so much for regular postings!!!

After a mammoth effort of getting the carpets clean and bare so the carpet cleaners could effectively clean them I have much clearer floors and I don't want to go back to how it was.

RJ has been getting into every single nook and cranny with his fingers and after a couple of times of picking him up and finding him completely dusty, dirty or hair covered I decided I needed to seriously attack the rest of the floor too.

Now my kitchen floor and any areas Rj has shown an interest in are sparkling and clean.

I have concentrated my efforts from the ground up to about a metre high ... I have also cleaned up higher LOL!!! but the main focus has been from the floor up.

I cannot believe how interesting Rj finds dust particles, spider webs, tiny crumbs on the floor, the bottoms of my shoes, under the fridge ... inside the fridge, tiny insects ....

Anyway needless to say I am now vacuuming and sweeping and floor cleaning daily.

The other thing I seem to be doing a lot of is cooking baby meals in bulk and freezing them.

Breastfeeding has taken a backseat to solid food feeding and RJ's appetite has taken off in a big way.

There is a huge list of things I need to get done, many of which have to wait until RJ is asleep.

These days when I put him down somewhere, he is in a different place a minute later.

Now that I have the floors reasonably clean I let him roam freely, putting out noisy toys around the place to keep him interested. That way if I have to take my eyes off him for a while I can still hear where he is based on what toy he is playing with.

For a while we tried to keep him on the carpet in the loungeroom in a play area bounded by toys, cushions etc.

This kept him fascinated and interested for a couple of weeks and then he decided he needed to explore further.

Suddenly he began to find gaps in the barrier and would head off with great determination towards the kitchen floor.

Once he reached it he would squeal with delight!!! ... and head straight for the fridge and beyond.

He was so determined to get there that he ended up crawling over the pillow barrier ... grunting and straining all the way.

Now he likes to head for the screen door leading to the backyard and chat to the pets as they lie by the back door.

prepare the house for carpet cleaning

I need to get more organized so I'm trying to do a small blog post each day to keep me on track.

On Wednesday morning the carpet cleaner will be here ... so I have had this week and particularly the next two days to get the floor as clear and uncluttered as possible.

This is not happening a moment too soon as RJ is scooting along the floor at a great rate of knots.

Its not a full up on hands and knees crawl, but it gets him around ... Fast!!

A week ago he would move 360 degrees and get about 1 to 2 metres away from wherever you put him down.

Now ... if he sees something interesting across the room ... he heads straight for it.

Moves along a bit like a seal!!!

I have all of Kt's small toys boxed up in big labelled plastic containers. I don't know how it happened but last year we accumulated more toys with tiny parts than we have ever had before.

Kt is not keen for me to tidy up and organize her things when she is there ... she constantly kicks up a fuss and complains etc.

But when I do it while she is at school and she returns home to find her room tidy or her toys organized I am pleasantly surprised with how impressed and even appreciative she is of what I have done!!!

I am glad school holidays have finished and I have a chance to tackle a few of the things I have been meaning to get done for ages

first post for the new year

Have been having trouble finding the time to blog and have not wanted to get too bogged down and introspective.

Just had to mention a few things though ... like how lovely my baby is when he smiles and how tasty my daughters home grown carrots that we harvested today were.

During the spring holidays uni and kt planted flowers and veggies in raised foam boxes in the back yard.

The idea was that they would be safe from our pets ... the corn eating one and the always looking for an easy litter tray one.

During the spring holidays uni and Kt planted cucumber, tomato, carrot and flowers.

The tomatoes surprisingly never really took off. The cucumbers were quickly polished off by our pooch. Some she could reach directly from the ground as they hung down out of the foam boxes ... and the others she reached by SITTING on TOP of the carrots in the carrot box and reaching over to get the cucumbers.

Once all the cucumbers were gone she realized that the carrots might be of interest too and started sitting on top of them and digging them up too.

She unearthed a few and perhaps did not like them very much.

Tonight we saw the discarded carrots on top and kt pulled a few intact ones from the soil.

They were so beautiful ... cute and little with light hairy roots coming off them.

We cleaned them off and ate them this evening and they were so delicious.




With all this rain, the front garden is very lush and lovely ... there is plenty of green although a lot of that is weeds!!!

Some of the weed plants and very pretty ... lovely red flowers etc.

Amongst the growth is a dahlia that kt bought for me either for mothers day or my birthday last year.

She bought me two plants one red/pink and one orange/yellow. I planted both in different spots in the garden and initially watered them regularly but then of course didn't keep it up once Rj came along.

Both disappeared completely and I thought they were dead but did not pull them out of the ground.

Then after a heavy bout of rain I noticed the red/pink one had a small amount of foliage and the more rain that came the stronger and bigger it grew until now it has masses of beautiful flowers.

I lamented the fact that I planted the other one in a part of the garden which seems incapable of sustaining any life except weeds ... I'm blaming the creature who goes in search of an easy litter tray for that.

Anyway today I took the bins out and checked over the garden and looked over to the patch that does not support life to see if another plant I had recently planted there had managed to survive.

To my delight I could see a beautiful yellow/orange flower. Then I thought to myself ... that's odd ... the gerbera I recently planted had yellow flowers I wonder why they changed to yellow orange and then when I looked closer I realized the flower was attached to foliage the same as the pink/red dahlia kt had given me.

From absolutely nothing at all this dahlia regrew into the most stunning plant with the most amazing flower! Here are the photos...



I took kt and uni out to show them.

... also the yellow gerbera is still there ... surrounded by weeds, but alive nevertheless.

Am still beaming at the thought of it ... my lost plant that came back to life!

school holidays

I can not believe how time flies and how much of it I used to have and now don't.

Argghhh

I wanted to write about the school holidays while they were still fresh in my mind and now nearly a month on I can barely remember what I wanted to say.

This set of hols sept were very wet and uni had very little time off, so I was on my own with both Kt and Rj for the most part.

I cut out holiday fun information pages from the herald and also the child newspaper available at the library.

Whenever I could I tried to schedule an activity for us.

Because of the rain, we missed out on doing a couple of outdoor things like active kids sports and going to the duck pond and the beach and the playground.

We did get to do Active kids gymnastics at suttons, which Kt really enjoyed!

She later drew a picture of one of the activities and I recognized it straight away!!

While we were there skydivers came down from directly above us ... and I was surprised to see that a cheeky magpie followed the skydivers down and tried to attack a bit of the parachute that is attached to the top and billows out the back in the breeze.

Other activities we attempted were the kids dig it day at the museum. An adventure made possible with the help of Aunty Izzy. She was able to keep an eye on Kt and get her to different activities for me while I was feeding RJ.

That was probably the most public breastfeeding I have attempted... luckily his feeds are fairly quick now ... 15-20 minutes or so (less if there are too many distractions).

It was on this day that I learnt the news that I would be an aunty in April of next year!!!!

I was supposed to take Kt swimming during the holidays to prepare for swimming lessons at school, but did not really get a chance as a result of the weather. Also not sure how I would have tackled it with RJ as well ... although that will not be so much of an issue as he gets bigger.

We went to the shops one day and watched a short romeo the radio dog show. Kt got to go up on stage and do an animal impersonation and in return they gave her a romeo the radio dog plush toy and a balloon.

She also had 3 birthday parties to go to during these holidays so that provided some good entertainment for her as well.

When we didn't have any outside activities planned I tried to keep her entertained as much as possible and spend time with her and give her attention while Rj was sleeping (which he does tend to do a lot of during the day ... especially if I don't have to wake him up to take him to school for drop offs or pick ups).

We did play a lot of computer games together ... and spent time doing smartkiddies which is a fantastic maths website.

We also made things and just played games and I chatted to her and tried to involve her while I did absolutely essential chores.

At the moment she just loves to pretend to be an abandoned puppy who I fall in love with and look after. So I just incorporate her character and mine into my usual daytime flow eg come on puppy lets go downstairs and I will hang some clothes on the line and you can check out our yard/meet our other dog etc.... now lets go upstairs and have some bones for lunch ....


When Rj was awake I tried to give her something she could do on her own ... play on the computer or continue with an artwork or read us or herself a story.

Late in the afternoon when I have my most intensive time with Rj ... which is a feed followed by a bath, I would usually let her watch a movie so that I could get on with what I needed to do without arguments, interruptions etc.

Sometimes if the timing is right Kt and Rj will share the big bath together and this usually works well too ... although sometimes Kt wants to hop out while I am still drying and dressing Rj and instead of just getting out and drying and dressing herself, she insists on staying in the bath and getting cold until I am able to come and help her.

I learnt a lot from the holidays about how to handle everyone and make dinner and keep things on track.

The absolute essentials only got done ... the house was and still kind of is a total mess, but at least there were few arguments and not much bad feeling.

More on arguments later ... I think I hear Rj ... or perhaps I hear my stomach

kt's new bedtime routine

Over the last year or so Kt's bedtime routine has become more elaborate.

We used to just read her two picture books and then be finished by about 8.30 or 9pm.

Then I introduced her to bigger chapter books and during the end of year school holidays started reading her two chapters instead.

Some of the books had fairly long chapters and would it would take 45 min to 1 hour to read the two chapters.

When uni read to her he would only read one chapter, but then allow her to read for a while to herself and then let her switch the light off when she was finished.

She did this happily for a while and then started to get scared and want one of us to switch the light off for her ... and then sometimes wanted us (usually me) to stay with her because she was scared of the dark or of being alone in the dark.

Once we got back to school days Kt still wanted to continue and while I was pregnant and not really able to play very much I figured that reading to her was an acceptable alternative.

I also used to stay in her room after stories were finished (sometimes after I had read stories or after uni had) and lie on the bed and let her put her feet on my belly and feel RJ kick.

Because I was pregnant and sleepy I often used to fall asleep before she did and my snoring would keep her awake and she would eventually send me off to my own room. LOL!!

Now that we have both kids though it is really difficult for me to read to her for such a long time and then stay in her room with her until she falls asleep.

I was bringing my laptop into her room and reading up on blogs until she fell asleep, but then I would continue long after she slept, instead of getting on with other chores or catching up on my sleep.

So the bedtime ritual was stretching to 1 and a half hours. Often as soon as I finished with Kt, Rj would wake up and need his feed ... and there would go another 1 hour leaving me working on cleaning up the kitchen and making school lunches at 10.30pm or later.

This was frustrating when all I wanted to do was go to sleep.

Uni and I discussed the situation and we came up with a plan for school nights.

We would be firm on 8pm teeth cleaning time. Then there would be time for some story reading from us and some time for kt to read herself stories before lights get turned off at 9pm.

So for example we might read for 30 minutes and let kt read to herself for the other 30 minutes.

At 9pm the light goes off and we say goodnight and have a final chat for a few minutes.

If Kt is scared we can stay with her for 5 minutes. If she tries to argue or negotiate (both of which she is really good at) then we do not get involved and we repeat that tonight is a school night and she has to go to bed on time. I have to go and have a shower or clean the kitchen or make lunches or whatever and I will come back and check on her after that.

Or if I am ironing in the lounge room I can say that she can come and find me if she needs me ... but that she will be able to see the light and hear the TV and know she is not alone.

The first night I tried this I took her by surprise. There was a bit of a fuss kicked up at each stage ... particularly when I would not stay in her room ... but I switched on the TV and did my ironing and she fell asleep.

the next night the only hiccup was again when I went to leave... but I told her that I had to have a shower and that I would check on her when I got out. If she was awake I would come in and give her a kiss and if she was asleep I would come in and give her a much quieter gentle kiss.

She curled herself up in a ball and cried a bit ... although It was more complaint crying than hurt or scared crying.

When I came out of the shower to check on her I was shocked and very pleased to find her fast asleep!!

The third night there was no fuss or argument or attempts at negotiation at all ... and when I came to turn off the light at 9pm she was tucked up in bed finished her stories and waiting for me!!!

Unfortunately tonight was not a school night so we allowed her to read stories to herself for as long as she wanted and there was a bit of attempted negotiation and I had to stay with her for 5 minutes ... but I left before she fell asleep and she didn't protest so I believe that all in all things were successful.

I will admit I am looking forward again to the next school night when I can be completely firm and not negotiate at all.

It feels good to not constantly cave in ... OK you can have another one, this one is the last one, OK one more but that has to be the last one etc etc.

Uni was right in that although she is clever and a great negotiator, she does seem to feel more secure when there are firm guidelines and rules.

And it is easier for me to stick with a plan if it is firmly established and well thought out in advance