Jessica Simpson must be giving birth to an elephant!
After what seems like an eternity, she still has not popped out her baby which is reportedly a little girl to be named Maxwell. As much as the media and everyone else is the world is having a little fun at her expense with these stories I will actually admit to having just a tiny bit of sympathy for her.
When I was pregnant with my first child, Miss C who us now aged 6 I felt like I was never going to give birth. My pregnancy was 41 weeks and 3 days. 10 days overdue, and those last 10 days its safe to say I was going crazy thinking that my baby was never going to make an appearance!
So this experience led me to believe that estimated due dates were invented by a MAN!
Hang in there Jess! It has to come out eventually!
Monday 30 April 2012
Sunday 29 April 2012
The life of a REAL footy WAG!
I am proud to say at 28 years of age I am a footy WAG! My husband at 32 years of age still manages to run around every Saturday in a Division 1 Western Region team in Melbourne. He is one of the lucky ones who has never had a serious injury.
When I first started dating him, he was one of the young kids in his team and now he is one of the "senior" players, not that the word "senior" is used in our home very frequently :-)
I love going to the footy each week, but I am disappointed that none of the major television networks have brought out a "day in the life" sort of style program that highlights the life of a real footy WAG! So I thought I would give you all the inside scoop!
The first rule that is pivotal to maintaining your marriage with a footballer and your membership in the WAG club, is that you MUST be aware of the fact that footy is not just a Saturday arvo thing. Its a DAILY thing! There is the training, the icing, the physio, the chiro, the osteo, the diet, the team meetings, the warm ups and the warm downs and that's all before we even make it to game day.
Saturday (game day) in my house usually starts at 7am. With 4 kids if I don't pack lunch I end up in debt to the club by the end of the day, so copious amounts of food supplies are essential. Then there is packing the car, dressing everyone, toilet stops and making sure we stay out of the star footballers way for a few hours.
Once we are at the ground I am on my own. There is strapping to be done, Powerade to consume, team meetings to be attended.
By the end of the day I am normally covered in mud, food or anything else you care to imagine from running around after my children all day. How much footy do I watch.............ZERO! Yet part of being a good footy WAG is to always complement the footballer after the game. So I make sure on the way home I use the 3 seconds of the game I did manage to watch to come up with some positive comment on how amazing a game my star footballer played.
I then get home, and the process starts again.
So don't be fooled girls, being a footy WAG is not as glamorous as you see on the red carpet at the Brownlow. Unless your Megan Gale you certainly done wear a pants suit and jacket to the footy. There are no designer gowns and champagne anywhere in sight. Hell I am lucky to guzzle down a hot can of coke on a Saturday!
BUT, would I change any of this............. NOT ON YOUR LIFE!
As much as being a footy WAG has its downfalls, the friends we have made as a family from years of being associated with football make everything so much better. As a footy WAG you are never alone, you make friends for life and I wouldn't change that for the world!
When I first started dating him, he was one of the young kids in his team and now he is one of the "senior" players, not that the word "senior" is used in our home very frequently :-)
I love going to the footy each week, but I am disappointed that none of the major television networks have brought out a "day in the life" sort of style program that highlights the life of a real footy WAG! So I thought I would give you all the inside scoop!
The first rule that is pivotal to maintaining your marriage with a footballer and your membership in the WAG club, is that you MUST be aware of the fact that footy is not just a Saturday arvo thing. Its a DAILY thing! There is the training, the icing, the physio, the chiro, the osteo, the diet, the team meetings, the warm ups and the warm downs and that's all before we even make it to game day.
Saturday (game day) in my house usually starts at 7am. With 4 kids if I don't pack lunch I end up in debt to the club by the end of the day, so copious amounts of food supplies are essential. Then there is packing the car, dressing everyone, toilet stops and making sure we stay out of the star footballers way for a few hours.
Once we are at the ground I am on my own. There is strapping to be done, Powerade to consume, team meetings to be attended.
By the end of the day I am normally covered in mud, food or anything else you care to imagine from running around after my children all day. How much footy do I watch.............ZERO! Yet part of being a good footy WAG is to always complement the footballer after the game. So I make sure on the way home I use the 3 seconds of the game I did manage to watch to come up with some positive comment on how amazing a game my star footballer played.
I then get home, and the process starts again.
So don't be fooled girls, being a footy WAG is not as glamorous as you see on the red carpet at the Brownlow. Unless your Megan Gale you certainly done wear a pants suit and jacket to the footy. There are no designer gowns and champagne anywhere in sight. Hell I am lucky to guzzle down a hot can of coke on a Saturday!
BUT, would I change any of this............. NOT ON YOUR LIFE!
As much as being a footy WAG has its downfalls, the friends we have made as a family from years of being associated with football make everything so much better. As a footy WAG you are never alone, you make friends for life and I wouldn't change that for the world!
Saturday 28 April 2012
Choppers Last Stand
Mark Brandon Read also known has Chopper once predicted that he would die young, and at 58 it looks like that grim prediction may come true shortly as he has been diagnosed with liver Cancer, with Dr's suggesting he may have as little as a few weeks left to live.
Now I know a lot of people would be sitting back thinking, about bloody time! How is he not dead already? The bloke is said to have killed up to 19 people, he attempted to kidnap a County Court Judge, he had a fellow inmate chop his ears off to prove a point and he spent only 13 months of his life on the "outside" between the ages of 20 and 38. So what! The bloke is a madman! What makes Chopper so special?
But Chopper Read is in my mind a very special man.
Several newspapers have referred to Choppers life as a "waste". With headlines such as "Mark Chopper Read has regretted a wasted life!". But has it all really been such a waste? I don't believe it has.
Now I am not for one minute condoning any of the criminal behaviors of Chopper. We all know the things he did were wrong and he knows it too, however this man has given society through his autobiographical crime novels an invaluable insight in to the life of a career criminal.
I have read every single one of his books, and as a law student I can say that Chopper has taught me things that the Bachelor of Laws degree could never teach. Reading his novels has given me a new perspective, a deeper understanding of what a "crime" even is. We are taught that a crime is a breach of the law and we must remedy such a breach. Yet Chopper teaches that a crime is not black and white. It has many colours, many sides to a story and many reasons why it occurred. If every inmate wrote a novel of their life experiences, I think it's safe to say, society and our views would be very different to what they are currently. We would have an understanding of where we went wrong.
So to Chopper, I say thank you! Mate your life is NOT and has NOT been a waste at all!
Now I know a lot of people would be sitting back thinking, about bloody time! How is he not dead already? The bloke is said to have killed up to 19 people, he attempted to kidnap a County Court Judge, he had a fellow inmate chop his ears off to prove a point and he spent only 13 months of his life on the "outside" between the ages of 20 and 38. So what! The bloke is a madman! What makes Chopper so special?
But Chopper Read is in my mind a very special man.
Several newspapers have referred to Choppers life as a "waste". With headlines such as "Mark Chopper Read has regretted a wasted life!". But has it all really been such a waste? I don't believe it has.
Now I am not for one minute condoning any of the criminal behaviors of Chopper. We all know the things he did were wrong and he knows it too, however this man has given society through his autobiographical crime novels an invaluable insight in to the life of a career criminal.
I have read every single one of his books, and as a law student I can say that Chopper has taught me things that the Bachelor of Laws degree could never teach. Reading his novels has given me a new perspective, a deeper understanding of what a "crime" even is. We are taught that a crime is a breach of the law and we must remedy such a breach. Yet Chopper teaches that a crime is not black and white. It has many colours, many sides to a story and many reasons why it occurred. If every inmate wrote a novel of their life experiences, I think it's safe to say, society and our views would be very different to what they are currently. We would have an understanding of where we went wrong.
So to Chopper, I say thank you! Mate your life is NOT and has NOT been a waste at all!
Friday 27 April 2012
The baby shoe experiment!
My beautiful (yes I am biased) 14 month old little boy has just started walking. Even though he is my 4th child, so I have been there and done all of this before, it is still an amazing experience watching someone talking their first steps. For my little guy it has been a slow process. A few weeks ago he took "a" step. A day or two later he took a "few" steps, and just in the past 24 hours he has seemed to find his balance and he is now cruising up and down our hallway, clapping his hands and thinking that he is rather clever for having mastered this art.
So this morning I decided I would put his gorgeous new little runners on and see how he liked walking with shoes. This was what can only be described as an EPIC FAILURE! It was honestly like watching a cat with sticky tape attached to its paws! He sat shaking his legs as if he had dipped them in honey or water or some other foreign substance, attempted to chew them off by placing them in his mouth, and when all that failed he decided a tantrum would be the best way to get out of them. He was right!
I guess I still have my sock wearing little baby for a little bit longer.
So this morning I decided I would put his gorgeous new little runners on and see how he liked walking with shoes. This was what can only be described as an EPIC FAILURE! It was honestly like watching a cat with sticky tape attached to its paws! He sat shaking his legs as if he had dipped them in honey or water or some other foreign substance, attempted to chew them off by placing them in his mouth, and when all that failed he decided a tantrum would be the best way to get out of them. He was right!
I guess I still have my sock wearing little baby for a little bit longer.
The never ending saga of the Octomum!
We have all heard of Nadya Suleman, the Angelina Jolie
look-a-like made famous by having 8 children in a single birth in 2009. Octuplets!
Wow! What a story! However since then we have seen story after story, interview
after interview and the main topic of discussion is always her parenting ability,
or more accurately her lack of parenting ability and also quite frequently stories
grace the cover of our magazines and newspapers regarding the squalid living
conditions of her home. Personally I fail to see how this is newsworthy. She is
a single parent with 14 children and refuses the help of others. What exactly
did we all expect?
I have 4 children all aged 6 and under. I had my first three
children (my 3 beautiful girls) all in less than 3 years, and let me tell you,
life is not always a walk in the park, I simply can not comprehend how one
person could possibly chose to undergo
IVF with the view of raising 14 children ALONE! Talk about attention seeking! However
I would not at any point EVER say that it could not be done.
In order to raise 14
children on your own you would have to be a VERY special person in my opinion.
A person who doesn’t even know what the word selfish means, and someone who puts
their children at all times above themselves. I know quite a few single parents
myself and they are the most amazing people I have met and I admire them
greatly. The thing I admire most is their strength. They are fighters, they
work their arses off (& I am not just talking about paid work here either)
and some of the people I know personally I have no doubt could raise 14 kids on
their own but I don’t believe they would chose to do so using a medical
procedure. If only Nadya Suleman could spend a day or two with them I am sure
they could have some sort of positive effect.
I know I certainly never had any visions of this woman
succeeding in successfully raising 14 children on her own. The reality of this
particular situation is that it was always going to be impossible for her!
People have tried to help which in my opinion is very generous. It truly amazes
me how willing society is to help out people who have no interest in helping
themselves. Everyone from Dr Phil to her
own stylist has had a crack, but bottom line the woman seems to think she knows
everything about everything! & I guess in a way she does. She know all that
there is to know about turning the lives of 14 children into a complete train
wreck.
As much as this woman is clearly an idiot, are we, society
partly to blame for this. Let’s be honest here we all get a kick out of reading
her falling flat on her face and doing an absolutely pathetic job of raising
her children. We buy the newspapers, we read the stories. I guess you could
even say we played a part in the existence of the Octuplets in the first place.
We all love reading dramatic, alarming, shocking stories, we all secretly want
to be rich and famous. Bottom line Nadya Suleman wanted to be famous and we
have ensured that she has got what she wanted. We all need to do these poor
kids a favour. We must stop indulging Nadia’s poor decisions, we are the only
hope these kids have got and we need to make this woman accountable! What kind
of mother says things like "Obviously, I love them - but I absolutely
wish I had not had them." We must stop the Octomum train before its too
late.
Thursday 26 April 2012
Guilty? or Not Guilty? ..... does it really matter?
In February this year the Court of Criminal Appeal granted Gordon Wood his freedom.
Gordon Wood for those who have been neglected to read a newspaper or watch a television for the past few years, is the man who was found guilty and subsequently spent 3 years behind bars for allegedly murdering his 24 year old girlfriend Caroline Byrne, by throwing her of The Gap in Watson's Bay in June 1995.
So is he guilty or not guilty? He has been released so surely he must not be guilty, right?
Wrong!
The reality of this case that can only be described as an utter "mess" is that we will never know the truth. We are never going to know if he is guilty or not guilty. The only person who could now tell the truth is the victim and if she were still alive today this would not be on the table for discussion. So who has the justice system let down here? Have they let Caroline Byrne's family and friends down by letting a murder walk free? or, have they let Gordon Wood down, by sending him to jail for 3 years for something he didn't do? We will never know. But one thing is for certain and that is that the justice system has let down society as a whole due to the outcome in this case. How can we trust the system to get it right, when the system allows such a mess to conspire?
It is probably relevant to mention why the Court of Criminal Appeal was forced to make such a decision. An expert witness that gave evidence at Wood's original trial was found not to be such an "expert" after all. How does an expert witness, used by the prosecution to provide his "expert" opinion on the probability of an event turn out to not be an expert? Well it turns out that "self taught experts" do not exactly fit into the category that the justice system in the country requires. WHAT A SHAM! I am a mother and well it safe to say nobody taught me how to do that, so apparently as I am self taught and all, I am no expert on matters of a mothering nature! So wrong! So, so wrong!
But it is what it is.
Wood is now free, double jeopardy will ensure that he is never tried again for this crime and he is now being paid ridiculous sums for television interviews and I am sure a book deal is soon to follow as he needs something to go into battle with Byrne's father Tony's book The Killing of Caroline Byrne: A Journey of Justice, and we, the Australian public are left confused and in a state of distrust with our legal system. So how do we fix it? The answer is, we probably can't.
As I have said in a previous post, the reason I continue to study law is so that I can make a difference, and maybe if every lawyer out there and every member of the judiciary had the same view we could change the legal system so that things like this are never allowed to happen. This case has highlighted the need for a better system. It needs to be clearer, it needs to be more immediate and it needs to be improved dramatically. Relevance id such a pivotal aspect of evidence, yet the concept of relevance seems to play no such part in the procedural aspect of our legal system. Its not relevant guys, so lets fix it!
My heart goes out to Caroline Byrne's family and friends however it also goes out to Gordon Wood which some people may find controversial. The Byrne's will never get their daughter back and that is obviously a tragedy, and Gordon Wood will live forever with society either judging him as guilty or not guilty. Yet he has not had a fair trial which is a right every citizen in this country should be given. In this case, whether he is guilty or not guilty our legal system has ensured that it no longer matters!
Gordon Wood for those who have been neglected to read a newspaper or watch a television for the past few years, is the man who was found guilty and subsequently spent 3 years behind bars for allegedly murdering his 24 year old girlfriend Caroline Byrne, by throwing her of The Gap in Watson's Bay in June 1995.
So is he guilty or not guilty? He has been released so surely he must not be guilty, right?
Wrong!
The reality of this case that can only be described as an utter "mess" is that we will never know the truth. We are never going to know if he is guilty or not guilty. The only person who could now tell the truth is the victim and if she were still alive today this would not be on the table for discussion. So who has the justice system let down here? Have they let Caroline Byrne's family and friends down by letting a murder walk free? or, have they let Gordon Wood down, by sending him to jail for 3 years for something he didn't do? We will never know. But one thing is for certain and that is that the justice system has let down society as a whole due to the outcome in this case. How can we trust the system to get it right, when the system allows such a mess to conspire?
It is probably relevant to mention why the Court of Criminal Appeal was forced to make such a decision. An expert witness that gave evidence at Wood's original trial was found not to be such an "expert" after all. How does an expert witness, used by the prosecution to provide his "expert" opinion on the probability of an event turn out to not be an expert? Well it turns out that "self taught experts" do not exactly fit into the category that the justice system in the country requires. WHAT A SHAM! I am a mother and well it safe to say nobody taught me how to do that, so apparently as I am self taught and all, I am no expert on matters of a mothering nature! So wrong! So, so wrong!
But it is what it is.
Wood is now free, double jeopardy will ensure that he is never tried again for this crime and he is now being paid ridiculous sums for television interviews and I am sure a book deal is soon to follow as he needs something to go into battle with Byrne's father Tony's book The Killing of Caroline Byrne: A Journey of Justice, and we, the Australian public are left confused and in a state of distrust with our legal system. So how do we fix it? The answer is, we probably can't.
As I have said in a previous post, the reason I continue to study law is so that I can make a difference, and maybe if every lawyer out there and every member of the judiciary had the same view we could change the legal system so that things like this are never allowed to happen. This case has highlighted the need for a better system. It needs to be clearer, it needs to be more immediate and it needs to be improved dramatically. Relevance id such a pivotal aspect of evidence, yet the concept of relevance seems to play no such part in the procedural aspect of our legal system. Its not relevant guys, so lets fix it!
My heart goes out to Caroline Byrne's family and friends however it also goes out to Gordon Wood which some people may find controversial. The Byrne's will never get their daughter back and that is obviously a tragedy, and Gordon Wood will live forever with society either judging him as guilty or not guilty. Yet he has not had a fair trial which is a right every citizen in this country should be given. In this case, whether he is guilty or not guilty our legal system has ensured that it no longer matters!
Me! Me! Me!
Welcome to Mummy Vision!
To be perfectly honest I am not entirely sure why I have decided to start a blog. I like to read, I like to write, I love my family and I have an opinion as my husband tells me (frequently) on everything!
I am certainly not anything special, I am just your average mum. I walk my 6 year old to school everyday, I attempt to stay on top of the housework, try and establish some sort of system of order in my home. I am up until the wee hours most nights with toilet trips for my 3 year old, my 4 year old often sleeps in our bed as she is scared of monsters and my baby, well he is teething, so need I say more? And after all that when I get a few spare minutes I try and cram in a little bit of study.
Education to me is important, however I am what the legal profession call an "accidental law student". Sure I have always wanted to be a lawyer, barrister, solicitor etc but I think in the beginning it was more because I thought Reece Witherspoon in Legally Blonde was just AWESOME (shoes, just think of the shoes), & I will admit to being a dedicated fan to the television series Ally McBeal (oh what I would give to work in a legal office with a bar underneath).... how a person could be so wrong about the ins and outs of a profession is simply beyond me, however this is clearly a prime example of how television misleads us ALL THE TIME!!! But I have now learned a lot of important things from my degree and I do one day hope to establish a career of some kind, not with the aim so much of making some serious coin ($$$$) but with the aim of assisting people less fortunate them myself.
The most important thing I have learned during my years at law school is that having an opinion is a really powerful thing. To be opinionated is even better (as long as you are respectful). Opinions contrary to popular belief do not hurt anyone. They don't make the world stop, they are what makes the world keep spinning. So this blog is me sharing my opinions on everything. Read if you dare! I make no apologies to those I offend by simply thinking outside the box at times & please feel free to share your thoughts.
To be perfectly honest I am not entirely sure why I have decided to start a blog. I like to read, I like to write, I love my family and I have an opinion as my husband tells me (frequently) on everything!
I am certainly not anything special, I am just your average mum. I walk my 6 year old to school everyday, I attempt to stay on top of the housework, try and establish some sort of system of order in my home. I am up until the wee hours most nights with toilet trips for my 3 year old, my 4 year old often sleeps in our bed as she is scared of monsters and my baby, well he is teething, so need I say more? And after all that when I get a few spare minutes I try and cram in a little bit of study.
Education to me is important, however I am what the legal profession call an "accidental law student". Sure I have always wanted to be a lawyer, barrister, solicitor etc but I think in the beginning it was more because I thought Reece Witherspoon in Legally Blonde was just AWESOME (shoes, just think of the shoes), & I will admit to being a dedicated fan to the television series Ally McBeal (oh what I would give to work in a legal office with a bar underneath).... how a person could be so wrong about the ins and outs of a profession is simply beyond me, however this is clearly a prime example of how television misleads us ALL THE TIME!!! But I have now learned a lot of important things from my degree and I do one day hope to establish a career of some kind, not with the aim so much of making some serious coin ($$$$) but with the aim of assisting people less fortunate them myself.
The most important thing I have learned during my years at law school is that having an opinion is a really powerful thing. To be opinionated is even better (as long as you are respectful). Opinions contrary to popular belief do not hurt anyone. They don't make the world stop, they are what makes the world keep spinning. So this blog is me sharing my opinions on everything. Read if you dare! I make no apologies to those I offend by simply thinking outside the box at times & please feel free to share your thoughts.
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