The government released a website that rates the performance of schools, and allows you to compare them with others. Al poured over the site for many hours, put together half a dozen spreadsheets, and re-read all the notes she had taken when searching for a Primary School for Jack.

After sleepless nights and much stressing, she came to me tonight indicating her preference would be to change our schooling plans for Jack again, and push to get him into Private school from Prep.

I looked back at the figures we had put together the last time Al returned to this topic, looked at her latest arguments, and was convinced even more that we should not change our plans. I think Al accepted that - for now anyway.

I certainly feel the pressure of getting this decision right, but I could not have imagined how much Al would agonise and worry over it. It would be the second most stressful decision I have ever seen her trying to make, trumped only by the decision between us when to start trying to have a second child.

We have been surprised by Jack’s progress at swimming – the daily lessons are really paying off. Over the last few days he has had a shot of confidence, and his treading water, swimming on is front and back, and jumping in have greatly improved. Al and I were both very proud of his efforts today - including his best ever solo effort to jump in.

Grace started at childcare last week – three days at two hours each. This week it will be three days at four hours each, and next week it will be three full days. She is not overly impressed with this change in her circumstances, and complains at drop off and pick up. She is also apparently a bit clingy while there. She has however eaten and slept where there, and is her normal self immediately after we pick her up. While not a perfect transition, it is about what we were hoping for. (And is a mile ahead of our experiences with Jack.)

Grace has already picked up new skills from Childcare – she learnt how to clap (something we had tried to show her without much luck), she has started to point at things, and she has started to show more interest in walking while we hold her hands.

Jack is attending a summer swimming program this week. It was offered to us free; to try and help Jack get over a couple hurdles he has been stuck at for a while. These basically come down to him panicking any time he is out of his depth.

One very obvious example of this is his refusal to jump into the pool without reaching out to hold the hand of an instructor. Today, heading towards his third jump, he told us he would jump in by himself this time. He got to the edge of the pool, crouched down low, refused the offered hand, and launched himself into the water all by himself. He came out beaming and very happy with himself.

We were very impressed – but also rather amused. In his effort to ensure he hit the water very close to the instructor, he actually ended up landing right on her head. The startled instructor was only a trainee, and hadn’t braced her leg against the wall to push away with.

I had another enjoyable Christmas this year. We further refined our approaches to reduce the stress and hassle, and I feel it worked well.

We had picked up some of the kid's gifts months in advance during the sales, and while we did go out four weekends in a row, after that effort if we had not found a suitable gift for a person we simply got a voucher for them instead. We had finished our gift shopping at least 10 days before Christmas.

Instead of travelling to visit my parents this year, they came and stayed a couple days with us. They are easy guests, and with Mum being able to help with the kids, it made it easier for us to prepare.

We picked tasty but quick food to prepare for Christmas lunch, and staggered the meal across several hours. I think our only fault was putting out too much food. Next time we will just do hot foods at lunch, and put out the cold foods for Tea. Desserts were eaten hours after each meal, which worked well.

On Boxing Day we went to Al's step-sisters place, which I also found relatively relaxed.

Grace mostly took everything in her stride, while Jack was a bit up and down. All told though I think he enjoyed it, and having less running around meant he wasn't stretched so far. Both kids got a huge haul of presents, although Jack's seemed to be mostly wrapping and packaging in the end.

I don't think Al enjoyed it as much. Grace's sleeping hasn't been the best, and Al has really been suffering from sleep deprivation. Add a late onset of hayfever and a surprising amount of stressing about Christmas and juggling Jack's demands (while his childcare is on holidays), and things haven't gone as smoothly for her as she would have liked.

Grace has been teething. She has been a touch more antsy and wanting to chew on things more, but otherwise is handling the process much better than Jack used to. Her arm strength is impressive - I've noticed her swinging from side to side or dancing in her portacot, holding on with just one hand.

It has been a busy few weeks. Aside for the food shopping, we are now ready for Christmas. We seemed to have managed the juggling act ok this year – finishing off all the preparations without it being too annoying or stressful.

Jack has been very up and down the last few weeks – one day he will be a complete angel, the next (like tonight) he is constantly melting down and crying.

Grace is moving along. She is pulling herself up into a standing position all the time, and crawling around happily. She has taken to waving back at you now, and breaks out in a chuckling laugh any time you dance with her. A common sight is her twinkling eyes and button nose peering over the top of the portacot.

This morning in her cage, using the bars, Grace pulled herself up into a standing position by herself for the first time. When Al noticed she exclaimed loudly in surprise, and a startled Grace fell over.

On Sunday the runs stopped, and Jack oscillated between having no fever and the mildest of fevers. On Monday the fever was gone, and his whinging and complaining ramped back up again. While I suspect it might take a while for his energy levels to build back up to normal, he is now obviously better.

A 9 day virus, or maybe a stomach bug. (The later wouldn’t surprise me.) I am glad he finally seems well on the mend.

Jack is conked out on the couch – where he has been falling asleep most afternoons since he became ill. He has had fevers and diarrhea for 9 days now, which is worrying us. The doctor today is still hopeful that it is a virus, but organised some tests next week on his wee and poo . He raised the possibility that Jack might have a bacterial infection in his intestines. We are also to watch him closely, and take him straight to an emergency department if he takes a turn for the worst.

I am looking forward to having whinging, complaining and demanding Jack back as soon as possible.

Al took Jack back to the doctors today. The doc wanted a wee sample before making a judgment on Jack’s five day run of temperatures and the runs. Jack however got performance anxiety and said he didn’t need to go. Al got him home and plied him with water and icy poles, but Jack held on.

Finally while Al was out of the room she heard the scurrying of little feet heading quickly to the toilet, so she made the intercept and got the sample. End result was the doc feels it is just a longer lasting viral infection than usual. No change to the current regime.

This blog was started on the 27th of October, 2004. So far there have been 945 posts and 175 images uploaded.

Jack’s sickness continues - we had to keep him home from childcare for the last two days. He only had a mild temperature on and off, which was an improvement, but his toilet visits are still unpleasant for all concerned. He’s had momentary bursts of energy, but mostly just sat quietly watching TV or playing on the computer. I suspect he might have to spend most of the week at home.

During one of Jack's frequent visits to the toilet today, Al had to take her eyes of Grace for a moment. Grace again managed to face plant on the tiles. I heard the thud from downstairs, the long, long pause as Grace breathed in as much air as she could, and then the subsequent scream. She ended up with a bruise over her temple which hasn’t cleared as quickly as the earlier marks. I can't recall Jack hitting his head so hard, so many times at this age. Grace seems to get over these incidents quickly – far quicker than her parents do.

Grace is still waking up frequently over night. Al starts most of her days either grumpy or comatose. Sometimes she is both.

Grace is now crawling correctly most of the time and sitting cross legged and straight backed when she stops. She has toppled out of the sitting position a number of times however; face planting on hard furniture or smacking herself into the tiled floor on several occasions. I’ve been harping on Al to watch her like a hawk – but she can’t devote 100% of her attention to Grace like she did for Jack. We also haven’t been able to close off a large area and put down padding like we did with Jack. It worries me.

Jack has been running a temperature the last few days, and the doctor suspects he might have a 7 day bug which is going around at the moment. Today Jack put himself to sleep on the couch instead of going to see Santa and his (live) reindeers at the nearby shopping centre. That was a very clear sign on how he was feeling.

Jack was intrigued by the fact his mum was going back to work today. On the way to childcare he told her not to spend any of the money she would earn at the shops. When asked why, Jack said we had to save the money for when he was older, so that we could buy him a house and car when he turned 18.

Grace slept a little better last night, and had a couple long sleeps today. We put a small fan in her room yesterday, and it is possible either the noise or breeze has helped her rest better. There were again noticeable improvements in her crawling and sitting today.

Jack continued being rather demanding. If he wasn’t the focus of attention, he was whinging and complaining incessantly.

Al goes back to work tomorrow – something which I think has been playing on her mind. Add the fortnight of broken sleep and Jack’s behaviour, and she got rather fed up a number of times during the day.

I can normally tell how Jack had critiqued our parenting for each day. After I tuck him into bed each night, he will call out to me as I go down the stairs.

On a good day, he will say “Have a good night Dad, love you, sleep tight.”

On an average day, it will be “Have a good night Dad, sleep tight.”

On a poor day, it will just be “Sleep tight Dad.”

When he is really unhappy with our efforts, he won’t call out.

Today my trip downstairs was a silent one.

Grace is still not sleeping great at night, which means most days Al is suffering from sleep deprivation.

Grace is confidently scooting around now with an effective commando crawl, and will also get up and crawl properly in short bursts. She now gets into a partial sitting position - although mostly leans forward heavily on her two hands. Every so often she will sit up straight and unaided, but isn’t particularly stable and doesn’t last long.

Happy Jack only lasted a few days - complaining, over sensitive, crying and tantrum Jack is already back. Today we didn’t have as much patience for it as we should have had, and there were a couple clashes. We will have to try harder tomorrow.

Grace is still not sleeping great at night, although there has been some improvement on that front.

For the last few days Jack has been a great little kid. I don’t think he has thrown a tantrum (although he has cried a few times), and he has generally been patient and a delight to interact with. We don’t know if he is over his growth spurt or what, but we’ll appreciate this version of Jack while it is here.

Grace was up and down constantly again on Friday night - and tonight also started out bad. It has taken its toll on Al, who isn’t her normal self.

Looks like Grace is going to have another bad night – Al has gone to her half a dozen times already. They are both really in need of a good night’s sleep.

On a more positive note, Grace seems to have got the knack of commando crawling. Today she also got up on hands and knees and managed to crawl properly for short bursts, and is getting herself into the start of a sitting position. I seem to remember Jack as having a steady progress through all his baby development, but Grace seems to have sudden mad bursts, followed by quite periods.

Jack is sleeping tonight with Teddy cuddled up under one arm. Grandma C and Postman Pat did an excellent job getting him home so quickly.

After opening the package Jack earnestly told his Mum “I am so very happy that Teddy is home again. I love Teddy very much.” Bear then disappeared (I am not sure where too) and Teddy took his rightful place back on Jack’s pillow.

Grace continues her more frequent night time waking and grumpiness, meaning Al’s sleep is being interrupted lots. Add to this being extra clingy, and having a very rough barking cough, and we have one out of sorts’ daughter. Al took her to the doctor today just to check the cough. He thinks she has a viral infection – but one that she is keeping on top of since her chest, throat and ears were all clear.

Over the last week Al and I have made another real effort to keep calm during Jack’s frequent meltdowns. We don’t always get it right, but generally the flare ups haven’t been quite as extreme. At the very least, none of us seem to be quite as frazzled after his tantrums.

My Dad goes in for an op tomorrow morning. It is a relatively common thing in older men – and will see him off work for up to 6 weeks. Mum mentioned he has (literally) years of sick leave. He has been with the same organisation for what must be 35 odd years now and rarely taken a day off sick. How fortunate to have such a buffer.

Once he is over that, he will have to have another op – this time to remove a cancer. Again it is relatively common, and the cancer will usually be completely cured through surgery alone. He will then have to take another chunk of sick leave as he recovers.

When I left my last job I lost several months worth of sick leave. Seeing what Mum and Dad have gone through over the last couple years, I am reminded about how valuable it can be.

Things calmed down in the evening, and as I went to tuck Jack into bed I was thinking at least the day would end on a good note. Then it hit me – I couldn’t remember packing Jack’s Teddy in the car for the trip home.

I broke the news to Jack, whose bottom lip trembled and huge (real) tears welled up in his eyes. I told him I would check downstairs – but that just confirmed the bear wasn’t to be found. I checked through his collection of Teddy Bears and found one that was somewhat similar, and suggested he temporarily use that one. I suggested he should call it bear. I also told him I would call Grandma C straight away.

Sure enough the Bear was in her Bed – left there by Jack when he had visited for a morning chat and cuddle. (And the only room of Grandma’s house that we didn’t do a quick check of before leaving.) Grandma quickly indicated she would send the bear down by registered post. I returned and told Jack that Grandma was going to take the very best care of Teddy, and would get Postman Pat to bring it back home to Jack in the next week or two.

Satisfied with Grandma’s skills at taking care of Teddy Bears, Jack went to sleep with his temporary replacement tucked up under one arm.