Whoops!

A whole month without blogging. My bad.

I'm full of excuses (of course), but really, I'm lacking inspiration. That'll change soon I'm betting!

A recap of our last month:

Thomas got rotavirus. It was naaaasty. He was off care for a week! He's then eaten us out of house and home for the last two weeks, but finally seems to have settled down again!

We went to Hamiton for a long weekend, and it was SO SUNNY! All my Wellington buddies were not impressed when I rubbed in how much SUN we saw :)

Thomas has been to two zoos in one week! Hamilton and Wellington! He loves animals (said an-i-mals by him, hilarious!), especially monkeys, elephants and meercats. Giraffes, not so much!

And loooooves jumping on the trampoline. We stayed with friends who had one, and he spent hours out there. Needless to say, we're hoping to get him one for Christmas.

OMG how is it almost Christmas!

A wee operation

Our wee man is having a wee operation today, to remove a malformed vein smack bang in the middle of his forehead (and they're also snipping his tongue tie while they're in there).

Thomas was born with an odd malformed vein in his head - it looks like three little blue ink spots, right in the middle of his head. Many people ask if he's drawn on himself, or if he's whacked his head on something. It changes from time to time, gets bigger, gets raised etc, but the point is, it doesn't go away. It isn't a birthmark that'll fade in time.

So we made the decision to have it removed. Mainly because its unpredictable and they don't know what it will do. If he hits his head, they don't know if it'll bleed. They don't know if it'll just keep growing as he grows. They really don't know much about it at all!

We're off to hospital at 9 am, and hope to be home by lunchtime!

Wish us luck xx

Oh blog, how I've neglected you

I've been a terribly unreliable blogger lately, I do apologise. No excuses, I'm just lacking inspiration!

Watch this space :)

Cough cough cough!

We've been very lucky this winter, avoiding all sorts of nasties! But its the changing of the seasons that really gets Thomas.

In the change from autumn to winter he got pretty sick and had a week off care, and now in the change from winter to spring, same thing! It seems he's likely a hayfever sufferer :( But we've unfortunately thrown another nasty into the mix - asthma.

Monkey starting coughing when daddy left for Oz, Thursday the week before last. It was at its worst at night, when he seemed to be all choked up and would cough till he gagged *gross*. So a trip to the Drs, and we came away with an antihistamine to help dry out his nose, and in turn supposedly dry out his cough. Fail. He got worse!

So after a week of sleepless nights we went back to the Dr with daddy in tow, looking for some relief. And the Dr posed the question "family history"? I hadn't even thought about hubby's side of the family, who have three chronic asthmatics *doh*, so it was a good thing we both went to the appointment!

We came away with some ventolin and a spacer to administer it, and we now have a much better little boy! We tried him without it last night, but he coughed till he spewed within 30 mins of going to bed, so quickly nixed that idea.

And the best part - today he saw another kid use a spacer and puffer, and now there's no screaming restraining battle to get it into him! He happily takes it in like a pro (okay, the marshmallows may have helped too!)

A night at nana's

Thomas had a sleep over at his nana's house on Saturday.

This gave me a much needed night off, but also gave nana some quality time with her first grandchild.

She loves having him over, but I do have to wonder what they get up to!

When I picked him up Sunday morning, he smelt of her perfume, because apparently he asked for it to be sprayed on him! We mimic this at home in the mornings (part of his role playing I guess, monkey see monkey do), but don't actually spray him! And he came home with a new saying: "cuppa tea"! Sounds to me like tea parties were on their agenda!

I even checked his toes for nail polish haha!

Finally, a chance to sit down!

So my solo parenting time has been very busy!

Thursday I got Thomas up out of bed and the first thing he did was ask for daddy. He then ran around each room of the house looking and calling out for him. Total tug of the heart strings, I tried so hard not to cry! We got out the door and off to daycare and work fine, early even!

Friday I'd already organised to have off work to spend some time spring cleaning. I worked solidy all day, sorting out Thomas's room mostly, storing away clothes that are too small, rediscovering next size clothes we'd put away some time ago, and finally hanging up his canvases and paintings! Then I steam cleaned all the floors and shampooed the carpet. I felt very productive!

Saturday I was having my girlfriends over for dinner, so I set about the caveman task of splitting wood into kindling! A few close calls but I came away with all fingers and toes :)

Dinner was fantastic, we ripped through the wine and had a blimmin good catch up, even with our friend in the UK via phone. It has been too long to remember when we all last enjoyed a wine together (babies, breastfeeding etc!)

And now I sit here on Sunday night, having just completed the other caveman task - taking out the rubbish and recycling!

Its been a busy long weekend, and we're really missing hubby! Can't wait to see him in the wee hours of Tuesday morning!

Solo parenting (but only for a long weekend)

Hubby is off to a wedding this weekend, leaving me and Thomas at home without him :(

He's away four nights in total, but I bet it will feel longer!

I'll get one night off to myself, while Thomas goes to nana's for a sleepover. I'm having my four besties over for dinner and wines, which is long overdue! And we'll spend Father's Day with my dad, since hubby won't be here to celebrate with us!

So wish me luck! I'll have to do the whole 'getting to daycare then getting to work' routine on my own, for the first time ever!

Eek!

Socks!

Thomas's latest crazy habit is taking his socks off, often in bed but not always.

Without fail, every morning we get him up he is missing at least one sock. He has a big giggle about it when we go hunting for it under the covers!

Today I caught him in the act - he "accidentally" stands on the toe or heel of his sock on one foot with his other foot, which causes his sock to ping off! The little monkey! Then he points and exclaims "sock!". Apparently its all a big game!

Firstly, an apology

I have been a wee bit slack at blogging this week.

I guess I'll blame life getting in the way! Not that we've been doing anything particularly exciting, but Thomas has been SO good and cooperative this past week, that we've all just soaked it up and forgotten about pretty much everything else!

And when I say good, I mean really really good. He's clearly having another growth spurt, as he's eating anything and everything you put in front of him (well, except for fruit *sigh*). He actually ate brocolli before anything else on his plate one night!

We've had lamb cutlets ($30/kg - ouch) that he adooored and gobbled up before you could blink. He ate fresh fish (crumbed and panfried, can't go much wrong!). There was pork roast and lamb roast, both of which went down a treat! And on Friday, three Nutella sandwiches, on top of his usual day's eating. That's six pieces of bread!

So accept my apologies :) We take the good weeks with the bad when living with a two year old!

A ticker!

That's Thomas speak for sticker lol!

One of his favourite pastimes at the moment is picking stickers ("tickers") off things!

So far he's pulled the stickers off his bike, his car garage he got for his birthday, and even desperately tried to pull stickers off jars at the supermarket!

If anyone needs stickers removed, give us a call!

Back to basics

Tonight we had delicious roast pork for dinner, with roast spuds, carrot and pumpkin too. Thomas is looooving roast vegies right now, so its about the only dinner he'll eat at the moment!

Of course, what is roast pork without apple sauce??

Turns out, the tinned apple from the baby aisle brought back happy memories of early solids for Thomas, because he happily gobbled the leftover can with a spoon, even letting me spoon feed him part of it!

Awwww still my little bubba sometimes :)

Cluck cluck chicken!

I'm feeling completely out of control clucky!

So many friends, aquaintances and forum ladies are dropping babies or coming very close to dropping them, and its making me a teeny tiny massive bit clucky!

I also have friends who are actively TTC, and I so hope 2011 brings just as many babies as 2010 is going to!

For now though, I'll just enjoy my big 2 year old baby, and sneak in as many cuddles with little bubbas that I can!

So proud of my big boy!

We're well over a week in and completely dummy free!

No relapses, and surprisingly, tantrums have been a lot easy to manage. Guess he knew we'd eventually crumble and give him his dummy!

Still taking a wee while to get to sleep, but I don't care, no more dummies!

And yet I still can't bring myself to throw them away *sigh*

Quite possibly, the meaning of life

Dasaaa vgf fvfgi mt6i87r qwwwwwwww az

And there you have it.

Okay, I'm kidding. That's actually the message my son left for me on the computer tonight. I have no idea how he did it - nothing was open on the screen, but somehow he managed to open WordPad and type that. He even uses the space bar!

Watching mummy spend too much time on the comp much? LOL

Dummies are for dummies

And thankfully this week Thomas has all but kicked his dummy habit!

On Tuesday his chin had come up in a bit of a saliva rash, and drooling with his dummy in place was not helping! So Tuesday night I popped him to bed as usual, but couldn't see a dummy on his dresser and couldn't be bothered hunting one down, so tucked him in, kissed his head and closed the door. Not a whimper, grizzle or trip out of bed all night! Fluke?

So Wednesday I had his carer put him down without his dummy for his day sleep = same thing!

Wednesday night, no problem. Same goes for Thursday day sleep.

Speedbump on Thursday night - a 45 minute performance of crying, screaming and hopping in and out of bed! No dummy tho, we left his door open as a compromise, and it worked!

So we're 3 days and dummy free - amen!

Time for an update!

Now that my little boy is rapidly growing into a big boy, I decided it was time to update his bedroom!

He's been in a single bed all year, but it only had a neutral duvet because originally it was just our spare guest bed.

In the latest Kmart mailer there was the cutest bedroom set, and it was nice and cheap, plus the colours would work with the existing thermal backed curtains (our budget doesn't stretch that far!). So we trotted off to Kmart and picked up the matching sheets, duvet and wall canvas's. I refrained from getting the lamp, cushions and wall hooks (for now anyway).

It should look a little something like this:



Cute huh??

Change is in the air

I sat down last night and had a good hard look at our family budget.

Its been about 6 months since I did this last, and our situation has changed substantially (mortgage decreased, wages increased), but we're just not making headway with achieving our financial goals.

So after punching in all our expenses into the Sorted website, we discovered where we really should be heading in the coming months, and its pretty damn exciting!

Discipline is required, and we both suck in that department. So we'll be leaving our cards at home and using cash only, to remove temptation for unnecessary spending!

And after checking out the fruit and vege market in the city last Sunday, we're officially converted! Today we braved the rain and gale winds and for less than $20 got:
* Brocolli
* Potatoes
* Carrots
* Courgettes
* Spring Onions
* Pumpkin
* Capsicums
* Oranges
* Bananas
* Cherry tomatoes

The quality was awesome, and I reckon it was about half the price of the supermarket. So not only is this going to be good for the wallet, its going to be good for the body too!

Can you tell I'm excited?!

I love how little brains work

I am so fascinated with how littlies' brains work! Learning to talk is such a big process, and I think we're both learning as much as each other along the way!

For example, we're teaching Thomas about things being "hot", i.e. his food so that he learns to blow it to cool it down. And of course we're already well on the way to learning a number of animal noises (which he demonstrated in an earlier post!).

So I had to laugh when we were driving home the other night and I told Thomas we were having hotdogs for dinner. For the rest of the car trip the kid was blowing and woofing, and it took me a good few minutes to put two and two together.

In his mind, hot = blow and dog = woof! Bless!

The honesty of a 2 year old!

Thomas is big on animal noises at the moment, but he only has a limited selection: cat, dog, cow and tiger/lion (anything that goes "roar"!).

Tonight we were testing him out after his bath. Here's our conversation:

Me: What noise does mummy make?
Thomas: Mooooo
Me: What noise does daddy make?
Thomas: Meowwww
Me: *laughing* You're so funny!
Thomas: I know!
Me & Hubby: *ROTFL*

Gotta love that mummy is a cow and daddy is a pussy cat :)

What happens when you leave daddy in charge of bathtime??

This:




Daddy was a little heavy handed with the bubbles, but I don't think Thomas minded too much, do you?

I forgot how much I enjoyed being a SAHM

That's Stay At Home Mum, in case you were wondering!

See I've just had three days off work with Thomas (these ones were pre-arranged, not like the usual sick days where we're house bound!). Unusually, we've had 3 beautiful sunny days too, in July, go figure!

Tuesday
Thomas still had the tail end of a cold, so Tuesday was a home day, mucking around with new toys from his birthday, so plenty of things to keep him occupied. Did the groceries in the afternoon and he was in his super helpful mood tossing things into the trolley for me - makes the job so much easier!

Wednesday
Shoot over to Sharyn's (from Organised Chaos) place and meet up with some other mums and kids for a change of scenery. Spent some time hooning around on his little ride-on bike in the afternoon in the sunshine!

Thursday
I had lots of errands to run on my last day of freedom, so we headed to the mall bright and early. Popped some shoes in to be fixed ($60 later, ouch!), ducked into the pharmacy and then tottled off to bank a cheque, where Thomas charmed the lady into giving him a pirate sticker! Then across the road to see the "woof woof" - puppies at the pet store (can tell nana takes him there often - he tried to drag me across the road towards the store)! Lucky Thomas got to see a blue tongue lizard up close and personal and mimicked him sticking his tongue out! He loved the noisy birds, and patted a puppy.

Next stop - Pumpkin Patch. Not Thomas's favourite place! Fortunately they have a little kiddie corner and Mary Poppins was on, so Thomas climed into there and gave me 5 mins to shop in peace.

Last stop - Muffin Break, where we shared an apple and berry muffin. Now usually Thomas won't go near a fruit muffin but today he was into it! Super cutie, sitting in the chair across from me, when did my baby grow up!

As a treat for being so good we stopped into a nearby school on our way home and I magically plucked his bike out of the boot! So he spent 15 mins riding around the carpark until he got the speed wobbles and took a spill! But not a scratch on him, although he was too tired to realise at this point. So home we went and off to bed.

It was such a great morning, and made me a teeny bit sad about all the fun times we're missing out on *sigh*.

If only the mortgage could pay for itself!

As promised...

...some pictures from little boy's birthday!





He had a great party with lots of family and friends, and FAR too many gifts! Our house is bursting at the seams!

A runny nose and a bit of a cough weren't going to slow him down, he was a little social butterfly and was really amped up with everyone there just for him!

I'm glad we've been working on his 'blowing' skills, because he successfully blew his birthday candles out, over and over and over again (that game nevers gets tired apparently!)

I'm not sure who was more exhausted at the end of the day - us or him! We popped him into bed at 1.30 ish, and by 4.00 pm he was still sleeping! So I did the vacumming, figuring it'd wake him up - nope! Eventually I had to get him up at 4.30 pm, if we ever had a chance of getting him into bed at a reasonable hour that night (and he wasn't too impressed, let me tell you!).

Hard to believe that in two short years we've gone from bubba to boy! It really is quite an amazing transformation!

This time two years ago...

...it all began!

Hubby had gone to rugby training, and I'd started getting some regular niggles. As I wasn't due for another two weeks, I figured they'd never amount to anything.

How wrong I was!

Two years ago my body was preparing for labour. About 15 hours from now our precious little boy was born.

I think time speeds up once you have kids. I cannot understand how two years has gone so quickly!! It seems like just yesterday I was watching the delayed All Blacks coverage from my hospital bed at Kenepuru, Thomas fast asleep, just a day old. Fast forward two years and hubby and I are drinking a nice bottle of bubbles, watching the All Blacks live and recounting days past.

Tomorrow we're having a little party for Thomas's 2nd birthday. I expect he'll be completely spoilt and we'll have no idea where to put all his new goodies!

Will be back tomorrow night with photos (hopefully lol!) from his special day.

You know what I hate?

Crappy customer service.

Yesterday our internet was down, all day. Not a technical fault per se, but a truck crashing into a pole damaging some cable.

So when we called up about 5.30 pm, we were told they'd been working on it all day and it should be fixed about 7.00 pm. So we waited, tried all the usual tricks but nothing (cue: forum withdrawals for me!). All night. No internet. *SIGH*

This morning I check the provider's website and they have the cheek to not even list the fault in their 'recent events' history. So I'm left wondering if the problem had even been resolved!

Fast forward to tonight. We get to my MILs house and hubby checks his emails, only to discover that yesterday he'd received a very important email with questions he needed to answer within 48 hours relating to a job application. Luckily he does it straight away and makes the deadline, because when we get home later in the evening and flick on the computer, we find the same thing, no internet!

So I call them again, wait a ridiculous amount of time on hold and finally get to a tech. Tech says problem is fixed and that it must be an issue at our end. Ok, awesome. Fiddled with the cables, swapped the ends round, powered off and on again and voila = internet. Typical.

I ask about compensation for the day without internet (hey, no harm in asking right). Nothing. Not likely, sorry. So I ask why the problem was not listed on their website as having been resolved. Oh, um, not sure. So when I point out that I'd really like the point made about compensation or at least better notifications on their website about faults and resolutions, due to our close call with hubby nearly missing a deadline, I get told "sure I'll log that problem right now, thanks for your call, good night".

Problem - tech did not once ask my name, my account number, even my phone number!

So do I think the complaint will be lodged? Nope.

And that is why I hate crappy customer service.

And so the birthday begins!

My little boy turns 2 this coming Sunday, but tonight, five nights shy of his actual birthday, he received his first birthday present!

It was a massive 4 level car garage, with ramps and lifts and even a helipad! It took me and hubby (well mostly hubby - I was good at the stickers!) a good hour to put together, and now takes up a good part of nana's lounge! Thomas loves it, and had loads of fun whizzing his cars around and discovering all the bits and pieces.

While we were putting it together it really got me thinking - I never had anything that awesome when I was a kid! And do you know why? Cos its a real "boy" toy!

Thomas is going to be one spoilt boy by the time Sunday is over! I have no idea where we're going to put all his new things. I know he's got a train track coming, and some matchbox cars, and who knows what else *eek*

But secretly, I can't wait to see his little face light up again, the way it did tonight! The look of surprise and excitement was just priceless! Granddad Keith got some photos, so I'll have to track them down and post them (when I figure out how!)

The true parenting test!

A phone call early Sunday morning from hubby's older brother sparked memories of our very first true parenting test.

He wasn't calling to ask about changing nappies, making up bottles or winding babies. No, it was far more complicated than that.

The true test of parenting - putting up a new portacot for the very first time.

I clearly remember our first attempt. We failed. Miserably. After 30 odd mins, numerous tiffs and countless readings of the instructions, we admitted defeat and declared the silly thing broken (despite being brand new!). We eventually summoned enough courage to give it one last shot, and finally, success! Tricky wee things, its all about precision timing, team work and a large amount of holding your tongue right. (Now of course, I can put the thing up on my own in the dark!)

So hubby's advice to his brother was simple: don't push the middle down until all the sides are locked into place. And try and pull the sides up simultaneously, or else you'll need to start all over again!

We can't be alone in our initial struggles right? Someone else out there must have had the same frustrations we did!

Like a duck to water!

In winter, every Saturday is rugby day for our household.

Hubby coaches a high school team, and when Thomas is in a cooperative mood (as cooperative as a 2 year old can be!) and the weather is 'good' (term is used loosely!) we head out to watch his team play.

Today was one of those days - Thomas was happy, and the sun was shining!

So we headed on over to the grounds, armed with jackets, hats and most importantly; gumboots! The fields were so soggy from weeks of almost constant rain, which means one thing; MUD!

It was the first time Thomas had encountered mud of this proportion, and he had the best time plodding and squelching through the mud, although was a bit unsure of things when his boots got stuck! And of course, he had to poke his fingers in the mud and taste some - just cos!. Good thing I'm not one of those mums who freaks out about this sort of thing!

We had lots of people stop to smile and laugh while watching Thomas enjoy himself, there's something so magical about watching kids be kids!

We managed to chew up over an hour chasing each other and stomping around the place, good time had by all and made for one sleepy boy when we got home.

And even better - hubby's team won :)

Testing testing, is this thing on??

Hellllooooo?? Haha just checking in :)