Mover and shaker

Naomi has taken off in the moving/wriggling department. Now when we put her down on her play mat on the floor and turn our back for a couple of seconds...we discover she is no longer on her mat but off on an adventure. And in the last couple of days she has learnt to roll from her back to her tummy, and she seems more like Ben now - rolling to get wherever she wants to go!

Egg count for June

66 eggs! That is a total of 96 eggs that we have now received from our chooks - so they have paid for themselves and have paid off about 1/2 of their house (so they still have a mortgage hanging over them).

Cafe search...

This morning I got to go out for a morning of RnR without the kids. So first stop was the hairdressers to get my hair trimmed (I haven't had it cut since Mum and Dad were here last November). What I really wanted to spend my morning doing was sitting in a coffee shop, relaxing with a cup of coffee while reading some of my magazines and latest novel (Frederick Forsyth - Afghan). The problem is I haven't had the chance to go to many cafes in Hamilton, so don't know the good ones; the bad ones; the ones that have comfy seats; the ones with good coffee; the ones to go to when you want to feel like you are in happening place... Actually now I think about it, I have been to a handful of cafes (7 including todays), but most of the time a big factor is whether they have a good kids play area. Here's a quick review of the ones I've been to:

Scotts Epicurean: First discovered on my last solo RnR outing, it has a great brunch menu; great coffee; a really nice honey, lemon and ginger drink. It is a happening place with a steady stream of customers; cheerful staff and good music. It also has paper and crayons for the kids to do drawings with while your there. It isn't the place to go if you want to relax and read a good book - it's too noisy and happening (although they do have comfy seats).

Sierra: This is also another busy and popular cafe (especially on weekends). I wasn't impressed with their food - they make it sound gourmet on the menu, but what comes out looks and tastes a bit pedestrian. The coffee didn't taste nice. Also, they don't have comfy seats and it is a bit noisy - would be hard to carry on a conversation.

Columbus: Great coffee, great cakes/slices (something with a bit of character, not just the normal cafe cakes), good relaxed atmosphere. Unfortunately they don't have comfy chairs for long sits with a book (they are wooden seats), and they don't have a kitchen so there is only cabinet food on offer if you are wanting something more than coffee and cake.

The Verandah: This cafe is situated right next to the play equipment at the edge of Lake Rotoroa in Hamilton. This is great because it means you can grab a takeaway coffee and then go and supervise the kids while they play on the play equipment; or you can adjurn to the cafe after the kids have had a play and you are all starting to freeze (as I did with a friend the other week). They make great coffee, have reasonably priced cakes/slices, and make the best sausage rolls (they have carrot and other vegetable matter in them and it is real mince, not just reclaimed carcass stuff). It can be very busy during school holidays and at weekends, and again it isn't the kind of cafe for book reading.

Smo's cafe: Went here with a friend after it had been suggested to her as a kid friendly cafe. Well it had what you could define as a kids play area, I guess - a large playpen with a few broken/miss matched toys in it. It is in a large warehouse building, so has a very cold and empty feel to it. The food was reasonable, but nothing I'd rush back for.

Cafe Agora: This cafe is actually owned/run by one of the church's in town. I found out about this cafe when it first opened, from a mum at playgroup as it had a 'kids play area'. This is actually the best 'kids play area' in a cafe that I have found in Hamilton - it is a large separate room (with a window, so you can still see your kids), where the kids can go and play with a range of toys. It has great coffee, nice food and really comfy couches. The only downside is that is only open Monday-Friday, so I can't take Peter and the family there on the weekend or just go there by myself while Peter looks after the kids.

Pumice: This is the cafe I went to today. I had found out about it at the food and wine festival where they had stall selling food. I tried some of their food samplers then and it was really good, so I decided to try out the real thing today. The cafe seating is rather limited - fitted in around their shelves of deli produce - and no comfy couches. But their bistro area has nice booths with padded seat - this is where I decided to set-up camp. With a whole booth to myself I ordered a coffee and got out the Donna Hay magazine I'd bought a couple of weeks ago, but hadn't got around to reading much of. So there I sat for 2 hours looking a recipes for delicious food with beautiful photography (although having studied a few of Donna Hay's cookbooks, it has come to my attention that sometimes the photo of the 'finished' dish doesn't always have all the ingredients in it - especially if a particular ingredient has a tendency to make the dish look 'messy', but is needed for the flavour). The waitress after a handful of visits to the table at the start to check if I wanted anything, left me alone in peace for the rest of my stay. I came home feeling refreshed and energised - ready to enter messy family life again.

I walked to the shops today!

It's the first time I have walked to the shops since we moved into our new house (compared to the at least 3 or 4 times a week I used to at the old house!)

Happy Birthday!

It's Peter's birthday today.
We have had the obligatory presents, card and cake.

Pottering...

Is what I did today. I stayed home all day: unpacked a couple of boxes that had been sitting in our bedroom since the move; sewed a button back on one of Joanna's jumpers (which she no longer fits, but Naomi will wear one day); put away random bits of washing that had fallen down behind the aforementioned boxes; made some hollandaise sauce twice (one flop batch, one batch that worked quickly and perfectly); froze up some food for Naomi...

It felt good not to be rushing to get stuff done and not have a deadline that I absolutely need to get any of these jobs finished (well apart from the sauce, which we need for breakfast tomorrow).

Sad...

I've been noticing more acutely how TV dramas gloss over the moral implications of relationships. The story line gloss over the long-term consequences of the 'miss deed' that has been committed and just focuses on the supposed 'good' consequences. It totally devalues relationships...but I guess you probably have already noticed this.
(and maybe it is because now we have the PVR I am watching TV)

It's cold and rainy today...

Thankfully we can keep warm inside with the heat pump (unless it is turned off like it is now - the electrician is here installing the power properly).

The wait continues...

Went to the Dr again today, about my tonsils again. I've had 2 bouts of tonsillitis in the last month and I hadn't heard anything from the hospital yet (the Dr sent a referral last time I went to get my antibiotics prescriptions - that was 3 months ago). So she rang the hospital and found out that they had received the referral and I had been put on the waitlist to see the ENT, I have been classed as a level 3/4 case which means the standard waiting time to get an appointment is 6 months! Until then I just have to keep taking my antibiotics (even when they aren't doing a very good job - I've been on the high dose ones for 5 days trying to get rid of the current bout and still the Dr commented "Oh, my" when she looked at my throat - apart from the fact that I still have a sore throat). The Dr did print off the referral to send again with the additional information about my recurrent bouts of tonsillitis while on the low dose antibiotic treatment and asked them to bump my appointment up the list because of this.

Sounding like a local...

My previous post about kumera reminded me about a conversation I had with Ben the other day. We were talking about what Naomi was eating for lunch, which included kumera/sweet potato. I used both words, as when we lived in Australia we called in sweet potato, but here it is always referred to as kumera. Ben then pipes up "That's because Kumera is the Maori word for potato." Now this probably doesn't sound ground breaking...what was shocking to me was the way he said Maori - he said it like he had been speaking Maori his whole life, with the right little inflection in the middle of the word that neither Peter and I can do - even if we try. So maybe next time we are back in Oz visiting, he might not just sound like a kiwi (like many of you commented last year), he may even sound like a Maori!

Online shopping blooper...

As I have mentioned before, I love being able to do my grocery shopping online. But unfortunately, it does mean that there are a couple more point at which things can go wrong and the items I want are not what I get (actually more often than I think they should). Today I got my groceries delivered (instead of picking them up at the store) because I had received an email last week with a offer of 1 free delivery for being one of their most regular online shopping customers (I do it once a week). Anyway, in the process of unpacking them I discovered a bag of oranges that I hadn't ordered. It only took me a couple of seconds (while quickly scanning the rest of the fruit and veg) to work out my 'personal shopper' had not read my order correctly - I had ordered 2kg of orange kumera (sweet potato), not oranges. So I have rung up to alert them to this error and they have organised for the delivery person to come again tomorrow night to pick-up the oranges and drop off the orange kumera that I originally ordered.

Hip check

Naomi had her 2nd hip check appointment today (the first one was back in December). Everything was ok, so don't need to go back or anything. As part of it, she had her first x-ray (she had her first ultrasound at the 1st check). She was very well behaved and stayed nice and still and didn't whinge at all.

Disco dancing 2010

Friday night was the annual Kindy disco. This year Ben dressed up as 'Captain Feathersword'; during the week Joanna had talked about going as a fairy, but when the crunch came to get dressed, she decided not to go in fancy dress.

I think we all felt a bit more comfortable this year, as well all knew more people than we did this time last year. And the kids had lots of fun dancing (Ben insisted that Peter get out on the dance floor and dance with him at the end) and mingling with the other kids. They also enjoyed their pizza and both bought a chocolate with their pocket money for dessert (it was their 'best thing' of the night). We all also bought a mystery bottle - here is what we ended up with:
Ben - Merlot
Joanna - Chardonay
Peter - sparkling red grape juice (non-alcoholic)
Mel - garlic oil
So Peter and I 'swapped' our bottles with the kids and everyone was happy.

"What about Naomi?"you ask. Well we took her with us, expecting her not to sleep and probably spend the evening in the Baby Bjorn. Instead, she was quite happy to sit in the stroller the whole time and did fall asleep there (only a little later than normal bedtime).

So that's how kindy disco went this year...on the way home I realised that we could possibly be attending the annual kindy disco for the next 4 years still (all depending on whether we are still living here for that long), so we aren't quite halfway yet!

Not a good winter season so far...

I have my 2nd bout of tonsillitis for the winter (and my 3rd for this year). I am thinking about going to see my GP this week to try and hurry up the process for getting my tonsils taken out.

Supply and Demand...

About a month ago I started making yogurt again, this was because it was time to introduce Naomi to dairy foods, so I knew I needed to have a constant supply. What I didn't realise, was that the rest of the family are big fans of my homemade yogurt, so consume large quantities of it (on their muesli at breakfast, for a snack at work, for dessert after dinner). The volume we are going through means that as soon as a batch has set and has been put in the fridge, I need to mix up another batch to start the whole process over again!

Curse of the non-stick muffin pan

As a result of my Friand incident last month, my 12 hole muffin pan is no longer non-stick, it is now the total opposite - like I've greased it with superglue - the muffins just STICK to it. I had to get a knife out tonight to excavate my baking from the pan's grip! I think the pan is going to have to be taught a lesson - banishment from our kitchen.

First frost of the winter...

Well, not actually the first, but the first substantial frost where the grass was all white and crunchy as opposed to just a little bit of ice being around. -1.8C according to Metservice when I got back from my run this morning - wore a headband to stop my ears from freezing off for the first time this winter. It's the middle of June already, so winter's been a little late in arriving really...

My thighs are sore...

YESTERDAY, I used a different leg weights machine in the 'Women only' area of the gym. TODAY, I have really sore adductor muscles!

I think I've been sucked in...

The Mitre10 Megastore (ie. Mitre10 version of Bunnings) in Hamilton has a cafe as part of it. I visited it for the first time (the cafe that is - I have been to the hardware store part many times) with Ben a couple of months ago (I'd promised to do something special just with Ben and happened to also need to get something from Mitre10). Then a few weeks later I went with Joanna to kill some time between going to the gym and visiting a friend. Now every time I think about needing to go to Mitre 10 to get something, I think about incorporating a visit to the cafe as part of the trip! (Unfortunatley last weekend when a trip to Mitre 10 was needed, I had to stay home and cook up some food for Naomi, so missed out on visiting the cafe - Peter took the kids with him instead and didn't go to the cafe)

Baby pirate...

We have a baby pirate in residence...Naomi's latest sound she has learnt to make is "arghhh". So throughout the day she will go through phases of repeatedly making this noise. So this morning Joanna titled her 'Baby Pirate'.

Cut and Paste...

After many requests and a great desire from Joanna to have some scissors to cut with (and some demonstration of the skills at the gym), I finally took the plunge and bought her a pair of scissors last week. It has been great since then, the kids will sit down together and happily cut and glue bits of junk mail for at least 15 minutes, leaving me in peace to do whatever. This even includes them negotiating swapping scissors, as Joanna's are the plastic blade type which don't always cut the paper (especially when she insists on rotating her wrist so the scissors are upside down).

Welcome to a new blog...

Gratuitous Statistic of the Day. I enjoy statistics and trivia, so here's one to educate you in numerical trivialities. Or perhaps not so trivial at times!
(I'll see if I manage to keep up with my post-a-day intentions!)

Little Miss Chatterbox

After beginning her verbal communication a bit late, Joanna has turned into a real chatterbox recently. She chatters to herself, chatters with her toys, chatters to Ben, chatters to Naomi, chatters to Peter and I. When I'm having a conversation with somebody, and she want to say something to me, she will interrupt with "Mum, want to say something." She particularly wants to chat when it's time for bed with questions like "What we do today, Mum?" (which means she wants to know what we are going to do tomorrow)

Soccer World Cup

Peter and I are indulging in a bit of posterity tonight. We are watching world cup soccer on the TV sitting on a beanbag on the floor. This is significant for us because it was what we did most nights for one of the 2.5 months we were dating (before we got engaged). That was the 2002 World cup, which if you remember, was in Korean/Japan, so a lot of the games were on TV at a reasonable time in Australia.

Party...

Well Plan B was well accepted at the party - all the scones were eaten (even though I had to put feijoa curd and cream on them instead of strawberry jam and cream - Peter forgot to buy the strawberry jam when he went to the supermarket to get the cream).

Looks like I'm going to have to go to plan B...

No eggs have been laid (although one looked like she was busy when I just went out to check)...so scones with jam and cream it is.

Waiting game...

I'm waiting for one of our chooks to lay an egg...I need to bake something for the birthday party we are going to this afternoon, but Peter went and made omelettes for breakfast (I didn't remember I needed to bake until after breakfast) and now there is only one egg left and I need two to make the muffins I want to take. Oh well I'll give them a couple more hours to push out an egg for me, and if that doesn't work, there is always Plan B - Scones with strawberry jam and whipped cream (no eggs required!).

Dead tired...

I've been feeling wrecked for a whole week now, even though I've been resting more than usual (to try and get rid or the tiredness). I've now come to the conclusion that my iron levels must be low, so it looks like I'm going to be hitting the red meat and parsley! (luckily my parsley is doing well in my garden at the moment)

Clay play!

While visiting our neighbour, who is an arty person (as I found out this morning), she gave Joanna a chunk of pottery clay to bring home and play with. Both kids have had great fun playing with it...Joanna likes 'baking' with it or trying to make whatever Ben says he's making and Ben has been making dinosaurs, castles, motorbikes, tents and dragon footprints. (Considering I never get around to making play dough for them to play with at home, this is a real treat for them!)

Photo from stock.xchng

Oh, who are the pople in our neighbourhood?

Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood?
In your neighborhood?
In your neighborhood?
Say, who are the people in your neighborhood?
The people that you meet each day

Went and visited one of our neighbours this morning...We've been living in our house for 3 months now and had only chatted over the fence the weekend we moved in (they don't seem to spend any time in their backyard). We had a good chat - it is nice to get to know the people we live next to day-by-day a bit more.

Yummy Carrot cake!

Ben and I made Carrot cake this afternoon (he had asked to make it after seeing a carrot cake at the shops the other day). And a carrot cake isn't a carrot cake if it doesn't have cream cheese icing, so after baking the cakes, we put a nice thick layer of it on top! Yum!

Op shop finds...

Stopped by the Salvo's op-shop today (was on my way to Spotlight - they are in the same building)... I went in looking for curtains and came out with some black leather boots $8.50 (I've been thinking of getting some for this winter), a funky green jacket $10 (I've been despairing at the lack of stuff to layer in my wardrobe - I've recently done a huge clean out of the stuff that I'm never going to fit anymore/don't wear anymore/doesn't really suit me), and 3 novels $9.50 (1 Frederick Forsyth, 2 x Robin Hobb - I'm finding I don't have much time to read lately, so can't get through a book from the library before it needs to be returned).

Found the egg stash...

We had thought we were down to only 1 chook laying, as since the weekend we have been only getting 1 egg to collect from the chook house. Well today I discovered that at least 2 of the chooks have snubbed our chook house palace (well I think it is) - with 3 nesting boxes to choose from - and decided to make their own nesting spot in a grassy plant thing under Ben and Joanna's bedroom window! (I retrieved 8 eggs from this spot this morning, after having a passing thought that the chooks seemed to be spending a bit of time in the above mentioned garden)

Queen's Birthday activities

Since today was a public holiday and our weekends recently have been filled with doing jobs around the house...we decided that we needed to plan to do an activity together as a whole family for a change. So we decided to go to the ArtsPost Gallery in the city, to look at the Fieldays No.8 Wire National Art Award entries. The kids enjoyed looking at them, asking us to read the little information boards that told us what each of them were suppose to be (some were more abstract than others). Then a the end we each chose our favourite sculpture and placed a vote for it in the 'People's choice award'.

We had a bit of time left after that, so we popped across to the museum for a look around. We ended up at the 'Never a Dull Moment' exhibit (about the history of Hamilton), which we had all been to before, but Ben wanted to look around again. Peter and I also got to read a bit more of the stuff that we hadn't had time to read on previous visits.

Heat pump installed!

Now we won't have to freeze on those cold winter days! (not that we've had many of them yet this year)

Sore throat...again

I've got yet another case of tonsillitis. I ran out of my low dose antibiotics last weekend and haven't got around to getting more - so it has only taken a week of no drugs to get sick.

Busyness and identity

Here is a great post from Jean which says more clearly one of the thoughts I was trying to express the other day about stay at home mums and work.

Dinner out

We can't use the kitchen sink for 24hrs because the cement stuff that we have used to stick the pipe back together. So we decided to go out for dinner, instead of crowding the kitchen with dirty dishes. We went to one of the cheap Chinese restaurants in the city (we had been there once before) and were very pleased with our meal. All the dishes we chose actually reminded us of real Chinese dishes we used to eat when we were in China.

Soup Gone!

The toxic soup from under the house was carefully removed today by Peter (and the pipe cemented together so it doesn't happen again!). He recons it didn't smell as bad today as last week.

Rip it out!

In our never ending attempt to make our way through our 'To do' list of stuff to do around the house, this morning we ripped out the big, old, broken gas heater in the lounge (we got the gas man to come and disconnect the gas from it during the week), to make way for a heat pump (aka reverse cycle air conditioner).

Stay At Home Mum = Brain Dead

Was having a conversation with my friend today who was commenting that she had been in conversations with a couple of mutual acquaintances who, when talking about working from home, had both made a similar comment that it was a great situation as "I can be with my kids and use my brain too! She felt this was demoralising as it inferred that SAHMs are brain dead.
My thoughts are:
1. I think the comment is caught up in the world's view about 'identity' and what they feel they draw their identity from (Nicole is in the middle of writing a great series on this topic).
2. It is used as an excuse/justification for why they have returned to work.
3. They are trying to frame their selfish ambitions (career advancement) in an altruistic light so they don't have to feel guilty about their choice.

What are your thoughts?

It's showtime!

The kids are really into doing 'shows' for mum. They all start of with a "Good morning everybody" and then usually have some songs and general sillyness. Ben's songs are usually a melting pot of lines from various kids songs and nursery rhymes he knows or sometimes they are stories in song. Joanna's songs don't usually have many recognisable words, she just likes the attention and the dancing!

Fragrance free...

For over a year now I've been using Eco Store laundry powder, which is fragrance free. Yesterday, a winter jacket I had bought off TradeMe for Naomi, arrived in the mail. When I opened it it had a really strong smell - the first thing that came into my head was 'mothballs'. But then I had another sniff and thought, maybe it isn't, although there was still a very strong smell (also going through my mind was the fact that sellers on TradeMe/Ebay are usually pretty pedantic about making sure the baby clothes are freshly washed in a well known brand of laundry powder - they use it as a selling point). Anyway, it still smelt a bit like mothballs to me, so when Peter got home, I got him to sniff it and he said that it was just laundry powder smell. Well if that is what laundry powder fragrance smells like, I'm never going back to one with an added fragrance - they stink!