Turn around

Tessie managed to turn around all by herself today, while she was in the play mat. For a week or so I’ve noticed that she’s gotten really good at arching her back and looking around. This morning she used that movement to propel herself around the mat. It was sorta like Angus Young’s famous guitar move. Without the guitar. Or the school boy outfit. Whatever.

Look how pleased she was with herself:

And another breakthrough today. She slept for 1 hr 40 mins in her crib this morning! It did involve me going in there around the 40 minute mark to resettle her (a bit of patting and quite a bit of putting the dummy back in), but it was a big step in the right direction. While we were in NZ she would only sleep in our arms and only take short naps. Now if only we can get rid of the dummy….

Playgroup

Is it Friday afternoon? Is it really? Wow, another hectic week has simply flown by. Since we got back to Sydney there’s been a lot of baby and toddler wrangling. Rose went to little school on Wednesday and Thursday and came home absolutely exhausted. And what does Rose do when she’s exhausted? Run around like a she’s on fire, of course.

Today I was back to looking after both girls and I decided to do something new. We went to a playgroup at a local infant school. It was amazingly well organised, and we had a fun morning. There was a great little outdoor area with a slide, play house and sand pit as well as bikes and other push along toys. They also had two activity tables set up for play dough and painting. Inside there was a library with tonnes of books and play kitchen equipment. Rose’s favorite activity was climbing up onto the window sill of the play house then leaping off and holding onto the top of the nearby fence, then to dropping to the ground (not as dramatic as it sounds, it was only a drop of 20cms or so. But still, bold!). Rose was very confident in her interactions with the other children, and I was pleased to see her not retaliating when she got hit or scratched by another kid. She’s very non-aggressive. At 10.30am they set up some little tables and all the kids sat down and ate sandwiches and a fruit platter. Not bad for the cost of $3 and a piece of fruit, eh? We’ll definitely be going back there.

It was nice also to socialise with a few more mums. (I won’t kid you that there were any Dads there. Actually there was one, the poor guy.) A lot of them seemed to know each other, but I got chatting to a few that I’d seen at various parks in the area. I saw a couple of other mums in the same situation as me (young toddler plus young baby) and we all seemed to be doing the same thing: jiggling up and down with the baby in the front pack while trying to assist the other kid to climb things or hurt themselves. It’s a pretty strange dance, I can tell you.

Tonight we’re doing some celebrating. Chris found out today that he’s getting  a bonus at work – a 10% leave loading. This’ll make a big difference in our single income family. How are we celebrating? Getting Thai food and having a glass of wine once the kids go to bed. Yay!

Highlight Reel

Rose’s first act after coming home was to walk around the house pointing out all the new words she’s learned. Plant! Window! Door! Money! Milk! Bag! She also pulled her swimsuit out of the suitcase and hopefully said, “Pool?” The girl hasn’t forgotten too much about Sydney. She also pointed to a towel on the drying rack – and said “LU-LA!” – that Tallulah had used when she visited a month ago!

There’s way too much to report on about our trip. The awesome visits with family and getting to introduce Tess to her great grandmother and uncles and cousins. Stray visit to the doctor. My brother’s 40th birthday and the mucho toddler madness that ensued. The absolutely calming and relaxing holiday at the beach house. So much fun. Too much fun. Now comes the fun hangover as well settle back into ordinary daily life.

But wait! We never think of life as ordinary now that we have two gorgeous delightful girls.

Here’s my pictorial highlight reel in the absence of more tired words. More on flickr.

Granny Jo made us a yummy picnic which we ate on the lawns of Chris’s parents house. Imagine having a lawn so big you could picnic on it!

Tess meets her great grandmother

Uncle Mark with a handful of toddlers (Rose and her cousin Frances)

Rose falling asleep on the drive down to the beach

Chris and Rose, first morning at Ohope beach

Rose getting “thigh rub” from swimming in the sea and walking around like she’d been riding a horse.

The two grannies reading Rose a bedtime story each. Rose and Tess are very lucky girls to have such loving grandmothers.

Woah!

Tess slept for 11 hours last night! We actually woke her up at 6am because we’re going down to the beachhouse today and I wanted to make sure she had a feed early so that I could feed her again just before we got in the car. She might’ve slept for 12! I attribute her long sleep to utter exhaustion from yesterday’s fun. The hour before she fell asleep she was so tired all she could do was throw her head back and yell.

Watch out for the chippie monster

I think Rose was the happiest I’ve ever seen her today at 5pm. She was mid-flight, chasing her cousin Ali around the house that Mark and Fiona were staying at. Her giggle was so spirited and excited that she looked like she might catch flight, or burst into flames. Her skippy gait was so full of bounce that she could’ve been running on rubber. Needlesstosay, Rose loves her cousins, and she really loved playing with them today at my brother’s 40th birthday party. 

The other funny thing about today is that she ate a big dinner of pasta (eating approximately twice what her cousins did), but yet I caught her helping herself to chips from a bowl after dinner. I got a glimpse of her out on the deck stuffing a big handful into her mouth. Mark’s friend Stephen admitted that he’d seen her coming back and back to the chip bowl. Little monkey!

Traumatic moments in parenting #327

One of the absolute worst things about caring for a newborn is clipping their nails. Last time I did Tess’s I managed to snip some skin under her thumb as well as cutting her nail. She cried and cried, and it was very upsetting. Today I asked Chris if he’d do it because I simply couldn’t face doing it again. I was reading naptime stories to Rose at the time and I could hear the wailing from across the house. When I came into the living room Chris was nearly in tears. He’d managed to cut her skin in two places and his shirt was covered with little smears of blood. We ended up putting tiny bandages on to staunch the blood and giving her a dose of panadol.

I think we’re both traumatised enough to never cut them again. Who cares if we have to put gloves on her until she’s 18? Poor baby.

In the meantime we’re having a lovely visit to the homeland. Rose is loving the grandparental attention, Chris is visiting new and exciting archives, and I’m enjoying the extra help. I’ve got some lovely pictures to upload, but I haven’t got the camera cable so it’ll have to wait until we get home. Also, we head to the relative isolation of Ohope Beach tomorrow – and no internet access until we get back to Sydney. Super excited about walks along the beach, and fish and chips down at the harbour.

And some other excitment – I heard today that one of the other mums in our parents group gave birth to her second baby. He came a little early (6 weeks) and is in the High Dependency Unit. I’m very excited for the Hyam family, and it’ll be kinda nice having another mum join me in the two kids hijinks.

A good start

The flight went a lot better than I thought it would. Tess slept almost the whole way, happily snoozing in her favourite position snuggled up with mum in the baby bjorn sling. Because both girls are under 2 they didn’t have assigned seats, so it was a bit tricky on the descent trying to get Rose to sit still in Chris’s lap. She was entertained immensely by the plastic emergency instructions in the seat pocket in front of her, and the buckle of her seat belt. After we were in the air a flight attendant came over and let us know that there were a couple of spare seats about five rows back, and Chris and Rose moved to them. The rest of the flight went pretty well, although I could hear “No!” and “Down?” every now and then. She even slept for 30 minutes or so, in Daddy’s arms.

I was worried about how our night would go. Rose went to bed very quickly and woke a couple of times in the early evening. But she soon settled down and slept all night. Tess staged a remarkable recovery and her nose stopped running in the early evening. She was a bit cranky in the early evening, but settled down by 9.30pm and slept until 9am (although waking for feeds at 2amish and 7am). All in all, a good start! We’re all feeling a little less bedraggled this morning. And we have an exciting visit this afternoon with Great-nana.

Just sit back and relax…

Okay, one more quick post before I go. We had the most horrendous night! A cold that Rose picked up from child care got transferred to Tess. No surprise, really, given how frequently Rose wants to kiss Tess. Anyway, yesterday Tess was really snotty and wouldn’t sleep at all unless being held by me. So guess what? I spent ALL. DAY. HOLDING. the baby. Last night we put towels under her mattress to elevate the head region slightly so that she would be a bit more comfortably. No dice. No sleeping. Crying.

Eventually we put her to sleep in the rocker (it curves upwards and affords better nasal drainage, apparently.) She still wouldn’t sleep so we resorted to a dummy. Anyway, we’ve been up every hour resettling her putting the dummy back in. (Dummies are your best friend and worst enemy in one small package.) We  both feel like crap. And now we have a flight with two sick babies!

Off to New Zealand

We’re heading off to New Zealand for a couple of weeks. I might not be able to post messages or photos while we’re there. I’ll be sure to update when we get back!

Don’t let the toddler put sand in her tummy button

It was another steaming hot day in Sydney yesterday. The mercury was due to hit 40 o C (105 o F)  so we decided to hit the beach with our friends Petra, Paul and Percy. We had a really nice morning. Fortunately we managed to find a shady spot to set up under an overhang of rocks. I sat with Tess in the shade, while Chris took Rose to look at the rock pools and play in the surf with Percy.

Rose really loved the water and the rock pools. She was one happy toddler. The weirdest thing that happened was that Rose kept putting sand in her tummy button. She’s been obsessing about that part of her body for months now, and she kept trying to pack sand into it. Toddlers are so obsessive compulsive sometimes.

Tess immediately fell into a deep slumber (she loves sleeping nestled up in the baby bjorn). It was a bit of a shame that I didn’t get a toe into the water, but I’ll take moments of solitude when I get them.