July 2007 Archives

Here is an update that I sent to the parents from our Parenting Class.. thought it would be worthwhile cross posting it here too..

How many Teeth does your Bub have?
Romers has 2 - still - she got these ages ago and hasn't got anymore.. although there appear to be some white buds that are about to break through...

Are you still Breast Feeding?
Im not. But Belle is - its incredible - she is like a woman on a mission - she takes her industrial sized hoover to work and pumps away. Good on her I say.

Are you back at Work?
Belle went back to work in June - I have been Mr Mum since that time - being a full time stay at home dad. I love it - but it also has its own challenges which Im sure all of you mums out there know what Im talking about.. feel like Im chained to Romilly sometimes, some days she just wants to be held all the time and cry's if I walk more than a few metres away from her. I find I have no time for myself to get things done. When I went off work I made a list of all of the tasks I would do whilst I was on my sabbatical. How silly was I? I am loving it though I think Im extremely lucky.

Is your little one in child care/nanny care?
When I go back to work in October we will need some form of care - we are looking at a nanny of sorts - but we are finding it quite difficult to find one. We are looking to share a nanny with one of the other parents from our local mothers group - we are starting out with a one or two days a week - but its proving hard getting someone as most nannies aren't interested in part time work - understandably. The other probably we have found with Nannies is that you don't get the child care rebate for them (whats that all about - since when is having a nanny not child care? Apart from when you have a 16 year old Swedish girl as your nanny ). Child care places here in the inner west are extremely hard to find. What are other people doing? Family? We don't have any family who are that close at the moment.

How much does your bub eat?
Romilly is having her 3 solid meals a day, with 4 breast feeds/bottles. She mostly has 2 of those Heinz jars at each meal time, a food type one and then a jelly one to follow. She just loves the jelly/jel type ones. She likes it best when I cook for her though and loves thick soup or bolognaise the best  But the majority of the time we rely upon commercial baby food - are we bad parents? Just this week we have started giving her weetbix mushed up in hotwater and cows milk for breakfast.. she seems to like it.. so far so good.

Does your baby point?
This is considered a developmental mile stone which often goes undetected. The interesting thing is that only humans point, and you will find that if you bub is pointing - they wont point when anyone else is around. Obviously they point to draw your attention to something. So far Romilly hasn't pointed.. so we haven't reached this milestone yet.. has anyone else?

Is your Bub crawling, Cruising or walking?
Im sure Romilly will the last to do all of these as she isn't even crawling yet. We have an A typical couch potato here  She sits well..  She never really liked it on her tummy when she was younger.. she is over that now and spends time on her tummy and hands and knees and she does the whole rocking backward and forward bit but I couldn't say that she is crawling.. although she has on occasions done a backward crawl.. and Annabelle said that she managed to take 3 crawling steps forward on Saturday but it hasn't been repeated. So is she walking? Don't be silly.. although she is only just starting to pull herself up. Having said that.. she is quite mobile for a bub that isn't really crawling.

Can your bub do any party tricks? You know backflips anything like that?
Romers can clap hands - although sometimes it's a one handed clap onto your hand, she can do a high five with you (when it pleases her of course), she is starting to learn how to wave, and she can make a clicking sound with her mouth - which she will do when you do it to her. Other tricks? Manages to poop her nappy on a regular basis - but I gather she isn't alone there.

Can your bub say any words?
We can get a regular, Nan and Dad. And she can also say Hair and Duck. She also knows each of the cats names, she will look at the correct one when you say their name.

Favorite Toy?
Hmm I don't think she really has a favorite - by far she likes people over toys.. she would prefer to interact with you or watch other people then play with toys.. when she is playing with toys she really inspects them - picks them up.. gives them a good look.. turns them over.. and she seems to be going for things which involve finger movements, like spinning things with her fingers etc.. Again,.., not a toy, but I would say her fav thing would be when someone plays guitar or piano for her.. she loves it. Incidentally we think she is either a metal head or a rock godess as she loves guitar music more then pop or R&B/Hip Hop. No idea where she gets that from. And books!

Dummy - Does your bub have a dummy?
Romers still uses a dummy.. we toyed with removing it for a while, but then figured if she wants it and if it helps settling her then she can have it.

Sleeping arrangements?
Gulp! Dare I say it.. she co sleeps with me or belle mostly. For her naps she goes down in her cot.. and she is mostly ok with that.. although most days she has 2 naps of about 30 mins each.,, and that's it! Some days she will have 3 naps, or each of her naps will be for an hour or so.. but mostly this kid doesn't get/need/want much sleep.. probably because she is always stationary and doesn't use up much energy! At nights though as I said, she co-sleeps with me during the week on the bed.. we found that she sleeps so much sounder when she is able to snuggle into you.. and we also found that once she started to sleep on her side (which is easier to do on the bed), she sleep much sounder and deeper. She still wakes up now and again in the middle of the night, but mostly you just need to flip her over on to her other side and she is back to sleep..

Are you seeing personality traits and characteristics in your bub? How would you describe them?
In one word.. Romers is a flirt! She flirts with everyone .. she is a happy bub.. who only complains when something is up.. She laughs a lot and appears to be extremely positive.. when we were all sick with the flu a few weeks back.. she hardly complained.. I was on my death bed and was organizing my will, yet she hardly really complained.. yet she must have felt as bad as I did. She is also a thinker, she looks and thinks and examines things. What she appears not to be is sporty.. considering she has us for parents that doesn't surprise me. And she loves books!

When I first went off on leave from work to look after Romilly for 3 months, I made a list of some of the things that I wanted to do whilst I was off. Well now its judgment day - just how diligent have I been?

Update Photographs
Update Contacts
Complete Eden's video
Do Herbs Garden
Do Backyard
Cull Bonsai's
Go to Ikea
Clean out Bali cabinet
Update Music studio Laptop
Record Planet Earth
Install Baby Gates
Bolt bookshelves to the wall
Move bed up stairs
Paint Romers Room
Blinds in Romers room
Shelves in Romers Room
Edit Romer's Video

Well at least something has been acheived :)

So all that needed to be done was for the turf to be laid - which occurred first thing this morning. Looks pretty damn good all completed :)

Day

Night

When we moved into our house - some three and a half years ago - our back court yard looked like this.

Since then we have been saying that we would 'do it up'. Our vision for it seemed to change with the weather, lets get a lawn down, but friends and family would say that we would then need to mow it and tend to it. So we then decided to pave it all - that way it would be maintenance free. Over time, the court yard was left to its own devices, at times turning into a jungle which even the cats were too scared to venture into - and which required me to attack it with the whipper snipper.

And then Romilly was born and the decision was made. We need a lawn! A nice lawn for Romilly to play on when she got a little older. And so the decision was made. The plan was that when I started my stint as a stay at home dad then I would have all of this free time to tend to my tasks - redoing the court yard was top of the list. Little did I know. There is no free time when you have a 9 month on your hands. So we did what any sensible couple of senior public servants would do - we threw money at the problem and engaged the services of a professional to do our dirty work.

Enter James the Landscaper. How we came about James is a story in itself - best left for another telling. If James the Landscaper had a website then I would list it - this is also another story. Eitherway, he truly is a professional and I couldnt recommend him higher. Look for The Butchart Garden in the white pages folks.

After talking things through with James, he took our ideas - melded them with his and fate was sealed. Of course all of these projects happen in stages, stage 1 was removing all traces of the court yard as we used to know it and lay down 4 square metres of paving.

We then went about looking for a water feature. What a nightmare, most of all we saw just wasnt 'us'. It would have looked good in someone else's back garden but not ours - lion's heads and cherubs just dont do it for us. We then had a brain wave - why dont we get our very own standing stone? Yes! Thats it! Belle and I both have a bit of a fascination with the standing stones in the UK - having traveled far and wide in the UK to see them. So it seemed pretty obvious.

That in itself presented some additional challenges. Where do you find a standing stone? Not as easy as one would initially predict. But after some investigative work by Belle we happened upon some Basalt Pillars from Stoned Decorative Pebble Supplies.

The solving of where to get the standing stone, simply presented the additional problem of how do we get it over our back wall as we dont have any direct access except through the house - and the stone we wanted weighted in at a hefty 350kg!

What else but hire a crane/palfinger :)

Whilst it took us some weeks (or years considering when we first said we would do the back yard up) to get to this stage due to some dodgy Sydney weather over the last month or so, today the plants went in.. and tomorrow the turf goes down.

I cant wait until I can finally lay on the grass with the rest of the family (cats included) and look up and watch the clouds going by as you try and make out images from their shapes. Didnt you use to do that as a kid?

On Thursday night I caught two guys sitting in our car!! Would you believe it?

It was about 10.15pm and I just happened to be down in the garage feeding the cats when I heard a car horn - which sounded to be right out in the drive way where our cars are. At first I didn't think much of it and though it may have been the next door neighbor.. but after a few minutes I thought I better go and check.. so I went downstairs and there I found two guys in the car!

I must have got this huge rush of testosterone because my voice dropped into this deep rumble - Im sure I sounded like the exorcist, and I yelled at them to get out of the car. They didn't.. they well obscenities back at me.. and I could see the lights coming on the dash.. as he tried to turn the car over. So what did I do? You never really know how you are going to react in these sort of situations - fight or flight? I always figured I would be sensible (a chicken) and I would take the flight avenue. Nope. I wanted a fight. So I opened the door to the other car and my thinking (I can still remember - it was like nanoseconds worth of thought process) :

1 - Im going to get into the other car and park behind them to block them in. Hmmm nah that's a bad idea, they will just ram me and then both cars get damaged.

2 - I will get into the other car and I will chase them in my car - Hmm nah that's a bad idea.. high speed chases are best left for Hollywood blockbusters.

3 - Right Im getting the club lock out of the other car and Im going to go them. Hmmm bad idea these guys are going to have as much adrenaline as I have in me at the moment and they have screwdrivers and will do anything to get away. Plus, if I kill one of them I don't want to end up in gaol.

So I closed the car door and ran back upstairs and told Belle to call the police - which of course is the correct and most sensible thing to do.. but I had to reason with myself to do it. It wasn't my first instinct. I wish it was. So we called the police and they came really quick - like within 3 minutes.. it just so happens that there were 8 units down the road. Nonetheless the two guys in the car got away.. and rendered our car inoperable.

They didn't force entry - so they were either professionals or had electronic means of getting into the car (which is what the tow truck driver said).. the interesting thing is that they also didn't just rip the ignition barrel out of the car, they took the time to unscrew everything - all of the dash including the passenger side. The police said they were after the air bags and if they would have just ripped everything out they would have damaged the air bags. The tow truck driver said that the drivers said airbag is worth $2000 and the passenger side one is worth $4500. There is a black market for them by backyard panel beaters. Supposedly when air bags go off insurance companies usually write cars off as they are too expensive to fix them (including airbags), so they are purchased at auction for a few thousand dollars and then rebuilt from stolen parts and airbags - of course.

So that's been our fun over the last few days.. of course the car is insured - so its just the whole inconvenience of it all. Lucky we have a second car.

A train station is where a train stops, A bus station is where a bus stops. At my desk I have a work station.

Saturday night. Laying in Bed. TV turned on. Surfing. And I came across an english show on SBS (which in itself is interesting), watched a bit of it and within a few minutes I was hooked - and killing myself laughing.

"Shameless"

This is currently my background on my desktop.