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 :)