Tarrms the tank engine

The children are currently watching a special, movie-length Thomas the Tank Engine. I helped Isabelle select this one at the video shop, as I noticed it has "Lady" in it - a character she owns and is particularly fond of.

It is Americanised, which is funny! Sometimes Thomas seems to be pronounced "Tarrms". In lieu of the preferred car chase, there's a train chase. There are the usual American comedy characters with New York accents. Lady, being a girl train, is small and has a curvy, hour-glass shaped funnel. The Fat Controller is absent, but is referred to (as Sir Topham Hatt, of course).

Both children really enjoy this video. They watched most of it the other night (I had already gone to bed). Two excited children burst into the bedroom once it had been turned off, telling me all about the bad Diesel with his "snap snap" claws, the collapsing bridge, Lady getting a face and the conductor getting thrown into the windmill.

Very exciting!

Twice as old

Today Isabelle is 4 years and 36 days old. Aidan is 2 years and 18 days old, which means that by his age, Isabelle had just become a big sister. Funny, but he seems smaller than she was then - he's still my "little baby" after all!

Tulips

Today's morning mission was the annual pilgrimage to the tulips in the Botanic garden. It was the first fine morning all week, and the gardens were teeming with small children. There was a huge rabble around the duck pond, with much bread floating in the water where it had been rejected by the ducks (who had presumably already gorged themselves).

Most of the tulips are already past their best. The red and yellow were my favourites (if you look closely at the photo you can see Isabelle's small blonde head in the middle as she completes a circuit of the tulip bed).

We then walked up the hill for morning tea and a play at the playground. I didn't really enjoy the playground much - far too many children, requiring very close supervision. Aidan behaved well and enjoyed the toddler area. Isabelle wanted to roam farther afield. As she seemed confident, I let her. She really needed help to get her confidence up on the larger pieces of equipment though, which was a bit tough with a fast-tiring Aidan under my arm.

Joyfully, I have three loads of washing dancing on the line in the sun.

Buses and cable cars

Another "free day" today, so we treated ourselves to morning tea in town with Brendon. Despite the recent bus and train price rises, due to some quirk it is now cheaper for us to ride the bus (with the exception of the daytripper tickets for those hard-core public transport days). So, off to the bagel shop first thing. Children behaved well, coffee was good, children ate lots. Then, up the cable car to the playground at Salamanca stop.

We have an enthusiastic and energetic team at the Wellington City Council who are upgrading playgrounds around the city. Sadly the cable car playground has not yet had the treatment - but it does make it different and more challenging for the under-fives. The playground has a "playtrain" that the children enjoyed running in and out of (and an enormous puddle to one side that by a miracle I managed to steer Aidan away from - it would have gone up to his knees!).

The seesaw is of the old kind that is less safe, but better for teaching physics. Once she had finished, Isabelle just lept off, but luckily I was holding on to Aidan who would have otherwise crashed to the ground! I had to keep Aidan off one piece of equipment - a ladder up to a platform, the descent from which was a pole. I had previously accompanied him up the slide - already I'm feeling bigger and more ungainly, and after the slide I didn't fancy a perilous, pregnant descent from a pole with a toddler under my arm!

Next, we walked up to the University and took a bus home. Aidan opted for the sling for most of the journey, which meant we moved faster, but it was much more tiring. I have already made the pleasing weight gain of 5 kilos this pregnancy (gained around 10 kg with both previous ones), so carrying Aidan as well means that I have to carry an extra 38% of my pre-pregnancy body weight with my inadequate muscles (see earlier post titled Ah! Youth!).

Currently cooking dinner - this morning, Brendon was excited to see meat defrosting in the fridge after two consecutive vegetarian nights. Actually there's two kinds of meat (chicken and bacon), so my tired muscles will be basking in newly-digested protein come the evening.

A kinder cut

Isabelle said to me this morning:

"Some babies pop out of tummies by taking a short cut".

Now I don't know if she made that up, or if someone told her, but that's the only description of a caesarean that has ever made me smile!

A look at Rocky

Our 20 week foetal morphology scan was today. Thankfully everything looks normal - as far as can be seen this early at any rate - which is a relief. Isabelle and Aidan both came. Isabelle seemed quite interested in everything, but I'm not sure how much she took in. I had warned her that the picture wouldn't be clear like on a tv. The whole concept of looking through a stomach into a baby (right into its bones!) is pretty wild for a four year old really! Yesterday we were looking at skeletons, and I think she remembered the spine when the ultrasonographer was checking Rocky's back for neural tube defects. Aidan got a bit restless, but seemed to enjoy himself nevertheless.

Rocky did everything that babies do in utero - kicked, turned, waved at big sister, showed us a lovely profile etc etc. We will get the films in the mail tomorrow or the next day. This time the scan was free! The 12 week one was $40. Apparently the funding of this procedure is a new thing.

Difficult questions

While hanging out my second load of washing, Isabelle asked me:

"What is the biggest number?"

A good question indeed! I gave a simple answer, along the lines of:

"It's called infinity - bigger than you or I could even imagine". Isabelle's response was:

"What is the biggest number?".

Obviously the first answer didn't do the trick! I thought along a different tack.

"What is the biggest number you can think of?"
"It has a two, and an "o" ".
"Well, imagine that number plus one - then plus two, then plus three - and we can go on and on until infinity".

Silence. Then:

"But it has a two, and an "o" ".

I just turned to her now and asked her what she thought the biggest number was, and she said (drawing in the air with her finger):

"It has a two and a zero, and then you can put a two and a zero on your blog to remind people".

So here they are:

2 0

Be afraid....

Am currently sheltering in my cave from the giant hole in the ozone layer that is passing over New Zealand today.... Actually it doesn't sound that bad - uv levels as high as 8, which isn't high at all for a New Zealand summer. The bad news is that many people are all pale from winter, which means that our natural protection is down.... Wellington weather today may still save us, as it is overcast, windy, and threatening to rain, which is bad news for my washing, but good weather for cave-sheltering.

What is more immediately concerning is my lack of ability to stay awake at night! Last night I fed Aidan to sleep and then struggled to keep my own eyes open - and it was TEN TO SEVEN! Managed to force myself to stay awake with the aid of some internet surfing until the incredibly late hour of 8.30, when I gave up and went to bed. This morning I managed to go back to sleep while my hard working husband washed and dressed the children - I didn't intend to sleep (in fact I was waiting for the 7.00 news), but it just happened. Hmmm, that reminds me, almost time for my nap....

Project Runway

My other reality tv show, Project Runway, finished its run last night, with Chloe taking first place. As I have said earlier, any one of the three finalists could have been a fitting victor.

The climax (the show at Olympus fashion week) was interesting. Daniel's collection looked really wearable - definitely not high fashion. His dresses were a bit off though, with those huge "trains" getting in the way of the models' feet - I felt for the poor woman who tripped on her way back down the cat walk, but it seemed inevitable. Chloe went next, but I didn't really like her collection. Very eighties, hard, shiny fabrics, puffy sleeves and silhouettes. I did like her short dress with the chinese collar though. Santino was my favourite. His clothes really were beautiful - floating dresses, fabulous fabrics. I prefer a more defined line around the waist in general, but his clothes were still elegant. The red dress was stunning, something I would love to wear (were I a foot taller and not pregnant, of course!). I mentioned to Brendon that all three were good to my eyes (given that I have no eye for fabrics and fashion!), and that the winner would really depend on what the judging criteria were.

The judges' comments were interesting. They were right that Chloe's clothes were impeccably made, while with Santino's "the boobs were everywhere".

Our local paper's columnist seems to agree with me (in terms of Santino being top dog), but she was a bit hard on Chloe - I mean, no-one can deny that she had consistent quality in her craft throughout the show. I think that's what kept me watching really. I have little interest in fashion and none in sewing, but I was really amazed at the creative process and the undoubted skills of these people.

The Shewee

Here is my latest purchase. The Shewee is designed to - as the name suggests - "stand and deliver!". For some reason I just had to have this!

Trialled it today and I was impressed. No, it's not something I'm going to be using every day, but just so useful for camping, sample collection (especially with large pregnant belly!), dirty public loos etc etc. It did feel very strange and does require a certain initial leap of faith! But it is well designed and there doesn't seem to be much risk of - er- drips and leaks....

Ah! Youth!

My sister sent me an ageing questionaire: http://www.growyouthful.com/quiz.php

Despite my usual reservations about such things, and about some of the specific questions on it, I have decided that it must be true because my biological age came out as 3 years younger than my chronological age! Yippee! ;-)

I used my pre-pregnancy weight, and of course the questions about sleeping and exhaustion should have aged me nicely. Here are some edited highlights:

General Health. Good result with scope for improvement. You are aging at a rate faster than you need to (which it would say because he wants me to buy his book!).

Immune System. Your immune system is not functioning as well as it could be, scope for improvement (I have the immuno-compromised pregnant woman excuse here. And I still have that cold lurking...)

Exercise. Scope for improvement (No arguments with that one).

Stress / Expectations. A different outlook on life will slow your rate of aging and improve your health (Relaaaaax).

Food & Digestion. Scope for improvement in this crucial area. Without effective digestion the benefits of an excellent diet are wasted. (Well, yes. Can I use the pregnant woman excuse again? :-) )

BMI: 17.1. You are underweight....this score indicates that there may be some stress on your major organs, and that your muscle bulk is probably too low to store sufficient energy to undertake sustained exercise. (Ha! A ready-made excuse for not exercising! But I need to exercise to grow more muscle. Catch 22. Will eat more chocolate cake in my easy chair while I think about a solution....) Grow Youthful will help with changing the dietary, exercise and many other aspects of your life developing a pleasureable and enduring new way of living with a slim, energetic, good looking, long-lived body (See first comment above.....)

Right, post momentarily halted by coughing fit, which must mean it is time to have a rest while Aidan sleeps rather than playing on the internet....

Turbine

Today we had a "free day", so I thought I would take the children up to the Brooklyn wind turbine for a picnic morning tea. It turned out to be perfect weather for it - still and sunny at the base of the turbine, yet windy enough higher up for the blades to be spinning. I was impressed at how well sign posted the drive there way - it's been about 1o years since I was there last so all I knew was that I needed to turn right at the Brooklyn lights.

Just us, a lone cyclist at the beginnning and a couple of men who turned up briefly at the end.

You can see the shadow of the turbine in the photo to the right - Isabelle is carrying the precious morning tea bag over to the seat in the background.

We also had a close-up view of the Karori Sanctuary's predator-proof fence.

Plunket

Trip to Plunket this morning. Both children weighed and measured, both firmly within the normal ranges.

Both are now engaged with today's special treat, which was a video each from the video shop in Kelburn. Aidan chose Elmo (currently showing), while Isabelle chose a Barbie movie.

Flowers

Here is the floral arrangement Isabelle did for me.

Reality television

So they picked Lukas (Rockstar, TV3). I am disappointed. I have been watching some of this series, but missed the final. (Being a two-hour special it went on past my bedtime!). I understand why they picked Lukas - they are there to make money, not music, so they need a flashy young guy out front (exit Magni, who was a solid performer, but who didn't have any visible tats or piercings. Also, being Icelandic, his home country just didn't bring in enough punters....). Dilana was far and away the best performer in my opinion, but it was always going to be a big call to pick a woman. Supernova is looking to go mainstream (where the money is) after all, and the rock scene is dominated by male groups. And Dilana would not bring in the sort of groupies they were hoping for....!

I struggle to see how this group of "older" rockers are going to get on on tour with a young guy too. They seemed to like Toby, and Dilana and Magni had that little more life experience behind them.

Ah well, I wish them luck. I hope Lukas reads his contract carefully. I'm sure he won't be getting 25% of the profits...

Project Runway, on Friday nights, is finishing shortly too. I'm comforted by the fact that, in my opinion, all the three finalists are very talented and could be deserving winners.

The presents continued...

Well, we sent off the gift parcel to the cousin - it grew to several packages in the end, with the wrapping getting more and more elaborate. Isabelle has now started writing her cousin letters. One of them (she carefully explained) was a map of Playcentre showing the emergency exits in case this information would be useful. (I think she had been impressed by a talk at the beginning of a ballet she went to recently, which (she told me) included where the emergency exits and toilets were). Each letter has her cousin's name on it (written by Isabelle). I will send these off too in due course.

Today Isabelle brought me some flowers she had picked herself as a get well present to me. Very sweet! I was impressed by her flower arrangement - a mix of creativity and structure. I'm not much of a flower arranger myself, so this is an original.

Danger! Danger!

I am in the kitchen cooking tea. Aidan is in the lounge out of my sight. I hear him say:

"Danger! Danger!"
"Danger?"
"Danger! Danger!"
"You're doing something dangerous?"
"Yeah!"

Not the answer I was wanting really....

By the time I got around to see him he was in the process of clambering onto the table (another forbidden activity) so I never did find out what was so dangerous. I'm just glad he sees fit to tell me about these things. The other day I heard:

"Cut. Cut cake. Cut birthday cake".

I looked over and saw he was playing with a knife (of which he was swiftly disarmed...!)

Still sick

Still sick, so haven't been on the computer much. Just too tired....

But there are some bits and pieces to record - think I'll list them on separate entries...

The presents

Not a great photo, but here they are - the small one is for Rocky, and there's now two for the cuzzie.

A present for....Rocky

I was busy with "other things" while Isabelle busied herself with a craft project. It seemed to involve A LOT of sellotape, which usually I ration. However, today I'm not feeling so good so felt that I could cope with excess sellotape usage if that kept Isabelle happy and engaged.

The project ended up a gift to her cousin. It has been beautifully wrapped, with a ribbon, decorative leaf and a card with her cousin's name on it (in Isabelle's own hand writing).

I admit that I was distracted - Isabelle was telling me that it was good to give people your things when you were finished with them. "Yes" said absent mindedly. I was aware that more taping and wrapping was going on.

Isabelle had carefully wrapped one of her toys.

"It's for Ted".

Oh. Well, I didn't want to squash her feelings of generousity, but actually I wasn't ready to pass on this particular toy (which had been a gift to her). I explained this. She looked at me blankly.

"But I've finished with it".

Oh. "What about Rocky?"

Isabelle smoothly changed tack. "A present for Rocky!" She happily restarted the extensive taping process, while saying "Rocky, this is for you on your birthday. This is for when you pop out of the tummy. This is the perfect card for you, the perfect size! Happy birthday. "

I'm now wondering exactly what has been so carefully wrapped in her cousin's present....

Happy birthday precious son!

Today is the big day!

We started out with presents from our little family - a big Tonka truck, chocolate letter "A" and Bulgy the bus. One very happy little boy! Next was Grandma and Grandad's turn, with a book and an articulated pull-back truck, as well as a Thomas the Tank Engine pop up tent from all the Christchurch rellies. Grandma and Grandad gamely put the tent up and Aidan happily played within. The tent (pictured) is now in our lounge and contains cushions and cuddle rugs. You can just see the Tonka truck inside the tent to the right of the photo.

Aidan enjoyed looking at his cards. I love the way he is so expressive when he opens his presents - lots of "oooo", "ahhhh", "woah", "noice" (his way of saying nice).

I managed to do the grocery shopping with the children this morning, assisted by Grandad. The children were so beautifully behaved I have decided to take Grandad with us every week. (Ha ha!).

All going well, Grandma and Grandad are now doing a Parliamentary tour. I'm about to go and get some rest before starting on the dishes and tonight's birthday tea.

Sick again

I am sick again. Nothing too major, just a cold, but enough to make Playcentre duty this morning just not something I could do. Just on Friday I was talking with a pregnant friend about how we were immuno-compromised....

This is the third bout of sickness in this pregnancy, after thankfully long gaps between illnesses. Just so annoying really. I also seem to be specialising in being sick while I have visitors - disappointing and not nice for them either. However, I have been able to have this morning in bed and I even fell asleep. I am really hoping to improve heaps by tomorrow so that I will be in reasonable form for Aidan's birthday party.

Ballet girl

Isabelle is taking an interest in ballet, and I am investigating classes for her next term. Last Wednesday we went along and sat in on her friend's class. She seemed suitably impressed. We talked about what it would mean to go to ballet. She was happy with the concept of being dropped off for the class (Aidan will not be able to sit still and quiet for half an hour!) and indicated that she would still be interested in the class if her friend went to a different class, or stopped going altogether.

Last night I watched her in the lounge as, wearing pink ballet slippers borrowed from Playcentre, a red leotard, a tiger tail and tiger ears, she performed lovely plies in first position while singing "diamond legs, diamond legs"! I don't know if they did this song last Wednesday, but she had certainly been watching it closely and taking it all in!

I've emailed the teacher, so we will see if there are any places available for next term. I have another couple of options to explore if this one doesn't work out.

Rocky

Isabelle has decided that Rocky would be a good name for the new baby (as it is suitable for a little boy or a little girl). I wonder if the name will stick!

Pictures!!

Wahoo! Successfully uploaded some pics. Small steps...

OK, here's the Thomas cake:

Hmm, it turned up at the top rather than underneath. Let's try our Junglerama pictures. The first one is our small children climbing up very high. The second is the toddler area - attractive, but definitely not the same challenge!

Right, well as you can see they aren't quite in order, but this is all part of the story of my blog!

Excited two year olds

Busy day today....

Aidan's party for his friends was today. On being told of this when he woke up, Aidan excitedly listed the friends who were coming.

"R. ....sick".

"Yes, R. is sick, he won't be coming today". :-(

We had kept the invite list purposefully short - we suspected that one friend would be highly exciting for Aidan, and as for more than one - !!!!!

The morning seemed to go well - all the children seemed to enjoy themselves, ate lots of food, played outside and enjoyed the Thomas the Tank Engine birthday cake. I will put up a picture of the cake once I manage to log in to a photo sharing site successfully - our internet connection seems inherently unreliable and disconnects itself constantly at the two sites I've spent inordinate amounts of time trying to upload photos to in the last couple of days. Another reason why I have officially given up on the Virtual Air New Zealand cup. Error message after error message....but I digress...

After a sleep (sadly not me) it was out to Junglerama for our PIN group fourth birthday observance - a group celebration. I tried to steer Aidan to the toddlers' area (generously labelled 4 years and under) but he insisted on the biggest, brightest, most exciting structure and took off with the big kids. The children would disappear into tunnels, emerging higher and higher and higher up - then suddenly appear down the bottom in the ball pool or down the slide. Thankfully there weren't too many "adverse interactions" going on between the many children there - I think they were all just so excited and focused on what they were doing that they were just too busy to push each other around! Isabelle looked after Aidan and charged around at great speed. Cake was eaten, presents were ripped open, and now we're back home recovering and anticipating our next party - tomorrow morning!

Cuddles

I am cuddling with Isabelle on the chair before she goes to bed. I feel a couple of little kicks.

"Quick now! Put your hand here".

A little hand cups my stomach.

"Did you feel that?"

Wide eyes, nodding of head.

"What did that feel like?"

"Interesting".

Interesting indeed!

First post

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Welcome to The Floyd Files.