High Energy

If only I had some of it – high energy that is. Both my girls are full of beans from morning to night. They have such a need to throw their bodies around. At school and kindi pick-up the Mum’s of boys say, ‘You’ll get a shock if your third baby is a boy,’ but I don’t see it. I reckon some girls are just super high energy – and I have two of them. They are running, jumping, setting up obstacle courses, fighting with toy swords and light sabers, riding their bikes endlessly around the house and love to hang upside down. At weekends they love to play crazy games with their Daddy, who is fabulous with them.

The other day, after school pick up, I felt really tired and suggested we cuddle up on the sofa for a story. All went great, for about five minutes, before they turned themselves upside down on the sofa and ‘listened’ to the rest of the story on their heads.

This surge of energy has accelerated in recent weeks. Maybe it’s the increased daylight hours and warmer weather, enabling them to play outside more. Over winter we did do a lot of board games, baking and crafts, so I guess they’ve charged up the batteries big time for a spring/summer festival of physical activity.

Added to their energy is the constant talk. Sophie, in particular, is a real chatter-box. Charli is much happier to be at peace and would, if her sister gave her the chance, retreat to her room and happily just ‘be’ for a good hour or so. In fact she attempted to do just that the other day – digging out an origami book and getting busy – but within ten minutes she was discovered and took on the role of ‘teacher’ to show Sophie how to make paper dogs, cats and butterflies.

Coinciding with their increased levels of energy is my drop in desire to be physically active.

At 26 week’s pregnant I’m starting to feel the effect of carrying an extra 5 pints of blood and extra litres of water on board. My legs are aching more and it’s so much harder to bend down 101 plus times a day to pick up laundry, toys and bits of food off the floor (I do try very hard to get the girls to help – with mixed results and responses). In my head there is so much I want to do. I have a number of cupboards to clear out and baby stuff to rediscover, sort and organize. But my body is saying, ‘Whoa girl!’. People have started saying, ‘Wow! When are you due?’ and when I say, ‘Not till February,’ I get either a surprised, apologetic or longer winded response. Being petite in stature I always look quite big from now until arrival day. There is no way to hide my beach ball belly. I’m measuring the same as I did with the girls at this stage and feel no real differences, except this baby is even more active than I remember them being (uh oh!). With Charli I felt hardly anything as I had an anterior placenta.

I am just so thankful that Sophie is now at morning Kindi and last week she attended four of the five sessions, which gave me some ‘time out’. Though I did stay for one of the sessions to make a large batch of play dough for the week. After school I’m seeking out opportunities to burn off their high energy and this last week we went to Junglerama (an indoor play-space) on Monday, where they burnt off a ton of beans. On Friday we discovered a great casual class at the local gym for children. There’s no need to pay up for a term, as the classes are casual. There are different classes on every day of the week and they run over the school hols too – yah! So they danced around a studio for nearly an hour to Thriller, Mamma Mia and Eye of the Tiger with lots of fun zombie impressions, jumping and punching. Sophie kept up with the older children incredibly well and kept giving me a thumbs up and saying, ‘Perfectimo!’. Mid-week we drove into Dan’s office and they girls whizzed around the wooden floors on scooters whilst Dan finished up. And swimming is always a popular one (and I love the feeling of weightlessness in the water).

It’s only about five week’s till the girls break up from school and kindi for the long seven week summer hols. A part of me wonders how I’m going to cope, whilst being in the third trimester of pregnancy, but on the other hand I will be able to schedule some full on day’s out with lots of exercise. Thank goodness my folks are coming out when I’m at 35 week’s. Though I will have to make sure they have plenty of ‘breaks’ too. My Mum mentioned needing to take her vitamin tablets regularly when she came out to keep up. We’ll be sure to keep them well stocked up on blueberries and strawberries to see them through – and large quantities of gin, whiskey and New Zealand wines 🙂

Here’s the girls tackling the bouncy castle ‘obstacle’ course at Junglerama this week (they have caught a couple of episodes of ‘Wipeout’ on TV3 with Dan on a Sunday evening and think it’s hilarious).