The second child

I can’t remember how old Hannah was when she started counting. If I wasn’t being lazy, I could go in my bedroom, open up her baby book, and find the section that lists all sorts of milestones, and easily find out when she started counting. But I can’t be bothered. I’ve been running around after the kids all day, and I’m tired. I’m sitting on the couch, my feet are up, the TV is on, and my laptop is, well, on my lap.

Every day, Daniel practices his counting. He counts in the car, while playing, while eating, and cutest of all, in the morning when he wakes up. I can hear him in his cot, counting away.  He can count all the way to 10. Sometimes he misses a couple numbers, but recently he he misses numbers less and less, to the point where he gets all the numbers more often than he doesn’t.

All this counting started at 15 months old. He’s now 16 months old. Lucky I’m writing this down on the blog, otherwise this giant milestone might get lost in time, just like all of his other milestones. Sure, I have a baby book for him, but never once have I actually opened it.

It’s not that I don’t love Daniel, or that he’s not important, or anything like that. It’s just second child syndrome. I don’t have the time to work on Daniel’s book. I used to fill in Hannah’s book when she was napping. When Daniel’s napping, Hannah’s not. If I got the book out, she’d want to write in it too, and touch everything, and accidentally bend pages, etc., etc. Not to mention when Daniel’s asleep, I am busy washing dishes and making dinner anyway (Hannah has quiet time and watches TV, usually whilst cutting pieces of paper into tiny impossible to clean up little bits, painting, playing with Play-doh, or having a tea party with Roobios and her stuffed animals and dolls).

When the kids go to bed, I am either hanging out with Aaron, blogging, ironing, or folding clothes. There’s just no time for things like baby books.

One day I will make time for the baby books. I don’t want him to find the books when he’s older and feel unloved because his book is empty and Hannah’s is not.

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Copyright 2012 Sheri Thomson

Why people with kids stop hanging out with their kid-less friends

We’ve all been there. A friend has a kid, you go and see the little bundle of joy a couple of times, and then you never hear from your friend again. Sound familiar?

Don’t worry, it’s not you. You haven’t done anything wrong. Us moms don’t suddenly hate you, or think we have nothing in common anymore just because you haven’t yet spawned.  It’s not even us. It’s the kid(s). 

At first, it’s fine. The tiny infant is portable. He sleeps in his pram/baby capsule/portable bassinet where ever we go without any fuss.  Just give him some boob or bottle (which ever you prefer, I’m not judging here), then BANG, he’s out cold in a milk induced coma. We can meet our friends at a cafe, the shops, their house, wherever. We can chat while the baby sleeps, then our friend(s) can hold him and pinch his adorable little cheeks and talk to him in that annoying baby voice when he is awake. Easy.

When the baby starts sitting, we can still catch up with our baby-less friends. Maybe at their houses instead of a cafe or the like because now the baby wants to sit up all of his waking hours. Sitting up is obviously super awesome.  Whilst practicing awesome sitting, baby also wants to be amused, mostly by us, but also by some toys. So we need to have a blanket for baby to sit on, and a bunch of toys. That could get messy at a cafe, plus some unobservant patron could accidentally trod on our little bundles of joy.

Then the baby starts crawling. Just think back a little bit. Is this the stage you stopped hearing from your mother friend? Probably. The cafe is out. Imagine baby sitting in a high chair/pram/our lap whilst we attempt to have a conversation with our friend. Baby doesn’t want to be sitting. Duh. That is so 2 months ago. Now it’s all about crawling! Baby screams due to being restrained in a chair/pram/lap until we put him on the floor for his crawling leisure. He crawls like a mad man towards other patrons, goes under a table and tries to eat their shoes. Seriously, that is what they do.

Ok, so maybe we can go to our friends house. Seems plausible, right? Wrong. Child-less friends do not have child-proof houses. We could go over there, but instead of having a nice catch up, we’d be spending the entire time keeping our cheeky crawlers from pulling all of our friends books off the shelves and ripping them to pieces, banging his head on the corner of the coffee table as he crawls past, opening all of the kitchen cupboards and breaking all of the dishes, eating the toilet brush in the bathroom, pulling all of the DVD’s out of their cases, checking if Swarovski crystals bounce, etc. Not to mention baby-less friends don’t think about small objects that babies can choke on and hazards are everywhere in a non baby-proof house. This, of course, stresses us out, we don’t get to talk to our friends at all, and our crawling babies get annoyed that we keep taking him away from all of the breakable delights he has his eyes set on.

He will pull all of your things off of you shelves and attempt to eat them.

Maybe our friend is super awesome, and they put everything they don’t want to get ruined on a higher shelf that crawling baby can’t reach, just so that we can come over. So that works. For a while.

But then baby starts walking. Now even more stuff is within babies chubby grasp. Baby is way more coordinated and determined, and our friend can’t possibly walking baby-proof her house just so we can come over. We are too embarrassed to tell our friends that our rambunctious toddlers will tear her house apart unless we have our eyes on him every single second, coupled with many “no, you can’t play with that’s” and lots of tantrums. There is no point of going to our friends house because we won’t be able to have a conversation anyway.

Oh, and there’s the nap times too. Going anywhere more than 15 minutes or so away and actually being able to stay for a while messes with nap time. Did I say nap time? I meant mommy’s sanity time. Seriously, you don’t want to mess with that. You might think “oh, it’s just one little nap time, it can’t hurt, right?” Yes, it can. You’re not the one who will be trying to comfort a screaming child who is throwing himself backwards or banging his head on the floor and won’t calm down for anything at 5 pm when we’re trying to make dinner because he is over tired.

Our child-less friends often invite us out at night time, when the kids are asleep, but we don’t really want to be out late because babies/toddlers don’t know about weekends. They haven’t yet discovered the joy of sleeping in. Nor do they let us enjoy it. Ever. Plus, by the end of the day, we just want to sit on the couch and enjoy a moment’s peace, not drag ourselves out to some loud place where we will spend the whole time trying not to fall asleep.

So we kind of just lose touch. By the time the kids are old enough not to destroy everything in site and do as they’re told, we feel extremely silly calling our childless friends again because it’s been so long and we kind of feel like an ass.

Childless people, there is an easy solution to this problem: Go to your mother-friend’s house for a catch up. Call her, and tell her you know it’s hard to get out for a catch up, but you’d love to see her, so even if you have to drive for an hour, you’re happy to come over. Mothers off babies/toddlers are usually happy to have company that can wipe their own butts and speak in proper sentences. Especially if they bring lunch.

Then when the kids are older, we can go out to cafe’s and stuff again. Just bear with us, parenting is hard.

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Copyright 2012 Sheri Thomson

Winter bonfire

It may be the middle of winter, and 0 degrees in the morning, but who cares, it’s bonfire time!

Some friends of ours have a property nearby, and we often go over for dinner and games. Ok, Aaron often goes over. I sometimes do. It’s a bit hard with the kids. I used to go more often, but Hannah slept quite well in the portable cot. Daniel not so much.  They invited us for dinner and a bonfire, and I really wanted some s’mores, so I decided to come to.

Hershey’s S’mores Kit

The afternoon was spent gathering and chopping wood. Not me, everyone else. I was busy making sure that Daniel didn’t eat rocks and Hannah didn’t poke her eye out with a stick. I would have loved to help though, I like that sort of work. I grew up on a property and going horse camping, so that stuff is right up my alley.

Hannah loved getting ready for the fire. She decided that she needed to carry the biggest log she possibly could, and spent about an hour gathering little sticks and putting them on the not-yet-lit fire. Oh, and she also thought it would be a great idea to get bucket loads of dirt and pour them over the log pile “for the fire.”

How she carried that, I’m not quite sure.

By the time the fire was actually lit, Hannah was exhausted and just wanted to go to bed. I thought she’d love fire roasted hotdogs, but she wanted no part of them, only eating a bit of the bun instead. Sigh. Of course she liked the s’mores though. The Aussie version with Milk Arrowroot biscuits instead of graham crackers (since we don’t have those here), and some chocolate I got at Aldi instead of Hershey’s (since we also don’t have Hershey’s here, and after sampling the chocolate on offer over here, I’ve come to the realisation that Hershey’s chocolate does, in fact, suck).

Rome #3100 Chrome-Plated Steel Marshmallow Roasting Sticks, Set of 2

Did I mention we were staying the night? Yeah. So the kids went to sleep ok after a bit of crying and consoling. Then Daniel woke for his usual 10pm feed (the only one he was having over night, which has since been dropped).

Teeth brushing time!

I put him back in the portable cot, he turned over, and went back to sleep.

Graco Pack ‘N Play On the Go Travel Playard, Go Green

But then the screaming started. Sigh.  I patted him. Shushed him. Patted some more. Picked him up. Laid with him on the bed. Offered more boob. Nothing would work. He cried for an hour straight, with no sign of letting up.

Crap, I forgot to bring the panadol. Sigh.

Natrabio Children’s Teething Relief, 1 Ounce

Instead of keeping the rest of the house awake all night, we gathered Hannah up, and drove home.

Daniel screamed for half the night even though I gave him panadol.

But in the morning, I knew why. He had another tooth. Poor baby.

We drove back as soon as we all woke up in the morning and no one knew we’d even left.

“Mommy, can we have another sleep over at M’s (name with held for privacy reasons) house?”

Sigh. Maybe when they’re a little bit older.

I should have brought my digital SLR to get some decent photos, but I didn’t. So here are some not so good ones from my $50 point and shoot (which doesn’t like tricky lighting).

Also, check out my review of Abigail the interactive story buddy.

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Copyright 2012 Sheri Thomson

A spank in the bath

Hannah and Daniel love having baths. Hannah more so when Daniel’s not in there. He has a habit of trying to climb on her, taking her toys, pulling her hair, and annoying her in general. Little brothers….

Of course that’s not limited to just the bath, it’s pretty much all the time, but that’s not the point.

Yesterday they were having a bath (they still bathe together, it’s too hard to do it separately. I wonder at what age that becomes unacceptable?) when Hannah wanted to move to the other side of Daniel.

She got on all fours and stuck her butt in the air. I’m not quite sure why, but that is what she did.

Daniel, right next to her and facing her in-the-air-butt, gleefully seized the opportunity, spanking her bottom without hesitation.

I thought Hannah would put her whingey voice on and say “NO! DANIEL!” But she didn’t. She started laughing too. And then I started laughing. Sometime during all the laughing, her butt ended up back in the bath water.

Hannah stuck her butt in the air again.

Daniel spanked her again.

Laughing ensued.

I started to get uncomfortable.

She stuck her butt in the air again.

Daniel face planted her butt-cheek and gave her a bite as they laughed and laughed.

I sat there dying of embarrassment, even though no one was around and then had to explain to them that we don’t bite bottoms. Or touch other people’s bottoms. Which is kind of hard to do when I always give their chubby little baby butts a light spank when they get in the bath. And I always pretend to eat Daniel’s chubby arms and cheeks (er..the ones on his face). Sigh.

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Copyright 2012 Sheri Thomson

How to scare a 2 year old

Hannah loves Daniel.  She constantly wants to cuddle and kiss and hold him.  When he’s hungry, she wants to go and get him food.  She is forever coming up to the couch when I’m feeding him, holding out her hands, and saying “Come here baby Daniel, give me a cuddle.”  But she does it in that goochy-goochy-goo-I’m-like-100-and-I’m-going-to-pinch-your-cheeks old-lady voice.  It’s really cute, but also really hard not to laugh at.

During one of these episodes, I laid Daniel on the couch and let Hannah give him a little cuddle.

PPPPPFFFFTTTTT!!!  Daniel did the loudest, wettest, longest poo you can possibly imagine.

Hannah’s face instantly turned from happy/goochy-goochy-goo, to frightened.  She actually jumped a little.  She looked at me for reassurance, and quickly backed away from Daniel, her eyes wide as saucers.

“It’s ok Hannah,” I told her “Daniel just did a poo poo, that’s all.”  She didn’t look convinced.  Nor did she want anymore Daniel cuddles that day.

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Flashback Friday: 1.5 years of phone camera photos

Ok, so it’s not exactly Friday, but I did start this post on Friday. It just took me a very long time to rotate and caption all the photos!

I recently got a new phone, which is good because my old phone sometimes worked, but sometimes decided to be so quiet that I couldn’t actually hear the person on the other end, making me sound like a fool with all my “what, I can’t hear you, sorry, my phone doesn’t work properly.”

This may not be a very old flashback, but here are 1.5 years of photos from my old phone. There were some from the other .5 years, but I already had those off the phone and on my computer and well, I couldn’t be bothered adding those too.

Most of these photos were taken to then message to Aaron while he was at work. I like to make him smile a little while he is slaving away at his computer desk.

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Toddler in a new time zone

I’m so glad I read up on how to help toddlers adjust to new time zones.  I googled it and found this awesome blog.  I read all about flying with a toddler, adjusting with one, what to pack, pretty much everything I could find really.  If I hadn’t, I think I would have gone a little batty when Hannah decided to wake up at 9pm for some food and a play.

The first night we got here, I was buggered and falling asleep on the couch by 8:30.  Fine, more like 8.  I got ready for bed and was about to go in when Hannah started crying.  And then screaming.  I left her for a while to see if she’d go back to sleep.  She didn’t.  Instead, she got louder and more insistent.

Fine, I’ll get you up. I really wanted to go to sleep…. sigh….  I got her up and she was like a new toddler.  Ok, not new, but back to her old self.  Not cranky, whingy, or irritated.  I don’t know how that happened with only 2 hours of sleep, but whatever, I was going to go with it.

“Dinner.”  She looked at me completely seriously, like it was normal for a toddler to have dinner at 10pm.  I suppose it was normal, back home it was 5pm.  Sigh, I made her some dinner.  She didn’t eat the dinner I tried to give her before I put her to bed.  She ate.  And ate.  And then ate some more.  She played.  She giggled.  She made lots of noise and kept my dad (who has to get up at 2:30 in the morning to go to work) up.

11pm.  Sigh.  I REALLY needed to sleep.  I hadn’t slept since that broken two hours of sleep on the airplane many, many hours before.  I gave her some more milk (in hopes she’d drink it and fall asleep) and put her back to bed.

She cried.  And cried.  And cried.

Finally, 12:30 rolled around, and she fell asleep.  12:30 huh?  Well what do you know? 12:30am here is 7:30pm back home.  Guess what 7:30 is?  Yep, Hannah’s bed time.  She’s not silly.

It didn’t help, of course, that daylight savings started (or ended, what ever) that very night.  12:30 became 1:30.  SIGH.

The next night, Hannah woke at 9:30pm (new daylight savings time that is).  I let her cry for a while.  She didn’t go back to sleep.  Humph.  I gave her some milk and laid her down again.  She was quiet for a while.  Drinking the milk, I assume.  Then she cried.  And cried.  And cried.  I got her up.  She ate. And ate. And ate.  She played.  That night, she particularly enjoyed pointing at the large Australian Shepherd dog that my parents have and excitedly saying “DOGGIE!” as she giggled.  She did this at least 200 times that night.  At least that was so incredibly adorable and the look on her face made me so warm and fuzzy inside that staying up late again was pretty much worth it.  Pretty much.

This time, I patted her belly for a while so she wouldn’t scream bloody murder when I put her back to bed. I didn’t really want my dad to miss out on too much sleep and then crash on the way to work because Hannah was crying half the night.  It worked, she calmed right down, got really tired and then went to sleep on her own without crying.  Pat on the back to me for my mommy skills.

The next morning, Hannah actually ate breakfast.  It kinda surprised me since that was the first day since our arrival that she actually ate breakfast.  I don’t blame her really, I was trying to feed her at like 8am, which was 2am Sydney time.  I wouldn’t want to eat then either.  I got really excited.  Maybe that means she is getting used to the new time….

That night, 9pm rolled around.  Hannah started crying.  Sigh….  I turned her sleepy music on (remotely, it’s through the baby monitor.  I know, one day I will have to wean her from it.  I don’t want to think about it….).  A few minutes passed.  Silence.  Relief sigh.  But now I was used to staying up until way too late.  I wasn’t tired.

10pm.  Hannah started crying.  Cringe.  I thought this getting up thing was over.  Plus, if she got up now, what time would she go back to sleep.  Sigh sigh sigh.  I turned on the sleepy music.  Silence.  Phew.  She went back to sleep.  She slept all night that night.  I slept all night that night.  I didn’t even have to get up to pee.  Thank you pregnancy bladder for being kind.

Last night, Hannah didn’t get up either.  She ate all her meals during the day, had a good nap, and went to bed just fine.  But she woke up many, many times.  Not because she was still getting used to the time difference, but because she now has a cold.  I could hear her snuffling in her sleep, the snot clearly blocking her nasal passages.  Then she’d wake up, cry for a bit, and go back to sleep.  She must have woken about 10 times last night.  Oh, and did I mention we are in the same room?  I could put her in my brother’s old room, but there is too much stuff she could reach from her cot that is dangerous, so I put her with me instead (in her cot).

Today, I bought a vaporiser.  I have one for her at home, and it works wonders.  If she has a cold, I put the vaporiser on, and she doesn’t wake up throughout the night at all, or if she does, it’s once, twice at the most.  That down from like 10 times each night.  It’s so worth it, for both of us.  I bought the one at home for like 40 bucks, but here, I got the same brand for 14 dollars.  Yeah, that’s right, 14 dollars.  Definitely worth it for a good nights sleep.

In more cheerful news, Hannah and I have been having a good time (when she’s not sleepy, then she gets grumpy and says “home.”).  Hannah went for a horsey ride on my mom’s horse.  She played outside and especially enjoyed frolicking in the riding arena, going over the bridge and digging in the sand.  We went to Walmart, where she found lots of dollies to play with in the toy aisle and refused to pick a dress for Grandma Lois to buy her.  Grandma Lois ended up buying about 4 since Hannah wouldn’t decide and she couldn’t either.

We are really glad for google video chat though, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to see Aaron while we are here.  Hannah gets all excited, pointing at the computer screen and happily exclaiming “Daddy!” and giggling.

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What do you want for lunch?

Me: “What do you want for lunch Sweet Pea?”

Hannah: “Bubba.”

Me: “Ok, you stay here with Daddy and I’ll go make you a bubba for lunch.”

Did she eat it?  Nope.  Not a bite.  Ok, that’s not true, she took a bite of the carrot, pretended to gag and then wanted to get down.  Humph.

I’ll have what she’s having

I don’t usually post 2 days in a row (because a] I can’t be bothered, and b] I figure if I can’t be bothered writing 2 days in a row, surely you guys can’t be bothered reading 2 days in a row), but I just had to document this.  This little lunch-time feat knocked my mis-matched socks off.  Ok, not really, but only because it’s currently too hot to wear socks!

Today, I made a nice little plate of cheese, grapes, strawberry (yeah, only one, there was only one good one), and an apple cinnamon muffin (with added wheat germ for protein) for Hannah’s lunch.  Did she want to eat it?  Not a chance.  It’s so hard to get her to eat anything.  She doesn’t like egg (even if it’s just part of french toast, along with cinnamon and vanilla.  Delicious.), meat, fish, sandwiches, pretty much anything apart from fruit and some vegetables really.  Oh, and bars of course, she LOVES those darn Heinz Little Kids breakfast bars.

She didn’t want to eat her lunch at all.  Instead, she tore it into tiny little bits and scattered it around the table.  She did not, however, throw it on the floor.  She knows she gets time out for throwing food on the floor.  When the entire meal resembled the dry ingredients of a cake mix, she proclaimed “DONE!” and wanted to get down.

Fine then, down she went.  I don’t yell at her to eat more food, or try to force her, or scold her, or tell her she’s naughty. I don’t think that is very helpful, and would eventually result in an unhealthy relationship with food.  Plus, she can learn that there are consequences of not eating.  I.E. she will be hungry.

So I put her down, and then she wanted to sit in the normal chair (rather than her high chair) next to me (because I was still eating my lunch).  She grabbed a pen and started drawing a lovely little picture which kind of resembled a fur ball or a dust bunny.  She looked at my lunch.  She looked at me.  Now back at my lunch.  Now back at me….

“Do you want some of Mommy’s lunch?”

“Mmmmm.” That means yes in Hannah speak.  I’m sorry to report, she got that from me.  I didn’t even realise I say mmm for yes.  Until she started doing it of course.  Oh well, I’ll work on that.

I gave her a bite.  She spit it out.  But then she wanted another bite.  Kids are so weird.

She stuck her chubby little baby arms out toward me and wiggled her little fingers. “Mom” (fine, Mum, she says Mum, much to my dismay) she said, willing me to pick her up.

I picked her up and put her in my lap, where she sat and started eating my lunch with her hands, grabbing it and shoveling it into her mouth.  She can use a spoon or spork, it’s just so much better to use hands.

She didn’t like her arrangement of grapes, cheese, strawberry, and muffin.  So you know what she ate instead?  Tandoori chicken curry with rice.  I don’t think I’ll ever possibly be able to guess which foods she will like, and which she will not.

Tandoori Chicken Curry (photo courtesy of Woolworths)

Rotund man in fake beard and bright red suit: SCARY!

Last years Santa photo

I’m not quite sure what the obsession with Santa photos is.  Heck, I’m a mom myself, and I don’t even know.  I do know that I definitely, 100%, want to get Hannah’s photo taken with Santa.  She got one last year (although that one didn’t go so well…), I’ll want her to get one next year, and probably even the year after that.  I’m not quite sure at what age a parent no longer feels this burning desire to make their child sit on a strange, fake bearded, bright red suit wearing, rotund man’s lap, but I guess sooner or later I will get there.  Or Hannah will protest so strongly and eloquently that I will have no choice.

I bought Hannah a nice new greenish sundress dress (so it would compliment Santa’s suit of course), put her fine bubba hair in pigtails, and washed all the gunk off her face.  I don’t know how she manages to have so many collections of gunk of her face, but she does.  I don’t call her cheeky monkey for nothing.

As we approached the queue (ahem, line for those of you who are not Australians), Hannah clung to me a little tighter.  She knew something was up, something not the norm.  She watched other kids sit on Santa’s lap, jolly smiles on their faces, squeals of delight emerging from their lips.  She clung tighter.  She watched as Santa gave them antler headbands to wear, a gift of thanks for getting their photos taken on the strange man’s lap.  Her legs wrapped around me.  I probably could have let go of her and she wouldn’t have fallen.

Our turn came and we entered Santa’s little roped off area.  We approached Santa.  Santa looked at Hannah, and gave her a

Santa photo with Me and The Jess

jolly smile, his fake beard and mustache hiding most of his mouth.  Hannah doesn’t cry a whole lot, but at that moment, she screamed bloody murder.  Her whole body was shaking.  My poor little bubba was TERRIFED of Santa claus.  She didn’t even want to look at him.

“Why don’t you sit on his lap too, and she can sit on your lap.”  The assistant suggested.  Um…ok.

“This is awkard.”  Yeah, I actually said that to the fake, strange Santa Claus man.  He gave no reply.  I’m pretty sure he had no come back for that one.

We were still far too close to Santa for Hannah’s comfort and she wouldn’t settle down in the slightest.   Not even with Auntie Jess making silly faces at her.  They snapped one photo and that was it.  I wasn’t going to traumatise my poor little monkey any further.

There was no way I was going to spend money on that horrid photo-  me, sitting awkwardly on Santa’s lap, Hannah trying desperately to escape the whole situation.  It was not a pretty sight.

Santa photo with me and Aaron

We went upstairs to Myer to have a go with their Santa.  Maybe she would be more comfortable in a quieter setting, something that isn’t right in the middle of a large shopping centre.  She still didn’t like Santa.  This one though, didn’t make her immediately burst into tears on sight.  She wouldn’t sit in his lap.  I guess I can’t really blame her.  I can’t say I enjoy sitting in random peoples laps either.  And lets face it, facial hair is scary regardless.

We did manage to get a photo of The Jess, Hannah and me on Santa’s chair, with Santa cheekily peeking out from behind the chair, not at all in sight of the terrified Hannah.  I thought it would be a bit strange just getting that photo, and not one with Aaron in it, so Aaron, Hannah and I came back the next day.  She was still scared of Santa, but we managed to get a photo.  She even gave Santa a high five at the end.  High five: Ok.  Sitting on lap: totally not ok.  Fair enough. Maybe next year she will sit on the fake bearded, red sporting, fat strangers lap.  I can only hope.