Tag Archives: Family

Firsts

Tooooo tired from the weekend (which was excellent). But I had to pop in for a little minute to tell you about my babes. Today we had two firsts – somewhat coincidentally on Mother’s Day, so I am bound never to forget 🙂 Niamh took her first steps! Four or five times she took a single step, sometimes landing on her knees, sometimes staying upright, and twice she took two consecutive steps. Stay tuned for craziness just around the corner :giggle:

Finn quite possibly outdid that, however – with his first poem. Popping out from inside a cupboard, he told me it made him think up a poem, and then reeled off this little gem:

I like to hide in cupboards
It’s very fun to do
It’s dark when I close the door
Then I come out of it sometimes

When we wrote it down together, we changed that last line to

Then I come out of it and sometimes say ‘Boo’!

Just so it would rhyme. Afterwards, I felt terribly guilty for even raising the suggestion, because the original version had such wonderful spontaneity about it, and besides, poems don’t have to rhyme, do they? But Finn has become quite attached to the rhyming version, and has read it several times over, so I think the ‘Boo’! version is staying.

Because I Said So

Did you know that, according to my Mister Smartypants 4-year-old, “because” is no longer an acceptable answer? Just yesterday I was asked to provide a “real answer” to his question – “because” just didn’t cut it.

Sigh. I’m going to have to start using my brain again, aren’t I?

Thankfully Niamh has not acquired skills of logic yet. Her communication is still mostly in the point-and-squawk category. Though she does have recognizable (to me) words for hello, bye-bye, duck, ball, vrrooomm, and woof (did you know a duck says woof? So, apparently, do most animals!)

Thank you for all the wonderful compliments on my Dragonfly Jewels piece. (The most comments on any single post on this blog, in fact!) Please know that I read and appreciate all of them, though I haven’t had opportunity to respond individually to you all.

The last ten days or so have been a blur of schools, ill health, and preparation for Dermot’s birthday celebrations, happening this weekend. I think we’ve finally settled on a school for Finn (so far I’m managing to hold the my-baby-is-growing-up teary thoughts at bay!), we all seem to be on the way to health again (lucky Niamh managed to avoid the gastro and most of the cold – yay for extended breastfeeding). We head off today to get the party started – we’re hosting a weekend away in my Mum’s ‘second house’. So far I’ve baked and iced the birthday cake. I have lemon tart to do tomorrow, and chocolate & ginger mousse on Saturday – can you see where my culinary interests lie?! The sweet I’m good with – the savoury I’m leaving up to Dermot. (Yes, I’ve finally dispensed with the ‘OtherHalf’, and ‘outed’ my husband! 🙂 )

There has also been stitching – and even another finished piece, if you can believe that! I’m not showing you just yet, because for once, I’m going to do the actual finishing before I show it off (it’s just a Christmas Ornament, don’t get excited). I’ll give you a clue though – I borrowed this book from our local library, and couldn’t resist stitching something from within. There are some very nice projects in this book, and nice, easy to follow stitch instructions and diagrams. So my dalliance with Hardanger continues.

Now… I’ve just got Finn off to kinder, and Niamh off to bed, so I’m off to pack stuff for the weekend. Enjoy yours!

PS. Sorry for the v.rambly and parentheses-laden post. I really just wanted to get something down so that you know I’ve not disappeared off into the ether just yet!

Ten!

Ten months

Can you believe my baby was ten months old yesterday? No, nor can I :giggle: Ten whole months have gone by in a blur of Niamh-induced-sleep-deprivation (Finn’s latest ‘excuse’ for everything is “I’m too tired“. I wonder where he could possibly have picked that up?!)

She’s doing pretty wonderfully. She waves bye-bye, sometimes hello, and claps her hands, especially to music (and in time, what’s more!) She’s got the “baba-baba”, “mama-mama”, and “dada-dada”s down pat. She has four sharp teeth, and we’ve been expecting more for months. She likes to chew on everything, so mind your fingers (I had blood drawn just this morning). She loves water, and adores the great outdoors. She’s absolutely fearless and downright cheeky with a wonderful sense of humour. Whenever we turn our backs for just a moment, she gets very busy – unfolded laundry is removed from baskets with great speed, CDs are pulled from the rack, Finn’s bookshelves are emptied…

Two weeks ago she stood unaided for the first time 😮 Only for a couple of seconds, but a stand nonetheless. Since then she’s done it a few times, and progressed to 4 or 5 seconds at a go. We all know what that means…

But… and here’s the big one… she sleeps. Finally, she sleeps! A big round of applause please! Since coming back from Port Fairy a few weeks back, we moved her cot into Finn’s room. The preceding several weeks had been pretty dreadful, and the only way I was getting any rest was by co-sleeping half the night. Which was fine by us really (and I do kind of miss it), but possibly a little counter-productive. So we moved her in with Finn and got serious about settling her in her own bed, and allowed her a little bit of fussing (a very much gentle-ified version of “controlled comforting”). Anyway, the long story short is that most nights, she sleeps from 7pm to at least 2am – sometimes she needs a settling down around then, sometimes a little drink of water. Or even more lately, she sleeps through longer – to 4 or even 5am. Unfortunately, mornings don’t seem to start any later than 5.30am, ever. Which is kind of sucky (no, I’m not a morning person), but at least I’m frequently managing to get six hour stretches of sleep for myself. Hooray!

Have a happy Easter weekend – we’re off camping again tomorrow 🙂
Cheeky kids

PS. Thank you for all the kind thoughts following my grandmother’s death, I appreciate them very much.

Moving Forward, Looking Back

Two weeks ago today, my Nana died. I haven’t been here to talk about it because I’m not sure what to say, really. It was not entirely unexpected, though I think I had become a little desensitized by her “this could be the last time…” banter of the last many months. I figured she would still be around in her 100’s, still haranguing me about my weight at every opportunity. She and I, we had… an abrasive relationship, I suppose you could say. I don’t necessarily have any regrets, it just was what it was. Life’s like that. People are different. (Or perhaps, just a little bit too much the same, though I would never admit that.)

Her death is still a loss to us all though, and brings a closing of a chapter in my life. She was my last surviving grandparent. Who knows if Finn will remember having known her. Niamh certainly will not. I hope it is a very, very long time before they have to say goodbye to their own grandparents, and I hope for us all that they continue to share more harmonious relationships with them.

Rest in peace, Nana.

Two Weddings & A Funeral

March is beginning to resemble a certain Hugh Grant movie. Sorry I haven’t been around. I’ll be back soon with pictures of the final UFO I worked on, and the two PIF packages I didn’t show you before. I don’t want for March to slip completely through the blog-cracks the way December did, but I feel a little like I just have to survive this crazy train-ride first.

Hot and Colds

Thirty-eight degrees and I do not get along so well (that’s °C, aka 100°F). So this weekend has not been so fun. Three of them in a row!!! Yuk :yuk:

Yesterday was the worst. Hot days are even less fun when taking care of a sick and over-tired babe. Especially when feeling kind of sick yourself, and especially when the babe in question is also painfully cutting more teeth 🙁

We all came down with sniffles and sore throats over the last couple of days, probably courtesy of a certain pre-schooler. Getting a ‘cold’ in the middle of a blistering summer is really odd. The usual ‘rug up under a doona on the couch and drink chicken soup’ rule doesn’t apply. Instead all we want to do is lay about wearing as little as possible (!) and doing as little as possible.

But that was yesterday. Today, we have been much better. Niamh has returned to her favourite hot weather pastime – playing in the foot of the shower and getting thoroughly soaked. Finn has returned to… well actually, perhaps he’s not completely over it, he was super-cranky today. But we also fitted in some shopping (mostly me), some cleaning (mostly OtherHalf) and an unexpected visit from my little sister (yay!), all despite the continuing heat. Also, I made a little something. I tried to get pictures but the light was crappy so I’ll try again tomorrow. Here’s a little clue. It’s my latest colourful addiction:

Crafty Fabric Tower

Pretty, no?

I’m Off…

I had been planning to tell you of all our December goings on, but time has simply run out, and we’re off now to begin our three day spin-around-the-state. First it’s off to pick up sushi and join my family for Christmas Eve frivolity (approx 90 minute drive). Then it’s off to OtherHalf’s extended family do tomorrow for lunch (just over an hour’s drive). Back to his Dad’s for recovery/quieter celebrations (30 minute drive). Then on Boxing Day, off to my Dad’s for yet more partying (20 minute drive), then home in the afternoon (90 minute drive) to collapse and begin the recovery.

😮

One year… I’m going to stop doing this.

Anyway, it will be fun. I hope you all have slightly less crazy days ahead. Happy Christmas to all 🙂

Hi Grandma!

Wow!

(PS. This photo is a couple of weeks old. Those teeth you can barely make out are much bigger now!)

The Longest Time

Q. What does an dyslexic, agnostic, insomniac do?
A. Lies awake at night wondering if there really is a dog.

Heh. I felt the need for an icebreaker – you know, it’s been so long and all, we probably need to get to know one another all over again. That’s been one of my favourite (clean) jokes ever since I learned what all those big words meant!

For those who have asked after my wellbeing, rest assured, I’m fine, just tired, and for the last while, not inclined to blog. There are only so many times I can write “Niamh still not sleeping, Mel still a complete zombie, oh woe is me”, and only so many times you want to read about it! But hey… just for good measure, here’s one more 🙂 …

It has got to the point where I am only hearing two things from friends/family/complete strangers about babies and sleeping – either their babies slept through from about the 6-8 week mark (that used to be me), or, they didn’t sleep through until about two. No inbetween – why is there no damn inbetween!!! Where are all the babies who sleep through from about six months? (Which, incidentally, Niamh turned, just a short week ago.) The cumulative effect of six months of this on my psyche is not great 😥 I’m completely unsurprised by studies showing links between infant sleep issues and post-partum depression. And I feel completely ashamed of the smugness I once felt as a new mother of a baby who slept. How lucky I was!

To give Niamh some credit… there was a week, not so long ago, that she had only one wake a night (around 3-4 am) per night on five out of seven nights. That was awesome! True to form though, she backtracked. She does that.

Aside from the sleep issues, things have been super busy. November on the calendar was even more cram-packed than December, which is unusual. The weekend away I spoke of in my last post was bliss. The sheer silence of being away in the country with no electronic buzz (not even a television) is wonderful.

We were away again the following weekend (it was a much noisier, much more chaotic weekend), and then the weekend after that there was a state election to go vote in, a family 21st birthday party to attend, and a lovely Sunday brunch with friends for me. Then… oh jeez, I can’t even remember, everything seems so long ago. There have been a couple of trips to the zoo – once was for the FOTZ (Friends Of The Zoo) Christmas party, which was lots of fun; and a trip to the Werribee open-range zoo. There’ve been some great days to swim, and others to stay inside away from the blazing sun. And yet another (November 15) which was so ridiculously cold it snowed in some areas of the state – in November – in Australia! Most unfortunately for us, that day was also Finn’s pre-school excursion day. We rugged up and went to spend some time on the farm, but by heck we were cold!

(Sadly, those same areas which received snow not a month ago, are currently ablaze in a scary start to the bushfire season.)

Gosh, this got kind of rambly, didn’t it? Anyway, the point was, I just wanted to let you know I’m here, and even, despite all of the above, managing to do a few stitchy things and crafty things, even some dyeing (though my Pay-it-forward-ees will probably have to wait until after Christmas to receive their goodies.) I’ve actually enjoyed my unplanned, unannounced hiatus from blogging, but hopefully I’ll be back a bit sooner next time, and possibly even with some pics.

Oh, oh, oh, and btw… here are those all important ‘milestone’-y things – Niamh popped out a couple of teeth on November 16, and she is also… wait for it… crawling 😮 A full month before Finn did!

(Maybe that’s why she doesn’t sleep… too busy being active.)

On the Farm

I’ve been feeling kind of… isolated?… displaced?… bereft?… something, these last weeks. It’s due to a combination of things, not least the increased difficulty of getting out and about with two kiddos. But I’ve come to realise that I’m really missing where we used to live. We’ve been here ten days shy of a year, and I’ve never quite found my groove – probably because I’ve been either pregnant and exhausted, or sleep-deprived and exhausted, that entire time.

It’s not like this is an unpleasant place to live, it really isn’t. But I miss the wonderful local shops where the staff knew our faces, if not our names, the kid-friendly cafes where we could while away a sunny morning or lazy afternoon, the wonderful bookshop…

Anyway. This place just doesn’t have quite the same atmosphere and energy about it. But it is not without benefits. Yesterday, we took off to a community/educational farm not far from here and spent a few hours puttering about.

We found a shady place for our lunch…
Farm01

Met some of the residents…
Farm02

Explored the community vegie patches (which put great shame to ours 😳 )…
Farm04

Did some of this…
Farm03

And some of this…
Farm05

It was very peaceful (at least until the splinter incident, which was traumatic for all involved, but Finn most of all). A very nice way to spend the first 30 degree day of the season.