my-speck

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

Buying Baby Stuff… Prams, Strollers and slings. March 9, 2011

Filed under: activities for kids,baby stuff,family,Parenting,pregnancy — rakster @ 10:00 pm
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Buying baby stuff: particularly prams, strollers, slings and other baby-carrying devices.  Provokes a reaction/comment/opinion in most parents of young children.  Weird but true: those devices that become really important.   They let you move.  And settle.  And all other sorts of important things.

I like to research things before I buy them.  Usually over-research.  Take ages to make a decision.   Which is infuriating even to me sometimes.  We still use the stereo I bought when I was 18.   The CD player/stacker on it broke about 6 years ago.  And we didn’t get it fixed because we meant to buy a new one.  But never got around to it.  Because each time we tried to do research on what we thought we wanted, it all got too complicated too quickly.  And the stereo could take an input still – so we could play our mini-disc players.   Then we just reverted to radio for a long while.  Or listening through a computer.  Now I plug my iBaby in.  And it still works fine.  But we would like a new stereo one day.

That is all an aside though.  We use a beautiful, much-loved Mountain Buggy pram for you (more…)

 

you know you’re pregnant when… October 20, 2010

Filed under: family,healthcare,Parenting,pregnancy,Raising a Child — rakster @ 8:49 am
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You know you’re pregnant when your 16 month old (yes 16 months omg I can’t really say ‘baby’ anymore, and soon we’ll move to ‘nearly two’ rather than counting in months. too quick! too quick!!!) can replicate the exact sound, pitch and timbre of your digestive farts.

Yes. The digestive farts are back in full force, and much as I’d like to think I’m the kind of refined woman that manages to keep it to herself, there just isn’t holding it in, particularly at home, and particularly when only a 16 month old is around. Who can he tell, right? …

Mm… I may be creating a little fart monster. He can now also say, “Fart”, and does so with glee.

He’s a boy, so it was bound to happen anyway, right? right? I maybe just sped up the process slightly.

written: October 20 2010…

 

Eating? Yes. Sand. March 4, 2010

Filed under: activities for kids,pregnancy,Raising a Child — rakster @ 5:21 pm
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Hi Poogie,

we went to the beach last weekend.  And you got your first sand eating experience.  It reminded me somewhat of G&K’s dog MoMo, who when you took her to the beach would eat sand and drink the water and then for the next while as you walked / ran along the beach the poor thing would wince and scrunch up her back as she pooed projectile-style salty water.

the baby eating sand

Sand-eating poogie. Yum Yum.

Thankfully you didn’t do that.  Just a bit of simple sand eating.  I didn’t notice sand-laden nappies, but I assume it was in there somewhere.  I don’t like to look THAT closely.

love mum

 

Snaps: playing on the couch January 27, 2010

Filed under: baby stuff,eating,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 5:24 pm
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A few snaps from the couch this afternoon…

this is what the view is from where I am and you try to kiss me. Mmmm. Open-mouthed baby kiss. Only a parent could really love it.

lunging for the camera

You have a new favourite food.  Cucumber.  I can almost hear you say,

“I can do it myself, mum”….

cucumber muncher

Love you

mum

 

Me me me me me me me. January 24, 2010

Filed under: Parenting — rakster @ 11:42 am
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Hello Little Speckle.

Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me. Me.  Yes. Me.  I am a person.  And I’m a separate person from you, believe it or not.  I know you don’t understand that yet, and you definitely think my boobs are just yours for the taking.  But believe me, I’m a person.  And over the last few weeks it’s had me thinking a lot about that fact.  I guess doing some long hard thinking and wondering where I fit into the equation of our family.  And where the ‘me’ bit is in it all.

Actually, this question has been niggling away at the back of my mind for months.  It started when I was pregnant – I guess one of the reasons I started this blog. A realisation that to you, for many years, I’m just going to be ‘mum’. And it will be taken-for-granted that I will be there for you, with you, in the background of your life. I thought a lot about the fact that you wouldn’t even conceive that I did things and had a fruitful and fulfilling life before you came along. Just wouldn’t be interested…

Since you were born it’s changed to a more day-to-day struggle to balance out the ‘mum’ from the ‘me’. From talking to lots of other mums, it seems a very common contemplation.  It really is a difficult adjustment going from full-time gainful employment in your chosen career and a busy and active social life with just yourself and your partner to think of and straight into motherhood.  I’ve been happy, alternately anxious, happy again, tired, exhausted, wonderously surprised, excited, busy, planning…  It is definitely is an up and down road.

So I’m happy today because I feel like I did something for myself this week.  All for me.   A small thing,  but it feels like an achievement.  Actually, a couple of things:

Hotcakes and Peaches - yum

Ricotta Hotcakes with Stewed Peaches

  1. I did the second installment of my not-new-year’s-resolution resolution – to try to cook at least one new thing a week.  Last week was apple pie.  This week in honour of your aunt Milla in NY’s birthday, I made Bill Granger’s Ricotta Hotcakes but with a variation – I just stewed up some of the plentiful and delicious fresh peaches that are in season and served with that.  I’ve posted the recipe… You ate some too:

    Baby eating ricotta hotcakes

    Poogie eating ricotta hotcakes

  2. I almost got your Dad’s website finished.  It’s  been a learning process, and I’ve been at it for a while.  But when we FINALLY get the stuff from the graphic designers, I’ll be able to launch it.  Whew.
  3. Most importantly, I found the book I was looking for.  When I say found, I mean: searched through and emptied about 15 dirty, dusty, musty boxed from in our store room to find (the boxes are part of the around 50 boxes we have down there stored full of stuff from one of the four times we’ve moved house in the last five years but not yet unpacked).  So I found it: the book my mum was assistant editor on years and years ago about homebirth.  Yay.  There is a reason I wanted it, which I’ll explain in another post, but suffice to say it’s been on my “want-to-do” list for at  least two months and your dad thankfully took you out yesterday afternoon, allowing me to root around in the storeroom and find it.  Along with boxes of kitchen appliances, serving platters, more books, old clothes…home birth book

No doubt I won’t feel quite as elated tomorrow, and I’ll continue to oscillate back and forth on all sorts of things like a yo-yo. But for today I feel GOOD and quite pleased with myself.

Love and kisses
your mum

 

mishaps… baby safety and a big rash December 27, 2009

Filed under: healthcare,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 9:32 pm
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Hello Little Pumpkin Pie,

so.  It’s now the 27th of December, two days have passed since Christmas.  Your fever broke on boxing day, and you seemed to be doing quite well today.  Apart from the bit of a red rash that you got yesterday / on Christmas day.  Which was just light and a little red, so we figured it was just maybe some food that maybe someone slipped you in passing on Christmas day, or just a reaction to the heat, to the humidity (it’s been around 100% and raining a lot for the past 4 days, highly unusual for this time of year but hot and sticky), or just ’cause you were tired.  Or …

But.  Another day on, and you’ve just had boob juice today as the rash was a little worse yesterday so we wanted to check.  The rash is getting redder, brighter, bigger.  And while you’re off the panadol, you seem a little unsettled.  So hard to tell why though: it could be shock from when you rolled of the bed today onto the floor when I turned my back on you for a second when you were almost asleep on our bed (I felt like the worst mum on the planet, a feeling that actually got progressively worse for an hour or so after it happened after my immediate panic and caring for you had passed).  Or it could be just that it’s been a very busy few days and whilst we’ve been trying to keep it a little quiet for you as you had an ear infection, it’s been hard to do that so there have been a lot of people about.  Who knows?  Maybe you have an opinion you could share with us if you could talk.  Your signing isn’t quite up to it yet.

What your Dad and I do know is that we’ve decided to cancel our planned trip to Straddie (Stradbroke Island) for the next two days and take you to the doctor instead as we didn’t fancy two days on an island with limited medical facilities if there is in fact something wrong with you.  And we figured that you’d only worked your way through about half of the antibiotics prescribed, so we couldn’t really stop giving them to you in case the ear infection wasn’t gone properly yet, but we couldn’t keep giving them to you as that might be the cause of the spreading rash.

Rash smash.

So.  We might just have a quiet time at home depending on what the doctor says.

Ah, the joys of being a new parent.   😉  I sigh.  I love you but goodness, there is a lot to worry and think about.  It’s all a bit stressful sometimes, but it just creeps up on you.  All fine, all fine, then BOOM!  Rash has got worse and it looks like you’ve got the pox and we’re feeling like bad parents again. I’m starting to get the picture that this is a common feeling of parenthood.

kisses and hugs to my little boopie baby

mum

 

Happy (1/2) Birthday to you, Happy (1/2) Birthday to you, Happy (1/2) Birthday dear Poogie December 20, 2009

Filed under: Parenting — rakster @ 7:17 pm
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Hello Little Munchkin,

Happy HALF birthday!

Today to-the-day six months ago you were squirming your way through the birth canal and I was vocalising my quite large lungs out in the birthing suite at the Mater Hospital. I’m amazed that the time has passed so quickly, and that you seem to have survived your dad and my parenting for six months without suffering any majorly noticeable strange physical or mental effects.

(Aside: Though the doctor when examining you this week did comment on how stubborn you seemed.  “Is he normally this stubborn?” was her question in response to your repeated attempts to eat her finger then her stethescope, and not be dissuaded by anyone, nor distracted by anything else. Sure meant taking your vitals was a bit harder than normal.  Well, there wasn’t much chance of that character trait not getting passed down.)

you’re gorgeous

So.  You’re still a little gorgeous one. When you first came out of the womb, you looked like this:

Fresh from the womb - first photo of you

Fresh from the womb – first photo of you

You’ve grown somewhat over the six months.  Funnily.  I still can’t believe how much.  This week you weighed in at 7.8 something kilos.  Heavy like a brick.

somewhat bigger today at six months!

somewhat bigger today at six months!

We had a very chilled-out celebration of this big milestone.  You practiced laughing a lot, did a lot of rolley polley on the bed with your dad and I, and we took some photos

Celebrating Six Months - the three of us in the mirror

Celebrating Six Months – the three of us in the mirror

and had some great play-time:

mum play time

mum play time

So.

Happy Birthday darling, and a big self-congratulatory hug to both myself and your dad for getting this far.

Love and kisses
mum

P.S. And if you’re reading this, leave a comment to Poogie to pass on your wishes personally!

 

You're twelve weeks old September 11, 2009

Filed under: baby stuff,baby's feelings,development stages,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 11:04 am
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Hello Poogie Woogie,

Well. Days are flying by and all I seem to do still is feed you, change you, get you to sleep (though you’re pretty good at that yourself, I must say – compliments). Repeat. Oh. That’s not true. We do lots of talking practice and read books and practice mouth movements in between too. But basically my whole day gets sucked up playing with you and looking after you. Its crazy. I knew it would be like this but at the same time its still very different from what I expected. The time is flying by but it isn’t at the same time. You’re 12 weeks old tomorrow.

So, what have you done in the first twelve weeks? So many things:

  • learned to look at us and interact with your eyes (you can now beat me in a staring competition and you sure are expressive with your eyes)
  • learned to smile and giggle and laugh with people who are talking to you
  • learned to use your hands – putting them in your mouth and staring at them close-up to your face, starting to grab things and hold on (only just)
  • learned to hold your head up when you’re in tummy time and look around – you’ve got much stronger than when you first came home from hospital
  • learned to practice talking. You’re not quite babbling yet, but you’re almost there – lots of ohhh, ahh noices. Your current nickname (from your dad and I) is “Apu”. We’re thinking of it being your second name.
  • learned to put yourself to sleep. Now this one is pretty good. I’m proud of you for this. When you”re tired, as long as you’re not overtired, we can pop you down in your cot, maybe slightly swaddled, and you’ll go to sleep by yourself, quite happily. WHen you’re overtired, nothing works but putting you in the sling and bouncing you around for 5 minutes. And listening to a bit of screaming in the meantime.
  • learned how to breastfeed MUCH better than when you started. Ahh.. And the best – you’re good at it lying down too.
  • learned what being scared is like (at the football)
  • learned how to listen to stories being read to you
  • learned how to poke your tongue out at me (imitating me poking mine at you)
  • and grown out of three sizes of clothing (you’re now a size 00 – been through 00000, 0000 and 000).
  • … the list goes on …
  • and finally this week you’ve learned what it is like to get diarrohea (and mum has learned how many nappies it is possible to go through in one day. Hundreds. By the way the doctor thinks maybe the diarrohea is from your Rota virus vaccination, but you’re otherwise ok in that you’re not dehydrated, your temperature is normal so its all good).

you sleeping this morning - 12 weeks old. In your normal 'arms-out' position

I had to count through the calender today to work out how many weeks old you were – for some reason I thought it was more like 14-15, but then I figured you weren’t quite 3 months yet, so I had to be wrong…

So. We’re down to Lismore with you for the night tonight, and then hopefully the beach with you tomorrow. I am going to have to find you a sun-safe suit to wear. Your Aunt R kindly gave you some excellent new swimmers that will hold everything in (like a tight wet-suit) and you have the gorgeous board shorts from A-M, so you’re good for swimming, but might need more for extra coverage during the day… And a new hat.

🙂

love you

mum

Me and You Today - 11 weeks 6 days. Gee you're big!

Me and You Today - 11 weeks 6 days. Gee you're big!

 

44000 people all yelling at once is just a bit too loud and scary for a little baby (and you are still a little baby, I just forget that) September 6, 2009

Filed under: emotion,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 10:59 am
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Hi Poogie,

Well.  I’m writing to you this morning to let you know that I’m sorry.  I feel terrible.  In fact,  last night I felt plagued with unassuageable guilt.   Wracked with it.   I’ve decided I don’t know if I want to be a mum anymore.  Its too scary for me too – too much responsibility (and to this your dad says, “Too late”).   And all because of the sight of your tiny little scared face.  Petrified in fact.

To balance these strong and undeniably primal feelings I’m having – I look at your face this morning – and you are most definitely your smiling, happy, joyous little self.   So no lasting damage to see.

So.  What did I (and your Dad) do?  Well, we attempted to take you to the football (AFL for those who know the Australian codes and are interested).  Mmm…  And we thought you’d be ok – nicely rugged up in a big sling on my or your dad’s chest, a short 20 minute walk to the grounds from our house with another friend.  I was a bit worried about the length of time we’d be out at night, but figured you liked to sleep in the sling.

WHAT WAS I THINKING????!!

Not some of the obvious things (well, very obvious in retrospect):

  • its the first home final for our local team in a number of years (finals season games have that little bit more fervour, don’t they – i.e. the crowd is going to be BIG BIG BIG and ROWDY ROWDY ROWDY); and
  • we were sitting in the open section (not in the alcohol-free members area we’ve been in the last games we went to); and
  • you’re only twelve weeks old!; and
  • I just plain forgot that the noise at a football game really goes from nothing to a huge roar in just seconds.

And that was what scared you.   It wasn’t the noise itself (you adjusted to that each time the roar lasted for a long time).  It was the abruptness of the noise.  And your dad thinks the primal or base nature of the noise.  Suddenly.

In my life so far – one of the worst things I’ve ever seen was your little face last night.   Just the look of absolute terror in your eyes as you pushed your head sideways into your dad’s chest in the sling, and gripped him around his chest monkey-style like you weren’t going to let go if it was the last thing you did.  And your eyes looked like you thought it might be the last thing you did.   And I couldn’t do anything about it.  You gave a few yelp-like cries on some of the big roars and let it out verbally.   The rest of the time however, you just looked dazed and amazed.  So much bright light, so many faces and noises around you.

So,  the quarters are long in AFL.   I needed to use the bathroom desperately about 15 minutes into the first quarter, so I managed to squeeze out of our seats (the other issue being that we were pinned right in the middle of a stand with no close stairs and had to squeeze along a narrow row of 15 people to get out) and get to the bathroom.  I was shaking.  I was so upset with myself and not sure what to do with you.   You stayed with your dad.  That was a good move, as I managed to then have the next 15 minutes to watch the game from the stairwell, and because I couldn’t see your face I wasn’t so upset and managed to think.  And decided that the option was easy and not a big deal – I’d just walk home with you and leave your dad & P at the game, and that you’d be fine.  You weren’t howling, you weren’t hurt, you weren’t damaged.  You just got a big shock.  And you enjoyed some of it.

Quarter over, you dad brought you out of the stands to me, I strapped you on, and we went home.  You were wired.  So alert and awake and watchful.   And happy.   You wanted to talk and laugh and look and participate in everything on the way home, and wanted my attention and face-time when we got home.   We got home in time for me to put you on my lap and have some great play time and talking time as I watched the delayed football on TV.   And it was an amazing game, where our team (the Lions) made a final quarter comeback from 5 goals down to win.

You had a huge feed, seemed very content, and went down to sleep for the night after almost falling asleep on the boob.  And you woke this morning and are still fine.

I’m sorry poogie.

Love you
mum

P.S. I wasn’t the only mum at the football with a baby. As I was walking towards the stairs to leave, another woman with a sling on came out of the back of one of the stands. We locked eyes, and I had to go and see how she was going. So I walked over and she walked to me. We said hi, and asked how old and looked at each-other’s babes. Me: “How old is your baby” (before I can see the face). Her: “One week”. SOOO TINY I realised as I saw her little baby’s screwed up face – womb-fresh and puckered but totally fully asleep at her chest in the sling. Then she said, “I’m just looking for somewhere to feed her, I’m hoping the ushers will let me have a seat back here somewhere”… Mm.. Me: “Good luck”… For some strange reason it reassured me that I wasn’t the worst and dumbest mum on the planet – which was where my self-esteem was at the time. It wasn’t just us that decided that the football was ok for a relatively small babe. But rest assured Poogie, I think it will be some years before we try to take you again 🙂 TV will do for now.

 

OMG WTH is it with TLAs and MCNs???? August 6, 2009

Filed under: pregnancy — rakster @ 4:36 pm
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Hi Oscar,

today is more of a little rant. Rather than a little story.

I’ve been meaning to write to you about the complexities of nappies / diapers, the confusing choices about them, and about what your dad, you and I are doing with respect to them. I’ll get to that. But for today, I’m going to keep it brief (you’re not sleeping well – just seems to be 15 minute cat-naps at the most, so my writing time is limited) and just complain about how hard it is to actually read about, research, get opinions on, and generally make a decision about nappies / diapers!

Why! Because of all the goddam three letter acronyms (TLAs) that are just peppered through discussions on cloth nappies / diapers. “OMG WTH is it with TLAs and MCNs????”

OMG * Oh my God
WTH * What the Hell
TLA * Three Letter Acronym
MCN * Modern Cloth Nappy
MCD * Modern Cloth Diaper

My background in IT and telecoms is actually paying off: notorious for TLAs and undecipherable jargon, the part of my brain that deals with such palaver is getting a right royal workout. However nappy / diaper research is worse than the TLAs in the telecoms industry – not only do you have to have TLAs for every bit and bob to do with a nappy / diaper, when you converse on forums and the like it seems you also need TLAs for each and every family member. I was going ok while I was pregnant – I seemed to be able to navigate the forums I looked at by some guesswork (which I occasionally got wrong, but the general idea was ok)…. To give the uninitiated an idea of what kind of crap TLAs are used, check out the acronyms listed on a baby forum here in Australia. A few examples:

  • DH – Dear Husband
  • DF – Dear Fiance
  • DS – Dear Son
  • DD – Dear Daughter

Getting the idea? Those in your family are Dear… Except for the following people:

  • MIL – Mother in Law
  • FIL – Father in Law
  • SO – significant Other (apparently for if you’re just dating someone, obviously they haven’t quite made the “Dear” grade yet)

Mmmm.. I see a slight bias or bent to these TLAs already.

Anyway, those ones aren’t too hard to guess at, though why the hell anyone would want to continually refer to their partner as DH or whatever, it beats me. I can think of lots of others that could have been used instead given the content of what some of the people were writing about their partners: LAMF*** being one of them. Or perhaps just SGRPP****. Ok, I admit, now I’m just starting to make them up. And I’m getting sidetracked by a rant about the mundane nature of and painfully horrific posts that you find on lots of baby and mum and pregnancy sites (though some of it is great, its just the full spectrum of the population and their problems – better than Dr Phil any day – you can write back!).

So, on top of the already long list of acronyms needed to get through the posts on the mummy/mommy and baby general forums, the nappy / diaper forums take it to a whole new level! And the sites of the nappy / diaper makers seem to go there too – really using the acronyms all over the shop (so to speak) making it almost impossible for a NRAIM (nappy-related-acronym-illiterate-mum) like myself to even attempt to PURCHASE anything in the right size shape or colour. My advice to all nappy / diaper sites: KISS*****. Yeah, they teach that one in my MBA****** course.

Again for the uninitiated, you can read a list of the commonly used nappy-related (diaper-related) terms on an Australian nappy-centric forum (yes, that is if you can pull yourself off the floor and believe that there really is that much to discuss about nappies / diapers- if you see this forum, you’ll see that for some people, it really is endless, though I shouldn’t be surprised, the internet is full of little nooks and crannies with all sorts of people talking in minute detail about all sorts of topics)… Some more examples:

  • MCN – Modern Cloth Nappy; progressing to
  • AI1 – All-in-One
  • AI2 – All-in-Two (is this a misnomer??)
  • BV – Bamboo Velour (mmm! This sounds like something you’d find in a nightclub, could be fun)
  • … the list goes on…

And perhaps my favourite from this bunch in the discussion:

  • AF – “Aunt Flo”

WTF*******?? Even after reading the words behind this acronym I’m lost. Are you wondering like me why people are suddenly referring to Aunt Flo? Is it some kind of Australian-Queensland related thing where people have taken the term to refer to a stereotypical pumpkin-scone baking aunt based on the infamously corrupt Queensland Premier Joh Bjelke Petersen‘s wife Flo – famous for her pumpkin scones? That was my first thought on reading the translation . But no, get further and you’ll find that it is in fact a euphemism for the menstrual period. Hence the “flow”. See – it really does go too far, an acronym for a euphemism that is pretty out-there in the first place. My suspicions that people just post on the forums using the acronyms without really knowing what they mean at all were confirmed on reading further into the thread:

“I also use AF all the time and often wondered what it meant. Thanks”

Remind me not to start posting on these forums about my nappies / diapers and using terms and abbreviations that I really don’t know what they mean. Otherwise I might end up saying something I regret.

IMHO I could just spend all day LMAPO about the things other SAHM/SAHDs have written on the fourms IYKWIM. Alas, my DS, you take up too much time munching on my BBs and IME it just takes too much time to work out all the ETLAs in order to decode WTF they are on about most of the time. YABA YABA YABA is all you get.

TTFN Mum ********

P.S. My new task is to memorise at least one of the general abbreviations every day.

*** Lazy Ass Mother Fucker

****Sexist, gender-role-pandering pansie

***** Keep it Simple Stupid

****** Masters of Business Administraion

******* What the Fuck?

******** In my honest opinion I could just spend all day laughing my ass off about the things other stay-at-home-mums / stay-at-home-dads have written on the forums if you know what I mean. Alas, my Dear Son, you take up too much time munching on my boobies and in my experience it just takes too much time to work out all the extended three letter acronyms. Yet another bloody acronynm, yet another bloody acronym, yet another bloody acronym (Translation: Ra Ra Ra or or Yada yada yada) is all you get!

Tata for now. Mum