Came home to the smell of freshly cut timber permeating the house. Much nicer than the dusty smell of demolition. I had to include two photos today – my artsy one above and this one I captured of Thomas and Kei enjoying a Father/Son moment in the construction site. Thomas likes going up there to check on the progress and remind us which room is which. “Here’s the closet, here’s the shower, here’s my room” etc.

We went in search of bathroom fixtures today. Once we had narrowed down the brand it wasn’t as daunting as I had feared. I mean, it’s not like we have an unlimited budget with unlimited options.

Decisions made today – Bathroom sink faucet, shower fixture, sink (somewhat – still deciding on a vanity to put it in) and a toilet. Our main concern… good flush. Apparently there’s only one brand name to consider when you want good flush – who knew? The only decision left to make is whether we go with the more modern looking toilet that has dual flush, or go for the more classic look (which I like better) without the dual flush option. Every new toilet in Australia has dual flush so if I was at home I wouldn’t have to make this sacrifice. Sigh!

So is that more than you wanted to know about toilets? Yes, me too.

We attended a birthday party yesterday for one of Thomas’ friends from daycare. Thomas had so much fun. I think he was mainly just relieved to have some friends to play with after spending a whole week with me and Kei, being shuffled between different houses.

They had a clown at this party which was fun and she did very well to entertain a bunch of mainly three year olds. That’s a tough crowd. The clown asked for volunteers during the show and much to my surprise Thomas decided to stand up and help. I think he was motivated by the stickers she kept giving to the volunteers. He didn’t jump up, just stood up and walked slowly to the front. A little tentative but he definitely knew what he was doing. It was so cute! His job was to wave a wand over a magic colouring book and, yes, he did get his sticker… and I got my photo, so everyone was happy.

We got home at about 1:30 and Thomas fell asleep for three hours. I think they call it a sugar coma.

This is Thomas’ friend Ethan – son of my friend Laurie. How cute is he? The other kid is Thomas trying not to be in the photo. 🙂

Today was the last day of our nomadic existence. Daycare is back next week and I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to go back to the office. We hung out at Laurie and Ethan’s house today so that I could do some work, Thomas could burn some energy playing and we could use a bed for naptime (Thomas, not me, although I really did need a nap by about 10am).

I sure owe a lot of favours after this week. We have such great friends and are so fortunate that we had some options beyond spending the week in our car. Thank you doesn’t seem enough when you are invading someone else’s space for long periods of time.

This has quite possibly been the craziest and longest week of my life. The good news is that our new addition is quickly taking shape. We can now see where the windows will go and how big our closet will be. I know there is a long way to go yet but I am so excited by how far we’ve come after just two weeks. I’ll post more photos on the weekend when it stops snowing and hailing. The weather is having a crazy week too.

It’s 10pm, the end of a very long day and you haven’t taken your 365 photo yet. So what do you do? You take a photo of your dessert. Your yummy, chocolate, shouldn’t really be eating it this late at night, dessert.

We had dinner with our Aussie friends – a quick visit thanks to a nasty stomach bug (them, not us) but I was so glad we were able to at least catch up for a little while.

I was so proud of Thomas. I thought for sure he would melt down at the restaurant after a VERY long day but he was so good. Sat in the highchair and kept himself occupied through the whole meal. Paper over tablecloths at nice restaurants is the best invention EVER when you need colouring space for a toddler. That, and husbands who think to bring a pre-dinner snack in the form of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Spring has sprung! Now if only the rain would stop…

A stark contrast to yesterday’s photo… It is very rare that I get photos of Thomas sleeping, mainly because he likes the room to be very dark before he will take a nap.

We are nomads this Spring Break week – hanging out our friends’ house during the day. Daycare is closed, Kei and I still need to work and our house is too noisy and dusty for us to stay. Is this what they call the perfect storm? Oh, and we have some friends from Australia coming to visit for a couple of days starting tomorrow. Anyone hear thunder?

So Thomas has no choice but to sleep in a very light room. And he’s been doing very well despite the fact that he asked me to turn off the sun. It does mean I am able to take a photo of him sleeping – on a very sweet patchwork quilt against a gorgeous green wall. Great photo opp. OK, I may have lost focus of the chaos in my life but when you look at a photo this peaceful then that is easy to do.

And this pic was taken about 90 seconds later, after Thomas woke up and just before the crakiness set in. Back to reality.

This is the standard view I have of Thomas these days – a blur of motion. I think it’s the reason I haven’t put on as much weight this pregnancy, even though my calorie intake defies the logic.

My three big indulgences – wine, sushi and chocolate. Two of those are not the best things to consume while pregnant which leaves me with chocolate. And I have definitely been using it as my crutch. Luckily I have a toddler to chase after, carry around and generallly corral on a daily basis. It’s called balance. 🙂

Easter morning. This is the best photo I could get thanks to low light and a moving toddler. We don’t have a lot of room to hide eggs this year thanks to our compressed living conditions so I made a half-hearted attempt at creating a little egg trail that Thomas had to follow to gather eggs to put in his basket. I gave him a few chocolate eggs but also three plastic eggs containing matchbox cars, a book and some Wiggles stickers that the Easter Bunny magically knew to grab before we left the concert.

I hadn’t really built up the whole Easter Bunny thing so I think it was a nice surprise for Thomas rather than something he was anticipating.

The rest of our Easter was very low key spent relaxing and tidying up before the construction chaos begins again tomorrow. OK, part of it was recovering from the Wiggles concert. Being 7.5 months pregnant is not the best situation to be in when you have to carry a 30 pound toddler down about 100 very steep stairs in a concert arena. There’s no nice way to say it – I was knackered.

Saturday was a VERY big day. Thomas and I went to see The Wiggles in concert. Yes, those four middle aged men in coloured skivvies who sing and dance to entertain toddlers. It was so much fun!

Thomas and I met up with three of my friends who have kids the same age. I met most of this group when I was pregnant with Thomas and the kids were all born within three months of each other (the boys within three weeks). My choice for photo of the day is the best shot I was able to get of them all together. They were pretty much done by this stage and ready to go home.

From the moment The Wiggles came out on stage, Thomas was awestruck. He sat on my lap with his mouth open for the first 15 minutes of the show, like this…

I don’t think he could quite believe what he was seeing. And then when Captain Feathersword came out… well, the only thing I can compare it to is if I ran into Robbie Williams on the street. OK, I may not be as composed as Thomas if I were to run into Robbie. Here are some more photo highlights.

You can see how close we were – 6th row on the floor. The best concert seats I have ever had. For Wiggle virgins – that’s Murray Wiggle in the red.

The aforementioned Captain Feathersword. Not sure what Thomas’ attraction is.

Thomas and Ava. She is such a little performer. And I promise Thoams did dance (and smile) during the show. It was just difficult to catch on camera.

Ava decided to sit on my lap and of course Thomas couldn’t let that happen unless he had some part of it too.

The famous big red car and the close of the show.

We had a ball and the kids were great. Not one meltdown during the entire show and, apart from a slight incident where Thomas fell though the back of a folding chair onto the concrete floor, the entire adventure was a success!

We got home at about 7:00 and that’s when Thomas decided that it was all too much. A very tired little boy went to bed crying. Not the perfect end to a perfect day but I think Thomas will remember this for a long time. Well…until he forgets his toddler years anyway. Seriously – who can remember when they were two years old?

Oh and we finished our taxes – see, the perfect day! 🙂