Month: February 2009

First up, I did more craft with the kids.

I had a nice day with Cayley while Elisha was at kindy last week on Thursday.  We didn’t do a lot, just hung out together.  She helped me do housework and I played with her.

We came in from hanging out some washing and I noticed that she’d scraped her big toe quite nastily.  She didn’t notice until about ten minutes later.

Oh my!  The drama.

She needed her ‘bambaib’ again.

Note how far the injury and the bandaid are from each other.  But if that bandaid fell off, well, she couldn’t walk.  It must be a magic bandaid methinks.

There was also some gorgeous doll action…

Some feeding,

and burping,

and snuggling,

and…

er,

licking!

We were having quite a normal conversation with Elisha at the lunch or dinner table over the weekend, when suddenly from nowhere…

Elisha:  Daddy

Brett: Yes?

Elisha: Have you ever seen a lion poo?

And the question was asked in such a manner that we couldn’t tell if that was a noun or a verb.

Brett looked at me, I looked at Brett and we both disintegrated into laughter.  Of course having made us laugh Elisha kept up with the word he thought had brought about his comic success.  Yes we (and especially Brett) kept laughing, but still at the first comment, not the new ones.

And Jos, well he just is cute.

He had his six week (Yes SIX week) check at the doctors’ today.  He’s doing great.  Putting on an average of almost half a kilo a week.  And his baby acne and heat rash are starting to clear up a little (this is a slightly old photo).

He’s also starting to stretch out the time between feeds which is very nice, especially at night.  I can’t say that I’m going to be sad when I miss out on watching infomercials in the middle of the night.

On a sad note, Elisha’s fish Coco died today.  I know it’s a bit gross, but he’s still floating in his tank.  I found him late this afternoon just before I served dinner up.  We’ll have a bit of a funeral for him tomorrow.  Elisha got Coco towards the end of 2007 as a reward for being fully toilet trained.  I can’t believe that it was only that long ago.  Feels like much longer than that.

Tomorrow is Elisha’s first FULL day at kindy.  And he doesn’t want to go for the whole day.  I am going to try and rev him up for it by lunchbox excitement.  But I’m not going to force him if he doesn’t want to.

I am thankful…

* for the mild weather
* for the cybercrop at little scrapbook shop that went OFF this weekend, and the funds raised for the Victorian bushfire survivors
* Brett cleaned up the dishes and started the dishwasher for me tonight
* that Jos is doing so well
* that tomorrow is MY six week check and I’ll be able to drive again.  Can’t wait.

Need to make some cards, so thought I might as well complete some challenges at the same time.

Here’s my take on Sketch Saturday #37

Stamps: Embrace Life, Short and Sweet
Card: Whisper White, Gable Green, Bashful Blue
Ink: Ballet Blue

The singlet I tell you

… not the innocent, sleepy looking face.

In total truth though, although he is probably up about three am for a feed, he’s generally pretty good about going back to bed once he’s done.

Oooh, I made a card too.

And did an educational experiment with the bigs.  (Yes those photos are of us having fun with the paint.  Please excuse how dirty someone’s fingernails are!)

Can you believe it?  I can’t!

Jos is one month old today.

And he’s chubbing up at an alarming rate.

From this:

To this:

And now for some recent Cayleyisms

* Brett received a Batman t-shirt for his birthday and Cayley refers to him as ‘Matman’.  Thing is there arefour or five pictures of him – transitioning from Bruce Wayne to a fully fledged Batman.  While I was in hospital Brett had the kids at church and Cayley was sitting on his lap pointing to each one and saying “Matman” over and over again.
* While on the topic of church, our pastor’s name is Matt… Cayley calls him Map.
* She can’t say parrot, it comes out carrot.  We have a whole routine.

Person X: Cayley, say parrot.

Cayley: Carrot

Person X: Cayley, say “p”.

Cayley: p

Person X: Cayley, say “p” “p” parrot

Cayley: “p” “p” carrot

* Today she got a papercut on her finger and it was bleeding all over the place.  Now, I have strange children who, get this, do not like bandaids.  But she needed one because everything she was touching was getting blood stained and the bleeding wasn’t stopping.  And the dramatics, oh my!  I managed to get one on her finger and then distract her with some very cute Flickr pictures.  At dinner time we took the bandaid off.  The bleeding had stopped, but the dramatics started up again.  She insisted (and if you know Cayley, you’ll know what I mean by insisted) she needed a “bambaib”.  Because we are not in the habit of using bandaids for our children we had to scrape the bottom of the barrell to fulfill her request demand, this involved Brett cutting a specially shaped knuckle bandaid so he could put it on her finger.  Even as he was applying said bandaid she was declaring, “Don’t like bambaib”, and it was removed as soon as it was put on.

Turns out she wanted her pretend bandaid from her doctor’s kit.

Which… is designed to be worn on the wrist.  It stopped the dramatics though.

Until it fell off, then they started again until it was put back on.

I am thankful!

* I am thankful for Jos, for the gift that he is to us and the joy he brings us.  That he has been for the most part such an easy going baby.
* I am thankful for the conversationss I’ve had with Brett tonight since he got home from work.  I love talking to him.
* I am thankful that Elisha could go on a shopping adventure with Nan and Pop to get some of the stuff that he needs for kindy.  That he could have that special attention with someone.  And thankful that my mum is going to take him out on another adventure to get the rest of what he needs.
* I am thankful for Elisha’s kindy teacher who took the time to call and let me know of a meeting on Wednesday that I wouldn’t get a note about til Tuesday.
* I am thankful for the Lost Sheep series of books which we’re slowly buying for the kids.

Elisha had his first day at ‘big’ kindy today.

I think he was a little sad that he was not going back to Stepping Out and the friends he’d made and his wonderful teachers, but he was glad to be getting back into doing kindy stuff.

When we (Brett, Cayley, Jos and I) got back from dropping Elisha at kindy I said to Brett as he was leaving that it was going to be interesting seeing how Cayley went entertaining herself while I had to look after Jos.  She’s used to having Elisha around to play with.

Shall we say she did just fine!

I gave her some fruit for morning tea and she got her hands filthy, so we washed them.  As Cayley often does she hadn’t finished the fruit, so I left the water in the basin so that she could clean them again if she needed to.  And have a bit of a splash around in, that’s always fun.

I can’t remember exactly what I was doing around the house but I realised that Cayley was pretty quiet.

She was washing her electronic, battery-operated squirrel (okay, I know it’s a chipmunk but she and Elisha call it a squirrel).  Fortunately I caught her before he got too drenched.

We swapped the squirrel/chipmunk for a more suitable toy.

She had so much fun.  She used most of her doll’s ‘blankies’ as towels for the baby – washing and drying, and I used a couple of real towels to mop up the mess on the floor all around the house.  The baby fills with water and leaks it everywhere.  It was so worth the enjoyment she got from it though.

I just hope she isn’t getting ideas of trying it out with her little brother next time!  I say that because later on in the afternoon she and Elisha were busily breastfeeding dolls!

I am so thankful

* that we live so close to kindy and we can all walk over together in the mornings
* that Elisha seems to have had fun today
* that Cayley coped so well without her companion
* that Brett’s work is flexible enough he can join us for these special occassions
* for our yummy salad dinner tonight.  Have I ever mentioned I make a mean potato salad?  Should share the recipe some time.

How to pick what to post about.  Shall I try for everything!

See if you make it to the end.

Started out the day bright and early.  I was up and ready to go grocery shopping by 8 am.  Gives me confidence we may in fact make it to Elisha’s first day of kindy on time.

It was the first time I’d been grocery shopping in about 5 weeks.  I hadn’t missed it at all.  Though the enjoyment factor had multiplied seeing as I am not pregnant any longer.

Went for morning tea at the house of one of Elisha’s new kindy classmate’s house.  Another classmate joined us.

For the most part all the children played together well.  There was one small incident that stood out, and on the walk home, I decided to use it as an object lesson.

“Elisha, I said, “Today when ___ and ___ were in the cubby and weren’t letting you in or letting you play with them how did that make you feel?”

*Shrug*

“Did it make you feel sad, or lonely?”  He’d looked so folorn and unsure, standing there by himself, barred from the cubby and no friend by his side.  Or maybe he was just feeling awkward because the other childrens’ mums were trying to right the wrong and exact apologies.

“No.”

Object lesson shot down.

My idea to make dinner more palatable.

Elisha went for it.  Cayley at the mouth.

Oh, and the tongue.

After dinner Cayley and Elisha were having a jump on our bed… or so I thought.

Cayley came out at one stage with a pack of my ‘feminine hygeine’.  I asked her to take it back to the en suite and put it away.  Which she did… or so I thought.

I mentioned to Brett that it is a bit ironic such an item is packaged in what looks very much like wrapping paper.  A present.  I thought I’d blog about THAT… or so I thought.

I did also have a brief thought that perhaps instead of putting it away she might start pulling EVERYTHING out of the en suite cupboards.  But then I heard her and Elisha playing on the bed.  “Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee… it’s snowing.”  I pictured the the two of them jumping on the bed, throwing ‘snow’ pillows at each other… or so I thought.

Suddenly… “OH! Cayley!”

Image shattered.

Then Cayley comes running down the hall with further peaceful image shattering evidence clinging to her.

“Snow”

And… the evidence…

* I am thankful that this morning proved I can be up and ready on time fairly early in the morning.
* I am thankful that Elisha got to meet two of his classmates for the year today
* I am thankful for the ability to laugh and the antics of my children.
* I am thankful for my children who have antics I can laugh at.
* I am thankful that Elisha can go to kindy tomorrow… and I mean this in the nicest possible way.

My first layout completed since Jos was born.

Oh.  Did I forget to mention.  *huge grin*

Yes, the baby arrived…

Jos Fletcher – 6th January 2009 – 3.830kg or 8lb 7oz.  We love him to pieces.

He’s four weeks old today… time flies.

Speaking of flying, back to the layout I was going to show you.

This is Elisha and Cayley walking down the alley near our place, to the park, to go fly Elisha’s birthday present kite.

Check out LSBS for more info on the layout, and there’s even a little technique available (for the thickers).