Well the Easter Bunny has been and gone for another year, thoroughly spoiling Romily along the way. She had her first Easter egg hunt at Granddad's place and had the best time. She was so excited she couldn't actually speak upon finding eggs, but just madly gesticulate and shout 'eee'!
She got lots of little eggs (which haven't all yet been eaten), a medium sized egg and two 'giant, 'normous eggs' from the big bunny. She devoured one largish egg and we've saved the others for later. You should have seen the sugar rush! She went ballistic. I made her drink a glass of milk along with eating the medium egg. She was like a little drunkard towards the end!
She's now mad-keen for more chocolate, so we are rationing it sensibly...she doesn't get much 'junk', so we don't want to change that...a little treat along the way works for all of us!
Dressed as a turtle (her own creation) at Granddad's house...what a dag!
We had a lovely time in
Bendigo, the city (in central Victoria) is a gorgeous old mining town and has a huge family-f0cused
Bendigo Easter Festival every year, which is capped off by a parade through the city streets, complete with a Chinese dragon, a huge nod to Bendigo's important
Chinese heritage.
There were lots of activities in parks located around town and Romily had a wonderful time playing in the huge and very well set-up adventure playgrounds, as well as walking among the trees and having her face painted for the very first (and subsequently second) time - all for free!
Here she is as a bunny - she just LOVED it!
The next day, she was 'Lucky' the dog. She cried when I washed the face paint off in her bath that night - 'I don't want to turn back into Romily' over and over again. I kid you not. Her fantasy world is in full flight these days!
We did put her on a couple of paid rides - the first one was an insistent, ambitious attempt at her first inflatable obstacle course, but she came a cropper when a couple of bigger boys landed on her head while she was still trying to get into the ride.
It all ended in tears, so the nice lady pulled Romily out and gave her her ticket back. She then chose a much more age-appropriate ride on some cars that drive around a carousel!
She didn't want to get off that one, so there were more tears! She cheered up eventually at the playground, where she mastered a small slide and got all her self-confidence back :)
Of course what's a family holiday without a little drama? My father-in-law's partner, the one for whom I made my
short and stout teapot and who is waiting for an operation to remove very painful gall stones, managed to slip on some tiles at her son's house, land heavily, and fracture her upper left arm! The poor woman - she can't take a trick right now. Fortunately the break should mend within eight weeks and it has only pushed her surgery back by two weeks.
My parents joined us in Bendigo for the Easter Monday parade and had a lovely time catching up with my FIL. Do the two granddads look besotted?
All too soon it was time to drive the nine hours home to Canberra - a day spent driving through much-needed soaking rain - it didn't stop until we go to Canberra. I saw water running in creek beds for the first time - I've lived here for six years. Cows in the paddocks looking confused and cockatoos and galahs hanging upside down from power lines having a wash in the rain! No one in this parched country would complain about having such welcome rain - it was a nice way to end the weekend.
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On the job front, not such good news. I was successful in being selected as the preferred candidate for the temporary promotion I had so wanted to get. Unfortunately, the head of my organisation personally put a stop to it as I'm 'needed' in my current job until he retires in seven weeks time. He wants me to help him compile all the material he's accumulated over the past 44 years in our organisation and 'trusts' me to do it right. I cannot tell you how angry I am at being held back in my career at such a critical juncture. If I had been allowed to do the job for three months I would have had a very good shot at landing it permanently before I went on maternity leave - no I have no chance at all, and by the time I go back to work in September 2009 all my hard work will be forgotten, he will have moved on, as will many other key people and I will have to re-establish myself all over again. His selfish move has put my career back by two years and I am personally very disappointed at his lack of leadership and support for someone who has worked so hard and loyally over the past 12 months.
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I will no doubt get over it when I hold my BABY BOY in my arms in mid-August! Yes, you read right, we are having a boy, according to the sonographer who did our morphology scan yesterday. A bit of a shock, really, as I thought we were having another girl. I had really wanted a little sister for Romily, but it's not to be. She's destined to be the only granddaughter on both sides. Ah well, she'll be spoilt by the grandparents and have lots of protective cousins and a brother. The scan showed a healthy little bubba in there, so that's very good news. It's quite amazing to think our family will be complete in another 20 or so weeks :)
Unfortunately I didn't get the spontaneous labour I was hoping for! I went in to hospital on Thursday morning, had my waters broken at about 8.30am, and despite Carl and I going for lots of walks (and me having waters gushing every where), absolutely NOTHING was happening. At 11.30am I was hooked up to a drip and the midwives started a low dose of syntocinin. They kept increasing the dose until, finally, at 3pm I was officially in labour. After two hours of increasingly rapid and painful contractions I was checked and the midwife and I were both dismayed to discover that there had been no progress whatsoever.
And yes, at 7 pounds 14 ounces he was smaller than we thought! But still a good size and absolutely divine...of course, I am completely biased, but he is a beautiful bub.
With Grandma, Huppa (my parents) and of course his very proud big sister Romily:
And finally, a big thanks to mum & dad for coming up from Melbourne and looking after Romily for the entire day on Thursday! We're also looking forward to Carl's dad arriving in a few weeks time to meet his much longed for grandson.
