Love that Pelican

Filling in some winter days with a toddler is a challenge for one's imagination. After drawing, playing with dinosaurs, building yet another variation of the train track, watching 3 times the recommended daily allowance of television and flying the aeroplane up and down mummy's legs and arms whilst she's breastfeeding, what next can a little boy do. Thank god for some sunshine (despite it barely making it to 10 degrees), so we can rug up and go for a run and burn up some toddler energy. Feeding a pelican, ducks and running over a bridge or two just adds to the whole adventure.
Thank god also for Grandma and Pa, they have a fresh reserve of attention to lavish on little boys and a whole well of enthusiasm for interesting things like, "Look gwan-ma, Thomas got red shoes!" and "Pa, GREEEN DINOSAAUUUUUURRRRR, ROOOAAARRRR". Life's good.
Oh, and rocking out on the guitar with Dad, that's also another fantastic way to kill 15 mins. Alright!!!!
On the agenda for tomorrow - playground (swings are a real favourite at the moment!), the bakery, more train adventures and maybe some block building. The Tallest Tower Challenge may have to be held in the lounge room, with the winner fighting it out for a bag of Tiny Teddies. Who needs the Tour de France?? Although Cadel's home town isn't far from here, so we all love Cadel.

Angus' Christening

My sister arrived home for a months holiday with her family last week and so we organised to have Angus christened on the weekend. My sister and Jim's brother were godparents (see photo). We had a lovely day, with 38 mostly family and a few friends help us celebrate. Thank god for mine and Jim's mum helping me out with catering and just general organisation for so many people, because of them the day went quite smoothly. Tom had a wonderful time with ALL his cousins here - yep that's a total of 10 cousins ranging from 17 y.o. to the same age as Angus. So it was crazy and chaotic, but a lot of fun seeing them all interact together.


My sisters kids were very excited to see how much Tom had grown (they left just before he turned one) and also to meet Angus - here's some photos. Zoe is the youngest of Sue's kids and just fell in love with Angus, and he with her. She has big blue eyes and Angus would just stare into them and be quite content. I think they sat there for the best part of an hour with him just gurgling and she cooing back to him - very cute. A photo of my mum and Aunty Suzi is above and follwing is a photo of Cousin Cal, Tom and Angus. Sue and I were watching Tom at one stage and he was playing out in the back yard and would randomly just go and hug Cal for no reason. It was great, he was just sooo excited to have a big boy around. It's a pity that they live so far away, even though they are really enjoying themselves and it's going well for them there.

Some Random Photos

Nothing really to fill you in on this week, we have been laying low for a full week now because of sick kids and very cold weather. I went to the shops this morning just to get out of the house because I was going a bit stir crazy and so was Tom, but otherwise we have just been at home since last Wednesday. I took Tom to see Hi-5 last Tuesday. They are an Australian kids group that sing and dance. Similar to the Wiggles but a bit groovier, he isn't into them as much as the Wiggles, but he still enjoyed watching the singing and dancing and it was just in my local city, so it was a hassle free activity on a cold winters day. Tom is just kicking back on his Thomas bean bag, courtesy of his Godmum, Shannon. He thinks he's pretty special when he's sitting in it - can you tell?
This is Georgie, my cousins daughter, who was my saviour for the best part of a week, a couple of weeks ago. Thomas was so excited to have someone to play with it was wonderful.





Angus is 3 mths old this week, it spins me out how quickly it has gone. It is such a steep learning curve, having a baby, even second time around, but it is so nice when they start 'talking' and gurgling, smiling and giggling. We had our first giggle the other day, it was great. I was being a silly mummy and making noises and Angus was giggling at me. It was nice. And finally, Angus is into a cot. My baby is growing up! He's such a big baby, but he looks so small in the cot. I remember Tom being the same, especially when they are swaddled. He's like a little caterpillar in a cocoon! My sister comes out from Dubai in a couple of weeks, which I'm really looking forward to. We haven't seen her or the kids for over a year, so it will be exciting to see Tom interact with his cousins and of course they are all very excited about seeing Angus. So there will be some more interesting photos and news in the not too distant future. Hope all who reads this is well..........

....and the fog clears!

It's been a busy few weeks, to say the least. However, that's not the only reason I haven't been blogging, I haven't really had a lot to talk about. My days are consumed with my boys, and managing the day to day tasks, and that doesn't leave time for much else and doesn't make for very interesting reading. I was having a hard time between Angus being about 6 weeks and 10 weeks. He started being more aware and went through a real change in his needs and demands and I just didn't seem to be getting anything right. Was he hungry or tired? Does he want to chat or burp? I had nooooo idea, and that really annoyed me because I felt like I should know what I was doing! I was also doing too much. I was trying to continue my pre-Angus life, and it was just all too much. So around early June I resolved to spend much more time at home. Plus it's the dead of winter over here and although not comparable to a Northern Hemisphere winter, it's still bloody cold. So who wants to be dragging two kids around in the wind and the rain?
Anyway, last week my cousin and her youngest daughter came to stay. It was wonderful, not only is she a wonderful mum, she is a great listening ear and gave me some great ideas and tips. Also, Thomas loves Georgie (who's 7 y.o.) so he was constantly occupied which gave me plenty of opportunity to really focus on Angus. It's very easy to let the baby take the back seat when you have a more demanding, noisy toddler to contend with, and I think that was half my problem. So having Thomas out of the way (I mean that in the most loving way), gave me a
chance to find Angus' rhythm and to spend more time with him. I feel a lot better about things this week. Angus still hates the car though, which is a pain, but seeing as I'm not going out as often, this isn't as much of a problem as it was. I just hope he grows out of it!
I don't know how to label my photos, so the first one is Angus - of course, and the second is Tom and I rugged up at the park about to go down the slide.
I will try to post more photos and news as it comes to hand.
Really trying to just go with the flow...........