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.