Christmas

Christmas is over for another year. I love Christmas, and this year we had a very good one. I’d been looking forward to it for months, and planning what presents to buy. I was a bit silly in a way because I bought presents during the year and put them aside for Christmas. I should have just given them to Kathleen at the time, because by the time Christmas came around there were too many presents. For example, last Christmas she got some Little Princess books which she loved. Six months later I bought another couple on sale and put them aside. I should have given them to her at the time because she hasn’t read her old Little Princess books in months now.

Kathleen and Victoria each got one major present in addition to all the smaller presents:

Victoria got a wooden workbench complete with nuts, bolts, screwdriver, hammer and wrench. She loves standing up at it and putting the pegs in and out of the holes. Kathleen also enjoys trying to put the nuts and bolts together.

Kathleen got a set of plastic food, some shopping baskets and a toy cash register. She loves to play shop with it. Victoria loves to chew on the food and the toy money.

Christmas Day was lovely and incident free. Both girls behaved themselves well and waited their turn before opening presents. There was a little bit of “don’t touch that, it’s mine”, but that soon disappeared when the next present was opened. Victoria was actually pretty disinterested in opening any presents, and was much more interested in eating pretzels and playing with whatever Kat had at the time.

The weather was perfect, and we went for a walk around our property (getting depressed at how long the grass is) and met our neighbours for the first time.

So now Christmas is over and it’s time to start planning for next year. Except that I’ll learn my lesson and not hide things away for so long. Now we get to look forward to Kathleen’s birthday in a months time.



-Megz

Moving House

We have now moved into our new house. We’ve been here for almost three weeks. Moving house is always a stressful time, but overall it went pretty well. We arranged for the moving company to do all the boxing and packing for us, which took a lot of the stress out of everything.

They arrived on the Tuesday afternoon and spent Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday boxing stuff up and loading it into the truck. There was a LOT of stuff and they ended up needing a second truck, which hadn’t been budgeted for.
On the Tuesday and Thursday I arranged for a nanny to come and take the girls away, keeping them out of the way. They had fun playing at the playground and at Te Papa. On the Wednesday I took the girls to playgroup in the morning and Playcentre in the afternoon. Both girls have really enjoyed their short time at Playcentre and it was sad for it to be our last session (and sad for me too as I also went to that Playcentre as a child).

Thursday night the girls and I stayed in a local motel in Wellington as we had no beds to sleep on. Friday the nanny took the girls again for the morning while I cleaned the house and packed up the things that had been left behind. Meanwhile, Peter was at the new house in Levin receiving all our stuff. He said it took all morning to unload the trucks and he was then up half the night unpacking boxes and putting things away.

It would have been good for me to drive straight up to Levin and join Peter. However we had a wedding to go to in Wellington on the Saturday, and a booking at Wellington Zoo on Sunday (we got to pet the cheetahs :-) ). So we stayed on at the motel for another couple of nights. My first night at the new house was Sunday 7 December.

It’s certainly been a bit of an adjustment moving to the country. Little things that I take for granted in the city, like rubbish collection, clear telephone lines and fast internet. But on the other hand I can just look out the window any time I like and just see green everywhere. It is so peaceful and relaxing.

Levin township is only a five minute drive away, and we seem to go there every other day at the moment. Palmerston North is a half hour drive away. Peter of course drives there every day for work. The girls and I have probably been there once a week so far. Levin has just about everything we need really. And it’s no different from being in a city suburb. In fact it has more than Island Bay does, having McDonalds, KFC, Subway, etc, etc (I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not).

But I do miss being able to walk anywhere from home. Our driveway is half a kilometre long. There’s only one place I can walk to from there, Clydesdales Museum/Cafe. I went there once with the stroller. It was impossible pushing it across the gravel. I won’t be doing that again. I had been concerned about not getting as much exercise living in the country, as in the city I would walk everywhere. However just walking around our house is giving me PLENTY of exercise.

Life has been pretty busy, unpacking and finding homes for things, but mostly keeping the girls happy and out of trouble. There are so many things I want to do and it is so frustrating because as soon as I try and start something, Kathleen whines that she wants me to play with her, or she wants something to eat, or to go toilet, or Victoria starts crying, or needs a nappy change, or starts eating something she shouldn’t. I’ve attempted to get out into the garden a couple of times, only to have to keep stopping to pull stones out of Victoria’s mouth.

I’ve started a new blog all about living in the country. It is at farmnovice.blogspot.com . While I’ll still keep this blog up to date with family news, the other blog is specifically about living on the farm.

-Megz


PS: Coincidence or what ... seems I must like moving house at the end of the year with an almost 1 year old baby. This time around we started preparations for the move a little earlier, but the end result was still moving house in December.

Comparing moving from Auckland to Wellington in 2006, with moving from Wellington to Levin in 2008 ...

	2006	Kat Age	2008	Vicky Age
Declutter House	18 Oct	8 mths	15 July	7 mths
Peter starts new job	29 Oct	9 mths	21 July	8 mths
List House for Sale	29 Oct	9 mths	15 Sept	9 mths
Conditional Offer	28 Nov	10 mths	2 Oct	10 mths
Move Out	1 Dec	10 mths	4 Dec	12 mths
Move In	14 Dec	10 mths	7 Dec	12 mths

One Year Old

Victoria is now one year old. She is certainly growing up quickly now. It's quite interesting how different she is from Kathleen at the same age. Some of that is her own personality, and some of it is the different things she is exposed to by having an older sister. For example she already knows how to use a paintbrush and paint on an easel. I was quite surprised the first time at Playcentre she crawled over to the easel and picked up the brush, but she has obviously been busy watching everyone and everything for months.

I know it's far too early to tell, but I would say that Victoria is a hands-on learner (like me), whereas Kathleen learns by listening and seeing (so should do well at school). For example - with the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Victoria loves to stick her fingers through the holes but doesn't care much for the story, whereas Kathleen would sit and listen to the story and not even touch the holes in the pages (her favourite bit was the beautiful butterfly).

Victoria is now fast developing into a little girl as opposed to a baby. She certainly has the makings of being every bit as stroppy as her big sister and already knows how to throw a tantrum when she doesn't get what she wants. Hopefully she will learn sharing and turn taking at an early age too.

For the most part Victoria is happy and content to play by herself, discovering the world around her. She is obsessed with putting everything she finds into her mouth. She would prefer to eat off the floor than off her plate.

I think Victoria will be a dentist when she grows up. She is obsessed with mouths. With putting everything in her own mouth, as mentioned. But also with other people's mouths. She'll reach out to grab your mouth (rather than eyes or nose). If you open your mouth wide and go "ahhh" she'll giggle. Then the more you giggle back at her, the more she will laugh. If I put a toy in my mouth she will laugh, then try to pull it out and put it back again.

She is also currently obsessed with climbing. I think her favourite birthday present was a little plastic chair (like Kathleen's) because she just loves to climb on it. And once she's on the chair she can then climb onto tables too. :-S

Victoria's birthday was on Monday 17 November. We had a party for her the Saturday before. It was a lovely little party with a couple of other 1 year olds. Victoria enjoyed cruising round the coffee table eating a little bit of everything that was there, especially the chippies. By the time it came to the cake I think she was full because she didn't eat much.

On Victoria's actual birthday we had a Plunket appointment at 3pm (she was born at 3.11pm). On the way out of the house (at about 2.50pm) we stopped at the place she was born and ate a bit of leftover birthday cake, then went on our way. Sitting down there on the grass really brought back strong memories of her birth.

It is amazing how far we've come in the last year. Victoria took a long time to start sleeping through the night (not till 9 or 10 months) and a lot of this past year has gone by in a blur of over-tiredness for me. There were times I definitely did not cope too well. But all that is over now, and we have the exciting times ahead of learning to walk and to talk.

A week after her birthday, Victoria spontaneously started to stand up on her own, unsupported. It came as a real surprise as she hadn't shown any sign of having the balance to stand by herself. Now I hope that she will walk for me at Christmas. Last year her Christmas present to me was smiling for the first time. This year I hope it is walking.

-Meg

PS: Despite the date on this post, it was written a while back but unable to be uploaded due to moving house.

Re-write

Just a note to say that I've re-written the previous blog entry. So if you've already read it, you should re-read it because it is completely different. When I came to write it the first time I completely forgot what it was I wanted to say. All I could remember was the Title I wanted to use.

Also, hopefully I will have some photos to illustrate it soon too.

Cheers,
Megz

Sicky Vicky

In her first (almost) year of life Victoria has had quite a number of "health" issues. Not health problems like some poor sick children face. Just lots of little things going on.

She caught her first cold when she was just a week old. It lasted for a couple of weeks. Nothing too bad but her breathing was very stuffed up whenever she was lying down.

When she was very little we had lots of trouble keeping her neck folds clean and dry. The skin would get very red and irritated. Neither ointment or baby powder did much to clear it up. Eventually we found the nappy rash powder worked. But getting it into her neck folds was extremely difficult as she would tense up and cry. As she got older and spent more time sitting up it went away on its own.

But no sooner had the yucky neck folds cleared up, then she got dribble rash all over her upper chest and neck from contantly dribbling while teething (see photo).

She got her first tooth at 4 months (in April), and it was pretty much one or two new teeth a month until August.

She has had a bad nappy rash on and off for the last six months. We have tried everything to relieve it with no success. It's more on the sides of her legs than anywhere else. I eventually took her to the doctor, who said it was a fungal infection and gave her a steriod cream. We've been using that on and off ever since.

She had one cold every month for the last six months.

In July Victoria got her first ear infection. Kathleen never had ear infections so it came as a bit of a surprise. She had a perforated ear drum so I took her to the doctor again, who prescribed antibiotics.

In September Victoria got her second ear infection with perforated ear drum, and was again put onto antibiotics.

Two weeks later we all went to a party, where Peter and I later came down with gastro-enteritis. Victoria also threw up a couple of times so I suspect she had a touch of it as well.

Ten days later she broke out in chicken pox. She actually seems to have gotten off pretty lightly, with half a dozen spots on her front and the same on her back. The most annoying ones were scattered around her nappy area but were only small. The infectious period with chicken pox lasts until the last spot crusts over so she was probably infectious for about 10 days. She still has the spots but they are all healing now.

What was worse than the chicken pox was the cold she caught a few days later. Poor little thing was all stuffed up and couldn't breathe well for days.

Then a few days ago her first molar tooth came through. The one on the other side isn't far away either.


Victoria really has had one thing after another this year. She is well now, but I do wonder what's around the corner...

-Megz

PS: It's confirmed, Kathleen is now covered in chicken pox spots too.

SOLD

Our house has been sold. After less than three weeks on the market.

With a worsening economy we were resigned to taking whatever offer we could get, knowing that everyone who would be interested had already had a look, and no new buyers were going to come along any time soon. However we were pleasantly surprised to get an offer fairly close to the registered valuation. We had only two open homes in the end. The first one attracted 33 groups. Which confirmed my suspicions that there is a big pool of people wanting to buy in Island Bay, who swoop down on every newly listed house. Most of them said that there was too much work to do on this house, which I fully understand. Having done most of the prep work already for renovating and/or redecorating, I know there is a lot involved. And most people haven't got the time. But this house was just perfect for a couple of people out there.

So, in December this house will pass out of my family's ownership for the first time in 38 years. Which will be more than a little sad. But for now I'm focussing on the future. The new owners have a lot to live up to, as the person who owned it before us had it for 44 years! And before that it was just bare land.

So now we've got about a month grace before everything turns hectic ... Victoria's birthday, Peter & my anniversary, Moving house, Peter's birthday, Christmas, New Year, Kathleen's birthday. But I love that time of year. I love all the activity. And the summer sun. And relaxing in the sun when all the activity is over. We'll just be doing it somewhere different this year.

Cheers,
Megz

Under Offer

The tender for the house closed on Thursday afternoon. We received multiple offers, and have accepted one of them. Subject to a couple of conditions, but it should be all confirmed by Thursday or Friday this week.

It all worked out so well. We got a price we were happy with, sold to people we liked, and the time frame matches up with the purchase of our new property. So all being equal we will be moving house in December.

And in other news...

It is currently school holidays, so the girls and I are enjoying a break from our regular activities. Last week we went to Te Papa, but unfortunately most of our time off so far has been marred by illness. Last weekend Peter and I both came down with a bad case of food poisoning. Kathleen seemed to escape but Victoria was a bit poorly as well. Then no soon had we gotten over that, than Kathleen came down with coughing and sneezing and itchy spots on her legs. I knew she had been exposed to someone with chicken pox a couple of weeks ago, so took her to the doctor. Luckily he said the spots were insect bites and the coughing and sneezing was just a regular cold virus. So thankfully no chicken pox. But still one very sick little girl. We have spent a lot of time in front of the TV these school holidays. Then over the weekend Victoria came down with something as well, waking up with a fever one night. She has already had a couple of ear infections in the last few months, and I suspect she had another one. Making her very grizzly and sleepy (but is also back to waking up during the night again, grrr). And now Peter seems to have come down with something else as well too. So it has really been a house of illness over the last week and a bit.

Next term Kathleen will start going to Playcentre two days a week. Victoria and I will still attend one day a week, but Kat will go on her own on a Monday. However her creche has closed down due to staff leaving. So the net effect is that she still only has one day at preschool by herself a week.

Victoria is quite proficient at crawling now, and pulls herself up to stand on everything. She cruises the furniture with ease but isn't yet showing signs of standing on her own or walking. She's now 10 months old which is one of my favourite ages. She is learning so much. She can respond if you ask her to clap or bounce or wave. I've also started teaching her a couple of baby signs, and she has so far learned the sign for "more" pretty well.

I've been slowly going through our photos from the last few months, and hope to have them uploaded to Flickr soon. Keep an eye out.

Cheers,
Megz

For Sale

Well our house has finally been listed for sale. Actually it's been on the market for 2 1/2 weeks now. The listing can be viewed at Open2view.



It's not really the best time to be selling a house, given the market conditions. Peter wanted to sell as soon as we bought the farm in Levin. I wanted to wait for spring, and to wait for the painter to come and paint the exterior of the house to create a good impression for buyers. The painter has had lots of delays. We are still waiting for him to say when he can start the job.

We are selling it by Tender, not necessarily a process I like but it's the way it's done around here. The tenders close this afternoon, so by tonight we should know if we have a buyer or not.

Over the last few months I have done a lot of work to get the house up to a reasonable standard for selling. We have put a lot of our stuff into storage so that the house appears to be large and roomy, instead of cramped and cluttered. We've put up new curtains. We've rearranged the rooms to take advantage of the roominess. The front room has again been turned into the living room. The family room has become a dining room again. Victoria is still in the small room/office off the kitchen. Kathleen is back in her original room again, and we are in the master bedroom.








I have attempted to tidy up the garden, although with two little ones, a busy schedule, and lots of wet/windy/cold days, I haven't done as much as I should have. I have laid limestone chips along the front pathway to tart it up, and it makes a huge difference.



But the biggest improvement has been in the bathroom. A room which had peeling paint and mould, would fill up with steam every time you had a shower or bath, and was the most unappealing room in the house. A couple of coats of paint, new vinyl floor tiles, a shower door and a ShowerDome to keep the steam inside the shower, have all combined to make it one of the nicer rooms now.

Here are some before and after photos...

BEFORE	AFTER

The Shower Dome & Door Frame

I probably still need to paint the skirting board, but this is as far as I have managed to get so far.

So, keep an eye out for another post in a few days (if I get time LOL) with an update.

Cheers,
Megz

Long Overdue

This update is long overdue. The months of June and July were fairly busy around here with lots of visitors from all sides of the family. It's calmed down a little since then but we still haven't managed to find the time to sit down and sort through all the photos yet. I like to have all my photos uploaded to Flickr before I blog, so that I can add lots of pics to my posts. But we have two months worth of photos from four different cameras to sort through, duplicates to delete, blurry photos to delete, and photos to be named and uploaded. So I'm blogging without photos for now.

Lots has been going on around here ... where to start.

Peter's mum and family all came to visit at the beginning of June. That seems so long ago now. We all enjoyed seeing them and having them here ... among other things they provided some babysitting for us, and Patrick laid new tiles down in the bathroom and kitchen for us. While I'm sure they didn't fly halfway around the world to do DIY work, we sure appreciated it. And admit it, you love doing that stuff really ;-)

Peter's sister Gayle arrived at the beginning of July, staying for five weeks. We all flew up to Auckland to meet her there, and also to catch up with old friends there. We picked up a rental car/van and drove down to Wellington over the next five days, stopping at Rotorua, Napier and Palmerston North.

Took Gayle to see Auckland Museum, Kelly Tarltons, the Agrodome, Rainbow Springs, Hells Gate, Tamaki Maori Village, Napier Museum, Tui Brewery, and the Tararua Windfarm.

Then we had a week or two at home in Wellington, which was actually pretty busy spent packing up stuff in boxes so that it could be taken away into storage until we move house (trying to declutter the house to make it more attractive for sale). More on that later.

Then Gayle, the girls and I did a trip around the top of the South Island (Peter was working). We caught the InterIslander ferry to Picton, and stayed in Nelson, Greymouth, Christchurch and Blenheim. We saw the Pancake Rocks on the West Coast, drove through the snow in Arthurs Pass, took the tram around Christchurch, and visited a winery in Blenheim.

We finished her visit off with a week at home, seeing things around Wellington, like Te Papa, Parliament, the Cable Car, and the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary.

It was really lovely having Gayle here. So nice to have the company, and within a couple of days it felt like she belonged here. We all miss you Aunty Gayle. I'll admit it was great to have an extra pair of hands around here ... but also the funny things you brought into our lives, "that's what she said", and your teenage dramas :-) Don't take that the wrong way, BTW.

Since then I won't say that life has returned to some normalcy, because it hasn't.

PETER
Peter has started work at Massey University. Which means that he is away working in Palmerston North all or part of each week. He'll drive up (2 hours) early in the morning one day, and come home after work three days later. Or as was the case this week, five days later. The girls and I miss him very much.

HOUSE
Our house is not for sale yet, but will be soon. We've been waiting for spring - to be able to paint the outside first, to market it when the flowers are blooming, and to catch the spring house-buyers as nothing really happens over winter. But in about 3-4 weeks it goes on the market, ready or not. I'm not particularly looking forward to it. There is SO MUCH to do first, and SO LITTLE time.

VICTORIA
The biggest change on the children front is that Victoria has started crawling. She actually took her first crawling steps while we were away on holiday in Greymouth. And by the next night she was trying to climb the stairs. No kidding. She is now getting good at it and will sometimes follow me around the house (and at other times just cry until I come back). She is constantly pulling herself up to stand on furniture and everything that's even slightly above floor level. I'm sure she'd be cruising the furniture if there was furniture to cruise on, but we spend most of our time in the dining room as it has the warmest heater, so the only furniture is individual chairs.

Victoria has slept through the night for the last week, which is a record. Before now she has only slept through the night maybe once a fortnight, occasionally two nights in a row. Which is wonderful because being away on holiday unsettled her so much that she went back to waking 2-3 times a night and I just couldn't handle it.

What has coincided with her sleeping through is that she has finally begun eating solids. She hasn't shown any interest in the food I've been giving her, having one or two teaspoons then closing her mouth and refusing any more. She ate better on holiday, eating tinned food. So I finally gave in and bought tinned food, and she loves it. So much for mum's puree's that are still filling up the freezer. She's also started sharing my meals at dinner time.

Victoria also now has eight teeth.

KATHLEEN
Further to previous posts, I would say that Kathleen is offially potty trained. We have had the odd accident but since I last wrote on the subject she has worn knickers every day, no more nappies. (Apart from when we were travelling we got her Pull Ups for just in case). She usually tells me when she needs to go, although sometimes it's a little too late.

We have started going to Playcentre one afternoon a week. All three of us go along and I work as part of the team. Next term Kathleen may get a drop off session one other day a week. Kathleen enjoys it at Playcentre, and all the different things they have to experience. It's good for her to be able to mix with older children, and sometimes she comes home and wants to play the same games the older girls were playing. Although her favourite activities are still the dolls house and the puzzles. Victoria enjoys it too, although sometimes it conflicts with her nap which is difficult.

ME
Overall I think things are looking a lot better. Getting full nights of sleep definitely helps a lot. However now that Victoria is crawling, the fighting has begun. Kathleen is having trouble sometimes with Victoria wanting to play with her and her toys. I've started applying the same rules to Victoria that we apply to Kathleen - "No Victoria, it's Kathleen's turn with it now, you will have to wait till she's finished, how about this other toy instead". Victoria doesn't notice what's happening, but hopefully Kathleen feels vindicated that she's not the only one who has to share. The other day Kathleen left her juice on the floor and Victoria spilled it everywhere. A meltdown ensued because "IT WAS MINE". All I could think was "how many more times am I going to hear this argument over the next 18 years"!!! LOL.

-Megz

Buying the Farm

I have big news to tell ... Peter and I have bought a 'lifestyle property' just outside of Levin and we will be moving there by the end of the year. Not only that, but Peter has got a new job at Massey University in Palmerston North and will be starting work there next month.

We have been talking for a long time about buying some land and trying to live as sustainably and self-sufficiently as possible. We started talking about this before these concepts hit the mainstream media. I think it was probably 2004 or 2005 when Peter first introduced me to the concept of peak oil via the documentary The End of Suburbia. Since then it's been in the back of our mind the need to start looking after ourselves because the cost of petrol, groceries and living is just going to continue to rise. However, with Kathleen coming along and us wanting to move to Wellington to be nearer to family, this idea was put on the backburner. We started talking about it again about a year ago, but with Victoria now on the way I said I wanted to wait until she turned one before moving (having only just moved with Kathleen then 10 months old and knowing I didn't want to be raising a new baby out in the 'wop wops' with no support nearby).

However. About two months ago I happened to be browsing on TradeMe and happened to see a place I really liked. So I flicked it on to Peter and we went to look at it the next weekend. We really fell in love with the place. We went back to look again and then put in an offer. The offer went unconditional last week. The vendor is selling because they're moving to Australia, however they're not moving till the end of the year. So we arranged a settlement date of mid-December - this we thought would give us plenty of time to sell our current house in Island Bay, and for Peter to find a job. I didn't really expect him to get the very first job he applied for, but he has.

The place we've bought is on 11 acres of land which is approximately 4 or 5 paddocks, one of which is entirely planted out in lavender and which provides a supplemental income. The house is approximately 400 square metres (4300 square foot?). It has 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms and 3 living areas. There will be HEAPS of room for our family to expand (not in the way of more children, but in the way of more stuff). We are already finding our current house way too small and as the girls get older and accumulate more stuff (as little girls tend to do), it's only going to get more and more cluttered.

The house was built in the 1930's and moved to its present site approx 15 years ago. At that time it had a basement/games room and garage added underneath and a self contained unit added upstairs. We just fell in love with the house. It's got old style charm. Sure it needs some work done to it and some maintenance brought up to standard. But it feels like a HOME rather than just a house.

The land is pretty much exactly what we were looking for. It's the size we wanted. It's not flat, but it's not steep either. The house is situated on the highest point of the land, therefore not a flooding risk. There is a creek at the back of the property. There are trees for shelter and trees for firewood. There are established fruit trees. There is a large lawn for the girls to run around on. There is ample space for a vege garden.

It is only a five minute drive to the centre of Levin and the main highway & railway. There is a school bus that stops outside to take the girls to school. And just a couple of properties down the road is a cafe/restaurant.

Peter's new job involves Network Security (sorry don't know the job title) at Massey University. He'll be starting there on July 22nd. They've been very flexible about his start date and hours of work, which is great. He'll have to spend the first couple of weeks there while he learns the ropes, but after that they've said he can work from Wellington a couple of days a week, and Palmerston North 3 days a week. So he will be home as much as possible until we sell the house and all move there permanently. During this time Peter will be staying with our wonderful friends Lou and Caliope in Palmerston North.

About the only downside to all this is that our new property is actually a half hour drive away from Palmerston North. So Peter will be facing a half hour commute each way. And with rising petrol prices, that's almost defeating the purpose of why we wanted to move to the country. However, where he is working at the moment he currently has either a half hour drive or one hour bus/train commute each way, so it will be no worse and possibly better than we have now. There is a bus from Levin to Palmy, but it would see him away from home from 6.30am till 6.30pm, so is not ideal.

So the next step for us is to spruce up our current house and list it for sale. I don't really want to but it's the only way. It's really, really hard to have to sell the house I grew up in. Our plans for renovating the house have been put aside. It was a bit of a shame because I had put a lot of effort into choosing the right benchtops, cabinets and vinyl floor for the kitchen, and the carpets and curtains for the rest of the house. It was a fun project, although sometimes difficult to be dragging the girls from store to store all the time.

Do you believe in fate? I think I do. Twice now we have come to the point of signing on the dotted line to begin renovating the house, and twice now we have pulled out at the last minute. The first time we were ready to go then they came back and said it would cost twice our budget and be finished the day before Victoria was due. The second time we'd drawn up all the plans for the kitchen and were just about ready to go when I found the farm online and we stopped to rethink. I think it must be fate saying that we're not meant to mess with it. We are currently in the process of doing a few little things to tart it up, but nothing major. I'll blog that in a separate post.

So now Peter is in his last couple of weeks working at IBM. At the beginning of July his sister Gayle arrives from the States and he'll take a couple of weeks off to spend with her (and show her some of the country). Then on 22nd July he starts work in Palmerston North and will be gone for three days a week. And that will go on until we sell this house. However long that will take. Hopefully not too long.

Ironically we did the same thing when we moved from Auckland to Wellington. Peter went on ahead and I stayed behind with Kathleen to sell the house. Kathleen was at that time 9-10 months old. And this time it'll be me with Kathleen and Victoria. And Victoria will be 8 months old.

But it is an exciting time. Much as I'm sad to be leaving Island Bay and my childhood home, I'm excited about the new life and the new challenges we are going to have.

-Megz

PS: Full credit for all the photos goes to Les Tilbury from LJ Hooker Levin

Visitors

Over the next couple of months we will be busy with two sets of visitors arriving from the United States (co-inciding with the summer holidays over there).

Peter's mum and Mardie arrived safely this morning, with Poppa and Richard due to arrive in a few days time. They'll be here for two weeks.

Then 10 days after they leave, Peter's sister Gayle arrives for her first visit to New Zealand. She'll be here for a month so there will be lots of time to show her the country.

We are really looking forward to all our guests, and Kathleen is very excited to see everyone again. The moment Mimi and Mardie walked in the door this morning it was like they'd never left.

-Megz

Potty Training Part II

I think I may have made a big mistake with Kathleen's potty training. She's been refusing to use the potty and I have slipped into the habit of asking her if she wanted to wear nappies or knickers each morning, rather than get into a fight about using the potty and scaring her off it. Lately she chooses nappies every time. On the few occasions recently when she has worn knickers, I think she has forgotten she's not wearing nappies and has had accidents. All this has not been helped by a suspected urine infection last week.

So I'm wondering if she's still not ready and I should just give up and go back to nappies full time, or if I should persevere and stop offering the nappy option. Obviously using both is not working.

The other complicating factor is that Kathleen is wearing cloth nappies designed for 7-14kgs. She's only about 13kg and they fit her fine. But Victoria is nearing, if not already at, 7kg and needs to be wearing the large size now too. It's great that Victoria has been able to reuse all of Kathleen's old cloth nappies, but not so easy now that they're in the same size range. Especially given how many Vicky is going through each day. I am so sick of doing laundry!!!

-Megz

MAMA

Victoria said her first word today, or her first syllables of any kind really.

Wanna know what she said? MAMA. Or "muhmuhmuhmuh" to be precise.

And once she started, she just kept going. Probably because she got such a big reaction from me. She spent the evening tonight grinning and talking.

Uh oh. If she's anything like her big sister, now that she's started talking SHE WON'T STOP. Arrgh, my dreams of a quiet life are now well and truely shattered.

Cheers,
Megz

PS: Victoria has been blogging too

Starting Solids

Victoria turned six months old last Saturday. Hard to believe it's been six months already. She has grown up so much since then, and especially in the last month or so. She now sits up all on her own, and is so interactive with the rest of the family. She'll happily sit on her own and play with toys, but she also cries whenever I leave the room. She loves her big sister Kathleen so much. Her face lights up whenever anyone talks to her. She knows her own name and responds by turning around when you call her.

But with her growing up so quickly, I have been strangely slow to respond. Maybe I subconsciously want my baby to stay a baby for longer. While most if not all of the other babies in her coffee group have long since started solids, I waited until Victoria was almost six months old before she had her first meal. Partly it was because we've been so busy the last month or so that we didn't have time at the weekends for a big elaborate first meal. And as Peter missed out on Kathleen's first meal, I wanted him to be there for Victoria's.

So she had her first meal, of baby rice, on Saturday the 10th. And after all the buildup, she wasn't overly fussed about it. She just wanted to play with the spoon and chew on it. Didn't much care for what was actually on the spoon. Most of it ended up on her face!!!

Since then she has also tried apples and bananas. Didn't care much for the apples either, but quite likes bananas.

Although it took me a long time to get around to starting her on solid food, I have actually been preparing for it for quite a while. Every time we've have had vegetables for dinner lately, I have done up a huge batch and frozen part of it for Victoria to eat in time. Our freezer is now chock full of carrots and broccoli and parsnip and potatoes and kumara and pumpkin, and soon to also have the pureed leftovers from last night's beef casserole. Lots of good, hearty vegetables for the winter months. I hate the cold weather, but I do love the comfort food you get in winter.

One thing Victoria's still lagging behind in, is sleeping through the night. I am getting very tired of getting up in the middle of the night. However I've been rather lucky the last couple of nights she has slept through. Don't expect it will continue, but it's sure been nice to wake up feeling refreshed in the morning.

Cheers,
Megz

Potty Training

During the school holidays recently I decided to take the plunge and start potty training Kathleen. I figured we'd be home a lot during that time with no creche or playgroup to go to, and she could run around with just knickers on and the potty would always be right at hand if needed.

She was already half trained anyway. For about six months now she's been regularly using the potty, but still wearing nappies. I'd ask her during the day if she wanted to go potty, and if she said yes then we would, and if she said no then I wouldn't push her. This was working well enough and we could get through some days being completely dry.

However she also didn't have a problem with going in her nappy either and wouldn't tell me. I wasn't quite sure how to go about this whole potty training thing and kinda hoped that she would figure it out for herself.

But I realised that wearing nappies gave her no motivation to do so. So we took the plunge and bought her some knickers in order to force her to learn to use the potty every time.

The first week went really well. It was also the same routine we were used to, i.e. Kathleen would go potty when I reminded her, but never of her own volition. Week 2 we started having a few accidents. I hoped that would give her the motivation to learn to control herself, but when I asked her how it felt to have an accident in her pants she just said "good". Not the answer I really wanted to hear.

Week 3 we started having issues. Kathleen has started to dig her heels in and refuse to do anything we ask. Not just potty training but anything really - "sit down and eat your dinner" "no", "time for a bath" "no", "do you want to go potty" "no".

It came to a head last Thursday morning with her and I screaming at each other. She had a dry overnight nappy and I asked her to go potty before we got dressed for creche. She refused. I tried to make her, as I thought she was just testing the limits. She just screamed and screamed. I lost my temper as well. In the end I gave in, telling her that she'd have to wear a nappy if she wouldn't go potty. She was quite happy with this idea. So she wore a nappy and then proceeded to be uncomfortable all morning.

But has this changed anything? No. She still refuses to go potty quite often. I really don't know why. Is it too cold? Is she afraid of something? Does she not like being told what to do?

Any experienced mothers out there want to give me some thoughts?

Things have been a bit better this week, we haven't gotten into any more big fights anyway. If she refuses to go potty in the mornings now I just give her the choice of nappy or knickers. It's been 50/50 which one she chooses. I know the experts say that once you make the change you shouldn't go back, but I don't want to turn this whole thing into a battle and have it backfire altogether.

However on the brighter side, this week there have been several times when Kathleen has announced that she needs to go potty, and we have rushed off there immediately.

Hopefully we are making progress, but I guess this is going to be a long road.


-Megz

Back Online

Computer problems over ... time to sort photos found ... photos uploaded to Flickr today.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/repete/





-Megz

Big Girls

Just a quick update post, and no photos as we're still having computer problems. :-(

My girls are both growing up so quickly...

Victoria:

• now has two bottom teeth
• and can sit up on her own, unassisted.

Kathleen:

• now sleeps in a big-girl bed with no sides
• and is wearing knickers instead of nappies. More about that in another post.

We are doing well and keeping busy. Plans for renovating our house are coming together. Have been dealing with Kitchen Studio on a new kitchen, and have gotten leads into builders and plumbers through them. If things go to plan with them, we'll have a new kitchen within a couple of months. And the rest of the house should follow thereafter. Biggest challenge has been finding a colour scheme we liked.

Have also been semi house-hunting for rural property in Horowhenua/ Manawatu. We've been talking about getting a lifestyle block for a while now, and just happened to stumble across one we really liked on the internet. Went up last weekend to check it out in person, and we like it even more in person.

No decisions yet on what we will actually do, but watch this space.

Cheers,
Megz

Names

I normally call Kathleen and Victoria by their full names when I'm talking to them. I figure that when they're older they can choose their own nicknames without us deciding on it for them. If Kathleen wants to be Kat or Katie or Kathy then that's her choice. Ditto if Victoria wants to be Vicky, Tori/Tora or whatever.

However when I'm writing/blogging it's a different story. I'll often type Kat or Vicky as it's only three or five characters respectively as opposed to eight. Much faster and easier. So most people who read my blog will probably think of them as Kat and Vicky, but in reality they are always Kathleen and Victoria.

The exception was when Kathleen was first learning to talk and she called herself Kiki. Then we called her Kiki all the time, as in "what does Kiki want for lunch", "it's time for Kiki to have a nap", etc. But when Kathleen learned to say "Kathleen" correctly she asked us to stop calling her Kiki ... we said "Kiki" and she corrected us and said "no, I'm Kassleeen" so we asked if she wanted us to call her Kathleen from now on and she said "yes". So she has not been Kiki for two or three months now.

Also when Kathleen was learning to talk she said "W'tora" instead of "Victoria". Now she says "Wittoria". However we picked up on it and began calling Victoria "Wee Tora". We still call her that every now and then but I'm sure it will stop as she gets older and is not so wee any more.

Having said all that though, I do often call Kathleen "Angel" and Victoria "Little One". I also call them both "darling" and "sweetheart" interchangably - it solves the problem of getting mixed up and using the wrong name, just call them both "sweetheart"!

-Megz

PS: No photos in this post as we're having temporary computer problems. Will add some later.

My Birthday

My birthday was on Saturday. However this year I had three birthdays.

The first was the previous weekend. It was around 2 o'clock on Sunday afternoon and Peter, Kathleen and I were finishing off our lunch. Victoria was asleep in bed, and I was starting to think about putting Kathleen down for a nap too. When all of a sudden we heard the back door open. No, not a knock at the back door, but somebody actually opening it and walking right in. I jumped up to see who it was, and found all my friends from Palmerston North. And they had brought the party with them, snacks, cake and all. I was SO surprised and was not expecting it at all. It turns out two of them had to be in Wellington anyway that weekend, so the third came down as well to surprise me. Well it worked! Thank you so much guys :-)

It was during this this surprise party that I mentioned that Peter would be playing paintball on my actual birthday, and so it would be a pretty quiet weekend for me. That's when Lou suggested I come up to Palmy and spend the weekend there. So I did.

On Good Friday afternoon, Kathleen, Victoria and I drove the two hours up to Palmerston North. Haven't been there in about 6 months and Kat has changed a lot since then. It used to be guaranteed that she would sleep for the whole trip but now that she is bigger she stayed awake the whole time. Thankfully she was content to talk to herself and me the whole time, and play with toys, and it was a pleasant journey. Victoria slept the whole way.

Friday evening all the friends came around again for a barbeque. Then on Saturday, my actual birthday, Lou, Caliope, Kathleen, Victoria and I went to The Esplanade where Kathleen fed the ducks and played at the playground. While Victoria slept in the snugly. It was a fantastic afternoon out. Sunday morning we had fun hunting for Easter eggs then in the afternoon we drove back home again, and it was a pretty similar story to the drive up.

On Easter Monday (a public holiday in NZ), Peter and I pretended it was my birthday again, and also that it was Easter Sunday. I hid marshmellow eggs all around the house for Kathleen to find, which she really enjoyed. Peter made breakfast and gave me my birthday present - a voucher for a massage and spa treatment at Is Bliss. I am really looking forward to it. Not sure when I'll go, but it will be one weekend soon I hope.

So there were my three birthdays. And all were lots of fun.

It's funny, but the last few years my birthday's have just felt like another day, rather than something special. That's probably because of one of three reasons:

• Four of the last five birthdays have been spent away from home: 2004 in Los Angeles, 2006 in Wellington & Palmy when we still lived in Auckland, 2007 in Washington State, and now 2008 in Palmy again.
• Since having kids I can't take the day off "work" like I used to do. It may be my birthday but I still have to get up at 2am to feed the baby.
• Since turning 30 I haven't really wanted to have birthdays anyway. It won't be long before I'm at the age when I dread birthdays rather than just don't want them.

In other news, we are all doing well. Victoria is growing stronger and stronger. I don't think it will be long until she is sitting up by herself. She still doesn't have any teeth, but dribbles and drools constantly. She is now very interested in everything that goes on around her. Kathleen is still loving creche. Peter is back working in Petone after a couple of weeks in town, and is back to the 1 hour + commute instead of 30 minutes. He is still looking for another job in town. Had an interview last week and is still waiting to hear back from them.

-Megz

The logic of a two year old

Kathleen wakes up in the morning and I go in to get her out of her cot. The following is a typical conversation ...

Kat: "I want to watch tella-wision"

Mummy: "We don't have time to watch anything. First we're going to have breakfast. Then we're going to get dressed. And then we're going to ..." (insert day's activity here)

Kat: "I watch sump-a-nee" (something)

Mummy: "You can watch something while you have lunch, but right now we're going to have breakfast. What would you like for breakfast?"

Kat: "I don't want breakfast, I want lunch!"

LOL