Thursday, July 23, 2009

Looking Back

Looking Back_0158

I missed the anniversary of my blog again! If I was my blog I'd consider breaking up with me.

When I started this blog 3 years ago, Cherub was a happy little 2 year old, still sleeping in a cot and just moving on from saying lots of words and little sentences to having proper conversations. Climber had just started school and was performing in his first school concert as well as doing his first ever school holiday program - soccer, it was. I only had the one Kiddy Tap Class and a couple of Grown-ups' ones and Fixit was still a Motorbike Mechanic.

One year in to this blogging malarkey and 6 year old Climber had been losing his baby teeth, performed in another school concert and done some more soccer clinics. Cherub was a 3yo, going to creche a couple of times a week but pretty much my constant companion, and a delightful one he was too. I'd started a second Kiddy Tap class, and Fixit was still on the Bikes, but wanting out.


Two years in and Bertie Wooster had joined the family (although he's currently been AWOL for 2 nights and we are missing him, send Go Home Vibes to him, won't you please), Cherub was a big 4 year old Kinder Kid who could ride a bike with trainer wheels, Climber was 7 and in Grade 2, learning to manage his distractability in class and playing soccer all winter instead of just in the holidays. My Tap School was growing nicely and Fixit had changed careers from the Bikes to the Planes, and at this stage it was not going too badly...




This year, Fixit is trying to steer his course through the disaster that is his aircraft apprenticeship and holding out for a transfer in the near future. Meanwhile my Tap School is doing pretty well and the Kiddy Classes are now my best earner instead of the little side project I started so that my boys could learn! My children are 5 and 8, in Prep and Grade 3 respectively, and this feels like the Golden Age! Nappies are a dim, distant memory, and when I look back on the days when they were both small I feel slightly staggered by how much work it used to be: all that cleaning and feeding and wiping and tending and lifting and carrying and soothing, all the live-long day. Someone should tell all those parents with young 'uns that it actually DOES get easier! It really does. Have I told you about how we can sleep-in on Sundays because the children can just look after themselves for a couple of hours? Or how if I need a lemon for dinner I can send one or both of the kids out to the lemon tree to get it for me? How Cherub will always put my pyjamas and slippers away if I ask him? How Climber took on listening to Cherub do his home reader in the car on the way to school because we forgot the night before and wrote the comment in the little book and everything? It's bloody great, I tells ya.

Cherub on the Monkey Bars

The Climber  129

It was funny looking back to the past three July-posts. In one sense things haven't changed much: school concerts, trivia nights, school holidays -and school holiday programs & haircuts. Here it is July again and I am just recovering from the school holidays and about to belatedly get the boys' hair cut (having mucked up their usual school holiday appointment), I'm helping Cherub's class prepare for their first ever school concert, and casting about for people to join the team for the forthcoming Trivia Night, etc etc. But on the other hand, the boys have grown so much and come so far since the day I posted my first blog entry. The changes in them continue to astonish and delight me. Every time I wish I could bottle them now, right now! because they're so lovely, they grow and become even more wonderful. I'm very glad I started this blog, because in a way, I have bottled them.

Vive Blogging! Joyeux Bloggiversaire a moi!

31 comments:

  1. Isn't it great to look back over the year that was?
    I read some of your posts and think that our boys and lives are at such similar places, right down to sending a boy into the backyard to pick a lemon, or as is often the case for me, a bay leaf.
    Even the weekend mornings are similar and now I can't wait for when they are old enough to bring me in a cuppa.
    Happy 3rd anniversary. I look forward to reading along with the 4th year.

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  2. I love this little retrospective post :) I've just moved from the 'sad to be finished having babies' spot in my head to the 'happy to be moving on to the next phase' spot.

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  3. And I am very happy to say that I have been there through it all! I think you and I started bloggin just weeks apart. Unlike dumb old me, though, you didn't get all huffy puffy and delete your wonderful blog mid way through.

    I hope Bertie comes home! I know, as you know, how worrying it can be. Little buggers they are, they put us through so much! He'll come home and act like it's YOUR fault he is so hungry!

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  4. Happy 3rd Bloggiversary!

    A great look back at the things I missed before I started reading your fabbo journal.

    Here's to more bloggiversaries and all the stories they bring.

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  5. Our Daphne was missing for two or three nights a while ago, then came strolling in as though nothing was out of the ordinary. If I wasn't so pleased to see her I would have killed her!

    Happy bloggiversary!

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  6. Joyeux Bloggiversaire indeed! I'm so glad that the parenting gig gets easier. I'm still exhausted! And I hope things work out for Fixit. Airplanes aren't that bad, are they? (They've been good for me, anyway, way over here on the other side of the planet.)

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  7. Happy Blogiversary!! Yes - it does get easier and isn't it wonderful!!

    I only wish I had started blogging 10 yeaers ago (was that possible then?) - to have recorded more of what happened in our lives!

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  8. This is reason 8 out of 34 it is great to blog. Capturing the smaller moments of our lives - aaaaaaaaaaaagh! like just now I could blog about how d/Boy has walked in with cereal dribbled down the kit he is wearing to a nsoccer clinic this morning!!!!!!!

    Glad to have been a long for your rode for the last little bit.

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  9. apologies for the typos I was just a little distracted ;-)

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  10. Happy Bloggiversary!

    I'm a relative newcomer, but its lovely to see the backstory and your sweet boys from 3 winters ago.

    Vive le Blog indeed!

    (ooh my WV is dingstap)

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  11. Most wonderful bloggaversary to you and Bertie, go home, they worry about you!

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  12. happy blogiversary!
    i have a one-year old. so glad to hear it gets easier! thank you!

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  13. I started blogging when I was pregnant with Monet - practically 5 years ago now to the day!! 5 years on, it is nice to read back and remember all the things we've done and gone through, just like you!

    Congratulations on 3 years of blogging. The blog world is a better place with you in it! :-)

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  14. Go home Bertie! They're so annoying when they do that. I love looking at the photos of the boys growing up; but they're still just the same!

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  15. Happy 3rd birthday Stomper..This is a wonderful family diary for you all to look back on in years to come...your boys are beautiful..and such good friends for each other.hope Bertie returns from his wandering soon..

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  16. Well I have been reading for at least the last two years and am a bit frightened at how quickly the time has past - I remember some of those older photos so clearly.

    Happy Blogiversary dear Stomper - you are indeed one of the lights in my blogging world.

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  17. Happy blogiversary!

    Hope that Bertie Wooster shows up!

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  18. I missed my blogiversary last month too. Happy blogiversary to you dear Stomper, and I hope that badass beastie comes home soon.

    Those Burmese are too cocky for their own good sometimes.

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  19. Happy Blogiversary! I'm so glad you're here!

    (and ahh! Those faces!)

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  20. Happy Bloggiversary to you! I know what you mean, about the changes. When I started blogging my boy was 8 and my girl was 6, and look at them now! I've been blogging for nearly half the girl's life so far. Blows my mind!

    Oh, and I hope Bertie Wooster comes home soon. Naughty cat!

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  21. I was thinking the same thing as Mary. I can't believe I've been reading your blog for over two years!

    Happy Blogiversary to one of my favorites. Your posts are always well-crafted and thought out and I envy them so.

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  22. Happy Anniversary! Great pics. And the eyes on those kids...oh my..gorgeous!

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  23. This blog post felt like a retrospective episode of happy days and I loved it! How amazing the growth and change and how beautiful the similarities and cohesiveness. I'm certain you brought a tear to your blog's eye and it will never break up with you...

    (my word verification in LARFS in honour of the sense of humour which infuses your blog posts)

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  24. GO HOME BERTIE. (As a veteran of wayward cat episodes, I feel very qualified to tell you to keep hope. Two months it was for us last time...)

    Happy bloggiversary. A lovely look back on the past three years.

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  25. Sending go home vibes to Bertie....

    I'm sure I've had a blogiversary by now, not sure when though.

    Anyway happy blogiversary to you, it is a wonderful record of your family goings on...

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  26. I've loved reading you blog, too. It'll be a great source of memories for your family.

    Happy 3 years blogging :-)

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  27. Happy Anniversary.

    It's always amazing to look back and see how much things change, but also stay the same. Eg, your boys stay very cute.

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  28. I LOVE THIS POST. Thank you for reminding me (in my dark and vomit-smelling pit of despair) that life does move on, sometimes while we're not looking. Kids grow up all too soon, and every age mine have been I've loved.. you have such gorgeous boys. Mum to mum, Well Done :)

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  29. Happy bloggiversary! May there be many more.

    Great looking back at all the photos and milestones. I hope that Fixit's situation turns around ASAP, and that Bertie will be home sooner rather than later. I don't remember if Bertie ever had that significant "date" with the vet, but if not, perhaps romance is in the air.

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  30. Happy anniversary. I think it is such a great way of keep ing track of so many little things. Viva - yes indeed.

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Don't let the cat get your tongue.