Question Time

Everyday I feel that I run a constant narrative for the 2 boys of every thing that we do. Brandon and Bailey love it as they constantly ask me questions, get their answers, listen to me describe my actions regarding the present activity we are doing, and then ask more questions. The whole process is repeated over and over again. Sometimes I think I do get a bit sick of hearing my own voice, but when I see the immense fascination on the kid's faces, I just keep going with the constant narrative.

Brandon's big thing at the moment is "Why?" Sometimes it does my head in and after 10 minutes of "But why?" I'll just have to say "Because it does Brandon, it just does". Most times I'll just keep answering his "why?" and I always find it funny to see how long he goes until all his Whys have been answered.

This morning the 4 of us went food shopping. It was a huge shop because daddy and I had gone through some recipe books and had a great menu for the next 2 weeks worked out almost. During the past week my husband and I had had a light bulb moment together. We both realised that for our own sanity we needed to start feeling like we were on top of things. Nothing will change unless we make the changes. The kids certainly aren't going to do it for us. So we wrote up an action plan with attainable goals and all the steps involved in getting us back on track. So far so great.

One of my goals to make our life flow more smoothly is to cook up heaps of food for the week on Sunday mornings. After we finally arrived home from our monster shop this morning, the process began. I made 6 meals up and put them in the freezer for the week. Tomorrow I am going to try and find/make time to make up some more meals and actually get ahead with it all. I am very proud of myself. I could have easily cooked all day but it wasn't practical and we just don't have anyone to babysit the kids- one of the disadvantages of living thousands of kilometres away from family. That's why my husband and I want to keep things ticking over with everyone happy.

After my cooking adventures, the lovely process began of washing up everything covering the kitchen bench. Oh what joy! Once done, I took the kids from daddy while he folded baskets and baskets of washing while watching the Footy on TV. The 2 boys and I made chocolate and berry muffins. Daddy offered his gigantic Easter egg up as the major ingredient in the muffins. The 2 boys absolutely loved having to karate chop it into much smaller pieces suitable for muffin making. It was priceless seeing them smash the Easter Egg. The 2 boys love cooking. They pretty well made the muffins by themselves. The air was filled with Why?, Why? and more whys. The boy's learnt so much. It was great. Then while the muffins were cooking in the oven the 3 of us went off and did a few little chores around the house. We topped up all the toilet paper in the 2 toilets, we made the boy's beds, and I collected toys galore off the floor. By then the muffins were done and it was dinner time. I cut up a variety of ingredients for the kid's dinner and put them out before the boys so they could make up their own dinner. They made pizzas. Bailey karate chopped his while Brandon neatly placed his ingredients on to the pizza.

In the eyes of the boys I think that making dinner was much more fun than eating it. My theory sort of failed. I thought if Brandon and Bailey took ownership of their dinner by making it themselves, then I night have more success with them actually eating it. Didn't work. They 2 boys just won't sit still long enough. Even though they didn't eat their dinner, they were both excited because I got them involved in clearing the table first. Then they had to chose their own dinner plates. We put place mats down on the table and I even gave them 2 little glasses with straws in them. Brandon surprised us with dessert. He choose frozen yoghurt ice blocks which were most enjoyable. After dinner they cleared their plates and then tucked their chairs in. Then they went crazy. It was good while it lasted.

The 2 boys are now asleep. Bailey talked and talked while in his cot and Brandon apparently was extremely excited about his favourite TV show 'Octonaughts' that will be back on TV tomorrow for him to watch. Thankfully daddy is not asking me hundreds of questions. He's just sitting quietly on the lounge reading the paper. I imagine that he too is enjoying the break from being bombarded with what feels like thousands of questions a minute from 2 small excitable children. The quietness is lovely.