Michael

Michael is my miracle, I never knew I wanted. I grew up in a family of girls and went to all girls schools from a young age so was terrified about having a son.

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Thankfully I have my darling son. Michael had the misfortune and privilege of being the fourth child, I say that because he never really go the chance to get into trouble, although he did manage a doosie when he was 6. He had the priviledge of being fourth and having a very confident mother who knew when to say yes and no.

With Michael I was most worried about this boy becoming a man with mainly females around, this I realised was futile when at ten months he picked up a toy car and said, "Brooom, brooom." an action none of the girls had ever done. From the age of 15 months he could point out different makes of cars which really amazed me since I had no idea.

Jaimie

Jaimie has an innate love of life, Jaimie has always been my adventurous child. At the age of two she could cook her own peas (her favourite snack food). At 4 cooked pikelets on her own. Prior to Jaimie turning five she never let me out of her sight, then when she turned five she seemed to look around at the big wide world and I've barely seen her since (hehe). 

When Jaimie decides she wants something there's not alot anyone else can do to dissuade her. A great example is when she first cooked peas.  I was breastfeeding Chloe and Jaimie was hungry, starving even (poor child hadn't been fed for about an hour). I said, " I will get you some peas when I'm finished here." and the reaction was "I want them now." so I said, "You need to wait or make them yourself."Jaimie got out a pot and the peas so I told her what to do and she cooked herself peas.Jaimie is a social butterfly, is great fun to be around, its almost contagious and because of that I do believe she'll do everything she wants in life.

Chloe

 Chloe, Chloe, Chloe, well there is only one way to describe such a unique person and that is with a story.

When Chloe was four she went to a meeting with my dad and as they walked into a room with 20 adults sitting around the room on chairs, Chloe looked around the room and said "Don't talk to me I'm shy." At the same meeting one of the ladies asked Chloe, "What do you want to be when you grow up?". Dad said Chloe looked at the lady like she had 3 heads and said "An adult" in a confused voice, what a great goal, so many people grow up and seem to miss becoming an adult.

The opportunity to raise Chloe has been a blast, I love the way she naturally thinks outside the square, no-one ever had to tell her to. Her love of life is infectious.

Chloe's ability to think outside the square helped her in many areas, when my kids were younger we knew a few bigger families and when we had meals together an adult or older child would wash the dishes and the rest of the children were handed tea towels and lined up to dry the dishes. In the lines you would see Chloe getting closer to the front then she would go from second to last, something no-one else thought of. Reality of course is she would have probably spent less energy just drying dishes, not my Chloe.

Teaching Colours

When we went to playcentre many years ago a fellow mother gave me this idea and although it was too late for Sarah and Jaimie, I used it for Chloe and Michael.

Each week choose a different colour and focus on it e.g. blue, there's a blue car, the sky is blue, this top is blue, blue playdough and my kids even had blue baths.

I taught them the primary colours first red, blue and yellow and then the secondary colours with the rest following. To teach them secondary colours I put a primary colour at each end of the bath and we would watch them magically become another colour. To colour the bath I used food colouring - the bath never stained and neither did the kids.

Lying

Teaching Children not to lie

"I would never lie to my children." How often have you heard this? Children copy our actions more than they follow our words.

Children learn by your actions more than your words. This is important because sometimes we're not aware of our actions.

Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny don't exist so saying they do is a lie. You can have the experience of them without lying, I told my kids the story of St Nicholas but they knew I put their gifts in stockings (and why would I want an imaginary being getting credit for my hard work). Easter Hunts are still fun for kids knowing mum, dad or grandpa hid the eggs.

Instead of the tooth fairy still give your kids money, although don't do what I did. When Sarah was five a friend told her about the tooth fairy and she was so excited, Sarah has loved money from the beginning, her first word was money so getting money for old teeth was a great idea for her. We had a conversation where I explained to her the tooth fairy wasn't real but in our house I would give them 50 cents for the small teeth and $1 for the molars. Anyway, a couple of years later when she lost her first tooth I handed her $1 without thinking, she jumped up and down and said that means $2 for molars which is what I continued to pay.

By the way my children knew not to tell others Santa etc weren't real, I told them when the children's parents were ready they would tell them. What my children did learn was I would not lie to them, even if it was a socially acceptable lie.

Footnote: Sarah's first word was money. When she was one we were at my dad's shop cashing up and I sat her beside the till. When I opened the drawer she pointed at the money with eyes open wide and said moooneeey and then took a deep breath and sighed with a big grin on her face.

Sarah

Sarah has been extraordinarily wise from a very young age. She is very observant with an ability to work out the best way of doing things that for the life of me I can't figure out.

The day I had Sarah was the greatest day of my life - I became a Mum, just thinking about it makes my heart sing. She was born with breathing problems so went to the NICU before I could hold her. Four hours later when she was stable I got to go down and see her. Holding my pink beautiful baby for the first time stroking her face and hands, only another parent has that joyous memory.

Sarah was always a good big sister from the day we bought Jaimie home Sarah was always helping me with the baby. Jaimie's first bath was the start, I went into the bathroom to put water into the baby bath and when I bought it back into the lounge, there on the couch was my now naked baby who had been fully clothed when I left the room, Sarah had not only removed her clothes but also her cloth nappy and pins. Sarah was the ripe old age of 23 months. I feel very privileged to be her mother.

Footnote by Sarah: My mother is one in a million. If you wanted ten friends to stay during the school holidays, she would welcome them with open arms, feed them all, and make them laugh. Of course you would get the odd "be quiet!", "clean that up!", "no you can't have that!", but everyone would still leave exclaiming "your mum is so cool!", which at the age of 13, you know just can't be true!
She raised all four of us with the patience of a saint and with our best interests at heart, and did a fabulous job! I am very thankful to have such a loving and accepting mother, as i realise how important both of those traits are in raising a child. If I aspired to be a Toilet Cleaner or an Astronaut, I know she would support me all the way.

Reimbursement

Reimbursement is a concept I came across by accident. I think it is a very logical consequence that can have more of an impact than being punished. After the following incident I was reminded how mean I was making my kids reimburse when the other kids involved didn't.

When Chloe and Michael were 8 and 6, they were playing in a paddocks behind our house with a friends three boys C - aged 10, B - aged 9 and A - aged 8. The paddocks are connected to the paddocks under gondolas.

Anyway my friend and I had a cuppa and a chat (1 1/2 hours) then she wanted to go home so we went to find the kids, we couldn't see them but weren't too worried because they always returned from their adventures amongst the paddocks and hedges). My friend went home and the plan was to send her kids home (they lived around the corner) when they reappeared.

Well! imagine my surprise when 5 minutes later a police car pulled up and my two angels hopped out, and three more angelic faces were in the back seat.

Mr Policeman then said, "The children walked up to the top of the Gondolas and the people in the cafe gave them a milkshake because they were hot from their climb then asked them to leave via the gondolas. C said "no we want to stay" and in the end they rang the police to come and get them to leave. So I went up and bought them down in the gondola's."

As you can imagine I apologised profusely then got the kids to go to their rooms so I could think about what to do.

Ultimately I got them to write three letters of apology and thanks for their help - one to the policeman, one to the cafe ladies and one to the Gondolas management. I made them pay (out of their pocket money) for the gondola ride and milkshake.

Footnote: they were also no longer allowed in the paddocks without Sarah or Jaimie.