my-speck

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

My big girl July 21, 2012

Dear Little Miss L,

or, as you are more frequently called in our house: boo boo.

Boo boo. Derived from Boona. Which rhymes with Luna. As in Luna Boona, shortened to Boo boo. Of course.

I feel remiss in a number of ways. Not only did your first birthday pass without my mentioning it here, but as I have sheepishly admitted to a number of people, it was so uneventful that we even forgot to take a photo of you on the day.

So, a belated public Happy Birthday my darling.

You are a cheerful, happy, rotund and gleeful little even-tempered darling. We all love you dearly, most of all perhaps your brother. Who climbs into your cot each morning to play as soon as he wakes up. We wake most mornings to the sound of the two of you giggling gleefully from your room.

And often at night that is the sound of you going to bed too: you and Oscar playing “the giggle game” with each other from separate rooms (you both quickly worked out it was a game that could be played without the need to see each other)…

Luna, you are beautiful and we love you very much.

Kisses

 

mum

 

the link for those who can’t see it

 

Gastro, dryers and reminiscing about childhood. Dream house requirement #1. June 2, 2012

Filed under: baby stuff,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 4:02 pm
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I mentioned when talking about Girraween that little Miss L had the gastro bug. I should have realised before we left, but silly me, I didn’t. She is such a happy little thing you see, even when she is sick she’s really happy, so it’s hard to tell how affected she is.

Anyway, we returned from Girraween with a lot of washing to do. Including the rewashing of the clothes and bedding I’d had to handwash in the absolutely f*ing freezing water on Saturday morning in the bathroom at the campground as I knew the amount of clothes I’d brought wasn’t going to cut it with a vomiting babe. There is only so clean you can get something with freezing hands and cold water in a small basin.

Monday Little miss L was still sick. So counting Thursday, when she was at daycare and it started with a few poos that caused a megasauras (mega-sore-ass in our family), it was Day Five. Cue trip to doctor just to be on the safe side. Doctor sent me straight to the hospital. So I spent Monday most of the day in the emergency children’s. Outcome was that she was slightly dehydrated, but since I’m a breastfeeder and she is a very healthy 11.something kilograms at 11 months (and officially the same or more than her three year old brother), that breastfeeding would get us through without any jabs or tubes. Hurrah.

Home again to try to sort through the gargantuan pile of laundry. Started to get there on Tuesday. Chris started to vomit on Tuesday night. Thankfully he can manage to use the facilities. Still not much fun with a sick husband, recovering babe and a pile of laundry that I could at least now see over.

Wednesday night, finished something I was working on and due this week at about 9:00 pm after working solidly since putting the kids to bed at 7. I’d been working on it for a few nights straight. Went to watch an hour of escapism TV, only to hear a noise through my headphone that didn’t sound quite right. Mmmm. Not right, the nearly-3-year-old had emptied his stomach. Throughout the bedroom.

Which would have been fine, you know, apart from THE WASHING!!! Aagggh… At least he is better with being able to aim for a bucket than a nearly one year old..

We had a conversation on Thursday night at our house where we both recalled that both of our mothers have separately offered to buy us a dryer in the past/recently. And you know, we turned them down, because we live in the sub-tropics of Brisbane. Where it’s supposed to be perfect the next day or something like that. So washing dries in the sun pretty quickly and well. And we have a laundromat at the end of our street for when we get desperate. But we wondered, have we been silly?

But if I recall my childhood correctly, my mum did have a dryer at home. Which she got installed when my three sisters were in primary school. There was a huge room solely for laundry in the house. And mum got gas piped in (if it wasn’t there already), or at the very least got the room modified so that she could get a commercial grade and sized gas-powered Maytag dryer installed. And it was huge and efficient and awesome.

And that’s what we’ve decided. In our dream house in which we will have a large utility room we will also have a large industrial sized dryer which we can use on the occasion that the gastro bug or some other such thing strikes down our household and soils our laundry….

It it weren’t raining I would be off to the shops now to buy a lotto ticket.

 

The family outing May 19, 2012

Our family went out to brunch this morning to celebrate Aunt Rhyan’s birthday.

20120519-131803.jpg

We were in safe hands with the rescue team on standby in case of emergency..

 

How to keep a secret… and Happy Birthday… Dear Daddy! March 30, 2012

On Wednesday night, Daddy was a little late coming home.

 

Which was good as it left us a little time to try to wrap a present and make a birthday card.

 

Little O helped stick the paper on with sticky tape, and drew some lovely “O”s on a piece of paper to make a card.  Because we  need to wrap a special present for Daddy because it is his birthday tomorrow.

Then we had to hide the present.  Because it isn’t Daddy’s birthday until Thursday morning.  Tomorrow morning.

Then we had to find somewhere to hide the present.  Because we don’t want Daddy to know about it until Thursday morning. Tomorrow morning.

We decided (O decided) that a good spot was under his dressing table.  Little O insisted on hiding it there himself.  He dropped the heavy gift about 5 times getting it up the hallway.  Because it was heavy.  Because hiding it under the dressing table Daddy won’t know and won’t see it when he comes home.  And we can give it to him in the morning.

….

 

Daddy comes home about 10 minutes later.  Little O jumps out of bed, calling,

“Daddy, Daddy.  You’re home.  We have your present for your birthday but it’s hidden under there,” points to the dresser, “and it was very heavy and I carried it down the hall and mummy said be careful but we can’t give it to you until tomorrow but it’s a secret because it’s your birthday and it’s a bit heavy and we wrapped it and drew some O’s and it has some paper and sticky tape and we mustn’t tell you because it’s a secret for your birthday, alright?”

In one big single breathed monologue.

 

Luckily he didn’t know what it was when we were wrapping it – he’d never seen a tortilla press before.

 

Happy Birthday Daddy!

 

angel food cake! yum

P.S.  and I forgot to take a photo of the Angel Food Cake that I made on request.  But I got one of the only remaining piece after it was eaten.  Recipe tomorrow…

lighting the candles

 

Boobie boobie boobie March 29, 2012

One of the songs O sings in music class is about a little box.  As part of the song, someone chooses something to come out of the box, and then it makes a noise.  Cue this week’s contribution from little O:

Music Teacher: “O, what would you like to be in the box today?”

O: “Boonie.  Boonie in the box.”

Boonie is one of little Luna’s nicknames in our house.  Nothing to do at all with the Australian cricketer.  Just “Luna Boona” gets shortened to “Boonie”.  It’s an Australian thing.

 

The teacher looks a little confused, who wouldn’t with someone saying “Boonie” as though you should know what that is.

 

I point to Luna’s head to indicate he means her.   Then wonder if I should be encouraging a song where my second child is put in a box.  Oh well.  The teacher goes on:

“Baby? Oscar wants to put a baby in the box.  That’s a good idea.  What should the baby say when it comes out? Wah, wah, wah?”

Oscar: “No. Baby’s don’t say ‘wah, wah, wah’.  They say ‘boobie, boobie, boobie’.”

At this point the teacher cracks up laughing so hard she can’t talk for a minute.  She tries to regain her composure as she says:

“Oscar’s right, babies do say ‘boobie, boobie, boobie’.  Everybody, let’s put the baby in the box now ..”

And we all proceeded to sing the song and then say “boobie, boobie, boobie” when the baby came out of the box.  Nice.

 

Another breastfeeding is just the norm in our household snippet bought to you from the mouth of a babe.

breastfeeding is the norm. Me feeding little O when he was 14 months at a friend’s wedding. In a totally not breastfeeding friendly dress. It worked nonetheless. (And yeah, I can’t remember what we were talking about but S is obviously demonstrating something).

Love mum

 

Things to do while the baby is sleeping… (or things I have done while the baby has been sleeping) March 22, 2012

Some days the babe sleeps for but 45 minutes at a stretch before for some reason or other we need to get in the car and go somewhere or gets woken by something (or someone)…  Not like the first lucky child who had a bit of a routine and actually two good-length daytime sleeps until he was over 1.

 

But some days I do get a bit of a break when the older one is at daycare, and the younger one actually goes to sleep for a bit.  It’s hard to plan anything, because you just never know what is going to happen, but sometimes it’s just fun to pretend the sleep will a bit and just get stuck into doing something that it would be impossible to contemplate getting done with a baby underfoot.

 

This week I had two days where sleep happened.

 

The first day, I did the tax.  Well, when I say, “did the tax”, what I actually mean is get all the bits of paper and emails and other nasty things that need to be gathered to complete “the tax”, write a letter to the accountant explaining what I couldn’t find, put it in an envelope and label it “Urgent”.  Because of course I’ve left it so long that it is now somewhat urgent (oops, sorry).

 

The second day, I made a pie.  Yes, a pure escapism from reality PIE.  Lime marshmallow pie. And totally forgot to take a photo, so all you’ll get is the last-remaining wedge photo from the day after (we had people over people, we didn’t consume the whole thing ourselves – just in case you were wondering).

Lime Marshmallow Pie

 

Yum.

 

Lime Marshmallow Pie. Recipe courtesy David Lebovitz’s Ready for Dessert.

 

Yum.  Did I say that already.

 

I know which task I enjoyed more!

 

Have you baked anything good recently?? What do you do if you kid’s are asleep and you’ve a few minutes to yourself?? What would you LIKE to do?

Lime Marshmallow Pie slice

ooops. It seems to be getting smaller…

 

Reading… an interpretative adventure. Especially when you’re 2.5 January 9, 2012

family reading

We read a lot of books. Every morning little Poogie (2.5 years now) typically brings a bunch into the bed with me, we get little Sister Boona (6 months now!) and have a bit of a read. Then there are more during the day, at bedtime etc.

We have a relatively large number of books, and are constant library users, but Poogie still seems to know most of them by heart. Which I think is pretty impressive. It is to me anyway, still breastfeeding with now non-existent short-term memory.

So last week I was reading one of our favourites, Australian Author Pamella Allen‘s “A Lion in the Night“, and we were up to this page:

reading: A Lion in the Night

When I asked,

“And what is the little dog saying?”

And the answer, in a “mum, this is so obvious I can’t believe you’re even asking me” voice: (more…)

 

And she has started eating…. We are going baby-lead-feeding.. December 20, 2011

In other developments around our house, the littlest member of the family has started on her food adventure. I don’t know if I managed to get a photo of her first food (cucumber), but since then we’ve introduced a range of vegetables, a little fruit, and a bit of meat (cooked by her daddy), bread and crackers. Did I mention that you got your first tooth about 2 months ago at 3 months old?? Well, regardless of teeth, you are into food.

I remember when little O first had food like it was yesterday. Avocado. You haven’t tried that yet. Will have to add it in.

Dear Little L:
So far, your favourites have been: steamed / fresh snow peas (preferably from the garden) and turkey. Yes, your Dad cooked a Christmas turkey on the weekend and you are very much into it. We are giving you only whole food: the baby-led feeding approach (read this brochure if you want a quick summary on it). So your sit in your bumbo or on our laps, and get whole bits of veges and other stuff to play with and eat as much as you can of. And since starting, your hand-eye co-ordination has improved out of sight and you have no trouble getting the food from your plate to your mouth. And there is definitely some going down, as is evidenced by the seeds and other bits and pieces I can see in your poo. mmmmm… All good fun. We spoon-fed your brother a bit at the beginning but he really wasn’t into it at all so soon changed to the baby-lead feeding approach. For him it didn’t make much difference – he is just a little skinny thing. You seem a lot more into food so far in general. Thankfully. It is nice to have a little robust baby after the skinny minny your brother turned into at around six months (and still remains).

love mum

So around here mealtimes are a family affair.  It’s fun to see:

munching on some cheese: baby-led feeding

a family meal

Love and kisses 🙂

mum

 

A sisterly break.. December 19, 2011

Filed under: baby stuff,eating,family,Parenting,Raising a Child,swimming,walking — rakster @ 2:29 pm

A week ago, I headed off down the coast with little Luna and my 3 sisters. It was the first time that just the four (i mean five) of us have ever been away together that I can remember. That is, away without assorted partners, other family etc. (Am I right on that sisters???).

We went out for a few drinks and dinner a few months ago when R1 was up from Melbourne, and it was fun. So when she said she was coming up for a few weeks before Christmas, I took the opportunity to organise a getaway. We headed down to Lennox Heads (just south of Byron), a small sleepy little town with a stunning beach and a lake too. We shared a small apartment that looked out directly to the ocean and where we could hear the waves crashing all night. Played a little scrabble, a few cards, drank a lovely bottle of champagne, ate home-cooked food and just talked.

I enjoyed myself. Little Luna loved the attention.

And I got to enjoy a swim in the ocean by myself. For ages. Without the worry of a two-year old on the beach wanting my attention, nor a baby to swap with a husband… Yay.

Love M.

P.S. the best part of the weekend was my sleepy head sister R2 waking up first thing on Saturday morning, and before even asking for coffee (her serious addiction), coming into the room and asking,

“Can we dress her up? What do you have??”….

 

Familial likeness…. December 4, 2011

It’s been a crazy busy month, with bouts of a sinus cold coming and (hopefully) going.   Hence the lack of writing.

 

Around here, we’ve been busy GROWING.

 

Growing things in the garden.  But mostly, growing little CHILDREN.

 

Look at this one!

5 months and growing fast

5 months and growing fast

And I think the familial resemblence (her 5 to my 6 months) is uncanny:

the luna baby now – 5 months

me at six or so months

Do you agree??