Julian and his haircut

Poor Julian, he hates having his hair cut and he probably hates it even more now.  I went to clipper his hair in the shower yesterday (because it's easiest to wash away the hair in the shower - it wasn't on at the time) and his hair got caught between the comb attachment and the clippers and yanked his hair - YEEEOWCH!  Poor baby screamed his head off.

After that he was petrified of the thing.  I did try to do the edges again but he wouldn't have any of it.  In the end I had to resort to using my fingers and scissors, because even a fine toothed comb set him off.  It was a very unpleasant half hour as I hacked at his hair and it ended up quite uneven.  But at least now it's done and he doesn't have such long hair anymore.

So here is my baby with his new hair.

Kids are snotty again

Ugh, the kids have a cold again, and Julian was so miserable on Wednesday he kept throwing up!  Fortunately by Thursday he only vomitted after being made to cry, so hoping today he will be back to being non vomitty.  He has lovely green snot though.... interestingly Erika was sick first but only seems to have a mildly runny nose as opposed to Julian who has rivers of green pouring out from his nose.  Yuk.

Hubby made them that chinese curry, the mildest one and they seem to enjoy eating that with rice which is good because there is meat, potatoes, celery and carrots in it.  So I'm glad they are gradually moving towards their own food.

And they seem to be quite good now at eating their breakfast at the little table, and eating by themselves.  I make sure they have their normal breakfast first and then I put some dry yummy "dessert" cereal there for them, like cocopops or cheerios.  Unfortunately I can't stop Julian eating Erika's cocopops sometimes...

Julian using potty on his own!

I thought it was a fluke yesterday when Julian sat down on the potty and pee'd by himself in it, but he did it about 4 times today!  So I'm feeling pretty proud of my little boy, and he seemed pretty proud of himself too!

But does this mean I have to let my son run around with no pants all the time so he can sit on the potty?

New Playground at Blaxland Riverside Park

Hubby has been going bike riding around Olympic Park and noticed a new playground that was really large, and was saying we should take the kids there.  He took the kids there with my sister in law and her son, and they had a great time.

So today, weather was good so we set out to go to the park.  I was quite excited to see it because they had photos from last time and the kids looked like they really enjoyed it.

So here are some pictures of what they have at the park.

Directly opposite the car park is this section, with swings, a small net for climbing, balance poles, and a round swing which can sit a few children on it.  Erika likes climbing on the cargo net.

Further afield there are these great slides, 5 in total.  There are also rock climbing hand holds to go up the hill as well, which is great fun for adults as well as the children with some climbs more challenging than others.

Just next to the slides is this cool round dish, which spins around, and can seat quite a number of children.

Next to the round spinning dish are two tunnels, which are great for the kids to crawl through, though Julian can get through it standing upright still.  Hard on the knees though!

This awesome cargo net looks a bit advanced but Erika did climb a little bit on this "spider web" coming from the shortest climb (shown closest here, the black net) and managed to get to almost to the other climb up (on the far side of the net) but slipped and got scared so I had to climb up and go get her.

These two things are quite cool and I haven't seen them in a park before.  Thre is a flying fox on the left, and here on the right is a big rope swing where multiple people can sit on it and swing.

Julian's new word

Julian is now saying Bubble!  He was playing with one of those bubble blowers and he said "Bahbool".  So cute.

The constipation thing did not really settle on its own with avoidance of cow's milk.  I have been giving Erika parachoc to loosen her up but I will persist with the soy milk for a bit longer to see if it makes any difference.   Interestingly, Julian's poos have firmed up and he's only going once a day.  I hope that he's not getting constipated too.  That's the last thing i need!  Though perhaps it's better than diarrhoea...

Things the kids do that make you go awwwww :P

I often call my kids little monsters and ratbags but they do have really cute things about them that show that they care about you, maybe even love you!

I am sure many parents can relate to these but here are some examples of when the kids are so cute that you love them to death:

1. When I am lying in bed putting Erika to sleep and she asks if she can hold my hand, and her little fingers curl around my fingers, and she closes her eyes and gives my hand a little squeeze.
2. When I am entering the door after being at work and Julian sees me and immediately drops what he is doing to run over to me to hug my leg or stand at my feet looking up at me with his arms up to be carried
3. When Erika looks at me when I am wearing a dress or a nice coat or make up, and she says "Mama is pretty!"
4. When Julian makes kissing noises and then grins from ear to ear looking very pleased with himself.
5. When I am lying in bed with Julian and he grabs my hand and puts it around him and and then places his hand on top of mine.
6. When Erika puts her hands on my face and makes me look at her face and then she giggles.
   

Game of Thrones

My sister recommended this TV series to me, and I thought I'd finally get around to watching it and I admit I was a little shocked.


She described it to me as a series based on a book, where a number of kingdoms existed in a land but Winter is approaching and invaders who love the cold are coming and threaten the kingdoms.


I mentioned to HK that I was going to watch it and he said don't watch it in front of the kids.  I was intrigued.


So tonight I watched it with hubby and woah.  It must have an R rating this series!  There were gory beheadings and lots of dead people, sex scenes (omg there was MIDGET porn!) and lots of nudity and violence.  The first episode was a bit confusing, so I am not sure how the following ones will be.  Maybe it will all gel together.  But I was shocked at the ending of the first episode.  Murdering children!


Now I am curious what the books are like!  One of my friends, Moo, on WoW has been telling me to read the books but I never got around to it.  Looks like I'll have to make time now.

O'Farrell backs down on Solar rebate cut

When I got back from holidays there was a lot of talk about how the NSW premier planned to slash our solar rebate from 60c per kw to 40c, overturning a previous government promise that the rebate would be honoured until until 2020.

However the Premier has backed down and my 60c/kW is saved.

Which is good news, since last week I got another negative electricity bill, and have $250 odd in credit.  I also decided to switch to 100% green energy this week, which is going to cost me an extra 5.5c/kW, which I think worked out to be an extra $35 or so on my bill.

Yay for solar panels!  I wish I could have put more on.  Maybe I should consider getting solar hot water as well.

Constipation and milk intolerance

Erika is constipated again, which vexes me because I have been doing the fibre and fluid things and I would have thought she ate better here at home than she did when we were away.

Interestingly, while we were overseas, she was never constipated.  And she didn't have her bran or any of the fibre supplements she had when she was here.

So I am wondering - can cow's milk make you constipated?

I did some googling and found that dairy intolerance can actually make you very constipated.  And when Erika was overseas, she very rarely had any cow's milk - we were drinking soy milk all the time because of Julian.  And the same was in Taiwan also, she drank lots of soy milk.

So I am going to cut all her dairy and put her on soy and see if that makes a difference.  It may take some time to take effect, so I hope I will see some results in a few days.

And just to make this even more gross, here is the Bristol Stool Chart.

Type 1+2 = constipation
Type 3+4 = ideal
Type 5 and above tending to diarrhoea.

So Erika has been doing Type 1 for the last few days.

Day 1 Diary free: Today's stool is a Type 2.  That's an improvement!  I did try to make sure she had enough water as well, and also she had bran in her Weetbix this morning.

The Land of the Painted Caves - Jean M Auel

I have always loved the Earth's Children's series and the final book in the series came out this year and enjoyed it like I did all the others.

Valley of Horses was still my favourite of the books, with all her taming of the animals, finding the firestones and meeting Jondalar.

In this book, Ayla is progressing with her Zelandoni training and goes through many trials and new experiences.  There is a lot of cave touring, looking at cave paintings and singing the Mother's song (which unfortunately I found a little bit dull).  Then there is a conflict at the end with Jondalar which is not that great a conflict, and is resolved after a few chapters with a near death experience with Datura.  The loss of her baby with her calling to the Zelandoni and also the revelation that babies are created when a male and female copulate are also interesting points in the book.  However there are no other animals tamed or new inventions - this book focuses on the spiritual and interpersonal relationships between humans and the culture of the cretaceaous Man.

The herbal medicines that are used in the book I've always found interesting.  I know some herbal remedies - obviously willow bark for analgesia as it contains salicylates, peppermint for stomach ailments, coltsfoot for lung ailments and coughs.  So I thought I should look into datura a little more.

Datura contains tropane alkaloids such as scopolamine, atropine and hyoscyamine in their seeds and flowers.  In the book they used the root.  The effects are typically anticholinergic giving a delirium rather than a hallucination.

Wild carrot seeds have been used to prevent conception.  Pennyroyal as an abortifacient or menstrual stimulator - I read about this in lots of other books as well.

The other thing that I wish there was more of in this book was between The Others and Flatheads.  I remember in the Plains of Passage (when Jondalar and Ayla were going home) that they came across a Flathead couple and Ayla spoke to them the Clan way.  I liked that.