Finished!

Over the last couple of weeks, I have had a real run of finishing things, which is nice when you have a baby. I have finished

• another baby present for Sarah's new cousin Caleb
• reading that National Geographic that has been in the toliet since Sarah was born
• using the beer fridge for the season (so we turned it off to save electricity)
• wearing maternity clothes... thanks to a nasty case of gastro and a 5 month old determined to suck her entire body weight out of me every day
• a massive cleanout of my room which resulted in about 4 huge bags of rubbish and a few realistic assessments about what I did and didn't need! My room is much nicer now and I can find everything without having to move 3 things first.

And speaking of realistic assessments, I think we can all agree my posting record here is getting extremely poor. I am calling it quits for now... since only family and friends read this anyway, I will direct you to flickr and email instead. I am afraid that the breastfeeding hormones have dried up my creative juices, in respect to this and all my other past-times as well (which is also why I have nothing to post!)

I may yet restart posting, so if you want me to let you know, leave me your email in the comments and I will contact you should that day ever evenutate.

Be careful what you wish for

For weeks now, Sarah has almost but not quite got an understanding of how her hands and arms work - but there was a breakthrough yesterday and she was able to manipulate quite a few toys and repeat the actions, so obviously all those good brain connections are coming together.

I kept thinking 'This is GREAT, she can amuse herself a bit more'... until 6am this morning, when I was woken up with WHACK WHACK WHACK on my face and boobs, with little Miss demanding that the kitchen was opened!

How cool is this?

This is a test of a very cool gadget called PictoBrowser that I have just come across. No more gluing together images to do a single post!

Growing I am

IMG_2380, originally uploaded by Kim (GGS).

Sarah had her first checkup yesterday and I am pleased to report she is 'doing brilliantly'. She is now 60cm long and weights 5.1 kg, having been 54cm and 4.3kg when she left hospital.

The doctor also told me 'she is a lovely placid baby'. Which is how I got her to pose for this Yoda photo ;)

Other exciting developments this week include:

• Tear production. Now she looks even more pathetic when we don't get her out of the car seat fast enough.
• With that, saliva production... anyone want to be drooled on?
• She is working out what her arms and legs are, and has made a few good swipes at things that seem to look like she is working on motor control. The rolling progress is also pretty good - she can get onto her side by herself now, but doesn't seem to know how she managed it yet.
  

Cute hats

IMG_2371, originally uploaded by Kim (GGS).

This cute hat (and this one) are a real team effort for the girls of the old Long Range Craft Jamboree. Alison gave me the material as a birthday present, I cut the pattern out and Sally finished them (read: saved me from pregnancy induced confusion) for me!

I my defense, it was mostly the pattern's fault (Butterick 4531 if you want to know). Miss Sally worked out that while the pattern pieces for the crown indicated you need 6 pieces, the brim of the hat actually is sized for 8! No wonder I couldn't get them to fit.

Thanks again, ladies!

Ok, so I got around to writing a post about the baby

The power of the sling!, originally uploaded by Kim (GGS).

Rather than boring you with hospital stories and the usual complaints of conflicting advice and evil midwifes, I thought you would prefer to have a Sarah update, given she is now 5 weeks and 5 days old!

• She is a big Mummy’s girl at the moment. We got the first proper smile on Monday when Paul gave her back to me (after fussing the moment she saw me come into the room)!
• She is an excellent night sleeper, even if this means she is awake for big slabs of the day. Having said that, we do go to bed at 8:30 or 9 now, but we are getting a good solid 8 or 9 hrs – me in a couple of chunks, Paul usually only wakes up once. Having a decent nights sleep makes everything else quite ok to deal with. And having Mum baby sit so I can have an afternoon nap certainly helps as well (Thanks Mum!)
• She is a happy camper in the morning and grizzly in the afternoon. Her two favourite things (after boobs and cuddles) are seeing stuff and listening to music, so I am happy she can be entertained by Prairie Home Companion while I am sewing. The Baby Bjorn (thanks again, Helen) and the swing (thanks, Robin and Dennis) are both great as they give us our hands back but allow Sarah to see stuff and then fall asleep when she is tired.
• She likes to save up her poo and do enormous poosplosions every so often (e.g. has a couple of big ones every second day). This has already made for quite a few leakages as the nappies just don’t cope with that much volume at once – so now as soon as we hear something happening, it’s a race to see if we can get the nappy off her in time! We have also got a ‘safety towel’ which is especially handy around 5 in the evening when most of the poosplosions happen. And I am pleased to report that I have been peed on, pooed on (both leakage and projectile when changing her nappy) and also projectile vomited on. It’s very glamorous taking care of a small person! Thank goodness my mother and I wear the similar sizes – we had a projectile vomit at Mum and Dad’s that required me to completely change my outfit, right down to underwear. Thankfully not too much ended up on the white leather recliner but it’s a bit demoralising to have to eat dinner at someone else’s house in their underwear and spare Pjs (I now have a change of clothes in the car).
• She definitely makes ‘little girl’ noises. I visited two friends who both have little boys (11 weeks and 3 weeks) and she makes cute little birdy noises when she wants some attention – and the boys both seems to grumble and growl (in a cute little baby way).
• She has started making noises to actually tell us specific stuff (And we are starting to work out what that stuff is) – e.g. cute birdy noises seem to mean ‘hey, you have left me on floor, where the heck are you?’ It’s making it much easier to take care of her when you vaguely know what she wants!

Other stuff they don’t tell you before you have a baby

• You will do A LOT of laundry. Especially when you co-sleep. She is mostly in her own bassinet but invariably when we take her into bed with us we end up with pee or breastmilk somewhere on the sheets.
• Pigeon breast pads and Libra maternity slim pads are the only way to go.
• Tea and coffee can be drunk cold. Just scull.
• If you really are breastfeeding on demand, don’t think about how many times you are feeding the baby (because it won’t be six times a day, every four hours). Yesterday I fed her 13 times – thank goodness she is a good baby because otherwise I would get limited stuff done otherwise.
• Don’t wake a sleeping baby! Those nappies will hold for a bit longer.

• Your own parents are invaluable. Thanks again to Mum and Dad for the:
  • Hospital visits and bringing up all the things we forgot (and the cherries!),
  • All the frozen meals and all the meals at your place over Christmas
  • Phone call counselling and baby sitting
  • Helping with the breastfeeding
  • The pyjamas and nose cleaner

• And thanks to Paul’s Mum and Dad for:
  • All the clothes Sarah will need until she is two (I kid you not people, Ann is a shopping machine!)
  • All the lovely toys she got for Xmas
  • The help and baby sitting over Xmas which allowed me and Paul to catch up on sleep and things around the house!

Also thanks to everyone for all the lovely presents. I am working on thank you cards at the moment so hopefully you will get one by the end of the month!

I have a really good reason for being slack

IMG_2253, originally uploaded by Kim (GGS).

I have had all good intentions of getting organized and writing a decent post about the hospital and the first couple of weeks at home but honestly, it's proven difficult to find enough quiet time to write a coherent post (between the baby and the mountain of visitors). I will get to it eventually but in the mean time you can catch up on all of Sarah's funny faces here.