puff and huff

It’s been a busy week – the last of the school holidays – with lots of activities, much of them around hospital visits, and the kids have been real troopers throughout. Here they are, early in the week, playing at the physio.

We went down the south coast to visit a couple of cafes. one had a built-in second-hand bookshop, so we added to Puff’s collection of science books, and Huff’s collection of counting and picture books.

After that cafe, we went to another cafe where the kids could stretch out a bit and draw.

Later in the week, Dad took Huff and Puff to a playground: it was just the right time of day to take photos of them.

We also managed to find time to head up the Central Coast – there was some sandcastle viewing, which was the main thing that Huff wanted to do during the holidays. It was dusk, and windy and cold, but they managed to cope pretty well (though Huff was pretty unhappy on the way back with the sand in her shoes… some more life lessons to be learned for her).

We went to a friend’s birthday party on Saturday, and the kids had a great time. Dad and Puff played some kind of chasing game that Dad didn’t entirely understand, but it was fun. Huff was in fine spirits too.

On the way to one of many hospital visits, Dad and Huff picked up a coffee for Grandragon. The staff were keen to offer Huff a babycino and marshmallows while she was waiting, and she was keen to see how the coffee was made.

Sunday morning Puff was up early, so joined Dad on his morning walk. He was a bit distracted by the TV (playing Italian news), and asking a few interesting questions.

Dad encouraged the kids to have a nap in the afternoon, so they could stay up and watch the Grand Final. It was funny hearing Puff cheer for a team for the first 20 minutes, as he came to grips with the way the game worked. Perhaps funnier was Huff asking if we could “watch the same movie another night”. She doesn’t yet have a category for sporting events, it would seem.

In addition to the dog and bird that have made a fairly regular home at our place, we’re currently looking after two guinea pigs. The kids enjoy feeding them and interacting them while Mum cleans out the cages.

Mum has been very creative in coming up with ways that the kids can be entertained in the hospital. Here is the walker, being adapted for “figure eight” rides around the ward.

Puff is back at school now; juggling homework and reading with his usual interests – he’s starting to pick his own books at the library, which looks like it will be a fresh set of challenges.

Huff is learning her numbers – she can recognise most of the digits now, and lets us know when she’s bored of it all and wants a break.

Big thanks to Uncle J for his efforts at looking after the kids on Friday.

We’ve made the most of the school holidays in terms of taking the kids out to parks. Here’s Puff getting his balance back after spinning on a small roundabout.

We had a special outing this week: we went to a bus depot with a group of small kids, and the bus went through a bus wash. The kids were very excited.

Huff and Mum were pretty happy with the bus wash too.

Another highlight for the kids was meeting Grandragon’s new guinea pigs. 

In honour of the bus wash, and a science book character, they’ve been named Bus and Oddblob.

The kids have explored a range of culinary options. Here’s Huff concentrating on a poached egg (they were happy for most of breakfast).

Later in the week, Dad took them out for a different breakfast (Dad did Huff’s hair for this photo).

It’s been good to see the kids getting along this week, despite all the extra time they’ve spent together.

We went to a new cafe in Port Kembla this week, which was part cafe, part second-hand bookshop. Puff spent most of his time there reading a science book, while Huff decided it was time to teach herself to “read” a counting-themed picture book.

Puff asked if we could stop “burning coal” when we use the computer, and use solar power instead. Not sure where that came from, but happy to think about our environmental footprint with him.

A bit of a transitional week this week: Dad wrapped up after a long time at one job, and the kids came in to help tidy up a desk.

Saturday was Aunty I’s birthday – it was a chance for the cousins to play together: here are Puff, Huff, and baby E having a go with blocks.

Sunday, Puff was given a very cool toy: a wooden cube that can be transformed into a robot. There were some challenges getting used to how to fold it, but he’s loved the toy, and played with it for long slabs of time each day.

Mum took Huff and Puff out for gelato and a trip to the park while Dad had some contract work to look into.

On Monday night as a school holiday treat, Mum took Puff to bingo – he had a great time, and even won a prize!

Today was the second day of the school holidays: everyone was a bit tired. We tidied the house, and had a tidying break in the afternoon where we went out for a late lunch. Huff just wanted cuddles with Dad for a while.

See you next week!

Another big week; one of those week where it’s a joy to have the kids around. And a week where Mum spent a lot of the time feeling unwell, but pushed through anyway.

Huff loves taking selfies.

Friday morning Dad was out for a walk with Huff (on the way to meet Mum and Puff at a music class before school). We waited for a while at a building site where a cement mixer was getting ready to pour a slab. She was quite interested in what was going on, and not too stressed about the level of noise.

Mum and Dad were out most of Saturday and of Sunday (at, ironically, a parenting workshop), and on Sunday afternoon we grabbed a book for each of the kids as a “welcome back” present. Mum read Huff’s book to both Huff and Puff. Thanks to Grandragon for looking after the kids so well: they had a lovely time.

Monday night was – somewhat oddly – a fundraiser for Puff’s school at McDonalds. We bravely ate dinner to raise money, and the kids had a lot of fun eating, playing, and having face painting done.

Tuesday was Book Week. Puff finally had a chance to dress as Where’s Wally’s Dog, Woof. Huff went as “Woof’s sister”.

Despite a massive day at school for both of them, and jumping castles, snow cones, fairy floss, and other activity, they still had plenty of energy to run in the park.

Huff manages to miss Dad (“I missed you today Daddy”) after very short absences (the record was while Dad was still in the house, on his way to the front door) in a very sweet way.

Dad and Puff went to the dentist together for Dad’s appointment, then had dinner together: it’s been a good way of understanding what’s going on in his head, and what (if anything) he’s worrying about.

See you next week: school holidays begin Monday!

We’re well and truly into the swing of school activities. Puff had a Father’s Day breakfast at school, so we had bacon and egg rolls for breakfast together. It was good to have a chat to him on the way to school.

After breakfast, we headed in towards the city to have coffee with a friend. Huff had a babycino, and met our friend for the first time.

After school we had a quick trip to the local library. The kids queued very patiently waiting to have their hands stamped.

On Saturday night we had a friend’s birthday party.Puff took the chance to practice his speech with a friend.

On Sunday it was Father’s Day. The kids gave Dad some presents, and then we headed to church – our youth group was cooking more bacon and egg rolls for everyone who came along.

After church Dad and the kids went for a quick walk to 7-11 for slurpees. Everyone was very happy about it?

Puff spent time in the afternoon icing and decorating a cake. He was concentrating very hard the whole time, but the result was very impressive.

On Monday Puff had his inter-school public speaking competition. He did a great job, but was beaten on the day by a couple of other kinder kids.

Huff also had the chance to show off her playground skills – after being a bit hesitant, she was climbing and sliding on everything she could find.

We’ve had a week of catching up on sleep for the kids (with somewhat less success for Mum and Dad – a few incidences of waking up in the middle of the night: Huff seems to be having some nightmares at the moment).

With Puff doing more desk-work after school, and Huff’s ever-present enthusiasm for all things crafty and drawing related, we had a look at a small table for the kids.

Success! It was the right height for them (and is a bit adjustable for the future). The kids celebrated by doing painting, and then playdough. 

The next morning the kids helped Dad make breakfast – crepes. Puff broke the eggs into the small bowl, and Huff poured them into the mixing bowl: it was good teamwork, but made it tricky to get to church on time.

For his birthday, we bought Puff a watch to replace his ill-fated Octonauts watch. He really likes it – Dad is hoping he can look after it for quite a while.

We also called in to see Aunty S – the kids like visiting Grandma and Doc’s house because of all the games they have: this visit it was Mousetrap.

See you next week!

This weekend we spent some time celebrating Puff’s 6th birthday. Just 311 short weeks ago, we were welcoming him into the world for the first time. 

We were celebrating with a trip to Canberra to see Questacon, catch up with some friends and, as it turned out, to go and see some snow. Friends generously loaned us most of the snow gear we would need, but Huff needed some gloves. She picked these cat mittens.

Dad took her out for a cookie – she picked  the gingerbread, had a tiny bite, and said “this tastes bad”, by which she meant it tasted like gingerbread. We swapped biscuits, and she was much happier.

Puff (with his dress-up glasses) thought he would take the car (no car-keys in the ignition) for a quick spin in the driveway.

We drove to Canberra on Friday night, had a leisurely cafe breakfast (and Dad had most of a game of chess with Puff), then headed to Corin Forest for some snow. Puff was pretty happy with his jacket.

Dad (who hadn’t been to the snow before) had a good time trying to make snowballs and snowmen with the kids.

We even broke out the old compact digital camera, and Dad tried his skills at photo-bombing.

We tried for a family portrait, but Dad’s arm wasn’t quite long enough, and we had trouble keeping everyone’s attention for long enough. Olaf looked good though.

We visited some friends, and the kids had a chance to play with their high-tech nerf weapons. Unlike the owners of the weapon (their Dad told me), our kids wore the protective goggles.

Sunday we went to church at St Andrews, then headed to Questacon: we had free passes as part of the membership to Museum Victoria we picked up last year. Dad and Puff tried this giant slide.

We looked at lots of the science things in the first couple of rooms, then spent some time in the 0-6 play area. Huff loved the pretend zones – she was a baker for a while.

And an astronaut.

She tried filling up cars with petrol and crank-starting them.

It was a good ending to a weekend away.

Then tonight, we had sparkler candles.

And a moon cake, and other space-themed food (rocket hot-dogs, space punch, and meteor meat balls). He was really happy with the surprise (and some visiting family).

Other milestones

• a break from (iOS) screens for the weekend: this was not a popular decision with the kids, but we survived it.
• Huff continuing to balance disobedience with saying how much she loves whoever it is she was disobeying moments before
• Huff understanding some more of the Christian gospel – when we were talking about the Easter story, she knew about the resurrection.

Making the most of some leftover flexitime, Dad managed to have lunch with Mum and Huff this week: Huff was pretty keen on eating these noodles, at least for a while.

The highlight of the week was cousin E’s birthday party. Here are the cousins playing together: they were having a good time with the balloons for quite a while, though Puff needed a little bit of coaching as to when was an appropriate time to take a balloon from a 1-year-old (never).

And in preparation for the now-postponed book week parade, and its “connections” theme, Dad and Puff have been working on this circuit, and its Meccano base. It’s gone quite well, and now we’re ready ahead of time, which is a good thing. Stay tuned for visuals of Puff’s costume for book week: it’s a very cool one.

Other highlights of the week included:

• Huff’s increasing familiarity with the alphabet, her ability to count to 20 with only the occasional casualty somewhere in the teens, and her starting interest in recognising numbers.
• Puff coping better with homework, and his ever-improving reading skill, and balancing that against the frustration of not playing screens when’re there’s homework to do
• Some late bedtimes, and the ongoing struggle between books that Puff finds interesting and books Huff finds interesting. It’s good to see the connections being made in both their minds between what we’re reading at home, and what’s being talked about at church.
• Getting to catch up with a number of friends, and in some cases, their babies as well.

Mostly pictures from the weekend – Puff went to his long-awaited kids’ baking class over at brasserie bread. He had a great time making some different bread-y things, which we shared for lunch.

While Puff was cooking, Mum, Dad and Huff had breakfast in the cafe next door. There was a lot of putting stickers onto books, which is something Huff is currently passionate about. Huff is now at the point where she can say her alphabet flawlessly, which is an exciting little milestone.

From the baking class, mum and Dad went to a cafe, and distracted the kids with some screen time. This continues to be a divisive issue between parents and kids, and we’re currently leaning toward further limiting the screen time.

After the cafe, we used our Museum Victoria pass to visit the Australian Maritime Museum which, though interesting, had little on a Saturday to entertain the kids. Even a trip for gelato wasn’t quite enough to boost their spirits.

Given how enthusiastic they were about running around outside the museum, we thought it was high time for a park trip.

So we went to a nearby park at Pyrmont, where Puff climbed a rope structure while Huff scooped sand. After that, despite the cool temperature, the kids spent some time playing in the park’s water fountain area. Huff *loved* it, scooping up the water from the fountains (she was a bit confused as to where the water was originating), and running back to the sand to make wet sand, so other kids could make sandcastles.

We called in to see Grandma and Doc, and some uncles were doing some map-reading, Puff learned how to read and write grid references on maps.

Sunday morning Puff wanted some time with Dad, and wanted to walk and get pizza, so Dad obliged. We caught up about what’s happening at school for him – he has a pretty complex timetable!

That night, so that Huff wasn’t left out, she and Dad went out for gelato. It was a bit late in the day, and she fell asleep not long after noticing the super moon out the car window.

And then today, Mum brought Huff into the city to have coffee with Dad. There was a lot of chocolate on the top of the babycino, as you can tell!