Two years ago...

Atticus - birthday boy

I remember two years and a few days ago sitting around in the heat, being heavily pregnant and watching the Australian Open on tele. Last week I sat around in the heat, heavily pregnant, watching the Australian Open on tele. And yesterday two years ago I gave birth to my second son after four hours of labour. Woohoo!

I wasn't planning on having a big celebration for the occasion, what with the heat and the exhaustion, and especially after he fell ill. But things change, and we ended up having the immediate family over for lunch. I was going to do a barbecue, but laziness took over and we ordered pizzas instead. It didn't matter, though. The kids loved it and everyone had a good time. Even Atticus! I was worried that he would sleep through the whole affair - he has been having four hour naps these last few days, from midday or one o'clock till late afternoon! We let him sleep a few hours and then made enough noise so that he woke up in time for his birthday cake - the most important part of things.

Today he is much improved and has gone off to child care in good spirits. His rash is still very nasty looking but the pain has gone and he is happy. Dante starts school tomorrow - I hope we can make it on time!

Interesting viewing

Yay! Atticus is getting better. He actually slept through the night yesterday after a horrid, horrid night previously. And then had a four hour nap today. What a relief. Hopefully we are over the worst of it.

This evening to celebrate we sat down and watched some TV. Firstly was Episode 12 of Heroes which was just aired in America (starts here in Australia next week, I believe). Entirely too addictive. Then two episodes of Little Mosque on the Prairie - a sitcom based in small town Canada about a group of Muslims setting up a new mosque. Very much the usual sitcom jokes, with an Islamic spin on them. Pretty funny, and nice to see something so culturally different, but not different... if that makes sense.

Then we started watching Clerks II, but quickly realised that it had been overdubbed in Spanish! Funny at first but annoying after a while and we quickly stopped.

Oh well... a relaxing evening after a very stressful week. Now it's the weekend (yay! Australia Day public holiday tomorrow!) and we will continue the clean-up and preparation for baby no. 3. I've decided to pack my hospital bag tomorrow. Dante's new room is coming along really well - we actually moved him into it last Saturday night. He loves it. I'm concerned about him falling out of his loft bed but he's managed quite well so far.

Our little artist

Dante has spent five days at vacation care run by a local Creative Arts Centre these holidays. Another parent from school told us about it since our school didn't provide vacation care over the summer break. I was a bit worried about whether he would enjoy himself or not as he's not really been into art that much, but I was so wrong.

Last week he was there from Monday to Thursday. Each day of the program they have an activity planned - something specific for the kids to make. Monday was "Great Barrier Reef" - a hanging mobile of fish. Tuesday was terrific! "Farmyard Diorama" made out of clay. We weren't able to take that one home as they will fire them in the kiln first. When I saw all the children's models on the table I was completely taken aback. Each was different but in a similar style. I can't wait to pick up D's one - I'll post a picture when we get it. Wednesday was "Chinese Crackers" - ready for Chinese New Year. Thursday they made a height chart. I could tell that Dante was getting a bit tired of it by then... I think four days in a row was a bit much... but still not a bad job. We put it up in his new room.

And today was "Boogie Woogie Mondrian":



At first Dante was reluctant to go to vacation care but he was very happy by the time we got there. We were keen for him to attend today as Piet Mondrian was one of his Grandpa's favourite artists. The first picture is Dante's one. The second is Mondrian's "Broadway Boogie Woogie". He was so excited and eager to show me his artwork when I went to pick him up. A good job!

More than the miseries

Atticus is sick yet again. I just can't believe how often he has fallen ill, not with just any old thing, either. It has to be something a little more stressful and abnormal, doesn't it?

This time he has shingles (note: the rash on his back, underarm and front are far worse looking than the pictures on that Wikipedia page... I'd post a picture (yes, I took a couple) but it's too gross. Let's just say that his blisters are about an inch across by a centimetre wide and raised at least two or three millimetres. And glaring red). I've been doing lots of web research and I think he's got it as a complication from when I had chicken pox when I was 4 months pregnant with him. He has his usual Varicella Zoster vaccination at age 18 months and has never actually had chicken pox.

Tonight is the worst so far - he is in excruciating pain, having trouble sleeping, and absolutely howling. We've doped him up with everything we can but it doesn't seem to be helping. *sob* I just can't bear hearing him like this. It's one of the worst things about being a mother... seeing your child in pain and not being able to do anything about it.

I hope he gets better sooner than later.

Quality television

Late last year Dante started getting interested in the Power Rangers - I assume because of another boy in his class. I don't know how they found out about them as it was on TV at about 1:30 in the morning!

So, for Christmas he got a Power Rangers DVD from his Auntie Bec. Five of the worst quality low budget kids' action show episodes ever. Dante, of course, takes it all very seriously but we adults can't help but laugh at the dodgy special effects and costumes.

After I-don't-know-how-many repeated screenings of this new DVD, I think Dante has finally caught on to the inconsistencies and discontinuties (if that's the right word). This morning he said to me, "Mama, why do all the bad guys just stand back and dance like this *insert action of baddies fighting against nobody* while the Power Rangers do all the fighting?".

I grinned and replied, "Ask your father."

First swears

Atticus said his first swear this morning. Well, it wasn't really a swear word, and it certainly wasn't intentional - just came out sounding like it.

The phrase?

"Butt Monkey!"

heheh... so funny.

Yummy satay

Had a wonderful family day today. Two of my cousins from Thursday Island and their families just happened to be visiting Sydney at the same time (not too common an occurrence) so we had them over for lunch today... yummy satay on the BBQ. It was so good to see them again, even though I only saw them a month and a bit ago. The weather was perfect for a backyard party. My cousin's son Jake (13) got on splendidly with my nephew Ben (almost 13) and my other cousin's son Jonathan (3) was right at home amongst his younger cousins. It was just lovely!

Where do they come up with this stuff?

Dante has always been an inquisitive child. Loves asking questions. We are constantly being bombarded with "What's that? What's this?" and more annoyingly, "What if?", "What happens if?".

The other main thing we've had to put up with for the last several months is "What's your favourite ... ?". What's your favourite movie? What's your favourite animal? What's your favourite colour? What's your favourite food?

The most interesting one, though, was asked of Daniel as we drove to Kiama.

"What's your favourite insect orchestra?"

Second quilt - finally finished.

It's done. Of course I left it to the last minute - the baby shower was this morning at 10am. I stayed up until 2am on Friday night, quilting the thing, and until 3am on Saturday hand-sewing on the binding... watching old Countdown episodes on Rage.

I'm so happy and proud of it, though I wish I'd finished it earlier. I got a bit tired towards the end and the binding has quite a few glitches, especially on the corners. I showed it to my niece, Abigail, who was here with her parents yesterday and she immediately draped it around her shoulders and wouldn't let go of it. I'll have to make her one now!

Anyway, I gave it to George this morning, and she loved it! The other people couldn't believe that I'd made it myself. Yay! At least all that work was not for nothing!

Spare room - clean at last

I mentioned previously that the spare upstairs room is going to become Dante's new room. This room used to belong to my brother Chris and has been full of his stuff, as well as a few other bits of furniture, the entire time we've been living in this house.

Before Atti was born we'd asked Chris to clear it out, but then they announced their own pregnancy and had to prepare their house for the new arrival! However now we need the room so I hassled my brother. Dan and I have also been busy doing small amounts of cleaning every night this week.

Well, today we all knuckled down and got to work and managed to clear out the room! I can't believe it! It's wonderful! Now we just need to give it a paint, a good wash down, some fresh curtains and Dante can move in.

A week away; Happy New Year!

Atticus loves the waves

We've just come home from a week away down on the South Coast. We hired a house in Kiama, about two hours (actually less) from Sydney.

Two of our friends turned 30 on the 27th and 29th of December and had organised to rent a house between Christmas and New Year. They invited the whole "gang" but we didn't think it would be a good idea to take the kids to a household full of partying adults. So Dan looked into it and organised our own house. We asked Grandma and Auntie Bec and Paul to come with us, and they were quite happy to join us. Dan and his family used to go on beach holidays all the time when they were kids so it was a great hark back to those days!

Our house was as near to the other house as we could find, and just up the steep, steep hill from a really nice, sheltered, kid-friendly beach. It had three bedrooms, was quaint, had seventies decor and could really be described as "Grandma's house".

Dante at the blowhole

It was a great holiday. We went to the beach a few times, stayed at our house a fair bit, went into "town", hung out with our friends... and of course went to see the Kiama Blowhole. My friend Fukuyo came down with us for one night and had a wonderful time, too. She got along really well with the boys and got dumped at the beach at least once! My folks came down for an afternoon trip to pick her up and take her back to Sydney.

Atticus absolutely adored the beach. Dante did, too, but was not such a fan of the waves. Atti, on the other hand, would not stay away from the water! It was fairly chilly in, and he was usually shivering after a short amount of time, but he absolutely loved it! Dante built some pretty cool sandcastles. I took a bunch of photos which you can check out on flickr.

I spent way too much time playing Guitar Hero on Bec's playstation. Way too much time. But it was great! Wish I had one of my own! Except that I wouldn't have time to play it, or do anything else if I did!!

Now that we're home, I seem to have caught the "nesting" bug. I've been madly tidying and cleaning up, and panicking about getting the kids' rooms organised for the new baby. (Did I mention that? We're moving Dante into the spare upstairs room and moving Atti into Dante's old room so that the baby can have Atti's old room.)

Can you believe that it is 2007 now??