Family fun

Well, the last two weeks have been the quietest since I have arrived and actually it has been a welcome break. After all the excitement of my first couple of months, to take a couple of weeks out and just spend some time with the family has been great. Scarlett has been my shadow from the day that I arrived but even Josh now asks me to play with him and lets me give him cuddles. His favourite game that he demands to be played all the time is when I hold him upside down by the ankles and swing him around. Everytime I try to put him down he squeals and shouts out "More, Auntie Abba! More!"

I think this bonding may be due to fact that we have just potty trained Josh. Now that was an eventful experience. At first I was kinda grossed out with the whole idea and was seriously unimpressed that it couldn't be done once I had gone home. But I am now so used to it all that pulling his jocks down and sitting him on the potty has become an automatic reflex. Even his stench-bombs of poo no longer phase me, but to get to this stage there has been some amusing incidents. The first three or four days were the 'winky watch' days. It involved one of us staring at Josh's winky every second of the day and then as soon as he started weeing to scoop him up and run him over to the potty. Apparently this is the quickest way to get kids to understand what it feels like just before they need to go. I have never stared at someone's private parts quite that intently before and it did feel so wrong, but it worked because in three days he was doing all his wees in the potty. Boom!

The poos on the otherhand have proven to be much trickier and he is still struggling now. This was worrying because on Sunday I was left in charge of both of them while Katy and Boot were treated to a day out at the cricket with their best friends. They left me around midday and I had to entertain, feed and then put the kids to bed. It was all going pretty well to start with. Josh woke up from his nap and was crying for Katy, but with a few cuddles and a bribe of watermelon he soon cheered up. We played together all afternoon with me on poo watch because the boy definitely had one brewing. I just went inside for a quick wee stop and he chose that moment to poo his jocks. Brilliant.  It was made even worse by the fact that he was on the trampoline doing sit jumps so he smushed it all over his bum. At least all his wees were all in the potty though, well except the one when he didn't have his winky pushed down so it spurted out like a fountain which I had to deflect back into the potty with my hand...

Ok, so that's enough poo stories, I have done other things with my time I promise. The weather has continued to be gorgeous so we have made good use of the pool, the paddling pool and the waterslide the kids got for christmas. After a lazy morning at the beach yesterday, me and Katy set up the slide for the kids and sat back in the sun with vodkas in hand to watch them.

Last night was treat night for me and Katy. As an early birthday present for her I bought us both tickets to go see Les Miserables in goldclass. To watch such an amazing movie, in an electric recliner with a hot chocolate fudge brownie ice cream sundae to nibble on....I felt spoilt! We both inevitably cried at exactly the same parts of the film, liked the same bits, misunderstood the same bits and disliked the same bits. Anyone would think we were related....