Athletics 2018

It was great to be able to watch the children with their athletics today.
Hezekiah did really well on his high jump and came 2nd. He was struggling with his stomach being sore a lot today, so he did really well to get everything done despite his pain.
Asher did well in her ball throw, but as I was standing with her and her teacher aide was standing in the place where she needed to throw too, we didn't manage to get a photo. The first throw wasn't great, but then she understood and gave two nice big throws. Thankfully they let the younger children just throw all 3 balls at once - rather than taking turns as they do with discus and javelin with the older children. So that worked well for her, and then she was back in her buggy (her comfort spot).

Hezekiah giving it his all in his first race.

Ruth pushing herself too. She has some fast girls in her class, and they are all quite a bit older. So she does really well with those skinny legs.

Hannah putting loads of effort in at the end.




BELOW: Ruth in a longer race.
To explain her blue tutu - she is in the blue house and they are allowed to wear house colours. There are always a couple of banana outfits for the yellow house. Ruth has actually said that she wants to go to the cheap shop and get a few more fun blue things to wear for future events. Her tutu is getting a bit boring now. :-)

We got to watch Hannah's class with their high jump. Ruth's class had already done their high jump and long jump earlier in the week - so we only got to see her running events today.
Hannah did really well. It always frustrated us that they have to do scissor jumps and not proper high jump style. If they land on their back too many times, they even get disqualified. So I'm always impressed with how well they do.

A better timed photo (and better focus). Great job Hannah.

We didn't go over to the school to watch Asher with long jump as we were not even sure if she would do anything but step off the marker into the sand. A friend was there though and she said she did really well. Her teacher aide supporting her so well - and Asher enjoying the sand on her feet as she left the pit.



BELOW: Another race for Hezekiah after lunch.

With Asher's first race this morning I ran with her and Brendon was at the finish line, calling her. She did end up walking most of it.
This photo is from her 2nd race. She did so much better. She skipped all the way down to us, with Rachiel just following behind (she had to hold her at the start until it was time to go).

It was great to see her understanding a bit more of what was going on. They have practiced over the last few weeks, but it's totally different on the day with all the other classes there and all the spectators. I had wished I had taken a video as it was so sweet. I didn't even know she could skip.



BELOW: Ruth's sprint.

And then it was time for the inter-house relay.
A nice one of Hezekiah and then the video below of Asher. She was happy to have one of the older girls help show her which way to run. She actually ran this time too. Dad was at the finish line, trying to keep her understanding where to go. She did really well with how loud it was with this race and that there were just so many people around.
It was a lovely day and we were so pleased we could be there to support them all.

I just found some more photos on Brendon's phone. So here are a couple more from the day.

Great effort Hezekiah.
Easier without the hat this time.

Great sprint Hannah.

Hannah did well with her discus.

A lovely one of these older girls.

Athletics, breech and a nasty bump

Friday 27th: It was nice to have Brendon join us at assembly today. Hezekiah's class had their faces painted like Tigers but he didn't want his face painted (or said he wasn't allowed - either way I understood his choice).
They sang "Eye of a Tiger" and it was a lot of fun watching him do the actions with such enthusiasm.
When I first spotted him I could see that he was very tired. I heard later that he didn't sleep much at the friend's house. He was too excited to get to bed early or to stay in bed very late in the morning. So I was pleased he found some energy for the song. :-)
The class also showed some of their artwork. They did self portraits. So perhaps that's why he had his mouth open for the photo. ;-)
At school today his first wiggly tooth came out. I had seen it was getting nice and loose this week and was pleased that it fell out while he was eating his apple for lunch and he didn't even notice. Hannah has struggled with so much pain with her wiggly teeth lately, so I was pleased it was an easy one for him.

Saturday 28th: This morning Rachel headed off to the Sampson's house to spend the afternoon there before a number of them head off to the Home School Formal this evening. I'll have to get some photos loaded at a later point.

I love this photo of Ruth making lunch with Asher on her back (trying to help).

At 2:30pm Asher had a 1 min TC.

With Aeleen helping a few times in the evening with getting Asher ready for bed, it's helped get the others ready a bit earlier too. So there has been more time available for evening bible stories. Ruth took on the role of reading this evening. :-)

Sunday 29th: Only when we left church did I realize that Hezekiah and I matched today. So it was a good excuse to get a photo when we got home. I haven't got many photos of my "bump" in this pregnancy. I am starting to outgrow most of my tops though. They are almost all looking just as stretched as this one. ;-)
Brendon and the middle three got stuck into this front area today. Ruth did a great job of trimming back the three funny bush things that grow very quickly (and can look really messy). Hezekiah had actually been asking when the rocks would be put back, but he ended up not being able to help too much with that. So he was the branch collector and Hannah and Ruth worked on the rocks. The trees were also getting a bit overgrown, so we decided to rather cut them back and keep them small enough to maintain ourselves.

Monday 30th: The kids had moved the rocks off the next section yesterday, and this afternoon Hannah decided to pull the long grass out of the section to make it look neater. I thought it was a good time to get a big picture of the final result of all their work. Rachel even helped by clearing the last of the branches today that didn't get finished up yesterday (she was only back at 7:30pm last night). She had another safe, long solo trip. So that was good. She is just rather frustrated with her phone as the GPS / Map does not work well at all. So she has to start looking at getting a good quality phone.

Last children photo with just these 5 - taken on Wed 1st.

Ruth's sprint in her blue tutu.

Tuesday 31st: I have loads of athletics photos from Wednesday, so I will just add captions on those and write about all the events of Tuesday (where there are no photos).After Champion Centre we headed to my midwife appointment again. Brendon met us there after his training and I was especially glad that he had this week.

Hannah's sprint. Giving it all she has this year.

My midwife was concerned that baby was breech. So Brendon was able to take Asher home and I headed back into town for a scan. Confirming that baby is indeed breech. Thankfully she is not in an "unstable lie" as that could have meant me heading straight to the hospital. It was all very emotional for me. If I got into labour with baby breech, I have to go straight to Christchurch Women's Hospital.

I just managed to get a photo of Ruth at discus.

It was hard to adjust my thinking, having pictured myself in labour at the Rangiora Health Hub, and now to think about labouring in a place I have never seen before. The emotions were all just very raw. We had been thinking of taking the children to the "Light Festival" in Amberley, and so I asked Brendon if he would take the children so that I could just get some time at home on my own. I needed space to let all this new information start to settle.


Hezekiah missed his first jump but thankfully I had
this photos so I could show him how far he was.

And I was honestly just exhausted from a very long day. Unfortunately no photos were taken. Hannah looked beautiful in a long green dress with her hair done up so beautifully. When I got home and saw her I thought immediately of "Princess Leah". She looked lovely. I was sorry to have not taken a photo straight away.
It was rather busy for Brendon as Asher just headed straight to the Jumping Castle when they arrived. Hezekiah had a fun time within the limits that Brendon set for him (so that he knew were to find him). Unfortunately Asher's jumping ended as it has the last few times she has been on a trampoline or jumping castle - with a seizure. Brendon said she had so much fun before though. So although we have been avoiding it for so long, he didn't regret allowing her to have all the fun she had. And it does confirm that it's still an issue for her. Thankfully it was short, but it also then cut short the evening for the rest of the children. Hannah had been waiting in a very long queue and so ended up not getting to do anything as they had to leave well before her turn.

He corrected so well and got nice
and close for the next jumps.

Wednesday 1st: Great to get the children photo taken this morning. Rachel happened to be wearing her blue top and so I specifically put a blue one on Asher. The children's school "house" is blue, so they are allowed to where their house colours for Athletics.

Great effort as the jumps got higher.
He ended up winning his group.

It was nice to get to chat to some of the mothers when I arrived at the athletics and we waited for the sprints to get started. I was still very emotional about the likely hospital birth and all the unknowns around it. So it was nice to chat to them and let some tears flow. At that point I thought it would be a good idea to organize to go and see the birthing units at the hospital, and even making that plan helped me to feel a little less fearful about this big unknown ahead.

It was hard to try and get to see everything the 3 were doing as the field events continued while the sprints were going on. So I missed Hezekiah's ball throw and Hannah's shot put. At least I got some photos of each of them.
Ruth did the 1,200m again this year. There was a nice group of girls with her this year. They all did so well and put so much effort into it.

Just minutes before I was going to leave to fetch Asher from preschool, I got a call saying she was having a seizure. They warned me that she had fallen and had a nasty bump and graze on her head. I'm glad they had warned me as it looked really nasty. It's hard to even capture on camera how banged up she was. She had been hot and bothered and kept running to the gate asking for me (for 1/2 an hour before home time). This last time she just went too fast and fell. She landed so hard and the bump caused the seizure. With Dravet Syndrome the children are often unstable on their legs. Asher is not too bad, but her OT and us as parents often wonder how she doesn't fall more often. She had a big swollen area on her temple with the big graze. I tried to take a photo from the front to show the swelling - but by this evening when I took the photo it was already looking so much better. Thankfully she had a ice pack on it for a few minutes straight after the fall - so I'm sure that helped.

Running, Kiri and family games

Saturday 5th: As Ruth was the only 10 year old who did the 1,000m at Athletics, she goes through to the next round on Monday, with the other area schools. She ran with her sneakers on Wednesday and so she decided to run with Dad today - barefoot - to see which she preferred. Hezekiah wanted to join them and ran about 100m meters before he got too tired.

She ran it in 5 min 14 seconds on Wednesday, and got the exact same time today. She did prefer it without her shoes though.
Right: Really pushing herself for that last 100m.
Brendon is hoping they can start training a couple of months before athletics starts next year. He really enjoyed running with her.

Little Miss often comes and lies by my feet. That tummy is getting so big now. She still has more than a month to go.

Sunday 6th: Kiri keeping Hannah company while she does dishes.
Hezekiah's art from Sunday School.





We forgot to take a photo of Kiri at Sunday school, so one in the car on the way home had to do.
This afternoon Kiri sat with Hannah while she typed up her "diary" from the weekend. I added the photos for her and she was so pleased with it.

Last photo added, Hannah making "fruit salad" this evening for desert.

Asher had a 1 minute Vacant seizure at midday, during church lunch. Thankfully she didn't even need a nap and had her lunch straight afterwards.

Monday 7th: As soon as I had picked Asher up from preschool, we headed over to Culverden to watch Ruth. I was worried I would be a bit late, but we arrived with enough time to have a little chat before her race.
She had a good 6 girls in front of her, but there were a number of girls behind her too. It was so helpful to have a big group of girls to run with.

And they pushed her to run her heart out. I was watching her 200m splits and I was amazed at how fast she was going. And she kept it up the whole way. She finished in 4 min 37 seconds. Amazing to knock 37 seconds off her time.
I was so proud of her. Well done Ruth!


And then it was time for high jump. She jumped her best height on Wednesday, 102cm. Today they started on 100cm, so she didn't get much time to get into things. Unfortunately she didn't clear 100cm today. It was a great opportunity though and good to get the extra experience.
Ruth then planned a fun night for the family (part of a Guide badge). She covered pieces of banana in dark chocolate (and decorated them with the coloured stars her leader had sent her).
The fruit on the left of the plate was from the freezer, so she had to let those defrost first.

Lovely fun fruit kebabs as the snack at the start of the fun night (while Asher and Hezekiah were still up - so that they could have some before bed).
So we did 5 minute rounds. 2 people would play Battleships while another 2 played Mancala.

The last person played Dad's Chinese checkers and saw how many times they could clear the tray (if at all).
Rachel had bought Cluedo and Mancala last month, so it was nice to get to show Dad how to play it. And Hezekiah got the battleships for his birthday, and it was great to be able to get to play with them too.
We scored up each round and Hannah won. Well done Hannah. And thank you Ruth for a fun evening.

Tuesday 8th: Another angle of that big tummy. She must surely have more than 3 kittens in there. We are still amazed that we didn't notice that Puss was pregnant until the night she gave birth.

And then I got one from the top too - to show how much that tummy is sticking out on the sides. I knew she would follow me when I got up, so I just took the camera with. She has been following me around a lot lately. We are all really looking forward to having kittens again.