Babylegs

Today I purchased these adorable little leg warmers for Mr. Baby.  And no, I don't care if you think they are for girls as they are very practical!

This way, when he is wearing long sleeved onesies, but it's too cold for him to not be wearing pants over them, you can pop on these cute little leg warmers and then changing the diaper still only requires opening the onesie!  Mr. Baby hates having his nappy changed (a nappy is a diaper for all my American readers!) so anything that allows the process to be quicker is a winner in my book!  And these are just tooooooo darn cute! Can you just image how awesome his fat little legs are going to look in them :)

In other news, I got my hair done today with one of those Brazilian keratin straightening treatments.  I got it done before we left the US and I loooooved my hair after that!  It gives you the glossy, straight, wonderful hair you always dreamed of having. And in my case, really didn't get! And the best part is that it's actually very good for your hair and makes it healthier!  It's like being told that eating creamy cheese will make you lose weight - you keep looking for the fine print.  I think the fine print in this case is how much some places charge for it.  I, however, am one smart cookie.  So I signed up for all those daily deal emails and waited patiently until one came up for this hair treatment. So instead of $400, I paid $150. Not cheap, but it lasts for 4 months and saves so much time in trying to make my hair look presentable.  Here is a shot of how it turned out:

Sorry about the image quality - I just snapped it with the ole iphone while I'm sitting here at the computer.  As wonderful as the iphone is for daytime shots, going by this pic it really sucks at flash photos. Ah well, it's good enough for you to see how shiny and straight my hair is - yay!

He's mobile!

Mr. Baby started to crawl this afternoon!  He's been doing the rocking back and forth for weeks now and has been very successful at scooching backwards (and getting stuck under furniture!) but today was the first time he took more than a few steps (or crawls!) forward.

Here is some video footage of this momentous occasion! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24-DmcjjB2g

Let the fun begin! (and the baby-proofing...)

Daily Amusements

Each day there are, of course, a few things that happen which amuse me for one reason or the other.  Today was a good example.  At least once each day I cannot help but think to myself how exceptionally wonderful Mr. Baby is when he does something really cute, smart, funny, etc.  Now that he can (mostly) hold his own bottle to feed himself (YAY!) he had his first experience of food coma. 

Not sure if you can see the milk around his mouth.  One of Mr. Baby's nicknames is the BFG (remember that Roald Dahl book?) except for him it stands for Big Fat Guy - for obvious reasons...  I think today he really personified his nickname!

Another amusement was a spot of shopping. Prior to this weekend I had purchased one $10 T-shirt since I arrived in Australia. (And yes, that means $10 on clothes in almost 5 months which is UNHEARD OF for me!) This was mostly due to sticker shock at clothing prices in Australia. Yesterday I had a couple of hours at the shops on my own and I bought some jodhpur leggings.  Turns out that Peter Morrissey (an Aussie designer) has done a small range for one of the Aussie chain stores - Big W - and these were part of that range.  Bargain price of $24.88!  So today I stopped in at another store named Sussan's where I had seen a very cute denim tunic that I thought would be a very well-wearing item. I need items that can be washed many, many times now that I live with a person who brings forth all sorts of bodily fluids (and no, I don't mean my husband! ha ha!).  Into the shop I wander and see that this tunic is $80!! Aaahhh, right.  Well, that certainly isn't going to happen. It'll be a cold day in hell before I pay that much for a cotton shirt. So I head back to the sale section of the store just for shits and giggles (or more likely, from habit).  And lo and behold I find a positively wonderful pair of pj pants that I had been eye-ing off before Christmas: on sale, in my size and with 25% off all sale prices!  Sweeeeeet!  I snapped them up for only fifteen clams! Here they are:

Aren't they beautiful? I will be one stylin' lady these winter nights :)

And finally, a little bit of potty-mouth kinda amusement.  One of the best things we've bought is our espresso machine.  It is one of the highlights of my day, every day. And today, for my afternoon latte, it especially made me smile as I looked at the pattern that just happened to end up in my milk froth:

Hee hee... (snicker, snicker).  Yes, it's juvenile and silly but it does look an awful lot like a .... well, I'll leave it to you to fill in the blank.  I promptly forwarded this shot to my husband. For those of you who know him, you'll know that it really made his day.  I know this because he called me as soon as he opened it and told me so while laughing.  Then he asked me if I could do this again!  Unfortunately, no - it was 100% accidental!  But it sure was good for a laugh.

Wiggling

We finally bought a dvd player this weekend!  Actually, my husband made us get a blue-ray player, even though we do not own any blue-ray discs, nor am I intending to pay more to purchase them... but apparently blue-ray is the dvd of the future according to him!  But I digress, the point of this is that Mr. Baby was finally able to watch The Wiggles dvd that my sister's family bought for him for Christmas!  And boy, was it a hit! Mr. Baby loooooves songs and music so this dvd was right up his alley.  Here he is transfixed by the tv:

Personally, I don't find many of these kids tv shows very entertaining.  Sometimes I chuckle to myself about what these people are prepared to do to entertain kids.  The Wiggles "Big Red Car" is a good example of this.  These blokes were driving around in Sydney in a car like this:

Why yes, they certainly do look like idiots.  Very, very rich idiots.  The Wiggles guys are gazillionaires from this gig. Doesn't stop me snickering at them though...  In the spectrum of kids shows I find The Wiggles and Hi-5 are very tolerable.  Some of these shows must have been created by whacko's on LSD they are that weird. I don't know how kids can stand them!

In = Out

Mr Baby turned 8 months old today!  My, my how time flies.  And since he was a month early being born, it means that he has been out in the world just as long as he was in my tummy :) 

He is still not quite crawling yet - he can do one or two steps (or crawls??) but can't seem to keep going.  This is a good thing I think - I have not bought the cupboard door latches or any of that other baby-proofing stuff we are going to need.  He is already displaying a definite fascination for remote controls, iphones, blue-ray players... anything expensive and electrical really!  sigh! He also is already trying to get into every kitchen cupboard when I let him loose in his walker. Thank goodness the walker blocks him from being able to actually open anything, but once he's independently mobile I'm in trouble!

Finger Food

I don't think I've ever had to do this many posts in one week.  Mr. Baby has to just slow down on his development as mummy can't keep up! 

Today's little milestone was our first time with finger foods! I don't know if I'm late in giving him this opportunity (or early?) but it was mentioned in some of the websites that people have their 7 month olds eating finger foods.  So I thought "why the heck not?!"  Mr. Baby loves to eat and it sure would be handy if he could start helping out with some things :) 

So I think the easiest way to do this is to show you in pictures - they are worth a thousand words y'know...


hmmmm... peas!



I like to smash peas!



Oops. Slippery little suckers.

Hang on a minute, I think I know what I can do with these peas.

Just a liiiiiittle bit further....

Success!  One pea in the mouth!

Which gives me a success rate of... 1 in 8 maybe?

I will just note one thing though that the pictures don't convey.  Mr. Baby looked just like a little chimp or orangutan you see in the zoo eating berries - the way he moved his hands, etc.  Quite interesting really.

Terracotta warriors and pigs

Thought I would do a brief update on a couple of things I have been doing myself.  On Saturday, Hubby, my dad and I went into town while my mum looked after Mr. Baby.  The two blokes were going to the Hong Kong tailor they both love, who visits Australia a couple of times a year to allow you to order new suits and shirts. After the tailor (once my breathing had returned to normal due to the huuuge amount of money we spent on two new suits and three new shirts) my dad went home and the hubby and I got a few hours to ourselves!  'Course, we paid for it mightily later on when we had an exceptionally tired and cranky boy that evening because my mum refuses to listen to directions... but that is another story.

So off we went for lunch at a place that I think was called The Pavilion, just outside of the NSW Art Gallery.  My hubby had scored two free tickets for us to see the Terracotta Warriors exhibit there!  First up was lunch though.  I ordered salmon with an heirloom tomato salad.  The salmon was delish!  Crunchy skin and perfectly cooked.  The salad was...hmmm... unexpected, shall we say?  I'm not sure at what point you can claim that garnish is a salad, but I guess The Pavilion has made that call and says that one cherry tomato, half a roma tomato and one basil leaf qualifies as a salad.  I heartily disagree.  I'm sorry I have no photo of the garnish... I mean "salad"... but I was so hungry that I ate it before I thought to take one!  Luckily, my husband had ordered the fish'n'chips.  Chips are cheap so they had plenty of them and my wonderful husband shared some with me. Which may or may not be due to the fact he knows I get a bit crabby when I'm hungry... 

The Terracotta Warriors were amazing!  I tell you though, that Qin Emporer was a bit of an a-hole.  Regardless, the warriors were really detailed and every single one is different.  Just incredible! And in case anyone wants to purchase a life-sized Terracotta Warrior for your own tomb (or maybe the lounge?!) you too can have one for only $2000!  Bargain!  They had a display one which made for great tourist photos (and lets you see just how big they are):

The other thing I have been up to was a very small craft-type project.  I was looking through a home decor magazine and saw a really cute rabbit-shaped door mat...but it cost $180!!  "Such a ripoff," I thought to myself. "I can make one of those."   So I did!  I bought a plain mat at Target for less than $10 and cut it into a shape that I drew on the back with chalk.  I chose to do a pig as I wanted to keep as much mat as possible, since the mat I found was a little smaller than I wanted.  Here are the results!

Not bad, eh?  Of course, it wasn't a very challenging project but I'm still very happy with how it turned out.  I'm not very creative so this is quite an achievement for me!

Aaaaaaallll By Myyyyyyyseeelf....

(sung just like Bridget Jones)

Mr. Baby and I are flying solo till Wednesday!  Hubby has gone to NZ for work - he left yesterday afternoon and gets back on Wednesday night.   I must admit to having been a tad terrified about being left alone with the bubba for 3 whole days.  I have no idea why - I am alone with him all day regularly so really it's just the night time that is different. 

So far, so good.  Last night was not too bad at all, despite having to get up and settle Mr. Baby at 1am, then get his foot out of the crib rail at 3:15am.  And at 3:30am and 4:30am the movement sensor on his monitor went off.  It only ever happens because he has worked himself right to the end of his crib and the sensor pads can't sense him any more but it is still not a nice way to wake up! So it was definitely not a good night sleep for me, but he settled easily each time, which makes a HUGE difference. Unhappy baby = unhappy mummy.  He made up for it by sleeping until 8:45am after his 6:15am feed.... Good boy :)

 

It's SHINY!!

Or maybe I should say "shiner". No, my husband did not buy me more diamonds. Rather, I may win the Crappy Mother of the Year award. 
My poor little Mr. Baby has a real shiner. 
Because I let him roll off the bed.
I turned my back on him for just a few second to put on my shoes. 
I suck.

It was the most horrible "thud" noise I've ever heard.  I knew exactly what had happened as I had for a split second thought of not putting him on the bed but since all I was doing was to bend down and get my shoes out of the closet, I really, really honestly didn't think this could possibly happen. And he likes to grab the throw pillow on our bed.  He has never moved that fast - ever!  But now it appears he can.  And I feel absolutely horrible about what happened.  Our bed is high too. All I could think of was Liam Neeson's wife (I can't remember her name) who got a donk on her head when she was skiing and died three days later. So like any paranoid first time mum I promptly called the doctor and had him there getting checked over within an hour of him falling off the bed.  Of course, Mr. Baby is absolutely fine. He was happy as Larry watching the doctor's light, smiling at her feeling his head and checking his little arms and legs for any breaks.  All of which she did to appease me - she was very understanding about it all.  And also made sure to mention three separate times that this will be the first of many, many falls/hits/cuts/bruises.... Ok... so maybe I overreacted a tad.  And maybe I sounded a bit over the top when I mentioned Liam Neeson's wife to the doctor.  She kindly pointed out for me that skiing accidents tend to be at high velocity, something notably absent when one only rolls off a bed onto a carpeted floor. So I felt a bit foolish, but still relieved that Mr. Baby was given the all clear.

Then all day I had to look at his beautiful face with a big bruise coming up on his forehead and a red mark under his big beautiful eye.  Every time I look at him and see the bruise it reminds me of what an idiot I was. This is Mr. Baby on our walk later that day:

Poor little thing! As I said, he hasn't been fazed by it at all but I was worried people on the street would think I was a child abuser.

So from now on, Mr. Baby will be getting well acquainted with the floor. He can't fall far on that :)

 

Cute Baby!

Today I took a few shots of Mr. Baby as he was just looking so exceptionally cute!  Here are a few to enjoy...

This little Bonds onesie is one of my fave outfits on him - he always looks especially adorable in it!

He was a real champ through the "photo shoot" but eventually he got sick of it:

But I kept clicking as he still looked cute :)

And later, I happened to FINALLY get a photo of Mr. Baby up on all fours, training for crawling!

PS. Has anyone seen how psycho Charlie Sheen looks in his interview?!  What a freak!