Good Weekend

It is a truth universally acknowledged that as soon as you write anything down, then the exact opposite will happen.  So I won't elaborate except to say, Look!  The Family Von Yardley.

And their two year old slept through the night last night.  And their baby went to bed at 7pm nicely.  And settled after her night feed.  Two nights running.  It won't last.  I have to say that or it won't!

We've resorted to bribery with Alice.  No mother of the year awards there, but I was unlikely to win any on 4 hours broken sleep either, but you pick your battles.

Music for Tutus

Auntie Rosie arrived this week and celebrated her birthday with us.  I had big plans for a lovely Rosified day - morning tea at Circular Quay, pop to the Opera House for a show, champagne lunch and dinner out.  Alice, Juliet and a massive thunder storm conspired to make this more like morning tea in the queue for the Baby Proms, Alice whinging all the way through the Baby Proms, lunch overlooking the harbour and my left breast, and a picnic takeaway pizza in our lounge while Rosie struggled to keep her eyes open.

This Baby Proms was "Music for Tutus", featuring a couple of dancers from the Australian Ballet, dancing all the bits of ballets that you know - from Swan Lake, the Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty.  The children all dress up like ballerinas and are invited to dance with the cast at the end. We started well.  My girls were excited to go to the Opera House...

(Shame I muzzled the wrong child)

Alice had fun with her new wand as it cast spells the length and breadth of Circular Quay...

She was incredibly excited during the first, oh, five minutes, when the principal ballerina was playing Clara and opened a Christmas present.  Her present was a wand, just like Alice's (as well as some ballet shoes) so our little one was chuffed to bits.  After a few jumps and pirouettes, Alice lost interest until the "Daddy" (aka the prince) came on.  He held her attention for another 30 seconds and then she started asking to go.  Many times.  But Rosie and I had a lovely time, so that's what matters.  Juliet slept through the whole thing, which was really helpful and Alice gracefully declined the opportunity to plie at the end.

After a relaxing lunch by the water (sans champagne because we had to eat away Alice's tantrum and it was too early), we went home for sleeps and cake.

Decorations were all Alice's own work and some of the marshmallows were even still there when we lit the candles.  Happy Birthday Auntie Rosie!

Sculptures by the Sea

It hasn't been all doom and gloom around here.  We've managed quite a few outings...

Alice, Juliet, Nanna and I had a great time at the Sculptures by the Sea.  It was a picture perfect Sydney Saturday.  Alice loved the "statues".

Juliet at one month (a stream of consciousness)

All goes well in the House of Yardley.  Juliet has settled in nicely.

She has finally regained her (somewhat enormous) birth weight, stacking on 300g over the past week, so the marathon effort of Motillium, expressing and formula top-ups have paid off.  I am left with about 3 spare minutes a day by the time I have done all of that (minutes which I try to spend with Alice - see below) but at least she's filling out again.  The local Early Childhood Clinic have been so kind and helpful but I'll look forward to not having to report there every week, which will hopefully happen if the weight gain is sustained.  Happily she was a good size to start with (although I might not have used the word "good" if you'd spoken to me at 11.41pm on 10/10/10) so there have never been any serious concerns.  She's the full length of 0-3 month clothes now and her head has been growing every week, so she's progressing nicely.

Juliet has been feeding every 3 hours since we brought her home.  Sometimes I have to wake her to reinforce this, but she's pretty regular.  So we start at the time honoured 7am and progress from there.  She has one long stretch from her 10pm feed until about 4am, which is brilliant, but she absolutely will not settle after that.  So Stu has been getting up with her from 5am and they watch football together.  This would be a delightful arrangement for all concerned if Alice weren't waking at least twice before the 4am feed.  Shouts of "Daddy, Daddy, I've lost my pillow" or "Mummy, Mummy, I've lost my cover" or "I've lost me" echo down the hallway and so we're all pretty tired.  I should mention that she usually has not lost her cover, her pillow or herself, but she yells so loudly that we have to go to her. 

Which brings me to Alice by day...I'd like her to look back on this blog one day, so a polite description would be to say that she's going through an adjustment period.  Another way would be to say that she resembles the Little Girl with the Curl, right in the middle of her forehead.  Obviously homelife has changed beyond recognition for Alice so I'm trying to be as patient as possible on very broken sleep.

This too shall pass.

The race that stops a nation

Yesterday was Melbourne Cup Day, here in Oz.  A public holiday in some states, it may as well be so in Sydney too for all the work that gets done.  Many a memory of a boozy lunch flooded into my brain, as I sat watching the race with a baby attached to my boob.

We had a sweepstake at home - Juliet won and will receive a day's golf.  No fair.

Fashions on the field involved a tracksuit for me, a babygro for her and his sweaty running kit for Stu.  However, the real queen of the day was Miss Alice Yardley, who made ties and fascinators at daycare and here she is, modelling her creation, as she listens to the race with the rest of the gang. 

Apparently they played it on the radio and all the children yelled, "Go, horsies".

The daily report even managed a little psycho babble.  This activity allegedly "introduced an historic event and allowed the children to celebrate with the community".  As far as I know, the Dolphins didn't place bets and weren't later seen falling in the street drunk with their knickers on display, but they seemed to have had a lovely time.



Bugging me Bugaboo (ah-ha-a)

Unfairly or no, I have a little bit of a reputation as a purchaser of prams.  True, we did get through three different models within Alice's first six months of stroller travel, but the untimely demise of one of those was due to Qantas and the other two served their purposes well.  The fact that we additionally have part ownship in a gorgeous Silver Cross at Nanna Keefe's house, plus a Target $30 rubbishy one for travel is by the by.  The fact remains that we have two children and two prams at our Sydney residence.  Not so bad.

I still love love my the Bugaboo Bee and so could not bring myself to replace it with the birth of Juliet.  I live in hope that Alice, nearing the age of 3, will decide that she's willing to walk further and more frequently and so couldn't be bothered with changing to a double buggy for the sake of a few months.  Plus there's only one day a week when I'll have both children on my own, so I thought that (if we manage to leave the house at all) we could just go to places where ambulation is not required.

Thus it was with much joy that the toddler buggy board was received from Nanna Keefe as her gift to Juliet.  Juliet benefits by not having an older sister sulk and scream when she occupies the Bug, so is really very grateful.  Alice has been travelling in the Target number for a few months to dissassociate herself from the more glamourous wheels but the threat of a meltdown is always close at hand, given the slightest provocation in these early days.

Yet... O Glorious Day!  Hip, hip hooray!  We finally took the skateboard for a test drive to the farmers market this morning and Alice absolutely loved it. 

So I'm envisaging many happy trips around the Eastern suburbs on a Wednesday.  Now I just need to work out a way to get out of the house with two children before 10.30am (and that was with Stu's help!)

A further note on the pram.  Don't even get me started on the fact that the capsule doesn't clip straight into the Bee, but works with the Chameleon and the Frog.  You are not getting any more of my money, pram manufacturers.  Except, obviously, if I see the cupholder for the Bee on sale....