Babies, babies and some babies too.

I am feeling VERY pregnant today. I'm now so big that I have to squish the Bun a little to pick up and put down the girls, and I think I need to officially put all the shoes with laces into early retirement. Its daggy uggboats and slip-ons from here on in.

Unfortunately the girls are still not walking and have just entered that ultra clingy please-mum-carry-me-everywhere phase. I've had to become a bit of a hard arse and just let them cry a bit. Jess and I however have a great way worked out of getting across the house on the floor boards. She sits on her bum and I waddle along behing her pushing her forward with my feet. We are both highly amused by this.

I think there are only about 8 weeks left now until the Bun is here, and the closer we get to the due date the more time the T-man is spending interstate on buisness. He got back from a 2 day buisness trip on Friday night and is leaving again on Wednesday. The Wednesday trip is a one day thing. Leave on a flight to Mount Gambier before the sun comes up and get home hopefully sometime before midnight. Then on Sunday night he flies out again and comes back late Tuesday night. Heaven help me if I get bored and want to leave the house while he's away. The front tyre of the stroller exploded on Sunday so we aint goin nowhere.

Okay enough complaining. Good news. Um, T-man is applying for a job in Canberra which would be beyond awesome if he actually got.
My parking skills are improving slightly, but there will be plenty of time to practice. I think I need about another 25 hours (including night driving) of practice before I can even apply for my P plates.

And

And I took a huge step (well a huge step for me anyway) and I let someone watch the girls for the first time, for a couple of hours. I have been so scared to let someone baby sit because even their own father has trouble keeping up with them. But, they survived and so did I. It may even happen again.

Oh....wait.....baby.....hospital....right.

In that case it will definately happen again.

The boy has been in Melbourne for the past 3 days. He should be finally walking through the door sometime this hour. I can't wait to see him. I also can't wait to have help again. I officially have sympathy for all those single parents out there. I think the fact that I can't drive made it just a little more painful, it make being housebound really literal (did that make sense).

The funny part is that I didn't miss the help with the girls as much as having an actual adult to talk to.

Anyway, I cant wait to see my boy again and I can't wait to hear the squeals of glee when he wakes the girls up in the morning. They love their Daddy more than anyone. Whenever he walks in the door after work it's like he's a superhero.

Well gotta, I have a particularly stinky load of diapers to go wash.

Mega shopping trip of doom!

So right now I am supposed to be getting ready for or HUGE shopping trip of doom but instead I'm sitting on my butt playing on the puter. Darn it. We have 1 1/2 hours to get about a months worth of shopping out of the way. How do you like my chances. Plus I have to drag the boy away from his work project and make him get dressed and ready too.

Why are human beings so illogical. Most of us can figure out right from wrong and what needs to be done...and yet. So I guess I will drag my ass off and get ready, and be good and only leave you with one cute pic.

Cold day shopping trips are worth it just for the hats :)

Swine flu

Wow, I can't believe two of my friends just got quarentined for swine flu. They just flew back from Sydney and have both been really sick since. I think at this stage they are both fine but have to stay in their home for at least a week until the official all clear.

I should specify that it is a precautionary quarantine, I assume they are waiting for test results. It is more than likely a different strain of flu.

Poor traumatised baby girl

The weirdest thing just happened. I think that the Tman and I have both realised just how alert the girls have become to the things that are going on around them, and just how much Thing1 love love loves her baby born doll.

The four of us we're sitting on the floor in the girls bedroom playing and getting them into their pj's. T1 kept crawling away and wriggling so I told Tman to give her her baby to hold. Now, she loves her baby. She won't sleep without it. When she gets up from a nap or just up in the morning her doll must not be left behind. She kisses it (licks morelike) on the head and actually rocks it in her arms. And when she's crying she wants Mummy or Daddy AND dolly.

So Tman tries to get the doll from her bed but doesn't want to get up off the floor so he tries to pull it through the slats at the end of the crib. He gets the body through but the head gets stuck.So he starts pulling on the dolls body really hard and its head it hitting against the crib fairly violently. He's such a lazybum.

All of the sudden their is the most horrific bloodcurdling scream. Thing1 is pointing to what her Daddy is doing with one hand against her head screaming and shaking. T looks at her and while still pulling on the doll says "oh my goodness, whats wrong with her, whats wrong?" to which my response is "stop hurting the doll!" He quickly clicks and stands up and gives Thing1 her doll. She immediatly stops screaming and starts cuddling her doll and sobbing. Poor girl.

It was such a strong reaction as if she was watching someone hurt her sister not just a doll. The boy and I later concluded that her attachment to her dolly is quite possibly not only on the same level as her attachment to her sister but stonger.

Quick whingy post

I am a little in shock atm. I told the T-man to take the night off so he could go watch the new Star trek movie. He has been talking about it for months. I just couldn't think of a way of us both going together that didn't involve him having to wait for a couple weeks so he went with his friends.

In the (less than) two hours that he has been gone Jess has puked everywhere, twice. Alex has had yet another semi-bad accident trying to climb over something. And finally, on a cold wet night when all but 2 of the girls diapers are sopping wet on the line outside, Alex pees all over me and her nice dry bedtime diaper.

Its amazing. The girl gets height and distance. I always thought only boys could do that.

So I had a screaming half naked baby and her sister crawling around the house, after me, trying to grab my legs as I tried desperatly to find something dry to put on naked girls butt. They were so distraught that they just kept clinging on and looking up at me like I was doing this just for kicks or something. Then I closed a door on them and went outside in the hope that something out there was even a bit dry, but that was fail.

Eventually poor Alex got put to bed in the diaper she peed on. Luckily it had a booster (an insert that soaks up excess pee) in it for overnight so I just replaced that and hopefully she will be able to sleep with kindof damp legs.

I feel really mean right now cos I can hear that she is still awake and I really hope she isn't too uncomfortable. If the boy were here I could of sent him out to buy disposables but such is my brilliant timing.

I don't quite know how to describe to you just how upset the girls got tonight or how rubbish I feel for how I delt (or didn't deal) with it so I'm just gonna run away and drink coffee and hide.

AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!

When did my little babies turn into toddlers? And why didn't anybody warn me that the true definition of the word toddler is actually Hyperactive-nonsensical-hysterical-monkey-monsters-from-space!

I tuck them into their cots for their naps and they both just stand back up and bounce up and down rattling the sides and laughing at me in unison!

They try to feed me bugs they find, but only after they've chewed on them first!

They unfold my laundry and crawl away with diapers at the most critical point of the diaper change!

They try to play with each other EYES! and wonder why all the screaming!

They chew each others feet!

and they have the baby version of Bi-polar!

..........Its awesome, I love it!

More money please

A funny thing happened (and is still happening) today. The Tman's employer is advertising a job that is over in Melbourne. Its online and in the papers.It is basically T's job at a lower level. As in they would be reporting to him and doing much easier work. Now jobs in Melbourne generally pay a little higher because the cost of living in Melbourne is higher. Its one of those job ads where they give out what qualifications and hours are required and then ask you what you think you should be paid if you do get the job.

The funny part is they have had over a hundred applications coming in all day. And there is one thing that most of them have in common. The annual salary they are all asking for is about 10 grand over what the Tman is currently getting paid.

This is awesome because his bosses are not able to pay this new person, whoever they decide on, a higher wage than T's. It has become obvious to everyone now that he is being underpaid bigtime. Which has ment that they have been forced to reasses his wage. Hopefully (but not deffinately) a pay rise will follow.

Don't worry I know that things might not change, and we're not going broke by any means. Also I know I shouldn't be greedy cos we're lucky to have an income. I just like the idea of getting rid of the mortgage that bit sooner.

Hair cuts and catch-ups

We have been mega busy today. First thing this morning the girls had their first official haircuts. I say official because I have made several attempts at doing it myself which have failed misserably. Thing1's hair only wants to grow one way and that's over her face. No amount of styling can change it's mind. Plus it's very thick. This is why we pay professionals :p We went to PriceAttack and they did a pretty good job. I can see T1's face properly for the first time since she was about 4 months old.
I'm not sure $17 each is really that great a price considering they spent about 3 mins per child, (maybe next time I'll shop around) but if it saves the girls from losing an ear its worth it. We did Thing2's hair at the same time, just because. She didn't need it that badly, it was just a tidy-up for her. The T-man took pics with his mobile so I'm not sure how to upload them yet, but I'll figure it out later.

Also we caught up with T-man's brother and his wife and son. They came down for a wedding so we saw them for about 2 hours. Its a very quick visit. I think they arrived this morning are returning tomorrow morning and S ( the brother) will be back to work about 2hours after they land, poor thing. He works as a camera man on a bunch of different tv shows, first of the day will be a morning news/entertainment show, so hopefully he makes it in time.

Oh well thats it for me, I'm going to go pig out on some of the T-mans delicious bolognese. I don't know when that boy learnt to cook but I'm sure glad he did.

Good day

Today has been a pretty good day, I have to admit. Sadly a good day to me usually consists of some unscheduled drama taking place that takes up all my free time and makes the day go by really quickly and makes the weekend just that little bit closer.

Today after the girls had finished their lunch I gave them each a strawberry fruit stick to chew on, something I bought thinking it would be a great snack to take with us when we are out of the house and they are getting bored....but now I know better. You would not believe the mess. We're talking sticky, gooey (which quickly turn crunchy) strawberry goodness from head to toe.
Somehow Alex even managed to get hers into the back of her hair.

Obviously this was an emergency bath kinda situation.
One thing that I still havent figured out how to do with the girls is wash their hair when they're both in the bath together, so we had to settle for a wipe down with the flannel instead. It probably only diluted the stickyness but its better then nothing.
As soon as they were done in the bath I threw a diaper on Alex and let her crawl away and lay Jess down to do hers. But they ganged up on me. Jess rolled over to grab something and in that second Alex reached over and took off with the diaper which Jess had been lying on. Secretly I thought that was hilarious and was a little proud of my mischievous little monsters.

Finally after the last nap time of the day the girls invented a kind of copying game that managed to amuse them until their dad got home. They found the trays from the high chairs (which I had discarded on the hallway floor while I tried to get them in the bath earlier) and climbed onto one each, then swapped and sat on the other one. Next it was scoot your tray across the floor and when you get to the end sit on it for a sec. Then switch trays again.They did this for about an hour. So we had a fun time and now I miss them because they're in bed.

Photo tag

The T-man and I have been having lots of fun dealing with crazy toddlers today. They ham it up something fierce when daddys home. Right before bed time tonight I picked up Jess for a cuddle and she literally started to drip all down her leg and onto the floor. I told the man that we had a problem and his response was something like "I'll take care of this one while you clean......OH MY GOODNESS! WHAT THE?!". Alex had just peed all through her clothes and onto the T-man at the same time.
What are the chances.
They were both soaked through completely, tops and bottoms, and so were we. They had peed so much that the diapers just couldn't hold in any more liquid. It occures to me now that they both drank huge cups of water about an hour before.
Diaper failures have become more and more common since the girls started drinking from sippy cups instead of bottles. I think its because they regulate their own drinking and they don't seem to drink much all morning and then they drink a huge amount after lunch.

I don't know if that explenation made much sense?did it?

Since this post is feeling like such a fail and isn't exactly flowing smoothly from my mind onto the screen I'm going to use this opertunity to finally do my picture tag.

I was tagged for this a long time ago but kept forgetting about it. You've probably seen this before.

1) Choose the 4th folder where you store your pictures on your computer

2) Select the 4th picture in the folder

3) Explain the picture

4) Tag 4 people to do the same

NO CHEATING! (cropping, editing, etc!)

So here is mineMy friends cat. She has two Burmese that are almost identical and I think this one is Chubba-butt. It is taken in their computer room where he has climbed into his owners wolf slippers tucked into a book shelf and behind a pile of laundry.

So thats that. I tag my only two followers if you can be bothered.

Are you as scared as I am?

This may very well be our next stroller. The pic doesn't quite come up right so you might have to click on the image to see it in its full glory.

Happy Easter from the bunnies

T1

T2

Fat mama

I have to confess to not having read anyones blogs/emails for ages, well about a week. Things have gone crazy around here. My kids have learnt to bite! The T-man has been working like crazy and its only going to get worse. There are alot of interstate trips coming up for him. Oh and I got fat!!! No, I'm not talking big and pregnant. I mean FAT. I grew a whole new chin, apparently the first one got lonely and needed a friend. It occurs to me that this KFC habit I've picked up, thanks to baby girl three, may have something to do with it.

So those are just a few of my excuses for being down and unenthusiastic (spelling?) lately. So in order to cheer myself up a little and do a bit of showing off of my lovely girls, here come the pics!

(Oh, and I promise, no more exclamation marks). Ah, yes. I drop food. I drop food I just spent 1/2 hour preparing. Luckily
I stained our ugly coffee table so the T-man said we could get a new one in
October (Birthday). Unfortunately I also ruined our new carpet.

Just to prove how un-fun I am atm.
I am avoiding side shots at all cost in an effort to hide the chin.

Today is the girls 13month birthday. So I thought I'd take a stroll down memory lane.
Me and Chelsee getting huge together.

One month ago today, man they were small. And don't you love Jess's enormous diaper?
Today, a year later.
Alex. Total stunner. I think she gets it from her dad.
Jess. Looking as innocent as ever. Trust me, if you looked up the word gremlin in the dictionary, this is the picture that would be next to it.
But every gremlin has her weak spot. For this one its her baby doll.
Our hero. T-man must feel like a celebrity when he comes home to a reception like this.

Well I'm gonna crawl off to bed now and try to be a bit more enthusistic tomorrow.

19 week scan

Its a girl!....Again.

Party pics

We managed to survive the party. Horray! Mostly we survived because my sister and mum did all the work.
Scarily something happened that day that flicked a switch in the Things' brains, and ever since then they've been crawling, cruising machines. Hense why I've had no time to blog. So while I have two gorgeous sleeping girls tucked securely into their beds and nobody trying to untie my laces or use me as a junglegym I can finally show off my party pics.

(These are not really in order) Thing1 with her new bath toys.

Cupcakes with sprinkles make for a great exfoliant

Thing2 appreciating frosting

My lazy version of birthday cakes

Daddy and T2 taking it all in

T2's adorable new hat

T1, before I realised that the bangle was not baby proof and that she had eaten all the little embelishments. Don't you love when people give gifts that aren't age appropriate.

Thing2 in all her birthday girl glory. The bow lasted about 2 minutes.

Well thats it, as I said, we all survived. Also on Wednesday we find out if the wee squirt is a boy or a girl. Can't wait.

Sorry

Hey sis (and others), I know I promised you an awesome baby Birthday post but unfortunately I've lost my camera cable so I can't upload my really really cute baby pics. I'm just a little angry but we'll post some with the other camera on Saturday :(

Big bottom girls

I recently went clothes shopping for the girls and have since come to the conclusion that I'm going to have to become more flexible about the whole cloth diaper thing. I don't know if any one else has noticed this but baby clothes these days (I'm talking onsies and pants) don't seem to have much room in the tooshie area. I'm guessing it's just that the manufacturers assume most babies aren't in cloth. And it gets worse as they get bigger. My girls need a size 1 in pants when they are in cloth and a 0/00 when they are in disposables. This means if I decide to put them in pants that fit their butts the legs are way too long and incredibly baggy everywhere other then the butt. It's not a good look. I'm still going to have cloth on them when we are at home, but I think if we go out I might start trying the other ones.

Tomorrow is the big shopping day for the girls party. I can't wait to choose party dresses. the frooffier (is that a word?) the better. I'll post a pic tomorrow.

D'oh!

I think Alex must be sending secret text messages to her cousin little miss in Melbourne. It seems whenever my sister tells me that little miss has a new adventure/accident under her belt, my ones are trying the same trick not long after.

Alex has it in her head that she can walk, or at least that she can stand without holding onto anything. Thats okay and she usually lands on her bums, but lately she's been climbing onto things like her walker and then letting go or trying to step off without holding. Two waketimes in a row she has landed hard on her head doing that and given herself a nasty welt. The place she lands has a hard wooden edge with a 90degree angle so it's a very unfriendly place to hit your head. I'm afraid tonight is going to be spent baby proofing the play area yet again cos unfortunately its a little to harsh an injury for me to keep letting her do it until she learns, by that stage we might have blood.

Tanty Diva Princess Monsters

There is no way to get around it. My girls are spoilt rotten. This became very obvious this morning when I tried to introduce sippie cups and juice. No big deal right. I figured they would have a little play, make a bit of mess. I certainly didn't expect them to pick it up straight away or anything like that.

Little did I know that apple juice is really cocaine for babies.

First they figured out how to injure themselves with the mouth piece by falling forwards with it in their mouth. Then they tried to pour the juice up their noses by lying down with the cups and positioning the mouthpiece under the nose instead of in the mouth. Eventually I got them holding the cups with the mouth in the right place tilted up and all that . As soon as the juice hit their tongues REAL drama ensued.

We MUST drink every drop in this cup
We MUST get to lean on mum when we drink
Mum MUST be holding the cups for us.

I was bad and humoured them for a little while, but eventually I did leave them to figure things out for themselves and you could not imagine the earth shattering screames and rivers of tears that went on after that.

It took about 20 minutes for things to calm down enough for me to think clearly again. Now the girls are dragging the bottles with them from toy to toy. Alex currently has hers wedged under her butt for some reason, and the screaming is starting up again. I think that means I should go.

Small smelly people

Have a look at this beautiful face. And now instead of her having pretty ginger blonde hair, imagine her hair is incrusted with milky puke thats about 12 hours old. That is what I woke up to this morning.

Lately instead of going straight to sleep at night time this little munchkin has been bouncing up and down in her crib, screaming in delight and playing with her sister for about an hour. I think thats why she got sick. Too much excitement right after her night time bottle. So as you can imagine she did not smell good at all this morning. It was one of those smells that didn't just wash off either. Even after I shampooed her hair and scrubed the rest of her she is still a little stinky.Never mind, at least she's a cutie.

On a different note I am very happy to say that both of the little gremlins have now finally got at least 1 tooth before the first birthday. Now if I could only get a photo.

Today is an amazing and momentous day. For the first time in about two and a half months I have survived a whole day without getting sick. HORRAY!

And sadly that is the highlight of my day. That is really the only thing out of the norm that has happened around here in about three days. No chaos, no drama, just predictable monotony. Wow, I think I miss the chaos.

Well then, I guess thats it. I guess I'll go wait for something to break or catch fire and then we'll talk again.

Almost party time

Tomorrow is going to be a big day. We will leave the house in the morning and we WILL NOT return until we have found the most awesome birthday present/s in the world for the girls birthday. I know exactly the style of toy that I am after. Something that I can keep in the girls room that they can both play on or with at the same time. Something that is designed for babies and toddlers.Something sturdy and tough enough to survive my little terrors. Something the criminal mastermind that occasionally takes control of their personalities can not use as a weapon against the other one, and finally and for the love of god something that I can wipe down easily. That means I don't want to spend the next year and a half looking at some crusty old puke in a nook that I can't get to and clean up. Kinda like the above pic. I think its gonna be a long day.

Alex is up top being a goose and Jess below showing off her turtle balancing skills. I think I need some practice putting up pics on blogger.

The wild adventures of thing 2

Little Miss Alex has been the centre of attention around here lately. About three days ago she created a stir by FINALLY cutting a tooth. And then about 5 seconds later we realised that she had cut both bottom teeth. It took 11 months, now we just have to wait for Jess to catch up.

But now Alex has totally outdone herself. Yesterday morning the Tman got out of bed to heat up the girl bottles. He always gets up about 20 minutes before me so I can hang my head over the sink and get the first round of morning sickness out of the way before I cuddle the girls. While he was out of the room I could here some groaning and giggling coming from the girls room. A couple of minutes later he walks in to find both the girls in the same cot. Which means Alex somehow managed to scale the side of her crib and drop into her sisters (the cribs are side by side). I'm a little in shock and really really glad she didn't decide to try escaping from the other side because she would of had a nasty fall.

First Post

Its so hard to think of what to write in a first post. So I will start with the basic intro. WE are Xoe-the mum, T-man-the dad, Jess- the oldest child by a whole minute, big sis and the boss and owner of anything she can reach. Alex- little sister, but not literally, she is a whole kilo heavier then Jess and gets into about twice as much trouble. And last but not least is the one on the way, affectionately known as little fish at this stage or point five.

Thing1 and Thing2 are mere weeks away from their first birthday and the party that goes with it, so busy times ahead.