The boy that won't sit

In the bath at least.  Pichu will not sit in the bath, which makes it a slightly more difficult endeavour.  It all started in Coolum, at Christmas time.  At home Pichu used to use a bath seat in the bath, and he loved bath time.  When packing for a 7 week holiday, including 8 plane flights, a bath seat is not on the top of my to-pack list, there was just no room after I squeezed in the kitchen sink.

So first bath at the holiday house, Pichu stood watching  it fill as usual, excited, waiting in all his little nudiness.  But that was when it all went south.  He freaked when I tried to lower him in.  Freaked was an understatement, back arched to the max, lungs opened full tilt, he even had the koala grip happening.  I splashed some water on him, and we called it a bath.  I thought it was a one off, but it wasn't.  Ever since then he has not sat down in the bath.  That's since December!  He stands in the bath now, and that's an improvement actually, because for a few weeks he wouldn't do that.  He would stand on the other side of the bath and happily play, I would have to dunk him at the end to get him somewhat clean.

So now we are in a better place with bath time.  He is at least inside the bath.

See? Happy.

There are lot's of things you can do in the bath...

Cup filling.

Playing with cars. (I think I need to do some laundry...)

Fishing for toys. Notice the death grip on the side of the bath.

Covering your brother with bubbles.

Tasting the bubbles. 

... but sitting? No, not one of them.  The last picture was the end of this bath, he managed to suck some water up his nose and that was a first for Pichu.  So now i'm dreading tomorrow, hoping he doesn't remember!

My best from Binalong (March)

In March we had a visitor, Grandpa from America came to stay for 3 weeks.  On the long weekend we headed up the East coast of Tassie to the Bay of Fires and rented a house on the beach at Binalong Bay.  I had my camera and was trying hard to figure it out a bit more.  I took alot of photos, but there are a few that actually turned out ok.  They aren't great, but I think they are ok.  None of them have been edited yet, so they will be better.  The composition isn't all that great on most of them, and the focus could be improved on some too. 

One of my favs. Oshawott is throwing a handful of sand. The water colour was so amazing.

Coder having some fun.

Something about his eyes, such an intense look, cutting right into me.

So cute, headed to Grandpa.

A cheeky face captured.

Not completely in focus.

Just thought the wave in the background looked pretty cool.

Cool looking stump.

Our own form of Earth Hour

Though we can't really take any credit for 'saving the world' one watt at a time unfortunately.  This was all attributed to -The Worst Bedtime Ever-.  All was going swimmingly at first, we have been cracking down at bedtime, and the boys were all going to bed at 7pm.  But one dark and stormy night.. no it wasn't, it was just a normal beautiful Autumn evening in Tassie.. too beautiful in hindsight, the warmer evening probably did contribute partly to the chaos that ensued.  So they had stories read to them, had their teeth cleaned, toilet trips completed and kiss good nights all round, including a round of kissies from Pichu who has just recently perfected his own little schmack!  Then it started, the calling out, the needing more milk, needing water bottles, talking, wrestling.. then fighting, stealing blankets and more fighting.  Several trips back and forth later, we thought we had nipped it in the bud, they had gone relatively quiet.

But alas, Legoman appears in the lounge room claiming he needed to sleep elsewhere as his bed was wet.  I was slightly annoyed, thinking Oshawott had probably spilled his water on Legoman's side of the bed.  I then noticed his top was half soaked. On investigation it was revealed that the 3 week old new double bed mattress was now soaked on one side.  Argh!  What happened?!  They said they had a water fight.  Oh of course you did! Who doesn't? Sounds perfectly normal to me.  Thank goodness they only had one bottle each, they had to be full though, typical.  So Legoman and Oshawott were evicted to the downstairs bed.  Voltorb had to sleep on the dry side of the double bed.  We kept very calm, well mostly.

They went to sleep.

Right, that was it.. we took away the 2 laptops they use, unplugged the TV from behind the cupboard, took their 3ds', iPod, and hid the iPad.   I then rummaged through the bookshelf and scattered a dozen various colouring and activity books across the floor, and placed a tub of puzzles in the middle of the floor.

When they woke up they didn't (at first) even question the missing laptops, didn't ponder too long over why the tv didnt turn on.  They did actually do puzzles and drawings!  Later as they inquired (and I was awake enough to reason) we talked about the punishment and what they had lost access to. They took it reasonably well, because it's not like they use these things all the time, but tell them they can't and..whoa!  So all day there was no electronic entertainment in this house.  It was really nice, and we will definitely do it more often, not as a punishment so much as a decision we all make. 

Though it sure does make them go to bed easily now!

The things we do!

I am now an expert in the field of lizardy.  Similar to wizardry perhaps, which would be pretty awesome.  But anyway, back to lizards.  We are now the extremely proud owners of a skink.  Yes, a skink.  The boys have been asking for a lizard for a few months now, I had managed to put them off with various excuses, the gear you need (heat rocks?!), not to mention the actual physical acquisition of said lizard.  It is illegal to sell lizards, so we were fresh out of luck in that respect.  No Crocodile Hunter prowess in this house i'm afraid, no lizard whispers in sight.. so that excuse seemed to be holding its own.  

Until yesterday.  

Skink was spotted at the veggie patch, which is quite an exaggeration because there are no veggies, just a barren raised stretch of premium (well I had good intentions!) soil.  The boys had 2 friends over yesterday, apparently one of them is quite adept at catching lizards, and intact I mean, tail and all.  I look out the window to witness a bizarre sight, Legoman wielding a bushy tree branch waving it to and fro, closely followed by designated lizard catcher who was protecting a treasure in his cupped hands.  The dog was off her lead and was trying to play, yes she wanted to play.  I'm sure she couldn't smell the interesting morsel and wanted to investigate further.  So the dog was being fended off with the branch and the faces of the boys was intense to say the least.

Once they were inside I was barraged with claims of needing a container for lizard habitation.  Scrambling through the cupboard I found one that would do, for now.  No, you cant put holes in the lid! It was a Lightning McQueen lunchbox after all.

So this morning we head off to the petshop, to purchase our 'desert starter kit'.  Man in shop, "a skink? I haven't heard of anyone keeping skinks"  So no help there, he doesn't know what they eat, or if they grow much bigger, he asked if I had internet at home... umm.. are their people that don't?  

Now the skink has a mansion.  Well I guess not if you compare his freedom to now being in a cube with fake plants, rocks, a heat pad, and tiny ceramic balls for sand. 

I figured he would need to eat something.  Everything at the petshop was too big for him to eat, live crickets and meal worms.  We needed mini meal worms, and naturally they had none of those in stock.  So there I am, in the drizzling rain, crouched over the driveway searching for tiny ants.  At first, because of the dampness in the air I assume (I'm a lizard expert not an ant one), I couldn't find any ants at all.  Ludicrous! Never around when you need them to feed your new pet skink, but all over the place any other time.  Finally I found some ants, they seemed like they would be too big for skinkies mouth, but maybe he could eat half of it? Well that would do for now, probably more interesting for him then the half dead fly I put in there last night.  Then I hit the jackpot, tiny skink-mouth sized ants.  Scooping them up with a leaf wasn't cutting it, so I had to just pick them up with delicate fingers, trying not to crush them in the process, because I'm certain (remember i'm an expert) they prefer live food.

Once the ants were placed in the cube I became entranced with skinkies movements, egging him/her? on to eat the ants I had slaved over.  I made them myself I told him, from scratch! 

Skinkie and I are not on good terms at the moment.  He hasn't touched a single one.   I suppose I shall have to google them as petshop man had suggested, and before he starves.

All said and done im sure the boys are going to be happy.  And that's the bottom line.  Unless skinkie dies from starvation.. but that's a whole other situation to deal with!

 Admiring a realistic plant formation.

I think the tiny ants will just escape actually, won't that be nice finding them running all over my benchtop.

If you look closely you can see skinkie has an ant crawling on him.  Way to go skinkie!

I just checked on skinkie, the ants are enjoying their new home and skinkie is cowering under his waterbowl rock.

Weaning Wars

I have decided to finally wean Pichu, he's 19 months now.  He loves his milkies, so this isn't going to be easy. It had started to get a bit ridiculous actually.  He would want milk all the time, anytime he was upset, or a bit peckish, or just because Mummy sat in 'the' chair, or at the computer even! We would go out for coffee, and Pichu would be there getting his 'coffee' too.  But the deal breaker was at night, I honestly didn't care that he had a night feed (or 2!) up until about a week ago.  He would have milk and go straight back to sleep.  We were sick last week, for a week, 3 of us, Oshawott, Pichu and myself.  We had some cracker nights as to be expected, which was fine, we were sick after all.  For several nights in a row we would just be up for 2 or 3 or 4 hours, I have had 8 years of not sleeping well, so no biggie.  Pichu ended up needing anti-biotics, and that soon fixed him up.  A new habit had evolved from this brief diversion from the usual routine.. wanting to stay up half the night!  

(I have to pause here as I have been detected.. Pichu radar has discovered Mummy at the computer and he is trying to climb up to have milk)

So at night, Pichu was not going back to sleep after milk, he would seemingly be asleep until I started to leave the room after laying him down. Then he would sook, I could not pat him, hold his hand or even talk to him, he would just shriek in his banshee way until I picked him back up and he would happily suck away again (no milk mind you, just happy to be there with Mummy)  It would often take hours before he went back to sleep, I had even taken to letting him play in his room as I lie down trying to sleep while he played all over me.  

Enough was enough.  No more night feeds.  The decision was made.  

Easy to make a statement like that in daylight hours, the words fell so easily from my mouth under the bright sunshine and mug of coffee in my hand.  

The plan.  2 feeds per 24 hours.  One before his nap and one before bedtime.  Right now we are starting day 3 of this new schedule.  During the day it has become quite impossible for me to sit.  That's right, sit..  because if I sit, and I mean anywhere, Pichu climbs into my lap and assumes the position.  My life has become one of mastering the art of distraction.  He climbs on my lap or pulls and sooks at my legs, I scoop him up and we go in search of something interesting to do.  Unfortunately this has led to a love of textas.. and inadvertently wall art.  Yes, he had done this before, but we had learned to keep all forms of stationary away from his reach.  Until desperate times call for desperate measures and the best distraction of all is that of self expression using texta.  I aim for paper use only, but he seems to have a way of slipping a rogue texta through security and is often caught in the act of drawing on the walls, fridge, toys, books, floor and himself. So we are still working on finding a happy medium where texta and boy can work together in harmony.

Back to night feeds.  The first night of the new schedule I admit.. I caved.  It was 9pm and we were watching The Voice, I started to have doubts.  What if Pichu thought Mummy didn't love him anymore?  What if he was crying in misery and anguish because he thought Mummy wasn't there for him?  She had been there every other night (for 19 freaking months!) why is she not giving me milkies now?! So at 1am when he woke up, I gave him one side.  Miraculously he went right back to sleep!  Yay!  But was awake again at 3am.  Nup.  Not going to happen.  I climbed into the cot with him, armed with pillow, blanket and toilet paper wadded up in my ears. I braced for impact.  Much thrashing, screaming, writhing, and hair pulling later.. oh and he removed one of my makeshift earplugs, because damn straight Mummy if i'm going to all this trouble you are going to hear me!, he went to sleep.  I climbed out of the cot at 4.45am and into the bed right next to the cot.  He woke up at 6am very upset, so we came upstairs to start our day of distraction.

So last night, after a day of standing whilst having coffee with a friend (slightly awkward), standing the entire time of playgroup and cleaning up texta from the kitchen floor and laptop, we had a no night feed night.  He woke at 2am, I climbed into the cot with him (yes, its a very sturdy hand built cot) armed once again with my arsenal.  He carried on a bit, but im pretty sure it wasn't as bad, hard to recall and separate one screaming night from another. BUT! I think it was better.  It had to be, he had no night feed.  Victory!  Strange kind of victory I suppose, one in which I am contorted in a small space with my ears bleeding.  No seriously, I'm happy.  I managed to escape the cot after a couple of hours and get some sleep.

This morning we are friends again!  

 What Mum? No I'm not hiding a texta under here and drawing on the wall and bike.

 This better?

Note the floor.

Nice look.

One casualty of a scream filled night and early morning (apart from any spelling or grammar mistakes in this post) was the mega Moccona coffee jar.  This is what happens when you are so tired you put the coffee lid on the wrong way, it gets stuck, and your husband has to try to remove it, ending in a jar of freeze dried coffee and glass flakes. Delicious!  Lucky for the 6months old international roast tin we had stashed away in the cupboard!

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The many varying poses of 'Icy Pole'.  Featuring: Icy Pole.

 

Boy Vs Beast (Christmas)

Pichu and Dexter had a rather interesting relationship.  One of Pichu's favourite things to do was to play with Dexter's food, emptying it, throwing it, putting it in the water bowl, or eating it!

First impressions. 

Best toy.  Ever.

So you just put your head down like this and sleep?

Finally something good to eat!

Dexter comes to investigate.

Hey, I had it first! Get your own!

I really did have it first Mum, honest.

Nom Nom Nom.

Friends again.

Dodgem Days (Christmas)

Dodgem car fun at Aussie World.

 Glad it's you in there and not me!

Eyes on the road Aunty!

 Trust me, i'm 10!

 Umm guys? Who's steering?!

 The chase is on!

 I think Voltorb is just a bit happy.

 It's getting serious now!

Hey!