There are a lot of pigeons around our apartment block. So many, in fact, that there is a guy who sits at the swimming pool and it is his job to scare the pigeons away that land near the pool by clapping as soon as they land. I said to Penri – what a job! Sitting by a swimming pool all day clapping! The pigeons aren't necessarily a problem, they don't bother me (except when they fly directly at me) but the problem is they poo everywhere! All the balconies and walls of the apartment block get covered. I've asked Raj Kumar (our cleaner) to also clean the balconies as even though we don't go out there, I don't like the poo everywhere.
As I mentioned above, DJ slept in late this morning. We are so out of a routine, it's not even funny! Some days Dylan wakes up really early and others he can sleep until 11 a.m! I am not too worried about it although I will have to deal with it more when he starts nursery because he will need to be there in the mornings. As I said though, there is no point in trying to sort it out now until we receive our cargo and he is on his own in his room and we can actually get into a proper routine. Even Abi has a very mixed up routine although she always wakes up between 6 and 7 and normally stays awake for a couple of hours. If DJ is not awake by 9 – 9.30, she will usually go back to sleep (which is where she is now). I usually use the very early morning time before Dylan is awake to write my blog or depending on how tired I am, I go back for a quick sleep too. The amazing thing is Abigail seems to have this ability to know as soon as my head hits the pillow and she wakes up! It can be 5 minutes after I have laid her down or 20 minutes or even an hour; she always seems to know!
At 11.30 this morning, I phoned the driver and asked him to come and pick us up. Pen was still sleeping so I decided to head out and get some things done. I knew I had to be back before 3 p.m because the cleaner was coming but I thought I could get quite a bit done in a couple of hours.
We left the apartment at 12 and first went to the Home Centre, which is like a furniture and furnishing shop. I was really disappointed with it as they had nothing that I was looking for. I wanted to buy a curtain rail for the lounge, a shower curtain, a plate drainer for the sink and little bits and pieces. They had nothing that I wanted and as I said – after struggling up about 10 steps with the pushchair to get into the shopping centre, I was disappointed. I think there is another, probably bigger, Home Centre in one of the other malls so I may have to try that another day. I should probably explain here that I didn't take the pushchair up the steps myself. DJ got out and walked and I carried Abi on one arm, while carrying one end of the pushchair in my other hand. One of the security guards carried the other end of the pushchair. It was still a struggle though!
We left that mall and went to another one where there was a shop called Landmark. I needed a few stationery things like envelopes and notebooks and I actually remember Landmark in Chennai and it was quite a good shop. I managed to get all the bits I need but not very easily. All the aisles were really small and there were boxes, chairs or stools in every aisle so it was really difficult to manoeuvre the pushchair around. In the end, I placed the pushchair at the end of each aisle, left Abi in it while I grabbed what I needed. DJ was running behind me all the way. It was a really small shop and the aisles weren't big (otherwise I never would've left Abi alone)! She could see us the whole time and more importantly I could see her.
After Landmark, I walked to a third mall where Spencers shop is and I grabbed a drink for myself and DJ as it was getting really hot and I was getting really bothered! We were in and out of there in a matter of minutes and then got back in the car. So far, we had been 2 hours and I hadn't achieved even half of what was on my list. My next stop was going to be the Post Office, but then Abigail started going crazy and crying in the car and getting herself really worked up, so I asked Tyagi to take us home. We got home and Penri left to go to work.
I took some more pictures while we were out and about today:
Oh I nearly forgot, we have been having quite a bit of rain here over the last few days. I think it may be the start of the monsoon. The temperature has definitely cooled down dramatically. Considering we went out at midday today and it was quite pleasant, that just shows the difference.
I fed Abi as soon as we got in and then I made DJ a late lunch/early dinner. At 3 p.m Raj Kumar was here cleaning and I tidied up and rearranged some of the furniture. Not loads … I just brought the coffee table into our bedroom and put some towels on it and then Abi's travel cot on the top. I jammed it in against the wall with our bed. I then moved all the toys out of our bedroom and into DJ's. It doesn't matter how many or how few toys you have, they just seem to explode all over the house! We're going to try letting Dylan sleep in his own room tonight (without Penri) for two reasons. We're hoping our cargo will arrive soon therefore Abigail will be going into her own room so Dylan needs to get used to being in his own room again, and also, both Pens and DJ have been sleeping really badly and I think it's because they keep waking each other up. When DJ wakes up in the night for whatever reason, because Pen is in the room with him, he properly wakes up and is then awake for 3 or 4 hours (meaning he's keeping Penri awake). So, we agreed we would test it out and see how it goes with DJ sleeping by himself and Pens in with me and Abi. Will let you know how it went tomorrow.
I've just re-read that paragraph above and it seems very wordy and very confusing but I know what I meant.
Penri had said he was going to be working late tonight, so when I was on Skype to Alex and she invited us over so the boys could play, I thought that would be great! We got ourselves ready to go and off we went. I hadn't realised it was raining and although it was lovely walking in the rain, I covered both the children with the pushchair rain cover. I wasn't really wearing suitable clothes to be walking in the rain – I had on three quarter length leggings with flip-flops so my feet got really wet. The cool thing about when it rains here is the temperature is just lovely!
We had a really nice evening with Alex and Issac and the boys had loads of fun playing. DJ is getting much better at sharing and I actually made a point of taking one of his favourite cars with us so that he could share it with Issac. I was amazed that he shared really well. I suppose it helped that he was playing with all Issac's toys and they were sharing popcorn! Popcorn is a complete novelty to us at the moment because we don't have a microwave so I can't make it for him. I actually had forgotten how much DJ loves popcorn! Anyway, we all had a really lovely time and it was really nice to chill out and chat with someone other than my babies (as much as I love doing that)!
When it was time to come home (it was about 9.15 p.m and both boys were tired)! Alex took Issac to read a book and DJ instead of wanting to leave and come home with me, went into Issac's bedroom, got one of Issac's dummies and laid down on the bed aswell. Even when I kept saying 'bye bye DJ', he didn't care. I think he would have quite happily laid there to go to sleep!!
We left Alex's about 9.30, came home and I changed both of them into their pyjamas. I then told DJ I was going to feed Abi and I would be back to see him in about 10 minutes. He was quite happily playing with his toys on his bed so I took Abi into my room and fed her. I need to explain something here before I tell you the next part of my story. Whenever we have a power cut (which is quite often but for very short periods of time – normally less than 30 seconds), Penri has taught Dylan to count until the power comes back on. DJ can count up to 10 and then he repeats it over until the power comes on. So, about 5 minutes after I started feeding Abi we had a power cut (and it obviously because it was night time, it was pitch black); I heard DJ make a little whimpering sound and then I could hear him in his bedroom saying 1 … *little sob* … 2 … *little sob* … 3 … *little intake of breath* … 4 … … (you get the idea). My heart just melted and I started saying 'please come back on, please come back on' because I could hear the fear in DJ's voice and it broke my heart. Luckily and happily, Dylan didn't even get to 8 before it came back on and within seconds I could hear him pushing his big bus around his bed again. Abigail only fed for about 5 minutes after that before falling asleep. I laid her down and went into DJ's room. I was sad and disappointed that he was in bed and was fast asleep! I really wanted to spend some time with him and read him a story before bed, but he was so tired and obviously, quite happy to go to sleep. When I say he was quite happy – I know that because Dylan can open all the doors in our apartment and if he wants something, he just comes across the hallway into my room but he didn't come in for anything, he just put himself to bed! Bless him!!
I have a few photos to add here of Abigail playing with Dylan's Thomas the Tank toy and of Dylan lining up all the saltine crackers on my bed and eating them. He thought it was brilliant doing different layouts of biscuits and spent ages laying them out in different orders! Also just a couple of the kids playing ...
Anyway, that's about it from me today; will write tomorrow!
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