Tuesday I stopped off at the car rental place. The left indicator light was falling out of the car periodically and only hanging on by its wires. They have 4 mechanics on staff (goes to show quality of cars!). While there I also had him take a look at the door (lots of wind whistle and occasional dripping). He mucked around a while and tried to straighten it up although there wasn’t much if any improvement in noise after I left. I also had them look at the front left tire – and got a new one and new hub cap to boot. Not bad. Aidan was very interested in the cars up on the lifts. We proceeded onto some new friends house for a playdate. I saw little of Aidan while we were there – he spent almost the entire time playing trains in another room. Hopefully it was with the other little boy Connor but I think it was more parallel play. Fiona (the mom) lived in Bay area for 3 years. She also had over 2 other American moms and their daughters aged 19 mo and 10 mo. One mom Evette is larger than life (born and bred southern California girl) and lives here in St Heliers. Very friendly and going to lend us her exersaucer. Kind of funny to come all this way and meet the Americans!

Aidan declined to nap – and unfortunately Quincy is falling asleep on our drives home and getting enough nap that he won’t nap again until late afternoon. If we were at home he would take a long nap at around 2 – coinciding with Aidan’s nap. We went to the village and did some errands. I treated whiny boy to a fluffy at a café. He then asked if we were going to the OTHER café next. Which café? The ones with the chicken rolls. Hmm. Not today. It is interesting these days how he makes associations now – I’ll tell him we are going to friends house and he will tell me the toys he thinks they should have and what we should do there. For a while after we arrived several kid’s meals came with ice cream afterwards – so soon Aidan would predict “and then there will be the ICE CREAM!” when we sat down to a meal. After we came home Aidan played by himself for quiet time while I made dinner. Quincy woke as I served it up – he is masterful at that. And so I have him on my lap chomping on a breadstick or spooning in the babyfood (and getting ick all over me) and meanwhile have to help fork some food in Aidan’s mouth periodically as well so we can keep meals down to only an hour long. I fork a few bites in my mouth as well. I will enjoy having another adult around to help when Phyllis arrives J

Today we went to Plunket and joined in the baby session. Seemed to be about 6 month up to 10 or so months of age. One 7 month old was crawling and standing – quite impressive. Other babies lay there. Quincy was rather interesting and was pretty happily quiet. Aidan had another boy of similar age – he wanted nothing to do with. The boy was interested in Aidan though. Aidan was very whiny – too many days without a nap I think and perhaps hungry. I stuffed him full of food as we headed across town to our Jumping Beans class. It is toddler/preschool gym (?) class. Kind of like Acrosports but they do it out of a van in various community halls around town. Aidan really liked it. They set up different stuff I think each week for the kids to try out and they manipulate them between classes too to make them age appropriate. We are in the 2 ½ to 5 year class. Aidan fit right in and did great. Too bad next week is last class before a 4 week break! There is another similar program I just learned of today I might also check out.

We stopped in for lunch at a hole in the wall place that said Take-a-way Organic on it outside – called the Musical Knives. It is actually a cooking class place run by chef who used to be Madonna’s personal chef and has been written up in Vogue. Very limited menu but excellent. I had a beet (beetroot as they say here) salad and got Aidan the corn cakes. I will return. Did I mention I spent Monday night on the internet shopping for Organic Food – home delivered 3 boxes full on Tuesday. So far I am very happy. Even found a peanut butter cereal Panda Puffs similar to Captain Crunch that A & P have at home. We get the Gorilla Munch at home but I have never seen this one by same company.

At home I got Aidan to nap although Quincy decided to stay up after his nap in the car. He rolled around in his crib pretty happily for the 20 min or so I was with Aidan. He then entertained himself fairly well while I read emails. Nice boy! He was very interested in his moving shadow on the wall – he was in a new part of the house (the Hello Room). Aidan slept 2 ½ hours so got up around 5. I asked if he wanted dinner at home or at a restaurant. At a restaurant. That’s my boy! We walked down to the chicken roll café (Kahve). Aidan told me as we walked “we are talking just like you and Daddy do!” He was so thrilled to be having a conversation with me. (Altho we do all the time so I am not sure why it made him so happy). He doesn’t like when Pete and I discuss things that don’t include him in the conversation. He was very good company. On the way home he told me that he thought we would go home and read books then go to bed. Gotta like that. He is also very interested in his shadow (and reflection) and we were entertained by seeing how our shadow changed as we walked along. He also pointed out that we couldn’t hear the crickets after we left behind the hedge around the tennis club. He makes some interesting observations in general. Kids pay attention to different things than we do.

Quincy fell asleep on the walk there as I hoped. Unfortunately he woke just as food arrived!! We had a bit of a wait for the food as they hadn’t started dinner when we arrived and then she seemed to hold off getting our order. And of course once the food arrives Aidan needs plenty of time to eat it! Quincy gnawed on 2 bread sticks. I then pulled out a jar of pumpkin/carrot babyfood. He made a face at first bite but ended up fairly well inhaling ½ the jar. I was impressed. He lets you know when you aren’t going fast enough! I then let him do his snake draining impression on the water glass (and let him have some sips which he loves). He made it almost as long as Aidan needed. Fortunately at the end we were the only people left on the deck (gas heaters) so Q’s squawking only bothered me. Aidan was very cute when he awoke and gave him the toy that he insisted we bring for him. It is interesting to me that all the literature including handouts from Plunket recommend introducing new foods to babies one every 3 or 4 days – and yet in the jars you can buy in the stores they are all combination foods. I think apple is the only single food I have seen. I don’t have any kitchen equipment (nor desire really) to do my own. He doesn’t seem to get the red spot on his cheek like Aidan did (and still does) and I just am not super concerned about allergies for some reason.

So we got home around 7.30 and did indeed read a number of books. Quincy participated for a while – he gets very excited and likes to pound on the books/pages which Aidan doesn’t like. (Or on Aidan if he gets in the way). He rotated and entertained himself with other toys after 3 books I think. He can rotate using his arms and lifting up his upper torso while on his belly quite well to get to what he wants. So unlike Aidan at this age! Aidan said he wanted me to put him to bed 1st so I did. We all 3 read more books in Aidan’s bed. Then Quincy. Quincy is doing pretty well on the putting himself to sleep routine now. I am feeding him only once at night and he wasn’t waking Pete up much more than that. I am a lighter sleeper than Pete so we’ll see how it goes tonite! And with that, I have to head to bed.

beetroot = beets, silverbeet = chard, kumara = sweet potato, pumpkin has green exterior here and is extensively used in menus, courgettes = zuccini