Scott & Jo's!!! Blog

Scott told me I had to post because he did it last…not that he’s bossy or anything! Actually, it has been a while since I last wrote anything, probably because I never feel that I have anything blogworthy to say! Scott tells me though that it is the everyday things that matter and not just the “abnormal”! And seeing as his wish is my command…*cough, cough, splutter, splutter*

Catherine has really taken to eating – a lot. Before she was born, I ordered some Tupperware so that when she got to the “eating solids” stage, I’d be prepared and it wouldn’t cost us a mint in products. If anyone knows those Tupperware Ice Trays and how big each cube is, bear that in mind when I tell you how much our baby girl eats… She has: 1 cube each of potato, sweet potato, pumpkin, corn, zuchinni, carrot, apple, pear and apricot plus 2 cubes of avocado for dinner (not all mixed together!). She also has about 30-40 mls of water to down all that. For lunch today, she had 2 dry tablespoons (roundabouts because I guesstimated!) of Farex Pear and Banana Rice Cereal which I mixed with 100mls of formula. This makes up about three to three and a half tablespoons of prepared cereal. She also ate about two tablespoons of mashed banana and gummed half a rusk. Needless to say, I puree all of her food (except the cereal, of course!) because there would be no way on earth that we could afford to BUY all that! As the molk said at church when he saw how much she ate, “Man, you’ve got to buy some shares in a food company or something!”

She likes playtime with Daddy…and Daddy likes playtime too…even though she dribbles on him…!

Catherine’s first rusk.	Hmm, yum!

Playtime with Daddy!

Am not doing too well today – Jo and myself have been to the dentist. It was a particularly cruel punishment for Jo, not because she doesn’t like going to the dentist (which is true) but mainly due to the time of the appointment – mine was at 7:30am. She is not a morning person.

Worse still, we needed to leave earlier to drop my car off at 7:00am at the car yard to get the radio re-fitted after a service. I have been without my favourite rockin’ radio stations when driving for almost two weeks now it has been unbearable. Singing ABBA tunes while driving has eased the pain somewhat.

Jo is wearing a smug smile (no pun intended) after her checkup – her teeth are 100%!

Mine on the other hand – well one massive filling later I was on my way. I knew it was coming, I have a back molar that has given me grief for years. The dentist explained that there is something wrong with my jaw which aggrevates any problems with that tooth.

I need to go back for another appointment – to get another small filling done and also to arrange to get a crown for the tooth.

Monday night is normally the grocery shopping night in the Carpenter household. We are often stunned with the cost, particularly for fresh food and vegetables.

You are punished at the hip pocket if you want to eat healthy food. This is an issue in “first world” countries (i.e. UK & USA) and of course Australia. Obesity and poverty go together when the only affordable food is chips, meat pies, hotdogs or fast food.

For school children in this situation is often means going without breakfast, or gaining sustenance from rubbish high in sugar and carbohydrates. One wonders whether there is a link between diet and behaviour problems.

If you visit this blog in the next couple of weeks, go here – Fisher Price Baby Playzone for sale on Ebay. Listen to the song that the guy has added to his listing, it’s very, very funny!

Last week it was a portacot. This Monday, we bought a high chair for Catherine so we could feed her in something that can just be wiped clean. Prior to this, we had been feeding her in her Fisher Price Ocean Wonders Aquarium Cradle Swing. We probably would have kept going with that for a while longer except that the seat cover would need a wash every day and I found the high chair that we wanted on special at Babies Galore. It’s a Peg Perego Prima Pappa. We chose this one because we’ve heard nothing but good about it in terms of safety. I was looking at a Fisher Price Aquarium High Chair but have read that it tips over when you put it at the lower or lowest height adjustment. Seeing as that is where we have Catherine at the moment, I decided against it. We decided to spend a bit more money and get something that we knew was definitely safe!

Anyway, when I was looking on the Babies Galore website last week, I noticed that the Peg Perego Prima Pappa Dondolino (with all the bells and whistles – it has this automatic rocker thing and 6 different melodies to play to the kid) was the same price as the basic one. Scott and I decided, “Well, gee…why don’t we just get that one then?!” When I hopped on the site on Monday, I noticed that there was a “Big Brand Sale” on and checked it out. Lo and behold, the basic chair was reduced by $60!!! Yep! Now $239.95! I rang up the closest store to us (Loganholme) and asked if they could put it on hold – No! They couldn’t because it was the “Big Brand Sale”. Oh well, looks like I’ll just have to go out there now to get it! So I go in and check out the rest of the store while I’m there because I can’t help myself! I get to the checkout with a couple of other things… I got home with all the goodies in tow, check the docket and, “What? $229.95?” Yep! Another $10 off – a saving of $70 altogether! Woo hoo!

The portacot with Catherine in it.	The Prima Pappa Highchair

Catherine decided that the feeding tray was more tasty!

Rowan and myself were at the 2005 Men’s Training Event over the past weekend to record the speakers and prepare the MP3 and audio CDs.

It was a great weekend, Luke Tattersall spoke from Ecclesiastes and Keith Birchley from 2nd Corinthians.

Luke presented a very interesting overview of Ecclesiastes, the book that inspired the Bryds with their well known 1960s folk song ‘Turn! Turn! Turn! (There Is a Season)’

Keith delivered a powerful talk – a comment made to me after was you could hear the birds outside the hall, such was the impact of what he had to say.

As per our custom I slept in the hall to guard the equipment (although I am such a sound sleeper I am not the most effective on sentry duty ). The possums were having an awesome time running late night calisthenics classes on the roof, but thankfully they did scamper off to cause mischief elsewhere after a little while.

Happy Birthday to Bruce!!

What a momentous occasion! Scott had his first Father’s Day this year and it was great! It started off with breakfast – bacon and eggs, no bread because we ran out of it!!! – which wasn’t in bed but we’ll get to that stage in later years! We then went for a bushwalk at Daisy Hill State Forest. It is a gorgeous place with lots of picnic tables and barbecues for people to use and a big open area for games and hijinks. There were plenty of families there celebrating and it was really nice to see that. We spent about an hour walking and Catherine enjoyed every moment of it. She was wide awake and looking around at the bush the whole time except for when her hat slipped down over her eyes!!

The three of us!	Catherine with Daddy!

Catherine with Mummy!

Walking through on the boardwalk.	A tiny little creek

After the walk, we decided to head out to a Target store to get Catherine a portacot as they were on special. We go out alot at night and because Catherine is so much more mobile now, we can no longer just put her on a bed with pillows around. She pushes them away and therefore they are not an effective barrier anymore. Gone are the days where she would just lie there and go to sleep! So because we were at Daisy Hill, we decided to go to Springwood Target as it was the closest. No luck, they had sold out. So then we (read “Jo”) decided that because Browns Plains was near home, we’d go there instead.

On the way, we were behind this ute that had a bumper sticker that made alot of sense…something about getting a qualified plumber to do your work. It was what was written underneath in permanent marker that was much more amusing. Anyway, Scott decided it was definitely blogworthy so he decided to follow this guy in the ute. Yep, that’s right. We stalked him in order to get a pic of the back of the ute! Anyway, so we follow him to the carpark and into the same row of cars. Fortunately, there was a empty space just diagonally opposite where he had pulled up. Scott and I get out of the car and take our time getting out with Catherine (which really wasn’t difficult because of all the paraphanalia that we now need) so we (read “Jo” – yes, Scott made ME go and get the pic!) can take a photo of said ute’s backside. So I stroll up after the guy and his girl had left and snapped a pic. Just as I did, an older couple came around the corner! I got a REALLY weird look from them – you know, the “What the hell is she doing?” look. So anyway, I hope you appreciate the pic…!

At least someone’s being honest!

We finally got into Target and guess what? Yeah, they had sold out! We get this insipid male personality to help us and it took him 10 minutes to discover that they had all sold out (no duh) and that they weren’t getting any more in. So he offers, “Do you want me to call around some other stores and see if they have any?” Well gee, let’s see. YES! So he rings the Springwood store – yes, the one we had just come from – and discovers that they had sold out. I ask him to ring the Carindale store and ask them. Did he? No. Instead, he asks us to go to Reception and ask them because they have a database that lists the stock in each store. So we do.

We get to Reception via the Customer Service Desk because said insipid male personality (IMP) didn’t actually tell us that Reception isn’t Customer Service and nor did he tell us WHERE Reception was located…! So we tell Charlene at Reception that we’re after the Steelcraft portacot that’s on special and that we were sent there by the IMP etc etc. I even show her the nice piccy in the catalogue. So she asks us, “So you’ve had a look out there and there definitely isn’t any?” At this point, I’m surprised I didn’t say something rude but I was very nice and stated that no, there wasn’t any out there. This leads her to put a red sticker dot thing on her catalogue to indicate it’s sold out. In the meantime, she gets a couple of phonecalls because she’s the “Information Officer” and is manning the phone system.

She calls the Springwood store first…AARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!! If she’d just ASKED I would have told her we’d already BEEN there! So she asks if we would go out to Carindale to pick it up if they had one….YESSSSS! She rings Carindale, yes they have one, yes they’ll put it on hold…!! YAY! And to think, I wanted to go to Carindale in the first place but left it up to Scott because it was Father’s Day…so this whole drama is all his fault.

We went to have a coffee after that!