my-speck

i'm pregnant and it's going to be a rollercoaster

Happy Birthday to us! .. Cake before and after… June 19, 2011

We had a lovely relaxed party in the local park this morning with some friends and family to celebrate our birthdays…

 

I made you a tip-truck birthday cake:

the tip-truck birthday cake …

Which was enjoyed by all present:

I had a lovely time chatting and watching all the kids run about in excitement.

 

🙂

 

thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone!

P.S. And unless the baby decides to come quickly in the next 3.5 hours, I’ve avoided a double birthday with myself.  It just has to wait another 27.5 hours to avoid Poogie’s too!

 

The what’s and where’s of things… (or what dads do at work) June 17, 2011

So little Poogie has recently discovered a few useful sentences:

“Where’s x?” or “Where are you x?” (when he knows x is in the vicinity). Mostly, “Where are you Daddy?” or “Where are you Mummy?”

Often when he already knows exactly where we are (or might if he engaged the brain) at full yell from wherever he happens to be standing (now which parent did he learn that trick from I wonder?? – that would be me!).

And the second one:

“What you doing?”, or “What x doing?”. Again, often when he can see you / knows what you are doing. But not always, sometimes when he can’t see the person.

Recently, we’ve made a few trips to Daddy’s office at around 5:30, to pick him up and take him home. Little Poogie loves going there, he runs right to the drawer where Daddy keeps snacks, and gets a cracker, then has a dance to the loud music Daddy inevitably has on at that time of the day.

So, cue this conversation yesterday morning, 10 minutes after standing on the verandah and watching his Dad cycle up the hill in the distance, round the corner and disappear off to work:

“Mummy, where Daddy? Where Daddy gone?”

“He’s gone to work, remember, you saw him cycle off.”

“Yes, Daddy gone up the hill to work. …. ” Pause while he thinks. “What Daddy doing work?”

“Mmm.. I’m not sure. He might be typing on his computer. Or he might be talking on the phone.”

Little Poogie ponders this answer for a minute. Then with a very definitive shake of his head:

“No. Daddy eating crackers. … Daddy listening music.”

I collapse on the ground in laughter, because that is such an apt description of what my lawyer husband does at work all day!

🙂

Love mum

P.S. Can’t wait until the “why’s” start…

 

I born a …. June 16, 2011

From the mouth of a babe:

“I born a nana!”

“I born a nana”

I guess those books we have been reading every day to try to get used to the concept that a baby will soon arrive are really getting through :).  I wasn’t quite sure he understood that the baby would come out of my tummy through a ‘hole’ somewhere, but he told me yesterday the baby would come out soon through a ‘hole’, and today’s demonstration proves he really does get it…

 

This beauty was uttered not 5 minutes ago, spontaneously on the verandah to Aunty G.   Imaginative play! I love it!

 

Love mum

 

P.S. Let’s hope the real baby gets better care than this poor nana a few minutes after birth:

 

Dear Baby.. I think this is what is called ‘nesting’ June 13, 2011

Filed under: cooking,Parenting,pregnancy — rakster @ 7:19 pm
Tags: , ,

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12 individual trays of spinach cannelloni baked and ready for the freezer..

Yum.

Me in the kitchen with a lot of food

 

And she swallowed … a soccer ball? June 9, 2011

Filed under: baby stuff,eating,emotion,Parenting,pregnancy — rakster @ 2:33 pm

Hello!

 

Well, it’s that time again, where I feel as ginormous as a house.  And look like it too.

 

No, I take it back, as your father says:

“Who swallowed the soccer ball?”.

I’m not really as big as a house, just as big as it would be to have a whole soccer ball in your stomach.  Yep, that’s me:

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Is the baby coming out today?… June 8, 2011

So today little Poogie has a bit of the flu still, so we had a day home from kindi (daycare).

 

All I had planned was the fitting of the baby car seat at the ambulance centre (great rental service here in Brisbane) and then a trip to the obstetrician’s for a check-up.  We had started to talk to little O about the need for a new baby seat in the car already: especially as his seat had to move over to accommodate the new baby capsule, and that the baby when it came out would travel in the car, next to him.  Where he could see it (which he seems excited about!).

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Dear Baby…. you are always on my mind. May 25, 2011

Dear Baby,

 

quick note to let you know that you are occupying my mind more and more as the date of your arrival approaches.   It’s just that I’m a bit busy… so haven’t got to telling you about it.

 

So I intend each day from now on to write you at least a small note.

 

Today’s message: please hang in there for at least another 11 days.

I’ve had a few close friend’s babies arrive a few weeks early recently.  Please, just hang out a bit longer, enjoy the swim and the swishy noises of digestion and heartbeats, because I really need a bit of a break after I finish work this Friday (the reason I haven’t written for so long – lots of work and just tired tired tired at the end of it all)…  And then we want to go to the beach for the weekend with your little brother for a last getaway before you join us on the outside of my tummy.

 

I didn’t get a single day’s break when your brother O arrived two years ago, working up until the day before he came (not quite planned that way, but that’s how it goes I guess).

Those really strong tweaky feelings right down in my pelvis the other night sort of freaked me out a bit… I’m ready mentally for you to come, but not quite ready in real life: I haven’t even pulled down the baby clothes from the top of the cupboard yet….

 

So, hang tight, keep swimming around, and enjoy the ride.  please.

 

love mum.

 

 

On the way home… April 10, 2011

Filed under: eating,exhaustion,Parenting,pregnancy,Raising a Child — rakster @ 7:48 pm

So! It’s Sunday night and I’m at Sydney airport, waiting for my flight to Brisbane. Thinking about my week and how I feel…

This is day-five I’ve experienced sans my little baby (toddler). The longest I’ve been before this was one night and two full days. This has been five full nights.

Mixed. Mixed feelings in general. I have had a great week: a mix of socializing and catching up with some of my dearest friends and some work in the middle of it all. And a bit of just sitting and resting. Not too much rushing about thankfully – just a few things each day. A lot of eating of good food with great conversation.

In fact, I think I have spoken and listened to adult conversation more in the past 5 days than I have in the whole year previous to this week. And I’ve enjoyed that (sorry to anyone who had their ear damaged by the unrelenting barrage).

The outcome? I’m proud that I’m still my own person and feel a bit more like they after 5 days away. It feels a bit silly to write that, and I don’t think I’ve expressed the sentiment I’m aiming to particularly well, but the gist of it is that my self-identity is intact somewhere beneath the mothering and I’ve had some time alone with myself in an independent environment this week to see that a bit more clearly.

But overall I’ve also really missed my little boopie. He talked to me a lot on the phone for the first few days, but today almost refused to speak with me. Both myself and his dad think this is because he is upset that I’m not there, feels a bit abandoned, and is expressing that by being grumpy and not wanting to talk to me on the phone. I hope he recovers quickly tomorrow morning when he wakes up and doesn’t feel like I did abandon him…

I miss his dad too. We’ve spent periods of our relationship where I commuted to a different continent, or travelled frequently, but right now we’ve been living together every day for a few years, and we are close. And I miss him.

Another positive however has been some time and mental space to think about the soon-to-be impending new arrival. I feel like I’ve had time to talk to my new growing baby, to play with it as it kicks and thumps it’s way around in my quickly-expanding belly, responding to it more in the way I did with O when he was in the womb, as I’ve not been distracted by a toddler in my side-vision constantly. So that has been great. A few minutes to start to envisage a positive birth and the changes that a new little body in our home will bring in around 10-11 weeks time.

And did I mention already that I’ve had great food and company???

Enough rambling. Finishing with two images that contrast this week’s experience: a picture of O having a bath in the kitchen sink a few weeks ago that I have been looking at while I’ve been away; and a picture if the passionfruit tart I consumed for breakfast on Saturday…

🙂

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A little bit grumpy… but out to solve that. With Cake. 28 weeks and counting. April 7, 2011

So, not sure what happened to the happy hormones, but they kinda just upped and left me all alone with the grumpy ones about a week ago.  It co-incided with my pelvic-floor/back deciding that it really only had the stamina to hold a growing baby until week 28 and that it was just going to give up and go with the strain of it all.  Pity it didn’t co-ordinate with my nerve-endings and decide to release a bunch of serotonin at the same time – that would have made it bearable.  Why can’t we control that ourselves??

 

So.  Grumpy 28-week pregnant lady on the loose.

 

That is me.

 

Thankfully however a few months ago I booked myself my first trip-away from child #1 (Poogie) down to Sydney for this week.  So here I am in Sydney for a few days, sans-child and sans-husband.

 

A bit of work, and a bit of play before I’m not allowed to fly anymore.  So today, after a day at work yesterday, I plan to shake off the grumpiness by consuming all manner of sweet desserts at Adriano Zumbo’s after a short walk from the relaxing lounge where I am currently reclining at Chez Shef’s…. (thank-you for welcoming me into your home – read: letting me invade and take over once again).

 

love mum

 

ps. I have just reviewed my state at 28 weeks in my last pregancy.  And lo and behold, surprise, surprise: I was grumpy, the happy hormones had deserted me, and I was compensating with dessert…

 

p.p.s. and to cheer me up this morning already, two of our dearest friends just welcomed their beautiful little girl into the world. So I’m smiling at least a little 🙂

 

 

 

Buying Baby Stuff… Prams, Strollers and slings. March 9, 2011

Buying baby stuff: particularly prams, strollers, slings and other baby-carrying devices.  Provokes a reaction/comment/opinion in most parents of young children.  Weird but true: those devices that become really important.   They let you move.  And settle.  And all other sorts of important things.

I like to research things before I buy them.  Usually over-research.  Take ages to make a decision.   Which is infuriating even to me sometimes.  We still use the stereo I bought when I was 18.   The CD player/stacker on it broke about 6 years ago.  And we didn’t get it fixed because we meant to buy a new one.  But never got around to it.  Because each time we tried to do research on what we thought we wanted, it all got too complicated too quickly.  And the stereo could take an input still – so we could play our mini-disc players.   Then we just reverted to radio for a long while.  Or listening through a computer.  Now I plug my iBaby in.  And it still works fine.  But we would like a new stereo one day.

That is all an aside though.  We use a beautiful, much-loved Mountain Buggy pram for you (more…)