Happy birthday! - here's some head lice

Erika and I went to a birthday party on Sunday, but unfortunately the weather was abyssmal and was pouring rain.  Erika was very shy and didn't talk much but after a while she got into the food, and was eating BBQ prawns, cashew nuts, sausages and chips.  I had her in her gumboots and raincoat so she didn't get wet but we got wet getting back into the car because I had to get her in the car and take off the raincoat and of course all the water on the raincoat ended up on the baby seat.

So today I saw FR, the mum of the girl whose birthday it was and she told me that her daughter M has head lice.  GREAT!

So now I have psychological head lice, because my head is itching like crazy now.  I will have to inspect Erika when I get home.

The funny things Erika says

My little girl is picking up more and more of adult speak every day!

Today I was trying to give her something.  I can't remember exactly what it was - perhaps it was some food, or a drink, or some toilet paper.  And I said to her "Here, do you want it now or do you want it later?"

"Later," she replied me.

"Well, where do you want me to put it now?" I asked

"Just leave it," she said.

What an adult thing to say!

Baby slings and how to keep your baby safe

An article today in the Sydney Morning Herald about a 2 day old South Australian baby who died while being carried in a sling under his mother's clothing is an awful tragedy.  In a letter to the Medical Journal of Australia, published today, two pathology experts say as tests found no other explanation for the Adelaide baby's death the cause was recorded as undetermined, but the sling was "considered a risk factor".  This is the first known fatality of a baby in a sling recorded in Australia.  There have been 16 deaths reported in the United States and Canada attributed to baby slings.

One thing to note here was that the poor mother was wearing the baby under the mother's shirt and jumper.  Which in itself is dangerous, as being under all those clothes can also cause suffocation.

The ACCC has issued a saftey alert for baby slings and there may be soon be mandatory safety standards.

Having used slings for both my babies I am going to share what I know about the safe use of baby slings:

• Always be able to keep a visual contact with your baby.  I never had my infant under clothing, the sling was always on the outside of my clothing (I even bought a second, bigger size sling so I could compensate for clothing)
• Avoid excessive neck flexion and nose/mouth pressing against the cloth or your skin.  This can lead to suffocation.  I found that the sling would often put them in that position and you would have to turn them slightly so they face more upwards rather than into your chest (though that chest facing position was good for breastfeeding if you wanted to breastfeed your baby in your sling)
• Be vigilant!  I know it can be hard when you're busy with a few kids but I did try to make sure I could hear breathing or some kind of noise from the baby.
• Don't lean forward excessively with the baby - squat lift things - otherwise your baby could tumble out of the sling.
• Never eat hot food or hot drinks while carrying baby in a baby sling!  You could spill it on the baby.

I used Jazsling and Peanut Shell slings for my kids.  This picture shows the correct positioning of the baby in the sling.  Facing outwards, outside of the clothing, and in easy visual contact with the parent.  Jazslings are very light, and at the time quite cheap!  They are a bit more pricey now, and you can also breastfeed with them, but I was never very successful at doing that.

Kite flying in Bicentennial Park

 It was a nice day on the weekend so we took the kids out to the Bicentennial park so we could fly some kites.  There was quite a bit of wind.  We bought some new kites to fly and they actually flew really well!

There was an older gentleman there too with his kites and he had a whole trolley bag full of  kites and he was flying them near us.  I was worried we would "cross the streams" but it was ok.

Hubby is excited and wants to buy more kites now, as well as a fishing reel type thing for reeling in your kite.  The kids were happy to look at the kites but a bit scared to hold them because of the pulling feeling I think.  Anyway, guess I won't be taking them fishing either any time soon

Family friendly Eats (Sydney) - An Restaurant

An Restaurant in Bankstown is a Vietnamese noodle house that specialises (in fact, only makes) Pho, the Vietnamese Rice Noodle soup.  We have eaten there a few times, but I wanted to blog about it today because I had a nice experience there on Saturday.

Located near the Bankstown Sports Club, there is a free public multistory car park nearby which is where we always park. It can get really busy though, so traffic around there can be slow.

When we walked in, we were immediately ushered to a table, and a high chair put there for Julian, without even asking.  The orders are always quick and the food comes quickly (I guess because for them a quick turnover makes good money), but then again they aren't making much except Beef Noodle Soup.

One of the complaints people have about Pho An is that it isn't cheap.  A medium Pho is about $10, and a large just a bit more than that.  For Pho that is quite pricey.  However, the service, the speed at which food comes out and ease of ordering is what makes it worth it in my opinion.  It was very family friendly - not just the high chairs coming without asking, but also they gave us plastic bowls and spoons for the kids when they came to take our order.  It was such a relief, because screaming hungry kids is what makes eating out a real pain sometimes.

Address: 27 Greenfield Parade, Bankstown
Ph: (02) 9796 7826


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Father's Day - Family Fun Day, Australian Museum and Dumplings for lunch

For Father's day we went to the Australian Museum to see the Beauty from Nature: art of the Scott sisters.  I was quite excited because I really love natural history publications and old lithographs/watercolours/botanical prints.

From the Australian Museum website:

Beautiful and intricate, this stunning exhibition features more than 60 delicate watercolours, as well as rarely-seen notebooks, handwritten manuscripts, sketches and letters, which together form a fascinating record of the lives of Harriet (Hattie) and Helena (Nellie) Scott.

Turn back the pages as you uncover the captivating story of these two extraordinary women whose love of nature and tremendous skill in rendering its beauty enabled them to distinguish themselves amid the male-dominated world of 19th century science.

The highlight of the exhibition is the 60 watercoloured paintings created between 1846 and 1851 for their father A.W Scott’s landmark publication Australian Lepidoptera and their Transformations.

Considered the finest examples of the sisters’ work, the paintings feature caterpillars in life-like poses, gorgeous butterflies, native flowers and stunning landscapes.

The exhibition features more than 100 of the original moths and butterflies collected by the Scotts during their research for the Lepidoptera and donated to the Australian Museum in the 1860s.

I even asked Erika what did she want to do on Father's day - would she like to see pictures of butterflies or go to the zoo?  She said she would like to see pictures of butterflies.

I loved the watercolours and sketches.  The scientific detail was excellent, and I think that any of their prints would make an excellent addition to my wall!

One of the other great things about our day out was that it was Sunday - which is Family Fun Day for Cityrail.  This means that for $2.50 you can get an all day public transport ticket as long as you have at least one child with you, and travel around as much as you want.  So the kids got to ride on the train and have some fun, and we got some cheap transport.

For lunch we went to check out the Westfield in Pitt St Mall.  Haven't been there since the revamp and it looks great.  We went to the food court (thinking, ugh what boring Westfield food are we going to have today) and it was actually a REALLY nice food court.  They had Din Tai Fung Dumpling Express there, so that's what I ended up getting us for lunch, and they had a Becasse Bakery and so many fast food outlets I hadn't seen before but would love to go back and try again the next time I go to the city.  Sushi, Mexican, kebabs, fish, health food... too many things to choose from!  So we had the Xiao Long Bao and Siu Mai steamed with the soup inside (kids didn't like that for some reason), and the fried Siu Mai, as well as the dessert steamed dumplings and hot and sour soup.  Pricey but yummy! (Pics here by Food Booze shoes for Urbanspoon).

So for Father's day, hubby got a card with Baba written by Erika, and I got him a Tempur pillow to try.  Hope it works well for him.  At the end of our outing, hubby thanked me for the fun Father's day.