Rain, Rain Go Away

I've never been a fan of spring. Sure the weather is warmer and blossoms are pretty and even I can admit that baby animals are cute but instead of winters cold calm days we get rain and wind.

I was not jumping for joy when I read the weather forecast for the next week!

Monday - Showers, some heavy. Northerlies dying out.

Tuesday - Few showers, rain from evening. Northerly strengths.

Wednesday - Morning rain clearing. Southerly then northwest.

Thursday - Cloud increasing, rain by evening. Northerlies.

Friday - Showers with northerlies 40 km/h

Saturday - Showers, clearing late in the afternoon to fine weather. Northwesterlies 40 km/h.

Sunday - A partly cloudy morning, then showers. Northerlies 30 km/h dying away.

Arrrrrgggghhhh!

It's be mean to Jo week!

Do you ever have one of those weeks where nothing goes right?

I'm so over it all!!!

I had a woman at school tell me off for not dressing my children warmly. The fact that the sun was shining, it was warm and that she herself was wearing a chiffon top seemed to have bypassed her!

Then at playgroup I had dressed Madeleine and Juliette the same which is a bit unusual as I don't have many matching clothes left - most of ours are coordinated now. Funny enough my friend just commented that a Dad that comes to playgroup doesn't like her and everytime she speaks to him he makes her feel like she is a waste of space - I'd never had a problem with him before. He decides to comment on the fact that my girls are dressed the same and how wrong it was and why didn't I get a doll instead!

Then Kindy told me that because they are changing their hours instead of getting a place in 2 weeks as expected it would now be November if I was lucky. There was tears - all mine!

Toilet paper is a limited resource in our house - part 2!

Following on from my last toilet paper post!

I was storing my stock of toilet paper in the bathroom to avoid rolls being disposed of down the bowl. Smart eh!

Not when you leave your children unsupervised in the bath and come back to find that your whole stock of loo rolls is now resembling a pulp and paper mill in the bath!

Children 9 - loo paper 0!

Toilet training has broken me!

After many months of struggle I've admitted defeat and put Maddie and Jules back in nappies.

That makes it sound alot calmer than the actual point in time when I made that decision.

There was tears, there was anger, alot of frustration and I now feel a little bit broken. But something has got to give after cleaning up so much mess for so long.

I'm trying to convince them both that they don't want to be babies but instead big girls. It doesn't really seem to be working - the little monkeys!

Toilet paper is a limited resource in our house

Our toilet paper bill is massive

Other people complain about the cost of heating their home or running a car but in our house it's the humble roll of toilet paper.

Just yesterday 6 rolls were consumed. 6 whole rolls!

Why the obsession with unrolling loo paper? It never seems fair that I get to use a badly re-rolled roll on many occasions - it's not like I do it!

If I'm lucky it's only unrolled! How many rolls can fit down a toilet. So far the record is 5!

Our toilet looks like a raccoon has been trapped in it with shredded pieces flying everywhere.

Worst of all I have no idea who the culprit is!

The Noise, The Noise

I never expected the level of noise I would be subjected to as a mother.

My little girls have always been grizzlers and moaners. I must note I do prefer this to hitters and biters!

I didn't expect that my identical twins would have non-identical screams!

Miss Juliette has a particular roar at the end of a moan. It drives me mentally insane - literally loopy! Probably quite well developed really as it pretty much guarantees she gets what she wants. I'm BIG on consistency in this house!!

Miss Madeleine just doesn't give up. This morning for instance we were all good leaving the house. I get outside the house on the street and all hell breaks loose. They are both screaming and screaming. I ask what's wrong and no answer just screams.

That's fine I think I can deal with this. Just a short walk to school, past the local shops full of strangers watching me drag my two demented preschoolers literally frothing at the mouth!

I look down to see clutched in Madeleine's angry little hand is a hat. Now the sensible woman around would say it's cold why are they not wearing hats. The answer is simply that they don't tend to wear them, just pull them off in a rage and then I'm left carrying them! So this morning I didn't want the battle so I didn't put them on.

Now in the insanity of leaving the house Madeleine has grabbed one without me seeing and Juliette is screaming because she doesn't have one. We have gone to far now to go back and get Juliette hat so battle on we do. I still have no idea what has got Madeleine's goat!

In the middle of the field it dawns on me. Why have two children screaming when I can have one! So I take Madeleine's hat off her and give it to Juliette. 1 child silent - yay! But as expected Madeleine is now going banana's!!! At least I know what the problem is now!

Miss Maddie still hasn't calmed down by the time we get to the classroom to drop Trelise off. I realise I can't take her into the class while she is at the peak of her screaming powers. Trust me no one would thank me for that! So she is told that to come in she has to stop crying. Of course it doesn't help. I spend the next few minutes getting Trelise ready to start her school day and darting back to the door to see if the screaming has stopped.

Finally we are homeward bound. Once again across the muddy field I'm dragging a small screaming child and past the shops with everyone looking. But home is in our sights!

Literally right outside our house Madeleine picks up a tiny red ball. Says "My ball" and stops crying. OMG all that because she dropped a ball that I didn't even know she had!

It's enough to make me pull my hair out!!

Placemakers!

Today I returned to Placemakers with Madeleine and Juliette

It's been a while since the day that changed my world forever occurred!

All I wanted was to talk to the kitchen coordinator about our kitchen designs while my well behaved two year olds sat quietly in the buggy strapped in all safe and out of danger.

I should have known that the day would come where this outing was no longer possible but I didn't realise that the day was upon us.

As I approached the kitchen display the coordinator was busy. Rats! I had to wait. Patient I was but Maddie and Jules were not. First the moaning and whining increased. To counter I pushed the buggy back and forth frantically. I thought it was working as all was quiet. I looked down to find they had gained their freedom by releasing their shackles and were in the process of debarking the safety of the buggy.

Breathe Jo, breathe - how bad can it be I thought as two giggling toddlers sprinted off in different directions. There is only the automatic doors at the front of the store that leads to a busy carpark and on to one of the main roads of Paraparaumu. Or the doors at the back that lead to the timber yard with forklifts that can't see very well or expect to see two little monkeys climbing around.

I heard them as I raced around the aisles but couldn't see them and then just as I started to hyperventilate and was about to give up all hope there they were in the bathroom section jumping on all the display toilets!

Looking back I can almost laugh at it all - almost!

Happy Birthday Madeleine and Juliette

My sweet girls are now three!

Three years of snuggy kisses and cuddles. Three years of Maddie and Jules love. Three years of being a twin Mummy!

From this

To this!

I have reflected over the past couple of weeks on how things were for us three years ago.

Being pregnant with miracle babies but never being happy that it was going to be ok. The long nights where I couldn't sleep thinking that things were or had gone wrong.

My in-patient stay and how I never thought I would cope with being in hospital for that long. Now at times I long for my little hospital room all quiet and warm with food delivered to my door! (Of course I don't really) How scared I was that Trelise wouldn't cope with her Mummy being away or that something would happen to Maddie or Jules.

Then as that time finished we were thrust into Neonates and that endless period of time where I had my babies but didn't really have my babies. Having Maddie rushed into emergency surgery at three weeks old without really understanding why - that happens when you go from diagnoses to operating table in an hour.

Getting my girls home and learning to cope with newborn premature twins as well as a demanding toddler.

Now I have a big school girl who tries her hardest and three year olds who are about to go to Kindy!

Excuses, Excuses, Excuses

I miss my blog.

I miss writing about what we are up too.

Thanks Debra for the gentle reminder about my poor neglected blog and once again I'll try and promise to update.

I think I'll go back on the past few months and write some entries.

xxx

Wordful Wednesday

Fishing Oliver Style!

You can see more Wordful Wednesdays at

Wordful Wednesday

What's 5, blonde and more than a little sassy?

A big school girl!!

At last it's Trelise's first day of school!

You can see more Wordful Wednesdays at

Differences between girls and boys

It's turned out that pretty much all of our friends only have female children. There are boys which my girls play with but they are far in the minority.

Yesterday Trelise noticed that Morimoto is a boy and she said "Mummy Morimoto is a boy and I can tell because I can see his dangly thing"

I admit that I've neglected the whole sex education thing. It hasn't really come up but we have had discussions on what the correct word is. So seizing the opportunity to again explain the differences between girls and boys I said "Trelise do you know what that's called?"

"No" she answered

"Well it's called a penis, can you say penis?"

She repeats and I follow on with "What's your bottom called?"

The answer?

"Duh, Normal" (in a rolling her eyes kind of way - she's getting a bit sassy of late!)

Wordful Wednesday

What do you do when you really really want to be naked but it's just a little cold?

You can see more Wordful Wednesdays at

Happy 5th Birthday Trelise

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday dear Lise
Happy Birthday to you!

We had a fairytale themed birthday party this year with a surprise visitor!


I loved seeing the look of surprise on your face when you realised what was in our front garden

You and your friends were all delighted and lined up to ride the unicorn


There goes my horse mad almost 5 year old!

Present time!
and then the cake



Happy Birthday dear Lise. You are our shiny golden girl and we love you so much

xx

Since September!

This is going to be one long post!

It's been a while!

I have a few excuses but none really good enough!

So in the last 4 months this has been going on:


Halloween
This year we had a witch and two little devils


Sadly in-between arriving home and Halloween half Madeleine and Juliette's costumes either went astray or were broken! So at the last minute we swapped and they became

Pirates!

There's been alot of helping with rennovations

Not all of it helpful

We discovered that sand made a good medium to practice writing names


and that the strawberry festival was a good way to welcome in summer.

There was music

facepainting

a bouncy castle

and of course strawberries!

Wayne finally had a very successful fishing trip


We went to a superhero costume party and the girls were:

The powerpuff girls!
(I even straighened Jules hair!)

Then there was Trelise's school visit's. I can't believe she is about to be a big school girl :(

Here she is school bag on and ready to go!

and we said good bye to kindy :(

Trelise made a birthday cake from playdoh


She got to show her kindy friends some special times she had had at kindy

and finally one last game.

I promised myself I wouldn't cry!

And then Christmas rolled around

We fed the reindeer


and grew candycanes


left some snacks out for Santa

and low and behold it worked!!!

The candy canes grew

and the stockings were filled!

at the end of the day we had:

three happy girls

one bouncing trampoline

and a Daddy covered in stickers!

After Christmas Katie and Mal braved the insanity and gave the Oliver household a visit.

We had a blast and did some touristy things

We went to the bird santurday

and then to a farm park

We were sad to see them go but looking forward to meeting their new addition!

Then we went on a big adventure!

We drove through a river to get to this historic site


Never did find out what it was!

Then we picked strawberries




And lastly we went camping and got my absolute favourite picture


Phew!!!