Girls flying on with life

Monday 20th - exactly 8 months.   DD3 shows us she can clap and practises much of the day.   DD1 loses another tooth.   She doesn't have many left.   This one is to the left of her lower front left tooth.   Need to update the diagrams for my own records.   I think I'm deciding to just chuck out their half hearted baby books and just have a combined one that they can all leave home with copies of.    Much easier for me to fill in.

Friday 24th - DD3 works out how to get back down herself from pulling herself up on the furniture.   She also climbed a stair and then sat on the edge of it to clap, giving me a fright.   Before I could get to her, she calmly pulled herself up to climb to the next step.

That little mobile baby

DD3.   That little baby, the joy of my life, is crawling properly everywhere (after first making proper crawling 'steps' about 10 days ago) and climbing DD2's dining chair almost EVERY MOMENT she's awake, which, as she falls not infrequently or gets stuck as she can't sit herself down without falling, means life is rather hazardous here.   At least there are usually one of the others hovering near her to try to catch her if she falls.

She is such a happy thing.   Though woke 4 times last night and with my own sleep issues means I'm very grumpy today.

Went shopping with the kids (as DH's scooter was broken and needed to be taken to work and so we were right next to a huge shopping centre).   Horrendous.   Too many bright toys they have never seen and really want.   DH couldn't keep his eyes off a battery powered light sabre.  Told them not to ask for ANYTHING and they were good about asking, but they still spent 3 hours drooling and getting distracted.   I prefer that they don't know what they're missing.   Kids a bit excited, sitting, lying, rolling all over the floor.   Swinging on or climbing any pole or surface.   And even if any one is doing it 1'ce every 5 minutes, that means for me it's almost constant!   Everyone's shoes were hurting and so they all ended up barefoot.   Actually they pretty much began barefoot.   2 family toilet stops, which means about 20 minutes each time.   Breakfast stop - bananas.   Lunch of raisin bread in the car.

Groceries (got far more than the milk and oats I was intending to get from the small supermarket after our Chiro appointment early morning), leotards and sandals (for DD1 and myself) were all I was intending to get.   I was on the look out for cheap Age 3 shorts and Age 7 tops.

Took 3 shops to find DD1's sandals.  
I am pleased to discover that she is now in to the school shoes range and so she will now have:

1 pair sandals
1 pair sneakers
AND
1 pair school shoes,

as I just can't get over the hideousness of church dresses combined with sneakers, and the girls' boots worn last winter were a terrible option.   DS1's boot were horrid as well, and so I will stear clear of boots in the future.   Everyone else managed to get fitted out with shoes from my boxes of hand-me-downs.   My sandals broke last week, and my closed shoes are wearing through underneath, but I'll see how many more months I canget out of them.   I hate shoe shopping.

No leotards in the right sizes in black.

Got unnecessary biscuits and chocolate as...
They were on special
I was hungry
and frustrated
and sad
and mad

So, I am going to try a self imposed shopping ban (as in not physically go to the shops) until after Easter.   Woohooo.   Will buy groceries online.

DD1 tooth

DD1's top left, next to front, tooth fell out.   Meant I had to wait up last night to check Wiggles could come as DD1 was insistent about waiting up to see the tooth mouse.   I was so tired.   Eventually I went in to chat to DS1 who was still awake and surreptitiously replaced the forlorn tooth with 5 coins totalling 80c in the jar that was completely enclosed in an embrace of ferocious love by DD1.

Shirley Hughes Nursery Collection

Another delightful book.

The Nursery Collection by Shirley Hughes.   A Compilation of 5 of her books:

• Bathwater's Hot
• When We Went to the Park
• Colours
• All Shapes and Sizes
• Noisy

The pictures are exquisite.   I don't know if I'd ever get tired of Shirley's drawings.   They are SO rich and real.   Real life, but portrayed in a way that you see the memories contained within, not the messes and tiredness ............so much.  

If I was beginning my toddler library again.   Which I'm not.   Cause I REALLY need to declutter.   Though I could declutter enough to then have space to buy this book.   Mmmm it is a serious thought.   Because it is a LOVELY book.   It has rich vocabulary used in context with lovely drawings.   Sort of a 'Real Book' according to Charlotte Mason followers.

Now, it's only available second hand through bookshops I usually use.   Betterworld books and Abe books in this case, though 3 others I've never used have it new.   I would love to buy this book as a 'new baby' gift for the toddlers already in the family.   Do you think it'd be that bad to buy second hand?   I have begun to give second hand books that I've scoured and researched to find, and that we've loved.   I would love a good second hand book given to me now, but I'm not sure how offended I would have been in previous years.

It was engaging for my toddler through to 6 year old.   Actually I think all Shirley's books have been.   We've been wading through a heap for months now.   I reserved EVERY SINGLE ONE from my local library system and have been reading them as they slowly dribble in.

Also, as an added bonus.   To me at least.   Is that it has text that my 5 and 6 year old could decipher when I bugged them to.   So, a 'real reader' too.   This IS a gem.

Now I hope you're not disappointed when you do read it.

We also read the Mother and Child Treasury selected by Shirley Hughes today, but that did not get me that excited.   There were some lovely stories and poems, but many of them are NOT written by Shirley.   It does look like she did most if not all of the pictures though.   Actually looking at the book it says right on the cover Illustrated by Clara Vulliamy.   That's weird.   I must look up other books of Clara's then, as those illustrations.   [Kisses the air].   They are superb.   I looked Clara up and she's Shirley's DAUGHTER!

I smiled and REALLY enjoyed "Monday's Child is Red and Spotty".   A modern version of "Monday's child is fair of face..........

The very last poem and accompanying images I loved.   The 30 year old looked JUST like me.   The kids know I am 30 and DD1 remarked, "there's you!"   It's not a bad looking lady.   :(   At the washing line in a fairly fierce looking gale, holding a baby, toddler at her feet, pre-school child running past, frazzled hair.   No actually my hair is never out, to look frazzled.   Mum uniform dictates hair tied up and back as lcose to the head as possible with nothing sticking out that a baby could yank and slobber all over.

We enjoyed the Milly Molly Mandy chapter.   In colour.   We're in the midst of a 4 book compilation of Molly-Molly-Mandy.  

I really liked 'The Sea-baby'.   A slightly weird, slightly scary, very sweet, VERY UNIQUE story about a girl who finds a baby in a lost and forgotten village under the sea.   The baby is JUST like our baby.

Many of the stories one or other of the children connected with and the poems were a mixture of things I liked, didn't like, didn't get.   But then, I'm only just learning to like poetry.

So, while there were bits of it I liked, bits I REALLY liked, I wouldn't buy it when my shelves are bursting, overflowing to the floor and when so many of her other books we love.

Just looked though, and it's second hand at Abe books for $6.70 something.   Enticing...............   Must. Be. Good.

I did enjoy The Shirley Hughes Collection as well.   Enjoyed the Cinderella story version.   However, not ALL the stories I would want to reread that often and so I'm happy getting it from the library every 3-5 years or so.

Have to make dinner.   Got to get kids to bed early.   Book club ladies are coming.   WE've just read Pride and Prejudice.   Our fourth book on the list of fiction classics compiled by Susan Wise Bauer.   We even discuss it all properly using her long list of questions and options.   This time I even made chapter notes.   Almost to the end.

Why do we give them beds again?

Ok, so they just wanted mattresses on the floor.   So last week I took the cot out of their bedroom.   No one actually uses it, it just houses DH and my bedding during the day, when we lift our mattresses up off the floor.

But why do they actually want separate mattresses again?    These are 3 pictures taken in the last 4 nights.


We do make them stay on one mattress each while they go to sleep, but who wants to police them AS they sleep.  

There is a rotation system for choosing your mattress.   In age order you get to choose, in order.   So one night you get the last 'choice', the next night you choose third, the next night you choose second and the 4th night you get to choose first.   There is a heirarchy of mattresses, but as their placement as well as their consistency play a part in the extent to which they are covetted, I have not bothered to get my head around it.  

As long as there are 4 bodies on 4 different mattresses without anyones hands, feet, eyes or thoughts bugging anyone else on their own mattress, I don't care.  

I put the fan on timer, the CD player on and sign off parenting for the day.

Well except for the baby.

She has a timeline all of her own, which last night was no sleep and then this afternoon consisted of 5 hours straight.   Still, I love feeling her soft, smooth, warm little body against mine and so I don't apply the rule of 1 body per mattress to her just yet..................just yet.

In fact, not even separate mattresses.   Checking on them a couple of hours ago, I see that once again this one doesn't even bother with the mattress, except to use it as a blanket.

2012 - DS1

DS1 keeps pestering me to teach him to write letters.   So far he's taught himself quite a few.   We have begun All About Reading Pre-Level 1.   He loves Zigby the Zebra and will answer Zigby even when I'm struggling to get him to answer me.   He struggles with speech and can be difficult to get to answer a question.   The program has a lovely pre-organised craft, LOVELY book to read and some other fun activities to do for each letter of the alphabet.   They go through the capitals A-Z and then the lowercase a-z.   I am happy with this, as I find DD2 keeps stumbling as she doesn't seem to know her captials very well (although her reading otherwise is coming along very nicely) and was not specifically taught.

Once we reach the lowercase letters, then I am going to add >Catholic ABC's to the mix, for all the children to participate in.   It is a lovely hands-on preschool CATHOLIC program.









I think I'll add all our plans to this post at some point, just not now.

I do love the A Year with God book from CHC and we will gradually use bits and pieces of it for years to come I envisage.

I would love to do an Alphabet of Catholic Saints.   I bought the little wooden doll bodies a couple of years ago, but have yet to get around to painting even 1!   Our next letter is G.   Maybe I should start with St. George.   I'm trying to direct DS1 towards knights rather than the pirates he's been trying to act like.   He will be getting a little Schleich knight and knight dress up set for his 4th birthday in April.

babysitter who then got new specs

I have a cold, the baby has a cold and various other kids are in various stages of having colds.   I managed to catch 3 naps between 12am and 4am last night.   The baby woke for good before 6am.   After putting on a load of washing and changing her nappy, DD2 appeared.   WOOHOO!!! A 5 year old babysitter.   Good enough for me.

I gave her her instructions and fled back to bed.   DH then wonderfully got the kids breakfast, plonked them down in front of a movie and I managed to sleep until 9am.   DH said DD2 had done an amazing and patient job with a fairly grumpy DD3.   DD2’s interest in DD3 has resurrected slightly after being allowed to carry her about 3m to me last week.

That same 5 year old was a star today, while everyone else, even DD1 played up and bugged me no end.

This good 5-year old got to trade in her sticky-taped up glasses (her old pair, (reverted to when her bi-focals broke at the beginning of the month) broken only 2 days ago and I knew the new ones were due this week) for a new fandangled new pair (slightly large.   I reasoned that it gave her larger vision and might last longer) and a free pair of bifocal sunglasses.   She is so chuffed with not seeing double of everything.  

Check that smile!  

She looked around the spectacles shop and kept saying, “I see only 1 of that, I see only 1 of that and that”.   She then looked up at their logo and said, “Except for that, I see two of that.”   Stood up and skipped out the door with what could only be described as 5 year old abandon.   She is so proud of having sunglasses.   And sunglasses where she can see only one of everything!

No wonder she still gets her shoes on the wrong feet.   How do you tell someone to put their left shoe on their left foot, when they are looking at 4 feet?