my-speck

i'm pregnant and it's going to be a rollercoaster

Business at the front …. Party in the back!!! October 6, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,development stages,Raising a Child — rakster @ 11:57 am
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I’m in love with the little curls at the back of my little boy’s head.

 

curls...

curls at two years

And his dad has a limited amount of hair, which seems to be decreasing in volume just ever so slightly over time (..ahem..).  So we figured, let him grow it, it will be one of the only times in his life he can have nice long hair and not have a care / worry about it.

 

He has asked quite a few times when seeing me do my hair in the morning, if he could “please have a hair clip too?”.  Which of course, I’m happy to oblige with.  Issue is, he most definitely wants to be able to see it in the mirror when he inspects it, so it ends up front and centre.  Which he doesn’t mind at all.  But perhaps won’t go down too well when he is a little older.

 

wearing a hairclip

And it is getting towards summer, which here in Brisvegas, Australia, can be a pretty hot and sticky affair.

 

So we decided on a cut.  Which was yesterday.  We went as a family to the salon for the big affair.  He sat in the chair and watched while his dad had his hair cut, drank his apple juice (special treat from the lady at the salon), and waited patiently.  Then sat as still as a statue while she cut his, moving only his mouth to ask, “Mum, what she doing??” repeatedly.

 

the ‘before’ shot

I like the hairdresser. they have juice!

getting ready. this is serious business, you know.

“what she doing?”

cutting

I couldn’t bear to see too much cut off, so we opted for a trim to keep it out of the eyes at the front and just a little off at the back.

 

The result: a lovely Mullet.  As my sister said, “Business at the front…. Party in the back!!”.

the ‘after shot’

 

 

 

 

what i should have taken a photo of…(and bad parent of the day award) September 26, 2011

Filed under: bad parent of the day award,development stages,Parenting,Raising a Child,swimming — rakster @ 2:11 pm

what I should have photographed.

not the morning tea consumption post-swim:

morning tea at the pool – muffin, watermelon and strawberry

more interesting would have been:

  • me when I took that photo, sitting in the sun at a public pool in my bra and undies.  Yes, with a towel on top, but a relatively small, doesn’t cover all the bits towel.  Because I love to expose my post-pregnancy bits in all their glory at the local public swimming pool with my two children in tow.
  • my clothes at the time this photo was taken.  Ah, there: you can see my skirt in the background, on the table, behind the morning tea.  Because I thought a little fashion display would be in order at the public pool.
  • me, when I came up out of the shallow kids pool after jumping in wearing all my clothes as my big boy lost his footing and decided that instead of kicking, he would just sink during his “mum, please I want to swim here by myself before my lesson” swim.  I wonder about my face.  Bedraggled, I’m sure about; happy to have retrieved a small one from drowning, yes, also sure about; slightly guilty for letting him in the pool by himself where he has been fine 1000 times before, yes, also that.  Yes, I had my swimmers on underneath.  thankfully.   (WE HAVE A WINNER!!! Bad parent of the day award: ME!!).
  • me, sitting there at the side of the pool wrapped in a towel and freezing my ass off for the duration of his lesson.  Trying to hold the 3month old without soaking her too…
  • or better still, a video of the wonderful swimming lesson.  Where for the second week running the normal teacher didn’t show and we had a fill-in.  So my big boy who has missed 3 months of lessons due to me pulling him out after little L joined us because he had developed a fear of the swimming lessons when his last teacher was away repeatedly and he had to go in by himself with a stranger each week (gee I wonder why that upsets a less-than-two year old) made it through the first 10 minutes fine, then cried between his turn for the next 20 minutes.  Hopefully asking the teacher each time they finished one activity, “finished now?”.  Because I had promised him if he finished the lesson we could go for a swim together.

Consolation prize for me was that he loved our swim together! And enjoyed the morning tea thoroughly.  And there is no visual evidence of my bits being exposed at the pool.

love mum

 

P.S. thanks to Baby Mac for the inspiration for this post as her swimming experience this morning sounded just as traumatic so I thought I’d share too.

 

Saturday morning breakfast… September 24, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,cooking,development stages,Parenting,playing,Raising a Child — rakster @ 10:02 am

“Mum, can we make cupcakes?”

Mmmm..  I don’t think he’ll know the difference between cupcakes and sugar-free apple and cinnamon and poppyseed muffins….

Let’s cook!

eating the spoon

can I lick the spoon now??

We mixed the batter, licked the spoon and baked.

They turned out well:

cupcakes! AKA apple cinnamon poppyseed muffins

off to the garden for breakfast:

Eating the end result!

 

and she was listening…sleep… September 23, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,baby stuff,baby's feelings,dancing,development stages,exercise,exhaustion,family,imitation,Parenting,playing,Raising a Child — rakster @ 12:49 pm
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So, after my last post where I complained about the lack of sleep…

My little darling slept right from 7pm to 3:30am last night. Woo hoo! I got more than 3 hours of sleep in a row!

Win for the weekend.

I however went to bed with another case of mild-mastitis, so not feeling 100%, so the lack of eating regularly made it slightly worse and I felt like total crap this morning :(. Have since made up for that by shoving poor little L on the boob at every available waking moment. A few panadols later, I’m feeling alright..

this is what I feel like when I wake up. thankfully there is no-one to take photos of me.

….
Spent the morning at O’s daycare, as he was feeling like he needed some more mummy time. I went in and read some books, playing in the garden with the kids, then went to his ‘body gumbo’ (or body bumbo as he says) class. A bit of a mix between dance/movement and yoga. It was fun. I think I enjoyed it more than he did. I can now do my salute to the sun with an animal impression at each different position. WIN! We will now be doing more yoga/play at home. It rocked.

….

now I am enjoying some me-time while little L sleeps and O is at daycare.

the sleeping babe - I got her cot out a week ago so she has her own space in our room.

 

sleepy-head Luna, 13 weeks old

…

Tonight I am going out with my amazing sisters, all four of us, for a drink. So perfect timing with the whole lots of sleep last night.

 

🙂 have a good weekend everyone!

 

Juggling a temper with an ear infection… and cuteness.. September 15, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,baby stuff,baby's feelings,Communication,cooking,development stages,family,healthcare,Parenting,playing,Raising a Child,speaking — rakster @ 2:12 pm

Day three of an ear-infected, cranky little boy. And a sleeping-a-lot-trying-to-fight-it-off little babe.

Mummy is going a bit stir crazy. She was seen stalking the neighbour’s cat with a squirt gun this afternoon through the back garden… By a workman who she didn’t notice in the other neighbour’s garden. Nice look. He waited until she had been down there for about 5 minutes acting like a dodgy commando-action-hero actor before he made his presence known by raucous laughter. She was a tad embarrased. But granted, she was doing it as the blasted cat was trying to eat her two new chickens. And for some light self-entertainment (she makes her own fun). The workman graciously pointed out where the chickens had gone and where the cat was hiding when his laughter subsided.

As you can see, fours days with two children at home all day, one of whom is on full whine/tantrum/attention-needing at all waking hours, with very little adult human interaction, has left her unable to speak in the first person anymore. She has reverted to full third-person child-speak. God-knows why.

The only saving grace was a few minutes last night when she was preparing dinner. Little O was very excited to be at the big table on his new grown-up big chair and was entertaining his sister with the gift she so carefully chose for him when she was born.

entertaining the little sister


cuteness.

drilling - hard work

 

Singing to my baby sister :) – Movie Monday August 8, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,baby stuff,baby's feelings,Communication,development stages,emotion,family,Parenting,playing,Raising a Child,speaking — rakster @ 4:39 pm
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Finally managed to get the video camera going in time to capture this attempt to pacify the smaller sister 🙂

This almost compensates for the number of times I ‘mistakenly’ attempt to jump on her head each day….

Love mum

P.S. Rocky road to follow later this week

 

Follow-up: out and about with the new mountain buggy freerider scooter / pram combo August 5, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,exercise,Parenting,Raising a Child,walking — rakster @ 11:56 am
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Hello,

Yes, playing with the scooter (mountain buggy freerider) and mountain buggy (mountain buggy urban jungle) combo has been fun so far. A few people have written asking how I found it overall, so a quick review:

freerider

the freerider – currently in use at our house to the tune of a lot of ‘bloody hell’ from the toddler learning to use it: oops

  • I love that the older one can attach and see out as we walk along – works really well with the baby cot/cocoon attached, though my little one is a bit short so when the normal stroller seat is attached he can only see out the sides at the moment, though that will change as he gets taller.
  • I found the scooter hard to attach/detach from the pram in the beginning. Now I’ve worked out a method that works, but it requires a little bit of getting down on the ground and pulling/pushing the clips.
  • Yes, the scooter does get in the way of walking a little. But only a little: you can attach it anywhere along the base of the pram, so I’ve got it to one side.  Which means I just push on one side of the pram and it works ok – not as comfortable to push as without it, but not bad.
  • Steering/pushing the pram with the scooter and child attached is a bit harder / different than normal, you need two hands rather than the one I often use when there is no-one riding an attached scooter.  It feels a bit like driving a car with a trailer and trying to turn corners.  Just a bit heavier and more cumbersome.
  • The scooter works well when it isn’t attached to the pram, however the handle doesn’t turn to steer: you have to lean into it the same as a skateboard.  So it’s a bit harder for Oscar to steer than other scooters he has tried.
  • Oscar loves being on the scooter and being able to see the baby in the pram.

Overall:

It’s a fun toy / scooter, I think it will get better and more convenient the older O gets (he is only just two, so it is still a bit hard for him to use)…
It feels really securely attached to the pram i.e. safe. I like that!
It is super convenient to be able to detach it for ‘freeriding’, attach it when a toddler is standing on it, and flip it up out of the way when it’s not in-use. Which is why we bought it: ie. it works as it says it does!

We’ve decided to buy a double pram anyway as we do go on a lot of long walks etc and when little legs get tired and my back gets sore after baby-wearing for a few hours it will be nice to have a break and be able to use a pram for both of them together.

yay.

-r

 

Sunday afternoon July 17, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,baby stuff,baby's feelings,development stages,emotion,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 1:30 pm

I just ate!

20110717-012713.jpg

 

The what’s and where’s of things… (or what dads do at work) June 17, 2011

Filed under: baby stuff,Communication,development stages,Parenting,pregnancy,Raising a Child,speaking — rakster @ 2:51 pm
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So little Poogie has recently discovered a few useful sentences:

“Where’s x?” or “Where are you x?” (when he knows x is in the vicinity). Mostly, “Where are you Daddy?” or “Where are you Mummy?”

Often when he already knows exactly where we are (or might if he engaged the brain) at full yell from wherever he happens to be standing (now which parent did he learn that trick from I wonder?? – that would be me!).

And the second one:

“What you doing?”, or “What x doing?”. Again, often when he can see you / knows what you are doing. But not always, sometimes when he can’t see the person.

Recently, we’ve made a few trips to Daddy’s office at around 5:30, to pick him up and take him home. Little Poogie loves going there, he runs right to the drawer where Daddy keeps snacks, and gets a cracker, then has a dance to the loud music Daddy inevitably has on at that time of the day.

So, cue this conversation yesterday morning, 10 minutes after standing on the verandah and watching his Dad cycle up the hill in the distance, round the corner and disappear off to work:

“Mummy, where Daddy? Where Daddy gone?”

“He’s gone to work, remember, you saw him cycle off.”

“Yes, Daddy gone up the hill to work. …. ” Pause while he thinks. “What Daddy doing work?”

“Mmm.. I’m not sure. He might be typing on his computer. Or he might be talking on the phone.”

Little Poogie ponders this answer for a minute. Then with a very definitive shake of his head:

“No. Daddy eating crackers. … Daddy listening music.”

I collapse on the ground in laughter, because that is such an apt description of what my lawyer husband does at work all day!

🙂

Love mum

P.S. Can’t wait until the “why’s” start…

 

I born a …. June 16, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,baby stuff,Birth Story,Communication,development stages,family,Parenting,pregnancy,speaking — rakster @ 5:16 pm
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From the mouth of a babe:

“I born a nana!”

“I born a nana”

I guess those books we have been reading every day to try to get used to the concept that a baby will soon arrive are really getting through :).  I wasn’t quite sure he understood that the baby would come out of my tummy through a ‘hole’ somewhere, but he told me yesterday the baby would come out soon through a ‘hole’, and today’s demonstration proves he really does get it…

 

This beauty was uttered not 5 minutes ago, spontaneously on the verandah to Aunty G.   Imaginative play! I love it!

 

Love mum

 

P.S. Let’s hope the real baby gets better care than this poor nana a few minutes after birth: