Kayla and Alex have been spending the week at Tweddle Child & Family Health Services in Footscray to focus on Alex’s dependency on his mum when sleeping. We were lucky to get an opening become available during Cup Week, rather than waiting until January. It worked well for me as it meant I only had to take 1 day off work to look after Charlie when he wasn’t at childcare. Here’s what we did.
Paul Sadler Swimland Hoppers Crossing
We do swimming lessons at Paul Sadler Swimland in Hoppers Crossing. They are really good with giving you makeup credits for cancelled classes, but we’ve never actually used any of these and would have a dozen or so banked up. We joined the 9.30 am class and had a pretty good lesson. I quite enjoyed our first Thursday lesson as the place was much quieter with none of the school-aged children there. This meant we had access to more of the swimming pool which gave us a lot more space to move around.
This was the first time I’ve taken Charlie to swimming all by myself and it went smoother than expected.
From next week, we’ll be doing back-to-back classes with Alex and Charlie assuming we can continue to have available bookings for Charlie’s makeup lessons. The baby lessons at Paul Sadler are only on weekdays, so I’ll be using up some of my stacked-up annual leave towards this for the rest of the year.
Back Home To Shower
We went back home so I could have a quick shower before we headed out to do more things. Charlie really wasn’t in the best mood for getting his nappy changed and properly dressed and bumped his head on the floor. To cheer him up I got him a toy bus from the garage I’d bought for him a while ago, it is an orange city-style bus kind of similar to our local buses, he loved it and wanted to carry it around all day.
Lunch at Truckstop Deluxe
This is the final week for the famous Werribee burger place, Truckstop Deluxe which is sadly closing. I used to go here a lot when it first opened but I’ve not been back to dine-in since the kids were born as I was waiting for them to get older to be able to appreciate it. With notice of Truckstop Deluxe closing this Sunday and the knowledge I’d have the day off, I knew I’d have one last chance to take Charlie during the day.
We were the first people there for the day right around opening at 11.30 am. Unfortunately, everything I tried to order was out of stock, apparently, they had a big night the night before (and were also booked the rest of the nights it is open for). So I couldn’t get a chicken burger… or a burger with a mac & cheese croquet… or a tap beer… So I settled with the regular “Fine & Dandy” cheeseburger with added bacon. I got this smaller burger as I knew I’d be eating Charlie’s food anyway. For Charlie, I got him a kid’s meal with nuggets, fries, juice and ice cream.
Whilst we waited for the food to come, Charlie explored the big trucks and put his new bus to bed. We sang the wheels on the bus go round and round a few times whilst he pretended to drive the truck.
Charlie was very excited to get ice cream with sprinkles, there was also the option to add any of the toppings from the milkshake range but I said no to this as Charlie is a pretty fussy eater.
Overall, the experience was great and so were the staff, who were indeed very humble despite some things being out of stock and it being their last few days at work. I will miss Truckstop Deluxe in Werribee, home of the humble burger.
A Goodbye to Mynt Lounge
Currently, the old Mynt Lounge building at 185 Watton St is being renovated as it will be reopening as a different business soon. I’ve always wanted to get a photo of Kayla and me outside this place as it’s where we met and her parents also met at a Werribee nightclub (Blasers – which was later known as Volt). This means Charlie and Alex are second-generation Werribee nightclub babies and will be expected to meet their partners at a Werribee nightclub in the future as well.
After this, my plan was to visit most of the local op shops before visiting Kayla and Alex at the Tweddle Sleep School. My aim at op shops is to find cool or vintage books, toys and video games both for my kids… and myself.
Salvation Army Op Shop
We visited the Salvos which is roughly behind the old Mynt Lounge building 84 Synnot St Werribee. Charlie saw a very low-quality toy car that he liked, but I wouldn’t get it for him because it had sharp edges to the plastic and wasn’t appropriate for children. He was pretty grumpy about it all. I got PJ Masks Junior Look & Find book and a Return of the Jedi Little Treasures book.
Vinnies Hoppers Crossing
Here I bought 2 Star Wars books, a Jurassic World figure and a Dungeons and Dragons self-contained board game which looked complete and was only $5. I didn’t get a great look around at this place because Charlie kept running around yelling “Where my mummy go?” even though she wasn’t here at all and made me look like I was kidnapping him.
When we got outside after paying he kept running around everywhere but luckily there weren’t many cars in the car park. Getting hit by a car was definitely a concern.
Brotherhood of Sat Laurence Hoppers Crossing
The main thing I recall buying here was a bag of Duplo for $20 which included all, or most of the parts for a Toy Story train set including Woody and Buzz, so that seemed like a good buy. Better than their other bag of fake Duplo for the same price.
Again, Charlie was only interested in the toy section, making it difficult for me to check out other things. I don’t want to leave him alone unsupervised in an op-shop as they tend to have a lot of glass objects on shelves that he could likely reach.
Salvos Old Geelong Road
We actually spent a lot longer than I expected at the Salvos on Old Geelong Road. They have this little cart on wheels full of Matchbox, Hotwheels and other smaller cars for $1 each and whilst we were there, Charlie only wanted to shovel handfuls of these mostly broken or wonky cars into my basket, meaning it was hard for me to see much of the shop. They did have a bunch of $10 Duplo bags, which I bought two of due to some cool pieces. The one pictured included a cactus which I’ve not owned before, the other I got had a Batman Duplo figure.
Whilst we were there, Charlie kept doing laps of the shop to get more $1 cars and dropping them into my basket. It was really tricky as I was trying to balance keeping an eye on my kid with checking out things that weren’t a metre from the toy area.
By the time I paid, I had to give my basket full of random damaged and low-quality toy cars to the cashier to hide behind the desk so that Charlie wouldn’t take them with us. For this transaction, I used cash and coins to pay and actually left my wallet behind.
When I was about to turn off towards the freeway to visit Kayla, I realised I’d left my wallet behind and had to do a last-minute U-turn to get back there. Luckily, whilst having a difficult-to-operate Secrid wallet (for the uninitiated) it does include a holographic sticker of Charlie’s face so the staff recognised me as the owner when I returned.
Collecting Mum From Tweddle
In the process of going back and forth from the Salvos, Charlie was falling asleep and was very happy to finally be seeing mummy when we arrived at Tweddle. Kayla needed me to help pack up and put things in the car, as she wanted to come home a day early as the construction next door (they are extending the facility) was very loud making it hard to get Alex to do his sleep training.
I entertained the kids in the kitchen for a little bit whilst Kayla packed up. Alex was happy to see me but Charlie was very worried that mummy wasn’t coming back for some reason.
This picture of him asking “Where my mummy go?” is very cute, but also makes me feel sad for him. She was just getting her bag packed!
Home Time
Charlie was very excited to go in “Mummy’s car” which is our red Nissan X-Trail, it’s the car with both car seats in it, so it has become Mummy’s car. Kayla got herself a thick shake from McDonald’s and some chippies for Charlie.
I guess now that we’re home and Kayla is back with us, that this daddy date is over. But not before I quickly give both kids a temporary tattoo whilst changing their nappies.
“Why does Alex have a tattoo?” said Kayla, puzzled. Then Charlie came and showed her his one and Daddy was busted.
