my-speck

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

Boobie boobie boobie March 29, 2012

One of the songs O sings in music class is about a little box.  As part of the song, someone chooses something to come out of the box, and then it makes a noise.  Cue this week’s contribution from little O:

Music Teacher: “O, what would you like to be in the box today?”

O: “Boonie.  Boonie in the box.”

Boonie is one of little Luna’s nicknames in our house.  Nothing to do at all with the Australian cricketer.  Just “Luna Boona” gets shortened to “Boonie”.  It’s an Australian thing.

 

The teacher looks a little confused, who wouldn’t with someone saying “Boonie” as though you should know what that is.

 

I point to Luna’s head to indicate he means her.   Then wonder if I should be encouraging a song where my second child is put in a box.  Oh well.  The teacher goes on:

“Baby? Oscar wants to put a baby in the box.  That’s a good idea.  What should the baby say when it comes out? Wah, wah, wah?”

Oscar: “No. Baby’s don’t say ‘wah, wah, wah’.  They say ‘boobie, boobie, boobie’.”

At this point the teacher cracks up laughing so hard she can’t talk for a minute.  She tries to regain her composure as she says:

“Oscar’s right, babies do say ‘boobie, boobie, boobie’.  Everybody, let’s put the baby in the box now ..”

And we all proceeded to sing the song and then say “boobie, boobie, boobie” when the baby came out of the box.  Nice.

 

Another breastfeeding is just the norm in our household snippet bought to you from the mouth of a babe.

breastfeeding is the norm. Me feeding little O when he was 14 months at a friend’s wedding. In a totally not breastfeeding friendly dress. It worked nonetheless. (And yeah, I can’t remember what we were talking about but S is obviously demonstrating something).

Love mum

 

Things to do while the baby is sleeping… (or things I have done while the baby has been sleeping) March 22, 2012

Some days the babe sleeps for but 45 minutes at a stretch before for some reason or other we need to get in the car and go somewhere or gets woken by something (or someone)…  Not like the first lucky child who had a bit of a routine and actually two good-length daytime sleeps until he was over 1.

 

But some days I do get a bit of a break when the older one is at daycare, and the younger one actually goes to sleep for a bit.  It’s hard to plan anything, because you just never know what is going to happen, but sometimes it’s just fun to pretend the sleep will a bit and just get stuck into doing something that it would be impossible to contemplate getting done with a baby underfoot.

 

This week I had two days where sleep happened.

 

The first day, I did the tax.  Well, when I say, “did the tax”, what I actually mean is get all the bits of paper and emails and other nasty things that need to be gathered to complete “the tax”, write a letter to the accountant explaining what I couldn’t find, put it in an envelope and label it “Urgent”.  Because of course I’ve left it so long that it is now somewhat urgent (oops, sorry).

 

The second day, I made a pie.  Yes, a pure escapism from reality PIE.  Lime marshmallow pie. And totally forgot to take a photo, so all you’ll get is the last-remaining wedge photo from the day after (we had people over people, we didn’t consume the whole thing ourselves – just in case you were wondering).

Lime Marshmallow Pie

 

Yum.

 

Lime Marshmallow Pie. Recipe courtesy David Lebovitz’s Ready for Dessert.

 

Yum.  Did I say that already.

 

I know which task I enjoyed more!

 

Have you baked anything good recently?? What do you do if you kid’s are asleep and you’ve a few minutes to yourself?? What would you LIKE to do?

Lime Marshmallow Pie slice

ooops. It seems to be getting smaller…

 

Another cut. March 15, 2012

My little boy got his first “boy” haircut today…

20120315-192301.jpg

There was a lot of hair on the floor.

🙂

It will take us a little to get used to.

 

Comparisons – photographic evidence March 12, 2012

I think in some ways an extra bonus of having a boy and a girl is that there are less comparisons between the two drawn.  Which I think is a good thing in the long run.  Who needs to be compared to anyone in their life over and over and over?

 

But some comparisons for interests sake are inevitable and I too get in on it.

 

 

So here are a few photos of the two at similar ages.  Just for interest’s sake.

 

Oscar at 6 days

Luna at day 2

oscar 7 days

Luna at 10 days

Luna at 10 days

The babes get bigger

Oscar at six months – doing superman. Lots of movement

luna at six months – round and happy

Oscar at 8 months – eating paint and crawling about

luna at eight months – with oscar playing in the ‘boat’

 

 

 

So oscar crawled at just under six months, and climbed everything at 8 months. While his sister is still content to just spin about on the floor, sit up and have things brought to her by her wonderful big brother.

 

Luna is a self-contented, calm, observant and very happy little person.  Oscar at the same age was much more rambunctious, loud and MOBILE!

 

Both are beautiful and I love them 🙂

 

babes in the bath – luna at 7 months oscar at 2 years 7 months

 

International Women’s Day March 8, 2012

Filed under: Parenting,Raising a Child,work — admin @ 1:40 pm
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It’s been a while since I posted, but International Women’s Day today seemed a good day to get back into it.   Life has been taking up all of our time here in our little cocoon of a life in Brisbane.

 

So what better way to celebrate than to start with a photo of the two wonderful women in our little family in our typical family setting – chaos and eating in the kitchen/dining:

 

Luna and Me (& Oscar) having dinner

And, inspired by Kate over at Picklebums I’ve decided to draw on our good fortune and loan a small-ish sum of money to another woman who really needs it (as Kate has).  So I’ve looked at how to get involved at Good Return and decided to loan some money (they have a 100% loan return rate so far) to someone who lives in Nepal, a country I’ve been fortunate enough to visit (and loved).

So Nishin Kumari Rai will hopefully be able to provide a little more for her family.

Hope you all have a wonderful day and celebrate the wonderful women in your lives!

🙂

 

Let us know what you are up to?

 

love

 

Sydney… yay… A zoo adventure. February 8, 2012

Filed under: activities for kids,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 1:47 pm
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We went to Sydney. It was great. Too busy doing stuff to actually post anything on the blog.

We saw friends, did a bit of work, saw more friends, ate great cheese, ate great bread, ate great stuff, saw some more friends.

And went to the zoo. Fun…

Lots of excitement.

elephant spotting at Sydney's Taronga Zoo

The monkeys were a hit. Baby monkeys playing.

I personally like the chimps. The fact that a school excursion group was throwing a banana or two into the enclosure made them (I suspect) somewhat more active than they might have been at that time of day otherwise… mmm..

elegant necks

It was a very windy day too, so the bird show had an added dimension of, “oh my god, do you think it will really miss my head” to it. We survived!

Love mum

 

Broken February 6, 2012

Filed under: Communication,family,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 2:57 pm
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“mum, why is there a trolley there?”

“Because we’re at the supermarket, honey.”

“That trolley is broken.”

“How do you know?”

“The wheels have fallen off!

The wheels have fallen off because somebody didn’t be careful with it.

They needed to be careful with it and they didn’t. Now it’s broken.

If I had it I would be careful with it.”

20120206-155507.jpg

Mmm. Great logic. Apart from the part about the trolley being a picture on a sign!

 

Camping. Well, glamping. In a new tent. Hurrah. January 13, 2012

Filed under: activities for kids,camping,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 2:38 pm
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One of the first things we did after meeting (nearly 12 years ago now) was to go camping.

And one of our first purchases together was a tent.  We spent hours choosing a tent together.

I remember the occasion like it was yesterday.

 

I wanted a tent that would have enough room in the front vestibule that you could cook a meal, sit on the ground and hang-out if it just poured for the days you were camping.  Chris wanted a tent that you could almost/mostly stand up in.  We had very limited funds.  And no car: so whatever camping we were doing was by public transport or the generosity of friends.

 

Our first trip we lugged the new tent (more…)

 

Poos and all… January 11, 2012

Well.

 

It is O’s first day back to kindy this year today.   I have to admit that I am feeling more than slightly relieved.   It’s hard to keep two of them at completely different stages occupied during the days when it is 32°C outside.  Things go a little crazy.  I do find solace in the knowledge that it’s not just in our house we are suffering from post-christmas craziness

This morning I had a lovely 5 minutes to myself to drink a cup of tea.  I sat down and thought about a post I’d like to write.  A nice, cheery, makes me happy kinda post.  So I came into the study to download the photos to the computer for the post.  Then, BAM – this is what I found on the camera:

 

what is that on the floor?

Nice. There were more, close-ups, but I figured I’d spare you those (thanks Husband for the lovely memories – preserving those special moments on camera is joyous, is it not?).

Still with me? (I’m expecting a large proportion of you to have stopped reading after the photo. Hey, it’s gross. But it’s also the life of a parent of a small child. Real. And the story is a little humorous.)

 

The backstory (get-it? I seem to be developing my husband’s appalling sense of humour)

So I’ll take you back to early the morning of the photo of the poo in the hall – as I was showering.

Enter little O, boldly striding into the bathroom with a big work ethic and helpful smile.

“Hi Mum!  Are you having a shower?”

“Yes.”

O looks around and notices that the toilet roll is empty (mmm blame someone who shall remain nameless),

“Mum, this is empty.  Don’t worry, it is my work.  I will get another one.”

He then proceeds to take the old empty toilet roll off the wall, puts it carefully in the rubbish bin in the bathroom, goes the to the cupboard, gets a new roll of toilet paper, carefully hangs it, all while humming happily to himself.

“Mum! I’m finished.  I got a new one and fixed it!”

“Why thank-you darling.  Excellent job.”  I say.

And off little Poogie trundles, out of the bathroom off to the next adventure / his “job”.

And I think to myself, in a very smug and self-satisfied way,

“Awesome, I’ve trained a little boy to do the toilet paper roll.  Hands-down beats his dad.”

 

 

Which of course was the precursor to the poo in the hallway above.  My self-congratulatory thoughts and a lack of touching wood is what I think caused it.  In reality perhaps it was the brain of a two and a half year old trying to cope with the following contradictory thoughts:

“mmm.  I need to poo.

mmm.  Best get to the toilet ” (He has pooed in the toilet for 12 months now with the number of accidents countable on one hand)

“mm.  I’m in my bed and it is sleep time.  Not allowed to get out of bed or leave the bedroom during sleep time.

ah.  Really need to poo.  Aaah.  Mum is going to be mad if I leave the bedroom.

Ah.  Need to poo.  Need to poo.

Aaaaahhh.   That feels better.”

While this was going on I was working at my computer, his Dad was doing the same in the kitchen.  With both kids asleep (so I thought), the house was very quiet.  Then I heard a great big ripping fart noise.   And called out,

“Disgusting, was that you??”

So it was only after I heard the answer,

“No!”

That I stuck my head around the door to look down the hallway.  And saw a little boy standing above that poo in the picture.  Looking forlornly at me.  Saying,

“Sorry Mum, I did a poo.  It’s on the floor.”

 

 

And it was all I could do to keep myself from peeing myself with laughter.

“Mum, I did a POO!”

 

Reading… an interpretative adventure. Especially when you’re 2.5 January 9, 2012

family reading

We read a lot of books. Every morning little Poogie (2.5 years now) typically brings a bunch into the bed with me, we get little Sister Boona (6 months now!) and have a bit of a read. Then there are more during the day, at bedtime etc.

We have a relatively large number of books, and are constant library users, but Poogie still seems to know most of them by heart. Which I think is pretty impressive. It is to me anyway, still breastfeeding with now non-existent short-term memory.

So last week I was reading one of our favourites, Australian Author Pamella Allen‘s “A Lion in the Night“, and we were up to this page:

reading: A Lion in the Night

When I asked,

“And what is the little dog saying?”

And the answer, in a “mum, this is so obvious I can’t believe you’re even asking me” voice: (more…)