Hi Ladies

Jaspen – hope all the males in your house are better – nightmare having 3 of them sick – equivalent to having around 10 females sick I reckon!

Tali – bugger for your mobile taking a swim in the dunny! I know what you mean about the same ones having to clean up at playgroup each time. We have a rosta for the washing up/vacuuming thing but everyone is suuposed to help put all the toys away and you can guarantee that it’s the same ones week in week out doing the tidying and the same ones sat one their bums chatting or having left early. Sorry to hear you had such a pants time at sizzler – your MIL sounds like shes good at making you uncomfy and being rude. Hope you get to move away soon. (One BIG positive about being on the other side of the world to mine – althought the negative being when they come to visit its for a very looong time!). Lol about your DS loving the bhg mag – he could talk to me too – I have it on subscription from my boys for last Christmas! He’ll be nice and handy when he get older! Good on Kai saying her first words and wow – you are so organized making some Christmas decorations already – I quite fancy giving the stars a go – the teddies look abit complicated for me! Have a great time camping at Ellis beach – we stayed in the huts there a few years ago – great place! And we swam there and were the only ones there – it was late September for us so water was lovely and warm but no sign of stingers. I didn’t ever trust the nets either – just used the lagoon in Cairns and the rockpool in Townsville.

Hi Nic – welcome home. Hope your feeding problems with Tyron are working themselves out. I know you’ll do what is best for both you and him and not let anyone push you into anything. Oscar was my lazy feeder, wouldn’t attach then when he would he would pop off again within 30 seconds – nightmare when your boobs are so sore and I was also in agony with my c/s scar hurting every time I fed (very rare – even most of the midwives didn’t believe me!) I gave up b/f him when he was 2 weeks old as things weren’t getting any better and I just couldn’t stand the pain but I felt so guilty that i expressed for the next 4 weeks. For me I think that was the biggest mistake I made as my DH gently pointed out at a later date I spent so much time attached to a pump and so little actually with my bub that we ended up having some bonding issues. Not saying this would happen to you or anything – just my experience – just hope you manage to sort out the bf probs so you can continue and don’t have to go down the ‘avenue of guilt’ i did! Have to admit that once I did end up f/f i didn’t get any negative comments off any friends or mums in mothers group (who all managed to bf) – only crap I got was from ILs! Enough rambling – hope I’ve managed to phrase things right – I only mean to be supportive of whichever you chose but I’m so rubbish at phrasing things! Hope Nixon is enjoying being with his brother. Lovely smiley picky in the bath!

Maya – wow Oscar sounds like a little fish in the pool, he’s doing so well. Hope you’ve managed/are managing to get your assignment done. Hope Oscar is ok after his temp and spew a few days back.

Mel – ouchy for Marley, poor ducky getting her head stuck – I would have been panicing too! Glad the marks are going. Gorgeous pickies of your girls on your homepage – I love the cubby house too! Your girly dinner on Sunday sounded great and how lovely to cuddle some newborns.

Rory – yummy to the wood fired pizza! Sounds like you had a nice time.

Amanda – Glad your foot isn’t broken. Sunday must have been the day for it as my AF turned up too after being MIA for 2 months! Lets hope we manage it next month! Did you get the house you applied for?

Bath – yay for taking Sunday school classes – can definitely imagine Mrs Bathsheba Mel! Hope you manage some sneaky time on BB while the boys are occupied elsewhere and yay you thought I looked taller from my photos – I wish!

Jess – scary re the snake! Glad the policeman could get rid of it for you.

Ali – Poor you with Tori getting up so early – Will has been waking around 5 most days for a few weeks but we try and ignore him till about 6 – he’s not getting upset just talking but very difficult to ignore once he gets excited as he is in our room and stands at his cot shouting dadda and jumping up and down! You’re brave putting her in a big bed – Oscar was well over 2 before we moved him in – Will just lived in bassinette then portocot with mattress until then as we just couldn’t face dealing with Oscar escaping from the big bed. Yay for only 2 weeks left, will be lovely for you to spend time with Tori before bubs arrives. Love the new photos of Tori – especially the nappy on head one!

Had abit of a busy time recently with the builders announcing that the house will be ready before Christmas!!! Great in terms of us saving lots of money but bad as I’m not seeming to have much luck finding anyone that can put the floors down/fence the garden etc before Christmas so we might have to live with concrete floors for a while then move out for a few days. Had a bit of a meltdown yesterday as since we heard last week I have been trying to ring and get quotes from people and do so much organizing on top of all the normal kid stuff, house tidy, cooking, cleaning stuff and I just ended up feeling so stressed as it’s not working. When james got home from work I just went and hid in the lounge with a mag and a bar of chocolate (v healthy tea!) while James entertained and cooked for the boys. This is where we really miss not having family to just sit with the boys for a few hours so we could go to showrooms to view things just us and no kids! We were in a floor place on Saturday and they weren’too bad but then Will’s did a hugely stinky nappy and it stunk the place out! Time for a sharp exit!

The boys started swimming again on Saturday and they had a whale of a time. I was so pleased as we missed last term what with going away so I wondered if they would have gone backwards but the opposite seems to have happened so I was very pleased.

We had a lovely day on Sunday as we drove out to John Forrest national park and there is this wonderful pub there that is very child friendly and you can sit outside looking out into bush and they put (proper) food out for the roos and the birds so the kids loved seeing all the wildlife. (And I had a sneaky beer as James was driving) Although Oscar announced to MIL on the skype later that night that he had had beer as that is what he was calling the lemonade that DH bought him! (DH was under instruction to get soda water to avoid the sugar eebiejeebies but he forgot once at the bar!)

Went to a shopping centre early yesterday, straight from dropping DH off at work to try and find some curtains for the new house – even though every 3 shops I took them somewhere they could play I had still bored them so much that they were both asleep in the pram by 11am – poor loves they were so good and didn’t even complain when they were awake. They stayed asleep in the car when I got home so I left them there and hurriedly tried to make more phone calls but by then they’d had enough sleep for the day so only managed 10 minutes of peace all day – hence the later mini-melt!

Walking group was ok again today – we went to the coffee shop with the enclosed playground so I thought it would be less stressful then last week but within one minute of putting them in it Will was crying and had a badly scratched nose and top lip so he now looks a mess (would go well with Marley now Mel!) – I have no idea what happened as he was still standing so either another kid (there weren’t many) had pushed his face into a bar or he’d just tripped into it. Anyway, that was the end of my socializing so I spent the rest of the time in the playground with them and a further 2 minutes down the line Oscar was crying with a split lip!!! There must be something in the water! Anyway, walk back to the car was nice and arranged for my friend to come over tomorrow morning as I normally meet her somewhere on Wednesdays but the car is in for a service. One of the other ladies has asked us all round to hers after the walk on Melbourne cup day so we can have nibbles and wine and the kids can play which is really nice of her as I don’t know her very well, so looking forward to that.

Anyway, better stop rambling! Hope you’ve all had good days

Julie x