This blog has moved to www.aaronandsheri.wordpress.com

Hi Everyone,

I have moved the blog to www.aaronandsheri.wordpress.com
please go there to view updates on this blog.

Thanks :)

Salmon patties?

Grandma: "I'm going to make some Salmon patties for when Trish comes."
Me: "Oh, what's in them? I bet Hannah could eat some."
Grandma: "Mostly just potatoes and tuna."
Me: "Tuna? So um... is there any salmon in the "salmon" patties?"
Grandma: "No."
Grandma doesn't know it, but she is a comedian.

On another note, I figured out how to get a photo of Hannah that doesn't consist of her running towards me with her arms out in hopes of stealing the camera. I just sit her down with a container of raisins. Next time I'll get out the digital SLR instead of the little hand held. Maybe I'll even get out the light tent, and dress her up. Oh the possibilities.....

P.S. Hannah loves eating lemons. As in scoop out the innards, and feed them straight to her. No "Oh Mommy, this is so sour, why are you giving this to me!" face, just happiness that she gets to eat lemons. Still can't find a fruit she doesn't like. Maybe I should try durian.

Why so much noise?

I've always liked getting the ads/circulars in the mail. I look forward to them every week. Last week, Aldi's ads showed they were having a huge toy sale. This of course, led me to arrive at Aldi's just before 9am on sale day, with Hannah and Grandma in tow, in a quest for birthday presents. Who would have thought that sale day at Aldi's is like a pride of lions who have been starved for a week, ravenous for their next meal. People were lined up in no real order, more like mobbed up, outside the door, waiting for pole position when the automatic glass doors were turned on. People tried to get in front of each other and made a mad scramble for the toys (and tools, tools were there too). Luckily, I made a wise choice and left Hannah outside with Grandma while I joined the mad dash in search for a toy I wanted. For those of you reading this from the U.S., let me explain a little about Aldi's. Aldi's is no ordinary shop. It's a German grocery store giant that has started the quest to take over Australia by offering good food of their own brand (and some name brands every so often) at basement prices. They don't always have the same things, but there are some staple items that they do always carry. The rest of it, mostly the non food items, are only there for a week at a time, sometimes not coming back for over a year. Sometimes they have massive toy sales, sometimes they have no toys at all. Sometimes they have gardening things, sometimes they have none. When they run out of their special items, that's it, no more. We did get the desired presents for Hannah, and escaped without any bruises or confrontations. I did bend my nail back while trying to pick up a big box though. That kinda hurt.

It's very cold here at the moment, 0-1 degree in the morning (Celsius, not Fahrenheit). Even so, Hannah loves nothing more then running down the hall way sans clothing, giggling and squealing to anyone who happens to be around. Every time I get her ready for her bath, I put her down for just a moment while I put her dirty nappy in the nappy bucket and no sooner then I've put her down, she's off. I'll have to let her run around for longer when it's a bit warmer, but for now, I just chase after her, snatch her up and get her in the bath, giggling and bouncing the whole way.

For as long as I can remember, I have had a red coloured mole on on my chest, sometimes visible to anyone depending on what kind of shirt I wear and how high it is. Don't worry, I've had it checked out, and there is nothing wrong with it. I tried telling that to Hannah, but she won't listen. She seems to feel that said mole needs to be removed asap. This of course involves her flinging my hair out of the way, pulling down my shirt, and then trying to scratch and pull the mole off.

"WAAAAAAAA!!!!" I looked at the clock. 5am. I grabbed the baby monitor and turned on the sleepy music. Hopefully Hannah would fall asleep again by the end of the music. She didn't. I got up to go and pat her. And pat her and pat her and pat her. I'm trying to wean her. It's not going so well. I patted her for 2 hours, then it was time to get up for the day. She didn't relent and sleep, I didn't relent and give her boob (until 7am, as it was time to get up for the day). We've been down to 2 feeds in 24 hours for quite a while now, but I thought it was time to get down to 1, in hopes of then having none just after she turns 1. I, of course, wanted to get rid of the overnight feed first. Hannah, of course, had other ideas. Seems she's quite fond of the overnight feed and has no problem crying for 2 hours straight to get it. After 2 nights of our battle of wills, Hannah won. I gave in and fed her. New plan: get rid of her dream feed (when I go in her room at 9:45pm, and without fully waking her, feed her, and put her back to bed). She hasn't missed that feed one bit, and sometimes she is sleeping right through without waking up for her overnight feed. It would help if she ate her dinner, I'm sure, but she doesn't seem to like dinner for some reason.

Why is it that microwaves, washing machines, etc. always make obnoxiously loud beeping noises when you push their buttons? Seriously, I'm pushing buttons on the microwave to make it heat for one minute. I can see my button pushing is working from the screen that now says 1:00. Why the need for the beep? Do manufacturers have a joint mission to wake up sleeping babies and annoy everyone? Why is there no off switch for obnoxiously loud beeps? Or at least a volume button or something. Then if I leave the food I just heated in the microwave for a longer then the microwave deems acceptable after it's finished heating, it will beep at me more. And then more and more, until I take it out. Does the microwave think I'm senile? I've forgotten that I put something in there?

I was thinking I might change my blog to a more normal blog, that is one that is updated every couple of days, but not so long each time. What does everyone think about that, do you prefer the once per week long blog, or would you rather a every couple of days not as long blog (and each entry would probably be more well written as I wouldn't get distracted by tv or something while writing it)?

Hannah the great

Time since birth: 11.5 months (she's almost 1!!!)

Stopped at a stoplight on the way to drop Aaron off at the station, something on the vehicle in front of us caught my eye. I did a double take. The truck in front of us had testicles. That's right, testicles. Why on earth someone would attach a pair of testicles to a vehicle is beyond me. Not only that, but why would someone design, manufacture, and sell such an item? Wouldn't you be embarrassed to drive around with plastic testicles on your truck? When the light changed to green, the truck was off. The testicles started swaying back and forth at an alarming rate. Just like staring at a fire, I couldn't take my eyes off them. Surely they are some sort of driving hazard as well as being super bogan-y. How could someone not look at a pair of plastic testicles vigorously swaying back and forth on a truck? Only in Penrith.

A couple of days later, stopped at the very same set of lights, but on the other side of the road, I saw something else one would only see in Penrith: there on the car in front of us was a sticker. "Vaginatarian." Seriously, someone actually put that on their car? I bet the occupant of that car gets no dates. Maybe he gets dates, but then he brings them to his car to transport them to date spot, they see the sticker, think "wanker!" to themselves and then pretend to be sick and not go out with him.

There was so much work to be done when we moved in here. That was to be expected since we were moving in with a hoarder. Not like the I have to much trash I can't find my pet cat kind of hoarder, but a hoarder none the less. I started with the kitchen. Looking in the cupboards, I found 2 toasters. Not to mention the one that was out and being used. I also found no less then 6 dinner sets, 2 different sandwich presses, and oh the list goes on. Grandma told me that her Mum always said "If you keep something for long enough, you'll always find a use for it." I guess that motto stuck with Grandma. Lucky for me, I coaxed her into getting rid of some of it. Otherwise there is no way our stuff would have fit in the cupboards at all. I found a cupboard full of platters, none of which I'd ever seen being used (and I used to live across the road from Grandma, so I was over a lot).
"Can I give this away Grandma?" I could see her mind working. "How long have you had it?"
"20 years."
"how long since you've used it?"
"20 years. Ok, you can give it away."

Next I started on the pantry. The pantry was choc-a-bloc full of stuff, most of which I thought rather questionable. I went through every single item in that pantry and checked every single expiration date. I actually found food that expired in 1992. That's right, it was EIGHTEEN years out of date. I'm not sure which is more shocking, that there was food in there 18 years expired, or the fact the 1992 was 18 years ago. I'm getting old!

I can hear you screaming inside, "what about Hannah?!?! How is Hannah going, what is she doing?" She is GREAT! My little wonderful baby has been walking for a month now, and she is getting cheekier every single day. She has a little hand puppet with a duck on each finger that she loves to carry around and tell everyone that it is "DUCK!" We often ask her where duck is and she'll stop what she is doing, look all around, locate it, yell "DUCK!" and then trot over and pick it up. I bought her a little (well, compared to her size, it's big) purse to put some toys in and take with us when we go out. She loves to carry it around even when we're at home. In fact, she doesn't just like to walk around, she prefers to walk around while carrying something. Preferable something big and heavy like my purse or Aaron's 1 litre water bottle full of water. Sometimes even the washing basket.

Everywhere we go, she wants all eyes on her. Hannah will squeal loudly until some random person in the supermarket looks at her, and then she will smile and bounce and giggle at them. One day a lady was talking on the phone when Hannah started her cheekiness, and the lady got so distracted by Hannah that she told the person on the other end of the phone that she would have to call them back as "this really cute baby keeps smiling and giggling at me and I just can't think at the moment." We went to a newcomers dinner at church the other night (we're not really newcomers as we went to the same church for a long time last time we lived in this area, but I suppose we were away for 3 years), and once again Hannah was up the her mischief. Right when the minister was addressing everyone, telling people about the church, etc. Hannah decided that she wanted the spotlight instead. She kept walking up to people, getting them to look at her, and when they did, doing a really funny, loud, fake laugh while smiling. Of course everyone then looked at her, which only egged her on more. She is so cute though, how can you not laugh and smile when she does such things?

Now that this is the length of a novel, I'll stop writing. But don't worry, we have the internet now, so you will hear about the antics of Hannah every week.

Quest for the internet

Yay, finally the blog is back!! The only reason I didn't (couldn't) write it sooner was lack of the Internet. We moved in the middle of April, and have had the worst time getting the Internet since then. You'd think it would be easy to give someone your money in exchange for a service, but, as we have found, it is not.

The quest began when we first moved. Aaron signed up to get Internet with TPG, a provider that for some reason has twice the download limit for half the price, just what we wanted. After a while, they notified Aaron that they could not provide us with the Internet unless we switched our phone line to Telstra. Seemed like a bit of a hassle, so we decided instead to do some research and find someone else to provide us with the Internet. Unfortunately there are not very many providers in this area, so after much thinking, we decided we would in fact switch to Telstra and then get TPG.

I called Telstra, went through all the hoopla needed to sign up to switch to their company, and was told it would be done on or before 2 weeks, and we would get a letter in the mail when it was done letting us know so. So we waited. And waited...and waited.... After 2.5 weeks (I would have called sooner, but was laid up with food poisoning which saw me puking more in 1 day then I have in all my life combined, followed by an injection to stop the puking, and my refusal to ever eat chicken from Chicken Man ever again), I was sufficiently annoyed and phoned Telcrap (I mean Telstra) to find out what was wrong.
"Your application was denied," I was told.
"Ok, why is that?" I asked them.
"I'm not sure. Do you want me to put the application through again for you?"
"Um, I would like to know why we were denied first. What if we put an application through, wait another 2 weeks, and then find out I was denied again?"
"Oh."
He gave me another number to call to find out why our application was denied.
"The sales person filled out the wrong form. She filled out the form for a new number, not the form for transferring a number from another provider." I was told by huffy customer relations officer.
"So why didn't someone call me and tell me that rather then just letting us wait and wait and wait, thinking the whole time that a phone line will be installed?"
"Sorry, but that was not my department, it was sales. Do you want to put another application through?"
"Would I have to wait another 2 weeks?"
"Yes. It would be like filling out a whole new application, the whole process would start again."
"So let me get this straight, because your company stuffed up and filled out the wrong form, and then failed to notify me, I have to go through the whole process again even though I should already have a phone line."
"Um...yeah."
"That's ridiculous." Click. I could feel myself getting flustered, and I really didn't want to yell at random unsympathetic customer relations dude, especially in front of Hannah, so I just had to hang up. Of course there was no way we were going to switch from Telcrap after that. Seriously, if they said something like "we're really sorry that happened, if you put in a new application, we will have someone connect your line tomorrow (or even the day after that would have been fine)." But no, that would have been too hard.

The quest began again. Aaron called another Internet supplier only to be told that we'd have to switch to Telcrap. This company, however, actually told us why (if only someone would have told us sooner!!): we have the privilege of having a fibre optic telephone wire. We thought all this time the reason we had to switch to Telcrap was because we had some geriatric decrepit phone line that was incapable of providing broadband/ADSL/ADSL2 Internet. Oh how that changes things! That really only left us with one choice as most companies don't provide for such high speed fibre optic cables. We had to go with Optus, the provider of said high speed phone line. Yeah, they are more expensive, but you know what? They have wonderful customer service (when I signed up for their Internet, they sent someone 2 days later to connect it and give us the little box thing, and they even told me beforehand what time and day they were sending someone, and they were super friendly and obliging), and the fastest Internet in Australia, so it's worth it.

Finally, we have the Internet. Insert sigh of relief here.

The Ringlet

Time since birth: 9 months Yeah, I didn't write last week. We're moving next week, and I've been flat out packing, organising, etc. Not to mention it takes twice the time to pack when you have to clean every single thing you pack to make sure that no mold/mildew comes with us. Dirty, dirty apartment (I won't miss you). I don't really have time to write proper stories and things this time either, so I'm just going to tell a little of what's been happening: Hannah figured out a few weeks ago how to pick up very small objects and accurately get them into her mouth (she could pick them up for a while, but getting them in her mouth when the little object was in her fist rather then between her fingers was proving difficult for her), which is good when she is feeding herself peas and corn (both of which she loves, and loves to feed herself), but very bad when she's attempting to feed herself dust bunnies, and random bits of who knows what that she finds anywhere and everywhere. Who knew there could be so many tiny pieces of string all over the floor? Where do they come from? Even after I just vacuum, she finds things. I'm sure she's eaten her fair share of random stuff, I often see her chewing but can't pry her little mouth open to remove whatever it is she had before she swallows it. Or maybe she didn't actually get anything into her mouth but thinks she did, so she makes chewing motions. Or maybe she is punking me. Hannah's fourth tooth is now free of her gums (much to her delight), and she now enjoys biting even more then she used to. Especially Daddy's nose. She has been biting Daddy's nose since the day she was born (there is photographic evidence of this), but now she does it and then gives a cheeky little "ha ha Daddy, I got you!" grin when she's done. Often she will crawl over to me for cuddles and then bite my shoulder. Or try to eat my hair. She goes in for the cuddle, then when she pulls back again, she has a mouth full of my hair and a very accomplished look on her face. I bought Hannah her first little pair of shoes. It's getting cold and she refuses to keep socks on (or if she does, she eats them while they are on, so then they are all wet and I'm sure her feet are then colder then they would have been without any socks at all). I know it's crazy to pay $50 for a pair of baby shoes, but that is exactly what I did. They had cheaper ones, but wouldn't you know it, she got my wide duck feet and couldn't fit in any of the cheaper ones. She also had to have the T-bar style ones as her also fat feet stuck out of the other ones too much (again, just like me when I was a baby. I've heard stories about my fat little feet not fitting into the baby shoes. Plus I looked like I ate other babies for breakfast). The T-bar ones only came in gold, so now she has bling feet. On the plus side, she can now wear socks and she can't get them off because there are shoes over them. Booyah. Oh, and she can stand by herself for up to 10 seconds at a time. When she realises, she can't stand anymore. I took some photos of Hannah's ringlet. Yes, just the one. Well, I guess there could be more, but all of her long hair just goes into one giant ringlet down the middle of her head. It kinda looks like a ringlet mohawk. Anyway, I put some photos of it in this post for viewing pleasure. She sure doesn't get that from my side of the family (if you've seen photos of me, my mom, or my dad with curls, it's only because at some point in our lives, we have all had perms. Yes, even my Dad (haha, your secret is out!). If only I had those photos...). Ok, so I didn't mean to write so much, but, stuff happens. Might not hear from me next week, still so much packing and stuff to do!! At least I won't be also running around getting the car inspected for rego (um...that is short for "registration" for you non Aussie's), finding the cheapest CTP greenslip (Compulsory Third Party insurance that you must have before you can actually register or renew your car's registration), and transfer of title papers. On an annoying note, you'd think that "comprehensive" car insurance would cover everything, right? Well, not here. Here, you have to have your CTP greenslip, which ONLY covers you for third party injury liability, then if you want any other kind of insurance, that is separate. "Comprehensive" does not include compulsory third party liability insurance. Highway robbery? I think so. And how much does a CTP greenslip cost (I know you are wondering)? Well, for us and our car, it's $639 for a year. How much does comprehensive cost on top of that (if we want it)? Another $600 something dollars. How much does third party property damage (like if we hit another car and their car was damaged) cost? $100 something. How can they call it "comprehensive" when clearly, it's not. RUDE!!! Ok, going now, really, I am.

The poo incident

Hannah:
Mommy has been trying to teach me to clap. Ok, I should say trying to get me to clap because I learned how to a while ago. I just haven't had anything so good that I needed to pull out my new clapping trick for. Until today that is.

Sheri:
I have been trying to find a good pair of black shoes for a while now. Well, I found lots of them, but finding them in my size is another story. Needless to say, Hannah has been bored out of her mind in the stroller for a couple of shopping trips now. Today I finally found a good cute little pair of black flats that actually fit me. They even have some sparkles on them! Just as I picked them up after trying them on, Hannah clapped! I got so excited that I dropped everything right there in the middle of the aisle and loudly said "Yay!!!" while wildly clapping myself. I'm sure I looked a little looney to everyone around, but I don't care, my baby clapped and I was going to encourage her no matter what.

Hannah:
Mommy had been trying on shoe after shoe while I sat there, watching, bored bored bored in my pram. "This is the one Bubba, it's cute and it actually fits!" Hallelujah to that Mommy, let the boredom end! Now that was a reason to clap!
"oh, these ones are cute too," Mommy reached for another shoe. NOOOOOO!! In my disgust, I cried. And you know what? Mommy didn't try on any more shoes.


Sheri:
Every Saturday I get to sleep in. Aaron gets up at 7ish when Hannah wakes up, changes her nappy, gets her dressed, and then plays with her until 8, when I get up and feed her. I love my Saturday morning sleep ins, and look forward to them every week as only a sleep deprived first time mom can. Then on Sundays, Aaron gets to sleep in while I get up at 7ish when Hannah wakes up. Good deal I think. This Saturday, however, something disrupted my little much needed sleep in.
"Boo!!!" I heard Aaron calling me from Hannah's room. Hmmm...Should I pretend to be asleep? It is my sleep in morning after all.
"Boo!!!"
"What?" It must be urgent, he knows I love my sleep in. I got up.
It was the smell that hit me first. I always know when Hannah has done a poo, but usually the smell seems to be a little contained at least. This time it seemed to be everywhere, seeping into my nostrils from all directions.
"I need some help." Aaron said. I looked down. There she was, stark naked, Aaron holding her armpits so she could stand up. I looked down further. I wonder if my face gave away my surprise, horror, bewilderment, and ultimately the sense of ewwwww that I felt right at that moment. She was wearing a nappy when I put her to bed. Unfortunately, she seems to have found a way to take it off. I have no idea how, she was wearing a sleeping bag after all. I guess she wanted both Daddy and Mommy to pay her some attention that morning. Did I mention she always does a poo when she wakes up? Hannah's feet were COVERED in poo. Aaron called her "Poo Shoes." Next to her little cheeky feet was the nappy, freely sitting at the bottom of her sleeping bag. All over her sleeping bag...poo. Everywhere. Yes, this was definitely a 2 person clean up job. I had a look at her bed and sure enough, a little turd and it's poopstreak friend sat there, patiently waiting to be cleaned up. I had only put those sheets on the day before! When we got her new pink soft sleeping bag for $20 at Target, I thought the slit in the front and back so you could put them in their sleeping bag and then strap them into the pram or car seat or what have you, was a fantastic idea. Now, not so sure. Safety belt slits are apparently good de-nappying and poo escaping holes.


Hannah - other stuff this week:
We went to Grandma's house on the weekend, and I got to play with the little walker thing that Grandma bought for me. It was so much fun! It has 4 wheels and a handle so I can stand up, hold on, and then walk, walk walk! Mommy sat at one end of the hallway, and Daddy on the other. I couldn't figure out how to turn the walker around, so I would walk down the hallway, then Mommy or Daddy would turn me around and I'd walk back the other way. I wish I had one of those at home!
One day I was in the bath, and I grabbed the side of the bath and stood up. "oh, there's a boat," I thought. I grabbed it, held it in both hands, and put it in my mouth. I always have to see if something is edible. Of course, Mommy tells me that lots of things I think taste perfectly fine aren't for eating. Like the other day. I found a nice looking hair ball under the tv stand and put it in my mouth. Mommy said it wasn't edible and pulled it out of my mouth, but I got to eat some of it. Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, so I had the boat and was trying to eat it when Mommy said "What a clever girl, you're standing all by yourself!!!" Oh, wow, I really was. But then I realised and couldn't balance anymore and sat down. I can stand for about 5 seconds now all by myself!! Mommy and Daddy get so excited when I do, so I'm going to try really hard to stand longer.
My mouth really hurts. I try to sleep like a good girl, but it's really hard because my gums are so sore. My top tooth is trying to grow, but it's being really mean to me and taking a long, painful time. I have a cold too, so I keep coughing and waking myself up. I don't like teeth.