An improvement

Well it seems like these two little terrors may have read last week's blog as there does seem to be an improvement in sleep around here of late.  In Evie's case it is a 50% improvement.  I can say this with certainty because she has created a solid pattern of alternating one great night sleep with one broken one the following night.  It is like clockwork.  Or like calendar-work more like it.

Apart from the sleep issues, Evie has been an absolute treat lately.  She seems to have received a real injection of personality in the last week and has a few new tricks.  The best one is waving "bye".  It is a really crazy wide wave but she means to do it and the look on her face when you say it back to her is priceless.  She is just so thrilled that we understand what she is communicating.  She is also starting to do "high fives".  Again, wild and crazy in their execution but she just cracks up with laughter when you do it.  The only thing better that a high five is when she does one with Ollie.  Then she gets into hysterics.  As does he, especially when he gets her with that old "down low - too slow" trick that he adores.  Gorgeous children I have.

Now don't be scared but...

Ollie turned into spiderman this weekend.  He was lucky enough to get his face painted (for free - how awesome is Bunnings?) and as there was another little boy there getting his face painted like spiderman there was no choice for Ol, he just had to be spiderman too!  Evie was a little puzzled by his change in appearance and kept looking at him in the car with this "hmmm?"  kind of face.

She need not have worried though as it was fairly short-lived.  We were planning to see how long it would stay put as we were going to a party that evening and thought it would have been pretty cool to take spiderman along.  But it didn't really survive his day sleep.  He came out with a black arm and very smudgy eyes where he had obviously been rubbing his eyes.  A good wash later as well as a subsequent shower and he still had the appearance of someone who was going to a "the Cure" concert. Even yesterday I noticed that he still has a very pink scalp.  But totally worth it.

We had a long weekend here over the weekend which was great.  Actually even greater because Nick had the Thursday off as well giving him a total of four out of five days with us.

On that first day off Nick was able to come along to swimming with us and got to see what a great improvement there is with not only Ol's swimming ability but most importantly, his confidence.  He no longer worries that he will sink if the teacher lets go.  And best of all (for me) he no longer screams the place down when he has to float on his back.  He just stares up the teachers nose and occasionally pats her arm for reassurance that she is still there!

The rest of the weekend was crazy busy.  We had Rachel and Christian come over for a sleepover on the Friday night.  We had a delicious Indonesian feast which did nothing to strengthen our resolve not to just jump on a plane for a week in Bali (although just the thought of being on that plane with these two terrors is enough to quell my desires).

Saturday night saw us over at Nanna Carmel and Grandpa Rob's place to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary.  Evie slept through the party but Ol was allowed to stay up late and meet the guests before retiring to Nanna's room to watch a movie.  Ol isn't capable of falling asleep during a movie (unlike me) but even after the movie he just couldn't sleep.  He said to me once "mummy can you ask the party people to speak in really tiny voices".  Cute.  So in the end I brought his pyjama-d self out to join us all for the cutting of the cake and we took an early mark home so he could sleep in his own bed.  When he finally got to sleep at 10pm it was officially the latest night on record he has ever had.


You'd guess that such a late night would be rewarded with a sleep in and you'd be right.  We got to sleep in until the grand time of 6.49am.  Pathetic that Nick and I were both pretty happy about that.

Another party loomed that evening as well.  Seriously crazy busy weekend.  We bundled our little people off to our friend's Nick and Marie's house in the afternoon to celebrate Marie's birthday.  They have a baby girl Abigail who isn't much younger than Eve as well as a bunch of young nephews so it is always pretty kid friendly at their place.  But the late nights had taken their toll on both of our littlies and they decided to turn pretty feral early on.  So that spelled the end of our party run.  Although to be honest, Nick and I were pretty knackered ourselves and thoroughly enjoyed curling up on our own couch with some wine and a block of chocolate.

The next day was dreary and cold (and a public holiday) so we had to pull out all stops to keep Ol entertained in the house.  Cue a fort under the dining table, some toys and a bag of popcorn and you've got one toddler entertained for about, oh, maybe five minutes.  But it was nice of him to share his popcorn with Pandy.

Nick's activity over the weekend was more construction work on Evie's first birthday present - a dollshouse!!  He is doing a great job and is pretty much finished his side of things.  I'm just itching to get my hands on it and start to make it pretty.  It won't be much of a surprise though as Evie has seen it a few times now.  But Ol is definitely the one who is most excited about it.  He has even brought his pod of whales down to play in it a few times now.

And in keeping with his builder's bum from last week, here is Ol's chippy bum.  I think he has definitely got a future as a tradie.