wild strawberries

patrick loves strawberries; he'll eat an entire punnet on our way around the supermarket so that I get to pay for an empty container. Here he is singing along to p'nau

Quickie

I have to share this with you: my new fav lolz site (thanks to Julie at a little pregnant)

Awkward family photos. Genius.

Photos, craft and my arse

Right, first up, the latest photos.

Here's Ollie doing his bestest smile. Note the major chubbiness and double chinHere's Ollie being fascinated by himself in the mirror during his bath today. This pic is also notable because I'm not in black. I'm also wearing trackie dacks and fluffy slippers. (International visitors, this translates as: "this season's Prada and Jimmy Choos").Here's my superstar husband (suitable de-identified) juggling a chubby bubby and a wiggly toddler in the shops: what a star!Did I mention how hairy Ollie is? Oh yes, there was that post about Hugh Jackman. (Sigh). Here is a shoddy close-up of his gorgeous furry ears- note the brown fuzziness at the back edge at the bottom of his ear lobeAnd finally, here is the little man at play; admittedly not his best shot, but he is entranced by the brightly coloured $2 shop Lei Patrick draped over his ... thing-that-I-made-for-Patrick-when -he was-a-baby (Patrick is an attentive and helpful older brother- he likes to bring things over to Ollie for him to look at)Older brother shots next:

Here is Patrick, whose latest discovery is that if you push a chair close to something high up, you can reach it. In this case he didn't want dinner, so he pushed the chair over to the light switch for the dining room to turn it off. You have to admire his logic... and perseverance- it took about 10 seconds to drag that chair across the lounge room (an eternity for a toddler in a rage)Aaaaand, finally, to round things out... I bet you thought I'd been lazily sitting on my pimply arse* sitting around breastfeeding and having a slack old time, right? Well, actually I've been busy. The seasons have changed and the range of available boys clothing is getting worse as Patrick gets older. So I've been making stuff for him again. Mainly pants: my new 'thing' is applique. I've also upcycled a bunch of old jumpers (sweaters) into some fairly funky pants.(Pants in situ)

I put a new patch on this hoodie, cause the one from the shop sucked and I don't have as much time to make hoodies anymore (wonder why?). Oh and to save electrons there is a pair of pants there in this shot too: the brown bit looks great but was actually because I ran out of fabric... Now it just looks like "that looks like they ran out of fabric on that funky brown patch, but it must be intentional, because no-one would actually draw attention to their mistakes, would they?" Heh. I am so devious. I am screwing with your mind just with my sewing!
I made these pants in summer, but he still wears them (he is a slave to my vanity) when it's a little warmer. He loves to play with the zipAnd what's cuter than a little boy in cords and a skivvy? Why, a little boy in cords and a skivvy ... with a dinosaur on the front...or a train...

I made these two wraps for Ollie before he was born. You can never have too many wraps, IMHOAnd what's more perilous than the state of pants for toddlers? The state of pyjamas. Call me crazy, but I don't want him in pj's that are offensive or say things like "little horror". I know, next thing I'll be voting for the national party... but we saw this fabric at spotlight and i just had to. And Patrick loves them.I made these pram liners for our new Phil and Ted's (how awesome are they for two?) with the I.kea Ba.rnslig fabic and think they look pretty good. (The rest of the pram is in Ollie's room. And he's asleep. That maxim again? NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING BABY!)Right. That'll do youse all for now.

*Has anyone else's arse become amazingly pimply since they had babies or is that just me?

Mummy ok?

Although it hasn't really got cold yet, I know it is officially winter because Patrick has been bringing home all kinds of viruses from day care for the last few weeks. Last week, Patrick, Ollie and I were all sick at the same time, so we managed to convince MrT to stay home from work. On Wednesday, Patrick was especially miserable, and had spent most of the night awake and crying.

On Saturday I developed a blocked ear that then began to ache. By 3am Sunday morning, it was sore enough to stop me from sleeping. We fronted up to the after hours GP to get me some meds (I know we could have done that ourselves, but we aren't really up with the latest in treatment for middle ear infections in adults). But by 8pm that night it was sore enough that I had already gone through my daily allocation of Paracetamol (Acetominophen) so I rang the on-duty registrar at work to get a script for oxycodone (Percocet/Endone). By Monday morning, I was in agony, despite taking 10mg of the oxycodone every three hours plus ibuprofen. I was vomiting, too, and couldn't close my jaw. So we spent yesterday being victims of the health care system, ending up with me on IV antibiotics and getting a CT of my head to make sure I didn't have mastoiditis.

I feel much better today (thankfully).

But on Monday morning, after vomiting, I was sitting on the couch with my head in my hands wincing in pain, Patrick came up to me and gently asked "Mummy ok?". I told him, that, no mummy was sick. That my ear hurt. He thought for a minute and said "Mine ear hurt". I thought initially that he was just playing, but I brought out my otoscope and had a look in his ear.

What I saw made me feel sick. Cold. Just plain AWFUL.

He had a small trickle of dried blood, and a hole in his eardrum that looked a few days old.

The previous Wednesday, we had been, well, a little short with him for grizzling, and for not using words to tell us what was wrong. The poor little man had obviously had an earache, as bad as mine was now, and his rapid improvement was because his eardrum had burst. I felt so mean.

We had given him both Paracetamol and Ibuprofen when he was ill, so we hadn't left him without analgesia, but obviously, in retrospect, he had been suffering badly. We are so used to Patrick being quite articulate enough to tell us what the problem is ("Mine train fall over! Mine foot hurt! Meg mine hand scratch!) , that when he was so sick he couldn't tell us, we assumed he was being whingey.

I'm off to the pharmacy now, to get Ollie some antibiotics: his ears are now red and inflamed (and although three of us in the family having suffered the same thing makes it MORE, not less likely to be viral in origin, I'd hate for Ollie to get worse) and some strong painkiller for Paddo.

Not all bad...

Not all of the things that I thought were stolen were, in fact, stolen. I have recovered my grandma's jet beads and watch in a jewellery pouch hidden lost down the back of a cupboard. The bead I lost off the remaining pair of earrings was down the back of the couch. And there is a small silver lining to losing all your earrings... you get an iron-clad excuse for buying new ones!

Unfortunately none of the computer stuff or photos have turned up. It's now nearly two weeks ago and the insurance assessor hasn't even called us to make a time to see the damage. I did get to see the same forensics lady who fingerprinted the place after my phone was stolen just before Patrick was born, and we chatted about babies. The crooks were wearing something on their hands, so no fingerprints. MrT is still hopeful that some stuff will be recovered, but I have no such illusions.

It will take about a month before we get any insurance funds for new stuff, but that's too long for me to go without a laptop. Given that my old laptop was pretty steam-powered, I reckon we won't get much for that, so I bought a new/old one off e.bay for 500 bucks, and so far, so good. The main advantage is that Patrick can still have a bath in the laundry sink whilst watching episodes of Thomas ripped off you tube legitimately paid for with our own funds. I did have a video to post of this, but... well, you get the drift.

Speaking of legitimately paid for, what kind of crook takes my sex in the city dvds and not MrT's spiderman or the matrix?

Some photos/video when I get my phone up and running on the new computer...