Thursday, March 30, 2006

It fits!

I made this layette for Romily before she was born. I was seven months pregnant and had a new sewing machine and decided I'd make something for my winter baby. Well, obviously I had no idea how little babies really were! The layette is around a size 0 or even a smallish size 1.

Of course, it's now perfect for this fast-approaching winter! Here she is wearing it for the first time. We went for a walk this morning and it was a little cool out, so we gave the purple all in one fleecy a good workout. It passed with flying colours!

Not a bad effort after 15 years of being a 'sew-free' zone :)

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

10 things I thought I'd never be doing

Becoming a mum brings many new experiences into your life. Here are 10 things I'd previously never contemplated doing (most of which, funnily enough, revolve around bodily fluids):

1. Scraping poo off someone else's bum
2. Debating the pros and cons of cloth versus disposable nappies
3. Exposing my breasts in public (while breastfeeding)
4. Pulling boogers out of someone else's nose
5. Congratulating someone for burping
6. Not minding someone else vomiting on me
7. Researching which is preferable: using dummies or thumb-sucking
8. Giving up my weekend sleep-ins voluntarily
9. Hoiking ear wax out of someone else's ear
10. Loving someone so unconditionally

Monday, March 27, 2006

There's a possum in the house

There's a possum in the house and he's thankfully not hiding in the pantry, but in our roof!

For a few weeks now, my husband and I have been wondering whether a possum had taken up residence in our roof, as we heard what sounded like footsteps coming from above the ceiling. Well...we do!!! On Friday night we had just finished our dinner and were watching a show on the ABC about some guys who got lost in a gorge (idiots) in Borneo when we heard this bangslidebang!! Coming from behind us down the hallway. 'What the hell was that?' we both said (or something similar!).

I went to investigate and saw a flash of big brown eyes and a bushy tail disappearing into the bathroom. 'It's a f*#king possum,' I screeched and tried to shut the bathroom door before it ran out into Romy's room!! But it was too fast and ran past me into the lounge room where my husband had been sitting on the couch. It did a lap of honour before it climbed into the bookcase. We finally managed to coax it out (with a gentle nudge from the broom) and it bolted up the stairs for the front door (which he had cleverly opened). Poor Romy heard all the commotion and was crying during the whole episode. The possum disappeared into the night and I boobed Romy back to sleep.

It was a little too exciting for a Friday night! We shoved a pillow up into the heating intake (where the possum fell out from), hoping to block its path. Unfortunately, it has alternative routes through our roof space - in the ceiling over our bed!!! I heard it scritch scratching around at 4am this morning. Not impressed! It's bad enough being woken by a baby, let alone a possum!!

Fortunately, we have a possum eradication guy coming on Sunday to set traps and then block off any entry points. No more visitors on Friday nights thanks!

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Retail therapy


I've been feeling a little down over the past few days. I was worried for a day or two that I might be suffering some mild post-natal depression, but after talking about it with my mothers' group and my darling husband I came to the conclusion that I was just coming face to face with the reality of being a full-time mum.

This realisation was a shock to me, as until now I have been floating on a cloud of mummy bliss. I think it's just the relentless nature of domestic duties. I think I had in my mind's eye images of me holding my baby, sitting on our balcony and enjoying the fruits of my labour. Of course I now realise that's a bit laughable - it's not like in the movies - motherhood is bloody hard work. So is keeping the house clean. I don't think I really appreciated how much of the housework my husband did when we were splitting our domestic duties 50-50.

After receiving some wise counsel from my friends, I am working on letting go of the inner need to have a spotless house. It's just not realistic when you have a baby in the house! My friends who have been through this before me tell me that they too struggled around the 8-month mark. The babies, while cute as buttons, are so demanding at this age, and not a little difficult what with teething, learning to eat solid foods and not being able to move as they would like.

Now I understand why mother nature made babies so damned cute - so you could remember this when they were driving you mad!!

And Romily is pretty gorgeous at the moment. Despite being a little grizzly and clingy at the moment, she is a happy camper (when she gets enough sleep) and I find myself laughing many times throughout the day at her antics.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Playing possum

Poor little Romy is not 100%. Which is why I've been offline for a couple of days. She is running a slight temperature and has been very clingy, not wanting to be put down.

She's been waking up several times a night and won't resettle without a feed. So needless to say I'm a little exhausted! She's also been off her food and really just wanting breastmilk. While it's tiring looking after her, I am feeling like a very proud mummy in that I am able to soothe and comfort her in a way that no other living creature can. It's an amazing realisation and feeling.

I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again. I do love being a mum.

We have progress!

I am pleased to report that while I've been missing in action for a few days I have made some progress on the cushion cover I'm making for Romily. I've almost finished the quilted top - I am just blanket stitching around the heart applique. You can see in the pictures here that I chose a very simple quilting pattern for my first effort. It turned out okay - the lines are almost straight!!!

Once I've appliqued the heart on, I'll attach it to the cushion back and piping. I've got the cushion insert already, so then it'll just be a matter of hand-stitching up the open side and voila!! Romily's already been eyeing it off - looking at all the patterns and colours.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Next crafty project

Apparently one craft project at a time is not enough!! My cushion cover is still coming along, but my local material store had a 20% off everything sale yesterday, so I just HAD to go and buy the material for my next project - a big snake for Romily to wrestle around on the floor.

My brothers and I had one that my mum made for us when we were little and I loved it. I hope Romily loves hers too. It's going to be one funky snake!!

Ready for my close up

Romily had a play date today with her little friend Leni.

Leni's mum and I are in the same online mothers' group and we got together 'in real life' for a coffee and a chat. Leni is about three weeks older than Romy and was running rings around Romily - almost literally! Leni is crawling very fast and pulling herself up on things. She'll be standing and then walking in no time. Leni has two older sisters who she's trying to catch! Romily is still the beached whale.

I'm pleased about this - it means she's always within a metre or two of where I leave her! I know this won't last too much longer, so I'm enjoying it while it does.

The second photo was a little close, but it shows Romily is not scared of the camera!!! Maybe she'll be a famous movie star one day. Then she can thank her mum in her Oscar acceptance speech :)

Monday, March 13, 2006

With cruskit

This photo displays the cruskit in all its glory :D

The vegemite kid














We're happy little vegemites
We're bright as bright can be
We all enjoy our vegemite for breakfast lunch and tea
Because we LOVE our vegemite
We all ENJOY our vegemite
It puts a ROSE in every CHEEK!!!!!

Little Romy Bear loves her vegemite cruskits, as you can see from this very visually appealing photo. If you look closely, you can also see the top of one of her two teeth that made an appearance early this month.

For those of you in the US, vegemite is a yeast-based condiment that you spread sparingly onto bread, biscuits and can also use in soups, etc. It has a very unusual and strong flavour and is beloved by most Australian kids and many adults. It's very similar to Promite, but not as sweet.

I love my vegemite too :)

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Fidget bum

Do you think fidgeting could be genetic? My husband and I are incessant fidgets. Neither of us can just sit calmly without picking, pulling, rubbing or touching something. It looks like young Romily has inherited this from us. She just never stops. She's the go-go kid.

My mum said she had never seen a baby feed like Romy. Legs and arms going in all directions, pulling on and off the boob and generally doing anything but feeding! She does get a good feed in, but she just so distracted by EVERYTHING that it takes a while. She certainly doesn't have any good feeding manners!

We still wrap her up to sleep. We've tried weaning her off the swaddling, but she's just so busy sucking her fingers, rubbing her eyes, tugging her ears, playing with her feet that she just wont go to sleep. She gets more and more tired to the point where she goes feral. Unfortunately, our brilliant sleeper has decided she doesn't like it anymore and is getting harder to put down for a sleep. She has even started waking up in the night for feeds. We think it's more teeth, but it's hard to know for sure.

This has been a hard week. I know I've been incredibly lucky to have a baby who has slept so well up until now, but I feel like we've really regressed these past few days and it's very exhausting.

However, she remains adorable and I just love her to bits. I just keep chanting "This will get better" to myself and look forward to being on the other side of teething.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Happy anniversary to my parents

I think 36 years of marriage deserves three cheers:




Hip hip hooray
Hip hip hooray
Hip hip hooray

Here they are with their five grandchildren at Christmas last year.

Computer free Fridays

Inspired by Mommycoddle, I'm instituting computer free Fridays. I need to get more stuff done around the house and this is a great way to do it! You just don't realise how often you're online when the computer is on all day.

Monday, March 06, 2006

With teeth comes babble

Despite my crappy day (see below), I am totally charmed by my little cherub. She has begun anew with the baby talk and it is just so gorgeous. It sounds as though she truly thinks she's having a conversation with us, chatting away about this and that.

It's all ga ga ya ya ya. We see little flashes of the toothiepegs between gabbling and I think that because she's working her jaw up and down getting used to the teeth, it's changing the way she 'talks'. It's just lovely to hear and I 'talk' back to her all the time, repeating her 'words'.

I am very much looking forward to the day she says 'mum'. I know it probably won't be for a while, but it will just make my heart sing! I do love being Romily's mummy.

Argh

Far out. I've had one of THOSE days.

Woken up by Romily at 6.30am. Pretty good! I felt great, as I'd actually had 7 hours sleep. Went upstairs to grab my pump and a bottle and headed back down to Romy's room to express a little milk before feeding her. Got 100ml in 10 minutes - happy with that. Fed the bubba and then we went back upstairs to have my breakfast and give her some rice cereal.

While she was playing after her cereal I went back downstairs to get the bottle/pump and discovered 10ml had leaked out - the seal in the bottom of the bottle was loose. Grrr. I hate wasting breastmilk - it's like liquid gold and I work so hard to get it out. Grr.

Baby REFUSED to sleep more than 30 minutes all morning. She was crabby and so then was I. Despite her crabbiness, we went off to the clinic for a weigh and measure. She's now 8.25 kg and 67cm long. Got back home and realised it was too late to take her to Gymbaroo (we'll go Wednesday instead). Put her down for a sleep and she slept - but only for 45 minutes. This might sound okay, but this meant she'd only had one hour and 15 minutes since 6.30am - this is nowhere near enough.

I went off to the supermarket while Grandma babysat. Got home and was getting the bags out of the boot and suddenly BANG!!!! It sounded like a shotgun, but was in fact a glass bottle of mineral water smashing on the garage floor. The gas inside the bottle turned the glass into shrapnel and it went everywhere, including into the skin on my ankles. I had tiny little cuts all over my lower legs. Fabulous. Cleaned it up and put the baby back to bed, as she was VERY tired. Do you think she would sleep? Hell no! I tried to get her to go to sleep for an hour and then gave up.

I put Romily in the Jolly Jumper to burn off some energy and then it was time for another feed (#4 for the day). I put her to bed and thank goodness she went to sleep! Went upstairs, reheated my cold coffee (thank god for microwaves!) and then proceeded to spill it all over me and my new gossip magazine that I'd just bought at the supermarket. Managed to catch most of it in my lap, so I saved the wool rug!

Oh my god it was all I could do not to cry. I must be a little tired I think!

Not long after that it was time to take mum to the airport - bet she was glad to be going home after today! I was just hopeless. Oh well. She's my mum - she'll understand.

I am so buggered I am not cooking our planned dinner of steak and salad (and how easy is that?!). Instead we are having spaghetti and store-bought pasta sauce. And a glass of red wine. Bugger the diet I say!

Let's hope we have a better night tonight. At least Romily is still sleeping beautifully at night. Those teeth are bothering her, but not too much. Yaaaaaah.

Skyfire

Canberra's night of nights is the annual Skyfire event, held around the shores of Lake Burley Griffin.

We went along for the first time on Saturday night and took Romily to see her first fireworks. They were spectacular! She wasn't scared and loved looking up at the lights in the sky. It was wonderful to be there together with Grandma. It was a fabulous night - although we did keep Romy up way past her bedtime. I don't think she suffered too much though - she went straight to sleep when we got home and the next day was her happy self.

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Aaaaaaaaaaahahahaha

I am treasuring these moments. I am storing them up for the future. For when she's three. For when she's 13. For when she and I aren't best friends anymore. For when I run out of patience with her. For when I have thoughts about why why did I have a child (I hope these will be few and far between, but, let's be honest. Every parent thinks this at least once in their child's life!).

I love this photo. It shows how much she just loves jumping in her jumper. And she's in her cute retro bodysuit, which I think is just gorgeous. Can you tell I love my little Romily?

Not a bad effort...

Well I was going to say this is my very first patchwork attempt, but as I was sewing away on my trusty Janome (that is truly Lily-proof), I recalled that long, long ago, in a high school far away, I made a patchwork apron! Yes, it's true. Of course the lines were all crooked and the ties were twisted. I was soooo hopeless at craft!

But, apparently, with age comes the ability to sew in straight lines :) I am also very pleased with myself being able to cut the fabric square. Oh yes, big pats on the back for me!!

I've appliqued the small heart onto the large heart and will blanket stitch around each layer. I think the materials are looking good together and I think this project is going so well I may even finish it!

A big thanks to my mum for 'reminding' me how to do blanket stitch. It was somewhere there in the back of my mind!

Yum

As you can see from this picture, young Romily is enjoying her food! But only if it's bland. Here she's enjoying home-cooked potato mixed with sweet potato. She's also enjoying sucking the last remaining bits off the spoon.

Grandma, who's visiting from Melbourne, is very impressed with her granddaughter and is amazed to see how much Romily's grown and how much hair she now has.

Romily is seven months old tomorrow. It seems impossible that it's been that long since she entered our lives. Grandma was one of my birth partners, so it's lovely to see the bond between my mum and Romily growing.

That's not all that's growing! Romily has cut her first tooth! After the false alarm in January, she now has her lower right front tooth. The left one is not far behind. It was nice of Romy to wait until Grandma got here to get her very first fang!