Worth the wait

So you might have noticed that there was no blog last week. There are two competing theories as to why that was.

The first is that it seems someone temporarily replaced Ollie with one of Satan's offspring. And perhaps I figured that if you can't say something nice about someone then perhaps you shouldn't blog that week at all.

I guess we have been pretty sheltered from the terrible twos and this latest assault on boundaries really hasn't been that bad. It has meant getting him to sleep for his nap and at nighttime (and getting him to stay asleep) has been a bit trying. But I was explaining it to someone at work who has kids, and I told him that it had taken an hour to get Ollie to go down to sleep and then he had woken up again around 3am. This person pointed out to me that it sounded like nirvana to him. Perhaps we have been spoiled by such good behaviour and just don't know how good we have it? But still, it has been pretty trying at times, especially when you can see that he is just doing something to totally push your buttons, and with that little mischievous/evil grin on his face.

The second theory was that as it was my last week of work I had a bit too much to get done and couldn't face sitting down in the evening and writing a blog. Finishing work is something that Nick and I have been really excited about for a long time now. Even though I was only working three days a week it really made a negative impact upon our day to day lives (but a positive one on our bank balance - oh the unfair struggle).

The last 18 months have been a particularly stressful time as for the clear majority of that time we haven't been in a position to have any family members help out in those times when Ollie has been sick. This is surprisingly often when you have a toddler - they seem to swap germs like baseball cards. And as much as Nick is a wonderful hands on dad, it would invariably fall to me to be the one who had to take time off work to look after Obear. So of course you find you are spreading yourself too thin, hardly the model employee but on those three days a week not exactly gunning for parent of the year prizes either. It is tough to only see Ollie for less than an hour in the morning and only a little more than that in the evening on those days. And it is hardly quality time, what with us trying to get ourselves ready for work and shovelling food into his mouth and then again at night, along with trying to get him settled and then down to sleep. It is hardly the style of parenting I aspire to - I want to be the one who messes up my kids, not someone else!!

So thankfully we now find ourselves in a position where I hope to take a significant amount of time off to raise Ollie and the new addition. I've had plenty of people express concern that I will find it boring or not challenging enough but I'm sure I can find ways to keep myself from going stir crazy. But if you happen to notice that over time I am only capable of singing nursery rhymes and reciting "Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy" (a cracking book by the way), by all means let me know that perhaps I need to start getting out a little more.

So to celebrate my newfound freedom from work and tethering to Ollie, we have spent a significant part of the last week out and enjoying this beautiful crisp early winter weather in the local parks. On the first day Ollie and went to a different park to usual, largely because it was closer to home and I am not up to waddle as far as I usually do. This was lucky for us as we met some other mums from around the area and had a lovely time. This is the mummy equivalent of dating. It is a nerve wracking process of trying not to look too keen or desperate but ensuring that you paint yourself in the best possible light and that your child doesn't choose that particular moment to release their inner tanty-christ. Thankfully Ollie was on his best behaviour, even managing to share his diggers with another little boy, and we managed to secure the gold medal of mummy dating - swapping phone numbers and arrangements for a future playdate. Success!!

The weekend saw more parklife for us with a picnic on Saturday with Nick and another picnic with the Brisbane based aunties and uncles and Nanna Carmel on Sunday. Nanna Carmel even bought Ollie his own three wheeled scooter which he just thinks is awesome, despite his recent incident on one at daycare. We will definitely be picking up a helmet for future rides but there is no doubt that Ollie B thinks it is the absolute best thing since sliced bread.

The alphabet is pretty cool around here at the moment, but especially the letter "O". Ollie is forever finding letter "O's" when we are out and about and proudly declaring that it is an "O for Ol-vla" - which is what it sounds like when Ollie says his own name.

He is also loving left and right. We talk about putting his left and right leg and arm into his clothes and he has pretty good odds of knowing which hand is his left and which is his right. Sometimes he gets it wrong but hey, so does his Aunty Alicia, so I figure he is doing pretty well at it!

Early Sunday morning activity around here seems to have become Duplo construction with Ollie and Nick. I'm not sure who gets the bigger kick out of it but I'm pretty confident that Nick was the brains behind this massive robot construction. Not surprisingly the robot didn't stand for much longer after this photo. But that is half the fun of lego - build em up, tear em down.