The House Of Hot Kettles

Defiance

Arlo is certainly hitting the defiant stage of development.  In a rather gentle way, I have to admit - he's pretty even tempered, apart from the occasional fragile day (of which we've had a few this week, even in tandem with mad-and-dave's Lillian during their sleepover party here).  But he definitely enjoys activities which he knows are discouraged.

Sometimes he will do something like pull out the fire tools and bang them on the floorboards, or, as he did five seconds ago, look at me over his shoulder while throwing his books across the room*, and then assume a Serious Face and say "Stop it!  Don't do that!".  Sigh.

* Of course, he is attention seeking right at this moment because I am on the "cyuper", which I very rarely do while he is awake.  It is the number-one trigger of attention seeking behaviour so usually I restrict it to when he's in bed, but in this case we are waiting till we can call his dad so he just has to deal.

And now we have to stop for a cuggle because Arlo "bump his head, need cuggle a kiss".

Hello, My Name Is Arlo. I Am Two Today.

That's what Mark tried to teach Arlo to say, this morning.  Needless to say, .

What?  It was needless, so I didn't say it.

We had a remarkably successful picnic in the park (avoiding the Catholics with the Cross on the Foreshore) complete with minor injuries, ancient cars and, of course, frisbee.  We took the annual King Edward Park Cousins Have Got Your Back photo (less Logan and Kai, plus Willow, Zeph and Darbs).  We ate delicious salads, delicious cake, delicious fish and chips and enjoyed delicious company.

People gave Arlo fabulous gifts, about which he is excited.

But, I'm sorry folks - his favourite gift by far was the one we gave him this evening: his new, purple Dyson kids' vacuum cleaner.  OMG.  Fits of excitement, followed by tantrums when we said it was time to pack it away and go to bed.  We didn't even have the right sized batteries, so he still has that heart attack to come, when he realises the thing really makes noise and really works.  He was tired and overwrought, though, by the end of the day.  Too much cream cheese icing, and the excitement of actually getting to eat Makka Pakka.

Tomorrow is sleepover party time at Aunty Leighsa's!  Then on Tuesday we head off to see Aunty Amber and Logan and Kai.  Eeek.  Didn't think about south-bound traffic.  Hmm.  Perhaps we'll think about going the old road instead of the freeway.  Could be messy; too many pilgrims.

Snufflesneeze

We have been struck by headcolds this week, Arlo and I.  Here I sit, watching Friday night footy (sad) with a tissue dangling out of my nostril (sadder) because repeated wiping has abraded my nose to the point where I can no longer bear to do so.  I have moved on to soaking instead of blowing.  Blegh.

We're undertaking a major landscaping project in the back yard at the moment.  We've been working on it for a few months, and Arlo enjoys gardening so much - and is physically independent enough - that it's generally a joy to be outside every day with him.  As a consequence, things are coming along more quickly than I expected.

We took up the paving that had been there forever (I remember sweeping the sand into the pavers when I was about 10) and laid some new paths with old refractory bricks which came from the school near my parents' place (yay scavenging!).  In between those paths we're doing a waterless water feature; black mondo grass and polished black river stones will represent the waterfall and pond.  I am not in favour of a real water feature because it's too much work, and also a haven for mosquitoes, and we have plenty of them as it is.

We've also, since levelling one section on the yard, discovered we have some run-off drainage issues, so we've created a 'creek bed' to direct the run-off away from the house.  We had a metre of tumbled sandstone pebbles and some larger gabian rock delivered last week, much to Arlo's delight - he loves rocks at the best of times so to have a truck noisily dump a load of rocks into our front yard in the rain was seven kinds of bliss for him.  It's pretty much all done, now all we need is a good steady downpour for a few days so we can see whether it does the job.  And meanwhile I have to finish of my waterless feature so that the dirt there stops washing into the drain and blocking it.

Arlo turns two on Sunday!  Fish and chips in the park with various family and friends, huzzah!

Possibly the least frequently updated blog in the history of blogging.

Arlo turns two in a couple of weeks.  He's such a child now, not a baby.  Of course, the walking was the first big transition, but his language is so amazing to us.  He recognises so many colours and shapes, he's always pointing out things of different colours (and he knows that in certain areas, we see yellow buses, but in others we see white buses, or blue buses).  He can follow multi-part instructions - i.e. go and pick up that bag, empty it and bring it to me.  He has become the proverbial little pitcher - we are starting to watch what we say, as he will hear a random comment not directed at him and bring it into a related conversation, several days later.

His favourite activity is still gardening, and that's how we will spend the afternoon, once he wakes.  He trundles around with his red wheelbarrow and his yellow shovel, or his blue rake, and he very precisely imitates everything we do.  So when I get around to chopping the firewood I'll be careful to be out of sight.

We went south to the snow last week.  Well, a town in the general vicinity of the Snowies, anyway - it took hours to get to the snow, and we could only spend a short time outside with him before his face turned purple from the cold, but it was worth it.  We had such a fantastic time, and Arlo made two new friends in Mark's colleagues Damn [sic] and Pete, whose departure after dinners never failed to bring on desperate sobbing of "Later! Later! Damn and Pete! Later!  Tomorrow!".  He's still talking about them now.

My boy, he is beautiful

and I love him to death.  He lubs me back - he tells me so.  I'm his byooful mama, he loves my cuggles.

Smoke Alarms are the work of the devil

We had a weekend in Sydney; Mark went to a business meeting with the VP while Zoe and I went shopping.  A pleasant time was had by all, except for the period between 9pm and 6.30am Sat/Sun, during which time

1) Arlo urinated on the bed in the time it took me to turn and get a nappy, post-bath.  He was sitting on the pillow at the time.  Luckily we were staying in serviced apartments, so we had a dryer.  We rinsed the sheets and pillow slip in the sink and dried it, distracting the baby in the meantime.

2) Arlo proceeded to scream hysterically for almost an hour, for no discernable reason.  Not milk, nor cuggles, nor books, nor food would calm him.  Eventually he cried himself to sleep, at about midnight

3) Arlo woke at 3am and proceeded to scream hysterically again.  He was so exhausted, but we fashioned up a midnight snack (croissant!), spread crumbs throughout the bed, and then managed to get his sobbing body to sleep by placing me between Arlo and Mark.  Perhaps some form of separation anxiety?

4) 6.15am, the building's smoke alarm went off.  We stumbled out of bed, stumbled into clothes, stumbled downstairs (we had a loft penthouse, yay for random room upgrades), fumbled through the guest guide to see if we were supposed to take the stairs to the lobby instead of the lift, stumbled into the hall into a crowd of other stumblers, dressed variously in nive clothes and fluffy nightgowns, then stumbled back into the room when a staff member arrived in the lift to say it was a false alarm caused by the steam from someone's cup of tea.

5) Managed to get Arlo back to sleep again, to awake a half hour before checkout.  We finagled an extra half an hour, then surreptitiously claimed our own form of late checkout by leaving our car in the car park all day while we went shopping.

Arlo's first train ride today!  He sees trains often when we visit the city; once, while waiting on the footbridge so we could see Mark's train arrive at the station, the train drivers waived hello and goodbye to Arlo, which was fun.  But he'd never been inside one till this morning.  On the way up the long stairs at Newtown Station, a passing Greek gentleman struck up a conversation with Arlo, to which Arlo's contribution was "Tain!  Tain!  Stairs.  Bye!  Bye!"

He later delighted a small crowd by running in his skull-and-crossbones stockinged feet through the grass in a park in Crows Nest, during a most pleasant lunch with Arlo's Aunty Suzie, whom we have not seen in some months, since she moved to Neutral Bay for work.  Her apartment is small, but wonderful - full of light, and oh-so-tempting.

Water, water, everywhere

This evening we had our first rays of sunlight in a whole week.  It has been raining almost non-stop that entire time. Our yard is a makeshift patchwork or halfheartedly raked channels to divert water, the gravel on our driveway is mostly in the gutter, and behind the house is a quagmire of clay.  All four of our rainwater tanks are full to overflowing, and it's high time the rain stopped.

But, goodness, it's fun gardening.  Arlo has shiny red ladybeetle gumboots and a rain jacket, and we stomped in puddles today.  Right now he's digging holes with Dadda, in order to put down sleepers for our new path.  He has his very own shubble, rake, towl (trowel), and barrow, and sometimes borrows Dadda's mallet, and he wields them all with expertise.  Not always in places that are suitable, but he has tools and he knows how to use them.

Last night he graffitied on our newly painted bathroom wall while Mark was marking holes for the toilet roll holder.

Tomorrow we go to Sydney - I go shopping in the morning, Mark has a meeting in the afternoon, we'll stay o/n in the city and home on Sunday, sometime.

Also: I have promised to break both my youngest sister-in-law's legs by the end of May.  She only just returned from a year working in Japan.  Yesterday she was offered a job in Italy for another 12 months.  I think two broken legs should keep her on domestic soil for some time, neh?

So odd

To see small areas of white appearing in a house which has been green for the best part of my life.

The skylight dude came today, we'll get a quote tomorrow sometime for 5 skylights and 3 whirlybirds.  We have to look into underfloor venting too.  Well, if things work out I will be starting part time work soonish so that should help.

Will the rain ever stop?  It has been raining non-stop for at least 24 hours now, slackening to a drizzle sometimes but raining, always raining.  To cheer myself up I made a peach and sour cream cake, it calls to me from the kitchen but I'm trying to deny temptation until Mark gets back from putting the baby to bed.

Stuff

Some random passing things, after quite some time without updates:

1) I hate being detail oriented.  I don't often watch Grey's Anatomy because frankly I think it's a bunch of self-indulgent posturing, but in tonight's episode I was saved from a fate worse thsn dying of boredom by watching for the continuity mistakes.  The dude dying in the ambulance?  Now he has a blood trail dribbling out of his mouth, now he does not, now he does, now he does not.

2) Arlo's favourtire new phrase is "Hi, booful!".  In the exact tone of voice, with the exact inflections, and the same hand-to-check caress I give him when I greet him with "Hi, beautiful".

3) It's 10:13pm, I'm surfing and watching some rubbish on tv, and Mark's in the bathroom painting the walls.

Oh, and one more thing:

Boxing Day was so awesomely fabulous that Arlo's nap schedule went like this:

Wakeup: 6.30am

Nap:  Uh...

Bedtime: 7.45pm

I have no idea how he managed to sustain 13 hours of wakefulness without completely losing it - apart from the presence of 10 of his 13 cousins, and his BFAM* Arthur.  Without them, he would have been toast.

Thanks so much to all of our marvellous guests, we had a completely wonderful day and could not have done it without you all.  Mwah!

*BFAM = Brother From Another Mother