The delights of......

Ashleigh & Gabriella

I feel like I mostly post on forums about the things my girls are doing wrong so thought it time to post all the positives I can think of about them (and the irony, this may be brief as I can hear them getting up to mischief)

So our "big 4 yee old"
Far too grown up already. Its amazing how much she has developed mentally over the last I'd say 6 months. In the last few weeks alone she has become an adept chatter on the phone. Mum commented the last time they spoke about how wonderful it was that Ashleigh was actually volunteering information as opposed to answering questions. They had a really long chat. Last night Adam rang and I think I ended up speaking to him for about 10 mins.... the phone call was around half an hour! It would appear her attention span is improving markedly

She really is wonderful with her little sister. Last week she changed her nappy for me *wub* I had removed the old nappy already and was letting her have a nudey run but heard Ashleigh comment about getting wipes and a nappy and next thing I know Gabriella has a new nappy on and she'd done a fantastic job - it even survived a sleep!

Her drawing skills have improved a whole heap as well and she now draws people with faces, bodies and limbs as well as being obsessed with them all having copious amounts of curly hair! She can recognise most if not all of her letters and when we read at night we will often choose a book with limited words. We have an initial read and then go through again with her picking out all the letters. She can write her name if reminded of the letters - I'm sure it would have been easier if we'd named her Bob. She will also write other things more than happily if told the letters to make up each word and she loves to make cards/letters for people

98% of the time she has beautiful manners and now rarely needs reminding to use them. She knows exactly how to ask for things but does still forget. Mummy is a bit of a nasty on this and picks her up on it every time if she forgets ;)

We have been working on getting her to be less chatty to strangers as she was too keen to volunteer information. One of our rules is that if mummy or daddy are speaking to someone she is allowed to speak to them. This can backfire though when she finds someone that we've spoken to especially interesting. While away during the week we visited friends who have a French guy there studying farming in Australia. Once I had been introduced to him Ashleigh asked if she could speak to him and proceeded to spend the next hour constantly chatting to the poor guy while he tried to have his lunch break in peace. I'm sure he was glad when we left

She swings between being desperate to have photos taken and flat out refusing to stay still for the camera. Her latest thing is that she wants video taken but its almost always of something silly. I've taken to telling her that we have very little battery left in the camera now ;)

Ashleigh seems to be getting very excited about the new baby and the other day as we walked through Target she told me that she wanted the baby "right now" I suggested that may not work out too well and told her we had to wait a bit longer. She has to go to kindy for a while before the baby is ready to be born. We've been looking at youtube for videos to prepare her for the birth just in case she is awake during it all and I've discussed again with mum (briefly) about being their support person. I'm really quite excited to think that this time my mum could very likely be present as well as our two beautiful little girls but I'm not going to be pushing anything too hard with any of them - its all up to them. I'll already have hubby, my MW and student MW

Its hard to believe that in a few short weeks she will be starting kindy (and there are bound to be many tearful mummy posts about that one)



Gabriella
Nearly 17 months and mostly a total delight. Sure, she is learning nice and early how to crack tanties but I guess that is to be expected when she has a role model

I had honestly forgotten how gorgeous this age is though. Its so amazing watching her learn and try new things. Lately she has been trying to jump and skip and does the cutest little movements trying to keep up with her sister skipping.

Her speech is another thing that has taken off. I wish I'd kept a notebook handy lately as almost every day she comes out with another 2 or 3 words. This morning I asked her if she wanted breakfast and she repeated it back to me (of course I wouldn't have known quite what it was had I not just said the word). She will try to repeat almost anything and is more than happy to try it over and over until its almost perfect

Night sleep is now mostly a wonderful thing. Normal bedtime at the moment is around 8pm but some nights the girls play for an hour or so before finally settling. I'm trying to just go with this as it makes my evening more relaxed but when they're getting loud its hard to leave it be. However, once they are asleep they both tend to sleep well and we're getting through until nearly 7 most mornings at the moment. I would love it to be longer but can live with that

She absolutely adores her big sister and has taken to giving her random cuddles. Unfortunately she can be a little too intent on giving the cuddles and ends up being a little rough but its mostly not intentional. The other day Ashleigh was crying and Gabriella went up to her and cuddled her. It was the sweetest thing

Its obvious that she really doesn't understand about mummy having a baby in her tummy but that's to be expected. She does still love to blow raspberries on my ever increasing waistline though and gets the giggles every time. She also thought I was a great climbing implement the last time my MW came for my check up. We do still have lovely sitting up cuddles with her little belly curved around my belly and her sweet little head resting on my breasts (or more often between them) Thank goodness she still fits on my lap

And now it would appear to be sleep time as I am hearing tears on and off. When we get it at the right time her day sleeps are perfect so I have to keep an ear out for her cues (its taken a long time to recognise them with her)

I might get brave and attempt to post some photos later....