Santa Skate

Well, part of living in the mid-west (and something we just really don't have a lot of in Australia) is having ice skating as a part of your life. Near Orchard Downs there is a pond and it has a sign warning not to iceskate - you just can't be certain about the ice thickness. But we don't have to worry about that because we have the U of I's Ice Arena!

Tonight, Family & Graduate Housing sponsored a free skate with Santa Claus - complete with free skate hire, hot chocolate and candy canes! Now Alex and Brett had already spent the morning:
1)doing the laundry
2)sledding down practically the only hill in town "Hackberry Hill" - well Alex pushed Brett down the hill
3)going swimming in the indoor swimming pool at CRCE.

So I was hesitant to have an evening out too - especially given she'd never skated before and Brett and I aren't natural skaters. But Brett convinced me we could just go and watch, to give her an idea of what it's like. Although the Skate went for 2 hours, we arrived for just the last hour.

Anyway - here are the results:
Alex gets her first pair of skates on - and yes I made her wear a helmet having seen a girl knock herself out falling backwards on the ice a couple of years ago - and yes she was the only child there in a helmet.









So it was initially up to me to take her out on the ice - though I hadn't planned on skating. It seemed the best way to introduce her to the ice, was to use the "frame". Though in actual fact my hands are under her armpits and I'm bearing all her weight whilst she "walks" - though she is sure it's all about the frame! Between that and hunching down to her level and skating around the rink, my back is killing me!






So as there were benches with Christmas trees set up in each "corner" of the rink, we skated between them, sat down for a break, then skated to the next one. Although, by the second "break", Alex said to me "I don't want to stop" - and then once sitting on the bench "Ok mummy, break's over, it's time to skate again". My poor back! I guess she was more interested in it than I gave her credit for!





Eventually the Skate-sled was free and Alex got to sit down and I got to stand up properly and skate around the rink - we even managed to pick up a bit of speed! Then I asked her casually whether she wanted to skate with Daddy (he'd asked me to skate with her as he thinks she takes to new activities better if she does them with me)...



"Come on Daddy!" she grabbed his hand and ran (no kidding, I can't run in those skates!) to get him fitted for his skates.







And off they headed (I think Brett was happy she was excited to "show him how" to skate).










So back with the frame - which Brett agreed made life difficult, so after visiting Santa in the middle of the rink (I'll post that photo in another post tomorrow) he deviously avoided getting the frame back...









...and they went it alone! She wasn't overly happy with that - here she's holding the polaroid photo of her and daddy skating as they head over to me.









But all in all, a very successful first outing - no falls (bonus for us!) and we went fast enough that she thought she was doing the skating. Although I tried to show her how to place her feet, she persisted in "walking" them - lucky for her I had her!

Oh, and the Santa part?...

Life's pretty good

Sebastien recently "found" his hands - and he loves them!

Craft with friends

It's fast approaching Christmas, so friends of ours invited us to a wreath-making afternoon. It was a lot of fun (if you discount Alex spilling her potty on their bathroom floor in front of an interested audience) and they even let me wash Teddybear, Giggles and Baby in their washing machine.

Here are some photos.

Here's Jen demonstrating the wreaths with Donita taking a photo. Sarah is still drawing on the Christmas tree whilst Heather is holding Thomas and watching Alex and Emmaline.






Jen, Donita and Sarah kick back and relax.








Jen "wreathmaker extraordinaire" (thanks D)








Alex (thanks D)





Anna (thanks D)





Sarah (thanks D)








Alex again (thanks D)








Two friends hanging out in the window - Alex and Anna.








Emmaline (thanks D)





Clockwise from top: Sarah, Thomas and Anna playing together. (thanks D)





Donita reading "The Daring Book for Girls" - how to read a palm. With her trusty "to go" travel mug with her. She also took the excellent photos of the girls - she's really very talented and I'm jealous ;)









Heather following Donita's directions and working out her life-line...or was it the love line? Thomas is playing happily beside her.






We took our craftmaking home and finished a wreath made out of Alex's hands.











We had a great day with our friends - Sebastien slept most of the time and poor Olivia tried to sleep through her chest cold. Thank you!!

Sad news

I'm a Terry Pratchett fan from way back - and have tried to introduce as many children as possible to his writing. So I was sad to receive some news from Clare in Australia about him having early-onset Alzheimers. I have read every book in the Discworld series plus some others that he's written and loved every one. I hope he has more than a couple left before he loses the plot...

Let's compare...

OK, so now I have some energy (you might have noticed the number of posts today - Alex and Sebastien are finally asleep...) I thought I'd dig out some of Alex's photos for a comparison of the first month.

Alex in the hospital.
Sebastien in the hospital.Alex at one month with her Circle of Friends.
Sebastien at one month with his Circle of Friends.

Smiles

After much traing by my mum when she was here, Sebastien is now smiling up a storm.

Sebastien at TWO months...already!

First, the "Burrito Baby" - he still prefers to be swaddled for sleep - and quite frankly, we like him to be too!

Sebastien with his sister getting in on the act (thanks for the fairy outfit Aunty Sharn!) with his Council of Friends monthly photo.

And here he is, all by himself, stretching and smiling...

Other mums do tend to say "enjoy it while it lasts, they grow up so fast..." and here Sebastien is at 2 months already! No longer eligible to be a newborn and now a fully fledged infant. Sigh..

A crazy time of year

Last week, we went to an event at a local mall that was all about Christmas. It was crazy! Crowded and busy, busy, busy so we spent only about 40 minutes there before leaving. Alex loved listening to the singers on stage singing Christmas carols, she also liked to watch the animated mice near the Christmas tree. Here are some photos of Koala getting a check up (the event was put on y a local hospital/clinic group), her petting the reindeer and also of her with Mrs Claus and her elf.

Uh oh...I'm in trouble...

I spoke too soon in my post on 6th December...

Imagine you've just had an interrupted night's sleep - your no-longer-newborn has started refusing to take the bottle so you've been bottle feeding in solidarity with your husband - and your husband has kindly let you sleep in until late morning...

You arise, go out to the living room and ask how the morning has gone, to be greeted with -

"That depends...how good a mood are you in?"

Your husband takes you into the kids' bedroom and this is the sight that you behold:

Sebastien's pack'n play where he sleeps...

Alex's inner circle of friends (thankfully Koala had spent the night in the living room) of Baby, Giggles and Teddy Bear plus Sebastien's circle of friends and a library book (already removed by the time this photo was taken)...

A close up of Giggles and Baby with their "medicine" on them "because they were sick"...

And a final shot of Teddybear - covered in the medicine ie Desitin (40% zinc oxide plus petroleum jelly).

What to say...words failed me. Apparently Alex was put in her room in a "time out" by Brett - and when he went in a little later, he was greeted by her saying "my friends were sick, daddy". Quite.

Notice the Desitin on the back wall of the pack'n play? Well, when Alex was asked whether she'd climbed into the crib (something we've told her again and again not to do - especially with Sebastien sharing her room) she said "no..." then we asked her to retrieve something out of the crib, upon which she stood up on her potty and started to climb in...only to realise what she was doing and hurredly remove her leg out of the crib - an "a-ha!" moment indeed.

So now what to do? Words failed me and initially I wanted to "ground" her all the rest of her days...problem is that "grounds" me too - as I've discovered - as I said no playgroup outings for the week. And she has really no concept of that being a punishment related to her "bad choice". So her friends have been removed from her (initially to see if we could clean off the Desitin but also as she can't treat them with respect) and also all library books have been returned to the library for the same reason.

Now, if anyone has a remedy to remove Desitin from teddy bears...

PS: all photos were taken when she was in the bathroom getting cleaned up herself...no need for her to know that we were quietly amused (eventually) with her antics.

Mummy's New Toy

One thing I meant to blog about earlier (one of many things) was this great present my parents bought me when they were here visiting us. I am now the proud owner of a Gateway notebook! Wireless and all! What a great Christmas present for me. Thanks dad and mum! It's so nice - clean, tidy files, and very portable - I've even taken it to a cafe to use the wireless already.

Ever have that feeling?

I have had an overwhelming feeling - trying to keep up with everything has been a struggle lately. Between Alex being, well, a two year old, and Sebastien being, well, an infant...Let's just say that my standards have fallen...way, way below what I like them to be. Thankfully (or not?) Brett's standards aren't any higher. Just looking at the photo folder on my computer makes me realise just how far behind I am in my blogging...so I'll try to catch up a little today.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Well, the first snowfall of the season - and with it the freezing rain that turns footpaths and carparks into icerinks. Not my favorite part of the season! But Alex is continually amazed, looking out the window each morning and saying "Winter's here mummy" and "It's light outside - get up mummy!"

We have broken out the Christmas CDs now, and I've realized how unattractive they are for Alex (they're mainly instrumental and any choral ones are more, shall we say, traditional?) so I borrowed some from the library, including the Wiggles...yes, they did a Christmas CD. The result is that Alex is singing Christmas carols around the house (very different to her usual renditions of "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia or "Before he cheats" by Carrie Underwood"). So we're currently very amused to hear her singing......

Feliz smellydad...

Bring on Christmas!

No really, I'm happy...really, these are just tears of joy...

I have to blog this...I can hardly believe it happened. Why does all the "exciting" stuff happen to me and not Brett?!

After an eventful morning at Parents Morning Out and lunch at Panera, we had just come home and put Alex down for her pm nap. I had already changed her nappy once and threatened her dire consequences (the removal of her friends from her bed) if she didn't settle down and get to sleep. Now I was feeding Sebastien who had made his misery evident every minute I had put him aside to change Alex. About 20 minutes pass and Sebastien is starting to slow down...I hear a quiet (her bedroom door was closed) voice say "I did it by myself"...and again. I debate the merits of disturbing Sebastien to check out this statement, and finally hoist myself and Sebastien out of the armchair to check out Alex. Upon opening her door I see her - naked - and a discarded nappy on the ground...and a mountain of wipes next to it. "I did a poo mummy..." Alex proudly declares to me (we're just starting to overcome BM withholding issues) "...and I wiped myself all by myself too!" Uh oh! I check out the box that (used to) contain the wipes...empty. Okayyyy - so she used almost 100 wipes to clean up - take a deep breath - "that's wonderful sweetheart - bend over so I can make sure you're all done".

And I still needed to finish it up! I guess I should just be happy that nothing had been smeared on the ground, that she had managed to keep all the dirty wipes on the nappy...so I just said that next time she wanted to clean up herself, she should let me know so I could give her one or two wipes - cause that's all she'll be getting!!!

Kids, who needs more stress!

More on Grandie and Poppie

The weather really changed and for the last few days it was awful. Poppie came down with a bug and wasn't really well - which must have made the return airtrip pretty average.

Highlights of the trip (and I'm sure I'm forgetting some as they've been gone almost 2 weeks now):
When buying Alex's laxative medicine at Walmart, we went to pay for it. Poppie, being a doctor, was interested to read the packaging. Alex (whom we have been busy training that people's medicine is their own and not for anyone else to have) said "no poppie (whilst holding tightly to the bottle) the doctor said that this was just Alex's medicine, so you can't have it (to look at)" to which Poppie said "well that's ok, 'cause I'm a doctor (holding out his hand)" at which point Alex looked askance at him and declared "no you're not a doctor, you're a poppie". Case closed!

Over at Grandie and Poppie's apartment, we're all in the living room - Poppie and Grandie with Alex and Sebastien on the couch. Alex is getting direction from her mummy about what she should be doing - "no mummy, you're not the boss of me!" (trying not to laugh) "then who's the boss of you?" I ask. "Alex!" She then points to Poppie "and Grandie is the boss of you" and points to Grandie "and Poppie is the boss of you"...confused? We were!

Then there was the sauntering along towards the Savoy Schnucks supermarket on the footpath, hands in her jeans pockets - unfortunately I don't have a photo, but Poppie does and when I get a copy I'll blog it!

I forgot to mention that the other big draw to Grandie and Poppie's apartment was the promise of dessert each night - Poppies favorite Ben and Jerry's icecream! And very soon, Alex's favorite too! Which sure confused her when Tom and Jerry were on the Cartoon Network!

If I remember anymore, I'll edit this post. But at the moment I'm suffering sleep deprivation and need to get some shut eye. More later!

Grandie and Poppie are in the country!

What a great visit! After a bit of practice when Grandad and Grandma visited a month ago, Alex was more than prepared to trek across the road each morning for breakfast...after all, their apartment had TELEVISION! That and the lure of Honey Bunches of Oats cereal was enough. And now for a few photos...

Here's Grandie with Alex and Sebastien on the couch (I'm sure they're as glad as I am that they had their own place...)




Also part of the lure was that Poppie was happy enough for Alex to use his computer - something that she's been dying to do for a long time with her daddy's. She's actually pretty good at it and loved listening to her cd's on his computer - watching that cool little graphic that moves/lights up in time to the music. In fact, Poppie couldn't turn on his computer the whole visit without a little face instantly appearing at his side...


Quite possibly Alex's favorite part of the day was deciding where to have lunch - most usually at "Panera" (or as Poppie mimicked "Panerwa" to Alex's disgust - "no Poppie, it's Panewra!"). Actually, Mummy quite likes it too. This photo is of Grandie, Poppie, Alex, Sebastien and Daddy having lunch. Grandie and Poppie's favorite was the Broccoli & Cheddar soup in a sourdough bowl.


Over the two weeks that they were here, we did most of what we would normally do - except for the playgroups that we normally attend. But we also added in a few other things, like checking out various bookshops and electronics shops. Here Grandie and Alex are doing puzzles together at Pages for all Ages in Savoy, whilst Poppie, Sebastien and I cruise the book aisles.



We also made time to visit Curtis Orchard - though that was very disappointing. It was definitely post-season as the outdoor play equipment was either removed or damaged (the seesaw only had one seat) and the cafe was closed. On a positive note, Alex took Poppie by the hand to show him where the goats were - and Poppie delighted Alex by showing her how to "talk to the goats" - and I'm refraining from making any jokes about that!

Babysitting and all that

Every Tuesday evening, Brett, Alex and Sebastien (I have meetings three in four Tuesdays) have Emily join them for some playtime. Here are some photos of them: reading in bed! Very comfortable.