Crazy Children

Teddy is so, so adorable. His latest interest is wheels. When he's playing with one of Harriet's vehicles, he'll give it a cursory push across the floor but the real excitement comes when he turns the things upside down and checks outt he wheels spinning around. Oh man, the thrill! The excitement!

But that's about on par with the thrill of sitting INSIDE something. Did you know that sitting inside the laundry basket is pretty much the best thing you can do when you're nearly 9mths old? You didn't? Well get thee to a laundry and check it out for yourselves. If he's sitting next to the laundry basket he'll start pulling it over and trying to get inside, it's very cute (if not slightly dishevelling for the clothes inside). Combine that with the thrill of sitting inside something with water in it and...well...that's up there in competition for milk. This was the sight that greeted me today when I went outside to hang the washing up. Both children naked, hunkered down in their own little waterworlds. Looks quiet doesn't it? Sorry to burst your bubble but Harry still manages to find a way to make noise even when doubled over - in this photo I'm sure she was counting up to 50 very loudly if memory serves me correctly.

Speaking of counting - she has this big poster that has the numbers from zero to 99 on it and at the top it reads 'Counting is Fun' (blergh I know). Anyway one day she went out to her craft drawer, cut up some pieces of paper, got the sticky tape and went up to the poster and covered up the words 'counting' and 'fun'. HA! Love it! She said "It's not fun, just counting on and on like that". But she does seem to have a reasonable grasp on numeracy, and can perform some basic mental arithmetic (stuff like "What's 3 plus 2?") without pausing to think about it much. She's also right into the ABC Reading Eggs site. She sped through all of the maps and got up to Map 9 - only to find out that there was no Map 9! So her interest in it waned somewhat while we waited for the new map to appear. But the site has been a godsend for me, sicne it keeps her entertained for the ten minutes it takes to put Ted to sleep during the day.

It really only takes about 10mins for him to go down to sleep but Harriet seems to come in at 9mins to ask me in a really loud stage whisper just above his head "MAMA! IS TEDDY ASLEEP YET? I'M REALLY STARVING RIGHT NOW". Bless her little heart she really is trying to be quiet, and she really is always starving that's no exaggeration. I can't wait for the summer stone fruits to become readily available and cheap so that there is always something available in the fridge for her to eat.

Teddy started on solids recently and when I say he started on solids, what I really mean is that he has occasionally let the smell of solid food waft past his mouth. We're doing baby led solids with him (which basically means no pureed food, just normal adult food that he can hold and feed himself) as well as no wheat products or sugar or processed foods...which basically leaves him with fruit and vegetables (which is all he'd need if that). I think today was the most he has ever eaten, and consisted of two dobs of babganoush on my finger that he eagerly jammed into his mouth and about half of the inside of one prune sucked out of its skin. A discerning palate. Nothing matches my awesome milk! It obviously has some fantastic weight gain properties, I should start marketing to body builders.

The relationship between Harriet and Teddy is really gorgeous. Harry calls him her "gee-jah" and that's about as close to a phonetic interpretation of it that I can manage. Not sure quite how it evolved, but he gets called Geejah quite a lot around here. She loves to hug him...and it's not that she hugs him hard or without recognising his cues of distress, it's just that she always chooses to give him massive body hugs whilst he's in a ridiculous position - such as midway between being picked up by me or something. One thing they do love to do together is jump on the bed. Ted is mental for a great big jump and Harriet thinks it's hilarious to see him jumping with her so with a little help from me the two of them have jump and giggle time most days which is totally adorable to see. Unfortunately I can't video it because I'm holding up 11kgs of lard at the time.

He is in the middle of about three teeth erupting at the moment too. He has two fangs, two lower incisors and is cutting the top middle two incisors and one of the lower ones to the side of the middles as well. And you barely know it! It's incredible! After Harriet's mammoth teething experience it seems a dream to have this baby who continues to smile and laugh and play despite having two big holes in his gum when you peek inside his mouth. The amber necklace seems to be worth it's weight in gold and so DEFINITELY worth the $40 or so it cost. The one we bought is beautiful - nice rounded pieces of amber, on gorgeous silk with an awesome silver clasp. I highly recommend this place to buy them from - Karri Tree Lane. He's not rolling, not crawling in just the same way Harry didn't either. He does go on his belly and flail around wildly though. In the last couple of days he has started making very deliberate "buh" and "bah" sounds as well as constant raspberries which must make his lips tingle. I can barely repeat it to him, my lips can't handle it!

Harriet has been taking heaps of videos of late, so I'll scour through her collection and see if there's anything I can post that is particularly representative of our day and the craziness that goes on. I'm not sure quite how we're managing it but we all end up being fed, clothed in clean clothes, well stocked kitchen and entertained. How it happens seems to be complete luck but it's definitely fun. And anyone with more than two children - how do you get anything done?!

Tired Me, Happy Ted

Ted has decided that sleep is for the weak. Well, he's actually decided that sleep is not so great when you have a huge tooth coming through (his third, but this one is an upper tooth). So the house is a bomb, we eat haphazardly, but then you get this kind of cuteness to make it all worthwhile.

Reading Time

Harriet wanted to read Teddy a book, so she went to her (rather huge) bookshelf and chose "a book that's for babies, is not scary adn that I like too. Plus I think Teddy might like Maisy too, Mama".

She is such a gorgeous, gentle sister. She will always be on the look out for him - today we were at a big group of friends all meeting up and another little baby took the ball he was playing with. harry jumped up, ran over, took the ball and said "NO! That was *Teddy's* ball!". That poor other child. :o)

A Bit About Ted

Well Ted is not his usual self these past couple of days. He's been a bit grouchy and to be honest I'm not quite sure what to do about it. It's just not something he's expressed before and I therefore am a little hesitant about how to help him out.

This morning it was easy enough to work out why he was a little unsettled - it was poo time! He gives quite a disgruntled cry and starts waving his arm around to let us know he needs to go. The other day we bought him a potty with a high back so he can sit on it unaided. I hadn't tried it yet becuase he likes to feed while doing his toilet business (what joy that is for me), but the other morning he needed to go while I was in the shower. james popped him on the new potty and *voila*. Action! Excellent! So now he does his morning ablutions on the potty. But let me just say that cleaning a breastfeeding poo out of a potty isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's pretty darn tricky actually. But for those of you who aren't the parents of small children probably don't really need a long, detailed description of baby toileting so on to the next little Ted Tale.

I found this wig at our local op-shop quite a while ago. Harry loves it in order to transform herself into Anne of Green Gables (you know, the red plaits and all). This morning it was our belated Father's Day and despite not having a special day of activities planned (we had way too many things to do today), I did have a mini-treasure hunt organised. James got his present and Harriet got a book she already owned wrapped up again (she loves anything wrapped up and pretends that she has never seen it before and oohs and aahh over it).

Harriet re-discovered her wig when scurrying under the bed for one of James' presents and after wearing it herself for a little while, as all big sisters will be wont to do, she wondered whether it would look any good on her younger brother. And of course head circumference is of no concern in this family - even our 7mth old baby can hold his head up high in an adult wig.


And I know the scpetics amongst you may not believe us, but Ted is really working hard at being understood verbally. He even says this version of yes that is noticeably an affirmative - kind of sounding a bit like YEERRRAAHHH. Volume control is not a strong point and god help me but he doesn't get much role modelling for that around here.


He's been a bit grumbly going down to sleep at night as well which is unusual. I'm thinking it's mainly due to a tooth coming through or a developmental spurt. At any rate I guess he'll be like this now for a month or so, and then we might see our gorgeous chilled out blissbomb Ted make a re-appearance. But no matter what, he is just so deliciously sweet even when under the weather. I love him.

Snapshots

I don't really take 'snapshots' anymore, but I had to tonight. We received this awesome suit from Claire and I brought it in from teh front door literally as a new wash was starting. Without thinking (yes I can hear the more lucid of you groaning already) I just popped it straight into the wash. Result? Well we have one totally cool suit for Ted and...errrr.....well a number of pink terry flats, a newly pink skirt for Harry and a little pink shirt for Teddy. Note to self: obey basic common sense at all times, even when busy. I thought it was pretty funny actually!

But because we have a snapshot of Captain Adorable, I thought I better show you another snapshot of Admiral Crazy. Here she is doing her thing. A good example of a normal 24hrs in this place I guess.

Siblings

Well tonight Teddy quite visibly started nodding. I was asking him if he'd like to do more bouncing on my knee at the dinner table and he nodded! Harry started cracking up laughing and I asked him again and he did it again. Then when I asked him a third time he didn't nod and that was because he didn't want more bouncing - der. So this should make life a bit easier for him.

He is such a sweet, gorgeous baby. Have I mentioned that before? He has started to lean out just a bit in the last few days (and yes it is a leaning out that only a parent could notice, but he's a tad leaner, believe me). He seems to have a third tooth coming up now on the left of the bottom front two he popped whilst in Canberra the other weekend.

Harriet teethed early as well and poor little thing would scream and scream about it. Ted has had a little bit of grizzling and that's it. He just doesn't scream like Harry did. Harriet used to need me to stare at her to go to sleep when she was a baby - it freaked me out because all 'the books' (blergh) would say that you needed to avert your gaze so that they would calm down and start to succumb to sleep. Not Harriet. She would need to make sure I was staring at her and then she'd start to have droopy eyelids and relax some more towards sleeping. On Saturday I took this photo of Ted lying on Harriet's bed having an afternoon siesta. It reminded me so much of a photo of Harriet we have in a frame that we all got the photo albums of Harriet down and flicked through them. Wow they look so alike! I would never have thought it if I hadn't looked through the photos to tell you the truth. That's Harriet at about the same age on the left in that storyboard and Ted on the right. Unfortunately the photo I really see the similarity in is a film one and we don't have a scanner so I can't show you on here.

The weekend was really warm over here in Sydney. Poor Harriet really is sensitive to the heat - it's the Pride in her, that's for sure. She gets overheated on days where I need a cardigan. So when we got back from the markets on Sunday we decided it was time for an outdoor bath. Harriet has taken to hysterical, loud laughs lately (something acquired from preschool no doubt, gee thanks) and you can see in this photo that Ted is a little put off by them. How hilarious is his expression?! And speaking of hilarious, that's Harriet's latest favourite word. We have also heard the odd little word from her that's unexpected - for example the other night we were talking about the silkworms she acquired from playgroup (this *awesome* playgroup we go to on Thursdays, it is so great that I've been telling all of my friends about it but no-one's come along yet. My powers of persuasion need some work methinks). So anyway, Harry and I are talking about the silkworms and she said "I just think these are very contented silkworms". Classic! Who would ever have thought to describe silkworms as contented?

Today was my monthly op-shop experience. I had gone specifically to buy some baby/toddler books for Ted becaue we gave all of Harriet's away. I found heaps and heaps of them and the great thing is I don't need to worry about spending the money because I was able to buy a mini-library for about $24. One of the books just had to be bought - sweet illustrations, gentle story...and a lead character called Teddy! Hooray! I can't find it online to show you the book, but I'll try to get a shot of it being enthusiastically gnawed on (I mean read by) Teddy himself.

In other incredible news, Harriet drew something other than a person! We're all still reeling from shock. In fact I found the piece of paper in her school bag and asked her who had drawn the picture for her (sometimes her friend Samantha draws something for her and Harriet writes her own name on there so it ends up in her bag at the end of the day). Turns out Harriet had drawn it - three flowers and some green grass on the ground. *shock* I haven't had a chance to photograph it yet, but will do so never fear.

Lightning Fast Post

I'm about to go and sit down to do nothing for the first time for the last few days. I went to the homebirth rally in Canberra with Ted and had a grand ole time!

But I had to come on here quickly to let you all know that on the Thursday before I left Teddy cracked the gum on his first tooth...and then while we were in Canberra, he cracked his second one! What a sweetheart, teething more than one tooth at a time is very considerate. He did little more than grizzle a bit during the day and when going down at night. Other than that he has been a delightful cherub as always. You can see both of them poking through the gum in this first photo - you might have to enlarge it though (just double-click all luddites out there).

He has also started to give me 'kisses'. I say "Teddy kiss Mama?" and he grabs the sides of my face, pulls me in and with his wide open mouth leaves a trail of drool down one cheek. Ahhhhh...

He grabs at things, watches us eat with great interest, holds on to stuff and examines it very carefully before shoving it into his mouth with a delicate touch and is totally gorgeous. He also did a mammoth vomit all over me in the supermarket as I was waiting for my receipt this afternoon (while Harry was asking insistently for her bananas over and over and over again.. *sigh*). Was all good, I poked his head out of the Ergo just in time and it mostly went all over the floor and onto his shoulder. I remained untouched. Hooray!

Ok James is tapping his foot so I better go.

We've Been Busy - Really Busy!

First of all - happy birthday Harriet! She turned four and almost overnight has decided to act like an adult. No more silly conversations or interjections, she is interested in having very adult-like conversations and offers up her own discussions.

For her birthday party she had a few requests - a three-legged race was a definite. After all, Anne Shirley has one with Diana Barry don't you know? Also an egg and spoon race, wheelbarrowing and pass the parcel. And we were so hard core we did pass the parcel *without* any layer presents, just one big present in the middle (a little steel cookware set that went to Connor). There were no tears. No upsets. Everyone had a really amazing day. Harriet's closest brush with being upset was when she unwrapped her present from Samantha and found inside a gorgeous skirt and some rainbow material for dress-ups. Why would this upset a four year old? Well, because it needed to be worn Now. Right Away. So off came her dress, on came the skirt and the rainbow material was wound around her torso by Lisa and the artist's rainbow scarf from Lisa was fashioned as a neat tie around the material. And to be perfectly frank the resulting outfit (as can be seen in the photos here) seemed much more 'Harriet' and definitely much more befitting of a celebration.

I don't think I was well prepared for the differences that turning four throws up. Suddenly Harriet is A Person. She was only ever barely a child, let's face it. And now she is just so engaging, so interesting. When I pick her up from preschool we have wonderful chats about what she's been up to during her day, and she loves to think through elaborate ideas to their absolute end point. For example the other week we were talking about how, when I finished making her Dorothy dress, she would be like Dorothy in 'the movie' (she knows there is a movie of The Wizard of Oz but has only ever seen the Youtube clips of If I Only Had a Brain and Somewhere Over the Rainbow). She then went on to discuss all the things she would need for the movie. And not in a general "Oh we'd have a forest and a road" kind of way, oh no. But more in a "I'll need a yellow brick road and it will have to be wide enough for four people and Toto and remember the Cowardly Lion is big. So we can make it by painting some yellow on paper and drawing bricks on it with lines. And I can have Tigerlily dressed up as Glinda and use Little People as the Munchkins becasue they have to be quite a bit shorter than us..." and on it went. I was seriously blown away by how detailed she went into the idea of making her own Wizard of Oz movie. Given her love of ordering people around and setting things up for videos, she may well become that film director James predicted about a year ago.

She'll have a lot of material to work with anyway. Her latest discussion topic is to open with "Can you tell me a story from when you were little please Mama/Papa?". Which is so endearing...at first. And then you start struggling to remember more and more (appropriate) stories to tell her. And then you realise you are scraping the bottom of the barrel and then you start making the odd white lie in the story to give it interest and then you realise that you'll have ot just make one up if she asks for one more. So you do. And she knows (oh yes, she KNOWS). And then you ask her "So Harriet, why don't you tell me a story about when you were little" and she tells you straight off the bat "Remember when I was, like, only two or something, and I was in the back of our little green car and I said 'I don't want to buy a new car? But then we bought it and I loved it? That was so funny because I didn't know about how nice our new car would be back then when I was only two". (Everything to Harriet that happened in the longterm past happened 'when I was two') So I've been thinking yay! I can ask her to retell me her life story so far and hear it from her point of view, how cool! Only to be brutally rebuffed the very next time you ask her to tell a story from her childhood. *sigh*

Talking about childhoods, well Teddy's is slipping away so quickly! He is already SIX MONTHS OLD people! Of course that means he is only four months old developmentally and if you take that into account then he is on a very similar track to Harriet. For those of you who can remember back that far, Harry never rolled or crawled. But she sat up confidently at 4.5mths. And Ted has been sitting up for a couple of weeks now with more and more confidence, but still no sign of being interested in rolling. I guess if you can get upright the idea of going back down on all fours just seems so *primitive*! Teddy does love to stand up and will pull on our fingers to stand up with two very solid feet and cankles giving him purchase.

He's still too young to be introduced to solids - his gut age is linked to his developmental age so it won't be until at least late October that we'll try that. I wouldn't even be thinking of it now anyway, because he still has a bit of tongue thrust and isn't interested in our eating or food either. Plus, unbelievably, he is still gummy! We were convinced there was a tooth erupting a few week ago - he was actually a bit of a cryer for a day, and was a little unsettled one night. But we're still waiting. And I, for one, am very happy to wait because teething would have to be the biggest downside to babies.

This baby though is SO different to Harriet. For one he just doesn't cry. Seriously. He might grizzle a bit to let you know what he wants differently (help me into sitting position, turn me out of the sun, that kind of thing) but really - no actual crying. And I tell you that makes me almost cry with disbelief! The most adorable belly laughs come from him and he has a real sense of humour. I'll post the little video of him laughing and laughing that I posted on Flickr in the next post. He is a *ahem* very big baby too, as you can see in this photo. And check out those arm rolls in the previous photo too - impressive, huh? No wonder I am always hungry!


And I'm not sure if it slipped you by in the first part of this post but I mentioned that I made a Dorothy dress for Harry. I truly did, can you believe it?! Her friend Samantha gave her/me some blue gingham for her birthday and I wad put to the task with whip and chair by Harry and this is what I came up with. Not an amazing job or anything but utilised my very basic sewing skills and it serves the purpose perfectly.


But I have to write up about her very exciting trip to the vet faculty on the weekend, so once I've finished her photos I will post them - Jennie you don't mind your photo on here do you?!