marc.vic.max.elliot

Elliot must have been a wee bit tired last night.

Here’s the timeline that occurred yesterday:

15:30: Elliot is as grumpy as hell so Vic sends him off to bed for a nap

16:45: I get home early from work and head upstairs to bring him down

17:00: After 15 minutes of a stroppy almost three year old whining that he wants to go back to bed I put him in his PJ’s, clean his teeth and put him back into bed

22:00: I just know he’s going to be up early so I head off to bed

05:05: Elliot wakes up in a really good mood and he and I head down for some breakfast

Yep, into bed at 3:30 in the afternoon with hardly any lunch and no dinner - what a freak

written by Marc

OK - so no update for a while but a lot of milestones and happenings in the boy’s lives

• We are now in week two of potty training for Elliot (second time around) and he’s doing really well. We are looking at about an accident every two days but it’s usually when he’s really busy and just forgets. The interesting thing is that he’s been dry at nights as well.
• In relation to this we had a lovely thing happen. Max and Elliot had got up one morning last week and wandered downstairs to play and watch some telly. Vic and I stayed in bed and about 15 minutes later Max came up and I asked him what he was doing. “Getting underpants for Elliot” was his reply and my first thought was “Oh God, what’s happened?” What had happened though is Elliot had said that he wanted to go to the toilet and Max had gone off and found the potty, taken Elliot’s PJ trousers and nappy off, made sure he was sitting properly and when Elliot had finished had come upstairs to get him some clothes Bless him
• Max has almost lost his second baby tooth - it’s so wiggly that I think it’ll come out in the next day or two. The amazing thing is his adult tooth that came through way behind his first lost baby tooth has now moved almost all the way into place!
• Max can now ride his bike with no training wheels! I took him down to the park yesterday morning and after a few times holding on to the seat he was off on his own and doing really well. After about 30 minutes at the park he was starting off OK, riding for at least 100 yards in a big circle back to me, braking with front and back brakes and turning pretty sharp corners! Later that day I took him down to a different field and he was going over rough ground that earthmovers had been using. By the end of the day he was doing circuits of the back yard and going up some pretty big bumps when moving from grass to paving. I’m so proud of him

written by Marc

No news really. Christmas is getting closer and the boys are starting to get excited about it Here’s a couple of shots from this morning…..

written by Marc

Hello from the lounge at LAX

Sorry there hasn’t been an update while I’ve been here (I got here 14 hours late) but my week has been mucho filled with training sessions, meetings and copious amounts of drinking….

I was looking through the photos on my camera and came across this one. Max had a party a couple of weeks ago that had a pirate theme. Naturally Elliot wanted to join in

Update to follow (probably)

written by Marc

We tried Elliot in underpants for a couple of days this weekend. Great idea but a bit early for him I think as he really didn’t link wanting to pee with the action itself. Given that he had no idea what was going on we thought we would leave it for a little while longer. He was so proud of his Thomas underpants too!

The really funny thing is that that he looks quite similar to Max in the entry called underpants from a couple of years ago!

written by Marc

I try to take photo’s, honest I do, and this is what I get…..

written by Marc

I know I haven’t posted any photos for a while but here’s a couple of very crappy ones taken with my phone so that I had a couple on this trip. Haven’t they grown?

written by Marc

Max started morning kindy on Monday 23 April so we’re now well into our new routine - now all have to be up, dressed, eaten breakfast and out the door by 8.30am every morning, which means we’ve had to set an alarm in the morning - for the first time since the boys were born! Max has settled in really well and there is now a lot more structure - I guess getting them into more of a routine for starting school. It’s now five mornings a week (instead of three afternoons) so he gets pretty tired by the end of the week which means a very grumpy boy! It’s nice having mornings just with Elliot, and then a couple of hours in the afternoon with Max while Elliot naps - but now I don’t get any free time to myself (unless I can convince Max he also needs a nap in the afternoon - has worked twice so far!)

Other things that have happened:

Do you remember Softy - our monarch butterfly caterpillar? We came home from Max’s first day at kindy to find Softy out of the cocoon and drying his wings. We watched him over the next few hours until he climbed up on top of the fence, flapped his wings a few times and off he flew. We still have Silky and Smoothy in their cocoons, but they should be hatching in the next week or so.

The boys spent a day out and about with Grannie Annie. She took them to the beach at Petone, the park and for a picnic. Max was most excited that he had had two picnics - one at the beach and then another when they got back to Grannie’s house.

They also spent a day out with Grandad and Ngaire, but as it was a public holiday they didn’t get to go on the steam train at the train museum (unfortunately it was closed). Marc and I took James (one of Marc’s ex-colleagues - visiting from Sydney) out for lunch and then on a tour of Wellington. He came back to our house for dinner, and had a great time playing with the boys.

The following weekend was Elliot’s 2nd birthday. We didn’t have a party for him this year but we did go out for brunch and had fish and chips for tea. Thank you to everyone for the lovely presents, and especially those of you overseas who sent him clothes - he got so many that he won’t need to wear too many of Max’s hand-me-downs!

Marc has been away travelling a lot - he had that week in Sydney, has just returned from eight nights away in Las Vegas, is in Auckland today and tomorrow, home all next week, then back to Auckland for two days (looks like that will be happening once a fortnight), then he heads back to Sydney for another four days the following week.

As for me - I’ve been busy taking the boys to kindy, playgroup, music, supermarket shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, kindy and playgroup committees and all those other things mums get to do! Have also spent evenings getting my business up and running. I’ve been sorting and displaying samples, packaging up stock, and now just have to get people to see the products! I seem to be off to a good start - sold 23 cards in two days last week, and have four ‘coffee and card’ events booked in so far for May/June. The products pretty much seem to sell themselves as they are fantastic quality at less than shop prices. Will just have to see how it goes.

written by vic