About summer, naptime & 'becoming a man'

In the following days, summer really showed up here in Victoria and we could do great things outdoors again. On some days, the wind forced us to wear a jacket, but sunglasses were always with us! :)

This blog post should actually be considered as the second part of 'Au Pair life', as I prefer to split the texts into two parts rather than letting you read a never-ending entry... that would quickly become confusing ;)

Anyway, Ballarat is not nearly as beautiful as Melbourne, but there are many things to do with the kids, especially in the summer! The big lake is only a 10-minute drive from our house and is always worth a visit, as there are several playgrounds there and Harry loves to watch the swans, as mentioned before.

Currently, I'm managing to keep the naptime pretty well and be back home on time after little excursions. Harry usually takes a nap around 12:30 for about an hour, sometimes more, sometimes less... But it's a bit more complicated with the little one, because depending on when she woke up in the morning, she gets tired again either early or later. If things go well, I can put her down for the first time around 9:30, but then we can't go on big outings in the morning (or she sleeps in the stroller). With luck, she'll take another nap in the afternoon, but then it takes longer to put her to sleep in the evening... so, it's not always easy to plan the day! ;) Anyway, she only falls asleep when I hold her in my arms and her head rests on my shoulder... putting her in her crib is not an option! Sometimes it can be quite difficult, but it's a time when you are very close to the child and find some peace yourself. I often let the same song play, which calms her down a lot, or try to sing something for her.

In the end, it looks like this:

Time for the two of us

Unfortunately, adding the 'additions' took a bit longer, something always came up.

Anyway, this week also included a trip to the Melbourne Museum, which is free for me and has a special kids area! :) It's great, as you can let Harry play and run around quite freely, as the area is enclosed. However, it happened that after a few minutes unsupervised, he stood in front of a small decorative tree (outside the museum) and peed on it... and EVERYONE saw it! Well, what can you do... Aunt Hannah and I then explained to him that as a man, you can't pee on every tree;)

Freyja also had a lot of fun discovering new things and was particularly occupied with her reflection before I could get her to fall asleep!