Everyone is Well

Well are we having fun or what? Everyone is well - a rare event in our household. As a result there is lots of playing and laughter. One realises how "down" we all were when you are on the other side of bad health. Fiona was especially tired and run down. All these public holidays are definitely helping! Three public holidays in one week must be a world record. Fantastic!

Thank you for all the birthday greetings. We had dinner on Friday night at a nice steak house in the Firs of Rosebank that is styled to be like a "Gentleman's Club." Nice to sit back in the soft leather chairs and enjoy a good meal. Fiona gave me a copy of Jake White's book and one of our favourite movies "Lagaan" which I will treasure.
We had lunch with my Mom on Sunday. She outdid herself with lots and lots of food. Really nice. Everyone is well. Judy has an operation to put in an artificial elbow joint in the second week of May.

Daniel has put on a kg (11.6 kg total) in the last three months and Emma 900 g (9.6 kg total). Really nice to see the development. We can now see them developing mentally from weekend to weekend - quite special.

Daniel has wet all his bed clothes for about four nights in a row now, so we went out and bought him the next size of nappies which seem to be cut differently (for bigger babies) and should thus cope with the large amounts of urine he produces at night!

He is also going through a "Total Tantrum" stage which is not fun as anything that he is denied results in him holding his breath until he turns a blue tinge. He then does a a backflip (no matter where) and screams as loudly as he can. Anything in reach is grabbed and violently thrown away. Emma did a similiar thing a few weeks (or is it months) ago which now seems to be reducing nicely. So we use a combination of strategies ranging from being there to protect him from hurting himself, to ignoring the tantrum to finally designating him to his cot to scream it out.
A good thing is that he is starting to stand up to Emma taking things from him - he pulls a very serious face before saying "no" and pointing his finger at her. We obviously get the treatment too.

A great thing is that they are starting to play together a lot more. They still fight too. The play usually involves laughing and chasing each other. Nice to see, especially after their evening bottles.

Emma is beginning to say lots of words - often copying us and forgetting the word shortly afterwards. Tonight she identified lights in different parts o the house over about an hour which we enjoyed. Daniel has his standard words but is not going forward yet. He usually follows Emma about three to four weeks later - he is just too relaxed to worry (we think).

On Saturday, just before the lights went out - Emma fell quite hard while climbing onto her little chair. She managed to bite her gum where the top tooth is - must have really hurt. Anyhow, her gum was quite bruised for the next few days - only noticed by us - she does not seem to be concerned at all. Nice thing was that the lights came on after an hour (instead of four hours).

On Saturday, we also went shopping for new shoes and clothes for them. They needed pants for winter. Battled a bit with shoes for Emma as she seems between sizes. Got two pairs for Daniel and a pair for Emma.

Yesterday we started on the fence to cut off the pool area from the front of the house. Lots of work - it should take a bit of time.

Today, Fiona and I were both on leave (to take advantage of the two-day working week). We decided to have a baby-less day and so we deposited the twins at creche before going off for the day. Had a nice breakfast at Doppio Zero before seeing "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" in Rosebank which was a great movie - our first in over a year. We then had a great lunch at Keith Kirsten's old nursery in Rosebank before coming home to relax before picking the twins up. A nice day with lots of great conversation.

This week is great as we go off to Lagoon View on Thursday morning. We are spending almost 10 days there which is going to be great - we normally spend so little time there - it is usually over before it begins. The Fullers will also be joining us for part of the holiday which will be nice.
And then we are attending Jessica's wedding next Saturday. A rare Roberts family get-together.
The only sad thing is that the weather is more like mid-winter weather instead of early May. Anyhow, we are taking our trailer and so we can take all the comforts that we need. Sitting in the sun on the beach will be quite nice.
We are not sure how the far sharper twins will now react to the beach. Daniel will definitely spend time playing with the sand (we are planning to sit on the sand instead of our prime position on the grass above the beach). Lets hope they don't go wild and constantly try and run to opposite sides of the beach. We are hoping to get them to enjoy some of the rock pools at least. Could be interesting - lets hope Mom and Dad get to rest too.

Aren't these times that we live in really interesting - have we ever had a global financial, oil and food crises all happening at the same time? It will be interesting to see how this impacts the world in future.

So we'll put a new entry on the blog when we return - sometime after the 11th of May. Hopefully with lots and lots of photos.