Christmas at the Little Lawrences

A few happy snaps from Christmas at the Little Lawrences

Christmas Eve Tortiere

 Milk and cookies for Santa, and a carrot for the reindeer (which the possums ate)

 Christmas morning (early)

 Christmas Tree

 Jasmine's new fairy princess dress

 Jasmine's new cubby house

 Tim's tiger tee

 Beau's new baby toys (I swear he was smiling one second before this photo was taken!)

All tuckered out after present opening (cuddling Rover the Guide Dog)

Santa's little helper

Look what I found under the Christmas tree!

Santa's little helper!

New tricks & re-purposed Christmas stockings

Beau has a new trick...

And if you look very closely you can see his two bottom teeth too!


I thought he'd be excited to see the world in a horizontal aspect, but he's completely un-phased by the whole thing and is typically just content with life. God love him. 


I was looking at some photos and videos of Jasmine at 7 months recently and she was rolling everywhere by this age. She'd see something across the room that she wanted and she was off like a sausage to get it; capably rolling both directions on demand (I should have known it was to be an early sign of her determination... that and the jutting bottom jaw should have been a tip off). Beau on the other hand, seems to think that there's nothing important enough to bother rolling for. If he waits for long enough something far more exciting, like a racing, screaming, squealing two year old will come tearing into view anyway.


I have a feeling he'll be a late crawler and walker, which I'm actually thrilled about. One small person to keep an eye on and round up in a playground is more than enough. 


Speaking of that other small person, Jasmine went to her first birthday party on the weekend where we didn't know the parents. She was invited to a combined 3 & 5 year birthday party by one of her friends at childcare. I was so touched that she's made her very own friend independently of me that I was a little teary when I found the invitation in her pigeon hole. Must be the breast-feeding hormones. 


And what a party it was. There were about 15 5-year-olds and 5 3-year-olds invited, plus parents and a couple of other siblings, but I swear it felt like we were at the Ekka with 1,000 people down sideshow alley. There was a clown, jumping castle, balloons, cup cakes, birthday cake, pink cordial, face painting, stickers, lollies, dancing, chips, take-home-lolly-bags. And thankfully, champagne for the parents. Jasmine ate her body weight in sugar in the first 5 minutes and actually allowed a stranger to paint her face for the first time in her life.

She had a ball and I almost had a panic attack envisioning the same chaos descending on our home (which it inevitably will) when we start having our own proper children's parties. But that's why champagne was invented.


We've decorated the house now for Christmas, and the gigantic tree Lou helped me choose last year is up. It barely fits in the corner!

We are really looking forward to having the Porters down this year, and only wish we could be sharing this time with more of our Canadian family too. It's made me miss you even more remembering this time last year when we had so many Canuks in town. 


And have you ever wondered what to do with those pesky Christmas stockings taking up valuable storage space? (excuse the photoshopping - can't have nudie rudie pics making this blog a porno, someone might actually read it!)...

Lost in Translation

Jasmine and I were playing in the car parked in the driveway on Friday afternoon. She was 'driving' and I was sitting in the back seat 'watching the wiggles'. We had the doors open because it was so hot. After telling me to 'sit nicely' and 'stop crying, mummy' she pressed a few buttons and held onto the steering wheel ready to take me on a 'long drive'.


A fly flew in her open door and started buzzing around the windscreen.


'What's that, mummy?'


"That's a fly, honey. Give it a little shoo and it will fly away again."


Jasmine took off her shoe and passed it over the dashboard to the fly. "Here you go fly."

Poo tug of war

We have started potty training Jasmine. I went out and bought about 20 cute undies as bribes to get her to use the potty. In reality I've found that the best bribe is ice-blocks! So once we've finished the long process of potty training we will commence the long process of ice-block weaning. :)

The first time we tried to get her to use the potty she sat nicely for about 5 minutes while I read her a book, then she decided to teach teddy how to do a poo on the potty. I thought this was a great idea and encouraged her to show teddy how it was done. She squatted by the potty while she sat teddy down on it and explained "you sit down potty, teddy. Wait, teddy and do little poo poo.". After a few minutes I asked her whether she wanted to have another sit on the potty and I started to help her to stand up only to discover a steaming turd on the floor underneath her!!!

She'd been telling Teddy how to push while she was backing one out!

I was trying so hard not to laugh while I congratulated her on almost doing a poo poo on the potty. But then the clean up operation had to commence, and once Jasmine saw me picking up her poo in some toilet paper she was clearly overwhelmed by a sense of propriety over the poo, and tried to grab it out of my hand to hold it herself. So there's me, with my hand on a hot poo (in toilet paper), the other end held (also in toilet paper, thank god) by my not so predictable 2-year-old who is DESPERATELY trying to pry it out of my hands. It was like a poo-tug-of-war! I was just waiting for one of us to lose our grip and the whole lot to go flying through the air!

Eventually the steaming turd made it to the toilet (in several pieces mind you), and Jasmine had the thrilling responsibility of putting it in the bowl and flushing it down. 

To my utter delight she's done two more poos in the potty in the last two days, and today announced it's arrival to me by telling me "it's coming out now". 

Jasmine enjoying the fruits of her labour this morning.

Beau's MAXI-SIZED outing

Tim finally convinced me to go shopping at Costco on the weekend. I know you folks back in Canada are big fans, but there are many things about Costco that don't agree with me. 


Firstly, I don't like shopping for groceries (now, you'd think that this alone would have been enough reason for me to not go to Costco!). Well, I didn't until I had kids, now a trip to the supermarket without two kids in tow is about the most relaxing experience I have all week. The familiar music, the friendly people who chat to me at the deli counter... I digress... The point is, um, was, that I don't like shopping for groceries.


Secondly, I don't like the whole ethos of the place. It's just more, More, MORE! Bigger packages, more stuff to buy. They say you're getting a bargain, but I think it's a wolf in sheep's clothing. I've compared the price of nappies. I have. And they're not as cheap as you think! And because I'm not a particularly thorough person I'm happy to be convinced that this is a sufficient sample size of product price comparisons to prove that they are MAXI-RIPPING US OFF! One maxi-sized package at a time!


(But I do like their bagels and tomatoes and butter chicken and gypsy ham and salmon, so you can continue to shop there, my lovely husband.)


Before we had even entered the shop my anxiety levels began to rise. We spent 15 minutes driving around the poorly lit car park (which was the only part of the Costco experience that should have been bigger) before we eventually succumbed to the inevitable and stalked a couple from the store exit to their car, then waited another 15 minutes for them to empty the 640 litres of stuff from their trolley into the boot before we could take their spot.


We split on entry. Tim & Jasmine had the grocery round. Beau and I had the Christmas presents assignment. But after about 10 minutes of being bounced around like a pinball between all the bogans pushing their MAXI-SIZED trolleys (I swear they should ask for licences before allowing people to use those things) I detected a whiff of Beau Explosion. Of course, Tim had the nappy bag, and because Costco is roughly the same size as a shopping centre, I had to phone him to arrange a meeting point somewhere near aisle 5,439.


Now, all the crowds, the overwhelming choice and being buffeted by those massive shopping trolleys must have compromised my decision making abilities. Because for some reason that I still cannot explain, I decided to change Beau's Explosion in the middle of the store. And once I had his onesie half off I realised that this was not an ordinary Explosion. In honour of his MAXI-SIZED supermarket visit, Beau had done a MAXI-SIZED shit. 


Sloppy, yellow poo had leaked out the top of his nappy, out the sides of his nappy and a fairly good amount had squirted up his back. And right about the time I was beginning to realise the immensity of the clean up operation ahead of me, Beau began waving his arms around and collected a good fistful in each and began smearing it on his head. As if this wasn't enough, the motion of lifting up his legs to pull the nappy out from under him poured more out the back and onto the pram, squelching it around underneath him and pushing it through all the little holes that the straps come through. 


Meanwhile about 100 people had passed us, looking over to see what the commotion was about and getting a nosefull of eau du bebe Beau poo. And it was around about then that I started to wonder why I hadn't just walked the 2Km to the store's toilets.


But the best was still to come. With poo on every surface in front of me, and on my hands and forearms, I discovered that I had only two baby wipes. Yep. One. Two. They were enough to temporarily remove the poo from Beau's head, hands and arms. But about 90% of his body was still coated in the stuff. I sent Tim off for reinforcement. At least we were somewhere that I knew had to sell wipes. And of course they did. Only, we had to buy a crate of 12 x 500 wipe packets. Which is probably just as well, because I needed about half of them just clean up the current mess.


So even if we did save some money at Costco this weekend, I think my therapy bill will more than offset our savings. 

There were two in the bed

When Jasmine woke up from her nap yesterday I went in to get her with Beau in my arms. She said "Beau get in?" and patted the space on the pillow next to her. So I popped him in, and got out the camera: 

There were two in the bed and the biggest one said... GET OUT OF MY BED NOW, BUSTER!

Beau's big week

In the last 10 days Beau has:

• turned 6 months old
• rolled from his back to his front
• rolled from his front to his back
• finally swallowed some solids (after 2 months of concerted effort)
• sprouted his first tooth!

I'm thrilled for him, but also a little sad that he's growing up so fast. He's done it all in typical Beau style - smiling, laughing, gurgling and generally enjoying himself throughout. 

Here are some recent photos of the littlest Lawrence.

Lock up your locks

You know how sometimes you don't notice something is needing attention until someone else points it out to you? Like a big chunk of spinach stuck between your teeth, or toilet paper stuck to your shoe?

Mum pointed out on our visit to Currumbin last week that Jasmine was sporting a rather impressive mullet. 

Exhibit one, taken 2 weeks ago (and yes, that's gorgeous Erin!)...

So I decided it was high time to dust off those newborn gifts we'd received for keeping your baby's first lock of hair and furnish it with Jasmine's first ever lock of hair. Only 26 months later.

Here are the after shots (and yes, she's still in the same 'ballerina' dress)...

Mum said her new hair cut was 'pert'. But I think she may have been referring to Jasmine's attitude while we were on holidays.

Porridge first!

Jasmine has been away from creche again this week - this time with pink eye (conjunctivitis). But this morning her eyes were all clear, so I asked her, 


"Do you want to go to creche today, Jasmine?"


to which she replied,


"NO! No creche!"


Then a pause, and,


"Porridge first, then creche, mummy."

Our new puppy

Between my doggy lovin' hubby and my doggy obsessed toddler I am destined to one day be the owner of a dog (or two). In the meantime, I'm more than happy with our new puppy. 

Despite being two, she's still not house trained, and has still yet to follow commands (although I'm told that this breed sometimes never really listens to their masters). But she's very cute and cuddly, so I think we'll keep her.

Jasmine singing

Can a mother of two be a virgin?

This is my first time. I am a little apprehensive, excited and curious all at once. For I am a virgin...blogger.


Welcome to The Little Lawrences! 


After our recent visit back to Canada I discovered that the J&B Journal had been read by everyone from Jasmine and Beau's grandparents, to Tim's ex-neighbour's friend's mother's cousin's son. So I figured its audience was a little larger than I had previously believed which led me to wonder how many people had read about my breasts feeling like rockmellons and other such personal matters, and whether that was an entirely good thing. However, I have reached the conclusion that it can't be all bad since everyone was still speaking to me, and I've decided to get all 21st century on you and drag you into the world of blogging.


The hard part for me is going to be writing honestly knowing that my audience is potentially anyone with an internet connection. It's all too tempting to censor it now, so I will try my best to keep gloating at the great parts, and sharing the not so great parts. Plus, you get to be part of the online blogging phenomenon by posting your comments (otherwise I will never know if anyone reads it!). 


So enough about blogging! Let me tell you what The Little Lawrences have been up to of late. 


Beau has been practicing his freestyle, kicking up a storm and swinging his arms around like little windmills when he's feeding. Sometimes his fist makes contact with my chin, and he often stops to grab something en route - usually a handful of my flesh which is a great reminder of the post-baby-flab I have yet to lose. He's still full of smiles and has a great laugh going now too. Erin, Tim and I lose minutes at a time pulling faces and bouncing him around to get him worked up into a good guffaw. He's such a happy boy. 


The latest, and in my mind, most brilliant news is that (miracle of miracles) Beau has slept through till 4 or 5 or even (dare I say it lest it never happen again) 6 am a few times in the last 2 weeks. I have every bone in my body crossed that this might be the start of some longer sleeps for me too. 


Jasmine has recently added a new word to her rapidly growing repertoire - DON'T! It's most often used with her other favourite, NO! Everything is a negotiation now - getting out of bed, changing her nappy, which and how many toys to bring to the kitchen, what she will eat for breakfast, where she'll sit when she eats (or does not eat) breakfast, what she'll drink when she eats, which spoon/fork will be used, which bowl/plate will be used. And the list goes on, every minute of every hour of every day for everything that happens in her world.


The catch is that there is High Drama if she is either a) not consulted or b) not attended to instantaneously or c) not listened to without interruption. So I am considering suggesting that the Mr Men and Little Miss conglomerate expand their franchise to include Little Miss High Drama, with Jasmine as the lead character. As one of my girl friends says, "Jasmine has high highs, and low lows." Or as Danny says "The girl has personality!". If I was to predict what she'll be when she grows up, a career as an actress is certainly in the mix.


So in keeping with first times, I'm going to try to keep this blog short(ish), and sign off for now. And I promise to include some photos next time too!


xx
Kathryn