This Blog is Moving

to Wordpress

I'm too lazy to try to figure out how Blogger works and Cyp said Wordpress is easier.

so here goes.....New Address

Talking to Uncle Max

On Saturday morning I was in Gmail when I noticed that Max was too - I don't think I've ever seen him logged in before. I decided to send him a chat message - he responded.

"hey - your brother is online and he says hi."

"Really?" said Cyp - "he never chats with me."

We ended up calling Max and put him on speakerphone - I think Ellis was ecstatic to hear Uncle Max's voice - he even had a sensible conversation with him - amazing really. Rowan wanted to be part of the action too - even if he couldn't see anything.

I've posted a few pictures so Max can see what it would be like if he hooked up his webcam so we could do videochat....or skype.

Don't Tell Ellis

But on Friday I took Rowan to Funkee Monkeys without Ellis. At first I wasn't going to go, but then thought about Mr. Clingy Rowan and decided I needed to socialize him. Plus - I get to sit there and drink coffee - If I stayed home, all I would do is obsess about the mess (hey that rhymes). Rowan did surprisingly well at Funkee Monkeys - near the end he actually ventured away from me.

I met one woman there who had a little boy the same age as Rowan who was due in November with twins. Her baby was way more active than Rowan too - he was already a climber.

Rowan fell asleep on the drive home and then of course woke up the instant we got home. Darn 10 minute nap - it seems to revive him for the rest of the day. Cyp got our new cordless phone set up so I could talk to Elizabeth while Rowan played in the playroom - worked great.

Perhaps I Spoke to Soon

Did I say Ellis might have turned the corner on 3? Yah - not quite yet. I realized that I hadn't made us any plans for Thursday so I thought we'd go to our neighbourhood park - the boys seem to be enjoying the parks these days. They chase eash other around and tire one another out - and I just have to slightly monitor so they don't kill each other.

If I happen to say "go out" in any part of my conversation, Rowan immediately runs for the front door and Ellis usually says "I don't wanna goooooo."

Ellis was in a stay at home mood on Thursday but I decided he would start enjoying the park once he got there. Now - to just get sunscreen on him and him into the stroller. I remind him how much fun the flying fox (zip line) is and that kinda gets him going.

Unfortunately, the park doesn't seem to work it's magic - Ellis goes on the zip line once and then is done - he then torments Rowan who only wants to play with Ba and then he starts hitting a little girl that he has taken a dislike to for some reason. Then he hits me so into the stroller he goes. There is another mummy group there - most of them have what appear to be two year olds and new babies - their kids have not hit three yet. They don't seem perturbed though by the shrieking Ellis: "I WANT OUT" I ignore him and continue to follow Rowan who is doing laps around the playground. Ellis starts his spitting - he leans all the way over and spits out huge goobers that dribble down down down... do your worst I am ignoring you. Unfortunately, this seems to be a genetic tactic as whenever Rowan is unhappy he starts spitting. I try not to react to this, but I must subconsciously be giving off signals that I find this behaviour disturbing cause they both continue to do it.

On the way home I note some orchids that have planted themselves in our neighbour's tree - see the yellow flowers?

Speaking of neighbours - we had a play date to go over to the neighbours across the back - kids are a year older than Ellis and Rowan respectively.

Of course Rowan chooses this day to have a record nap - he goes down at noon as is still sleeping at 3. How do the little rotters know?

I finally wake him up at 3:20 - I need this playdate!

The kids got along okay - Ellis only made Emma cry twice - Meg the mom takes this in stride. Apparently Emma has been calling to Ellis through the fence so when we got home we had to check this out - It would be good if they could be friends.

I mentioned the noises that wake me up some nights - Possums dancing on the metal roof.

"yup - I sleep through these noises when Paul is home, but the minute I'm on my own it's some crazy psychopath trying to get into our house." I know exactly what she means.

I Just Remembered Something Funny

As we were walking along last week - I was pushing Ellis and Rowan in Shiskabob - Ellis said:

"so - we have a green stroller."

"yes." I said

"and a red one."

"yes." I said again

"and this one.....so mum..... we could have two more kids."

Cyp's Home

So last Friday I started counting down the days until Cyp got back. I would say to Ellis - "only 3 more days until daddy gets home. " To which Ellis would reply - "I don't like daddy anymore.... I don't want him to come home."

I would be lying if I said that I secretly didn't snicker inside - ha - serves you right buddy - your kid doesn't like you anymore - heh heh. These thoughts usually coincided with thoughts of Cyp getting to sleep uninterrupted in his own bed all night long.... and getting to talk to other adults.

I was always a good mom though and said "oh -you're just mad because daddy is away, but you really love him and he loves you and misses you, but he had to go to work."

I had told Cyp that there was no way he was going to work on Tuesday afternoon (he got home at noon). "Oh." he said.

"Cyp's here." says Ellis when Cyp got home. Rowas was sleeping. I suddenly had a brainwave and phoned the school where I had left my jacket. They had it. Yay. I told Cyp I was leaving him with the boys to go get it. "Both of them?" said Cyp?

I decided to take mercy on him.

"Ellis - do you want to come for a drive with me?"

"where?"

"to go get my jacket at a school."

"that's not very good for me.....no." (those were his exact words)

ok - daddy - you're on your own (or not actually).

When I got back we went to the park to encourage Ellis to ride his bike - I've been seeing a lot of two year olds biking these days and started to feel like neglectful mom. Ellis really isn't interested though. He did two laps at the park and then had had enough.

Picked up our veggie box on the way home - hey - no more gold kiwis! We did have a huge bunch of kale though. Sigh - I will be needing to figure out what to do with that. I still had a huge bunch of greens from last week - I think they call it silverbeet here, but I know it as swiss chard. I ended up cooking that for dinner - now that Cyp is home I can cook more veg. At lunch I had whipped up an enormous amount of guacamole using up three avocados that were ripe - good thing they had also included cilantro in our box last week. It was delish with the quesadillas I made. I got three more huge avocados this week and more cilantro. May need to pick up some chips.....

At dinner Ellis said:

"I changed my mind.... I still like you daddy, but why did you have to leave? Don't leave again."

Ellis has really changed recently - not sure if it is the structure of his sentences, but he no longer seems like such a little kid. He keeps reminding me that he will be four soon and he seems it. Plus - he seems much more reasonable these days - logic almost works on him.

After dinner I said: "right, I'm going out."

"WHAT?" said Cyp. He looked extremely put out - "fine...what time will you be back?"

I was kidding - I have no where to go... but I wanted him to imagine what my life had been like making dinner, doing dishes, running bath, getting kids ready for bed and then not managing to get Rowan to bed (as he won't sleep without me) and finally giving in and passing out at 8 only to wake up the next day to do it all again without having another adult to talk to. Really - I shouldn't complain - it's not that it's hard - it's just kinda mind numbing - and then trying to figure out to do with ourselves every day was the real chore.

Last Day of Long Weekend - Made It!

I quite like my new morning routine - put on the dance music, haul out the marble works and ignore the children. I've almost got it down to a science. Of course - the novelty will likely wear off for the boys in a couple of days and I'll have to figure something else out.

the other good thing is that the boys are actually playing more these days. Could also be that Rowan doesn't really let Ellis play on the computer anymore - if Ellis is sitting at the table, Rowan comes along and tries to pull him off his chair. Heh. Rowan also goes and wakes Ellis up in the morning - not so good. This morning he went into Ellis's room and Ellis threw things off the bed at him. Of course Rowan got hit in the head and started wailing. When I went in to investigate Ellis said "I didn't do it" The peg fell off the bed and hit him on the head." Then he started giggling - "hey, that rhymes." all this while Rowan was screaming his head off.

Anyway - yesterday I turned on the TV - I needed some mummy time. There was a good lineup yesterday including the Gruffalo. Rowan watched for a bit and then went off and played somewhere. I got ready to go out - our other new routine is to head out after Rowan's nap.

We ended up taking the bus down to the Roma Street Parklands - they are super nice actually. I had been skeptical. This city is a different place in the winter - the parks have people in them during the middle of the day and the kids can play without melting. Could be that it is warmer outside than inside....

The boys raced around for a while and then we met up with Portland friends. The daughters are the same age as Esme and Ava. Ellis really likes them - I got him out of the house today by telling him we were going to meet them.

They were there to see a play in the park - we ended up tagging along and Ellis loved it. The setting was magical -it was late afternoon and the sun was slowly going down - the park is really lovely. Too bad mom and dad didn't check it out while they were here - it has a nice garden. Next time. I had bad preconceptions about it as the only time I'd been by the garden it had been blazing hot and it didn't seem to have many shade trees. It does actually....

It also has mom and bub walks. I may check one out next Friday.

After the play we ran to the train station - pretty much walked onto the train. Yay! Got to Toowong Village - food fair was closed so I quickly picked up some snags at Coles (sausages). Got out to the street, thought about getting home at 6 and trying to cook said sausages and decided we better eat at Jackpot Noodles. Boys had a barbecue pork bun for dinner.

Pushed them up the hill, put them in the bath and then it was bedtime. Nothing good on TV so watched back episodes of Grey's Anatomy on the net.