A Bear, a Monkey & a little Monster!

Wow, the week just seems to have disappeared.

Sunday, we headed off to do some shopping and family dinner. Nothing exciting really.

Monday, Playcentre. We turned up slightly late (but before session started) but no one else turned up for another 40 minutes. But Cooper loved it. It was our first inside session and Cooper did swimmingly. He got to know the indoor slide really well and loved it (and don’t worry it’s glitter around his mouth). But he painted a couple of pictures which was good. We also got a profile book which I have covered. This book is kept at the Playcentre where you stick pictures and paintings and write short stories about Cooper and his interactions at Playcentre. Monday was also housework day… dusting, vacuuming, mopping, washing – very domestic.

Tuesday – an at home day. Just hanging around home. Not a lot you can do when it is pouring.

Wednesday… Toy Library Day. We headed down and returned out previous toys and returned with a truck, a remote control car (that doesn’t work) and a slide! Cooper loves the slide…. Loves loves loves it! And everything must go down it. Also finished repairing Ness’s jeans. Her maternity jeans has a material piece which had worn out (like mine did) so I made a new band and sewed it on. Oh Cooper also started undressing himself. We still have to help with sleeves and buttons but he can pull shirts over his head and pull/push his pants down… such a clever boy!

Thursday was another day at home. Boring really but Cooper wasn’t too happy – his teeth (the six that he is cutting right now) is giving him a little bit of grief.

Friday was swimming day. A short nap but the instructors were again very happy with Cooper’s kicking. He wasn’t too keen on blowing bubbles and drank a little too much water (over chlorinated for a kids pool) which ended up in a small upchuck in the pool. I guess there is the other reason it is over chlorinated.

Today has been super busy. For us. Markets for fruit and veges, Glasses for Tim, Bed, Bath & Beyond for some wicked fleece ponchos for Cooper, Plastic Box for some shampoo cases, Bunnings for a security light, Potting my new kowhai tree, Drains dug out after all the rain – yuk!, Washing and Folding, Windows cleaned, Lunch – yum!, Sorting and Tidying general stuff, Family arriving, Airing out the house on our beautiful sunny day today.

Words of the week: We haven’t had many but after last week we are not surprise. We got “please” which was nice as well as a lot of repeat words from previous weeks which is nice to see.

Work for me – finally finished and deployed my projects which was great to finally do. Phew! Good that it is out as is my bill but man I had a small taste of a tiny amount of stress which was tricky to work out with associated parental stuff…

I think that is it. Tony and Kate are here so I am going to stop typing and talk with them now…

Okay, so this week has not only been very busy but also very wet.

Sunday – Cooper has started to want to sit with us to have meals. Not in his highchair, rather at the table in a big boy seat. Very grown up. We also had a visit up to Nana’s. And to help her with some stuff in her roof. Cooper liked it too. Loved climbing through the garden. And the faeries. After that Reg brought two of the children she nanny’s for up to play with Cooper. They got on well, Cooper still needs time to learn about sharing but that will all come in time. Cooper also tried out some frozen yoghurt with great success!

Monday – A trip to the doctors to find that Cooper is cutting 4 teeth at once! OMG! This kid certainly doesn’t do things by halves. After the doctors we headed to Mitre 10 to pick up a couple of things. Then onto Thimbles and Threads to get sequins for Brooke’s Tutu. Before dinner, Cooper went on a Lion hunt and watched some TV… in a box. Monday night I started to sew on the sequins and it is a hard job to do – they are so tiny and finicky!

Tuesday -A few housekeeping things to do… in the rain though – argh! We went down to collect the carpet for the entrance way. It looks great and makes a huge difference to the entrance way. Cooper also received a birthday invite! Exciting! And off to Junglerama in a couple of weeks Also finished sewing as many sequins as my sanity would permit onto Brooke’s tutu.

Wednesday – Ness and Ella came around, in between showers, to drop off Ness’s jeans for me to modify. A new project to work on.  I also got Ella’s help to model the tutu that I had made for Brooke. She was a fantastic and the sequins show up quite nicely.

Thursday – a boring housework day with Groceries at the end. Yay!

Friday – Swimming day. The instructor was really impressed with Cooper’s kicking in the pool and he did very well with his little dives too… Super proud I am. We also tried something different for dinner. Salmon cakes. Cooper loved them and devoured them completely.

Today – A busy day. We headed down to the markets to get the fruit and veges early, catching up with Reg while we were down there. We grabbed a hot sausage from the free range pork vendor (so good!). After that we grabbed a couple of things from The Warehouse and headed over to Nana’s again to tend to the roof again. Back home again for lunch and a nap. In between getting home and napping etc Cooper got to Skype with all this grandparents. After nap time we headed out to the Short Straw Cafe for a catch up with some of the antenatal mums. It was a really nice venue and great to catch up with all the mum’s and dad’s.

Words of the week: This, Pop, More (with baby sign),  Morepork, Door, Juice, Book, Cooper, Bob and Not. We have had a few other words but they have been one-offs so we haven’t counted them.

Wow! What a busy week! Things seem to have dragged but have also gone incredibly fast too.

Sunday, Max and Di were still here but unfortunately had to head home. Family dinner on Sunday night – that was about it.

Monday, Playcentre. Cooper got drenched playing in the wet grass and puddles. The one week i don’t take a change of clothes. LOL! Unfortunately he was so wet I didn’t get a chance to take photos… but I can tell you that I am still trying to get the dirty marks out of his socks!

Tuesday was a trip into town. The truck had to go into be serviced so Cooper and I trekked into town and back again – twice! Armstrong Prestige had an A3 that they loaned me for the day which was dinky and strange to drive in comparison to the truck. But at least I got a loaner. We also stopped in at my work for a few minutes on the way back to get the truck. Ohhh also got to test drive a new car himself.

Wednesday – Toy Library week. We took Cooper’s toys back and got some new ones. Well, one new toy. Two others he has had before. The new toy, a cooking stove, has been the center of his play time this week. As a result we have a new word – “cook”. We also got “Toot toot” which is very very cute.

Thursday we had some issues with the Garage Door. So the guys came out to have a look at it. It appears that the original guys that installed it (who have since gone bust) applied the tensions far to much and as a result was over working the engine and essentially making the door behave as it was… but he fixed it and it has been perfect since. Yay! Groceries and a quiet night of work.

Friday – Swimming. Cooper did very well and had a good class – only 3 people attended the lesson which was great as Cooper got more one-on-one time. Dinner was a little different. I tried a old family recipe Mince dish. Cooper LOVED it! And devoured the whole lot!

Today – Cooper is 17 months old! He woke very early then went back to sleep. As a result we all slept in. Up late and off to the Markets. Got a great deal – only $10 for all the fruit and veges we needed for the week. Awesome. After that we headed over to choose Tim’s new glasses frames. We got some really nice new frames for his day to day work but couldn’t find a pair of sunnies that he liked. From there to Evan’s to get ribbon for Brooke’s tutu and then onto BabyCity to get a couple of plates for Cooper (at $3 who could complain). From there to drop some carpet off to be made into a mat then home via the Lighting shop.

Anna came over with Dom this afternoon with a huge pile of books and some really cool toys. Cooper loves them! Takeout dinner tonight, which is a change from the homemade pizza that we normally have. Just gonna chill tonight but I have work tomorrow night to do.

Work – busy busy busy! But Meghna is back so it should calm down a little now. But the Sprint has almost finished so that is a good thing… Yay!

So we have had a busy week.

Playcenter on Monday. Cooper had an awesome time again. I got the first sections of my workbook signed off which was nice. Cooper did well. Loved the sand pit, the paint (it tasted good too) but wasn’t too keen on the shaving cream. He did however manage to slide down the slide all by himself (sat down and spun his legs around then slid down)… very cool

Tuesday was a home day – very boring but we had takeaways Tuesday which wasn’t too bad.

Wednesday was out first visit to the Lower Hutt library. Cooper loved it. We happened to turn up when the children’s book session was on and Cooper was entertained for all of about 4 minutes while they were singing. But he was happy to look through the mezzanine floor that is the children’s area. After that we had afternoon tea in Riddiford Gardens and Cooper got to feed the ducks. We had a play on the park equipment and headed up to get Tim from work.

Thursday was our housekeeping day and time at home. Boring really… Oh the really cool thing was that Cooper’s Trunki arrived from FlyBuys. He loves it!

Friday – swimming lessons and two naps. Poppa and Nana Poppa arrived – late due to plane troubles but here none-the-less.

Saturday – Markets and Cooper playing around with Max and Di.

Words of the week: Uh-Oh and Up (with action). He has also extended on Gone quite a bit.

Work for me – busy busy. Meghna is away at the moment so I have to keep up with her stuff as well as my own. Good but getting used to a small stress has been a bit rough. Used to stress but this is a different type to get the hang of again.

Yep, another week has gone by – surprisingly fast.

Cooper loved Playcentre again – I wrote a post and posted pictures about it here. I also had my first work deployment and Sprint 1 was released into production. It went really smoothly and the guys were impressed with the work that I had completed. I am really chuffed about that

Tuesday – Tim worked from home in the morning and had the afternoon off. It was wonderful having that extra afternoon – we just mucked around, headed out to Butlers cafe, got Avatar on Blu-ray (it was awesome too) and went to the bank (to get end of financial year stuff for the accountant). We also heard back from State – they have accepted the claim and are paying out. The assessor couldn’t find any damage to indicate the drop but said that there was water damage (WTF!). They said that they could smell it and that there was evidence of arching. We haven’t ever spilt anything on the lappy but Tim thought maybe it could be Cooper’s dribble. But we just don’t know for sure… strange…

Wednesday – Toy Library and Library return day. We got three new awesome toys (although I was broken) but Cooper loves them non-the-less. We dropped the E-O-Y accounts off at the accountant and headed home. Library books were a must in the afternoon and we shot up to collect Tim from work.

Thursday – Grocery day and Reg over for dinner. A lovely batch of homemade fish and chips – Mmmmmm… Cooper also started blowing bubbles in the bath

Friday – Swimming lessons. Cooper has started blowing bubbles in the pool too which is awesome. Even our swimming instructor said that Cooper was doing just swimmingly (LOL). Pork for dinner which Cooper just devoured! Reg came over and we watched Avatar again (first time for her and second for us).

Today… Cooper woke 5.55am (think it might be teeth), Markets, Tim into have his eye’s tested, Lee’s to fix computers, nap time for Cooper, Chris, Ness & Ella came over to visit for the afternoon (and for me to have a look at some sewing that I may be doing for Ness). Pizza for dinner tonight (yummy homemade chicken pizza tonight)… and Cooper is off to sleep in dream land.

Tomorrow, I think we have to take a laptop back to Lee’s and we may head down to the Lower Hutt Library – we have been through the majority of the books at Stokes Valley so we really need some change. The selection of books at the War Memorial is so much greater so we are going to have a look…

Words of the week – Chuggtin (for Chugginton), Gone, Poppa and Bubble. As well as stringing a lot more words together “Dad Gone”, “Nana Gone” as well as the sign for Gone.

I wouldn’t normally post so many times in a week (I don’t have a lot of time to do it anyway) but I thought that I should post pics from Playcentre this week.

Again, he loved it. They had a train set out this week which he played with 90% of the time that we were there. But we also had some other fun:

Painting...

More Painting...

Big Slide Boy - which he slid down twice by himself.

Sandpit Digger

Boundary Tester

Cross-country navigator

Investigator

Dolly Pushchair Pusher

Cart Rider

Cooper had his first day a Playcentre this week. He had so much fun – I had to write a post about individually.

Tuesday we headed into town to drop off the old laptop to have it assessed by the insurance assessors. They were pretty shocking though – no forms for me to sign and nothing from them to say that they had received it. It means putting a lot of trust in a company. We also stopped into see all the lovely people at Trade Me. Cooper wasn’t phased by it and just cruised around the office – he is really getting independant.

Wednesday, Ella and Ness came over in the morning and in the afternoon we headed into the library as I had a stackload of books to collect for myself. Then we chilled for the rest of the day.

Thursday – housekeeping, groceries, boring.

Friday was swimming day. Cooper was *very* splashy but did manage to blow bubbles which was awesome. We just need to co-ordinate the bubbles with paddling and kicking

Words this week include: Geat Nana (for Great Nana), Baa (the noise Sheep make), Boo! (to scare you), Maow (the noise Cats make).

I also should mention that Cooper has been making the “farty” noise whenever makes a noise similar to that… he thinks he is hilarious!

So my old Mountain Buggy was starting to look a little worse for wear and I couldn’t justify spending something like $150 for one of those really lovely nappy bags (you know the ones that don’t look like a nappy bag and have beautiful lining etc)… plus with Cooper getting older I don’t have as much crap to cart around (plus he has his little Buzzy Bee bag that he carries his drink and a snack round in).

I had a look around online at patterns but didn’t like the “square look” that they all seem to be pushing. Plus I didn’t like the flap. I wanted something girly yet functional… So I did a few sketches and came up with something I liked. Getting it onto paper to make it look usable as a pattern was a little tricky but I got there on the second attempt. I wanted it to be lined so it didn’t have any nasty seams inside the bag (which would also double as a reversible bag if I wanted).

Pattern drawn up and ready to go, I found some material left over from the scoodie I had made early in the month. Also had some stripy fabric laying around from a past trip to Spotlight – I love that store! So time to cut out pattern and get ready to sew. I don’t have any sewing photos as I whipped it up after work one night… but here is the end result:

You can see lining in the bag & strap

Reversed - you can see the ribbons to tie it shut better here...

Because I chose not to have pockets in the bag itself I decided to make a removable organiser thingy… you know – the thing you put everything into but can take it out again if you need to but it also keeps your bag tidy… I used the same fabric again and came up with this…

Organiser - pockets for important things (L>R - Snacks, Wallet, iPhone, Keys, Tissues, Camera (empty in this shot), Sunscreen/Sanitser)

All pockets individually sewn.

I thought about this one too.. You can’t just put something straight like this into a bag and expect to keep it all organised… So while I was sewing I put some cardboard into the back of it to make it slightly rigid. If I had interfacing I would have used it instead but cardboard works just as well… But I also sewed some ribbons onto each end so that I could tie it together and make this:

Organiser tied together

Organiser inside bag (the gap in the middle holds my nappy holder & a Cath Kidston purse I got from Reg)

With the final end result as success!

All ready to go (See the blue/green/yellow striped thing - that holds nappies & wipes)

So yes, I am very happy with the bag… Oh I also forgot to mention – straps a long enough to go over the pushchair handles or as a crossover my body…

Yes, we made it to Playcentre.

We headed down hoping that we weren’t going to be late but ended up being the second ones to arrive. It was really nice as Cooper got the opportunity to have a look around before all the other children arrived.

So we arrived and had a look around. I think Cooper may have remembered it a little bit from the end of last year as that is where SPACE was held each week for the entire 2009.

The clothes that Cathy gave us worked a treat and we had Cooper in a pair or blue Pumpkin Patch trackpants and a t-shirt. We may get a long sleeve polyprop for the winter to go under that shirt just so that we have something to keep him warm. But anywho…

Cooper really got into things, and tried a little bit of everything. He loved the sandpit! And the diggers in the sandpit. And eating the sand – yep it looks like he might be one of those kids. So he played in the sandpit but also played (and ate) Playdough, played with shaving cream mixed with food colouring, sang and danced to The Wiggles, had morning tea (and sat still the whole time), learned the morning tea song (well kinda), played outside, read lots of books, did some puzzles, played the piano, played on a mini slide, found all the buzzy bee items in the building, ran around, laughed and generally had a lot of fun! He also painted a picture which we will collect next week (as we left it to dry on their drying racks).

So I asked him if he would like to go back to Playcentre and he nodded very certain that he would like to.

So next week we will be back there again!

PS: All the mummies there were lovely and easy to talk to… not like what I experienced at Music Group.

PPS: I will take photos next week as I wanted to just follow him around today to see how he got on.

Well first week back for most things…

Last Sunday was a chill out day. We made a robot costume for Cooper to play in and he loved it!

We were supposed to have Cooper’s first Playcentre day on Monday but something important came up that Tim and I needed to do so we did that instead. He will start instead on Monday coming…

On Tuesday, Reg came around with one of her little fella’s that she cares for – Theo. He was a real sweetie and only 2 months younger than Cooper. They took a bit of time to get used to each other but came around in the end and were old buddies by the time Theo went to leave.

Wednesday was Toy Library and Library Books day. Cooper got all trucks and trains this time from the library (his own choice). And we have some new books to keep him entertained. One particularly good book is called Little Pea. It’s about a little pea that is a pretty happy chappy. It goes through how he likes to do different things, such as roll down hills and hang out with his friends but that he doesn’t like to eat candy as the main course every night for dinner (cause that is what peas eat). The book works through him reluctantly swallowing not just one piece but five, in order to have his favorite dessert–spinach.

We also caught up with all the Antenatal girls at Bec’s house and we all got to have new cuddles with Alex. It is amazing to see all the kiddies now as they are all walking (or should I say tearing around).

I also caught up with Pia briefly Wednesday night and she was wonderful and brought some yummo rice bubble cake…

Thursday we were going to head into town but there was a car accident on the motorway so we decided to avoid it. So we chilled out and then headed up to get Tim and do the grocery shopping. Thursday night Cooper broke my laptop (pulled it off the table) so we were a little gutted about that. We have put in a claim on insurance but decided that we should just get a new one anyway. Cooper also turned 16 months old so we got a photo of him…

So on Friday, we shot down to Lower Hutt and got a new laptop. Tim got the new one and I got his older one. We are so lucky that we have Time Machine running to do all our backups as it made it a lot easier to recover everything.

Friday afternoon we had swimming and Cooper got back into the swing of things again which is nice. I think that he is now the oldest kid in the class, but it wasn’t a full class yesterday so will have to wait and see if the others come back (from last term as it would make him second or third oldest in the class).

This morning we were up and off to the markets. Only $10 for all the fruit and veges today which is nice. And I got a good bunch of radishes ($1) and a decent lettuce too (only $1).  Booked Tim in to see the optician in two weeks time as he hasn’t had his eyes tested since 2004-2005. We are both looking at getting some sunglasses made up for us so that traveling and outings wouldn’t be so bad.

I think that is about it.

Word of the week: Zoom (still)

Plus new words/improvements on words: cone is a new one (lots of road cones down by the library)… improvements on truck, duck and what’s this (used to sound like oh shit but more like what’s this now)

Oh work is good. Trucking along nicely. Not too many hiccups but I am tired as this is my first week. Enjoying working (even if it is at night) as it give my brain something else to think about.

Right, off to vacuum the car while Cooper is asleep. Have washed his car seat today so we thought we should clean the car too…

– EDIT –

Oh I also forgot to mention that this week Cooper has really been into reading books with me – Reg thinks that it might be something to do with his thirst for knowledge and expanding his language base. He loves books and seems to always be sitting down with one. On another side note, I have also been told that children Cooper’s age shouldn’t be able to complete puzzles like he is doing or matching items up so we may have a little smart cookie on our hands.