puff and huff

At the risk of making a milestone out of each missing tooth, Puff lost another tooth this week – while brushing his teeth. It was a close call – it was nearly lost down the sink, but he caught it in time! 

The kids have been a little sick during the week, but we figured they were healthy enough to make the journey to the mountains on Saturday. As we had last year, we went to the apple orchard, had a look at the mountains from its lookout (Huff doesn’t think she’s been to the mountains until we look at a mountain from across a valley), and then, after a big lunch, we went to Katoomba to a second-hand bookshop.

Dad read some different stories to the kids, and we bought a few books.

Despite the weather, we also made a stop at the Leura candy shop. The kids were mostly well behaved, if a little distracted at times. Here’s Huff being a bit cheeky about which lollies she takes, and which she puts back.

Sunday had a chance to spend some time with her cousin over the weekend. The cot already seems very small.

Dad celebrated his birthday this week: the kids were really excited to think about presents to buy, how to decorate the house, and even created a treasure hunt around the house (with a spy pen) for presents. It was encouraging to see them channel their creativity into a show of affection.

What a rainy week! Lots of time indoors, and some extra screen time, and – once the rains finally stopped – a very excited little girl looking for puddles to jump in with her gumboots.

Her old umbrella was a casualty of poor construction so now she’s the proud owner of this bundle of dots.

We’ve been eating at home a bit more often; it’s even heading into dressing gown weather.

Friday night we went out to a night markets, where the kids luxuriated sitting on a concrete step for dinner (just out of frame was a weber filled with hot coals that gave us a few anxious moments).

We went straight from the relatively late Friday night to get up early for the Anzac dawn service. Puff had had his school Anzac service the day before, and was able to say “lest we forget” along with the assembled crowd, which was a little parenting milestone.

Later in the day we had an Italian pizza for lunch; the kids weren’t feeling very adventurous, so they had the cheese pizza half, but they really enjoyed it.

Huff fell asleep when we were driving, but Puff managed to stay awake for the whole day, with some judicious use of books to stay awake.

Continuing in the winter clothes pattern, we had Huff wearing this poncho to church on Sunday. After having a couple of weeks off, she was a bit unsure about going to Sunday School, but we persuaded her, and she was happy enough once it started.

Sunday night dinner was a bit low-key, with Dad steaming some prawn dumplings, and the kids pretty keen to watch some iView.

See you next week!

This week Huff received a new dress from her clever Aunty C.

At first, she wasn’t sure about the dress, but she grew to really like it.

Huff has an interesting relationship with clothes: often she doesn’t care about them at all, and will just wear whatever she’s asked, but on occasion, she has a strong opinion one way or the other. We’ve tried to give her a framework for understanding “beauty” that it’s about your actions: the way you treat other people, rather than how you look. The language we use in how she presents herself is more around looking “neat” – being appropriately dressed for the occasion. Sometimes this has worked well, and other times it leads to some arguments. For whatever reason, she doesn’t like being called a “princess”, and when we tried to figure out what she was unhappy about with the dress, it seemed to be that people would say they liked the dress. Once we told her that she could say “My clever Aunty C made this for me”, she was much happier about the situation, so it seemed to be more about having a way to navigate the social situation than anything to do with the dress itself.

Huff (and Puff) also had some time with their cousin. There’s some forced perspective in this photo – Huff is still taller.

With school term starting up this week, we had a new occurrence – Huff had her first day of preschool while Puff had a pupil free day, so he had the chance to spend a day with Mum. They had a great time, drinking hot chocolate together and Puff learning how to play marbles (a game he has quickly decided to teach his sister).

Puff is getting so tall now. We have been handing down some clothes from Puff to Huff, and it’s very odd to see her wearing something that we have clear memories of him wearing – Dad for one hasn’t come to terms with Puff’s increased size.

See you next week!

With Mum’s high school reunion a five hour drive away, Mum and Dad decided it was time to have a night away from the kids, and so Grandragon stepped in and looked after them for the weekend, so there are not as many photos as usual!

Here’s Huff helping with the pancake making.

Puff’s help on the pancake-making was more supervisory.

With Mum and Dad back, Dad was mostly straight back to work, and so has been trying to catch up with bedtime stories and morning chats. Mum took the kids out today, and their obsession with facepainting has moved to arm decoration. Huff had a flower, complete with glitter.

Puff had a puppy – he was keen to show it off when Dad was home.

Overall the kids had a fun day out.

There was also a catch-up with a whole bunch of families from the old youth group: the kids all managed to get along well, which was great!

Happy Easter! It’s been a busy long weekend; lots of catching up with old and new friends. Huff spent some of the week not feeling well; for one trip to school, she wanted to ride in the stroller, even though she’s really too big for it.

Puff had his Easter hat parade during the week, and then on Good Friday Dad and Puff went out on an adventure. We had lunch together, played chess, and bought a book for him, and one for Huff.

Sunday after church we went to have lunch with family, and there was someone doing face painting; Puff wanted to be a duck again.

Huff copied her cousin and had a face full of flowers.

She quite liked her cousin’s rabbit ears, too.

Oh, and Puff has a new loose tooth. It’s all happening!

There was a bit of a face-painting theme this week. Puff had a school event – Pirate Day – this week, and so Huff wanted to have her face painted. She decided she wanted to be Bottomley Potts from the Hairy Maclary series.

She wasn’t a fan of the white hairspray, and this face was a totally random capture, but she looks a bit worldly wise here.

Puff on the other hand wanted to be a parrot for pirate day. Mum did a great job on the face paint, and it was topped off with green hairspray.

Grandragon worked hard on the costume, so he had a stack of feathers stitched onto a hooded poncho.

Later in the week, Huff wanted her face painted again. This time it was flowers and the sun behind a cloud.

Huff wasn’t feeling well over the weekend, so while she said home and rested with Mum, Dad and Puff went out to have pizza for dinner. It was great to spend some time chatting with him on a range of topics (including his current game obsession – Duck Life 3, and some mixed numeral fractions among other things).

The next night, unexpectedly, Huff was still feeling a bit sick, so Puff and Dad went out again. It made the following night a bit odd when Dad was back to having lunch after the kids had gone to bed.

Huff was feeling better again by Monday, but we didn’t want to risk her getting her preschool friends sick, so she had the day home with Mum. She decided that making marshmallows for her (and Puff’s) friends for Easter would be fun. Here she is decorating them.

Looking forward to a pleasant Easter with the family – see you next week!

Another week: school photos this week on a non-preschool day, and so Huff and Puff walked up to school together. She still loves her rainbow skirt.

A bit of a quiet weekend compared to past weeks. 

Puff finished up school for the week, then sat down to work on his homework. Why is he in his swimming costume? He had a swimming school party to go to in the evening.

Huff tried to stay awake for the party, but missed most of the fun. She did well at her swimming, though.

So much so that we went for gelato afterwards. She was very happy about it (note Dad’s new glasses).

Mum and Puff were similarly happy. Puff was very proud of his epic eating efforts: two scoops of gelato by himself!

Then last night there was a fundraiser to go to with face painting. Huff asked for a flower.

Puff went all out (as usual with face painting) and asked for an angry bird.

There were a few other adventures (including a walk around town with their cousin) but wasn’t completely captured in photos.

See you next week! 

Another week has gone sailing past. Scrolling through iPhoto shows all the photos that don’t make it into the blog: there’s a sense of the bustle of life (or at least, that part of life where we’ve had the presence of mind to take photos) and disproportionately the happy moments. Memories of positive moments of connection, without the clutter of life’s banalities to block them out.

If you ever read the blog thinking that being a parent is a constant good time, it’s not. But the good moments are sublime, and the make up for a lot of the challenges.

To provide contrast with the moments of good parenting, here is a photo Dad took of Huff sitting on the couch, eating snacks and watching TV. Though she was happy with the show, you couldn’t tell by looking at her face.

On a more positive note, Huff met up with Aunty I and uncle C.

Huff still loves her sunglasses (she’s carrying the bag that they’re stored in, so she can put them away later).

Dad went with Huff so she could have her final injections (4yo). She was very brave.

Puff had a plush toy friend with him this week, so we had to stage a few photos. Here we are out at dinner as a family.

And here we were later in the weekend, waiting for yum cha.

See you next week!