Mother's Day

Today is my very first Mother's Day. I'm not sure what's being planned for today (if anything), so I thought I would take the time now to do a quick post, and wish ALL our Moms and Moms-to-Be a very happy Mother's Day!

I Am An Over-Reactor

Seriously. I called Centerlink today, and they're sending me out another form to fill out and mail back to them. Hopefully that will clear this whole thing up.

I think I might possibly try and avoid jumping to conclusions. :\

I'm Sorry But You Owe Us Money

So I got a letter in the mail the other day, from the ever illustrious Centerlink. For those of you unfamiliar with this division of Australian government, they are basically our "welfare" system. They issue all the dole bludgers their fortnightly pay (which means people who are unemployed get paid by the government to go "look" for work, but who [mostly] really don't and just sit around collecting money) as well as pensions for the elderly, single parent pension etc. I was a dole bludger for awhile after coming back here, and while I did look for work, of course I wasn't going to get hired based on two major factors: 1) I was over 16, and (2) I was pregnant.

Okay, so, I was still allowed to collect while pregnant because even though I wouldn't get employed, I still looked for work and thus still got the not-so-sweet-cash; my constant "looking" for work had to continue until my 32nd week of pregnancy, when I would no longer have to in order to keep getting paid. (I know it's abit confusing, but bear with me)

So now, cut to me being 34 weeks pregnant, and I get a letter in the mail from Centerlink, stating that I did not have to hand in my Claim for Payment form until somewhere in March, instead of the previous date of January something. I called Centerlink and verified this, plus also having verified it with TWO REAL people, face to face, in two separate branches. The lady I spoke with on the phone assured me that this was the case, and that I no longer had to hand in my form every fortnight in order to keep getting paid (which both humans I spoke with face to face, also said).

Okay, now, BOTH humans I physically spoke with told me that after I'd had the baby, I would be eligible for the Family Allowance pension, which is still a fornightly payment but the amount varies, solely dependant upon how much income the family currently has. They BOTH told me that if I no longer wanted to receive ANY type of payments from them, I DID NOT HAVE TO LODGE MY FORM, and my payments would immediately stop.

This was true. This happened. I did not lodge my form in March, because I no longer wanted the fortnightly payments.

Now it is May. I get a letter from them in the mail only a few days ago, and the letter tells me that because I did not lodge my Claim for Payment form in March, that I now owed them $2500 in backpayment from December through until March, and I have until May 31st to pay it back.

WTF?

So now this means I have to call them, and no doubt get the run around before they tell me I will have to make an appointment with my nearest office to go in and speak to yet another person. Should this happen, I might purposely just not feed Kira prior to going in, so not only do they get an insanely angry woman to speak with, they will also get the joys of hearing an insanely angry baby.

Conversationally...

D: (while looking at the newest photos of Kira) Our Kira is going to grow up to be another Angelina Jolie.

me: Shh.

D: What?

me: I'm writing.

D: Oh, sorry. (pause) I was only trying to be a loving partner.

me: You're still talking.

Let's Play Make Believe

This will be a fun game, I promise.

First, let's pretend you're me. You're a 30 year old fiancee of a very wonderful and enigmatic man, and you have a three month old daughter. You frequently send out monthly emails to your friends and family updating them of your daughter's progress, because over half of these people don't have access to your blog, and you don't really blog too much about your daughter anyway because you want to keep some things private.

Having said that, you always put in the email how old your daughter is, and when her birthday is. This isn't so people lavish presents upon her (yet), this is so people will KNOW how old she is, and on what date.

With me? Okay.

Now...Let's pretend that yesterday the MiL rings. The conversation is going very well, (which you know is a fairly rare occurance) and you're discussing your daughter; her granddaughter. You talk about her progress and how she's fussing at the moment because at the same time you're on the phone with the MiL, your daughter is squirming and bellowing in your arms because she's overtired from her visit with her Neena and her Nanna, and you're trying to get her off to sleep.

Then your MiL asks how old she is. You take a quick look through one of the many mental folders you have, and recollect that she asked you this question not five days previous when she called. And, not only did she ask you, she also asked her son the very same question. And she was met with the same answer every single time: "She'll be 3 months on May 7th."

So, let's just say all of that happened, and you hand off the phone to your fiance because MiL wants to talk with her son, and you sit down on the couch with the fussing child, and you think for a moment. You know without a doubt that people have been told time and again about the date of your daughters birth. You know with every fibre of your being, if you were to ask any member of your family, when your daughter's birthday was, they would be able to tell you and some of them may even be advanced enough to tell you the exact time, even though that's not what you were getting at.

Okay so we've pretended all of that happened. Now, let's switch places again, and you're a grandmother. Do YOU remember your grandchild's birthday? How should I be feeling?

Baby Einstein

Under her play-gym, Kira studies the telephone shaped rattle. I CAN touch this!

Rather than attempt the rattle right at the moment, she suddenly becomes quite preoccupied with the star and it's musical lights.

She's learned if she kicks the side of the gym, the music and lights start up again!

Hmm, I like the lights but not so much the noise, Mommy.

This is so much fun!!

Back to the telephone rattle, and some serious consternation.

I Hate the Phone Company

Our internet is out again. It was gone all day yesterday and I have no idea when it came up, but I was awake at 6am and apparently it was on then. Last week we suffered with the internet being down until around 830am every morning, and then for no reason whatsoever, it went down on Monday until around noon before it came back up. Yesterday, it just didn't come back up.

We called our ISP, only to find out there's nothing wrong on their end (even though they were experiencing a wicked high volume of calls, so much so that my brother was on hold for about 7 minutes), but they submitted a "line problem" ticket with the phone company, who incidentally, were supposed to get back to us yesterday by 4pm. If you guessed they didn't call us back, you'd be quite correct.

Telstra, you can lick my ass. I hate you. Get your act together.