The lass

Genevieve never fails to surprise (or amuse) me. At 29 months of age, she is showing signs of being pretty damn intelligent... sure, being her mum makes me a bit biased, but can you blame me? :D Here's a run-down of some of the lastest antics/achievements:

*She loves drawing and 'writing'. Artistic skills are evolving to the point where she can now draw a recognizable smiley face, and she's having a stab at writing letters and numbers.

*'Mummy' and 'Daddy' are so passé... it's now 'Mum' and 'Dad'.

*Her vocab has expanded at an alarming rate - it's not unusual for her to rattle off long-winded sentences of 15-20 words.

*The other night at bedtime, Genevieve got a little silly and started bouncing on the bed. When Dad told her to stop, she argued back with, "But The Wiggles bounce!"
Not on the bed, they don't.

*Her love of food and her macabre way of looking at the world knows no bounds. While looking at a photo of cute, fluffy baby chicks the other night, she exclaimed, "I like chickens! They're yummy!"
Miss G then proceeded to list all of the other farm animals she liked to eat (piggie, moo-cow, duck) while pointing to the corresponding pictures. I had to explain that while the French may like eating horsey meat, it's not considered socially acceptable here in Australia.

*Agility and strength have continued to develop. She now competently climbs stairs without a second thought and has started actively inventing new routines to try out on the swing set in our yard. She is currently mastering the gentle art of climbing up the slippery-slide...

Slackest of the slack

Yeah, I know. Five months between posts is a bit pov, innit? Since returning home in December and work in January, the apathy bug bit pretty hard. I will try to post more, but won't make any guarantees. :P

Jessie

I've never mentioned my newest sister-in-law before now, but I just had to share this with you.

While we were living in Melbourne, my eldest brother Jason had a housewarming party and a friend of a friend (Jess) gate-crashed. Their eyes met across a crowded room, and six weeks later they were engaged.

It wasn't your typical whirlwind romance, though.

Jess had been battling an extremely rare form of Leukaemia for the past four years and was fighting a hell of a fight but losing nonetheless. A November wedding was planned, but her oncologist suggested bringing it forward to September so that she was well enough to really enjoy her big day. It was the most beautiful wedding I've ever been to, and the most fun as well. We danced our butts off and had the time of our lives.

In January, Jessie contracted pneumonia and never really got over it. The fluid on her lungs didn't clear and things have been rapidly going downhill ever since. Determined to stay out of hospital, home-based care was arranged and she learned how to use a syringe pump to administer medication. Knowing that she had a few loose ends to tie up, Jess and Jason travelled to North Qld last weekend to see Jess's family.

They were supposed to be back a week ago, but things went pear-shaped and Jess had to be admitted to hospital (which she wasn't especially happy about). Meanwhile, we were in Brisbane and absolutely frantic. All of us wanted to go north to see her, but knew that it was logistically impossible to do so over Easter. Mum and Wray caught a plane straight after Genevieve's birthday party and managed to have a short time with her before having to fly back again yesterday.

By this stage, Jess only had one functioning lung and was on the maximum non-lethal dosage of morphine. She was mostly incoherent or unconscious, but Mum managed to have a few minutes of lucid conversation with her before she slipped back into la-la land again.

Last night, Jessie came to me in a dream. We were hanging out in my brother's old bedroom, laughing and goofing off after having lunch together. She hopped up and sighed. "Well," she said, "it's time for me to head off."
"Good luck," I replied. "Take care of yourself and have fun up in Heaven. God will take good care of you."

We gave each other one last bear-hug and she walked out the front door of Mum and Wray's house. The overwhelming feeling of warmth, love and peace that I felt at that moment is too big to describe.

When I woke up this morning, I didn't need a phone call to know that she was gone. It happened around midnight.

Bye, Jess. I love you dearly and will miss you heaps. Be sure to have some scones and raspberry jam ready when it's time for us to meet again.

...Cause it feels so empty, without me

Guess who's back,
Back again?

Yep, after two months of fighting with the customer service morons at our isp, the line fault which cut us off from the online world has finally been fixed. Halle-bloody-lujah!

Work's great, being back home is fabulous and Genevieve is the same as ever, just a little taller. Her vocab is expanding at an alarming rate (we've even had our first expletive - 'oh, crap!')

Writer's block still has a stranglehold and my motivation is pretty nonexistent right now, so that's all for the moment. Stay tuned, kids!