Lisa And Luca

We'd normally catch up with our buddies Lisa and Luca on a Tuesday, however, as Jarvis and I have to put down the new lawn tomorrow, we arranged to see them today. It was great timing too, as the weather was that pleasant Sydney autumn type, much like we are used to back home in New Zealand, when it's neither too hot nor cold. Plus the place that Lisa and Luca are in at the moment has a beautiful garden with some great spots for little people to play in.

Jarvis was SOOO excited about catching up with Lisa and Luca that I was worried that he'd wee himself when they came to open the door. My reason for concern was due to the fact that we'd driven over to see our friends with Jarvis wearing big boy pants and no nappy. I've had limited success with toilet training away from the house, due in part to me forgetting to take Jarvis to the bathroom or tree, if we are in a park situation. After a while, I forget and so does Jarvis, resulting in the inevitable wet trousers. However, for the trip out I took along Jarvis' potty, so he could tell me when he needed to use it, which he did successfully. It's not going to go with me everywhere, but I need to get him into not wearing nappies now for our trips out.

Luca was as excited to see Jarvis too and the boys started off with some cuddles and toy playing in the lounge, before moving to the garden to do some real boy stuff, like digging in the dirt. Luca also gave everyone a wee back massage, as you can see from the picture below. They had a great time with trowels digging up the dirt and driving diggers and trucks through the muck. From there it was onto an upturned paddling pool, where we fished for dead worms. It's good to be a boy eh!

As per normal, Jarvis and Luca were way too fast for me to get any decent pictures, as was Lisa who is not into having her picture taken. I did manage to grab a few though of our excellent morning out.

It was lovely to see our friends and great for Lisa and I to have a chat and to get to know each other better. Plus, Lisa being Italian, makes the BEST fresh coffee, which means I'm totally wired now and won't be able to get my afternoon Nana-nap. I don't think that will be a problem for Jarvis today as well, as he's on fire, so I'd better go back into the lounge to see what he's up to, as it's awfully quiet in there. You know the deal eh!

House Dad.

Weekend Wrap - 28 - 29 April 2007

We've been so fortunate to have our beautiful Adrienne/Mumma home with us for the last 5-days, so tomorrow will be sad as we'll miss her heaps. Both the boys have lapped her up and have enjoyed having her to play with for a whole 5-days, so I think we'll be at a loss tomorrow when she goes back to work, nice and refreshed after her wee break.

It's been a real mixed bag of rest, odd jobs and gardening for the whanau, but with lots and lots of fun thrown in. That's probably the biggest thing besides love in our whanau, the fact that we always laugh and play heaps, jumping on every opportunity to give each other heaps if one of us slips up. I reckon that not 10-minutes goes by in our house hold without laughter and in fact, that's the way we get around most things with Jarvis, by turning what could be a possible meltdown situation, into one that ends in lots and lots of giggles.

Jarvis has been a great help in the front yard this weekend too, giving me a hand to pull out rocks, weeds and roots, plus the odd worm here and there. He even helped me carry some large bags of soil conditioner from the car. I don't know how I would have managed carrying that 30 kilo bag on my own without my very own little Superman to help me. With regards to the new lawn, you can see Jarvis in the picture below holding his hands out and saying "Where's the grass Dah?"

The only downside to our weekend, well Jarvis' and mine, as Adrienne is a Blues fan, is that our team lost to The Brumbies on Saturday night. That's cool, as we are still the top four and looking good for a semi-final spot, but I made a bet with Sarah across the road that if her team beat us, I'd wash her car. So yeah, check in soon for me humbly washing Sarah's car in my Crusaders shirt.

Adrienne has had lots of rest over the last five days, as she's been very tired all the way through this pregnancy with V 2.0, unlike with Jarvis where all the tiredness and sickness was in the first tri-mester. However, as the sun broke out today after a straight week of rain, we decided to get some fresh air and sunshine with a trip to Tarongna Zoo. Thankfully, as we normally do, as all parents seem to do in fact, we got there nice and early so beat the crowds. It was very pleasant temperature wise too, so we had a great stroll around the place and Adrienne finally got to see the new elephants, which she's been hanging out to do since they arrive a few months back. Jarvis was thrilled to be able to show his Mumma where all the animals were and the cool places to hide. However, after about 2.5 hours, poor Adrienne was bushed, so it was time to head home.

It's now Sunday afternoon, Jarvis is crashed out on the sofa, I'm updating the blog and Adrienne is making a roast chicken for dinner, so the house is full of the beautiful smell of cooking. It's been a fantastic weekend and wonderful to have our beautiful Adrienne/Mumma all to ourselves for the last 5-days, because we love her SOOO much.

House Dad.

Little Dynamo's

It's Friday, so it must be our favourite play date day with Tommy, Sophie and Jane, plus we get to take Adrienne/Mumma along too, so that she can meet our special friends for the first time. Incredible as it sounds, Adrienne has not meet that many of the little people and parents/carers that Jarvis and I hang with on a regular basis. I guess Adrienne is hard at work earning some coin so that Jarvis and I can do all the cool things that we do.

Anyway, since Tommy and Sophie's last Nanny moved on, we've kept in regular contact each Friday, bugs permitting, with the twins and their Mum Jane, going out and doing some really cool stuff. Adrienne has heard lots from me about how wonderful Tommy and Sophie are, plus how much I enjoy hanging with Jane, so it was a pleasure to introduce them all this morning at our new play date venue, Little Dynamo's, which Jane had suggested we visit.

As it was a pretty cold by Sydney standards, we felt an inside location would be better, so Little Dynamo's it was, a place that they've been to a few time before in the Waterloo area of Sydney. OMG, what a fabulous place to go and play. It's just like the Lollipops play center we used to go to, however it's bigger, cleaner and lots more fun, with a lovely clientele. Jarvis was just itching to get in and play, and no sooner were his shoes off, than it was 'see you later olds.' So off he was to explore, and came back about 10-minutes later to drag me off to show me the pneumatic ball guns, which I think Adrienne should buy us a set of. There were four of them and you could safely fire soft rubber balls across a space at the other people with guns. How much fun did we have?

I think we were in there for about 2.5 hours, climbing, swinging, shooting balls and coming down the rather massive slide, or slippery dip as they call it in Australia. It was such a great venue and I'm certain that we'll be going back there again, as for the first time ever, I actually got to sit down and have a reasonable chat with Jane, while the little people went off and played. It's funny, as although we see each other pretty much every week now, it's hard with little people needing our attention, to actually talk and get to know the other adult. Thankfully today we chatted and had a good old natter, something that I don't get to do all that too often these days. A great trip out :o)

House Dad.

Jarvis Breaks House Dads Skull

I returned from my more sensible 7 kilometre morning run, as opposed to the 10 kilometre killer run, to find Adrienne and Jarvis in bed enjoying apricot jam on toast. Adrienne immediately told me that they had to play Doctors this morning to try and fix something. Mmmm I wondered, what could they have broken? Then Adrienne broke it to me, that Jarvis had broken the plaster skull that I bought in Paris 29 years ago when I was just 12-years-old. It would be the oldest possession that I have, and I was kind of foolish to have let Jarvis have it in his dress up box anyway. I have to admit that at first I was quite upset and went into the kitchen to stew and examine the shattered skull, which was in about 50 pieces and beyond repair. My mood sunk, but I thought to myself, well OK, it really was going to happen if you let a 2.5 year-old play with it, plus, I'm sure Jarvis didn't mean to do it, and I bet there will be lots of breakages in the future, with two wee boys running around the house. And I don't want my wee men to live in fear, as I did when growing up, that they'd get physically punished for breaking stuff. So yeah, in the space of about 20-seconds, I went from being down to feeling happy with myself for thinking it through and coming out with a calm and positive attitude.

Adrienne had a visit with our family Doctor this morning to check up on her and version 2.0, with the prognosis being all good. While Adrienne had her check up, Jarvis and I entertained the whole waiting room with our impression of three Astronauts taking off in a rocket. I say three, as Jarvis has a new Action Man Astronaut toy that I picked up on Ebay for just $2. I'm not a user of Ebay, but thought I'd have a look and pick it up for $2 plus $10 postage. How crazy is that?

After the Doctors, Jarvis and I took Adrienne/Mumma to lunch, as we thought that it would be cool to do something nice for her, as it can't be much fun being prodded and poked by a Doctor when you are pregnant. I have no idea what it feels like to be pregnant, but I think it must be quite painful and intrusive sometimes. Anyway, we thought it would be nice for our most favourite person in the world to be taken to lunch by her two favourite boys.

The cafe we picked was recommended to me by Lisa, Luca's Mum and it's called Deus. Click the link to see what a cool place it is. We've passed it may times, as it's only five minutes from our place, but could never quite work out what sort of business it was, as it has motorbikes in the window, plus a range of cloths. Wow, what a cool and funky place to eat. It is a cafe, but also has lots of vintage motorbikes for sale, a repair shop, lots and lots very cool cloths and classic motorbike memorabilia. Jarvis and I loved it and I know another little man called Oscar who we SO have to take there one day.

The lunch was pretty cool and even though there is a wiff of engine oil in the air, it only adds to the experience. I think Adrienne liked it too, as she got chatted up by a couple of different guys when Jarvis and I went to look at the motorbikes. But then, she is a REAL cutie, so you've got to expect that.

Once the fabulous lunch was over, it was back home and time to get stuck into digging over the front yard in preparation for the new turf that hopefully goes down soon. Jarvis had great fun in finding worms and taking them into the house to show his Mumma. He was quickly shooed out though, and decided that the worms would be better off if he taught them how to climb trees. So we had half a dozen worms swinging freely from the maple tree in our front yard. That's certainly going to add to our reputation of being 'That weird family' in our street.

House Dad.

Puddles, Pizza And Poos

Today is Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand, a day when we acknowledge the sacrifices made by the men and woman of Australia and New Zealand, who gave their lives, to enable us to live as we do today. Every year I go along to the Dawn Service, however didn't get along this time round, as it's tricky with Jarvis, with his age and all, however from next year, both boys will go along together. I'm going for a run later though and will stop at the moment on Anzac Bridge that I run over and pause for a few moments and reflect.

A wonderful advantage of Anzac Day is that we get to have Adrienne/Mumma at home and in fact for the next 5-days too. Adrienne had to use up some owed holiday, so she's taken Thursday and Friday off too.

Adrienne had to do a wee bit of work on her lap-top this morning, so the boys went for a walk in the rain to find some puddles to jump in. And we found some really cool ones too, that Jarvis jumped into and made the most massive splashes. After about 30-minutes of jumping in puddles, getting cold and wet, I think Jarvis' bladder gave in, so it was home for a change of pants.

In fact aprt from tackling the going out without a nappy on, Jarvis is doing VERY well at using his potty. He even pulled down his own pants and underwear this morning, which was a first. The potty is also getting nearer to the bathroom now and I think Jarvis will be sitting on the loo, just like a big boy in a couple of weeks.

Once cleaned, dry and warmed up, we thought it would be fun to make some pizzas, so off to the kitchen it was to where I'd prepared all the stuff needed for home-made pizza. It's funny, but when as an adult you think that your wee one is going to get off on doing an activity and then they have a 'whatever' look on their faces, it kind of makes you feel stink. However, Jarvis soon came round, especially when he realised that he could eat most of the toppings before they went onto the pizza, as did his Mumma! I'd prepared a selection of toppings, that included tomato paste, tomatoes, cheese, mushrooms, salami, pepperoni and sliced hot-dog. All were added liberally, but Adrienne felt the need for some additional gherkins on her pizza, which she put down to be pregnant. The pizzas turned out fine and in fact, and where much tastier that the bought ones we get delivered, so I think we'll be doing that again.

Now we are all off for a sleep to digest our lunch and recharge our batteries for the days ahead, when we'll show Adrienne all the cool things we do when she's at work. The highlight will be to introduce Adrienne to Jane and the twins on Friday, as she's never met them, and only heard all the great things we have to say about Jane, Tommy and Sophie, so that will be cool. Right time for some zzzzzzzzz!

House Dad.

Giggling In The Rain

It's still very wet in Sydney so we needed another wet-weather location today, so chose The Australian Museum as our destination. Our Tuesday play-date friends of Lisa and Luca had something come up at the last moment, so it was just Jarvis and I. This was cool as I'd had a late night at the movies with Tieia and then we all got up early to see Adrienne/Mumma off to work just after 6.00am, so both boys were quite slow this morning.

The museum is undergoing some major renovations, which hopefully will bring it up to the standard of other museums like The Powerhouse, which it has merged with, so the exhibits are a bit few and far between. However, it's a good place to run around, out of the rain, so we can't complain. Also Kids Island was booked for a session, something I've never come across before, so we couldn't go in there. That was alright though, as after the last post about saying that the new Kids Island was just OK, I noticed that we'd had several hits from the museum to this blog site. They'd read the post several times, so hopefully, we'll still be welcome. That's the good/scary thing about websites and blogs, as I can see who reads this blog, where they are and so much other stuff. It's cool and I enjoy being able to see who checks us out, plus it's always good to know that Lou, Steph and Soph are checking in heaps at work when they should be working!

Anyway, back to the museum. We had a pretty good time running around, playing with microscopes and checking out stuff, until about 11.30am, when I spotted that Jarvis was getting a bit tired, so we walked back to the car in the rain again. As we did on the way, Jarvis hogged the umbrella and thought that it was hysterical that I was getting soaked. I was just playing up and pretending that I couldn't see where I was going, as my eyes were full of rain drops. We laughed and giggled all the way back to the car park. I can't express how happy it makes me, to spend such precious moments with my little man, having fun and being the best of mates - it's just so wonderful.

House Dad.

Ice Cream For Breakfast Dah

Jarvis' first words this morning were, "Ice cream for breakfast Dah", and of course I said, "No Jarvis, you can have jam on toast" to which he replied "No eat jam on toast for breakfast anymore, ice cream for breakfast now." Well being 3-months short of 3-years-old, he has quite a short memory, so I went and made jam on toast and placed it in front of him and returned a few minutes later to find it all gone. So much for no eat jam on toast anymore.

As well as Jarvis giving me the run around this morning, Adrienne was giving out to me and she reckons I've brainwashed our child, as he said "You rock Dah", when I gave him his Yakult drink after he'd eaten his toast. We'll I guess I have kind of brainwashed him to say that, but wait until Adrienne gets home and tells his Mumma the new phrase I've taught him, "I love Dah more than you Mumma."

It's funny, because when you spend so much time with your little person, you cant really see how their speech is progressing, but we can now have full conversations with Jarvis. It's only when friends come round that have not seen us for ages, that they tell us how many new words Jarvis, and in fact House Dad also, can now use!

After Adrienne left for work Jarvis had a bath and I took the opportunity to give him a good haircut. I must have taken about 2 - 3cm off all round, as it was getting a bit knotted due to the sun-bleached ends. It was hurting him too when it was combed, so a haircut was essential. I took off most of the summer blond while he played in the bath and although his hair is a bit darker now, it looks a lot more balanced and tidier.

Mondays are always quite sad, as we miss Adrienne/Mumma when she goes to work, after we've had her all weekend to ourselves. They are pretty low key days too, as we tend to keep local with either a trip to the park or play group. We'll after the thunder, lightning and heavy rain we had last night, the park was definitely off, so play group it was, and we were glad we went, as we caught up with Levi and Marco, who we've not seen for ages. Jarvis also thinks Levi rocks as well, because Levi is as loose as you can get for a parent and thinks nothing of hoofing a soccer ball, at full pace across a crowded room at play group. It happened once, that he fully hit a parent in the head! Anyway, Levi is wild and chases his son Marco and Jarvis all over the play group, picking them up, throwing them in the air and spinning them around. Real boy stuff.

After play group, we came home and had a spot of lunch and are now just chilling around the house, as it's raining VERY hard outside, so are confined to barracks. It's kind of cool, but why do you get more tired when we do less? I'm out with Tieia tonight at the movies, so I think I'll need a strong coffee to get me through the evening.

House Dad.

It's All About Me

Today has been one of those days when Adrienne and Jarvis spend lots of time cuddling up on the sofa watching TV and just relaxing. It's great for Adrienne to do this, because as she progresses with her pregnancy, she's becoming more tired, so to rest over the weekend, gets her through the coming week. Jarvis of course, is never going to complain about having hours and hours of snuggles with his most favourite person in the world. He's also had a pretty full-on week with trips out everyday to different places and to see different people, so some chilling time with Mumma is all good.

So yeah, I've not really much to write about what Jarvis has been up to, so I thought I'd hijack his post today and tell you about my day. It started with a run at 700.am when I headed off thinking that I'd do my easy run of 4 k's. This is my guilty run, as it's quite easy and only takes 20-minutes, which is a bit of a cop-out, but at least it makes me feel like I've done something. When I got to the part of my run where I'd normally drive to, park up and do my hard run of 6 k's over 40-minutes around Blackwattle Bay and up and over Anzac Bridge, I suddenly felt brave and decided to join the two together, as it's the weekend and Adrienne didn't have to go to work. It's something that I've thought about working towards, as the City 2 Surf nears, but didn't think I was ready for yet. Oh how right was I? It was an absolute killer and I'm pretty sure that I coughed up a lung about half-way round and spat it out! However, I did complete the whole 10 k's and in 60-minutes too, which was great. So now I'm thinking that I should do this distance everyday, as I'm still overweight and this would motivate me to loose some more kilo's. Mmmmm, we'll see.

After my run, I went off to the mall on my own to do the weekly grocery shop and get some stuff for me. As we did when we were awaiting the arrival of Jarvis, we've decided to stock up on nappies and baby things before V 2.0 arrives, so with this in mind, and as they were on sale, I bought heaps of newborn nappies. They are so small, I'd forgotten how wee little newborns are. Ow, it's getting exciting now. It was also kind of nice to wander around the mall and not have to chase after Jarvis and spend some time getting stuff for me. And as I've just finished a book, I was on the look out for another, which I found in the shape of The New Penguin History Of The World by J.M. Roberts. It's 1184 of the smallest print I've ever seen, looks totally boring and is just up my street book wise. I cant stand paying $35 for books that only take 2-weeks to read, and I think this puppy will keep me going for months, if not years.

Once home, I unpacked the groceries and gave Adrienne her banana milk drink, something I've always bought her when I do the shopping and then gave Jarvis a wee present that I picked up while buying my book. It's Richard Scarry's Busiest People Ever book, that I remember reading when I was a wee one. I'd forgetten about these books until my good friend Lisa, Oscar's Mum, put me onto them. There's so much detail and I remember looking at the pictures for hours and hours. Jarvis and Adrienne enjoyed the book along with some ice-cream cones that, I'm not sure how, made their way into my shopping trolley.

House Dad (feeling guilty about writing about me)