March Madness

I feel like I've been pretty busy lately, but I don't have any great stories to show for it. I've hardly been on my bike since the Black Stump Adventure Ride, except for a few short errands and cruises through town. I've bought myself another bike to have as a dedicated road bike, or what I would call a "townie". More on that another time.

I have booked Ella in to start daycare in June. She will go two days a week, on the same days as Oliver, so I will be looking for work. That is going to be quite a change - having to be places and do things that aren't child related. I am looking forward to it, although I will do my best to enjoy my last few months with just Ella at home Mondays and Wednesdays.

Ella is doing great. She is really growing up now - she's 9 months old today! She is sleeping through the night, since 8 months old. She only seems to wake up if she gets cold - the weather has been pretty unpredictable lately, so it's hard to know how many layers to put on her at night. Ella's four teeth were casuing me quite a bit of discomfort (no problem for her!), so I have weaned her now - she is having formula in a sipper cup. She is enjoying her solid food, and is doing well with the chunky texture and chewing the little lumps, eating pretty much anything I give her. She doesn't have any words yet, but the sounds ma, ba, and ga are used repetitively with screams and squeals used to gain attention. Her babbling is also coming along very nicely. She started commando crawling at about a month ago, and is really enjoying being able to move around. Oliver is very frustrated by Ella being able to drag herself across the floor to grab his toys - he does not like sharing at all!

Oliver is well, and growing into a little boy more and more. He is gaining confidence in his climbing, evidenced by him standing on the arm of the couch and grinning at me (whilst I try to hide just how worried I am!). I'm doing my best to stand back and let him explore his limits. I think he is learning a lot (good and bad) from his little mates at ABC's... I've been told that he is starting to stand up for himself more now, so I'm not quite sure what to make of that! He really loves going to ABC's and talks about the different activities, friends, and teachers when we are at home. He has even started trying to incorporate "mat time" into our day at home, getting his chair and some books out, singing the mat time song and then asking me to "come sit on the mat, mummy" so he can read to me. :D Oli has continued to improve his language, with his sentence structure starting to get more complex and complete. He is learning a lot by copying what he hears other people say.

So far I am managing having both kids at Jumping Beans. Ella sits on the sidelines and observes (with toys and a bottle to keep her happy), and Oli and I play on the gym equipment. Things are going to get tricky once Ella is crawling properly and ready to start her own class - I don't think Oli will sit quietly on the sideline! We had Nan come to help last Friday, which was fantastic. She fed and played with Ella, while Oli and I played on the equipment.

We've had a few birthday's over the past month - Nan clicked over another year (or are we meant to be counting backwards now?!!), our friend Claudia invited us to dinner to celebrate her birthday, and we went to cousin Benjamin's pirate birthday party last weekend.

We finally got to do our Waipa Delta Cruise. We went out on the afternoon tea cruise which was quite short - we only covered the area from just downstream of the Wellington Street Beach down to the Fairfield bridge. It was an interesting way to see the city and the underside of all the bridges, and their stress cracks (typical enginneers!).

We have also been hanging on to the last little bit of summer, by getting out for a picnic and play whenever possible. Oliver loves to go for runs in the parks, even though he's not a very good runner yet! It's all good practice. :)