Pics

This first one was after so-called "quiet time" today. Juliet carefully took items from all over the house and placed them on her floor. When I opened the door to see if she was asleep (ha!), my eyes nearly popped out of my head. She said, "It's OK Mum, my friends [teddies etc.] are sick and need to go to hospital. I just had to make the floor look like a car". Ahem. I will be doing some car tidying/cleaning tomorrow.

The next few were taken at afternoon tea time. I was in the kitchen and looked up when I heard giggling. Juliet had got up and started giving Heidi kisses and tickling her. I had to get the camera, even though Heidi is covered in avocado rice crackers!



And just a couple of happy snaps from today:

Three down...

Fourteen to go.

James is visiting his family in the US for 17 days (not that I'm counting or anything). We spent the first few days of his absence down at Sarah & Nev's beach house, which was an extremely welcome break in routine and an excellent distraction. Not that they read this blog, but THANK YOU!

Heidi is fine but Juliet's missing James very badly. Today was definitely a bit better, so I'm optimistic that we're past the worst of it. I can almost cope better with her usual tantrums than I can with the utter sadness of the last few days I think :( 2 weeks to go - we'll get through it!

It's a...

Avert your eyes if you don't want to know what gender the baby is...

It's another Golden girl! James is well and truly outnumbered now! All is well; she is measuring well for her dates, everything is functioning properly and she is very lively. I just love the little smile on her face in the photo above. Now we just need to decide on names. Juliet has suggested we name her Olivia or Juliet, because apparently you can never have too many Juliets. Hmm.

Other than that, life is trudging along as usual. Juliet's been quite sick with fever this week, and Heidi has her billionth cold for the year. Sleep is starting to become rare and precious around this house!

Heidi is talking up a storm with over 200 words at a guess. She is the happiest toddler imaginable, squealing with delight over everything. She loves to dance and sing the Hokey Pokey, and give Juliet lots of cuddles. As "Juliet" is proving a bit tricky to pronounce, she calls her big sister "Lette", so Juliet is slowly adding "Lettie" and "Lette" to her long list of nicknames.

Ill house

Erk, get me out of here. Warning - not a pleasant read.

First off, last Saturday Juliet vomits everywhere and then spends the day either asleep or nearly asleep. On Sunday, Heidi had a step ladder collapse on her, jamming her little finger and necessitating a trip to Emergency (she's fine). Monday I was feeling terribly unwell and went to the doctor - I suspect low iron levels, plus the doctor says I now need an asthma pump as I've been coughing so much that I've been throwing up. And then on Tuesday Heidi managed to spend most of the day vomitting. I ended up taking her to the doctor, who of course said she needed to stay home today. So James spent the day today at home with Heidster, Juliet went to kinder and I went to work. All seemed to be going well, til I picked Juliet up from kinder and she threw up in the car, and again at home. My turn to stay home from work tomorrow. On top of all that, Juliet has an appointment next week with an eye specialist to investigate why she gets conjunctivitis so much (monthly!!!)

Anyone care to swap lives for a few weeks?

Glorious escape

Mum came down yesterday and looked after the girls all afternoon, evening and night for us while we had our first night away together since they were born. Lovely! We stayed at the Prince in St Kilda and had a stunning dinner at Circa. Even managed to see Indiana Jones at the movies!

Of course, even though we got home at 11 this morning, it already feels like it was weeks ago. Still, a fantastic break, if not quite long enough. I can't imagine when we'll get to do it again - I don't think we'll have too many people lining up to look after 3 kids under 4 in a hurry!

General update

Been a bit slack with the blog recently, sorry. Juliet's stopped having day naps, and by the time evening rolls around I'm ready for bed, which is limiting my computer time a bit!

Anyway, here's an update of the clan.

Juliet:
Had her first swimming "lesson" (actually an assessment to see if she'd freak out) last week. She wasn't too keen on the teacher holding her so there were a few tears, but she was pretty enthusiastic about it all in general. Especially the lollipop that she was given at the end! We're waiting to hear if she has a place for next term.

She's alternating between being extremely challenging and extremely sweet. I was complaining of being tired the other day. She said, "Here's what we'll do. You sit down and have a rest, and I'll tidy up the toys." How lovely is that?

Heidi:
Becoming increasingly cheeky and vocal. She has about 60 or so words now (at 18m). She's still easygoing but is finally suffering from a little bit of separation anxiety from me, for the first time. It's not terrible, though she has woken during the night a lot over the last week, wanting me to come and pat her back to sleep. She also follows me from room to room, as does Juliet still. I must admit it does get a bit annoying to have a trail of toddlers follow me all over the house. Still, I know one day I'll miss it. One day...

James:
Is pretty stressed about work. The big excitement in his life at the moment is his impending trip to visit the family in America. Lucky him!

Me:
Tired but happy. I'm suffering insomnia, which isn't brilliantly timed due to Heidi's night wakings. I fantasise about sleep. James and I are having our first night away from the girls on Saturday (well, it's my first night, not his). For my birthday this year I booked a night at a hotel with dinner at a fancy restaurant beforehand. Now I just have to try as hard as I can to not worry about Heidi waking up for me at 3am, and SLEEP!!!

I'm pretty sure I can already feel the baby kicking. I know it's early (14 weeks) but it's a pretty distinctive feeling. I have a suspicion that this one is going to be very active. God help us all!

Long weekend

It's a public holiday here today; I've appreciated having James around for an extra day. The weather is wet and cold, and we're running out of things to do with the girls. I took Juliet to the dinosaur exhibition at the Museum on Saturday, and the girls and James visited Dorothy this morning. It's hard work getting Juliet to be quiet during Heidi's nap, so James has taken her out for a walk in the rain somewhere. She loves getting rugged up in her gumboots and raincoat, so we're all happy.

Heidi has yet another cold. I should post when she doesn't have one - that's more the exception! She's been having some trouble sleeping and her appetite isn't great. She's happy enough though. She'll be turning 18 months next week - I can't believe it. She now walks all the time (albeit like a cowboy who has been in the saddle for a long time), and has about 50-60 words at a guess. The girls are definitely becoming more challenging. Juliet's turned into a rather full on loud, boundary-testing 3 year old, and the 2 of them fight all the time. Unfortunately Heidi is now old enough to want to do whatever it is that Juliet is doing (and vice versa), but they haven't quite mastered the sharing/turn taking yet.

Juliet is in the process of transitioning into kinder at the moment. She loves it, as we expected. It does mean that she is no longer with her favourite carer (who stays in the toddler room), but she's coping OK.

Golden #3

It's time it was made official. There's another Golden on the way! Not quite planned, but obviously a very welcome addition. It's all very exciting.

I'm 12.5 weeks pregnant and everything is going well. The morning sickness has been pretty bad this time around, but seems to be easing off a bit now. My workplace knows, and strangely enough there is another girl who is due the same day as me -particularly odd given there are only 6 people in the company!

We'll be finding out the gender this time around, but not for another month and a half.

Time to drag out the baby name books again!

First tentative steps

I thought this warranted a separate entry from Juliet's party as it's quite a big deal. Heidi took her first independant step yesterday! Hooray! Since then she's done it a few times. She will step once with her right foot, think about moving the left, think some more, then sit down.

I think she'll be walking by the end of the week. She is SO close now. She's spending most of her time just standing and practising her balancing. Well done Heidster!

Edited an hour later - she's walking!!!! 6 steps in a row, several times!

Happy 3rd birthday, Juliet

We had a small party for Juliet's birthday yesterday. She was SO excited - literally jumping up and down with excitement for hours in anticipation. Much time was also spent gazing in wonder at her cake, which she was very pleased with.

She managed to expend some of her energy by dancing/jumping to Hi 5 with her friend Indie, though we didn't manage to get any photographic evidence as every picture turned out a blur of pink tulle. Heidi spent some time playing and eating playdough with Tess, Freya had a lot of fun with Dorothy (both the aunt and the dinosaur), and Dylan proved he is an 8 year old boy by managing to make playing on a toddler's ladybird ride-on toy into an extreme sport!

The last guests headed off at 5pm and we managed to get the girls to calm down in time for bed, when they both crashed, totally exhausted. All in all, a success. Happy 3rd Birthday Juliet!

Little Miss Smarty Pants

This is really just a brag. Look what Juliet did the other day, totally unprompted! I'd written her name on a bit of paper and she copied it perfectly, twice! I'm very, very proud of her.

Heidi is slowly getting closer to walking. She will at least stand alone for a bit, but hasn't yet taken a step without holding on to anything. Otherwise she's going very well. Extremely cheeky though.

We're having a small party for Juliet's 3rd birthday tomorrow - just family and a couple of friends who Juliet was keen to invite. She's chosen a rather elaborate cake. I hope I can pull it off!

Employed!

Just a quick entry to say that I got the job. I start in 3 weeks :)

Employment?

I had another job interview this morning, and I think it went well (mind you, I thought that last time too so perhaps I'm not the best judge!) I find out next week. I also started doing some casual work at the State Library yesterday as an XML encoder in the manuscripts/archive area. Don't ask! It's actually very interesting work, and I'm hoping that even if I do get this other job, I can juggle them both for a while. The one I went for today is only 10 hours a week, so it's a distinct possibility.

Heidi is becoming a real chatterbox. Since my last entry, she's added Grandpa, Grandma, grape, cheese, look, and a few other words to her vocab. She's also walking by pushing chairs around, but hasn't quite stood alone yet. I don't think it will be long now.

I'm in denial about Juliet and her need for a nap. She's currently "resting" (i.e. playing and talking) in her room. Given she only actually sleeps perhaps one day in 10, I would give up completely except for the fact that by about 4pm she is overtired and totally out of control.

Chatterbox, camping, more...

We fulfilled James' dream of camping at Wilson's Prom as a family a couple of weeks ago. Loaded up with enough stuff to get us to Antarctica and back, we set off for 3 days and 2 nights at Tidal River. Heidi got a cold on the morning we left, but was in fine spirits nonetheless. The nights weren't quite as peaceful as we'd hoped, as she thought sleeping on a mattress was a bit of a game and just crawled on and off for hours and hours.

The girls had a ball playing in the river and in the surf. Much chocolate icecream was consumed by Juliet, and they revelled in getting as filthy as possible :) All in all a good childhood style summer holiday.

Heidi is cruising now, and really becoming a toddler. She loves playing with dolls, drawing, pasting, and playing with the dolls house. She tucks the little dolls into bed and wishes them "nigh nigh". Very cute!

Her vocab is really coming along. Her words now (at 15 months) include: Mummy, Dadda, Heidi, no, yes, up, down, poo, dog, woof woof, bye bye, nigh nigh, more, milk, broom broom [car]. She's come out with a few 2 word phrases, but they are very rare still.

She's still enjoying daycare where she is known as the "little koala", as she loves cuddles so much.

Juliet is still her feisty crazy self. She's taken to going shirtless and calling herself "Eggy Pop"!Mmm, wonder where she got that from. She makes us laugh constantly. This morning I was cleaning the oven and told the girls to move away from it, and asked Heidi to stop trying to crawl inside it. Juliet said, "She thinks she's a turkey!" Honestly, if she's like this and she's not even 3, I think we have many years of comedy ahead of us.

Quite mad

I am. Because I've just enrolled in the NEXT bootcamp when this one ends. I ended up staying in my platoon, after a short time (10 minutes!) in the lowest one. They were sooooooo slow, I didn't feel I was actually exercising at all, so rejoined my "proper" group. My fitness definitely seems to be improving, even though the weightloss is minimal (in fact I don't think I've lost any weight at all).

On a totally different subject, I asked at Juliet's daycare centre about when she will be moving up into the kindergarten room - is it by age or by calendar year? They said she'll be moving up in June, and she is "so ready now, she's practically running the toddler room". Why do I find that easy to imagine!? This morning James called her for breakfast, and her pensive response was, "Mmm. Maybe in five minutes..." I also overheard her putting away a couple of toys yesterday (a teapot and cup) saying, "I'll just put you here, sweetie pies!"

Heidi is desperate to walk. She's starting to walk on her hands and feet in a kind of spidery yoga looking pose, which is very funny to watch. Her biggest passion in life is music though. As soon as we put any music on, she goes crazy. Her favourite is "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", which she sings along to with her hands in the air. It's absolutely gorgeous.

When the girls aren't beating each other up, they are very affectionate. Heidi often crawls up to Juliet and starts loudly kissing her legs, which will prompt Juliet to start kissing her equally loudly. Mind you, she will then stand on her hand or take a swipe at her, so the lovely games are usually pretty shortlived!

Sassy lass

A few photos from our morning at the zoo. Most are of Juliet, as Heidi had Vegemite smeared over her entire face for most of the trip!

Standing girl

Heidi has suddenly become addicted to standing. Apparently yesterday she cruised along our couch! She didn't do it today, but she's pulling up on anything and everything. I think it will be only a few days before she starts cruising properly.

Juliet's being a real handful at the moment. Openly defiant, and constantly testing boundaries. She's gone back to refusing a midday nap, and by about 4pm she's overtired, unbearable and plain aggressive. I'm struggling with her to be honest. When she's good, she's adorable - full of affection, kisses, helpful, sweet... but when she's playing up, she's a bit of a nightmare. I think Heidi is starting to enter "proper" toddlerhood now too - heaven help me!

Disappointment

I finally heard back about the job yesterday. Apparently it came down to a 2 horse race, and I lost :( I asked her for feedback on the interview, and she said she had none. The interview was "exemplary", I did everything right, it was extremely close, blah blah blah. All fairly pointless as I didn't get the job! Oh, she did say that my skill set was possibly "too advanced". I can see this being an issue in my search for work - it seems that everything that matches my skill set is full-time.

And I've put on an entire kilo since starting boot camp.

All rather disillusioning.

Home produce

Check out what's been keeping me busy recently!

Here we have: home-grown tomatoes (fresh and bottled), pickled cucumbers (home-grown), preserved mango, preserved peaches from Mum & Dad's tree, figs in port, and fig jam (both from our fig tree). I've also been making lots of pesto as our basil plant has been very productive. And tomorrow I'll be making some home made chilli sauce with our birdeye chillis, which are extremely prolific. It's all quite fun!

Yes, I'm alive

Just!

Week 2 of bootcamp started today. I'm in the second lowest platoon, and am by far the slowest person in my group. I haven't been taken to hospital yet though, which I suppose is a bonus. I weighed myself this morning and have not managed to lose even 100g of weight. Impressive, huh. I got James to take "before" photos of me before bootcamp started, and I'm starting to fear that the "after" photos will be identical! Even though I'm finding it very hard going, I am actually enjoying it quite a lot. Mostly when I'm not doing it, however.

Here's a couple of photos I took at the playground this morning. Juliet decided she'd give James a go on the hammock - please note the expression of abject fear in his eyes. And here's some proof that Heidi really is on the move.

Bootcamp begins

Based on this morning's efforts, I am clearly one of the most unfit people in Australia. I think I came 156th out of 160 people in the fitness assessment (which involved running/staggering for 2.4km).

It can only get better, right?

And she's off!

Heidi stunned us all this afternoon by crawling! She started off doing 2-3 "steps", then suddenly just went for it and crawled across Dorothy's loungeroom. We're all extremely excited. The fun and games start now - and I can't wait.

How did I go...

I think I went OK. I'm always pretty bad at judging interviews though.
They told me I went "very well", but also said that they were interviewing a "quite a number" of people today, so obviously I have quite a lot of competition.

Fingers are crossed. The more I think about it, the more I really want this job. Let's hope my incredible charm and professionalism stunned and amazed them. *cough*

Interview tomorrow

Big day for me tomorrow, with my first job interview in many years. I'm not feeling too nervous, but I'll still be glad when it's all over!

Playing in the sandpit

Just a few photos from yesterday.

I got an interview!

Yep, just as I was about to abandon hope, I finally got a phone call this afternoon. I have an interview for the job! I'm trying not to be nervous. Of course, it's all an excellent excuse to get a haircut, buy some work clothes etc. etc. What - I should actually think about interview questions?! Surely not.

Heidi was back at daycare again today for her first really big day alone. She did brilliantly. She seems to be adapting extremely well, and has no trouble napping, eating, playing or just generally being happy. The carers all say how lovely she is (of course ;-) )

All in all, an excellent day.

Heidi starts daycare

Heidi officially started daycare last week, but I only took her for an hour or so each day (Tues and Thurs). Today was her big test - the first nap. I must admit I did NOT think she would sleep, given that one little baby boy in the sleep room was screaming his lungs out. However she just chatted for a bit then had a lovely big nap. I was amazed. She also had a big lunch, big afternoon tea and all in all she seemed to enjoy herself immensely.

I've applied for a job, but haven't heard back from them yet. I'm not too worried if I don't get it. I'm in no rush. I'm actually quite looking forward to having a few hours a week at home alone, simply to get some jobs done around the house.

I'm also about to launch into my first ever experience of food preservation. We have a bumper crop of tomatoes this year, and I'm planning on making some into passata and sauce, and preserving some more (if we get that many). Mum's given me a heap of old Fowlers jars, so once I've got some new clips/rings I'll be all ready to go. We also have a crazy number of cucumbers, so I'm planning to pickle some over the next day or so. Gawd, I'll be joining the CWA before you know it...

(Actually I'm also thinking about making our own soap. See, this is what happens when you take someone out of a "normal" corporate working environment and stick them at home for years on end. They go quietly insane, then start thinking of "busy work" for themselves. I'll be handweaving rugs out of swamp reeds by 2009 if I don't find a job).

Eeeeeeeek!!!

I'm officially insane! This afternoon I enrolled in bootcamp. It starts on Feb 9, and involves 3 sessions a week plus 2-3 extra sessions in my own time. I currently do absolutely no real exercise (I don't count leisurely strolls with the pram) and am carrying about 10kg more than I would like to be. I'm very nervous. Having done it once before (right before falling pregnant with Juliet) I know what's involved, and it's HARD WORK!!!!! I do think I need that extra push to get back into the habit of exercising though. Last time I lost 5kg and felt fantastic, so I'm hoping the same happens again.

We had a fairly social day today; mothers group this morning, and Megan and Freya visited this afternoon. Juliet's back at daycare tomorrow, and I'll be taking Heidi in for an hour or so too. Hopefully it will all go well.

Oh, and our rainwater tank is finally being installed in the morning. Now we just need some rain...

Crawling (of sorts)

Heidi is getting more into the swing of things with crawling. She can now get herself into a crawling position from sitting, and scoots backwards across our wooden floors. She's also starting to try to pull herself up to a standing position. At last!

Juliet has successfully toilet trained herself. She hasn't had an accident in nearly 2 weeks. Mission accomplished.

Nothing else much to report. Does anyone actually read this blog anyway?! :)

Hooray for everyone!

Some good news today.

Heidi is finally rolling from her front to her back, and as of today she is getting into a sitting position from lying down. Hooray! She's very pleased with herself. Although emotionally she seems to be entering toddlerdom already. She's started squealing and almost having mini-tantrums - NOT like the Heidi we know! I'm hoping it's just because she has 2 teeth about to poke through.

In other good news, Juliet's toilet training is continuing to go very well. We've had 4 days with no accidents at all, and she is now taking herself with almost no prompting. I must admit I didn't think it would be so easy. On the downside, I think I've put on about 5kg from eating all the leftover M&Ms...

Seaspray

We just got back from a lovely holiday down at Seaspray, where we stayed with some friends at their beach house. It was the most relaxing holiday we've had in ages, and we wish we were still there! Juliet had an absolute ball with her mate Indie, and had heaps of fun playing in the river and even the surf.

Last Thursday Juliet decided she no longer wanted to wear nappies. So we're now in the thick of toilet training, and it's going brilliantly. She's had perhaps 5 or 6 accidents in a whole week (only a couple of which have been messy, thankfully enough). This morning she even woke up with a dry nappy and took herself to the potty as soon as she woke up! I must admit that there is a bit of M&M bribery going on, but it is working. What a big girl!

And in another milestone, we've completely entered the "But why?" stage. I haven't resorted to "Because I said so" or "Ask Daddy" yet, but give it a couple of days...

Heidi is STILL not crawling. She's standing a bit more though, and did some rocking on her hands and knees yesterday. I think I will call the physio again in a couple of weeks. She's going well in every other way though. She even had her first bike ride last week, which left her a little bemused!

I'm starting to look for work again, just for 2 days a week. Unfortunately most part time jobs are 3 days a week, but I'm not worried if it takes me a while to find something. There's no real rush. Heidi has a place in daycare starting in 2 weeks, but I will just put her in for an hour here and there to get used to it until I find work. I'm not nearly as stressed out about the prospect of Heidi going to daycare as I was when Juliet began. Mostly because Heidi is so easygoing, has no separation anxiety, and I'm much more familiar with the daycare centre now.

Happy Birthday!

Happy first birthday, Heidi. You're an absolute delight.

Heidi's checkup

Just a quickie to say that Heidi had her 12 month checkup today. Everything was as expected - her gross motor skills are below average (no surprise given she still isn't crawling), her language/communication skills are advanced and she's right on average for everything else. She is tall for her age and slightly below average for weight (!). There must be a lot of pudgy babies bringing up the average is all I can say!

Only a week to Christmas. We're having it at our place this year. We're also having our annual open house on Saturday, so lots of socialising this week. I'm trying to do Christmas baking, but as soon as I make something, certain people eat it all! I can't keep up.

Heidi's 1st birthday party

Yesterday about 30 people came to help celebrate Heidi's 1st birthday. The birthday girl had a lovely time and was full of smiles as usual. Here are a few photos from the day.

With Helen:

Finding Dorothy amusing:

The cake:

Juliet:

Yay! Check out the loot!

Sisters:

Just a few photos

Some photos from today and yesterday.

The first ones are what I discovered today when I got Juliet up from her "nap" (needless to say, no sleep was involved). She hasn't had a nap at home for months until the last few days. I think I was optimistically hoping it had returned... nope. Note carefully arranged facewashers, teddies under pillow, and Juliet the wrong way around. And just try to tell me she doesn't look like a handful!

And a few photos of the glorious Peanut. Cowlick - what cowlick?! But isn't she beautiful!

Heidi

After canvassing the opinions of a few friends, I decided to take Heidi to a baby physio last week. She is nearly one, but still not crawling, standing, or even rolling from her tummy to her back! The physio confirmed our suspicions that Heidi is perfectly fine, but has low muscle tone. As she started sitting relatively early and is very flexible, she is stuck in a bit of a rut of just sitting and reaching. The physio gave me a few exercises to start to extend her limits a bit, and it seems to be working after only 2 days. She is already much happier with tummy time, and has woken up from a nap on her tummy 3 times in the last couple of days.

It does seem a bit funny that we are doing all these activities (sleep school, physio) with our second baby! Heidi is truly such a delight though. Barely one day goes by without a stranger commenting on her. She's so happy, so friendly and just gorgeous. She isn't suffering any separation anxiety, or any of the negative things that often happen around this age. She's just lovely.

We're having a party next weekend for her 1st birthday. I can't believe she is one!

Happy snaps of Juliet

Just a few recent photos of Juliet.

Helping Daddy put together a strawman for Halloween a few weeks ago:

And sitting out on the deck on a lovely warm afternoon:

Do you think she looks like trouble?!

Funny toddler stories

Juliet's been coming out with some very amusing things recently. The other day she told me she wanted a little brother. Not just any little brother, a "black one". Apparently I can buy him from the market.

She wants many things for her 3rd birthday (in 6 months time!) Including: a blue car, a blue motorbike, a lollipop, some nuts, and a beard. Naturally.

We also had one of those embarassing toddler moments at the supermarket last week, when she proudly yelled at the top of her voice, "MUMMY, I DONE A FART!" I quietly said, "yes, yes, noone else needs to know that..." So of course she yelled it again about another 8 times. The entire aisle of shoppers were staring and laughing. One of the supermarket workers smiled at me and said not to worry, her nephew is always talking about bums. Juliet processed that information for a minute then yelled, "MUMMY, I DONE A FART OUT MY BUM!"

Comic gold.

Photos

Just a quick entry to link to our lovely family photos at http://www.susandarcy.com.au/goldenfamily/ Thanks to the talented Susan D'Arcy for them - they are beautiful!

Rooster and chickens unite

We went to CERES this morning, and Brooster the Rooster (who is now unfortunately called Punky Brooster) was pleased to meet some of his cousins.

Yesterday James used his Father's Day gift, which was a ride on a military tank (naturally). Here it is:

Yep - boy stuff!

And to complete the trilogy of totally unrelated photos, here is a picture of the girls taken on a warm day last week. I can't wait til the weather heats up a bit and we aren't stuck inside all the time.

Heidi is getting closer and closer to crawling, but still isn't mobile despite much frantic rocking to and fro. She's getting quite frustrated. Her sleeping is going very well though (with the exception of last night). We're even going out next week at night time, which is almost unheard of!

Juliet continues to be very amusing. Apparently the other day when he was poking his tongue out at her in the car, she told James, "Turn around and drive the car, silly man!" We've been taking lots of video footage of her "singing" (I use the word very loosely - it's more like a shout) and dancing (usually with my undies around her neck as a "tutu"). She loves playing in the dirt, but on the whole is a real little girl. James tried to play with a ball with her yesterday. He lasted less than 5 minutes before she lost patience, declared the ball to be a "baby", lifted her shirt and started to breastfeed it.

Sleep School

We finally did it. And it worked!

On Monday morning Heidi and I headed out to Tweddle in Footscray, full of trepidation. There were about 8 other families in our group, most with babies the same age and with the same issues. I was very anxious about the whole experience as I knew it would involve a fair bit of crying... but really, it just wasn't that traumatic. Heidi responded very well and barely cried at all, really just grizzling for 5 mins and then falling asleep. And I must admit, it was like a mini holiday for me; no cooking, cleaning, laundry or toddler-minding. I got to sit around and read books and chat to some lovely people. Plus the food was so lousy, I even lost some weight! Can't complain about that.

Keeping in mind that this was the worst it's ever been, and the co-sleeping only started a couple of weeks ago when I got very sick with a virus and couldn't face sitting on Heidi's floor at 2am when I had a fever...but this time last week, this is what Heidi was doing:

6.30pm Bed
8.00pm Wake, cry. Resettle would fail, end up giving her quick comfort feed to sleep
9.15pm Wake, cry, comfort feed
11.00pm Wake, cry. Bring her into bed with me, comfort feed
12.15am Wake, cry, comfort feed
2.30am Wake, cry, comfort feed. Often awake/grizzling til 3.30am.
4.30am Wake, cry, comfort feed
5.15am Wake, put into bed with James
5.30am Juliet arrives in my bed (!)

Now, this is what she's doing:

6.30pm Bed
9.00pm Wake, grizzle, resettle for 2 mins, back to sleep
11.00pm I go in and give her a feed, waking her if she is asleep
3.30am Wake, cry, resettle for less than 10 mins
6.15am Wake for day.

How good is that!!! We're packing away the spare bed for good today. Life is finally returning to normal :)

Back on board

Well, haven't I been slack?

We've been a sick household since mid-August - that's my excuse anyway. It's been one thing after another - a nasty bout of the flu which kept 3 of us bedridden, followed by gastro, then a cold, and now some other horrible bug. Bring on summer!

It feels like it was years ago, but we had some VIPs fairly recently - James' parents visited us from the US. The girls absolutely adored them (Juliet is still reciting "See my pinky...") No big excursions this time except for a day trip up to Maldon, but the time seemed to go very quickly nonetheless. We squeezed in a trip to the Aquarium, Zoo, Museum, city, Southbank and the casino, plus of course visits to family. Unfortunately we didn't take many photos, but we did get a professional photographer to do a shoot while they were here. We're dying to see the results!

In the meantime, here's a nice pic of all our parents up at Maldon: