June 2008

Hello there,

It's been a mammoth month for various reasons, which I'm sure you're all dying to hear about... We hope all is well and you're all well and dandy.

Lots of big news, but I'll start with Oliver turning two. We had a small party with the usual culprits and his two friends here Izzy and Luca. A Bob the Builder themed affair and Oliver seemed to enjoy himself, despite how he looks in the picture! He cottoned onto the presents idea quickly and sang 'happy birthday' to himself and various inanimate objects for the next few days.

Amazingly, he is now (mostly) toilet trained. I hadn't wanted to go near this, but I figured Oliver's huge tantrum about wearing nappies one Monday morning he was trying to tell me otherwise. I thought this would also be good for our carbon footprint, only to realise that the amount of water and energy spent washing pee/poo covered clothing wasn't taken into account in my optimistic calculations. It was a hellish two weeks with many an hour spent indoors with towels on the floor (trying, and failing, not to ruin the already disgusting cream - I mean, really, who would do that? - carpet).

Neither me or Oliver have any dignity left, having traipsed around Farnham, potty in hand, with Oliver continually and loudly announcing he'd 'done a poo' or congratulating himself on having wet his pants, 'look Mama, I done a wee, well done, excellent'. He has been naked in the post office, Sainsbury's car park, Starbucks (not to buy coffee you understand, but in a desperate attempt to get to their toilet fast enough), Birdworld etc, and I have a very solid mental map of where all the public toilets or Starbucks are in any town within a 10 mile radius. Slowly but surely we have worked our way from potty to toilet and Oliver overcame his fear of doing a poo on the potty. He now only gets upset when he sees that most toilets don't have a junior toilet seat with fishes on it and is in serious danger of becoming an old man with the amount of time he spends on the bog. He has also figured out that he can use the 'I want to go for a wee' excuse as one more reason for not going to sleep at night. Crafty bugger. We are, however, very proud of him and cannot believe how grown up our little man looks in his Bob the Builder or Thomas the Tank Engine pants.

Anyway enough potty talk. Suffice to say, he is again on a steep learning curve with his language and singing is now the new black. He actually sings as opposed to talks the nursery rhymes and can be found singing Bob the Builder and The Grand Old Duke of York late at night whilst supposedly going to sleep. His favourite phrases are 'read-it-and-again' and 'where are you going' or 'what are you doing Mama/Dada/Big G/Nonna etc?' We are perilously near the 'why?' stage.

He is very much aware of how much more demanding Pippy is becoming and has started to modify his behaviour appropriately. He will often come in when I'm trying to rock Pip and tell me to 'put him to bed' whilst tapping the cot and when I was stroking Pip's head the other day, got quite upset and told me to 'stop sweeping Pippy'. He's also now figured out that a good way to get one over on poor Pip is to push him over, and more deviously, do it when I'm in the next room. The only (questionable) saving grace is his honesty: I'll come back into the room, comfort Pip, ask Oliver what happened and he'll quite happily admit 'I pushed him down'.

Pip has changed beyond belief in the past few weeks. Again the light switch has turned on and he's fast becoming a little mover and shaker. When not chomping on his hands, puking (still!) or nattering (he's reached the cute 'dahdahdah' stage) he is now crawling!! Not one to be outdone by his brother, he has gone from crawling to pulling himself up on the furniture and the side of his cot in about 3 days. Yesterday I found him standing up, hanging off the curtain-tassle, swaying in a very precarious fashion. He has a tendency to try and stand where he would otherwise crawl as I think he gets frustrated in how slow the crawling is. He was chasing the hoover the other day and I'd hoovered a whole room before he caught up from coming in from the lounge. Bless. Bath times have now become a living nightmare as he insists of crawling to the un-matted part of the bath, grab hold of the plug and hauling himself up on the taps.

He's also now on solids which, being the lazy parent I am, I didn't start until he was about 7 months. It always seemed a no brainer to me - boob versus food, everywhere. We've had a few blueberry 'incidents' but after a shaky start he seems to be going okay.

The poor bugger has also got five teeth since I last wrote (three top and two bottom) which may explain the severe lack of sleep we've all been getting and his grumpiness at 3am. I still fail to see why children don't ever seem to teethe during the day, but Pip seemed to take the top two teeth coming through particularly badly. It does look cute though as they are all growing at such different rates he looks like a 'need dental surgery?' TV advert. The twinkle in his eye is very noticeable now and he's got a real chuckle laugh. We spend a lot of time laughing with him, cheery soul he is. He's about to have his fourth haircut too.

Sadly, no changes in mine or Jeff's toilet habits and our memories are fading fast rather than advancing. I however have started a beginners Pilates class in a vain attempt to get fit. Amusingly, there is a lot of talk about pelvic floor muscles (do I have any of those left?) and core strength. I know my bicep strength is outstanding from all the hauling around of 20kg of wriggling children but I'm quickly realising I have no stomach muscles to speak of. Still, this should improve things and I'm enjoying my instructor Maurice's chauvinistic comments. It's really weird doing exercise in front of mirror after years of yoga and being taught that looking in mirrors is tantamount to spitting on Buddha.

Jeff's is still working hard - we are sitting side by side in the dining room typing in tandem - how romantic can an evening be? And his veggie patch has disappointingly been decimated by slugs. Every time we discover a strawberry ready to pick, we find it's got a slug sized munch hole on its underside.

He's also been flying in a small four seater plane with one of the people he deals with through work. In 40 minutes they flew to the Isle of Wight and back with Jeff at the controls for pretty much all of the flight. I had visions of hearing reports of 'light plane crashes in Surrey field, experts blame inexperienced co-pilot' on Radio 4 and was glad when he returned in one piece. I was also convinced he'd spent the next week researching how to get a pilot's licence but he assures me he hasn't the time or money. Phew.

We've seen Wobs and Pauline, Simon and Jade off on their fabulous trip and been ten pin bowling with Oliver (so cute: they had the little shoes and everything), seen deer at Bushy Park , and are about to parade in the local Farnham Carnival for our music class. Photos will not be forthcoming. ;-)

Now we have finally booked flights back to Sydney. We fly into Melbourne on the 7th November. Two weddings, 48 hours on a plane with two toddlers, and Pip's first birthday later, we fly out of Sydney on the 18th. So those of you in Australia, block out your diaries and we'll see you then!! Oh, and we're travelling Singapore so we're on the A380 for 3 of the legs. Whoohoo.

Anyhow, it's late and I need to get to bed. These 5am starts are a killer and with the ridiculously long days it never seems to get dark here.

Much love to you all, keep the news coming....

Love Em, Jeffy, Oliver and Fred x

p.s. It's now six teeth since I started writing this. It doesn't take that long either. Honestly.