Pete

One fine day…and then some

Wednesday was a beautiful Autumn day, and luckily it was also our day off. We made the most of it by taking the boys to a park in Wahroongah, and it was equipped with the most perfect playground for little ones under three (not sure why it took us so long to discover it considering we’ve been in the area for a year and a half now). It was so nice to be able to let both Angus and Pete run free without having to worry about either of them hurting themselves (straight from the helicopter mum’s mouth here) – plus the gorgeous weather made it even more delightful. Angus entertained himself by going up and down the slide endless times, while Pete wandered around slightly aimlessly but full of the most beguiling curiosity at almost everything around him. I took so many photos following Pete around that my iPhone’s battery died within the hour.

Unfortunately for Pete, he had a slight incident in the car on the way home. A slight vomiting incident, shall we say. Angus was pretty freaked out to say the least. “No Pete, no Pete, no Pete!” were his exact words, as if his poor younger brother could somehow stop spewing if he insisted on it loudly enough. In retrospect, the situation was almost laughable: Pete was in tears having almost regurgitated half a litre of half-digested milk; Angus was in tears because some of the milk had spilled over onto his car seat and he wanted me to clean it up immediately (“Mummy wipe up my car seat!” – he is so my son); Rick was rather oblivious to the extent of the damage since he couldn’t turn around (hence he and sleeping James were the least bothered of us all) and I was doing my best not to wretch and vomit myself.

In the evening when the boys were finally in bed and asleep and the car was all cleaned up, Rick and I somehow managed to spend a lovely night together eating pizza and watching The King’s Speech whilst sipping Coke Zero. Very classy and sophisticated, if you ask me. Especially when you top it all off with two ice cold Magnums.

Incidentally, I thought The King’s Speech was a superb movie – the acting was brilliant and the composition of every single shot was just absolutely beautiful. I enjoyed it so much that I dreamt that I was royalty that very night – Kate and William were my mates and asking me for advice about their wedding (they must’ve heard in the grapevine that I’d always harboured a secret desire to be a wedding planner). But alas, my dream was cut short by another Pete incident, that poor little guy. But I won’t bore you with the gory details of that now as my coffee is running low and I’m fast running out of coherent sentences.

Adieu, my friends, adieu.

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Like mummy, like Pete

I’m so slack, I completely forgot about ‘photo booth Wednesdays’ last week. Actually, I didn’t really ‘forget’ as such. If truth be told, I was just lazy and didn’t get my act together. But hey, I have three kids under three so I’m okay with that.

Pete here is eight and a half months. I think he’s just woken up from a nap, given that he’s still in his Ergo Cocoon. Either that or we had no clean clothes for him and I was that desperate – but that can’t be true, because Rick is always very diligent with our laundry. Anyway, I’m not sure why I’m using him as a human shield here. Most likely I didn’t like the look of my hair in that first shot so decided to shift the focus onto something much cuter. And yes, like his mummy, Pete very clearly has a very big head…

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This is why I love you

For my precious Pete…

I love the way you give me big hugs at nights.

I love how you are gentle with everyone around you.

I love your incredibly bubbly nature.

I love how you giggle when I turn around to look at you in the car.

I love the way you love your brothers.

I love how you run up the corridor to find me in the mornings.

I love how you laugh and chuckle when I tickle you.

I love how inquisitive and independent you are.

I love how you like to roar like a lion.

I love how your hair is always messy because you never sit still.

I love your chubby cheeks and chunky thighs.

I love your laugh – the most beautiful laugh I have ever heard.

I love that you always make me smile.

I love how ridiculously cute and cuddly you are.

I love that you are mine.

Yes, you are mine – all mine.

And that is why I love you.

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From here to there

This is the path from the boys’ play room to the front of the living room, where the television resides and the windows overlook the front yard.

Many times a day, Angus and Pete will walk past the danish teak cabinet, past the large black bookcase and past the black vinyl chair to reach one of their favourite spots in the house: the place where they get to watch Play School.

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And they’re in

Guess what, you guys, we’ve done it.

Angus and Pete are finally in the same room.

I kept putting it off and putting it off (and putting it off some more, as Rick will tell you) but on Saturday, we finally did it.

At first, it seemed to go really well. In fact, when we put the boys into their PJs and popped them together into Pete’s cot, their excitement was almost palpable.

At about 7.30pm, we managed to get them both down without too much rigmarole, and they seemed to sleep just fine.

Until 1.00am in the morning.

That’s when the wheels came off for little Pete. Poor Rick was up for at least 90 minutes trying to settle him, going back and forth between the boys’ room and ours, without much success.

At about 2.45am, he gave up.

He left Pete in his cot standing up and crying, closed all the doors between their room and ours and hopped back into bed with me.

When we surfaced some time between 6am and 7am, the house was silent. We assume that at some point, the little guy must’ve fallen asleep – standing up or otherwise.

Since then, it’s been a bit of a trial and error with unpredictable amounts of crying (them), deep breathing (us), screaming (them) and praying (us). Tonight so far is going well and we’re both desperately hoping (and praying) that the peace and quiet might continue till at least sunrise.

The room itself has turned out really beautifully, despite the limited space. I followed my mood board almost to a tee and I have to say that I’m quite happy with the result. The room feels bright and cheerful, and I’ve managed to re-arrange the storage so that everything the boys need still fits inside the room despite the removal of the large wardrobe.

Even more exciting is the fact that Rick likes the room too!

Naturally, he would love to see a Land Rover poster (or two) on the walls somewhere but for now he is content that I didn’t make the room too girly.

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Five weeks


This is it.

Five more weeks.

Five more weeks till we welcome James Edward into our lives and home. Five more weeks before I have to remember how to feed, burp and change a newborn’s nappy once again.

In true Mason form, this little guy likes to do backflips in my uterus whenever he hears daddy talking about cars and petrol. (Which is often.) In true Chan form, he doesn’t seem to like sleeping at night, even when it’s 2am in the morning.

Books always seem to encourage women to take it easy in their third trimester. Have the writers of these books actually been pregnant themselves?

I mean, seriously, the closer we get to James’ D day, the faster my to do list seems to grow. As Chandler says in The One With The Tiny T-Shirt: “Bullets have left guns slower.”

Let me see: There’s Pete’s baptism and 1st birthday party next Sunday.

Then we need to re-do Angus’ room to turn it into ‘the boys’ room.’ (This of course means trips to IKEA, which I have to say, is not the best place for a waddling and hormonal pregnant woman. It’s a true testament to how far Rick and I have come in our marriage that when we went yesterday, we managed to arrive amicably and depart amicably.)

Then there are the six design jobs that I have on. And Angus’ toilet training. (Or not.)

And of course there’s the photography course I enrolled myself into last November. No, I was not at all crazy to think that squeezing in a three hour weekly course would be an easy, breezy thing to do a month and a half out from giving birth.

Oh, and that’s right, I need to try and remember how to get a baby out of me. (It’s a good thing I have a ‘cheat sheet’ saved in Evernote somewhere.)

So yes, I’m all calm and everything. Really I am. The epitome of the relaxed, expectant mum.

How fast has this pregnancy flown by anyway? It feels like only a couple of months ago that I was freaking out about telling my parents that I was pregnant again.

And I still can’t believe that Pete is turning one next Sunday. I honestly can’t believe it. Where has my little newborn gone? I still remember bringing him home from hospital, putting him into his first Love Me Baby wrap and getting constantly peed on every time I had to change one of his dirty nappies.

I’m absolutely determined to make the most of these last five weeks with Pete being the littlest one in the house. He’s going to get kissed and cuddled and kissed some more, every single day, whether he likes it or not.

Oh, and remember the jeggings I couldn’t stop raving about? Well, they still fit me.

At 33 weeks.

As I said: Best. Pants. Ever.

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What I learnt on holiday

So we’re back.

There are many things I could tell you about our summer holiday, but for now, let’s just say that it was educational. I learnt so many things. Things you would think that I should already know.

For example, did you know that a one week holiday only lasts for seven days? I thought that it would be longer than that. I thought it would last for at least ten days. Or maybe even a month. After all, we only waited a whole year for this holiday. But no. One week = seven days (no matter how hard your inner minds wills it to be longer). First lesson learnt. Sigh.

Second lesson learnt: A holiday with multiple kids simply means watching Play School in a different place (see photo above). I can’t tell you how many afternoons (basically, all seven of them) we spent sitting in our apartment, enjoying the beautiful views whilst listening to Karen and Jay sing, “We’re all going on a summer holiday…no more working for a week or two! Fun and laughter on a summer holiday, no more working for me or you… for a week or two.” It was almost like they were on holiday with us.

People whom we didn’t have with us were the grandparents. This was a rather big shock to our system, to say the least. We learnt quickly enough (ie. by the end of the one and a half hour flight) that we were in for a long, long week. Third lesson learnt: Need to smuggle at least one grandparent with us on our annual holidays.

Fourth lesson learnt: Doctors are good, and laziness is bad. Poor Pete developed a temperature on the third day and thereafter struggled to sleep at night. On the fifth day, we considered taking him to see the doctor. But due to plain laziness, we didn’t. This turned out to be a huge parenting fail on our part because upon our return, we were told by our local doctor that Pete in fact had tonsilitis. Had we started treatment earlier, it would’ve saved our little man several days of discomfort. As I said: Doctors are good. Parental laziness is bad.

I also learnt that I don’t mind vacuuming whilst on holiday. Enough said.

Sixth lesson learnt: If you are uncoordinated and you go into the pool, don’t expect your pedicure to remain intact. You will inevitably scrape your perfectly painted nails along the bottom of the pool, and you will spend the next seven days staring at your toes lamenting how uncoordinated you are and wishing that your own mother had taken you to Gymbaroo when you were little. That’s right, I am a flawed human being who tends to blame my poor mum for all things big and trivial.

Lastly, if you can’t get your two year old to eat a healthy breakfast, then just order them pancakes with maple syrup. At least they’re eating. Something. You just have to hope that no-one catches you on camera.

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A bit of cluckiness never goes astray


Fridays are my Pete days.

Angus is at daycare (or ‘playschool’ as we like to call it) and so Pete and I have the entire day together.

I have really come to enjoy this last day of the so-called working week, where I can spend some special ‘alone time’ with my little chubby man.

Last Friday, for example, we spent several hours at Macquarie together running errands and drinking coffee (don’t worry, I asked for an especially weak one for him). He was such lovely company – he was content the entire time he was in the pram and then when I finally took him out at The Loft Cafe, he was all sorts of happy.

Seriously, I could not have asked for a happier, more cheerful little person.

I can’t believe he’s ten days away from turning ten months. In many ways, I still think of him as my newborn – which is ridiculous, I know, but it really didn’t seem like that long ago that I was feeding and changing him (and getting peed on) during our first few nights together at the hospital.

Anyway, it’s not long now until James arrives, so I’m determined to savour these last few months with Pete as my littlest ‘baby.’

Well, what do you know, there he goes crying now – I guess I’m off to do some ‘savouring.’

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Big changes are at hand

Or – ‘At hand are big changes’?

I couldn’t work out which title would be more dramatic, so went with the one that came into my head first. I think Yoda would’ve preferred the second one.

Changes are indeed at hand here at Pink Ronnie headquarters. Picture a big glassy building with cool funky workstations, multiple cafes, ten thousand games rooms, a swimming pool, a gym, a rooftop meeting room and a colourful logo out the front. Oh wait, that’s the Google headquarters. Okay, well picture me in my 3m x 4m workspace with my trusty MacBook Pro, my IKEA swivel chair and lots of instant coffee.

Yes, changes are underway – hence the appalling lack of posting this past week (What’s that? You’re used to it? Ouuuuuuch!) – as I embark on my annual online makeover. Don’t worry, it’s nothing too radical. No tummy tucks going around here. Maybe just a bit of Botox and one of those IPL laser treatments that seem to be all the rage at the moment but sadly cost an arm and a leg (it’s been recommended to me at least twice now by beauty professionals – I mean, what does that say about my skin?).

I’m hoping to have it all finalised in the next couple of days and to reveal the new site – or sites plural (oooooh…. how’s that for creating suspense and intrigue) – next week so that I can get back to just writing posts about the joy of being a blogger who procrastinates.

In other news:

1) Rick is loving the second “big” car.

2) I am also surprisingly loving the second “big” car. In fact, I’ve even been driving it on my own this last week without my ever-attentive husband by my side. (By ‘ever-attentive’ I mean instructional, and by “instructional’ I mean side-seat driving. Yes Rick, I’m looking at you.)

3) Angus can now string three words together for the first time ever. And (surprise, surprise) those three words are: “daddy big car.”

4) Pete has two extra teeth, remains as cute as a hamburger and continues to get heavier everyday.

5) James now does karate moves in utero.

6) And I am no longer attempting art.

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The second (“big!”) car

When we got married six and a half years ago, there were three things on Rick’s wish list:

1) a Land Rover;
2) a dog; and
3) that I would come to love camping.

Six and a half years later, I’m excited to say that one of these three things have come true: We’re getting a Land Rover Discovery!

I’m not too savvy with the specs, but I do know that:

a) It is silver.
b) It is automatic.
c) It has a DVD player. (Bring on PlaySchool!)
d) It has air conditioning.
e) It has seven seats.
f) And it is big.

Actually, it’s huge. Let’s just say that when I get to third trimester, I will be needing a step to get in and out of the car. (One could possibly argue that I just have very short legs.)

Rick first found out about this 2004 Discovery about two to three months ago. Unfortunately for the dealership, it remained on the market. So they lowered the price and rang Rick every couple of weeks to tell him it was still available.

Last week, we finally got to take it for a test drive; in fact, we took it for a day-long road trip.

The verdict?

[click to continue reading…]

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