Thursday, February 25, 2016

242 + 138 Weeks

It was a good week, and we are all fairly well rested!  The kids had a sleep over at their grandparents' house on Friday, after a lovely family dinner.  Jeff and I got to go out for drinks with some friends (a very rare occurrence!), and it was a much-needed break.  Arley has been quite a little grumpster, screaming a lot when he doesn't get his way, and instead of asking for something nicely, just screaming bloody murder for it instead.  It's not even about voice control, it is a tantrumming need-to-have-now problem.  We are trying to teach him the right way to ask for things, but he is very slow on the uptake!
We are getting quite disappointed with the kids' preschool, as Carmie has finally admitted that she is very bored there.  She says she is learning nothing new, and it's just not the same since her Montessori teacher left at the end of last year.  The woman who runs the centre is a fruitloop, but they claim to be hiring a new teacher next month, so fingers crossed that they do and Carmie likes it again.  I hate the thought of her going somewhere for 4 days each week where she is not happy.  Arley seems happy enough there, except that he got injured there today - he was jumping off some inside stairs (being naughty), and he landed on all fours and smacked his face on the corner of a container.  It happened right before I arrived, so when I got there, he was crying and with a shiner, but all dressed up in a fancy red skirt.  Very tough.

Finding clues during a treasure hunt at her Lolo and Dida's.


 One of Arley's favourite things to do is help me water the garden every day.  We found a red back spider today though, so I might be putting an end to our watering sessions until I can get the place sprayed.
 Yes, he likes to water rocks.
 All dressed up for breakfast.





 Our burly dancer with a shiner.



Saturday, February 20, 2016

240 + 136 Weeks OH NO, somehow I forgot to publish this post!!

From two weeks ago  :(  Now my posts are out of order, and I don't remember anything that happened for this post.  Told you I am a zombie.  I blame Arley!















241 + 137 Weeks

This blog post is late again, because Arley has been putting us through the ringer again, and I have been a bit of a zombie.  Thankfully my parents gave us a night off last night, so we got some sleep.

It was a busy week.  On Sunday afternoon we decided to take the kids down to Mollymook beach to play in the rock pools.  We haven't done this before, because we haven't really trusted ourselves to being able to keep Arley from running headlong into the waves like he did last summer, and the rock pools can be slippery, so we usually take them to Dolphin Point.  Well, the kids had a great time, and it was really fun.  We were saying how we should do this every afternoon, that it was so nice to be down there with them.  And then, just as we were getting ready to leave, Arley started screaming shrilly and rubbing at his leg.  I picked him up and he was writhing in pain, and screaming.  OMG, it was awful.  I couldn't put him down, and I had to carry him from the Bogey Hole to the Mollymook Surf Club (no easy feat!!!), where they put him in the sink and doused him with hot water, while he screamed and cried that he wanted to feel better.  I wanted to take away the pain for him, it was dreadful.  We assume he was stung by a blue bottle, but he didn't have the typical blue bottle rash where you can see the stingers.  His rash was fiery hot and from his right hip to his knee, wrapping around the whole leg, as well as patches on his other leg, on his foot, and on his right arm and hand.  Pretty much a quarter of his little body.  So awful, I felt so bad for the poor little guy.  And meanwhile Carmen was crying and acting like a drama queen because no one would carry her!  We took the kids home, and gave Arley a bath, and loaded him up with antihistamine and put him to bed, and he woke up the next morning as good as new, thank goodness!  And we haven't been down to the rock pools again!

Valentine's Day came, and Carmie was very excited about it, so I made them each a card, and Carmie got breakfast in bed.  Then we met Lolo & Dida at the club for lunch, and the kids had a play at the park.  While the kids were at school one day, Jeffrey and I took our dog Bella down to the rocks at Dolphin Point, so she could have a run and a swim.  It is amazing down there, we seriously live in the most beautiful part of the world.

Arley is still waking up at night.  Boo hoo.  His talking is improving every week, and he copies everything Carmie says.  He has been obsessed with his green shoes, and wouldn't even get out of bed without wearing them. He has been refusing to wear any other shoes for months, and they were getting very smelly, and were a size too small.  At breakfast the other day, he climbed up at the breakfast counter and announced to me, "Stinky shoes and stinky nappy!"  No truer words were ever spoken.  So, we bought him three pairs of new shoes (thanks Mum and Geoff), and we had to pin him down to get the stinky green shoes off him.  He screamed and cried, but we ultimately won, and now he is super proud of his new shoes!   The dramas of a two year old!

Carmie is a goose and very sweet.  She says the funniest things, but of course I can't remember any of them while I'm typing this blog.  She draws at least ten pictures a day.  She's not liking school as much right now, but she says it's because she misses me all day.  She counts down the days until each weekend, and is horrified at the thought of going to school five days a week next year.  It's a long way off, thank goodness :)

Here is a very cute video of Arley getting his own cereal for breakfast:


At school

 Mollymook rock pools, before the drama



 Valentin's Day
 At Mollymook park


 At the Golfy






 Having a nap :)
 Floating like a champ!  This is the kid who refused to lie on his back for over a year!
 New shoes!!
 At Dolphin Point



Friday, February 5, 2016

239 + 135 Weeks

Well, we made it through another week with no sleep.  Arley didn't get any better, and Jeff and I were zombies all week.  I don't quite know how Arley has survived it, only getting about 6 hours of broken sleep a night.  I went to the pharmacy and got some antihistamine (sedative!) for him, so he has taken that for the last two nights to get back on track.  It seems to be working.  I can do one more night of it before we try him without it, so fingers crossed!!  It has been just like having a newborn again, so exhausting.  Jeff and I have both been getting ill, and poor Jeff has come down with a tummy bug.  Not fun times.

But we did also have some fun this week.  We took the kids to play cafe (it has been raining on and off all week, so no outside parks for us)  We had dinner at my parents' house and then Carmie stayed on for a sleep over.  We mostly had indoor play due to the rain, so we did painting, we made ice cream, and Carmie and Jeff played about 1000 games of Guess Who.  I can't think what else we did, I'm far too tired!

 Hopefully not the beginnings of a car modelling career!

 Dessert at Lolo & Dida's
 Arley's first time wearing goggles - a huge step!






 Homemade ice cream :)



 Painting
 Just like her mum, look how many brushes she used!