eating cake for breakfast

Snap shots of life

2011-08-28T18:27:00.001+12:00

You could almost forgive her for being awake half the night most nights, cos she looks so cute. Awww ... (I said almost, yeah? Though she is most definitely cute)

Because life is apparently *that* tough ... and it's not often I take a decent picture and get the timing spot on, so this one is also an exceptionally rare picture-taking-skill pat on the back.

Helping Dad in the yard, also being cute.

In his lunch-box. Heh. He loves this box. It's been sitting in the middle of the lounge for days, and I have a terrible feeling that when it expires, I'm going to have to go and buy something else (a moses basket and stand for the not-ginger came in this one because the 'orrible child was of the opinion that hammocks suck, and I was desperate enough for sleep to shell out the cash on a second bed that she'll probalby only be in for 5 minutes - lucky for her she thought the moses basket was a definite step in the right direction) that comes in a big ol' box just so we still have a box. He's watching old Humprey Bear cartoons on the computer pre-nap-time. It's his thing.

The gorgeous woodland mobile I found on Etsy for the not-ginger's room. Came all the way from Sweden. I probably should've taken it out and hung it up before taking the picture, but I'm impatient and lazy, so you get a plastic-wrapped picture.

Snooow!

2011-08-17T14:27:00.012+12:00

Poor little lemon tree
Poor big lemon tree
Poor feijoas

Happy border collie

Fraser Park across the road, and the hills. Somewhere.

The little ginger, most fascinated.

Building a snowman.

Not quite getting the idea behind building a snowman. The husband got most twitchy.

The little ginger taking refuge in the wood shed from snowballs being fired at him (seriously, the husband really was not amused about his snowman).

The little ginger escalating the snowball war.

And having a marvellous time.

The not-ginger not giving a toss what was going on outside.

The littlest ginger arrives, and she's not a ginger

2011-08-12T11:13:00.001+12:00

I still take the crappest photos in the history of the world, but she's so cute you don't even notice huh?

Antonia Helene - born 4th August 2011 (I think - that was Thursday a week ago right? Turns out it's not just the husband that needs these things tattooed on himself) at 9.41am. A bit rough that on your last night pre-baby you find yourself setting the alarm for about 5.30am so you can be at the hospital for a 7am kick off. Still, beats a surprise 2am trip. Or even abandoning dinner at 5pm the night before the scheduled c-section because the little blighter has barely moved all day and needs monitoring to make sure she's ok in there. It was good dinner too. Although, I did get a McDonald's apple pie on the way home from the hospital to make up for it. Caught me by surprise that the hot contents caution was actually necessary though - I very nearly dropped the thing on the belly covering my lap, so unexpected was the hot contents. Seriously, who ever buys a hot apple pie from McDonalds, thinking it's actually going to be hot?)

And now, I need a couple of litres of coffee.

(Also, FYI - you haven't missed anything at all since my last post, except much pregnancy-related whinging. And a cardigan, affectionately known as my blanket with sleeves, that ended up rather enormous because I bollocksed up the pattern, but did keep me busy while I could barely move off the couch. I've started another one that looks a little less like a layer of bedding (at this stage) but photos could be way, way off - not only do I end up forgetting what I'm doing before I've barely started but the little ginger sneezed on the Netbook I upload my photos to and it turns out that little kid sneezes are not only disgusting, but they also have the power to 90% fry electronics. Bless)

Ah. It's a bit addictive.

2011-05-15T17:18:00.010+12:00

It started when I saw a scarf that I really liked in a boutique on Ponsonby Road, not long before I left Auckland. It was definitely my kind of knitwear.

It continued when I discovered The Holland Road Yarn Company, while Pal Nikki was in Welly a couple of months ago. Meet me for a cup of tea, says she. When and where, says I. HRYC, says she. You're doomed, says the universe because it's a very cool store that will give you many very cool ideas.

Around that time I found out that the boutique of the awesome scarf that I loved was online, and I continued to admire it regularly, but realised as I admired that for the $135 price tag, I could very likely remember how to knit enough to make my own. Much cheaper. With my own colours. And it'd probably keep me busy for the next couple of months until Winter really set in. Then I'd get bored and that would be the end of the knitting. But I'd still be up one scarf. Excellent plan.

I was motivated as I mentioned earlier by being near-popsicle-ised on my way to the obstetrician a couple of weeks ago (I've just realised that I have an appointment next week, and that that's the end of my monthly appointments I think. I also have a hospital orientation appointment the week after. Time is short. I'm not comfortable with this).

So off I waddled, collected wool and needles, and hunkered down with my Winter project.

Except, it only took a week and it was done (and that's even taking into account that the little ginger is apparently three-quarters kitten and I had to keep wrestling balls of wool off him), which is excellent if I get a cold neck and want to use my scarf (like possibly this week, judging by the weather forecast), but it didn't take anywhere near long enough for me to get bored and never want to do it again. Which meant I needed a new project, so now I'm onto draught stops for the kids rooms with the wool scraps (which is also reminding me how to do purl stitch). But I've nearly finished those too.

And then I bought a cardi pattern. No idea how to read a pattern of course - I think I'd have more luck if it were in German or something - but I like the cardi. I'm sure I can work it out.

And I think I'll need hats too. Awesome hats that don't cost a hundred bucks.

Doomed, doomed, doomed.

Doomed.

The problem is too that I have a long-standing thing for knitwear, and now that I think I may be able to make it myself at a fraction of the cost, I'm getting a bit twitchy. And I saw a cool pattern for knitted mushrooms the other day. I'm pretty sure I have to knit a mushroom for the littlest ginger's room, which has evolved to have a vague woodland theme.

Dooooooooooomed.

(le draught stop)

Much ado about nothing

2011-05-02T08:00:00.002+12:00

Firstly though, do I get to complain that my favourite black cardi fell apart in the wash yesterday morning and it's only about 3 years old, if I probably should've been hand-washing it but I've been throwing it in the washing machine for about the entire 3 years?

I really liked that cardi.

Also, I'm going to knit a scarf. I think. I'll just have to remember how. I didn't think it'd been all that long until I did the maths and realised that I'm getting older and it's actually been a good 16 years. There are kids out there who weren't born when I knitted my last scarf that've nearly finished high school. Cheery. Aside from that though, I'm quite enthusiastic about the idea. Especially after going out in a howling southerly the other day for an appointment with my obstetrician and finding that where previously, in Auckland, a scarf has always been a handy accessory, here, in Wellington, it's a necessary means of preserving life. I'm still working out how big I want it, but based on last week I think probably if it covers me from head to toe and I can wrap it around myself about 10 times I should be good. I'll post pictures after I've been to visit this woman. Love her store.

And now, Much Ado.

With baby girl getting closer, we've been conscious that she'll need somewhere to sleep once she's done her stint in the hammock, and that the cot was still very much occupied by Cuinn. We had two plans. The first plan was the obvious and what most people would do - move Cuinn into a big boy bed. Snort. Whatever. The very thought filled us with such a feeling of general terror that we much preferred plan two which was to buy a second cot. Yes, we really are that wussy.

As it played out, last week's visit to the obstetrician indicated that baby girl will likely be needing her cot about as quickly as Cuinn did (he was about 3 weeks old from memory when he was dangling out of the hammock from the knees down) - the littlest ginger is measuring bigger even than Cuinn (big enough that my obstetrician did her measurements 3 times in disbelief) and we realised that with her only being about 14 weeks away tops, we were possibly too embarrassed to buy a second cot after all, tempting though it was, and we really didn't want to do the transition and bed-battle with the little ginger after the littlest ginger arrives (you know, why I refer to either of these gingers as little really is beyond me at this point).

So, this week, the husband has the week off, and I have a couple of weeks of putting my feet up a bit too, so we figured that the timing is probably as good as any to bite the bullet and undertake intensive kid-wrangling as we made the transition. Except, for once, we were ready, willing (in a relative sense) and braced for what lay ahead of us, but the little ginger it seems was even readier and willinger and took to his bed like a duck to water and that's been that. The husband and I have been walking around, looking at each other and grinning like (relieved) idiots at how simple it's been. How beautifully, wonderfully, unusually straight forward. Complete non-event. Blooming marvellous. Amen.

(Insert curses here)

2011-05-01T09:17:00.005+12:00

I'd like it noted for the record that I spent nearly an hour (thank heavens for Tigger & Pooh and Mickey Mouse to keep the kid amused - awesome parenting that) trying to format the damn post and photos and my patience ran out - which is why there are gaps you could drive a truck though. It was that, or all the writing shrinks to such a teeny font it looks like it's disappeared entirely, or I end up deleting photos accidentally, or the gaps end up so huge you could drive an entire fleet of trucks through instead of just one, or I end up deleting photos by accident and have to reload them. Either way, I had to give up before my swearing got any louder. The kid is a parrot.

Adventures of a little ginger

2011-05-01T08:33:00.004+12:00

Frolicking at Days Bay. We took a trip out a few months ago, and ended up with a completely nekkid, near-blue kid having a marvellous time on the main strip - I'd left the husband and the kid crossing the road to look at the seagulls and gone into a local gallery for a quiet nosey. I came out to passersby chortling, and the kid not quite how I'd left him. He was having a blast though which is what being a kid is all about, so what do you do? Shrug and transport the near hypothermia one home in a woolly dog-hair-covered cardi dug out of the boot of a car and send copious the-kid-has-no-nappy-on-please-please-please prayers heavenward. The next time we went back, we took togs. And a spare nappy. And took photos I could post.

The playground on the water's edge at Lyall Bay, post divine-breakfast-at-Maranui-Surf-Club-at-some-unholy-time-of-the-morning-because-it's-so-popular-you-have-to-get-there-before-the-world-including-you-wakes-up (luckily we have a 2 year old who assists us in such endeavours as getting up at revolting times).

It was absolutely freezing, and there was a southerly whipping up, but again, the kid had a marvellous time and the husband and I had had the forethought to grab a hot chocolate each before leaving the cafe, so we weren't entirely frozen solid.

The kid didn't go anywhere near this, I just remember them from when I was a kid and loved the shot.

The view from our spot in the cafe. Thank heavens they rebuilt that place after it burned down a couple of years ago. Awesomeness.

Surfer-shaped iceblocks.

Waaasn't joking about the headstones

2011-04-27T12:44:00.002+12:00

See?

25 weeks

2011-04-26T14:52:00.004+12:00

There it is - baby girl's residence at 25 weeks. Only about 14 weeks to go ... the big growing weeks. As Cuinn would say - Oh dear, dear, dear, bummer.

Man (pay people to remove knackered revolting thing and install new lovely thing to) make fire

2011-04-26T09:07:00.019+12:00

The fireplace that was. It felt extremely good to see that revolting thing demolished. What makes me scratch my head though is that we (and by 'we' I mean the husband and the neighbour) managed to drop a massive concrete chimney pretty much straight onto wooden floors and it didn't damage them any more than what they already were. Makes you wonder what on earth the previous owners did to their floors.

Cheerfully, the husband even gave me a teeny wee mallet (I wasn't allowed the 12 pound sledgehammer - knocked up and all that. Plus, even with the mallet I nearly took myself out when the first one bounced off a stud) to make the first hole in the wall. Turns out you can take out a fair amount of agression with a teeny wee mallet.

Hee hee.

The hole in the second floor - still there incidentally because we want to see whether we need to put in a heat transfer system once winter sets in.

The neighour on the roof. The husband was hiding downstairs somewhere refusing to go up there for love nor money.

Handily, the kid is tall enough to stand in the cubby under the stairs, so we hand him the wood, and he stacks it. I say 'stack' loosely, but it saves me crawling under there, it's keeps him busy for 5 minutes and he thinks he's awesome so it's a win-win.

The thing about buying a dump (with good bones)

2011-04-25T20:00:00.003+12:00

On the bright side, everything you do is really satisfying because it makes such a big difference to the dump-ness, but holy crap, if you don't blog for three months, it turns out you can't just turn up and throw a few pictures up to show how things are going. I actually need to go back through about a thousand (if I was exaggerating any I'd've said 55 million. I'm not exaggerating on the thousand) pictures to get the before and afters. Oops.

It's a funny house - there's an enormous amount of work to be done and it feels like we haven't even made a dent, yet we can feel it changing around us with everything we do. Some days we look out the windows and it seems that we haven't gotten anywhere and won't for forever, but other days we look at a list we wrote (down the wall in the lounge) when we moved in of everything we want to do to this place and see how much of it has been crossed off, and then we feel really pleased with ourselves. And really tired and a bit broke.

It's been a busy six months and we've done loads but I think perhaps we have to admit too that although we had an out-loud 3 to 5 year time frame for getting things done when we moved in, we probably quietly thought we'd be sorted in about 1 to 2 and there's no way we're going to be sorted in 1 to 2. No. Way. We'll blame baby girl for that - in true little ginger style, she turned things on their head mightily because she changed the order that things would get done, different things had to go at the top of the list, and took me out of the equation completely for the heavy work around the section.

Another head-scratching aspect to it is that the house seems to keep changing its mind about what it wants done which means taking extra time to just wait and see which is completely weird. We'll have a plan, and then suddenly it's just not right and the right thing will either be there, or we'll have to sit tight for longer to see what's what. We ended up with a fireplace instead of a heat pump that way, and ditched plans to carpet downstairs as well. We'd intended to cut the points off the top of the fence and cap it, but suddenly the fence just wants painting and for us to keep that part of the property's history as it is. Six months of intending to lay a new driveway has suddenly become probably laying those pavers that grass grows through for a second parking space. It's definitely us and the house working together, but I can't quite decide who's got the upper hand.

There has also been interesting weirdness (depending on how easy you are to creep out). We've got a really old safe in the garage that wants to be cracked, that has been here for who knows how long. It's probably empty, but we can pretend it's full of gold bars in the meantime. It makes us cheerful to think so. It was tucked right away under a workbench at the back of the garage. Hopefully it's gold bars in there anyway, and not a body because the husband dug a trench out to the garage when we were doing the rewire and dug up a couple of fake headstones of all things. At least, I hope they were fake. We couldn't decide what to do with them - put them on Trademe or keep them to threaten the kids with when they get older. They're currently still sitting outside looking slightly creepy and making the occasional visitor look twice. It did look quite funny at the time when the husband was busy digging his trench with 2 headstones sitting to one side.

I even found a cavity under the floor boards in one of the wardrobes - not a very effective hiding place since it was apparently used and the previous owners didn't clean for an estimated 15 years judging by the state of the place. The wardrobe was a centimetre thick in dirt and dust, except for one clean floor board. Didn't take a genius to work out what that was all about.

On the baby front, we're doing really well. She's definitely a she (I'm still amazed beyond belief that my obstetrician was able to tell that with reasonable confidence at only about 11 weeks pregnant), and she also seems to be a quiet wee soul. I usually hear from her every day, but sometimes all she'll say is a quick hi and that's about it, and she's only started moving noticeably in the last 2 - 3 weeks. The husband can feel her move, but she's so quiet about it, it's all a bit long-winded for everyone if he tries to see what she's up to. Here's hoping she's like that when she's born, hey? At this stage she's measuring being due around 7 - 11 August, so we're expecting her delivery by c-section probably in the first days of August, as long as she doesn't try anything funny herself. I'm hoping she won't, but she's at least part ginger and gingers are tricky. I wouldn't be too concerned if my obstetrician wasn't going to be in Switzerland until the end of July, but he is, so you can see why I'd quite like her to just hang out in there as long as possible. That and you know, we're a bit wise to what it's like having a newborn in the house now, so ... ahhh ... no need for anyone to rush.

The other little ginger is completely mad, but loving life and giving us plenty of laughs. He seems huge - his feet for example are half as long as the husband's size 14/15 jobbies and he's about half as tall too, so I think we all know how that's going to turn out. There will be pictures. Lots of pictures. Little monster.

As soon as I sort them and make a really big list.

Erm, Surprise!

2011-01-22T15:55:00.003+13:00

To be fair, a lot has been going on. Although, to be equally fair, I have most definitely dropped the ball some in the blogging department.

Although while we're being fair, I dropped the ball because I got one hell of a shock during December, and it's very hard to keep holding the ball under those sorts of circumstances. Especially when I find it hard to hold the ball under normal circumstances, being quite the unco ginger.

Sometime around the time of my last post, we were making excellent inroads into the property and we were generally nose to it - chasing a 2 year old 24/7 (which incidentally feels more like 48/14, or even 96/28), trying to make visible progress on the property, working hard at our jobs and looking forward to the end of the year, holding our collective breath after what was possibly the worst year on record that things were quieting down some.

Yeah.

Then one day I noticed a couple of things ...

My strength was failing me when I tried to pick Cuinn up and carry him. He'd gotten suddenly ridiculously heavy.

I could hardly make it up the stairs without spending a few minutes trying to get my breath back once I made it to the top.

Chocolate made my eyes cross, and not in a good way.

My period was late.

Obviously a good 7 years down the track with a natural fertility more in the range of zero than anything else, I was just irritated that my body wasn't falling back into line after the embryo transfers rather than considering any other option. For about a week, and then it all started to get a bit long-winded and extra irritating. And I started feeling extra crap to go with it. And Fireman Sam made me cry. I'm not generally a person who cries, unless I'm chopping onions. It was very embarrassing. Thankfully the only witness to said blubbering was the little ginger who thinks crying is absolutely hilarious.

Several days later the husband decided that for goodness sake, we needed to do a pregnancy test so that we could book an obstetrician if one was needed.

Yeah, yeah, whatever.

It was a good couple of weeks down the track that I actually bought one and that was honestly because, literally, Christmas was coming. If the world had indeed turned on its head, I did in actual fact need to do something about booking an obstetrician.

Bless, thankfully I bought a 3 pack of the things because I did the first one upside down. Seriously. I triumphantly announced it to be negative (so THERE husband, it WAS a waste of money, I TOLD YOU SO) until I looked a bit more closely and noticed that there was no control line on the test either, and actually, the arrows for the test bit pointed at the opposite direction to the one I ... ah ... anointed? Bollocks.

No rush though. I left the box with the other two on the bench to do whenever, which from memory was either later that day or maybe even the next day. I was still very much not in the remotest bit invested in the possibility of being pregnant.

So, a day later say, I did the second test.

And hell-o.

And then, because I wasn't convinced, I drank half the Wellington water supply and did another one.

Definitely quite the pregnant ginger I was.

My first thought was ... actually best we skip my first thought because this is a family show and all. So, my second thought was that I was, officially, a cliche. Although, to be fair, it shoots right out of the water the theory that all one has to do to get pregnant is relax because, just harking back to possibly the worst year in the history of the ginger, we weren't 'specially relaxed I can tell ya.

Anywho, moving on, as you do, yesterday we went for our first obstetrician visit, without having done so much as a blood test to actually confirm the home pregnancy test results. Quite the novelty when pregnancy and trying to get pregnant in recent years has involved much blood taking, drugging, monitoring, counting of days, scans and wotnot. Of course, not having been through any of the processes I'm both used to and now quite comfortable with, it made it quite difficult to process, but yesterday there it was - a very wiggly little baby, measuring 11 weeks, 4 days, screwing around on the monitor (seriously, I'm pretty sure it gave us the fingers), with a lovely strong heartbeat, and our new obstetrician (who showed us the baby twice and said it was twins, the evil sod) won't be held to it, but is reasonably confident it's a girl.

And that, pals of mine, is why things have been quite of late. The husband and I have been far too busy starting blankly alternately at each other and at nothing in particular in a state of shock because, to be really honest, we were pretty sure we were a done family of three. And, of course, little gingers make me horribly, horribly ill. Horribly. Horrible little gingers. It's hard to blog when you're praying to the porcelain God day in, day out.

It went a little like this ...

2010-12-05T11:26:00.012+13:00

The beginning ... (there's also the blog pic to the right)

The middle ...

New step courtesy of a couple of railway sleepers. Eeeasy peasy!! (Unless you want to talk about said railway sleepers causing the trailer to flip while we were going around the corner on a busy road at a busier intersection, buggering the trailer somewhat and requiring us to try and fit said sleepers into the back of a station wagon to get them home, in which case, not so easy peasy at all)

The end ...

Hanging baskets of rosemary.

Our friend Mr Fugly who's keeping the lavendar company.

And the lavender, because we do have a special place in our hearts for lavender (plus I'm practising taking better photos). There's a special place in our tummies too, as it happens. Cuinn's always been a fan, for reasons known only to him, and he even ate the lavender cutting I'd taken from another bush in the garden on the way to the garden centre, then spent the rest of the way there affirming to us 'nom nom nom!'

A big boy haircut and an iceblock

2010-12-04T19:30:00.000+13:00

Firstly, this was the head of hair - gorgeous moppy little ginger kid. But, his poor head was getting sooo hot, and it was stupidly tricky keeping a hat on him, so off to the barber we went. The unfortunate creature that he's got in a death-grip there is a kitten we found down on the rocks by the river when we were out walking last weekend. Unfortunately our older animals are all getting a wee tad too grumpy with young 'uns for him to stay with us, so he went off on Tuesday to find a new home. The little ginger thought it was absolute magic, although it was all a bit stressful because I had to keep saving its life - he was rather inclined to cart around by the neck.

The depressing result of the trip to the barber.

And his first iceblock - it went down so well, there wasn't even mess. Took him about 10 minutes to scarf the thing, start to finish.

Stuff that's happening

2010-11-22T20:14:00.002+13:00

The ginger kid got a climbing frame (to replace the playhouse we pulled down because it was grooooooooss. And knackered. And stinky), and spent some very happy time helping the husband put it together.

There are a good 10 million other photos to post. I will make time. I promise!

Again with the bullet points

2010-11-08T21:14:00.003+13:00

- I ordered all the curtains for the downstairs last week, paid a 50% deposit and was generally pleased.
- Until I got a phone call telling me that the fabric had been discontinued and they couldn't supply enough fabric to make my curtains.
- They're coming back tomorrow with more fabric samples.
- The first fabric I chose was perfect.
- Poos.
- We paid an astronimical amount of money to have the tree that was about to fall down cut down.
- Turns out they under quoted by more than half because it was a really dodgy tree.
- Thank heavens for quotes.
- I still feel a little bit guilty though.
- I bought them some beers to say ta.
- I think they'd probably have preferred having a cherry-picker on site and not being afraid for their lives for about 3 hours.
- Bummer.
- The tree guys told us that the tree was one good wind away from splitting completely and falling down, and it would've taken the side of our house and the sunroom out if it had.
- There was a pretty impressive storm the other night.
- Phew.
- The peach tree came right out of the ground and there was nothing wrong with that.
- Except shallow roots, apparently.
- It makes me a bit nervous when the neighbours are letting off really big fireworks to the background music of bottles clinking into the recycling bin.
- If any of them hit my house, I'm going to plant Wandering Dew in his lawn in the middle of the night.
- He has an awesome lawn.
- Wandering Dew will be excellent punishment.
- Assuming that his rottie doesn't eat me.
- Note to self to take dog treats if Wandering Dew is required.
- We do actually like the neighbours.
- I won an awesome Fun Ho! giant dump truck on Trademe for Cuinn the other day and I'm very excited about it.
- Jazz cat has been out and about, but is still being locked in the house at night.
- I wanted to keep her in for another week, but she was starting to get miserable.
- She seems to be really enjoying the grounds.
- We thought that the dogs would take quite a while to settle, based on a past move.
- They're happy as happy things.
- Excellent.
- It's really entertaining to watch the dogs run laps around the house at top speed chasing each other.
- They also think that the river is the business.
- I bought a persian rug.
- It was 70% off and I loooove it.
- YAY ME!
- We went to Plum (a historically awesome Wellington cafe) the other day, and they've ruined it. It's all shiny and beautiful and everything matches.
- We were most disgusted.
- I have it on good authority (chur Pal Nikki) that Olive will be a suitable replacement for cafe awesomeness.
- I'll let you know.
- We had a marvellous time poking around Petone stores yesterday, then we took Cuinn down to the water to chase seagulls.
- He chased them right into the water.
- Oops.
- Apparently from his perspective, that just added to the seagull-chasing fun.
- I'm making inroads into the dirt, slowly, and things are getting organised.
- We're getting a quote for a re-wire at the moment.
- Especially after we blew the fuse and it took my new computer with it.
- 2 days after the computer arrived.
- ARGH!
- We've got a quote for a heat pump.
- We won't be doing much else except weeding for a while after we do those two big uns.
- I'm really tired.
- REALLY tired.
- I'm trying to remember all the things we've done so that I can bring you up to speed, and all I can think about is going to bed.
- We haven't seen the wood pigeon for a few days.
- We're a bit disappointed about that.
- Although at least the cars aren't covered in undigested berries.
- That's a bonus.
- We got a letter from Fertility Plus yesterday about the embryo transfers, telling us what will happen with the next one when we move ahead with it.
- It seems like a lifetime ago that we were having embryo transfers.
- I feel weird about it for no known reason.
- The husband put up a new washing line the other day and it's seriously in the most awesome spot ever.
- Or it could be that anywhere in Wellington is an awesome spot to dry your washing. Quite windy here it is.
- I really should just go to bed and try to think of the important stuff we've done tomorrow.
- Oh! But before I do, the neighbour wants to drop our chimney and remove our fire place, which is an excellent idea in theory, except it seems that the wooden floors don't go all the way under the fireplace.
- I have no idea what to do about the floor if we do get the chimney and fireplace removed.
- Tiles maybe?
- We're going to put deco lightshades through the entire house.
- Heh.
- I found an awesome pink dome one on Trademe last night.
- Heh heh.
- I'm not joking.
- I'm going to bed.
- Night!

The stories I could tell

2010-10-27T13:12:00.002+13:00

Thank heavens for bullet points.

- The people who owned this house before us lived here for 15 years. I think it was last cleaned just before they moved in.
- The oven was so disgusting we had to throw it out.
- Both toilets need to be replaced. Fortunately the worst one was near a sink, which was handy for throwing up in when I tried to clean it.
- They built the kitchen around the fridge. I kid you not. The fridge was so stinky we bought a new one of those too, except as I found out yesterday when the new one was delivered, the kitchen went up around the fridge and it has to be dismantled to be removed. So I now have a new fridge in my lounge and the old one still sitting in its cavity waiting to be dismantled.
- They took all the sink plugs.
- All of them.
I kid you not.
- They also took the light fitting from the master bedroom.
- I emptied the vacuum 3 times doing the master bedroom. The master bedroom isn’t that big. I emptied it twice doing the bedroom opposite, and that’s only a little over a door width wider than a queen sized bed. Thank heavens there are only 2 carpeted areas in the house.
- I scrubbed the stairs old schools (on hands and knees with a scrubbing brush) and I’ve never seen water turn that colour before.
- I also slid down them shortly afterwards because I scrubbed off all the filth/grip.
- Whoops.
- Cuinn absolutely loves the hideously over-grown garden. He also loves that he can throw something into the greenery in front of the deck and it disappears from view. There’s now a lot of stuff in the greenery in front of the deck.
- The inside walls of the house need to be yellow.
- I really want a Persian rug, or something like it for the lounge. We were going to carpet, but have decided to go for a rug instead.
- Persian rugs, or anything like them are REALLY expensive.
- Poo.
- I still want one.
- This house loves clutter. That’s going to take some getting used to.
- The weather has been absolutely beautiful since we arrived.
- All the fuses in the house come to a single point. Thank heavens said point has a circuit breaker.
- There is no washing line.
- You can’t run the dryer if anything else in the house is on, or it blows the fuses for the entire house.
- I don’t like the way the circuit board crackles.
- A rewire is not going to wait.
- The previous owners say they are going to get all their crap out of the garage on Saturday. I don’t believe them, so I’ve ordered a skip for Sunday.
- Just joking.
- Sort of.
- I was told that putting vanilla essence in a dish and placing it in a room helps to absorb smell, so I tried it. It works fantastically, and this house smelled really bad.
- If you use the vanilla trick, don’t try sniffing the vanilla to see how well it worked.
- I can’t find our electric jug, all my baking trays or a particular saucer, and I’ve unpacked all the kitchen stuff.
- That’s not good.
- I’ll post pictures once a box pick-up has been done by the movers because at the moment, all you can see is boxes (and the new fridge in the middle of the lounge) so there’s no point.
- Caffeind in Petone does excellent coffee.
- I ripped my favourite jeans yesterday.
- The previous owner provided me with measurements to get curtains for the upstairs bedrooms because the house came with no curtains at all, just some knackered wooden blinds.
- She buggered up the measurements for one room.
- I had very expensive curtains shortened too short. Like, 15 cm odd off the ground.
- Am spectacularly furious.
- Unless curtains are deliberately short (fall below the windowsill), they look stupid.
- My pear curtains travelled with me from Auckland and now frame the French doors. They look awesome. Home is where the pear curtains are. As soon as they went up, Al and I started to feel better.
- Cuinn’s room is the sunniest in the house, looks awesome (apart from being painted pink, walls and ceiling), and is really cosy. He loves it.
- I need a draught excluder for his door because it finishes about 3cm off the ground.
- I’ve found the perfect one.
- It's expensive.
- Even in pounds.
- Al and I are homesick, but these things take time. We do like it here, we just miss our friends and workmates and workplaces.
- The husband loves his new job – apparently there’s a coffee machine in the smoko room and that’s all that matters.
- There’s no dishwasher, and no room for one.
- I kind of like it.
- At this stage.
- There’s a wicked Chinese takeaway up the road. Uber wicked. Best Chinese takeaway I’ve ever had. Fried rice isn’t oily and vegetables are perfectly cooked. Most impressed.
- I've had Chinese takeaways twice this week.
- I also want a door stop to match the draught excluder.
- The credit card is willing, but the husband will squeak.
- We really miss our dogs and our cat, but by the time they arrive on Friday night, the house will be set up and our influence will be stronger than the last owners’ and hopefully their stress will be less.
- I’ve only heard one car travel fast past our house since we arrived.
- There’s a wood pigeon that hangs out in a tree above our driveway.
- Cuinn looooves it.
- Parking a car under where a wood pigeon hangs out is not a good idea.
- The cat door is entirely metal.
- There’s a big rottie next door that the dogs are going to spend much time talking to I imagine.
- There is no TV aerial. Or there is, but it’s knackered.
- Either way, we have bunny-ears in our lounge so we can get kidzone.
- The telephone line had been taken down.
- There are telephone jacks absolutely everywhere.
- They’re really ugly.
- I have no idea how they talked to anyone on the phone with no telephone line.
- I’m going to start repeating myself if I keep going.

I'm hiding in the corner of my kitchen

2010-10-21T09:26:00.005+13:00

The final day of packing up my life is in full swing, and I'm trying to stay out from underfoot as a small army of packers loads my life into boxes. There are a LOT of boxes. I had to climb over about 20 just to get to the corner of the kitchen so I could hide, and I only started on the other side of the kitchen.

We decided to camp one more night at the house tonight (should be interesting with the little ginger) and then that's us - on our way to Lower Hutt to meet our container at our new house come Saturday morning.

My house looks weird with nothing in it. It feels friendly, and yet there's no suggestion of the living that's gone on in it. It feels like there should be a suggestion of the living. Although, I just realised I left needle mountain in a kitchen cupboard, and the packers would have come across that sometime yesterday. That's kind of funny - how would you record that on an inventory ... ? Heh.

An instant, and an eternity

2010-10-18T19:27:00.019+13:00

On 18th August my niece Mikayla, my younger brother's youngest child, died. She was 8 months old that day, lost to SIDS.

She was a beautiful, funny, dribbly, squeely baby girl, and her loss echoes terribly. I couldn't write without acknowledging her, and yet what can I say? It's a grief beyond words.

I thought I might need to bring you up to date in bullet points, but when I listed it all out I was a bit too horrified, so I'll pass on sharing and give you the two majors that you'll be most interested in, though I could always scan a copy of the $1,250 vet bill we copped last week to have Jazz cat's knee reconstructed if you were after something to laugh hysterically at ... I thought I might need to bring you up to date in bullet points, but when I listed it all out I was a bit too horrified, so I'll pass on sharing and give you the two majors that you'll be most interested in, though I could always scan a copy of the $1,250 vet bill we copped last week to have Jazz cat's knee reconstructed if you were after something to laugh hysterically at ...

Seriously though, how does a cat bugger its knee?

Anyway.

We have completed 3 frozen embryo transfer cycles, each of them unsuccessful. We did the cycles one after the other, but with only 2 remaining frozen embryos and quuuuuuite a bit going on at the moment, we're going to take a break until next year, give it six months or so, and then do another cycle. We apparently have strong embryos of excellent quality which are surviving the thawing process, but just aren't sticking.

Second, we're on the move. A transfer opportunity came up for the husband in Wellington, he applied, he got the job, and so. We banged our house on the market after a mad rush to get a few things that needed finishing (erm ... the kitchen for a start) finished, sold about two and a half weeks later with a settlement date about 3 weeks after that, which brings us up to this Friday coming. The movers come in on Wednesday and start loading our life into a container bound for Lower Hutt, and then on Tuesday the husband starts working a very different lifestyle shift which will see him spending more hours at work (12 hour days) but more days at home with his two gingers. We've bought a house, so watch this space for another round of house do-upping. Once the purchase has gone through. Which is another story altogether.

How fares the kidlet a couple of months on? He's not dull to have around, that's for sure.

The reality of IVF

2010-08-16T15:57:00.003+12:00

That reality is that the positive results are the minority, and this cycle we have fallen into the majority.

It's excellent medicine having a manic little ginger screaming around the house - it doesn't leave much space for thinking about anything other than the positive outcome of our journey prior to now and that we've already got what a ridiculously high percentage of couples who seek fertility treatment will never get.

And cue cycle two.

There's a good chance (50/50) that this one'll be Rupert.

And, done.

2010-08-08T18:44:00.003+12:00

More or less anyway.

The frozen embryo replacement cycle has been quite the doddle, all in all. I started blood testing on day 10 which showed no real ovulation-type action, so I had a couple of days off and had bloods taken again on day 13. Day 13 blood work showed a surge in hormone levels, so I repeated the blood test on day 14 and had a scan which confirmed a follicle was ready to pop, then hey ho, the embryo was thawed on Wednesday and replaced on Thursday, day 19 I think it was (it was a 5 day blastocyst, and so it was replaced 5 days after ovulation, to mimic the normal way of things). Just like that. Nothing much to it. Far too simple really. It's such a huge, uncertain thing, that leaves you feeling a bit 'what next?' like, because it's just done, and there are no bruises to heal, no pain to nurse, no drugs to take, just all done, off home to wait. Wait as though you are pregnant, but ... well.

I had a blood test yesterday, to check hormone levels were such that a pregnancy could be supported if one was underway and as the clinic was only going to ring if there was anything wrong and I didn't hear from them, one assumes at this point that the environment is good and it's all down to the embryo and whether it's strong enough. I can't even tell you what number we're rooting for - 3 or 4 is as much as the lab was able to tell me. Actually, they said it's 3, 4 or 9, but since 9 was busy trying to make a break out of the nurse's room at the time, that narrowed it down to 3 or 4. At least it's not both. Or better not be anyway. 3 seems to have good juju - a factor of 9, a third less ... personality, perhaps? than Cuinn. Perhaps. Or, as a friend (cheers Lynn), cheerfully suggested, three times the life. Ye gads. Four is also good of course - an even number to Cuinn's odd. Even number = even temper? Maybe? Pretty please?

What was uber awesome was that our obstetrician Paul, who cared for and delivered Cuinn, works 2 days alternate weeks at Fertility Plus and it all just kind of worked out that he was at the clinic on Thursday. I don't know if he was always going to do the transfer (there were other specialists in the clinic that day), or if he did it because we asked him if he could when we saw him there (we have Cuinn to thank for the seeing bit actually - having exhausted all the entertainment the water cooler/reception desk/selected rubbish bins/other people waiting in the waiting room could provide, he opted for streaking down the hall on his way to whereever he could make it before he was caught and shot past the office that Paul was in,giggling his head off with Al in pursuit, which caught Paul's attention, thereby bringing his presence in the clinic to ours) but either way, we couldn't have asked for more that someone who has been so involved and close to us with our journey was able to make the transfer. Full credit to his reflexes, he also managed to get a photo of the embryo (well, the fluid that the embryo was in - you can't actually see the embryo) in the split second between it shooting out of the catheter and embedding in my uterus.

So now, we're waiting. There's a pregnancy test within the next couple of weeks, but we're keeping the date under our hats. Just one of those things. We'll let you know though. Of course.

In which the kid gets spoiled. Again. Still.

2010-07-27T17:02:00.004+12:00

I started blood tests today (day 10), which were in theory to be daily up until ovulation but the results have showed that my body is disinclined to rush, so we're taking a couple of days off and they'll have another look on Friday. We're not particularly phased - it'll happen the way it happens. At this stage it's probably a week away from embryo replacement. Possibly a bit longer. Will keep you posted.

And so

2010-07-19T15:00:00.004+12:00

We've started our frozen embryo replacement cycle. Nothing much to it really. I rang the clinic on day one to confirm (we're now a couple of days in), they send me out the necessary forms so that they can track my natural cycle with blood tests (we're drug free for this one - and also relieved that Diagnostic handles all fertility blood stuff) and scans, then come ovulation they thaw out one of our little warriors and pop goes the embryo, as it were.

The only question I had really was about the thawing of the embryo(s), and what happens if it doesn't survive the thaw. I wondered if that cycle would be a bust and we'd have to do over, and then potentially do over and over for the next 5 months or so. But no, if the embryo doesn't survive, then the clinic gets our consent to thaw another and we continue to move forward. It didn't escape me that at the end of the cycle we could be pregnant, or potentially have lost all our embryos, but it's the nature of the beast isn't it, when you're dealing with an unnatural beast. However it plays out, whether our family is complete with Cuinn or there's another little ginger shockwave on its way, we're good. Relaxed. Celebrating the little ginger we already have. Looking forward positively, but not foolishly. I think.

There was something else I was going to say, but I've forgotten, so you can have more kid pictures instead.

Watching Kidzone in the morning. No idea why it's more awesome done in a trolley dangling a water bottle, but apparently it is.

Helping Dad cook dinner. It was really cute as he poured left over stock into the measuring cup (you can kind of see him tipping the carton up), until he poured the stock from the measuring cup all over the bench. To be fair, he was aiming for the blue bowl, but the kitchen did smell rather chickeny afterwards.

On his new bike which is MUCH easier for Mama and Dad courtesy of the nice long intended-for-big-people-to-use handle. Excellent. Photos are fuzzy obviously because it was very important that we didn't stop moving. Still, you can see a happy little face.

Busy in the rain

2010-07-17T12:37:00.004+12:00

(In case it crosses your mind that he may actually be less playing with/peering into the manky water in the wheelbarrow, and more about to drink it - you'd be right)

It's been a month? Oops.

2010-07-11T18:48:00.005+12:00

Sooo ... quick run down ... the little ginger has done lots of changing and as a result, he's done lots of being awesome, and lots of being absolutely revolting. You've seen no blogging basically because when he's being awesome, we're hanging out and I'm in a semi-collapsed heap breathing a sigh of relief, and when he's being revolting ... well. The revolting-ness seems to be related to teething (we don't like teeth at all in this house. Not even a little bit. He took months to cut through his top molars, and even now they're still working their way out, and now his bottom molars have started. Vile. V-I-L-E. Bad teeth), and new routines related to growing up. The bit that does me in to the core, is trying to work out what the bellowing is all about. We sort of end up working on a cold/warm/hot basis for a couple of weeks till be get there. I know how hot/warm/cold I am based on how loud the bellowing is. If I need ear muffs, I apparently need to pay more attention. If I can flick through a Vogue, but not actually concentrate to read anything, then I'm heading to warm, and if the little ginger appears cheerful, cruises through the morning and succumbs to a nap with ease, nailed it!

Anyway ... the month in pictures.

Perhaps an indication that the child likes Pamol a little bit tooooo much.

Marmitey cruskity goodness.

After a tough morning at the zoo, also apparently under a blue moon.

This one you can't really see too well, but the gist of it is that the kid discovered that post-its stick reeeally well to the border collie, and spent quite some time sticking them on her through the child-gate. I now need to thieve more post-its from the office.

Coolest of duvet covers for when we transition to his big boy room, in about 15 years.

Cuinn loves helping make a 'hot cuppa' (standing on a chair at the bench) and in particular loooooves the coffee machine, so we found this and he's lived happily every after making 'cuppa' after 'cuppa' in the lounge. It even came with a little wooden milk carton and sugar bowl and teaspoon.

Training. And, interestingly (although I don't have photos as yet) after a good 9 years of marriage, I still can't get the husband to put his shoes away, however when I turned my attention to training the kid to put the husband's shoes away by convincing him that putting Dadda's shoes away is the. coolest. thing. ever. I've gotten much further. Go figure.

And did I mention we're doing an embryo transfer next month? More on that later, but in the meantime, I've ordered a nice, docile, non-ginger girl. What d'you think my chances are?

A little bit of all sorts

2010-06-09T17:28:00.001+12:00

It's becoming increasingly awesome to hang out with earmuffs on. Don't ask me why, because you'd think if it was important to anyone to be wearing earmuffs with a ginger kid in the house, it'd be important to me. But, there ya go.

He's either giving his Dad a kiss, or attempting to maul him. There was no hollering relating to biting, so I guess it was loves.

More hanging out with earmuffs, this time with a container of frozen peas because apparently they're awesome too.

In which frozen peas escape ... tricky little buggers.

One assumes he had a plan with the flour and the spatula, but I wasn't quite willing to let it play out.

His new backpack. Uber cute.

Our fort. And by our, I mean his. I tried to make it ours, but I got a bit stuck.

And finally, Daddy teaching him some appalling food-time habits.

Awww

2010-05-27T12:52:00.002+12:00

It's not often we manage to get these sorts of shots. Melts your heart, don't it?

We're gonna let him play bull rush too

2010-05-26T17:10:00.004+12:00

Apparently, when you're a 16 month old ginger kid of a certain genetic combination, the way you open a door is to stand by it and jump into it head first, head-butt styles. It's hilarious apparently. Except when said door is actually closed as opposed to just pulled-to. Then it's an inconvenience as you yell for someone to open it enough that you can head butt it. Awesome. I'm either ordering a girl next time, or an 18-year supply of Ritalin.

* * *

Because being inside in the warm and dry just isn't cool. What he was actually looking a bit displeased about here was his sock was too wet to be able to yank off himself.

The puddle-sitter-inner taking off at full speed as soon as it looked like he was going to be grabbed and taken inside for dry clothing and ... well ... taken inside.

Toys? Who needs toys?

2010-05-23T09:46:00.003+12:00

He had me in stitches this morning. He tipped a bag of rolled oats out on the floor ... well, part of a bag - I learned my lesson the other day and as soon as I heard pouring I ran for it and managed to save about 3 rolled oats. Go me! But, he also worked out from the other day that we clean up with the dust pan and shovel, so he worked away, got a whole lot of rolled oats into the pan, and then toddled over to the rubbish bin and pulled it out (we have a drawer bin in our cabinets) ... losing everything except about a dozen rolled oats along the way, and those he lost lifting the pan up to empty into the rubbish bin. He was absolutely determined, so he plonked down, picked up a (yes, single, nevermind the other 10,000) rolled oat, put it back in the pan, stood up and tried again. And again, and again, and again, until there were tears of laughter from me, and his poor rolled oat was no closer to actually making it to the bin than it had been about 10 minutes before. Then I think the cat ran past and it was game over for the rolled oats, and game on for chasing the cat.

He's just absolute magic at the moment.

You know, I just actually don't care

2010-05-21T17:02:00.005+12:00

Sometimes, if you can't see the kid, and you hear the sound of something being poured, it's better just to finish your cuppa before you have a look.

I feel as though I should care, and yet I don't. He's playing. It's easily cleaned up. We left the wheat where he could get to it (actually, we left it on the bench top, where it was out of reach a week ago ... our bad. I also left a cake cooling on the bench this afternoon, and came back to find little ginger finger sized holes poked in the side, with a few dents where taste tests had been made). Seriously. Don't. Care. He's not being naughty, he's being curious. I think. Mostly he was just handling the wheat, seeing what it felt like and investigating it.

Anyway, this is what a bag of whole wheat all over the floor looks like ...

And, it turns out, that every now and again it is actually rubbish that he puts in the bin - usually it's all manner of very UN rubbishy things that end up in there. Nothing like having to check the bin every time you walk past it just in case (and having to retrieve things like the cover off his high chair pad, books, shoes, socks ... the list goes oooooon)

And then the husband made the hilarious (to me) error of giving the kid the brush and pan to 'help' clean up after he'd broomed the wheat into a nice wee pile. Heh.

Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork

2010-05-20T17:46:00.004+12:00

Just a quick review of Advisory Circular AC66-2.21 in relation to Air Law.

Don't ALL babies do that over lunch?

The little dude gets his first haircut

2010-05-20T07:50:00.003+12:00

Before

During (not a good chin angle for me ... ugh!)

After

And these because I'm stupidly proud. I think this is the first time he's played an imaginative game where I've known what he was doing - he made a 'cake' out of my recycling, mixed it up, and then set about 'eating' it with a spoon. The photos give you a vague idea. He's also this week moved on from 'what noise does the dog make?' and 'what noise does the puss make?' to 'what noise does Jack/Jess/Jazz make?' and he gets them right, so we know he's learned his animal's names, as far as receptive language goes. Awesome!

One for Poppa

2010-05-18T14:41:00.002+12:00

Noms noms noms

2010-05-18T14:17:00.004+12:00

After this ...

And this ...

It was almost a relief to give him this ...

He walks, he's weaned and he's thieving off the bench

2010-05-16T20:07:00.007+12:00

He's also learning 'Where does your hat go?' (he smacks himself in the head) and 'Where do your socks go?' (he grabs his foot and falls over) which is absolutely hilarious and very cute.

This morning, he was stealing the bird food. This on top of half a cup of porridge, an entire banana and a slice of marmite toast. I should probably point out too that this is Al's homemade bread which you could probably use as a foundation for a house it's that loaded with seeds and grain and stuff.

He had his Plunket check the other day and it set charted him above the 85th percentile for weight, and in the 97th percentile for height. We're very proud ... just a bit broke from fuelling him.

I also found him happily sitting on the floor by the fridge the other morning, nursing a beer, but I wasn't quick enough with the camera. Once I'd picked myself up off the floor, he'd buggered off to terrorise the cat.

Getting my brave on

2010-05-16T20:00:00.001+12:00

I've been spending a lot of time in my head lately. Messy business. Very cluttered. I store a lot of crap in there. More crap than normal at the moment actually because Al bought me a Fashion Quarterly the other day. Doesn't he know that those magazines tell you where you can buy all the awesomeness featured on their pages? And that I'm quite fond of shoppy-plotting? Reading FQ is like shopping from the couch (actually, add in a bit of internet and a telephone and it is shopping from the couch, but what he doesn't know yet won't bite me in the ass till later). Maybe he was assuming it'd be like most other issues where I drool over the glossy pages of gorgeousness, but silk dresses, underwear almost on the outside and shoes so high I fall over just looking at them (even when I'm sitting down) aren't my thing and a Hermes Birkin is beyond even my twisted accounting methods. But this issue ... Woah Nelly. Have you seen it? Full of cardys! I love cardys. I love cardys a lot. Marvellous, snuggly, beautiful, woolly cardys. The poor husband. Heh.

But, I digress. Significantly. And waffle. Again, significantly.

I have angst. Or I did. Several hours ago I had angst, and for weeks before that I've had angst, but I've spent so much time staring at this page trying to put words on it this afternoon to try and work through the angst that somehow I seem to have swept the angst out at some point and just not noticed when it went on its merry way. I wish the rest of my housework was like that.

The general whatever has been that despite our decision to move ahead with another little ginger (let's face it, we're all going to be a bit weirded out a little if it's not a ginger), which I know is the right one, I've been ... well ... packing it. I touched base with my obgyn about pre-transfer obgyn stuff the other day as part of ongoing preparation, but subsequently had kittens and am yet to actually suck it up and make the appointment to visit his rooms and discuss it. Chicken, I am. BAAAWK! (That's a chicken noise. In case you were wondering ...)

My thoughts have been so locked in there I haven't been able to get them out, and I've been over-thinking it to hell and back. Quite literally in fact (the hell bit). I keep going back to how damn hard that first eight months was, and as soon as my mind winds back to those days, my entire being turns to concrete. I'm trying to get my head into a space where I'm ready to do that again, but my head's just petrified. And yet, I had a dream a few weeks ago where we were back at the clinic for an embryo transfer, but it was the last one and the others had failed, and I woke up feeling really unsettled. That feeling has stayed on the periphery of my thoughts since and it's been prodding me like a proddy thing, constantly. I can only suppose it's acknowledging my subconscious fear of the potential reality that we'll get through those embryos and they won't take which doesn't stack up with my other fear that they will. I think.

I don't know why I can't get past that first leg - I don't want to ever be that close to losing my mind again, for a start, and knowing that we were just managing through that time was devastating. But on the flip side, we know Cuinn so well now - we know what he needs and why and we've learned so much from him and about him, and most importantly we've learned how to learn from him, and we've gained enough confidence through that that I'm sure (ok, perhaps really, really hopeful more than sure. Sure might be stretching it a bit) we'll be ok. Besides, the baby brought us both to our knees, but the kid ... the kid is awesome.

So why the fear? Buggered if I know. Maybe it's just always there.

White men can dance

2010-05-13T12:28:00.002+12:00

Cuinn has a boogy to Hollie Smith

And some walking progress.

The kid being clever

2010-05-01T11:39:00.002+12:00

Go speed racer

2010-04-30T13:21:00.003+12:00

Finally, there is footage! He stood up in the middle of the lounge with no props for the first time this morning (coffee table, couch, parent, dog ...) and walked half the length of the lounge. The camera unfortunately was nowhere near (VERY annoying), and by the time I got my hands on it and actually got something recorded, he was completely buggered. But still, you get the general walky awesomeness.

I pretty much only managed to get the camera on as he face planted after these.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

A little ginger went walking

2010-04-29T19:00:00.005+12:00

(Heh - How's that for cushion placement, huh?)

He did, clever little ginger! He took his first steps on Monday, and only minutes after he worked out how to stand on his own too. He was standing by the end of the coffee table holding onto it as he has been for about the last 4-5 months, and then suddenly he's just standing there laughing and clapping his hands. Obviously I laugh and clap my hands too, and it goes backwards and forwards as he lifts his hands high in the air, giggling hysterically and clapping madly as if to say 'Look! No hands!' and then the next thing, he turns around and walks about 4 steps, the length of the coffee table, towards Jack who's on the other side, and who is not doubt wondering what new sort of hell has just launched itself in his direction. Poor puppy.

At the moment we're up to about 5 steps and then he's back on his knees again, but we're on our way! He's gone really quickly from taking a few steps if he feels like it but choosing to be on his knees mostly, to working out that actually it's easier to take steps to lots of things instead of getting down on his knees and then getting back up again. And none too soon either - I have a drawer full of pants and shorts with no knees in them.

Things have otherwise been both quiet and a complete blur. I've started a post about the decision to move ahead with No. 2 - I know I did a post, but I wanted to do more, I was just a bit overwhelmed at the time because the decision was so fresh and terrifying. But, we've been up against it a bit with Cuinn and so thinking at even the most basic level has been just a wee tad beyond me. I manage work which keeps me sane and that's about that.

The little ginger has been attempting to cut molars. For nearly six weeks. It's very, very uncool. He has massive swollen lumps on both sides, and the teeth at times are pressing so hard you can actually see the white of them shining in the gum, and yet from day to day they either move down or back up and stay away for a couple of days, or down again, and so on and so forth. There's been a serious lack of sleep, and the poor wee dude has just gotten over a bad throat infection which landed us at the emergency Dr one night with a persistent (10 hours) 40 degree plus temperature as well which meant even less sleep. Scary and horrible. And yet, somehow in all of that with miseries on miseries, he cottons on to taking steps.

The day we ended up at the emergency Dr. Poor sick man.

Of course I never considered locking him in ...

In his brand new togs for swim class looking scarily grown up. Of course, I didn't think through the colour choice - it was blue or red, and I chose blue because otherwise the ginger would be in red stripes and potentially look stupid (it was a bad red for a ginger), but the two of us turned up today and I realised we looked even more stupid than if I'd made the ginger wear red stripes ... 2 sets of ginger hair-explosions, and two sets of navy and white togs. Matching from head to toe we were ... crap.

There are two things you want to watch in this video (sorry it's dark - I'm crap at camera-y things) - the first is the kid being cute and playing peek-a-boo from behind the curtain, the second is Jack who has a heart attack when Cuinn pops out from behind the curtain.

And now, night night!

Pic-fest. Written post to follow. One Day. Eventually. Maybe.

2010-04-18T18:49:00.000+12:00

I think we're teething nasty big teeth. Either that, or the child is being far too ginger. Whatever, last night was night 4 of very little sleep to be had. I thought I was hard done by on Friday night/Saturday morning when after a few hours of grumbles on and off the kid just started screaming at 3am and that was that for the night ... until last night when said screaming started at 10pm. Suddenly those extra 5 hours from the night before looked heaven-sent.

Anyway - here you go.

Helping me clean out the plastics drawer today, by climbing in and sitting there studying his buttons for a ridiculously long period of time and refusing to be budged.

Cheeky face.

Being cute. Again. Still. Always. He has the time of the life playing out there and investigating the feijoas.

Having a big boy dinner. Still quite a new thing.

And muuuch easier to feed to the dog, sly-styles.

Cuuute chubby knees. And badly mismatched clothes. And trackies that were pants LAST year. But still cute chubby knees.

And lastly, a bit gross but dogs are like that. If I was Jack, I'd be a bit more concerned about what that kid sticks in his mouth, but there you go.

Rupert and friends

2010-04-07T09:42:00.003+12:00

The husband and I spent the long weekend making the decision to move ahead with an embryo tranfer in the coming months, and yesterday I rang the clinic to set the wheels in motion.

It was a much harder decision than either of us thought it would be, and who knows if it's the right one. All we can say is that we think it is - for us, for Cuinn, for the remaining embryos, and in case, because it's a very real consideration, none of the remaining embryos survive. They've been on ice for a couple of years and I don't know how that affects them though I know that they can't be kept like that forever so I assume it does, they have to survive the thaw, and then stick around after that so there're a few more hurdles along the way and of course, to put it bluntly, they're graded - Cuinn was the superior embryo and had the greatest chance which is why he went back first, so we're dealing with ... well ... I can't bring myself to say it, but they'll have to be strong. It's by no means a certain thing, even though we were very fortunate with Cuinn.

As far as when, for some reason the husband and I feel quite private at the moment about that, probably because we both feel not in the slightest ready, so I'll just say for now that it's not immediate, but we'll be working towards it over the next few months.

Pfoof.

Farmer Brown ... erm ... Ginger

2010-04-03T10:14:00.002+13:00

He can reach the top, but we'll probably wait another inch or so height-wise before we set him to work. The husband is most pleased.

Once upon a time, there was a little ginger terrorist called Cuinn

2010-03-30T09:32:00.004+13:00

... and one sunny Tuesday morning, he was being particularly terrorist-like, and had been squealing in a very high pitch since almost the moment he got out of bed about two hours earlier, when suddenly everything went quiet.

What Bliss! thought his mother, who was being driven not-so-quietly batshit by the incessant squealing, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Except, of course, the little ginger terrorist's mother, being wise to the level of mischief that can be and most often is undertaken in such quiet, thought she had best check as to what was keeping the little ginger terrorist so quiet, as that would be good parenting.

Imagine the mother's surprise to find the little ginger terrorist sitting on the floor with the electric fly-swat, studying it intently. Never mind thought the mother, as she watched the little ginger terrorist co-ordinate turning the electric fly-swat live, jam his finger through the safety guard, give himself an electric shock complete with a spark of blue light and jump a foot in the air with surprise, he'll never be able to work it. And then, Oh, thought the little ginger terrorist's mother. Bugger.

And yet, the thing was, the little ginger terrorist was so lovely and quiet that his mother did wonder for the space of two further electric shocks whether she might just pretend ... But no, the little ginger terrorist's mother knew she really did have to take the electric fly-swat off him, and so she did.

And he bellowed, and bellowed and bellowed about the electric fly-swat being removed from his possession because apparently electric shocks are especially awesome, until his mother deposited this little ginger terrorist in his cot for a nap, and he slept happily ever after for a good couple of hours. Hopefully. And his mother got to enjoy some lovely blissful quiet again and have a cup of tea, all with a good conscience because this time the quiet didn't come from the little ginger terrorist giving himself electric shocks.

The end.

(Honestly. I wonder what kind of protein they keep the embryos in in those early days. Ye gads)

It should take longer to collect pictures of this much mischief

2010-03-23T18:03:00.005+13:00

(He got up there - from floor to couch, to arm of couch all by himself. Whatever the grossness is on the windowsill is is whatever he had in his mouch that he spat out. Kids are gross)

The kid from Spain flew an aeroplane, but my kid likes to hide in boxes ...

The only bugger is that the box has been providing so much entertainment for several days, that I can't put the blimming thing out in the recycling - it's sitting in the hallway. Still, a deliciously happy kidlet makes it rather worth it, having the house in chaos.

I have no idea why it was important to wear these on his head for about an hour one morning last week. It just was.

And here we have an excellent reason not to turn your back on the kid when he's happily playing with a mustard jar in the door of the fridge.

Oddly, Jack thinks bean sprouts are awesome.

Fun ... investigating, playing with dirt, munchin', and playing with the hose

2010-03-19T18:20:00.008+13:00

(He climbed in here all by himself)

Lolly scramble (of sorts) anyone?

2010-03-12T17:16:00.004+13:00

As if the dogs weren't getting porky enough with what's fired over the side of the highchair, dropped around the house, spat out, and just generally nicked, the child has worked out how to get the lid off the dog bicky bin and feed the little beggars extras - and, of course, being in control of a lolly scramble means he can get muuuch closer to the dogs than they otherwise, wisely, will let him.

Of course, on the bright side, these photos were taken after he was removed from the main part of the kitchen after getting into a (child-proofed, supposedly) cupboard and cheerfully smashing a bunch of plates Greek styles. Bless. Good times.

Awww

2010-02-24T15:00:00.001+13:00

I just need to photoshop out the snot.

We let him run with scissors too

2010-02-21T20:20:00.009+13:00

First there were loves.

Then her Dad found out about it (note what Uncle Stu is holding in his hand).

Then things took a bit of a turn ...

Below is just proof that he does sleep every now and again and it was sooo cute, it needed sharing. Normally I'd never risk a photo, but on this particular day we actually had to wake him up. Nothing like a nice bright flash in the face to say wakey wakey.

And this ... Again with the cute ... I managed to get this at the end of their game, and I was spectacularly pleased because they do this often, and it's gorgeous, but it always stops abruptly as soon as I even look at the camera. It's taken me months to manage this.

Otherwise, we have had snot and new teeth and a grumpy, grumpy little dude so it's been a quiet period of managing the feral child. I did buy a cushion today though ... check this out ...

!!! Tee hee. Tee hee hee.

How could I not? What self-respecting ginger could possibly pass this up??

From the camera. The lazy posting continues.

2010-02-08T09:02:00.006+13:00

Helping Dad fix the car. It's one way to stop Dad swearing his head off ... or at least be quieter about it.

Being gentle with Jazz puss. It's a work in progress. Jazzy remains justifiably suspicious of the little ginger.

He won't take a bottle, but he'll drink gallons out of a hose. Go figure.

Good times with stories. He's eyeing up Jack in the first pic because Jack has what Cuinn has designated as his current teething toy of choice. Bleurg. Seriously, he has proper teething chewy stuff, quite a lot of it, and he's chosen the dogs' ball. Marvellous.

So cute.

Lazy posts are us

2010-02-03T17:04:00.001+13:00

We picked up furniture for Cuinn's bedroom (just to set it up - he's a long way off going in there) about 10 days ago and I forgot to post the pictures. I loaded them and saved them, and just noticed that I hadn't actually put them up, so here ya go.

Helping Daddy by transporting packaging all over the house.

Investigating the action.

Checking Dad's handy work.

Helping with the screwdriver.

The wardrobe/drawer unit.

The bed, bedside table and under bed storage drawer. They look white, but they're a really nice tea colour.

Our one year old weekend trick is ...

2010-01-24T17:50:00.003+13:00

One year old

2010-01-23T18:11:00.003+13:00

How he's changed!

The coolest little dude on the planet ... and this time a year ago he was about 3 and a half hours away and getting mightily stuck.

I can haz sauce?

2010-01-21T17:31:00.006+13:00

We tried him out on Watties cheesy ravioli for dinner. Not entirely successful (bucketloads of fun, but didn't result in a full kid). Unless you ask Jess who would probably beg to differ, she having a tummy full of cheesy ravioli.

Transferring the contents of the plastics drawer to the washing basket. It seems to be the big thing at the moment - transferring stuff from one thing to another.

I didn't get a shot of it, but the next thing he tried to do was climb up the vege bin. Had he been able to work out how to get the middle and top drawers back in, he would've managed it.

Instead, he settled to stashing the remote for the stereo in the bottom drawer.

Out of focus mischief.

I seriously left the room for about half a minute. I imagine this is why someone invented those catches so that kids can't get into drawers and cupboards ...

And this one needs no explanation whatsoever.

I have a dirty rotten cold

2010-01-18T13:16:00.002+13:00

There's something a bit cosy about having a cold in winter, but it's 10 shades of revolting to catch one in summer.

The kid on the other hand thinks he's having a day of exceptional good fortune because my mischief radar seems to have stopped operating completely, and my reflexes aren't at all what they need to be.

And on that note, there's a clear space on the floor begging me to lay down on it, so later folks.

Food carnage

2010-01-15T17:45:00.004+13:00

I don't know that these pictures need much in the way of explanation, other than to say that breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner result in much the same degree of mess. And yes, while it looks as though we are asking for it letting him have a spoon and bowl, they're empty.

A year

2010-01-15T09:52:00.003+13:00

Well, next weekend it is. And, actually, it feels like about 10, but I think that the done thing is to act surprised that it's gone so very, very fast so ... *gasp* ! I think I'm more surprised that suddenly my baby is only weeks away from being a toddler, and the mischief that a one year old is capable of cooking up *faint*

Either way - a year, five minutes, or ten years - I swear I can still feel the contractions. Very unpleasant things, contractions. Lucky the kid is uber cute (I think. It does worry me some occasionally that he may actually look like a monkey and I just can't tell because he's mine) and I never have to do contractions again. Weee! Well, sort of weee! C-sections are a bit vile too (that sensation of someone doing the dishes in your innards ... *shudder*) and I remember what it was like anticipating going into one cold (bit stressy) - the ... benefit? ... of contractions is that after 20 hours of them you actually couldn't give a toss what happens (the dishes) just so long as someone offers to shoot you in the head along the way, so you feel less stressy about the c-section. Ah well.

Anyway. I had a point.

Hmmm ...

I did. I think ...

Nope.

Turns out, I didn't.

And speaking of no point - No point in doing a long, potentially whingy, anxiety laden post about kidlet No. 2 either, because after becoming more aware as the year progressed and weeks of becoming a bit obsessed and stressed, I'm feeling quite relaxed about it because the husband and I have a plan. That plan, is to make a plan later. Excellent. We decided not to decide.

I think it was the start of the new year and Cuinn's first birthday that were making me start to hop on the spot a bit. The recommendation from our OB was 18 months, which of course is only 6 months away. 6 months is just way, way too soon for me to contemplate without going into a tail-spin, so we decided to wait until the 18 month mark and then make a decision. Cuinn's a lot different now than he was at 6 months and at 18 months it may be all puppies and kittens, but at that stage, we'll decide how brave we feel and make our plans and a booking then. No hashing it out, or losing sleep over it until then.

It seems simple enough, I know, but the pressure comes from the wondering, and from weighing up the what ifs - what if all 5 embryos fail and we have to start over if we want a sibling for Cuinn that much. Then we have to come up with the 12 odd thousand to do another cycle (nevermind preparing for the cycle itself) and you'd really rather start shovelling (or, teaspooning realistically) money away sooner rather than later with this sort of business because it takes time, and of course while said time is ticking along I'll be getting older, and bla and bla and bla. But, if we go ahead now solely because of that, I think I might very well have to do rescue remedy shooters for the following 9 months or so (I've done a few just contemplating it), so it's a bit of a conundrum if you spend too much time thinking about it. And, on the flip side, we'd really have to bank on it happening immediately. Tricky. Nevermind an elevated chance of multiple birth *faint*

This first year has been such a challenge, and although we expected it to be hard, we have no idea what was before us this time last year.

We expected a baby to cry, a lot, but didn't expect it for 6, 12, 16 hours straight many days, for months. We expected our activities to be restricted, but didn't expect that life would come to a complete stop again and again as we spent days and weeks studying him and adapating to what he was communicating he wanted or needed, or coping with the fall-out if we failed to work that out (or, of course, if there was no working it out at all). We didn't imagine that if we did take him out for a while, to visit, or shop, or whatever, he would would scream for hours because he overstimulates quickly and wouldn't or couldn't settle during or afterwards, or that he just wouldn't sleep (not because he didn't need to, he just seemed completely unable to shut down for sleep). I expected to be feeding every 3 to 4 hours or whatever is normal, but it didn't cross my mind that I'd be feeding every hour to 2 hours for months and we wouldn't be able to get him onto a bottle, or that he'd basically bellow until he started to crawl. I think it's been unusual - it's definitely been incredible, and exhausting.

Crawling has been such an awesome milestone here, for so many reasons, but especially because it was the start of things for us really - we went from coping and managing to managing and enjoying and loving. The kid has such a sunny personality it's almost bizzare what a pain in the ass he was (very, very adored pain in the ass of course). I blame the gingerness. Gingerness is evil. I might ask if I can have a non-ginger kid the next time, and maybe a girl (she won't eat as much). That could work. I feel comfortable with that.

We really think he came into the world wanting to be on the move and doing, and the first 8 months was us living through his frustration at not being able to do it. He literally changed over night when he started to crawl. I remember saying to the husband that I was having an awesome day with the kidlet and wouldn't it be incredible if that day was every day? And then the next day was good, and I said to the husband that it was going to be absolutely horrible when he crashed post-awesome stint. But he didn't. He just kept going, so much easier than he was only days before. All because of crawling, because that was the only thing that changed in our world.

It's a surprise how restricting he still is mind you, because he's such a routine kid (note to self - be careful how loudly you declare that you're not going to have a kid bound to a routine bla bla because said kid may have veeery different ideas about that) and our days are very determined by that, but such an awesome kid is coming out of it, it's fantastic and our life has adapated to what his needs to be. Plus, being restricted is very different and much easier to deal with than the challenges of that first 8 months, the memory of which is still very fresh.

I found myself falling into the trap too of judging myself in terms of what I think other people think which is a dangerous thing because kids are so individual the only other parent who can appreciate what you're up against is your partner in crime, and the lender of the other 50% of the kid's genetic make up (incidentally, since I'm a delight, that means the husband lent all the blastardly difficult genes in the case of Cuinn. Obviously).

Anyway for all that, we're coming out the other side - I just need more time out the other side, to brace myself for doing that first year again. Just in case.

Weirdly, now that making that decision isn't worrying me at all, I even have days where I feel a sense of anticipation (to say excitement is to be incredibly silly) and I can imagine the kid, who has enough mischief for 10 kids, creating mischief with another kid, and it's kind of ... interesting. The vacuum cleaner and spray and wipe are shuddering, but they'll live.

And, of course, as we've discovered, even if it's really horrible it is over soon enough. I've just negotiated a discount on furniture to set up Cuinn's big boy room. The plan is to hold out as long as possible before shifting him into a bed, but have it all set up so he can get used to it being there (he's very much an everything-in-it's-place, don't mess with my routine kid) and then we'll ease him into having day sleeps (a theory dependant on actually having day sleeps of course) and then shifting completely. I'll post pics once we have the stuff. Next week!!

The last thing I never believed could be, was how amazingly much I would love this kid. Who knew there was that much love in the world, let alone in a person? Horrible, tricky, mischevious, sleep-deprived little monster.

This is where I found the little toad the day before yesterday when he disappeared about 10 seconds after I'd sighted him playing with puzzles in his room - I'd left the child gate open, got distracted briefly in the kitchen, and in the meantime he'd taken himself down the back steps (4 of them. Onto concrete) and made his way out onto the back lawn to play with the dogs. It gives me heart failure to see him on those steps, but he has a system that seems to work, so I leave him to it and just stay close and bite my nails.

ARRRRRR me 'earties!

2010-01-14T08:07:00.002+13:00

Al and I found these (wall art stickers - peel off vinyl) yesterday and put them up in the bathroom last night for Cuinn - a little extra something for bath time. We thought they were pretty cool, and it seems he's of much the same mind as he's 3 times taken himself off to the bathroom this morning after the initial discovery to just look at them and 'talk' to them. Quite pleased, all in all, and they were only 9 bucks. Yay!

Little boy, so much depends on ...

2010-01-12T18:30:00.003+13:00

... your big cardboard box.

And the rest of the packaging too, of course.

(Little Boy by Alison McGhee - one of Cuinn's favourite books. Read almost every day)

In which the kitty decides she's too old for this crap

2010-01-08T11:22:00.003+13:00

Reading between the ... err ... lines ... I think what the cat was trying to say was, no Cuinn, my paws won't come off, no matter how hard you pull them.

On being a kid, on being a boy and on growing up

2010-01-08T08:59:00.003+13:00

A few days ago, I was doing something in the kitchen while the kid puddled around in the doorway to the hallway fiddling with his Dad's work bag and just hanging out. The next thing I could hear giggling down the hallway, so I stuck my head around the doorway to see what mischief was afoot and found that the kidlet had located his Dad's lunchbox, liberated a scone, and was happily feeding it to the dog who was very happily eating every last crumb.

I really don't know what people with kids who don't have dogs do. Last night, as I observed the dogs clean up the rice pudding that was dripping down the walls courtesy of the child (I'm so glad they're open to new and interesting ways of having their leftovers served), I realised how much more cleaning up would have to be done without them. Then again, I guess that'd be the trade off of not having to worry about extra exercise to wear off everything from marmite toast to smashed banana, corn crackers to weetbix.

The kid absolutely hates having his face and hands wiped after eating, and quickly discovered that it was much less tragic to let the dogs have a go first to get the worst of it off.

And we discovered that it was much less tragic cleaning up the high chair tray if WE let the dogs have a go first to get the worst of it off. The white bits all over Jess are either rice pudding or chicken. I can't remember. Either way, there are ways of dealing with that as well without much input from us.

Heh. An excellent reason to have TWO dogs.

The way a kid's feet should be. Of course, you can also imagine what his clothes look like, but that's why washing machines were invented.

He was all about pulling out his Dad's herbs (at least I think there were herbs in there. They might have been weeds. They weren't growing so well anyway, whatever they were), transferring dirt onto the back step, and then further transferring it into the dogs' water bucket.

I took this to try and capture the whopping egg on his head (above his right eye) from head butting the bookcase the night before last. He'd done 3 days without really sleeping and was so completely bollocksed all his co-ordination and strength to move about was pretty much gone. Hence the deep and meaningful with the bookshelf not long before bed time. Plus, he looks so cute with I have no idea what all over his face and his curly mop standing up everywhere.

Practising walking.

Chaos, thy name is Cuinn

2010-01-07T18:57:00.002+13:00

I'm not even going to look for the last time I posted. And I mean posted, not just threw some photos up as I ran past the computer doing any number of other things. And by run, I mean literally. It's getting a bit ridiculous I think when one's hands are so full one is actually running from one end of the house to the other to get things done, but I do. Often. Not any more.

Unless, of course, it's a situation a bit like this morning wherein the kidlet who had been happily towing the husband's Sennheiser headphones around the lounge suddenly gets a thoughtful look on his face and then takes off, headphones firmly grasped in hand, up the hallway like he's got a devil on his tail, in the direction of the dogs' water bowl in the bathroom. One can only assume that the fate of the headphones had I not managed to grab them in time would have been something along the lines of what the bath mat had already suffered - a bath.

Anyway, posting. I was turning over all things bloggy (well, all things my bloggy) the other day as I was fidgeting over the hiatus a favourite blog had taken (ok, in all honesty, at the moment it's the only blog in my world and it's only managing to be followed because it's mainly pictures. Thank heavens for pictures) over the holiday period and feeling just a wee tad abandoned and unloved and my thoughts curled back to here. My poor, neglected blog. Woops.

I was thinking that I really only have 2 choices - shut the blog down to pics and commentary only, or start writing again. I don't want to shut it down, so that left one option. Start writing. Try and think in a straight line. Try to then write in a straight line. Give it a whirl. Be determined. Beee ... bloggy. Worth a go at the very least - it can't get much more useless anyway, can it?

Still, never mind, to get back into the groove there should be a lovely anxiety laden post or two coming right up while I swallow rescue remedy by the bottle-full as I contemplate family matters. Specifically, that we were advised to get another kidlet underway when Cuinn is 18 months. Cuinn is a year in a couple of weeks. Which leaves me another 6 months. Less till booking it in. To that of course, in case you're wondering, it's a resounding HELL no, but you know, thought has to be given for to the when in that case, and that scares the crap out of me, so there you go. I shall talk around and around in circles in front of you, my apparently very loyal (and bored too I imagine) audience.

We want Cuinn to have a sibling, and the intention is to give Cuinn a sibling, if for no other purpose than to try and absorb some of the energy the manic little ginger gives off from morning till night, but I can say that without a doubt this has been the hardest, most challenging year of my life, and doing that to myself again, quite deliberately, gives me the shudders by the bucket load. Nice'n'selfish.

Maybe the next kid won't be ginger ...? I'm sure half the problem is the gingerness ... Blinking gingers.

Oh! Oh! Before I go any further, there is a blog and a website that you absolutely must go and looksee at:

The Sartorialist and The Book Depository

The Sartorialist needs no introduction, nor blathering. He is what he is, and that is awesome. He makes me want to get on a plane, and be sitting somewhere in Italy with coffee, watching people go by. If you know me, you'll appreciate the impressiveness of me wanting to get on a plane anywhere. Such is the magic he weaves though, and of course, I'd want to go there with an empty Mastercard for after I've finished my coffee. Heh. I've collected his book too, and I've been pouring. Yay for pictures!

The Book Depository is similarly awesome, but in a buy-your-books-sooooo-much-cheaper kind of way. There's a book I've been salivating over for some time after spotting it sitting beautifully on a shelf at Sabato promising me all manner of deliciousness, if I only purchased it and starting churning out yummies. Except it was 85 bucks give or take, so delicious yes, but hiiiideously expensive (I know. I'm amused at my horror too. It's only a ladle and a bit, but I am a changed woman (ish). One that's just had to put 2 new tyres on the car. Ouch), so off I trundled to the interweb and looked up The Book Depository after Pal Mel recommended it to me, and booya! The book is on its way for I think it was about $43.00. Wicked! It was 95 bucks at Whitcoulls. Mwah ha Whitcoulls! Very thieving of you to wallop the price up by bucket loads like that. The free shipping helped with the purchase cost, but the current exchange rate needs a jolly good nod too. I think The Sartorialist set me back about 30 bucks to the NZ 55. Presents for me!

So, where was I going with any of this? Beats me. My wiggling line of thought just hit a wall.

I think I might go and cheer the husband on - he's currently Fort Knoxing a few cupboards around the house. I think the close call with his expensive earphones lit a wee fire under his ass.

Mwah!

Tee hee hee

2009-12-23T10:06:00.003+13:00

This one is all about the sound eg. the noise the kid is making (turn it up Poppa!) and will only really make sense to immediately family on the Leach side. I'm most pleased with progress - it's a tough noise to make, especially for a wee dude.

Funny kiddly

2009-12-21T18:17:00.003+13:00

(He put himself in front of the hose, and is perfectly capable of moving if he wants to, in case you think we're being evil.)

Sooo knackered from all the playing, he didn't even make it into bed before he conked.

The new arrival

2009-12-21T07:30:00.000+13:00

At this stage, her CPAP is coming out for short periods of time (15 mins) to see how she goes. She's doing well though. This is the only one I got too - forgot my blinking camera when I went to the hospital!

Cuinn and Alexis.

Cuinn being a top banana (wicked colour on him Uncle Dave).

The post with no title, but containing a suggested amendment to the Oxford Dictionary

2009-12-20T20:30:00.001+13:00

moron n. 1 colloq. very stupid person. 2 adult with a mental age of 8-12. moronic

Aaaaand 3 the person who thought it was a genius idea to flip a fire alarm at the hotel at 1.20am on Saturday morning thereby jolting us out of a sound sleep and requiring us to evacuate.

Cuinn, bless him, thought it was marvellously exciting (possibly mightn't have if I hadn't had the presence of mind to scoop his Ugly Dog up as well - left my purse, phone and every other important thing bar the kid of course, but I had Dog) with people moving in all directions and getting to hang out in the carpark in the middle of the night, and even I have to admit to a level of amusement (in situations like this, one must take one's jollies where one can) when one couple sauntered out quite some time after everyone else (unfortunatley un-singed), nicely presented in day clothes accompanied by their perfectly packed luggage. Dozey buggers.

On the bright side, we welcomed our niece and cousin Mikayla Elizabeth into the world at 1.15pm on Friday afternoon, and although it was an early start to her life (born at approximately 32 weeks gestation, in Waikato Hospital - hence the hotel) she is progressing daily.

Cuinn's first certificate

2009-12-17T12:56:00.002+13:00

One day I'll write something

2009-12-17T09:12:00.004+13:00

I will! I have good intentions of embracing my inner sloth for a week soon, so I can give you a progress report (quickie - we're up to tooth no. 6. Very exciting business tooth No. 6 - I was sitting the lounge when the thing literally burst through - he smiled at me while we were playing and his mouth was so full of blood, some even ran out. Obviously, post-freak out I realised I'd been with him the whole time and he hadn't bashed himself, fallen over, or even cried, so I figured tooth, and then within half an hour there was a good 1mm of pearly white showing. Incredible! Never seen anything like it), news of the kidlet's new furniture (bedroom furniture. Like, a bed. For a start. How on earth did it happen that he's getting a bed?) and other bits and bobs. But for now, instead of just being busier than a busy thing, today chaos reigns supreme as we're heading down to the Tron (to be in the area of Waikato Hospital) later for the birth of my niece (at 31 weeks. Maybe heading towards 32. v. v. early though), and organising a kid and life at short notice to abandon the home front temporarily is a mammoth task, and not a little manic.

More dirty garden fun.

Hours (relatively speaking - 10 minutes in reality) of fun in the plastic container drawer.

In his dressing gown, just looking cute. Even cuter, he kept trying to cuddle himself cos it's so snuggly! Didn't manage to get a pic of that though.

And change table sharing. I don't quite understand why the cat sleeps up there to keep away from the kid, but won't move when I put the kid up there ... Weird cat.

Helping (I use the term loosely) in the garden

2009-12-09T18:11:00.007+13:00

And riding his bike the other day (for about 5 seconds, before Al had to catch him)

Celebrating a year of friendship, and the kids

2009-12-05T20:02:00.005+13:00

The babies (Cuinn and his antenatal class friends) start turning one next month. It's incredible to think that this time last year, Cuinn was still weeks away, and yet here he his, with his friends, having a marvellous time creating more chaos than usual.

Anneliese and Chase (back), Cuinn and Ella (middle), and Anais-Lily (front)

Hardly needs explaining ...

Anneliese

Charlie (Cuinn's birthday twin, born about 12 hours earlier)

Ella

Anais-Lily on a mission, going straight over the top of Cuinn

Niki, Brad, Trevor, Vicky

James on the couch and Charlie getting some love from Luca

Cuinn and Anais-Lily playing with Charlie on the front lawn

Charlie and Anneliese

Brad and Luca

Anais-Lily and David

The boys! Luca, Chase, Cuinn and Charlie

Aaaand Charlie dancing on the table top

Chase making a rather large block disappear in his gob

I can haz a coffee?

2009-12-05T12:01:00.002+13:00

In which Cuinn works out proper crawling

2009-12-04T18:29:00.003+13:00

Why proof-reading was invented

2009-11-29T12:09:00.005+13:00

Mr I-Can-Do-It-Myself

2009-11-25T18:24:00.002+13:00

I'm inclined to disagree, but he thought it was marvelous.

Mr Very-Pleased-With-Himself

2009-11-22T19:10:00.002+13:00

This, he did yesterday. Today, aside from cutting 2 teeth more or less together (one is through, the other almost) which made him very grumbles indeed, he was standing holding onto the couch, turned and held his arms out to me and lurched 2 steps forward into my arms. Sooo cool. Accidental I think, but still awesome!

The latest from the camera

2009-11-14T15:00:00.006+13:00

Free teef! There's a top one on it's way through if you have really good eyesight. There aren't too many ways to get a good shot of the inside of the kid's gob, and there's even less in the way of opportunity.

He had him some dirt for a pre-afternoon tea snack while helping Dad in the garden.

Tools!

It was cute till he worked out how to open the toolbox - it didn't take long, and it wasn't that difficult. Gah.

Bein' cute, playin' with his toys.

Bwah hahaha!

2009-11-13T13:37:00.003+13:00

Thank heavens I managed a quick head-turn to the right when I stumbled across this whilst spuddling online - I very nearly spat a mouthful of water over my keyboard.

You know it's mine, and the husband has been advised of its must-have-ness.

And yes, yes, I know 60 bucks is a lot for a t-shirt, but it's cheaper than a ladle so shush.

Tricky

2009-11-11T15:07:00.003+13:00

If you put the hat on backwards so that he can't see it, it stays on significantly longer.

Also ... little jam sandwiches ... fail.

Rockin' it Euro-Styles

2009-11-11T11:04:00.003+13:00

These arrived this morning after winging their way all the way from Uncle Andrew, Aunty Ruth and Cousin Amelia in Belgium. Sooo cute! We'd prefer the cheese-cutter straight, but on his head is a start.

Loooove my kid!!!

Yesterday vs Today

2009-11-09T12:51:00.002+13:00

Yesterday:

Analysing about 20 pages of figures for work.

Today:

Sitting on the floor singing made up songs to a 9 month old, with Bob the Builder jandals hanging off my ears.

Tee hee hee

2009-11-06T17:32:00.001+13:00

Background - The husband is going hunting early tomorrow morning.

Me to the husband (joking and half expecting a kick in the pants): "Hang on ... If you go hunting, who's going to make my morning coffee??"

The husband (dead serious, before he thought about it) "I should be home by mid-morning or a bit later"

EXcellent.

It was the best of times

2009-11-05T20:10:00.000+13:00

Up ...

Up more ... (and then he got all the way up, but the memory card was full, so I didn't get it. Woops)

Happy bath time for the water baby

Veeery happy face!

Jack doing the dishes.

Swim class good times

Tappity tap tap goes the mischief child

2009-11-04T14:45:00.002+13:00

The tapping foot that you see/hear is a sign of trouble 99% of the time - it's usually employed to aid his thinking process as he decides whether to execute whatever great mischief is playing out in his little ginger noggin. If you're in another room and you hear that tapping, best you check with some haste what he looks like he's about to do, if he's not doing it already.

In this instance, it's because discovering the dogs' bowl is still new enough that he's not sure if he's allowed to be spuddling in there or not.

Observations from the pool

2009-11-04T13:20:00.002+13:00

If you are the NZ Police, taking up 2 pool lanes just to have a general catch up and chat while hanging over the ropes for a half hour isn't reeeeally appreciated by the other swimmers. Or possibly just me, but seriously. When the rest of us are 3 to the remaining lanes because 2 lanes are out of action, it's annoying. It ruined my zen. Made me grumpy enough to do extra laps though, so it kinda worked out. I guess. At a stretch. If I'm trying to re-harness my zen.

If you are flutter-board guy in the fast lane, you might want to toddle over about 8 lanes to the slow lane. Or, even better, the flutter-board lane. There's one of those. It's the one with all the flutter-boards in it.

If you are the guy moving at 100 miles an hour in the slow lane because you're using paddles, you might want to swap with flutter-board guy. Also, just quietly, it was extremely hard to pace off you when you swim half a lap under water, and it's just a little weird when you swim directly underneath me. Of course, in a perfect world, I shouldn't have been in the slow lane either, but that's the Police's fault.

And now, back to attempting to transcribe my Diana Gabaldon interview.

Something weird happened to my kid and other interesting (?) things

2009-11-03T18:46:00.002+13:00

He's become awesome.

Seriously. Awesome.

A different, awesome kid. So happy, and, dare I say it ... a bit cruisy. OK, well maybe 'cruisy' is getting a bit excited, but you get the idea. Happy, happy little ginger. Happy, happy big ginger too.

Makes one a bit suspicious, just quietly.

He sleeps, for a start. Twice a day. Every. Day. He hasn't done that ever prior to now. And he's regularish with it - one in the morning, one after lunch. Almost ... dare I say ... a routine? AND, get this! In between, he just careens around the house quite cheerfully, leaving much chaos and kiddly happiness in his wake.

Could be, of course, that now that the crawling is well established, he's just completely knackering himself out getting into mischief?

Or he's getting into some Ritalin somewhere, but who am I to judge? It does make one stop and realise exactly how tough that first 6 to 8 months were with little sleeping, even less settling and much screaming. Poor wee dude.

And now ... news ...

I interviewed Diana Gabaldon yesterday. Of course, I really would have preferred if my brains hadn't fallen out of my ears as I sat down across from her, but there you go. I only feel slightly better because at least I didn't bollocks up anything major (well. ish) like the Radio NZ interviewer who had her before me, and she with loads of experience seemed to have just as much trouble handling her interview as me with zip. I just managed to come across as being a wee tad simple (meh, who am I kidding with the 'wee tad'? I recorded the interview. There's nothing wee, or tad-like about it).

Anyway, I could go on for days, I really could, but ultimately the woman is as captivating in real life as her voice is in her stories. Magic! And I needed hours with her. Hours. I didn't get hours, but I needed them.

(The husband informs me that I don't have a natural camera smile. Apparently I look a little like someone is ripping off my toenails. Still, it had to be posted, in all its dreadful glory, just cos. I probably should've cropped it in half though after taking another look)

Other news ...

The husband, kidlet and I packed up for our first short trip away shortly after my last post and headed off to Gizzy Vegas (home of Muirs Bookshop, excellent coffee, much sunshine and Moko the dolphin for the moment) for a few days. Cuinn was a gem on his first flight - spent the entire duration goobering the laminated safety instructions and making eyes at the girl across the aisle from us. He did so well in the various new environments while we were away too (especially continuing to sleep), and was just generally staggeringly fabulous. Again with the very weird. He did try to bellow the plane out of the sky on the way home, but that was delayed-flight and therefore delayed-sleep related as opposed to anything else.

His tooth count rose to 2 while we were away. Awesome AND cutting a tooth. I swear I'm not making it up ... although I probably wouldn't believe me either.More news ...
The border collie has auto-immune disease of the eyes. Very uncool. She's being an absolute trooper though - anti-rejection drugs into her eyes twice a day and she's sucking it up. Good girl! Kind of extra fortunate because otherwise she'd go blind, but she doesn't know that, so she's just being well behaved because she is.

Fall-off-your chair news ...

I've started doing laps at the pool 3 mornings a week. Yes, I know. Me. Doing anything along those lines. For relaxation and pleasure. Amusing, but true.

I don't go down there for long - the husband is on leave at the moment, so when Cuinn goes down for his first sleep I head out - I just swim until my head is clear (usually from near-drowning related oxygen deficiency, but you know). Nothing but the sound of water and generally pool-y noise. Very restorative. I honestly don't really think about much other than laps, which way I'm going to get from one end of the pool to the other (freestyle, backstroke, side stroke ... avoiding alternating sides with sidestroke because I nearly did drown trying to do sidestroke with my left side and it's a very deep pool ... breaststroke, you know), and the sounds around me. It's potentially helping to wear off some consumed baking as well, because now that the husband has mastered the art of the cinnamon brioche, on top of my raspberry slice and new brownie recipe, let's just say I don't need any extra cushions on the couch. Ahem.

Oooh! Last but not least, we've forgiven the truck driver who annihilated the bridge between us and swimming lessons on the basis that traffic in our area with the bridge out has reduced incredibly, and there's not a boy-racer to be seen. We're a bit sad that the truck driver didn't make a better effort at it, and that the bridge will be back in action before the end of the year.

And lastly, general photo goodness.

We've started letting the kidlet feed himself on occasion. The dogs think it's The. Best. Thing. Ever. Cuinn up-ended an entire bowl of cheese, luncheon and rice crackers in their direction today. We're going to end up with fat dogs, I'm pretty sure. We're also now feeding him on wooden floors.

Stoked!

2009-10-22T07:57:00.004+13:00

With both the gentleness of the dogs, eating from Cuinn's hands, but also with Cuinn having picked up sharing between the two dogs. You have to love, in the first one, the new-piece-of-toast tempter when Jack gets bored after Cuinn won't let the final toast remnants go (turns out this was because he wanted them for himself. Bleurg).

Foodie firsts

2009-10-20T19:31:00.004+13:00

Strawberries.

Marmite.

You can see how this is going to end, huh?

Yep. Just like that.

The great discovery

2009-10-18T10:19:00.002+13:00

He sat still as a still thing and quiet as a quiet thing for the entire duration of Bob.

Obviously, we need more Bob.

On the move footage, and a butt shot of his new jeans

2009-10-13T15:07:00.006+13:00

I followed him around all day, and finally managed to get a pic of his new jeans (the detailing is all on the butt) while he was, temporarily (very temporarily, but long enough to get the camera button down which is greater success than I've had otherwise), wedged on his way to grabbing all my computer leads. Busy dude!

In which Cuinn tries finger food out for the first time

2009-10-13T14:54:00.002+13:00

Suspicious ...

Interesting ...

Not too sure ...

Really doesn't need any explanation at all other than - raisins ...

And, after discovering banana in the bowl.

Diana Gabaldon !!!

!!!!!

I fear I will never be organised again

2009-10-08T20:31:00.004+13:00

Firstly, a big shout out to Greece for trying to kill Pal Mel - she seriously deserved it for being on a nice relaxing holiday. Welcome home Mel! *waves*

And now ...

I'm attempting to re-launch Project Chaos Management, but it's almost getting to the point of hysteria, so many spanners in the works I am collecting.

I could be here all day recounting the disastrous-ness of it all, but take if you will, just one example of the inventiveness of the universe in attempting to send me bonkers - Cuinn's swimming lessons. He starts swimming next week at a private swim school a 10 minute walk from home. Said swim school was chosen much less for its private-ness than for convenience. I heart convenience. A 10 minute walk from home is magic. Except, it's not a 10 minute walk from home since the Friday before last when an over-height truck killed the bridge that connects one side of the bridge,where I live, to the other, where the swim school is. So, now swim school is about a 25 minute car journey around Manukau, curling back to almost home again, and back. Honestly. Seriously. I mean ... really? And, of course, the bridge is off limits to both vehicular and foot traffic for the entire duration of Cuinn's swim school term. Awesome.

I imagine it'll be funny at some stage, but not right now. Well, unless you're everyone but me.

I'm in two minds about the moving child too. On the one hand, it keeps him amused for longer periods than I ever really managed, but on the other, he's proving slightly more difficult to keep track of. I busted the little bugger halfway out the back door this afternoon. Cheeky little ... ginger.

Otherwise, something incredibly exciting is going to happen next month ... except I'm not sure if I can tell you about it. I really should check if I can tell you about it. Katherine? Can I tell them about it? Sooo exciting. I'm interviewing .... someone awesome. Yay me !!

Baby giggles

2009-09-28T18:18:00.005+13:00

I seriously hope you all appreciate this video, because while it was loading, I ducked out of the room (barely) to check on it uploading for all of 10 seconds ... and came back to find that the child had not only done poos, but he'd painted himself and half the lounge (well, maybe not half the lounge as such, but buzzy bee certainly didn't fare well) with it. My bad for leaving him unattended during bare-bum time, but still. The price I pay for sharing stuff. Bleurg.

Comments that go bye bye

2009-09-19T09:53:00.004+12:00

I don't have many bloggy rules (bugger all actually. As in none. Well, one that I just made up because I've had to do this a couple of times), but if you post a comment that I can't read (as in, in a foreign language) I will delete it because it could say absolutely anything at all - ergo, you could be trying to sell me a vacuum cleaner, telling me I'm fabulous, providing an excellent piece of advice on the removal of ash from the kidlet's gob, threatening to report me to CYFS for child abuse, or simply trying to make sure I realise that robots will take over the world at 23:59. Cheers and all, but rules are rules.

Infant Trust

2009-09-18T20:30:00.004+12:00

This morning I left the husband in charge of watching the child while I had my breakfast. Admittedly, I was also in the room and paying no attention whatsoever, but that's beside the point. The child is wicked, and kinda quick, and definitely a bit cleverer I think than we given him credit for.

People in glass houses and all that though, he rolled off the bed when I was in charge the other day (the kid, not the husband. The husband is usually pushed as opposed to rolling of his own accord), so I'm not really in a position to mock the husband. Much. Well, over that. I'm very much mocking the husband over the fact that he spent all afternoon putting up a grapevine trellis thing (there's a name for it which escapes me), bolting things to a concrete wall, running wires etc etc and then went to dig the grapevines in and discovered a sewer pipe running underneith. Ergo, no grapevine can be planted there. Tee hee. Although it wasn't very tee hee at the time. It was more a quick-cover-the-child's-ears-lest-he-learn-words moment. In fact, it's still not really very tee hee, so I'm mocking quietly from out of throwing things distance.

Also, I think I was gloating the other day about getting out of that awful survey. As it turns out, no such luck dammit.

So, the kidlet managed to work the fire poker out from behind the fire guard and roll around the floor chewing on it.

Later, with the much more acceptable chewing alternative of broad beans.

Got it!

2009-09-17T13:51:00.002+12:00

I've been trying to get a photo of le toof for days. Finally managed it! It's all about angle, making the kid give me a huuuuge smile, and of course, keeping the camera trained on him for extended lengths of time just. in. case.

And now back to wondering what I'm going to do about having eaten most of the raspberry slice I made yesterday. Woops. Am a wee tad obsessed with raspberry slice at the moment.

Poor little ginger

2009-09-16T14:45:00.003+12:00

To make things (the gingerness) worse, the poor little dude appears to have curls springing up on the top of his head. Terrible Muriel. I'm hopeful that it's possibly just a wee hair-drying issue from the night before last that will rectify itself with tonight's hair wash.

Nothing like a cot bar up your butt to make for a comfy nap

2009-09-09T18:22:00.002+12:00

Fast asleep wee toadlet.

And the mischief continues. Apparently jumping in his jolly jumper was much less interesting than using it to get to the basket of crap by the front door, dragging said basket of crap across to the middle of the doorway and pulling all Dad's hats out.

And we've discovered the bookshelf. Fortunately his books of choice for chewing seem to be Al's dreadful Sci-Fi jobbies. It probably helps that I shifted them all to the bottom shelf of course ...

The little ginger has a tooth!

2009-09-08T15:25:00.002+12:00

Sneaky little tooth.

I swear he was showing no signs whatsoever of teething - well, that I paid any attention to, poor little ginger - and the next he's screaming the house down. Of course, even then it took roughly 4 hours for me to wonder, stick my finger in his gob and find a tooth. Woops. Ah well. Now that I'm paying attention, he's pretty well text book - off his food, sleeps are up the spout, grizzly, needy, chomping on whatever he can (except teething stuff - apparently he is of the 'screw the teething toys, I'll just chew the corner of the couch thanks' mind) blah blah. And, er, sporting the tooth of course.

I continue to be in a very ill humour about this ridiculous survey. Very ill indeed. Did I mention it's compulsory? Apparently the only exceptional circumstances under which they'll consider letting you out of it is "if you're dead". Excellent. I did refrain from asking the surveyor, when she offered up that circumstance, what about if she was dead? (We've just dug 5 new vege patch extensions, it might help the rhubard take off, you know?) Even though the kid had been screaming for hours when she turned up for our initial interview and I was feeling spectacularly frazzled and grumpy, I did think that might have been a wee tad agressive. Just a wee tad. Even for a ginger.

So, we have a 7 month old teething (vile), a husband changing shift patterns and jobs (he's going from line maintenance (inspection and defect rectification ... troubleshooting when aircraft arrive into the airport) to heavy maintenance in the hangar) for three months (not as vile as the tooth, but vile nonetheless), and now, this evil survey where we have to detail out everything down to how many sausages we buy at the butcher (exceptionally vile. The vile has given birth to baby viles and the whole damn family of viles and their vague friends from way back live at my house). And of course there's the detailing out of an entire years worth of spending, which apparently includes all payments such as rates, water, mortgage details, you imagine it, we have to detail it. Which also means I have to find the paperwork. !!!

On the bright side though, we've just discovered a wicked toy store quite close which has awesome wooden toys, and it just so happens that Cuinn needs some new toys. What a coincidence!

Short'n'sweet, but a blog post nonetheless.

Oooh ... this is going to be good (a bloggy restart)

2009-09-02T20:49:00.001+12:00

Cheerfully, Statistics NZ has randomly selected our household to take part in a Household Economic Survery.

For. Pete's. Sake.

It's going to take weeks. And diaries of expenditure. And providing receipts. And blimming recalling all the major purchases we've made over the last year. And their idea of major, by the way, is $200.00, which is not exactly a spectacularly high threshold for trying to remember each time you've spent it on a purchase over a year. Can you imagine? GAH! The last YEAR! Honestly! Never mind that I'm part of this household, which means that this is not going to be funny. Not even a little bit.

(Don't think I can't hear you all laughing. I'll hunt you down, I swear. Don't think I won't)

A much better start to this whole business too would have been not standing on my doorstep arguing for about 10 minutes about whether I did or did not have a letter delivered to my letterbox over the weekend, and getting grumpy that I had potentially tossed the unmarked window envelope addressed simply to "The Residents" which would have looked exactly the same as countless other unmarked window envelopes that are delivered with our daily inches high stack of junk mail from the likes of real estate agents, chain letter writers, advertisers, you name it, before actually getting onto telling me why you were standing on my doorstep and what the blazes it was all about. Potentially we might have been more receptive (unlikely, but I did say 'potentially') had we not just walked in the door, the husband wasn't trying to get dinner on, and the both of us weren't juggling a 7 month old who wanted his dinner right now thank you very much.

I really would have preferred they'd randomly selected some other household that has a little less to do, thanks very much. Never mind that their idea of keeping information secure and confidential is bollocks, because hello? The husband is involved in the survey.

What a great big pain in the butt.

I'm not amused.

And I can't be arsed. Most especially, I can't be arsed.

Oh. And yay! Welcome back me! I miiised yooou!

Kisses from Cuinn too! Big goobery open mouthed ones with lots of tongue, all over your cheek/nose/chin/forehead. He's so awesome.

A dude's getting busy

2009-08-30T12:38:00.000+12:00

What happens when you leave the kid in the middle of the room, nowhere near anything, and turn your back for half a second.

I persist in putting socks on his, but it's really all I'm doing is giving him something to do for 10 seconds in pulling them off.

Then of course, there's this wee development. This was a few days ago.

And this is today. He's getting more used to pulling himself up and is stronger with it.

See the daylight? Doh.

Just plain ol' mischief.