Party

Daisy had a party on the weekend for her fifth birthday (it was brother Hugo's 1st birthday too - born on the same day). It was an Indonesian theme (held at CERES environmental park) featuring rickshaw rides, a shadow puppet display and other unusal educational activites. The kids were all captivated and it felt like a lovely wholesome occasion.

Winter joining in with the big kids

Winter trying to muscle-in on Daisy's kinder girl gang (B'day girl sporting the mask)

CAKE queue

Tears

I took this video a couple of weeks ago. My intention was to capture some of the more challenging moments of daily life with young children. Too many happy cute shots is giving the wrong impression of what goes on at Gordon Grove. On this occasion both kids were tired and crying at the same time. The difficult thing about this situation is that I need time to comfort them and deal with their needs separately to diffuse the situation. This is hard because if I comfort one the other feels neglected and gets more hysterical. I often feel a bit desperate when this occurs because I hate knowing they are suffering and not knowing how to help them. The episode probably lasted about 20 mins or so but it feels like much longer than this when its happening. Prior to getting out the camera I even tried a short scream in the spirit of 'if you cant beat them join them'! At the point I took the video Winter was calming down a bit and i thought that introducing the camera might snap him out of it. It didn't but they did calm down eventually.

Ball

Baxter is becomming more playful lately. One of his favorite toys is this ball that flashes when it hits the ground. The video below shows him busy amusing himself trying to activate the flash.

Fairy

Winter borrowed Daisy's fairy costume recently. It has been a bit hit and gets worn regularly including to bed.

The delicate flowing tule, flowers and sequins provide an amusing contrast to his blokey clothes and rough and tumble demenour. The video below shows me encouraging him to get into character.

Helpful

Baxter has re-emerged from the sickness fug. He is back in action and busy honing his home wrecking skills.

He has started climbing too

His attraction to climbing into the dishwasher is reminiscent of similar moves pulled off by big bro back in Lizzy Bay (I think Winter was a little older in pic above)

another favorite 'back in the day' Winter dishwasher moment

Caffine

Dad of the year takes the boys out to the coffee shop most mornings to get a fix before work. Mum is very greatful.

Buddy

We adopted Winter's friend Satchmo yesterday whilst his parents went to a wedding.

The boys played really well together

It was a fun action-packed afternoon

Hang'n

Baxter and Winter gang'n together playing with Winter's computer toy

making Baxi a hat

little brother is very tolerant

the kisses help

Gastro

We have all had a tummy bug this week. This pile of washing was the aftermath of Winter's night (he was the first one down with it). Poor little guy vomited every half hour from 11pm till 3am. Two nights later the rest of us were struck. Needless to say it wasnt fun and it wasn't pretty. We are on the mend now thankfully (but are now suffering from guilt as we get daily text messages with friends falling victim).

Tissy

Rich's birthday provided another excuse to get babysitting and get dressed up for and evening out.

Game

Rich took these photos of Winter playing his favorite pretend game. He is miaowing and being a 'pussycat stuck on the roof' . He usually does it when I'm busy cooking or cleaning. He miaows persistantly until I call Fireman Sam (a TV character) and tell him to 'come rescue the pussycat'. I then pretend to be Sam and get into my firetruck and put the siren on, rush over, put up the ladder, climb up it and help the pussycat onto my back then get back into the firetruck and return the pussycat to his basket bed and tell him to go to sleep and not to climb on the roof again. Its fun to indulge my inner actress once or twice but by the 6th rescue I'm pretty keen to get back to my cooking (cue evil mummys little helper TV hypnotiser!).

Phew

Sick Baxi (last week)

Better Baxi (this week)

Spread

We had a little Northcote crew gathering for Rich's birthday yesterday. I decided to go 70's hostess with the nibbles. I went a bit OTT!

Scoundrel

Winter gave me a shock recently when he walked into the kitchen with a scarlet red beard. On closer inspection it turned out that he had riffled through my handbag and got his mitts on my new Revlon Red lipstick. He sees me putting my makeup on every morning and is fascinated by 'mummy's lipstick'. He loves the way it twists up and down and the special shinny cases.

This photo shows the remnants of Revlon Red's predecessor, taken nearly a year ago when we were living in Yarraville. On a positive note it looks like his motor skills have improved!