A week on the farm

Monday I travelled down to the farm with the girls. They did remarkably well on the trip, Isobel crying for about 30 mins on and off, and Alexa was brilliant occupying herself with looking at the animals and inspecting her new purse that Annie had given her complete with 'lipstick' (an empty lip salve), moisturizer (an empty sample bottle) and money (yes that is real!).

On the farm there is much to look at. Alexa loves the puddles and insisted on stepping in every single one. That means doubling back to get the ones on the other side of the track as well, so progress is very very slow! She is much more confident with the dogs, although still wary. She was quite unsure of the calves though, and even though they were safely trapped in their pens, insisted on clinging to either Gran or I and watching from a distance. She was fascinated by the little calves being fed with 2L milk containers, however the fascination didn't seem to relax her and she refused to get too close.

Isobel on the other hand loves getting up close!! She giggles at Zac, especially when he is in reach, and thought the calves where hilarious giggling at them sticking their tongues out at her to lick her. She would occupy herself on a mat while we sat up to the table having our meals, occasionally entertaining us with peek a boo. She has learned to lift a cloth over her head and pull it down with a smile when we sing out 'peek a boo'. She also enjoyed pulling out toys from a bucket, very quickly learning to tip the bucket up. Despite a fair amount of attention, Gran was never really successful at training her to put the toys back into the bucket!

Isobel has had a bit of a miserable time compared to her usual content self. She has spent most of the time with a streaming nose, eyes and mouth. The eyes usually due to something Alexa's done. She has one bottom teeth through, but no others so far. She has however slept right thru the night each night only waking after 7am which is fantastic.

Alexa and I have been sharing a room and two single beds which is a novelty for us both.

Tomorrow we head off to Turangi, where David, Annie and Jojo will join us for the weekend. We hope to do a trip to the snow and introduce Alexa to Snowmen and other icy things. She has no concept of snow and therefore no interest, but hopefully this will change.

Cool dude

The girls are keeping us very busy of late.

Alexa is testing boundaries by being a bit naughty and also not staying in her 'timeout' spot. This has meant a trying time of an hour spent continually putting her back on her spot until she did her time (2mins). Most of this was spent with her giggling and thinking it was a great game to run away and be dragged back. Eventually she saw that she wasn't going to get off and succumbed with sobs. Since then I have begun a star chart (thanks to Jane) and she gets a star when she has been particularly good - good listening or helping etc. When she has filled up the row with stars she gets a 'treat' - the first of which is a trip to the pools and a swim. The idea is that together we will think up each new treat and work towards it.

She is a fairly bright girl and recently had the girls at daycare laughing. A new boy had started, his name Donato. Alexa immediately began calling him Donato Tomato, to which pretty soon the rest of the children followed suit. They ended up calling him Donnie in an effort to stop the vege link.

Meanwhile Isobel has begun to move her hands in that lovely way children do - rolling them at the wrists with the movement getting busier the more excited she is. She is just beginning to get her first tooth through which today has caused her to be off form and quite grizzly. I have her wearing Alexa's old amber necklace and I use a teethmed naturopathic spray that seems to calm her. Hopefully this will see her through.

Both girls have developed a recent habit of waking at between 5 or 5.30am. Isobel can be convinced back to sleep by lying her against our chest, but Alexa is more reluctant. She will stay in bed reading for half an hour, then if it is still too early we have resorted to putting on the tele and going back to bed. I am horrified that it has come to this but it seems the easiest way to get a few more minutes of sleep.