2009...

Thought I'd follow B Sharp's lead here, in the spirit of sharing

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
Have a Caesarian section; toilet train a toddler; made an old fashioned christmas pudding in a pudding basin.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next this year?
I resolved to get a cleaner (snap, BSharp!), and no - we didn't do it. Something to do with tight-assed-ness or not being able to justify it due to the uncertainty of incomes. My poor, chapped, dish-pan hands are red with anger - I could never be a domestic godess! One day we will do it!!

My New Year's resolutions, would be:
- to be less of a glutton and exercise more (but I always find that I do when I do or when I can, respectively).
- to find more things to keep my son entertained, and get him eating a wider range of healthy foods.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Population explosion!
My sister-in-law had her third (but my first niece), the day before Angel had her little boy.
Two of my Mummy friends - Katie and Anita - had second babies;
Friends Fiona, Sally and Hannah had little boys;
Colleague Yogi had her first;
and many many others seem to have been concieved, due this year!

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No. A friend is thankfully in remission from breast cancer.

5. What countries did you visit?
None. Sigh! Good for my carbon footprint, though.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
An insulated roof; a career (or the inkling of one).

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
24 July - my daughter's birthday. Because she was born then!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
A year of lots of little things - nothing stands out.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Going on maternity leave without a certain job to return to in 2010. You can only do a few jobs for 2 years or less before you start to wonder if it's "me, not them". But I'm not sure I care that particular job much either, so does that make it a failure?

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Only colds, the odd sore back, eczema and athsma.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Hmmm. A few things:
- some nice new shrubs (to go in the mega plant pots we inherited from a former neighbour) and a bench, for our courtyard. It's actually nice to sit out there now!
- ceiling fans for the bedrooms, and a bath for our bathroom.

12. Where did most of your money go?
Mortgage/house, grocery shopping, child care fees.

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Meeting our daughter Astrid after carrying her for 9 months.
My son sleeping through the night without a nappy.
Getting my plant-growing mojo back.

14. What song will always remind you of 2009?
"Starman" by Bowie and "Rocket Man" by Elton John. Happy memories of the whole family singing along in the car.

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?
Both.

Happier - because I don't have morning sickness, and puddles to clean up on the floor, and because I seem to have learned something as I am finding motherhood easier this time around.

Sadder about a few things - a friend left for Canada permanently and she left a bigger hole in my life than I'd anticipated. Sad also that my nephew has been diagnosed with Autism, and it means a lot of life-long challenges for my brother's family.

b) thinner or fatter?
Fatter, due to not having morning sickness, and not managing to swim/gym very often.

c) richer or poorer?
About the same. We own slightly more of our house.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?
- going on holidays
- reading
- sleeping
- swimming

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?
- yelling: "NO!" "Stop (insert mischievous deed)!" "Right! In the naughty corner, and STAY there until I say!!"
- vomiting (see morning sickness comments, above).

18. How will you spend Christmas?
Waves of family visits to us this time.

19. Did you fall in love in 2009?
Yes - this time with my beautiful daughter.

20. What was your favorite TV program?
The Wire (snap again, BSharp!) - we joined the digital age when we got a hand-me-down set top box from Angel and DrJ, and strated watching it from the beginning on ABC2. However, we have just started renting it out on video, because you pick up more of the dialogue when you can put on subtitles!! That Baltimore accent can be challenging!!

21. What was the best book you read?
Probably "Maus" by Art Speigelman. Also enjoyed "The time traveller's wife" and "the lovely bones". None of these were very challenging to read, which reflects my brief windows of opportunity for reading in the past year.

22. What was your favorite film of this year?
No idea. Must have been a DVD I rented, but I can't remember. It certainly wasn't the lastest Harry Potter movie...

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
34. We celebrated my birthday on the Sunday before, due to hubby having a yucky breakfast meeting on the actual day. I remember getting to lie in bed reading unpestered for a few luxurious hours, and possibly even a bath....

24. What kept you sane?
Um... I think I may be less sane...

25. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I need a drop down list for this kind of stuff - no one comes to mind.

26. Who did you miss?
My brother (even though he's been on another island for a long time); I still miss being able to just drop by my parent's place and hang out; Annik who left with her little boy for Canada to be closer to her parents; BSharp (but she's back now!); and it's getting generally harder to meet up with many friends due to our vastly different lifestyles (e.g. us having kids and them not. But that will get easier as the kids get older).

27. Who was the best new person you met?
My neighbour up the corridor - Leili. Fantastic to meet a mother of 3 older children who's been through it all! So nice to have a neighbour who is friendly, and whom you can help and be helped.

Help needed with new-fangled internet anagrams!

I need some help with the following anagrams.  What on earth do the following mean?

- LMAO - little men all overwrought?
- LMFAO - same with "fricken" in there?

I can't, for the life of me, think what they are meant to mean. I DO know that "LOL" means "laugh out loud", but reckon it is way over-used, and could be written just as briefly as "ha ha!" much of the time.

I know admitting this makes me un-hip, but I'm a mother of two so that was going to happen sooner or later anyway. (That, and I was never considered cool anyway, except to my dear best-friend/husband.)

So folks? Any more tech savvy people able to enlighten me? While you're at it, are there any other anagrams I've missed?

Random thoughts...

Dried up roses in vases...
... in my friend's kitchen. I noticed that since I'd seen her last her belly hadn't grown, and all flicker of humour was absent from her face today. A mutual friend confirmed what I'd feared. She's lost a(nother) baby.

Hubby is acting more chipper as if to compensate, but he briefly ruffles my baby's hair then escapes quickly to the bathroom. I can see that with each miscarriage and year past 40, this all just gets harder.

"My figure is hardly perfect but..."
...is it just me or do a grotesque number of the fellas I went to school with now have beer guts and fat necks? I'm not in contact with these people, but I inadvertently see their photos when I nose around in other people's facebook albums when my friends are tagged there. Serves me right to go snooping.

In other news experts can now confirm that TV watching is bad for you. Not because it gives you square eyes, but because you are sedentary for a long time. Come to think of it, you are too when you sit at the compture for a long time. I'm outa here!

Band on the Rug

Happy new year, folks!

Our christmas was good this year - we had family come stay with us in waves - C-chan's family for xmas, and my parents for the new year. I'm finding these days when family come to stay, it's a good thing mostly because I get a chance to hand over the kids to someone else and get some things done! C-chan and I enjoyed designing a christmas day menu, shopping for it, & making it, after 3 years in a row of visiting Radelaide for christmas. We got the odd opportunity to go out and see a movie or go out for dinner. Our baby is a pretty good sleeper, and sleeps for at least 6 hours in her first nightly stretch, and is usually down by 7pm, which has meant going out is possible. We had a full house, yet our house guests were pretty good - we had a nice mix of hanging around at home, getting out and about, and my parents went off by themselves once or twice to give us a little bit of space.

The Grandparents of course went gaga over the baby Astro Girl, whilst our little 3 1/2 year old  E-chan ensured he had attention by talking non-stop for a few weeks. This almost drove me nuts. I couldn't think clearly, and almost every conversation I tried to have was talked over the top of constantly. At times I just had to tune out so I could follow a thought through to it's logical conclusion, but often if we didn't acknowledge what he said, he would repeat the same thing over and over - broken record style - until he got a response. Nothing would stop him from talking - even though he was getting plenty of attention. Eventually we challenged him to see how long he could stay quiet. He lasted 53 seconds! Finally on New Year's Day, the constant chatter subsided a bit, and things have returned to normal now. He's still on the talkative side, but as he gets more and more articulate, we're starting to have some really fun and funny conversations.

For christmas, E-chan got a little CD player from his grandparents. This has come just at the right time, as despite having music pushed on him all his life particularly by his Dad who is a big music fan, he seems to finally be receptive to listening to pop music and getting to know songs. Strangely (I think) his first preference was for Paul McCartney and Wings. Not the Beatles, but that followed soon after. His first favourite song that he danced to and played over and over was "C Moon" which is hilarious. At night, when we're putting him to bed, we listen to a compilation we've made and he asks us lots of questions:
- Mummy what's this song?
- What's he singing here?
- Is Paul McCartney a Beatle? Didn't he want to be a Beatle any more?

Often he doesn't hear the lyrics properly (hey, who doesn't?), and sometimes we tell him what they are and he sings them properly, but sometimes he stubbornly decides his are better such as:
- Band on the Rug (aka "Band on the Run")
- Mibby om man (? aka "Maybe I'm Amazed")

So next he was made a Robot Music compilation, made of Daft Punk and Kraftwerk. "Daddy, this isn't a robot singing, it's a MAN!"

True...

He doesn't quite get the concept of robot dancing yet, but I will persist...

Useful reference on global temperatures

See Brave New Climate on 21 November 2009, for a post on global temperatures by James Hansen.

If you ever find yourself at a dinner party with one of those annoying people who are in denial about the whole global warming thing, get their email address and send them this post. It has graphs showing temperatures, and explains where the data is from. It offers insights into the sorts of problems that arise when analysing large data sets, and how mistakes can be made, and exploited by those hoping to cast doubt in people's minds about whether the world is warming and what is causing it, and how they are inundated with "Freedom of Information" requests from people who aim to dispute the conclusions drawn from their data. This research group now publishes their data in a private domain first, so that they can check the data thoroughly before going public on the internet - they learned the hard way that their mistakes are siezed upon.

Calling for your favourite vegetarian recipes

So after a few years of saying "I'd like to eat more vegetarian food and cut down on my red meat", but not doing much about it, I have finally bitten the bullet and started to seek out some vegetarian meals that are suitable for our family dinners.

I'm ashamed to say that I've known that beef and lamb are the big resource users, when compared with pork, chicken, and other types of protein, but in the end I got a scare this week when I read that more than 2 meals a week of red meat is a contributing factor to bowel cancer. It sunk in that my mother's father has had bowel cancer (and luckily survived it, but still...) and I should probably start making a bit more of an effort to diversify my diet. And there is a higher level of heritability with bowel cancer than with some other cancers.

Anyway - vegetarian meals in our household come with a few challenges:
- my 3-year-old is allergic to egg, sesame and cashew. NO HOMMOUS OR TAHINI!! boo hoo! no cashew stir fries! no scrambled eggs, frittatas or quiches!
- the jury is out as to whether or not we should be feeding him other nuts such as peanuts. Not clear whether or not this will increase his risk of developing other allergies.
- I need to eat tomato and chilli in moderation - too much and I break out in eczema.

I kicked things off tonight with Lentil Shephard's Pie which was delicious, but will take my son a bit of getting used to (they say you have to offer a toddler something as many as 10 times before they will stop turning their nose up at it). But it wasn't exactly quick and easy - more of a special occasion meal. I used french brown lentils, which don't require soaking prior to cooking.

I was just wondering - what are your favourite quick and easy vegetarian meals?

Bamboozled, and the OSM

I've thought it odd since moving into our current residence - part of a strata complex - how much good stuff just gets thrown out when people move out or put their houses up for sale and cull stuff for the inspection. So far, we have nabbed a few largish canvases (which we'll paint white and use for something else), a perfectly good plant pot, a watering can, and the odd bit of furniture. But this takes the cake. They were was left in our common courtyard, and after a few months of promising to collect these, the owner finally admitted she didn't want them after all, and anyone was welcome to take them.

See picture. The pots alone probably cost around $100 each. We have been thinking for a while that we'd like to get some larger pot plants as a bit of a privacy screen, as you can see right into our neighbours living room when you stand to the far left of this picture. It was a major effort to move them into our courtyard, but I'm glad we did. The bamboo itself needs work. They are overgrown, and need thinning at the roots, which will be a major effort (anyone want to offer their assistance?!). There is a third pot like this which has cracked right down the length of the pot, obviously because the roots have multiplied too many times. But I like them, I like that we finally have some substantial greenery to soften our courtyard, and that I can use some of our waste water a 2nd time rather than have it go down the drain! Let's see if I can get them growing well without killing them off!

The "Oh S**t!" moment
One of Crikey's blogs had a story about the "OSM", where readers were encouraged to write in about the moment when they realised fully that climate change was due to carbon pollution, and that the effects on the climate were going to be significant. Makes interesting reading, although some respondants do go off the point a bit.

Payouts

And so I find myself out of work again when on maternity leave. This time, things are a bit sweetened by a fairly good severance pay out. Despite being on contracts, and performing various roles, I have clocked up > 5 years service for my employer. This sweetens the news that there isn't enough certain funding to employ me on next year considerably.

I think now is probably a good time to put an effort into finding a job in an area where I have a passion and/or considerable background - I've experimented in working in different fields for a few years for the sake of working part time, and that has given me some new skills and taught me more things about my strengths and weaknesses. BUT at the end of the day, when you care less about the subject matter of your work than other fields or causes, it can be hard to stay motivated when other parts of your job aren't going well.

So I felt flat for about half a day after receiving this news, but moved on quickly. After all, it means my 2nd and last baby can wait a bit longer before starting child care! :-)

Where Sydney's water goes...

When I have looked closely on the star rating (energy or water) on washing machines, I've been stunned to see that they are based on daily usage on a certain setting. "Well really!" thought I, "who does 7 loads of washing a week?!". I thought that surely these people were obsessive compulsive clean freaks.

And now I am one of them. Not an obsessive compulsive clean freak, but someone who does at least 5 loads of washing a week. Our whole family re-wears clothes until they are dirty/smelly enough to need a wash, we use towels multiple times before washing, we wash sheets once a forthnight (I really can't be bothered doing them weekly...), I use bibs and cloths on my baby and 3 year old to save outfits. But all this washing adds up now that there are 4 of us, even though our machine is a 7.5kg capacity (rather large). Kids have accidents, babies vomit, wipe their grottly little hands and lips on your clothes

I'm trying my hardest to save water in other ways - watering pot plants for e.g. - but not having a garden to throw extra water into means that a lot of waste water sadly goes down the sink. And past attempts to accumulate water in a bucket has just resulted in attracting mozzies...

Whoa! has it been 3 months already?!!

Hello there!

With the blink of an eye, our darling little baby girl (let's call her Astro Girl, online) is already 3 months old! No longer a newborn, she is transitioning to size 00 clothing, and very aware of her hands all of a sudden. You can hear her sucking away on them in her cot. And she can giggle! It's a beautiful, hearty chuckle, which is interspersed with cute little goo-ing noises.

Parenthood this time around is different, easier. Is it because we are more relaxed, experienced parents? Is it because she is a girl? or because she is a 2nd child, who has to get lugged around everywhere, and hauled in and out of the car/cot/pram mid-sleep to keep up with her big brother's activities? Who knows! Maybe it's all three. But so far, we've been blessed with a baby with a very easygoing nature.

It's rarely hard to get her to sleep, and she prefers to settle on her own much of the time, after a bit of one-on-one cuddle and giggle time, and maybe some singing. She has mostly one overnight feed, sometimes two, and while I do hear her make noises in her sleep, I seem to be able to sleep through the irrelevant noises more easily these days. So we are keeping her in our room until the summer is over, and will think about shifting her in with her brother next year, perhaps when their eating and sleeping habits are a bit more similar.

Any my other baby? The three-year-old, I mean... He's doing well too. Can't stop him talking. Will enthusiastically soak up any new material to talk about, and talk to anyone he has at hand. This morning, he was watching the TV show of the daughter of a certain deceased Australian "icon" (hint: crikey!), and saw a story about deforestation in Indonesia threatening the habitat of orangutans. This was assimilated in his brain, mixed in with something about dinosaurs, and regurgitated back to us in one hilarious story with accompanying hand gestures! (I'm thinking this will make it easier for me to explain to him why he shouldn't waste tissues - thanks Bindi!).

But he's also a wonderful big brother. He helps with the baby whenever I ask him to (ie by talking to her while I get ready for her feed, fetching me things while I'm feeding etc etc). He seems interested in her, and he asks where she is if she's not in the room. She, in return, is fascinated by him, watches him from her capsule in the car, and throws him beaming smiles! How idyllic! I wonder how long this will last!!

So relative domestic bliss for the time being. Just need to work on E-chan's fussy appetite, his pleases and thankyous, and putting his toys away instead of leaving toy cars in the middle of the floor....

5318008

(Remember that trick you do with the calculator, where you end up with "5318008", and get the person holding the calculator to turn it upside down and read it, and it's a rude word?! This is my oh so clever way of avoiding spam....)

So, 5318008.

This will be my last ever post on the matter, promise! You may remember me mentioning* this last time I had a baby. I had a bit of trouble with breastfeeding. Main trouble was my baby didn't latch on properly for 9 weeks or so, and I couldn't produce enough milk, had to top up with formula, express milk, take pills of various kinds etc etc. There was also some possibility that my 8008's just didn't produce much milk. Something to do with boob shape - the midwives have been a lot more honest with me about it this time (last time they were frustratingly sketchy about it).

Well this time, with all other issues not an issue (ie Astrid feeds well, and like last time, I've done everything possible** to increase my supply), we still find we produce a woeful amount of milk. Plateauing at about 1/2 to 2/3 of what she needs. So it seems that yes, I do have the type of 8008's that don't produce much milk.

Non-mothers out there probably accept this without much question. But I find there are some breastfeeding advocates who don't accept this. They read in baby books sentences like "Only a small proportion of mothers will not have enough milk for their baby..." and for some reason interpret it as if everyone should have enough, when in fact a small proportion don't, and I'm one of them! I tell them I'd have to feed hourly around the clock or more often to satisfy my baby's needs, and maybe still not have enough, and their response is "well I had to feed every 2 hours for a while..." as if having to do that for a few weeks in the late afternoon while establishing supply or during a growth spurt is the same as having a baby that doesn't gain weight and has no energy. Anyway, enough of my whinging. I'm going to talk to the lactation nurse to find out the official medical term for someone like me, and have it ready to throw at the next "breastfeeding nazi" I come across! Also, people accept that some women have "fast flow" of milk without judgement, so why not slow flow too?

So what about the shape of my 8008's? See picture above. I found this courtesy of the Post Secret site, and was excited, as I rarely ever, in this silicone age, see breasts in images that look like mine! But they exist! Mine aren't tatooed, unfortunately, and are a little more rounded as I am breastfeeding. But they are kind of like the image above. I'm at peace with them now - they are how they are, even though poorly equipt with milk ducts. My husband likes them. And they produce roughly half of what my baby needs. Fortunately I also live in a 1st world country with adequate hygiene for formula feeding, formulas are a lot better these days, and I can co-bottle feed, and I don't have to hire a wet-nurse to feed my baby (or much, much worse...). So we're doing the unusual feeding method of breastfeeding at each feed, and topping up with a bottle. I'd love to just breastfeed, but can't. I'm not lazy, and nor am I ignorant about what needs to be done to maximize milk supply. So there!

All is going well! She's lovely, and we love her to bits. Nuff said.

* just a bit.

** believe me

21st century girl

Here's our little girl, Astrid Kate!

She's doing well, and we are all happy, even E-chan who is coping quite well with having to share our attention.

Some things of note (no time for full elaborations!):
- She is lovely - an absolute joy.
- I'm enjoying having a girl more than I thought I would, although there is little difference between newborn boys and girls (besides their genitalia).
- I'm coping with the lack of sleep better than I thought I would.
- Parenting 2nd time around is a comparative breeze - I'm nowhere near as anxious this time.

Will post again another day - today I suffer mummy-brain... my brain changes topics on me before I can commit them to type, and I just want to veg on the couch.

Now there are 3...

The baby is only a few days away now.

After months of this being in the background, as something that will happen, we're suddenly almost there. The baby things are more or less ready, and family is set to visit (including "Grandma" - my Mum - arriving today). C-chan and I more or less know what we're in for.

Now as we focus on our son, we realise how much this is going to rock his world. He can't fully comprehend what is ahead of him, as much as we tell him and hope he understands. C-chan and I have a bit of a difficult task trying to keep things normal for him over the coming months while his world changes. Loving grandparents will be here, but that won't be the same as when it was just Mum, Dad and him.

At the same time, he's being an absolute trooper most of the time. He kisses the baby's things, seems to be accepting that some things aren't his but belong to the baby (a difficult concept for him so far). He's being adorable, despite feeling rotten with a cold recently. He walks along, holding my hand, proud of wearing his new dinosaur back pack, and he is my little friend.

Sorry - must be hormones. I keep bursting into tears today. Dropping E-chan off at Kindy seemed to be the hardest thing ever this morning, and he wanted to stay with me rather than play with anyone. But I need to rest, and get over this cold before Friday... somehow...

So much for resting...

So work wrapped up last week, and it took a grand total of 4 days for E-chan to come down with a cold. He spent Monday home with me with runny nose and goobery eye, Tuesday having a short day at Kindy, and Wednesday at Kindy, and yesterday coughing and spluttering with me at home. Today seems have a return of a snotty nose PLUS a bonus worsening cough.

I seem to have that feeling between my eyes that I'm coming down with it too (or is that from being woken 5 times last night!?).

Getting cabin fever big time - I'd rather be out seeing friends, or sleeping. Yesterday my attempt at a nap resulted in 30 mins lying down, whilst darling son crawled around my bed, showed me how clever he was at naming things on his flashcards, built a pillow fort, and said "mummy open eyes!!" whenever it looked like I might actually doze off!!

I'm beginning to think "thank goodness for Playschool, The Land Before Time, Chuggington, Charlie and Lola, and Skunk Fu" (see ABC Kids website if any of those need interpretation). And at least I'm getting through the many loads of washing I need to do before visitors and new baby descend upon our house!! And a few boxes of eco-nappies (well the best you can do if you're not doing cloth) were delivered this morning, very conveniently at 8am, only a day after I ordered them!

Outside, it is cool and blustery today. They are recommending that pregnant women wear masks when they go out, due to a few Flu hospitalisations that have happened out west of Sydney. But I might need to venture out for our sanity - maybe a bandanna will do? But E-chan's cough is a worry. Trips to inside shopping centres might be all we manage...