Tales from a member of the Sandwich Generation

I’m part of the sandwich generation. Caught between young children and elderly parents. My parents have reached somewhat of a crisis in their lives. So this week, being school holidays in our state I’ve spent time being ham and cheese.

I’ve gone from someone telling me their legs were bored as they watched me look at clothes in Myer to some difficult and futile conversations like this one:

Me: “You will lose your driver’s licence because you have severe memory loss”

Parent: “I’ve never had my memory tested”

Me: “Yes you have, twice in September – you’ve just forgotten”

If it wasn’t real, it’d be funny.

Well insured

Today I was once again reminded how much my health insurance means to me. My mum is in hospital. She doesn’t have private health insurance.

To be fair when I took her in to the emergency department on Friday I couldn’t have asked for more. They took her 81 years and her bad asthma symptoms very seriously. A Social Worker who sees everyone in emergency over the age of 61 had a chat with me and told me about more support services available to her. She was admitted and is being looked after.

But she shared her room with another elderly woman who is in hospital because her granddaughter threw a heavy book at her as she wouldn’t give her money for drugs. And the blow on her hip has caused repercussions to her health that I don’t think she could ever have anticipated. This woman is also raising her granddaughter’s child.

While recovering from this injury her son, who is an alcoholic, has been visiting her demanding money from her. He got some yesterday, came back for more last night and then more again today. This after the lady asked the medical staff to not let her son out of the psych ward knowing full well he’d turn up at her bedside demanding more money.

When I visited my mum the lady was being moved to a different room so her son couldn’t find her so easily and she could have some peace.

I started thinking – how did this family become so dysfunctional? And not just one child but generations, and what future does the great grandchild have?

I understand addiction and the hold it can have on a person. From my experience, aside from the trauma that can be involved, it robs that person and their family of choice. Choices that involve where you live, who you live with and so on.

Perhaps this family didn’t have a someone to make their life normal, to give them other options & choices and it would seem that through the generations their chances are getting thinner.

I hope the lady gets some rest and to be brutally selfish, I hope the son doesn’t return to look for her because I hate to think of my mum being in a place where she should be safe and feeling scared.

That’s why I’ll always have private health insurance – at least I’ll have choice.

Ear Worm

This wasn’t the post I set out to write today but during the course of writing that post, the song “I’ve Never Been to Me” by Charlene has come in to my head and won’t leave me alone.

I suppose I should be glad that it’s driven out “G’Day G’Day” by Slim Dusty.  For those of you who don’t reside in Australia, this is a classic Australian country song.  It was re-introduced to me by Bruce who has been learning it at school and likes to sing it (nay shout it out), at the top of his lungs while sitting on the loo.  As I’ve mentioned before that boy can occupy a toilet for a LONG time.

Are you ever tormented by ear worms and if so how do you get rid of them?

Making a community

There was a horrid ad on the radio tonight.  Someone pretending to be an old woman, bemoaning ‘today’ and fondly remembering the past.  When you could leave your back door unlocked, when you knew your neighbours – blah blah.  

We moved to our suburb in the year Squidge turned two.  We didn’t really know anyone.  We nodded at our neighbours, said hello but had no real connections in the area.  While the suburb isn’t a new one, it’s taken a while for it to take off and it’s only in the last few years that we have a little shopping centre that we can walk to.  Before that, everyone drove out of the suburb to get what they needed, even just if it was milk or to post a letter.

I met a lovely lady at the park one day – both pregnant with our second child.  We chatted, found out we lived near to each other and later on that day dropped my phone number in to her house.  She’s moved out of the suburb but we’re still friends.  Our boys started kindy together, our second babies born 2 months apart.  Our children still go to the same school.

It’s been through school that we’ve made most of our connections.  First with Squidge’s class.  The connections we made in kindy are still strong now which is good – for us and the kids.  As Squidge progressed through school his friends often resulted in friends for us in their parents.  And now Bruce.  It didn’t really happen in kindy like it did with Squidge, but in pre-primary I’ve again found a lovely group of people to connect with and forge bonds that I think will last a long time.

We’ve grown close to some of our neighbours – again the bond being our children, their strong desire to play with their peers ensuring the parents connect (the occasional Friday evening drinks on the front lawn don’t hurt either!).

I love that I have friendships which mean I can call on them or they me to collect kids after school because something’s cropped up.  I love that our children can, to some degree, wander freely between houses on our street and we know they are safe, having fun and are well fed (always well fed).

I really enjoy our little community that we’ve found ourselves in and have built around us and I appreciate that my boys, through making friends, have in turn made friends for us too.

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Easy Peasy Party Food Cooking

This month my baby turned 6.  6!  It was his turn for a party this year.  It’s fair to say that by mid July I was pretty much over party foods that involved cereal and puff pastry.

But you know, while I made most of the food myself, it wasn’t hard because I had two basic criteria – I had to be able to make most of it ahead of time; and it had to be simple to make.

Bruce’s party was on Saturday at 10:30 – I had a plan of attack.

Wednesday:

Made the Mars Bar Slice.  Nothing easier than this microwave version.  I doubled the quantities as we were expecting 20 kids (plus parents).  We came home with 6 or so squares left over.  It kept in the fridge really really well.

Thursday:

I work a half day on a Thursday.

I made the Honey Joys/Honey Crackles before I went to work – they are that simple. The recipe came from the side of the Cornflakes packet and Kelloggs have it on their website too.

After work I made the sausage rolls based on this recipe I found on Taste.com.au  - I did make a change to this one.  I don’t like sausage mince much so instead of the meat they suggested I used 500g pork mince and 500g veal mince.  It made around 36 which seemed to be more than enough.

After dinner on Thursday I made the pizza scrolls.  Again – too simple.  5 sheets of puff pastry, defrosted.  Spread a tablespoon of pizza tomato paste on each.  Scatter with chopped up ham, grated cheese and crushed (drained) pineapple.  Roll up tightly, cut each roll into 8 slices, arrange on a tray lined with baking paper and cook in a hot oven for about 15 – 20 minutes.

Friday:

After work I did the cake.  IGA make big slabs of vanilla sponge cake.  I bought one of these and chopped it in to a monkey shape and then decorated it.  A few problems – I should have left the coco-pop “fur” until the morning (they were all soggy) and I ran out of icing to properly cover all of him and ensure they stuck.  He looked a bit like a moth eaten toy monkey but Bruce didn’t mind.

For the parents to snack on while the kids were playing (we went to Jungle Gym in Willetton) I had tea & coffee supplies, a packet of Tim Tams and a yummy, but basic, lemon loaf that I had made as part of a big batch of loaves a few weeks before and frozen.  The night before I pulled it out of the freezer, iced it and chopped it into squares.  It was still delicious and moist.

Saturday morning only involved chopping up watermelon and strawberries for some fruit platters, packing the car and we were off.  He had a great party, celebrating his birthday with some wonderful friends.  Not a lot of food came home.  Perfect.

The birthday boy moving so fast, the camera could barely catch him

Things I Know about Boys – Chalk and Cheese

I have two boys, Squidge and Bruce.  I read Mrs Woog’s recent post – Genetically Non-Gifted which got me thinking about my own two boys and how different they are in personality.

By coincidence they were playing a ‘board’ game that day.  It was an A3 piece of paper with a game about recycling that Squidge brought home from school following an ‘incursion’*  by some people from the Henderson Waste Recovery Park.  Re-enforcing their message of re-use, they didn’t provide counters or a die with which to play the game – we recycled the bits from our Wiggles Snakes and Ladders game.

So Anthony and Murray were being pushed around the board.  At a stage in the game the boys had a choice.  Take the short – but risky – cut, or go the long – but safe – way round.

Bruce took the short cut.  It paid off for him first time and he won so he persisted.  Squidge, each and every time went the safe path.  Squidge won more than Bruce but that didn’t stop Bruce.

And that folks, in essence you have it – their personalities personified by a board game.

Are your kids chalk and cheese?

 

* one of my most HATED words is incursion.  Had the people who chose to use this word in this way bothered to look it up in a dictionary?  A hostile entrance into a territory.  I feel uneasy every time I’m asked for permission for a child to participate in an incursion.  Just what am I signing them up for?

Things I Know About Boys – Illnesses

This post should really be called Things I Know now that I’m a Parent as I’m sure that these equally apply to girls as to boys.

I have been surprised in lots of ways since becoming a parent.  Who knew that little baby boys could wee so much, so often and with such force as you change their nappy?

However, it would have to be ‘conditions’ that kids end up with that have been most surprising.  I remember as a child having mumps (should have listened when my Mum told me not to go and talk to my friend waiting in the car who had them), measles and chicken pox (that was a bad one – I went in to hospital with chicken pox).

Sure, my boys have had colds, flu, gastro (where DB has shown his true colours – didn’t ever have him pegged as a vomit catcher but he’s very good at it – doesn’t dry reach at all).  But it’s the other stuff that people don’t tell you about.

Squidge has been on the receiving end of a general anaesthetic 3 times, Bruce once. I’ve sat with them as they went under, struggling, jerking as if in a bad dream, and coming out of it crying or just hungry and grumpy.

It wasn’t until Bruce was born that I understood why when a baby, even only slightly premmie, has trouble breathing it’s not so much that they could die from a lack of oxygen. Instead the chances are greater that they’ll die of exhaustion as their little bodies work so hard to get sufficient oxygen.

Via Squidge I’ve come to learn not to trust asthma.  Sleeping in a chair next to his bed in the observation ward at our children’s hospital, he was ok and then suddenly he wasn’t and was being rushed to a resuscitation bay as a precaution.  I’ve learnt that a cocktail of ventolin, adrenaline, oxygen and steroids can pick them right up again and just about have them climbing the walls when all you want to do is cry and sleep.

I didn’t know about croup.  The first time Squidge barked when he coughed scared us to death and we rushed him to hospital.  We were taught croup first aid (sitting in a bathroom made steamy by the shower on hot and full) and as he kept getting it we were prescribed a steroid to give him at home.  I didn’t hesitate when I had to call 000 because he was just so much worse one time even after the steroid and I didn’t hesitate two more times after that.

I didn’t know about hand, foot and mouth.  When DB rang to tell me daycare had sent Squidge home with it I was speechless.  He’s not a sheep I thought.  And by then I was at the end of my tether having taken more sick leave in a few months back at work than I ever had in a few years of employment (and I only worked part-time).

Then there were school sores (impetigo) and streptococcal infections in places I didn’t even know you could get them (until I’d watched Everybody Loves Raymond I’d never heard of strep throat let alone strep other bits).

Throw in constant ear infections for Bruce in his first 18 months of life, debates with a GP about how many doses of antibiotics is too many for a baby not yet 12 months old (I still say 8 is too many) and the feeling that we alone are subsidising our pharmacist’s end of year Christmas function and this parenting lark has been a steep learning curve.

I’m sure there’s more to come.

Images courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Things I Know About Boys – Super Heroes

After a long absence due to lethargy, apathy and work on a page for our school P & C I’m back blogging.

During this period we, as a family, flaunted the M rating and went to see The Avengers.  We had seen Thor on video a few weeks before and decided that the Marvel series violence and adult themes were vastly different to those of DC’s The Green Lantern which fortunately DB and I had watched by ourselves.  No ominous black cloud creature that sucked the skeletons out of people in The Avengers.

We all thoroughly enjoyed it (and would like to fit in a second viewing).  Had we been watching it at home, Bruce, after having called out “Hulk Smash!” would have leapt over the lounge and taken on the persona of Hulk.  He did excitedly whisper “Hulk Smash!” and jiggled about in his seat as did Squidge.

On the way home we discussed which Avengers we would like to be.  DB’s decision will ultimately be determined by which of the male Avengers Black Widow ends up kissing (sigh).

The boys couldn’t quite decide and in the course of the 20 minute drive home changed their minds many times.  This led me to think about their obsession with super heroes.

My boys love being super heroes.  Squidge was obsessed with Superman, Spider Man, The Incredibles and the list goes on.  We had an old mattress that we would put in front of the lounge and he’d leap from the lounge on to the mattress.  Or we’d lean it up against the lounge and he’d scale it like it was the wall of a tall building.

Dash and Spider Man fighting baddies on the lounge

Bruce’s first costume was Superman but his favourite for years has been Spider Man.  For his 3rd birthday DB bought an adult Spider Man costume via Amazon and dressed up.  Bruce was convinced Spider Man had come to visit him on his birthday and was completely able to suspend his disbelief, even telling DB when he came back in to the room as Dad that Spider Man had just been.

Bruce, Spider Man and Squidge

He was also a big fan of Sportacus – what parent doesn’t love a hero that promotes healthy eating and exercise?  We welcomed that obsession with open arms.

Sportacus

Both of them have loved Iron Man, Batman, and characters that while not being Super Heroes were nevertheless heroic and cool.  Transformers, Harry Potter, Buzz, Woody or any of the Star Wars characters.  It doesn’t really matter – nor does it matter if they’ve never seen the movie/tv show/read about it.  They seem to learn about the characters as if by osmosis – they absorb popular culture happening around them and make it their own, invent story lines, costumes and weapons where they don’t have them ready-made.

We now brace ourselves for the next wave of ‘what’s in’ as far as super heroes are concerned.  What will be today’s obsession?  Bruce got a Spider Man book from the school book club today.  So that’s his – back to his origins.  Squidge got an Avengers chapter book.  Captain America watch out.

I’m noticing more and more Lego Super Hero models appearing on the shelves and expect that as birthdays and Christmas approach the nagging will start.  But I don’t blame them – they look pretty cool.  And who wouldn’t want that?  For our little family it’s a coming together of obsessions – super heroes AND Lego.

Faster than a speeding bullet!

Who do your little heroes and heroines dress up as?

The Complete Disneyland Experience – the Theme Park

Days 1 and 2 in Hong Kong were, to paraphrase Jan Brady, “Disney, Disney, Disney!”.

I’ve already written about the journey there, and our accommodation in which the Disney brand was constantly re-inforced.  The theme park was no different.

The theme park itself contains different themes.  It certainly needs at least a 2 day pass and even then we didn’t conquer it all.  Fantasyland for example.  Apart from a great 4D show (think 3D with water, smells of food, and wind wooshing around) – Mickey’s Philharmagic and a turn on the Cinderella Carousel the rest of it passed us by.  While I enjoyed the Carousel I’m not sure that it was worth people elbowing us out of the way to get on.  Firstly, the park designers have designed a queue system that will only let the right number of people who can fit on the carousel through, therefore you’re not going to miss out.  Secondly – they are pretend horses held on by poles to a piece of metal that goes around in a circle.  It’s not something from Mary Poppins – these horses aren’t about to come to life and prance around the theme park.  Perspective people!

Toy Story Land was brilliant.  The attention to detail was exquisite.  Like the fences made out of K-Nex.  At last an opportunity to be around K-Nex and not stand on it!

Rex and K-Nex

Both days we did the Slinky Dog Spin ride.  Great ride, long queue – but hey – if you’re going to a theme park, expect to line up and build up your repertoire of games because I Spy wears thin after the 8th queue.

Slinky Dog Spin

DB, who is much braver than me, went on the RC Racer ride.  Squidge and Bruce met some ‘toy soldiers’.  For a family who is as big a fan as us of Toy Story it was a blast but in all honesty there could have been a couple more rides or attractions.

Toy Soldiers

Toy Story Land is the newest section of the park.  However, in what looks like one of the original parts, is Tomorrowland.  It’s in this part that we found Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters – a great fun ride that is tucked away.  We did it a few times over the course of our visit and never had to wait.  It was a lot of fun – you get to blast Zurg!.  Also here was Space Mountain which DB tried out on his own.  But we all joined a huge queue to watch the very clever Stitch Encounter – an interactive show which re-ignited our interest in this Disney character.  And finally in Tomorrowland we went on the Orbitron and made the mistake of letting the kids control how fast our ‘ship’ went up and down while the ride spun around.  Their personalities shined through as Squidge was super cautious and Bruce didn’t hesitate to make us all feel ill.

Adventureland included a fantastic boat ride with wonderfully realistic animatronic jungle animals and real fire and water – so watch out!

Adventureland

We didn’t see the Lion King show  but did get to see some of the characters in the Main Street USA Flights of Fantasy Parade.  I’m not usually one for parades but this was pretty cool and left us with the Mickey Mouse ear worm for the rest of the day.

For all that we did we didn’t do it all.  I would go back again, for sure.

The complete Disney experience – Hollywood Hotel

Around this time last year, DB headed to the US with some mates to celebrate one of the group’s 40th birthday.  In one day they conquered Disneyland and California Adventure.

DB wanted to share this experience with his boys.  Late last year one of the newspaper travel supplements reviewed the new Toy Story Land at Disneyland Hong Kong.  In an act of spontaneity rarely seen in our house, we decided we would go as early as possible this year.  And started saving.

We wanted to go to Disneyland Park for 2 days.  Where should we stay?

Someone suggested Breakfast with the Stars where Disney characters visit while you’re eating at one of the Disney hotels.  The airport is on Lantau Island – the same island as Disneyland.  The hotels were in close proximity to Disneyland.  It was decided.  We’d stay for at least 3 nights at Disneyland.

In the end we decided to stay the whole 6 nights there.  In part because it was cheaper than elsewhere.  In part because I could think of nothing worse than packing everything up after 3 nights to move to another island for 3 nights to then turn around and get back to Lantau Island for our departure.

We stayed at the Hollywood Hotel.  It’s the cheaper, more family friendly option of the two Disney hotels.  From the moment we walked in to the hotel we were immersed in Disney.  As DB describes in his blog post “..it was a magical place of unreality”.

Hollywood Hotel, Hong Kong

Staying there really did make the experience feel special.  The iconic (as Squidge became very fond of saying) image of Disney – Mickey’s head – was everywhere.

The Room

We stayed in one room that had double beds.  They were clean, comfortable and spacious enough given we were always out and about and only really in the room when it was time to sleep (you can see good photos via TripAdvisor).  We got complimentary Disney slippers that we’ve brought home, Mickey themed shampoo & shower gel, and Disney cartoon cups for our toiletries with, you guessed it, Mickey tops.  Oddly we had to request sheets.  Who in their right mind would sleep in Hong Kong under a doona?

The main criticism we have of the room is that the tv, while playing kids (Disney) shows around the clock didn’t have a dedicated movie channel for the adults (not THAT kind of adult movie).  Given that our kids were in bed and asleep by 8:00pm there wasn’t a whole lot for us to watch, nor did the tv include a DVD player – so take your own.

The Facilities

Free wireless internet access was available in the lobby and restaurants.  It was great – we used it to Skype phone home (we went with credit of $9.00 and came home having only spent around $2.00 for 10 minutes of calls to Australia).

The grounds are beautiful.  Lots of room for the kids to run, adults to stroll.  There’s a playground – our 8-year-old was probably getting too big for it (but that didn’t stop him!).  The pool was lovely.  People on TripAdvisor had complained about the lifeguards, I didn’t find them rude – just cautious.  The kids made really good use of the slide.

Pool at the Hollywood Hotel, Hong Kong

There was, no surprise, a toy shop.  I think normally there are two, the larger one used for kids activities.  At the time we were there it had been closed for refurbishment.

There is a free shuttle bus that runs at very very regular intervals throughout the day.  It does a circuit route between the two hotels and the theme park.  I don’t think we ever waited more than a couple of minutes for a bus.  It was an extremely good service.

Shuttle Bus, Hollywood Hotel, Hong Kong

Food

At the time we were there one of the restaurants, The Sunset Terrace, was closed.  However there remained 3 options for food in the Hollywood Hotel.  Chef Mickey was the buffet style restaurant (open all day); Studio Lounge was a bar – come informal cafe and The Hollywood Diner was available in lieu of room service.

We ate at Chef Mickey twice – once for breakfast and once for dinner.  The food was great (highly recommend the Bircher muesli, while the kids no doubt would recommend the Mickey shaped waffles).  For breakfast it was around $80 for the 4 of us, dinner set us back $130.

The Studio Lounge was great for a casual dinner and apart from the one meal at Chef Mickey we ate here every night.  At 6:30pm a screen would descend behind the bar and a Disney movie would play for the kids to watch.  There is a dedicated kids menu – good value for around $11 for a 3 course meal but the choices are limited after one or two visits. Our kids had that one night, pizza another, and then moved on to the adult options.  Depending on our choices (and if they included a glass of wine or not!) dinner there set us back around $70 – $80 for the 4 of us.

Most mornings we had breakfast at The Hollywood Diner.  We could choose from a cooked Western or Asian breakfast but didn’t bother.  Each morning it was the same.  A bowl of fruit to share, yoghurt, corn flakes, milk and a couple of croissants.  $32 for breakfast for the 4 of us was pretty good value.  Had we bought supplies at Tung Chung which was a short train ride away, breakfast could have been a bit cheaper.

There was nothing however, stopping us as guests of the Hollywood Hotel, from eating at the Disneyland Hotel.  Our second morning we walked to the other hotel for Breakfast with the Stars in The Enchanted Garden.  It was great fun.  The food was similar to that of  Chef Mickey but it was a bit more expensive – $120 – but we did get to have photos with Mickey, Pluto, Goofy & Daisy – woot!  It did feel enchanted – even for the adults.

Breakfast with Mickey

In terms of accessing other attractions in Hong Kong from Lantau Island, it was a bit protracted – requiring at least 1 bus and 2 or 3 trains.  Having said that, the transport system is amazing and we made very good use of the Octopus Cards to tag on and off the MTR (thanks to my friend Anne who had been recently and gave them to us).

The Disneyland Train Station is at the entrance to the theme park and once again, the brand Disney is constantly, but rather delightfully, reinforced.

Interior of the Disneyland Train

We didn’t end up getting to see some Hong Kong attractions such as Victoria Peak and the famous Ladies’ Market – there was a limit to how much walking and sightseeing we could fit in given our distance from some of it.  But in the end that wasn’t why we went to Hong Kong.  It was to do Disney – and that we did.