Happy Father's Day

Well Sunday was Nick's first father's day as a daddy to two. So of course we had to honour him with twice the love. Present wise he scored some lovely framed photos of the kidlets to take back to work with him, a Darrell Lea dad's bag (a father's day must!) and some cool cufflinks made out of scrabble tiles - the letters "O" and "E". Ollie even helped Nick out with his gifts, saving him the trouble of having to unwrap them himself!

We rounded the morning out with pancakes and ice-cream at home before wandering down to the foreshore for the sunday markets. Ollie was lucky enough to have a go on the jumping castle again which is pretty high up his awesome scale right now. He starts his turn out a bit nervous, making sure we are in his sight at all times but before you know it he is tearing through it at breakneck pace to get to the slide, and even better, clambering up the slide rather than going around the long way. He has quite the monkey skills this boy.

Evie celebrated the occasion by wearing a dress for the first time. It is a lovely one that Nanna Kaye brought back from NY. Too pretty.

Father's day also brought about the end of Nick's five week holiday. While it has undoubtedly been tough for him to go back to work after such a long stretch, we both realised that we needed to start getting on with our real life again. So Nick trudged back to work yesterday, leaving me facing my first actual day of looking after two kids on my own. Nanna Carmel and Grandpa Rob scored massive brownie points for taking Ollie to the indoor play centre, allowing me to take Evie and have a lovely coffee with my friend Carly. But I knew the real test would come at lunchtime, when all the shenanigans begin...

It initially looked like all the planets had aligned as I found myself putting Evie down to nap before Ollie even got home. And when he did come home he was truly knackered after a busy morning tearing around the ball pit. Looking good so far. So after a bite of lunch and waving goodbye to the grandparents, Ollie and I laid down and read a story. Unfortunately this is when Evie started crying but it looked okay though as Ollie was settled down in his bed. Unfortunately it was not meant to be. I ended up spending the first hour flitting between the two bedrooms in an effort to convince both of them to go to sleep - the reason for her lack of sleep being the commotion that Obear was creating from his room. Not a happy Mummy.

I found myself steadily confiscating objects that Ollie was somehow acquiring and bringing back to bed (magic wand, ipod, buzz lightyear, books etc). My highlight was when I went in and found him on his bed with the giant pump dispenser of moisturiser squeezed all over him and him declaring "I just need to put on suncream". It was an inner battle between anger and laughter at that point. Naughty, but too too cute!

It was at this point that I remembered that there was a block of dairy milk in the pantry. Thank goodness. Maybe not the healthiest use of food but I figure it was better than cracking bottle of vodka in the freezer!

Ultimately I gave up on trying to get him to sleep and just left him in his room (which has a gate on it). Not surprisingly he totally trashed it with toys and books everywhere. I did have to intervene at one point when I heard him saying "I've just got to climb this fireman's ladder"!!! Eventually he started to call out that he was ready to be a good boy now and wouldn't wake Evie up anymore.

Recognising that my sanity was in jeopardy, I loaded the two of them into the double pram and we went walking. Ollie wasn't thrilled that we weren't walking to anywhere in particular (like a park) so he decided to shout repeatedly at the top of his voice "I want to go somewhere". Good times. Even more fun was when they were both crying at the same time. But the sunshine and fresh air did me the world of good and probably was of some use to the two little demons.

We got through the day, Nick came home and before you know it the little ones were sleeping soundly in their beds. My vow not to have a glass of wine on a weeknight went completely out the window but I've made my peace with that. Best of all? Today is a daycare day for Ollie. Happy days!!!

In other events, Evie went to have a check up last week at the baby clinic. Naturally she is doing all the things she should be. Like Ollie at the same age, she is quite the little guts. She now weighs 4.52kg, so almost a kilo heavier than her birthweight. Love chubby little babies.

Ollie's love for his sister hasn't dwindled any lately. Realising that she has her own toys (well his hand me downs from when he was a baby) has probably upped her standing. Ollie thinks it is great to play with baby toys so Evie had to muscle in to get a go of them herself.

And looking like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, here is Ollie's daycare photo. How gorgeous is he? Love that gorgeous smile and sparkly eyes.