Ryan turned 10 yesterday. I can't believe it was 10 years ago that Frank rang to say that Susy had had the baby and a she turned into a he. Yes we were all a little surprise considering we were all geared up for a girl but pleased nevertheless. Ryan looks just like Frank and is into computers and pulling things apart and putting them back together. He reads a lot and has just got his pen licence. I'm sure many many more things will happen in the next 10 years.
We visited the Christmas Lights at the Brewery last night. Ewan thought they were pretty cool, but preferred to run a muck on the statues. Alicia loved the Jack in the box, even though he looked like a possessed clown doll, not quite as bad as chucky.
Alicia is finally starting to dress the dolls. Luckily mum had already made her a lot of dolls clothes so we have a selection to choose from. She went through a stage where she would remove all the clothes and they would be naked for a long long time. The only problem now is that they seem to go through a lot of clothes changes during the day. I know that Brad changed the doll twice in an hour. He wasn't too impressed. So Alicia achieved another milestone and thankfully we don't have naked dolls anymore.
We know how Ewan comes out with some doozies, well he was in fine form on the weekend.
We have not had a good week with Alicia. She had been sick with a temperature for almost a week. To the point where we ended up in emergency for 4 hours. The WCH has got a nice little routine happening in childrens emergency which seems to flow much better than I remember. They couldn't find anything wrong with her but now she's developed a cough which I will contribute to hayfever and a sinus infection. So the only issue now is getting some antibiotics into her.
Kids do copy what you do and say. Yesterday we were at Dee's and Ewan was playing with the train set. He was having a little trouble putting the tracks together. Dee asks Ewan, "How are you going?" To which Ewan responds, "I'm having issues." Not expecting that response, I had to laugh because that is a statement that I usually say. Dee says, whilst looking at me, "I wonder where he gets that from."
There is nothing like being scared by the bang of something on the front door and hearing birds. When I looked out, I saw feathers, so I assumed that a bird had banged into the roof or something. I went to investigate and 4 minor birds flew off. I took the dog out for some wee's and basically followed her around the path. When I got to the road side and looked at the front door, there was a beautiful green/yellow budgie hanging on the front screen. Assuming the worse, I went up to it and it was still alive. I made Brad get out of bed and see to the bird. It didn't try to bite him or anything. He brought it in and it has been sitting on the cupboard since. It's had a really nasty hit to the head, and is obviously in shock but Brad thinks it may even be tame. I will let you know the outcome of the poor bird. So far so good.
The Christmas pageant was last Saturday and we attended. We caught the bus at 7.45AM, manoeuvred ourselves on the bus with a pram, found a great spot, found Susy, Mum and the kids and sat down to a really long pageant. We had a few hiccups. I had to tell a bunch of people to sit down, which was annoying. There must have been something wrong with their eyes because they were right up the front, literally. Alicia had to go to the toilet luckily before the pageant started. We almost didn't make it into the toilet because the cleaner wanted to clean the toilets. Hello, 2 year old wanting toilet, you can't stand in the way. Ewan needed to go to the toilet, almost missing Father Christmas. If he had missed him, it would have been the 3rd time in 4 years. Luckily he held on, just. We also had a small problem with getting the bus home. We had no idea where it was going to pick us up from. Long story but they changed the bus route because of the pageant and then recommenced it again, but we weren't exactly sure at what time the change back was going to occur. Needless to say we got home about 1.45PM where I proceeded to take my headache tablets and go to sleep for 2 hours.
There are occasions during life, that you well up with pride when your children do things that they couldn't before. I had one of those moments the other day when I saw Alicia riding Ewans old bike. (a bigger bike than hers) She looked great, and very pleased with herself. She did a remarkable job. In the grand scheme of things, its probably a little milestone but to me, it was the same as if she had just won an Olympic medal in cycling.
You know, there are some things we really don't need to know. Like when Ewan runs past the dining table (whilst we are eating) yelling out, "I need to do a poo!" It was only a couple of nights ago that he ran by stating he needed to do a wee. Why is it that we need to be told these things. I don't really know, however I have heard myself on occasion stating these exact same things. So on that note, I have no idea where Ewan gets these expressions.
Its not often you get the opportunity to have a photo with your brother. Frank is very accomodating on your birthday because he doesn't want to upset you. Thats fine, I don't care how we get the photo as long as we get one every couple of years. We don't look too bad.
We were at mum and dads tonight and dad was on other duties other than grandparenting. Alicia made him dress the doll. If I didn't see it with my own eyes, I would have said there is no way dad would be dressing dolls. Its amazing what grandparents have to do, just to please their grandchildren and funnily enough, they do it without passing comment. I would say Alicia is the only grandchild that has been able to get dad to play with dolls. She will need to teach me her secrets.
