Although there are quite a few posts about Andrew, I thought it might be nice for you all to read about a typical day in Andrew’s life:

• Get up about 6.30am (well, yells out until one of us comes and gets him. He can get out of bed himself but always waits until we come in and say it’s ok for him to do so)
• Plays in the lounge room for a while and has breakfast: toast with either honey, cream-cheese or just butter; English muffin with butter; dry Fruity Weet-Bix with drink of milk; or Cheerios cereal with milk.
• Get dressed and brush teeth after breakfast.
• We go to daycare on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at about 8.15am. On non-daycare days we’ll usually let him watch ABC kids from about 8am until 10am when Play School finishes.
• Has morning tea at about 10.30, usually a yogurt and Tiny Teddies biscuits.
• Plays some more, sometimes outside if weather ok until around 11.30.
• Between 11.30 and midday usually has cream-cheese sandwich and fruit for lunch and then goes to bed for a rest until about 2 or 3pm.
• Gets up (more yelling) and has afternoon tea: rice crackers and cream-cheese or Sao biscuits or whatever we might have that he takes a fancy to that day
• Plays some more - I usually try and make time to sit with him and play while Nick has his afternoon sleep. That could be making a ramp out of blocks and an old bread-board and pushing the cars to each other or just sitting and reading to him. He loves books and even tries to read some of his favourites to me. We quite often have the radio or CD on in the afternoon too so we can sing and dance around like idiots. Andrew also loves it when we just play wrestle and have tickle fights.
• Dinner is usually around 6 or 6.30pm and then sometimes there is time for a little play after that.
• He has a shower at about 7pm which he now has by himself most nights or sometimes with Daniel or me.
• Straight after a shower he brushes his teeth then gets his jammies on and says goodnight.
• He gets into bed himself and decides which story he wants - at the moment it is ‘Feathers’ or ‘Goodnight Andrew’ - sometimes both.
• After we’ve read the story to him we turn out the light and sing a lullaby. He’ll usually ask for ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ after that, which he usually gets and then we say ‘Goodnight Andrew’ and he says ‘Goodnight Daddy’ (or Mummy). We say ‘Love you Andrew’ and he says ‘Love you Daddy’ (or Mummy) but sometimes he says ‘Love you Andrew’ - very cute!
• He then sleeps through until about 6.30am.

Of course every day is different and we quite often go out, but you get the idea.

He’s a happy kid and loves his little brother to bits. He’s very affectionate and loves to give all of us kisses and cuddles. He loves anything Bob the Builder, Hi5, Wiggles, and Lightning McQueen from the movie ‘Cars’. He loves playing outside on his play equipment or throwing and kicking around balls.

Well, that’s all I can think of for now. Some of this is quite detailed and probably a bit boring or lovey-dovey but this will be a record for us and him in years to come so I wanted to put it in. Hope you like it.

Now that Nicholas has just turned 6 months old I thought I would take this opportunity to give you a bit of an update on how he’s going.

I have officially stopped breastfeeding as of last Friday. Although I had started Nicholas on a bottle for his day time feeds about a month ago I have still been breastfeeding him morning and night but decided now I would stop all together. A big part of my reason to stop was because Nick got his first two teeth this week and with having both a bottle and a boob he would get confused sometimes and bite down on my nipple when feeding, especially when he was tired, and this killed! It was also getting a bit uncomfortable in the early morning and late afternoon when he was due for a feed and I’m not sure there was actually enough there for him anyway as he always seemed hungry still after he’d had a feed. So he’s just been on bottle feeds since Friday and he’s going great.

Nick’s typical day at the moment is:

• Awake about 6 or 6.30am and has a bottle
• Play for a bit then back to bed by about 8am
• Sleep until about 9.30 or 10am then up and has another bottle
• Play until about midday then down for another sleep
• Awake about 2ish and then another bottle
• Play until around 4ish and then little nap until about 5pm
• Play for a bit and then some solids about 6ish
• Shower or bath around 7ish and then bottle and bed
• Sleep until 6ish

He goes to bed so easily, as long as he’s tired he will usually not even cry, and even when he does it’s not for long. I’ve just started him on solids this week too. So far he’s not keen on the rice cereal but enjoyed his pumpkin and sweetcorn the other night so I’m going to try a few things and see how we go.

His ‘play’ usually consists of laying on the floor under his play-gym or letting his big brother tickle and smother him in kisses. He is generally just a happy contented little soul and his giggle brightens the whole house. Often Nick giggles when Andrew giggles at something, then Andrew giggles at Nick giggling and we all end up giggling together.

Some people had said before I had Nicholas that they had found it easier with 2 children than with one and I found that hard to believe before but now I understand. I’m much more organised with 2 and now that I’ve gone back to work 3 days a week I have to be super organised as there just isn’t enough time to do everything in the morning.

Well, that’s about all the latest with the youngest member of this family. I have enjoyed blogging again and will try and make more of an effort to do little updates more often. I especially love getting the little videos we make online for everyone to see, so will keep doing that too. Watch this space!

Well, we always hoped our kids would be musical so we expose them to a huge range of musical styles. Unfortunately we can’t choose which stuff they actually like. We always have the radio on in the car and it’s usually on B105 or Nova 106.9 which play top 40 stuff mostly. Andrew loves singing and often just sings nursery rhymes like ‘Twinkle Twinkle’ while playing with his toys. Recently we have noticed he likes singing other songs too like The Veronicas ‘Hook Me Up’ and gets most upset if you go to change the radio station when this or a number of other songs comes on. So we just had to get the video out the other night when he started singing at the table and we realised what it was…

Yes, it looks like Andrew’s taking after his Mum and likes all the modern pop stuff, much to his Dad’s dismay. That’s the number one song on the Aria charts at the moment, ‘Don’t Stop the Music’ by Rihanna. He’s also started singing the latest Matchbox Twenty track, ‘All Your Reasons’ which starts with a bit of “Bah Dah Dah Dah Bah Bah Bah Bah Duh Bah” and it took us a while to realise that it was this he was singing when he went “Bah dah dah la bamba”. Haven’t caught that on video yet but it very cute. So look out Australia Idol 2022!

There have been two big breakthroughs with Nicholas this week. His first tooth came through a few days ago, which didn’t really seem to bother him too much, plus he’s started having some solid food at night.

Here’s a short video of him enjoying some pumpkin and sweetcorn.

Not sure if this has been mentioned yet either, but Jules has started working 3 days a week as of last week, so Nicholas has been in daycare for those days. Andrew loves being able to see his little brother, and Nicholas is coping without his Mummy pretty well. I’m sure Jules will blog more about that at some point.

It’s getting late, but before I head to bed I thought I’d share a pic Jules took tonight of me holding my two little blokes.

If you look carefully you’ll notice Andrew is pushing Nicholas on the side of the head, while Nicholas is laying the boot into Andrew. Isn’t brotherly love great?

TTFN

//Daniel//

Daniel and I have often marveled at Andrew’s memory; he seems to remember impossible things! Tonight he gave us a prime example. Sitting on the little bookshelf in Nick’s room beside the change table there was a little gift bag that has been there for 5 months. It was one of those things I put there and then didn’t get around to moving - it should probably go in a drawer with our gift wrapping stuff or somewhere but it just ended up staying there. Tonight Andrew points to it on the shelf under a packet of nappy-sacks and says “Auntie Neil”. Now this did confuse me for a minute as he was trying to say Uncle Neil, my brother, but that was pretty close. When I asked him “What about Uncle Neil?” he said “Present, Auntie Neil, Wiggles.” He picked up the bag to show it to me and luckily there was a tag on it that refreshed my memory or I wouldn’t have had a clue what he was talking about. When Nick was born my brother and his wife sent Andrew a Wiggles DVD as a gift so he didn’t feel left out with all the gifts Nick was getting (thanks to everyone who did that by the way - really thoughtful and much appreciated) and on the tag they had written: “To Andrew, To celebrate his new brother, Neil and Annette”. Now, how the bloody hell did Andrew remember that? Firstly, Neil and Annette live in Alice Springs so it was posted to him, and secondly, out of all the DVDs he has, that it was the Wiggles one? Just incredible! Smart cookie that one!