A rite of passage

We can now proudly say we have passed another rite of parenthood. Head lice hit the household about a week ago. Simon was furiously scratching his head but I couldn't see any of the critters. I put it down to the fact he was at soccer camp (Yes he occasionally does something sporty) and was wearing his hat all of the time. On Tuesday this week he was scratching his head again. I finally got him to sit still for long enough so I could check out his head. Critters were spotted.

On Wednesday morning (which luckily happened to be a day off for the parents) Sarah dashed off to the chemist and returned with something organic and a fine tooth comb.

We checked everyone out - Lizzy (aka The Craft Nanny), Michael and Ella were nit free. I am very empathetic so I had a few scratches anyway. (I am so empathetic I still have the remains of the belly I grew when Sarah was pregnant with Ella.) Lice were spotted in Simon, Ben and Sarah. The treatment consisted of rubbing the cream onto your head and then sitting with the green shower cap on your head for ten minutes. Simon was treated first. Ben needed some encouragement - 1/2 a packet of jelly beans. Once he was delirious with a sugar high he agreed to sitting for ten minutes with a green shower cap on his head. Okay maybe agreed to is stretching the truth a little bit.

Sarah had doubts about the effectiveness of the organic stuff after she discovered some living creatures still in Simon's hair post treatment, so dashed of to the chemist again for something with more chemicals in it. We had a beautiful moment of bonding as we rubbed head lice moose into each other's hair.

Everyone is clear now.

Wacky Races

The Wacky Races came to the house last weekend

'B' is for BEN

Last Thursday was Simon's news day and the letter of the week was 'B'. Simon went to school with a photo of Ben his blond brother with brown eyes.

Gina for a day

Since Simon was born our dream for our children was to have them sleep from 7 til 7 as Gina (of Contented Little Baby fame) said is quite reasonable. We thought so too. However, none of our children so far have agreed with us. Ella, however, teased us with one night of sleeping from seven til seven. And it was bliss! Alas, a teaser was all it was. Today was back to 4:35.....

what's a record mummy?

Simon, a record (as in world record) is when you do something that's never been done before.

This week Ella showed Simon what a record is when she slept through the night till 6:45am!

Last night she almost repeated this record. Although crying out at 3:40 she slept on till past 7:20!

Simon and Ben were up about 6:20 but anything past 6:00 is civilised in our world.

Looking on the bright side of life

When you have to get up before 6AM everyday there is one benefit:
You get to see the sunrise every day.

Winter has arrived

For those avid readers of this blog some important facts:

• this is post 100 of the the BLOG
  
• which is also just over a year old.

Winter has arrived in Sydney this week. The daily maximum temperature has gone below 20 degrees. The forecast for the next six days is rain and showers. We have had heavy rain and strong winds for the last two days. You would think we were living in England. A guy from work is going to Melbourne for the weekend because the weather is better down there. This is just the sort of forecast you want when the long weekend is starting and you are going to spend the next three days stuck inside with three little terrors.

The reason this post is about the weather is that not much else exciting is happening at the moment. If Sarah was writing the post it would proabably be about sleeping.

We are just settling into the winter routines of chopping wood and foraging for food in the freezer.

In a few weeks we will go to our first parent-teacher night to find out about Simon at sKool. Hopefully his spelling will be better than his Father's. We manage to get occasional bits of information out of him. For example:
Michael: Simon how was school today? What did you do?
Simon: Good, not much.

Ben remains the most stubborn child I know. I would love for him to be able to go to preschool in July. However he steadfastly refuses to use the toilet and remains in nappies. His speech is improving all of the time. Sometimes he is even understandable now. He has quite a few stock expressions:

• Mummy/Daddy you are a bully.
• It wasn't my fault - this gets used quite a lot on some days.
  
• I hate everything
  
• I hate [substitute any adult here]
  
• I get [substitue any Thoms character here] for my birthday!
  

Ella is stil trying for the most annoying child award. While being very cute she does cruise around the house looking for trouble and leaving a trail of mess behind her. As normal for a Harris child she is quite advanced for her age: The 2 year old tantrums have already started at 18 months.

The best sort of hand me downs

A few weeks ago Tony Boyd dropped off a collection of video tapes that his sons no longer watched. Madeline and Thomas the Tank Engine just aren't that interesting for teenage boys.

Tony was most impressed that Ben could name all the videos. I would be more worried that a 3 year old has watched so much TV.

Star of the week.

Last week Simon came home with the trophy for star of the week - awarded for "being a positive class member"

Well done Simon.





Ben and Ella thought it was pretty cool as well.

ParentingTip for Mothers - Number 612.

Do not let cute daughter play with expensive mobile phone - They will break it.

The Mother's Day Report

Well it didn't start with breakfast in bed. Sarah's mothers day started with me (Michael) getting up at 3:30AM to look after a sick Ella. Sarah relieved me some time around 5:30AM - (Author's note: There is some conjecture on the actul time 5:30 is a compromise to ensure marital harmony).

Simon gave Sarah a lovely gift that he had purchased at school - after Sarah gave him the money. We had made a feeble attempt to hide it in his cupboard so it could be a surprise but it had been found - Hint: Try the garage next year she doesn't ferret around the tools very often.

At 9AM I went to the gym for some much needed 'me' time.

In the afternoon we had all of the Boyds and Granny and Grandpa after for a big afternoon tea.

Ellas was the star - There is nothing cuter then a little girl with a silly hair style.

Here are some photos:

Simon at 5

inquisitive, garrulous, annoying, delightful, cuddly, sensitive, jealous of his brother, caring big brother, a great constructor.

Simon is a busy boy. He is interested in everything and exhausts his parents with his questions about everything.

Ben at 3

The second child - doesn't always get as much coverage as his brother and sister.

Here's one for you buddy

His Mother's description: twinkle in his eye, dimple in his cheek, stirrer, teaser, jealous of his little sister, polite, talkative, gorgeous

Ella at 17 months

feisty, happy, naughty, cheeky, busy, mischievous, gorgeous, exhausting.

Ella is into everything, constantly annoying her brothers and tiring out her parents. She wanders around the house looking for trouble and usually finds it.

Last week she drank some household disinfectant and prompted a call to the poisons line. It was only a teaspoon luckily.

She is still as smiley as ever and when she is happy is delightful.

Its been too long!

Well we've finally got around to doing another blog post and when I checked the date of the last post I couldn't believe it was 7th February! Time surely flies with 3 kids 5 and under.

So whats been happening?

Well the biggest thing is that Simon started school and he seems to be really enjoying it. He has a lovely teacher who seems to keep them all in line (I've seen her in action) and he has made lots of new friends.

Ben could start at the preschool if we wanted but he is resisting toilet training and we can't send him till he's fully embraced the concept. Seeing how stubborn he is, this could be a while....

Ella is now a definite third presence in the house and exhibiting the impatience of her siblings and unfortunately also their garrulousness.

More details about each child in separate blog entries to come.

Michael has been very busy at work and having to bring some work home but this is the price he pays for working 4 days a week and he doesn't mind. I haven't been as busy at work but I have been studying for a Microsoft certification exam which I just finished and I passed.

Ella still isn't sleeping so well although she started heading for six o'clock for a few mornings just to tease us then she reverted to night-time wakings and averages 4:30 at the moment. This is not conducive to a very exciting life.... Oh well we know it will improve because we've been there before. Twice.

Happy Birthday Mumma

We all love you very much and hope you managed to have a good birthday on Saturday.

Feedback from school

Simon already shows many of the characteristics of a teenager:

• he refuses to tell his parents about school
• he lies on the couch watching tv, ignoring his parents

We did manage to get some feedback from school: he likes little school better because he got to have a rest there!

Some people will do anything to get on the internet

On Saturday our friends Cristian and Megan came for lunch. Sarah mentioned we had the blog and took some photos - (none of Megan though).

Shortly afterwards we received the following e-mail:

Oh now, how disappointing. No news of your exciting visitors?? No
photos?? Tsk tsk.

Thanks for a lovely Saturday. Very relaxing time and lovely food to
boot. Seb especially enjoyed a bite-free play.

X Megan
ps are you sorry you showed us your blog yet?

Advanced for his age

Last week, we sent our first off for the big world of kindergarten. So far he has been for 3 days.

We chickened out

We take our australia day celebrations seriously in this household. We were hoping to have a BBQ for 3 days running over the Australia Day weekend. On Friday we were kindly invited next door to Megan and Brett. A great BBQ, very traditional - total segregation of men and woman. The men even ate separately from the women. I had a great time as did the boys. I don't know how much Ella and Sarah enjoyed it since we only saw them when we were going home. The only radical thing the whole afternoon was the noodle salad - cooked by a man.

On Saturday we caught up with our friend Pam from uni and her lovely quiet family of James, Emily and Thomas. The boys could learn a few things from Emily and Thomas about how to communicate without talking so loudly.

Prior to the weekend, on Wednesday we had Andrew, Louise and the girls from across the road over for warm up BBQ.


However after BBQs on Wednesday Friday and Saturday I couldn't face another steak or sausage. I had had steak and sauasage at six meals in total since I was also eating the left overs for lunch. So when Chris, Margie, Matthew and Thomas came over for dinner I caved in and we had chicken for dinner. We also had cous cous (aka North Shore rice)

Chris and Matthew checked out the latest blog entries and commented on how well written they were. We all sat down outside for a lovely dinner. The boys had a great time with their cousins. Simon remembered that the cousins liked the playstation so we had that instead of the usual computer games for the pre "goto bed activity"