Ella made it to one

Ella, congratulations you have reached one. We forget that you are still so little as you chase around after your brothers trying to do whatever they are doing.

You are still the smiliest baby we know and just like the old saying, when you are good you are very very good but when you are bad..... Lately, you've been teething a lot. Or at least we hope you've been teething because thats been our excuse for your behaviour. You used to be a great eater and now you just lose patience after a few mouthfuls as if its extremely boring and there are so many other things to do. Unfortunately the way you communicate this to us is that you scream and writhe around usually flinging food in every direction except inside your mouth. You are a real Daddy's girl much to his chagrin when Mummy is allowed to float on the lilo in the pool while you hold on tight to Daddy. You like climbing over everything including any kind of table or chair. Once standing on the chair then you like to rock the chair. You have started to sleep a bit more thank goodness as the sleep torture was really wearing thin on your parents. You seem to enjoy sleeping downstairs with your brothers a lot better than upstairs in the attic.

Foodwise you have discovered a love of cheese and sand. You could eat cheese til the cows come home and the sand that bothered your big brother Simon at the beach is heaven to you.

You love getting out of the house and have a short attention span at home. You'll just wander from room to room at home trying to find out where you can create the most havoc. You especially love breaking up Ben's train track and cuddling either Ben or his precious teddy bear. Of course this drives Ben mad and we often hear "Ella's annoying me!!" and quickly have to rescue you before Ben kicks you away. Simon is a little more tolerant usually allowing you to give him a couple of hugs before he too gets fed up.

Fastest Draw in the North

Ella has tremendous reflexes and speed of movement. These two photos were taken within half a second of each other. She doesn't like wearing a hat. They don't last on her head for very long.

On a good day in the sun you can be putting her hat back on at a rate of 15 times a minute until you are exhausted and give up

We survived the first year

This post is about a month late. I was very busy at work for most of December but I am now on holiday for a week. In December we had a family birthday party for Ella. I don't remember many of the details. Granny made a very pink cake. We drank French champagne and Ella looked very cute in her new dress. Sarah even wore a pink shirt for the occasion.

Annoying instincts of Ella

When babies are born they have a number of built-in survival reflexes such as the sucking reflex and moro reflex. As they develop towards their first birthday a number of other reflex actions start to make an appearance. The purpose of these reflexes is not clear but it may be to test their parents patience. Ella has been showing the following reflexes:
- change table turnover -- must turn over when parent is trying to change nappy
- reject the last spoon of food --if there's one mouthful left must not eat it
- bed side drawer attraction -- must empty out contents of bedside drawer messily

Brownian motion simulator

that is what ben is when he is trying to get back to sleep at 4 in the morning in our bed!

Lost in translation

Ben has started to talk a lot more. The only problem is that you don't always know what he is saying. Here are some translations:
Yar = yoghurt
den = devon
shard = sandwich
shaw = strawberries
tom = thomas
an = twister (the game)
Sar = Simon

History Repeats

Ben is now happily sleeping in his new bed and no longer asks to get into his cot. He has also dispensed with the sleeping bag and he loves covering himself with his doona. He has only fallen out of bed once when we had the bed guard wrongly positioned.

His elder brother has always gone to bed with a cast of thousands: books, animals, toys and toy catalogues. Well history is repeating. The other day when I took Ben to bed for his lunchtime sleep we went with: Teddy bear, drink, rubber frog, rubber lizard, plastic cow and Thomas the tank engine.

The attack of the cute baby.

If you blow up the photo you can see the reds of her eyes.

Champagne tastes of the Harris Boys

Favourite foods of the Harris boys:
-Bananas strawberries avocados grapes and salmon

Family get together and Pram transfer

Two Sunday's ago we had a Harris afternoon tea, with Mark, Leanne, Megan, Isa, Gareth and Kayla. Granny and Leanne supplied the food - thanks for the dips and cakes. With a new baby on the way for Leanne and Mark it was a good chance to offload some unused baby stuff. Leanne has kindly taken the old pram and bassinet. We are slowly clearing out the house. 2 cots, 1 change table, 1 pram and 3 kids still to go.

The way it used to be.

It was a hot sunny day on Saturday and the pool looked inviting, even if the water was slighty cold. I thought about how five years ago we would have been lying on our pool lounges under the umbrella having breakfast or morning tea and reading the newspaper. We would be thinking about what movie to see in the afternoon and where we were going for dinner.

Oh well, now we have three beautiful children who have us up from 5:30am. We have done the food shopping by 9am. Friends have dropped in for a swim by 11am. By 12am we are think about packing them all off for a nap and having one ourselves.

P.S. The pool lounges were broken a couple of years ago, the sun hardens the plastic and makes it brittle. So we don't have anywhere to lie down and read the paper anymore anyway.

My wife the card shark

Last Friday night we hosted the regular work poker night. Every few months my workmates get together at someone's house to play poker and sledge each other. For the second time they came along to the Harris household. Most of them are single and don't really cook for themselves so I cooked dinner for a few of them. For one it was his first home cooked meal for months. Even though he lives at home - oh the life of a single person.

Anyway when we play at our house, Sarah also plays. For the second time Sarah won. All of the guys think she is a card shark. Sarah often asks questions during the game about which hands beat which other hands. The truth is that she really doesn't know.

Anyway the hustler's winnings paid for a new outdoor umbrella. Lets see if she manages to clean up at her work poker night. Next year I might put her on the professional poker tour.

Happy Brithday Granny

Happy Birthday Granny,

We all hope you had a great day, even if you didn't see us today.

Congratulations Rob

On the weekend we went to a picnic organised by one on of Michael's cousin's. While we were there, we were told the exciting news that an old friend that we don't see as much as we used to anymore, Rob, has got engaged to the lovely Gabi.

Congratulations Rob and Gabi.

Granny informs me that Rob is a big fan of the this blog.

Nightmare on Cobar St

Ella has started to crawl!. She is now preparing to terrorise/annoy her brothers.

I know we have been through this before. We were overseas in an apartment when Simon started to crawl, there wasn't a lot of chance for him to get into trouble. Ben did get up to more mischief. However now we are home and we have a huge accumulation of toys for Ella to get into. Constant vigilance is required.

The worst thing about crawling is that they won't sit still on the change table and keep on rolling over. It has often been a nightmare changing Ben's nappy. Ella is easily the most active of the children (obviously taking after her father). She already kicks and screams when you are dressing her. Yesterday when Ella was put on the change table, in a flash she was on her stomach trying to launch herself head first over the side. Five minutes later after a good work out she was finally changed.

A moment of madness

Sometimes the mind of a toddler works in mysterious ways. All logic can go out the window when you are desperate to prove a point.

Scene: Michael going upstairs to fetch Ella.

Sarah: Ben, do you want to watch ABC kids?

Ben: No! (wailing at the bottom of the stairs) I want Daddy.

A father wins over TV, not many times that will happen in life.

Breaking news -- first sleep in for weeks

Last night certain countermeasures were taken to head off the 4:30am battle: Ben was put in his roomier sleeping bag, the blinds were drawn more tightly as Sarah noticed a glimmer of light entering at 4:40 the other morning, and Ben's doona was returned to the cot to make sure he was extra warm. And we got a result! Ben slept till 5:55. Mind you Ella woke at 5am but she stayed chatting away in her cot for about 20 minutes.

Hopefully this is not a mere aberration and Ben will continue to sleep more. Parents can only hope.

Sleep Wars continued

Warning: This post contains potentially contentious political information.

There have been recent news articles about the legality of the CIA's use of torture when interrogating prisoners as part of the war on terror. One of the torture methods being discussed is sleep deprivation.

This household has first hand experience in 'sleep torture'. The names of three members of the axis of evil are well known: Simon, Ben and Ella. The coalition of the exhausted -- Sarah and Michael -- have been waging a long war for a sleep past 6:00am.

After a long campaign Simon has finally been subdued and now regularly sleeps past 6:30. The junior member of the trio, Ella, remains a mystery but now sleeps in until 5:30am on a good day. This brings us to Ben. Sleep deprivation is the main tactic/weapon being used by both parties in this bitter struggle. Ben has also brought a fair degree of screaming and shouting to the battle.

For the last few weeks Ben has been waking up between 4:30 -- 5:30am, most commonly at 4:30am. At first a number of peaceful solutions were suggested by the concerned UG (United Grandparents ) including cohabitation with his brother and putting him into a big bed. None of these had any impact.

As exhausted parents we have decided to fight fire with fire. Ben used to sleep for at least 2 hours each afternoon -- we needed the break as well. However, in the end we have been limiting Ben's sleep to 1 hour a day and drugging him up (he does have a cough) at night. There has also been a concerted effort to run him ragged in the afternoon. Results so far -- exhausted child. He fell asleep on the couch at 11:40am the other morning. And exhausted parents. He still wakes up before 5am. It means we need to go to bed around 9am. Not much good for doing anything at night.

Our next great hope -- Daylight Savings. At least it will be 5:30am instead of 4:30am

nine months and still gorgeous

Yes she is gorgeous. She is wearing a dress that her grandmother and aunty gave her.

Ella dropping a bottle

We have finally stopped giving Ella her night time bottle and she is managing to mostly sleep till the next morning without it. Now we just have to get Ben to stop waking up at 4-4:30.......