussy friends.  Em's friend I mentioned above, never eats when she comes to my house, yet I can  usually tempt the other kids fussy friends with fruit of some description.  There will always be things we dont like - I hate sausages and processed meat like salami and a little bit of fussy is fine, but there is a boy in Dan's year at school who doesnt eat anything except those frozen chicken nugget things in the shape of chips ( he even took them to school camp.......).

What is going on in the world when here in our first world economy, we have kids refusing food and copious amounts of uneaten food thrown away. http://www.sustainability.govt.nz/rubbish/food-waste

In America there is an obesity problem which is spreading around the world. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/1082739.stm

Yet in Africa there is a famine. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/696803.stm
The children in Ethiopia and Somalia are again dying because there is no food to feed them and they are going at a 1000 a day into refugee camps where they recieve about a cup of some kind of gruel or rice.  The droughts have killed off their livestock and their crops and the prices of food at the markets are too high.  Here are some pictures of what life is like in East Africa at the moment. http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/gallery/2011/jul/08/east-africa-drought-in-pictures

We have banned the phrase "I'm starving" from our house, if it is mentioned they get a lecture about life in third world countries.  When they refuse to eat their dinner, we tell them again about the children in Africa who would love their dinner, and how it would probably be more food than they got in a whole day.  Em and I saw a documentary on the news recently about the children going to the Dabaab refugee camp.  She was horrified by the skinny arms and legs and misshapen bodies of the children.

I dont know what we can do about it on a global scale. Those mega corporates have a lot to answer for I think.  But I feel a little better knowing my family is appreciating the food that I give them, that we dont give in to all the prepackaged hype food that kids just have to have and that we have minimal waste (by modern standards, but I know we can do better).

Getting off my soap box now..... Just had to say something though.

Cross Country Champ - in my eyes anyway

Emma never lets things stop her doing the things she loves.  Despite being pretty unwell this year with her constant skin infections, she managed to finish the school cross country in a convincing first place.  Despite having a cold, despite being asthmatic, despite the conditions being less than ideal (mud city) Emma finished interschool country in 11th place.  She was really upset with herself, she was after a top ten finish.  I think she did really well as I never expected her to even make the interschool team after the year she has had.  And she is already talking about her next race...
I am always in awe of this child of mine.  Her spirit is phenominal (as long as she wants to do it).  She doesn't give up and she doesnt let things stand in her way.