Beth's tuneful ways

Here is Beth singing Happy Birthday to her Aunty Amy. She's rather distracted by her sandplay activity but it's cute nonetheless.

So much to blog.... so little time

I'm home alone tonight (if you don't count two sleeping children upstairs) and a doco on Errol Flynn is starting in half an hour on the ABC which I'm keen to watch. So instead of working on my thesis - still got 6 weeks to write the damn thing - I thought I'd blog.

News on Barney:
- He's 7 weeks old today
- A week ago he weighed 5.1kgs (he's put on 1 1/2 kilos since birth which is fab), he's 57cms long (grown 6.5cms since birth) and his head circumference is 39cms (2cms more than at birth).
- He is perfectly in proportion being in the 75th percentile for the lot.
- He started smiling deliberately a couple of weeks ago and in the last week he's added goo's and ga's to make him perfectly adorable.
- His favourite occupation (obviously after guzzling loads of milk) is to lie on his baby gym and hit the little animals hanging above him at either hand and watch them swing. He's very good at it. Today we added a chime and mirror at both his feet and so he's a hand hitting, feet kicking whizz at the mo. Once I charge the video battery I'll get some footage of his marvels.
- We're enamoured with him. And who wouldn't be?

News on Beth:
- She started wearing undies about three weeks ago now and is pretty much clean and dry consistently throughout the day. She's in nappies overnight and at "quiet time". To be on the safe side we also put her in "pull-ups" if we're out for long stretches but try to encourage her to use the loo then too. We started off giving her special treats of a few bits of nutri-grain (a breakfast cereal) and have now progressed to stickers or stamps and one marshmallow at the end of the day. She's fantastic and we're really proud of her.
- Yesterday we went to the park and the shops with Beth on her bike and Barney in the baby bjorn. She steered really well the entire way. She needs to be re-directed to watch in front of her when there's cars, people, flowers or birds that take her interest. When I remind her, "Beth look ahead of you", she looks up above her which isn't much help. I've no idea where she learnt that "ahead" was up in the sky.
- She seems to be starting to get over her "bug" phobia now but still has hawk-eyes at spotting moths, spiders, flies etc. in our house. With Summer coming we've got a lot of them in here. Don't worry, nothing poisonous (we don't think).
- She's a singing, dancing, happy girl which I will also try to catch on video. I need to set it up so she isn't aware or else she'll want to come behind the camera and watch the screen.

General news:
- We're all at various stages of the same cold. Tom and Beth are nearly over it and I think Barney and I are just getting it. Hopefully it won't affect Barney too badly - Beth didn't get a cold till she was over 6 months old so we never had any early worries on this score.
- I will finish my thesis before we fly to England on December 12th (my real deadline is November 30th) no matter what. It's my new mantra to replace, "Breastfeeding will get easier". Which, btw, is pretty good now.
- Tom's busier at work and enjoying it more than I've ever known him to. I'm really proud of him and glad he's moved to main campus for Sydney Uni.
- My folks are in China for three weeks.
- The Aussie federal election is on November 24th; yes it is more than time for a change!
- My show's about to start... bye for now.

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The juggling act

The worst time for Barney to be awake and needing a feed or not settling back to sleep is from 5.30-ish at night until Beth goes to bed around 7. I'm tired. Beth's tired. I can't give Beth all my attention. I'm trying to get her dinner organised and supervise her eating it. Then it's bathtime and her night-time ritual of pyjamas, clean teeth, stories and bed. If Beth's grizzly, this tends to be the time she'll run full pelt at me and Barney while he's feeding and crash onto the couch; or try to climb up onto the couch with us; or shout right by Barney's ear etc. It's hard because I understand where she's at too but I still have to feed her brother. When I hold out my hand to stop her colliding with Barney and me, Beth says, "Don't push me!" and gets v. frowny.

When Tom's around he can do Beth's night routine while I attend to Barney. But he's at work late on Monday nights and has his film course on Thursday nights which means I'm on my own. It's wonderful when Barney sleeps through this time of day. Unfortunately he doesn't always and he certainly didn't on Monday night when he started squawking for milk just after 5pm. I entertained Beth during and after dinner with "Play School Nursery Rhymes" while I fed Barney on the couch. She had to be prompted to remember to eat, but otherwise she was great. She loves Rhys on the show which helps and she sang along to most of the songs.

Then I thought it would be a good idea for Beth and Barney to have a bath together! What a nice brother/sister thing to do. That all went extremely well. Barney was v. relaxed and enjoyed the warm water while Beth had her teapot and cups to fill, empty, fill, empty.... However, just as I turned to grab Barney's towel to get him out, Beth poured a full teapot of water onto his head and face. Not happy Beth! Barney went from v. calm to v. red-faced, distressed and tense. He was all right a few minutes later but it was hardly what I'd wanted just before putting him to bed. Poor Beth cried too when she realised she'd upset Barnaby. So both kids were unhappy at about 6.30pm - the time when you want them to be unwinding and quiet and relaxed.

When Tom got home just before 8pm, he was greeted by me with Barney in the backpack against my chest coming out of Beth's room after re-settling her for the umpteenth time because neither of them seemed interested in sleep. My greeting "hello Tom", had that Seinfeld, "hello Neuman" edge to it. Amazingly both kids did go to sleep a few minutes later so at least Tom was spared the stair climbing saga that can be our early evening exercise. Instead we had a glass of wine and dinner together, followed by a bit of chocolate and a DVD - lovely!

The Beach Babes

Beth seems to be taking after me in a couple of respects. Firstly, she's left-handed (hooray for lefties!). Despite our parents both being right-handed, my sisters Janine and Karen and I are all left-handed. Funny eh? And Beth is following suit. Apparently handedness is related to hormones whilst bub is in-utero. So it will be interesting to see what Barney is.

The second trait that Beth has definitely not inherited from Tom is her love of the beach. We spend the October Long Weekend up at Avoca Beach and Beth had a wonderful time playing in the sea and sand. She has stopped eating sand which I'm pleased about (nappy changing after these incidents were certainly gritty). The sea was pretty flat over the weekend so it was safe for Beth to get used to the shore and be close to the action without the risk of her being bowled-over by a huge wave. She loved it. She jumped in the waves and sang "ring-a-ring-o-roses" whilst holding my hands and spinning us round before she fell down into the water. She fetched water in her bucket countless times for her cousins Annabel and Alex whilst they built sandcastles. And she laughed her head off when grandpa held her hands and swung her over and into the water. A great time was had by all... except for Tom who only ventured to the beach on one morning for about an hour and grumbled the whole time about it. Poor Tom - he says he loves the sea but hates the sand. This is a problem when you have a beach house. My solution was to suggest we buy a yacht. If anyone has a spare quarter mill, we'll be sorted.

The day the wheels really fell off!

Last Thursday, after a lovely morning at the park with some friends from Mothers Group, I met my Mum at Castle Towers for lunch and a bit of shopping. I had Beth and Barney with me so this was the first time I was to use our monster double stroller which sits them one in front of the other. We bought the stroller ages ago when I was pregnant and it had been gathering dust in the garage until I slung it in the car boot that morning. It took up the whole boot! It's huge - mainly because it's a 3-wheeler and the wheel base seems to be much wider than I remembered when we bought it at the store.

I managed to get the thing clicked into place and get the kids into their seats and find room for the masses of baby stuff I'm carrying around again. So we were set. Then I started to push the stroller from the car park into the shops and realised something was wrong. Flat tyres ... all three of them! Hadn't even thought to check that. So with much grunting and extra awkwardness I pushed the deflated stroller toward the cafe where I was meeting Mum. It was a relief to get there and see Mum at her table. But just as I was turning into the cafe, the back left wheel came completely off and the stoller slumped to the side. I couldn't quite believe it. I went bright red as the cafe owner came to my rescue and helped me lift the stroller to push the wheel back on. He asked me where I'd bought it. The truth is the store where we bought it closed down a few months ago so I told him that. He kicked the wheel and said, "It's crap isn't it". My thoughts exactly.

Red faced and sweaty I sat down long enough to fill Mum in on things and order food before racing off to Target to buy a tyre pump. Once the tyres were inflated again the stroller felt better but the bloody wheel kept threatening to come off again and we had to keep kicking it to stay on. Eventually it fell off as we were going into the parents room to feed Barney. A clued-up grandmother saw our predicament and she and Mum re-fitted some clip on which is meant to hold it all together. So we were feeling much more confident pushing the kids around after that. Unfortunately the tyre fell off again as I was putting the stroller into the boot when we'd finished shopping. So problem is not solved, though I'm hoping it won't be too difficult to sort out. What a pain.