Boy card

A friend just had a baby boy so I made this card.
The quote reads:

Little boys' pockets hold magical things,
Earthworms, apple cores, a mess of string,
But this treasure is nothing,
To the wealth one finds,
In little boys' hearts, and little boys' minds.

I made a pocket out of some bits of denim and the quote plus goodies are tucked inside it.

Birthday Book

I decided to make myself a birthday book because I'm always scrabbling around in my old diaries trying to transfer the dates to my calendar in the kitchen. I'm hoping this will save me the trouble.

I can add to it easily too.

First Smiles

The only layout I've managed these last crazy two-three weeks.

Introducing...

The latest Dr D! My sister graduated with her PhD recently. Her thesis was on Herodotus and what it means to be "mad". Her subject area is Ancient Greek language.

I admire her tenacity to stick to her studies and get her doctorate. Especially since it is in an area that most people can't understand or relate to because it's not vocational. I can tell you she is heartily sick of people telling her "It's all Greek to me."

Time was you could study what you were interested in at University and still be assured of a job at the end of it. Now, you are mostly driven into doing something with a clear vocational end to it. Most people choose something that can be achieved quickly and with as little financial pain as possible - which is why NZ doesn't have enough engineers or midwives for example.

I also admire her for staying home in NZ while doing her PhD. It would be easier for her to find a job if she had gone overseas and studied because the opportunities are greater in terms of networking and getting to know people who might employ you. She made the sacrifice to stay home because my other sister was suicidal at the time, and she felt it would be better to be a support for her. I hope she finds a job soon even though it will most likely mean she will have to head to another country.

DS wasn't that impressed about having this photo - he is more interested in looking at his Thomas book that he had just got from Borders.

Update

Like I mentioned in my last post, life has been very busy this past week or two. It's time for an update!

DS started kindy last week. He liked it so much he didn't want to come home! I only needed to stay the first morning with him. The next time he dropped his bag at the gate and was off. He was totally committed to getting on with the activities and Mum was no longer of interest. :-)

I am so glad to announce that we've finally got the potty thing sorted. True we have occasional accidents when he gets busy but he only needs nappies at night now. Yay! Big relief for me who had visions of school days with pull ups.

DD has started teething poor girl. You can just see the offending article peeking through in this picture. She got the first two in a space of 2 days. Goodbye gummy smile! :-( Hello Bonjela.

She is 4 months now and weighed 6.5kg at her last Plunket visit.

DH has gone to the States for a week to do some training and I'm ready for him to be back already! I can cope pretty well but it's so much nicer to have a second parent, not least because it's another adult to talk to! I find my patience is so thin these days I need time out myself. I just hate myself when I don't respond well to my children's behaviour. DH's presence keeps me on an even keel.

He was told on Tuesday last week that he would be flying out on Sunday (4 days notice). We had to rush out and get some new work trousers for him because 2 pairs disintegrated at the same time. Luckily Farmers were having 30% off men's clothing and we found some that passed the "Crouch Test". This is an important test. DH does a bit of lifting in his job and some trousers don't stand up to it. He's had to come home for repairs to the crutch... most amusing for me to see him arrive with his undies flashing! LOL!

We are busy doing painting. Both DH and I love the Karen Walker range of paints so we're doing our bathroom/shower/toilet in Froth Green. We're getting a new vanity and mirror cabinet too. Our bedroom is going to have a feature wall of Sanguine Brown (a kind of red) and the rest in Sandspit Brown. The "spare room" has had a revamp in the form of a new corner computer desk and a removal of junk. I spent most of one Saturday morning shredding old bills and papers. We dismantled the old bed that was in there and replaced it with a sofa bed so it takes up less room. Now DS's toys can be in there instead of the living room. Well that is the theory. The reality is they are spread from one end of the house to the other!

Thoughts about ANZAC Day

The past week has just been insane so I didn't post this on the day, but in the spirit of Amy's honest blogging I wanted to write a little about my ANZAC Day thoughts even though the 25th April has gone.

That's DH's grandad in the picture. He was a rifleman in WWI. He and his brother came back. He was fine but his brother suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder for the rest of his life and spent some time in Carrington Hospital.

My grandfathers were considered "vital to the war effort" because they were farmers and therefore didn't go to war. My great-uncle did and was a POW who had to work on the Burma Railway. Regrettably, his experience coloured my grandparent's views of Japanese people to this day.

I struggle with ANZAC Day because I'm of two minds about it. On one hand I feel a great thankfulness for people who were willing to fight for the freedom and peace we know today in this country. I don't wish to belittle the efforts made by those who died. Many who went did so because of their strong belief in the "rightness" of their calling. They shouldn't be forgotten, and I believe that's what ANZAC Day is about. That and Never Again.

On the other hand, I know that if war should occur again I would feel uncomfortable with the idea of going to fight because of my personal beliefs. I've actually known some men who were willing to be despised and rejected by society because they stood up for those same beliefs. They have no memorial day and their sacrifice is more poignant to me because it isn't recognised by most. True, those in NZ didn't die (AFAIK) because they were conscientious objectors. (Those in Germany were sent to Dachau and most didn't survive). They suffered a loss of freedom, loss of community status and some I know suffered physically (healthwise) and mentally.

I think it is part of becoming an adult that one can have this friction of feelings about some things. When you're a child, things tend to be black and white. As a teenager, you feel things passionately and can argue either side with conviction. As an adult, the areas of "grey" become evident to you.

tagged... twice!!

OK - Ruth & Lucy both tagged me so I'd better do this! 7 random facts about me.
1. I am 33% geek according to a geek survey I did.
2. I love gardening but am terrible at weeding.
3. I would like to take up painting (as in art) one day.
4. I wanted to be a surgeon when I grew up but changed my mind when I didn't get into med school, (thank goodness). Then I wanted to be a marine biologist for a while but I get seasick while snorkeling. So I am one of the few librarians with a science degree.
5. I am a New Zealander but also have citizenship in Australia -my folks came to NZ to live and I was born here, but my Dad registered me in Oz too. I have had an Ozzie passport as well as an NZ one though I've let it lapse at present.
6. I started school at Primrose Hill Primary School in London. My Dad had a sabbatical there when we were little. I came home with a British accent. People tell me I still don't have a strong NZ accent.
7. I want to travel some more around the world but get air sick really easily. I've tried so many remedies!

Out 'n' About

Yay - DD is finally able to sit comfortably in the back pack so we're able to get out and do a few more active things together. Here we are in the bush (aka forest/woods for those in the upper hemisphere).

Easter is finished

This time last year I discovered I was expecting DD. I suppose it's appropriate given Easter originally is a fertility festival. Personally I blame those pagan fertility buns (hee hee!). Well, some folks claim they pre-date Christianity. I don't really care either way and would eat them throughout the year! Bron Marshall has some nice recipes for them.

The E-bunny only visited DS this year. I am helping to prevent child obesity by filching his mini-eggs.

Ouch

Yesterday was such a lovely day we went to the beach for a picnic. On the way back to the car I managed to catch my foot on the edge of the path and sprain my ankle. So now I'm hobbling around and taking panadol for the pain. I'd take something for the swelling but everything seems to be contra-indicated for breastfeeding so looks like I'm stuck in that respect.

After coming into our room and seeing this... I decided it was time to move DD to a proper cot. After panicking because I couldn't find the cot screws, DH calmly brought them out from his "safe place" that he'd stowed them when we took it down last time. So now the cot is squeezed into the room with DS. We sure do need more room around here. We've been trying to work out what is our best option.

• Selling?
• Sub-dividing and getting some cash that way?
• Renovating?

I visited the council to get a copy of our original house plans because we would like to put on a deck. We have a ranch slider that opens out into thin air and mistakingly assumed that this meant the original plans would have provision for a deck and thus we wouldn't have to get a permit for it. How wrong we were! It seems that in 1966, the latest thing was to have a ranch slider opening out into thin air. Nice.

While I was there I inquired about sub-dividing our section but we are just a tad too small for that to happen. So that option is out.

We could sell up. But it's unlikely we'd get the amount we'd need to get the kind of house we would like. So that would mean borrowing more which might be an option once I go back to work.

So it's possibly best for us to investigate renovating. If the cost of renovating is less than the NZ$200,000 extra we'd need to buy the house we'd like then it's probably the way to go.

I do get sick of stressing about money. It's times like these I feel like I should go back to work. I know it's just for a season while the children are small, and they probably don't notice the lack of space. But DD can't be in the same room with DS once they are older.

Money, money, money as the song says...

5 Quirks

I've been tagged by Mel... to share 5 quirks or eccentricities of mine.

1. I hate leaving dishes to be done later after a meal... they HAVE to be done as soon as we have finished eating and cleared the table.

2. I have this thing about flies. I stalk them with the fly spray. I know, I know... terribly bad chemicals etc but I just can't bear having them around.

3. My day doesn't feel properly started unless I can have a shower. And the shower has to be HOT. Like nearly stinging hot. If I don't have a shower I feel gross for the whole day.

4. I always eat my meat last at mealtimes. This stems from my mum telling me to eat my veges first.

5. I like to squeeze the toothpaste from the bottom up. DH and DS squeeze in the middle. Ack!

Hmmm - not that interesting really!
I tag Amy and Heather if they have time and feel like doing this.

Chocolate Chilli Ice Cream

By request ;-)

310g bittersweet chocolate (best quality you can afford)*
2-3 dried chillies (to taste obviously. More chillies = more heat)
2 cups full fat cream
1 cup milk
6 large egg yolks
1/3 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 Tablespoons Kahlua
1/2 teaspoon crumbled, dried chillies (optional)
1/2 cup blanched almonds, toasted, cooled and chopped (optional)

*You can use a bit of sweetened dark chocolate if you wish as part of this amount

In a metal bowl (or double boiler) set over a pan of barely simmering water, melt the chocolate, stirring until smooth. (The original recipe uses 170g of melted chocolate and chops the remainder which is then added to the ice cream during the freezing process. Up to you to do what you prefer). Remove bowl from heat.

In a heavy saucepan, combine cream & milk. Put the dried chillies in a small muslin/cheesecloth "bag" like you would make for a bouquet garni and add to the milk. Bring mixture just to the boiling point while stirring but don't let it boil. The chillies in the bag add the chilli zing to the ice cream and will release more heat if you occasionally give it a squeeze as you stir. Remove from heat.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and brown sugar. Add yolk/sugar mixture to the milk mixture in a steady stream while whisking.

Return to the heat and cook this custard over a low heat, stirring until it thickens (or reaches 76 degrees C on a thermometer).

Strain if necessary through a fine sieve into a holding bowl and whisk in the melted chocolate, cinnamon and Kahlua. Let the mixture cool completely. Freeze in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. If you haven't got an ice cream maker (like me), freeze in a container for 2 hours, take out and beat, then return to freezer for 2-3 hours, take out and beat, return to freezer. Add the remaining chocolate if you saved for this purpose, crumbled chillies and almonds during the last beating.

Good for serving to unsuspecting people. Looks like chocolate ice cream, tastes like chocolate ice cream but whoa! Has a surprising kick at the end of the mouthful!

If you like chocolate chilli, try Schoc's offering. Delicious. You can experience what Armande Voizin did in Chocolat by Joanne Harris! ;-)

Edited to add: For an eggless version you can do the following...
355g choc
3 cups cream
1/3 cup castor sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 Tablespoons Kahlua
1/2 teaspoon crumbled, dried chillies
1/2 cup blanched almonds, toasted, cooled and chopped (optional)

Melt the chocolate as above. Add the crumbled dried chillies, sugar, cinnamon (and almonds if included) and stir so the sugar dissolves. Whip the cream until stiff and fold in the chocolate mixture and the Kahlua. Freeze as above. Because you need to whip the cream you can't heat it and infuse it with chillies, so adding the crumbled chillies is necessary.

Hot tip

Turn this

... into this.

DH is a bit of "chilli-head" so every year we have to plant some sort of chillis just for fun. This means we end up having various kinds of chilli sauce, pickle and other chilli products.

Including Chocolate-chilli Ice cream which is very yummy. Seriously. It's good.

Although DH is usually the one to concoct the chilli sauce or pickle, this year I decided to use a recipe I got from my Dad. When Dad was a varsity student (back in the 60's), he was matey with an Indian chap out from Delhi. N brought his wife with him and complained to Dad that she was bored. So Dad suggested she teach him Indian cooking and consequently we grew up eating Indian cuisine when most of New Zealand thought "exotic" meant Pizza Hut. This is one of her recipes. I remember when Dad made it we all had to leave the house, (even the cats), because the chilli heat would catch you in the back of your throat. I can assure you that it still has that effect. But it tastes delicious!

2 lbs green chillis (I used whatever came off the bush, red & green)
4 oz salt
1 oz cumin seed
1 oz fenugreek
1/2 pint mustard or olive oil
1 - 1 1/2 cups vinegar
1 oz turmeric

Slit each chilli horizontally on one side and rub in salt. Don't rub your eyes or any other sensitive part after doing this unless you enjoy pain.

Fry slices in 2 T oil and grind in 1/2 cup vinegar.

Heat the rest of the oil and when hot add chillis, cooking about 10 minutes. This is the bit where breathing apparatus is necessary.

Add all spices and cook 1 minute.

Cool and store in a jar.

It is hot of course, but not so hot that you can't taste the flavour. Unlike DH's Habanero sauce from last year which should be entitled Rod's Raging Inferno. Or Burns You Twice Sauce.

dozer layout

Made a layout for those dozer pictures. Am very pleased with it, especially the hand stitching.

Mel's funky bag

Mel kindly RAKed me with this felted bag she made! I'm luurve with it - it is very cool. Thank you so much Melissa!

If you would like a bag like this she is selling them on Trademe or you can contact her to order one.

Oh, and here is my missy-moo at 11 weeks. Must get some photos printed to scrap...

new banner

made a new blog banner using Lianne's brushes...

Little boy's dreams do come true

We went to watch some diggers and 'dozers at the site down from my Mum's house. Much to my surprise and DS's delight, one of the drivers noticed and invited DS to come and ride. He didn't need persuading. Sometimes he can be very shy and afraid of new things like this but this time he was in! The driver helped him in and they went and pushed some dirt around. I was kicking myself for not taking my camera, but luckily for us the Project Manager offered to take some photos which he then emailed to us.

I was so impressed with the driver and project manager. I'm sure OSH would have conniptions but there was one VERY happy boy who came home that day and I also have a some photos to scrapbook. :-)

Every time we drive by the site now, DS talks about the Katies which is his name for bulldozers, taken from the story Katy and the big snow by Virginia Lee Burton.

Conversations with a 3 1/2 year old

In an attempt to copy Trina I tried to interrogate DS:

What do you like?
Marshmallows
What else do you like?
2 marshmallows
What are your favourite things?
This train
What else?
The train up here. The other trains are good.
Do you like diggers?
Yep.
What else do you like?
Mowers. You write a mower name. [i.e. write down the word mower]
What animals did we see at the pet shop?
They was good ones.
What kind were there?
Rabbits and another one sleeping and another one coming out.
What else?
Petes.
Petes? Oh you mean budgies. [Pete is the name of the budgie at Gran's house]
You draw me a fishy name. [i.e.write down fish]

Yessir, that's my baby

She's 8 weeks in this picture... or was it 7? Not sure. Anyway, she's doing well. Plunket weighed her on Monday and she's 5.6kgs. She has started sucking her thumb which is very cute but not really what I wanted her to do since it is so hard to wean the habit. I'm persevering with the dummy but thumbs are so conveniently located when you're in your cot and Mummy's not around to monitor it...

Did this layout for the SBO Elsie Flanagan Challenge A Day in your Life. I'm amazed at how much I can fit into a day sometimes but I have to confess that it's not everyday I'm that busy. I'm inherently lazy.

Mel has tagged me to reveal something about the book I'm reading. Yep - I do have time to read these days... breastfeeding time = reading time ;)

1Find the nearest book...

Got it.

2 Name the book and the author

Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett

3 Turn to page 123

Uh-huh

4 Go to the 5th sentence on the page and copy out the next 3 sentences onto your blog

Speaking of 3 small fireballs circling the witches fire. You could slay enemies with them, she'd said. They made the others uneasy. It was wizard magic, showy and dangerous.

5. Tag 3 more people

Hmm, is there anyone left? I shall tag Heather, Rebecca and Tami.

Actually - I like this quote from the book. You can guess why! Hee hee!

The librarians were mysterious. It was said they could tell what book you needed just by looking at you, and they could take your voice away with a word.

I can tell you that you get pretty good at identifying some of your clients.

Nursing & other health profession students always travel in packs, business students are usually in a hurry and dressed smartly, automotive students sneak in furtively (heaven forbid someone should see they are in THE LIBRARY) .. mind you, their overalls tend to give them away.

Somehow this doesn't work

From Popgadget
Instead of putting the belt around your waist, why not try your ankle?

I suppose it would be easy to find your phone when it rang, unlike me now ... I scrabble through my handbag trying to find the thing. If I had one of these I could just grab it off my leg... yeah right.

Does your dog like bubbles? Here's the toy for you then. The bubbles are even chicken-scented. *cringe*

Cybercrop Creations

I had fun the other night at a cybercrop with SBO. We were privileged to have Elsie Flanagan as a surprise visitor - exciting! I did a few of the challenges. It was interesting to attempt them even though I'm not totally satisfied with the results. I find it hard to be creative when there are particular "requirements" for a layout, but I thought it would a useful exercise to get me out of a creative comfort zone. As a result of this crop I don't really think doodling is a style I'm going to do much with but it was interesting to try.

The 30 minute layout was a real challenge because I don't "create" well under pressure and it was the first time I'd done doodling. I was however able to get something done and am quite pleased with the results of this particular challange. No pic because it's on the laptop and I can't be bothered re-photographing it.

The next one was to look for a colour combo around the house and create something inspired by it. I had a few options for this one but picked a mango because I love the colours. I didn't really have any great photos for it though so I'm going to have another go at this colour combo when I have some suitable photos. These were some my mum gave me and she really needed to use a flash or something. Pity they weren't digital and then I could have adjusted it.
I had another doodling attempt on this layout.

There was also a challenge to use something non-scrapbooking related on a layout. I struggled with this one - or rather, I struggled to find something that could be classed as non-scrapbooking! In the end I cut up a plastic mesh vege bag and used it as a background.


The final challenge is due at the end of the week, and is to document a day in your life. I suppose I will have to include doodling again if I want to have a chance to be a winner *sigh*. I have to remind myself that I scrap for myself and my family and not for any prize. But I like to win. Selfish ambition... need to lose it and be contented with what I have.

B &W with Colour Pop

For NZ Dare Competition... black & white with colour pop. Took me a while to find some photos I could work with!

Book of love

This little book I made for my sister who was one of my birth support team. I made it through SBO (Trina's online class). The original book is actually a Valentine book but DH is not the sort of guy who likes this kind of thing so I modified it to suit my purpose!

I also made some cards from the leftovers to put in the altered tin for my midwife; she was quite overwhelmed with the gift. :-) I like making people happy.

My Scrapping space

scrapspace

Janine challenged us to take a picture of our scrapping space... here is mine. I'd love to have more room; the picture doesn't show all the stuff stashed away or spread out beside the actual minuscule desk. How I envy those of you with more room!

The elusive first smiles

smile

DD has starting smiling and cooing - it's so sweet. It's neat how just at this time, (when you are starting to get a bit sick of the mundane feed/sleep/change routine), the baby's brain kicks in and you get rewarded with interaction! Somehow it just opens up your heart more, and the love gets bigger.

Trying to catch the first smiles is jolly hard! My camera is pretty quick but even so, I only have a few decent ones.

She is doing well; is over 5kgs now and has a nice chunky feel to her when I cuddle her.

I had an interesting conversation with DS this morning while getting him dressed. As I pulled the shirt over his head he said, "Don't touch the furry things!"
Eh?
Turns out he was talking about his eyelashes! LOL!

He has some amusing names for things - a recent one is "tangled eggs" for scrambled eggs. He will eat tangled eggs but not poached, fried or hard boiled eggs. *shrugs*

Steam Festival

Last weekend Glenbrook Vintage Railway had a steam festival weekend with lots of steam powered and vintage machinery on display. DH being a steam buff was keen to go, and DS of course was delighted to get another opportunity to go on the train.

We arrived as it opened and I'm glad we did because it soon became packed with people. DS was too scared to ride on the steam powered carousel (much to my disappointment)! But he was more than happy to ride on the trailer behind the traction engine. His current favourite from the Thomas & Friends series is Trevor the traction engine.

As I sat on the train and fed DD, I reflected how funny it was that last time she was on the train she was inside me!

Altered tin

box

I've made this for my midwife who will be seeing us for the last time this week. We get passed on to Plunket next week I guess.

I'm sort of ho-hum about the box. It's okay but I think it could be better. But still, it's going to have a gift voucher to L'Occitane inside it so I guess that makes up for it!

DH thinks it's dumb to get a gift for her since she is already getting paid to do her job, but as I said to him, it's nice sometimes to be thanked for doing a job anyway. At least, we always appreciated any thanks we got from our clients at work. It makes it worthwhile and gives everyone warm fuzzies all round.

Conundrums

Why is it that...

• despite there being 24 nursing pads in a box, and only 2 boobies to apply them to I always end up with one extra one left over?
• the sock demon who lives in my washing machine only takes socks belonging to DS?

3 weeks old

Heh - I do like Photoshop Actions :-) DD is going through a zitty stage and I was reluctant to take a photo but thanks to Duotone DreamVersion 2 from Action Central you can't tell.

This one is of the two of them. I forgot to use the portrait setting on my camera so the black sheet I used as a background is too prominent. I shall have to remedy that.

Plums. plums, plums

Plums

and more plums. Obviously there were some bees about because we had a bumper crop of plums this year. I've given away plenty of bags and we also preserved some, made plum sauce, plum jam, plum sorbet and plum cake.

Yum plums!

Okay - enough already... bring on the figs.
Note to self: move bird netting to fig tree.

First pink layout!

This one is for her title page in her album.

I have confess I spent hours on this one which isn't my usual practice. I'm finding moving into the girly layout mindset needs a bit of work - heh heh! But I'll get there... a good challenge for the old creativity and will stop me getting into a rut!

Thank goodness for friends

... who like ironing! Ironing is one job I hate. DH went to work today wearing an un-ironed shirt because I forgot to do one last night. So today, I called a friend who had gifted me some "free ironing" vouchers - she picks it up and delivers it ironed the next day. Hallelujah!

So, the house is a shambles, the floors need cleaning and vacuuming but at least DH will have some ironed clothes to wear.

Yesterday I ventured out for the first time by myself with 2 kids. I discovered that the seatbelts in the back seat of my car do not reach around the baby car capsule so she has to ride on the front seat. Fortunately my car is so old it doesn't have an airbag in the front, so it is okay... but I would prefer it if she could be in the back. The reason for my venturing forth ---> I needed some Tombow glue for scrapbooking! LOL!

Here she is at 2 weeks old.

And here she gives her opinion of my photography attempts.

I sure am tired of Blogger and it's issues with photos... even when hosted on Flickr. And even tho' I'm leaving comments on people's blogs who are still on the old Blogger... they aren't showing up. Grrr!

I am also really, really sick of toilet training. We don't seem to be getting anywhere! Bribery and other means are just not working as incentives. DS is nearly 3 1/2 so he surely must be physically capable. At this rate he'll be the only 5 year old still in nappies. *tears hair out*

txt for the previous post

Here she is a week later wearing a dress I made years ago in hopes of having a little girl to dress up one day.

Things are going well. I'm still a bit sore but that is to be expected given her size! Breastfeeding is good; so much easier the second time round. She's eating well, and sleeping for some decent stretches at night so I can't complain.

DS is very gentle with her and loves to hold her. He's been a bit jealous of the present she's getting, but apart from that he's great. He told my folks after seeing her the first time, "She's pretty eh?" Something to remind him of when he's a bit older and his feelings are less complementary.

RAK Winners

I think I've worked this out correctly.

Janine guessed the right day and Shannon guessed the closest weight. So girls - email me an address and I'll post you some cards to use! :-) (Shannon - I think you've got my home email so feel free to use that one).

Thank you for your comments on my blog - I'm sorry I've not had time to return the favour but you know how it is! Soon...

1 week later

Here she is a week later wearing a dress I made years ago in hopes of having a little girl to dress up one day.

Things are going well. I'm still a bit sore but that is to be expected given her size! Breastfeeding is good; so much easier the second time round. She's eating well, and sleeping for some decent stretches at night so I can't complain.

DS is very gentle with her and loves to hold her. He's been a bit jealous of the present she's getting, but apart from that he's great. He told my folks after seeing her the first time, "She's pretty eh?" Something to remind him of when he's a bit older and his feelings are less complementary.

RAK Winners

I think I've worked this out correctly.

Janine guessed the right day and Shannon guessed the closest weight. So girls - email me an address and I'll post you some cards to use! :-) (Shannon - I think you've got my home email so feel free to use that one).

Thank you for your comments on my blog - I'm sorry I've not had time to return the favour but you know how it is! Soon...

Siblings

Couple more pics and a quick birth story

I've yet to get my "notes" about the birth so will write something more organised later, but here is a quick story and some photos. Okay - blogger is having a hiccup so here are some links.

Just born

Not quite a day old


We went to church Sunday morning fully expecting to have a "normal" quiet Sunday and thinking I'd be induced the next day. After church we went to my folks (who were looking after Tim) and had lunch there and around 2.30pm after dessert I realised I'd sprung a leak...

We came home and I rang my sister who wanted to be there at the birth to come over. DH and I went for a walk in the hot sun around the block - my skirt got soaked from all the amniotic fluid... there was no doubt to anybody who we passed what was going on but frankly I didn't care. My sister arrived and we did another walk - cxs were around 5 mins apart but not very long. I decided to sit on the birth ball for a while and time some so we could inform the midwife what progress was happening. My main midwife K was off call this weekend so we called her backup B who for various reasons I'd never actually met. (This bothered me a bit before, but as it turned out B was great and I have to say I felt safe and secure in her care). We rang her first around 4.30pm (I think) and her advice was "when you not laughing anymore, give me another ring".

Around 6.30pm I had was starting to feel like I wanted to go to the delivery suite - things were getting painful, I had the TENs machine on and DH/my sister were doing acupressure to help me. I was also "vocalising" by this stage. We got to the delivery suite around 7.00pm and I was asking for an epidural. B checked me and said, "The good news is you're 9cm, the bad news is, it's too late for an epidural!" This wasn't exactly what I expected to hear & I really felt incapable of doing it all au naturel.

B bought in the gas for me which took some of the rawness out of the cxs but they were still very intense. After a bit, B had me get up on the bed leaning over the top part on my hands an knees. I wasn't there long and I started pushing involuntarily at the peak of the cxs. I'm not totally sure how long I was pushing before she crowned - it didn't seem that long. My sister and DH were encouraging me by telling me they could see the head etc which was great because I was starting to lose it. I got her head out and then her shoulders got a bit stuck so B got DH to pull the emergency cord ... things happened very quickly then. The room filled with at least 4 midwives, I got flipped onto my back, and that allowed her to come out at 8.19pm, an hour after our arrival to the hospital! Her cord was quickly cut and she was whipped over to the newborn station (DH called out "It's a girl!" as she went by) to have a bit of oxygen... but she pinked up within seconds and it was all okay.

I lay there totally stunned that I HAD DONE IT! With just gas, TENs and my support people. I still can hardly believe it. I can't help myself comparing it with DS's birth, and I have to say my recovery both mentally and physically has been so much easier.

I had 3 stitches.

Breastfeeding is going fine - she is a much mellower baby than DS and that combined with having done it before helps a lot. I'm at home now, and a little nervous but I have this confidence that we've done this before and while it won't be a cake walk necessarily, we'll get through these first 6 weeks.

Thanks for your well wishes I appreciate them. I'll post some more pics as we take them!

The Babys Here

A baby daughter born 07/01/2007 weight 4270 g Lydia Murielle
Mother and baby are doing well more to follow

My last post before baby (I hope!)

I'm off today for a CTG and membrane sweep. Hopefully that will stir things up a bit and I'll go into labour. Otherwise... the dreaded induction word has been mentioned, so no doubt we'll be discussing that today.

Yesterday we went down to Glenbrook Vintage Railway and had a lovely afternoon riding the train etc. DS got spoiled by his Nan & Pop by getting some more Thomas the Tank Engine stuff for his collection. Afterwards we popped into Wrights Water Gardens for a look. We were a bit early for some of the lilies, and the lotuses weren't out yet, but it was a pleasant walk around.

Just for fun
If anyone wants to make some guesses about the arrival date & weight of the baby I will RAK the nearest correct guess with some cards I've been making while waiting! :-)

So, leave your guesses in the comments and I'll be in contact with the winner once the event has occurred!

Edited to add: The appt went well and baby seems fine in there. We have another appt for Friday if there is no delivery beforehand; I'll see the specialist that day too regarding induction.

Edit 2: Still nothing happening as of 3.41pm Thursday 4th! Dunno if you girls want to keep guessing or not ;-)

Edit 3: Okay - saw the midwife again this morning Friday 5th and had a scan to see if all is well. Which it is and best news is that baby is facing the right way around! I'm so glad! I have been doing lots of walking and last night had 2 noticeable contractions. This morning I experienced what they call a "show" so something is happening at long last. If I don't deliver this weekend I will be induced on Monday morning at 8am.