Monday 12th December

Adam decided today that a trip to the Natural History Museum was in order. We had heard the dinosaurs there were pretty impressive and seeing as both Xavier and Stella love dinosaurs it seemed like a good option. The best bit is that all the galleries and museums here are free entry, so if Stella threw one of her epic tantrums it was no great loss to leave and try again another day should we have time.

A toilet stop before we left found our neighbourhood squirrel back eating coconut, so at the request of JenJen I called Adam to bring the camera, which he did and I snapped the following pics of our cute little friend.

See he has cleaned out one half of the coconut shell, today he was onto the other half.

At the museum we handed Xave our point and shoot camera and he had a ball skipping around checking out all the dinosaurs.

Nice shot up the Dinosaurs bum

His beloved Triceratops

Mr T-Rex

Stella had her predicted meltdowns. Although I'm sure the lack of sleep last night played a big part in her temperament today.

In the middle of the Restaurant

My step dad had given the kids $50 each before we left that we were instructed was to be spent on something the kids wanted that we wouldn't usually buy them. It had to be their choice and we had to be able to show him exactly what they had bought with their money. We thought that there was no doubt both kids could easily spend their money at the gift shop in the museum, so headed off there after lunch. We explained to Xavier that Pa had given him some money to buy something special for himself and that he had about 30 pounds to spend on anything he wanted. He looked, he picked things up, and put them down. He said several time, hey mum look this is cool, then he made his selection. Out of an entire store, with clothes, stuffed toys, books, cups, hats, etc guess what my son decided that he wanted? A 2 pound bouncy ball with a stegosaurus inside it.  I kid you not. A bloody 2 pound ball. Granted its not something I probably would have let him have, no doubt it will be lost before we even get back to Australia and the next small boy to stay in our house will have a ball playing with it when he finds it, but Pa was very firm that it was ANYTHING they wanted. So we bought the ball. I also talked him into a small stuffed triceratops toy too that was 3 pound.

Despite all the screaming she did today, and needing to lay with her to get her to sleep, just to physically hold her still long enough to stop and sleep, I'd have more. The screaming I can do without, but jeepers, its been so long since I have lay next to here when she sleeps that I had forgotten just how beautiful she is when she stops. I'm also really missing breastfeeding at the moment too. I'm sure that if she was still on the boobies, so much of the crazies we are experiencing now could be avoided.