April 2013

No longer content to lie in the bouncinette - he strains forward
until he manages to get in a sitting position.

Enjoying the swing

Caleb started sitting unsupported and eating solids at the beginning of this month, and now as the month closes he has started to get up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth. Sometime in the month he worked out how to roll from his tummy to his back (by sticking his bottom up in the air), and so now has enough arsenal of movement to get around the floor a bit. He was very keen to start eating (though only 4 1/2 months! Must be a boy thing?), sitting at the table screaming at us while we ate until we gave him food, so is now having solids at dinner time with us. He gets very messy. The floor gets very messy. And the table/highchair gets very messy. But he is very fun to watch eating - he gets quite frenzied about getting the spoon/food in his mouth!

Still keep pillows around him for the eventual tipping over

The girls busy colouring

Sarah has had a sudden jump in independence in the last couple of weeks. She can now dress herself (even if some things go on backwards). She's stopped wetting her knickers all the time, and can change them herself when needed. And she can put her straps on in her car seat. At the beginning of the month these were all "I can't!"s whenever we prompted her to try, and at some point she decided to try and succeeded! It makes life that little bit easier for me. Sarah has been inseparable from a novelty toothbrush Little Grandma (my mum) sent over - it goes everywhere with her. Until it was lost at playgroup this week. After one day without it we went and found a replacement at the shops (thankfully we found one exactly the same!)

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The girls now share a 'booster seat' at meal times. They'll often put their arms around each
other for a hug - it's very cute :)

Abigail has started drawing pictures. She used to just colour and scribble or try drawing letters, but now I find pictures she's drawn. I love finding them and then getting her to tell me about them.

And she has started using more colours than just brown (which was her favourite colour for a while - everything was coloured brown!). Abigail is now at the stage where she will listen to longer stories, and so Jonathan has been reading her a shortened version of Heidi - a chapter each day when he gets home from work - which she has seemed to really enjoy.

Abigail's first drawing (I thought Jon must have done it!) - on the far left is Cinderella
and the smaller people are children Cinderellas

Jon and I have started learning some card games this month. So far we have learnt to play Gin Rummy, Cribbage and Canasta. Gin Rummy is probably the most played so far. Canasta would be better with 3 or 4 players. A lot of our evenings have been spent playing cards together. Now we just have to build up our board game stash, and we'll have plenty of game options for when family and friends come over. We have found playing games with people is a good way to get conversations happening and relationships growing, and I am looking forward to having games nights with the kids as they grow older (I tried Snakes and Ladders with the girls this week but they're not grasping the concept yet).

Playing cards like mummy and daddy

Jonathan has been quite busy at work this month; his plate is kept full. And he has a couple of big gigs over the next two weekends, so a busy time for him at the moment. 

I had a growing need to clean my blinds this month. It's been one of those jobs that I haven't done because venetian blinds are such a pain to clean. And then I found out that you can detach them from the window, take them outside on the trampoline and scrub and hose them down. Once I had the blinds clean, the windows and frames had to be done too. My windows and blinds are now so clean looking it gives me much joy :) I also finally got out to Wynumm last Saturday for a second-hand shopping spree (Caleb accompanied me). 

God has been teaching me a lot this month. Big lessons. I've learnt that I am not the only mother who struggles. And that experiencing the doldrums isn't the same as depression. And that this time of Jon and my life is intense - we have 3 young children close together. These realisations seem simple and fairly obvious but they have been hugely freeing for me. It has been incredible - this month has been full of conversations with family and friends, links shared on Facebook, and articles in my blog feed about these things.

For the days when the doldrums strike (my older sister, Johanna, helped me see the difference between discouragement and depression - that terminology clarification was immensely helpful), I knew I had to have a plan for getting out of them and printed myself out a plan of action for such times. Then a week later, my friend Ruth posted a link to this article, which summed up what I had learnt in a very helpful way. 

For the days that felt pointless and lacking in purpose, I knew I needed to look at the bigger picture of raising my children and to not get stuck in the day to day stuff - I am raising children, not just keeping house. There is always character to work on, skills to teach, education to impart, and relationships to build. I felt the need to plot out some of these bigger goals - and then the next MOPS session happened to be on planning the 'destination' for our families and setting long-term family goals.

For the days that are trying with their constant barrage of needs, noise, messes and demands (......children), I  need to relax and enjoy (and forget my to-do list). This is a season that will be over before I know it, and I don't want to miss the joys and opportunities that it holds. I want to enjoy my children now. I have suddenly come across so many articles about doing just that and how to do it better. 

I started the month asking God why He kept sending me hard days (all the while knowing that He'd keep sending them until I learnt to deal with them in a godly way). I come to the end of the month feeling very enriched and better armed. That's not to say I'm not going to fail at times, but I do hope that in the days ahead I will go from 'strength to strength', and when that Day comes He will say to me, "Well done, good and faithful servant".

March 2013

The past month saw us celebrate my birthday, camp at Mt Tamborine, reach our 100th geocache the day before our 1 year geocaching anniversary, and spend Easter up in Bundy.

Tent up, now for lunch

As is his custom, Jon took holiday leave on my birthday, and as it fell on a Friday this year we made a long weekend of it and went camping at Mt Tamborine. It was a bit of a wet weekend, but it was dry for when we put the tent up (well, there was the lightest of rain) and when we took it down. We enjoyed the sound of rain on the tent at night. I took frozen meals with us for the weekend so I barely had any cooking to do. We explored Gallery Walk (Jon bought me a German cuckoo clock - something I've been wanting; and some specialty fudge), visited the Botanic Gardens briefly for lunch (there was a cache there), went to the art and craft market, and did some geocaching. We didn't do any of the bush walks - it was too wet and there was plenty of other things to do.... and the girls are still not over our Bunya Mountain bush marathon :) They enjoyed jumping on their air mattress and playing frisbee with daddy. Caleb enjoyed hanging in his jolly jumper :)

Swinging in between rain showers

Getting rained on at the markets

Mummy thought Abigail might enjoy a pony ride - I think the petting farm would have been enjoyed more...

A couple of days after my birthday is when we found our first geocache a year ago, and Jonathan was keen to make it to 100 finds before then. Well, a couple of days out we still had 9 caches to find, but we did it - we found our 101st cache on the anniversary! I think he has hopes we'll find another 100 this year.....

Jon signing our 101st cache's log

For the Easter long weekend we went up to Bundaberg to see my Grandma. I was keen to travel during the kids' sleeping times as much as possible so we left at 5am on the Friday morning and came back home Sunday night after dinner. It certainly helped as far as travelling with children goes, but Jon and I were somewhat tired. However, our visits with Grandma are always relaxing (for me anyway!). The girls had a blast with the new array of toys for them to play with, and Jon and I enjoyed a good game of Cluedo with Grandma one evening.

Breakfast at Curra

Running around Grandma's yard

Watching Jon and the girls play

We had a young man over for dinner one night earlier in the month - he and his dad helped Jon with the audio at Philip Island and has just started uni near us. For the week after, Abigail's toys were named Amos (sorry uncles - Jachin, Andrew, Jono, and Philip - you were displaced for a while there). We've also been up to Caloundra to visit (Great) Grandma Randall, visited (Great) Grandma Sheehy, and had Uncle Jono over one night for dinner.

Caleb is rolling and can sit unsupported for short periods now. He enjoys playing with toys, sitting in the high chair, and watching the girls playing - won't be long before he's up chasing after them!

Sarah lost a fingernail earlier in the month after getting her finger shut in a door. The nail isn't getting much chance to grow back because it's on one of her sucking fingers and she keeps sucking it off!

Abigail has informed Sarah that her name is not Abby. She has taken to Richard Scarry books after Jon found some at the library, so lots of his stories have been read (over and over).

And that roughly covers our happenings for the month of March.