Fashion Show

It is a chilly wet day, Milord has the car (with the pram in the boot), and both kids have colds. How shall we amuse ourselves? How about playing dress-up?!

A few days ago we all went to a Christening and I put Princess in a dress for the first time since she began crawling (because she doesn't walk much and crawling gets her tangled in dresses). I put leggings on under her dress so that after the service when she wanted to play on the floor I could just tuck the skirt into it!

Princess was intrigued by her collection of unworn dresses (mostly hand-me-downs) and today asked to wear one, so I thought we could try on a few! I set up a mirror in the living room and brought out all the dresses.

I got her to stand up in front of the mirror. She's a bit wobbly but it's great that she can stand on her own now!

We started with a fairy dress on over her shirt and pants.



Then she tried on the dress and pretty new shoes I intend for her to wear to King's Christening on Sunday.



Then a Dora dress, which is rather short and can probably be worn as a long top over trousers.



And a red dress.



Then a long pink dress which she had a go at walking around in. This is Princess' walking style - all elbows! She has her eyes on the prize - a jellybean. The dress was too long for walking practice though - when she fell over she couldn't get up without standing on it, which made her fall again.



Then back into comfy top and pants for a turn in King's bouncer!



After a rest Princess did more walking with me. I set up waystations of low tables between the front and back of the house, and slowly got her to walk from furniture item (and jellybean) to furniture item (and jellybean) until she managed the whole length of the house. This is quite an achievement as most of the house has hard wooden floors and Princess dislikes walking on hard surfaces. She will usually only walk on the living room mat because it is soft to fall on. I think having tables to stop at along the way gave her confidence, plus the more she falls the more she will realise that it doesn't really hurt too much.

We really hope she'll get the hang of this walking thing by the time she turns 3!

PS. Princess had her first haircut last week. I want to keep her hair this length because any longer and it gets knots, plus this way it is more curly too!

We love you Dad

My Dad is going through a rough patch. His youngest brother is riddled with cancer and has not been given very long to live, and the one closest in age to my Dad (I think) died from a sudden heart attack a couple of weeks ago. The family is hurting.

On top of that Dad is having pains deep in his chest and abdomen. I don't know if it is a good sign or not that they haven't found a cause yet...

I wish I wasn't so far away.

On a lighter note:

This is the best of the bunch of the photo I was trying to get... Oh, and if you ever want to know how old your skin, eyes and teeth look, lie next to a baby!



I bought Princess some new hairclips, so of course she had to wear them all at the same time...



I love you Dad.

Your Royal Fix

Just haven't felt like posting... but there is plenty going on.

• Princess stood up and walked unaided today for the first time! Woohoo!
• Potty training is mostly going ok - nappies for naps and going out, lots of "Do you need a tinkle?" the rest of the time.
• King is getting his first teeth.
• King weighs about 10kg already! He's almost into size 1!!
• King and Milord both had headcolds over the weekend. OMG.
• Milord and I are off the booze for Feb - mainly to lose weight.
• Our remortgage has been approved so we should be able to finish the renovation soon!

Your Royal Fix

Because I can't give my Dad a hug, plenty of pics ;-)

King supervising the hanging of laundry on the back deck.



Having a big splash in the baby bath - he's almost too big for it!



Tummy Time.



In the bouncer - King loves this thing! He will bounce for ages and I keep finding him asleep in it - the only time he'll ever go to sleep on his own. The trick is to lift out the limp heavy fella and get him to bed without him waking too much!


Gotta lurve the sunnies! We get comments from everyone when she wears them. This is also Princess' fake camera smile...



A very ladylike babychino - she didn't spill a drop!



In the park sandpit.

Operation Bumwatch: Fail

I'm mulling over a post concerning the passing of one of my Dad's brothers last week and the recent diagnosis of cancer in another... but the meantime here's one about wee and poo!

So, the toilet training totally didn't work. The object of the exercise was for Princess to understand that she needed to tell me she needed a wee. She has such great communication skills that I really wasn't expecting a problem...

Princess got to the point where she'd hold a wee for ages, getting really squirmy, then she'd stand on her head to watch it come out. No amount of encouraging her to tell us, asking her if she needed a wee, or dancing and chocolate if we caught some in the potty made any impression. The closest we came to her telling us about her wee was a delighted "Oooo Puddle!" if we missed the event.

After 3 days cooped up indoors watching her little bare bum like a hawk, hoiking her onto a potty mid-wee, and mopping up wee and poo, I was shattered! It was a relief to put her nappy back on and allow her back onto laps and soft furnishings, and to let her roam off out of sight.

To be honest, she probably wasn't ready for this style of toilet training. She doesn't mind a full to leaking nappy and never tells me when she's doing a poo. On the positive side she doesn't mind sitting on the potty and if we get the timing right she'll happily wee and poo there.

My options now are either to mix nappies and potty training - taking her to the potty at set times during the day, or to leave it and try the bare bum thing again in a few weeks. I'll think about it... right now I'm not in the mood for anything potty-related!

Operation Bumwatch

We are on day 3 of attempting "3 Day Toilet Training" with Princess.

*sigh*

The theory is: you let your kid go bare below the waist, feed them lots of fluids, keep an eagle eye on them to catch the signs that they are about to wee etc, and whisk them onto the potty/loo when they start. If any wee actually makes it into the receptacle there is celebrating and rewards. By day 3 your toddler should recognise the need to wee and will tell you in time to avoid accidents. Nappies are still used during sleep.

Milord took time off work and turned down golf to help me.

It is dawn on day 3, Princess will be awake soon, and I have serious doubts that we will have any success by the end of today. I'm pretty sure that she is getting to know the feeling of a bladder/bowel about to let go, but it just seems to fascinate her more than anything: we know something is immanent when she stands on her head to watch it happen!

It is doing my head in and thank heavens we don't have carpet.

Happy New Year!

Nearly a week late... RuralChick and her family decided to cancel their New Year's plans and stay home, so we stayed on with them until after New Year.



It was a lovely change of scene, but we were all utterly exhausted and very happy to come home on Monday - sharing a room with both kids and no curtains means that every day begins at dawn. Which is at 5am if you were wondering. While King usually wakes for a feed about then, Princess normally sleeps until 7am. Not with the sun up and Mummy feeding King she doesn't! Then of course it is still broad daylight at 7pm when Princess goes to bed, so she plays in the cot until it is dark. And day naps are pretty short too...

King can sleep anywhere, but an abundance of cuddly adults and playful children meant that he had very little chillout time while awake and he got steadily more twitchy.




Princess can't sleep through Milord's snoring and screams like monsters are in the room, so he got evicted and slept on couches and in kid's beds.

I merely had to deal with double dawn starts and later nights than usual, plus very little solitude - without which I too get somewhat twitchy after a while!

Having said that, I didn't have to cook or clean for a week which was lovely! Milord had friends to stay up late with, King charmed everyone and Princess was overwhelmed with toys and exploring.




It was surprisingly cold - the whole of December has been cool, and at RuralChick's elevation it rarely broke 20C during the day and I had the kids rugged up for winter at night! I didn't mind, but it was nice to come home to warmer weather... much warmer weather!



We've been home 4 nights and are all just about caught up on sleep (well, as much as you can with a 4-month-old!).

Today King had a checkup and his 4-month vaccinations... he was really good and hardly cried, and Princess took no notice at all - I had been more worried about her than him! King is 8.5kg - that's just about off the scale! His height is also nearly off the scale, so he's a proportional Big Boy which is ok. "He's thriving nicely" says the doctor. Oh, yes indeedy!

King sleeps an 8 to 10 hour stretch at night now, and beginning to settle earlier and earlier - he is usually asleep by 9pm. While this means his dawn feeds can be quite early, it is very nice to have kid-free time in the evening! King is a great smiler and started chuckling a couple of weeks ago which is adorable. He gets lots of tickles because I love hearing him giggle!

Your Royal Fix

Where'd the last 3 weeks go?

I've been a bit blah. The Groundhog-Day thing of babies and housework sometimes gets me down, and while I'm enjoying Christmas for Princess' sake it does make normal shopping stressful. Plus schools are out so everywhere is full of big kids who don't take care around toddlers, and the usual toddler activities are suspended until the new school year so we're stuck at home. Friends are busy and family is distant, husbands snore in the few hours of the night I am allowed to sleep, and it keeps raining.

Bah Humbug.

Actually things are pretty good. Princess is bright, articulate and funny, and King sleeps an 8 hour stretch most nights and is full of endearingly wonky smiles. Milord and I are rubbing along fine.

My kids have only 2 (much older) cousins, which is a shame as I have oodles of cousins close to my age and it's great. On the upside all my cousins are currently having kids so Princess and King have lots of second cousins their age. 21-year-old Cousin A was in Sydney (from Brisbane) for work experience for a couple of days and dropped by for dinner. She's lovely:



And this is 14-year-old Cousin S who was in town a few months back and stayed over for a night. She lovely too, just rather... 14... and nearly got a clip round the earhole from me when she got cranky with my toddler:



You wouldn't think they're related would you? Milord's sister married a man of Italian descent and their girls have taken those genes, while my kids are so fair they're practically translucent!

I put up the Christmas tree the other day, with a little "help" from Princess! She's pretty good with it especially now that I've shown her how to take the ornaments off without breaking them...







King watches us in bemusement...

The Princess

I'm working on a post about the King, so in the meantime here is a post about my Princess!

Princess is a delight. Bright, funny and very sweet. She counts to 20 easily, strings long sentences, and understands choice and negotiation. "Would you like x or y?" "If you wee on the potty you can have a sweetie." "Finish your broccoli and then you can get down."






Edit: That's finger paint on her face. She is grubby not hurt!

Princess has now "fallen in love" with her baby brother. She says "Hi James!" when she sees him and wants to gently touch him and hold his hand. She tells people he is her "Baby Brother!" and lets me know that he is crying/sleeping/yawning etc.



Princess already has the hang of Daddy's iPad. Seriously.



Working on her Emo look already...



Princess is fascinated with water. We let her "Play Puddles" on the side deck.




I go to a few playgrounds and playgroups and Princess is really good around other kids. Actually she mostly ignores them, but I prefer that to the hitting/snatching/pushing stuff I see the others doing.



While Princess still isn't quite walking she can stand alone for short periods and can walk across our lounge (from Mummy to the sweetie on the couch). I think it is now a matter of confidence. I've seen her recover her balance surprisingly well sometime - she just has to do it all the time!

Here comes BatGirl!




Watch out world!

Your Royal Fix

King in his Bumbo chair. He lasts about 10 minutes while slowly wilting to the side...



He is a lot more comfy supervising the kitchen from his playmat!



Princess has to try everything too of course (she also lies in the playmat sometimes).



Princess loves painting and drawing, which is great because so do I and it's brilliant on a wet or too-hot day. And I can do it with King in a carrier or in one arm if necessary!






Also pencils.



And marker pens. Yes, she appears to be left handed - we don't know where that's come from!



When drawing gets dull we might mess with stickers.



...or we can just play with the pen lids!