More parent's room reviews

This one is from Myer in Bankstown. Overall it's quite a good room and I tend to visit here rather than the one that is part of Bankstown Centro.
It features pretty much all mod cons. If you look to your right you will see a sink.

The wall pictures are quite good even if Dora's foot appears to be coming out of her stomach.
If we are out for more than a couple of hours I will bring Trogdor here to crawl around on the carpet and play with the blue thingy on the wall. Honestly, I don't know how clean the carpet is but I trust each time he plays here his immune system gets that little bit stronger.

I'm not sure I see the point of having so many bins to so few change mats. It seems like they are prepared to not have the bins cleaned out all that often. On the other hand it's only rarely that the room smells like too many nappies.

A microwave. I assume it works.

The 'private' feeding room. This room seats two people and does not lock. It has another blue play station thing attached to the wall for older children while baby is having a feed. Honestly, the chairs are not the best for feeding. They are not particularly comfortable and once you have a bigger baby (or a humongous baby in the case of Troggers) you spend the feed trying to support their head off the hard, uncomfortable arm rests while your hand gets squished against the hard, uncomfortable arm rest. The Thomas picture has been both a blessing and a curse for me. Little one was fascinated with it from the first time he saw it but it also distracted him from booba. So after we went in we had to spend five minutes standing in front of Thomas while Troggers patted and cooed to him and then we could settle down to our feed but ONLY if Thomas was either a) totally out of Trogger's line of sight or b) directly in front of him. If he was there but obscured Trogdor would keep pulling off to get a better view. There are chairs available in the change/play room as well.

The toilets. The room is quite large and you could easily bring both a pram and a shopping trolley in with you if you needed to.

High chairs in the changing/play room with another Thomas.
















And there you have it. My second review.

Happy Birthday Trogdor!

Today little boy turned one. The family is now in a sugar induced haze in front of the TV - all except little boy who has very sensibly decided to pass out in his cot. A few notes of the happy event.

a) Rather than the picnic we had originally planned, family and friends crowded in to our little apartment to escape the rain outside.
b) Troggers scored some excellent pressies which Spidermonkey and I he will love playing with.
c) In line with family tradition we totally over catered and will be eating left over chicken/salad/slices until Christmas.
d) Mum made possibly the best hippopotamus cake in the history of the world that wasn't actually made from hippopotamus.

e) Little boy had his first tiny bite of cake. Which he spat out. He prefers watermelon.
f) Little boy was surrounded by many of the people I hope will be there for his party next year, and the year after that. People I hope he will know and love as he grows up.
g) Trogger's cousin and Babydonk were there. It was amazing having 3 babies in the house - all feeding, crying, laughing, playing and sleeping at various times. We had 11 adults in the house and it still didn't feel like we had enough hands. Much kudos to parents of multiples!

It was a bitter sweet day. Thinking back to what I was doing a year ago (sad and happy thoughts). Imagining forward to what we will be doing in a years time (exciting, scary and happy thoughts).

There are a few things that you are told you will never understand until you become a parent. The first is that you won't know your capacity to love until you have a child. The second is you won't  know how tired, frustrated and clueless you will feel after you have a child. The third is how quickly they seem to grow up. Every one is right by the way. Especially about the growing up thing.


I mean seriously, how do you go from this -

To this -

in a year?

With silver bells and cockle shells

Thought I would post an update on my gardening adventures.
Even though we are on the second floor of a block of units the balcony is now never referred to as 'the balcony' - it is 'the garden'. Each morning Trogdor and I inspect the garden together i.e I look at the plants and he eats dirt. In the evening I check the garden again to make sure nothing has wilted or been devoured. I'm a trifle obsessive about it these days.
It all started in June of this year when I thought I would pick up a couple of dwarf fruit trees to provide a bit of greenery and (hopefully) fruit. Then I decided to try to grow tomatoes. Things just sort of got out of hand from there.
I began well before I had any idea of what I was doing. The majority of the 'hardware' (the polystyrene boxes, large tubs, drink-bottle-watering-cans and packing crates) have been 're-purposed' after I found them lying on footpaths around the suburb. I like to think of it as 'County Garden meets Mad Max'.
Some of my garden has been grown from seed (which I think is a hella impressive even if the plants themselves aren't) and some of them are from seedlings (less impressive effort with a more impressive result).
From seeds:

Roma Tomato seedlings. The white around the base is potash which is meant to be very good for them but no two gardeners can decide when is the best time to apply them to the plant.

The first of my basil seeds to germinate.

The first of my 'Cottage Mix' flower baskets. I should be thinning the seedlings but I'm just going to let them grow and see what happens. (Is it odd that I feel horribly guilty after chopping out perfectly healthy plants?)










The second of my flower baskets. This one was sown more thinly with seeds so we'll see how it goes.






Beetroot. Has been thinned. Needs more thinning. (I feel like my garden is on some sort of Jenny Craig ad.)

Coriander.

Marigolds. These desperately need to be thinned out. My plan is to replant them into little pots this weekend and give them out as presents.

My snow peas. They have been growing like crazy and are my most impressive seed grown plants.











Things I didn't grow from seed:



Passion fruit. I think it has some sort of fungal whatzi so I've been spraying it with whatzi fungal pesticide. It's going to need a much bigger container if it's going to grow. Luckily I have some 're-purposed' 20L Omo buckets.

Parsley. Needs re-potting. I have also been growing parsley from seed but it's harder than I thought it would be. Apparently the seeds have a very low germination rate and even if they do germinate I've found them to be quite temperamental (they just die for no discernible reason)

Dwarf lemon tree. Lots of flowers. All the other lemons in the area are covered with fruit so I don't know if the little guy is a bit backward.

Broccoli. I have to remove the middle row and re-pot them. Note to new gardeners - pay attention to the spacing guidelines when you're planting!

Asparagus. I have no idea how to grow asparagus. Apparently it will be another two years before it starts growing spears and only if I chop it all back, mulch it, replant it, give it lots/little/no water and/or fertilizer, sacrifice a goat to the asparagus gods... Plus, it's covered in tiny bugs. I don't think they're meant to be there.

An amused Trogdor, who can't understand why I don't get my food from booba like sensible people do.
(He should probably be in the 'grown from seed' section')

My three strawberry plants with one flower between them.

Spring onions.

My peach tree - formerly known as 'stick in a bag'.

I have also developed an interest in heirloom/heritage tomatoes. I have a few seedlings struggling away at the moment but they're a bit depressing really.

And there you have it folks. My garden.