Piet en Emma in Melbourne - januari 2012
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Chocolate for breakfast
For the last few weeks, we have tried to change Piet and Emma's daily routine a bit by giving them 'quiet time' in the afternoon with a
DVD, instead of the nap that never happened anyway. In the evening, we just read stories between bath and bedtime. After that, the theory goes, they go to bed. However, Piet has not been so co-operative on this last point of late, often getting up or else calling out. Common reasons are: being afraid of animals behind the curtains or smashing through his windows, not wanting to be alone, not being able to sleep, etc., etc. For the first time, we decided to resort to sticker charts. It worked wonders. Piet was especially keen to get a sticker in the morning and happily gave up calling out. After five stickers they had been promised they could choose 'something special' - we hadn't worked out yet what we wanted to offer them. Piet suggested he'd get some chocolate (chocolac, as he says). We agreed, so Piet had a chocolate bar for breakfast. When Emma got up, over an hour later as usual, she duly followed her brother in requesting a bar of chocolate too. Not surprisingly, Piet showed a keen interest in her choice. He wondered whether he could have a small piece of her bar, which she happily parted with. After about ten minutes, she had eaten enough and Piet was allowed to eat her leftovers. One and a half chocolate bars for breakfast in exchange for five evenings not calling out - this makes everybody happy. Now his parents hope the changed habits will persist.
On Tuesday, the Dutch playgroup came over for a visit. It was a hot day and we had a
dive in our pool.
Piet drew a
post for oma, showing his artistic skills may soon rival his father's. Changing Emma's nappy tends to be easy, as she is trained to put het legs
up in the air. She is interested in using the toilet, but wears nappies 90% of the time. Piet has made big progress in the last weekend of January by doing his first poos in the toilet. Previously, he insisted on getting a nappy for that. The first step was doing a poo in the bush near the yarra river during a friend's birthday gathering - to the horror of some.
Balnarring
We spent a short weekend at a friend's family beach house in Balnarring (like last year). It was hot, mid thirties, the kids enjoyed the beach with a very calm surf. On Sunday morning we went looking for little crabs under the rocks that are exposed at low tide, which was Piet's highlight of the weekend. When the weather was too hot for the beach, we played
in the yard. Back home, Piet and Emma played on the
brick stack at the back of our own yard.
This Wednesday, 1st February, Jan will start work in Sydney at APRA, the Australian regulator for banks and other financial institutions. He'll be back home for the weekends until the whole family moves to Sydney. It will be tough to leave our wonderful house in Eltham behind, but one day Jan had to go back to work and we knew all along that Sydney had the most opportunities. Still, spending two and a half years in Melbourne has been great.
(Note: some pictures and hyperlinks to pictures have been added to the page on
Will's death. Some videos have been added to the bottom of the
video page.
An x-ray has been added to the page on Will's birth
)
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next or
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For the last few weeks, we have tried to change Piet and Emma's daily routine a bit by giving them 'quiet time' in the afternoon with a
DVD, instead of the nap that never happened anyway. In the evening, we just read stories between bath and bedtime. After that, the theory goes, they go to bed. However, Piet has not been so co-operative on this last point of late, often getting up or else calling out. Common reasons are: being afraid of animals behind the curtains or smashing through his windows, not wanting to be alone, not being able to sleep, etc., etc. For the first time, we decided to resort to sticker charts. It worked wonders. Piet was especially keen to get a sticker in the morning and happily gave up calling out. After five stickers they had been promised they could choose 'something special' - we hadn't worked out yet what we wanted to offer them. Piet suggested he'd get some chocolate (chocolac, as he says). We agreed, so Piet had a chocolate bar for breakfast. When Emma got up, over an hour later as usual, she duly followed her brother in requesting a bar of chocolate too. Not surprisingly, Piet showed a keen interest in her choice. He wondered whether he could have a small piece of her bar, which she happily parted with. After about ten minutes, she had eaten enough and Piet was allowed to eat her leftovers. One and a half chocolate bars for breakfast in exchange for five evenings not calling out - this makes everybody happy. Now his parents hope the changed habits will persist.
