It’s been a while

September 29, 2015 / Renae / Leave a comment

The kids and I arrived in Brisbane today. Dad picked us up from the airport and brought us back to Woody Pt for lunch and cuddles with Gran. And soon we will be heading to my wonderful friend’s place to stay with them for the week. The kids are crazy excited about that. As am I.

We haven’t seen Gran and Grumpy since Darby’s baptism, and I can’t even remember when we stayed with them last.

It’s been too long.

I’m not ashamed to say that when we stay here I get spoilt rotten. I get sleep ins, I don’t do any washing or cooking or cleaning, and I do minimal parenting. It’s a genuine break for me and I’ve really missed it this year.

I might have to book in some time soon.

The flight down was great – the kids were perfect and it was smooth sailing the whole way. I’m looking forward to being with my people this week.

Might see you round 🙂

Please don’t tell me you’re busy…

September 22, 2015 / Renae / 2 Comments

… and then apologise because you don’t have kids; or you “only” have one or two kids; and then say that I must be heaps busier because I “have three kids”.

It doesn’t work like that.

I was just as busy, if not busier, with no kids, before I was married. It was just a different busy – there were more social engagements to fit in; I worked full-time and everything else had to fit in around that; I lived close to family which meant a lot more catch-ups and regular events to attend.

I was just as busy with “only” one baby. There’s no such thing as “only” when it comes to having kids. One child can take up your entire day, just as much as three or more can.

And it works with parents of more than three children. I wouldn’t say to them “well you must be heaps busier than me because I only have three kids.” They know what it’s like to have three kids. It’s busy.

I really believe we are all as busy as we want to be. To be honest, I have a lot of time during the day when I’m not doing anything. I’m sitting, watching my children, thinking “I could be blah blah blahing but I’m just too tired/lazy/couldn’t be bothered moving from my comfy chair right now.”

Like right now, there are two overflowing baskets of clean, folded laundry (bliss!) to be put away, but here I am. The dining room table needs clearing (a 10 minute job) but here I am. There’s a mountain of sorting and filing to be done… you get the picture. My sore throat of three weeks has turned into a head cold, so I’m giving myself the night off from housework. Thankfully, Hubs has tomorrow off, so I can rest up and get back on my feet.

Our house is pretty much always in a state of disarray, and it’s not because we have three children, it’s because I’m not a particularly tidy person, and I’d much rather spend my time doing other things. Like blogging. Or baking. Or playing Lego.

I accepted not so long ago, that I can try and clean and tidy all day long in between giving the kids attention, but then I’m doing a half-arsed job of parenting and housekeeping. I’d rather do one job well, and I’ll bet you can guess which one that is.

So please don’t compare your busy-ness to mine, or make it into a competition. We have very different lives, and I want to hear about how we’re in the same boat, even if it’s in different seas.

Now. I’m going to make myself a cup of camomile and go to bed.

What’s keeping you busy these days?

Darby’s Baptism

September 21, 2015 / Renae / Leave a comment

Yes! It’s finally here! The blog post that is. The Baptism was in June. Am I forgiven? Good. It really was a lovely and special weekend. Darby’s Godfather flew in from Mount Isa, and his Godmother, along with family and close friends, all traveled up from Brisbane to stay for a night or two. Hubs cooked up a storm on Friday night on the BBQ, while we did a bit of prep work for the next two days.

It meant so much to us to have “our people” with us for the weekend. There was so much just sitting around, shooting the breeze, and enjoying the company. As usual, the photos tell the story best!

Darby-doo with his Godfather, Felix

And Godmum Sonia

The kids absolutely loved all the attention! As well as the hammock that Uncle Felix bought us. Winner!

Hubs with his 2 BFFs

This scene spells out pure joy for me. Wonderful friends and family, fantastic food, and not a care in the world.

This was the order of service the church put together for us. It was so gorgeous!

Darby looked grand in the family Baptism gown that his older brother and sister wore before him.

And the service was really lovely.

A few nice family photos before Chanbe and Quindy went too feral.

And then back home for more good times and good food.

And of course, there had to be “foot” cakes, just like Chanbe and Quindy’s big days.

We made a little toast to a wonderful weekend.

Thanks again everyone for coming and sharing Darby-doo’s special day with us, and for being some of the first people to see our first house. It was such a great weekend, and we look forward to more in the future! (Great weekends, not more kids to baptise… 🙂 )

The fog is lifting somewhat

September 10, 2015 / Renae / Leave a comment

Today is the first day in a few weeks that I’ve felt more like myself. I’ve had a few days where I’ve had a sleep while the kids are sleeping (1-2 hours) and a few nights with only three wake-ups between the three kids. Actually, last night it was just Chanbe (once) and Darby-doo (twice). Quindy is sleeping through like a champ. Two weeks and three nights ago, we started gently encouraging the kids to sleep in their own beds “all night long”. Somehow, about 5 months ago, they both got into the habit of coming into our bed during the night and sleeping there for the remainder of the night. I’m not going to lie. Hubs and I were quite enjoying all the snuggle-time with the four of us in our big, warm, king-size bed. But about a month ago, it was just becoming ridiculous.

Chanbe would lie across the bed and kick Hubs half the night; Quindy would wake up at 3am and want to look at the photos on my phone; and Darby-doo was getting woken up with all the hullabaloo, and wanting to be boobed back to sleep. Of course.

So I sat them down on the Monday morning, after a particularly ridiculous night’s “sleep” and gently explained to them that it was time they started sleeping in their own beds “all night long.” I told them that if they wake up and would like a cuddle, to call out to me and I would come in to them. We talked about it a fair bit that day, and I set up some incentive milestones – for one night, they got a little surprise (I can’t even remember what it was now – maybe a piece of chocolate with morning tea???); for one week, they got a toy (Chanbe got Dusty Crophopper, fire and rescue plane and Quindy got a Peppa Pig phone) and for one month, they will get a bigger surprise (yet to be determined. Most likely Lego of some sort.)

And it has worked. The first week was really hard going, with wake ups/cuddle requests/feeding 1-2 hourly; the second week brought some good nights and some really ridiculous nights (hourly wake-ups between the three of them!!) and the last few nights or so, have definitely been better. I knew it would take a little while, but I also knew it would totally pay off for everyone. The kids are getting better sleep, Hubs is getting much better sleep, and I know there will be a time in the near future that I will get to sleep “all night long” as well.

I’m feeling a real sense of achievement around it to be honest. I didn’t want the kids to feel unwelcome in our bed, and I didn’t want them to feel abandoned. But I also knew that we couldn’t keep going the way we were going, and function properly during the day. So much of parenting is about encouraging kids to be more independent, but also letting them know that you’ve got their back.

I started weaning myself off my meds around the same time as we started this exercise, and I realised that it was a really bad time to do so. I’m just not ready yet, and that’s okay. There’s no hurry. Good sleep, clear thoughts, and joyful moments are much more important at this time.

Sweet dreams everyone.

Let it go, be brave and just keep on laughing

September 10, 2015 / Renae / Leave a comment

The first two videos are from a few months ago, but they are Hubs’ favourites. He loves watching Quindy sing “Ellit go”.

And Chanbe loves singing “The Brave Song”

And this never gets old. He really gets going at the 20 second mark:

Ignoring my heritage

September 6, 2015 / Renae / Leave a comment

Today is Fathers Day.

Hubs doesn’t like to be rushed.

So there will be no rushin’ today.

See what I did there? Ha ha ha ha. Classic stuff. (For those of you who are new here, my grandmother was Russian. Actually she was Ukrainian but that wouldn’t work for this joke… I know it’s not the same but i don’t want the truth to get in the way of a mediocre joke…)

Happy Fathers Day honey. I love how, even when you’re running late for work, you never say no to “one more kiss and cuddle, Dadda?” Even if it’s the third time they’ve asked for “one more”. It’s my favourite thing right now.

10 stupid jobs

September 4, 2015 / Renae / Leave a comment

Here’s what I want to get done today:

Put toilet paper away – I bought a 32 pack and it’s been sitting in the toilet for a week. Needs to be unpacked and stacked in cupboard.
Put shoes in shoe bucket at back door.
Clean the lip balm off the mirror in our room that Quinn smeared all over it ummm maybe 3 months ago.
Pick up toys in toy room.
Clean the crumbs out of the toaster.
Prepare the washing into piles to be washed.
Put away clean dishes and pack dishwasher.
Clean bathroom sink.
Take recycling down to bin.
Clear dining table for the weekend.

Can it be done!??????

Where oh where to start

September 3, 2015 / Renae / Leave a comment

I’ve been doing a lot of standing, staring and sighing in my house lately. There’s so much to do to make this place more liveable, but it’s hard to know where to start. Julie tells me to start at the very beginning, as it’s a very good place to start. So I headed to the kitchen, and promptly made myself a coffee. And while I was at it, I ground a bunch of coffee beans to make some more cold brew. That’s been on my list for a while. Let’s start a new list shall we? (See below)

Do you cold brew? No? Oh you must. It’s amazing! I just googled this and got the above link and learnt that the coffee should be coarsely ground. I’ll remember that for next time. So once my coffee was made, I walked around aimlessly for a while and here’s what I found:

My little man, fast asleep. He turns 9 months old this week. He’s been an outside baby as long as he was an inside baby. There goes 18 months, just like that.

The toy room. *shudder*

Remember when it looked like this a couple of months ago? I think that lasted a day or 2. Yeah. A distant memory for me too.

I’ve pretty much decided to put half of the toys away. I’m so sick of the kids emptying everything out and then moving on to the next thing because they’re overwhelmed with the volume. So let’s add that to the list as well.

And this room, that I call the Lego Room. *double shudder*

Oh. Good. Grief. This room sends my neck into spasms every time I walk into it. And then I promptly turn around and walk straight back out. We bought those blue and grey containers and started sorting out the Lego into sizes a few weeks ago. Remember?

It never got completed, and since then, Chanbe has been playing up a Lego storm which is fantastic! Except that he’s using the couch to look for pieces. Not to mention the fact that Quindy comes in and throws handfuls of pieces in the air, yelling “abraca-zebra!” That is not fantastic. “Sorting the Lego” is a huge job, and one that I see the benefit of only half the time. So we’ll add it to the list, but I’m not hopeful…

I feel I need to apologise to some of my mummy friends up here, as I’ve been adding the most mundane things to conversations lately. Like the fact that I’ve started doing the washing at night, as I can’t seem to coordinate a time that fits in with all 3 kids. So I’ll do 2 or 3 loads in the evening and try and hang them all out, and bring it all in the next day. Have I mentioned that I switched from daily washing to only twice weekly? It means a bigger job at once, but the daily washes were bringing me down.

Oh, and I bought a spray mop and I’m waiting for it to revolutionize my mopping experience, as promised. I haven’t actually used it yet, as that would require the floors to be clear of debris.

And oh dear, look at that. Now I need to apologise to you for discussing such mundane things. So now it’s 1:20pm and I need to leave in 1 hour to pick up Chanbe and then Quindy from their respective places of care. Just enough time for a nap if you ask me…

TO DO
~~Grind coffee beans~~ (woo! Look at me go!)
Put away half of the toys
Sort Lego
Mop floors
Get house clean and tidy
Keep house clean and tidy for more than 5 minutes
Look out over my balcony at the lovely view and watch those pigs fly…

My little back seat rebels

August 26, 2015 / Renae / 2 Comments

It started with a Doo

August 25, 2015 / Renae / Leave a comment

Darby-doo. Cute name for a cute kid. It caught on quickly, and that’s just what we started calling him all the time. Kind of like Quinn is always Quinny. Or Quinny-babinny-boo if she’s being extra cute. And Chance gets a Chancey-pants on occasion.

Anyway, one day I added a scooby and all of a sudden it was Darby-scooby-doo. Still super cute. Then Chance added a poopsie, and it became Darby-scooby-doo-the-poopsie.

And as if that wasn’t enough, a nincompoop was added for good measure.

So here it is folks. Darby-scooby-doo-the-poopsie-nincompoop. And in case you’re having trouble with the pronunciation: