my-speck

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

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

Filed under: baby stuff,baby's feelings,Communication,Parenting,pregnancy,Raising a Child,speaking — rakster @ 4:16 pm
Tags: ,

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!).

(more…)

 

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

Filed under: baby stuff,baby's feelings,birthing,Parenting,pregnancy,Raising a Child — rakster @ 1:36 pm
Tags: , , , ,

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.

 

 

Bad parent of the day: dad April 30, 2011

Filed under: Communication,Raising a Child,speaking — rakster @ 10:16 am
Tags:

New word for the day:

Motherf@&$er! (giggle, giggle)

Great! Courtesy of Dad and the moron who just pulled up short in front of us in the highway.

20110430-101627.jpg

 

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…

🙂

20110410-074700.jpg

20110410-074723.jpg

 

Attack of the killer leeches: Bad Parent of the Day Award? March 20, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,bad parent of the day award,camping,development stages,exercise,family,Parenting,playing,Raising a Child,walking — rakster @ 5:53 pm

Hello!

 

We braved the rainy weather this weekend and headed out to a friend’s bush block – about 2 hours drive from Brisbane, he has a little basic wooden hut on a co-op property in Northern NSW.   We figured that we had planned to get out of the city, and rain shouldn’t stop us as we had our wet weather gear.

 

So we suited up and ventured out into the wild:

Ready for exploring in the rain

…

(more…)

 

Fever! (and counting) March 16, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,Communication,development stages,emotion,family,healthcare,Parenting,Raising a Child,speaking — rakster @ 7:17 pm
Tags: , ,

Hello!

 

I had a premonition today that things weren’t quite right.  So I phoned your daycare at 2:00pm, when I knew you’d be sleeping, just to see how things were going.

 

“Great, great, great, he’s having a great day…”

I had a good chat with your teacher and all seemed well, you’d been interacting well, trying really hard to talk in whole sentences all morning, and having a ball in general.

 

Then 30 minutes later at 3:00pm I got a call:

“O has woken up and he has a bit of a high fever, your intuition was right!”..

 

So I went and got you – and you were a little crying mess of hot sweaty 38.9 degree celcius feverish boy when I got there.  Poor thing.  So we went home, took the advice of the hospital from last time and after you having some panadol did no cold compresses or showers or anything, just some quiet time reading and cuddling together in bed.   Which worked fine for the first hour while the panadol was still taking effect.

 

And I learned something about you through the constant stream of babble-talk that you went on with while in your half-sick-crazed state.  You can count to ten perfectly.  Over and over.  In the middle of sentences, like:

“Mummy, daddy, magpie up in the tree, eating icecream, and then big bang, hockey hockey ball ball, hit ball up up.  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, um, eight, nine, ten.  Hungry caterpillar, magpie waddle giggle gargle, mummy….”

🙂 small things.  Kind of astounding because your Dad and I certainly haven’t taught you that.  And we don’t watch TV or anything that really has that kind of counting in it.  Must be osmosis at daycare!

 

love mum

(p.s. 21 months)

 

I wear sunglasses, just like my mum.. March 11, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 1:37 pm
Tags: , ,

Foto Friday.

 

I am hip

and

very cool

love you

mum

 

Bum… March 5, 2011

Filed under: baby stuff,Communication,development stages,family,Parenting,potty training,Raising a Child — rakster @ 12:53 pm
Tags: , , ,

Poogie:

“Bum, bum, bum, bum, BUM!”

Daddy:

“What are bums for, O?”

Poogie, with a thoughtful look on his face and head tilted to the side, ponders the question for a few seconds.  Then with a big, confident smile,

“Bumming!“.

…..

 

So funny…  We are of course in the midst of potty-training, so there are a lot of questions about bums and poos and wees, and all things related.  And lots of questions about other people too – like,

“<insert random person’s name, such as kindy teacher, or neighbour> poo in toilet?  Wee in toilet?  No, wee in garden.  Wee in toilet / garden??”.

And a lot of discussion about how poos come from

“Back here”, pointing to his bum, and “wee wees from down here, in front.”

Yep, we’ve got the general idea, now we just need to work on consistency of getting to the potty for the wee wees…

 

love mum

 

P.S. And obviously you’re practising your verb tenses at the same time…

 

Bad parent of the day award: Dad February 27, 2011

Filed under: bad parent of the day award,family,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 1:03 pm
Tags: , , ,

Wed. 5.15 pm.

 

The first day of our new routine where your Dad has the car on Wednesdays so is responsible for dropping off and picking you up at daycare.

 

I am suffering baby withdrawal, having not seen you all day and being at home working solidly since 7:45 am.  So I text your dad.

 

He phones back, happy.

“Just had a great meeting, finishing up now, am in xxx Outer Suburb xxx, on my way home, won’t be too long….”

“Ah, but you have Oscar, right??? “.

“Oh shit.”

Thankfully your grandma K wasn’t too far away as it was too late for me to walk/bus to get you, and she managed to get there just before they closed (we’re not at a long daycare anymore), along with your dad who I have no doubt picked up at least 3 speeding tickets on the way.

 

And was rather sheepish for the rest of the night.

 

Bad parent of the day award: yes, your Dad, for forgetting to pick you up on the first day he had to! (I mean, I could understand after a busy day a few weeks into a routine, but on the first day???!!!).

 

love you,

mum.

 

P.S.  You were of course fine, and oblivious to the whole thing.  But your dad felt pretty bad about the whole affair, so I had to let a few days pass before sharing the story.

 

Things to do with great eggs (and passionfruit): #2 Passionfruit Icecream February 26, 2011

Filed under: cooking,family,Parenting,pregnancy,Raising a Child — rakster @ 2:51 pm
Tags: , ,

Hello!

 

So one of the bonuses of living in a city where it rained for three months straight and then suffered the worst flood in 30 years is that everything we planted in the garden this year has thrived.   We bought two passionfruit seedlings about a year ago, and put them in to run up our back stairs and back deck railing.   And they have just thrived.  We previously had one there but moving away from the house for a few years the poor plant just didn’t make it without the loving care and attention (water and food) we gave it, so was just a broken bunch of sticks when we moved back in two years ago (has it been that long already!?).  I recall however that it did take more than one season to fruit when we have previously planted passionfruit.  Not this time. (more…)