Tomorrow it will be our youngest son's 8th Birthday. I can't believe it!
Yesterday we took a group of kids up to Port Macquarie to spend the day at the indoor rock climbing centre. The trip was pretty slow because we have had such awful weather. At least it was patchy. We were ready to cancel the trip if it didn't clear up a little because the last place you want to be in the rain is the Pacific Highway.
There is a lot of flooding around at the moment. Although the rivers have broken their banks around here, there are no threats to houses. Unfortunately that was not the case a little further north. Kempsey and Grafton were being asked to evacuate and we listened to the local ABC broadcasting emergency instructions all the way up. The highway was blocked just north of Port Macquarie - so there was very little traffic.
Once we got to the centre the boys climbed the walls ( must have been all those lollies! ) and also had a game in the laser skirmish maze. The day went quite quickly really - I know I was exhausted after holding up seven young climbers all day, not to mention the blisters on my hands!
Driving back, number 2 son was chatting away all grown up with his friends when he suddenly tapped me on the shoulder and lent forward and touched two fingers together with me. This is our secret family ritual. It dates back to when our eldest was too little to talk properly and used to reach out two fingers and say ' sou sou' instead of 'love you'. It became a habit that whenever we were going anywhere we would touch fingers and say 'sou sou' to each other.
When youngest son did it in secret so his friends wouldn't know what he was doing, I thought he must have had a truly wonderful day - although if you ask him he will day ' yeah, it was good' in a really cool, laid back sort of way. ...... after all, that's what you do when you are eight years old!