My g-rated fringe festival

I love this time of year in Perth. It is just so fun! Last night, Ed and I were having dinner at the Noodle Palace pre-show and I was wondering why I didn't get more into the Fringe Festival before having children. Turns out it only started in 2011 but just because I have children now, I don't have to miss out, I just have to change my focus.

There are a lot of late night shows and some which you have to be pretty open-minded about but there are actually plenty which are fun for the whole family. In my case, I have made this the whole extended family. If I can't fringe binge myself, I'll just share it around! 

I gave my nieces and nephew tickets to something which is coming up on the weekend as a birthday gift and I organised for Ed and my brother to take Jennifer and my other nephew to see Peter Combe's show, "Wash Your Kids in Orange Juice." As you can see from the photo, Jennifer quite enjoyed it. I, of course, wish I could have been there but seeing a photo of her so happy might just be enough.

Then finally last night, Ed and I went to see Luke Ryan in "A Funny thing Happened on the Way to Chemo". It was great. Very funny. Brought back some good and bad memories but overall just made me laugh. He's got a few more shows which apparently aren't sold out, so if you're looking for something to go to, I recommend it. 

Actually, just go to anything or just go into Fringe World and have a drink. There is such a great atmposhere around the city at the moment and the shows are so cheap, you really can't go wrong. 

Our giant effort. Part 2.

I am determined to enjoy the "incredible and phenomenal journey of the giants." We are not giving up. I study the maps again. New plan. Sunday morning, Langley Park. It's flat. Both giants are going to be there. I am sacrificing the babies' morning sleep. I'm sure this is going to be good. 

We get to the train station to find the lift is out of order. So is the up escalator. Come on! I carry/drag the children up the stairs, Ed and a kind stranger manage the roadtrain. That's ok. We can do this. I will not let Transperth rain on my parade. The train arrives. It is packed. We literally cannot get on. That's ok, there will be plenty of trains. We can do this. I am determined. 

We make it to Esplanade Station with approximately one million other people. As we make our way off the train, I immediately hear something about prams over the loudspeaker, something about folding them up to go the on the escalators. Ok, whatever, we're going to use the lift anyway. Oh no we're not, there is approximately 60 prams lined up outside the lift. There is only one lift. So we are going to use the escalators. Again, I pick up the boys and try to hold on to Miss 2's hand while Ed manages the equipment. It's awkward, I'm not comfortable. Miss 2 sees that the stairs are moving, she's starting to panic, I think she's going to bolt, now I'm starting to panic.

My look of fear must be clear. A lovely lady, aka my knight in shining high vis, swoops in and takes over Miss 2, escorting her with ease to the top of the escalator. She ushers us to the side while we wait for Ed. We pile everyone back on the roadtrain and emerge from the station feeling triumphant. We haven't seen a giant yet but I feel like we've achieved giant things. 

We get a pretty good spot, bump into some people we know, see both giants doing there thing. Catch the bus home. We did it.

Our giant effort. Part 1.

Ed and I have been excited about the Giants coming for months. We waited in anticipation for the journey routes to be released, studied the maps, cross-referenced to the babies sleep times, aligned to the train timetables. We had a plan, a good plan. Things did not go to plan.

Friday morning. We get on the train feeling extremely excited. Super stoked to learn that the big, man giant is having a sleep outside the train station. Bonus, we're going to get to see him. That wasn't even on the plan. All goes well and we find a pretty good spot near the corner of Barrack and Hay. This is going to be amazing. Cannot be more excited. We can hear the music, drums banging, or could that be giant footsteps? Very excited. 

Here she comes, here she comes, there she is, I can see her! Hang on? She's not walking? This isn't particularly impressive. What's going on? Now she's gone. She didn't even stop in the intersection where there were literally thousands of people waiting for her. Surely that's not it? What's going on? The crowd is sort of looking at each other with a mix of disappointment and confusion. 

We make our way back to the train station in a bit of a daze. What happened? Our plan was flawless. We stop to look at the big, sleeping man. 

Sitting on the train, we start to hear people talking. Turns our the little girl can't walk up hills so was being pushed on a trolley. That wasn't in any of the information I read. Why didn't it just say, "for the full effect, you are best to go to either the start or end point of the journey." I scroll through my facebook feed and see amazing pictures of the little girl in full action mode. I feel like I've failed my family. Not happy.

More about food

One great thing about food and babies is that they will pretty much eat anything...cucumber, corn, tomato, bread, leaves, dirty shoes. They are completely indiscriminate about what they put in their mouth.

Contrast this with a toddler. Miss 2 is a reasonably good eater but sometimes she just isn't and there is no rhyme nor reason. This week provides a perfect example. On Sunday, we had some butterfly lamb and corn-on-the-cob cooked on the barbecue. It was great. The boys were busy chewing on their corn while the rest of us chatted away happily. Miss 2 even asked for more meat. It was a very successful, happy meal. 

On Monday, Ed was out but the children and I basically had the same meal with the leftover lamb. Miss 2 refused to even put it in her mouth. It was exactly the same food. 

On Tuesday, I was out and yes they had leftovers again (it was a big piece of meat). Apparently she ate the lot. What was different about Monday's lamb? Absolutely nothing. 

I don't remember when Miss 2 switched from putting everything in her mouth to sometimes outright refusing to put something in her mouth. To be honest, whilst it's annoying I'm just pleased it doesn't involve additional cleaning up for me. 

Food

This morning I gave up on mitigating mess and had a win with time saving. Miss 2 did a perfectly adequate job of feeding the babies their breakfast while I got some other things done.

It is no coincidence my blogging hiatus has coincided with the boys starting solids. I know lots of parents get excited about giving babies proper food and want to do it really soon. I am not one of these people. I put it off until they were six months corrected, skipped purees, went straight to finger foods and still it feels like a full time job.

The only thing more frustrating than the time it takes to feed a baby is the mess they make. I seem to recall with Miss 2 thinking it was cute when she had yoghurt all over her face. With the boys I just see mess that I have to clean up - every day, usually four times a day. The meals just roll together. By the time clean up is done, it's time to start planning the next food explosion.

Yesterday I found myself having a conversation with my very intelligent and interesting friend about floor wipes. This has what it has come to - talking about floor cleaning solutions.  I have never been more interested in getting a dog.

Hip babe

Master S had his post brace x-ray the other day and now has perfect hips. Hooray! In hindsight the brace wasn't too bad - just another thing to worry about. He had it from 12 - 24 weeks, 23 hours a day for seven weeks and 20 hours a day for five weeks. It bothered me more than him.

I had never heard of hip dysplasia until I was told Miss J had clicky hips and we were sent off to have an ultrasound. She turned out not to need treatment but at the time I googled all about it and was terribly upset just by the possibility of my perfect little baby having to have a brace. Fortunately (or unfortunately) by the time Master S and L were born I had become reasonably familiar with the condition as it seems to be increasingly common. I actually met an orthotist the other day. This is someone whose job it is to fit the braces. Never heard of the profession previously and now I'm actually bumping into them at parties (well one at one party but I don't get out much).

Whether or not it has become more common, one thing I know for sure is that you can't be too cautious. My friend's son didn't get diagnosed until he had a limp when he started walking. He is now in the middle of years of brace treatment which may not even work so he could still need surgery when he is four and then be in an almost full body cast for months afterwards followed by further brace treatment. Unfortunately, this scenario is not unusual. I'm in a facebook group about hip dysplasia which has 1,873 members. Many stories are similar to mine - picked up early, treatment whilst a baby, not too big a deal. However, many stories are horrendous with years and years of treatment because it wasn't picked up early. 

So if you're pregnant or have a little baby, I highly recommend that you push to have an ultrasound on the hips. It doesn't hurt the baby and could save you years and years of torment.

Halloweening

I just looked up halloween on wikipedia and I still don't really understand what it's about. I know there are lots of people who say it's just a commercial exercise and it's not an Australian tradition. Maybe they are right but it's also fun and I actually think it's great for building a community spirit.

I have never seen so many children running around on the street as I did yesterday. It was fantastic to see neighbours talking to each other and people generally getting excited as a group. I hadn't actually realised it was halloween until yesterday when we walked down the street and discovered houses decorated with spider webs, black cats and skeletons. Not wanting to be the halloween grinch, I decided to get onboard and like it or not, it would seem that a lot of people are with me. By the time I got to the shops they had run out of pumpkins.

Miss 2 what was going on but she loved looking at the decorated houses and seeing the little witches, ghosts and various other costumed and face-painted children running around. When they all knocked on the door at about 6.30pm she was literally about to jump into the bath and was stark naked as she opened the door. It almost seemed like I had been organised enough to prepare her a costume.