Really bad blogger :(

I have been such a bad blogger lately - I'm so sorry!
(though nobody has complained, so maybe nobody reads anyway)
Here are some posts that have been sitting on my computer for a while now:

6/12: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Christmas is in the air... Santa is everywhere, the Christmas parties have started, the tree is up. How wonderful to be a child and everything about Christmas is like new! Josh doesn't seem to remember last Christmas, so he is very excited about everything - like it is the first time! He is really into Christmas this year, and very friendly with the many Santa Clauses he meets. He goes up to each one and when they ask what he wants he always tells them he wants more Thomas's! We had our work Christmas party at the zoo this year. It was a good family event. The carousel was running and Josh went on it a couple of times. Sam had to ride in the elephant - which is 150 years old! The next night we went to the Friends of the Zoo Christmas party (yes we went to the zoo two days in a row!!!) At this one we had a nice KFC picnic on the beautiful green grass as the sun was going down behind the trees. Josh went up to Santa and asked for Thomas. Santa gave him a gift bag. As we walked away, Josh opened his bag and was soooo disappointed that there wasn't a Thomas in it! It was so funny, but I felt so sorry for him! He truly expected to open the bag and get a Thomas!!! (They actually got a lunch box and drink bottle). The giraffes were getting ready for bed and we got to see them very close up in their 'house' as we looked in the window at the back. And we got to hear a very loud and long roar from the lions at the end of the day.

Monday we went to the city to see the 'Real Santa' at Myer. It was a huge line. While we waited, I took Josh to the Santa train (it's on a different floor this year). He also played with the Thomas table that is set up at Myer. Though I have to keep reminding him that they are not his toys, and other kids are allowed to play with them too. We finally got to the front of the line and Santa's Helper had a chat to Josh about what he was going to say to Santa. Josh told her that he was going to ask for more Thomas trains and a camera. I think he asked this because the girl before him asked for one... but he has been using my small camera lately to take photos of me, and the bbq, and the tree, and himself!

Josh knocked on Santa's door and we entered. Josh ran straight up to him, while Sam clung even tighter to me! We didn't even attempt to put Sam on Santa's knee... we just did a big family photo. I think it turned out all right! Then I asked and they let Josh sit on Santa's knee while I took a photo with my camera.

9/12:"Look at me! I'm a rainbow!"
That was what Josh said as he stood in the kitchen after his bath yesterday. He just got a packet of bath crayons and had drawn all over himself with all the different colours.
Pity he had already pulled the plug on the bath!!!

Brotherly love

I thought I would start this post with a very nice photo of Josh and Sam on the swing together... before I tell you what Josh did to Sam today...

I got a phone call at work today from Kel saying that Josh had slammed the door on Sam's finger and that it was probably broken. It was hard to hear Kel though because I could hear Sam screaming :(

His finger was all squashed and bent and they went down to the doctors. I made my way home from work - I couldn't really do anything, but it was better than staying at work worrying about it. I hate those sort of phone calls. It left me very stressed with a lot of adrenelin pumping.

It turned out that his finger was ok. Apparantly a babies bones are very flexible. I had time to calm down on the train ride home, and they were still at the doctors, so I had a spare ten minutes or so to grab every train, every piece of track, every building and put them into a box and hide them away.

Josh didn't seem too worried at first. He even found a train that I missed and gave it to me to 'put in the bin'. But when I put him to bed tonight he was asking for his tracks back. And he told his friend Anne at Coles that I took his tracks away. I don't think he told her why though.

Tomorrow we will go and buy some of those door stopper things that prevent the doors from slamming shut.

Three little letters, one BIG word!

18/10
I read once that a two year old will ask "What?" and a three year old will ask "Why?". Since Josh turned three I have been dreading that three letter word! I almost banned people from saying that word in our house! And it worked... until last week, when all of a sudden we were being asked "Why?" to almost everything we said!

Josh tried to make a phone call yesterday to number 123456789. The operator came back with "That call could not be connected". Josh asked her "Why?".

Another new question is "What's your favourite?". Sometimes that is the entire question, and I had to explain that you need another word at the end of that sentence! For the last couple of days he has been asking everyone "What's your favourite name?". He asked the lady at the post office that and she had no idea what to say!

When I asked Josh what his favourite food was, he said Thomas cake (so I guess that second birthday cake has left a lasting impression!). His favourite tv show is Thomas - of course! His favourite colour is blue - because Thomas is blue. And then he gets sick of it and answers everything with "Nothing".

Roo Boy

Josh just before kinder today. (He was trying to jump like a kangaroo!)

A Footy Team is Decided

This Friday is the breakup for kinder for the school holidays. So we get a note home saying they are having a football day and to wear your footy colours. So now we had a bit of a problem...

We have three football scarves in the cupboard: Kangaroos (mine), and Ablett scarf (from when Kel followed the cats. And this is talking about Gary Ablett Snr, not his son... but it was interesting that the scarf would still work for now.) and a Bombers scarf (from when Kel followed Essendon). Neither of us is really into footy any more, so unless Josh was going to wear all three scarves to school a decision had to be made.

First we started with favourite animals... but since there are no footy teams called the Giraffes or Zebras (!) we had to take a different approach.

I read out each of the footy teams and if Josh said he liked it I wrote it on the blackboard. We ended up with Bombers, Magpies (yuk!), Kangaroos and Swans.

Then we worked on favourite colours. He usually says that green is his favourite, but this time he said blue.

A little bit of analysis of colours vs animals and we ended up with the Kangaroos (It's all very technical isn't it!)
Grandpa will be happy!
And who knows, they may actually win a grand final this year!

We went to visit a train one day

One fine Sunday we decided to go for a walk to the weir, where the train crosses the bridge. It was a very long walk... especially for short three and a half year old legs. But it was pretty exciting! We were going to see the steam train coming back from Ballarat.
Eddie came with us, and here is a photo of the two mates together...

Along the way we saw five Purple trains (the new VLocity trains). These are Josh's favourite trains, because they are quiet and fast. Not like the noisy steam trains!

We made it to the bridge with a bit of time to spare, so the two older boys set off for a walk to go exploring...

Finally the time arrived... we could hear it coming from a long way off. And then we could see the smoke. We had to be quick to get some photos...

Probably the most exciting bit for Josh was when a purple train drove past and we waved, and the train driver tooted back to us!

If I get really clever I might even be able to upload some video...

A long awaited catch up

Josh had his herniotomy on the 30th July. Sam went to stay with Grandma and Grandpa for the day while we drove on to Werribee. It was quite surreal being back there, with all the memories of when Josh was born coming back. (I think it was even weirder since I had Sam at Ballarat - so Werribee Hospital is all Josh memories). Josh did well with the fasting. He never once asked for any food or drink. It turned out that we had the same surgeon and aneathatist as last time. And the other weird thing was that according to their records Josh was 10 months old when he had the first operation... which is exactly the same age as Sam is right now.

We were at the hospital from 12pm. We went into the operating theatre at about 2pm. It was about 3pm when I was called into recovery. I remember recovery from the first operation and that was pretty bad... but this was much worse. Josh kept coming in and out of the general aneathetic. He was out of it, and didn't even open his eyes. But when he 'woke up' he was crying and trying to sit up, thrashing around. I had to hold him down to stop him hitting his head on the bed rail. Eventually they gave him a sedative to calm him down. We found out in the end that it was the drip in his hand that was annoying him. Every time the nurse touched it he went crazy. In the end they had to take it out anyway because he had knocked it as he was thrashing around. Finally he fell asleep and the nurses said it was best to just let him sleep it off because we had to wait for the surgeon to check him before we went home anyway. Since Josh was the youngest being operated on that day he got to go first... but the surgeon still had to get through all the rest before he could come and see us.

While Josh slept, me and Kel read some Winnie the Pooh books. They were the classic books, and they are very strange! One book was about when the residents of Hundred Acre Woods met Kanga and Roo. They like the look of them, so they planned on stealing Roo from Kanga, and replacing him with Piglet. Then when she realised that Roo was gone they were going to say 'Ahah!' ????? I never did get to see what happened in the end of that book, because that is when Josh woke up properly and we had to try and get him to eat and drink something. We also had to struggle to get him to take his medicine before we went home.

Josh had a kind of epidural block, so he was not supposed to walk until the next day. But try telling him that! We had him sitting on the couch watching a movie while we had dinner, and the next thing we know he is standing in the door way. The next day he was fine though! We had to actually give him some quiet activities to do to stop him running around. A Thomas book that reads as you move the pen over the page was a big hit!

Josh already has a Santa list... every time he asks for a new Thomas train we tell him to ask Santa. He has been reciting his list... it includes "Diesel 10, Mighty Mac, Carriages and Oliver". Oh and a Coaling Plant Now that one was funny! We had no idea what Josh was saying! I thought he had made up something, and it didn't help that is sounded like "coaling plan" when he said it. We asked him to describe it, but he struggled. I asked what colour it was... he said blue, then changed his mind to black. Then we put on the Thomas DVD and our eyes nearly popped out of our head when they talked about the coaling plant!!! (It is the thing that pours the coal into the trucks, in case you were wondering!). Don't know where Santa is going to find one of those!!!