weekly activites

We finally had a healthy week so we have been enjoying all of our weekly activities! It was a very busy week.

Monday and Friday we went to Playcentre and the kids had a great time playing with water, paint and clay. They also climbed and raced. They were exhausted by the time they got home.

Tuesday we went to church where the moms of young kids have music group and toddler soccer. The kids love singing and running around with their friends. Maya's favorite song is Jack in the Box, she likes to practice her jumping (she hasn't gotten both feet off the ground but it isn't for lack of trying). Max especially loves the parachute at the end of soccer.

Wednesday we went to the local community center toddler play group called "Bells & Whistles". Imagine a huge open room filled with all the toys a child could ever want....slides, trains, play kitchens, tents, bikes,etc. Every Wednesday the toddlers of Devonport get to play while the adults visit.

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Normally Thursday is our day at home, but a wonderful woman in our ward, whose children are all in school, has offered to coordinate a cooperative play group. We are going to take turns dropping off our kids. I love my little ones and most activities are more fun when they are around, but there are things that are more enjoyable without the additional appendages. I stayed and played with the kids for a little while and then I ran off to do some errands. I picked up the kids new balance bike (bike post to come) we ordered months ago, and I even bought a new pair of shoes.

putting on a show

Last Friday we invited some friends over for dinner. These friends also happen to be members of the Polkadots. Their daughter Brooklyn is a couple months younger than Max and Maya. The kids had a great time together standing on top of the coffee table and dancing. They put on quite a show.

helmets

Max and Maya love riding bikes. Maya has gotten so brave and fast that it was time for a helmet. I was a bit worried that they wouldn't want to wear them. But I guess I didn't need to worry because they haven't wanted to take them off since we brought them home.

Max and Maya wanted to put their helmets under their shirts so they could pretend they were pregnant. (And no, they didn't get that idea from me.)

As soon as they woke up the next morning they put them right back on again.

kiwi word of the week

cattery- An establishment where cats are kept and bred.

This word may not be New Zealand specific, but I had never heard it before and Lonnie and I thought it was pretty entertaining. We have seen it on signs all over New Zealand. I think in the US we would just all it a cat kennel.

dolphins and giraffes

Lonnie saw a pod of dolphins in the bay near our house while he was riding the ferry to work on Monday. The kids got pretty excited when I told them about it. Then Max just had to one-up his dad so he said that he saw giraffes in the water, and elephants too. Since Monday every time we drive past the little bay (which we do at least twice a day) Max has said "Daddy dolphins, Max and Maya giraffe and elephant". He is sticking to his story.

I can only guess what the picture in his mind looks like, but maybe it is something like this....

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polkadots

Max and Maya went to their first concert yesterday....The Polkadots! There was singing, dancing and kids rushing the stage. Thankfully the kids were all too short to be able to climb up on the stage, so the performers were able to continue on with the show. We should have brought our camera but sometimes we have a hard enough time just keeping track of our kids so we decided to leave it at home.

The Polkadots are a fun educational and performing group. Their website has some great material, check it out.

lights show

While we didn't have fireworks for the 4th of July. We get to see this every night. We have had other posts showing pictures our surroundings, and we certainly haven't been shy in expressing our enjoyment of the beautiful views. Well, Lonnie has been talking for awhile about getting some night photos toward downtown Auckland from Stanley Bay, which is along the road that leads to our neighborhood. Conditions for taking the photos seemed just about perfect the other night, so here are a few shots of what we see when driving home at night. The view is good enough to make you want to pull over and make-out. Thankfully, our house is just one minute up the road.

banana bread

Not surprisingly, shortly after I made this post about my kids being pretty good eaters they both decided to go on strike (it probably didn't help that they were sick). I guess I asked for it. I had heard somewhere that kids are more willing to eat food that they help cook. It doesn't take much, just letting the kids see what I am doing or letting them stir or add ingredients seems to be enough to help them feel involved. It has seemed to help the kids be more willing to try new foods and it is also fun.

Max loves to peel bananas, so he was pretty excited about his job.

Here is a link to our Banana Banana Bread recipe.

birthday and pneumonia

A week ago last Monday the week started out rather nicely. I had a birthday and Lonnie made me breakfast and sent me beautiful flowers.

Tuesday Maya started feeling sick. Wednesday we went to the doctors (#1 Maya) because her breathing had become shallow. I had Max checked out too (#1 Max)...because, if one kid is sick it won't be long before the other is sick. The doctor said Maya's breathing was a concern. He put her on antibiotics and told us to call back in the morning if there was no improvement.

We had already planned on having friends over for dinner and we thought it might be a good idea for Maya to have a blessing so we went ahead with our dinner plans. Max was thrilled with the attention of these to lovely girls. I don't think I have ever heard him so chatty.

Maya was pretty lethargic and she just sat on the couch the whole time.

With Maya still not feeling better on Thursday morning I called the doctor again and we went in for him to have a look at her again (#2 Maya). He said he could hear crackling in her breathing and he suggested we go into the hospital for a chest x-ray.

So we headed off to Starship Children's Hospital. We picked up Lonnie at work on our way to the hospital, so he could help take care of Max. Max was thrilled to play with all the toys at the hospital, but Lonnie took him home for a nap around noon. We were given a bed for Maya within 15 mins of arriving at the hospital. Within an hour she had a chest x-ray. The x-ray confirmed what our family doctor had suspected, pneumonia. The doctor wanted to keep her in the hospital for a couple hours for observation. She didn't want to get out of bed and was refusing to eat. Thankfully after a couple hours and doubling her antibiotics Maya started to feel better. She even got up to play with the ride-on toys.....so we got to go home.

We spent the weekend at home. Over the weekend Max started coughing and his breathing was also labored. Monday we went into the see our family practice doctor again to check up on Maya (#3) and Max (#2). Thankfully Max's cough didn't sound like pneumonia, but the doctor started him on antibiotics because he sounded raspy. He asked us to come back again at the end of the week and to keep the kids at home.

We admittedly watched a lot of TV, but I also tried to keep the kids interested in coloring, puzzles and helping with cooking. Both kids are still pretty worn out and haven't had a lot of energy, which makes it easier to keep them inside, but they have missed seeing friends.

Thursday we went back to the doctor again. (Maya #4, Max#3) the kids are improving but they were put on another week of antibiotics and the doctor said we should continue to keep them out of public places where they could be exposed to other germs.

It has been a long two weeks. Both kids are improving, but they are still worn out. We are grateful for good medical care, including short waits at the doctor's office and hospital.

Total cost:

7 Doctors visits

1 Emergency Room visit

4 prescriptions

$55 NZ (~$37 US) Pretty amazing considering even with good insurance back in the US this would have cost us about $320 out of pocket.

We spent a lot of time in pajamas.

riding bikes

We posted this video a few days ago, but I wanted to catch up with some comments about it. When we moved into our apartment in February, Maya and Max quickly discovered all the toys of our next-door neighbors' 4-year-old boy. One of his toys is a balance bike that soon had Maya's attention. She started grabbing the bike at every opportunity and pretty quickly became quite good at riding on her own.

As an interesting side note, Max tends to be more adventurous than Maya. At the park, he'll wonder off on his own more readily than Maya will. He'll go down slides and climb ladders sooner. When Maya began riding the bike, we thought Max would want to join in and that they would soon be fighting over the one bike. But for whatever reason, Max didn't show any interest in the balance bike until recently.

After a few weeks, we bought a tricycle for Max, which he was thrilled about but in which Maya had no interest (only the balance bike for her). At that point, we were taking walks with Maya on the balance bike and Max puttering along on the tricycle. The difficulty was that the two kids would go entirely different speeds with Maya would cruise along on the bike (especially when going downhill) and Max moving at turtle pace. The video gives a glimpse of this difference.

Since taking the video, we have purchased a couple used balance bikes, and now Max has more interest in the bikes. We're enjoying the ride of watching them grow up.