Ginger Bear goes to Hostible

Ginger Bear has a piece of yarn taped to his nose.

The other end is taped to a small ziploc bag which is topped up regularly with a toy baby's bottle.

Ginger Bear has a 'lion' (line) on his 'test' (chest) - so I am reliably informed (I can't see it, the ginger hair seems to be blocking my view).

Ginger Bear is a little bit sick and needs to go to hostible (hospital).

Ginger Bear is now in the hostible with his mummy taking care of him with the help of nurse Erin who is dressed in scrubs and wielding various syringes and other medical implements.

I think I will let them have their game for a little longer, school work and chores can wait.

Easy

This week was so.......easy.

Don't get me wrong, it was still busy.  Crazy busy.  But those two adjectives have described my life for a good few years now so there is a degree of familiarity there.  There was the odd mini-disaster.  For example the cap came off the medicine port on Kaylee's tube this morning and the pump spent a while feeding Kaylee's rocker instead of feeding Kaylee!  There were challenges.  We got Kaylee's pram this week.  I gave mine away last year because it's been years since I used it, my newborns usually just get put in a baby carrier.  The pram itself is fabulous but getting the pump hooked up and hanging the bag so it ran without alarming was a bit of a logistical challenge.  We got it going though and spent the a good couple of hours in Kmart.  There were no crises, no traumas, no disasters.   Our paed is very impressed that we have had two weeks at home without her tube being pulled out!

We are finding our groove, our rhythm, and for the most part I have been pleasantly surprised how like our old normal our new normal is.  While I am expressing I have someone or other on my knee or sitting beside me going through their school work or reading with them.  We have celery on the kitchen bench drinking food dye (our current science project - the kids have managed to make some fabulous multicoloured celery), home-made Christmas cards half finished and aside from Mount Fold-more on the couch and a disaster area that is my bedroom the house actually has some form of order to it.

And the kids are pretty fabulous.

I do some range of motion exercises with Kaylee twice a day and at least one of those times we do them in a warm bath (she loves her bath!) so when I get her ready for her bath I often talk to her about her 'aqua-aerobics'.  Today Christopher asked her if she wanted to do her 'aqua-batics'.  That kid cracks me up.

Anna sings Kaylee songs of her own composition.  My favourite has to be the 'Settle Down Song'.  It consists of two lyrics - 'settle' and 'down' sung at a very high pitch.  The thing that cracks me up the most is that it works.

We went to Kmart this week so the kids could spend some money that they got.  Billy found a toy dinosaur left on a random shelf and fell in love with it.  The thing was meant to make noise but did not so we found them on the shelf and found one that worked - no joke it sounded like an evacuation siren.  Billy opted to buy the one that DIDN'T work!  He was quite upset when we got it home and a few days later it started working again and cried until I told him I'd take out the batteries for him.

We've been learning a bit of sign language so we are familiar with it if Kaylee needs it as she grows (a lot of kids with CDLS have speech difficulties) and Andrew is already picking up a few signs the smarty pants!

Erin and I watched Bambi 2 for our girls night (her choice, not a cinematic masterpiece but we had a great night) and we bought a big bag of marshmallows.  She spent the next few days making hot chocolates for the other kids and floating her special marshmallows in them.

Kaylee has started reaching out to touch her toy Mr Flutterby and is becoming more and more interactive.  She is utterly precious.

We have had our emotional and clingy moments to but they are the exception rather tan the rule.

Having a full freezer has definitely helped (thanks Anita and Christina especially!) and having my fabulous hubby home for a time has been wonderful.  He went back yesterday to work for a day and we all missed each other lots!  I did heaps of tidying and organising before Kaylee was born and it is paying dividends now.

Things may change even from day to day but right now it is all so easy and good I can hardly believe it.

The imaginary life of the Guest Family

We have three with nasty colds, one mild cold triggering moderate-severe asthma and one perfectly healthy child here at the moment. So of course as we sat eating our nutritious lunch of PB&J's general bickering and complaining was happening.

Billy complained that people were "touching meeeeee" and making noises. I offered to build him a bubble so it wouldn't bother him. Then built myself an imaginary bubble and placed it over my head, sat there with my eyes closed saying "I can't hear you, I am in a bubble". General hilarity ensued and I offered it around. Erin opted to give it a try, so I put it on her head. As I sat back down I noticed Anna reach over and put her hands around the "bubble", take it off Erin's head then yell "POP" as she clapped her hands together.

This morning as I dolled out Vitamin C tabs Anna grabbed hers and said "Oooohhh, EYES!" then held them in front of her eyes like little orange eye balls.

But it isn't just limited to Anna. Billy just came in and told me he has an imaginary dragon called "Juicy", apparently so called because she juices Panda Bears. Yes, squeezes them to get the juice and drinks it.

Oh Dear.

Anna discovers raspberries

The wet, loud kind.

At this age, it's adorable.