Euey's B'day

We very sensibly decided to have Euey's 2nd birthday at an indoor play centre. It's Winter here in June and the drought has finally broken so Melbourne is a very rainy place at the moment - besides, better to have someone else do the cleaning up! Charlie (my sister) and I were up 'til midnight the night before making the Bart Simpson cake. I learnt a lot of little tricks for next years cake, let me tell you. The best tip is BUY THE BLOODY CAKE!

Anyway, we forgot to take our camera to the play centre but here are some pics of the family gathering we had at our place on his actual birthday. Didn't get any photos of look on his face as we set up the slide my mum, dad and brother got him which is a bummer. More photos of him playing with his new toys next post.

Hair-raising fun - the blow up trampoline we got him.

The Bubbas.

Cake!!!

Chocolate Ripple Cake. Awesome. (For those non-Aussies, it's chocolate 'cookies' sandwiched with whipped cream standing up side-by-side then all smothered in more whipped cream. Put it in the fridge and the biscuits go all soggy and the cream tastes like chocolate. Yummy. Don't forget to cut it diagonally so it looks all cool and stripey.)

Back

Back, back. I hear this word constantly throughout my day. It is Euey's security blanket. When Will goes to work ... Bye bye Euey, I'm going to work, I'll be back. Back he says with a nod. When I drop him at childcare ... Bye bye Euey, you play with Neese (Denise) and I'll be back soon. Bye bye he says, then when I return Back, Mummy back. When he runs out of the room then back in ... Back! he shouts with a huge grin.

Well now I'm back, to let you know, I can really shake 'em down. So ... do you love me? do you love me? do you love me, nooooww that I caaan dance?

Sorry, got a little carried away. Feels like a long time since I saw Dirty Dancing but obviously not that long. It also feels like a long time since I've been able to relax with a couple of blogging hours ahead of me. Well, one at least, it is already 9 o'clock and lets face it, my brain doesn't work so well after that hour. Bad news for studying next semester, but I'll deal with that issue later.

So what's been going on in bubba land?
Euey now uses two word sentences and knows that Mummy's name is George and Daddy's is Will, both of which he pronounces perfectly. He calls Aoife Ee-da and refers to himself as Yu-da. For a while there it was Yo-da which of course had us in hysterics. Gen (my Mum) now has an 'n' rather than being 'Jeh', my brother Gus now has an 's' instead of being 'Guck' and my sister Charlie (who we call Chuck and Euey also called 'Guck') is now Ga-di. Mup is still Mup (my dad, Murray).
He is as clingy as hell at the moment (Euey, not Mup), which is cute and really irritating by the end of the day. He has also learnt what fear is. A couple of weeks ago he started running away from things shouting dead. He would also do things like push a teddy off the couch then say dead. I seriously thought I would have to stop him watching dodgy cartoons in the morning if he was learning to throw his teddies off cliffs. Then we figured out it was not dead but dared, meaning scared. Around the same time he started waking up in the middle of the night crying out for Dadda, asking for cuddles and saying dared. We had a couple of really crap weeks of broken nights before Will hit on a solution. Euey still takes a bottle of water to bed with him so Will always changes his nappy before we go to bed and he kind of wakes up while its happening. Will started talking to him about trains, butterflies, flying in rockets and whatever else he’s in love with at the time. Worked wonders. He’s had happy dreams ever since.

Aoife is amazing too. She giggles at so much these days and even anticipates things that will be funny. If you tickle her once, when you go in for the second tickle she starts laughing before you even touch her. At least 2 or 3 times a day she cacks herself at something Euey does. Her Mohawk has finally fallen over but it is so much longer than the rest of her hair that it either looks like a cocky’s crest or a comb over. Photos will follow. She's eating mush now and loves it so much that I have to make sure I give her milk first, or she'd just stuff herself full of food and not drink anything. She's also really enjoying toys these days. Everything in the mouth of course, it's the best way to explore. She can sit up for a few seconds (about 10) and loves being in her chair-table (North Americans call this thing a play centre but as of yet there seemsto be a lack of a commonly understood term here. It is a material seat set in the middle of a round table. The seat turns around by leg power and there are toys all around the table.)

Will is gearing up the business. He's employed a driver for two days, with a view to getting him up to 5 days. He's also bought a new truck and looks like he might be getting another couple of delivery areas. It's all go.

I've got about a month to go before I have to let go of my baby and my little man and head into the mad bad world of study. I really don't want to let go of the bubbas. I'm missing them already even though they drive me crazy by the end of the week. On the up side Denise (Euey's childcare Mum) has been hassling me to bring Aoife in early 'cause she wants her so much, so at least I know she'll be in loving arms while she's away from me. I feel a post brewing on Thoughts and Wonderings about the merits and heart aches of childcare and the suprise of how much I hate having to use it. I hate losing my babies. I would love to be a stay at home Mum til they go to school.

But that's for another day cause I've used all my awakeness and must go to bed.
It's good to be back.

Update

Hello. Euey is in childcare and Aoife is asleep in her bag at my feet. I very cleverly came to Mum's when she was due a nap so I could do a bit of 'surfing'! So, I will update you all briefly because everything is changing so fast I'm afraid I'll forget all the stories before we get our net up and running again. I'm afraid there'll be no pics this time though.

Aoife first.
She now grabs toys and pulls them to her mouth. She eats real food (if you call fruit-mush 'real food)' and will grab the spoon if you're not careful. She laughs when tickled and in anticipation of tickling and at anything that suprises her. She still goos and gahs a mile a minute and I'm sure she'll be speaking in a few weeks! :) I finally got her to drink from a bottle after a month of topping her up with formula by spoon cause my milk supply couldn't keep up with her. We have yet to land both kids on the grandparents but will post how that goes when we do it. What else? We don't wrap her anymore, she's moved into Euey's Elmo sleeping bag, and thanks to Spanna's advice I tuck it into the bottom of the cot to keep her little action legs still. She's got the Simson 'busy legs' syndrome poor thing.

Euey.
Today when I dropped him off at childcare he went straight to the door of the 'big' room (2-5s) which he's been visiting a lot lately in preparation for going up. When I said 'wrong way Euey' he looked so sad I asked him if he wanted to go in the 'big' room. 'YES!' was the emphatic answer. So Neese (Denise) took him next door and he was so excited he hardly remembered to say goodbye. I left feeling all proud of how big he was but of course a little 'damn he's growing up too fast' sad as well. However, a couple of hours later I got a call from Neese asking if she could give him more milk than I sent with him cause he was distraught. Apparently about an hour after he got there he looked up from his truck, couldn't see Neese and burst into tears ... 'Neese ... ka-dools ... Neese ... ka-dools'. Oh yeah, did I mention he learnt how to say 'cuddles?' She's such a softy, when they brought him in to her she cried at him crying! So I guess he's not that big after all!
There are other great words he's learnt ... log-oo (love you) is a favourite, ka-dools is damn cute and completely irrisitible - it gets him anything he wants and it took him about 5 mins to work that out. He now says ka-dools to avoid nappy change and to get picked up so he can look at something, but sometimes he just wants a cuddle and then he melts everyone around him.
He is mad keen on the Simpsons. It's on at 6 every night and as soon as he hears the music he stops everything else, yells 'Sisons' and jumps on the couch. A couple of nights ago we put him to bed at the usual time (7:30) then had the tv on in the background while we did other things. Neither of us were watching it, so when The Simpsons came on we didn't really notice until we heard ... patter patter patter ... Sisons!' There at the door was Euey in his jarmies with his bottle of water, his lizard (yes he takes a lizard to bed these days) and a huge grin. He had no idea he was doing anything wrong cause he is always allowed to watch The Simpsons. We let him watch 'til the first ad break then told him it was finished and took him back to bed. Little white lies are okay sometimes aren't they?

No access

Hi Everyone. We have been having internet trouble and are now changing providers. There will be a 3 week downtime where we have no net, so I'll post updates when we get back online. We're all okay but very busy. Aoife is huge and has a great sense of humour and Euey is starting to say small sentences.