Off to Mexico

Howdy all.  Think I'll make this a short blog today as nothing of much significance has happened this week. 

We survived another few days without Pete.  It's starting to get slightly easier as I get more used to the routine without him.  But of course, we still all miss him a lot when he's gone.  His trip (to Calgary) was a productive one so he was pleased (if a bit tired) on his return.

We're still seeing accidents from Naomi every day.  It's been about a month now.  Have no idea what we're doing wrong.  Thought I was getting somewhere a few times this week.  She had two days with her pants being dry until about 5pm and then she had a poo accident.  Frustrating.  Yesterday she got through the whole day with no accidents.  We made a big fuss of her with lots of cheers and rewarded her with a new book.  So I was hopeful that today would be the same, but no!  About 4 changes of pants and after getting undressed before bath, she then decided to start doing a poo on the carpet (apologies if this is too graphic but I feel the need to vent after cleaning it all up).  So the battle continues.  Hoping that on holiday we'll get through as she'll be in her swim wear most of the day.  But I'd better pack some washing powder anyway!

Lydia is amusing.  Still has a few standing moments on her own and likes to walk holding something (like a small chair or her walker).  Her foot is pretty much fine now as she gets more strength in the leg.  I think her confidence in standing has increased and so she feels happy to have her feet forwards and not always turned ready to go back down for crawling.  She has an attitude over her food but with persistence we're still winning (for now).  I have now finished breastfeeding which has its pros and cons.  The main con is that she is refusing any milk from a bottle.  We're trying to give her extra yogurt and other foods and so far that's going ok.  Just hoping she doesn't get sick of it.

In between the mundane routine of life I've been trying to prepare for our holiday.  Got a few things now but think Naomi may need a few summer clothes as obviously she's grown out of everything from her last summer (Dec 09-Fed 10).  Thankfully the shops do have lots of summer clothes in, even though it doesn't get that hot in Alaska.  I guess they realise that everyone goes on vacation.

As we leave next Saturday night, I'll guess I won't be blogging till after our holiday.  So I hope you all have a lovely few weeks and we'll be in touch with a few holiday snaps once we return and have ourselves sorted.

More birthdays

Apologies for the delay in this week's blog.  But with Sunday being my usual blogging day but also Pete's birthday, it had thrown me off.  So this week saw the remaining two birthdays in our house.

Firstly Naomi's was on Tuesday.  She had stayed home from school on Monday so her birthday was her first day back after Spring Break.  We had made apple cinnamon muffins for everyone and some strawberries too.  Later I heard more about what she did.  They lit three candles for her to blow out and they sang too.  They all shared the muffins and read out something about Naomi's life (that I had written and taken in).  So I think she enjoyed it. 

In the afternoon we found yet another play centre that we'd not been to yet.  It was very quiet; the only other children there I think belonged to the girl manning the desk. It was small and a bit overpriced but at least I could let Lydia crawl around with worrying about her getting trampled on.

We then headed home for some more presents and some ice-cream.  It was a nice day but the main event was the party on Saturday.  I was very worried about having so many children around but it turned out to be really good fun.  We divided the time between the basement and upstairs so I think everyone enjoyed themselves.  The girls were incredibly blessed by some wonderful presents.  People have been so generous.  After everyone had left we sat down to eat yet another cupcake (and by this I mean the icing from the top) and Naomi made up a little song.  She does this quite a lot at the moment and I managed to capture it on video. Here it is.

Sunday was Pete's birthday and a big one for him.  40.  So I was a very mean wife and took lots of opportunities to make jokes about his age and give him presents with 40 all over them.  As we have our Mexico holiday planned as our main present to each other for birthdays this year, I only gave Pete small presents.  But to make it more fun I gave him one every 40 minutes.  So all day he was opening presents.  I think he enjoyed it.  We did our usual Sunday morning – church and then swimming.  The afternoon was very lazy.  We just played with the girls' new toys and watched some basketball on TV. 

Then Pete and I had a lovely evening out to a restaurant in town.  The food was amazing and the service very pleasant.  They even brought out a birthday candle for Pete to blow out at the end.  The place was empty by 2130 though.  The dessert's only looked ok so we decided to head to another (less classy) place for dessert.  We ate way too much and ended the night feeling thoroughly sick but satisfied.  So all in all I think everyone enjoyed their birthday celebrations.

Pete has now headed off to Calgary for the rest of this week.  I'm really looking forward to our holiday so we can spend a bit more time together.  Life has been so busy and he's had a lot of trips away so far this year.  It will be good to spend some quality time together.  So it's just the girls at home again.  Lydia's two top front teeth have come out so on the whole she is a bit happier this week.  We are over our illnesses now which helps too.  Lydia is really making her wants known now.  She points and grunts at what she wants and goes into full blown tears if she doesn't get it.  Sometimes it's quite funny to watch her.  Her leg is almost normal now.  The paediatrician wasn't worried at all and said she'll turn her foot around more as she gets used to standing.  Which she is doing now.  We've even seen her stand without holding on a couple of times.  Only for a second or two but she's making progress.

Naomi is behaving better and I think getting into the routine of school every day.  However, we're still having lots of accidents which are incredibly frustrating.  I'm resigned to the fact that it may continue for quite a while yet though as going to Mexico may throw her off course again.  Poor kid, with all this change in her life. 

So, this week is all about preparing for our holiday – buying swimsuits, what will I feed Lydia, check the hotel booking etc.  Glad now that the birthdays have finished that I get excited about it.  11 days to go!

The Birthdays Begin

March is a big birthday month in the Scott household.  And this week saw the first of those. Lydia turned 1 this Friday.  Was a very special day.  Pete stayed home a bit later in the morning for her to open some presents.  Here are a couple of photos of that.

I then took the girls to a Kindergym class at a recreation centre.  Naomi loved going to a new place with new games.  Lydia sat on my lap for a bit and then wanted to crawl around and join in.  She had a big smile on her face the whole time.  In the afternoon we took our time and made our way to a place to eat where we were to meet Pete.  I had actually not heard great things about it but I wanted to go as it's an American icon.  Chuck E. Cheese's.  I'd only heard of it on TV so thought I'd check it out.  It has lots of games for kids so thought Naomi could be amused whilst we made a fuss of Lydia.  Turned out to be mainly video games that you play with tokens.  We ordered a pizza and had a bit of a play around.  Lydia seemed to enjoy it.  She then gave me a good present that night by actually taking a small amount of milk from the bottle. So all in all it was a good 1^st birthday.

However, the milk thing has not continued.  She's down to just the morning breastfeed now and still refuses to take anything from a bottle during the day or at night (other than on her birthday). She also seems to be having a few teeth coming through.  They haven't broken through the surface yet so hopefully when they do she'll cheer up a bit.  Her appetite has been down too.  But this weekend we've all come out with colds.  So who knows what is causing what problem.  Are the teeth giving her a runny nose and affecting her appetite or is it a cold that makes her not want to eat.  Hopefully she'll sort herself out soon.  She's having trouble sleeping tonight as she can't suck her thumb for comfort because she can't breathe.  Also it's only just gone dark which is probably throwing her off.  Our clocks changed last night so now the sun is setting at about 8 o'clock.  I need to get out and buy some black-out curtains otherwise we may find ourselves with 2 little girls who don't want to go to sleep.

Naomi is still having some accidents.  The behaviour improved towards the end of the week.  But I'm a bit unsure how to get her past these accidents.  We're trying the sticker rewards again but I'm not sure they're having the right impact.  I'll stick with it and hopefully once she gets back into the swing of school she'll get over this phase.  We had a good week with lots of activities to fill our week as school wasn't on (Spring Break). Naomi enjoyed seeing her friends from my mother's group and we had a couple of playdates at home too.  I was quite worried about surviving this week but have managed to come through relatively unscathed (and so has she!). So it's just the colds we need to sort out now.  We've all had a pretty miserable day today and I can feel my cold only just starting to kick in.  Am praying that it won't develop into much as I go into the new week.  Not sure if Naomi will be up for school tomorrow as she's pretty grumpy all day.  She got her appetite back at the end of the day so perked up a bit.  We'll see how she goes overnight and how she feels in the morning.

Pete and I had a lovely night out last night.  One of the mum's I've met has also just moved here from Australia and so we went for dinner with her and her husband.  We had lots of giggles and some yummy food.  It's her 40^th birthday as well so we also treated ourselves to a bottle of champagne.

This week holds Naomi's 3^rd birthday on Tuesday.  I'm really hoping that she is feeling better for it.  The big day is really Saturday though when we have 19 kids coming over for a party – what was I thinking when I invited that many people! There are a few friends that have 2 kids so the numbers add up pretty quickly.  We'll have some party food, play a few games and eat cake.  Hopefully we'll survive the afternoon.  And then Sunday is Pete's birthday.  Nothing much planned yet except a meal out for Pete and me.

It has now been 6 months since we left Australia.  We still feel homesick but are definitely more settled.  My last couple of pictures are of Pete in Barrow on his recent trip there.  The first is in front of a whale jaw bone, as whaling is a big part of a community like Barrow.  The other one he is actually standing on the Arctic Ocean.

Positivity

As I write this, I'm feeling a little stressed.  But I do have a glass of wine at my side so hopefully my stress will begin to ease and I can write something positive about the week.  I hope I'm not the only one that has these negative moments.

Well, something positive happened at the start of the week. Our fridge fixed itself! So the helpline of the manufacturer had told me that the display would correct itself in 24-48 hours but as the advice that it was still cooling was wrong we had decided this must be wrong too.  However, within 48 hours the display suddenly came on and it started working again.  So we think we managed to save all the food in time by getting it into the garage or our other freezer.  And we managed to save ourselves a callout charge from a service guy.  So that was a good start to the week.

But another thing that I mentioned last week was Naomi's behaviour.  Unfortunately, as this week has progressed we haven't seen much improvement and I've seen a lot more accidents occurring.  Very frustrating.  I'm trying so hard to be positive but just like the last time, it's difficult.  It's not so much the wet pants that gets to me.  More than once I've noticed and know that she needs to go to the toilet (she only does some of it in her pants), she then fights me saying she doesn't need to go.  Clearly she does.  After a lot of fighting and threats, she eventually gets on the toilet and of course does a big wee.  And then there is usually a fight over washing her hands.  She is in full-on defiant mode at the moment. So difficult.  I had one very bad parenting moment where I shouted so loudly at her that I actually hurt my throat.  It was just the last straw for that day.  I did apologise to her a little while later (a hard thing for a parent to do) and we were friends again.  So the challenge continues on how to get her to be more obedient and on how to get her to the toilet on time.  This week is Spring Break so there is no school.  So either everything will be better because she's not exhausted from school where she is still trying to get used to everything there.  Or things will be awful, as life has changed again for her and I don't have a break from her in the week.  It's going to be interesting! (that was my attempt at being positive – I'm actually dreading this week).

Elsewhere, I'm having dramas with Lydia and my attempts to wean her from breastfeeding.  I had stopped breastfeeding Naomi by this age and had wanted to stop by the time Lydia reached one.  Well that happens on Friday.  She was having 3 milk feeds a day.  Last weekend I dropped the middle of the day one.  Pete took her a sippy cup of milk (so that she wasn't confused by me being there). One day he had no success, the next she drank it all.  However, I haven't been able to get any into her.  I have been trying for a few weeks but had always given in and breastfed her after a few screams.  But now that I'm not giving in, I'm still having no success.  I still have 2 feeds to drop and am out of ideas.  I really don't want to go back to expressing (besides its all packed away in a box somewhere in the basement). We tried cow's milk (even though she is a week off one – the age she is allowed to start on cow's milk).  No joy.  Pete tried again this weekend and nothing.  She physically pushes the bottle away, screams and then thrusts her thumb into her mouth.  She can get quite upset over it.  So I have no idea how to wean her off the other 2 feeds and still get calcium into her.  We had lots of calcium problems with Naomi too.  Trying to get enough in her diet is virtually impossible.  Not everything can be made with milk or cheese.  And there are only so many yogurts one baby can eat.  Naomi barely touches yogurt now after so long having them forced onto her.  I'm dreading having the same battle with Lydia.  Maybe I just need to stop breastfeeding and after a couple of weeks she'll figure out that if she wants milk she'll have to take the sippy cup.

Gosh, I'm not being very positive am I?  I'm sorry everyone.  More wine needed – and maybe some chocolate too!

Well here's something positive.  We had another great Alaskan moment this weekend.  We went to watch our first Iditarod (a dog sled race run over about 20 days and 1,150 miles and fairly extreme terrain). I've attached a picture below. It was a beautiful day.  Cold but sunny.  It was great to watch the teams coming past with the beautiful mountains in the background.  But I'm glad I could get into a nice heated car after an hour or so and not have 20 days spanned in front of me standing on a sled in freezing conditions.  Rather them than me.

Let's hope I can get some positivity happening before tomorrow and Spring Break begin. A nice relaxing night in front of the TV is planned.  Switch my brain off time.  Hey no cheeky comments – yes my brain is switched on now!

Our little baby starts school

It seems very weird to think that Naomi is now at school.  Right until the moment I said goodbye on her first day, it's just felt like she's starting another childcare.  But we've been calling it school (because it is a school that goes right up to 6^th grade) and it was only when I choked up after saying goodbye that I realised this is my moment as a mum when I send my daughter off for her first day at school.  I was fine after a couple of minutes but the emotions that have built up over the last few weeks about moving her to a new place did finally get to me in that moment.

So how is it going? Well, it's a mixed bag really that I'm still trying to figure out.  As far as I can tell, the time she is at school is going really well.  Her teacher came up to me at the end of the second day saying how surprised she was that Naomi hadn't been in a Montessori style teaching environment before as she had picked it up really quickly.  That was very nice to hear.  Her other teachers also expressed that she is doing really well.  I even was given two photos of her in the class with some writing telling me what she was doing in the picture and how that activity aided her development.  I was very impressed with that.

But the other side of things is what I'm still trying to figure out.  There have been quite a few moments at home when she has been more defiant than normal.  This is similar to what happened when we first went back to England at Christmas.  At that time I decided it was one change too many for her in such a short amount of time.  Which is why I was worried about moving her from the childcare she was in.  Ultimately I know it will be the right choice but it's the short term that may see some backlash.  We've had a few battles over eating breakfast in the morning.  This may sort itself out as we get used to the new daily schedule. Also Pete has been away again this week and Naomi is such a Daddy's girl that this impacts her quite a bit.  So it's hard to tell if her behaviour is a result of me being more stressed, or school starting or Daddy away, or most likely a combination of the three.  In England she also regressed with the potty training and we've had one accident this weekend and a few close calls.  So I'm a bit concerned if we're going to get a repeat of the regression.  I really hope not as that was not a fun time.  My plan is to go back to being very positive when she makes it to the toilet in time and hope this curtails any regression.  Wish me luck!

Lydia had her own little first this week too.  She's been pulling herself up to standing for awhile but if she wants to move she'll go back down to the floor and crawl to where she wants to be.  No cruising yet.  Well this week she pulled herself up to standing on a small child size chair.  Whilst leaning on it, she pushed it further away from her and so she followed it by taking a few steps (holding on still, we're nowhere near the walking yet!).  She managed to walk along behind the chair for quite a way across the room.  We've been worried about her foot as she often will pull herself up and stand on the very edge (almost the top) of her foot, rather than the bottom.  It's quite twisted.  So we're hoping she doesn't have an ankle or hip problem.  I've booked into see a paediatrician to get some proper advice on it.  Hopefully she'll figure it out herself soon.

This weekend has been quieter than normal with not much to report at all.  I think with the emotional week of school and Pete away, it's been necessary to have a calmer weekend.  The only drama we had was our fridge dying on us.  We had a power cut on Saturday lunchtime and the display on the fridge went strange.  From talking to the helpline, I was told that it was just the display and that would reset in 24 hours but the fridge/freezer itself would still be working.  However, 24 hours later, the display is not fixed and everything is rapidly defrosting in the freezer and warming up in the fridge (thank you Samsung helpline for being very unhelpful!).  Thankfully, we have another freezer so I think we've been able to save most of that food and our fridge food is sitting in our garage where we hope it will stay reasonably fresh with the cold weather here (finally a time when I've been glad of this weather!).

So that's all for us for another week. Fingers crossed for behavioural improvements and a fixed fridge.

Safe cars

This Friday one of my new friends here had a pretty major car accident.  Unbelievably she walked away from it and so did her 2 year old daughter.  I had actually driven past the accident having no idea that I knew the people involved.  It was a snowy day and the roads were icy and even though she was doing 20miles an hour under the limit, her car began to skid into the fast lane of the highway.  Despite her attempts to correct it the car continued to skid and when it hit the central reservation it then flipped, rolled twice and landed on its side on the other side of the highway. Having seen it, I can hardly believe she was able to crawl into the back of the car, unclip her daughter from her car seat and then both of them climb through the back window. She is very shaken up, understandably, and pretty bruised.  But her daughter is nearly better and running around like toddlers do. Myself and the other mums in our group are doing what we can to cook meals for them.  But it just reminds us how careful we need to be on the roads here and I'm so glad that we too have got good cars with airbags and good car seats. Praise God for keeping them safe.

So despite that rather distressing news, we've had an ok week.  Valentine's Day begun the week but with Lydia deciding to spend the evening crying and staying awake, it wasn't the most romantic night ever. Never mind. Pete also got given two more trips away for work this week.  One of which was back to Barrow at the end of this week just gone.  The next is tomorrow through to Wednesday in Seattle.  Unfortunately that one means he won't be around for Naomi's first day at 'school' on Tuesday. He'll try to call her before she leaves in the morning and when she gets home as Daddy has such an influence on the way Naomi views things.  So hopefully she'll still decide that school is a great thing and she'll love it there.

The week has been fairly normal really.  Few sniffles in the family but nothing too bad.  Yesterday we went to another children's birthday party which was fun. Today we all went to church as usual only to find that the nursery wasn't open due to a lack of volunteers. So whilst Naomi's class was running, Lydia had to stay with us through the service.  Thankfully she was well behaved.  Pete and I are considering volunteering in the children's ministry now that we're a bit more settled here.  We've put our names down so that someone will call to give us information and then we'll pray about it and see if it's something we could do.

This afternoon Pete and Naomi went off sledding again and had lots of fun.  We've ended the evening with a Skype call to Grandma and Grandpop which was nice. Pete and I are now going to have a yummy meal and get an early night so we're both ready for the week – me for looking after the girls on my own and getting Naomi started at school.  Pete for his travel and meeting in Seattle. 

Some parting words for those of you with small children.  Please be vigilant on putting those car seat straps on correctly as no matter how careful you are on the road, you never know when an accident may happen.  We want all of you to be safe.

I'll leave you with a video of Lydia playing with one of her Christmas presents. You have to shake the rattle to get Winnie the Pooh to move:

Remember to let go

This week Pete had another trip away.  This time to Barrow.  For those of you who haven't heard of Barrow it's in the very north of Alaska. Brrrrr.  Pete said he took off his glove for 1 minute and regretted it.  Took awhile for it to warm back up again.  He was there for a festival for the local people and it was a chance to meet some people who are both impacted by and impacting Shell's Alaskan venture.  His highlight was walking out onto the Arctic Ocean – yes I did say onto not upto.  It's frozen over at this time of year.  He was warned a lot to watch out for polar bears if he did walk onto the ice.  Thankfully he didn't see any. So overall it was a good trip and thankfully for me, he came back with no desire to move there.

The girls and I coped ok with him away.  Naomi definitely misses her Daddy and Lydia is aware that something's different (although that could be picking up on Mummy's elevated stress levels). Naomi even said an unprompted prayer one day to bring Daddy back safely.  Was very heart-warming.

This week we finally made the decision of where to move Naomi to in regards to pre-school/childcare.  She's going to be starting at a Montessori school 5 mornings a week.  She will probably have 2 days where she stays till 3 in the afternoon as well.  She seems very excited about starting "school".  I'm hoping she stays that way as she has had so much change in her life over the last year.  I'm very nervous that the move will have a negative impact on her.  But I'm praying that it won't and that she'll thrive at this school.  It just seems like so much more of a positive environment than the childcare she is at now.  And they don't just stick on the TV either. The style of teaching will take a bit of getting used to but we were so impressed by the children we saw there (and those we already know who attend Montessori) that we're confident ultimately this is a good choice. So this coming week is her last at childcare and then she will begin at Montessori the following Tuesday (Monday is a holiday here).  Prayers for her adjustment would be really appreciated.

On Friday night when Pete returned from Barrow, we both attended Governor Parnell's Inauguration Gala.  It was a black tie event so we had fun dressing up and shared a table with some of Pete's colleagues, as Shell was a sponsor of this charity fundraising event.  It was a good night out.

Yesterday, despite the cold conditions (-12 °C) we spent the afternoon at a local park doing some sledding.  So far sledding has just been Daddy and Naomi but this time Mummy decided she would give it a try too.  So with Lydia strapped into the Baby Bjorn on my front, I clambered into the sled.  Pete told Naomi to give me a push down the hill.  She thought this was a great idea so grabbed hold of the sled to give it a big push.  Unfortunately, after the push she forgot to let go and proceeded to come down the hill after us doing some tummy snow surfing!  She was fine which unfortunately for her meant that Mummy and Daddy did get some big laughs out of it.  She was a bit shocked and upset that her snow boot had come off half way down but other than that she was fine. We just wish we had a video of it as it would have made great TV.

Naomi's had a bit of a sniffle today and has been a bit more whingy than usual.  We've dosed her up on Ibuprofen and hoping that she doesn't come out with a full blown cold or worse the flu (which is going around Anchorage a bit right now). But despite that we still managed to go for dinner at one of my friend's house.  She is the woman who started the mum's group that I go to each week.  Her daughter is a couple of months older than Naomi so they play very well together.  So we all had an early dinner and had a good chat with topics including religion and politics and sports.  Quite big topics for a first meal together with new friends.  Thankfully we departed as still friends so we can't have said anything too controversial.

Nothing major planned for the coming week.  We're having a quiet Valentine's Day tomorrow, just cooking a yummy roast dinner and spending time with each other.  So we wish all of you a very happy and romantic Valentine's Day. xxxxx