Please stop growing!

 

Have I mentioned before that my kids are growing WAY too fast for my liking?!

 

Obviously the growing spurt is most obvious with Teancum who is crawling all over the place now.

 

I love how kids go through phases of doing something particularly cute. Sometimes I'm glad to see the end of a phase when its not so particularly cute - like Sisi's latest statement of the month "Shut up your bum bum!" or the variation "Shut up your bum bum - willy!"

 

I must have around 100 or so photos of Tanky with his mouth wide open, about to devour someones face. Usually its one of us, but occasionally he's tried to eat a friend, or stranger who's been close enough for him to grab. He's been doing it for so long now. It's a phase I really enjoy and I dont want him to grow out of it. 

 

I doubt Lani does either, especailly as she is the prime recipient.

Unfortunately for us he is already 8 months old.  I know a tooth must be just around the corner.

                     I dont imagine anyone will be letting him bite their faces then! :(

I need my mum!

So.....

As scrum-diddli-umpscious as Tanky is - and he IS just that, he is also many other things.....such as

Clingy

Constantly Hungry...and

Constantly wakeful (or whatever the terminology is for 'never sleeps!')

He's a baby, right? That's what I've been telling myself since he was born. Even when other babies his age starting sleeping for length at night, or other babies started their solids at around 6 months of age or even the simple beauty of watching other babies feed from their mums while laying comfortably across mums lap.

Tanky has his own way of doing all these things. I knew he was a complete individual in hospital when I saw other mums pushing their babies around in their little plastic cribs. Those cribs are great. Mums can nap and eat for example while they have their hands free. Not me though, my hands were not free. I had to ask midwives to hold him so I could grab a quick bite to eat between feeds! If I put him down, he cried for me to cuddle him. I cuddled him in bed each night so I could get pockets of sleep.

Hahaha, he is so naughty that its cute! I wouldn't change him for the world and I'm so blessed and privileged to have him as my beautiful chubby boy. But I am also very tired. 

Mum has been ringing each week and checking in on me. She knows that there is way more for me to do now with Lani and her monitoring. She knows how cheeky Tanky is and how he doesn't let me sleep much at nights. She also knows things in my personal life have been rough lately. She offered many times to come over and help but I reassured her that I was fine. I knew it would eventually pass, I thought that soon Tanky would start to sleep. But it still hasn't passed and I still haven't slept ;) I am learning that there is only so much I can do. I am learning I have limits!

I kept telling mum 'I'm fine, I'm fine."

And then one day I wasn't fine.

Mum came over as soon as she could and is here to help for 6 weeks.

I have the best mum ever!!

I also hope the six weeks go by very very slowly :)

Mum is staying with the Rogers as they have more room for her. She comes to our house to help out on the afternoons and evenings when Job is not around. Its great having her around during dinner time. With her help, I am finally able to get something ready for dinner (instead of the usual cereal nights) and get the kids off to bed at a reasonable hour. She helps me with the housework and spends time with the kids, but what I love the most is having another pair of (strong) arms to hold the Tank. I love watching her get to know him and his quirky little personality. He makes her laugh too. He is such a funny boy.

He loves to smootch

He loves to cuddle (and chew on necklaces)

He loves to stare at you if he thinks you are eating something that he isn't

He loves to be held and fed

And he loves to cry for his mummy

Just like I cried for mine!

School is back on!

Where did the holidays go???

They flew by so fast.

I can't believe we have a grade 5 this year, that means only two more years until high school...boo hoo! I need to stand on my kids heads and stop them from growing. Actually JJ will be taller than me soon. Crazy...

And Sisi started kinder today!! She was so gorgeous. Benny helped her get ready this morning

 
The bigger kids started back at school two days ago, but we thought we'd wait for Sisi to start before we took photos. Here's the kiddies this morning...

 Sisi was very proud of her new school bag. I love how Lani did her hair. You can't tell from the picture but her bandana is inside out. I guess it matched the straps on her bag - twisted and inside out :)

We walked the kids to school. The boys went on ahead with Louis while the girls stayed with us.

We never have to ask Lani to look after her younger siblings. She just does it. Her and Sisi chatted to eachother as they walked hand in hand the whole way there. I walked behind them saying repeatedly to Job "Aren't they cute?....Sisi is so cute!" She was suddenly a mature little school girl. Very different the the usual little four year old that runs all over the place when we walk to school.

Lani has a teacher who is brand new to the school and fresh out of uni. She is lovely and happy to look after Lani's diabetes needs. Lani was a bit embarrassed today during her music class when I tested her levels. She hid behind the dividers at the back of the classroom. She has never hidden her diabetes before so I am hoping its all part of getting back into the swing of school. Her teacher is going to read the same book Mrs Atckins read last year to the class. I think it will help her to feel accepted  by her new class mates.

Benny has one of  JJ's old teachers this year. He is also one of our friends from church. Benny has been enjoying the games and magic tricks they have been doing in class.

JJ's also very happy. He has a great teacher and has all but one of his mates in his class. One of the things I love about JJ is that I can always kiss him hello and goodbye in front of his friends - and he kisses me back

It was nice to walk all the kids to their classrooms again today. The most exciting part of the morning though was having Sisi with us. The big kids wished they could come with us to drop her off but her kinder begins just after school starts. The kinder is attached to the school so we only had to walk next door. She bumped into the Rogers this morning too and had some pre kinder hugs and kisses.

When we arrived at kinder, she looked for her name on the welcome poster. The teacher then helped her find her bag spot and showed her where to put her fruit. She kept saying to me "I don't want you to go mum."

       She settled down at the play dough table and once we thought she was happy enough we said goodbye.

Job and I then enjoyed the walk back home....so much quieter than we're used to without Sisi :)

We did some shopping and lunchtime came around so quickly. We went and picked up Sisi together as it was her first day. We were eager to see how she went without me. Our older kids all cried for the first few months of kinder so I had no expectations that Sisi would be comfortable straight away. I asked the staff to call me if she became too upset.....but she was fine! Better than fine. She had a great time. She ran out to me with a huge smile on her face.

Good on you Sisi. We are so proud of you and the big girl you are becoming.

Even big kinder kids still need a rest.....and so do kinder dads it seems :)

Good Memories

When we went to Sydney to spend Christmas with Jobs family, we had so much fun. I asked the kids afterwards what they're favourite part of the holiday was and they couldn't decide. While we were there we went to Luna Park and I was sure that it would have been the highlight of the trip, but I think the kids enjoyed just hanging out at home with their cousins the most. I feel the same, I enjoyed every day of our 10 (or so) days in a three bedroom townhouse with 24-26 family members!
I have a handful of Sydney blogs to do but I'm going to start with the family photos at the temple :) I'm smiling now just thinking of that night. Anytime you try to get a good photo that involves more than a couple of kids, you can bet its going to be interesting. (Especially when there's a Benny and a Sumo in the family!)

     We started with a family photo. We tried to get the kids to sit normally but this is a 'normal' as we get :)

Then we took shots of the Tais in all their varieties. I'm not a fan of 'look at the camera and say cheese' photos so these are my favourite shots - they may not be anyone elses! lol. I like these photos as they reflect the fun that we had together :) - don't ask me what John is doing??! I'm guessing he's trying to be old skool?

Johns head is in the bottom left of all our photos of the Tai women, lol. It's not so much that he has a big head but that Job was holding Tanky who was grizzling and grabbing the camera - which is also why the picture is blurry!

Once we'd finished taking photos on the bench, we moved to the front of the temple. We started with the kiddies.....and um, Uncle John...?!

I love the sequence in these photos......scroll down.

Sisi continues to get squashed

Add the two babies

 

...and Benny does Gangnam style!

Grandma and Grandpa

And the whole family (except Jobs younger brother Eric)

We finished taking photos and were socialising when we heard a 'crack!'

We turned around to see that Sumo had broken Grandpas chair, lol. I was just relieved it wasn't one of our kids - for once! - I mean, Shame John, what do you teach your daughter at home?!

                  We checked out the nativity scene while my boys turned themselves into....reindeer?

Who knows, but the kids had fun. Benny made himself a grass/leaf skirt and got upset with Ally when he thought she took one of his leaves! 

It looks like Sisi and Indi are playing but really Sisi is squashing her and wont get off. 

We hung around chatting and laughing for a while....until  John decided it was time to go home ;)

Great night,

Great time,

Great family

and Great memories.

More moments with washing

Finding and dedicating time to catch up on our family blog is still continuing to elude me at the moment. I'm looking forward to being able to blog about the last month....and I hope to very soon :)

I sat down at the computer today to download some photos (with the intention of preparing them for the blog) I had given Lani and Sisi the job of orgainsing the clean washing into piles. We had a pretty huge pile today - okay, if I am being honest, when is it not huge?!

We got home from a week of camping yesterday (blog to come) and Job and I have managed to wash and dry the 'campfire smoke smell' off just about our entire collection of blankets (we need to invest in sleeping bags) as well as a heap of towels and clothes.

So I was sitting at the computer with tanky on my lap, perusing through some photos not really paying much attention to the girls chatter beside me. Then the sound of Sisi's cute little voice made me stop. I heard her saying to Lani "You're so pretty Lani, this is making you beautiful."

I looked over to see Lani sitting cross leggged trying her best to sort the washing while Sisi (who was wearing a pair of undies on her head) pulled Lanis hair in different directions. I realised this had been going on for a while and was instantly overcome with an intense love for the both of them.

I love this picture as Sisi believes true beauty is wearing your hair behind your ears.

Eventually Lani got a bit tired of the hair pulling and told Sisi to stop. Sisi couldn't understand how making her sister beautiful could be construed as uncomfortable..

Sisi couldn't help but dress up in my clothes. This isn't the first blog I've done on my kids and washing. She put my jumper on the wrong way and looked ridiculous. Lani and I couldn't stop laughing. Tanky wasn't sure what to make of her. He recognised her voice but couldn't relate to the ghostly figure.

                                        Sisi, you're such a cute little nut. No wonder I love you.

I'm glad there will always be washing to sort and I'm glad to have noticed my girls sweet personalities during what is usually a mundane task. I was also grateful just for the fact that I noticed. I used to see my children often....really see and soak in their cute little persons but since the birth of tanky and the sleepless nights, I've been struggling to connect with each of them as often. Most days its a task just to get the simple things done and life seems to be more like completeing a mental check list of things to do rather than enjoy the time doing them. I wanted this moment with my girls to last for longer so we made some cookies together - they love to cook.

-Oh and by the way, here's how the sorted washing looked. There's individual piles in there somewhere!

I made up a biscuit recipe with what we had in the cupboard - nothing fancy....

When I cook something for Lani from scratch, I need to weigh and measure everything so I can work out the carbs, in this case per biscuit. Its often a bit tricky but we were lucky that the portions of ingredients we had weighed worked together. It doesnt always work out so well.

By this stage I started wondering where my boys were. I looked out of the kitchen window to find them on the trampoline with their good buddy and neighbour Louis.

Everyone enjoyed a fresh cookie once they were baked - even Louis got one :) In out house, you can't have biscuits without milk.

 I just did Lani's BSL (Blood Sugar Level) We always test before she eats and then a couple of hours afterward. Her levels are good, meaning amoungst other things that I got the carb counting right for this recipe :)