Scribblers

Last night we ate dinner in the garden with Bax - Izzie was in bed - and we had the whiteboard out because we were making lists. We gave Bax the white board pen and said he could draw on the bottom of the white board which he did. We were saying to him "Draw a mouse" "Draw Django" "Draw a leg" and he was doing a scribble for each. Then we started naming parts of his body to draw 'Draw your ear" "Draw your nose" etc and you could literally see as his brain ticked and his pen hovered and he couldn't help himself, whenever we said a body part his pen moved to it and drew. It was making him laugh so hard, as he tried to keep the pen on the white board but it automatically moved to his face. In the end he had black dots on every part of his body we had named.

Then today when G went to get him from kindy a mother came up to G and was laughing and said that she had found her son drawing all over his arms the other day. When she asked what he was doing he said he wanted to have tattos like Bax' Daddy!

Chit chats

I just rang home to find out what time Bax' advent festival was this weekend. Bax answered the phone with a very clear "Hello"

Reminded me of Andrew "I am the littlest Lang" Lang who at 3 years old answered the phone "Good morning Andrew Lang speaking can I help you?" , He's nearly 20 now.

Any way. Bax said Hello and then proceeded to tell me all about his day using just one words and some two and three word strings. When i asked to whom I was speaking he said Dada which is his name for himself not his name for G which is Daddy.

He is very into names at the moment. He knows that "Bubba" is a "Bay-bee" called "Izzie" and also called "Peachy" (he's not sure who the heck Isabella is) . And he knows that "Dada" is a "Dada" called "Bug". And he calls out "GeeeBeee" which is what i call G (G.B.). He also knows that Mummy is called Mum but he thinks Jess is the cat off Postman Pat. He often asks about Poppa and Granny (who he calls RobRob) and after Pat and Kate (who babysat the other day) and if we drive anywhere near Henderson he starts talking about Heidi and Miss O (who he calls Lily). He also knows Nana from photos and the phone and Gran (who he calls Gan) from parpels and postcards.

This all reminds me of a funny thing that happened at the School Fair the other week I forgot to tell you about.

We were eating some lunch and I was sitting on a bench and he was sitting next to me. This older kid came up and kneeled next to us facing the other way and he cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled "Mum" "Muuuum" to get his mother's attention, she was quite a way away. Then he left.

About three minutes later Bax got up, kneeled up exactly like the kid had, cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed "Mumm" "Muuum" in the general direction of where the older kid's mum had been. Then Bax looked at me and smiled as if to say that he was taking the Mick out of the other kid. He knew he wasn't calling me but he thought the other kid was so pushy and bold that he wanted a piece of that. He'd done it so perfectly mimicking him. It was really funny, odd, but funny too.

That was a bit garbled. Read it out loud when it gets like that - I'm told it helps.

You're in trouble!!

Bax has a new word - 'Naughty".
In the weekend we had a coffee with Pat and she gave Izzie a piece of biscotti which is a very very hard kind of italian biscuit which is excellent for teething babies. Izzie loved it, ate the whole thing and lots of crumbs-mixed-with-slobber ended up all over her shirt.

Anyway. Later in the day when we were in the car and Pat wasn't with us Bax suddenly said "Naughty" I asked him who was naughty and he said "Pat" and i said why was Pat naughty and he said "Izzie dirty sweatshirt Pat naughty" I laughed so hard. Then I said "Pat's not naughty the sweatshirt just got mucky because of the bikkie crumbs" There was silence from the back seat, then "Naughty" I asked again who was naughty and Bax said "Bikkie naughty, bubba dirty sweatshirt."

So new words are naughty and mine and now he says not as well as no.

Izzie doesn't say much. But she does really crawl now and loves to eat the fly jackets off G's rugby books.

Oh, and Bax also says rugby. Everytime G leaves the house in fact. He seems to think that whenever G is not at home he's out watching rugby with Poppa (it's almost the truth but once in a while G goes somewhere that is not related to watching rugby with Poppa).

Our cover's blown!

Damn and blast! Nosey old people sticking their noses into other people's business!

We had this scam going and now our cover's blown!

Bax loves malls. Obsessed. Sometimes the first thing he says when he wakes up is "Shop". And when we take him to these malls he heads straight for the litle cars and trains and things they have dotted around that you put money in and they jiggle and puff steam and wotnot. But we never put any money in, so he's never known that they do all that other stuff and he's happy just sitting in them (Nana Anna did give hima proper ride once at Heathrow but that was a year ago) Since then we've had this great thing going where he just thinks yhose rides are for sitting in and that's all! Until yesterday...

He was sitting in the Thomas the Tank Engine at Lynmall (although he calls it Tom Train) and he was loving it, saying "Choo Chooo beep beep" . and after a bit G said 'Come on let's go' and he hopped down and just at that moment a little old lady tottered up flapping a $2 coin at G saying "Oh plase let him have a turn, my husband and I have been watching him and we've been enjoying it so much that we'd love to see his face on the REAL ride". So she popped the $2 in the ride and off Bax went.

Well, the ride went puff puff puff and jiggled crazily and puffed steam and hooted and Bax was in absolute heaven! Goddammit! And the two oldies sat across from him and laughed and laughed at his big glowing smile beaming at them.

Well that's done it now hasn't it!!??? We'll never be able to walk through the mall agin without Bax wanting more than just to sit in the rides - now he'll expect the whole fireworks!

We'd like to introduce you...

To some other bits of our family. There's Auntie L and Uncle D in Otago with Baby Jasper - you can see them at www.thedoyliekids.blogspot.com and then there's Auntie R and Uncle A in Brisbane with their tribe at www.kangabarrons.blogspot.com.

Visit them to see piccies.

Has summer arrived? For these two...Yes!

Dear Izzie,

Last night you slept the whole way through. Even though I got you up to show you off to friends visiting from London. I wrapped you up in a big pink blanket my grandmother knitted when I was a baby and held you close in the chill of the evening. You didn't cry. You just looked around and watched everyone. Then, after a nice long cuddle, I tucked you up in bed and you went straght to sleep.

This morning Daddy got you up and brought you into the kitchen where Bax and I were eating breakfast. You gave everyone a big happy smile and it made all of us smile too.

I saw you had two teeth where there was just one a day ago.

I made you museli and fruit and you ate it all.

Daddy got you dressed which you didn't like much because you prefer to wriggle around and crawl over to the books and pull them down on top of you. Half way through Daddy left you on the floor and told you not to play any tricks, but while he was gone you rolled over and sat up and started giggling. You are always so proud when you do things for yourself.

In the car on the way into the city I gave you a bottle of milk and your eyes got heavy. You stared out the window as Bax sang his little tune about "Bubba" - a kind of lullabye I suppose.

The morning sun caught the flecks of bright and blonde in your hair.

This little note is not to say anything more than what I say to you every single day. But just to have it noted down in case you ever want to put it in your pocket and carry it away with you.

Love, love, love, Mummy.

And this from another dear heart...

I had to just say a few things about Izzies alleged 'chubbiness'. a) I call P (affectionately) Chub Chub, because she was so chubby (pre-1 year old) that I feared her cheeks would get so big they would rise up and her eyes would disapear behind them! b) I was 11lb's when born and at 3 months old was put on cows milk to try and slow down my weight gain. At 4 months old I was Christened and when handed to the Vicar he exclaimed "Goodness me. Come here my little pudding"! By 2yrs old I was lean and had the potential to be America's next Super Model (I later lost that potential when I did not grow over 5' 3" and discovered junk food).

The response to "The Issue with Mz Izz"

This is my Mum's response to my sad story - I loved it so much I wanted to share it

...And we will have this as a reminder when she turns into the Tearaway Teenager From Hell, invents a wierd spider-worshipping cult and collects dead flies for a hobby. Goes to university on the moon, gets the Nobel prize for geomorphology, mates with the Dalai Lama ...

And brings him back to Nana for vege-mince-on-toast!

The issue with Ms Izzie

A not very nice thing happened to me this weekend.

I went to dinner with all my some old friends. I took our digital camera, partly to take a pic of us all and partly to show off my beautiful children.

I showed Audrey on my right and she oo'd and aahd and said how cute Izzie was with her big smile. Then I showed Mrs W on my left (we'd just been at her son VF's 1st birthday the weekend before) and the first thing she said was, "Do you think Izzie's so fat because you feed her on formula?" Around the table my other girlfriends said things like "she's lovely and cuddly" and "better too round than too skinny" and I left it.

Inside I was fuming, she was accusing me of making my child a fattie by not breast feeding her for long enough. A little while later, partly because I couldn't really belive what I'd heard, I said quietly to her, "Do you really think she's fat?" and she said "Yes, I do actually." I left it there , I was quite upset but I left it and got over it until later.

Then I started thinking, three things, one is that Mrs W is a larger woman who has lost a lot of weight but has always been big. I wonder if she is very conscious of little girls being set up as fatties from an early age and she is sort of on a personal crusade to save potential 'big girls' .

My other thought is how sad, to only see the chubbiness and not the smile or the big blue eyes or the beautiful hair, sad for Mrs W who is missing the rest of people because she sees their size first, and sad for Izzie to be marked as a fat person even at 9 months.

My last thought was that perhaps other people are looking at Izzie and feeling sorry for her because she's chubby. I can't see her as a fattie because I never see any other babies her age.

She is very cuddly but aren't babies sposed to be cuddly, she is only just crawling so she's not getting excersize yet, she eats everything put in front of her which is amazing after Bax (although he has eaten broccoli, peas, beans and courgette this weekend), she has an amazingly healthy diet because except for a can of fruit in the morning we make all her food ourselves.
I feel a bit sad about it. I know Mrs W is very opinionated but now I don't feel I can take Izzie anywhere near her because she'll be judged or felt sorry for.

Boo hoo.

To hell with psycho nazi twins - I want my old look back!

For all of you who enjoyed the Carpenter Baxter pictures!

Here's the funny thing about those photos. I got home that day to find Bax enjoying his tool and tool belt so much that i wanted to take a picture. because we have a digital camera Bax knows that you can see the picture if you look into the back of the camera so he comes around to look. Often though he's too quick, and when he comes to look I haven't had enough time to get a photo of him. So this day he wouldn't stay still and I got impatient and put the camera away.

Well he was having none of that. He throw himself on the floor and boohoohoo'd.

I got the camera out again and explained that if he wanted a picture he had to pose. So he went to his work bench took up the hammer, did one beautiful token bang then ran around to see himself. We did this about five times because he loved 'posin' so much! That's why the pics are so good. It is manufactured candid ness!

PS I then turned the camera to video and so I have a little bit of video with Bax running to the hammer, banging once then running back around to look at himself. Very funny.

Getting the giggles!

both kids are very giggly. Well actually Izzie is the giggle guts, and Bax just likes making people laugh!

On the way to work this morning I could hear Izzie giggling behind me and then I looked to see Bax making monkey faces and wriggling his hands at her. They were laughing so hard. Then Bax was saying to me "Bubba. Laugh. Happy" He was happy seeing her happy!

Sleeping much better all round. Izzie's teeth are still ouchie but she is so good natured that she even tries to giggle through her tears.

bubba in a gubba

There are some things we can't live without
Gubbas (big bright plastic buckets)
Phil and Ted's buggy
Macpac backpack for babies
Fuzzi bunz nappies.

That's my product placement out of the way.

Now, we had a rainy day yesterday, so it was lucky I had saved one of Bax' bigger birthday gifts for just such an occasion. A huge big work bench from Auntie Simone. Bax loved it and helped G assemble it then spent all day 'making stuff'. When I got home he wanted me to take a picture so here they are.

You are in the right place!

I have changed the design a little because i just found out that a couple of National Front psycho-twins are using the same template! hope you like the new one - i'm not sure if i do, let's live with it for a while and I might change it again if we're not happy.

At the fair

I took Bax to the fair at my old school this weekend and he loved it. We had strawberries and a blueberry muffin and sat together on the steps watching a hippie guitarist playing Pink Floyd from the back of a truck. We shared a bottle of juice and bought some wooden animals in a cloth bag which bax loved and looped over his arm at the elbow and carried around for two days!

he has been before but he was too little then to do any of the games. this year he went to see the fairy queen (not as good as when I was a queen - she now reads her story off a piece of paper printed off the computer!). He didn't enjoy being cooped up but did sit patiently through the story and loved getting his wand. Very funny was his little friend Kiahn who piped up, when asked would he like a magic wand, "I don't need one, i have a magic horse and a magic knight!"

Bax also went to the Chicken Game which entails feeding a huge paper machet chicken three gum nuts then going 'around the back' to collect the eggs she has laid for you. Bax enjoyed that very much. he did try to climb onto the chicken and ride it but I managed to persuade him to collect his prize and then come with me to sit on the grass and eat it...it was three little shortbread eggs in a little cardboard nest. To Bax though they looked so much like the gumnut 'food' he'd just fed the chicken that as soon as he saw them he marched right back to the chicken, forced his way to the front of the line and bunged the 'food' into the chicken's mouth . The crowd watching went wild with laughter, i went red, and Bax looked very pleased with himself. For the rest of the weekend he kept saying "Chicken" "Food" as if reliving his own little joke!

Catching him at it

G told me a couple of cute stories yesterday about catching Bax doing funny things without Bax knowing he was being watched.

Yesterday afternoon G went to pick up Bax from Kindy and he walked around to the kitchen door and looked in the window and there was Bax sitting at the table with about four other kids eating ice blocks. Bax kept dramatically dropping his on his lap and then all the other kids would giggle and so would bax then he'd do it again. G said he was cracking all these little kids up with his antics.

Then earlier in the week G looked into the living room and saw Bax sitting on the floor reading a book and he had Izzie draped across his lap and she was playing with his hand and they just lay like that for about 20 minutes.

The funniest one though is from last week when Bax got his hands on the talcom powder bottle and sprayed it all over the lounge, the dog, Izzie. G had to laugh and take pictures - there was nothing else for it. When bax and I were looking at the photos later, Bax pointed at them and said 'Party!" And it did look like he and izzie had had a party - a snow party!

The party that wasn't

For various reasons over the the last few months I have been to a number of Open Homes. To most I have taken Bax - poor thing. Poor thing because he always thinks we're going to a party! Often Open Homes have balloons pinned on the letter box, there are bright, fun-looking signs out, people dress in nice clothes, and at the door they take off their shoes before they go into the house. All this, in Bax' mind, means it must be a party. He will skip down the drive of a place we've never been before, smile to all the other 'party' goers, take off his shoes, and then...it hits him...no other kids? no parpels? no food? This isn't a party!

The Open Home we went to this weekend was at a very large house right on the sea. He enjoyed climbing up the stairs and exploring all the odd little rooms and balconies but then when we went back down the stairs and out of the house and he clocked that we were leaving he was very happy. I stopped to have a long chat to the very interesting real estate agent and Bax shining his face up at this chap and saying in a loud voice "Bye bye". We laughed and kept talking - this happened about three or four times until Bax finally gave up and headed out the door. A minute or two later he came in and he had both his and my shoes and he plonked mine right by my feet and sat down to try and get his on, all the time saying loudly "Bye bye" Byebye".

He just can't see the point in these parties with no presents and no kai and no games.

PS I introduced Bax to Prof Alan Wild who was also at the 'Party' he didn't remember me (i knew him as a child) but was very gratious upon meeting Bax.

Party time!!

Last weekend was what I always think of as the beginning of the social season here in NZ. End of October/beginning of Nov is the time that people have their first BBQ and it's halloween and guy fawkes and diwali so there's lots of celebrating and fireworks.

Saturday we went around to my friend K's parents place, they are in Fiji and K has a new beau so they were house sitting and having a big bbq. We took the kids and only expected to stay for an hour or so. But the kids were amazing! They were the only littlies there and they shone! Bax chatted away to people in his mongolian/pidgin and Izzie giggled and cooed and got passed around and was the kind of baby that made all my childless girlfriends sigh and say "I want one!" Then dinner was served at 9.30 and Bax sat up with G at the dining room table to eat and all the other guys there sat with them and chatted.

We ended up staying til 10 and neither kid grizzled, cried, had a tantrum or anything.

Next day I took Bax to a birthday party in the afternoon and the whole way there we sang funny songs about parties that we made up ourselves and I could hear him behind me int he car singing "Party party party"

At the party Miss O was in attendance so Bax was thrilled and the two of them cruised around eating and playing with the Big Kids. I was very proud of Bax, he gave the birthday boy's older brother his little present without trying to open it himself, he didn't try to steal the gift-car from the older brother when he went to play with it on the deck, when the presents were opened he did NOT dive in and try to help, and when all the presents were opened and there to play with he quietly went and played with the toy box of old toys before joining in with the others to play. He played with the Big Kids on the stairs and did not cry when they did things he couldn't quite do. He ate piles of marshmellows and chewy snakes.

He loved the party and I think it was the first time he really understood what it was all about.

Rubbish!

Bax has a thing about rubbish. He loves rubbish trucks for instance. And now that we have moved to the eco-city where terms like recycling and sustainable and environment are tossed about willy nilly, we are looking at our own rubbish situation very closely. For instance we have started sorting our rubbish and composting. We have also been to the supermarket to buy the special Waitakere City Official Rubbish Bags. I use the term 'buy' loosely.

This is what happened...

(before I begin I have to explain that our buggy has two sits, one under the other, sort of like a double decker buggy - Izzie is sposed to sit in the bottom and Bax on top but they prefer it the other way around so Bax crawls into the little seat underneath and Izzie has lots of room on top.)

G, Izzie and Bax went to the supermarket to do the shop and G got 40(!!) rubbish bags and hung them carefully over the handle of the buggy, Izzie was in the top seat, Bax underneath. when he got to the counter they weren't there, but he was in a rush so he thought he'd get them another time. When he got to the car and began unloading he reached down to Bax and found nothing but a huge pile of black rubbish bags. Bax had pulled all 40 bags down on top of him and was completely covered.

Not very ecofriendly as they are $1.30 each and probably not at all sustainable but very funny none the less.

Sorting the washing

I was lying in bed this afternoon...(long story)...and I woke up to hear Bax and G sorting a huge pile of washing in the living room. G must have been holding items of clothing up and Bax was announcing loudly who they belonged to. "Bubba!" "Daddy!" "Bubba!" "Mummy!" "Dudda!" "Dudda!" It went on. Dudda is the name Bax has given to himself, by the way.

NB There is no point to this story, in case you get to the end and think what was that about, I just wanted to share.