The Easter egg thief - Georgy:)

Early morning Easter Sunday (very early considering that day light saving finished but the kids body clocks didn't change), my excited children ran out to see if the Easter Bunny had come. 'He has eaten some of the carrot look, Mummy, look' my daughter exclaimed, pointing to the carrot we had left on the back deck the night before.

So once the sun had actually risen and it was light enough to see, my two rugged up children, with myself and Daddy in tow (video camera at the ready) went outside to look for chocolate eggs that the Easter Bunny had left.

First stop the cubby house and low and behold the kids found four little eggs each and small torches all wrapped up together in heavy plastic casing - now this is key as we were soon to discover.

Next we all trooped down of the deck to what I refer to as the weed lawn. My daughter very quickly spotted shingy purple metalic wrapping indicating an Easter egg and rushed over to pick it up. To everyones surprise that is all it was, just wrapping. This was followed by more discovery of the same. Where were the chocolate eggs that were meant to be inside? We finally found the remanents of them at the base of a big tree in the back corner of the garden where we know possums live (well at least I hope it was possums and not rats).

To give my children credit, neither were that upset (they had already had so much chocolate over the past few days), my daughter was even a little excited and exclaimed, 'I can't wait to tell everyone at childcare, possums ate my Easter eggs.' And we heard her telling my sister later in the day 'we had an Easter egg wrapper hunt this morning' followed by a little giggle.

Sleep, where are you! - Georgy:)

When I was heavily pregnant with my first child I started to read a lot about babies and thought I understood about the lack of sleep but nothing can prepare you and nothing warned me that not only do babies not sleep but toddlers often don't either.

With a four year old and 20 month old now, I can't remember when I last had a really good nights sleep. Surprisingly with my second he slept through the night from 10 weeks old, unfortunately my daughter wasn't sleeping that well. Then when my little boy was about 10 months he stopped sleeping through the night and my daughter started again. It seems they have it all worked out with some tag team thing going - 'ok I am going to sleep through tonight so can you make sure you wake Mummy up, got to keep her on her toes.'

In the last week my little boy has started sleeping through the night again, four nights in a row (I know just writing this he will now stop but oh well) but my daughter has been coming into our bed at about three in the morning (big improve, so fairly happy). I started to think this is it we will have them both sleeping through soon but then my little boy was up half the night coughing the other night, while of course my daughter slept through.

Last night however they both actually slept through - only issue is we have been up since 4.50 am. Seems that my little boy will sleep through as long as he can get up really early to spend time with Mummy. Good thing we have a coffee machine, my best friend!

Single Mum with Benefits - a hard job - Beck:)

Recently I have joined a group of special women, ‘the single mums with benefits club’! Mums out there whose husbands work in a job that keeps them away from home for long hours or a job that sends then on frequent business trips will know all about this club. It is a club that I don’t like being a member of (actually yet to meet a mum who does)…after all we don’t have nice swish club rooms or a secret handshake…instead we have that walking dead look in our eyes.

My husband was in Brisvegas last week and is now in Sydney. I have been home alone with my two kidlets…and my 10 month old decided that he would sprout teeth (from 0 to 3 in less than a week)….I was getting worried there for a while but that is another blog. So it has been a tough week with a bubba up at night cutting teeth, trying to get a website organised so I can hand it back to my client, attending PMP (perceptual motor program) duty at my daughter’s kinder, tutoring my Year 12 English Language students , as well as trying to keep a house and study ( lets say the house looks like a bomb has gone off in it and study…not happening this week ).

So I sit here writing (one bubba asleep and the other watching Dora) now really appreciating how hard it would be to be a single mum .

Holiday with kids - Georgy:)

Holiday - can you call it that when you have young kids? It is certainly not like the relaxing holidays we used to have where we could sit on a beach for ages and read, take an hour to drink a coffee somewhere like on the Grand Canal in Venice or wander slowly through the British museum or Louvre, or even go on a four day hike somewhere like Deep Creek in South Australia - all things I did prior to kids.

I remember a couple of years ago when I said I was going on holiday to New Zealand (at the time my little girl was 20 months) and a friend said how can you call it that, when you don't get a holiday from continually looking after a little person - true but actually for me it was a great holiday - for one a break from work and secondly I loved seeing my little girls wonderment at everything we saw. It made it just that more special.

On the weekend just gone we went to Bright in Victoria - relaxing, to a certain degree, being surrounded by nature but at the same time exhausting as neither child slept that well, especially my little boy being stuck in an awful travel cot. My little boy also is at that age where he is into everything and was running off all the time, trying to get in the river with the ducks or run down hills which his little legs aren't quite ready for. Good exercise for me chasing him.

They had a great time though (and so did I), going for small walks along the river, visiting Mount Buffalo and paddling in the Lake there, swimming in the pool at the place we were staying at and just having lots of time with their Mummy and Daddy. It is amazing how over a few days my daughter just became obviously more relaxed and was revelling in being outdoors just about all day. She even said on our last morning, "I don't want to go home Mummy" and I too thought neither do I. It was great to see, as over Christmas we went on a longer holiday to Adelaide, which means rushing around visiting family and friends and then back via the Grampians. After a while my daughter a couple of times a day asked when we were going home and my son became more and more clingy and tired, resulting in my husband and I being exhausted and then sick.

So I have come to realise that holidays with children can be just that if you choose the destination wisely and the amount of time you go for, be prepared to not rush from one thing to another or spend too many hours in a row in the car and in my case realise that another trip to Europe might just have to wait for another few years.

Split personality- Georgy:)

When at work, often think maybe I could do that extra day. I love being in the adult World were people know me before I was Mummy. Love coming into the wonderful City of Melbourne and out of suburbia, enjoying the buzz, getting my morning coffee in a relaxed manner and being able to drink it either deep in thought or reading the paper.

But when at home think gosh I wish I was a full time Mum. I love the more relaxed pace in the morning and not having to rush to childcare and the stress of having to get to work on time. Then at the other end picking up tired children who frequently throw tantrums on getting home and we start the whole evening routine just that bit later. Love having my time with the kids and playing silly games or making things with my daughter, lots of dancing and cuddles with my son and just watching them play. The relaxed pace when it is just the three of us pottering around the house.

But maybe just maybe having a bit of both is having it all, just have to stop wishing I had more of each!