Megz' Musings

School Report

2011-07-15T13:31:00.002+12:00

We had a parent-teacher meeting at Kathleen's school last week (only these days they're called "Learning Conferences"). I was so pleased with her progress I just had to share:

READING

Kathleen reads fluently at Level 11.
She has a very good understanding of story meaning and structure.
She consistently uses known strategies to solve unknown words.
Kathleen is self monitoring her attempts and makes corrections.

Next steps:

To continue reading for enjoyment and gain reading mileage.

WRITING

Kathleen has a writing vocab of many words, both basic and interest.
She can articulate unknown words slowly and accurately record the sounds she hears.
Kathleen uses a capital letter and full stop when writing a sentence.
She leaves spaces between words.

Next steps:

To write additional sentences giving more detail.

MATHS

Kathleen can recognise and write numbers to 100.
She confidently uses imaging to solve problems.
Kathleen can add groups together to 10 and record this number sentence.
She is able to recognise and name basic shapes.

Next steps:

Continue with adding using numbers to 20.
Skip counting by 2, 5 and 10

I was especially pleased with the comment about Kathleen's reading. Basically I think she has gone as far as she can go in that class now, and the teacher is just giving her books to read for enjoyment rather than learning.

And on the subject of Kathleen's reading, she has read to herself, ALL BY HERSELF, three of the Rainbow Fairy books now, and has started the next one. The other night she was reading to herself at bedtime and we forgot to go check on her after 10 minutes. So she just kept reading, and reading, and reading, until she finished the book. That's my girl! Unfortunately that meant it was nearly 10pm by the time she went to sleep. But I love that she loves reading.

-Meg

Time Flies

2011-06-02T21:19:00.008+12:00

Well, doesn't time fly. I can't believe it's the beginning of June and the last time I posted anything was February. [EDIT: I can't believe it's the beginning of July and I started writing this a month ago]

All our puppies left home, and now we have had two kittens join our family. One day in late April, I sent Peter and Victoria to the supermarket to get the groceries. A couple of hours later they came back with several bags. I opened one up to find two little faces staring back at me! It seems Victoria asked if they could go to the pet store, and Peter just couldn't resist once he got there. They are two little girl kittens, one tortoiseshell, one tabby. Kathleen immediately named the tabby Tiger. I suggested Lily for the other one. For the first couple of weeks Tiger wasn't growing at all so we took her to the vet and now she is happy and healthy, if still a lot smaller than Lily. Lily is the boisterous one, full of personality. Tiger is quiet but becoming more playful as she gets stronger. Both kittens are very patient with being carried around, cuddled and fought over by the children.

Kathleen is doing very well at school. She loves school, although doesn't really like getting up in the morning or having to hurry (but then again who does? especially on these cold mornings lately!).

Academically she is doing very well. She is reading at Level 9 (no one else in her class is at this level yet) [EDIT: Level 11 now], and every day brings home a book to read for homework. Her writing is good. For a while she would come home from school and just want to draw pictures, and her pictures would always include words in them. The teachers seem to encourage the children to sound the words out to themselves and write them how they think they are spelt. I guess proper spelling comes at a later date. It makes for some very cute and inventive spellings. I think my favourite is "I am hape" (happy). Kathleen also does well at math although I don't hear very much about it from her. She can count on her fingers, she can count quietly in her head while visualising her fingers, but she's not yet at the point of just knowing that 3 + 3 is 6 for example.

Kathleen's favourite part of the school day is what they call "motor programme". In the morning, after the teacher has done the roll, the children will all head outside for half an hour of exercise. Not just physical education but things that develop their motor skills, such as cone ball (trying to catch the ball in the cone that you're holding), skipping, balancing, hopping. She has learnt a lot of physical skills since starting school. She loves swinging on the bars and last term when I would come to pick her up from school I would always find her on the playground. There is a group of them from her classroom who are always the last to leave every day. School finishes at 2.25 but I usually arrive to pick her up sometime between then and 3 as we never leave before 3. Howver this term things are a bit different as Kathleen has started catching the bus home from school a couple of days a week. It was something she asked if she could do. It suits me not having to rush out in the afternoons to collect her. However on the days when Victoria is at daycare I still pick them both up. I think Kathleen feels quite grown up catching the bus and walking home by herself. She also gets to check the mailbox on her way home and brings me the mail. She and Victoria used to fight over who was going to collect the mail, now we have set days of the week about who's turn it is.

Kathleen is making lots of friends in her class. At the start of the year there were two girls and four boys in the class. Now there are five girls and seven boys. I regularly hear about the different children she is playing with, not just from her class but from other classes too. I quite like that about this school, not sure if it is a country school thing or not, but all the children seem to play together regardless of age. I think Kathleen may have had a tough time fitting in at first but this seems to have settled down now and she is enjoying playdates with some of the kids from her class. Last month Kathleen and Victoria went for a sleepover at their friend Molly's house (their first ever sleepover!) and then Molly and Olivia from school both came for a sleepover at our house.

The other big thing Kathleen is learning at school is how to swim. Every Wednesday afternoon the school bus picks the junior classes up from school and takes them to the swimming pool in town. Their teacher gets in the water with them and does various exercises with them, no doubt aimed at building up their confidence. And it is working. Kathleen has always been too scared to put her head or face under the water. Then all of a sudden, last week during her lesson, she ducked her head under. And after that there was no stopping her, she was diving down to get the rings from the bottom of the pool. Obviously there is still a long way to go, but her confidence has just increased so much, it is amazing.

With so much else going on, we have stopped going to ballet.

Finally, Kathleen has lost her two bottom front teeth (naturally, not because of an accident or anything). She's the first in her class to lose teeth. The tooth fairy gave her $5 the first time and $2 the second time. She was very excited and took it to school for Show & Tell (her other favourite thing I think). We went into town and she bought some stickers with the money and made lots of pictures. She loves drawing and creating pictures. Her drawings are very detailed.

And now, we mustn't forget Victoria.

Victoria is now three and a half. Sometimes I forget she's only three and treat her more like Kathleen. She is now going to daycare two days a week (Thurs-Fri) and to Playcentre two days a week (Tues-Wed). She has some good friends at each place. One little girl at daycare is her best friend and they play together all day. This little girl has a big brother who is in Kathleen's class and is one of Kat's friends, so the four of them all get on really well.

Victoria has been causing me much frustration since about the time she turned three. I remember Kathleen also went through a very similar phase at this age. She is trying to assert her independence, do things her way, do what she wants, doesn't want to do what Mummy wants. Which is all very well when all she wants is to pour herself a drink, but not so good when Mummy wants her to get dressed for school or brush her teeth or come eat dinner, etc, etc.

She often wants to have a go at doing things for herself and I know I need to step back and let her try more often. She's getting faster at putting her own clothes on which is great (just needs me to motivate her to actually do it), she's getting better at pouring drinks without spilling (just wish she'd shut the fridge door or let me know what she's doing), but I need to let her help me with other things more often.

Something I've noticed about Victoria is how much she enjoys both mazes and maps. She must have good spatial awareness. She enjoys doing simple mazes. Sometimes we've made our own out of blocks, other times we've borrowed maze and puzzle books from the library (Kathleen really loves the puzzle books). Victoria understands how to read a map, will get the map out in the car and ask where we are going. She often asks where something when we are driving, or where we are.

Victoria is very competent on the computer, knows how to turn on both her computer and the TV computer, and how to load up her favourite computer games or DVDs. Doesn't know as much as she thinks she does though and sometimes clicks on the wrong thing. I don't want to think what she'll be like in a couple of years when she can read, she'll be getting into everything.

Her favourite computer game is Pajama Sam. The girls got a game for Easter, and another one when we all went to a LAN gaming party at Massey (go geek family!). Victoria always wants to play Pajama Sam, either on the computer or pretend that she is Pajama Sam. She's always saying to me "I'm Pajama Sam, the new one" (meaning the one from the new game). Her style of play has really changed. She used to be happy to play with toys and dolls by herself. Now all of a sudden she wants to play pretend all the time. I guess I shouldn't be surprised, Kat loved playing pretend at that age too. What is good is that the two of them can now play together, yet they usually want (need?) me to join in too.

At bedtime we usually read two stories to both girls, Victoria's story first then Kathleen's story. Kathleen's story is usually a chapter from a chapter book. Usually it's one of my old Enid Blyton books (currently we're reading Willow Farm). But about a month ago we got a Rainbow Fairy chapter book out of the library, which both girls really enjoyed. There are seven books in the series and we've only read two so far. Will be looking to see if they have the next book at the library when we go next. [EDIT: We ditched Willow Farm in preference for reading Rainbow Fairies and Myths & Legends (another library book) instead. Have read the first three Rainbow Fairies book now, and have got the fourth one on hold at the library, hopefully pick it up tomorrow).

So, anyway, we have been playing a LOT of Rainbow Fairy games since then. If I play then I'm usually the bad guy, Jack Frost, Victoria is ALWAYS Pajama Sam (the new one) even though he has nothing to do with Rainbow Fairies, and Kathleen is usually a fairy that needs rescuing or that I'm trying to capture/banish. As with all children's games, it gets a bit repetitive after a while. But both girls love it.

Finally, what else has been happening around here. Well winter is starting to set in after a long summer and warm autumn. Peter and I (but mostly him) cleared out our old woodpile that was under the ramp at the back of the house. He put down polythene on the ground and laid pallets down so we could stack our firewood neatly and tidily. He put up more polythene sheets along the ceiling and sides to make it weatherproof and it has mostly worked. We hired a log splitter for a couple of days and ended up cutting up quite a lot of firewood from tree rounds that had been sitting around (mostly in the bottom paddock) since we moved in over two years ago. I'm very pleased with the work we have done.

I am also very pleased with the ride-on lawn mower that we bought this week after getting a good deal at the Lifestyle Farmers Fieldday last weekend. It is so nice to look outside and see nicely cut, even grass, not too long, not too short, no big lumps of grass all over the place, no tyre tread marks, no muddy areas where the grass has been ripped up.

Now it is the beginning of July and winter is in full swing. Noticed snow on the Tararua's today. We've had some rather cold mornings the last few weeks, but only one real frosty day (much to the disappointment of two little girls who think Jack Frost is a character from their book, come to life). We have been putting quite a dent in all that carefully stacked firewood!

-Meg

Puppies

2011-02-06T21:27:00.003+13:00

Just before Christmas, our dog Skye gave birth to seven puppies. We were taking bets on how many. As she is so young and little I hoped for three or four puppies. Peter thought five. We were both blown away when it turned out to be seven. But they were all healthy thank goodness, and have grown into seven beautiful pups.

I've never seen baby puppies before. They were so adorable with their eyes closed and unable to walk. It took about four weeks before they were running around and now you can't stop them.

Victoria was absolutely besotted with the baby puppies and inseparable from them. We had to physically shut the door to keep her away from them, but even then she figured out how to drag the stool out from the bathroom so she could reach the lock and open the door.

However once the puppies got mobile they have been spending more and more time outside. I'm not really very interested in cleaning up their messes. We kept them in a cage at first however soon discovered they didn't really want to stray very far from the house. In fact the hot weather meant that all they wanted to do was lie under the house and stay out of the sun. So no worries about them wandering off which is good.

With the puppies out of sight, they have dropped off Victoria's radar a bit. But she still loves them to bits. The puppies are all very compliant at being carried around by her.

In order to be able to tell them apart we gave the puppies all nicknames based on their looks. There were two grey/white puppies, one male and one female. The male one is called GreyBoy, the female Squeaky as she was definitely the loudest when they were tiny (now they're all yapping loudly). There are five black/white puppies, two male, three female. The males are Stripe (who has a white stripe) and Circle (who has a white circle shape on his forehead). The females are Diamond (who has a white diamond shape), Kinda (who kinda looks a bit like all the rest), and Skinky who was originally named Kinky because of the kink in her tail but Victoria renamed Skinky.

- - -

GreyBoy - Squeaky - Stripe - Circle

- -
Diamond - Kinda - Skinky

Skinky is Victoria's favourite. Diamond and Squeaky are Kathleen's favourites. Squeaky is Peter's favourite. GreyBoy is my favourite. Parting with them is difficult.

Peter put the puppies up for sale on Trade Me when they turned six weeks old, and within a couple of days they were all sold. We got a call about GreyBoy within minutes of the ad going up, from some people in Christchurch who had been looking for years. They will pick him up at the end of this week.

The first to actually leave were Diamond and Kinda, both on Wednesday. Diamond got taken away while Kathleen was at school (her first day) and I was devastated and didn't know how I would break the news to her that her favourite puppy would not be there when we got home. I cried in the car driving to school. This made Victoria think it was a big deal and the first thing she did when we got to school was to tell Kathleen that Diamond was gone. She shrugged it off and said "oh well, I like Squeaky too". I guess it helped that since day one we've been telling the girls that the puppies will be going to new homes one day.

However I was still dreading the day when someone wanted to take Victoria's Skinky away from her. Luckily the couple that decided to take her said they couldn't take her straight away and would come back at the weekend. That gave us a couple of days to prepare Victoria for it. In the end she was also rather blase about it. She gave Skinky a goodbye hug and kiss and handed her over cheerfully. Both Skinky and Squeaky are going to the same home, which makes Peter and I happy that they will be together.

So Diamond and Kinda left last Tuesday, Skinky and Squeaky went yesterday. That's the four girls gone and the three boys left. Circle and Stripe are due to go Monday and Tuesday, and we get to keep GreyBoy until Friday (ironic that he was the first to be sold but the last to leave).

I will definitely miss them when they're gone. However they're now at that chewing on everything stage and so in a way I'm glad they're going. Timmy and Skye are both handfuls but I'm happy to say they are both past that stage now. Their only problems are that Timmy pees on everything and Skye jumps on you and constantly wants your attention (worse than a child!). I'd like to take them both back to obedience school at some stage and I also think Skye would do really well at agility.

At the end of the day, we've got two pretty good dogs. And now six other families have also got some pretty good (and cute!) dogs.

Megz

Dear Kathleen

2011-02-01T21:49:00.005+13:00

Five years and 11 days ago you arrived into this world. Tomorrow you start your first day of school. You are such a big girl now, I can't even begin to describe how proud I am of you. You are intelligent, beautiful, inquisitive. You ask lots of questions and think about the answers.

You love to draw, your drawings are so detailed including hands, bows, belts, eyelashes. Your favourite drawing subjects are people, usually yourself and your family. You got stickers and new pens for your birthday and your own ream of paper, and you do several new drawings every day.

You are becoming more and more independant yet you don't mind asking for help. You have become more independant in your play, and have gotten the hang of playing with the dolls and toys by yourself. We don't play pretend very often any more. I think this is because when your sister Victoria got old enough to play with us, she liked to play dolls rather than pretend and the only way we could all play together was with the dolls. You still enjoy pretending to be an animal, and a noise I have heard a lot over these school holidays has been you roaring at your sister or at me to try and scare us.

You still love being the centre of attention and you love telling jokes. Your favourite joke is "Knock knock. Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Knock knock. Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Knock knock. Who's there? Banana. Banana who? Knock knock. Who's there? Orange. Orange who? Orange you glad I didn't say Banana."

Bedtime can sometimes be difficult for you. Even as a baby you would rather be up and about than going to sleep. I think you find life too interesting to spend it sleeping. You still love TV and computer games. You got a new game for your birthday, Spy Fox, and have completed it several times now.

Your favourite books from the libary are puzzle books, where you have to find something hidden in the picture on each page. We have spent a lot of time at the library these school holidays. You are reading very well and can read lots of words. I'm not sure what your teacher will say when she gets to know you. Hopefully she can find things to challenge you.

You already know a few of the children that are going to be in your class this year, and you know lots of the children that will be in the next class up. Several of them came to your birthday party and you already knew them from daycare as well.

You are excited about starting school tomorrow. I am excited too, at least for now, tomorrow may be a different story. You have been ready for this for a long time now.

I am sad that we won't have so much time together any more, I will miss you. You have said that you are also sad about that. Since Victoria turned three a couple of months ago, she has been going to daycare two days a week and this has allowed you and I to have time together, just the two of us, and I have really enjoyed these days. You will always be my first baby, my big girl. You have had the luxury of having my complete attention for your first two years of life, and for the next two years after that have had my complete attention at least during Victoria's nap times. When she dropped her nap within the last year I didn't realise how much I would miss the one on one time with you. Now I am sad that I will only see you after school and at weekends. I hope that you and I can make the most of this time and still keep our special bond.

I am also a bit nervous of sending you out into the world by yourself (or so it feels to me). I wish I could be there to hold your hand, especially in the early days. But I have to let you go and do this on your own, and trust that you will be alright. There are some things that I know you are going to have to learn the hard way.

Soon this time will be just a memory. You will barely remember a time when you weren't a school girl, or that you didn't always know the friends that you have and are going to make.

But I will remember, my little angel. I remember when you were born, when you first sat up, when you crawled and then walked. I remember taking you to the zoo, to the playground, to the beach. Your first vaccinations, your burnt shoulder, your first fall. Your first time on a horse, your first time on a bike. I remember your first day at daycare and I will always remember your first day at school. Tonight Daddy and I told you that tomorrow will be one of the biggest days of your whole life. You disagreed and said that Christmas was the biggest. In years to come I hope you do remember this most important of days. The day from whenceforth our lives will never be the same again.

I love you my little angel. I love you very much.

Love Mummy

Dear Victoria

2011-01-02T21:59:00.005+13:00

As one year ends and another begins, and as you have recently turned three years old, I thought it was about time I committed to writing a little bit about you. You are a most interesting child – at times easy-going and at times very difficult. I'm still not sure I understand you completely.

You keep your thoughts to yourself. If something upsets you, you cry. Or should I say, you have learned that crying gets you what you want. For example if you and Kathleen are fighting over something, you will cry and Kathleen will get told off. Or if you don't want to walk you cry and get picked up. But when you get told off you react quite differently. You go very quiet, you curl yourself up into a ball, and you cry silent tears. Thus it is easy to tell when you are angry or frustrated, but not so easy to tell when you are truly upset or sad.

You are both a social and non social person. Non social because you get very shy in group situations. But social in that you compulsively cannot keep your hands away from animals and other small children. Since our dog had puppies two weeks ago you are always asking if you can check on the puppies and if you had your way you would never leave their side. Prior to this you have always enjoyed chasing our cats around, hoping for a cuddle. You love babies if you see them and can be very kind and gentle with them.

You are a hands on learner, you like to try and do things for yourself. While this is a good quality, it can also be frustrating for Mummy, for example when you pour and then spill the milk. You use your hands to explore your world a lot, which can also be frustrating for Mummy when she finds you playing with things that you shouldn’t be. You have always experimented with whatever you find, and as a baby you ate quite a number of things that you shouldn't have! Interestingly, you learned to count with your fingers before you learned to say the numbers in order or read them (I'd say hold up four fingers and you would hold up the right number). I think this is an example of being a hands on learner.

Eating is one thing you do and don't like doing. You hate having to sit a table to eat. You hate to sit still. You would rather walk around eating or not eat at all. Yet you also love to sneak into the kitchen and get crackers or other treats to eat. You would much rather eat the things you find under the dining room table than eat at the table. You like sandwiches but you won’t eat the crusts. You still have a thing about eating playdough and sand, despite the fact I thought you would have grown out of this by now. I think you do it to wind me up sometimes.

Your Favourite Things

Painting always used to be your favourite thing at preschool, although you don't show as much interest in it any more. You enjoy painting – on paper, on wood, on your hands, your face, your clothes, etc. You love to dip your hands in the paint and to wash it off in the sink.

As much as you love getting paint on your hands, you also love washing it off. During the last few months as the weather has gotten warmer, whenever you have access to a hose you can be spotted there, hose in hand, hosing the ground, toys, steps, filling buckets. You also love the sinks too and have been banned from the bathroom at home because of the times you’ve almost flooded the place or have used up all the soap.

Your favourite thing at the playground is the swing. Since we have put up our swing at home it is one of your favourite things to do at home (second to playing with the puppies which is your number one favourite thing of all time). You love to swing high and I'm sure it won't be long before you learn to swing by yourself.

But, excluding puppies, your favourite thing to do at home is, and always has been, to play with dolls. You are happy to play with the toys by yourself or with me or sometimes Kathleen. Frequent play themes include the toys doing everyday activities like eating and sleeping, going away somewhere (usually you suggest America because your grandparents live there), or a toy will need rescuing. When you play with dolls you invariably take their clothes off and don't like it if anyone puts the clothes back on.

Your favourite colour has always been blue although this seems to be changing lately.

Your favourite TV show is Strawberry Shortcake.

Your favourite princess is Ariel, the little mermaid.

Victoria, it has been a pleasure to watch you grow over the last three years. You have always been happy to play by yourself, which has been very helpful when your older sister has been demanding attention. But with Kathleen heading off to school this year, you will find you can demand more of Mummy's time for yourself. I can already see you starting to assert yourself. "You could play with me" I often get told by you. And I hope we will have lots of time to play together in the coming year.

Love Mummy

Six Months Later

2010-12-05T21:06:00.013+13:00

WOW! I cannot believe I haven't blogged anything for six months! Has it really been that long? Guess we've been kinda busy. And hibernating for the winter. And I've been really far behind with sorting, naming and uploading photos, and don't like blogging if I don't have photos to go with it. The problem is that we do too much stuff, and then take too many photos of it, and then we get too busy doing other stuff to sort through the previous photos and before you know it there's 100+ photos to sort through. Plus we take all our photos on burst mode (takes five photos at a time) because the kids are always moving and it you take five at a time at least one of them will turn out ok. But I've managed to catch up on the photos and now I can blog again. Also I think part of the problem is Victoria not having naps any more. So that's an hour a day I don't have up my sleeve any more.

But where to start??? Well, let's see. There haven't been any real life changing events for us the past six months. We're still living on our little farm just outside Levin, Peter's still driving to Palmerston North and back every day for work. Victoria has just turned three and Kathleen will be five in January. The girls and I go to Playcentre on Tuesdays and Wednesdays now, and Kathleen goes to daycare Thursdays and Fridays. Victoria joins her on Thursdays and since her birthday has started going by herself on Mondays too. I chose to do it this way so that I would have one day a week with each girl on their own, and it would also give Victoria the chance to get used to going to daycare without Kathleen, before Kat starts school next year.

This term Kathleen has been attending "four-year-old school", which is run one afternoon a week at one of the local schools. It gives four year olds the opportunity to sit in a classroom with their peers and listen to a teacher, and also doing activities around a different letter each week. It's given her the chance to get used to sitting on the mat, putting up her hand when she wants to speak, listening to instructions, etc.

The last two weeks Kat has also been having visits at the school she will attend next year. She's been going for one morning a week, sitting in with the current Year 1 class. She knows at least five of the children in this class from the various preschools and activites she has attended. They won't be in her class next year, but at least she will have some friendly faces in the playground to look out for. When I've asked Kat what she's done at school, she has told me all about what she did at playtime but not so much about the classwork. Her teacher has given me her classwork and it's all been really good so I suspect she's just more interested in playtime because that's where she's learning the most. The first week she learnt to play hopscotch and the second week she learnt about tennis and bouncing a basketball. She has two more visits scheduled before the end of the school year.

Kathleen's learning is coming along really well and I think she will probably find school too easy. She is doing well at reading and can read several simple books, partly from remembering the story, partly from looking at the pictures and partly just reading. Her writing is doing well and she's working on her lower case letters. She absolutely loves drawing. Especially drawing people and faces. When she gets going she will sit down and draw picture after picture.

Even Victoria is getting in on it too. She has started drawing faces with eyes and mouths. She has also started wanting to write her own name. At Playcentre we write all the childrens names on their artwork and encourage them to do so if they want to. Victoria can draw a V and will attempt all the other letters (even if sometimes they don't look much like it). She is recognising some letters - V, K, M, and O for sure and I think maybe I and T, and I don't know what else. She also recognises most of the numbers too and can count to about 15.

Ok, so what have we been doing since I last posted anything?

Kathleen is still going to ballet. After a three week break during the school holidays, she was ready to go back again for another term and we are still going once a week. Have tried a couple of times to see if Victoria wants to do it too. She says she does, but as soon as she gets on the dance floor she freaks out and grabs me around the neck and won't let go. So I don't think she'll be the performer in the family.

At the end of July Peter's sister and brother and brother's girlfriend came to visit from Texas. The girls loved having Aunty Mardie, Uncle Richard and Taylor to play with and climb on and entertain them. We also took the opportunity to take the girls up the mountain to play in the snow, and take the Texans to Taupo for a few days. While there we also caught up with Peter's other sister.
We left home on the Sunday morning and got to the mountain in the afternoon. We went to Whakapapa skifield but the visibility was poor and it started snowing. We did a bit of playing in the snow and sledding but the weather just got too miserable and so did the kids. So we hid out in the chalet instead. Monday morning dawned bright and clear, and we went to Turoa skifield where we all had a lot of fun. Throwing snowballs, building a snowman, sliding down the slope. Tried some more tobogganing but the run was quite fast and neither girl enjoyed it too much. But overall I think they both enjoyed going to the snow and we'll have to do it again next winter.

September brought the Canterbury earthquake and thankfully all my relatives escaped unharmed. A couple of days later brought flooding to our neck of the woods. The rain on the Tararua's came down Potts hill and flooded our neighbours paddocks across the road from us, went across the road blocking it off, and flooded the cafe paddocks next door to us too. As well as many, many other farms in the area. Luckily we escaped unscathed since we are up on the hill. Which was one of the many requisites we had when looking for a property to buy in the first place.

This year we celebrated Halloween with our friends from Palmerston North. Lou hosted an Irish party with Halloween theme. We all dressed up and took the girls out trick-or-treating around Palmerston North. It got off to a bad start when we first arrived at Lou's house, to be greeted by Poppy wearing a Scream costume. Both girls were frightened. Victoria got over it pretty quickly when Poppy took the mask off, and was happy to be picked up and cuddled by Poppy even when she put the mask back on. Kathleen however got very quiet and mopey and grumpy. She didn't want to go out trick-or-treating. She would only go if I held her hand, and wouldn't knock on any of the doors.
After the first couple of houses where Poppy and I did the knocking, Victoria got the hang of it and was running up to the doors but Kathleen was still hanging back. Most houses we went to/past had no one home, but of the ones where people were home, all but one had treats to give out to the children. Some even really got into the spirit of it. I suppose we were out for about an hour. By the end Kathleen had relaxed and was getting into it too, also running up to the doors without me. They got quite a lot of lollies out of it and there are still some in the cupboard to be eaten. We've been sharing it out a couple of lollies a day (although I've actually forgotten about it for a few weeks now). I'm pleased they didn't try to eat the whole lot in one go, they are happy to have 2 or 3 lollies and then put the rest back for another day.

One of the girls favourite places to go in Levin is the lolly and ice cream store. If Daddy gives them some money they will keep it to spend at the lolly store. Their favourites are lollipops and bubble gum.

Also around the time of Halloween we had Guy Fawkes. We took the girls to see the big fireworks display at Manfeild and also had our own fireworks at home. Once again, Victoria got into it and Kathleen was frightened and grumpy. I was a little disappointed with the Manfeild display, mostly because it was on a bit too late and the pre-event entertainment wasn't that great. The fireworks were great but Kat didn't enjoy them and her mood rubbed off on me. Our fireworks at home went better. At first both girls were a little wary of the sparklers until they learnt how to use them and they both enjoyed that. Kat didn't like the noise of the fireworks.

Victoria turned three last month. It felt like she had been two for a very long time. Her birthday was on a Playcentre day and she had a birthday cake at Playcentre with her friends. Then she had a birthday party at home the following Saturday, inviting two friends from Playcentre and two friends from daycare. I will try and write about it in a separate post.

And now we are facing the countdown to Christmas. I'm really looking forward to it. I've already planned everything I'm going to buy and hope to get that done next week. I bought advent calendars and both girls are enjoying opening one each day. Of course for Victoria it's all about the chocolate but Kathleen understands that when they're all gone it is Christmas Day. We're not planning to go away or do anything special for Christmas, other than open presents and have a big dinner. After having had a really crappy summer last year, this years summer is shaping up to be a good one. It's been hot and sunny just about every day since Labour weekend (end of October). I've been planting vegetables in the garden and have had to actually look after them and water them regularly. But other than that we are loving the warm weather and spending as much time outside as we can, until the sun gets too hot.

And that is where I think I will leave this update. I promise I won't leave it so long next time! We've got lots of fun times ahead in the next couple of months, with the end of the school/Playcentre year looming, Peter's birthday, Christmas, and Kathleen's birthday. We're hoping to have an active, outdoor summer with lots of trampolining, bike riding and swimming. Both girls are now tall enough to stand on the bottom of the swimming pool in town and have their head above water. Victoria has heaps of confidence and will probably learn easily, whereas Kathleen's not so keen to learn but still has fun in the water. I'm sure we're going to have lots of fun.

Cheers,
Margaret

Ballet

2010-07-01T13:59:00.006+12:00

(Written on 1st July, published in December)

Kathleen was involved in a ballet show last weekend. She did one show on the Saturday afternoon, one on Saturday evening, and one on Sunday afternoon. Plus three rehearsals during the prior week.

I started taking Kathleen to ballet about nine months ago. She enjoyed dancing around the house so much I thought she would enjoy it. Plus one of her daycare friends goes too. Term 4 last year we went to the 3.30 Tuesday class. I would pick Kathleen and Victoria up from daycare at 3, but inevitiably we wouldn't leave there till 3.20 and would be rushing to get to ballet on time. This year she was in the 4pm class. Which meant that I would pick them up and then even if we left at 3.20 we'd still have to hang around for nearly half an hour before ballet started. It wasn't enough time to go home but it was too long to sit around and wait. So in term 2 I changed their daycare day to Thursday so that we would be home all afternoon Tuesday and could leave at quarter to four. It worked most times although there was at least one time when I forgot about it altogether!

I think Kathleen enjoyed ballet but I'm not totally sure. She would sometimes complain she didn't want to go, but then she complains about going to daycare too yet when I pick her up she says she'd had a great day and loves it there. At the beginning of this term the girls learnt the dance they were going to do at the show. About halfway through the term they started doing nothing but rehearsing this particular dance. At one point I commented to Kathleen that I was finding it quite boring now just doing the one dance, and how did she feel. She confessed she didn't like it either. Did I put the words in her mouth or did she really not like it? Well, ever since then she has been really complaining she doesn't like ballet, doesn't like doing the dance because she gets tired, and doesn't want to do the show.

I felt really bad and considered letting her stop. But I said to her that she just had to keep going till the end of term, do the show and then if she still didn't want to do it then we wouldn't go back next term. I felt torn - I didn't want to push her to do something she didn't want to do, but I didn't want her to think she could just give up everytime something hard came along.

Last week we had rehearsals on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at the theatre where the show was going to be, rather than at the ballet studio. Kathleen was very nervous / anxious / upset. She and the other six girls from her class had to sit together on the chairs, and the mums had to stand at the back of the hall. Kathleen didn't make a fuss, but when I checked on her she had tears running down her face saying she wanted to be with me. But I had to stay at the back and keep Victoria out of trouble. Soon it was time for them to do their dance and then we went home. That night she had nighmares. The second rehearsal went better, and the next one even better, as she got used to what would happen. She still kept saying she didn't want to do the show but I said she should.

Saturday afternoon I took Kathleen along to the theatre. I bought myself a ticket to watch the show and showed her exactly where I would be sitting. Then I took her backstage to get changed and ready. When the show began I ran around to my seat and was so proud watching her dance. I had tears pouring down my cheeks I was so proud of her. All the girls looked so good. Ok so they weren't in time and kept looking at the teachers to show them what to do. But the point was they were all there and looked so cute. They were mostly four or five year olds, with one three year old and one two year old. Afterwards I helped Kathleen get changed and then the two of us went back to the audience and watched the rest of the show.

By the Saturday evening and Sunday shows Kathleen was loving it. Her old fears had gone and she was her usual excited self. I'm very proud of her for sticking with it, even though she didn't want to do it. I'm glad she did it and found it was enjoyable after all. I hope she remembers this lesson in the future when she's up against something new or scary.

She still insists she doesn't want to go back to ballet next term, and I'm not going to make her. I think I'll enjoy not having to rush out each week as well.

-Megz

Potty Training Part V

2010-07-01T13:47:00.004+12:00

Victoria is now 100% potty trained, both day and night. As I previously blogged, she has been going toilet during the day for quite some time now. I have now stopped giving her lollies every time she goes poos on potty as she was getting so good at it. It didn't turn out to be a big drama after all. I just said things like "it's too late at night for a lolly now" or "you still need to finish your lunch/dinner" and progressed to "you're a big girl now, you don't need lollies any more". And she just accepted that without question. Every now and then she still asks if she can have a lolly for going toilet.

Kathleen was never night-time trained until she was almost three and I was in no rush to take Tora out of nappies. Especially with the upheaval of moving bedrooms recently. However a few weeks back she woke up in the middle of the night and came upstairs to our room. "I need go toe-lit" she said. So we decided if she was capable of waking up in the middle of the night and knowing she needed to go toilet, and of holding on, that she really didn't need nappies any more. She'd been dry 90% of the time anyway.

So two and a half weeks ago I changed my last nappy and it feel GREAT ! Peter and I were going to have a No More Nappies party but got kinda busy with other things in the end.

However it has not meant the end of washing nappies. I still seem to be doing a load every week, as we now use them to clean up any accidents that the dogs have! Guess Tora ended up being toilet trained before Timmy after all.

-Megz

Catch Up

2010-05-31T22:15:00.005+12:00

Well I have not blogged for quite a long time and have a lot to catch up on. Where to start?

Winter has just arrived here, and I am still grumbling about the lack of summer and wondering where it went. Summer didn't arrive till mid January, and then in mid March we were hit with a sudden cold spell. I said "it's ok, this will last a week or two and then we'll get one last hot spell before autumn really kicks in". Well 2-1/2 months later I'm still waiting for that hot spell, have stocked up on firewood, gotten the heaters out of storage and am still shivering after the frost this morning.

This kind of thinking has left me a little confused - I can't believe it's going to be June tomorrow because in my mind it's still the end of March and I'm still waiting for my hot spell of weather.

We have got a new family member. A new dog. Her name is Skye and she is about 11 months old and is a Border Collie. A girlfriend for Timmy (who is 15 months old now). They have been getting on like a house on fire. Absolute best friends who are inseparable. I have worried a lot about Timmy being on his own so much, so it is great having Skye to keep him company. However I think he's also teaching her a lot of his bad habits.

We are now halfway through school-term 2. The girls and I have had some rearranging in our weekly schedules. We now go to Playcentre two days a week, and my day off is now Thursday (when both girls go to daycare) rather than Tuesday. Kathleen goes to daycare three days a week but I will be cutting that back to two days next term I think. She is enjoying both preschools. Originally I didn't want to go to two preschools but the daycare is good because it is near her future school and it gives me a break, whereas Playcentre is great because it gives me adult company and opportunities, plus the kids have the choice to play with me or do their own thing. I am getting a lot more involved in Playcentre now and am working on completing the Course Two training, which I am enjoying.

Kathleen's reading is coming along well. She enjoys playing an online game called Reading Eggs where children play games involving letters and words (e.g. "Click on IS") without even realising that they're learning. I don't know how much of it she is retaining - some but not all I suspect - but aren't too worried about it. I'm not pushing her to learn to read, I don't want her to be too far ahead of her classmates, but she enjoys doing it so I'm not going to stop her either. It's hard to say how many words she actually knows because I think most of the time she is guessing what things say based on the first letter of the word and the context. Another part of Reading Eggs she enjoys is writing her own stories and entering the competitions. She is also enjoying having chapter books read to her at bedtime now (books with no pictures, just story).

Victoria is growing up so quickly. She seems to have gone up a new level recently. It's hard to put a finger on what has changed. She is talking in full sentences (e.g. saying "I want to go there" rather than "want go there"). She is partaking in conversations. She is talking to other adults and being understood a lot of the time. She seems to be coming out of her shell a lot more (although with some people she just clams up and hides behind me for some reason).

And the big news is that in the space of about a week, Victoria has dropped her nap, started sleeping in a big girl bed with no sides, and moved into Kathleen's room. We'd been planning the move for a while anyway. About a month ago the girls and I had a sleepover party one Saturday night and the three of us all slept in Kathleen's room together. Tora was in Kathleen's old bed, and I left the bed made-up afterwards.

Now Victoria's been ready to drop her nap for a while. A lot of the time I'll put her to bed after lunch and she won't go to sleep so I'll get her up after an hour. We're at that difficult inbetween stage - when she doesn't have a nap she's usually pretty tired and difficult by dinnertime, but if she does have a nap then she's not tired at bedtime.

Last week Kathleen said she was tired and asked if she could have a nap with Victoria. So they both got into Victoria's cot together and promised they'd go to sleep. I fully expected a lot of giggling and no sleeping. However, Kathleen climbed out of the cot, pulled a stool over and not only helped Victoria get out but taught her how to do it herself. They both came running out of the room giggling. So a few days later I put Victoria to bed for a nap (Kathleen was at daycare) and 10 minutes later Tora comes running out all by herself having climbed out of the cot. So that was the end of that. The sides came off the cot and now it is very difficult to get her to stay in bed.

Last Wednesday night Victoria decided she didn't want to stay in bed at nighttime either and came running out. I tried to catch her but she ran to Kathleen's room and jumped into the old bed in there. She refused to get out and said she wanted to sleep there. So that was that, and now the two girls are sharing a room. The logistics of which we are still working out. Kathleen likes listening to chapter books at night whereas Victoria doesn't. So still trying to figure out how storytime should work. And figuring out how to keep Victoria in bed. The other morning Kathleen woke up at 6.40am (very unusual) and called out for me, which woke Victoria up too. So we're still not even sure if sharing a room is really such a good idea after all. The reasons for sharing were: It's winter so we only have to heat one room instead of two; Victoria's room is small and Kat's is big, and Tora is going to want more room eventually, but the only other bedroom in the house is the guest room and the coldest room in the house.

Most days I've now stopped offering Victoria the option for a nap (the exception being when she's at daycare of if she's really tired), so that she will be sleepy at bedtime and go to sleep pretty quickly. The days she has had a nap it has been very hard getting her and Kathleen to go to sleep.

And one final development is that the girls are actually playing together now and becoming friends. They still have very different interests - Victoria loves to play with dolls and the dolls house whereas Kathleen likes creative endeavours. They also both LOVE playing computer games and will fight over the computer or watch each other play. However when there is nothing else to do they'll play with each other. Their games are often physical and involve either running around the room, running up and down the hall, or jumping off things. It's so great to hear the giggles and laughter as they enjoy themselves together. And it has freed me up a little bit too. Only a little though, as I soon get called back to sort out disputes. Lol.

Cheers,
Meg

Board Games

2010-05-03T22:52:00.004+12:00

Playing Ludo with Kathleen
She has got three pieces home and just needs a 2 to get her last piece home. I still haven’t even thrown a 6 yet to get my first piece out of the starting box. I’m facing a down-trou and Kat’s chanting “I’m cheating, I’m cheating” (obviously having no concept of what cheating means, because she wasn't). I finally managed to throw a 6 and got one of my four counters halfway around the board before she got a 2 to win the game. She had great delight telling me I was PWNED.

Playing Snakes and Ladders with Victoria
Not far into the game she decides she doesn’t like the yellow square she’s on and that she likes the blue square better. The blue square is number 91. I go along with it and she happens to land on a snake and comes all the way back down to the bottom with me. Tora throws the dice and I move the pieces. It seems to be working well until she decides that she is mother and she should move the pieces to wherever she feels like. Then she announces the dice is a baby bird and she cradles it in her hands saying how cute it is. Needless to say the game is now over.

-Megz

Potty Training Part IV

2010-04-23T14:20:00.009+12:00

This week I bought Victoria her very own big girl knickers. Not that it was that big of a deal as she has been wearing Kathleen's knickers for about a month now. Before that she was in Pull Ups for about a month.

This time round I've been a bit more hesitant about potty training. With Kathleen I just took the plunge and put her straight into knickers (after making a big fuss and taking her out shopping especially to buy big girl knickers). But with Victoria I was a little more scared to take the plunge. So we took the intermediate step of wearing Pull Ups first. However they didn't seem much different from wearing nappies. She was mostly dry but on the times she had accidents she didn't seem to really notice.

The other thing holding me back was the timing of when Victoria would go toilet. While she was good at doing wees when I would put her on the potty, she would usually do number twos only in her nappy. I didn't quite know how to handle this. I finally settled on bribery. Now if she goes in the toilet she gets a lolly. I'm thankful to say she has never had an accident since we started this. Now every time Victoria goes to the toilet she sings to herself "I go poos on potty I get lolly". Not sure how I'm going to get out of giving her lollies when the time comes but for now I'm still happy to do so.

Victoria also learned quite a while ago (like maybe six months ago?) that the best way to get out of eating her dinner was to announce she needed to "go toe-lit". Because like the good "stick-them-on-the-toilet-every-time-they-ask" parent, I would quickly grab her and take her potty as soon as she said she needed to. She very quickly learned that if she had had enough of eating and sitting still, all she had to do was say she needed to go toilet and I would get her out of the highchair and take her off to the bathroom. Now we're not stupid, we knew exactly what she was doing and how she was trying to manipulate us. So a few months back we called her bluff and said no. She wasn't bluffing and proceeded to go in her pants. Gross! This made me even more nervous about putting her in knickers. However we seem to be doing a lot better now. No more highchair accidents and we often try and get her to go toilet before dinner. This hasn't stopped her trying to get out of dinner by professing a need to go. But she has been able to hold on if we say no, so that is an improvement.

Over summer Victoria also spent a lot of time running around outside naked. If she needed to go in the grass she would, no big deal. Last week I took her and the dogs to the dog park. She needed to go toilet so I said to go in the bushes. So she walked in, squatted down and went wees. Without taking her trousers off first!!! So the poor little thing had to walk about with wet trousers until we got home. That'll teach her.

-Megz

The End of Summer

2010-02-01T20:56:00.004+13:00

Another summer, another vacation is over
A September morning with the sun and the smell of the clover
Down by the gate we sit and we watch all our friends go by
And pretend we don't hear the bell that rings through the summer sky

"Heartbeat" - George Michael

Except that summer has only just begun in the last couple of weeks, and it is February not September. But the sentiment is the same - the summer holidays are over and it's time to go back to preschool, and yet I don't really want to.

Kathleen and Victoria went back to daycare last week (1 day for Tora, 3 for Kat). Playcentre and ballet start back this week and playgroups next week.

When the summer holidays began six weeks ago I thought it would be a very long summer with two pre-schoolers at home every day. But it's actually turned out to be pretty good. Except perhaps when Kathleen wants to play Sleeping Beauty for the umpteenth time.

We've been keeping pretty busy. We've gone for a long drive about once a week, to either Palmerston North, Paraparaumu or Wellington. I thought the car trips would be difficult but Victoria is generally pretty happy in the car and Kathleen now enjoys playing games as we drive. Plus we've listened to copious amounts of Wiggles, general kids music and ABBA. Yes, both girls are big fans of Mamma Mia the musical. Sometimes when we've had a bad day I'll put the singalong on, and we'll all dance and sing and shout and be silly, and it really lifts our spirits.

The weather for the first half of the holidays sucked, very wet and cool. But the last couple of weeks have been hot and sunny. Victoria has spent most of January naked. Her potty training is coming along quite well, and most times she'll use the potty rather than have an accident. But I'm not sure I'm ready to take the plunge into knickers just yet.

I guess one thing that has helped the holidays go quickly is all the distractions we've had with Christmas and Kathleen's birthday, Peter being home for a couple of weeks over Christmas, and Peter's mum coming to stay a couple of weeks ago. Plus we've been to the zoo, movies, library, playground. There's been no shortage of things to do.

I think the thing I've enjoyed the most over the summer has been just not having to rush out anywhere in the mornings. We've been able to get up and take our time over breakfast, sometimes even watching TV while we eat. And if we don't finish breakfast or get dressed till 10am, then that's fine. Or if we don't get dressed at all, that's fine too.

However seeing the smiles on the girls faces when I picked them up from daycare last week, not smiles of being happy to see me (although there was some of that) but smiles because they'd had a great day, reminded me that although it can be a pain being having to rush out the door every morning and being so busy, it is actually worthwhile for them to interact with other kids. So while I may be sad that our special time is at an end, I know that they're still happy and enjoying themselves wherever they are. And that's all that matters.

-Megz

Four Years Old

2010-01-20T18:04:00.005+13:00

Tomorrow Kathleen will be Four. Such a big girl. She seems a lot older than that sometimes. Her friends are all older than her, some are four and some are already five. I worry a little what will happen when her four-year-old friends turn five and go off to school. She will just have to play with some of the younger children I guess. Kathleen is practically ready for school already and I think this is going to be a very long year waiting till she can go to school. She knows her alphabet, can read and write all her letters. She can read some words and knows how to sound the letters out to read the word, but gets frustrated sometimes. Over the school holidays we've hired a couple of board games from the Toy Library. One is called Bus Stop and you play by adding or taking away passengers from your bus whether you land on a + or - sign. So Kathleen has been learning some maths basics as well.

Last weekend Kathleen had her birthday party. She had a lot of fun. It was my first time hosting a children's party so it was a learning experience for me. Kathleen invited three friends - Erik, who's 5th birthday party she went to in November, and Carmel and Jamie-Lee from her preschool, and all our Palmerston North friends. Unfortunately Carmel had to cancel at the last minute. So there were three 4 & 5 year olds, plus Victoria and Phoebe who are both two. Victoria has been watching her big sister a lot so she joined in on the game of Simon Says (Dimon Dez), but mostly it was just Kathleen and Erik playing all the games. Everyone joined in for Pass the Parcel, which was very popular.

Tomorrow is Kathleen's actual birthday. She doesn't know it yet but she will be getting a brand new bunk bed. Followed by a trip to Palmerston North to buy the duvet of her choosing (please, please don't choose Princesses). She is still sleeping in the same Touchwood cot (with sides removed) that she's had since she was born. But her feet now reach the very end so it is time for an upgrade. We're getting bunks that convert to single beds. The idea is that when Victoria is older they can share a room and Kat will have the top bunk, but for now the second bed will live in the spare room.

If I were to make a prediction, I would say Kathleen will have a career in the performing arts, whether as an actress or as a writer. Her passion is definitely drama. Today for example all she wanted to do was to play act the stories of Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Cinderella, etc, etc, etc. I wish she could get her toys and play the stories with them, but she needs human interaction and feedback and so I got roped in to play these games with her. She has always loved play acting, whether it is simple pretend games or playing out fairy tales like we did today, or acting out the movies and TV shows she loves to watch. When she's not acting or watching TV or playing computer games, she likes to look at books and make up her own stories. She has quite a vivid imagination. We've gone for a lot of long drives lately and Kathleen likes to talk the entire time. When we get sick of playing eye spy or guess the song she will just start talking to herself and telling stories. I'll even suggest a title for the story and she will make up something appropriate.

Just before Christmas we travelled to Wellington so that Kathleen could audition for the TV show Giggles. You can see a copy of her audition here. Giggles is a silent show so you can't hear anything. You just have to imagine she's being told to jump or fly or roll, etc. Towards the end I got so caught up in watching Kathleen that I forgot to hold on to Victoria, and Vicky wandered in to the shot too. It was more of a fun opportunity for Kathleen to see what it's like to make a TV show. We weren't seriously hoping to get on the show (although it would have been nice). Haven't heard anything back from them so assume this means she didn't make it.

Kathleen's other loves are Princesses, Fairies, Barbie movies and Barbie computer games but not Barbie dolls.

I am debating whether or not Kathleen needs a haircut. Her hair is beautiful but it also gets messy and knotty a lot and she hates having it brushed (nowhere near as much as she used to though). She got given a ton of hair ties and things for her birthday but the only thing she likes wearing are headbands. Her hair is now reaching down her back and is a good length. I don't think I would like it to be any longer than this. But I can't bear the thought of cutting her baby curls off. The curls are only at the ends of her hair now, maybe because of the weight but I'm afraid if we cut them off then they'll be gone for good and I would be very sad. So I'm not sure. When I first suggested it a month ago she was all for it, but now she doesn't want to. So I guess I'll leave it for a little bit more and see how she feels in another month or two.

Cheers,
Megz

PS: More photos to come soon

New Years Resolutions

2010-01-05T21:21:00.001+13:00

Well another year over and time to review one's Resolutions from last year and to make new ones for the new year. I don't think I did too badly last year. It's been helpful to put my resolutions out publicly (even if nobody reads it) because I feel more pressure on myself to achieve them.

So here are my resolutions from last year:

1. Blog more often. At least once a month on this blog, and once a week on my farming blog. Plus help Kathleen and Victoria to blog once a month too.
Well, I started off pretty well but it got worse as the year went on. I managed to keep my farm blog updated once a week, but the monthly updates for the other blogs slipped to two-months then three-months then more. The only time I have available for blogging is in the evenings after the girls are in bed. Initially the updates fell behind because it was winter and the winter was cold, and I just wanted to get into a warm bed at night rather than sit up on the computer. Plus we weren't doing anything very interesting over winter. And then in September we started watching LOST again. With the next and final season beginning in February, I suggested we re-watch seasons 1-5 to refresh our memories of what had happened before. It's a very complicated show and things made so much more sense the second time around, knowing what we'd learnt in subsequent seasons. I fully hope season 6 will wrap up all the remaining loose ends. However, what this has meant is that 5 or 6 nights a week we have been watching an episode of LOST rather than doing other things, such as blogging. And for all that we're still only partway through season 4. It's not looking likely that we'll finish season 5 before season 6 starts on Feburary 2nd.

2. Find more time for myself to relax, play Sims, read, etc.
See previous answer. I started off the year well but as time has gone have slipped to the point where I again have very little time for myself. Peter has helped and we now make sure each other has one night off a week and one day a month, although things have been so busy over Christmas that even that has slipped a little.

3. Toilet train Kathleen at night.
Done. Starting 1st January last year Kathleen stopped wearing nappies at night. She has the occasional accident but has been pretty good.

4. Complete the women’s triathlon in Palmerston North on the 24th of January.
Done. And I'd like to do it again this year too. But I've been putting it off a bit. Not sure we can afford the $50 entry fee at the moment.

My resolutions for this year are pretty similar to last year:

1. Blog at least once a month.

2. Find more time for myself to relax, play Sims, read, etc. Once we've caught up on LOST of course.

3. Toilet train Victoria. She's been using the potty on and off for many months now and knows what to do with it. With Kathleen I eventually had to just take the plunge and put her in knickers. I suspect I'll have to do the same with Vicky too. I'm just not quite sure either she or I are ready for it yet.

4. Complete the women’s triathlon in Palmerston North at the end of February.

5. Finish going through my Norfolk Island photos. Upload them to Flickr. Write a blog about my holiday.

So let's see how I go this year.

-Megz

The Noughties

2010-01-04T21:22:00.007+13:00

Well, the first decade of the 21st century is over (unless you're a puritan who thinks it doesn't end till the end of 2010). Hard to believe really. The 90's still don't seem that long ago to me. I think 2010 has kinda snuck up on me in a way. It sounds really futuristic. Growing up in the 80's the Year 2000 was always there as some kind of futuristic milestone. And when it finally arrived we partied like it was 1999. However I never really thought any further past that. In the Year 2000 we were supposed to be flying round in hover cars and all that, wearing silver spandex. But the Year 2010 was even beyond futuristic. We were supposed to be living in space by then. Or maybe I've just been watching too many bad sci fi movies.

In any case, the end of a year always calls for reflections on the past, and the end of a decade even more so. Here are my top memories for the years 2000-2009:

Y2K - Why not include the turn of the century in this reflection. I remember New Year's Eve I worked late, till 8 o'clock I think, making sure everyone followed the procedures my colleagues and I had been working on all year. Making sure everyone that was going home turned off their computers, and that everyone that was still working knew what to do if the world ended and the computers melted down. I remember I went home to finish working on my outfit for that night (a shiny gold shirt). 10 years on I still keep my toenails painted gold (my homage to the future that we were promised? Nah I just think it looks cool). By the time I joined Peter and his friends at a bar on Courtenay Place, it was 10pm. They'd been partying for a while whereas I was stone sober. Didn't manage to catch up with them in terms of drunkeness but I still had a good time. Watched the fireworks from the wharf. Saw that the world did not end and the lights did not go out. Kept partying for a while longer. Considered staying up to watch the sunrise but ended up going home and crashing around 2 or 3am.

Early 2000 - Peter quit his job. He was going to go contracting and earn top dollars. We talked about moving to the States to live.

March 2000 - Peter and I jumped out of an aeroplane. For fun.

October 2000 - Peter and Phoenix play in their first big paintball event, at the NZ Nats in Auckland.

June 2001 - Peter gets asked to join the Saints paintball team, with regular training in Auckland.

September 11, 2001 - I'll never forget waking up to the radio alarm on the morning of September 12th. Pauline Gillespie was talking about the twin towers and how she couldn't believe they weren't there any more. And about how Nick had taken some contest winners there only a few months earlier. I wondered what she was talking about. I remembered there'd been a bomb there a while back and wondered if they'd had to demolish the towers. Peter got up. Then Pauline started talking about a plane. I realised there was more to it than that and got up as well. At the same time Peter came back into the room and told me I had to come and watch CNN. That's when I learned the whole truth. I was late for work that day. It didn't matter. The world as we knew it had changed forever. I was worried about my friend John who was living in Wisconsin and soon to be going to New York but I didn't know when. Luckily I heard from him later in the day and he was safe at home and hadn't been due to fly for another week. I'll never forget the images from that day. But I still can't watch them on the TV without covering my eyes. It's just too horrible.

Moving to Auckland - In October/November 2001 Peter and I decided to move to Auckland. Post Sept 11 we decided against moving to the States any more. His paintball team was in Auckland. My company's head office was now in Auckland. And my best friend was in Auckland. I applied for a job at head office and was accepted. Beginning of December we bought a house in Auckland. End of December the movers came to pack our stuff. We headed off on a two week holiday around the South Island before moving into our new house in early January 2002.

March 2002 - My 30th birthday. Planned several fun events that I'd never done before, such as ice skating and going to the comedy club. The comedy club became a regular haunt for us over the next four years.

November 2002 - My first trip to Northland. Paihia, Waitangi, the hole in the rock, Tane Mahuta, the car ferry at Rawene, Ninety mile beach, Cape Reinga.

Late 2002 - Begin gym membership at Les Mills Takapuna, and become a regular at Friday 5.40pm Body Jam sessions. A wonderful way to finish the week and blow off steam in a very fun manner.
By now we have also established a routine of Games Night every other Friday with Lou and Poppy.

Round the World Trip - My friend Tina moved to Oxford, England in 2002(?). I was dying to go and visit her as I love that part of the world and every time she sent photos back I was so jealous. In July 2003 Peter went to Texas to spend some time with his mum and family. In August 2003 I went overseas as well. I decided that since I was going all the way to England I might as well stop off in the States on the way and see friends there too. I spent a couple of days in Washington State with Peter's dad and family, and a couple of days in Chicago & Wisconsin with my friend John. Then I had a couple of weeks in England and had a great time, tripping around and seeing lots of things. Then, since I'd already stopped off in the States and England, I also stopped off in Moscow to visit my friend Tara. Which was a huge change after America and England.

December 2003 - Peter's 30th birthday which we travelled to Wellington for. Also Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King world premiere which I also travelled to Wellington for (for the street party, not to see the movie). Also we saw Robbie Williams and Duran Duran in concert in Auckland.

New Years Eve 2004/05 - Peter and I partied all night on K Road. Wish we'd done it more often.

February 2004 - Long weekend trip to Coromandel with Lou and Poppy to test out the tent before our overseas trip.

Big European Trip - After each going separately in the past, Peter and I finally went to Europe together in March/April 2004. After first playing paintball at Huntington Beach, California, we continued on to Europe, driving and camping through France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Luxembourg. It was a fantastic trip of a lifetime.

August 2004 - Peter's grandmother came out to visit us from the States. Took her on a whirlwind tour of the North Island. Came home to find our house had been burgled.

Christmas 2004 - Spent two weeks with Lou and her family at the pub at Kokatahi on the West Coast.

Boxing Day 2004 - The Indian Ocean tsunami. It was hard to appreciate the full extent of the tragedy while we were on holiday but it was obvious what a huge disaster this was. Stands out as one of the bigger "where were you when" moments of the decade.

February 2005 - Peter and I went to Australia for a paintball tournament in Rockhampton, preceeded by a holiday in Sydney and on Great Keppel Island where I went snorkelling for the first time.

April(?) 2005 - I became pregnant with Kathleen, which began the biggest change of my whole life. Some time after this Peter and I decided we wanted to move back to Wellington, and towards the end of the year he started looking for a job in Wellington.

July 2005 - The terrorist attacks on London. While it didn't affect me personally, it stands out as one of the bigger news events of the decade. Because it happened to the London I love. Kings Cross station, where I'd only been a year and a half earlier, where my friend Rose worked. Russell Square, where I'd stayed at a hostel only a year and a half earlier. My London.

October 2005 - Peter and I went to Australia for another paintball tournament.

November 2005 - My dad passed away suddenly. Definitely one of the hardest periods of my life. Too sad to really talk about it.

December 2005 - My last day at work. Ever.

Kathleen - Kathleen Isabel Hamilton was born on 21 January 2006 and has been by my side almost every day since then. An enormous challenge which I was little prepared for in the early days, but have since learnt a lot from this experience. And am still learning.

October 2006 - Peter finally got a job in Wellington. He moved to take up the position while I stayed behind to sell the house.

November 2006 - Peter's grandfather passed away and he rushed to Texas to be with him and the rest of the family.

Moving to Wellington - December 2006 Kathleen and I joined Peter in Wellington, where we stayed for the next two years.

February(?) 2007 - I became pregnant with Victoria. I decided Kathleen's first year wasn't too bad so why not try again. Haha.

March 2007 - Peter, Kathleen and I travelled to the States for his grandfather's funeral at Arlington national cemetary in Washington. Also visited family in Maine and Washington State.

Victoria - In November 2007 Victoria Melanie-Rose Hamilton was born in the front yard in Island Bay, in one of the more memorable events of the decade. Like Kathleen, she has been by my side almost every day since then too. This time the challenge wasn't so much how to look after a newborn, but how to care for two children with completely different needs.

April(?) 2008 - We found a house and property on TradeMe that we liked the look of. Had been looking at land in the Kapiti/Horowhenua/Manawatu on and off for a year or so but not looking too seriously. However we fell in love with the place and put in an offer.

October 2008 - Sold our house in Island Bay.

Moving to Levin - December 2008, Peter, Kathleen, Victoria and I moved to our current house near Levin. Beginning the second most ambitious lifestyle change of the decade.

May/June 2009 - Peter's father passed away and he again had to rush to the States to be with family.

Norfolk Island - November 2009 I enjoyed my first child-free holiday since Kathleen was born almost four years ago, with my best friend Lou, on Norfolk Island. It was a wonderful time, already relegated to the distant past, but which I will remember with fondness.

And so here we are. The end of the decade. What changes it has seen. Moving house three times. Losing several family members, not to mention the famous people the world has lost. Huge changes in terms of technology. Six overseas trips. And of course two children, who not only define my life now, but ARE my life. What a contrast from the happy-go-lucky 27 year old of 10 years ago.

The time they are a'changing. And always will be.

-Megz

Update

2009-12-01T14:22:00.005+13:00

It's been a while since my last update. Things have just been ticking along here. The girls are continuing to go to daycare, and Playcentre and playgroups most days of the week. Kathleen now goes to daycare three days a week but I am thinking about changing that next year to two days at daycare and two days at Playcentre.

Kathleen has now started going to ballet one afternoon a week. She is enjoying it. I never would have thought I'd have a pre-schooler going to ballet. I always thought that was for once you started school, and that younger children that went were pushed into it by their parents. But I took Kathleen along to watch one day because she loves dancing at home so much, and being the centre of attention. She really enjoyed it, and so that was that. Now she goes every Tuesday afternoon for half an hour. One of her friends from daycare also goes, which is good but they also distract each other.

At the beginning of November I went away for a week to Norfolk Island with my friend Lou. We'd been planning this trip for a couple of years. The way it happened was that when Victoria was a newborn and I was spending countless hours pacing around with her in my arms, I started thinking about getting away, and how Kathleen was just getting to that age when she didn't need me so much any more. I thought about how nice it would be living in the UK and being able to go anywhere in Europe so easily. Then I thought about how we have all the Pacific Islands on our doorstep and why not go there. So I said to Lou "when Victoria is two we're going to Norfolk Island for a holiday". I chose Norfolk Island because we'd both read the book Morgan's Run which is set there, because it is close, and because I'd seen special deals on flights a long time before (although it wasn't on special any more but I had it in my head it wasn't too expensive). It also turned out to have a lot of history, which we are both interested in.

Peter took the week off work to look after the girls, which I would say was an eye-opener for him. Meanwhile Lou and I had a fabulous time. Norfolk Island is a two hour flight from Auckland. It is made up of a mix of Australians, New Zealanders and Bounty descendants. The climate is very mild and warm. It was about 20-24 degrees the whole time we were there. It never drops to single digits and never really rises above 25 either apparently. I'm planning on writing a whole other blog about it.

A week after I returned was Victoria's birthday. She is now two years old. Her speech has really improved lately and she is now speaking in sentences and is able to make herself and her wants understood. Her hair is still very short, about the length Kathleen's was on her first birthday. She knows all her colours (but sometimes gets mixed up) and can count to three "wuuun, tooo, beee". She loves to sing and often sings the rainbow song or the alphabet song to herself. "Wed an lello an peeeenk an geen. Porpul an o-wintz an booo. Rainbo too". She now calls herself Tora.

We celebrated her birthday on the Sunday before her real birthday which was on the Tuesday. It was a bit strange as neither day really felt like her birthday. We got up and watched TV in the morning as we usually do on the weekend, then gave her her presents. Some Dora books (she is even more of a Dora fan than Kathleen was), some paint since she loves painting at Playcentre so much, some 'new' summer clothes (that used to be Kathleen's) and a teddy with two outfits that she can dress and undress herself.

After that we drove up to Palmerston North for a play at Lollipops with some of our friends. I made her a butterfly birthday cake, which turned out really well.

And now we have the busy season just around the corner - Peter's birthday, Christmas, New Year, Kathleen's birthday, plus all the parties and get-together's that go with it. Although I'm still wondering where summer is. I think I left it in Norfolk Island. It's been raining here for weeks.

Love Meg

Growing Up

2009-09-13T23:16:00.006+12:00

Today marks the day where Victoria is the exact same age that Kathleen was, on the day that Victoria was born. It feels like a milestone to me, but I'm not exactly sure what the milestone is. It's as though Victoria is now officially a big girl, big enough to be a big sister (not that she's going to be, BTW).

At the time it seemed like Kathleen grew up a lot after Victoria was born. Around that time she started speaking in sentences instead of a word or two at a time. I almost expect Victoria to start doing the same thing overnight. Which is a bit silly really. Although her vocabulary grows every day and her pronounciation is getting better too. Today she said "goggie" for doggie instead of her usual "dadu". She knows so many words, and she's getting pretty good with her colours and shapes too.

But at the same time I also look at Kathleen and marvel at how much she too has grown up in the last 21 months and struggle to remember her being Victoria's age. In my memory it feels like I've been having conversations with her forever but it has only been the last 21 months. She can now draw with ease and can write her own name and many other letters besides. She is learning to read simple words like CAT, DOG, HOT, etc.

Lately I have started hearing things out of Kathleen's mouth that I didn't think I'd hear for years: "Vic-TOR-rii-aaaa", "Mum, Victoria's being a pain", "Give that BACK".

What doesn't help is that they are very similar in their tastes, so if Kathleen has something, Victoria wants it, and (more often than not) if Victoria has something, Kathleen wants it (especially if that something is Mummy's attention). This gets worse on the days when we go to the Toy Library because they are usually both drawn to the same toy and both want to play with the best pieces themselves. This photo actually shows them playing nicely side by side. They both wanted the same horse toys to put in their Duplo stables, and it probably would have ended in tears if Mummy hadn't seen what was going on and made sure they both had two horses each.

I'm sure part of the squabbling comes from the fact that any toy looks more attractive if it is in use - i.e. that doll moving around looks much better than this doll on the floor.

However I fear that some of it is also because they each know how to wind the other up - "She wants this? Well so do I". Case in point...

Last month I took the girls to the zoo. Afterwards we had a good browse around the gift shop and ended up settling on a bag of about 12 small, plastic zoo animals. When we got home they both wanted to play with the chimp. Fair enough, they both had their turn and then it got put away (actually the dog ran off with it).

The next day they started fighting over the hippo. The Hippo. My apologies to any hippopotamus lovers out there ... but really? ... the Hippo? Of all the animals in the bag, they weren't fighting over the chimp (but you loved it yesterday?), or the lion, or the zebra, or any of the other cool animals. But the Hippo.

It was all because Kathleen was playing with the hippo first. Victoria saw her playing with it and then she wanted it too. Kathleen saw that her sister wanted it, so she held onto it even more. And when Victoria did get hold of it, it just made Kathleen want it back all the more.

And all I could do was stand there and watch thinking "Really? Really? But it's the HIPPO!".

Love Megz

Lost and Found

2009-08-28T22:23:00.004+12:00

About six months ago we joined the Toy Library here in Levin. I have found it to be a pretty good service. There is a great selection of toys and the price to hire is pretty reasonable (although I'm told the toy library in Palmerston North is even better but too far away for us to really use).

We've had some great toys out of the library. My favourites would be the indoor slide which we just couldn't keep Victoria off of, and the Candyland board game which we enjoyed so much we ended up buying our own copy.

Quite often we will get Little People toys because they are so simple yet so detailed. We've had the Little People Farm, Little People Main Street, Little People Noah's Ark, and currently Little People Circus.

Back in April we got out a Mega Bloks fairytale set with King, Queen, Princess and glittery carriage. Both girls fell in love with the princess doll and played with her all the time. Victoria even slept with her a couple of times because she wouldn't let it go.

However, when it came time to return the toy, the princess was nowhere to be found. We searched high and low, all over the house. I felt so guilty because, really, the toy was boring without the princess doll. The king and queen must have been from a different set because they weren't particularly cool.

Peter returned the toy and paid the lost toy fee (which he told me was $30 but was actually $3). But I still felt really guilty, to the point where I watched Trade Me auctions to see if I could buy a replacement (only saw a couple which I lost the auctions on).

I've always had it in the back of my mind, wondering what had happened to her. Best guess was that it had been taken into the car (even though I've always been careful not to let them take library toys out of the house), and that it had fallen out somehow. Or that it had accidentally been put down on the bench and fallen into the rubbish bin.

However. A couple of weeks ago Peter and I went out for the evening. I put on my nice clothes that I hardly ever wear. And my nice black shoes, which had been sitting in a box for months. And out fell the princess!!! She was hidden inside a shoe, inside a box, in our bedroom, for all this time. I have no idea how she got there, other than a child put her there. What a great feeling of relief it was to finally find her and to set my mind at ease as to what had happened to her.

I was very happy the next time we went to the toy library, to be able to return the princess and wipe my conscience clean.

-Megz

Hibernating

2009-07-10T21:38:00.004+12:00

Haven't heard much from me lately? I've been hibernating for winter. It is SOOOO cold.

Apart from freezing we're doing well. Kathleen is now going to daycare two days a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays. Victoria goes on a Tuesday too, so I have the day to myself and usually spend it working on the farm. They both seem to enjoy it there. It is in the country, near where they will go to school, so I hope a lot of the kids there will eventually go to the same school with them.

As well as daycare we have also joined the local Playcentre and will be going there one day a week as well. Most of the kids there are Victoria's age, so it is more for her benefit than Kathleen's. Vicky loves copying the big kids at daycare, but I want her to have socialisation with kids her own age too. Besides, Playcentre offers such a big range of activities and opportunities for both the kids and for me too.

We also regularly go to playgroups and music groups and the library. I have to get out of the house most days for my sanity. Plus it's warmer to go out than stay home!

I realise I haven't blogged in a long time. The girls have grown heaps. Victoria is one and a half now. She's talking heaps and learning new words every day. Kathleen still just loves to play and watch TV. Kathleen's favourite sayings at the moment: "I'm such a girly-girl" and "pink is my favourite colour". Groan

The girls are starting to play together sometimes (with help from me) but mostly Victoria likes to play with toys on her own and Kathleen likes to play pretend with me. Kathleen has also started enjoying board games and card games, so we will sometimes sit down and play a few games together. We especially enjoyed Candyland when we had it out from the toy library. Victoria has been watching with interest and actually played a game of memory with us yesterday (with lots of help).

I've been a little surprised how much both girls have learnt at daycare. Mostly songs. In the beginning Kathleen would come home and sing new songs for us every week. After a while Victoria would stand up with her and do the actions to the songs as well. Kathleen has learnt all her Maori colours and Maori numbers up to 10. She can now count to 100 (in English).

One thing we've been struggling a lot with lately, over the last several months, is sleep, or lack of it. First it was Kathleen. She'd have trouble going to bed at night, complaining she didn't want to be alone, then waking up in the middle of the night wanting to come to bed with us (which would be fine if she didn't then keep us awake for the rest of the night or hog the bed). After about a month of that we started a star chart, where she got a star every night she stayed in her own bed and once she had 20 stars she'd get a reward. That worked amazingly better than I could have ever imagined and I think she only got up once or twice since then. Her first reward was a trip to Lollipops, and she still hasn't collected her second reward, which will be a trip to the movies.

We had a month or two of good sleep after that, and now it is Victoria's turn. She is going through a major Separation Anxiety phase, where she cries if I leave her sight even for a second. So she'll wake up in the middle of the night and scream for Mummy. She'll usually re-settle for Peter but if I'm the one to wake up and go to her, I end up being there for a couple of hours because she'll just scream the house down if I try and leave the room again.

Things are going well on the farm. Our neighbours are grazing their stock in our fields now, so that is one less thing we have to worry about at the moment. For a really funny story on farm life, read my farm blog.

-Megz

Face the Future

2009-04-28T21:57:00.002+12:00

Well I've finally caught up with the times and joined Facebook. I've been meaning to get around to it since Peter's sister Gayle was here last July. But it's been one of those things low on the priority list. I've also been invited to join by a couple of other old acquaintances.

Then last week I discovered (while playing around with www.pipl.com) that my best friends all have Facebook pages and never told me, nor invited me to be their online friend. How rude!

So I've joined up and already have almost 20 friends. I feel so important! ;-)

Still trying to figure a lot of it out though. Not sure if I'll get a myspace or bebo page. Definitely NOT going to use Twitter.

-Megz

Patience is a Virture

2009-04-23T22:06:00.005+12:00

If someone has a lot of patience they are said to have the patience of a saint.

So what do you call someone who doesn't have much patience? The patience of a sinner?

No, a three-year-old.

Kathleen has no patience at all. She can't fathom time or how long something will take. Every night she asks how long it will be until morning and then her eyes well up with tears as she says it takes so long and that sometimes the sun doesn't want to come up. Some mornings at breakfast she asks when it will be dinner time (usually this is because she wants to watch television while I'm cooking dinner).

I used to think I had a lot of patience. That's one of the reasons I decided to have kids, because I thought I would have a lot of patience and be good at it. HA! I have since discovered I don't have any patience at all. Not when it comes to my girls anyway. I can lose my temper very, very easily these days.

-Megz

My birthday present

2009-04-01T22:47:00.002+13:00

My birthday present ... A 6 week old border collie puppy.

We couldn't agree on a name for him for the first week. It came down to Muppet (Peter and Kathleen's choice), Timmy (my choice) or Doe-Do pronounced as in Doe [Female Deer] - Do [as it Just Do It] (Victoria's choice).

Popular opinion among those polled chose Timmy as the name but I'm still taking votes in the comments section.

Getting him was a mission. We drove 5(?) hours to Rotorua [with questions of "are we there yet" after only 20 minutes] to look at one puppy and decide he wasn't what we wanted, and then another hour to Te Puke where we found Timmy. And then 5 1/2 hours home again that night with the girls sleeping in the car, and the puppy whining for part of it, getting home at 1.30am.

Now we just gotta teach him not to go toilet inside the house and not to jump on or chew on the children. Victoria is starting to show interest in the potty - I wonder who will be house-trained first - Victoria or Timmy?

-Megz

Crime and Punishment

2009-03-24T21:47:00.003+13:00

Kathleen is going through a particularly rebellious stage at the moment. At least I'd like to hope that it is a phase.

Everything I ask her to do, or to stop doing, is met with "NO". For example:
"Kathleen, can you come and get dressed please", "NO"
"Kathleen, come and have lunch", "No I'm busy playing"
"Kathleen, it's time to leave, can you put that toy away and come here please", "NO"
"Kathleen, let go of your sister", (screams from Victoria, Kathleen does not let go)

It gets particularly bad when we're out somewhere and it's time to go, but she just ignores me and keeps playing. For example, we're out at playgroup and it's pack up time. All the other kids and parents are putting the toys away and getting ready to leave. Kathleen holds onto the toys and stands in the middle of the room refusing to budge, and despite my explaining "Kathleen, it's pack up time, you need to put the toys away" she refuses to do so. OR it's time to leave wherever we are (creche, playgroup, the cafe) and I convince her that it's time to go and she stops what she is doing. However as soon as I turn my back (to pick up Victoria or whatever), Kathleen runs over to another toy and starts playing with it, and we have to begin the whole "Kathleen, it's time to go" routine all over again.

WHAT TO DO?

Negotiation does not work.

I've tried Time Out a couple of times at home but that doesn't really work either. I tend to only use Time Out for the big stuff like hitting and pushing, or if she gets all wound up and needs to cool off. The problem with Time Out is that Kathleen doesn't learn anything from it. All she remembers is that she was sent to her room, not why she was sent there. I know because I've asked her afterwards what she did wrong and she says "I don't know" and "you need to say sorry to me for closing my door Mummy".

Threats and bribery appear to work, for example "If you come now you can watch TV when we get home but if you muck around we won't have time to watch anything". I don't like doing this because it seems so negative and I don't want to have to bribe her to cooperate. I want her to do it because she wants to, not because she's going to get something.

Is it just a phase? Is there any other way to get through this phase without locking her in her room until it's over?

Lately I've been reminded more and more of my own rebellious teen and pre-teen years (read: "oh $h1t there's YEARS of this ahead of us). I remember one instance when I was 11 years old, when our class was supposed to be going on a class picnic at the end of the year. But it was raining and the picnic was cancelled and our class got taken to the movies instead (Return of the Jedi - boring!). The movie finished much earlier than the picnic would have, so my friend and I decided to go to the swimming pool for a while. Silly me, I dived in to the shallow end of the pool and hit my mouth on the bottom of the pool and broke a tooth. My parents were SO MAD when they found out. No so much mad that I'd broken a tooth (although they were probably mad about that too). But mostly they were mad that I'd gone off to the swimming pool without them knowing where I was. I got in so much trouble and the sleepover that I'd had planned for the following weekend was cancelled. I was so upset about that and tried to convince them that my friend shouldn't be punished just because I was in trouble.

ANYWAY, the point of this is that at the time all I cared about was the fact that my sleepover was cancelled. I didn't really think about why. I thought it was because I had gone swimming. Only now when I look back do I realise that it was not because I went swimming. It was because I went swimming WITHOUT TELLING THEM. Because they didn't know where I was and they were worried. We didn't have cellphones back then so what was I supposed to do? Go straight home of course.

My point is that it's taken me 25 years to realise just what I was being punished for (ok, I'm really not that slow, it's been a repressed memory for 24 years). So if I put myself in Kathleen's shoes and know that all she will remember is the punishment and not the crime, then how am I going to get the message through to her? Any message, be it now or in the future.

How do I teach her that she needs to do what Mummy says, not because she's going to get punished (or rewarded) but because it is the right thing to do. Because explaining this to her is not working.

-Megz

The Honesty of People in a Small Town

2009-02-19T21:53:00.003+13:00

I haven't been sleeping well lately. Last night was particularly bad. I slept for two hours, was awake for two hours, then slept for another three hours. And that was it for the night. I put it down to the fact that I drank a bottle of V yesterday to help me cope with the fact that I hadn't slept very well the night before that either.

So today I have been pretty tired. As well I've been cranky, forgetful and found it hard to concentrate.

This morning Peter and I had a meeting at our lawyers so the girls and I went up to Palmerston North for the day. When we were finished at the laywers we still had some time left on our parking meter so we went for a walk around the block, Kathleen walking and Victoria in the stroller. When we got back to the car I loaded the girls into the car and off we went to a cafe in the country for lunch.

It was an hour or two later when I was sick of carrying Victoria around and wanting to put her into the stroller, when I realised that I didn't remember putting it back into the car after our walk around the block. A quick check confirmed that, yup, it wasn't there. Damn.

We finished up our lunch and went back to our lawyers, just on the off-chance that it was still there sitting by the side of the road. It wasn't.

I asked at the laywers if they'd seen anything. No, nothing. I resigned myself to the fact that it was gone. Best case scenario I figured a parking warden may have taken it away. Worst case someone pinched it.

There was a bank next door to the lawyers so I decided to ask in there anyway. And, lo and behold, there was our stroller sitting in their foyer.

I confessed to the teller what an idiot I was and she said that she'd noticed the stroller sitting by the side of the road when she went to lunch at 1 o'clock, and it was still there when she came back at 2 o'clock. She guessed what had happened and brought it inside.

Now it had actually been sitting there since 12 o'clock! Two hours!

The honesty of small town people really does surprise and hearten me.

-Megz

Walking

2009-02-03T21:00:00.003+13:00

Victoria took her first steps at Christmas time. Since then she's been practising and getting better at it. Now, as of a couple of days ago, she's suddenly got the hang of it and is walking everywhere. Not all the time but a good 50% of the time. And she can now walk from one side of the room to the other without falling down.

I have enrolled both girls in a local daycare centre for one day a week. They had their second time there today. I think they're both enjoying it. The first week I stayed with them for an hour or two, today I stayed for half an hour to make sure they were settled in. Kathleen has had drop offs at Playcentre before so she was absolutely fine. Victoria is a lot younger so hasn't had drop offs before, but she handled it well. In fact the first week she cried when I tried to take her home and reached out for the teacher so she could stay there! Today though I got the biggest hugs from her when I came to pick them up.

Having them in daycare has been good because it has enabled me to get some work done around the farm. Both weeks I've spent the time weeding the lavender field (which you can read about in my other blog). I've got the next several weeks drop off days all mapped out too. There is so much work to do around the farm and it is difficult because I can't really leave the girls alone. Nor can I take them with me, with the amount of deadly nightshade springing up all over the place. So I've gotten into the habit of when Victoria has a nap after lunch, putting the television on for Kathleen to have quiet time, and then I go outside and work close to the house. I don't like her watching so much television, but at least I know she is safe and pretty much won't leave the couch while it's on so won't get into trouble. I always stay within sight of the house so that if she needs me I'm nearby.

Victoria is now settling into a fairly regular schedule of waking up at 8am, having lunch at 12, a nap at 1, dinner at 6pm and bed at 8pm. Kathleen's schedule is pretty similar except she doesn't have a nap and wakes up at 7. Compared to other country dwellers we're pretty late risers I think. But I just can't get up any earlier than that. Even 7am is pretty difficult.

-Megz

Triathlon

2009-01-25T07:54:00.005+13:00

New Years Resolution No 4 has been completed. Yesterday I competed in the MORE FM triwoman event in Palmerston North.

Let me just say this from the outset - it wasn't a race. I wasn't out to beat anyone. I entered it just for the challenge of competing and the thrill of finishing.

I did my first triathlon in January 2005 along with my friend Tess, back when we lived in Auckland and before I had kids. I still remember the incredible buzz I got just from crossing the finish line. It was probably the biggest physical challenge I'd ever done at that stage.

And since then I've always wanted to do it again. But in January 2006 Kathleen was born. January 2007 we'd just moved to Wellington and that's no excuse but I made it my excuse anyway because I was too intimidated to do it without a friend. January 2008 Victoria was only 2 months old. But by January 2009 I had no excuse. Well, I could have used the "I've just moved house and don't have anyone to do it with" excuse, but I've really been kicking myself for doing that last time and I wasn't going to put it off again. So I set myself the challenge and entered.

Training has been a problem. Basically there hasn't been any. I look after the children all day long. And lately if I do get a break I've been busy working outside on the farm, taking care of the garden/weeds mostly, or working inside on unpacking our stuff still. In the evenings after the girls are in bed I'm usually too tired to do anything. A professional triathlete yesterday said she has kids (older), works full time and has a lifestyle block the same size as ours - so she gets up at 5am to train. Well bugger that! I need my sleep.

So I set off yesterday for the triathlon not having done any training at all. I haven't been swimming since the last triathlon I did. I've only ridden a bike once since then, and that was only to the shops and back.

I found I wasn't as nervous as last time. Maybe that's because I kinda knew what to expect.

The swim was six lengths of the outdoor pool at the Lido Aquatic Centre. I expected this to be pretty tough and it was. I can swim well enough, but I don't have much strength so I was pretty slow. Hopping out of the pool and running to the transition area to get my bike, my legs were pretty wobbly.

The bike leg went from the Lido to the edge of town and back again via the riverside drive. There were two laps of this course. Last time around I surprised myself by finding the cycle leg pretty easy and was passing people all over the place. This time around I found it more difficult and people were passing me. I'm wondering if maybe I didn't use the gears on the bike properly. I pretty much stayed in the same gear the whole time and had a very steady rythym going, but it wasn't fast.

Getting off the bike at the end my legs felt like jelly. It was hard to walk, let alone run. But I set off at a very slow jog around the course which wound through The Esplanade to the river, and back along Fitzherbert Ave to the BP and then across Manawaroa Park to the finish line. Last time around I found the running leg the hardest. This time around I was able to keep running for about 90% of the time, albeit at a very slow jog at first as my legs just wouldn't work. I ran the final leg acros the field (500 metres?) and crossed the finish line tired but happy.

I got my results off the web last night. I didn't do as well as I did in 2005 but I guess that's to be expected from not training. I did about the same in the swim, worse in the cycling but better in the running. I'm not sure why that is. I think because last time around I used to regularly do aerobics at the gym once a week, I had more strength. But for the last four years my only form of exercise has been regularly walking around Island Bay, either pushing a stroller or carrying a child. So I think my endurance has increased because pushing a buggy uphill while also carrying groceries is certainly not easy.

Overall though I'm happy with my results.

I would like to challenge my Palmerston North based friends to join me next year. With their buy-in maybe we can find some time to train together and do even better next year!!!

-Megz

Three Years Old

2009-01-21T21:01:00.006+13:00

Kathleen is now three years old. This morning we were reminiscing, looking at photos from her second birthday. That feels like so long ago now, much more than a year ago. She has grown up so much since then...

Physically her hair is much longer, and she has the physique of a child now, not a toddler any more.
Her language skills are humungous (sp?) (one of her favourite words at the moment).
She can count to 20 (but misses out 15 most of the time).
She can read all the numbers.
She knows her ABC's (the song that is).
She can read a lot of the letters now, thanks mostly to the letter floor puzzle / mat that Victoria got for Christmas as we spend a lot of time jumping from letter to letter.
She can run, jump (up and forward), dance, stand on one foot, hop, walk along a concrete wall.
She is toilet trained and can go by herself (but chooses not to).
She can undress herself and can dress herself but often gets stuck or frustrated and needs help. Or takes too long and Mummy does it for her.

Kathleen's favourite game at the moment is "Grandma Bunny", a game she made up herself. The game starts off with Kathleen being Grandma Bunny and I am the good little girl coming to visit Grandma. I come in and Grandma shows me the toys to play with. We then proceed to play with the toys. Sometimes Grandma and I go different places and play with the toys there. Sometimes Grandma will cook me dinner and we will eat then go to bed. That's my favourite part of the game ;-)

For her birthday this year, Kathleen got two presents - a dolls house and a castle. The figurines for the dolls house and the castle go visiting each other quite a lot. Kathleen has always loved dolls houses. At playgroup or creche or Playcentre, the dolls house has always been the first thing she goes for. So we really should have bought her one a long time ago. But we waited to get a really nice one and then gave it to her for her birthday. It is a large wooden house with four rooms. She loves it. Every day whenever she has downtime (i.e. whenever Mummy is busy) Kathleen can be found playing with the dolls. Victoria loves it too.

In the afternoon, the girls and I drove to Palmerston North and we had a birthday lunch at Lollipops with some friends. Kathleen had a lovely time. Afterwards we went to ToyWorld so she could choose some dolls to go with her dolls house. We had pancakes for breakfast and her favourite Moroccan "Ramoccan" Lamb for dinner. And a rainbow birthday cake.

So this year the goals are to continue learning to recognise letters, learning to write letters and to read simple words. Continuing learning to dress herself. This is more of a goal for Mummy - stop trying to help and let her do it herself. The same goes for things like cutting her food, buttering her bread, brushing her teeth, etc.

We will also have the challenge of finding a new preschool for Kathleen, and I would like to think that by this time next year she will have a friend or two in the area. It has been hard on her not having any friends. She had friends in Auckland but then we moved to Wellington and had trouble meeting anyone her age. Then when she started creche at the beginning of last year we made some tentative friendships. Only for us to then decide to move house again and so we held back from making more friends. But I would really like for my girls to start getting to know other kids now.

Three is an amazing age. So much a child now, no longer a baby. Someone famous said something like "show me the child at three and I'll show you the man". (Actually I just googled that and it's a Jesuit saying and about 7 year olds so not quite what I had in mind. What I meant was that at three your true personality becomes apparent). It's so true. Kathleen's personality is well and truely set in. She's a quiet, indoor girl. She likes to be entertained, in the form of TV, books or computer games. But at the same time she's a big show off and loves to be the centre of attention, whether it's dancing, telling stories or just being a goofball. Her whole focus of attention is toys. Whenever we go somewhere her only concern is whether or not they have toys there. I would like to hope that this means she will have a happy childhood, as so far she is pretty easily pleased ... as long as there are toys to play with!!!

First Birthday

Second Birthday

Third Birthday

-Megz

Potty Training Part III

2009-01-19T21:13:00.003+13:00

Kathleen's toilet training has been going pretty well. She stopped wearing nappies during the day in June and although she still has the occasional accident, most of the time she will announce in a loud voice when she needs to go, or else I will ask her if she needs to and she will say "yes" or (usually) "no".

She's still been wearing nappies overnight though. A lot of the time they are dry when she gets up in the morning. So at New Years I decided to take the plunge and stop wearing overnight nappies. We put a potty in her room and explained that if she needed to go she should get out of bed and use the potty.

The first week went really well and she would get out of bed before going to sleep and use the potty, just for the fun of it I think.

But then she started wetting the bed. Not every night. But in the last three weeks she has done it five times. That's about a quarter of the time.

Should I be worried? I don't think so. I think she'll get the hang of it eventually. What I'm not sure of is if she's losing control while she's asleep or not. Because if so then I don't know how we teach her otherwise.

Luckily we've got a new washing machine now and the weather has been good enough to be able and wash and dry the sheets so often. Our old washing machine broke down just before we moved and was going to cost $6,000 (!!!) to repair or $600 to buy a new one.

-Megz

New Years Resolution

2009-01-12T21:28:00.003+13:00

1. Blog more often. At least once a month on this blog, and once a week on my farming blog. Plus help Kathleen and Victoria to blog once a month too.

2. Find more time for myself to relax, play Sims, read, etc. Victoria has dropped down to one nap a day now. Her bedtime is now coming into line with Kathleen's at 8 o'clock. It used to be when she had two naps a day that her second nap would be quite late in the afternoon, waking up around 5pm. Therefore not being ready for bed till 9pm or later. Now she's usually shattered by 8.30. So there is an extra hour in the evenings that I didn't have before and can schedule some 'me' time on a regular basis.

3. Toilet train Kathleen at night. More to come on this in another post.

4. Complete the women’s triathlon in Palmerston North on the 24th of January. I've officially entered, so keep an eye out here later in the month to see how I did.

-Megz

Christmas

2008-12-29T22:52:00.001+13:00

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

2008-12-27T22:30:00.003+13:00

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

2008-12-21T21:40:00.004+13:00

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

2008-10-25T12:10:00.002+13:00

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

2008-10-23T21:43:00.004+13:00

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

2008-10-09T22:09:00.002+13:00

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

2008-10-06T08:39:00.003+13:00

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

2008-10-02T13:27:00.005+13:00

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

2008-08-28T22:44:00.005+12:00

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

2008-06-16T07:52:00.011+12:00

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

2008-06-07T11:39:00.003+12:00

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

2008-06-04T14:15:00.002+12:00

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

2008-05-24T21:43:00.005+12:00

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

2008-05-21T15:18:00.002+12:00

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

2008-05-13T14:41:00.003+12:00

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

2008-05-09T16:39:00.002+12:00

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

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

-Megz

Big Girls

2008-04-29T21:34:00.002+12:00

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

2008-04-12T19:24:00.003+12:00

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

2008-03-27T14:19:00.004+13:00

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

2008-03-12T22:18:00.002+13:00

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

Getting Out and About

2008-02-28T20:15:00.004+13:00

Kathleen, Victoria and I are finally starting to get out and mingle in the local community. We have been living here just over a year now and haven't made any friends, which is a shame. I would have liked for Kathleen to have had other children to play with over the last year. Unfortunately, with our two girls being born right in the middle of the current baby boom, places at early childhood centres are limited. I've been turned away from two different places because the waiting lists were full. Kathleen is currently on the waiting list for both Playcentre and Montessori, and Victoria is by default also on the waiting list. (Six months ago the waiting list for Playcentre was estimated at a year long but may be down to six months by now).

But that's not to say we've been stuck at home the whole time. We started going to playgroup at the beginning of last year, every Wednesday morning and sometimes on a Monday as well. Plus for the last six or so months we've also been going to music group every Friday. However it's been a bit difficult to break in and make friends at those places. Kathleen's been of an age where she just plays alongside but not with other children. And I've been a bit too shy and not really made much conversation with other parents past "how old is your child?". The age range of the children at playgroup goes from 0 up to 4 years, so there has only been a limited number of children Kathleen's age there.

But that is all starting to change...

Victoria has definitely opened up new avenues for us. Everyone loves a baby and loves to come over and talk to you if you have a baby with you. And share horror stories, LOL.

This week we went to our first Plunket run coffee group for babies born in November and December last year. A room full of 2 and 3 month old babies! Of the dozen or so mums there, about 4 were second time (or more) mums. As we all have some common ground, hopefully this will turn into a regular event at least, or some new friendships at best. And Victoria will have some friends her own age once they grow older.

But the biggest news is that Kathleen has started atttending the creche run by our local Plunket. She attends three hours on a Thursday morning from 9-12. Today was her second session. Last week Victoria and I stayed with her the whole time. This week we left for about half an hour. Next week we'll go away for a bit longer, until she's comfortable enough for me to leave her there on her own the whole time. Actually I don't think she'll have a problem with it. I pretty much spent the whole time today in the corner playing with Victoria and talking with the other mums. The only time I intervened was to stop Kathleen from getting into arguments with other children (the downside of not having had other children to play with is not knowing how to share, but it's only been a couple of small instances and I'm sure she will learn pretty quick).

At her first session last week she had an absolute ball. She had so much fun that by the end of it she was absolutely exhausted and just had to have a lie down in the playhouse.

Already she's been exposed to new experiences that she hasn't had at home - messy play with sand and mud pies, creating stamp pictures, playing with clay, "painting" the fence with water, and just lots of different toys, puzzles and books. It's going to be a brilliant experience for her. I'm starting to feel bad for not having done those things with her at home, but I either didn't think of it or didn't really want the mess in the house. But she does have playdoh and she loves her blackboard, and I'm fully intending on buying some paint when she's older.

In other news, Kathleen is ready to drop her afternoon nap completely. Which is a pain for me because I'm so exhausted that I really look forward to her going to bed for a couple of hours in the afternoon. I'm still persisting with putting her to bed after lunch, but she just talks to herself or plays with toys. At the moment I'm leaving her for about an hour to rest and then getting her back up again. She's normally quite worn out by dinner time and I'm not quite sure what to do about that, if I should bring dinnertime and bedtime forward earlier, or what.

Kathleen's language skills continue to amaze. She's moved on to more abstract concepts like "me" and "I", for example, "I take piggy with I", rather than saying "Kiki" (which by the way she has also dropped and now calls herself "Kass-Leeeen Hammul-tummm").

Victoria has lately started squealing in the cutest little baby way. Her neck is getting a lot stronger - she likes sitting on your lap but her head normally slumps to her chest after a short while, and she still hates tummy time but can hold her head up for a few seconds now which she couldn't do before.

Evenings continue to be a difficult time for us. I try and give both girls a bath at the same time, which sometimes means keeping Victoria awake longer than she would like. And with Kathleen not napping during the day anymore it also means keeping her up longer than she'd like too. So there's usually a lot of grizzling at bathtime lately.

Victoria still wakes up once during the night for a feed, which is really getting to be exhausting. The last couple of nights I've started ignoring her when she wakes up, and both times she has gone back to sleep for another hour.

Recently I got hand impressions made of both girls. I have to highly recommend Twinkle Toes. Nike who runs the Wellington branch is very friendly and the finished product is fantastic. The actual process of taking the impressions is very quick and easy, taking only about 20 seconds. Actually, the most difficult part was taking a photo to mount in the frame, of both girls looking at the camera and not moving.

And now, some comparison photos of the girls...

Kathleen age 11 weeks	Victoria age 11 weeks
Kathleen age 14 weeks	Victoria age 14 weeks
Kathleen age 15 weeks	Victoria age 15 weeks

-Megz

Three Months

2008-02-19T12:27:00.003+13:00

Victoria is now three months old. She is growing strong and fast. She went to the doctors today for her 3-month immunisations which she handled very well, only crying a little bit. They weighed her and she is exactly 5kg. On the smaller side for her age, but she has always been small.

But she is growing quickly both physically and developmentally. Touch wood I think the worst of the newborn stage is over with now, and we're coming in to the cute learning and discovery phase.

She’s a pretty happy girl most of the time now, no longer the screaming newborn who would scream for hours at a time (ok that's a slight exaggeration). Now if she’s crying I’ve got a pretty good idea of why – she’s either hungry or tired or wants attention.

She is so much more interactive nowadays. She’ll lie there and talk to you and smile up at you. Or sometimes she’ll just ignore you completely and stare and smile off into space.

She’s also very settled too, happy to lie under her play gym by herself for ages, and even if you try and interact with her she will ignore you and keep staring at the toys. Sometimes this can be a good thing because Kathleen still takes up an awful lot of my time and attention, but I feel guilty that I don't pay enough attention to Victoria at times.

She's sleeping pretty well at night now, waking up once during the night for a feed. During the day she will protest having a nap quite strongly, but once in bed will generally go off to sleep on her own ok. She tends to have one big nap and a few short naps during they day, unless we're out.

I think managing both Kathleen and Victoria is starting to get a little easier. Victoria is no longer as constantly needy as she was in the beginning, and Kathleen is getting used to having to share mummy. I’ll put Vicky down under the play gym and often Kathleen will climb in there with her and give her kisses and cuddles. I’m so pleased she still seems to like her little sister. Victoria seems to absolutely adore her big sister and is always happy to be on the receiving end of all the cuddles and kisses.

I think Victoria is starting to teethe. She has her hands in her mouth a lot of the time now and really chomps on them. she even tries to put her hands so far into her mouth that she makes herself gag! She also likes to bite things, including me, OUCH! She's not quite at the stage of being able to pick things up yet, but if you put something into her hand she'll hold onto it for a short while.

It's interesting raising a second child. While we're not raising Victoria any differently from Kathleen, there are subtle differences re things I learned the first time round. Such as not trying to force Victoria to sleep if she wakes up. With Kathleen I spent hours trying to rock her to sleep. Now with Victoria if she wakes up after half an hour, I will get her up and she's usually pretty happy with this. I also don't stress about getting her back to bed quite so much as I used to. I wait for her to tell me she's tired rather than watching the clock.

I also expect that she will be learning a lot through osmosis, as she is often in the room when I am reading Kathleen bedtime stories, so she is hearing a lot more language than Kathleen ever did (Well it was just Kat and I at home alone so who was I going to talk to - myself?). Plus Kathleen and I are often singing songs from nursery rhymes or TV so I expect Victoria will grow up always knowing these songs. It will be interesting to see if this is the case.

Cheers,
Megz

Two Years Old

2008-01-26T16:27:00.000+13:00

Kathleen turned two years old on Monday. In some ways it seems like she has been two for quite a while now. In fact sometimes I have to remind myself that she's still only little. Having Victoria around now and her being so little, Kathleen seems very big and grown up in comparison. But it is Kathleen's speech that makes her seem so much older. She talks in fully formed sentences now, sometimes quite long and complicated. She may miss out little words like "is" (e.g. "baby talkee on da phone") but her speech is for the most part intelligible and intelligent. She knows all her colours and is getting better at numbers, able to count to five in both English and Spanish.

Kat's birthday was on Monday. This also happened to be Wellington Anniversary Day so Peter had the day off work. We began the day by singing "Kiki's Special Day" song (from Dora the Explorer, Boots Special Day episode). She then wanted "stamps" on her hands, so we drew pictures on her hands with marker pens. Kiki and Daddy then enjoyed watching cartoons over breakfast.

Then it was time for presents. Kathleen got a bit spoiled, although we only bought her a couple of presents. There were also a couple of presents from family and friends. And a couple of presents left over from her birthday last year. These were things that she just wasn't ready for at the time (a tea-set and some Playdoh). So I put them away until she was older and then kinda forgot about them. We could have given these to her a couple of months ago but with Christmas coming up I decided to keep them until her birthday, as she had quite enough Christmas presents as it was.

Her favourite presents would have to be the set of Little People building blocks, and the tea-set. Every day since her birthday she has dragged these out to play with, making tea for the Little People or for Mummy, and stacking the blocks and toys up.

She also got a blackboard, which is great because she can pick up the chalk at any time and draw pictures without bugging Mummy to get the pens and paper out. And even better, Mummy doesn't have to supervise to stop her drawing all over herself or worse. If she wants to draw on herself with chalk she can...

After all the presents were opened and played with, we brought out Kathleen's birthday cake. A Very Hungry Caterpillar cake which looked pretty good even if I do say so myself. Neither Kathleen or I have made many friends since we moved back to Wellington, so we didn't have a birthday party for her. It was just Mummy and Daddy and Kiki (Victoria was sleeping).

Later on we took Kat and Vicky out to the park to play, and had a picnic lunch under a tree. Then that evening we went out to dinner at McDonald's and once again Kathleen had a great time playing in the playground.

To top it all off, today we took her to Little Monkeys indoor playground for her "party". Only one of the five sets of parents we invited were able to make it. But that didn't matter anyway as Kathleen didn't even notice or care. She had a wonderful time playing and didn't want to leave.

So now my baby is two years old. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was posting about her first birthday. In that year she has grown up a lot - learnt to walk; learnt to talk; learnt to jump and climb; learnt to draw; discovered Dora and Barney and The Wiggles. Some things haven't changed - she still wants to get into everything, she still loves being the centre of attention. Tantrums are becoming more frequent, and are an almost daily occurrence.

In the next year I expect she will continue to build on the skills she already has, will get better at drawing and throwing/catching, will continue learning to use the potty, will learn to dress herself. She will also continue to become more independent, and will soon be attending creche one morning a week all on her own. I will certainly miss her, even if it is only for three hours a week.

-Megz

A New Year and back to reality

2008-01-08T14:34:00.000+13:00

Memory is a funny thing.

Peter thinks Victoria cries a lot more than Kathleen ever did. I think she cries less.

In my memory, Kathleen did nothing but cry all day long, and we spent night after night rocking her back and forth in her pram to get her to sleep, taking turns rocking while the other one cooked and ate dinner. The terms "Devil Baby" and "Daddy Walk" were not coined for nothing.

In Peter's memory, well I guess he's blanked it all out. He went to work during the day and only saw Kathleen in the evening, and only had a week off when she was born. With the summer holidays, Peter has been at home for 4 of Victoria's first 7 weeks and has seen a whole lot more of her than he ever did of Kathleen. Plus by default he has had to be a lot more hands on with Kathleen in the 4 weeks he's been at home, doing things with her so I can spend time with Victoria.

I bet he was glad to get back to work this week!!!

I, however, miss his help very much. It is exhausting looking after two little ones. It's not too bad when one is asleep, but when they're both awake ... well sibling rivalry has begun already. Kathleen is obviously used to having all the attention, so when my attention is diverted to Victoria, Kathleen will pester me over and over again for what she wants, she will start to get into things she's not supposed to, and when she doesn't get what she wants she will throw a tantrum. And if Victoria doesn't get enough attention, she will just scream and scream.

Admittedly I've only been at this for two days so I hope it won't always be like that.

Juggling the competing needs of two little ones is my biggest challenge right now (and just forget about getting the housework done or cooking dinner - even feeding myself is too difficult sometimes!). I've never been very good at multi-tasking. Kathleen needs to get out of the house and do things. Victoria needs to stay home and have a stable routine.

I'm looking forward to when the summer is over and Kat can go back to playgroup. She will also be starting at Plunket Creche for one morning a week once she turns 2.

Victoria is growing well. She now weighs just over 4kg. I haven't quite worked out her personality yet, but I expect she's going to be just as big a handful as Kathleen is, when she gets older. She's been through several different phases so far. The first few weeks she was very sleepy and would sleep anytime, anywhere, through any noise. That phase passed and then she went to the opposite extreme and wouldn't sleep and by evening would just scream for hours. Then we started working on teach her to self-settle in bed. It has been going ok and I have had more successes than failures (although once again Peter would disagree). But now we're into a new phase where she understands the bedtime routine but just doesn't want to go to bed and will scream and scream as soon as you even go into her room. I wonder what her next phase will be - sleeping peacefully for hours on end? Yeah right. ROTFLMAO.

Over the summer break we have been rearranging the house again. Victoria now has her own room, the room off the kitchen where Kathleen was sleeping. Kathleen has moved into the biggest room in the house and has lots of room for her toys and to play and even has her own couch for snuggling up on to read. Kat's room is the room which we were using as the study, and the study has now moved into the front room. We've got it set up like a proper office, with Peter and my desks facing each other in a cubicle style. There's even a computer just for Kathleen set up there as well.

We hope to now start looking into renovating/redecorating the house again soon.

And finally, because comparisons are inevitable, here are a few photos of Kathleen and Victoria ...

Kathleen age 6 days	Victoria age 7 days
Kathleen age 6 weeks	Victoria age 6 weeks
Kathleen age 8 weeks	Victoria age 7 weeks

-Megz

Merry Christmas

2007-12-25T13:36:00.000+13:00

Christmas 2005

Christmas 2006

Christmas 2007

A big MERRY CHRISTMAS to all our friends and family all over the world.

Love Megz

Thirty-something plus Two Years and One Month

2007-12-17T17:20:00.000+13:00

Today is Peter's birthday. It also means Victoria is one month old today. And Kathleen is nearly two (and acting it).

Peter ... The name Peter means "rock" and you certainly are my rock. Thank you for all your help and support. I couldn't do any of this without you. I want you to know I love you very much, even though life is so busy and stressful these days that I don't often get a chance to show it. Happy Birthday.

Kathleen ... Kathleen is almost two years old and at times it certainly seems like the "terrible twos" have arrived. She still loves her little sister, and still loves to give her lots of cuddles.

But there are also times when she can be a big handful and ignore whatever I say. Things like "don't touch that" are met with her instantly picking it up, or "come here please" just encourages her to run in the opposite direction. I don't know if it is just because she is almost two that she is behaving this way, or if she is acting up because of Victoria. Often she will do these things when I'm busy with Victoria and can't run after her.

But then there are also times when Victoria is crying and Kathleen will sit down quietly and not bother Mummy, or will try and give Victoria a cuddle to make her happy. Or if I'm busy feeding Victoria, Kat will happily play around my feet.

She's really grown up lately in a lot of ways. Most noticeably in her communication skills. She has started talking in sentences now. Pretty coherent sentences at that. Things like "Kiki squirt Kiki self" when playing with the hose. Or "Baby seestah wakey up". Or "I busy playey". Or my personal favourite (NOT) "I busy pooey". Every day she amazes me with just how well she can communicate. Her pronounciation is pretty good although sometimes I don't always understand her. She still insists on saying "Uncle Runkle" instead of "Uncle Richard" and "Eddie" instead of "elephant". LOL.

Victoria ... But while Kathleen has entered the terrible two's, Victoria has lately become the real difficult one in the house. She seems to have a very unsettled time every evening between 7-10pm. She can't sleep and gets over-tired and starts screaming and screaming. I know it's common for babies to have an unsettled period like this so I'm not too concerned, but it can be very hard to listen to the constant screaming. Obviously part of the reason she can't sleep is because it is a busy time of day with Peter home and us eating dinner and Kat having a bath and going to bed. Which is also what makes it all the more difficult to deal with a screaming baby.

We've also had a couple of bad days recently where Victoria hasn't had much sleep during the day either and has therefore spent a lot of the day screaming. Just like Kathleen used to do at that age. I thought second babies were supposed to be easier?????

But we have survived the first month and I'm sure we will get through the next month as well. Hopefully the first smiles will come soon.

In the meantime we have Christmas to look forward to. Kathleen's second Christmas but the first one she will understand. She is excited by all the decorations and trees everywhere, and even met Santa the other day (which you can read about in her blog.

Cheers,
Megz

Mimi

2007-12-04T14:55:00.000+13:00

Mimi is Peter's mum. That's not her real name (actually her real name is the same as mine!), but her 'title' aka Grandma.

In July her husband and other children went back to Texas to live, but Mimi stayed on here to help us out with Kathleen and the little one when she came along. We were supposed to move in with Mimi while our house was being renovated, but when that got called off, she rented out her house and came to live with us instead.

A week ago Mimi left to go back to Texas to join the rest of her family. All I can say is WE REALLY MISS YOU.

Thank you so much for your help, especially in the week or so after Victoria was born. We really appreciate your help with all the little things - cooking meals, going shopping, doing dishes and feeding the cats. It's amazing how two little people can require so much time and attention from big people, that it takes three people at least to run the household. The cats REALLY miss you and were wondering if they could come live with you instead. They haven't been fed nearly so well since you've been gone.

We're all looking forward to seeing you (and everyone else) again when you come back to visit next year.

Love Megz

Middle Name

2007-11-25T15:58:00.000+13:00

At the time that Victoria was born, we hadn't yet chosen a middle name for her. We'd had several discussions on the subject but had yet to make a final decision.

There were several factors influencing the name we were to choose ...

It had to be a short name, one or two syllables at the most. Because both Victoria and Hamilton are long and multi-syllable, we agreed that a long middle name just wouldn't be appropriate.

It couldn't end in "a". Victoria Sandra Hamilton just wouldn't work.

It couldn't end in "y". Vicky Sandy Hamilton just wouldn't work.

It potentially couldn't begin with a vowel if the two names didn't run together well, e.g. Victoria Elizabeth.

We came up with a short list of names that we liked that fit the criteria:

Victoria Anne
Victoria Jane
Victoria Louise
Victoria Marie
Victoria Rose

However, following Victoria's unconventional birth we all agreed that her middle name needed to commemorate the event. Suggestions included Front Yard, Lawn, Daisy, Pixie (from the bottom of the garden), Sunshine.

But the name which struck a chord with everyone was Melrose, the name of the street on which she was born. We weren't completely sure it worked as a name though, so the compromise we reached was to name her ... Melanie-Rose ... or Mel-Rose for short.

And so in naming her Victoria Melanie-Rose Hamilton we broke our number one rule and made her middle name even longer than her first and last names. I guess sometimes rules are made to be broken!

http://vickymelrose.blogspot.com has been registered, however it may be some time before she is able to blog anything. Unlike big sister Kathleen.

Victoria is doing well and growing strong and healthy. So far she seems more settled than Kathleen was at her age, and she is sleeping well during the day (and ok at night). Kathleen adores her little sister and constantly wants to kiss and cuddle her. We have to keep reminding her to be gentle.

Cheers,
Megz

Victoria Hamilton

2007-11-20T15:12:00.000+13:00

Peter and I are now proud parents to a second daughter, Victoria (undecided middle name) Hamilton. Kathleen is a very proud big sister who loves to give her little sister lots of kissies and cuddles.

Victoria was born at 3.10pm on Saturday 17 November 2007, weighing 2.780kg / 6lb 2oz, at home.

It was not planned to be a home birth. In fact we were on our way to the hospital when all of a sudden she couldn't be held back any more. And so our second daughter was actually born in the front yard of the house!!! Big huge thanks to all the neighbours who appeared out of nowhere and provided lots of help.

I've heard about people giving birth on the way to the hospital and laughed and said "couldn't you have left earlier?". Now I don't want people laughing at me the same way, so here is the whole story from my point of view...

(warning it may get a little graphic)

Saturday morning I woke up and felt like this was going to be the day. Victoria was already a week late, and every morning Peter would ask me if "today is baby day". As I got out of bed I felt a trickle. My waters hadn't broken but they were leaking. As the morning went on I felt period-like cramps. So when Peter asked if it was baby day I said "maybe".

In order to give me a little space, I suggested that Peter and his mum take Kathleen out Christmas shopping. They had some stuff they needed to buy anyway, and Kat was fascinated with the Christmas trees and decorations last time we went to the Warehouse. I suppose it was about 11am when they went out.

The cramps were getting stronger and I re-read through my midwife's instructions on when to call her. They said "When contracting every 3 minutes lasting 60-90 seconds for an hour". I phoned anyway just to give them a heads up that things were beginning. I spoke to the backup midwife who didn't seem overly concerned, said that it could take up to 48 hours and to call back when the contractions had been lasting 60 seconds, for an hour.

So I settled back to try and watch some TV and take my mind of things. Over the course of the next hour the contractions became strong and regular, probably only lasting 20-30 seconds (I was unable to time them myself).

I would say labour was definitely established by 12 o'clock.

Now Kathleen's birth took about 5 hours. She was also a week late and was induced. I have heard that inductions can speed up deliveries. I've also heard that second and subsequent babies can come quicker. Had Kathleen's birth been normal and not an induction then I don't know how long it would have taken - 12-14 hours is the average. So I didn't really know what to expect in terms of how long it would take. All I had to go by was my midwife's assurance not to worry until contractions have been 60 seconds long for an hour.

By 1.15pm the contractions had become intense and I was starting to think about pain relief. I texted Peter who said he was on his way home.

At 1.45pm I couldn't stand the pain any more and hopped in the shower, something which really helped a lot last time. However this time it didn't help much so I hopped back out again. Contractions were at least 30 seconds long, and definitely less than 5 minutes apart.

At 2pm Peter, Mimi and Kathleen got home. Mimi began timing my contractions, while Peter looked after Kathleen and put her down for a nap. The contractions were lasting about 45 seconds and were 2 minutes apart. They phoned the midwife who again said to "not worry until contractions have been lasting 60 seconds, for an hour".

I don't know how long until the contractions reached 60 seconds in length. Not long, maybe another half hour. But I still had in my mind that I had to wait at this stage for another hour before doing anything.

At 2.45pm I suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to push and knew I was reaching the "transition" stage. I fought back against the urge with all my willpower. The midwife was again phoned and she agreed to come to our house. She lives about 20 minutes away.

Peter and his mother kept insisting we needed to go to the hospital. I just wanted my midwife to be there.

After another 10 minutes even I agreed we couldn't wait any longer and we slowly headed for the car to drive to the hospital. We had to stop a couple of times for contractions. Being upright slowed the contractions down a bit thankfully. During all this time I did not push once, apart from the initial time when the transition phase started. I successfully fought off each subsequent contraction.

We walked down to the car and met the midwife at the gate. I felt another contraction starting and dropped down onto the grass to ride it out. The midwife watched and then she agreed to go on ahead to the hospital to get things ready.

Peter went on to bring the car out, and I stayed where I was which was behind the garage, out of sight from the road but as close to the car as possible.

I felt another contraction starting. I tried to fight it, as I'd done before, but this time the urge to push just overwhelmed me. As I struggled to bring it under control I could feel the baby's head crowning and knew it was too late. So with one more push (on purpose), the head was delivered. I told Peter it was too late, the baby was here, but he didn't believe me. He came over and saw for himself, and after another minute and one more push, I delivered the rest of the baby into his arms.

And so Victoria was born. On our front lawn. At 3.10pm. After 3-3 1/2 hours labour and only 3 pushes.

The neighbours appeared out of nowhere with towels and water and phones and you-name-it. Mimi phoned an ambulance after I screamed out "it's coming", and they arrived maybe 10 minutes later to cut the cord and transport Victoria and I to hospital, where the midwife delivered the placenta and checked us out.

After such an exciting entry into the world, Victoria is quickly settling into her role as the smallest member of our family, keeping us awake half the night and being on the receiving end of lots and lots of cuddles.

More updates to comes over the next few weeks and months.

-Megz

How quickly they grow...

2007-11-12T22:09:00.001+13:00

So, we're getting all of Kathleen's old things out and ready for Not Nooboo to use. Kat is fascinated with all of it and wants to play with it. She loves the rocker (which she calls a "rocket") and will put her toys in it, or climb in it herself.

Here's a comparison of Kathleen in the rocker when she was first born, and now. These pictures are pretty close to the same scale. It's hard to believe just how much she has grown.

Cheers,
Megz

PS: No sign of the little one yet.

D-Day

2007-11-10T22:04:00.000+13:00

Well, today was meant to be Due Date for Not Nooboo, and with two hours left in the day, there's still no sign of the little one.

Guess he or she is going to be late, just like big sister Kathleen.

-Megz

Renovating

2007-11-04T16:00:00.000+13:00

It is now almost a year since Peter, Kathleen and I moved to Wellington. The house we're living in used to belong to my parents, and we've been here since pretty much Christmas last year. All that time (and longer) we've been talking about renovating the house.

Now this is a bit of an emotional subject for me, since it's the house I grew up in. However there are several things that I would be happy to see the back of. Such as the 1970's carpet and wallpaper. I've been looking at these for 30 years now and I am SO OVER IT. I know patterned wallpaper is making a comeback at the moment, but I'm ready for a change.

So Peter and I have been talking about renovating the house for quite some time. We have come up with several different ideas and plans. The house is essentially 2.5 bedrooms (2 bedrooms plus study). And with baby number two on the way, we would ideally like to make it a 3 bedroom plus study house.

After much discussion and deliberation, we hired a Project Management company in July this year. Right from the beginning we said "baby number two is due in mid November, so we want everything done by end October at the latest". They said "Yes, we can do that".

The reason for hiring a project management company was
- so that they could take care of bringing together all the different contractors involved
- because they have contacts in the industry and know who's available in that time frame
- because they have good relationships with the contractors and get good rates from them

Peter and I came up with a design that we liked, that made minimal changes to the house. However as we talked with various people along the way we made a few changes to the plan.

Here is the original layout of the house as it was when I was growing up:

And here is the layout of the house as we have been living in it since Christmas last year.

What this floor plan doesn't show is the temporary nature of this layout. Because we always knew we were going to be doing renovations, we kinda just put things anywhere we could find the space when we first moved in. The house was already furnished when we moved in, so we had to cram both our furniture and my parents furniture into the house.

Thus ... The dining room was used more as a store room for bits and pieces, and not really used for anything else. In Kathleen's bedroom were stored a couple of unused beds, propped up against the walls. In our bedroom was the dining room hutch full of serving plates and glasses, and our big Plasma TV. It was always intended that the Plasma TV would be wall mounted in the living room. But knowing the walls were going to come down some time in the near future, we never bothered to wall mount it, and instead had it at the end of our bed - oh dear, how sad, never mind ;-)

So, here is the floor plan we proposed creating as part of the renovations.

Note that the walls come out between the kitchen and laundry, and kitchen and dining room, to make one large room. And half the wall comes out between the kitchen and living room, with a breakfast bar put in the gap. The idea is that anyone in the kitchen is not excluded from any socialising being done in the living room, and they can also see the plasma TV mounted on the wall.

You will also note an extra wall being built in the front bedroom. This would be a temporary wall, the kind they have in office buildings, that would provide separate bedrooms for the kids while they are little, but which would be taken out at a later date so they could share one big room. I was concerned about the new baby waking during the night and waking Kathleen up if they were sharing a room in the early days.

So, we dealt directly with the Project Managers, who arranged a valuation and an architect and builder and plasterer and Council building consent. Another reason for choosing a Project Manager was their expertise in this area and being able to get it all done quickly. Sadly this wasn't the case. The planning stage took much, much longer than we wanted it to. I understand that it is important to get everything right in the planning stage, but there were times when a week or two would go by simply because we were "waiting to hear from somebody".

Finally, on Sunday 23rd September, they got back to us with a final quote and project plan / timeline. Up until this point we really had no idea what it was going to look like in terms of cost or time involved (but we knew it wouldn't happen overnight). We knew we would have to move out of the house while the work was going on, and had planned on moving in with Peter's mum.

The timeframe had the builders starting work on Monday 1st October, basically one week from the date of the meeting. It had them finishing the work on Friday 9th November, i.e. the work would take six weeks. HOWEVER this is the day before baby is due!!!

So that would have given us ONE week to pack up EVERYTHING in our house and either store the stuff we don't need in the short term downstairs in the basement or take what we do need over to Peter's mum's house. Which, as it turned out, we would never have gotten it all done in one week.

The next problem was that we'd then have to move everything back again, with a toddler AND a newborn.

But the worst part of all was the quote itself. It was way, way, way over our budget. Of course that was including all the "nice to have's" that we'd asked them to quote for along the way, such as granite benchtops and rimu finishings. But still, Peter talked to a few people and everyone seemed to think that it was overpriced by about 20%.

So to summarise, we had been given one week to:
- pack up and move out
- decide what bits to cut out of the project to bring it into budget
- decide on all the extras such as which carpet and which paint and so on.

It was just NOT going to happen.

So, rather than be rushed into such an important and expensive decision, we've put the whole thing on hold until the new year. Right now we're going back to the drawing board trying to figure out what to do.

In the meantime I have still boxed up the things we don't use on a regular basis and stored them downstairs. Because whether we do it now or in February, it still had to be done. And it's easier to do it with only one baby in the house rather than two.

We have also rearranged the bedrooms as per our renovated plan:
- Partly because I'd done all this prep work and wanted to see some benefit from it.
- Partly in order to see if it really works or not before we spend the money.
- Partly to make room for Peter's mum who has now rented her house out and come to live with us for a few weeks until she moves back to Texas on a permanent basis.
- And partly to make room for Not Nooboo, who will probably end up sleeping in our room for a while.

So the floor plan of the house now currently looks like this:

The biggest change from how the house has been previously and from our renovated plan, is that Kathleen's room is now the room off the kitchen (i.e. what would have become the dining room). We were surprised to find that it is actually a pretty good size for her at the moment, although of course it probably won't work long term. I still envisage that long term Kat and the new baby will share a room once the baby is old enough.

Peter and I are still deciding on our options. One option is to simply redecorate and not make any structural changes at all. Right now though we are enjoying not having the stress of moving - although having said that we've spent the past couple of weeks getting the Salvation Army to take away all our excess stuff, and then moving Peter's mum and her stuff in with us.

But now that is all done and we are sitting back and waiting for baby to arrive. It won't be too long now, so watch this space.

-Megz

My Predictions

2007-10-10T21:12:00.000+13:00

These are my predictions for Not Nooboo. For the record, I am writing this on the 10th of October, but won't publish until around the 1st of November. I am making this disclaimer in case Not Nooboo arrives before that time, that these predictions were actually made first. But I'm holding off on publishing them until other people have had a chance to comment on my previous post with their own guesses.

GENDER - I don't really want to have a guess on this one. My gut feeling is a girl, but I am hedging my bets so that I don't get a shock in the delivery room. Peter is confident that she will be a girl, so if he turns out to be a boy then Peter is in for a big shock.

Either way I don't mind. A girl would probably be easier, i.e. we already have the clothes, books, toys, etc. But to have one of each would be nice too.

BIRTH WEIGHT - Kathleen weighed 3.135kg at 41 weeks. I'm guessing that if Not Nooboo goes to term or longer that s/he will weigh a little more than that. If s/he is early then I'm not sure. My guess is 3.3kg.

BIRTH DAY - As I said in my previous post, I do everything on the 22nd. So I really wouldn't be surprised if Not Nooboo shows up on either October 22nd or November 22nd. I know second babies often come early but somehow I don't think this one will. S/he is due on Nov 10th so I'm going to guess Nov 16th. We'll see.....

OTHER - The biggest thing I'm expecting is for Not Nooboo to be the complete opposite of Kathleen. While she takes after Peter with blonde curly hair, I'd like to think Not Nooboo will look more like me with straight brown hair. But more than looks, I'm expecting their personalities to be completely different.

Kathleen is a night owl. She's happy to stay up late each night and sleep in in the mornings. Not that I really mind that too much, although by the time she goes to bed I'm usually knackered. I predict Not Nooboo will be a morning lark and that I'll be getting up early with him/her and going to bed late with Kat, unless I can somehow change their schedules.

Also, despite the loud voice and outgoing personality, Kathleen is actually a quiet girl. She loves to sit and read books. She loves to get her toys and pretend they're cuddling or eating or sleeping. The beginnings of imaginative play. She doesn't really run around, and isn't one of these toddlers that's always on the go. She still has lots of energy and loves jumping, but she's not always going at a million miles an hour. But I think Not Nooboo will be. Have to wait another 18 months to find that out though.

Whatever s/he is like, s/he will have a lot to live up to with Kathleen. Which is why I think they'll be so different. Kat started sitting up at 4 months and crawling at 6 months, but didn't walk till 15 months. I think Not Nooboo won't crawl until much later but will walk sooner, maybe around the 12 month mark. Once again, we'll have to wait a year to find out.

I'm also hoping against hope that because Kat was such a high maintenance, social baby, that Not Nooboo will be a placid baby. Yeah right!

So, there's my predictions. We'll just have to wait and see how it all turns out.

-Megz

One Month To Go

2007-10-10T14:50:00.000+13:00

Only one month to go now until Not Nooboo is due. My biggest worry at this point is not the birth, but how I am going to cope with two little ones. How am I going to continue to give Kathleen the attention she deserves while still looking after the needs of the little one. When I think back to when Kathleen was tiny, all I remember is spending all my time either feeding her or rocking her to sleep. She was a full time job. She still is a full time job, although she can amuse herself for short periods of time. Can a person hold down two full time jobs at once??? AND keep their sanity??? I really don't want to fall into the trap of sticking Kathleen in front of the TV when I've got my hands full with the little one, but I'm afraid I will end up doing that. She really loves Dora. And Maisy. And Barney.

BTW, it's slightly off topic but I gotta say that Kathleen really is her Daddy's daughter. Because she also loves computer games. She has two games - Busytown and Reader Rabbit - and is always asking to play them. I don't mind but it does mean that I'm stuck there helping her. If I hear the Busytown songs one more time I may go crazy. She has learnt to sort of use the mouse though and can play the colouring in games by herself by just pushing the mouse back and forth.

So with the due date only a month away, I can't help wondering what Not Nooboo is going to turn out like. We don't know if it is going to be a boy or a girl. Both pregnancies with Kathleen and Not Nooboo have been very similar. Both times I have gained a similar amount of weight, but slightly more this time. Last time I found I had no appetite for nine months and didn't eat much. This time baby is sitting lower and therefore my stomach isn't so squashed and has room for more food. I don't know if carrying low is an indication of gender or just the fact that everything is so stretched from last time!

But at this point I'd love to hear other people's predictions for Not Nooboo. Please leave a comment in the comments section with your guess. I will post a follow up with my own predictions later on.

BOY or GIRL
BIRTH WEIGHT
BIRTH DAY
Anything else you want to place bets on - hair colour, eye colour, name, etc.

Here is some info to help you...

Baby's due date is Saturday 10 November 2007.

I have so far gained about 11 kg / 28 lb. With Kat I only gained 6 kg, so actually that is quite a difference.

Kathleen was due on 13 Jan 2006 but was late and induced on 21 Jan 2006.

She weighed 3.135 kg / 6lb 15oz.

I do everything on the 22nd - I was born on March 22nd, Peter and I started dating on Nov 22nd, we also got engaged on Nov 22nd several years later and married on Nov 22nd a year after that. I also think Kathleen would have been born on Jan 22nd if she hadn't been induced the day before as my midwife thought I may have been going into labour naturally anyway.

Plus, here are some comparative tummy shots of Kathleen and Not Nooboo at 34 weeks (note this about a week and a half ago).

Not Nooboo

Kathleen

I'm looking forward to seeing who is closest.

-Megz

Let this be a lesson to you

2007-09-21T22:28:00.000+12:00

Every time I visit the Plunket nurse with Kathleen, I am reminded by them about keeping your baby or toddler safe. I tend to dismiss this as common sense - things like keeping medicines and poisons out of reach, supervising them around water, etc. I thought "that doesn't apply to me, I already do that stuff". However I have now learnt that you can never be complacent about safety where a toddler is concerned. Even the most watchful parent can take their eyes off a child for just a moment, and that's all it takes for them to get into trouble.

Three weeks ago we had a few friends visiting us. It was after dinner and everyone was relaxed and happy. Kathleen wandered off into the kitchen, which is somewhere she goes every day. I wasn't too worried about her, except that I knew it was time for her bath and was about to go get her when we heard the sound of something falling and Kathleen start screaming. Someone had left a cup of hot tea on the bench to cool, and Kat had pulled it down and spilled it all over herself.

We quickly threw wet towels all over her head and shoulders. However she was still in a lot of pain, so Peter and I took her down to the emergency department at the hospital. It was Friday night, so there was nowhere else open. They admitted her straight away and gave her both Pamol and Morphine to stop the pain. The doctor said she had a first degree burn on her left shoulder. She had a large blister on top of her shoulder which had burst, and they wrapped up her whole shoulder with gauze and a stretchy bandage.

We were at the hospital for only about an hour in total, but it seemed like a very long time. We spent a lot of that time by ourselves waiting for the drugs to take effect, and keeping Kathleen busy by playing with toys and reading books. By the time the nurses came back to bandage her up, she was quite tired and sleepy due to the drugs and the late hour of the evening, and didn't protest at all.

The next day the extent of Kathleen's injuries could be seen (apart from the damage to her shoulder which was still bandaged up). The left side of her face was pink, like a sunburn, and her left ear was red and swollen. However none of it seemed to bother her, and she was happily bouncing all over the place.

Sunday evening we had been told to go back to the emergency department to get Kat's dressing changed. The skin under the bandage was very red and sore looking. But once again it didn't seem to bother her and she was bouncing around all day. Maybe it was the Pamol helping to hide the pain.

Two days later, on the Tuesday, we went down to our local GP to get the dressing changed again. This time they used a Fixomull dressing rather than gauze. This type of dressing sticks directly onto the skin and onto the burn. And it doesn't come off. At least not without soaking it with oil for four hours. The nurse said to treat it as another layer of skin. Although it sounds a bit strange, apparently it helps burns to heal faster and also makes them hurt less. What I liked about it was the fact that Kat could now bounce around without the gauze slipping out of the bandage or rubbing her skin.

Kathleen however wasn't particularly happy about having her shoulder touched. Either by the nurse or by me on subsequent days, as I followed the instructions to clean the dressing twice daily.

The new dressing was meant to stay on for a week, i.e. until the following Tuesday. However, by Sunday Kathleen's shoulder had started to become itchy. A good sign that it was healing. But she didn't understand this and just wanted to itch it. And she managed to pull the bandage away from her skin a little bit. Which it's not meant to do. I stopped her and kept her covered up all day. However overnight she was free to itch as much as she wanted, and by Monday morning the dressing was half off and her t-shirt was covered in blood.

So I took her back down to the GP a day early. They advised me to soak the rest of the bandage in oil and come back in the afternoon once it had had at least four hours to soak in. Well, that was lots of fun. I distracted Kathleen with a Barney DVD and attempted to rub oil into her shoulder. She protested and wriggled a lot. Then I had to wrap her up in Gladwrap (cling film) to keep the oil off her clothes. That was funny. And very difficult. I was reminded of that scene in the Full Monty where Dave wraps himself in cling film to lose weight. Only, it's not as easy as it looks. Especially on a one and a half year old!

We went to the supermarket, had lunch and then I put Kat down for a nap. And amazingly, everything stayed in place. We went back to the GP in the afternoon. The dressing peeled off nice and easily. Her shoulder was still looking very red and sore but they said it was healing nicely. The doctor did however pick up on a couple of areas that she thought might be infected, so she prescribed some antibiotics for Kathleen and then they re-dressed the shoulder.

This time round Kat's shoulder seemed to heal a lot faster. There was no bleeding and no weeping or crustiness that we had with the first dressing. But the antibiotics were a different story. She had to take them three times a day on an empty stomach - meaning "two hours after eating and one hour before eating". She had to have 7ml at a time and she HATED it.

For the next five days I turned into Evil Mummy, forcing my daughter to drink this horrible medicine three times a day. Not only that, but starving her in between meals. No snacks allowed. We were both pretty miserable by the time the five days were over.

However, on the bright side, her shoulder seemed to be healing pretty well. It was still itchy, and by the next weekend it appeared that the skin underneath was peeling like a sunburn would, as the dressing was starting to lift away from her skin. I kept her wrapped up with stretchy bandages over her dressing so that her couldn't peel it away again.

We went back to the GP's for the last time on Monday this week to get the second dressing removed. Once again I had to oil her up again and wrap her in Gladwrap. This time the protests were much less. When the nurse peeled the dressing off, even I could tell it was much, much better. Her skin was mottled pink but there was no sign of scaring or bleeding. There were a few spots which the doctor said indicated there had been a small infection, but they had cleared up nicely.

That was at the beginning of this week. It is now three weeks tonight since Kat got burnt. Her shoulder is still pink and mottled but it isn't bothering her any more. We have to keep her out of the sun for the next several months, so it will be a summer of hats, shirts and lots of sunscreen. I am just so thankful that there is no lasting damage, and that she will be ok.

And so the moral of the story is - always be careful, accidents can happen any time when you least expect it. And the reason the Plunket nurse is always going on about safety is not to be repetitive but to remind you that you can never be too careful.

-Megz

Kiki

2007-08-20T15:41:00.000+12:00

Kathleen is in the midst of the "toddler word explosion". Every day she learns more and more words. At first it was just one word a day, but now she just learns so many new words that I can't keep up. I have no idea how many words she knows. She repeats a lot of what I say (yes including the bad words).

For the most part her pronounciation is pretty understandable. Especially if you know the context of what she is saying. But sometimes she comes up with some things out of the blue, and I have to admit even I don't always understand her.

Her powers of observation are amazing. She is always looking around and notices the smallest details that I would normally miss. Things like a tiny National Bank logo on a newspaper, she will immediately spot and say "neigh" (because it's a horse). And don't even mention Dora or Maisy. The funny thing is when she spots something that reminds her of something that happens in one of her videos or books. She will say for example "Dora, Dora, Dora" until you acknowledge her - "yes, Dora has a bracelet doesn't she", or "yes, Maisy's friend Eddie fell over and hurt his knee too".

One day last week, Kathleen and I were playing outside. We found a small stick and I told her it was a stick, which she repeated a couple of times. She then said "cookie". I was like "it's almost lunchtime, you can have a cookie after lunch". But she kept insisting "cookie, cookie, cookie". I kinda wondered where she learnt that word from, as we say "biscuit" not "cookie". But I figured she probably learnt it from one of her books. Anyway, she kept insisting "cookie", and when it became obvious to her that I wasn't understanding, she changed tacks and said "dogg, woowoowoo". Then I realised she wasn't saying "cookie" at all, but "Corky" the name of the dog in one of her books. A dog who chases sticks. It's the little associations like this that she makes that really blow me away.

Some of the funny things Kathleen says are:

Kiki - She calls herself Kiki, and it has stuck. Half the time we now call her Kiki instead of Kathleen (I only call her Kat when I'm typing now because it's quicker). She's actually pretty good with names and can say the names of everybody she knows (except for Uncle Richard - see below), but can't say her own name. But she knows that Kiki is herself because if you show her her photo or look in the mirror, she will say "Kiki".

Uncle Winkle - Kathleen's Uncle Richard was for the longest time just called "Uncle". Or "Uncle, Uncle". This morphed into "Uncle Runkle", whether by Kat intentionally or by being misheard by us. In any case, everybody thought it was funny and reinforced the name by calling Richard "Uncle Runkle" all the time. Kat has since morphed this into "Uncle Winkle" and this is what she calls him now.

Speaking of Uncle Richard, he and Kat's Auntie Mardie and Poppa have all now moved back to Texas to live. Kathleen misses them a lot and talks about them all the time. She understands that they have gone, because every mention of them is followed by her saying "pann", which means "plane". Which is her way of saying "they went away on the plane".

Lubb ju - This is her way of saying "I love you". Awwwww.

Numbers - Kathleen learnt long ago to say the number two. Especially if she's in trouble and we start counting to three - "Kathleen ... one ..." and she will smile up at you and pipe in "twooo". Which makes it incredibly difficult to keep a straight face and continue to "three".

Her standard answer if you ask her how many of something there is, is always "twoo".

She has learnt even more numbers than that though.
- She'll sometimes say "wunn".
- If you say "one" she almost always says "twoo".
- If you then count "three" through "five", she will say "siiix" after each one.
- If you say "seven" she will say "att"
- If you say "nine" she will say "tennn"

In other news, we are all doing well. Peter is now contracting at IBM in Petone. A bit of a hassle for him to get to and from work (bus + train) but he seems to be enjoying it. A couple of times Kat and I have gone out on the train to have lunch with him, and she has really enjoyed it.

A little over a month ago we all went up to Mount Ruapehu with Richard and Mardie. The idea was to give them the opportunity to try skiing or snowboarding before they went back to Texas, where I imagine there aren't a lot of ski fields. Richard had a go at snowboarding, while Mardie, Kathleen and I went sledding on the learner slopes. Had a good time, but it was very crowded, being the end of the school holidays and great weather. Kat enjoyed eating the snow!

I am doing well. Here is a comparison of Kathleen and Not Nooboo at 28 weeks gestation ...

Not Nooboo

Kathleen

Cheers,
Megz

Introducing Not Nooboo

2007-07-02T14:56:00.000+12:00

We had our first ultrasound scan for the new baby last week. It was great to finally see him or her, and now it finally feels real to me - there is now a reason for my ever-expanding tummy besides eating too many biscuits! Luckily everything is looking ok in there. Everything is doing ok on the outside too. Kathleen continues to grow and her vocabulary is ever expanding at the rate of at least one word a day, plus she repeats a lot of what we say. We are trying to prepare her for the new arrival. She understands that there is a baby in Mummy's tummy, but there's no way we can really prepare her for what that means.

We have nicknamed the new baby Not Nooboo, and here is an explanation of what that means.

Before she was born, Kathleen was known as Nooboo. This term comes from the Sims 2 computer game, which I used to be addicted to, back when I used to have time for such things. The Sims is all about controlling virtual people as they go about their daily lives. Because it is designed to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, the sims don't speak English but rather they speak a made up language called Simlish. The Simlish word for baby is Nooboo. Thus Kathleen was known as Nooboo.

Just after we moved to Auckland in 2002 we got a new tortiseshell kitten named Noodle. When she was about six months old, Noodle went missing. We put up posters and an ad in the local paper. One morning when I was out, Peter got a phone call from someone who had found Noodle. They brought her around to him and he said "well she looks a little different but I guess I haven't seen her for a few weeks", and took her in. I got home an hour later and immediately said "that's not Noodle". And it wasn't. But we didn't know where she had come from and couldn't return her. We advertised her as a found cat but got no reply. So she stayed, and became known as Not Noodle, or Bubby. Noodle was never found, but we still have Not Noodle.

So when we were coming up with nicknames for the new baby, I said to Peter "will it be Number Two, Nooboo Too, or Not Nooboo". He ROTFLOL and said it had to be the latter.

-Megz

Conversations with Kathleen

2007-06-03T15:36:00.000+12:00

Kathleen, what sound does duckie make?
Makes a quacking sound

What sound does piggy make?
Snorts

What sound does cow make?
Mooooooo

What sound does sheepy make?
Ba Ba

What sound does horsey make?
Nee

What sound does lion make?
Raar

Kathleen, where's Mummy?
Mama
Points

Where's Daddy?
Dada
Points

Where's pussycat?
Maow
Attempts to give the cat a cuddle

Do you love pussycat?
Attempts to give the cat another cuddle

Do you love Mummy?
No

Do you love Daddy?
No

Can you say Yes?
No

Is it time for a nap?
No way

-Megz

An addition to the family

2007-05-17T15:33:00.000+12:00

Our little family is soon to be joined by one more. And no, we're not getting a new cat (although Peter did try to kidnap a beautiful Burmese a couple of weeks ago). We are going to have another baby, a little brother or sister for Kathleen. He/she is due in mid November so the two of them will be around 22 months apart, almost two years. I'm sure she will love being a big sister. Already one of the few words in her small vocabulary is "bebe" and whenever she goes to playgroup she is always excited to see the other "bebes". I am a bit nervous about having two babies/toddlers in the house - one is definitely hard enough. But I'm sure we will find a way to cope. Hopefully Kathleen will be of an age where she will enjoy 'helping', but with the terrible two's looming, who knows...

We had our first midwife appointment this week, and got to hear bub's heartbeat for the first time. So that kinda made it official for me at last. I'm currently almost 15 weeks pregnant, past the first trimester now. There's nothing to see yet. Kathleen didn't pop out till well into the 20's so I don't expect this one to be much different. Once again we're not going to find out if it is a girl or a boy.

Apart from that we are all doing well. Kathleen now happily toddles around everywhere, although I still carry her when we're out because she's just so darn slow. She is now working on expanding her vocabulary. Words she currently says are:

MAMA, DADA, MIMI and BEBE
NO (LOVES to say this one)
GO (especially when I say "let's go")
UH OH
OH KEEEY (OK)

And in the last couple of days she has added TEDDY and MICKEY to her vocab. Plus she loves to repeat words that I say, particularly CLICK, CLOCK, CHICKEN, SOCK, STUCK, TRUCK and anything else with a "K" sound.

She also says many, many, many other words that I'm too dense to understand.

We've all been pretty busy as of late. Last weekend Peter travelled to Nelson for a paintball tournament, while Kathleen and I went to Palmerston North to help a friend move house. This weekend we're all headed back to Palmy for another friend's baby shower. Heard on the news today that NZ is experiencing a baby boom. That comes as no surprise to me as I know lots of people having babies at the moment. That's good - lots of friends for Kathleen and number two to play with.

Cheers,
Megz

Walking

2007-05-02T14:30:00.000+12:00

Finally, at the ripe old age of 14 months, Kathleen taken her first steps. Not that I was worried or anything. But she was the first in her group to sit up and the first to crawl, and then ... nothing. All the others have been walking for a while now, but not our Kathleen. Maybe when she started crawling at six months she thought that was it, she'd found a way to get around and she was going to stick with it. She finally took her very first independent steps at the end of March, but it took her until April 20th (a day shy of turning 15 months) for her to actually decide to try walking without mummy or daddy encouraging her. She is still very slow and still crawls a lot of the time, but at least she is giving it a go now. More often than not she'll reach for my finger and ask me to take her wherever it is that she's going. Walking holding on to someone's hand is definitely her preferred mode of transport now - a la the photo above of her with Poppa and Auntie Mardie.

Now I love this photo here. It perfectly captures Kathleen as she is most evenings lately - climbing onto the couch by herself and screaming her head off. Not screaming unhappy. Not screaming scared. But a combination of screaming "look at me" and "I like the sound of my own voice". Sometimes I worry about her falling off the couch, but I can't stop her and hey, a few bumps and bruises are all part of growing up. She's fallen a couple of times but it certainly hasn't stopped her. She's such a clown. No shrinking violet, this one.

We are all doing well. It has started getting a lot colder around here lately and we have the fire going every morning. Kathleen has settled into a good routine of waking up around 8-8.30am, having lunch around 12-12.30pm, a nap around 1.30pm until 3pm, dinner at 6.30pm, bath at 7.30pm and bed at 8.30pm. This is working out quite well for us. I know it's a bit of a late bedtime, but dinner and bath and getting dressed and reading a story take SOOO long. And if we started any earlier, Peter wouldn't be home from work yet. So it works.

-Megz

Home Again

2007-03-29T07:49:00.000+12:00

We are now home again after our three week holiday in the States. Boy it is good to be home. Got home early Wednesday morning after 28 hours in transit. We are all sick and exhausted. It was so nice to sleep in a proper bed last night!

THE BEGINNING

Our journey began at 8.30am on Thursday 8 March. We eventually arrived at Uncle Dick's house in Maine at 1pm Friday 9 March local time, or 7am Saturday NZ time - 46.5 hours later! However that did include a night in a hotel in New Hampshire along the way.

After we left Wellington we spent the majority of the day in Auckland, catching up with Kathleen's friends, Peter's friends, my friends, and our old neighbours. Kat had a nap in the car while we were driving round Auckland, but by the time we flew out of Auckland at 9pm-ish she was tired and ready to go to bed. But of course it was much too exciting for her to want to sleep. After an hour or two we managed to convince her to cuddle me and go to sleep, after which we transferred her to a bassinette and we were all able to get some uncomfortable sleep.

Several hours later we arrived in LA and got on our next flight. Kat actually slept for a good majority of this flight too. We stopped briefly in Philadelphia and then continued on to New Hampshire. We arrived in New Hampshire at 11pm local time, and the temperature outside was -2F or -19C !!!!! It was very, very cold but we didn't have to spend much time in it because we went straight from airport to car to hotel. Next morning we drove two hours to where Peter's Uncle Dick lives in Bath, Maine.

MAINE

Had a great time in Maine. It is a very beautiful part of the country. Everything was covered in old snow, so we missed the most scenic times of year, but it was still very pretty. Yet not too cold, as there was no wind or rain/snow falling. We were in Maine for four full days. Did lots of day trips to the coast and other towns. Maine is the least populated of all the States and it felt like the way of life there is very laid back and easy going. Very easy for Kiwis to fit in. Was amazed at the snow and ice everywhere - I have never before seen frozen rivers or snow on the beach. Yet by the time we left it was all starting to melt, so we got there at just the right time.

WASHINGTON DC

Spent four full days in DC also. Because the reason for coming to DC was for Peter's grandfather's funeral, it was a quiet, sombre time. But because I've never been to DC before I wanted to go out sightseeing. On the first day we were there, Peter and I went to the National Mall and saw the White House, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, Capitol Building and several war memorials. It was an unseasonably warm day, about 20C/70F, and tricked us into thinking it was going to be warm while we were there. The next day I went off to the Smithsonian on my own and spent the afternoon at the Natural History Museum.

The third day in DC was the day of Grandfather's funeral at Arlington Cemetery. A cold snap came through, plunging the temperature to 2C/37F. We stood outside in the cold and rain for the service. Kathleen was very well behaved and didn't make a sound during the whole thing. I had her wrapped up under my coat but still I think she was too shocked by the cold to even cry. The service was pretty neat with the military procession, riderless horse, band playing and 21 gun salute. And then there was the reception afterwards at the Officers Club, where once again Kat was very well behaved.

That night the snow began to fall. Uncle Dick took us on a night-time driving tour of the city, telling us about all the places we'd been. It was very picturesque.

WASHINGTON STATE

Then it was off to Federal Way, Washington (midway between Seattle and Tacoma), to spend a week with the other side of Peter's family.

We spent most of our time just hanging around with family. Did a day trip to Olympia where Peter used to live and caught up with some people he used to know and drove past places he lived and went to school.

TRAVELLING

Throughout the whole trip, Kathleen has been very well behaved. She has loved meeting all her relatives, especially the younger members. She has coped with all the flying and disruptions very well. On most of the flights she has been happy to either go to sleep or to sit and play. There was only one flight that was particularly difficult, and that was travelling across the States from DC to Seattle. Kat slept for the first leg from Baltimore to St Louis, then we had a short hop to Kansas where we changed planes. But the leg from Kansas City to Seattle was three and a half hours of hell. She'd just had a nap so wasn't sleepy, and just didn't want to sit still. Everyone's vision of a nightmare flight with a toddler. But for all that she was pretty quiet and I don't think she bothered the other passengers too much. Probably because Peter and I spent three and a half hours constantly trying to entertain her so that she didn't scream.

The one bad thing about travelling overseas is being exposed to new germs that you haven't seen at home. And thus getting sick. We have all three been sick for the whole trip. We had a cold when we left home and the first few days away were miserable. Then we picked up a cough/sore throat in Maine which still hasn't gone away. Then in the last week we've all come down with a third cold, which has knocked us around some more. Poor little Kat has suffered the worst with this latest one, being so plugged up and unable to breathe. On the flight home from LA to Auckland, we spent half the night holding her on our laps so that she could sleep in a semi-upright position and be able to breathe. It made for a VERY long night, not getting a lot of sleep ourselves.

But we made it and now we're home again and vowing not to do that again for a VERY long time. Great as it was to see family again, it is also great to be home in New Zealand again where the air is clean, the cars drive on the left, the pace of life is slower, and the food is not all full of sugar.

My list of visited States has now increased to eight ...

create your own personalized map of the USA

-Megz

Going to America

2007-03-08T07:32:00.000+13:00

Just a quick note to say that we're on our way to America (in a few hours). Going to take Kathleen to meet her extended family, and also to attend the funeral/burial for Peter's grandfather at Arlington.

It's going to be a long flight. We depart Wellington at 0945 Thursday (NZ time) and three or four flights later land in New Hampshire at 1730 Friday (NZ time). That's almost 32 hours!!! Not to mention that after we arrive in New Hampshire we spend one night in a motel before driving to Maine the following day. So we don't actually arrive at our final destination (Uncle Dick's house) until 0600 Saturday (NZ time). That's 44 hours travelling!!!

The flight from Wellington to Auckland is only one hour, and then we get to spend the day in Auckland visiting our old friends and workmates. I am very much looking forward to seeing my coffee group again and seeing how much the babies have changed and grown. I cant' wait to give them all cuddles!

Then we have a 12 hour flight to LA. It's an overnight flight so hopefully Kathleen will sleep. We then have a few hours in LA before a 6-7 hour flight to New Hampshire.

I'm very nervous about flying with Kathleen for such long distances, as she is teething again and has been quite irritable lately. And she hates to sit still for any length of time. Boy this is going to be fun :-(

So we fly into Manchester, New Hampshire and drive to Bath, Maine. Anyone would think we were going to England, not New England.

We have been following the weather in Maine for the last month or so. In the last couple of weeks the temperature has actually risen above freezing. But not by much. I don't think it's gone above 5 degrees Celsius. And right now my website is telling me it is -11 at 1.30 in the afternoon. That's right, MINUS 11 degrees Celsius.

For the last couple of months I've been busy buying winter clothes for Kathleen from second hand shops and TradeMe. I think she'll be ok. Her bag of clothes is bigger than mine!! But then I don't spill my food on my shirt every day like she does ;-P

Well gotta go now. Wish us luck!!! There will hopefully be lots of posts while we're gone, and lots of photos to share.

-Megz

Standing

2007-03-04T23:30:00.000+13:00

It's official, Kathleen is now standing unsupported, by herself.

She has been pulling herself up to stand against furniture for months. Over the last few weeks she has been getting better and better at letting go once she is standing up, and not holding on. Usually for 4-5 seconds, but on some occassions up to 30 seconds.

Then in the last couple of days she has learnt how to stand herself up from a squatting position without holding on to anything at all. And then stand unsupported for as long as she likes before carefully lowering herself down again (no falling on her bum for this kid). What really surprises me is how quickly she has become adept at this new skill. It was new on Thursday and today she does it with ease.

Won't be long now until she is walking.

Cheers,
Megz

Words

2007-02-26T21:28:00.000+13:00

Kathleen is a true female. She babbles constantly from morning to night.

I, however, am relatively quiet. I am not a true female. But then you'd already know that if you measured the lengths of my fingers.

Kathleen has been saying "mama" and "dada" for several months now. However lately she has begun repeating several syllables over and over, and we figure these must mean something.

1. CAT. Whenever she sees the cats she makes a sound that sounds remarkably like "cat". This in itself is kinda strange because we have always said "pussycat" to her, and in fact when she first began saying mama and dada she also said something which sounded like "poosk", so we thought her first word was pussycat. We have always taught her pussycat because she gets called both "Kat" and "Kitty" and we didn't want her getting confused.

2. DUCK. In the bath she has a couple of toy duckies. When she sees them she always says something that sounds kind of like "duck".

However, both CAT and DUCK also sound remarkably like "GA".

3. WHAT'S THAT. Her most common phrase. I don't know if it is intention that it sounds like "what's that", but it is always accompanied with her looking or pointing at something. And so I always reply "What's that? That's a birdie" (or whatever).

The closest I can approximate to what she is actually saying is "oo dzat" or "oo dza" or sometimes just "mmm mmm".

4. OH DEAR. The one that cracks us up the most is something she says with increasing frequency, for no reason at all. Sometimes when she's just talking to herself or sometimes instead of saying "what's that".

It sounds alternately like "or shear" or "or shed" and sounds amazing like either "oh dear" or "oh sh*t".

We are going to get in so much trouble one day because whenever she says it, we crack up and repeat it back to her. Pretty soon she's going to start saying it just for the reaction. Uh oh.

She's also very good at making "duckie" noises...

-Megz

Nero

2007-02-09T22:17:00.000+13:00

A terrible thing happened today. Something so awful that I still can't accept it's real. My beautiful cat Nero, my adorable baby boy, apparently got hit by a car and died. I found him this afternoon in the back yard. He was the most beautiful cat you ever met, but you would be lucky to meet him because he was very shy around people.

We got him almost six years ago. Peter and his friends found him at the paintball field, lost and alone and abandoned by his mother. He was barely six weeks old and so tiny. We took him in and fell in love with him immediately. He was so small he couldn't even climb over the bottom rung under our coffee table. We named him Nero because he was black but also after the Emperor Nero, keeping the theme we'd already established with Cleopatra, and Spot sometimes known as Spotarcus.

As he grew he became a very beautiful boy indeed, but he hated having his coat brushed and by the end of winter he would be covered in knots and his hair would start falling out. He hated loud noises, and whenever people came to visit he would usually hide (especially if they had children). He was very affectionate with Peter and I, and when we would pet him he would start drooling and drooling. It was so cute.

He seemed to have coped with the move back to Wellington well enough. He managed to find a way into the workshop under the house and would spend most of his time there, as it was quiet and cool. I don't know what would have made him go on the road.

I miss him and love him very much.

A very young Nero drinks directly from the tap	His favourite pasttime - sleeping
Sleeping again	Nero in the back yard - 3 weeks ago

-Megz

One Year Old

2007-01-22T09:20:00.000+13:00

Kathleen is now one year old. She turned one on Sunday. We had her birthday party on Saturday, and then on Sunday left her with the grandparents as we were invited to a wedding. Bad mummy for abandoning the baby on her birthday.

The party was great. We had lots of friends come over to wish Kat a happy birthday. It was hard to fit everybody inside the house. Peter did a great job on the BBQ and although the weather could have been better, the drizzle didn't last long.

Kathleen got given lots of new clothes and lots of toys. Thank you very much to everybody. She's still a bit young for some of the toys so I am going to put them away until she's a bit older. I'll probably plan on pulling them out in another six months and wrapping them up again so she can have the fun of opening presents again. 11 months is a long time to wait until Christmas, and I'm sure as she gets older she'll hate having her birthday in January.

It's still hard to believe my baby is now one year old. It's even harder to believe how far she's come in that year. She's gone from a little screaming thing that did nothing but lay there and scream, to a little person who can go where she wants and either get what she wants or communicate it by pointing. She's gone from a baby who couldn't even hold onto things, to someone who can pass you things and is learning to throw a ball. I remember when she first learnt to pick up her Kaloo Bear, it was so exciting. That seems like a long time ago now. There have been so many milestones along the way this year, it's getting hard to remember them all. And I'm sure there are lots more milestones to come in the next 12 months as well.

-Megz

Belated Season's Greetings

2007-01-14T21:27:00.000+13:00

Belated Christmas and New Year wishes to all our family and friends. Hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday period.

We have now settled into our new home and have finally finished unpacking all the boxes ... although finding places to put everything is another story altogether! The house we have moved into is smaller than the one we left behind (well the bedrooms are larger but the living areas are smaller), so we are downsizing our possessions and I am busy sorting through things deciding what to keep and what to get rid of.

We had a good, family Christmas. I was so looking forward to Kathleen's first Christmas. She had a great time. Of course she didn't really understand what it was all about, but she had fun opening her presents. At first she didn't know what to do with them and we had to show her how to rip the paper. Which must have seemed really strange to her because I'm normally telling her not to rip things. So we'd start the rip going and then get her to rip it further. Then when she did we would all clap and cheer, and she would then clap too and think it was all over and would crawl away from the present before she'd opened it. It was so cute!

Altogether Kathleen made out like a bandit, and came away with a whole new wardrobe.

We spent Christmas Day with Peter's extended family, enjoying a traditional Christmas lunch and playing games with the kids. Boxing Day we had a BBQ with friends, and the following day we took Kathleen to the swimming pool for the first time. Being school holidays it was very crowded and very noisy so I'm not sure if she enjoyed it or not. I had a fantastic time. We went with Peter's family so we all took turns looking after Kat while the others went and played on the waterslides and in the pool.

New Year's Eve saw us enjoying ourselves quietly at home, sharing a bottle of champagne and chilling out. Quite a change from New Years' past, but still enjoyable.

It is Peter and my tradition to go to the zoo on New Year's Day. We have done this every year since our first New Year together in 1990. Usually we go on New Year's Day, although some years it has been a few days later (E.g. a couple of times we've been away from home and not somewhere that there was a zoo, and we both worked on Y2K). This year we postponed it because of the weather. I can't believe how crappy this summer has been. Instead we went on the 3rd when the weather was nicer. Kathleen had a wonderful time. She loved the animals. Her favourite was the Sunbear. The next day when we were looking at the photos on the computer, she got all excited and waved to the animals on the screen.

This time next week my baby will turn 1. It's hard to believe. This time last year we were sitting around waiting for her to be born. Now she's a real little girl. I still call her "Baby Kat" but she's not really a baby any more. Especially in her new clothes that she got for Christmas, she looks so grown up now.

She's still not walking on her own, but she cruises around the furniture constantly, and walks along leaning against cupboards, doors, windows, etc for support. But when it comes to getting somewhere fast, she prefers to crawl as she is very fast indeed.

I am constantly suprised at how much she understands.

She knows "open" and "closed", "in" and "out", and has known "stand" and "sit" for a long time. It still amazes me though if I say "sit down please" that she actually does it.
She knows "clap" or "clapping", "wave", "zerbert" (although now just gives a raspberry when you say it), and "bounce". I was reading her a book in which Tigger was too bouncy and when I said it she started bouncing up and down.
She knows "nose" and can point to Mummy's nose or the toy's nose. I think she knows "mouth" and we're now working on "ears".

Her favourite game at the moment is pulling everything out of the cupboards and shelves. Good thing we're still unpacking and nothing has a permanent home at the moment, because things keep getting pulled out of one cupboard and put back into another.

The other thing she has started doing is handing things to you. So if she pulls all the CD's out onto the floor, she will then hand them to you to put back (which she will then proceed to pull back out again).

Next Saturday we're having a small birthday party for her with some of our family and friends, but no other babies. All of Kat's friends in Auckland are also turning one, and boy do we miss them. Hopefully this time next year she will have made some new friends here in Wellington.

-Megz

The saga of selling our house

2006-12-20T23:29:00.000+13:00

With the sale of our house in Beach Haven going through today, it's time to tell the story of the rocky road that led to this point. We have had more ups and downs than a rollercoaster, and more twists and turns than a corkscrew.

Friday 20 October
Last year when we first decided that we were going to move to Wellington, our neighbours had expressed an interest on buying the property off us. Either as an investment property for themselves (hey, easy to keep an eye on it if it's next door), or as somewhere for her parents to live (they live in Hamilton and were apparently thinking about moving to Auckland). We spoke to them again on the Friday and as they were going away for the long weekend we left them to think about it.

Tuesday 24 October
The neighbours got back from their holiday and said that the timing just wasn't right for them, as their second child was due in December, and they just couldn't afford it.

Wednesday 25 October
Decided to list the property with a real estate agency. On advice from several people we decided to leave the house furnished as apparently it helps it to sell better. We also decided that Kat and I would continue living in the house, while Peter went to Wellington to start his new job and new life. Cancelled the moving company who were due to arrive the next day.

Friday 27 October
Signed up with Agent A* from real estate company Barfoot and Thompson. We listed the property with a price range of $1-$10*. Realistically I thought we were looking at $3.
*Note: Names and prices have been changed.

Sunday 29 October
Peter flew to Wellington, leaving Kat and I on our own.

Monday 30 October - Day 1 on the market
A couple of agents came to look at the house first thing in the morning but nothing else for the rest of the day.

Tuesday 31 October - Day 2
Tuesdays are the days that all the Barfoots agents do their "caravan" and go and visit all the newly listed properties. Tuesday was also my coffee group day so I was out of the house all day. We had about 15 agents come through. Two of these agents later brought clients back to have a look at the property.
3pm - I get a phone call from Agent B saying she had a buyer who wanted to put in an offer. I arranged to meet her at 5pm.
5pm - Agent B comes over with a signed offer for $1. I know this isn't a realistic offer so I counter-sign at $7.
7pm - Agent B comes back again with a counter-offer of $5. This is more than I was expecting and am happy with it, but I don't want to sign anything without talking to Peter. Peter is out at paintball practice and not expected home till 10pm. I tell Agent B we'll get back to her in the morning. Agent B is quite pushy.
8pm - I get a phone call from Agent C saying his client is quite keen and would like to come back for a second look in the morning.
11pm - I finally speak to Peter. While we are both happy with the $5 offer, neither of us feel comfortable at taking the first offer we are given. We decide to hold off and see what happens with Agent C's clients.

Wednesday 1 November - Day 3
8.30am - Agent C brought his clients in for a second look at the property. They then went straight back to the office and put an offer in writing. This put us into a "multi offer" situation, where all buyers have one chance to put their best offer forward.
6pm - The multi offers were presented to us, with me in Barfoots office and Peter on the phone from Wellington.
Agent B's client, Buyer 1, offered $5 conditional on 5 days for finance and builders report. Buyer 1 is a recently divorced woman.
Agent C's client, Buyer 2, offered $4 conditional on 10 days for finance and builders report. Buyer 2 is a young couple.
Peter and I accepted Buyer 1's offer. We had a conditional sale after only three days on the market.

Friday 3 November - Day 5
Buyer 1 and her builder came by to do a "structural integrity" inspection. They spent about half an hour looking round the inside and outside of the property, while Kat and I tried to keep out of the way.

Saturday 4 November - Day 6
Our first Open Home. Spent hours making sure the house was spotless beforehand. Only 2 groups came through the house. However it hadn't yet been advertised in the Property Press so the people who came through would only have come based on the signage out front.

Sunday 5 November - Day 7
Our second Open Home. This time 10 groups came through, which is the most we ever had in the whole time our house was on the market.

Tuesday 7 November - Day 9
Got a call in the afternoon from our solicitor, who had been contacted by Buyer 1's solicitor, saying that the builders inspection had found water damage in the garage wall and that it would cost approx $0.60 to fix and therefore she was asking that we reduce the price by $0.60 to $4.40. I was unaware of any water damage in the garage and went and looked but couldn't find any. There was clay and builders mix piled against the outside of the garage wall that I thought they might have been referring to. I replied that I wouldn't reduce the price but I would shift the dirt (this later took me several back-breaking hours in the hot sun while Kathleen napped).

Wednesday 8 November - Day 10
This was the day that Buyer 1's offer was meant to go "unconditional", i.e. she needed to satisfy all the conditions of her offer (finance and builders report).
10am - Get a phone call from our solicitor saying that Buyer 1 is unhappy with the findings of the builders report and therefore the "agreement is cancelled". The sale was off. I was gutted. I got a copy of the builders report from the solicitor and went and relooked at the garage wall and discovered that there was some water damage there after all, that I had never noticed before.
Upon speaking to Agent A later on, it appears that the builders report wasn't the only reason Buyer 1 pulled out. It looks like finance and maybe pressure from her family and friends also influenced her decision. Which is a shame because she really loved the house.

Friday 10 November - Day 12
The property has its first listing in the Property Press.

Saturday 11 November - Day 13
2pm - Another Open Home. This time I'm out at Big Boys Toys watching Peter play paintball. 8 groups of people through.
7.30pm - I run out to the shops to get something for dinner and find Buyer 1 standing in the driveway staring wistfully at the house. She introduces me to her partner who she has brought along to see the house. I tell her she's welcome to have a look around the outside of the property.
9pm - Agent D came around with an offer of $2 from Buyer 3. Buyer 3 was a 65 year old one-legged man who lived on his own and was looking for a new house. The offer hinged on the sale of his existing property. We said we'd think about it but weren't keen to wait that long.

Sunday 12 November - Day 14
2pm - Another Open Home. 6 groups of people come through. Spoke to Agent A who said the interest was very strong and that she expected us to get another two offers the next day (both were waiting on the outcomes of backup offers I think).
4pm - Agent E brought some people to look at the house while Kat and I go down to the park. Through this whole experience we often had to leave the house become people wanted to come look at it. But because there were so many times I haven't included these in this summary. Apparently these buyers were very keen and spent half an hour measuring up all the rooms for their piano etc.
8pm - Told Agent D that we were very sorry but just couldn't accept Buyer 3's offer with the house sale condition attached. However we agreed to leave the offer on the table and he would see if he could come up with bridging finance.

Monday 13 November - Day 15
4pm - Agent E phoned to say that unfortunately her clients could only get finance to $3, and she was aware that our previous offer was for $5 so she didn't want to waste our time putting in an offer at $3. So we had one rejected offer and one offer evaporate and had heard nothing about these other two offers that Agent A said was coming. It looked like we were back to square one.
5pm - Agent A phoned to say we were back at a multi offer situation with at least three offers on the table, and the offers were to be presented to us at 6pm the following day.

Tuesday 14 November - Day 16
Peter has to rush off to Texas to be with his ill grandfather. Kat and I go and spend time with him at Auckland Airport between flights. The multi offer is postponed until 6pm Wednesday.

Wednesday 15 November - Day 17
6pm - The multi offers were presented to me in Barfoots office.
Agent D's client, Buyer 3, resubmitted his offer of $2 conditional on sale of his existing property.
Agent F originally had two offers for us, however one pulled out after having put in an offer on another house the night before. Her remaining client, Buyer 4 offered $3 conditional only on solicitors approval (no builders report or finance clauses). Buyer 4 is a single (divorced?) woman.
Agent G had a last minute offer for us. Her client, Buyer 5, only saw the property for the first time the day before. She offered $4.10 conditional on 7 days for finance and builders report. Buyer 5 is a young woman recently arrived from England.
I wasn't very keen on any of the offers, we had been hoping to get $5 again. However Peter and I had agreed that our bottom limit was $4. And I had already been living on my own for 2.5 weeks and just wanted it all over with. So I accepted the offer of $4.10 from Buyer 5.
So after 17 days on the market we had our second conditional sale.

Friday 17 November - Day 19
Second listing in the Property Press.
Agent G pops around and informs me that Buyer 5 has bought a copy of the builders report off Buyer 1. She also has two requests - that we remove the dirt from the side of the house entirely (I had shifted it so it wasn't against the house but it was still there), and that we change the settlement date to mid-January. After some thought I agree to the latter but not the former.

Saturday 18 November - Day 20
Open Home generates 3 groups including Buyer 5 showing the house to her friends.

Sunday 19 November - Day 21
Open Home generates 5 groups. Meanwhile Kathleen and I go out to the Santa Parade and afterwards to the Parnell Rose Garden.
I get a phone call from Agent F saying her client, Buyer 4, is still very keen on the house but cannot go any higher than $3, and would we consider her as a backup offer.

Monday 20 November - Day 22
I have a message on my phone from Agent G saying that Buyer 5 has pulled out of the deal. Apparently she said she couldn't get the finance, however on speaking to Agent A it seems more a case of cold feet and her friends saying to her "you paid that much for a house in Beach Haven???". So our second sale was off.
Agent F phoned again and said her client was still keen at $3 but I turned it down. My rationalle was that we'd already turned down other offers for $3 and I knew there were people out there who were willing to pay more.
Later that evening Agent A phoned to say that one of the people who saw the house in the weekend will probably put in an offer tomorrow. I say "I'm not holding my breath".

Tuesday 21 November - Day 23
Agent A brings over an offer from Buyer 6 for $4.40 conditional on finance, builders report and LIM report (which can take up to 3 weeks). Buyer 6 is a couple about our age, with no kids. They are offering a large deposit but don't want to pay it until the sale goes unconditional. That could be weeks away and doesn't commit them to anything and they could walk away at any time. I insist that this be changed to payable on acceptance of the contract. There are other things we want to change as well and I also add a 3-day escape clause. I agree to leave the $4.40 as is, in good faith, as we don't want to scare them off by making so many changes. I kinda wish I'd gone to $5 but Agent A strongly advised against this. She considered that the first two buyers had pulled out because they thought they were paying too much for a house in Beach Haven. I was happy enough with $4.40 as it is what we were offered by Buyer 1 once we took the price reduction into account. I made it clear I would not accept any reductions to this price, and Buyer 6 is already aware of the water damage in the garage. They accepted my changes to the contract.
So after 23 days on the market we had our third conditional sale.

Thursday 23 November - Day 25
Buyer 6 is concerned that the deck that was added to the house by the previous owner is not shown on the official Certificate of Title to the land. We bought the house aware of this, and were told at the time it is quite common. Agent A assured me it is still quite common and not having it on the Title is no big deal.

Friday 24 November - Day 26
Buyer 6's builder came by to do an inspection of the property.
Third listing in the Property Press

Saturday 25 November - Day 27
Another Open Home, only 2 groups go through

Sunday 26 November - Day 28
Another Open Home. 5 groups come through, including 2 on their second viewing of the property.
Peter arrives home from the US. I've now been on my own for four weeks and we are all missing each other. We decide that the time has come for me to join him Wellington and that we will leave the house furnished but unoccupied. It could be another two weeks before the sale to Buyer 6 goes unconditional, or it could fall over like the previous two sales did. In any case it could be weeks until the house is sold and I don't want to wait.

Monday 27 November - Day 29
I start making arrangements for Kat and I to join Peter in Wellington, such as arranging for the cats to be uplifted by the Petman and delivered to Wellington a week later.

Tuesday 28 November - Day 30
10am - I get a phone call from our solicitor who has been advised by Buyer 6's solicitor that they are asking for a reduction in the price by $0.40 so that they can officially put the deck onto the Certificate of Title. I say no.
12.30pm - Agent H presents me with a backup offer from Buyer 7 of $1 unconditional - no finance, no builders report. Buyer 7 is a couple in their late 30's with no kids, originally from Germany or Switzerland.
3pm - After talking with Peter I counter-sign the backup offer at $5.
7pm - Agent H comes back with a counter-offer of $3.60. He says that he doesn't think they'll go any higher and that the woman had to twist her partners arm to even offer this much. I stick to my guns and counter-sign at $4 which is our absolute minimum.
7.30pm - Agent H phones to say that they have agreed to $4.
We now have an unconditional backup offer. This immediately evokes our 3-day escape clause in the contract with Buyer 6. This means that Buyer 6 has three days to make their offer unconditional (i.e. be satisfied with their builders report, property report, and get the finance). If Buyer 6 does go unconditional then the house is sold to them for $4.40 and Buyer 7 misses out. However if they can't do it in time or if they decide to pull out then the house will be sold to Buyer 7 for $4, no questions asked. In either case the house is now effectively sold.
Finally, after 30 days on the market we have sold the house.

Wednesday 29 November
The sold sign went up on the board outside our house.
I had been planning on leaving today and driving down to Wellington, however the last minute development meant I had a few more things to do and pack before I could leave so I ended up staying another couple of days to get it all done.

Friday 1 December
Heard from our solicitor that Buyer 6 had made their offer unconditional (and had dropped the request for the deck to be added to the Certificate of Title). Our house was sold, to Buyer 6, for $4.40.
Kathleen and I hit the road for the long drive to Wellington.

Wednesday 20 December
Three weeks later Peter, Kathleen and I are settling in to our new life in Wellington. Our stuff has been packed up and delivered to us in our new house. Through friends from coffee group in Auckland I managed to get the house in Auckland cleaned and made ready for handover. The keys were handed over to Buyer 6 today, and the money deposited into our account. It's been a long and stressful journey but we are finally here and can start moving forward again (well, once we stop tripping over all these boxes).

Cheers,
Megz

Relocated

2006-12-11T12:46:00.000+13:00

Kathleen and I have now joined Peter in Wellington, and we are back together as a family living in our new house.

It's been six weeks now since Peter started his new job in Wellington. Kathleen and I stayed on in Auckland with the intention of being there until the house sold. The impression we got from the real estate agent was that it would sell quickly, as other properties in the area had done. However it proved to be quite a saga which I will document in a later blog when I have more time.

So after being apart for a month we decided that that was enough, and Kat and I would come down to Wellington whether the house in Auckland was sold or not. On the day we left Auckland the house sale went unconditional, so that was a weight off my mind.

Kathleen and I drove from Auckland to Wellington over the course of two days. Normally Peter and I would do the nine-hour drive in one long day, but with Kathleen along I had to stop more often to give her breaks.

On Day 1 Kathleen slept while I drove from Auckland to Hamilton. I haven't been that way for almost a year and it's great to see the roadworks have finally finished and the dual carriageway almost all the way to Huntly makes a huge difference. We stopped for lunch in Hamilton and had a play at a park where Kat had great fun chasing the ducks. We then continued on to Taupo and once again Kat slept the majority of the trip.

Spent the night in Taupo at a motel. Kat was pretty well behaved although I still kept shhh-ing her every time she squealed so she didn't annoy the neighbours. Then there was the bachelor party who came back to their units at whatever time in the morning. And the guy who knocked persistently on my door at 5am only to find it was the wrong room.

Day 2 we hit the road nice and early, and Kat immediately fell asleep all the way from Taupo to Waiouru. We continued on for another 45 minutes to Flat Hills where we stopped for lunch and Kat got to see the pigs and goats and sheep and cow and chooks. Once again she fell asleep as soon as we left there. We stopped in to visit friends in Palmerston North for a late lunch and another play. Then there was the final drive from Palmy to Wellington.

With all the stopping it was 7.15pm by the time we arrived at Peter's mum's house in Island Bay. A very long day and a very long drive. Kathleen handled the drive very well, only complaining when I put her into her carseat.

It's great to be back together as a family again. We stayed with Peter's mum for a few days until moving into our own house. Peter is absolutely loving being back in Wellington. He says he has run into people he knows on the street every single day. His social life is very busy. In the week before Kat and I arrived, I think he was out every night. In the four nights we have been living in this house so far, we've only cooked one night. I have yet to catch up with any friends as I have been busy on house stuff, but I hope to do so this week.

It's great to be back in Wellington, but I have to admit there are some things I miss about Auckland. Like summer for one! Haven't seen much of summer yet here. But I'll save those things for another post.

Cheers,
Megz

Col. (Ret) Harry M Kemp

2006-11-22T22:48:00.000+13:00

It is with much sadness that I have to report that Peter's grandfather, Col Harry M Kemp, passed away this week after a short illness. Thankfully Peter and his mother were forewarned a week ago and flew immediately to Texas and were able to spend several precious days with him.

I only met Grandfather a couple of times, but he was a very lovely man and just what I imagine a grandfather should be like (never having known mine). He was a quiet man but when he spoke it was with great thought and worth listening to. He taught me to understand and appreciate Gridiron, I'll always remember watching the Rose Bowl on TV with him and Peter when we visited in 1999.

Grandfather was an officer in the US military during World War II. He has written a book about his experiences. He ordered the evacuation of the town of Diekirch in Luxembourg, and this is commemorated in the National Military Museum in Diekirch which Peter and I visited on our trip to Europe in 2004. (See virtual museum tour Showroom 7). He also liberated the town of Colmar in France from the Germans. He has since been honoured by both the French and the Luxembourgers (?) for his actions.

Grandfather will be dearly missed by all, but especially by wife Margey, children Peggy, Dick and Buck, and grandchildren Peter, Richard, Mardie, Jessica, Morgan and Bryan.

Below is a picture of Grandfather with Peter, Richard and Mardie at the Alamo a couple of years ago.

-Megz

Food

2006-11-13T20:59:00.000+13:00

I took Kathleen to Plunket for her regular 9-month checkup three weeks ago. They weighed her and found her to be in the very bottom weight range for her age. Their advice was to feed her more, make sure she gets enough iron, and let her have dessert as well.

Up until then Kathleen had been eating pureed and "slightly-chunky-but-still-pureed" food that I had cooked up in big batches and frozen into ice cubes. Things like pumpkin and potato and carrot and spinach. For her lunches and dinners we would defrost two or three cubes for her. She seemed quite happy with this arrangement and never seemed to ask for more food when it was all gone.

As we were intending to be moving house a week after the Plunket appointment, we used up all the ice cubes of food so that there would be none left come moving day. But then moving day got cancelled and suddenly Kathleen had no food in the freezer.

She ate tinned baby food for a few days and then I decided to try something I'd been thinking about for a while. One of the main reasons for making Kathleen's food myself has been so that she would get used to eating the same things Peter and I eat, so that one day we could all sit down together and eat as a family. (But the main reason for making my own food is to save the waste of tins and jars - what a Greenie!).

Then I found out that from 9 months she can eat just about any food that the rest of us eat. I had thought it was 12 months and was aiming for that. But when I found out it was 9 months, and she was now 9 months old, and we were all out of frozen food anyway, I knew it was time to experiment.

And so with Peter away living in Wellington Kathleen and I have now settled into a new routine. We both sit down together at 6.30pm and eat our dinner together. We eat the same thing, with hers chopped into small pieces. Usually I let her try to feed herself. Often there is a big mess afterwards. But she has really surprised me with how much food she will eat (sometimes).

The benefits of this new arrangement are:

Kat is learning to eat more foods, and meals that Peter & I like.

Kat is eating as much as she wants, rather than as much as I defrosted. I just keep giving her food off my plate until she says no.

Kat is putting on lots of weight.

I don't have to worry about wasting food / defrosting food she doesn't eat, because what she doesn't eat I will.

I am actually making time to eat as well, which I haven't been doing much during the day.

I don't feel quite so lonely without Peter here, as I have someone to eat my meals with - even if she's not much of a conversationalist.

Meals that have so far been successful are:

Beef and Lamb casseroles. More successful as leftovers for lunch, but still enjoyable.

Macaroni Cheese. With luncheon instead of bacon.

Moroccan Lamb with Couscous. She loved the couscous even if she had trouble getting it into her mouth. I think more of it wound up on her face, down her bib, down her top, down her nappy, in her hair and on the floor than in her tummy.

Mini Meatballs in a Tomato Sauce. Very messy but very yummy.

Chicken and Broccoli in a Cheese sauce. She loved it the first night. Didn't want to know about it as leftovers the following night.

Meals that haven't worked:

Fish Fingers & cooked carrot sticks. In fact anything she can hold one end and chew the other she doesn't like. I don't know if it's the size or the feel of it that's putting her off. Cut it up into tiny pieces and she'll consider eating it.

Rice Risotto. Homemade, not out of a packet. Doesn't like the rice, I think it's too hard to eat.

That was the first couple of weeks, however in the last few days Kathleen has started going through a very difficult phase. Doesn't want to eat, doesn't want to drink, doesn't want a bath, doesn't want anything. Just wants to sleep and be held and scream a lot. I think it's probably either teething or missing Daddy (or probably both).

Anyone got any other meal ideas that are yummy for adults and babies, please leave a comment.

-Megz

For Sale

2006-10-30T10:06:00.000+13:00

Three bedroom house on a crosslease section, approx 8 years old. Very private setting with bush and harbour views.

Only a couple of minutes walk to shops and primary school. Five minutes drive to mall, 15 minutes to city.

Includes garage with internal access, and wrap-around decks.

Garden needs some TLC.

Refer Barfoot & Thompson for more information: http://www.barfoot.co.nz/scripts/db.dll/details?sid=300.2&ref=351722

-Megz

A slight change of plans

2006-10-28T22:21:00.000+13:00

We have had a slight change of plans with regard to moving to Wellington. Yes, we are still moving! However the sale of our property is taking longer than anticipated. First of all it took us a long time to get the garden up to scratch, movers organised, and the house de-cluttered before we could even talk to prospective buyers.

We had previous been approached by some people a year ago when we first said we were leaving, who said they were interested in buying our house. We had hopes that they would still be interested.

Our timeframe was that Peter was due to start work in Wellington on Monday 30 October. We planned to have the movers take our furniture away the Friday before, and then over the weekend we would drive to Wellington. In order for this plan to work, we needed to talk to the people about our house the weekend prior to our move. We spoke to them briefly and they had a quick look at the house. Unfortunately then they left town for a few days as it was a long weekend. So it wasn't until Tuesday that they got back to us and said that they would love to, but just couldn't afford it.

So there we were literally at the last minute having to talk to a real estate agent. She, and others, advised us that our house would sell quicker and better if it was furnished. So we made the tough decision that Kathleen and I would stay here and continue living in the house until it sold. We literally called the moving company the day before they were scheduled to come and asked them to postpone it until further advice.

Rather than drive down to Wellington over the weekend, Peter flew down on his own this afternoon. And he starts his new job tomorrow.

That leaves me here on my own with Kathleen. Hopefully things won't take too long and we will be reunited with Peter soon.

-Megz

Good News

2006-10-01T14:21:00.000+13:00

After a year of searching, about a dozen phone interviews, and a handful of formal interviews, Peter has finally been offered a job in Wellington. Working as a Team Leader for Desktop Technology Services Ltd (DTSL).

His last day with Chubb in Auckland will be on Friday 27 October, and he starts work in Wellington on Monday 30 October. At this stage we don't have a date for when Kathleen and I move to Wellington. Hopefully it will be the same weekend as Peter, but that will depend on how things go here. We've got lots of work to do before we leave.

We have decided to sell our house, so have a lot of work to there to get it back up to standard. The yard has been pretty much ignored since Kathleen was born, and to be quite honest it was never really taken care of very much before then either. The outside of the house needs a good clean. The carpets are a mess - when we move our criteria for new carpets will be "must not show cat and baby puke stains!".

It will be good to get to Wellington and be nearer to our friends and family. But it'll still be sad to leave Beach Haven. I'll definitely miss my coffee group. It's been really good watching the other babies grow up with Kathleen and seeing what they're all doing. Kat is still the only one crawling, but I don't think Xanthe is far away from it now. I hope I'll be able to find another coffee group in Island Bay, but I doubt it.

We are going to be living in Island Bay once we get to Wellington. New contact information will be sent out via email once it is known.

In other news, Kathleen and I had a great time visiting in Wellington the other week. The weather was lovely so we took Kat to Lindale Farm where she got to see sheep and ducks and pigs, and to the beach at Days Bay where she had lots of fun playing in the sand.

She is growing up so quickly. Eight months now. She's really good at crawling, and shoots all over the house. She is now eating three solids meals a day. Loves Vegemite, carrot and yoghurt. Doesn't much care for meat, greens or corn. She now has the cutest habit of sleeping face down with her bum sticking up in the air, on top of the blankets with her head at the foot of the bed. She is currently learning to wave hello and bye bye. She now has six teeth, four on the top and two below, with the top ones just poking through in the last month.

She understands a lot of what we say. If we say "pussycat" she will turn around and look for the cat. And, in what I suspect is going to be typical behaviour for the rest of her life, she completely ignores us when we tell her "no" or "don't touch that". Case in point, the wires leading from our stereo to the speakers on the other side of the room. She likes to play with them. She likes to put them in her mouth (she likes to put EVERYTHING in her mouth). We tell her "no". She looks up at us then goes right back to playing with the wires again. We pick her up and put her on the otherside of the room with a different toy. She puts the toy down and crawls straight back to the wires again. Oh, I look forward to moving and being able to baby-proof the house.

Kathleen also loves playing games with us now. But I'll let you read about that in her blog.

-Megz