Hello Big Speck!
Well, its been an eventful few days – all about you and you and you.
Baby shower number two was on Saturday – your wonderful honourary Aunt T & Aunt S (& uncle L) put on an amazing party for you.  Lots of games and fun and people being silly. It was a mixed affair – so boys & girls and kids as well. It was quite funny to look around the hall and see at one point everyone with their heads down, concentrating on writing, writing, writing. Answers to games, and birthday cards for each of your birthdays up to 21. Pretty cool.  Your dad was the surprise of the day – he managed to win not only the baby food guessing competition, but also the match-the-celebrity-to-their-children’s-names games. Go figure. I came last in that one.  Mmm. However I did win the “how many pieces of toilet paper go around mum’s stomach” competition.  Everyone thought I was being overly optimistic in my estimate (i.e. read they all think I look HUGE and I don’t think I’m THAT big); however on checking my 9 and 3/4 pieces was a perfect fit.  See, I know how big we are. Your smaller Uncle J managed to catch everyone out many times by getting them to say “baby” out aloud using all sorts of clever conversational tricks, and collected a lot of pegs in that peg-collecting game.  And generally there was lots of laughter and running around.  And eating of tasty dips and treats all prepared by your dad (great hommus, babaganoush, tzitizki, garlic nuts, anzac biscuits -that was me, pita crisps, some kinda meat things that of course I didn’t eat)… Oh, and how could I forget the “spit the dummy” competition.  Not surprisingly, the men seemed to excel at this one.  It was hard to remember not to eat and spit the dummy at the same time.  🙂
your dad practising baby handling with the baby bjorn
Yes, and we got a great shot of your dad practising baby pacification techniques with the new baby bjorn and an astro boy doll.  He walked around with a fake ‘you’ in the sling for hours.  Not sure I’m with the ‘wine for baby’ method of settling, but we’ll see. Open to ideas at this stage.
After baby shower action I was totally tired tired tired.  I seem to be that way at the moment. You are waking at odd hours during the night, I’m waking myself with very strong reflux, and generally its pretty hard to get comfortable with a watermelon attached to your torso.  And the dreams are full-on. Stressful and all-engaging. I can’t seem to wake myself from them enough to realise its not real so I lie there for hours not sleeping thinking weird things are going to happen for sure. Like I’m going to have to have to have a cook-off competition – muffins against some crazy person – in order to be able to make sure I get all your clothes washed in time for your arrival.  Obviously important issues that my brain is turning over, translating into perfectly logical scenarios in my dreams. Not.  At least I’m not dreaming you’re an alien or whatever.
So, the ‘getting things in order’ aka ‘Nesting’ bug has set-in.   Its pervading my dreams and my subconsious.  I’ve made it clear to your dad that we need the baby room ready. We went through all the clothes and things we already had on Saturday night, and made a shopping list.  By listing all the lovely things people had already given us (lots) and working out what we still needed.  Mostly it consisted of mini-grow-suits and nappy buckets and the like.  So we went off to do that on Sunday.  Shop, shop, shop.  Now, I generally hate shopping centres and shopping, but if I say so myself we did it pretty well, a few major stops and we stocked-up on size 0000 grow-suits, singlets, a few pairs of socks, nappies (only found flannel soft ones), nappy buckets, a soft thing to put on the change table for you to lie on, vitamins, leaky boob pads, a thermometer for your ear.
So for day one, you’ll have:
- four (4) – 0000 growsuits with feet
- 3 long-sleeved 0000 tops
- 2 -0000 long-pants
- some socks (not sure how many you need. We’ll send your dad out for more where necessary)
- singlets
- some little short-sleeved suits. Though its a bit cold for that
- blankets to be swaddled in
- two caps/hats for your head to be warm
- lots of nappies
All necessary baby things. You got mostly white stuff and some bits of blue and pink. There really are limited choices.  I’m not sure why its so boring, but there you go. Stifle them from a young age maybe?  You missed out on new cot sheets as I refuse to pay more for a set of sheets for a 1m baby cot than I would on sheets for our full-sized queen bed.  Thankfully your Aunt R bought some of your cousins old ones over yesterday, so now you have something to sleep on.
On the shopping front – still to go is a baby monitor, and perhaps a breast-pump.  I don’t know how you possibly make a decision about which one of these items to buy – there are lots to choose from, they’re expensive and do you really need polyphonic rhymes on your boobs?? We were looking at these items in a baby shop towards the end of my shopping-attention-span.  I’m obviously confused. The polyphonic bits were on the baby monitors.  As was the ability to play a CD through them wirelessly.  That is better than our house stereo.  Sorry baby, but that sounds a bit over the top to me.    Anyway, we ended up buying neither of these items – I think I’ll send you dad out when you arrive if either of them prove to be dire necessities.
Your dad has also been doing lots of things to get your room ready. The cot is now all re-finished and ready to go!
your finished cot
And you? Well, you’ve been moving around down in there quite a lot.  You and I went to the friendly obstetricians yesterday for our now fortnightly check-up.  All is good. I peed in the jar, I managed to miss my hand (wooh! that is a good achievement when its hard to see past your belly to what you are doing down there with a little bottle), I’ve got a bit fatter, your heartbeat is dead-on average, my blood pressure is same as always (low).  Best of all, just as your dad and I thought, you have been making your way slowly down down down.  Your head isn’t ‘engaged’ yet, but its certainly lower than it was two weeks ago. Now I can feel your head bulge right above my pubis bone. And you kick me less in the ribs than before as you’ve moved down slightly.  So the obstetrician said all of that was a good sign – the moving down and the lots of kicking and moving that you do.  After coming home from the obs office, you seemed to have taken what he said to heart.  Yesterday was actually quite painful as it seems you were trying to worm you way into my nether regions, but they just weren’t quite ready for you yet. Think sharp twinges and me wondering if you were going to come early.  I went for a very short walk after work and I thought that if I broke into a run (nigh impossible) that you might come flying out.  I’m sure you wouldn’t have, I guess I’m just not quite used to the amount of downward pressure that you have started to exert.  My hips and pelvis got pretty stiff and I couldn’t sit in my chair for work either – I’ve gone to the backwards on chair position, and am alternating with the fit-ball.
washing the baby clothes
And finally. Its stopped raining (though its still a bit overcast).  And since we have a bunch of new clothes for you, and a bunch of recycled blankets, sheets and other assorted items (care of your Grandma K & Aunt R), its time for washing. So wash wash wash. I did three loads of nappies and a load of whites for you yesterday. While they looked very cute they took an age to hang out – lots of pegs!  Hopefully they’ll all dry today and then we’ll be almost ready to pack a bag for hospital.  But before we do that your dad and I are going to lie in them for a bit, maybe when we sleep, so they smell like us. Lucky you! Smelly clothes from day one! Hopefully then you can get used to us and our smell will be familiar and good.
the first line full of nappies – this will become a common sight at our house..
So. Today. Work work work and some more blanket and sheet washing.  Only about 10 loads to go!
Hope you’re well. Sorry about the indigestion last night – you seemed to suffer through it and wake all night too.  We’re not going to eat rich potato gratin anytime near bed again.  I don’t like vomiting at 2 in the morning any more than the next person.
erk.
love you
mum
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