The toddler's baby.

Ryan loves his teddy, Roger. He is quite obsessed with him at the moment. Started about 3 weeks ago. Roger had to be taken everywhere, given super tight cuddles and is really treated as his baby.

Roger has an incontinence problem, so is normally seen wearing a nappy. He is sometimes dressed in a onesie. He is put in the rocker. He is put on his tummy for tummy time. He requires to be wrapped before bed, sometimes he needs a longer sleep than Ryan, so we must creep out of the room, so as not to wake him. Roger likes a drink of pretend milk out of a bottle.

I love that Ryan has this imaginative play. Mark was not big on it. He preferred to push a car around. Ryan is not a "player", he likes to run around, and throw/kick balls. He is also VERY big on playing Daddy to this bear of his. I'll upload a video in another post (from my phone) of this morning play... very cute.

Tuesday Rants.

I feel a rant coming on.

#1. Motorbike insurance.
In NSW you need "Compulsory Third Party" (CTP) insurance, also known as a Green Slip. This is to cover injury in an accident. In Victoria this is a general insurance called Transport Accident Commission *TAC* and it is a part of the cars registration. In NSW, they have privatised the CTP part, so you need to shop around for it as well as your comprehensive insurance. That is the back story!
Jamie rides a motorbike to save money on petrol for going to work. It was up for renewal this week. The Registration costs $111 for the year, CTP is $421 and full insurance is $374. We have to do this for 3 vehicles every year. Jamie shopped around for his CTP, found a better price (our previous company wanted $50 more), but he was informed that the CTP will NOT cover at fault accidents for his own injury (I'm pretty sure that is what he said). So in the very unlikely event that Jamie would cause an accident on his motorbike....

Just read the fine print. Jamie got me in a tizz for nothing. Most of the greenslips are a "no fault" argh.

Coping with a 20 month old.

I think I'm having trouble with the gorgeous Ryan. I have just admitted in writing here that Ryan is hyperactive, aggressive and destructive. Its completely true as well.
It's not all the time. Most of the time he's affectionate and sweet (always hyperactive though). But its the aggression that is worrying me.

Reading what Courtney said in the link above, and I shall quote:

In considering Pudge's behaviors, we could definitely classify most under two categories:
1. Behaviors that occur because she doesn't have the communicative skills to appropriately express herself (i.e. slapping an adult across the bottom or jabbing a peer in the chest to announce her arrival instead of using her voice to do it.)
2. Behaviors that occur because she is sensory seeking. (i.e. emptying toy boxes and laundry baskets and any drawer in the whole blessed house she can reach, tackling her brother, body slamming the shih tzu, etc.)

Pudge is an almost 3 year old girl with Down Syndrome, so her challenges are different. That being said, Ryan is still non verbal, he grabs me by my jeans and pulls or pushes me until I'm where he wants me to be, I know there is a voice in there, just want him to say "come here Mummy". The sensory seeking part is very very true (just wish I knew what it meant), he opens everything, pulls out stuff, goes through any open door, escapes at every opportunity. Ryan is also similar to Pudge in that he has a high pain tolerance. Give him a needle, he'll give you a dirty look. Fall over and get an egg on your head, rub it better and just a little cry. Smacks on the hand are greeted with amusement "why the heck did you do that?"


But onto the aggression. Mark is rough with him. Mark is very rough with him. They "play" constantly, in a throw you around, pretend to hit, trip you over, yell in your face. Mark never (well hardly ever) uses real words when around Ryan, its all "arrrrhhhhhh" and stupid laughing. Whenever Ryan starts to cry because Mark has taken it too far, "I was just trying to make him laugh" Who freaking cares about him laughing. Its teaching a wrong behaviour. Ryan is learning that aggression is ok, because Mark does it. Ryan will then choose his target - Ben. But Mark (sort of) knows when to stop, Ryan is still very young, and doesn't yet possess the skills to say, oh this might hurt Ben.

I seem to be stuck on a record player saying "time to calm down Mark", "stop screaming Mark", "that's enough Mark". What if my younger boys only remember me being angry with Mark?

The hyperactivity is crazy. He runs from the minute he wakes up. If he sits down, he will want a blanket on his knees (its cold here at the moment and we don't use our heater, we put blankies on our laps). Instantly the blanket is pulled up, he is standing up again, spins in a circle, sits down and does it all over again. This can happen 10 times in the space of one minute. The only relief Ryan gets is when he is in his high chair, bed or car. I wish sometimes he would just relax, but he doesn't seem to be able to. I take him outside to run around and kick the ball, but I never do it for long enough, so then there is a tantrum.


At least he still sleeps fantastically. 7:30pm until 7ish. Then a 2-4 hour nap in the day time. PHEW. But last night he woke at 12:30 and was awake until around 2:30am... strange.

Is it because of this challenging behaviour that I'm almost relieved to be going back to work? I feel a bit of a failure as a parent at the moment, I know I'm not. But the lack of talking is really getting me down. Last night our friends daughter said "I love you Daddy". She is about 3 months younger than Ryan! BUT she is a girl, the eldest and her mother is a trainee primary teacher.

Advice is most welcome.

Confused.

Mark, Ryan, Ben. Ryan, Ben, Mark. Ben, Mark, Ryan.

Too many names. Oh there is a good one, "Jame, I mean Mark"

What the heck do you call them??

Gorgeous little boys.

Happy 4 month birthday to my little dude Ben Arthur. Time has gone so quick.

So being 4 months old means he had needles today. He's currently sleeping it off. He was really good about it, so good in fact that Ryan got a lollypop!

Ben is getting quite chunky, his face is filling out, he is full of gorgeous expressions. I just love him to bits.

Ryan is a handful, but then he's 20 months old. He's getting taller (just). But its his understanding that is amazing. As you know, we've restricted dummy usage. Now when he gets out of bed, he hands him dummy to me and we place it on his dresser. He also gets to suck on it during nappy changes (a trick that Roy taught us), this morning I asked for it back after his nappy change and he wouldn't open his mouth. So I said to him, its either give me the dummy or you go to your cot. No handing back of the dummy, so I put him to bed and he fell asleep. Also yesterday, I was sitting on the floor feeding Ben, I asked Ryan "please give mummy the remote" and I pointed to it (it was on the next chair) he walked over, picked it up and handed it to me. Excessive praise given. He's a smart cookie.

Mark is a teenager! He's totally obsessed with war video games, they are very *very* violent, so he spends most of his time killing people! As always, he's great with the little boys, although sometimes a little rough. Food and filling Mark is an issue. I feel I want to say another story, but I can't remember it.

I must find my camera cord, I need to upload photos.

Today

This is a post about the Today show. (I was going to do it on my phone, but I'm at my computer now, so will do it here - quicker)

I spent years hating the Today show, I was a firm fan of GMA (before it was axed) followed by Sunrise. I loved Kochie and Mel and their antics. But then they started to sour on me. I think it was during the coverage of the Christchurch earthquake when Kochie was standing in front of the Grand Chancellor Hotel and you could just see him wishing it would fall down so he could be in the footage.*


Then I saw/read that Karl Stefanovic was up for a Gold Logie. Not that dickhead Karl I thought. Then I switched. He is very funny, I love Georgie and Ben. Lisa is the weakest link I feel, but still think she is great. The things that irk me about the Today show.

• They sit so close together on the couch, I know its so they both get in the shot. But I don't even sit that close to Jamie, let alone someone who isn't my husband.
• What is Richard Reed laughing about all the time?
• Why is Richard Wilkins still on tv?
• Why is the weather readers job the best on tv?
• How come they spend so little time on each topic, surely some things deserve a little longer than three minutes.
• I think its funny when the segment "Girls on the Grill" comes on, Karl starts with a "Good morning to you Lisa and Georgie" yet they have all been talking and sitting together since 5.30am and the segment is at 8.30am

And I shall leave my Today discussions there.






* I don't know whether he was actually wishing that, but it sure looked like it.

Blogging on the go

Now have installed Blogger on my phone. More silly typing on this touch pad.
Sitting here watching Masterchef, once again frustrating the hell out of me. None of them have ever skinned a chook before, but they only give them the bare basic time. Why why why?
I was talking to Jamie yesterday asking about this conflict that "they" say is necessary in reality shows. Who wants conflict? Who wants this stupid pressure? Not me, I'd rather see them do it well and see how to cook the dishes rather than super complicated food.

Today's cooking.

I'm making Beef Stroganoff for dinner (minus the mushrooms).
Dessert is going to be some sort of apple puff/turnover, need to find a recipe for it.

I played secretary for MyNetHost this morning, two of our clients needed some help, so I did phone support and got them through it. Very satisfying that. It also baffles me in this day and age that I rang a client and they gave me their credit card number no questions asked. I still have it written in front of me. If I was another person (ie my evil twin or just plain criminal) I could do some online shopping.

Babies are both asleep. Neither really napped at all yesterday, so I am looking forward to a peaceful day.

I was sick overnight, that was yuck. All better now.

A week in the life.

I'm starting this on Monday!
The idea/suggestion came from here.

The idea is to write down the nitty gritty of day to day life to document it.
Although my life is quite mundane, it'll be interesting in years to come to look back at how I survived the two under two phase (with a teenager).

So I'm putting my *memory joggers* in a display folder with my camera and I'll document it all on here too. Yay, that should be exciting.

Coffee.

We have a Caramali coffee machine. Its pretty awesome and Jamie makes great coffee out of it, (I'm still learning).
Last week whilst it was heating up, there was an awful smell. Plastic melting or something like that. No smoke, so we checked out our downlights but alas, it was the poor coffee machine.
It has since been pulled apart, de-scaled and is currently soaking in hydrochloric acid (eek). Having a LOT of trouble to source the offending part that melted, but in the mean time its getting clean and hopefully put back together.

Post Script.

We've relented a little.

Bed and nappy change ONLY for the dummy.

He has been pretty good with that.

He is a little bit little to be stopping completely at this stage.

**********

I had the best evening with Ryan yesterday. We played "kick to kick" for about half an hour. We had cuddles. He was clearly indicating what he wanted.. alas no words, but I knew what he was after.

The tale of the dummy.

Our dummies (or pacifiers) have always been blue, but this has been the saviour for the past 20 months of our lives. Not just Ryan, but Jamie, Mark and I as well.


Mark never took a dummy. So many of my friends say it too... I'm hearing that phrase belong to first born, healthy children. We have time to rock them to sleep, other "stuff" isn't as important.


Ryan's first day was in NICU (yes only his first day, but the dummy addiction started then). NICU give babies dummies. So from day one he had the blue thing stuck in his mouth. He has had it on a chain (for some reason I call it a dummy catcher), attached to his top 24 hours a day. Over the past 4 months, I guess from just before Ben was born, we started to give it only to him in bed. Take it off him when he got up. But often the little tyke would sneak back into his room, reach into his cot and retrieve the dummy. Two hours later... "where the heck did that thing come from?"


Then Ben was born, Ryan's little life was turned upside down, so I relented and let him have the dummy. The molar teething started, and I relented. Then he got a cold and I relented. Then I just couldn't be bothered, so I relented.


The addiction was entrenched.


Then in the past three weeks, he's been losing it. Taking it off of his own volition. This has been VERY painful, as the latest dummy was essentially clear and difficult to find. He would take the chain off when having a drink, dropping it "wherever". Tossing it when he got angry *which is frequent. The last straw was the biting. He bit holes in the teat, therefore making it a choking hazzard. I've had to buy several new dummies recently due to holes. At $5 a pop, I wasn't going to make a habit of it.


Tonight - 26 July 2011 he bit a hole and then chewed until the teat came off. He looked quite proud of himself. Jamie said "Ok, that's it, dummy is gone" I have to agree, its embarrassing to go out with a toddler who has a dummy. So we prepared. We talked to him, reassured him that although his safety net was gone, that we would still be here and he can go to sleep without it.


He SCREAMED, no make that S---C---R---E---A---M---E---D for a full hour. Threw his blankets away, threw Roger bear away, threw B1 away. Thrashed around the bed. I consoled him, Jamie consoled him. We gave him a drink, then he started screaming again, Jamie went back in, he'd done a big poo. Once cleaned, he lay down calmly with Roger under the blankets and actually drifted off to sleep. He's been asleep for 70 minutes now and I haven't heard a peep out of him. Maybe when he wakes up, he'll be sad. Tomorrow will be another challenge, but its nice to know it can be done - its his first time EVER!

Oh no, I think I could be pregnant!

Well I did just clean the kitchen.

I even lifted everything off the top of the microwave.

There can be no other reason.


I forgot to take my camera yesterday. Hopeless.


Another TV rant:
Why the heck are there three renovation shows on the telly at the moment. Two of them are on the same channel. It makes no sense. Two appear to be completely identical.
The Block on NBN
The Renovators on channel 10
Top Design also on NBN
Madness. Stupid challenges to make "twists and turns" rather than showing people how to renovate. Like I said with Masterchef, use some editing and allow people to do a good job. Completing a dodgy renovation in 24 hrs is silly. Do a good one and take at least a week. What is wrong with quality work rather than speed.

Photos.

I want to do this in my house! Thank you Apartment Therapy for this idea.

I need to print out some photos and make a cool wall. Our house in Melbourne has a black tiled wall in the entrance that is a little bit retro, maybe it could go there. The other idea is if we block off the office/dining room it will make a HUGE wall in the lounge room that could do with a lovely massive piece like that.

Gloria Jeans

I'm going for coffee with Mrs McLennan today. I'm going to take my camera and take some photos cos that's what the cool kids do!

Curries

As a family we are getting mighty addicted to curries. Makes it hard when one of the eating members of the family is a toddler.

Jamie loves his vindaloo... dont' know if he really loves it, or loves the idea of it. I made one from a supermarket vindaloo paste and was told it wasn't right. So I suggested he throw it out, oh the flavour is right, just not hot enough! Surely the flavour is more important and the pain of excess heat is not necessary.

Mark and I are loving butter chicken, had it from a jar tonight and in a word - yuck.

Tonight's vindaloo was made from scratch, I used the mortar and pestle for the first time, he said the heat was "just about right", the flavour was right but the colour wasn't the same as in the shop. One day I'll get it right.

Must attempt the butter chicken from scratch next.

Tomorrow I'm making Margaret Fulton's Meatloaf, which we had at mum's house and it was super delicious.

It must be hard to be a teenager.

I'll admit it, I've just been snooping on Mark's Facebook page. He no longer uses it, but its interesting to see what the "kids" are up to. To be honest, its tragic. Desperation in their posts.

• Like this if you think I'm hot,
  
• inbox me,
  
• would you go to my funeral.
  
• The mild cyber bullying,
  
• lots of name calling and
  
• those cryptic posts which also cry desperation, can someone please ask what I'm talking about.
  
• Kids who are not yet 13 declaring undying love.
  
• You've scarred my heart.
• Bragging about wagging school (apparently its called whopping now)
• Bragging about being in detention!

Reading that, I know I've got a good boy. He runs a little hot and cold, he sometimes doesn't listen good enough. But he's exactly where I know him to be, he isn't obsessed by oversexed girls. I saw one photo that was bordering on a sexting photo. I don't want him to grow up, but I know he will.

Masterchef

I have a strange relationship with this show. I want to like it. I watched the first season with a passion - recorded every ep for when I was on arvo shift. But then wasn't able to watch the final week because we were on a ski holiday and the house only had Foxtel!! So three months of solid viewing to be robbed of the last week.

I didn't watch Celebrity MC because it didn't interest me. Same for Junior MC. Same for series 2. But I wanted to watch this one. Even made a Facebook critique group.

But 7.30 is a bad time for me, channel 10 no longer works in our kitchen where I'm trying to clear up after dinner. Mark has an xbox, so he's in the lounge room where channel 10 does work.

But two weeks with my mum in Melbourne and I got hooked. It was New York week. But it was stupid. One of the challenges was making a 3 course meal, but they had to do a treasure hunt to find what the recipe was within Times Square, then make their way to that restaurant, then to the Four Seasons Restaurant, then cook a very intricate dish all within 3.5hrs. Another challenge was Harlem Soul food that they had to reproduce within a ridiculous time limit and were not given recipes. If someone told me to cook "collared greens" or "gumbo" after one taste I'd be screwed. And I'm 10-15 years older (ie more life experience) than most of the contestants.

Why give them time limits, make it you have a day (like real chefs do - they prepare in the morning, cook at the time) and the producers can do their thing and EDIT the footage. There is no reason that anyone should have undercooked chicken because they spent most of their time peeling potatoes.

In the soul food episode they should have shown us how to make the roux for the Mac & Cheese. Where are the recipes?
Fried chicken, someone should talk us through it.
Ribs... what was in the sauce?

Frustrating!

Food

Have I talked about food recently?

I haven't actually posted recently, so that'd be a no.

I'm roasting some chicken pieces for Mark's sandwiches. A lot of effort for sangas. But to buy a precooked chook is $10 and I got 2kg of frozen chicken pieces for $10
Tonight I shall roast, tomorrow I shall turn them into sandwiches. That being said, I should rescue the bread from the freezer.

I also want to make some vegetable muffins.

The spice mix for my beef vindaloo that Jamie is having.

Also need to make an alternative meal for the rest of us, damnit, should have bought the pork.

Also have choc chip cookies on the menu (to be made).

Off the computer and back to the kitchen.

Illness & Injury

We've not been "right" this week.

Firstly Ryan:
We went to playgroup, there is an outside section with a kids roller coaster (if you have a big back yard, this would be awesome). Ryan loved it, he kept indicating more, I finally got him off it and busied him with something else, but then a little girl hopped on the car. Ryan ran over, tripped on a tricycle and landed on his nose, we have a graze! Later in the day, I picked him up and collided chin with thumbnail and we have a graze! Two days later, other side of the chin collided with my thumbnail and we have a graze!

Mark:
Nothing to report. Just normal puberty stuff and a sore foot. I think that new footy boots might be in order and some good fitting runners. That kid is growing like crazy.

Ben:
He's just delightful in every way. He's so friendly.

Jamie:
Nothing to report.

Me:
As I have talked about previously here, I injured my breast, had some attachment issues and therefore have had a lot of pain. I have been expressing my milk, and all week have been feeling like I was going to get a cold / flu, but it never eventuated. I called the Breast Feeding Support Line yesterday and she felt that might have an infection... after talking about it to 7 different people (Jamie, Mum, Breast feeding lady, receptionist and nurse on the phone of GP Access, nurse at GP access and finally the doctor) I have been given antibiotics and hopefully will feel better soon. So this morning Ben had his first top up feed of formula and took to it so well. The can states for 2-4 month old make up 180ml of formula, I can express 80ml. OMG that is a huge difference.

Must start packing for Melbourne! Leaving between 4 and 6 tomorrow morning.