babyblog

Cold

This bloody cold is just lurking under the surface and not coming to anything yet... but leaving me feeling wiped and crappy in the meantime. I have a low fever and feel a bit cruddy but nothing else is happening and I wish it would just come out and get itself over with.

The weather has gone hot again of course..... we had 3 blissful overcast days and now we've had a week of searing 80+ temperatures again. I shouldn't complain but it gets so bloody hot in this house that it's unbearable. I have also walked up the mountain to school the last couple of days and in this heat believe me it is even more difficult than it usually is!

On Monday we walked there (pushing the stroller is almost impossible up the steep parts!) and Harry walked back... in the hope that it would tire him out. It didn't. Yesterday I didn't put him to bed for a nap and tried the same tactic. I didn't feel like walking there, but figured for his sake I should. So of course he fell asleep in the stroller 5 mins from home and didn't wake up till we got back again. Typical! Then took him to the park for a run about and tried my best to exhaust him and managed to get him to fall asleep after only an hour demanding books at bedtime. Result (!)

Major Sleep Issues

Harry is driving us crazy with his sleep problems at the moment. They've been going on for months and don't seem to be getting any better and I just don't know what to do!

The problem is this:

He needs a nap during the day. If he doesn't get this nap he gets very tired and cranky indeed, even asking to go to bed. He usually goes down around 11.30am.

When he has his nap he will sleep if allowed, 3 hours at a time. Any less than this and he wakes up cranky.

If he has this nap, when he goes to bed around 7 - 7.30pm, he will not sleep until around 9.30pm. He lies in his bed shouting for books, more milk, you name it. Sometimes longer, last night was 11pm.

If he doesn't have his nap he goes absolutely and utterly exhausted into bed at 7pm and crashes out immediately, then wakes up around midnight thinking it's time to get up!!

Oh, and when he goes to sleep late.... he doesn't want to get up in the morning. He will, if allowed (which he never is) sleep till 9am or later. When woken earlier is incredibly grumpy and even more demanding of nap. Vicious circle.

WHAT TO DO!??

Now with an Oven

The kitchen is almost at the point of completion! Well, there's still a lot to do but I can actually use everything I need now in order to cook. This weekend we also installed the new double oven which had been delivered earlier in the week bashed in and subsequently and finally replaced on Saturday. Bloody hell was that thing heavy too. It's almost as tall as me! We had to lift it into the wall cupboard TWICE because the first time a cable got stuck...... and I managed to hurt my shoulder in the process. But, finally, it is in and I christened it yesterday by cooking a lasagna to take to a friends house for lunch. Huzzah. Now for all the finishing touches including tiling, and installation of the big stainless chimney hood thing.

Glands up

Sure enough with the new school year comes the latest influx of bugs and virii. My glands are right up and I'm exhausted. Bah.

Jealous Jones

Today I went to visit my friend who's recently had twins. They're gorgeous little girls & I held one for a while, then fed the other her bottle. Harry's reaction was priceless. Initially he was quite fascinated by these tiny little people. He kept going to look at them and saying 'beebee' in his cute way.

When I held the first, Ella, he sat beside me and looked at her with interest. Then he began to get a bit jealous and put his head on me as if to try to block my view of the baby. I gave her back to her mum and he climbed into my lap posessively and cuddled me. Later I fed Evie, the 2nd baby, and after playing for a while he came over very cross and upset...and climbed up beside and tried to get onto my lap while I was still holding her, forcing me to quickly ask her dad to come and get her before he did her a mischief! He then lay on my lap for 10 mins grizzling..... extremely annoyed with his mummy for daring to cuddle a little baby!

Now with hot and cold running water

We got the sink installed at the weekend & I treated the counter tops to seal them... so the kitchen is finally fairly useable. It's still a long way from being finished as there's lots of jobs left to do but at least I was able to unload all the boxes into the cupboards and have actually got a sink at last (no more running to the bathroom to fill the kettle).

It looks pretty great actually.

Oh and I bought a fridge online - it's very difficult to buy a big stainless steel fridge with an ice and water machine which is less than 36 inches wide. I have 34.5 inches to play with but I finally tracked one down, and naturally it ended up costing more than we wanted to pay. I also bought an oven which arrives on Wednesday. And a plate rack which arrives god knows when as I ordered it from the UK (you cannot get one here that isn't hideous or impractical)!.

I'll be extremely glad when this is all over though - it totally takes over your life and you end up with no free time at all. It'll be nice to have some family time again! That's before we move on to doing both upstairs bathrooms... gah.

Bonus Day!

Jodie Picoult

Garage Sale

One of my friends lives in an area much like we used to live in Canada - i.e. a dormitory suburb some hour outside of the city. Today her neighbourhood had a garage sale so a few of us took a few things to sell and stood in the drive for most of the day gossiping lots and selling very little. Harry had a fine old time playing with all the toys & with her son!

Amazing how many people drive around these neighbourhood sales looking for bargains..... some people had come from 'over the mountains' (miles and miles and miles), others looked like they did it for a living, others looked desperate, and others were simply neighbours poking around in each others stuff looking for a bargain.

I didn't have time to sort out much stuff but I really should given the volume of junk we seem to keep aquiring. We have entire rooms full of it, in boxes (4 to be exact), and a large garage full of same. Thing is, with all the other stuff that there is to do with the house.... things like that are a low priority on the list.

G at least fixed in another cupboard last night - the pantry. I was able to unpack one of the 7 boxes that line the walls of our dining area and rid us of a little bit more clutter. This weekend he'll (on pain of death) get the sink in place, the counters finished, and the rest of the cupboards fixed so that we can actually USE the kitchen. Then we can go out and buy the appliances that we still need!

Stuff n Nonsense

Harry is slowly beginning to speak more & more. He's definitely behind where his brother was at at this stage (just post 2 yrs old) but he's getting there. I've heard that 2nd children do tend to be a bit slower on the uptake of some of the developmental milestones and quicker at others. What I've noticed with him is that he's often saying things and you don't realise that he is doing so. His pronounciation isn't the best and he often half says a word...... when you clock that he's actually saying something in this way you realise that he's communicating far more than you first thought. For example: Tuck!! means Stuck.... and Guk!! means Truck.... Big Guk !!! (obvious), 'HELL!!" (help) and Wa Dat Mummy? .... the usual toddler speak that you expect, really, I suppose... it's just that Dylan was aways so clear and precise! He has a number of animals instantly recognisable but for some reason Dog must be pronounced as 'Ga Ga'. He also tries to string words together that he just can't do yet which can make it seem like he's saying rubbish but infact is saying a bunch of half words...... just now he ran up to me with a book with a picture of a man doing something and said 'wassat..samanmummy!'

Dylan is settled back into school.... he's getting homework already & seems to be enjoying it. With soccer 3 times per week, cubs weekly, science classes about to start and full time school he's also a right grumpy little bugger who is clearly not getting enough sleep but refuses to do so before 9pm every night regardless. In the mornings he is like a bear with a sore head...... a sign of teenage years to come, sigh!

The kitchen is slowly taking place. We now have a gas hob which looks great but can't really be used properly because there's a gas leak somewhere that G installed it and he needs to look at it again. We still don't have a sink. We have started a new trend in Cardboard Countertops....... covering the wood which is not ready to be used yet. I was pleased to have the ability to use the counters to store things but soon realised that Cardboard = Not Ideal. It soaks up water and other liquids and if you put food on it you have to replace it immediately. Roll on the weekend where we can hopefully get the rest of it into place, then we'll be left with some finishing touches + buying a couple of appliances...... but at least I will be able to put stuff away out of the dining room and maybe clear up some of the bloody mess that is here as a result.

I am back at the gym regularly after the summer ... feeling fit but not losing weight as I'm obviously still eating for England. The bad diet (compounded by take-out-aplenty) is not only putting me in danger of getting Scurvy but also meaning my appalling headaches are plentiful. I found a new supplement that is supposed to help headaches.... called Migrelief. It is a combination of Magnesium, Riboflavin & Feverfew..... and you are supposed to take it twice daily, seeing results in up to 4-6 weeks. So, I started taking it and after 3 weeks of bright yellow wee I realised the headaches had significantly dropped.... hurrah! I was so pleased and saw a light at the end of the tunnel of these awful awful headaches... then (belatedly) doing a bit of research discovered that these might not be advisable for people with blood clotting disorders. Sigh. So I stopped, and have had a headache ever since :(

On the social front things are back to being manic and busy and good. I forget why I felt down when I got back now, really....... I have some good friends here! One of them is still a bit out of it after having premature twin girls recently, and I hope she will be around more soon as I miss her. G and I have also been going out at the weekends, last w/e with friends to dinner and a movie and this w/e we're going to someones birthday dinner... which should be a laugh.

Better go - Harry is banging the TV and shouting DORA! DORA! He doesn't like to be told NO, a concept I'm introducing as he becomes more uncontrollably wilful!

Staples = Out

Took Harry to get his Staples taken out today - thankfully a painless process although he did make a huge fuss at having something done to him! Fingers crossed this is not only the first but also the LAST thing that happens which requires being taken to hospital and metal objects being placed into his head or anywhere else on his body!

Dylan, meanwhile, announced yesterday that he secretly thinks parents put presents under the tree at Christmas ... ARGH. I am SO NOT READY for him to be old enough to stop believing in Santa!

Soccer Mom

We're having 2 football practices per week now... and a game every Saturday. Dylan was nervous about his first game today but got to play his favourite position (goal) for a while and spectacularly saved two attempts at scoring by the opposition amidst many cheers from his team mates, so he feels rather good about himself now!

Bah Humbug

Is it awful to wish the summer away? I like the sunshine when I'm out in it, but I really loathe how hot the house gets.

This morning we woke up to temperatures in the mid 50s and it was fabulous. I pulled the duvet up around me to keep warm and rejoiced in not wanting to get out of bed because it was nice and warm in there.

Of course it couldn't last and it's now somewhere in the mid 70's and climbing - it'll be 90 again by 6pm (weird climate stuff here means the hottest point of the day is 5 or 6pm).

Spring Cleaning

Although, obviously, it's not spring... I am methodically working my way through the various rooms of the house throwing out crap. Today I threw away (or rather, put to donate to Goodwill) half of my wardrobe because let's face it I'm not going to fit back into those size 10 outfits and even if I did they'd be so hideously old fashioned that I would buy new ones anyway. So if you see any really old fashioned looking homeless people wandering the streets of Seattle, you know where they got their gear from.

I also threw out a frightening amount of old underwear, the kind that's long been grey from over washing and the kind that have the odd hole in that you think 'it's okay because nobody will see it' .. and that should you be in an accident and the paramedics see it you'd be absolutely horrified to be wearing in public.

It's quite amazing what enormous lapses in taste I have too on occasion. I threw out things that I obviously bought but have never ever worn because they're just awful. What on earth posessed me?

Back to school

Today D is back at school - THANK GOODNESS FOR THE END OF THE SUMMER!

They have such a long time off school here, 10 weeks or something insane like that, and the whole routine that you have during the year is out the window for the duration.

With the school term starting again it means we can go back to gym + daycare + baby music + swimming lessons + soccer etc.... not to mention have one less bored boy sitting around in the house or having to find things to entertain them during the long summer days!

What is hard is getting up in the morning again. During the summer we tend to wake up whenever the boys wake up - usually around 8 or 8.30... and G goes to work then. The alarm going off at 7.20 this morning was a bit of a shocker, my body just wasn't ready to drag itself out of bed. Going to have to get to bed earlier I think... otherwise I struggle with getting up, getting D's bag packed, getting him breakfasted, dressed, and out of the door for an 8.20 start... not to mention doing similar for H on the gym days!

how long before we get scurvy?

lack of kitchen!

Kitchen

We're spending 'Labor Day' weekend, labouring hard on the new kitchen. We've successfully installed most of the cupboards and G is currently working on putting the doors on. We then have to add all the trim bits and install the sink, appliances and countertops, not to mention tile the backsplash. Therefore, although things are looking alot better than they looked this time last week, we're still some way off from being finished.

The boys haven't eaten a vegetable in weeks and we're spending a fortune on take-away food. I'm combating the crap with fruit but even so, I really am looking forward to having an oven again so we can actually eat proper food!

Poor Harry :(

Yesterday while playing at a friends house, Harry fell and cut his head open. He was obviously beside himself and there was blood everywhere. It was hard to get a good look at the wound because it was in his hair but it seemed to be nasty so I rushed him to the hospital. We were seen very quickly and the Doctor said that he'd need the wound closing. They put some gel that numbed it, which took half an hour to work...... he was absolutely distraught by them trying to touch it and afterwards they had to wrap his head up like this to keep the stuff in place. Then, with 5 of them including Gareth holding him down, they STAPLED his head shut :-( :-(