Life lately

The last few weeks have been a blur.  We've been a busy little family but life is good.

 For Father's Day last year I bought Tim a voucher to do a helicopter flying lesson and he only just got around to booking it.  Off we went to the airport and watched daddy fly away.  Ella was extremely impressed and so was I.  He absolutely loved it and wanted to take more lessons.  Problem is, further lessons cost around $400 per hour (much more than what I paid for this experience via Red Balloon Days).  If you want to get a private helicopter pilots license you have to do at least 50 hours flying time.  Seeing that Tim was very interested in doing something like this, the senior pilot gave him paperwork outlining what was involved and said that if we paid up front we could get a discount and it would cost only $40,000.  Ah....no!  Sorry, we don't have a spare 40K to drop on the table.  As good as I think Tim would look in a pilot's uniform, unfortunately we have to squash that dream.  Lucky he's got a back up dream job of being a race car driver.

Lucas is 14 weeks old now and is an absolute rascal.  Always smiling and laughing.  He has the best temperament and is a very easy baby.  We went to a friends holiday house on the Central Coast on the long weekend and he was an absolute dream.  Our friends are expecting a baby in December and have requested one the same as Lucas seeing how good he was.  He sat in his bouncer, or played happily on the floor until it was time for bed and then when it was sleep time, we wrapped him up, he turned his head to the side and went to sleep.  This happened for the whole two days.  He makes me want to have another baby... immediately.  However now that I have said how good he is I've probably jinxed myself and he will turn into a little demon.

Speaking of demons... we come to Ella.  She has a split personality these days as most toddler's her age do.  One minute she is crying, screaming and throwing a huge tantrum and the next minute she is an angel and sweeter than sugar.  It's all about pushing boundaries and finding her feet right now, or so I have to keep telling myself so I don't go mental.  But no matter how hard some days may be with her, I always find myself gushing at the end of the day when Tim comes home about all the cute things she did that day.

She is quite the conversationalist now and comes out with some hilarious thoughts, unfortunately however it is mostly about poos and farting (doing fluffy's as she says) as thinks both are hilarious.  Although we aren't fully toilet training her at this stage, sometimes I ask if she would like to sit on the toilet just to try and go.  Tonight after her bath she said she needed to do a poo, so I asked if she would like to sit on the toilet.  Every two seconds she would peer behind her to see if anything had dropped into the toilet bowl, which it hadn't until after about 3 minutes when she beamed and said "my pooey's here!".  When she jumped off the toilet and looked in the bowl she said "Mama, it looks like a whale!"

As for me, I have been doing a lot of soul searching lately.  After going through a rough patch a little while back (yes, I had just recently given birth, but it went deeper than just that) I forced myself to look at who I wanted to be and what I had to do to make changes.  I wanted to be a more engaged and patient mum to my kids who mean the world to me.  Ella emulates my behaviours and words so much and I realised that there were times where I wasn't leading by best example.  I want my children to be as proud of their mama as I am of them.

The same thing can be said of Tim, I want to reconnect and be more engaged with him.  That sounds kind of harsh but I'm not sure how to articulate it better.  It's absolutely not that there is something wrong with our relationship.  Tim works hard at work and is gone from early in the morning and sometimes doesn't get home until late.  I work hard at home with the babies and keeping the house together and by the end of the day sometimes I feel like I don't have any more to give, so it's easy to get lazy and not put in as much effort as we should.  The good thing though is that I recognise this and just by being conscious of it, I already see changes.

Other things included being more organised and efficient with my time, using my time more wisely to do things that I enjoy like painting and making things and also getting my health back on track (when I say health, I just mean eating better and looking after myself).

I'm really proud of myself for the changes I've made to become a better me.  It's funny how just a small shift in attitude can change your complete outlook and I wish that I'd done it sooner instead of playing the martyr.  My life really is blessed and I tell myself that every day.