What's up doc?

Romily has had a dummy since she was three days old. This is despite me being brought up to believe that dummies weren't a good idea! However, we bought a dummy for Romily on the advice of one of the midwives at the hospital where Romily was born. Romy was having trouble working out how to 'attach' and, as a first-time mum, I had no idea how to help her! Anyway the midwife suggested a dummy, as the right shaped dummy (cherry pip) can help them work out where to put their tongue when trying to latch onto the boob.

It worked and it also worked a treat as a pacifier. She was and still is a very sucky baby. However, lately Romily has been turfing the dummy out of her cot and going off to sleep without it. She won't take one during the day anymore, but she is still having trouble getting off to sleep. So I decided that she might need something special to cuddle to help send her off to the land of nod.

You can buy snuglies, but they cost a lot and I thought it might be nice if I made one. I bought a pattern for a soft toy rabbit and with a few alterations (a really long overskirt), have hand-stitched a bunny snugly. I hope that we'll be able to introduce the bunny (as yet unnamed) soon and then get rid of the dummies. We are also hoping to get rid of the pillows we've had in her cot as bolsters - she went through a phase of continually rolling onto her tummy and then not being able to get back so the pillows were used to stop her from rolling. Of course now she can't seem to do without the pillows - she loves snuggling into them before she goes to sleep. I hope the bunny provides a similar snugly place for her and that we can take the pillows out of the cot too.

So I'm pleased - I have finished all of the sewing projects I had planned to do before starting my beginner's patchwork course on Tuesday night. I've ironed out all of my sewing bugs and am raring to go. I'll post regular updates on the sampler quilt I'll be making as the course progresses. I just can't wait!

In the meantime, check out Jan's March project all in pinks and reds. It's just beautiful and I love the way the blocks all work together. I hope I can make something like this too one day!

Happy 9 months to Romily

I know it's my computer-free day, but I couldn't let today pass without wishing my darling daughter happy nine months!

She's been out as long as she was 'in'. It's hard to believe that nearly a whole year has passed since she entered our lives. She's an angel (most of the time) and we are enjoying being her parents very much.

I love you Romily
xxxxxxxxxxx

Romily's room

A few other blogsters (Claire, Fiona) have been doing their babies' and kids' rooms. I thought I'd show you Romily's room. My husband and I painted it when I was five months pregnant, not knowing whether we were having a boy or a girl.

We went for a lemon tang, which turned out beautifully (after we toned down our original choice on the advice of my expert painter and decorator father!) and now provides a nice, bright sunny haven for Romily, even on those wintery days.

We chose a bear theme, which you can see in decals on the walls and it's also on the change mat on top of the chest of drawers, which cleverly doubles as a change table. Once we no longer need the change table, it's a simple matter of taking out the drawers, inverting the unit, and replacing the drawers - hey presto, a chest of drawers! No wonder it's called the Houdini!

I love Romily's room and it's hard to recall that it used to be our office!

Fogbound

Wow you know winter's coming when you wake up to this

And this

And it's cooooold today. Of course we have the landscapers here, so the front and back doors are wide open. Romy and I are rugged up but my hands are still freezing. Poor Romy when I change her nappy - my fingers against her very warm little body. Brrr!

6 quirky things

I've been tagged by Judy to tell you 6 quirky things about myself. Thanks Judy! Well you may or may not consider these weird, but I think they're a tad unusual.

1. I chipped my front tooth with a skipping rope when I was little. My brother and I were playing with the old leather skipping rope, which was tied off on the lawnmower handle. My brother was spinning it round too fast for me to jump through and he kept spinning it faster and faster. (You can see that this is going to end in tears) He was spinning it so fast I was laughing my head off. Fortunately, I was laughing with my mouth wide open, as the shackle that held the handle to the rope separated. The handle stayed in my brother's hand while the shackled end of the rope went sailing through the air, swiping the tip of my front left tooth. Fragments of tooth sprinkled my tongue and it felt like my whole tooth had been pulverised. I ran inside crying to my mum, who looked at me like I was mad. Then she had a closer look and said, 'oh yes, you do have a small chip'. I always felt self-conscious about that chip.

2. I was in the army. Yep. The Australian Army. For 3 1/2 years as a public relations officer. I was deployed to East Timor and Bougainville on peacekeeping operations and worked on the operations in support of the Sydney 2000 Olympics (I went to the judo, the athletics and the closing ceremony) and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2002. I loved being in the army, but when they wanted to post me to northern Australia and I wanted to go to Canberra (on the south central eastern seaboard) the army and I went our separate ways. I am still in the army reserve, but as an inactive member.

3. The army fixed my tooth! Yes, my chipped tooth was no more after one of the very gorgeous air force dentists convinced me that as a public relations officer I couldn't very well walk around representing the Australian Defence Force with a broken smile. Ah, he could probably have convinced me to have all of my teeth out he was so cute.

4. I met my husband while on an expedition to Mt Everest. Yes, I had to go all the way to Tibet to meet my soul mate. I guess that's as good a place as any!

5. I eat mushrooms. So what? Well, until I had Romily I hated funghi. Detested the stuff. Gagged if I tried to eat mushies. Now? No problem! Very strange indeedy.

6. I drive like an Italian (according to my husband). We had a delayed honeymoon in Europe at the end of 2004 and I drove 9000 out of the 9500 kilometres we covered in nine weeks. (My husband navigated - a much safer option than me doing the honours!) Everyone had warned us to watch out for the dreadful traffic in Rome. What dreadful traffic I ask you? I had no problem at all and got the hang of driving in Europe very quickly. I may not have shaken that dodge and weave mentality however!

Well, that was pretty boring! I guess I'm not as quirky as I'd like to think I am!

If you want to play, I tag:
Tiffany
Heather
Steph
Snowbear

And thanks Judy for your suggestion about a runner for the top of our buffet now it has its dustcover on. Will have to put my creative hat on after my patchwork course (which starts the week after next - I am so excited!!).

Boring but done

This has got to be the most boring sewing project imaginable! With Romily bound to start crawling one day soon (or one month soon), we decided that we needed a dust cover (read Romy cover) for our buffet/ sideboard/ credenza/ whateveryouwanttocallit. It is handmade from myrtle and is precious to us, so we need to protect it and its contents from wandering fingers. So I set myself the challenge of making a cover from calico that would fit snugly.

I did it! It is even (almost) square. I was so careful with my measurements and managed to sew in relatively straight lines and it fits perfectly. There is one dodgy corner (the not quite square part), which is nicely hidden at the back. I am proud of myself for a) finishing this project before Romily starts crawling and b) not mucking it up. Elephant stamp for me!

All aboard!

Romy and I had the best fun yesterday! Our playgroup meeting was not at our usual venue - a preschool - but at the Kingston Miniature Railway. I had no idea what to expect, as I'd never heard of it before, but it was just fabulous!

They have a miniature train, the Bunyip Railway, which tootles around a 900-metre track adjacent to the railway museum. The trains are run by volunteer engineers - they are a bunch of lovely gents who just love steam trains. They were excellent and let us go round and around again. Romily just loved the whole thing and was bopping up and down on the seat, which is her sign to go faster!

It was a beautiful autumn day and just the thing to do in the sunshine with a bunch of excited under-2s. Bliss.

(I may have enjoyed the ride more than Romily!)

A wonderful holiday

As some of you have noticed, we're back! We arrived back in Canberra on Monday night after a 10-hour drive from Melbourne. My mum decided at the last minute to join us for the drive - she was worried about me driving so far with a potentially feral 8 and a 1/2 month old baby. I'm glad she did, as she shared the driving and, more important, entertained Romily for the last hour when it got all too much for the poor thing. I think she hated being stuck in her carseat for so long. We had four stops, but it's not much fun as an adult, let alone a baby. (Mum flew home the next morning.)

Anyway, we're back, after having a lovely Easter in Bendigo with Romily's paternal grandfather and then a week in Melbourne with my parents, culminating in my twin nephews' baptism. It was so lovely to see family and friends again - especially to catch up with my friend Amanda who I'd missed at Christmas. Her beautiful daughter Olivia has grown so much since I saw her last it's incredible.

Romily had a fantastic time - there were other babies and young children galore and she was quite the social butterfly! She has started smiling at strangers, and was even kissing the other babies! Oh it was so cute :) You can see in the pictures above that she was telling her 2nd cousin Lucas a long and apparently boring story!!

And in the car on the tedious trip home she started saying 'mumumumumumum' and 'adadadadadad'. What a joy to hear them trying to say your name! Not such a joy at 4am, but hey!

My mum also insisted that I do no housework while I was in Melbourne - she gave me a break from all of that, so it did actually feel like a holiday. I even bought jars of baby food for Romily instead of cooking it all. Woohoo. It's amazing what gets you excited when you have a baby :)

Of course it's back to the salt mines now. But I am feeling refreshed and not so daunted by the whole 'homemaker' thing. I'm just taking it as it comes and enjoying the last few months at home with the bubba before I go back to work (in August yuk).

ANZAC Day

Today is ANZAC Day - April 25 - a day where Australians and other nations of the Allied Forces remember the fallen soldiers of World War I. It's not a celebration but a commemoration. As a currently non-active member of the Australian Defence Force, this day has special meaning for me. I've served on two peace-keeping operations and can only imagine how terrifying it must have been to be involved in a war of the scale and brutal nature of the two world wars. I don't like war, don't want war and hope one day war will become a relic, a long-forgotten memory. But until that day, I will pay my respects to past, current and future men and women of the Australian Defence Force who do such an important and often thankless job on our behalves.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them

Happy Easter!

Does one say Happy Easter? I do! I'm not religious, so for me it's another time of the year, like Christmas, to focus on family and those close to you. I'm really looking forward to spending four days with my beautiful husband - we haven't seen a lot of each other lately - I wonder why?

We're heading off to spend Easter with his Dad, who hasn't seen Romily since Christmas. He'll be surprised at how much she's grown and how noisy she is!! Then I'll be off the radar for another week, as I'm continuing down the highway with Romily to spend a week with my parents and catch up with my brothers, sister-in-law, nephews, and other friends and family. My twin nephews, who are four weeks younger than Romy, are being Christened while we're down in Melbourne, so it'll be a big family trip for us. I wonder how my husband will go with a quiet house for a week? It's been so long since he was here on his own :) I think he'll enjoy the solitude for the first few days, but I think he'll be missing us, and particularly Romy, after that. Well he'd better be!

----------

Given our track record with unreliable tradesmen and contractors, I don't know why I was surprised yesterday when our landscapers failed to arrive. Not on time, but at all! We didn't hear from them all day. A knock on the door this morning brought an apology and news that they'd be starting the day after we get back from our trip. I was secretly pleased that they're not here today, as I have soooooo much packing to do!

Speaking of which, I had better get cracking.

So, all that's left to say is HAPPY EASTER!! I'll be back in late April and I hope in the meantime you are spending some happy time with loved ones.

I'll leave you with a photo of our very bright young daughter - see, she already knows how to use a computer!!

Groovy pants

I am so pleased with how well Romily's overalls turned out. While a supposedly *easy* pattern, I did find it a little tricky around the bib. But we got there and they fit, with plenty of growing room. I've sewn on three rows of buttons on the straps, so she'll be wearing these through to next summer.

I'm glad I made these before I start my beginner patchwork class in May - my sewing skills were very rusty, and this project combined with the cushion are getting rid of the cobwebs! I think I'm going to make a snuggle bunny comforter for Romy next. It's a hopeful replacement for her nighttime dummies, which she seems to lose on a regular basis. Most of the bunny will be hand-sewn, which is, again, good practice for the quilt I'll be making!

Backyard blitz

In Australia, home renovation and garden makeovers are very popular right now. There are a bunch of TV shows around this theme (one of which, and my favourite, is called Backyard Blitz), which have inspired us to get our back courtyard 'done'.

Well, our landscapers arrive tomorrow! 7am oh my goodness. Oh well, we are up at that time anyway courtesy of our little human alarm clock!

We are quite excited about having the courtyard done. As you can see from the photos, it's been a bit of a wasteland. We've never used it, as it was a very slapdash design and constructed at the last minute by the contractors who built the development we live in. Its layout was not conducive to lazy Sunday afternoons. We now have a design based on my ideas that we think will work very well. It should only take a couple of weeks to complete, but with Easter and other public holidays upon us, it will take a little longer. It should all be finished by early May. Just in time for winter. D'oh!

I thought I'd also post a photo of the view off our balcony. We look over the rooftop of the neighbouring development across the valley to the hills. I should have taken this photo at the end of the day when the light is much softer and the valley takes on that beautiful golden glow - but I'm usually too busy with Romily at that time of day to remember!

Speaking of Romily, her gums must have settled down, as she's having much better nighttime and daytime sleeps. Thank the gods!

Uninvited house guest has left the building

Hooray! The possum, by all appearances, has left the building! We have heard no noises in our roof since my husband last ushered our uninvited house guest out the front door, and the possum man came today to take away the most unattractive excluder cage from our fan vent and replaced it with a barely visible screen. So, hopefully, that means no more possums!

When I grow up...

...I'm going to be a heartbreaker

It's Monday again

How did this happen? It's Monday again. Already. Never mind - it's a short week this week with Easter upon us.

We had a wonderful weekend. Well I did at any rate. My darling husband took Romily out of the house both mornings. This meant that on Saturday I managed to vaccuum and mop upstairs. Our floorboards had been looking decidedly dull (read: dirty). And with Romy scooting around (backwards and in circles only), it's not optimum. I felt so great after I'd finished. It felt like a real accomplishment! I was, of course, very tired afterwards (all that physical exertion), but it was worth it.

We went out to our friends' place on Saturday night. Mike was named a Member in the Order of Australia in this year's Australia Day honours and was invested on Friday. It was a celebration of his achievement and the award, but also a farewell, as he has been posted to the United States for one year to go to 'Generals school'. He and his family are leaving in about a month. It was a lovely evening - he was roasted royally by his brothers and sisters - made more so by the fact that Romily went to sleep when she was supposed to!

On Sunday, Romy disappeared with my other half, allowing me to go back to bed after her breakfast and have a ... drum roll ... sleep in! It was wonderful. It was luxurious. It was heaven. Boy did I need that! In the afternoon I just about finished the overalls I am making for Romily. I have only to sew on the buttons and stitch around the applique and it's done! I'll post some photos of Romily modeling it when finished.

In the afternoon we went on a picnic by Lake Burley Griffin. It was a gorgeous autumn day and we made the most of it. We caught up with some friends we hadn't seen in a long time and met their youngest for the first time. They have a lovely couple of boys.

Then to top off our wonderful weekend we had a lovely tandoori lamb roast. Yum! I do love my weekends, but this one was particularly great!

Paw prints

Well a possum update is due. After much prompting the possum control people finally came to inspect the roof and try to find the access point being used by our resident brushtail possum. Only to tell us that they couldn't work out where it was getting in! Fabulous. I suggested strongly that it was the bathroom fan vent, so he put a one-way (exit) cage over the vent and told us to monitor any possum noises over the next couple of days. The idea being that once the possum goes out, it can't get back in.

That very night, as I was heading off to bed, I heard scritching and scratching around above the bathroom ceiling. I went to bed and half an hour later was woken by a crashing noise. Five minutes later my husband came in to tell me that the possum had fallen through the vent again and was now ensconced in the bathroom. 15 minutes later my husband shepherded our dumb, fat possum out the front door for the second time in two weeks. He then spent the next 15 minutes cleaning up the wee and paw prints our possum had so kindly left behind.

To our delight last night, there were no possum noises. So we'll be waiting with baited breath tonight to see if it's found its way back in again or whether we've cracked the problem! If we have, the possum guy will put a permanent screen around the vent to prevent the possum from making its home in our roof again. I'll keep you posted!!

So that's what feet are for

We love to stand. Hanging onto the back of the couch. Holding onto the fence out the front. In our highchair. In fact just about anywhere. Our love of standing is so great that we now hate being put on our bellies for 'tummy time' by our mums. It's just too bad that we can't crawl yet and have no clue about balance. But hey! Why crawl when you could WALK!!!!

Our little Romily has decided that she's not interested in learning to crawl. She now does everything in her power to get us to pick her up and let her stand up. She takes steps when we hold her hands and laughs and laughs. So how do we now convince her that in order to learn balance, how to sit up by herself and eventually how to pull herself up on furniture, she needs to learn to crawl first? Her intent is far outstripping her abilities at the moment!

Here are some photos of our Romily hanging onto the front fence. She really is very cute when she's so focused!

Thrifty score

Bubba and I took a walk on Saturday morning to get some newspapers and bacon for our fry-up special breakfast (well my breakfast, not hers!). I forgot to take my hat. This was not a major catastrophe, as my bed hair wasn't as outrageous as it usually is and I never see anyone I know.

Well, we didn't see anyone I know, but we did see lots and lots of people! The Anglican retirement village nearby had its famous annual 'garage sale' on. We had to go! Despite my freaky Friday appearance we went in and I found that it didn't matter a bit, as all eyes were on the cute baby in my arms! A bunch of old dears + gorgeous baby = invisible mother!!!

We had a poke around and decided old people's clothing didn't really offer much in the way of fabric scouting potential (all greys, fawns and gaberdine!), so we headed for the very impressive book piles. Old people must receive a lot of books! There was even a largish children's books section, so I sorted through that and found some absolute classics. Green Eggs and Ham, Spot, bears and an old Enid Blyton favourite of mine. Four books for $2!! (And that's $2 Australian!)

I also found two cooking for toddlers recipe books for only $2 each. So we got six books for $6. Now that's my kind of shopping!

And our breakfast of scrambled eggs, fat-free bacon, tomatoes and field mushrooms was just yummy!

Success!

Oh yay! I finished my first ever quilting project. Okay, let's not get too excited, it's just a small cushion, but it's a start! I'm just so pleased that I stuck to it and finished it. It looks great. Not perfect, but great.

I hit a few snags along the way! When it came time to stitch the piping and back to the quilted top, I realised the piping was way too fat to fit next to the sewing foot on my machine, so I had to hand stitch the entire cushion cover! After several false starts (which I unpicked), I eventually worked out that I needed to stitch the piping to the cushion top and then to stitch that to the back. Once I had this licked, it was easy!

The cushion is for Romily and has her initials and birthdate stitched onto the heart, which you can see in the detail photo.

Originally I thought I'd have the heart in the centre of the cushion, but after I'd patched the pieces together I realised it looked much better in the bottom left panel. I left the backing on the applique webbing so the heart 'crinkles' when you touch it. Perfect for a baby to play with :)

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 :)

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

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!

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.

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.

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 :)

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 :)

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.

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.

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.

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!