As we headed off last sunday on a perfect winters day, the roads clear of snow and the sun shining with temperatures above 0 degrees celsius, I felt lucky to be out running a 10km again with Shammy beside me. As in previous years the hills took their toll on me but I had Shammy's orange jersey bopping in front of me as motivation. I was surprised at how well I did as I was sure that I was almost moving backwards on the last hill before the finish line. A minute behind my time 2 years ago which is not bad when this time last year just getting out for a walk a day was a challenge :).
The extra luxury of an hour out afterwards to stretch and shower at the gym and sit down for some lunch together and to return home to 2 smiling toddlers made my day.
We have signed up for the half-marathon in April so back to the training schedule again, and an early booking of a new baby sitter we have started using will be a must.

As of next week I'll also be doing another half/full day at work depending on how the kids go at day care. We have a couple of baby sitters up our sleeve now thanks to some connections from the creche at gym. The kids love Marlene and Shaesta who help out along with our regular baby sitter Aleesha.
We wanted to expose Sol and Safiya to some more children and allow them to benefit from different stimuli they provide at day care. It will also give them some time out from being with each other exclusively and I think they will enjoy it as I know how much they love the creche at the gym. This will mean I'll be working 3 days a week and occassionally 4 when I work the Saturday also. I'm hoping this will be a good balance for everyone and if it doesn't work we can always pull them out, I'm lucky to have such a flexible place to work.
Everyone by now has probably also heard that Shammy has accepted the offer of an EP fellowship in Hershey starting from June 2013 so there will be lots of change on the way with that.
Sol and Safiya are enjoying their motility and climbing proes and there daily gabble is starting to sound more word like. Its so cute when you ask for a book and they go and get it for you or head straight for the table when you say 'breakfast is ready'. Shaesta was saying that she was singing some nursery rhymes and Safiya went over and picked up the book on the shelf and opened it to the correct page. Some of the latest words are cwap, cwap when she claps her hands together and 'gook' for book.

Happy birthday Bubbas!!

Its time to reflect on the two best presents I have received;

Safiya; My little giggle pots, thanks for making mummy laugh with your infectious giggle, mischievous eyes and screeches of delight. Your latest efforts at walking started with a running tackle - taking out your brother of course :). To strangers you come across shy but quietly check out the scene and take mental notes for later use. You have a quiet determination and always surprise us with a new skill you seem to have picked up overnight. I love the way u clap with delight and smile when your favorite bedtime story begins.

Sol; my smiley, happy boy with the cute curls. You have such a gentle nature, a love of books and an inquistive mind, quietly checking out the latest object with your index finger. You are forever trailing objects around the house, one in each hand, the latest being a black and red pair of Safiya's stockings. Not to be detered when you trip over them and very protective if anyone in the family should come near your precious goodies! I love our games of chase and catch even if you don't run away very far before coming back to check if we are still near by.

Thanks for making my every day a brighter place, happy birthday to my two rays of sunshine,
love you lots
Mummy

christmas is fast approaching - 10.5 months

Our bubs are progressing along well and getting into more mischief each day. Yesterday they managed to pull all the stacks of Nappies off the shelves then Safiya used them to climb on top of to get to what was on the second shelf in the bathroom. They seem to be really enjoying their new found climbing ability and their new skill of getting on to their tippy toes to pull things off benches. They even managed to pull apart an envelope and DVD yesterday and were trailing a magnet of Henry I didn't even realise I had across the kitchen floor :).
They are fast approaching the walking milestone and Sol took his first tiny steps in the bath tub the other night. Our babysitter commented today that Sol was stomping his feet because he wanted her to help him walk to a bench even though she was occupied changing Safiya's nappy.
They are also starting to wave and Safiya managed a very funny Hello back to mine this morning.
We have had a couple of trying weeks when they both had a cold and Safiya developed some eczema on her back. The colds are gone now however and I have removed eggs and cow's milk from Safiya's diet and her eczema is disappearing. I will try cow's milk again when all the eczema has gone as I have a sneaking suspicion it is just eggs she is currently intolerant to.
We have been spending afternoons at the park when the weather permits and recently had a successful photo shoot with some of the last leaves of Autumn - some of these pics are already up on facebook.
Shammy and I enjoyed one of our few evenings out together last week, something we are trying do more often, it is that much loved quality time and we have signed up to do our annual 10km run together which of course we skipped out on last February. It will be interesting to see how I go in comparison to my previous runs. I'll have the added motivation of getting back in time for our babysitter :).

First snow of the season

Well being forever the Australian I completely down played the fact that it would snow this weekend, being that it is only October, thinking it was just media hype. But no, we probably have about 6 inches outside at the moment, its being snowing all day and it is still snowing!

So besides a brief outing this morning we have had a fun filled indoors day with some dancing to Hindi music and some oatmeal play time.

Sol and Safiya were initially fascinated by this fluffy white stuff that floated down outside but they soon lost interest and were happy to concentrate on what mischief they could get up to inside.

It is so cute watching them follow each other around and they are becoming very good at playing together and as long as they are fed and not tired, are pretty happy to roam around doing their own thing.

Sol can now stand up without holding onto something and will stay upright for a good amount of time, which of course we get excited about which eventually brings him plopping down. Their chatter to each other and in general has increased and of course there are heaps of "dada daddy's" coming out but only one mmmmMum to date from Sol.

They are now only drinking cow's milk and eating their regular meals each day. At our regular Dr's visit they kept asking about how much formula they were drinking so eventually I just said they were drinking milk and surprisingly they were okay with this, I feel the Dr I saw was on much the same wavelength as we are when it comes to the influence of the formula companies.

Shammy is beginning the process of applying for Electrophysiology fellowships and I am still keeping my usual work schedule although I seem to be picking up a few extra days lately.

Aleesha our babysitter is still fabulous and we now have weekend baby sitter options if needed with the ladies at the gym offering to do the occassional weekend sit if we need it.

Survived Minneapolis, 8.5 months

Flying with two 8 and a half month olds, with stopovers between 2, 1.5 hour flights. Not too difficult you would think. Lets just say draining and it took a couple of days of the following week to recover :). The flights themselves were okay, it was more the time change and lack of sleep at night with the change in sleeping environments for Sol and Safiya that wiped me out. I think the next time we travel for a conference I'll only go if Shammy doesn't "attend" the conference all day as it just makes things a little less full-on during the day.

I discovered Sol and Safiya only like my home cooking, anything bought was not up to their standards besides a spinach, mushroom curry I picked up from a take away :).

On the Sunday I managed to get out and have a look along the riverside, stone arch bridge and the local museums with the bubs. They were very well behaved and seemed to enjoy the german dancing on display. I also wandered across some farmer's markets so I got to try some local vegetable empanadas, yum!

I think Minneapolis would definitely be a summer city, not a place to be venturing to in the winter months, coming back to Allentown afterwards it felt so warm in comparison.

Sol and Safiya are both crawling well now and are now standing up on any piece of furniture, leg, object they can get their hands on. Safiya seems the more courageous of the two and because of this has had her fair share of mishaps. Sol is not happy just to stand still but wants to bop around or have you walk him everywhere. A lot of sounds are coming out their mouths but nothing really sensible yet. They are starting to understand basic commands though and certainly know when Mummy wants them to be nice and share rather than grab each others toys out of their hands. There is never a dull moment.

Wet weather

So the last couple of weeks have been pretty wet with some Hurricanes off the east coast having the area on constant flood warnings. Hurricane Irene caused a lot of power cuts, luckily not for us, and a lot of local flooding. Some people are just getting power in our area now and that is 2 weeks later. There has been more rain this week with Hurricane Katia and another tropical depression in the area, which is making driving conditions to Hershey interesting for Shammy. We also have the relay marathon this weekend so it could be an interesting and very muddy one, hoping it stops raining on the day so at least the bubs can come out and enjoy also.

With the wet weather we have been having some fun indoor days, hence the spaghetti fun and I think its time to buy a few indoor play mats before the carpets here are annihilated :).

Sol and Safiya are really getting more mobile now which is making things very interesting, hence the cots have been lowered and the gates are up high as they are grabbing onto everything and using things to stand up. Safiya in particular is enjoying sitting up in her cot and I find it most amusing walking into the bedroom to see if she has gone to sleep to find her sitting up smiling at me.

Its time to install safety measures as I'm quickly realising already I am finding them in some interesting places and once they start crawling there will be no controlling them. They also seem to like tugging on our pants now to let us know they want to be picked up.

I think the term "silence is deadly" is most appropriate as you can be sure they are up to something they shouldn't be!

In a couple of weeks we are all off for our first plane flight together to Minneapolis for a conference Shammy has. I'm as excited as always to see a new place and hopefully this will the start of some more exploring for us.

Just when you think you have it figured out it all changes :)

Hmmm how do think this works Sol

Nothing could be truer when it comes to babies. These two definitely keep me on my toes. I guess when you think about it their growth is so rapid its not surprising that change is happening so quickly.

It seems another tooth is on the way for each of them and combine that with a little too much stimulation at the picnic this afternoon and not enough nap time and it equals a good hour to get them both to bed when normally they both go straight down. Of course one would just about drop off and then the other would wake them up again, it certainly made for an interesting skype conversation with Lee-Anne.

Safiya is sitting by herself now, but I put a bean bag behind to stop the occasional fall, Sol hasn't quite got there yet, very close, but maybe its that little bum holding him back :). He is however constantly in crawl position but hasn't quite worked out how to go forward yet. Safiya also seems to like her hand and knees at the moment.

I seem to be getting into a nice routine, only thrown out by lack of sleep or should I say more than the usual lack of sleep. They are both still loving their swim time and today Shammy and I took them for our first family run together.

They both were quite happy in the stroller and seemed to like Shammy's pace, even though they had to stop and start a few times while they waited for Mummy. We are doing the relay marathon again this year and it has been a good motivation for me to get back into running again.

a new water and food proof mat, lets check it out

Its also been nice to have Shammy around more on the weekends as last year it was practically every 2nd weekend plus at least one week night he was working. Having said that he is on call tonight :).

They are both so much fun though, and smile so much we love just spending time with them and every day brings another laugh.