Maya 6 weeks old

Maya has not changed much in the last week. Still spending quite a lot of time awake compare to the 'norm' and she's still sleeping beautifully at night. We had the longest sleep out of her to date last night 5.5 hours followed by a nearly 4 hour sleep after that. Though sadly I didnt manage to capitalize from this as I was up doing chores then went to lay beside her expecting her to wake for a feed but ended up nodding off because I couldn't keep awake any longer!

She's got a cold and cough that Matthew had kindly infected us all with, but she's still nursing well and hasn't affected her much apart from being congested. Breastmilk is the best to help her get over her cold as it contains antibodies that my body has produced to fight off my cold.

Maya turning 6 weeks also means that its been a week since my mum left to head home to Sydney after spending 3 weeks with us to help. I'm so thankful to have had her around to help me out and Matthew missed his Poh Poh.

The last week managing Maya and Matthew solo has had both ups and downs. We've only had one bad day when Matthew refused to walk to the car, refused to get in the car and then refused to put his seat belt on and decided to throw the biggest tantrum in the car which of course set Maya crying too. Listening to two crying kids in car is very stressful! But what I have learned is that I can do the 20 metre dash to the car carrying 20kg of kids and bags all on my own. I can feed, bath and put both of them to bed too and did this twice last week on my own last week. I can (breast)feed one and spoon feed the other. I can put Maya in a sling and bath Matthew and still manage to stay relatively dry. I can pat one while singing 'itsy bitsy spider' complete with actions to the other. Oh and I still managed to cook every meal last week!

Just don't call me around 5pm, it's highly unlikely that I will answer :)

I have had to let some things slide like watching helplessly while Matthew wiped his snotty nose on the couch, finding a suspicious smelling puddle of 'water' in Matthew's room and finding Milo splattered on the wall (then wondering if it was poo or choc)

It's tiring, but fun.

Matthew is doing fantastically, he's not only talking lots and forming complex sentences but asking questions and 'debating' with us. You will have to have a chat with him to begin to grasp the leap in development that's happened in the past few weeks. Gone is my little baby boy.

For example we had a little play on words one Sunday morning,
Matthew: (eating a slice of toast)
Me: Matthew, can Mummy  have some toast?
Matthew: Yes, Mummy eat the toast.
Me: (pretending to munch on Matthew's toes)
Matthew: No Mummy! no toes, TOAST!!
Me: Yes Matthew, Mummy would like to eat toes.
Matthew: (thinking for a second before replying sternly) No, Mummy eat the bread, not toes.

He's mastered his alphabet and counting to ten and more complex shapes eg pentagon vs hexagon etc. Through learning phonics at school and at home, Matthew can remember the sound each letter makes and will often refer to the letter 'F' as the sound 'Fuh'. We are working on counting to twenty and beyond and especially love 'twoteen' (for twelve) and 'threeteen' (for thirteen). It tells us that he is thinking about the numbers and not simply memorizing. He knows how to spell his name and recognise his name when written. He also recognises the word 'Daddy', 'Mummy', 'Maya' and sadly also the word 'Loading' (as in an App is loading on the iPad). We are working on his writing skills and simple math next - I'm thinking (although I've been told it is quite ambitious) of teaching him simple fractions. 

Matthew is also picking up words and phrases in Mandarin which he will interchange with English in conversation sometimes. He surprise my Mum by saying 'Baby is sleeping' in Mandarin randomly one afternoon - I would have missed it if it werent for my Mum being there as I would not have understood him.

Thanks pretty much it for my Matthew and Maya brag for now :)