Malachi's Marae Trip

This, sadly, was Malachi's last Kindy trip.  And I was glad I was able to go with him.  It's weird, the first trip we went on he looked so small and timid.  Now he's like the biggest kid there, and totally ruled the school.  Makes me a little sad, and a little proud.


As always, the bus ride was the best part of the whole day.  And for once Malachi wasn't paired up with a naughty kid.  He was with this cute little middle eastern kid that happened to be dressed exactly the same as Malachi.  It was awesome.  And he barely spoke english so I didn't ever have to tell him to be quiet.





It was cool for the kids to experience a Powhiri and the whole cultural experience of a Marae. It's something unique about New Zealand and I'm glad they make it a part of their education.

 

 

Malachi thought it was funny to hongi with people so he just shook their hands.





The kids from the kohanga did the cutest little show, and this one kid was hilarious and did the best pukana's I've ever seen.  Then they taught the other kids some songs and dances.


 

 

It was a fun little trip, short and sweet, just the way I like it.

Our little garden

As a kid we always had a garden, and usually quite a significantly sized one.  Both my sets of grandparents are huge gardeners, my mums parents are pretty much self sufficient when it comes to fruit and veggies their garden is so big.  So having a garden is normal.  However, having a garden in a home you don't own is not easy.  This year we took a different approach to gardening and went with buckets.  I got the idea from a Stake Relief Society Welfare activity, and it's worked really well for us.  We could have as many or as few as we liked, we could put them where the best sun was, and when we go to Tonga, I can pick them up, put them in my car, and take them to my sister's house for her to water while we're away.  Genius.

 

The kids had the best time helping to set it all up.

 

Malachi had some experience, as he's done this before at school, so he was really good about knowing how to dig a little hole to put the seedlings in.

 
 

Vili was super enthusiastic and wanted to give all the plants a drink.

Lani just loved the dirt.  She probably ate half a bucketful.  She was climbing all over the show, pulling out plants and having a grand ol' time.

 

 

 

We are only now starting to reap some of our vegies.  The boys have been so excited to see them grow and water them every day.  I love that they can see where food comes from and understand what goes into getting the food on our plates.  And of course it's awesome having fresh vegies on hand whenever I want them.

 

Vili's surgery

When Vili was about 6 hours old, I pushed the little red button to call the nurse in (a big deal because I NEVER push the button to call the nurse, it reminds me of slavery and makes me feel lazy) and said to her "I think there's something wrong with my baby, he can't breathe properly."  She assured me that it was just fluid and that it would clear.

Liar.

As I suspected, there was something physically wrong.  Vili was born with abnormally large adenoids.  I'm talking huge.  All of our video footage of him as a baby, you would think he had a constant blocked nose.  From day 1  he's been a mouth breather because his nose just wasn't an option.  From birth he's been a snorer - we knew he was asleep because he was snoring, if he wasn't snoring then he wasn't asleep.  He has never slept through the night because as he sleeps he closes his mouth, can't breathe through his nose, and so awakes gasping for air and crying.  And from the get go he has snorted, continuously throughout the day.  My family would joke and call him a little piglet, that's how often he snorted.  And with his nasal passages being as restricted as they were, if he ever did get a cold, it was all over red rover because his nose would be 100% blocked.

Add to this 8 ear infections in 12 months.  Ear infections so bad that once they tested his hearing while his ear was infected and it was a flat line, completely deaf.  This, along with the inability to breathe through his nose, had begun to affect his speech significantly.

Poor kid, right?
(Poor Mummy, too.)

And so took him to see an ear, nose and throat specialist who confirmed what I suspected - his nasal passages were 80% blocked by excessively large adenoids.  His name was put on the list of surgery and a few months later we got the call.

The whole thing happened so fast, we were only actually in the hospital for about 3 hours or so.  We went and checked in, got talked through it all, then he got to draw and play until they were ready for him.  He got wheeled in on his special bed into theatre.  I lay on the bed with him and hugged him and talked to him while they put him to sleep, and then I was ushered out of the room (with a few nervous tears in my eyes).  My sister had come to sit and wait with me, which I was really grateful for, because every time I  heard footsteps my heart would stop thinking "Did something go wrong? Is he ok?  Was he the 1 in a million kid where all the worst possible scenarios are realized?"




Clutching his new car aka bribery



The procedure took just under an hour and then he went into the recovery room.  When he started to wake up they came and got me.  He was upset, which made me upset (although I managed to internalize it because I didn't want to upset him more).  So I lay with him and tried to comfort him as best I could, with little success.  He hated the drip in his arm and tried pulling it out.  I eventually convinced a nurse to take it out.  He cried saying he wanted to see his Dad and his brother.  And then he told me he was soooooooooooooo hungry (not surprising considering he had had to fast for 18hours beforehand).  Luckily the nurses had on hand his favourite food - strawberry jam toast.  He gobbled it up and asked for another.  And another.  And another.  I then told him they had no more toast.  Once he'd eaten they said we could go home.


The only picture I got afterwards, hard to take pictures of a kid while you're holding them.


Malachi was so sweet and made Vili all these card and pictures while he was gone to help him feel better.
He was grumpy at home, but easily lulled with movies.  Getting him to sleep was hard, but when he finally did fall asleep with me in my bed there was this really strange noise that I hadn't heard before.

Silence.

For the first time in his life, Vili DIDN'T snore.  It was awesome.

He continued to be grumpy the next few days, although I suspect most of that was because he is a 2 year old trying his best to be terrible.

I have a new appreciation for our health care system.  Never at any point in his did I have to stop and think "Oh no, I wonder how much that's going to cost us" coz the answer is NOTHING. 

His speech is already improving, he's a little clearer and easier to understand.  He closes his mouth to eat now, which is great.  And we haven't had any snoring.  It's been 3 months since his last ear infection, the longest he's ever been, which is awesome.  The surgeon did tell us that because his adenoids were so big, they will most probably grow back and he will have to have them removed again when he's about 6.  But we'll see.

For now we're just grateful that it was all a success and that he's healthy and happy.

Gymnastics

A little while ago my sister in law's mother, who happens to be a kindy teacher, called to see if I would be a parent help for their gymnastics class.  Downside, I'd have to deal with other people's raised-at-daycare kids.  Upside, Vili would get to be in the class for free.  And so we went for it. 

Best decision ever.

Vili absolutely LOVES gymnastics.  Climbing, jumping, rolling, running, he was born for gymnastics.  In fact, since we started going, every single prayer he says starts "Dear heavenly father, thank you for this day, thank you that I can go to my gymnastics with my friends".

He has the best time there, loves every minute of it every week.  He will be devastated when the class is over.  But for now, he's in little gymnastics boy heaven.

Otai Making

Malachi's kindy/preschool has such a diversity of cultures and often parents come in and sharing different food or dance or festival celebrations with the other kids.  It's really awesome.  And considering that Malachi has been there almost 2 years, I we thought it was time to share a bit of Malachi's Tongan culture.  Since it's summer and watermelons are a plenty, otai seemed like the perfect, easy thing to make with the kids.

Tui got all the kids to help scrap the watermelon and mix it in.  They've loved it.  And they loved drinking it too! The asian kids especially loved it, and kept asking for more.

Before he turns 5 and finishes there, I'm hoping to convince Tui to teach them a ma'ulu'ulu....we'll see how that works out....

The mount

We are trying to make the best of the time we have, before Malachi turns 5 and goes to school, where we can do stuff during the day.  So we made a day trip over to the mount.  We started by hiking to the top of the mount.  It was much more vertical then Tui would have liked, but it was a great way to start the day.

 

Super pumped and ready to go!


Just some random sheep along the way - I love living in NZ!!

 
Now is that a view, or is that a view?

 Tui carried Vili most of the way and I carried Lani, and Malachi the trooper walked up himself.  So many people commented about how amazing it was that he walked the whole way, because it was NOT an easy walk up.

Then we headed to the beach for a play  (and a lie down, for those of us who were exhausted).  Malachi swam and played rugby with Daddy, Vili dug to china, and Lani ate a few cupfuls of sand.

Lani thought it would be funny to lie in the sand, regarless of the consequences (actually I think the consequence of having a sandy face made it even more exciting for her. She is so left field some times.)She thought it was hilarious.

 

 

An icecream to end the day.  

I love that my kids love the beach.  And I love that this summer has been long and warm and awesome.  I'm so sad for it to end.  But this was just one of those awesome, awesome, summer days to remember for a long time.