Life and Times of Jess

We have had our first people through to look at the house to buy. What a painful experience that was! It felt yucky to have someone opening my cupboards (even wardrobes) and taking digitial photos without even asking first. The agent made an effort to be polite, but shot himself in the foot by calling me "Tanya" persistently and referring to Erin (who was dressed in denim overalls with flowers embroidered all over the front) as my little boy more than once! If these people buy, they will want to move in December/January so I shouldn't complain - that gives us until BB (belly bubba) is 3 or 4 months old.

Erin:
is 2 and a half now! We had a ladybird cake with sparklers and smarties for spots. I will put up photos later. We had a ball decorating and eating it. Erin is now having 'reading time' every night as she goes to bed. I pop her into bed after teeth, toilet, stories, Bible story and prayer time and set the timer for about 15 minutes and then I leave the light on until the timer goes off and a stack of books on her bed to read. When the timer goes off I take the books away, she takes three deep breaths (oxygen can be a seditive and learning to control her breathing now will help if she ever develops asthma) and then I turn the light off. I started this because she was reading until all hours with the light comming in her door (apple doesn't fall far from the tree!) so we needed a lights out time.

Billy:
has tooth number 6 and is sleeping through until 5am. I have a feeling he will drop the 5am feed soon too, he may just be waking because that is when my alarm goes off and that disturbs him. Although sometimes he doesn't wake until 5:30 or 6am. He goes straight back to sleep anyway. He has 1 hr nap at 10am and a 2-3 hour nap at 2pm as well. I used to leave him in bed until midday in a bid to get him to have 2, 2 hour naps. But he was just playing quietly in his cot and I found that if I get him up and let him play actively he will sleep better in the afternoon and then sleep better at night.

The house:
is a bit chaotic at the moment. We had to buy a brand new freezer this week! Our new/second hand freezer only lasted a few weeks then died on us! So we blew the budget entirely and bought an upright freezer that has drawers, which will make organising food a lot easier. We (or should I say Jon) have been bottling and stewing pears. We do most of it together, but Jon is very enthusiastic about the garden and garden produce at the moment so I am happy to follow his lead for a bit. The pears aren't quite as exciting to me as the purple gage plums (we have a year's supply of jam from them!) but it will be great to have bottled pears to use through the year. I hurt my neck on Monday morning just climbing back into bed. I don't know what I did, but Jon had to stay home from work for the day and take care of me and the kids! I am a lot better, but it still hurts and it nearly killed me to mop the floor today. So things have deteriorated a little, which makes potential buyers looking at the house even less enjoyable :(

The garden:
is producing well! Black russian tomatoes are amazingly delicious, as are our cherry tomatoes (we get at least half a dozen a day of them!) and we ate our first Roma tomatoes on Tuesday. A lot of things are going to seed now, but the capsicum and chillis are ripening, the corn is forming ears and we have enough pears and blackberries to keep us going for quite some time! Our sunflowers also have big buds on them which is getting exciting to watch!

Craft:
is being thought about lots. I almost can't wait for winter when things slow down in the garden so I can get back into the craft. I have several baby beenies to knit and I can't knit with Billy awake, it is just too difficult with him playing with the yarn and needles. Unfortunately, if I sit for any length of time when he is asleep, I am soon asleep too!

Jess