Miss Lilly Pilly’s actual birthday was yesterday and I know I probably should have posted this then but really by the end of it I was just to exhausted.

Now I don’t normally go in for the whole hacking on your own child post but seriously sometimes you just need to vent. I had a whole day planned, I was going to seriously spoil this child. See she’s had a little few issues since the bubby has become upwardly mobile and I wanted her to feel special. I imagined taking them out to lunch, maybe a café anyone for giant chocolate milk shakes?? not this one apparently.

From the moment she woke up and became 5, something she’s been dying to do all year, she became little miss I Don’t Need To Do What You Say And You Can’t Make Me. The more I reminded her of my set in stone policy of not going out for special lunches without some proof first that the children I take with me wont set fire to the table cloths, the worse the behaviour got.  In the end we didn’t go anywhere and Lani spent the afternoon screaming “Why can’t you just behave so we can go out” at her sister.

I know it was probably all my fault, it always is right, always blame the parents. But things in my world seem a little full at the moment and I’m fighting sadness and not too good at the pre-emptive strike on potentially explosive behaviour. Meh, you live and learn I now know the third one in line does not like to be the centre of attention (she’s been fine today and actually improved yesterday after all talk of spoiling Lilly was put away). The day ended well though. When everyone came back from all the places that they go during the day we rang my sister and opened presents and Lilly even remembered her manners.

The beautiful bracelet my sister gave Lilly with a tiny pink teddy on it.

Fairy staring.

This music box also from Jill has been carried around and wound up and wound up all day today. In fact it has been played so much that at one point today I found Eli under the table bashing his ears saying “make it stop, make it stop!”

Jill didn’t leave out the other two either sending them the tiniest ever game of connect four which they love and look, what’s that on Eli’s head? Yes a black beanie. Just what you need in an Aussie March, but he’s thrilled now he’s even BLACKER!

…well, sort of. You may notice a wedding band in the photo, yes I am married to Glenn and no this isn’t a make up new engagement thing. This is because I stuffed up. The first time we got engaged was 8 years ago now. We had been best friends for a while, he was the person I talked to when I could speak to no one else and I was the quiet intense one who stopped and listened when the world was screaming. Form the moment we gave up on the friend thing and kissed we were inseparable, corny I know but true. There wasn’t a moment, except for the three hours we slept at night, that we weren’t in each others company. Being at the same uni, going to the same church and having the same job kinda helped.

Yes I said Uni. I was an angst ridden art student and he was an aspiring nerd. For some reason the powers to be at our uni thought it best to house the art department right next to the computer labs. This caused a great deal of inter-faculty rivalry and a few relationship. Those nerds were just too cute.
Being madly in love and trying to complete uni was very hard, the dark and brooding artwork that I had previously envisioned just wasn’t working with the psychedelic pink butterflies I had swirling around in my head. I am so glad Glenn managed to stay on task or else we would now be living in a cardboard box under a bridge. The problem wasn’t just the distraction of love; it was the burning secret that buzzed around inside my chest. The secret that I had locked eyes with the one person who would always match me. I could see in that one moment when we kissed good bye to friendship the multitude of coffee infused conversations we would share covering the topics of a life time and I just couldn’t keep it to myself. Some may say we rushed into marriage, some may question why two so young couldn’t just wait. But to us waiting was a pathetic waste of time, and I can’t express the wave of relief I felt when he placed that ring on my finger. Like I had finally spurted out that it was me who had eaten that last piece of cake. The truth was released it was out there and it was up to our family and friends to figure out if they could handle it.

That ring was special to me. I never took it off, right up until the moment I smashed it to pieces. I think I must have shut the car door on my hand, I have a very vague memory, but then most of my memories are vague. I didn’t notice till I had arrived at my parent’s house for a visit and my finger started throbbing. My wedding ring was squashed into an oval with an inverted dint pressing into my finger. Dad then produced the most terrifyingly huge pair of pliers to force it back into shape enough to get it off. The engagement ring seemed fine so we only left the wedding ring at the jewellers to be repaired.

It wasn’t fine the setting must have been damaged because when I was hanging a load of washing on the line the stone flew out and disappeared into the long grass. Aggghhh!!, I panicked, I cried and I spent the rest of the day on my hands and knees in the muddy grass looking for that stone. Glenn tried to secretly replace the stone with a new one but the jeweller just laughed at him. See being poverty stricken Uni students with our only income coming from our one night a week night fill jobs ( not really a big money spinner) we had chosen a non standard engagement ring. Diamonds were out of the question, if we had wanted a diamond ring we could have possibly afforded a ring with the thought of a diamond wiped on the surface.
We spent ages looking for a ring we could afford that didn’t scream stupid young people who couldn’t wait. Then one day one shop had a beautiful Aquamarine ring which just happens to be my birth stone. Apparently we lucked out, apparently it’s pretty rare to find a large seam of that stuff in the earth so aquamarine rings aren’t often in the shops and having one specifically cut to fit a pre existing ring would be ludicrously expensive.

We decided to buy a replacement ring, but to be true to the past we wanted the same stone. So since then, every time we’ve gone to the shops we’ve asked and been turned away until this weekend. The lady at the jewellers couldn’t hold it for more than a day because it was the only one they had . I had seen it by myself and I wasn’t going to get it. Glenn had to do that it just wouldn’t be right to buy your own engagement ring. So the next day my darling sister baby sat for us so we could race up to the shops to get my engagement ring. He loved it so we bought it. I felt a little weird about just sticking it on my own finger so when we got into the car I just sat it down between us.
So now when I’m out being girly, drinking wine and reminiscing and the conversation turns around to it and someone asks, "so how did Glenn pop the question" I can answer. "oh we were driving in the car one day and he turned and gestured towards this little box sitting between us and said ‘So, are ya gonna put it on!’". so sweet.