Science day

On Wednesdays Dh takes the Ginger Ninja with him for the day, and teaches him science. Ginger Rose, Little Prince and I usually try to do something special. This week we met friends at The Bookplate for morning tea. Unfortunately, they have a $20 EFTPOS minimum and I only had $12 in my purse, but would really have liked to have bought coffee and cakes which would have been about $14 so Ginger Rose and I had coffees and shared lemon meringue pie, but the poor Little Prince had none.

It was very hot, and fortunately Questacon was just a short walk away and nicely air-conditioned. Mini-Q was almost deserted so Ginger Rose had personalised attention and spent most of her time playing with nice cool water.

The Little Prince enjoyed some quiet time watching the fish.

End of an era

Here's the Little Prince's last sleep in his bassinette - the end of his newborn days. He's transitioned seamlessly to the cot, but as he spends most of his sleeping life being toted here, there and everywhere in search of various siblings, it probably wasn't as much of a transition as it could have been.

The undomestic goddess

Remember the ironbark pumpkins? Well, the incredible time taken to produce something edible out of the first pumpkin I tackled was so dispiriting that I left the second pumpkin sitting out on the verandah for just a little too long. Perhaps two months too long.

It's now sitting in the vegetable garden in case it sprouts.

After all, last season's celery and silverbeet are growing seeds nicely...

And we missed harvesting at least one potato...

Note: Large piles of paperwork looming behind my three youngest children. The undomesticity isn't confined to the garden.

Xmas concert

And thus begins this year's round of Christmas concerts. Briar Rose played a duet with a classmate. I was really impressed with the number of siblings and friends who sat in the audience. It was a very supportive atmosphere - though I suspect the turn-out was higher because it was raining (so indoor lunchtime) and the "bring a plate" lunch looked pretty tasty.

We had to leave early because Ginger Rose was tired and hungry, despite the judicious application of rice crackers.

Usually the school performances run like clockwork, but this one started late and while we left half-way through the program, we left at the time it was due to finish. The rain is so so so welcome, but it was challenging to get a baby, preschooler and plate of hot food from the mud car park across the road over to the chapel without getting anybody or anything wet.

Botanic gardens

Sometimes I take the gorgeous bush setting for granted, but Canberra really is special. We had lunch at Hudsons in the Botanic Gardens this week. Our table was nestled amongst the bush and Ginger Rose had a wonderful time exploring.

There were some very friendly birds and lizards, but my companion was a little nervous when I pointed out that the lizard pictured above was sitting under out table. He was quite large and adventurous!

The Little Prince hung out with his friend. What a life :).

Chubby bubby

Just look at those lovely plump limbs. I think he's filling out nicely. He sometimes joins us at the table for meals, but our table conversation is clearly not stimulating enough.

Evidence of undomesticity

On Friday afternoon the TV comes on again - and my children loll in exhausted heaps. If I didn't insist on food and drink being consumed on the tiled areas of the house they'd never move!

And after a traditional first bath, here's the real way to bath a fifth child. In the hand basin. I found it remarkably quick and easy, but the Little Prince wasn't so sure.

And a gratuitous sleeping baby photo.

Baby smiles

It's hard to catch the elusive Little Prince smile, but we finally caught one on camera! He's a very smiley responsive baby, and even chortles appreciatively if he's particularly impressed with something. It's amazing how fast he's growing!

Evidence of domesticity

This is the way I make our drinking yoghurt. I make a double batch at a time but split the commercial pack and top it up with powdered milk to reduce sugar and cost! My handy Tupperware digital scales make it much easier!

First bath

It's hard to believe that we've made it to six weeks without needing a bath, but thanks to washcloths and a lack of heating, the Little Prince has not been bathed since his arrival!


I was worried that he might take a while to acclimatise to bathing, but he really enjoyed himself. Possum brought in the camera to record the action!




He even enjoyed being dried and dressed.

Christmas Crazy Commercialism...

The pamphlet run is a stern lesson in commercialisation - we can't believe there's just so much JUNK mail! And it truly is JUNK mail. Our biggest delivery so far has been 17 pamphlets at once, which was challenging because of the sheer bulk of 17 pamphlets that included a large newspaper style addition (The Good Guys are NOT our friends!) as well as the time it took to fold that many pamphlets.

One of the saddest things is that "No Junk Mail" stickers don't really save the environment because it's in the pamphlet distributor and the pamphlet deliverers' best interests to pretend they don't have as many "No Junk Mails" in their area. Our distributor is a little horrified that we actually return all of the pamphlets that aren't delivered.

Our latest delivery is "only" twelve pamphlets at a time. We're getting quite systematic about the deliveries - we put out two lines of pamphlets in size order on the dining/table tennis table so that we can have two people working at once. Dh is in charge of bagging, and has it down to a fine art, using the right number of recycling bags for each street.

Dh kept us entertained last night reading our latest family novel, The People of Sparks, while we folded.

Ginger Rose loves her soccer ball...

With difficulty we've convinced her to play outside not in the kitchen!

Meeting Grandma L

Grandma L certainly has a way with little boys - apart from bringing them fantastic knitted presents she's clearly the funniest thing! Andrew beamed and giggled away with Grandma last night!

5 weeks

I can't believe how fast my babymoon is flying. I am enjoying every precious moment more than I thought possible - well, almost every moment!

Of course, Ginger Rose sees the camera and says "take my photo, please" so for every photo of the Little Prince, we have a corresponding Ginger Rose photo!

Family chiropractic

I was very conscientious about maintaining a good chiropractic schedule during pregnancy, which paid off big-time with my overall health, well-being and the super-easy (for me!) birth - but then I slacked off with inevitable results. So, we're all back on scheduled chiropractic visits.

Dh has been using a new technique, network care, that works wonders for us all. It has the added benefit of allowing dh to treat more than one of us in the same room so it's a real family bonding experience. The Ginger Ninja and Little Prince shared this appointment.

The Little Prince was so impressed he fell asleep there!