Remedies for Erika's constipation - progress

Well we are past a month now and I have been doing dairy free with Erika for her constipation and it hasn't really had that much of an effect.  Which is a bit disappointing, however it has the advantage of only 2 varieties of milk in the house instead of 3.

Now she seems to be doing a poo every 2 days, and it isn't really that hard, though it still seems to be 2-3 on the Bristol stool scale.

I have been adding extra virgin olive oil to her breakfast cereal with bran and hiding it with extra sugar and she seems to eat it quite well.  I doesn't seem to be harming her and from what I can tell it doesn't cause dependence either.  I wonder if it's bad to have it every second day which is what I've been doing for her.

Edit August: It has actually improved her constipation a lot!  And it works quite well, so I'm pleased.  I have read that olive oil is a natural laxative, and has antioxidants so that's good.  However it doesn't have any omega 3, which you can find in linseed oil (flaxseed oil).  Maybe I should try that instead (though it is a lot more expensive)

First auction attended

I went looking at properties today, and attended my very first auction.  It was for a 3BR townhouse in Yagoona, which was full brick and newly carpeted.  There was a low maintenance courtyard and it was 2 levels, all 3 BR had BIR, and there were 3 toilets and 2 bathrooms.  There were probably about 20 people attending the auction with only 3 or 4 active bidders.

The final price was well below what I thought it was going to be.  I thought it would be closer to 450k but it closed at 415k.  I noticed that there were a lot of middle eastern and asian bidders.  And they really do drag out the drama!  I wonder if the owners will be happy with that price or will that just put it on the market.

Went looking around at other properties in the area, just to get a feel for what the market is like.  I am not sure if people are out there buying or not but it seems to be a lot less busy than other times I've been around.

Julian and his haircut

Poor Julian, he hates having his hair cut and he probably hates it even more now.  I went to clipper his hair in the shower yesterday (because it's easiest to wash away the hair in the shower - it wasn't on at the time) and his hair got caught between the comb attachment and the clippers and yanked his hair - YEEEOWCH!  Poor baby screamed his head off.

After that he was petrified of the thing.  I did try to do the edges again but he wouldn't have any of it.  In the end I had to resort to using my fingers and scissors, because even a fine toothed comb set him off.  It was a very unpleasant half hour as I hacked at his hair and it ended up quite uneven.  But at least now it's done and he doesn't have such long hair anymore.

So here is my baby with his new hair.

Kids are snotty again

Ugh, the kids have a cold again, and Julian was so miserable on Wednesday he kept throwing up!  Fortunately by Thursday he only vomitted after being made to cry, so hoping today he will be back to being non vomitty.  He has lovely green snot though.... interestingly Erika was sick first but only seems to have a mildly runny nose as opposed to Julian who has rivers of green pouring out from his nose.  Yuk.

Hubby made them that chinese curry, the mildest one and they seem to enjoy eating that with rice which is good because there is meat, potatoes, celery and carrots in it.  So I'm glad they are gradually moving towards their own food.

And they seem to be quite good now at eating their breakfast at the little table, and eating by themselves.  I make sure they have their normal breakfast first and then I put some dry yummy "dessert" cereal there for them, like cocopops or cheerios.  Unfortunately I can't stop Julian eating Erika's cocopops sometimes...

Julian using potty on his own!

I thought it was a fluke yesterday when Julian sat down on the potty and pee'd by himself in it, but he did it about 4 times today!  So I'm feeling pretty proud of my little boy, and he seemed pretty proud of himself too!

But does this mean I have to let my son run around with no pants all the time so he can sit on the potty?

New Playground at Blaxland Riverside Park

Hubby has been going bike riding around Olympic Park and noticed a new playground that was really large, and was saying we should take the kids there.  He took the kids there with my sister in law and her son, and they had a great time.

So today, weather was good so we set out to go to the park.  I was quite excited to see it because they had photos from last time and the kids looked like they really enjoyed it.

So here are some pictures of what they have at the park.

Directly opposite the car park is this section, with swings, a small net for climbing, balance poles, and a round swing which can sit a few children on it.  Erika likes climbing on the cargo net.

Further afield there are these great slides, 5 in total.  There are also rock climbing hand holds to go up the hill as well, which is great fun for adults as well as the children with some climbs more challenging than others.

Just next to the slides is this cool round dish, which spins around, and can seat quite a number of children.

Next to the round spinning dish are two tunnels, which are great for the kids to crawl through, though Julian can get through it standing upright still.  Hard on the knees though!

This awesome cargo net looks a bit advanced but Erika did climb a little bit on this "spider web" coming from the shortest climb (shown closest here, the black net) and managed to get to almost to the other climb up (on the far side of the net) but slipped and got scared so I had to climb up and go get her.

These two things are quite cool and I haven't seen them in a park before.  Thre is a flying fox on the left, and here on the right is a big rope swing where multiple people can sit on it and swing.

Julian's new word

Julian is now saying Bubble!  He was playing with one of those bubble blowers and he said "Bahbool".  So cute.

The constipation thing did not really settle on its own with avoidance of cow's milk.  I have been giving Erika parachoc to loosen her up but I will persist with the soy milk for a bit longer to see if it makes any difference.   Interestingly, Julian's poos have firmed up and he's only going once a day.  I hope that he's not getting constipated too.  That's the last thing i need!  Though perhaps it's better than diarrhoea...