mothers day

enough space for another set of little hands to join us.

 

Pcat and I usually always intend to make mothers day a big deal..and usually get to the end of the day wondering why it really wasn’t that special.   This year we succeded in feeling like we made the most of the day..and may have even started a mothers day tradition.  We about drove about an hour and a half south of us to a seaside town, visited a craft market, bought pretty things and very cheap succulents (my favourite plants).  Piggy played with baby farm animals, being ever so gentle while holding a guinea pig.  We ate very yummy food at a local pub.  Finally,  we took Piggy to the beach (which she calls a “big sand pit”) and built sand castles and watched the waves.

It was an altogether lovely day of simple pleasures, which we plan to repeat.

Hope all the mums out there had an equally lovely day.

 

baby got moves

 

I have started to feel what must be fingers stroking the inside of my belly.  It is lovely.  Pcat and i have decided that she is dancing and if we could see her she would be doing moves like uma and john in pulp fiction. eg.

 

 

? deciding fate ?

We got our baby’s birthdate yesterday, providing all goes well and she doesn’t decide to make any early and unexpected moves.  We have decided to keep the date a secret.  Today Pcat put in leave form for her time off work.  One good thing about knowing the date is that we know we will be able to make the most of her leave and not spend half of it waiting for the bub to be born.

Charming Baby is growing well, I am measuring 30 wks based on fundal height, which is 3 weeks ahead of dates.  I was the same with Piggy,  it is more than likely the size of my belly not the baby that is big.  Piggy was a very appropriately sized baby weighing 3.225 kg at birth despite my belly being 4-5 weeks ahead!  We got to hear her little heart beating away again and she kicked the doppler again!

Very surreal knowing the date she will come, I actually feel more anxious knowing it is booked in and is going to happen.  I am most anxious about the local anaesthetic and that horrible feeling of being totally out of control. 

I just want this baby to arrive safely and for me to be able to enjoy the moment instead of being absolutely petrified.

 

 

 

 

 

the belly 26wks and 2.5 years

 

wow!

first read this

then read this  (some one always says it better than i can)

then:

• do a dance
• jump around
• imagine a future where your two young daughters never have to have a conscious memory of the time when their parents were not legally or financially recognised as being in a relationship
• giggle
• smile
• scream
• cry a little, or a lot (depending on your current hormonal status)

say ‘fuck’ a lot but not so much that your toddler can hear you and copies…

 

2 years of monkey love…

 For some reason, the purchase of an Alimrose monkey toy has really hit home for me that Charming is actually going to be in our lives soon!!

You see, we bought one for Piggy before she was born.

It has become the reliable favourite. Like all 2 year olds, her likes and dislikes change constantly so there are always favoured toys on rotation but monkey has survived above all so far. He has undergone various name changes… He started out as ‘Manu’ which morphed into ‘Monkey Two’ but now he is simply known as ‘Stripey Monkey’ as a way to differentiate him. You see, Piggy has acquire more than the average kids amount of monkey toys!!

Poor stripey monkey isnt looking as fresh as the day we bought him him but he has travel and experienced life so the grime is justified!! Heres hoping Charming gets as much joy and comfort out of hers!

 

Nice new clean Monkey ready for Ms Charming

Piggy's nice new clean Monkey 2 years ago

Piggy's dirty much loved Monkey 2 years later!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Almost 26 weeks

According to my preggo journal I am in the 3rd trimester.  While it seemed to take forever to get to that 12 week scan, and see that kicking swimming baby living a life that no-one was watching, it has taken no time to get through that second trimester.

Apparently the second trimester is the one you are supposed to enjoy cos you get more energy and the nausea lifts and other wonderful glowing references.

Here is a list of pros and cons of the 2nd trimester according to me:

Cons (first because i always like to finish on a positive note!)

• I am still vomiting, once or twice a week.  Smells make me heave, talking too fast (i am a very fast talker. especially when excited or agitated) makes me gag.  Coughing makes me gag. Bending over and getting back up too fast makes me heave. 
•  I still have no appetite for food.  Most days Piggy eats more than I do.  The few occasions when I feel like eating I will make a big plate and eat a quarter of it, or eat too fast because i am excited to be hungry, then it all comes back up.
• I am still tired. The constant bone achey weariness has lifted but I have such short stamina for all activities.  This is exceedingly hard when looking after a two year old who never stops still and doesn’t sleep through the night (she wakes at least once a night, never for very long but i rarely get more than 3-4 hours of unbroken sleep).
• Shortness of breath-to the point where people feel they have to interrupt the conversation to  check I am OK, or when i answer the phone i am asked if I ran in from outside.
• pee, peeing all the time, feeling like i am going to wet myself, rushing to the loo and peeing the smallest pees in the world.  These pees are so small if i had wet my pants no-one would have noticed, not even me.  It is hard to get things done when you have to stop to pee so often.
• Not being able to give the baby in belly as much time as we did with Piggy.  I have memories of spending hours in bed with Pcat talking to the belly and  reading to it and giving in to it’s every desire.  Sleeping when I wanted to, making what ever food I felt like.  Doing this with a toddler, if we are in bed we are sleeping, not talking to the belly.  We cook what Piggy will eat and what can be made quickly and without much washing up! We sleep when we can but never as much as we want.  I read to the baby, but it is at the same time that I read to Piggy.  When I was pregnant with Piggy I read her the BFG-that book has only words and no pictures.  Charming only gets picture books that Piggy feels like reading!  Can’t help but feel sorry for the baby that had no choice but to be born second.

 

Pros

• Beautiful round and literally bouncing belly, that moves when Charming moves
• Love of my body and my curves and hippiness.  I feel big but i don’t feel fat.   I love looking pregnant and this is the one (of two) times in my life where I really don’t have any body image issues, not even little niggly ones that i am embarrassed to admit. 
• Feeling her move all the time.  Noticing her react to different sounds.  She wakes up and kicks more when Pcat gets home from work and when Pcat is talking.  She gets more active when Piggy talks and in the middle of the night when Piggy wakes, so does charming, as if her sleep has been interrupted as well as mine!
• The way complete strangers smile at my belly, especially when I am out with Piggy.  I noticed this with Piggy’s pregnancy as well.  A pregnant belly makes people smile a special smile, there is a warmness that comes over people like you can feel the hope that growing a new baby inspires. 
• Lovely soft skin.  Piggy has even noticed this and will lie next to me in bed and stroke my arm up and down, she will also rub my belly up and down too because she likes the way it feels..just lovely.
• Pcat can feel charming very easily now-charming often ‘hides’ when Pcat tries to feel her but she is much less elusive than she was earlier.
• Pcat is lovely, taking as much of the ‘physicalness’ of Piggy off me.  She has invented a new house rule “Muma has sit down cuddles and Mum has stand-up cuddles” this has been magic as picking up Piggywig is hard work, walking any further than a few metres with her is really hard work.  Pcat has also become the lone chaser…it is silently recognised that if Piggywig runs off that Pcat is the one who follows.  Consequently, Pcat misses out on many grown up conversations and when we leave places the drive home usually consists of “so i didn’t hear the end of the story when you were talking about…..”
• Planning, talking about and imagining baby Charming here with us is magic.  I have spent this week sorting hand-me-downs from Piggywig and putting them in Charming’s wardrobe.  So many memories tied up in those little outfits and we get to use them all again!  I love thinking about finishing up at work.  I love talking about what will happen when the baby arrives and imagining life with two little ones.
• We get to watch Piggy learn and develop concepts about the baby.  She talks to my belly and tries to feel her kick (although she hasn’t yet).  She tells strangers that there is baby in my belly.  She loves to lift up her top and then my top and put her belly on mine proclaiming “the babies are all together”.  She still says she has a baby in her belly too!
•  Overwhelming feelings of gratitude and luckiness for what we have and what we will have.  We do not take any of this for granted and spend much time talking about how lucky we are.

 

Anatomy lesson from Piggy

We were at a drinks and nibbles event for a friend who is getting married in a few weeks.

At the absolute top of her lungs, so loud that she was almost going blue getting the words out, Piggy shouts

“BABY BOYS HAVE PENISES!”

and she reapeated it over and over and over again getting louder and louder as the laughter got louder and louder.

 

She then said to me in a more normal voice “baby loey and baby huuuuuey have penis too”

 

So we have anatomy sorted. Good job mums.

 

got $1.69? make history!

I got this email this morning, I’ve downloaded the song.  The song is one of my very favourites and now buying it is a political action!

you can view it for free here:

www.getup.org.au/campaign/MakeThisAHit

You can pay via pay pal or credit card. Good music for very little money! good start to the day.

‘We’re trying something new. Following on from the 2020 Summit, when the headlines are buzzing with an equal and reconciled republic, the nation’s best-known performers have come together under the name of The GetUp Mob to release a new version of the Paul Kelly classic “From little things, big things grow”. Already today it’s splashed its way into the nation’s papers. Now we want your help to make it a number one hit!

If together we top the charts, this message will rocket around the country’s airwaves and TV screens on high rotation to an audience of millions that we normally don’t reach - and it costs you just a $1.69 online to achieve that goal. Our power is in numbers, our message can inspire reconciliation”

“All proceeds will go to GetUp’s Reconciliation Fund and the following charity organisations:
Link Up - assisting Indigenous people who have been fostered, adopted or raised in institutions to find their way home.

Mums and Bubs Program in Townsville (Townsville Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Service QLD)
Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience (AIME). “

 

Not bad at all for $1.69

 

 

We love you Dora!!

We had a minor (read borderline major) panic attack over the last few days. We live in a pretty good house and are charged a very decent rental price. In the last 2 years the rent has only been increased by $10 per week. When looking, similar  houses in our area are now a good $100 more than what we are paying. So we thank our lucky stars… That is until Monday. On Monday we called our agent for the second time. The first time was last week and the purpose was for them to contact our landlord to renew our lease (ran out in Feb) and ask for a 2 year lease this time round. We were getting nervous because we hadn’t heard back. So on Monday I called again. Dora answered the phone and said “Yes I haven’t forgotten about you. The fact is I called the agent and she wanted to increase the rent but the amount she said was too much.  You are great tenants. I told her to go away and think about it”. She hadn’t called back so I asked Dora to call her again. That was it… panic stations!!! Owl is 26 weeks up the duff. Piggy is piggy ad we might have to move FUCK! So we came home and started researching.. If we move out of our area???? If we move downto 2 bedroom??? Basically we would have to sacrifice something to get a halfway decent house on a simular rental price. We also said, that if the landlord increases it by $50 a week, although it would be a stretch, we would find the cash so that we could stay……

So Dora calls back last night. She is our new best friend!!! She said that the landlord had originally wanted to raise the rent by $70 a week!!! Dora campaigned for us and made her agree to a $30 a week rise and its set for 2 years ($15 for each year) Dora chatted with Owl for ages on the phone. She was excited when she heard Owl was pregnant.  She said she remembered when we came into the office 2 years ago with a tiny cute Piggy and how happy she was that we got the house in the first place!!

While the increase in rent does not look massive on paper, Owl is about to dramatically drop her income on maternity leave and the rental increase would have put us into a space of very little spare cash…it is amazing how little difference their is between coping and not coping financially! 

So now we are set. We are in this house for 2 years. We are going to use this time to save save save and have decided that this will be the last house we rent. The next house we live in will be the one we buy. We are soooo desperate for this!!

 

p.s. We are 99% sure we have finally found a name for our amazing Charming. After much discussion, list writing, eliminating, reading, goggle searching, and fighting Owl suggested a name on Saturday. It was a name I had seen several times while searching but had never suggested it as I didn’t think Owl would go for it. In the end it seems like the perfect name for her! It matches Piggy’s name but is also out there and she will very much have her own identity, not just Piggy’s little sister!