Fevers, kisses and tantrums

Poor little Justin has had a fever over the last 24 hours! Silly mom didn't even realise that he was coming down with something, I just thought wow, 2 one and a half hour naps in a day! Now that's a record and that's the way things should be! Luckily he hasn't been so sick that he's miserable and grumpy but he gets quite clingy when he's tired. I finally took him to the doctor this evening and he's being diagnosed with gastro cos he has had some mild diarrhoea. No daycare for Justin tomorrow. Hope he gets better soon because he gets cabin fever when he's been cooped up for the whole day.

Every parent loves planting kisses on their children and enjoys it even more when you are on the receiving end. Depending on his mood, Justin can be very generous with his kisses, both on the cheek and blowing kisses. It's a good start to the day when you're woken up by a kiss on your cheek accompanied by a very noisy "mwah!" In the right mood, he kisses babies in the books, kisses himself in the mirror, showers Row and I with with kisses, blows kisses to the TV or computer. He's even learned to "give love" which is really a hug. The other day I asked Justin to give me love but he was too busy playing so he gave me a couple of pats on my back before running off.

Lately, Justin has been having a few little tantrums. Is it an assertion of independence or the frustration of not being understood or is it the testing of boundaries that is the cause of these little tantrums? Justin will "cry" and hang onto my leg while throwing himself backward at the same time if something is taken away from him. If he is told that he cannot do something, he'll "cry" and fall onto his knees like it's the end of the world. The other day we went to the playground and I let him walk around outside the playground because everything was wet and the one place he was so intent on going to was the road. Well, when I picked him up to steer him in the opposite direction, he pushed himself backward and started "crying" so I gently lay him on the sidewalk so he could finish his tantrum. Luckily it was a short tantrum as I think he was a bit shocked that I lay him down and ignored him. If Justin has eaten enough or doesn't like the food, he'll actually swat my hand away and purse his lips together.  I was chatting to a friend whose daughter is a few months younger and she said her little one is also quite assertive and a little bit cheeky....where do they learn these things from?

Ohmy, the joys of toddler hood, the good and the challenging!

Out and About

One of the more challenging tasks of moving to a new city or country is finding good restaurants and building up a list of favourite places to eat and recommending it to friends and visitors. 

In South Africa we knew where to go for good steak (The Grillhouse or Wombles), good spare ribs (Black Steer), toasted chicken mayonnaise (Burger Box). In Hong Kong we also had a list of favourites; yum cha at Maxim's, Vietnamese at Nha Trang, risotto balls at Enoteca. But there was also the problem of restaurants disappearing over night. 

Since moving to Sydney, we have eaten out alot but because there is so much choice and variety, we have hardly been back to a restaurant for a second of third time. We know to go to the Belgian Beer Cafe for mussels, or Hurricane's for steak and spare ribs and we have one or two ideas for yum cha. Over the last few weekends, I've had the chance to go to several different restaurants while Row has babysat Justin as he's busy studying. I've sampled some good Portuguese food although it will never be as good as home but it was pretty good and worthy of a second visit (with Row). I also went for Sichuan hot pot which was quite tasty. Yesterday I went to Bourke Street Bakery which always has a queue of people waiting to sample their delicious baked goods...and it didn't disappoint! I had a flourless chocolate cake (delish), Louise had a creme brulee tart (yumm!!!) and Bg had a carrot cake which I didn't have the chance to sample. Today Bg took us to The Counter where you can order a burger to your exact taste with whatever combination you like beiing offered from the different choices of meats, toppings, cheeses, sauces and buns.....delicious! And for those milkshake lovers....try the peanut butter milkshake or the strawberry milkshake. I don't normally like strawberry milkshakes but this one was good. Louise's recommendation is the apple pie milkshake which I will have to sample on our next visit there. I had good intentions of taking photos of the food that I've been eating but when the food arrives, all those good intentions just take leave.

So if you're planning on visiting Sydney, we're slowly building up a list of recommendations for you food lovers!

Horse riding

Black Eyed Peas Fan

Justin grooving to Paul Simon

Justin 'blowing' a vuvuzela

The Ming Boy Band

What a palava!

After 14 very long weeks, our couch was finally delivered! Row and I were so excited when we found out that our couch was finally ready and even more excited when they said it would be delivered on Saturday morning. The delivery men rang our doorbell at about 9am and we could barely contain our excitement; we showed them where we wanted our couch and then cleared the space and moved our shoes out of the entrance hall while they went to off-load it. The 2 delivery men managed to get our couch up the flight of stairs, through the front door and ....that was as far as it went. Our entrance hall is about half a meter by half a meter and there's an arch between that and the lounge and our couch wouldn't fit through the arch. The one guy suggested taking the spring off the door to allow it to open more so Row went to get his screw driver and his ladder and set about undoing the spring. Still the couch wouldn't fit so the guy said we would have to take the front door off BUT they couldn't hang around while we took the door off, they had to leave to deliver the rest of the couches. But they oh so kindly left our couch at the bottom of the stairs instead of in the garage (note the sarcasm!) I quickly called Louise to ask if she could babysit Justin while we tried to figure this out. Row and I managed to get the couch back up the stairs and jammed into the entrance hall and tried and tried for about 20mins before admitting defeat. The only problem was that the screws of the front door hinge were painted over so we had to get paint stripper before Row could undo the screws. Two trips to Bunning's Warehouse later, we were ready to go - Row started undoing the screws. Front door off, we heaved and shoved and pushed and pulled and our couch got through the arch and into the lounge. It took us close to 5 hours to move this stupid couch. We have no idea what we're going to do when we have to move apartments! Not enough time has passed for me to see the funny side of this but at least we're enjoying having a  couch to sit on. Oh yeah, and now our front door doesn't close as smoothly as it use to.....it needs a hard push or pull to open or close it now. 

After this long hard day of manual labour, we were looking forward to Sunday as we were meeting some friends who were visiting from Canberra. We met them and the couple that they were staying with, at  the Entertainment Quarter. The couple have a son who is a month older than Justin but they didn't really interact with one another. Justin was too busy running wild, roaming around and exploring his surroundings while the other little boy was happy enough to sleep in his pram and explore close to his mum and dad. There's an animal petting "zoo" on the weekends and Justin has stood on the outside, happily observing other children touch the animals while he just pointed at them. But Row decided to take Justin in to see how he would react. Justin is quite frightened of dogs and cats, more than happy to watch them from a-far but doesn't want to touch them or be too close to them so not sure why we thought he'd be anymore comfortable around goats, chickens, piglets, ducks and rabbits. In the one photo you'll see Justin not showing much interest and in the other picture, he starts prodding at the rabbit in the hopes that it will go away. 

At least we had a relaxing albeit tiring Sunday, forgot how tired you feel after spending the whole day out in the sun.