The Bub in the Belly

I have been very busy lately, hence the patchy blogging. Life is hectic, happy and mostly good. Our cat, Tiger, is in the hospital again so that's the not-so-good part. Tiger is an old man now and with old age, comes more health issues. Hope he gets well soon. 

We are going on a long holiday next week - we are off to Mauritius! An old friend is getting married and he invited us to his engagement party there. We've never been to Mauritius and we are very much looking forward to it!

Ok, this is going to be a quick run-down of last week's happenings, Sunday to Saturday. It was a good week, full of lovely happy moments. With two of these little people running around you all the time, life is always good.

This was Sunday morning (two Sundays ago). Ryan was off to his swim class and babydoll wanted to go "shimming" too. She got all dressed up, as you can see.

Shichida on Sunday afternoon (again, two Sundays ago). We have withdrawn both the littles from Shichida so this is their last term. Last Sunday, we skipped class and we will also be skipping the next two classes because of our Mauritius trip. I know I mentioned that I would write about Shichida and why we are withdrawing. I'll do that soon, but probably not very soon, haha.

Babydoll also finished up the term with Julia Gabriel Bilingual Playclub. She wore an octopus costume for the last class - didn't get photos, will try to snap some and share. She will be doing one more term and that will be the last.

Bedtime stories with Richard. This book is called The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen. It is babydoll's current favourite book - she will ask for it every night. It's about a fish who is sad and depressed because he's got a pout. He goes around spreading "dreary-wearies all over the place". One day, when he's upside down, he realises that his pout is actually a smile and he becomes a happy fish. One day, I told Ryan (when he was having an extended whine), "You're making people angry like the pout-pout fish!" and he told me, "No, the pout-pout fish is different - when I whine, people get angry; when the pout-pout fish is around, people get sad." Heh heh. Good point. Anyway, I told him that it's the same with anger and sadness and happiness and all those emotions, so he needs to be careful what he spreads to others. He understood that, so now when he's having a bit of a whine, I sometimes tell him, "Don't be a pout-pout fish!", and he'll snap right out of it.

Ryan started doing golf once a week in a group. This was the first lesson. He looked at the board and said, "That's a lot of safety rules..."

Next photo - this was dinner on Saturday night. The littles are playing a game while waiting for our food to arrive. We do allow iPad at the dinner table. It's not a standard feature - we don't set it up on purpose everytime we eat. Usually it's a flow-on from the pre-meal stage, meaning Ryan is already playing with it before we sit down for a meal so we let him carry on. If he's not on the iPad when we sit down for our meal, then that's the way it stays.

Although we never initiate iPad time, I actually think it's good for him to have the iPad when we dine in busy and crowded places. Some places can be over stimulating and unsettling so, if he has his iPad, he can watch his familiar videos or play his favourite games and tune out the external distractions. (Of course, if you really don't like the iPad, you can always bring a book or a toy - we've done that too.)

All right then. More tomorrow. Peace out. Or in babydoll's case, Peaces Out.