Since Last We Spoke...

• We moved in to the holiday house. Which, by the way, was about 1 block from the beach. It took a few nights for me to get used to the sound of the ocean.
• Critter started school. (How can my baby be so big?)
• Gosling turned one. (Seriously! How can my babies be SO BIG!!!)
• We moved in to OUR HOUSE!!! Our very own house with ROSE BUSHES!!!
• Gosling's vocabulary consists of the usual baby babble, plus her brother's name, "hello", "nigh-nigh" (very occasionally), "dadadadad", and a brrrrrrrrrrrrrrm car noise, predominantly made when playing with a toy car.
• Critter can read. Not just "cat", "dad", "hit", but "where is my hat? this is my red shoe", and "the buffalo jumps in. let's have a swim". SMARTY PANTS!
• Gosling started to walk, and can now get herself halfway across the room without falling down.
• She is more likely to get up and walk if there is music playing.
• She is extraordinarily fast when she crab-crawls, and will do this if she REALLY wants to get somewhere fast.
• We somehow managed a 1.5hr drive with a 5yr old, a hungry 1yr old, and a terrified, blind, bigger-than-the-baby 13yr old cat, without anyone being injured or yelling.
• The cat has settled in fairly well. He didn't eat or drink for the first couple of days, but oddly, his blindness seems to have been a blessing. He can't SEE that everything is different, so because it all still smells like his people, he's just accepted that we've moved some things around and it's all fine.
• We bought a very expensive couch, which is balanced by the fact that we got another couch for the kid's area, AND a TV unit for less than $250. YAY SALVO'S!!!
• Our bedroom has a REMOTE CONTROL FAN AND LIGHT.
• There is one light in the house with NO off switch that we can find, so we're leaving it bulb-less.
• The walls of the house are all yellow, except the kid's area which is hideous 70s wood panelling.
• We can't afford paint at the moment, and don't have time to paint even if we could afford it, so I'm learning to live with yellow. I'm never going to love it though.
• We bought a wardrobe and toybox for critter's room, splashing out on custom stuff so it would match and he would have a decent looking room instead of the jumble he's been living with, and after getting the truck loaded up and driving for over an hour to get it home, getting it down the sloping front yard and into the house, miraculously without scratching the hardwood floors, WE DISCOVERED THEY'VE MESSED UP AND STAINED IT THE WRONG COLOUR. Yes, it looked paler than we were expecting when we picked it up, but we assumed it was to do with being in sunlight rather than a dark bedroom. So we took it back and it's being fixed.
• I have to learn to cook with a small oven. My cookie tray keeps the door open.
• We are also learning creative pantry-ing, as although we have a decent amount of counter and otherwise-cupboard space, the 'pantry' area is about 1/3 what I've previously lived with. Some of the other cupboards have been taken over.
• There is NO LINEN CLOSET. The enormous laundry is going to have cupboards installed, and part of our wardrobe is being taken over, because at the moment, there's no-where to put towels, sheets, or even toilet paper.
• I've discovered a laneway that turns the 5minute walk to Critter's school into a 2minute walk. Unfortunately this makes it tempting to leave Gosling asleep when I leave to pick him up at 2:40, and she's been asleep for less than half an hour after being awake since before 7am. I DIDN'T leave her, and never would, but the temptation is there, and I don't like it.

And lastly,

• My computer is borked. The battery life is approximately 7minutes, and the power cord has to be held at just the right angle and pressure or the machine thinks it isn't plugged in and turns off, so I've been using hubby's machine. THIS IS VERY ANNOYING, and means that I won't be around much, even though we actually have a decently working internet connection here, unlike the holiday house which had little to no reception and would cut out for no reason intermittently.