More holidays

We've been out and about the last couple of weeks. It hasn't done wonders for J's sleep (don't think he's a fan of the portacot) but it has been good for us!

So, where have we been?

Supporting A doing Tough Mudder in Sydney.  A long day for spectators but certainly an eye opener!

Visiting the beach for the very first time

and taking lots of walks in the pram. This one is on a visit to Nana and Pop.

J is 16 weeks today! He's a total cutie, but I am a little bit biased! He's just started rolling back to front and has front to back so worked out it's difficult to get him to do tummy time as he just flips himself over! Cheeky monkey!

Other than that, I went down to my parents place for a week while A was still at work and came home to a tidy and rearranged house with no remaining reno tools inside. What an awesome husband I have. We still don't have a bath. We are getting a new fence. I need to take a picture of what is there at the moment so you can see just how much we need this to happen!

I want to do a house post but we'll see how J sleeps this afternoon to see if it is going to happen!

Hope you are well!

Hanging out and holidaying

Is what we've been doing.

We went on our first little family holiday to the snow. It was awesome, I even got out for a couple of runs myself! We then drove down to Victoria and stopped in with family and a couple of friends who have a daughter a couple of weeks older than J. J was a little champ with all the travelling and sleeping in different places, we were so proud of him!

Since we've been back we've been seriously working on day sleeps, I was getting sick of the 45min cat nap and resulting grumpy baby and the 'I'll only sleep in your arms' thing we had going. Thankfully we are making progress in that department. 

I'm loving spring and the sunshine it has brought, being able to get out and walk, walk, walk. I calculated that I've walked at least 20km in the last week! Thankfully J loves the pram and is perfectly content being pushed around and sleeps like a dream when we are walking!

Other than that, I'm just being a Mum. It's pretty wonderful even though it's the hardest thing I have ever done and I doubt myself a bit too much. J was 13 weeks last Thursday. That's a whole 1/4 of a year! I can't believe how quickly time passes. I want it to slow down so I can savour every moment and all the cute things he's starting to do - this week it's babbling away to his toys and us, it's so cute my heart melts. On the other hand, I can't wait to see what is next!

I'll leave you with some photos of the last few weeks. I will do a final bathroom reveal when we get the bath. *insert eye roll here* Please cross your fingers for us that it doesn't take 8 weeks! J will totally be too big for the baby bath in a couple of weeks, let alone 8!

Hope you are well!

Musical mobile never fails to please

"You're funny Mum!"

                 

Family photo at the snow

Getting the hang of tummy time

1 month already?

Dear J,

Can not believe it! One whole month ago you arrived, one whole month. It's been a steep learning curve and a huge challenge at times. Breastfeeding is hard work, we've had all sorts of issues that have made both of us very unhappy but fingers crossed we've turned the corner now.

I'm grateful that you settle fairly well at nights, days are a bit different and the Baby Bjorn gets quite a work out! Although you like it better when Dad wears it.

You are getting close to a smile and it's so lovely to see you looking around and studying things.

It's a funny thing, motherhood. In the evenings when the only place we can get you to sleep is our chests I find myself torn between wishing you'd sleep in you bassinette so I could also sleep and thinking I should really treasure the snuggles as one day you'll be too big and won't want that closeness anymore. It's exciting watching you grow and change yet I find myself feeling a little sad that you will never be this small and precious again. Not that you won't always be precious but you know what I mean right?

You should also know that you are the only person in the world I sing for! Yes, you should feel special and yes, I'll forgive you when you are older and realise how bad a singer I actually am! You settle to a silly tune that repeats your name over and over and to Dad's monotone version that sounds like the 'boooor -ing' call at the cricket. We (well, I) have a favourite book I read to you, Hattie and the Fox.

There's a lot to come this next month, including the all important decision about whether you'll follow the Hawks or the Bombers in the Footy! Can't wait to see what you do in the next month.


Lots of love,


Mum

We have a baby boy!

Jesse Peter A finally arrived on 14/6 at 2.08 pm.

We are absolutely besotted with our little man.

Being a mum is a pretty tough gig especially when the only place he will sleep more than 10 minutes is on our chests but I do feel incredibly blessed tohave him in our lives!

I don't know how i'll gokeeping up this blog as i never intend it to be a baby blog. We'll see what happens i suppose.

The bathroom is still in progress so i'll continueto update how things are going there.

For now i'll ask youto forgive the typos - stupid ipad - and leave you with a picture of our little redhead!

Day 24

Another big weekend of work and we finally have some walls. I can't tell you how good it feels to have bathroom walls. It's visible progress compared to the plumbing and electrics of last week, most of which we couldn't see!

We also have the computer back this week so here are a few catch up photos...

Chicken checking out our progress before we filled in the doorway.

What the cat does while we work our butts off.

Measure three times, cut once. We've learnt this the hard way in the past.

New laundry space - found another little hole in the floor!

Adding insulation in the walls, how novel! It'll end up being the warmest room in the house!

The first wall is up! Woo hoo!

Still lots to go. Still no baby. A thinks this is very considerate given how much we have to do, I am less convinced of this by the day. I hate waiting at the best of times so it's driving me a little crazy!

Suprise!

No, no baby yet. But on the last weekend I was given a lovely suprise baby shower organised by two good friends and my very sneaky husband.

With all the reno disruption and general chaos around here at the moment I wasn't going to bother with anything so I was totally suprised and very touched by the effort they went to.

Sunday morning A kept me busy doing reno jobs then asked if I would return the trailer we'd borrowed to friends L and T. I said I didn't really want to as I've never driven with the trailer before. A suggested it was time I learn and he would come with me. He also said that we should get out of the old reno clothes as L had been cooking andwe might stay for a bite to eat. Despite the extra cars out the front I still had no idea anythong was foing on until I got inside and saw people I knew that I didn't think L and T did!

According to A, I was 'beetroot' suprised - I blush easily!

I'll share some photos of the lovely gifts later. We should be getting our laptop back tomorrow which will make blogging much easier. I will leave you with one photo - the belly at 39 weeks. It looks ginormous in this picture!

Waiting, waiting, waiting...

Still waiting for the tile adhesive to dry completely!

Lesson learned for the bathroom - ask tile suppliers if there is a quicker drying type of adhesive!

In the meantime here is a picture of the bump at what must be nearly 34 weeks!

Goodies from the grandparents

Baby A will be the first grandchild on both sides of the family. Needless to say we have some very excited grandparents to be.

I may have neglected to mention that I turned 30 a couple of weeks ago and so my parents came to visit for the weekend. Along with a generous contribution to our bathroom fund and some money towards maternity/newborn photos for me, they came bearing all sorts of goodies for Baby A. Mum has been very busy in the sewing/shopping department!

Lambs wool rug and minky blanket - Dad's contribution, the choice of material on the front!

Fabric nursery rhyme book

Prepared for a boy or girl!

Ready for next Christmas already!

Lots of clothes

At this point I realised that I haven't bought a single thing myself yet! A's bought all the practical stuff and we've been given everything else so far. So on our school excursion on Monday (a very cruisy day that left time for coffee and shopping!) I popped into a tiny handmade shop and solved the problem by bringing this little guy home.

 

I also picked up this rag tag cloth for a friend who's just had a baby girl.

 And these two bags to add to the shopping collection now the ACT has changed their plastic bag laws.

Now I just have to remember to take them to the shops!

Hope you are having a good week.

Now I know how the kids feel...

This could so easily turn into a whingy, whiny post, I've not had a great day. I've been back at work for just two days - about 45 to go, not that I'm counting! No kids yet, just meetings and preparation and more meetings that run over into preparation time (!). However, sitting down on the school chairs for hours on end is killing me. They are hard and downright uncomfortable. I feel sorry for the kids having to sit on them every day. At least when they are back, I'll have no time or real reason to sit too much! 

I love my job, and I'll love it when the kids are back. I just don't deal well with office politics, last minute notifications of responsibility - "oh, yeah, you're coordinating 1st semester ..." even though I'm only there for one term and I have discovered I have little patience for staff members who plan to teach maths (for example) rather than teach their students maths. There is such a difference here, even if it doesn't seem like it to read! And in coordinating the 1st semester, I will be dealing with one of these teachers who I just don't see eye to eye with on, well, anything - not pedagogy (for the non teachers - how you teach stuff) and certainly not behaviour management. Gah, stress. Let's move on.

Baby A either loves me being at work or hates it as I'm feeling constant kicks and rolls and punches which, while I like feeling the movement, is not helping the comfort factor! It is a good entertainment strategy though. During some of the more repetitive meetings I'm surreptitiously watching my belly to see if I can see the big kicks from the outside! 

In order to get out of this whingy rut I'm going to borrow Yaeli's Thankful Thursday, just this once, it might help me sleep tonight!

Today I am thankful for...

1. Supportive colleagues who share my philosophy on teaching!

2. My lovely mum

3. My lovely husband who is still on holidays and spent the last two days dealing with tradies to get a bathroom reno quote and hanging the Ikea blinds (no small feat)!

Finally - the bump at 22 weeks 3 days.

Hope you are well!

Busy week

After being a homebody most of last week, I've been out and about catching up with people this week.

It started on Saturday really, we went to visit friends who have just come back from their honeymoon to see their beautiful wedding pics. I made profiteroles with custard and raspberry for dessert. They were super yummy and much easier than expected - with the added bonus that they used up 8 eggs! Our chickens are such good layers.

I've been to see the Handwritten exhibition at the National Library - if you are in Canberra it's well worth seeing. It's free but you are meant to book a timed entry ticket online.

On Monday I did my first pre-natal yoga class and really enjoyed it. I went in feeling pretty average and came out feeling great!

Yesterday I went into work to get my timetable and class lists - hopefully seeing these will stop the 'back to work' nightmares I've been suffering! Then I met a friend and saw the Japanese movie Arrietty. It was very sweet and I loved that because it was a kids movie I could understand most of the Japanese without needing the subtitles. I also went and bought a set of maternity jeans - so comfy

From Jeans West

Today I caught up with a friend I haven't seen in over a year! We are so incredibly slack and have trouble planning stuff during the school year so it usually takes a spontaneous phone call and a lot of luck for us to get together. It was so good to catch up!

When I've been home, the sewing/house projects have taken a serious back seat to the tennis. I'm afraid I'm a little addicted! We're off to the coast for a couple of days soon so I'm justifying it by thinking I need to get my fix now as I'll miss most of the final rounds!

Finally, a picture of the bump at 20 weeks! And of another maternity purchase - this one was online (and on clearance) and I'm pretty pleased with it! Please excuse the mess - this will be Baby A's room as soon as we sort out the 'office' stuff that it is full of at the moment!

The Name Game

I can't believe we're half way!

I also can't believe that two years ago I spent a good portion of my summer holidays drooling over wedding dresses online, this week my attention has been on cloth nappies! Who would have known there were so many options?

Anyway, that's not what I want to post about. We were talking last night and decided that we should really start thinking about names. But where to start? 

Back at our wedding we had little moleskine notebooks on each table with questions for our guests to answer. There were 'sensible' questions like "What is the secret to a long and loving life?" and ones that we hoped would give us a laugh, like the one below.

What's this got to do with baby names you ask? Another page in the book read...

Good for a chuckle but ultimately not all that helpful. 

A's mum gave us a Baby Name book but with names like Egberta* it pretty much fits into the same category as the wedding comments above.

The best starting point I've come up with is my name, which was my mother's maiden name. She didn't have any brothers to carry the name on so I got it. If we have a boy, I'd like to do the same as my maiden name could also be a first name and of all my 15 or so cousins, none of them will pass the name on! Interestingly, our married name could also be a first name so that could be a nice 'tradition' to start. I'm off to write a list!

Do you have a story for where your name came from? Or advice in picking one for your child? I'd love to hear it!

*Apologies if you are, or know an Egberta!

Baby gifts and football musings

I know it's a bit late for Christmas, the Easter Eggs are out already so I really should move on but I thought I'd share these goodies anyway. At our work Christmas lunch one of my colleagues asked if I thought little Baby A would get any Christmas presents this year. I laughed, thinking 'how silly', but of course when you add some excited grandparents to be the mix this is what you get!

Not a bad haul really! The book is very sweet. There is just one thing I'm not really impressed by - notice the colour theme? I think my MIL is trying to have some early influence on Baby A's choice of football team! A and I have already agreed that the influencing rights will be based on who wins the match between our teams (Essendon and Hawthorn) in July 2012! I am still considering writing a personal plea to James Hird to let him know exactly what is on the line here!

God forbid we let our child pick their own team! They might choose Collingwood or Brisbane or Carlton which just does not bear thinking about! There is a football story about A's father that always makes me laugh. When he was in primary school he came home one day and said to his mum, "I'm going to barrack for Collingwood." His mum quickly replied, saying, "Ok, well if you barrack for Collingwood, you know you'll have to always eat your cauliflower at dinnertime because that's what Collingwood supporters do." After thinking about it for a while A's dad came back and said "I've changed my mind, I think I'll barrack for Essendon instead." He couldn't think of a vegetable that sounded like Essendon so figured he'd be safe! How cute!

Anyway, speaking of family, I need to go clean up as I think we might have A's mum passing through tonight on the way to visit her dad in Taree.

Have a lovely day!

Adventures with a sewing machine

Being on holidays, with lots of time on my hands makes me want to do stuff I wouldn't normally bother with - like sewing. I'm not particularly talented at sewing, in fact it's hard work and I need clear instructions, but I think I'm getting better.

Before I get down to business with this post I'd better introduce the star of the show... my Nana's sewing machine. Apparently it was the first one she owned after the peddle version. The instruction manual introduces the 'latest' in Elna stitch technology developed in 1969 and presents some stunning pictures of  what one could create! Are you ready? I'm not sure you are....

However, laughs and stylish pictures aside, good old Elna is a sturdy workhorse and I can understand the very useful instruction book so I think we're on a winner!

So yesterday, a rainy Sunday, with the help of a Cuddly Quilt Kit from Spotlight and quite a few hours of patience this is what I achieved.

Finished size 76 x 91cm

Not too bad, huh? I did feel absolutely exhausted by the end though! 

This one will go to M + D, friends who are due the day before us!

There are no 'in progress' or 'how to' pictures as I needed all my concentration for the quilt. I will say though, it's really the logistics of cutting the right pieces to the right size that was the challenge, the sewing in itself is just lots of straight stitches in straight lines. So certainly not impossible for a novice sewer. I may even make another one yet!