Beach Days and Night Time Dramas

Sunday and Monday we spent some time at the beach. The boys (and Simon and I) absolutely love the beach, and I love to watch them having so much fun! Cohen's favourite thing at the moment is to find rocks and throw them into the water, Kason loves to jump in the waves! Usually at the beach, Cohen is a bit more brave, and just runs straight into the water, whereas Kason would usually hold back a little and wakes a little bit to get used to it. The last two days, though, it's been the other way around. Kason just couldn't get enough of the water, or the waves, and he just wanted to swim! The waves were a little bit too big for him to swim, but he still had an absolute blast :-)

On a completely different note, the boys have been absolute NIGHTMARES for the last 10 weeks or so to get to sleep at night. Before we went to New Zealand, I could put them to bed at 7pm, tell the goodnight, give them a kiss and cuddle and walk out. They would stay in their beds (which, at that time, were their cots converted to beds, so no sides), and go to sleep by themselves. Sure, sometimes it could take up to an hour, but they were happy, they left each other alone, and they didn't trash their rooms.
In New Zealand...completely different story. They played up something shocking, and on just the second night (I think), they tore down the net curtains in their bedroom and stripped the wallpaper off probably a quarter of the room. Every night they would run around being crazy for about 30 minutes, before they started screaming and crying. Then I'd go in to settle them down, and I would end up staying in there with them and cuddling them to sleep. When we got home, nothing changed. I tried to go back to how things were going before we left on our trip, but after they pulled the blinds off the wall (THREE nights they did that!), and after Cohen hurt himself, I decided that I would just have to stay in there with them while they went to sleep. It would take me up to TWO hours to get them to go to sleep. Not fun at all, and by the time they finally crashed out, the only thing I felt like doing was blobbing on the couch, so I haven't been getting much done at all!
Tonight, I decided to see how they went if I put them to bed at 6:30pm instead of 7pm. There was SO much less mucking around from Cohen (he is ALWAYS the one playing up the most at night time), and they were BOTH asleep within 20 minutes, and I didn't cuddle either of them. After reading them their story, I lay them both in their beds, told them goodnight, then sat on the floor between their beds with a hand on each of their tummies, and just waited.

When I came back out to the lounge, I was SO stoked to see it was only 6:50pm!!!!!!!! Here's hoping they sleep past 6am tomorrow morning, too :-) Watch this space!

xxx

Urimbirra

Today we spent another fun day at Urimbirra Wildlife Park in Victor Harbor. We just love it there, and every time we go, Cohen and Kason get more and more into it, it's so awesome to see! Usually they mainly into the kangaroos, but today, while the roos were definitely still their favourite, they were really excited to see all of the other animals, too :-) I think the snakes were their second favourite this time.




 

xxx



Sleep? Not likely!

Ok, so this morning, Cohen was up and about at 6:30am. Kason came through to the lounge at 7am. They have both had a super busy and fun day at childcare today - 9am until 3:30pm. After we got home, they were running around like crazy. It's now 7:25pm and they are now in their bedroom and they are supposed to be sleeping. They are not. It sounds like they are running around, and literally bouncing off the walls!! I now have to make sure that their (new) blinds are rolled right up to the top of the window because Cohen somehow manages to pull the whole roll off the wall (thankfully the brackets stay up!).

I really thought that tonight would be one of the few times they fall asleep on the couch before bedtime, but no such luck!!!! At least Kason isn't in there screaming like he's been doing recently. For that fact alone I'm tempted just to leave them to it, and I just might. But then again, I know that if I go in, they are quite likely to go to sleep sooner.

I have so much to do tonight, and I prefer to wait until they are asleep before I start anything, because if I don't, they will start crying for me as soon as I start!

xxx

Getting Back Into It

Again, I've been super slack!!!

We're now back from our almost two-month long trip to New Zealand!! We had a fantastic time, did heaps, saw lots of people and the boys now have now been on 13 flights! Not too bad for only being 2.5 years old!

I'm trying to download a photo collage programme on our new laptop (woohoo!) so I can share a few photos - WAY to hard to narrow them down! - but it doesn't seem to be working for some reason...might have to get Simon to have a look at it when he gets home from work.

We are slowing getting back into the swing of things. We got back a few days after Christmas, and we've kinda been just cruising since then. Simon started back at work yesterday - Kason was far from impressed about that, and the only thing that stopped him crying, was a Skype call to his beloved Grumps :-)
Today, they had 'school' (childcare). They haven't been since the start of November, but Cohen was a champion, and just went with the flow, as per usual. Kason was happy enough to start off, but just as we were about to walk out the door, he realised what was happening and the waterworks started :-( We ended up staying there about half an hour until he was a bit more comfortable, but he apparently spent a lot of the day being the shadow of his favourite carer, Amanda. He was SUPER excited when I got there to pick them up.

We've got a busy few days coming up, then not a lot scheduled for next week, but hopefully that will change :-) It's a bit hard at the moment because Simon is now back at work, but none of their usual activities (playgroups, library etc.) start back up until school starts, and that's still a while away yet.

Anyways, better get going, I have several things I need to get done tonight and I'm hoping to have an early-ish night - the boys were up at 5:30am this morning!

xxx