My New Project

It's probably the biggest challenge I've ever had to face in my life.... getting Beth to let me do her hair AND stopping her from taking it out five minutes later. She was bald for so long as a bub that she's never gotten used to me doing her hair. It gets brushed in the morning (most days) and she's finally reconciled herself to that. I had to make up a song to sing to her while I was doing it for a while but it's ok now. But as soon as I try to introduce a hairband to the mix... she either refuses outright or plays with it until it's come out of her hair. Here is Beth with some little clips in her hair. I took the photo v. quickly after I'd done it. And doesn't she look lovely? So my new task for when we're in England is to do Beth's hair every day. After six weeks hopefully she'll be used to it and it may survive intact until the end of the day. Wish me luck!

Spring

Spring is my favourite season in Oz (yes Tom we do have seasons here!). It's always nice to have warmer weather coming out of Winter before the really hot Summer arrives. Plus my favourite flowers and trees are at their best at this time - azaleas and jacaranda trees. And my birthday is in October so there's always something to celebrate too. Barnaby's birthday will now be the "welcome Spring" party and mine can be when it's in full swing.

Really special treat

My good friend Kylie and her daughter Trinity are staying with us for a bit. We went out to dinner last Monday as a treat for us adults and to see how the kids coped with such an exciting excursion at around their bedtime. We had fun and the kids had a ball. The steak restaurant we went to was family friendly and we were early enough for the girl's exuberance to largely go unnoticed. After dinner we got icecreams and ate them in the Piazza area by the fountain. Trinity did an excellent job of eating her icecream and not making a mess. Beth.... not so good. She had chocolate icecream all down her dress and was getting big grins from passers-by who thought she looked cute and were probably glad they weren't the parents who'd have to clean her up later on.

Wost?

We took Beth and Barnaby to a fair at Drummoyne a couple of weekends back. It was a lovely day - sunny but with a nice breeze. We met up with our friends Mark and Tanya and their son Ollie. There were quite a few rides and the queues weren't too bad. And Beth had her face painted to be a butterfly which she loved.

At one stage, the guys went and got lunch for us whilst Tanya (3 mths pregnant) and I (breastfeeding Barney) waited with Beth and Ollie in the shade on a hill. Time passed... and Tanya noticed that Beth wasn't with us anymore. "Is Beth with Tom?" she asked. Good question. Had she gone with him? I sought Tom out and asked. No, Beth wasn't with him but he'd just heard an announcement on the loudspeaker that there was a lost little girl called "Elizabeth" at the SES stall. This turned out to be very close to where we'd been sitting. And there was Beth, all smiles, being plied with bandaids by helpful SES staff and thoroughly enjoying being the centre of attention. The staff had asked Beth her name to which she'd said, "Beth". Then they asked her her last name and she had said, "Elizabeth". Tom and I are now trying to teach her to say Goodfellow and know what that means. They also asked me if my name was "Sharon" (she must have said "Shell"). And they knew she had a brother called Barnaby! So luckily Beth's first time of getting lost was not too traumatic for her.

When I was little I used to deliberately "lose" myself in large department stores because I used to like being announced. My Mum told me she'd be browsing away and wouldn't have missed me yet when she'd hear, "we have a lost little girl whose name is Michelle. She's 3 years old... etc etc". What a pain I must have been! I said lost the same way Beth now does - "wost". It's cute but I hope she doesn't develop a habit for losing herself. Especially not with our trip to London coming up. Christmas crowds on Oxford Street - it would be New Year before we found her again.

Beth

Beth continues to dazzle us with her comprehension and spoken language skills. She repeats an awful lot of what we say and has an amazing memory for people, places and details. I wish my memory was as good so that I could tell you some of the cute things she comes out with. We still speak in the third person a fair bit so she'll say "Beth did ...." or "Beth is happy" or whatever. When I go into her room in the morning she greets me with a huge grin and says, "Beth still awake!" - she hasn't quite got what "still" means.


Our gorgeous girl is starting to get the usual scrapes and cuts on her knees, legs, arms etc. She has a splinter in her big toe at the moment that I'd like to try to get out but am unsure about how to do it with minimal pain for Beth. So I'm just keeping an eye on it. Beth loves her bandaids (they have Wiggles characters on them and are different colours). She's constantly asking for one. I try to ration them to one a day after her bath. She's usually taken it off by the time I go into her room in the morning.

At least she's now not getting a marshmallow for staying clean and dry during her "quiet time" in the afternoon. It used to take Beth hours to eat it; resulting in two very sticky hands and face and goodness knows what furniture copped it. Take a closer look - there's a pink marshmallow in Beth's hand in the laundry basket photo. I think she so loved getting her "special treat" that she hated it to end once she'd eaten it.

Our 10 year anniversary

Tom and I are proof that you can have a romantic weekend away with two children in tow. We had a wonderful long weekend for our anniversary up at the Hunter Valley (North of Sydney - wine making country). We didn't visit a single winery but we went to National Parks, some gardens and an old town (by Aussie standards). There were heaps of wallabies and kangaroos where we stayed which Beth loved (see photo). And Beth and Barnaby were fantastic - even enduring fairly long stints in the car without complaint.

This was the celebration of ten years since the night Tom and I met at The Metro in Sydney at a Primal Scream gig. We got married three years later on the same day. The last decade has been the happiest time of my life.

The end is near

Been far too long since my last posting. But I've been working hard. Honest! I can now relax as my dissertation and literature review for my Masters degree are now done. Hurrah! I haven't bound them or handed them in yet but that will be in the next week or so and there's no stress between now and then. I've now finished all my coursework for the degree, leaving only two placements to do in 2008. Timing is the issue with the placements but I'm in no rush. They will be enjoyable to do once I get round to them.

So I thought I'd use photos to summarise the fun stuff we've been doing in between Uni work this month. See other postings.....

Loving Life

The kids have been fantastic this week. Here's a few of the highlights that make all the running around and laundry worth it:
- Barney's incredibly expressive and it feels like we're having little conversations with each other. He smiles, he goos and gahs. He's almost laughing it seems. His eyes will follow me, Tom or Beth round the room. He loves the baby gym and hasn't got tired of whacking and kicking the hanging toys.
-Barney's 9 weeks old today. He had his first lot of immunisations on Monday. He was very brave, bless him. He hated the oral medicine the most. Apparently it tastes like methylated spirits so I don't blame him. The feeding, settling and sleeping are fab. He's now 5.6kgs and 61cms long (pretty long I'm told).
- Beth really likes pink singlets. She inherited a lot of them from her older cousin Annabel. Although she has some nice blue, purple and white ones too, really only a pink one will do. Her favourite pink singlet has started to tear at the neck. On Monday I had her take it off before she went to daycare - firstly because it was too hot and secondly because I thought the tear would get ripped further by her or other kids. She wasn't too happy about this turn of events. So I explained to her that I needed to fix the singlet. She nodded her head and said earnestly, "sticky tape on it". She's seen me do it with books so why not singlets?
- Beth loves to sing. She bursts into spontaneous song all the time. It's great hearing her sing to herself when she's having quiet time in her room each afternoon. At night, when she's in bed going to sleep, she'll sing "Mary had a little lamb". I like watching her play and sing when she doesn't realise I'm paying attention and then telling her how great her singing is. She's such a happy little girl.
- Lastly, we're a family that are big on cuddles, kisses and saying "I love you". Beth now reciprocates which is wonderful. I love getting on my knees, arms outstretched and her running up to me for a hug. I love saying night night to Beth and ending with "I love you" and for her to say "Love you" back as she snuggles under the covers. I love how she says, "Mah!" as she kisses me (I think I do this so she's copied it). And I love waving goodbye to her when Tom takes her to daycare and watching her blow kisses to me from the car. These are the moments that I never want to forget.

Fix it up

Tom and I have outdone ourselves in the "we're so crap at DIY" stakes this week. We bought a light shade from Ikea at least 6 weeks ago. Ikea is Tom's least favourite place in the world, so we try to avoid it unless there's something we specifically need that we know we can get there. I'd spied the light shade in the catalogue (plus a groovy hatstand) so we made the trek to Rhodes to get them. The light shade is made up of lots of plastic, bendy pieces. I put them all together about a week after we bought it, and then the light sat on our dining room table for about 4 weeks gathering dust.

Finally, on Sunday whilst it was still daylight we went upstairs to install it in our bedroom. The whole wire connection part looked very straightforward in the instructions. Unfortunately, once we unscrewed our existing light fitting, we were confronted with rather more wires than the instructions catered for. A quick call to my brother-in-law (he's an electrician) made us realise we were way out of our depth. We'd lost track of what wire went where so basically we couldn't install the new light, couldn't put the old one back and had 8 live wires coming out of our ceiling! Whoops.

Tom had to go out to Bunnings (his second least favourite place in the world) and buy some coverings for the wires. With some help from the trusty sticky tape, he had the live wires covered up. Yet when we flicked the switch on our mains board to get our upstairs lights going again... nothing happened. Typical. Thankfully our lamps got us through a couple of nights before my best friend's Dad - Bob the electrician - came on Tuesday morning and sorted it all out. We have learned our lesson - when it comes to stuff that can kill you, always use a professional.