Ben's first complete sentence

Ben: I watch ABC Kids!

Michael: We're not watching yet.

Ben. Not fair!

They learn so fast

Scene: Michael reading a book to Ben. Ben is smelly indicating there has been some activity in the nappy. Ella is asleep in her cot.

Michael: Ben have you done a poo?

Ben: Noo...baby

A new babysitter

Simon says: Granny will be so pleased that we've got a new babysitter. Simon's ideas of babysitting are a bit different to ours. Yes Ella is now sitting by herself. She still doesn't like lying on her tummy too much but we are making sure she does her exercise every day.

She is also starting to eat a bit more. We found a jar of baby food that she actually likes and today she actually slept for 2 hours in the middle of the day after eating almost a whole jar.

The boys are back in town

The cousin's Vince and Darcy have come back to Australia for a visit. Last week they dropped in to see Ella for the first time. Ella got herself dressed up for the occasion.

After the long trip form Dubai, Darcy was feeling a bit dirty so he had to jump in the bath with his cousins.

Simon "Freud" Harris

It's never too early to learn reverse psychology and then try it out on your parents:

Simon: I want to watch TV.

Sarah: What about doing a puzzle or some drawing? Those are exciting things

Simon: I want to watch TV.

Sarah: That's pretty boring, why don't you do something more exciting

Simon: I want to do something boring. I want to watch TV.

we've got a parrot

Yes, we've got a parrot. Ben is now talking all the time and copying everything people say, especially what his brother Simon says. He saw his little cousin Annabel this afternoon and she taught him the name of the Scobie's dog - Mintie. He still misses a lot of ending syllables but he's getting there. Although we're excited to hear him talk we're not looking forward to two little annoying voices after a long hard day.

Boulder

Ben, like his older brother before him, is obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine. And he's now started reenacting some of the stories. One of the 'scarier' ones about a big boulder that comes down the line to threaten the trains is his favourite. Ben uses the ball from Ella's new toy that Maz gave her (which she hasn't yet touched since Ben laid his eyes on it) as the boulder. Here's some shots of it.

Louise and Colin

Louise and Colin came to visit and Colin who has 3 older kids must have had lots of memories of when they were younger.

You just don't blog like you used to

Yes its true the frequency of blogging has gone way down. That is because I have gone back to work and am too tired and Michael is really busy at his work. We'll post more photos soon though.

Photos

I know that all you really want to see is photos of the children so here we are.

Strange Sighting today

Ben playing with Scoop. It is not often his possesive sibling allows someone else to play with his treasured friend.
Note: The marks on his shirt are milk. He still insists on eating his Cheerios with his hands. We do provide him with a spoon.

The exhaustion of Busy Lizzie

Looking after three children is not easy work. I have only done it for a few hours at a time. Sarah used to do it on Thursdays.On Fridays there was always 2 of us. However poor Lizzie is now doing two days a week. Busy Lizzie likes to be busy and the children are all entertained, fed and the house is aways tidy when we get home from work. She always does far much more than bothof us together achieve.

However on Thursday when I got home poor busy Lizzie was slumped in the chair a bit worn out. The kids had been out to a park in the morning for mothers group. Then in the afternoon Penny, Chris and Lily had come over to play. Well that is close to a normal Thursday, except for the fact that Ben had not slept at lunch time (He was up around 5am in the morning) and Ella had slept for about 25 minutes. These last two things had prevented the quiet lunch time that is essential for getting through the day in one piece. We cooked dinner. Sarah and Lizzie went shopping for an hour and Busy Lizzie was in bed and asleep by about 9pm.

On Friday, they all had a quite day with just a visit to Chatswood for a Baby Cino. Yes apparently Ben does sit down long enough for Lizzie to enjoy a coffee!

Higher degrees in Engineering required for successful modern parenting

The old joke used to be about the parents not being able to work the video control. The one skill every father needed to have was the ability to be able to put the new bike together the night before the birthday. Luckily I have a wife who spent 12 years at university where one of the useful skills she picked up was bike assembly so we have that requirement covered.

However bike assembly is nothing compared with car seat assembly and fitting. Ella has grown too big for the baby capsule (luckily because we need to return it). So last weekend I changed the capsule out and put in the car seat for her. She looks cute in it but I don't have a photo yet. Anyway Penny was kind enough to lend us one of hers that she is no longer using. Despite any sentiment expressed in this blog entry we are very happy to have it. It came with a set of instructions and I was tasked with adjusting the straps to so that they fitted Ella snugly. I saw the seat was of French origin - need I say more. Things were going to be complicated. After an hour of wresting the straps and buckles through various holes and joining them together the straps were adjusted for Ella. This involved 11 steps and 15 diagrams. As an engineer, this looked a very complicated design and my conclusion was that the seat was a potential safety hazard. It took a bit of skill and patience to properly fit the straps. I wonder how many of the chairs are in circulation and are not properly set up. Don't even get me started on take-apart toy assembly.

Weekend Report

It was a slow news weekend at the Harris Boyd Household.

I think everyone was a bit tired from the change of schedule during the week and also due to a couple of night wakenings from Ella and Ben's early morning starts.

On Saturday, we went with Penny and Deb to a childrens playground opening at Fox Studios. Grandma looked after Ella and we had lunch with her and Pa when we fetched Ella.

Immy and Lisa came to visit on Sunday morning. Immy was a very good sharer! Ben not so good. As I type this Ben is stealing Ella's baby toys from her. Lisa lent us some Thomas and Bob DVDs. The boys were happy and they spent a couple of hours in the afternoon watching them. Hala came for dinner to see the boys on Sunday night. Hala and Sarah watched a science show about Epigenetics. Now we have to find out about the health of our grandmothers in their 3rd trimester and our grandfathers as they reached puberty. This affects whether certain genes are triggered or not.

Hopefully the excitement level will pick up during the week.

Carpet shampoo testing continues

Warning: This post contains references to bodily fluids

It has been a quiet week in the household this week. Sarah and Ben were ill on Monday with a stomach bug. There were numerous vomiting episodes and the bucket came out. Ben was quite a bit more messy than Sarah. We had heard that Ben's buddy Tom had been sick with a 24
hr bug the week before.
Tuesday was Sarah's first day back at work after taking maternity leave for Ella. She made it to work but had to turn down the offer of being taken out to lunch. I spent the day with Ben and Ella. Ben was pretty lethargic and after a few more vomits I took him down to see Dr Doug. Dr Doug said it should pass in day or so and it has been going around. By Wednesday afternoon Ben was feeling much better and was tiring everyone else out.
Thursday saw the return on of Busy Lizzie (aka the craft nanny) who was looking after all three of them for the first time. Sarah was back at work and was well enough to be taken our for a nice lunch. Lizzie stayed overnight on the futon. Sarah and I hit the toy shops and were still going at 9PM. We have purchased christmas present for the boys and also something for cousins Vince and Darcy who are coming to visit in a few weeks. We also purchased two take apart "Lightning McQueen"s for the boys . Simon had been bugging us for weeks and was probably feeing a bit hard done by. (I am sure Granny would have bought him one a few weeks ago- He is missing you!)
On Friday, Lizzie was still in charge until 5:20PM when I returned home. I was hit with a 3 pronged children's assault: Ben demanded that I put electric Thomas back together, Simon demanded that I help take apart Lightning and Ella just wanted to play. After 45 minutes, they were all satisfied, I was exhausted and Sarah walked in from work drinks.

For those of you confused about the schedule this week: I have changed my day off to Tuesday, Sarah is working Tueday, Thursday and Friday. Lizzie is here on Thursday and Friday.

The Sleep Conspiracy

Anyone that knows us, knows that:

• we have 3 beautiful children
• we have 3 children that go to bed nicely, without much drama
• we have 3 early risers

So we are often talking about how early we have to get up all the time. With the extra activity Simon is getting at preschool he is now sleeping in until 630am or sometimes even 7am on most mornings. The current early bird who likes to catch the worm when it is still a very dark 5.30am is Ben. Back to bed Ben!. I am convinced he and his brother are conspiring to prevent any form or sleep-in for their parents. Whenever on the rare occasion that Ben decides to sleep in past 615am he arranges for big brother Simon to get up earlier with some lame excuse such as he can't find one of the hundreds of toys in his bed. Simon is actually too lazy to get out of bed, he just shouts out so one of us will come rushing in.

Who knows what they are telling their little sister to do or maybe she is the brains trust behind this little scam. Everyone knows how manipulative girls can be and she is cute.

Cute or what?

Michael wanted the title of this post to be "Entry in the most ridiculous outfit competition". I disagreed as I chose the outfit.

Where to now skippy?

On Friday we planned to visit Waratah Park - the home of the Skippy TV series. We got the idea when a few weeks ago we saw an episode at the Powerhouse museum. We checked on the web to ensure it was still open. However when we rocked up at 10AM - we were informed that new management had just taken over and the park was now only open on weekends.
Ben took the news rather badly as he was bundled back into the car. Where to now?
It was looking like it would rain so we headed off to clown town again. Everyone had a good time. Ella loved looking at all the other children and the huge climbing equipment. There were some anxious moments as Ben disappeared on the third level of the climbing apparatus and Sarah was sent in to search for him. The boys then decided it was fun to play on the car racing game with their mother.

In with the new and out with the old

We knew that we really needed a new couch when the Salvation Army collection service rejected our old ones. Now we are left with the old couch and two chairs on our front verandah until we can organise my retired brother Michael to help us take it to the tip. Here's a picture of the new ones. They are in as kid-friendly colours as possible and are still to be scotchgarded completely. Yet another job on our long list.....