Mothers' Day and other things

Whoops somehow the weekend got away from me without getting a blog post published.

B has started a new job today with very long hours so we actually spent the weekend enjoying our last days tooling around as a family of four who do EVERYTHING together.  I'm going to seriously miss having him around, and not only for the extra set of hands with the girls.  Just because it's nice, really nice, all being together most of the time.

He's had essentially ten months off, with only the odd job here and there.  We're so lucky that we're able to afford that kind of break, but it's going to be a shock to all our systems now he's back working six days a week.  At least it's not FIFO.  Thank god it's not FIFO.  We've done our time there I think.  I hope.

Anyway!  Boring!

Speaking of boring, here's another photo of the mountain.  Or, a photo of cloud covering the mountain.

And while we're doing boring repetitive photos on this blog, here's a photo of the cows.  Oh and apparently they're girls.  But they keep mounting each other which makes me really uncomfortable.

Yesterday we went out for an amazing brunch with B's family to celebrate mothers' day.  The food was delicious, although J and A did their best to ensure we only got to eat it once it had gone cold.  It was so good it didn't even matter.

We also went out into the orchard and picked what is definitely the last of the last of the apples.  I actually had to buy some today.  Quelle horreur.

But look at our photogenic spotty apples bobbing in the sink!

For the "things that aren't interesting to anyone but me" file:

We've had a minor breakthrough on the subject of J's eating.  She is so fussy - worse than me, if that's possible.  It's actually lucky for her that I am also terribly fussy because at least I'm sympathetic to her.  Hey, it's no fun being fussy.  We don't do it for the laughs.

But it's exhausting trying to come up with dinners for us, dinners for her, and then exasperatedly making Marmite toast for the 50th night in a row when she won't eat what I've prepared.  Now that A is on solids too, that is a LOT of meals to make every day.

So about a week or so ago, we said: enough.  J eats whatever we eat.  So now, we cook our dinner and set aside a portion for her which she then has the following night.  This probably still sounds needlessly complicated but she has dinner at 5pm and there's no way I'm organised enough or interested in eating at 5pm enough for us all to eat together.  Maybe in a year or two we will all sit down together but for now this is what works.  And she's eating!  She's trying different things!  There's still plenty of stuff she doesn't like - pasta and potatoes to name two (a child of mine who doesn't like pasta, I don't even know what to say about that), but the main breakthrough for us has been that she's willing to try things.  There's no pressure to finish everything, but she has to at least try everything.  And it's working!

So many people suggested we do this when I have complained about her fussiness and now I feel silly for taking so long to do it.

Now if I could just get A off the damn purees and formula life would be a breeze!

Another one for the "uninteresting baby news file" is that we've got rid of A's dummy... sort of.

Last week her sleep was so diabolically bad, and B was due to start this job today, and I started panicking about how he - and I - would cope so sleep deprived.  So I said to him - "Three nights.  Let's give it three full nights and days just to see.  It can't get worse.  If nothing improves we give it back to her."  He cautiously said ok, so we threw the dummies -ok, not in the bin, but in the drawer, and steeled ourselves.

That was four days ago and we no longer put her to bed with a dummy.  She still cries briefly getting to sleep, will that ever end??, but she has been managing a solid block every night until 3am or later, when she can't drop back off without the dummy.  She hasn't slept that long since she was three months old.  So now when she wakes in the early hours I just give her the damn dummy so we can get those extra few hours.

I'm glad we did it, but as with everything to do with A, nothing is a magical quick fix.  And she has taught me over and over again that nothing is permanent so I'll just enjoy these good sleeps for as long as they last and always be aware that things will probably change again.

She is most certainly going through a much happier phase at the moment though.  Far more inclined to smiles and laughter than she's ever been before.  She absolutely adores J, who I think is just now realising the benefits of her adoring captive audience.  Gosh they are sweet together.

I have a post bouncing around in my head about what it's been like transitioning from one to two kids - suffice it to say, nothing at all how I'd expected.  If I can ever manage to string my million thoughts on the subject into a coherent post, stay tuned for that.

Meanwhile here is my fruit bowl, and the first camellia to open.