Life Down Under

Last week, the Pioneer Woman was espousing the virtues of a point-and-shoot camera and its ability to take great macro shots of flowers. When she wrote "Not that any flowers are growing anywhere right now except southern California and Australia…", I just KNEW it was because she has been reading my blog and has been hoping for an update on life Down Under. Just in case I'm wrong about that, perhaps YOU might be interested? If not, move on, buddy, because that's what I'm all about today. This will probably be the start of a series of posts on this subject, because you know I tend to be long-winded. I'll begin with the weather, since most of my readers are in the fall-winter transition and are far less likely to plot my demise now than if I were to do this when they are in the depths of dark cold misery (sorry, Europeans, but we haven't forgotten Dutch winters yet!).

It's full spring here in WA (pronounced "dubba-you-aye"; that's local-speak for where we live in Western Australia)! The weather is absolutely heavenly! Sunshine nearly all the time. Cool temperatures, but not cold. Sometimes we still need to turn on the heater in the baby's room at night, but that's because there's no insulation in these houses. Almost every day starts out with still air, and the wind kicks up in the early afternoon. Sometimes it's just breezy; other times, we get quite a wind. The kite surfers and windsurfers (Markus included!) could not be happier about these conditions.


The big (and by big, I mean HUGE) concern here is the sun. I have always tried to be sun-conscious, but now that I'm here, I realize I am nowhere near where I need to be in that department. The daily wearing of moisturizer on the face with 30 SPF that felt so smart back home and even over-prepared in sun-deprived Netherlands is soooo just a baby step here. The sun is INTENSE! It will fry you through your hat if you aren't careful. Forget sunburn, baby. I am convinced the sun here can cook the marrow in your bones. The home rule of stay indoors during peak hours from 10-2 just aren't the same here. For starters, no one stays indoors (though maybe they will once summer hits), but those hours just aren't enough to help you. We eat most of our meals outside these days (al fresco dining to some, "camping" to our friend Tony), and we can feel the sun strongly even as it's close to setting after dinner. All-over sunscreen with at least 30 SPF is mandatory. Reapplication is necessary. Hats are required. Shade is best, though that's still "partial-sun" and should be treated as such. I've been trying out a sunscreen called "Invisible Zinc" lately, and it seems quite good. I have to scrub extra hard in the shower to get it off my skin, so I'm hoping the sun will be equally repelled.


Anyway, the sunshine is beautiful, as long as you respect it. And speaking of beautiful, I cannot generate the words to describe the Indian Ocean. Oooo. Ooooo. Ooooooooooo!!!!!! This weekend, we stumbled onto an empty beach south of Fremantle, and the beauty was overwhelming. My camera didn't catch the color correctly, but you might still be able to judge the clarity. Crystal clear water, greenish turquoise-ish splendor! Each time I see it, I can't stop thinking about how much people pay to get to beaches like this...and we live here! There are many people here who start every day with a morning swim in the Indian Ocean, regardless of temperature or weather. Not gonna happen for me with two little ones, but I would love to be one of those people! It must be so good for the soul.


As I've mentioned before, outdoor living is the way to go here. The beach is for surfers and sun-worshippers (yes, those fools are here too, keeping dermatologists employed), and the river is for water play. The kite surfers and windsurfers gather at bends in the river where the winds are strongest. Paddlers (kayaks, canoes...even rowers) weave around sailboats, motorboats and yachts in the harbors. Picnicking is practically a sport here. People take it very seriously and have chairs and blankets ready to go. The top of King's Park provides a particularly lovely view of the city and the Swan River, though any spot directly on the river can be fabulous too. We eat most often at a plastic table we set up right outside our back door where the roof extends to give us some good shade, though we'll probably start shifting dinners to the side porch in the summer when the sun is too strong for us in the evenings.


I started this post with flowers, so flowers is where I will end it. Your Australia vocabulary word for today is JACARANDA. This is a tree that bursts into brilliant purple flowers where most trees are covered in green leaves. We have one in our backyard. It drops a purple carpet all over the grass and patio every day, but the beauty is worth the pain of sweeping up.

International Babywearing Week

In honor of International Babywearing Week, we've made a slideshow of some of our family's babywearing moments. We have two girls who love to be held close, and each of them has preferred different things. There are the practical carriers, like the standard Baby Bjorn (don't even bother if it doesn't have back support!) and the oh-so-useful hiking backpack (ours is by Deuter). Ellie couldn't get enough of the hotslings sling as an infant, and Stephanie couldn't stand it. She needed the vertical position of the Baby Bjorn (which we didn't love) and other carriers like the Beco Butterfly and the Kozy (which we do love and appreciate for their versatility and comfort). Although we don't have any photos of it, we can even wear 3 year old Ellie on our backs with the last two mentioned carriers, and she is crazy about that when baby sister jealousy kicks in (though thankfully this is rare)! Ellie has watched us babywearing her sister, and she has extended the love on to her baby Lolo, who has her own sling and "baby-yorn" though she is most often wedged under Ellie's shirt with her head sticking out of the neck-hole. We are told this keeps her very warm and happy.



If you are a parent or grandparent or carer of a new bundle, we highly recommend babywearing for all the benefits you've ever read in those highly researched, mass produced parenting manuals...and for the personal reasons we've experienced, because it's just so sweet to be close to your wee one, especially when he or she is so small.

Stay tuned

If you're a regular, thanks for checking in! I know we have a (relatively big) time lag here on a blog that I try to update quite regularly. This week is a hectic, manic, and more-than-slightly-full week following last week's unusual 5-straight-evenings-of-chaos, and the blog has had to give. That being said, we're nearly to the mid-point of the week, so it will start to slow down again. Before you know it, we will be back to your regularly scheduled programming, so to speak. For you MacGyver types, here's a bit of Down Under trivia to tide you over:

It's political.

I'm sorry. I try not to get political here. I created this blog for friends and family to keep up with us, and given our distance, they pretty much want to see the kiddos...so I try to stick to kiddo content, family life, etc. But this election was momentous, and it deserves recognition. I am so proud of my country! I am so proud of the American people who were so motivated to vote. I am so impressed with the movement that was the Obama campaign. Whether or not you share his vision or believe in his words, the way he drew in America and made people believe in something that goes beyond mere politics was incredible. Today I found this video, and I have to share. It's a beautiful sentiment and a good reminder to the international community that America is not all guns and God, all red and blue, all egotism and force. We are a nation of proud and hopeful people who can and do reinvent ourselves. This Tuesday, we began again.

Weekly Video Post

In the past two weeks, Ellie has suddenly become quite conversant on the phone. She has always enjoyed "talking on the phone", but it always had to be in quotes before because she mostly listened and smiled without saying much beyond the occasional "Hunh!" Then, quite spontaneously she became just as much the chatterbox on the phone as she is in person. Any call will start out with the inevitable discussion of airplanes and helicopters (very popular topics!) and move on as her eyes rest on items of interest in the immediate surroundings. I caught a morning conversation with Mary on video and cut it down so you can get the enjoyment without the lulls and repeated descriptions of things Mary obviously cannot see or reference. And Mary, now you'll know what she was trying to show you!

VOTE!

image from The Library of Congress

Today is Election Day in the United States, and no matter how you feel about the current election, I urge you to please VOTE! Make your voice be heard! Every vote matters, if for no other reason than the cynical truth that it earns you the right to complain when things don't go your way. I speak particularly to my female readers. Less than 100 years ago, women were fighting hard for the right too many women now take for granted. We are blessed not to know what they went through so we can have the rights we enjoy today. Don't let them down. I know you have busy lives. I know your schedules are full. I know there are long lines at polling stations. But I also know that this election is important, and voting is a privilege. To all my American readers, please go vote today.


Note: I just received confirmation that my absentee ballot has been received. I voted from Australia! Surely you can vote too!

Temptation

We live down the road from a Catholic church with a changeable church billboard. This week, the billboard announced there would be a Flame Mass this Sunday. For the local teens, this must have been too hard to resist (either that or someone doesn't care for the priest):

Ellie says

Ellie is such a helpful girl! Markus cycled in to work today, and he was ready for a shower when he came home. Ellie always pounces him for playtime when he walks in the door, but she didn't miss a beat when he headed for the bathroom. Her response to "Papa needs a shower" was:

"I'll pull down your panties and put shampoo on you."

Undeterred by his independence in this area, she then followed him into the bathroom, insisted on helping to remove his socks, and then adjusted the toys in the shower to ready the space. When he turned on the water, she grabbed the curtain and announced,

"I'll give you privacy."

Of a limited sort, of course. I was so tickled I had to come record this all straight away, but she's still in there. One can only assume she's giving him instructions on a proper lather.

Our stuff, Ourselves

I've been thinking in all this unpacking and settling in that items we own say a lot about us, where we've been, and how far we've come. Consider...

...the spoon rest that I use daily (that we fondly refer to as "the kidney") is an unusual ceramic object Markus made in bored desperation in Lowestoft.

...the $80 bread box we got for $20 because it has a scratch and a dent in the front but opens and closes just fine. It matches our new fridge with the cracked handle and the washing machine with the dent at the bottom. And, and, and. Dinged but functional: that's us.

...the clothes dryer we bought in Qatar that we toted to Holland and now use in Australia but still don't know how to fully operate because the manual is in Danish.

That last one amazes even me. I'll just stop there, but I think I'll come back to this list and add to it over time.
What about you? I'm sure you have something in your home that fits into this post. Please tell me about it in the comments section. I'd love to hear your stories.

Some people have issues

Everywhere we go, people stop and make a fuss over baby Stephanie. She's a darling! She's gorgeous! What a sweetie! Look at those cheeks! What a happy girl! They go on and on, and we just stand there and grin proudly. But every now and again, we encounter people who are different (weird different) from the others, like the lady last week who offered to help me when she saw I was holding Stephanie, my purse, our jackets, and trying to pick up another bag...and then she snatched Stephanie rather than handing me the bag (this resulted in instant baby tears and almost-released Mama whoop-ass). Today was a prize-winner. We were in a cafe sharing a muffin (which Stephanie was shoveling in with gusto), when a lady at a nearby table caught sight of Stephanie. She broke her conversation with the other ladies at the table to make the normal cooing-over-baby noises, reaching over to stroke Stephanie's pink Polo sweater (fab gift from Auntie Awesome) and saying, "This sweater is lovely! A total waste of money, but lovely!" Then, she reached to stroke Stephanie's bare leg, saying, "You're gorgeous! Yes, you are! But you'd better watch that eating. You don't want to keep these fat knees. Oh no!"
I honestly couldn't tell if she was serious.

Furry friends

You might remember that some months back, our family included two deranged cats by the names of Bandit and Smokey. When we found out about our move to Perth and the quarantine situation here, we opted to find them a new home if a good home could be found. As luck had it, we found them a GREAT home with a loving family whose three kids adore them so much that they play with the kitties all day and sleep with the kitties at night. When I heard from the adopting mom about a month after the kitty transfer, she raved so much that it seemed the cats were even better off with their new family than they had been with us as we were bogged down with the move and a newborn and a busy toddler.

Ellie loved having pets, but she accepted their absence as a matter of course. We simply told her it was time for the cats to live with a new family, and she accepted that at face value. She didn't cry. She didn't even bring them up. If someone mentioned the cats to her, she would matter-of-factly tell them that the cats had gone to live with their new family, no emotions or visible regrets. Ellie has had so many transitions and changes over her 3 years that she seemed to accept them as inevitable and not be bothered.
Except she is bothered.

Since we've gotten our things here, she has been waiting for the cats to come too. Over the past few weeks as we unpack and settle in, she has asked repeatedly for the cats. Apparently, it was fine for them to live with their new family for a little while. Now, it's time for them to come back to live with us. In the past few days, she has actually gotten quite upset about it when we try to explain that the new family is permanent. Her memory has always been amazing, so I guess we shouldn't be surprised about this. Still, it has hit us out of left field. We won't be getting any more pets during this nomadic life, because it's just too hard to say good-bye and often impractical (or impossible) to bring them along. Even if that weren't such an issue, it's hard to find someone to care for pets when you go "on vacation" to go home for 3 weeks or more at a time. We have recently adopted a Beta fish (a request entirely separate from the cat issue), but we're even waffling about acquiring a tank full of guppies or goldfish (as we'd really like) because it will be harder to find someone to care for them over long holidays. It's a not-so-obvious downside to this nomadic lifestyle, and one that makes us very sad when we see Ellie longing so desperately for pets.

Water babies

No, the spiders have not gotten me (yet); the exterminator will spray outside on Wednesday. It's been a few days since I last posted because we are still trying to settle in, though finding time and energy to do it has proven challenging this week. The weather has been up and down recently, swinging from cool spring to hot summer to rainy fall all within a 7 day stretch. Swinging temperatures outside mean varying temperatures inside, and nighttime challenges reared their ugly heads again. I hadn't mentioned it for fear of jinxing us, but after we moved Stephanie back to the "children's wing", sleep in this house settled down quick. Ellie still dawdles as long (and as loudly) as possible, but she has no one to disturb and eventually caves. She does often wake once during the night and wander into our room for comfort, but Markus can usually settle her down again without much trouble. Stephanie still wakes twice a night to nurse, but she is also growing like a weed (as long as many 12+ month old babies) so that's no problem. This calmer routine has been working for a few weeks now. This week's high temps meant they got too hot while sleeping woke up, and last night temps plunged again and they got too cold and (you guessed it) woke up...but we're going to get there.
On to other things!

Last weekend, it was so warm that we christened our pool! Stephanie is still too young to tolerate the cold water, so she and I watched her big sister and papa play. Ellie has a wetsuit, so we squeezed her into that, pulled on her floaties, and plopped her in the water. What a happy little duckie she was too!


The weekend before that, Markus was finally able to get back on a windsurfer. He discovered a passion for that sport in the final months before we left New Orleans (windsurfing over in Ocean Springs on the weekends), but he hasn't been able to indulge in it since. In Qatar, it was TOO hot and in The Netherlands, it was TOO cold! People still windsurfed in both places, and we commented on the madness from the safety of some temperature-controlled locale. Now that we're here, there are no more excuses. While the Indian Ocean is a bit too wild, the Swan River makes an awesome spot for windsurfing (and kite surfing and sailing and paddle boarding and kayaking...), so off he went! He signed up for a refresher class, borrowed their equipment since ours wasn't unpacked, and had a blast!



Summer is just around the corner, so we are looking forward to getting back into more water sports again. We've discovered many wonderful picnic spots and shallow waters for kiddie splashing. As long as we can keep our skin out of the sun, we're up for some mighty fun times outdoors in the coming months! It's strange for me to think that this is October, the time of year I have always associated with cooler temperatures and autumnal foods. It's spring-turning-summer here. Daylight savings just kicked in today (more on this topic another time), so we "sprung forward" as the world I know "fell back". That puts us about 8 hours behind Europe and 14 hours behind the Eastern US. Ick. Trying not to think about it. Look at the lovely sunshine!

Loving reassurance

Today has not been my day in the spider department. You already know about the big black spider trauma, but it gets worse. As I went to check on Stephanie before going to bed, I spotted a spider on the hallway ceiling to put my earlier "HUGE" spider assessment to shame. This one was as wide as my hand (wrist to fingertips). Strangely enough, I instinctively knew it was harmless but you know enough about me by now to know it could not stay. I woke up Markus and made him take it outside. I have a PHOBIA. I know spiders are our friends, but this encounter left my heart racing and breathing shallow. That spider was NOT SMALL. Afterwards, I crawled into bed and tried to calm down. My spider savior turned to me, observed my state of distress, and lovingly reassured me with, "Even if it gets back in, comes down the hall, crawls up the bed and onto our faces, we won't notice in our sleep." With that, he rolled over and passed out.
You have got to be kidding me!
I am calling an exterminator first thing tomorrow morning.

Arachnophobia

I know spiders are our friends. They eat insects and are generally helpful critters. I know this and tell this to our three year old daughter, allowing her to extrapolate even more friendly characteristics from "Charlotte's Web". But make no mistake...spiders are not my personal friends. While I can appreciate them from a distance, I want them nowhere near my body. Ever. And now we live in Australia, where there is one particular deadly spider to be avoided: the redback. Related to the black widow, they are jet black with the tell-tale red marking on their topsides. Of course, the locals think I'm crazy for being worried, but I'm new here and these things make me nervous. I have researched them and learned that they are just about impossible to get rid of (they can close off their lungs for up to 7 hours if you spray!), but thankfully are rarely found in houses. The bites are nasty for adults but deadly for young children (of which we have two!), so I am very redback averse. And there are currently two unidentified black spiders in our house. One of them is quite small (a juvenile?) and the other is HUGE (the size of an Australian 50 cent piece, which is huge in my eyes when it's in my house). I just found the latter about an hour ago, and I'm still quaking about it. It's in the kitchen skylight, and it has a hiding place where the wall doesn't completely meet the ceiling right at the top. Lacking spray, I tried to suck it up in the vacuum, and it just laughed at me. It was too strong to get sucked away. This does not make me feel better about it, believe me. The hardest part for me right now is not being sure what type of spider it is. I only saw it from underneath, so I couldn't see if it has a red back or not. It could be the Black House Spider (which eats redbacks!), but those have nasty bites too. I want it gone. But I think it has other plans. For now, I just hope those plans include staying where it is to patrol the skylight with impunity.
Please cross your fingers that it doesn't come out to get me for the whole vacuum cleaner episode.

Weekly Video Post

This week, we actually have two videos to share, and both are from today!
First up, baby Stephanie has sprouted two teeth in the past few weeks, and she now chews everything! It's like we have a puppy in the house, only less destructive. Stephanie has always been a keen eater, and now she has no interest in pureed baby food. It's chewable or bust, so in the past few days we've started giving her some basic finger foods to keep her busy while we prepare other things. She loves experimenting with the pincer grasp, and we doubt its complexities will elude her for long. Meanwhile, it's darn cute to watch her. If you are so inclined, enjoy today's experiment with Cheerios and be on the lookout for those two teeth I mentioned!



The other video wasn't taken much later. While Stephanie munched her Cheerios (or tried), Markus and Ellie were on the porch hanging the baby swing. We had to give it a whirl straight away, and Ellie insisted on pushing her sister by herself. What you can't see is that Ellie is initially watching her own reflection in the glass door. The video you see here is take 3, after she'd already been knocked back a couple of times by the swing as she watched herself instead of the moving object (this is to explain why you hear me reminding her to watch her sister). The sisterly love you see here is a small example of what we are blessed to witness every day. Stephanie is absolutely crazy about her big sister, and usually the feeling is mutual (as long as no one expects Ellie to share Papa).

Congratulations!

Our friends Meghan and Eric are tying the knot at a beautiful Virginia plantation wedding today. Congratulations, you two! Best wishes for a lifetime of love and laughter!

Update on the big move-in

We were so happy when the movers arrived with our things on Monday!


Oh wait, that's not our truck. That's the rental furniture being picked up. THIS is our truck:



Oh dear. But wait...


Ack!


EEEK!


Ahhh...that's better. Retreat into the sunshine. Enjoy the early days of summer.
No wait...intense Australian sunshine cooking the marrow in my bones! Retreat back inside and tackle Box Mountain!
Fear not, you smarter-than-us, simple-living-advocates: Operation Declutter has already commenced! We knew we had too much crap-o-la, but we've had other priorities in recent years. It's easy to let things pile up and stay piled up despite moving around too much because someone else moves us. Once things are unpacked and put away, they are forgotten. Not this time! No sirree! We are sifting as we go.

Regardless of the unhealthy volume, we are happy to have our own things again. Ellie is especially thrilled! She has been working diligently to get us back into full form.


Someone has got to keep things running smoothly.

Facebook follow-up

I did it! I'm on!
I am no longer a know-nothing, out-of-touch, behind-the-times person!
At least, I won't be when you come be my friend!

We're professionals

The moving in continues, though we are mighty impressed with how far we've come already. The girls could not have been more amazing and cooperative on Monday while the house was in total upheaval. Markus took Monday and Tuesday to attack Box Mountain, and we've made more headway than we could have believed in just two days! Of course, there's a lot left. I recently met another new transplant here with two kids close in age to ours. She was talking about when their container is due to arrive and was commenting on how much unnecessary stuff she knows is in it. Then she looked sheepish and said, "I'm embarrassed to tell you this, but we have 107 boxes. 107! Isn't that crazy?" Honey, if that's embarrassing, you don't what to know how many we have. We have more than 40 boxes of books alone. If you really want to keep your movers busy, 107 boxes total is for amateurs.

Facebook

Will someone please explain Facebook to me? I've had multiple urgings from multiple sources to join Facebook lately, but I am in the dark on it. I have been inexplicably resistant to joining Facebook and/or MySpace, so I know nothing about that other than everyone seems to be on them but me. I have a family blog, so what is the point? Unlike blogs which omit personal details, the point is to provide personal details, yes? How does the whole social networking thing happen? Does everyone use their first and last names? If married women, do they provide maiden names so old high school friends can find them? How does this work? What are your user tips? Would you recommend it? Please explain it to me like I'm a know-nothing, behind-the-times out-of-touch person because well, I am a know-nothing, behind-the-times, out-of-touch person when it comes to these things.
Thanks.

Moving in

Today, the rental furniture company will pick up their things and the movers will start unloading our container. Hopefully, they won't be tripping over each other too much in the morning when all the fun begins. It will be nice to have our own things again, but their arrival does mean we're about to be buried under an avalanche of boxes. We hope to mountaineer ourselves out again as smoothly as possible. Living with minimal furnishings for (more than) a month really helps one appreciate how little one actually needs...and how much STUFF one possesses. Yikes.

Cute babies make me smile

I know I'm biased, but Baby Stephanie is a cutie!


And just when I think she can't get any cuter, I discover she has long enough hair to do this:


And then look what happens when her hat slides down her ears:


It is Cute Fest 2008 around here!

Ellie says

It's been a while since we've shared an "Ellie says" moment because lately she is a CHATTERBOX and hardly inhales between sentences, much less allows for simple quotes (hard to quote her accurately when one sentence is 5 minutes long). Today, she remedied this for me. We met Markus for lunch downtown for the first lunch date we've managed in a long time. Ellie is an extremely picky eater, but I thought we'd scored big when the take-away place had sparkling apple juice, the perfect combo of her two favorite liquids (apple juice and sparkling water; for some reason, she won't drink still water anymore). I happily handed her the bottle and waited for the enthusiasm that was sure to follow her first sip. Instead, she sipped it and slowly handed the bottle back to me with a pitying look in her eyes. In a tone that clearly addressed her concern that I had finally gone off the deep end, she said, "Um, Mama...I think this is beer."

Shaking it off

Apologies to you regulars who have been checking in but not finding a new post. I figured you wouldn't want to hear our whining about the lack of sleep, the cold Ellie caught, the deep chesty cough that wracked her little body for two days, the transfer of the cold to Stephanie and Markus, Stephanie cutting her first two teeth (adorable but so painful!), our bouts of homesickness...nah. Why go on about that? As my good friend Laura would say, "Let's have a Pity Party! You make the cupcakes and I'll do a dance!" It's a new week, and things are settling down again.

Over the weekend, we reached our limit with the bedtime woes (Ellie apparently being incapable of getting in bed without screaming until her sister awakened miserably), so we are trialing a new sleeping arrangement. Stephanie has moved to the back "children's wing" (fancy words on our PCR for "hasty addition to the house with dorm-style appeal"), where she seems much happier. She is a very light sleeper, and it's harder for her to hear any of us back there. Of course, the same is true in reverse so I'm sleeping back there too in another room until I feel sure she's okay. Yes, we have heard of baby monitors, but I have to ease into it. Besides, it's still quite cold in the house at night, and the idea of padding down the hall in my pjs multiple times a night in the cold just doesn't appeal to me. Anyway, so far, so good! She does still wake up, but it's twice a night instead of the horrid every hour or two she had been doing. Ellie is still struggling with night-waking too, but we think it's her big, bare room. It is kinda creepy. Thankfully, we got notice this morning that our things should clear customs this week! Hooray! We don't have a confirmed delivery date, but we are so happy to know it won't be much longer in this temporary arrangement.

So what have we been up to? You know we cannot just sit around at home, so we've been getting out and about, despite the colds and the teeth and the exhaustion (oops, wasn't supposed to be whining about that). Two weekends ago, we headed out to a state park in the Perth Hills to have a look around. Unfortunately, there wasn't much to do or see. It appeared to be a lovely picnic destination, but we had no picnic so away we went again.


One lovely discovery we made nearby was a cafe/restaurant called The Lavender Patch. The family who runs it also lives on the land there. It's a beautiful spot and a really nice cafe too! We enjoyed pumpkin soup with fresh lavender bread and some much-needed coffee and cakes. The toilet paper made me nervous though. I know it's just a decoration, but jellyfish do not belong anywhere near my fanny.



This past weekend, we made another visit to the Perth Zoo. Ellie is in it for the horses--the carousel horses, that is.


I really like the Outback Walk where they let the kangaroos and wallabies roam free. We got really close to one wallaby, but just as I snapped the photo, Markus sneezed.


And who can resist the adorable koalas?




Last but not least, a bit of wombat trivia for you:


Who knew a big bum could be so useful?

Weekly Video Post

This little gem is actually from two weeks ago, but it's a favorite for obvious reasons and must be shared. On our most manic Monday as we rushed home from the bakery, I heard such merry sounds coming from the backseat that I had to pull over and capture the fun on video. If you are squeamish about spittle, you might want to skip it...but if baby giggles warm your heart, proceed and enjoy!

The bright side of the moon

I am now the proud owner of a completely unnecessary and utterly fabulous iPhone 3G! Oooooo, the joys of Mac in the palm of my hand! As I said to our friend who is a recent PC-to-Mac convert, welcome to the bright side of the moon!

Birthday adventure

The kids may not sleep much at night, but sometimes, just sometimes, they give me the beautiful gift of a corresponding naptime. Today was one of those days, so I was able to make this little movie of Saturday's birthday adventure. My most thoughtful husband presented me with a helicopter tour of the scenic beaches of Perth. I've always been intrigued with the idea of a helicopter ride, but I'd never taken the opportunity. This past Saturday, we changed that. Thank you Markus, for yet another wonderful birthday!

Nanny wanted, graveyard shift

I now fully understand the term "graveyard shift". I feel like that's where I'm headed if this continues.
Our children do not sleep. We had a four day weekend this weekend. The best night was the night Stephanie woke up every two hours. Two other nights, they took turns waking up every hour. Last night was the prize-winner. Ellie spent the first 45 minutes after we put her to bed screaming bloody-murder to get us to keep coming back for water, potty, hugs, etc...and waking up her sister too, of course. After that, Stephanie was awake for almost an hour. It kept up in this lovely fashion so that by midnight, we had gone in their room for one or the other (or both) six times. After that, we stopped counting, moved Stephanie into our bed so at least one of them would be sorted out, and surrendered our sanity completely.
We just can't keep this up. Their sleep has been awful since the move began, and it doesn't really seem to get better (in fact, this weekend showed it was getting worse). We are supposed to be planning our return trip to the US for Mardi Gras, and I can't get myself to order my beads (deadline tomorrow) because the thought of doing this all again when we get there and then AGAIN when we come back here is too much for my wee brain to comprehend.
So if you know of any child-loving teenager who requires no sleep at night, please direct him or her our way. Our house is laid out so that the kids can stay up all night together in the back "wing" and the parents can get some much needed sleep. Something has got to change.

Spring-y things

(hey, at least I learned my lesson about titling this "Bouncing girls")

Spring isn't the only thing that's sprung lately. We bought a trampoline! Markus wisely suggested that a trampoline would be of more use to our ball of energy than a swing set would be. Plus, if the trampoline was big enough (and this one is), we could use it too! We ordered our new 10ft trampoline on Monday and it was delivered that afternoon. Ellie and I had a lot of fun bouncing together, and as usual, you can hear her bossing me around. Nothing like a little micromanagement to mediate reckless fun!

This week's round-up

Aside from the very frustrating school issue, we've had a pretty fun and very busy week around here. More than ever, Ellie is showing signs of being an uber-intelligent child in that she gets bored quite easily (thus the drive for good schooling, but I'll rant about that another time). This means I have to be on the ball with a plan from early on in the day, or we are booked on a one-way ticket to Tantrum City (and once you board, there is no escape). I've been a bit stuck in that I still have a long checklist of new-place items to check off, but somehow this week we managed it (mostly) and had good times.


Monday morning, the real estate agent who handles this house went on holiday. Before she did, she seems to have put notices in with the various repair people about the issues we noted in the hideous PCR. ALL of them called me Monday morning. My phone was ringing incessantly for over an hour. By that, I mean while I was answering a call, someone else was leaving voicemail, and while I was checking that voicemail, someone else was calling. It was gruesome. We also had delivery of our new appliances, which happened earlier than scheduled and required us to zip home as quickly as possible when we made our one escape of the day to the bakery. Sigh. This manic day was handled with grace by all, but it took its toll, as was to be evident on Tuesday. To sum Tuesday up, let's just say we boarded Tantrum Express, which offered non-stop service all the day long. I cried more than Ellie did on Tuesday, which seemed to egg her on. It was ugly, people. UGLY. But every day is new with kids and every day is different. Ellie seemed to have gotten the nasties out of her system overnight, and on Wednesday she was open to activities again. On Wednesday morning, we finally took baby Stephanie in for her (overdue) 6 month immunizations. There is a free immunization clinic here for children under 5, which is delightful! Because they only service small children, the waiting room is colorful, full of toys and books, and staffed with friendly people. The two nurses who give the injections are naturally quite experienced with children. Mobiles with bells are hung from the ceiling in the exam rooms, so the nurse gives the mobile a whack to create a visual and auditory distraction for a wee one while the injection is being given (or afterward). Thanks to a different immunization schedule in Holland, baby Stephanie only needed one shot to get her up to date...and she didn't even cry, thanks to that fascinating mobile and the nurse's gentle touch! Ellie had brought along Lolo and Bunny for their immunizations too, and the nurse didn't blink. She just made sure they got their bandages too.



Afterwards, we went to the Perth Zoo, where someone captured this picture of me chasing Ellie before I tied her to my back with the Kozy Carrier.


The Perth Zoo is quite nice. I particularly liked the Outback Walk section, where kangaroos and wallabies roam free. Most of them were snoozing in the shade (UV factor 8 out of 10 that day!), but one came close enough to inspect our stroller before moving on. Ellie had great fun on the playground before we headed home.

Thursday morning was time to return to the toy library for our weekly exchange. What is a toy library, you ask? A brilliant idea, I answer! The community maintains a "toy library" with a wide assortment of children's toys from dress-up costumes to Little Tikes cars to tricycles to blocks to sing-a-long CDs... For a relatively minor annual membership fee, families can borrow a toy per child per week. This gives kids the opportunity to play with lots of different toys, toys that are always new to them and fun, at hardly any expense to the parents. This week was our third visit, and Ellie had it down. She walked in, handed over last week's toy, looked at the shelves for about 0.6 seconds, pointed and exclaimed, "That one, please!" and out the door we went. This gave us plenty of time to get to her ballet class. We have joined "Teeny Ballet"! It is just about the cutest thing ever! The girls can wear whatever they like and the teacher brings lots of extra tutus for them to try on if they like. For as long as Ellie has been Ellie, she observes new activities carefully and rarely attempts them until she feels she's got it mastered in her head. This means she spends most of ballet class watching the teacher like a hawk but merely following the rest of the class from one side of the room to another rather than running free like the other kiddos tend to do. This week was only her second class. We're pretty sure that once she gets more familiar with what is expected, she will let loose and dance up a storm. She did participate in some skipping along with a partner, which I caught on video:


And this brings us to Friday, which is MY BIRTHDAY! Markus took the day off to help me celebrate, and we're going to have a great, relaxing day doing whatever seems most appealing at the time. Woo-hoo! Happy Birthday to me! See you back here for the weekly video post soon!

Frustrating

Ellie is a smart, inquisitive, interested child. She wants to know. She wants to do. She wants to work. She wants to learn. I would like to place her in a Montessori school, as I am a huge fan of that philosophy for children under 6. Unfortunately, so is every other new arrival in Perth, not to mention the people already living here. Every school I contact has a waiting list a mile long, and some have told me flat out not to bother (and yes, two of them have been quite rude about it). So I've looked at some alternative educational models (not really wanting a standard public school and definitely not standard day care), and I've had no better luck. I want the best for her, and I just can't seem to get it or even get close to it because of the timing of our arrival (about a month too late for next year's intake lists). This is very frustrating! Please keep your fingers crossed that something good will work out. Massive waiting lists for preschools! This is madness.

Our new address

On Friday, Ellie received a belated birthday card from my grandfather and his wife. My grandfather is Italian by descent, and he embraces the family patriarch role with both arms. Here is the letter enclosed with her card:

Dearest, dearest Ellie,

We hope you had a very happy birthday.

We are sorry this card and letter are so late, but we did not know your new address at the time of your birthday.

Don't blame us, honey. Blame it on your peripatetic parents.

We send you all our love and good wishes,


Okay, we've been remiss in sharing our new address! Sorry!!! We are not going to post it here for sake of privacy (this is a public blog) and I prefer snail mail to email. I will send it out to friends and family this week, but if you want it earlier, just send me an email or leave a comment to this post. Thank you for the reminder, Grandpa!

Spring has arrived!

This is the first place I've ever lived during the "winter" where there is no real central heat. Technically, this was also true in Qatar, but we left while it was still over 100 degrees outside, so I didn't really notice. I've noticed here! Our house gets COLD! While I enjoy cool temperatures, I do not enjoy being cold. Especially in the house. Markus had verbally prepped me for this possibility while telling stories of Cape Town (many aspects of daily life are quite similar here), but it's still been a big adjustment. This house has two outlets for natural gas heaters, which we have purchased and used faithfully. What a difference they make! But they only heat the rooms with the outlets (kitchen and living room), so we've been hiding in those rooms during the evenings/mornings. We also bought a fancy oil-filled electric heater for the girls' room (part of the reason they are roommates), but it doesn't work as well as it could unless the door is shut and Ellie HATES it when the door is shut. What I'm telling you here is that it's often quite cold in the house, and unless you are my mom, this probably does not sound like Heaven to you.

On the upside, it's often warmer outside than it is in. The weather is just lovely! Today we're having our first real downpours, but on the whole, the weather couldn't be prettier. Blue skies that go on forever! Sparse white clouds. Breezes that turn to winds, but not cold winds (until the sun goes down). And now the plants are getting with the program, and new leaves and flowers are bursting out every day! Yesterday afternoon, a photo stroll of our backyard found the new pear trees in full bloom.


The wisteria along the pool fence is looking beautiful.


Apparently, the aesthetics have attracted some early-season swimmers.


Markus is enjoying getting to work on his shiny, schnazzy red scooter, though we did have to buy some motorcycle gloves this week to help keep his hands from numbing in the mornings. He's not the only one appreciating the Vespa thrill.


Have a great weekend, everyone!

Ich spreche Bébé

Weekly Video Post

We've been rather remiss in the video post department of late (largely due to an ultra-slow internet connection), so there are many moments past to share. We took this video on Ellie's birthday morning. She walked down the hall in her pjs and gasped in amazement to see balloons on her chair and presents at her place. Breakfast could wait! This video is especially for Mimi, whose present Ellie opened first.

Roommates

As of last night, Stephanie and Ellie are now sharing a room. The layout of our house makes this the most practical solution, though it will definitely take some adjusting. Ellie loves to try my boundaries when it comes to any new situation, and trying my boundaries in this situation involves making just enough noise that the baby wakes and cries and Mama goes crazy. She thinks this is incredibly funny. As luck would have it, baby Stephanie is a very light sleeper, making Ellie's job easy. Fortunately, Ellie is a very heavy sleeper, so if Stephanie wakes while Ellie is sleeping (as often happens during the night), Ellie can sleep on. We'll have to see how this new arrangement evolves. This weekend, we are going shopping for a big girl bed. Ellie has been sleeping on a single bed mattress for months, but until now, it's been a mattress on the floor. It's time to buy her a bed she can be proud of, and we think we've found it in a shop nearby. Hopefully, that will give her extra motivation to snuggle down and hush (ha-ha).

Sesame Street podcasts

Speaking of mom stuff, there are free Sesame Street podcasts available through iTunes that Ellie is obsessed with! Yes, I know it's wrong to end a sentence with a preposition, but this is way too exciting for grammar. You moms with under-5s out there should check these out! There is a new podcast each week. They focus on one word, building up vocabulary and talking about healthy habits with all the usual Sesame Street skits, cartoons, and characters. We are currently fixated on "Octagon". But be warned: there is a song by Feist at the end that really gets stuck in your head. I've been singing it in the shower lately. This is what parenthood does to you.

Competitive Mothering (and some self-defense)

Competitive mothering.
In a word: DON'T.
It's just not okay. It's unkind to the mother you decide to compete with and it's unfair to your kids for you to compete on their backs. It's hurtful all around. Just don't do it.

I bring this up because I've been the victim of competitive mothering a few times in the past couple of weeks. People are surprisingly conservative here in Perth, and a lot of moms stay home with their kids (as I am fortunate enough to do). This means there are a lot of moms out there watching other moms, and sometimes they feel the need to make comments. I'm (overly) sensitive to begin with, so when these comments come my way...well, one comment in particular hurt me so much last week that I cried off and on all afternoon (when the kids weren't watching so as not to upset them too). In fairness to the wounding party, Markus does think I took it the wrong way (too seriously, as is my custom). Still, it was hurtful and unnecessary, and the little comments have piled up to make me critically look at my mothering.

The paradox of parenthood is it simultaneously makes my heart burst with love and my brain implode with exhaustion. I am not perfect. I never claimed to be, and I know I never will be. I make mistakes. Sometimes I react poorly to things that deserve better reactions. Sometimes I lose my nut. Stephanie has yet to sleep through the night. If you count back from now to pregnancy insomnia to Ellie's night wakings, I really couldn't tell you the last time I slept through the night myself. I can't even remember the last time I slept for more than 4 consecutive hours. My current level of exhaustion is considered torture under some international treaties. And yet my house is acceptably clean. Though less so for our challenging eater, my family is healthfully fed meals cooked from scratch using fresh, local and organic when possible ingredients. And wouldn't you know it? I believe my kids are well-loved, well-looked-after, and well-supported in their pursuits to become incredibly busy little beings. Despite a major international move that has yet to be completed (our things aren't here yet)--heck, make that FOUR MOVES in THREE YEARS (3 of them international)--and routines being thrown to the wind, we are all keeping our heads above water, usually with smiles on our faces. Yes, I would like to be better at many things. There must be a hundred things on my imaginary to-do list of what I could do/make/arrange for them in an ideal world. I wish I had the energy at night to keep at it after they go to bed, but I just don't. When they go to bed, the most I can do most nights is finish cleaning up from dinner (unless the world's most fabulous husband/father is doing it) and sack out on the couch like a lump. After all, it won't be long before at least one of them is up again.
With more sleep being the obvious exception, there isn't one bit of it that I would trade. Sometimes I envy Markus the time he has away from the house while he's at work (after all, he gets to use the bathroom by himself!), but at the same time I know I wouldn't want any job other than the job I have. We aren't perfect...but then again, we are. We are a family, and we're in this together.

Weekend Update

This weekend, we experienced our first bout of not-so-nice weather as a storm moved in, bringing some rain and lots of wind. We were on a playground at the beach on Friday evening as the weather approached, and it was beautiful to watch. Although you can't see them in this picture, there were plenty of surfers making use of the choppy sea.



While the sun still shone, we made use of playground time. Stephanie stayed snug as a bug in her new Kozy Carrier. It had just arrived that afternoon, and we are instant fans. The design kept the wind (and eventual rain before we made it to the car) off of her, and she stayed toasty warm right next to me where she likes it best.



She is our little koala.

Our desire to avoid the bad weather made for a strange weekend, and we didn't get up to much that was noteworthy on Saturday. Sunday morning, we decided to visit the Aquarium of Western Australia (AQWA). We are a bit spoiled with our aquarium adventures, but we did enjoy ourselves. It was fun to see the beautiful range of creatures that inhabit Australia's waters.




On Sunday afternoon, our friends invited us to join them as they went geocaching. Have you ever heard of this? We hadn't! They told us it was a treasure hunt of sorts, and it would be fun for the kids, so we went along without cheating and looking it up online. We did take a bit of teasing for not being worldly enough to have heard of geocaching, but you, dear readers, have an advantage over us in that I'm going to tell you all about it! Geocaching is indeed a treasure hunt using a hand-held GPS. There are caches hidden all over the world. You can look online to see if there are any near you, and off you go! When you find the cache, you can remove a treasure from the box and you must leave a different treasure behind for the next people. Each cache has a logbook to sign and date, and you can also log online. Our friends are experienced geocachers, so they had with them a Travel Bug. It looks a bit like a dog tag with a bug and number on it. When you find a Travel Bug, you use its number to look it up online and see where it has been. You deposit it as the treasure at your next cache, and on it goes. The original owner keeps a copy of the bug and can track it down online. It would be very interesting to see where your bug goes! There is also a geocoin system similar to this. The kids really had fun discovering the cache and its treasures. This really is a fun family/friends idea. If you have access to a GPS, why not give it a whirl? You might be surprised at what you find!

Ellie's birthday

Last week, we celebrated Ellie's 3rd birthday. If you include the day she was born, Ellie has now had 4 birthdays on 4 continents. She was born in the US, celebrated her first birthday in Dohot, her second in Paris, and her third in Perth. Next year, we may fly to Thailand or Bali or somewhere fabulous in Asia just to keep up the trend. Of course, she will resent all this when she's 16, can't remember most of these places, and only stays in one place since by then we will have long since stopped moving around so much.

Since our things will not arrive and clear customs for quite some time yet (we're guessing mid-October), we ordered a cake from the local bakery--a first in our house because I'm such a baker myself. Ellie couldn't have been happier. The bakery made her a ladybug cake!


She woke up on her birthday to find balloons tied to her chair (and if you have been reading this blog for a while, you know all about Ellie's undying love for balloons) and three presents waiting for her to rip open.


It was a big day! The balloons alone would have done it, but presents are always fun and the cake....ooo, the cake! We are so lucky to have friends here already. We knew a family in New Orleans who moved here three years ago. They have two little girls too, and they shared cake and ice cream with us that afternoon.


To enjoy the birthday-in-Australia thing, we drove out of the city to Whiteman Park (about 30 minutes away). Whiteman Park is a large nature preserve, and there are signs warning about kangaroos in road. Inside the park is an animal park where you can meet indigenous animals up close. We thought Ellie would love to meet some kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, what-have-you, so off we went! We got a bit lost along the way due to a poor map, so our drive took longer than we'd hoped. By the time we parked the car, Ellie was desperate to get out. The car park was next to a playground, and she zeroed in on that with no intent of doing anything else. It was her birthday, so we let her choose. The playground had a bouncy castle and little cars she could "drive" with Papa's help. We didn't see any animals at all, but she had a blast!

Greetings from Perth!

Quinn recently commented that he can't visualize Perth. Unless you've gone wild with Google Earth, you might have the same issue. If you want an intro to Perth, I am here for you! Perth is a city on the west coast of Australia. It's the capital of the state of Western Australia (commonly known as "double-yoo-aye" or WA), and it is the most isolated capital in the world. WA is a huge state, the largest in Australia, but it has a population of only around 2.1 million (2007 statistic), with 1.5 million of those living in Perth and its surrounds. At the moment, the economy of WA is booming due to its natural resources (mining, oil, gas) and its economic ties to China and India. This means the government has opened the floodgates for immigrants. They estimate Perth absorbs about 50,000 people per year (50,004 including us). Despite the rapid growth, Perth has more a town-feel than a city-feel. Surrounded by awesome outdoor opportunities, people tend to be laidback and live for the outdoorsy lifestyle so readily facilitated by location along the Indian Ocean, the Swan River, and wide open bush in every direction. Surfing, windsurfing, and sailing are big here. Picnicking is a major pastime. The weather seems very Meditteranean, with 9 months of lovely and 3 months of HOT (which are December, January and February--this is the Southern Hemisphere).


Perth is located on the north side of the Swan River, and the suburbs to its west are the most desirable given easy access to downtown, the beach and the river (you can see the river to the right in the picture above, which I took from the huge and lovely Kings Park). The top three suburbs for expats like us are Dalkeith, Nedlands, and Claremont. We live in Claremont. To deal with the population boom, suburbs are spreading and growing like mad. In the western suburbs, you'll find mostly old homes, some complete tear-down/rebuilds, and a lot of sparkly new renovations. The housing market is still in a huge bubble here. Houses on our street are selling for over AU$2 million. It's a nice street with pretty houses, but ouch. BUB-BLE. It can't last. The rental market is booming in an unhealthy way (prices have climbed 100% in the past 3 years by some accounts), while the sales market is starting to stagnate. It's a bit crazy.

There are some big differences in renting here than in other places we've lived. Rent charges are calculated on a weekly basis, allowing owners to rake in a bit more than they would based on a monthly system (ex: weekly rent of $1000 is $52,000 per year versus $4000 per month at a yearly $48,000--and yes, this is a realistic example amount). Housing inspections are conducted regularly, at an average of once every 3 months. From what we hear, the real estate agent makes an appointment and then sends someone to your (rented) home and examines every little thing about how you live, right down to how spotless you keep your sink drains. Within a week of moving in, we had to complete a Property Condition Report (PCR) that detailed every little speck, scratch, dent, etc. in the house. The real estate agent completes it before you move in, and you have one week to record anything different or you are liable for any differences when you move out. Our PCR was 28 pages long, and it took me over 6 hours to complete it. I've lived in military housing that was far more relaxed than this!

That being said, we do live in a very nice house:


Given that it's worth (in the bubble) over AU$2million, I can understand the owners being a bit jumpy. Still, sheesh. Not looking forward to being inspected every 3 months.

Back on the air! (so to speak)

We’re back! For the first few days without internet, I felt a bit twitchy. Not checking email or blogging was hard! But as with any habit, the desperation subsided after the first week or so, and my time was full of all the things I should be doing, like playing with the kiddos, cleaning up the messes, and discovering our new home. Oh, and going to bed at a reasonable time. That is always good. But now we’re connected again! It was no small feat (why haven’t companies figured out how to connect new customers?!), but here we are. Miss us?

Before I launch into the latest happenings, I realize I owe you a Singapore post. As one of my girlfriends reminded me, a lot of people don’t know much about Singapore beyond the caning that happened back when we were in high school to the guy who got caught breaking their laws (wasn’t that over something major like illegal drugs?) or the law they have against chewing gum. I didn’t know much about Singapore myself, so it made a great stopover for us on our way to Perth. The tropical climate was a nice change after Europe, and the humidity reminded us of home in the Southern US. Singapore is a huge port and petroleum city, with one of the world’s largest shipping ports as well as one of the world’s largest oil refineries. It is also a shopper’s paradise with more malls and shops than you can possibly visit. It is highly regulated with strict laws, which make everyday life fairly straightforward. No police were visible most of the time because punishments are strict and swiftly enforced, meaning most people just won’t risk being naughty in the first place. Public transport was efficient and clean, and the station announcements were broadcast in four languages, including English. My favorite was the one that sounded like “Make happy happy on the platform.” Singlish is widely spoken, and you’ll sometimes run across treasures in translation. Other times, the English will be spot-on, but the sign is a treasure anyway. Since I’m so mature (ha-ha), this was my favorite:


I feel the same way about Speedos.

We were primarily in Singapore as a stopover/jetlag killer for the kids, so we did kid-things. The Singapore Zoo is AWESOME. Built into the tropical forest, it is hands-down the prettiest zoo we’ve seen. The vegetation is amazing, and the layout is beautiful.


The stroll through the flora was worth the price of admission, but the animals are pretty great too! Native monkeys roam free, though they tend to stick to certain areas. We met our first local as we entered the zoo, where a little monkey was watching us carefully from a low branch.

We also visited the aquarium and rode their famous “travelator”, a moving walkway that takes you in a tunnel through the big tanks. After being on such a long flight, the travelator made us feel a bit like luggage, but the idea was unique.


Our aquarium admission included a pink dolphin show. Have you ever heard of pink dolphins? We hadn’t! Apparently, they are born grey and turn pink over time. The dolphins we saw were mottled, which tells us they are still young. After the show, you could pay to have a picture taken with one. To our surprise, Ellie was wild to do it, so we got in line. She kept shouting excitedly, “We’re going to touch a dolphin!” over and over. By we, she meant me, as she clung like Velcro to my torso while I waded in and bent down to pet the dolphin. She was rather satisfied with the whole experience, though, so that’s what we were after.


On our last day, we took a boat tour, giving us our first and only view of the downtown area.


We mostly stuck to our hotel, playing in the pool and eating most of our meals there as well to maximize the downtime and adjustment to the time zones we’d crossed. Thankfully, the girls are both great travelers! It wasn’t long before we were back at the airport, bound for Perth! By the way, the Singapore airport is awesome too! I spent our wait for the flight lounging like a cat in the “rest area”, a quiet, secluded space filled with long leather lounge chairs and surrounded by natural stone, plants and a water feature. Gorgeous.

Birthday Girl!

Three years ago, we welcomed a squinty little bundle:


Now our squinty little bundle holds lengthy debates with us on every imaginable topic, all the while gesturing like an Italian and batting her long eyelashes to emphasize her points:


Where has that time gone?!
Happy Birthday, Ellie! We love you!