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!