Despite having spent many more years in the southern hemisphere than the northern, this year, I have been struggling to feel Christmassy in the balmy temperatures and long daylight hours in Auckland. I have been nostalgic for roaring pub fires, red wine and the Christmas lights on Oxford Street sparkling through my office window. However, hearing of the bad weather, signal failure at New Cross and the heating not working in the office has made me pine a little less! And with the Pohutukawa radiantly blooming (Madeleine can now say “Pohutukawa”), over the past week we have found a lovely lot of Christmas magic so I am now feeling much more in the spirit of things.
Madeleine's Nana sent her this absolutely gorgeous advent calendar
M helping carry the Christmas tree home
We took a trip to Smith and Caughey’s enchanted forest to visit Santa. Madeleine was delighted with all the moving displays and Damian absolutely loved the thousands of sparkling lights in the trees. We spent about 40 minutes in the build-up while Madeleine showed Kitty- Cat and Mousey the charming Christmas scenes and Damian flirted with the over-weight and under-dressed Christmas fairies (such a boy!)
And then it was our turn. The room was plushly decorated, the Father Christmas looked totally legit and had a sack of goodies planted by his feet but none of that mattered to Miss M. Immediate hysteria set in the second the door to Santa’s grotto was opened and she just screamed for a “Mummy cuddle” and burrowed her head in my legs, shoulder, lap. Maybe next year. The second we left, she was as happy as Santa’s elves on Boxing Day.
Yesterday, we spent the morning making Christmas decorations with Aunty Annabel and the afternoon making Christmas gingerbread…
And then, just because I can, I dressed my munchkins up in festive headgear – Christmas is coming – hoorah, hoorah!
Today we headed out on the windy road to Piha through the very picturesque NZ bush and had a lovely time on the windswept beach watching the surfers and playing in the shallows. M has not quite mastered the art of running from the tide as it races up the beach and face-planted into the water. She was not amused but we were! However, she quickly regained her humour when Dad gave her helicopter t-shirt to wear until we got back to the car for a change of clothes. And, of course, an ice-cream to make it all better!
It seems we waited slightly too long to bring Madeleine back to New Zealand as she has developed a Cockney accent. She drops the “T” in “dirty”, “pretty” and “naughty” – something she certainly didn’t get from Justin or me!
Her speech has really come along since we arrived and she is now talking in full sentences which is just so cute. She is also a total parrot and copies Justin and me all the time. It is hilarious to hear her say “Daddy’s a little bit late” and “This is not a plate, this is a chopping board” in her funny little voice with her quirky and somewhat lazy pronunciation.
She absolutely loves books at the moment and spends hours pouring over them and asking to be read to. She is like a sponge – once I have read a book to her, I will catch her unawares, reading to her toys or out loud to herself, repeating the story and also providing her own commentary. I am amazed at how quickly she picks words up – this morning we were reading “Doctor Maisy” and I asked her what the equipment around Maisy’s neck was for listening to Panda’s heart. Having only been told once before, she announced that it was a “stessiscope”.
So much more of her personality has also started to unfold now that Madeleine is talking more and more. She is very precise and everything has to be ‘just so’. Her toys need to be lined up in the correct order and various routines (such as for changing Kitty Cat’s and Mousey’s nappies) need to be rigorously followed! Tears and tantrums ensue if they are not!
Here is my Little Miss having an animated conversation with her two besties – and these photos have not been posed – I just found her on the sofa like that!
Today we went to visit Rach from my antenatal group who has recently moved to Auckland. Annabella and Madeleine are two weeks apart and probably saw each other at least once a fortnight for the first two years of their lives. It is now three months since they saw each other and I was not sure whether they would remember each other. But there was no shyness and they played happily together all morning. Madeleine even tried avocado at lunch time because Bella did!
I wonder whether they thought they were new friends or old friends!
Six months today and first solid food… He loved it!
My little man is under a week away from six months and the eagerly awaited start of solids. He has been feeding 5-9 times a night for the past six weeks so clearly has a hungry tummy! For me, this has made the nights both very long (up feeding for most of them) and also very short (in terms of length of time with my head on the pillow)! But all worth it when I see the smiling face of my little munchkin…
September 15th, 2011
tara
Today my happy lad is 4 months old – smiling, laughing, chatting, rolling over both ways and feeding like a fiend!
THE EVENT: Tim and Laura’s wedding in the south of France.
THE PLAN: Chill out by the pool in the morning, have lunch, put the kids to bed and get ourselves dressed and ready for the ceremony at 2pm. With baby monitor in handbag, attend ceremony and have a few drinks before the kids wake up. Get them dressed in suitably gorgeous outfits to be cooed over by admiring wedding guests then sit down for dinner where Madeleine would happily munch on bits of baguette until the speeches were over at 6.30pm. Return to the room to bath the cherubs and put them to bed and head back to the party for the evening.
THE REALITY: Chilled out by the pool in the morning, had lunch, put the kids to bed and got ourselves dressed and ready for the ceremony at 2pm. Damian wakes at 1.45pm and an emergency feed is necessary. Dress is unflatteringly dropped to the waist and covered in muslin cloths to avoid milk stains. Madeleine is in bed but has not gone to sleep by the time the ceremony starts. Monitor is turned down low. Damian, uncomfortable in the heat, needs to be jiggled constantly through out the ceremony. By the end of it I have a large patch of drool on the shoulder of my dress. Loud “Mummyyyyyyyy” screams erupt from the monitor. There is no sleeping to be had. I dress Miss M in her astonishingly expensive dress, comb her hair so her fine curls flick out behind the little clips I put in just above her ears. She looks suitably gorgeous but the lack of sleep is already taking its toll and she refuses to pose for a photo. We go out and join the guests drinking on the terrace and find Justin trying to juggle Damian, the camera and drinks for him and me in a small patch of shade. It’s hot, really hot, and holding a baby is not pleasant. Madeleine want to run everywhere. Fast. And there are dangers everywhere – cobbled steps and table corners and steep banks and the swimming pool (a non-parent has left the gate open). M is going crazy at being ring fenced and every time one of us pulls her back or grabs her hand, she flops onto the ground and refuses to get up. She starts laughing hysterically like a crazy person. And then bursts into floods of tears. Gingerbread men are brought in to try to calm the situation. By this stage I have added toddler snot, tears and biscuit mush to my dress. We move inside and Madeleine collapses in a teary heap on Justin (his suit looking remarkably like my dress in the drool/snot/tears/biscuit mush stakes). She falls asleep but wakes immediately when he attempts to lie her down in bed and screams, very loudly. Without a nap, she is spiraling into a catatonic state. We sit down to eat and providing her with some much loved juice gives us a short reprieve. Thankfully Damian is now napping in the car seat while I scoff down my charcuterie platter, lamb and potatoes (and a couple of glasses of rose to calm the nerves). Madeleine is banging cutlery, asking for food then throwing it in the floor and whining, squealing and crying “noooooo” constantly. Play-doh does not aide the situation this time. I put her in the buggy, lie her down, throw a towel over the hood to darken it and head off for a walk up the long driveway while the other guests dine leisurely. Dress now slso soaked in sweat. She screams and then whimpers “Daddy, daddy” for ten minutes then all goes quiet. “Result” I think and return to the room, park the buggy and reach for the monitor. “Hello” says a cheeky voice as a chubby hand reaches out from behind the towel. Damn. So I opt to bath both kids and put them to bed, sadly missing the speeches. But there was not a peep out of Madeleine all night and the Little Man slept soundly til his 11.30 feed meaning we got to party with the grown-ups for a nice long time and drink far too much wine which was lots and lots of fun. And the following afternoon the four of us had a three hour nap together in the super king bed – lush!
It was bound to happen I guess, in fact I am a little surprised it didn’t happen earlier…
Today we went out to Surrey to visit my old work colleague, Sorrel, and her daughter, Edie, who is the same age as Madeleine. We had a lovely time and M was particularly taken with their fluffy grey rabbit, Nimbus.
On the train on the way home, I was feeding Damian when Madeleine hitched up her dress and started giving “milk milk” to Kitty Cat and Mousey. What a giggle!
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