Happy Birthday!!!! I can't believe you're 11...

Dear Gucci,

Where has the time gone? One day you were suddenly here, so tiny - just 5lbs 10oz of squirmy bub looking around the room with your big blue starburst eyes, not crying but just surveying your new world as though you had been here before, mewing softly like a kitten.
You were a little fellow and grew slowly, always observing with your wise eyes waiting until it was your time to shine. You were early to walk and very quick, you loved to run off and eat anything you could find before we could catch you. The friendliest kid on the block, you always greeting anyone that passed with a huge smile. You faced many challenges as you grew, but took them all in your stride and before we knew it you were at school like all the others, running around with your mates and falling in love with your little girlfriends. As you grew you learned how to adapt to the changes around you and you loved it when we moved to the farm, riding bikes and looking for bunnies, always on the hunt for a new adventure.
Everyday you show us how you can be brave and challenge yourself, we are so proud of you, you have grown into a funny, kind young man and are always willing to give everything a go and lend a hand.
Happy 11th birthday Gucci,

xxx love Mum

Sweet hell of soccer mumdom, let thee commence for another Saturday morning.

Every Saturday like clockwork we commute the 80km round trip to the muddy sludge fest that is our “local” soccer field. We stand around for an hour with 100km/ph ice winds hammering us in the face while our poor babies battle it out on the field in shorts that touch their shoes and oversized numbered T -shirts all the while trying to impress the hoards of screeching parents on the sideline living vocariously through their children.

I confess that I have never been the sporting type and frankly, I have had some trouble understanding the desire to kick the living snot out of a ball on a muddy field with the constant threat of hypothermia hanging over me, but when our tiny town discovered that we finally had enough kids to make up a soccer team, Buzz and Gucci HAD to be a part of it. Literally.

 In the beginning the little tykes gave it their all, they looked back at their parents with “am I doing ok?” looks on their faces and the team spirit when a goal is scored was unbelievable.

 Sadly for our team those goals have been a bit few and far between and the fact that the 1^st coach quit, the second coach has a badly broken shoulder and the temporary replacement is in bed with the flu, well it hasn’t really helped any.

As a result that energizing team spirit has started to fall a little bit and some of the original congratulatory high fives have been replaced by minor looks of contempt. Yet the kiddies are still running their little hearts out every week determined to score “At least one goal, mum!” before that final whistle blows.

As for my boys? Well I don’t care if they don’t win, as long as they have fun and try their best I will always be proud of them. They don’t care either, as long as I give them $1 each after the game to spend at the only canteen left in Australia that still deals in 5c lollies.