All 3 in the bath.

We don't have baths everyday anymore. In summer they can swim in the pool and in winter they don't get too dirty. The other day we got all hree in the bath at once.

A new eyewear range.

No new news today. The boys have been developing a new range of eyewear

Michael's Weekend Report

Here is the weekend news report for harrisboyd gang:

On Friday night Michael went to the work poker night and won! There were a few comments saying that he had been coached by Sarah who won the first night.

The boys spent Saturday morning at Taronga Zoo. As usual the reptile display was the main attraction with a lot of crocodile spotting. We stopped half way down for a morning tea of hot chips. Ben walked for most of the visit and was pretty good. After seeing the lions and tigers we caught the sky train back and headed home. The two back seat passengers were asleep by the time we got home. The two ladies of the household went for a walk to visit a factory outlet shop on Willoughby Rd. Then they made some quite spicy hummus (bit too much cumin) and chocolate hedgehog. As usual there was a bit of resting at lunch and then we had a visit to the park. Saturday night’s dinner for the grownups was Granny’s Salmon Fettucine. The freezer is now looking pretty full. We’ll have to start eating some of it soon. There was mention of getting a second freezer (not by this reporter) but this was quickly dismissed as a ridiculous suggestion.

On Sunday Sarah ventured out by herself to the Willoughby school fair and picked up numerous puzzles for the boys. We then headed out to sunny Manly to have brunch with one of Michael’s work colleagues from itv|world. Patrik and Elisabeth and their little boy have come back to Australia from Sweden for a couple of years. Their son is the first and only grandchild for both families at the moment so they won’t be able to stay here forever. They arrived in February and Patrik’s parents have already been out once and will be here again soon. Grandparents – they are so devoted. Needlessly to say most of the furniture came from IKEA. The boys had a good time colouring in before Simon decided he wanted to do something else. We walked down to the corso where Michael chased Ben around for a while and then decided it was time to go home.

The big news (kids news) – Simon can sort of write his own name – I can hear you say from here – “definitely ready for school” and “so advanced”. Ella has started to roll over but is not that happy when she gets over. Ben – well just looks cute as usual. Sarah also picked up a new bike and helmet for Simon from the above mentioned fair so on Sunday afternoon they went for a little ride on the footpaths of the street. No pedestrians were injured during this activity. Simon had home made chicken schnitzels for dinner; Ben rejected them and preferred to stick with sausages and Ella is sticking to formula.

A Day Off
Today I had a day off from parenting. Michael is writing a blog entry for the weekend so I am also getting a day off from blogging. There is a lot of pressure from Granny to keep news of the grandchildren flowing across the Indian Ocean. The 3 month separation of the grandparents was the inspiration for writing this blog. At least an audience of 2 interested people was guaranteed.

Today our nanny Lizzie (aka "Busy Lizzie" or "The Craft Nanny") looked after Ben and Ella for the day while Simon was at preschool. She also picked him up at preschool which is not an insignificant feat as it involves getting all 3 children in and out of the car and in and out of the preschool. In the meantime I drove to Bowral with my friend Lisa to attend a literary lunch with her Mum and some friends at a Bowral winery with the author Salley Vickers. See http://www.salleyvickers.com/ I haven't actually read her new book but did enjoy one of her earlier books - Mr Golightly's Holiday.

The lunch itself was a bit disappointing as it was really just canapes and wine although the wine was very nice. Sally Vickers was an entertaining speaker and it was a glorious day to be out in the country with the mainly female retirees. I also met a woman who had sent her children to the Steiner school associated with Simon's preschool so it was really interesting to speak to her about the school. One of her children relished the environment and wants to send her children to a Steiner school in London whereas her boy did not have such a positive experience. Apparently the teacher did not like him and in the Steiner system you have the same teacher for 12 years so if you don't get on its probably a long 12 years.

It was nice to spend 3 hours or so in the car with Lisa and talk without interruption. Of course we mainly talked about kids but at least there were no kids around. We just have a few more days with the nanny before I return to work and things will be even busier than they already are. Lizzie comes one day a week at the moment and she'll move to 2 when I go back to work. Next week Michael is taking a day off when Lizzie comes and we will spend a day together by ourselves.

What winter means to me
To some people winter evokes visions of schnapps on the snow and apres ski by the fire. To me winter means washing -- bucketloads of it. Until I had 3 kids it didn't hit me that there is heaps more washing in winter. Lately I feel like I've been washing every day. Lucky my birthday present was a new washing machine

Pictures of the HarrisandBoyd Gang

My friend Lisa reckons she likes blogs with pictures so I figured I better add some because its pretty boring so far and Michael's keen for me to get customers so I can get some clicking for money happening.

Here's Simon, Ben and Ella together and one of Ella all by herself looking particularly cute.

No time to blog yesterday even though I managed to get 3 children all asleep at the same time in the middle of the day for 1 hour. I spent the time resting and eating my lunch in peace.

Yesterday I went to mothers group in the morning which is basically hanging out with a bunch of friends who all look out for each others kids so we can relax a bit and talk about kid stuff. It was a beautiful Sydney day and was lovely sitting outside in my friend Penny's garden. There weren't too many fights or accidents and nobody fell asleep on the way home so the outing was a success.

Of course we had to do something in the afternoon as well (staying at home is just not exciting enough for Simon) so I just went to the local park with my neighbour who has 2 kids similar ages to mine. I made Ben walk to try and get him tired so he'll sleep better. By now you'll be getting the feeling that the theme of this blog is sleep. I must admit that sleep is definitely a big focus of a mother with 3 kids 4 and under. I looked after my friend Penny's little boy for an hour or so and for half an hour there was actually 5 kids in the house with me as the next door neighbour's girl came over for a play. I wouldn't have imagined I could have coped with that even last year but its amazing how things change.

Today Michael (aka the ideal husband) was home ( he only works 4 days a week) and we had a family outing to Clown Town. This is not a city full of scary entertainers rather its a children's play place with indoor climbing equipment where adults can ignore their children and enjoy tea or coffee. Sorry some adults watch their children. It was quite challenging to watch 3 children with only 2 adults when the 2 oldest children were not officially allowed to play on the same equipment. That's right there's some for 2 year olds and some for 4 year olds and Ben is 2 and Simon is 4. Basically Ben thinks he's 4 anyway so he played on the 4 year old equipment.

Last night Michael's sister had a little baby girl. Mazeltov Rachel! Michael's parents have gone to visit their new granddaughter and three other grandchildren who all live in Israel. We are happy for them but sad to lose our best babysitters. Simon and Ben especially miss them.

Rachel and her husband may find the new website http://www.raisingchildren.net.au useful which has been put out with the support of the Australian government. I thought it looked really good.

This afternoon I took the boys to a different park where they rode their tricycles and played on climbing equipment. I got chatting to a couple of people at the park. People are so friendly when they're with their kids. One was a mother of a 13 month old who was having trouble with her very active child. The other was a grandfather who looked after his 5 and 3 year old grandchildren one day a week and loved it. They were really nice kids too.

Michael is out tonight at a work poker night but he left me a warm fire which is making me sleepy. More tomorrow.

Sleep
This morning Simon and Ben both slept in till 6:30. Yes that is a sleep in for us! This might have had something to do with the fact that Ben did not sleep at all during the day yesterday and just screamed both times I put him in the cot at 12:30 and 1:30 respectively. At least today he went to sleep at lunchtime nicely.

Ben, Ella and I went to playgroup today where everyone behaved. Ella only slept for an hour when we got home though so my alone time was not as long as I would have liked. But she is now happily lying on the floor while I write this blog so I'm not complaining.

Thinking a bit more about TV and children I think the anti-TV campaign may gain momentum. Since the anti-smoking lobby there's been the anti-junk food lobby and maybe the next big evil will be TV. Who knows? We have had another TV free day so far and its going OK.

Ella's sleeping at night is not going so well. She's starting to wake up about 11:30 wanting to be fed and then at about 5:00. I think we'll have to try and really wake her up and feed her around 10.00. Its just hard to feed if she'd rather be asleep. And then we have to stay up till 10! Yes our life's very sad. Also much to Granny's delight we'll start Ella on food in a week or two.

This being the second day of the blog I am monitoring myself for signs of depression. The writers of all the really good mummy blogs that I enjoy seem to suffer from depression. So far so good. I suffer from frustration and bouts of bad temper but so far no depression.

This is the first post on the Harris Boyd family blog. This is a blog about our family.

Well today was another exciting day in the Harris Boyd family.

Today Simon went to preschool where the daily activity was baking. They bake organic pumpkin bread.

This morning all 3 kids slept in till 6:45. Yes our life is so sad that 6:45 is a sleep in! This morning Michael dropped Simon at preschool on the way to work to save me from getting them all in the car and out again to sign Simon in. Thats not the bad bit. The bad bit is extracting Ben from the exciting wooden Steiner toys at the preschool.

Last night Sarah attended a talk at Simon's preschool about TV. Simon attends a Steiner pre-school and the lady giving the talk says the ideal is no TV for kids under 6 and limited viewing above that age. She made some good points and we agreed that we'd try and limit it.

I'm proud to say today the children had a TV free day and I survived! I'm not sure how many of them we'll have but it was a good experiment.