Kate's delighted to get a kiss from her cousin Ryan	Aiden	Kate	At the beach with Mummy	Playing with Daddy
OMG It's The Wiggles!	Kate, Aiden and Nana at The Wiggles	Posing on the couch	Playing in the cubby at Playgroup	Playgroup Christmas party
Playing with the doll's house at Playgroup	Walking with Jackie	Painting at Playgroup		Kate with her Uncle Kieran

Thursday December 18th 2003

2 years 5 months

Ummmmm........kinda got a bit behind for a while there but we're back. Having a new digital camera should help! Life's been so exhilarating, exhausting, joyful, depressing, delightful it almost too hard to know where to start. Let's start with the world of the 2 Year old. The story begins with a very loud

NO

This is the standard answer for much of the day but what I love about my two beautiful children is the very cute way in which they deliver it. They have such cheeky sing song voices that I am sure it proves they won't be axe murderers in later life, they are just merely enjoying the rights of the 2 year old.

They have also entered the world of make believe and dressing up. One evening it was particularly quiet down their end of the house as Aaron and I sat in the lounge room watching the news and playing grownup pretend, you know, where you pretend you don't have kids. Anyway after a while  of fussing we hear "clomp clomp clomp" down the hall way and there appears Kate. She has bunny ears on her head, a delightful silvery handbag, a tutu with no nappy underneath and some lovely silver slip-on mules. Not to appear outdone her twin arrives next in a red baseball cap (hmmmmm not looking too threatening yet) no top, no pants, Mummy's slide on mules and a delightful pink floral handbag. Daddy was very nervous.

The biggest change between now and the last update has been the explosion of language, particularly by Kate. She now speaks in 4 word sentences and understands absolutely everything that is said. She has an amazing memory, particularly if chocolate or icecream is mentioned. Another thing which Kate just loves to talk about is gender. Everyone that comes into the house will get pronounced a boy or a girl. She then says whether they have a ginie (vagina) or a willy (penis). The most embarrassing thing is that she will scream "boobies!" and point to the matching part on female visitors' bodies and if they are really lucky she will try to yank their top up to see them. She is learning who Santa is and had a great conversation with me all about him. "Santa a boy," she says with authority, "Santa got a willy," She adds. Hmmm, glad we cleared that up.

Aiden waiting until practically the day before I was going to take him to be assessed by a Speech Pathologist, finally started talking. I would guess he is several months behind Kate and he is improving all of the time. He is still into "grunting" which drives me completely nuts. He grunts and whines until I guess what it is that he wants. Now I try to make him use words. Can't say it is all that successful yet. He also has a fly paranoia. If a fly comes within a 1 metre radius of his body he runs away screaming, "Bly, bly!" until we spray him with enough fly spray to kill a small animal.

Kate eats absolutely everything and anything. If it doesn't move she will try it. Aiden is still fussy and seems to have a sensitive palette. He eats toast, anything that originated from a cow, rusks, and, hmmmmm, that's about it. I decided I needed to get milk delivered because, really, there's only so much room in a shopping trolley. The Milkie asked how much I wanted each week and I seriously toyed with asking him to just drop off a cow.

I can remember obsessively reading a baby book when Kate and Aiden were young. In it it had the results of survey done about sleeping issues and it said that most children are sleeping through the night well and truly by 2 years of age. Of course there are always exceptions and we'd like to introduce our very cute exception - Aiden. The boy wakes up to 3 times a night demanding milk and like stupid, conditioned, sleep deprived idiots we give it to him, anything to make him go back to sleep. After our holidays we are going to try controlled crying yet AGAIN. Hopefully we will do better at controlling OUR crying through the endless sleepless nights.

The most exciting event in my life of late has been the trip to The Wiggles concert. Tried not to show how excited I was because, let's be honest it's the only music group to which I know all the words. It was absolutely great and we came home with too much merchandise being the victims we (I) are. Kate has a Dorothy hat and tail which she wears everyday. Today she was running around naked except for the hat and tail. Her only defense was that it was a very hot day.