Pippa’s Joke

Warning: This post contains information about *poo* by a small child. Reader discretion required.

I sat on the couch and saw 21 month old Pippa standing in front of me, clearly pushing something out into her nappy.

“Poos” Pippa stated.

“Do you want to go on the toilet?” I asked.

“No” she replied.

“Do you want to go on the Potty?” I asked again.

“No” she again replied.

Pippa looked at me with a sly look on her face.

“Carpet” she said mischievously. She then added, “Funny girl.”

I laughed.

It didn’t take long for my not quite 2 year old to grasp onto the fact that toilet humour gets easy laughs. I hate to admit it, but it’s true.

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Japan Day One

It’s warm and balmy here in Tokyo tonight. A nice change from the drizzly Melbourne weather we left, even though the clouds leave a similar gloomy haze in the atmosphere.

We left our home at 4:30am yesterday morning, caught 2 flight and 1 train and arrived at the place we are staying about 10:30 Melbourne time (9:30 Japan). Safe to say, we were quite tired!

As I looked around on the flight yesterday I noticed that while there were a few kids and babies, there didn’t seem to be anyone else with a toddler and a baby. We certainly don’t always go with the easy options!

Heidi and Pippa were amazing though, and we all managed to actually get some sleep on the plane (though not all at once). No major tantrums (from Heidi at least), and we all arrived, along with our luggage, just as we had planned.

And now here we are. It’s amazing really. One long day later and bam! You’re in a far away country! When you don’t see any of the distance travelled its an odd kind of thing. Mentally your brain has to make a giant leap without a lot of cues to get you there. Good thing we humans are adaptable!

We met with OMF Japan Field Directors today, as well as the financial advisor. Both were warm and helpful meetings, and we are feeling affirmed in our decisions. Alex also arrived this morning, and we have enjoyed his time here with us so far.

So many thing assault the senses, but the biggest is just the obvious need for hope in Jesus Christ. He’s missing everywhere. Hope is nowhere. People rush about, but where are people actually heading?

May we be a beacon of hope even on this trip. Please pray for us.

(I hope this post makes sense, as I a really very tired…)

Feeling Weary and Fickle

Last night we had some friends come over for dinner. (Hi Matt & Cazz!) After dinner as we sat on the couch enjoying some hot drinks together Cazz asked me how I was finding life with the two girls and enjoying being a ‘Stay At Home Mum’. I don’t know if I was really able to answer the question well. Which got me to thinking about why it was such a hard question. 

I love being at home with my girls. I am so thankful that we have the means and ability as a family for me to not have to go to work (paid employment more specifically) each day, or even just a few days in the week. 

I am so very glad that I am the person that these two precious gifts get to spend each day with. I want to be the one who is shaping, teaching, influencing and loving them consistently each day of the week.

My girls are a delight to me. They fill me with joy, laughter and enthusiasm for life.

And yet…

I’m so tired a lot of the time. I don’t get enough sleep because Pippa is not sleeping well at the moment. And Heidi is taking longer to get to sleep, and rising earlier. And she needs her sleep, so is consistently a lot grumpier than usual.

I don’t get a lot of down time in the day because now matter how hard I try, the girls just don’t always sleep at the same time.

Now that Pippa is starting to eat solids the mornings just seem to be full and stressful. Breastfeed Pippa, while keeping Heidi happy. Change Pippa. Empty potty. Express some milk. Get Heidi dressed. Prepare some food for Pippa. Feed Pippa, or watch her with some finger food. And so on it goes. Breakfast for me? I usually manage to eat, but it’s not a nice quiet time. It’s hectic! Always hectic!

And the afternoons are tricky too, because I need to start thinking about dinner, cooking, feeding Pippa again etc… 

So it’s really hard. It’s challenging. My patience wears thin far too easily. I want to be the bubbly, happy, fun Mummy who has the days full of Pinterest worthy activities for her Toddler, while bouncing the happy baby on her (perfectly fashionable outfitted) knee. Actually, I would be happy to settle just for part of that: I don’t mind so much about looking amazing. Because lets face it, vomit and other such things find there way into crevices, onto shoulders and over hair in the blink of the eye these days.

I don’t think that parenting will ever be easy, but I think the challenges will change. Right now my challenge is time. Time for anything except for getting through the day. There is so much energy, effort and care required just to keep two little people alive, fed, dressed (mostly) and somewhat content each day. Let alone shopping, cooking, exercise, relationships and any other kind of thing. I am thankful that for the most part the relational side of things is easy at the moment. The girls love me because I am their Mummy. They want to be with me. I know that this is one aspect that can greatly change with years and age. So I don’t take that for granted. But there are some real unique challenges to this stage of life, and I hope (and think) I’m not the only one who struggles with them. When I reflected on my previous post ‘The Small Sacrifices’ I realised a lot of the challenges had mostly to do with having two small children, more than having to do with Paul and I. There is just so little time for anything.

I feel very fickle. Some days are amazing. Like when we had a lovely time at PlayGroup, and after nap time Heidi played outside by herself for about an hour – a miracle! And then there are other days, where nothing seems to go very well. So I feel weary and fickle, and unable to adequately talk about how my life is going. And yet I know this is just a season. That it will all go by so quickly and I will miss the delights of watching these little creatures learning new things every day. From new words and funny sentences, to the gorgeousness of fat baby things – I know it won’t last. And yet, here in the thick of it, the days are long and not always easy. 

So forgive me if my answer to how life is going right now changes from moment to moment. Because that is life for me right now. And I love it – most of the time. 

Kids & Hospitals & Doctors

Despite having a ridiculously gorgeous baby, I am trying to forget that last week even happened.

Here are some ‘interesting’ statistics about last week (Mon-Fri only):

Trips to the Doctor: 5 (!!!)
Trips to Hospital: 3
Number of broken bones: 2
Number of teary moments: 2 (I thought that was pretty good!)
Family members who are now relatively well: Everyone.

The (very) condensed version of events is as follows:

Monday
Pippa (did I mention the gorgeous photo above?) has a temperature of 39.3C (!!)
I take her to the Northern Hospital
There are bad grass fires very close by
I take her to the Austin Hospital
The Doctor tries to get blood and urine samples repeatedly
All attempts fail
(Meanwhile, Heidi falls off a chair at home)

Tuesday
Follow-up appointment at Doctor’s for Pippa – recovering nicely from Gastro
Get Dr to check Heidi’s sore arm
Get X-Ray for Heidi
Go to the Austin ED and Heidi’s fractured wrist is placed in a cast

Wednesday
Heidi has no cast on in the morning
We go to Dr’s – he puts one one

Thursday
Heidi has no cast on in the morning
Go back to Dr’s and say hello to another cast!

Update
No one from this family has gone to the Doctor’s since Tuesday.

that’s two full days…at least it’s an improvement!