Life since July

It's been almost a month since I started writing this post so I'd better get it finished before the end of the year races up to meet me.

Brace yourself for a massive news dump...

Let's divide this into categories, and we'll start with the youngest member of the family.

A - now three years old, dammit, and don't you forget it.  Anytime she hears the number three she exclaims, "That's how many I'm are!"

I remember that with J the jump from two to three felt big, and I've noticed it again this time.  She's using the toilet full time (still in nappies at night), pedals her big girl bike, tells me, "Leave now!" when I drop her off to kindy, and generally believes herself to be in charge of the household.  When I tell her, "You are not the boss here," she puts her pudgy hands on her hips and retorts, "Yes, I, are!"

I'm enjoying her more than ever.  If you can't tell from the above exchange she's bossy and funny and independent.  She adores her big sister and one of her favourite things to do is to list off everyone she loves, ticking them off on her fingers: "I love myself, and Daddy, and Mummy, and J, and Poppa, and Nan, and Grandpa, and..." The list is long and I think how lucky she is to have so many people to count.

Giving the Japanese garden exhibit at Pukekura Park a going over

Next up let's discuss J, my sweet and enquiring girl whose brain has gone berserk these last few months.  Boy is that girl ready for school.  All day long she peppers me with questions and facts.   "Do rubbish truck drivers enjoy collecting rubbish?  How high is the sky?  Did you know, pelicans are water birds.  What happens when we die?  How do plants make flowers?  What is air made of?  Does Father Christmas go to South Africa?  Did you know, the wind is caused when air heats or cools." And on, and on, and on ALL DAY.

Earlier this year she was very excited for school, but I didn't think she was actually intellectually ready.  Now, however, OH YES SHE IS READY.  That brain is so thirsty for knowledge it's exhausting.

The school has a fantastic transition program where the new entrants attend a program for an hour each week to get to know the school, their teachers, and their classmates, in the term before they start school.  We started attending the transition program a few weeks ago, although she won't be starting until late February next year (after her fifth birthday).  She adores her school visits and asks me every day when it's time to go back.  They've been handing out readers and she earnestly sits on the couch at home, pointing at the words with her finger as she was shown as she "reads".  Of course, what's actually happening that she's got the book memorised, but as an avid reader myself it's lovely to see this happy introduction to the world of reading.

She also loves to sit down with a sheet of paper and a pencil and draw any letters she knows the shape of, and then asks me what they are.  So when I say she's ready for school, the kid is ready.  Just three months to wait...

She's a prolific and (to my highly biased eye) quite talented artist.  She's able to add small numbers together, loves witches - her favourite character in Sleeping Beauty is Maleficent, would happily spend all day outside pottering around watering plants, picking flowers or walking through the paddocks.  She - in fact both girls - love to bake and I can't start even the smallest task in the kitchen without both of them dragging up a stool each to help.  It's worthwhile remembering that I dreamt of this stuff when they were babies and I was exhausted and a bit miserable.

Let's talk garden.  Since the weather has finally warmed up of course everything has sprung into life, including the weeds.

We've planted out a few veggies but after being super organised very early in the piece and raising some seeds, I kind of took my eye off the ball and now it's almost summer with not much actually in the ground. 

At the moment we've got onions and leeks left over from winter, beetroot, beans, peas, rainbow chard, broccoli, a couple of tiny tomato plants, and that's it.  Oh and the raspberry, which is covered in tiny green fruit and I'm beside myself at the thought of the bounty in a month or two.

Yes that is a lamb standing on its mother. This ewe is the most patient attentive mother you've ever seen.

This is Emily, my orphan lamb from last year.  In case you can't tell from that look, we love each other very much.

We've had numerous calves, including several fostered onto existing mothers which if I'm honest was a massive pain in the ass.

...But they are very cute so sign me up again for next year.

Gosh this is a very long ago photo of the vegetable garden. It's nowhere near this neat at the moment.

Another very exciting thing that happened (sort of) recently is my sister, who we'll call Auntie A, came to visit.  This was back in September and it feels so long ago now I can't believe it was only a couple of months.

She was only here for four days and the girls managed to both come down with conjunctivitis right in time for her visit, but we had a FAB.U.LOUS time, even with the kids in tow.  I'm not ashamed to admit we started drinking mid-morning although in hindsight maybe it wasn't the best idea because now I can hardly remember anything from our time together.

I do remember fun though!

And she was suitably appreciative of B's cooking

We managed one leisurely breakfast at the Federal Store

And of course I took her to Back Beach during a flying tour around New Plymouth where I permitted her to take photos out the window of a moving vehicle.

More exciting developments in my life recently include leaving the house!  In heels sometimes!  And make up!  As the girls get older it seems so much easier to leave them and actually have a bit of a social life.

It's no secret that I love being at home, and I really love my alone time.  But it's been nice to mix it up with some time out and about amongst grown ups too.

In the past month or two I've been to the races twice, and out to dinner three times, I think?  I even put a dress on for the races!  Novel.  As I said, it's been nice to re-enter the adult world, to have a reason to put on make up and curate an outfit.  Now I just need to work on my conversational skills so I have something to talk about besides my kids.

Is it worse to talk about your kids or your pets I wonder?

Last item on the agenda, and well done for making it this far if you're still with me, is knitting!  Yay!  Everyone's favourite topic!

I'm still click clacking away, and really enjoying myself.  I've even started selling some small items to a local baby shop. I'm not going to make my fortune but it's a nice way to have my hobby pay for itself.

At the moment they have two of my rompers available, you can find them here and here, NZ residents only, sorry!  I'm working on some more colours as we speak.

Since July I've made a sweater for myself, a dress for J, a couple of dolls' baskets for the girls, a dolls' sweater (and released the pattern!), a rainbow sweater for Auntie A, and another sweater for myself.  Whew!

Currently on my needles is another, ahem, sweater for myself, and as mentioned above more baby rompers for the shop.

One of the sweaters I made for myself. Terrible photo and I am actually happy with it, don't let the facial expression fool you!

Ok!  I think we're all caught up.

Next post will probably be following Christmas which, to be a total cliche, I can't believe is less than a month away.

Ok A is hassling me nonstop for some lunch so I'd really better go.  Hope you are well and looking forward to the end of the year and all that that entails. 

I'll leave you with this sentiment on that note:

Right on cue

These photos speak for themselves...

 

Back to normal

After having a very relaxing time over Christmas and New Year, I woke up last week with a steely glint in my eye and a fire in my belly.  I washed and vacuumed and mowed.  I packed away the Christmas decorations.  I ruthlessly culled my wardrobe of clothes I no longer wear or which no longer fit (thanks The Bod!).  I weeded all the garden beds.  It felt great to be so productive and to get the place in shape after taking a holiday from (most) responsibilities for a couple of weeks.



Christmas feels like months ago already.  We spent the morning at my sister-in-law's place for an amazing brunch, then to B's dad's in the afternoon for a swim and a barbeque.  We brought the girls home for their bedtime and then B went back for a few beers with his brother who was over from Australia.

Between Christmas and New Year we went up to the bach a couple of times.  It's only an hour's drive away which makes it easy to come and go.  B's mum babysat the girls so we could go to the bach for New Year's Eve unfettered.  We even made it to 2am!  I can't remember the last time I stayed up that late, ever.  We were up early on new year's day to get back home and it's safe to say I wasn't feeling my best.  The first day of the year was a struggle to say the least, especially with two little girls who weren't going to let us out of their sight in case we snuck out on them again.



Speaking of New Year's, I can't decide if I'm a resolutions person or not.  Generally if I want to change something I wouldn't wait for the new year to do it.  That said, the good habits I picked up doing The Bod program have slipped a bit.  I'm drinking way too much coke, I'm eating a lot of pasta and fast food.  I'm still eating a good amount of vegetables, because at the moment the fastest food is that right outside my door.  However, the diet could use some improvement.  Some days, the only fluids I have are coffee, coke, and wine.  I know.



So!

We are tentatively planning to include Meat-Free Monday (or, any day) every week, and I'm aiming to drain my 750ml water bottle at least once a day.  My mum told that if you drink the majority of your water before lunch you won't be up all night going to the loo, so my aim is A Litre by Lunch.  Catchy!

Another resolution, if you want to call it that, is to attack my to-do list.  One thing that bullet journalling taught me last year is that I am quite happy to just keep writing the same tasks on my list every week without ever ticking them off.  But then I feel constantly irritated and can't relax looking at all the things that need doing.  So.  Just do the things.  Tick them off.  Move on.

The thing that will make the ticking off of the list easier is that, as I've mentioned about eleventy billion times already, A starts kindy this year.  Regular solid blocks of time, kid-free.  Obviously there'll be a touch of Real Housewives watching, but I'm really looking forward to some major time to get jobs done.

It's been seriously dry here for the last few weeks, not too hot thank goodness, but hardly any rain.  The paddocks are looks as dry as I've ever seen them.  The grass has almost stopped growing!  Well, not quite.  The lawns still need mowing twice a week.  Bring on winter I say.

We're still trying to address A's, and to a lesser extent, J's fussy eating.  Since B has been off work during December we've been having the occasional family dinner and I know I've said it before, but it really makes a difference to how the girls eat.  The other night we had burgers which I was fully expecting to be rejected, only for them both to dig in with enthusiasm.  Who knew!  It shows me how much I worry about their eating when they do eat without fuss and I feel so happy and relieved.  It's so good to make progress, however small.

As you may recall, A turned two in September and oh boy do we know about it.  J never really threw tantrums.  We never really had the terrible twos or the threenager with her.  Luckily, A is making up for everything that J spared us.  The fury inside that pudgy little body has to be seen to be believed.  The will of steel.  I'm a pretty stubborn person with a pretty strong will of my own and I am no match for this kid.  B and I have both been heard to say "Just give her what she wants!" to make the screaming stop.  Another one of those things I never thought I would do as a parent.  But hey.  You do what you gotta do.

One thing I want to note here is that it's now over a year since J commenced toilet training.  It's only now that she has returned to wearing undies fulltime.  It's taken a full year.  I don't know why.  We waited until she was ready.  She led the process, with our support.  I never made a big deal about anything, that I can think of.  And yet time and again she has insisted on wearing nappies, for months at a time.  She'd stay dry in her nappy all day, pulling it down to use the toilet, and yet would refuse to wear undies.  One of the very few times when we've seen her exert her will.

She turns four in February.  She's in undies now but I won't be at all surprised if we go back to nappies again.  I've tried to ask her why she prefers nappies but of course she can't articulate whatever it is.  She's nowhere near being dry at night.  I dunno.  Just one of those things I guess.

Well I'd better go tackle the lawns again before it (hopefully...) rains!  Hope you have all had a lovely Christmas and New Year and feeling positive for the year ahead.

A pre-Christmas vignette

It's a Christmastime vignette!  My star garland, Santa snowglobe, the ever-present sweet peas and a colander full of fresh greens waiting to be dealt with (also ever-present at this time of year).

First things first, we did it.  A's bed is now in J's room.  Lots of people had positive stories for me about what a game-changer it was for the sleep issues in their house.  So far, for us, it hasn't changed a lot.  She still refuses to sleep in there at night.  Poor J was so excited to share a room, she was so downcast when A refused.  I felt awful.  The good news is, I can now tell J that I or her dad will be sleeping in there if she wants us to.  It's much easier overall.

The other A-related news is that she is all of a sudden refusing to nap.  Like when J dropped her naps, it just suddenly happened one day.  And now she often won't have a nap unless she falls asleep in the car. 

I dreaded this day - the day naps were a thing of the past - but in actual fact it's great.  We've reached the point where naps are kind of a pain.  It's great now, not having to be home for naptime!  The day is ours.  Sure, it's a bit inconvenient when I've got invoices to prepare or pay, or phone calls to make, but mostly it's way better.  Another step into that next stage of life I was talking about.



In the category of making and baking, I've been doggedly doing rows of bloody Sauvie.  I finished the cardigan and skirt set for J's doll.

I've been wilting, chopping and freezing spinach.  I made Foxs Lane's cheesy garden bread the other day, I've picked bowlfuls of peas and strawberries (and J can eat them faster than I can pick them), I've made peach cobbler and shortbread.  There is a constant supply of fresh lettuce in the fridge and I'm checking the tomatoes and squashes daily.  Did I tell you I forgot to thin the squash plants and so we have twelve of them?  Get your squash here!

The weather has been totally whacko.  We had an awesome thunderstorm the other day with lots of fantastic rumbling thunder and black clouds.  It's also been hot and dry in between times so the downpour from the storm was very welcome.

If you squint you can just see the mountain through the rain

My dad came for a visit a couple of weeks ago.  It's a great time of year for visitors with all the Christmas stuff we were able to do - decorating our tree, watching the local Christmas Parade, the kindy's end-of-year disco...  The week flew by!  Poor Dad caught a cold which put a dampener on the end of the trip but otherwise everyone had a ball.

Ok, ready for your vegetable garden update? 

Here's a reminder of what it looked like four weeks ago:


And this is yesterday:


Everything just grows like crazy here right now.  I have to pick produce every single day to keep on top of it, and it's still not at its peak.  Needless to say I'm LOVING IT.

I may not post again before Christmas so I hope everyone has a nice safe, relaxing, peaceful, non-stressful time.  We'll be with B's various family members and then it's off to the bach for a few days.  Cannot wait!

See you in 2019, if not before.