my-speck

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

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??”….

 

christmas preparation – the advent calendar December 17, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,development stages,family,Parenting,playing,Raising a Child — rakster @ 1:35 pm

we have been doing a lot of preparation for Christmas around our house for the past few weeks…

Lots of making decorations (two-year old fashion).. With pipe cleaners and coloured popsicle sticks. Gorgeous.

And putting them on the tree.

(which suddenly grew a lot more ‘bling’ the weekend I went away when only daddy and little O were home)…

the advent calendar being enjoyed

The simplest and one of the best things we did was make a ‘leaf’ advent calendar (with thanks to the inspiration from little eco footprints. O loves pulling a new leaf off each day, it was fun and easy to make, and it looks good. 🙂

the advent calendar

What have you been doing?

 

Familial likeness…. December 4, 2011

Filed under: baby stuff,development stages,family,imitation,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 2:48 pm
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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??

 

my baby is 4 months old!! Friday napping. And on sleep in general. November 4, 2011

Filed under: baby stuff,development stages,exhaustion,family,healthcare,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 1:57 pm
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Little Luna, or Boona or Boo Boo as we affectionately call her, is now four months old.

 

How time flies.

 

She is having a nap.  So cute.

the sleeping babe: friday nap-time

 

On my side, I’ve been noticing the effects of a cumulative lack-of-sleep and breastfeeding multiple times in the night for the past four months.  Most particularly:

  • bruises all over my body.  I seem to have a lack of spatial awareness and co-ordination.  Which means I just run into things all the time.  At speed.  So I am black and blue.  I’m at one large bruise a day at the moment….
  • inability to control my facial muscles, particularly around my mouth, when talking sometimes.  Like, they just go a bit crazy on their own.  As if I were going to cry or something, in the middle of a normal conversation.  I get odd looks from the people I’m talking to.  Weird.   I hope this one disappears soon…

But on the positive side, Luna is well over the 100% percentile for weight, which is awesome as O is still off the other end of the scale.  So at least I have one fat little dumpling.  Yay.  And she slept through the night for three nights in a row – from 6:30 pm to 4:30 am this Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, before reverting on Wednesday and last night to a single feed at 2:30 and then another at 6:30 am.  WIN!  I’m hoping that this is the start of a new period which lasts for at least a few weeks!!

 

This is my life.  Feeding, sleeping, eating, watching, learning and trying to rest in-between.

 

But the rewards are big.  Look at this beautiful girl!!

 

Luna playing. Our little boomba.

 

 

camping – yay! October 31, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,camping,family,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 2:50 pm
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We had a lovely weekend away at Lake Cootharaba – camping at Boreen Point.

Oscar ran wild through the bush around the campsite with the other two year old

Bush play – camping at Boreen Point

sparklers at dusk

and the two babes slept like the proverbial babes.

sleeping like babes in the bush

I enjoyed a swim and an unplug.  Mmmmm.

 

and she was listening…sleep… September 23, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,baby stuff,baby's feelings,dancing,development stages,exercise,exhaustion,family,imitation,Parenting,playing,Raising a Child — rakster @ 12:49 pm
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So, after my last post where I complained about the lack of sleep…

My little darling slept right from 7pm to 3:30am last night. Woo hoo! I got more than 3 hours of sleep in a row!

Win for the weekend.

I however went to bed with another case of mild-mastitis, so not feeling 100%, so the lack of eating regularly made it slightly worse and I felt like total crap this morning :(. Have since made up for that by shoving poor little L on the boob at every available waking moment. A few panadols later, I’m feeling alright..

this is what I feel like when I wake up. thankfully there is no-one to take photos of me.

….
Spent the morning at O’s daycare, as he was feeling like he needed some more mummy time. I went in and read some books, playing in the garden with the kids, then went to his ‘body gumbo’ (or body bumbo as he says) class. A bit of a mix between dance/movement and yoga. It was fun. I think I enjoyed it more than he did. I can now do my salute to the sun with an animal impression at each different position. WIN! We will now be doing more yoga/play at home. It rocked.

….

now I am enjoying some me-time while little L sleeps and O is at daycare.

the sleeping babe - I got her cot out a week ago so she has her own space in our room.

 

sleepy-head Luna, 13 weeks old

…

Tonight I am going out with my amazing sisters, all four of us, for a drink. So perfect timing with the whole lots of sleep last night.

 

🙂 have a good weekend everyone!

 

Juggling a temper with an ear infection… and cuteness.. September 15, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,baby stuff,baby's feelings,Communication,cooking,development stages,family,healthcare,Parenting,playing,Raising a Child,speaking — rakster @ 2:12 pm

Day three of an ear-infected, cranky little boy. And a sleeping-a-lot-trying-to-fight-it-off little babe.

Mummy is going a bit stir crazy. She was seen stalking the neighbour’s cat with a squirt gun this afternoon through the back garden… By a workman who she didn’t notice in the other neighbour’s garden. Nice look. He waited until she had been down there for about 5 minutes acting like a dodgy commando-action-hero actor before he made his presence known by raucous laughter. She was a tad embarrased. But granted, she was doing it as the blasted cat was trying to eat her two new chickens. And for some light self-entertainment (she makes her own fun). The workman graciously pointed out where the chickens had gone and where the cat was hiding when his laughter subsided.

As you can see, fours days with two children at home all day, one of whom is on full whine/tantrum/attention-needing at all waking hours, with very little adult human interaction, has left her unable to speak in the first person anymore. She has reverted to full third-person child-speak. God-knows why.

The only saving grace was a few minutes last night when she was preparing dinner. Little O was very excited to be at the big table on his new grown-up big chair and was entertaining his sister with the gift she so carefully chose for him when she was born.

entertaining the little sister


cuteness.

drilling - hard work

 

A beach escape… Moreton Island August 19, 2011

Filed under: family,Parenting — rakster @ 1:48 pm
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It was Ekka week this week in Brisvegas.

 

For those not in the know, Ekka is slang for the “Exhibition”, which is the Royal Queensland Show, where they judge entries in a whole heap of categories ranging from cake decorating to showjumping to wool…..  And there are sideshow rides, and showbags and….  A bunch of stuff that a 2 year old doesn’t need yet.  The petting zoo came to visit his daycare recently, so I’m thinking that avoiding the dreaded “ekka flu” by staying away is well in order for at least a few more years to come 🙂

 

And the sole public holiday in the latter half of the year is mid-week for Ekka.   So we extended it and took a few days out with some friends to venture to Moreton Island: an island right off Brisbane in the bay, but a bit more effort to get to: a 4WD adventure to get there, a bit remote (no shops at all where we were).  We stayed in the lovely house of some friends with a group of 12: 6 adults, 6 kids (7 weeks, 7 weeks, 9 weeks, 2.1 years, 2.1 years, 3 years) – so busy!  But yet: beautiful and relaxing despite the demands of a tribe of small ones.

Yay for holidays.

 

we all love the beach!

Yay for the beach.

 

all this, all just for us…

Much more relaxed mum.

beach and a baby. loving it!

🙂

love mum

P.S. Yes, the water was a bit nippy. But only a bit. I swam and stayed in quite comfortably when we were on the surf-side beach and I could get in deep enough quickly enough. It was the wind on the beach that was the killer. So lovely to swim though! Blisssssssssss

 

Singing to my baby sister :) – Movie Monday August 8, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,baby stuff,baby's feelings,Communication,development stages,emotion,family,Parenting,playing,Raising a Child,speaking — rakster @ 4:39 pm
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Finally managed to get the video camera going in time to capture this attempt to pacify the smaller sister 🙂

This almost compensates for the number of times I ‘mistakenly’ attempt to jump on her head each day….

Love mum

P.S. Rocky road to follow later this week

 

I won!! I won!! I won!!! (something for once, and something good!~!) and… the start of a rocky road adventure August 6, 2011

Filed under: cooking,family,Parenting,vegetarian — rakster @ 2:34 pm
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Hello,

here I am, quietly spending my Saturday experimenting with gelatine, agar and a few different varieties of a strawberry jelly… Because my sister and I are trying to create our own version of the marvelous Noosa Chocolate Factory rocky-road that is sold at the Jan Power markets here in Brisbane.


It is totally addictive and amazing.   I’m just lucky I don’t have the energy to walk the 30 minutes to the city on a Wednesday yet when it is sold so I can buy it regularly… (though note to self: that may change. Bulge around the middle from baby-stretch: advises against incorporating this outing into the weekly routine. Taste-buds and sugar-receptor centre of brain advise: the case for – walking would burn off enough energy to eat a lot, surely that would compensate… and there is a playground, pool, etc at Southbank on the way, so it combines as a good kids outing)…

So the homemade marshmallow is done.  Thank-you to David Lebovitz for the recipe.

But the jelly layer isn’t going so well.

 

But I won!!

Frustrated, I returned to my computer to once again find some recipes for a fruit jelly and see what I could tweak after attempt #4 is not quite right… And got sidetracked reading a few blogs…..

 

AND DISCOVERED THAT I WON BABYMAC’S FABULOUS 5 YEARS BLOGIVERSARY GIVEWAY!!!!  Yes, me, I won!!

…  And the first thing I think I’ll enjoy is a glass of great champagne.  As I was just saying on facebook yesterday: “breastfeeding, bouncing and thinking, ‘oh yeah, I could go a cocktail’ while listening to the dj on jjj at the moment.. Greatest hits of my previous life as a clubber :)”.  So next DJ set I put on I can express some breastmilk in advance, pass off a feed or two, have a nice glass of champagne and bounce along myself.

 

Thank-you BabyMac!

-r

 

P.S. Notes on the rocky-road adventure to follow tomorrow.