Little Red Boots

Kayleigh's first pair of shoes was a little pair of red boots that we bought from Myers. We bought these when she first started walking as we didn't think they she needed proper shoes before this. Kayleigh was very proud of her little red boots and wore them all the time. I still remember her running around naked with only her red boots on. It was so cute.

Kayleigh's little red boots

Doing Weights

As Kayleigh grew up, Terence has several weights sets, benches, dumbbells and other weights stuff. When she little we always made sure she couldn't play with it, but since her Daddy used it she wanted to use it to. One day we had the bench and the barbell out on the porch and we told Kayleigh off for rolling the barbell along the concrete. the next thing we knew, Kayleigh screamed. She had managed to roll the barbell on top of her fingers so they where between the 20kg plate and the concrete floor. We quickly took it off and took Kayleigh to the bathroom to inspect the damage. Nothing was broken, but she had blood blisters on both sides of three fingers, up and down the fingers. Kayleigh NEVER touched the weights without permission again.

When she got older and started showing an interest in weights and her body, Terence worked with her to show her the correct techniques for dumbbells. She wasn't old enough to do weights properly, but light weights to strengthen her muscles was OK. Kayleigh had respect for the weights set and always made sure she was not mucking up around them.

The '6 Pack'

Kayleigh always looked after her body, it helped that she had her dad's genetics, and the one thing was she really proud of was her 6 pack abs. We first noticed Kayleigh '6 pack' when she was about 6 years old. By then she spent a lot of time hanging from the monkey bars at home with her feet held in front of her. For those who don't know, that is a killer ab work out. Kayleigh just did it for fun. She also started doing it at school, swinging on the monkey bars and hanging upside down and swinging up (another killer ab workout). By the time she got the high school her abs were well developed, in fact as Mr Haidon told us, they played in game in SoSE were they had to catch something in their shirt and Kayleigh spent the whole time catching while flashing her abs at the boys, making them jealous!

Tea towel fights

Kayleigh got very very good at cracking tea towels and we had many tea towel fights with them. It normally started with Kayleigh saying no to drying up, or cleaning the kitchen so I would grab a tea towel and then Kayleigh would grab one and then we would start trying to crack them at each other ( in fun of course). There were days that I managed to crack one, but mostly Kayleigh got me. The important thing was that after we had fun, Kayleigh would then do what she was asked to do.

Kayleigh also tried tea towel fights with her dad, but as he was really good at it, she normally came off second best, apart front the time she managed to get her dad a beautiful shot and actually broke his skin on his leg, and drew blood. Terence didn't want to play that game anymore . . . . .it hurt.

Sleeping in the tent

When Kayleigh was about 8 she really really wanted a cubby house, but we couldn't afford it. Then when we were down at Kmart one day we saw a tent in the reduced section. It was a small three person tent but we thought 'awesome' we could use it as a cubby house for the kids to play in and if they get bored, we can pack it up and store it until they wanted to play in it again. All the kids loved the tent and the one thing Kayleigh really wanted to do was sleep in it one night.

One night when we knew it was going to be warm and clear, we told Kayleigh and Natassja they could sleep in the tent and they were very excited. Kayleigh got out her doona and pillow and set up her spot in the tent. That night I don't think she got to sleep until after midnight she was that excited. Over the years we had several tents and Kayleigh slept in everyone overnight, sometimes with her sister and friends, and a couple of times by herself. Our dog Sash always slept next to the tent (and sometimes inside it) when Kayleigh was asleep. One thing Kayleigh did like doing when she sleeping in the tent was going on a 'midnight' walk around the garden and doing midnight trampolining, laying down and staring at the stars. When we got the fire pit, Kayleigh sat outside next to the fire toasting marshmellows talking about her day before curling up inside her sleeping bag to go to sleep. It was like camping without having to go anywhere.

Cracking bones

One thing that Kayleigh did was crack her fingers, toes and any other part she could do. I always told her not to because it could cause arthritis when she got old. Kayleigh didn't care and continued to do it. Every morning she would get up and crack her toes by curling her toes underneath her feet then standing on them. She would then lace her fingers together and stretch them in front until they cracked.

Kayleigh also liked cracking her dads back to relieve him of the back pain he gets. She had figured out a technique to feeling his back to find the spots where his back was compressed and then pushing on it in a way til it cracked. I still have not managed to do it even though Kayleigh showed me many many times. Kayleigh just had a healing touch.

The 'Poo' tale

I think every parent has a poo tale of their kids were the child has managed to smear poo in all sorts of places. The tale of poo that Kayleigh managed -well even I still can't explain how she did it.

We had just moved into the house we currently live at, so Kayleigh was just over 2 years old. Because we moved into the house, we thought we would make it our own by painting the rooms the colour we wanted. Kayleigh and Natassja room we choose a colour called almond nougat - a sort of light apricot colour. As it was a children's bedroom we thought we would spend the extra money and get wash and wear paint so it was easy to keep clean. Because of some sort of special, we also got white wash and wear for the ceiling. The day after we painted, Kayleigh and Natassja were playing in their room. Because we were still painting the other rooms we had the door closed so they didn't get into trouble. After a while we noticed the girls were being very quiet and we went to check on them (quiet children = children being naughty) . Before we opened the door we knew what one of them had been up to. We opened the door and there was Kayleigh, her hands a lovely brown colour, the walls a lovely brown colour up to about a metre from the floor, and a big grin on Kayleighs face. Then I looked up, and there on the nice newly painted ceiling was even more poo!!! The only explanation was she threw it up there - a effort for a two year old. All I can say is thanks god we used wash and wear, it took Terence hours to clean up the room and clean up Kayleigh.