Sleepless in da House - The Week in Review

Thank God it's Friday! Woohoo!
Today was Day 2 of the Library and Science Lab cleanup at Bart's school.
I was stuck with some tasks at work, so Marge slaved away for 2 hours on her own. She's wonderful.

We had an early dinner at Maccas so that we could put the kids to sleep early and have an early night. As always, I found other things to do than sleep:

• Watched the 2nd half of The Great Escape. Although I've heard plenty about it before, this was the first time I had watched it. Not bad for an 'old' movie. :)
• Watched the end of PTU (A Hong Kong movie) on SBS. Wished I had seen the beginning.
• Set up my Palm T3 and SE T610 GPRS so that I can post to this blog from anywhere. Almost as good as wireless. Hmmmm... Wi-fi.....

So what did we do this week?

Homer
Busy, busy, busy at work. Still getting used to the mainframe web application development environment. (mfWebAppDevEnv - from now on) Still learning heaps though - especially about XSLT and CSS. Our User Centred Design team is always talking about CSS. Now I know why. It's very interesting - and powerful. If only we educate the rest of the programmers. Interestingly, my ex-team is now finding more interesting work. I still sometimes question myself about whether I made the right decision to leave.
Have I also mentioned that I'm not getting much sleep?

Marge
Busy, busy, busy at home with the kids. Though with Bart back at school after the holidays, she's managing better.
She's also making excellent use of the state-of-the-art juicer that her Aunt bought her. We all get a glass of apple/carrot/spinach/and-whatever-else-she-wants-to-put-in-there juice everyday.
I think she's getting a bit bored too. She phoned me mid-week to say that it's time to move Maggie out of our bed (she refuses to sleep in her cot) and into her own room. Before I could say 'woohoo', she also wants to put her in Lisa's room. Lisa will move to Bart's room. And Bart will need to migrate his stuff to the guest room.

Bart
His interests haven't changed much. Still Star Wars (I must take the blame for that), Bionicles, Age of Empires (he's eager for AOE III), and baiting Lisa.
I find myself getting more and more concerned about his attitude to Lisa.
Sometimes the subtle bullying sends Lisa into tears.
Just little things, like blocking her path, or nudging past her in an effort to get somewhere before she does. Or throwing her toys around.
I'm still trying to work out what happened last night: When I got back from work, he was doing his spelling homework with Marge. But he got frustrated with every little noise, saying that he couldn't concentrate. He got so worked up over his sisters talking (even me getting my dinner) that he said he couldn't write properly.
To be fair - for the most part, he has been very well behaved. Marge reckons he's playing up because we're not giving him enough attention. I would have to agree.

Lisa
She's growing up fast. New phrases like C'mon! and some whinging that she's picked up from her sibling: Not Fair! I've noticed that she's starting to stand up to Bart. They get into some little tit-for-tat arguments that thankfully don't escalate too much. But they're funny to listen to.
This week she also started insisting that Marge or I kept her company when she went to bed. If not, she would cry until we did. Then she'd almost regularly wake up crying and screaming at around 2-3am. And then I'd comfort her till she slept again.
She restarted her swimming lessons this morning. And she loves it.

Maggie
This one also wakes up crying in the middle of the night. Several times.
This week, she started holding the bottle to feed herself.
It was also the first time that I saw her and Lisa play together so well. Maggie likes to snuggle her face into other people's faces or chests or tummys. Lisa found it hilarious when Maggie did it to her.
She's also got the handwave worked out. And she's crawling over when we call her - most times.