be thankful...

I am thankful for so many things.

Small things,
wonderful things.

Thankful that today I am breathing
that I am well and healthy
that I am happy.

Thankful that I am loved.
Loved by a wonderful husband
wonderful friends
wonderful family
wonderful God.

Thankful that I can feel the warm almost spring sun on my face.
That I have a full belly,
a bottle of clean water on my desk,
a computer to write on.

Thankful for the small one growing inside of me.
That I will meet one day,
that I already love
that I have been loving
that I will love.
That I cant wait to cuddle.

What are you thankful for.

I'd love to hear from you if you are reading my blog. I know at least my mum does.
xx

Start of Week 12

Dear little one,

You are now 11 weeks old.
You are 2 inches long. That's 5 cm.
You doubled in size this week baby.
You are amazing.
You have a little working bladder and
are doing whizzes inside me.
Hope that amniotic fluid tastes good.
We are telling lots of people about
you. You are too good news to hide.
Can't wait to see you.

Love mama

xx

this little one is loved.

We had some friends over today for lunch.
It was really nice.

We lazed in the sun and ate fajitas and mexican rice and chatted and laughed and played big taboo.

They are friends I haven't seen in a while and it was good to catch up and love and share.

We shared our special news with them and it was so great to see it brighten up their eyes and make them smile.

At the end of the day one of the girls asked if she could pray for our
little family. So we stood round in a circle and they prayed for us.

I felt so so humbled.
How great is our God?
How great that he gives us these friends to love us and support us and share life with us.

They prayed thanks for us having them over and prayed for our marriage and our little one that it would grow. They prayed that the little one would grow up to love God and that we would love others together as a family.

It made me so happy to think of the little one being part of not only our lives but a whole community of lives and part of Gods plan.

We are not at all alone in this.

It blows me away.

And just then I was reading the blog She Breathes Deeply and was reminded of a beautiful song she has by a different band but I have by David Crowder Band. It's called "How he Loves."

Its just the song for the moment.

You can hear the song here

Friday Date - Basement Birds

It was the little ones first ever concert. It was amazing.

Myl had bought us the tickets as an 18 month wedding anniversary present quite a while ago and since then we have had the basement birds cd on repeat. They were really good.

I quite enjoyed having four acoustic guitars onstage at the same time playing almost the same thing but totally getting away with it.

We arrived in the city with plenty of time and were at the very start of the line. Then we waited, and waited. A big burly bouncer came to the front of the door and told us it was almost time to come in and that we should all line up... on the OTHER side of the door. All of a sudden hordes of people started making a line and we kept getting pushed back further and further.

We were still in the first 1/3 of people in the line. But no longer first. That hurt.

Nevertheless we got pretty good "seats." It was standing room only but there were some steps you could sit on. I was getting a little worried as I've heard that pregnant ladies are likely to faint if standing for long periods of time. I had my Myl to lean on though.

The basement birds played every song they knew. At the end of the encore they said not to ask them to play more as they didn't know anything else.

Old Man River was the support act although I think he is slightly more famous than the birds. He was great as well.

Myles and I had a great time singing and dancing along.

A great date.

Start of Week 11

Dear little one,

You are a whole ten weeks old!
Double digits. I remember when I
turned ten and it was the best thing
ever.
I've been thinking about all the fun
things we can do when you come outside.
We can go to the park and the shops, we
can go on holidays and have adventures.
I hope you're doing ok in there. I'm trying
to stay healthy but my body keeps doing
crazy things. Hang in there little one.
Can not wait to meet you!

xx

Dinners - Spinach Triangles

This is a meal from my family. I'm not entirely sure about this one but there are particular dinners and desserts that have come down the generations due to their scrumpdiddlyumptiousness.
They were taught to me by my dad who learnt from his mum my Nanna who learnt from her mum who learnt from Peter the Japanese cook.

Peter wasn't in our family but he cooked very tasty and not so Japanese meals.

Anyway. This is one of my favourites and one I have been often craving since being pregnant.

Ingredients
bunch of spinach or silver-beet
6 eggs
500g tub of cottage cheese
big handful of grated tasty cheese
pack of filo pastry
butter or olive oil

Chop the white bits off the spinach and finely chop the green bits. Rinse under the tap to take off any dirt or bugs then boil in a pan of water for about 5 mins.
Drain the spinach and return to pan. Add eggs, cottage cheese, cheese and a dash of salt and pepper. You can also add some spices, garlic, chilli, mushrooms anything that takes your fancy.

Take a sheet of filo and place it on a clean dry surface. Brush butter or oil on the sheet and then place another on top. Oil this sheet too. Add a small dollop of the spinach mix onto the filo.

Fold filo over the top of the spinach mix and butter the top side.

Fold into a triangle and keep doing this till all the filo is enclosed buttering each top side.

Place in a tray and repeat till all your mix is gone.

Put in the oven for 40 mins on 180 or untill the tops are brown and the mix is solid.

Enjoy on their own or with steamed vegies or salad.

Baby Flicks - For Keeps

For Keeps is one of the original teen preggo movies. Set in the days of Degrassi Jr High it tells the story of Darcy and Stan, two lovers in their senior year at school.

They have been accepted into college and have bright and shiny futures ahead of them. But one dark and stormy night they do it... and get pregnant.

Both sets of parents are less than chuffed at the news of their new grandchild and Darcy's mother books an abortion for her. However, Darcy can not go through with it. She and Stan agree to raise the baby even if it means they will have no support from their family, no college and boring jobs.

The life they lead seems to not be as bad as it definitely could be but they do have their share of troubles. It is a movie after all. Although slightly unrealistic this movie made me think of all the anxiety that comes with bringing a new life into the world. Whether you are old or young, rich or poor, married or trying to finish high school having a baby is a bit of a scary thing.

Things change and parts of life end never to be recovered. Darcy types;

"When they ripped my baby out of me it felt like they were ripping all the things I love about being young away too."

This movie deals with a lot of the scary issues that go with having a baby and having responsibility. It is no longer possible to think only of yourself. It talks about Post-partum depression but gives a somewhat limited perspective on it. It shows the relationship strain that can come from having a baby.

(Oh dear. Babies are starting to sound like the most awful thing in the world!)

BUT

It is also about love. That to give up things and to endure hardship is not the worst thing in the world when you do it for someone you love. And that is why I like it.

Image Credit: Wikipedia
New York Times

cute as a button.

click on the pics to see where they come from.


Yes they are all fairly girly..

Start of Week 10

Dear little one,

We know where you are going to be born now!
Unless you get sick you are going to come into
the world with your mama wide awake and
probably yelling her lungs off.
You have now become a little fetus and not
an embryo anymore. Congratulations. You are
growing so big! You are now the size of a brazil
nut. You are also turning into a little boy or girl.
I think I would like to find out what you are but
your dada isn't so sure.

Cant wait to meet you little one.

xx

Booked!

This morning I called the very in demand RPA birth centre.

The birth centre is a place for women to have their low-risk babies in a natural kinda way.
I think I'll write another post on my ideas about natural childbirth sometime down the track but to cut a long story short I'm pretty sure I'm going to go au naturale.

There are three rooms in the centre that are set up just like a bedroom at home with a double bed and couches etc. (They do kinda look like cheap and nasty hotel accomodation but its nicer than a hospital bed.)

There is also a big birthing tub. I've read a few stories about giving birth in water. It seems pretty nice. I'm glad that I have it as an option. There are also mats, beanbags, birthing balls and birth stools.

It's apparently booked out really quickly so I was a bit nervous when I called them this morning at exactly 9 weeks. But they let me in. I'm all booked. I get to go check it out in early September and then have a midwife check in October. The time is really flying now that people know about the little one and things are getting busier. I'm sure it will be March in no time.

I'm pretty happy about it. It's staffed by a team of midwives. My mum is a midwife and I feel pretty safe in their hands. I think its a nice idea of the sisterhood helping you to give birth.

So. stoked!

Image Credit: Huffington post. Film Nine Months

The more correct ticker

Make a pregnancy ticker

Ikea date and a gift for the bobbin.

Myl and I have decided to do weekly Friday arvo dates.

We went to a marriage course at college the other week and we learnt that it is so important to give time to each other. It's gotten harder this half of the year as Myl is out in the mornings and I'm out in the afternoons but we managed to find a slot to have our "date night" or date afternoon.

So far we had a failed trip to the rocks (it was much too cold so we went to Glebe instead) and a trip to Ikea today.

May not sound like the most exciting thing ever but if you've seen 500 Days of Summer you will know what I mean. The trip is made even more exciting by the ability to not only look and swoon at the children/baby section but to actually be able to consider things there.

So we looked and oohed and ahhed. And we got the little bobbin a present. Its called the Fabler bed canopy and it was $29.99.

Its really cute and has bunting round the top and little coloured beads around on the mesh. They had it on display and I was thinking of tucking the little one into bed at night and closing the little curtains.

Actually the whole Fabler series is pretty cute. They have soft toys and wall stickers and blankets etc.

Might be back.

It was a nice date for Myl and I. We got some Swedish meatballs at the restaurant and Myl ate a hideous $1 hot-dog. (Thank heavens I can't eat them.)

It might be tricky to have date night once the little one comes along. Or date afternoon. It might need to be date-while-baby-has-a-nap for a while but that's ok. We're having a pretty good time at the moment.

Hmm... where to next week?

Life-goes-on-itis

So, when I found out I was pregnant pretty much everything changed in an instant.
I no longer have to make that decision to go or not go back to uni its been made for me.
I get to think about baby things, I stop eating bad baby food, I work hard at making my body a safe place. I start thinking about names, tests, hospitals etc.

There was a lot to think about for the fist few weeks.

But now?

I stare down the 7 or so months ahead. Sure there's a lot that is going to happen. I will turn into a whale, buy lots of baby things etc but...

Life Goes On.

I'm still working, cleaning and doing the groceries. There's still a lot of time left that needs to be filled with non baby things. Most people don't even know about the little one. I'm finding it hard to write blog posts as there really isn't much that changes from week to week yet. My belly is still reasonably flat (or at least as "flat" as it was before). I don't even have weird nausea stories.

But I have faith it will get interesting. When the little one makes an appearance I'm sure I will have no time at all to blog.

But for now I shall just have to be content with the everyday humdrum of regular life.

Image Credit: Flickr member .donata

Baby Flicks - Father of the Bride Part 2

This is a weird baby movie.

The sequel to (unsurprisingly) Father of the Bride in which Steve Martins character narrates the wedding of his one and only daughter. Its pretty funny. There is a crazy French?? man named Fraaank not Frank, swans and a lot of money.

In number two the daughter gets pregnant. But that's not all. The mother, Steves wife gets pregnant too. She thought it was just menopause. So the mother daughter team go about their pregnancies together with the help of Fraaaaaaank creating beautiful baby things wherever he goes.

We watched both movies the night before I got married. Mum, Dad, sister, brother, brother in law and soontobesisterinlaw. Everyone thought the dad was a little bit like my dad. Not sure why we watched the second one but I wasn't going to go to bed early so it didn't really matter.

I guess the movie is pretty cute but it would be pretty odd growing up with an uncle or aunt who is younger than you or having a sister that is younger than your own child. I guess its do-able and I'm sure its been done.

I love these movies though. They are set from the viewpoint of the dad as he worries about all the things that Dads worry about most notably money. He gets cranky and crazy but at the end of the day all that matters is that his family are safe and happy.

The funny thing about this movie is how quickly time goes. Its kinda obvious as a movie cant really be longer than about 2 hours but from the first news to the delivery room time goes like a whiz. There seems to be no long wait, no time between doctors appointments and no time to just get on with life. The ultrasounds are beautiful. (Not at all like mine) And bellies develop in an instant. Its all very nice but not very real. But I guess a real movie might shock people away from ever wanting to have a baby.
And that baby when it gets born??? no way its a newborn. It looks about 3 years old (slight exaggeration.)

Altogether a nice nice movie. Good for a laugh.

Image Credit : Imp Awards

Start of Week 9

Dear little one,

You are the most precious little thing.

It was so wonderful to see your picture.

I am imagining you in my life in a few

months time and it is very exciting.

I'm imagining us having fun together,

exploring parks and going out around

town. I hope we become good friends.

I felt a teensy weensy bit sick this week

but only when I ate a crumpet. Some 

people say that if you don't get nausea 

you have a very cranky baby. I hope

you won't be cranky. Ill just sing you 

a lullaby if you are.

xx

Books for the Bobbin #4

The Boy with Square Eyes by Juliet Snape is the reason I no longer watch tv... partly.

It is the story of a little boy who watches so much television that his eyes become square and so does the world around him. To him this is such a terrible outcome that he cries square tears and begs his mother to teach him how he can make his eyes round again.

Many a threat of square eyes could be heard in my home growing up.

Mum frequently used the well-known section of the book that when you are bored you could

Read a book,
do a puzzle,
draw a picture,
look at the goldfish,
look at the sky and wonder why.

I even found myself saying this to my nanny boys the other day when all they wanted to do was watch tv after school. Its slightly scary watching children watch tv at times. I'm sure I was the same. They get this glazed expression on their face and very little outside noise gets through to them. All that can be seen is the eerie ever changing glow of the screen on their face, shining in their eyes.

I guess it's not all bad. I remember spending some time watching tv. We didn't really watch it all that much but it was interesting and entertaining and gave us something to discuss with friends at school.

Yet even though I'm pretty sure televisitis is not a real condition i still get a little worried about the shape of my eyes after watching the box for a bit. This book has served as a very good cautionary tale. I think its main message is that there is so much more to life than tv. To spend your life watching it means that you miss out on so much else even if it is just to look at the sky and wonder why.

In the end, the mum unplugs the tv. Not such a huge thing. Not such a scary thing at all.


Transcript and slide show of the book here.

Image Credit Amazon.com

We have visual

Yesterday Myles and I saw the little one for the very first time.

And here is the blueberry!

We went for an 8 week ultrasound assuming we were 7 weeks and 5 days in (in the 8th week) but in actual fact the little one is only 7 weeks and 2 days old. Not a huge miscalculation but it meant that the little one was indeed little.

But now the whole story. (Warning. This may be TMI too much information for some readers.)

I had rather foolishly emailed the ultrasound place on Monday to make a booking for this week and they had not gotten back to me by Wednesday.

I think there must be something called pregnancy time. Days seem to last for weeks. Time just goes a lot longer than you expect.

So I was quite impatient and went into the office (conveniently located just up the road from Myles college) and made my own booking for 3 30 that day.

The girl at the desk told me that I had to go to the toilet at a certain time and then drink a litre of water in 30 minutes an hour before the ultrasound. I had heard about this. About the pain of a full bladder and an ultrasound want on the belly but I thought I could handle it. Its just a litre of water. On prac last semester I prided myself on being able to down two litres of H2O in the day and keeping bathroom breaks to a minimum.

Oh but weeks have passed since prac. I have not been drinking the water I should.
I downed the water in 15ish minutes. I had not been watching the clock. I began to need to go.. badly. And there was still an hour to kill.

Myles and I watched some House MD. This numbed the pain or at least distracted me. My mind kept telling me to get up and go to the smallest room in the house. It was so strange as I had to ignore my normal conditioned response to a full bladder.

Then it was time to go. I felt ready to burst. Sitting in the car was murder. "I'm not going to make it" I told Myles. I kept imagining me coming out of the bathroom feeling ashamed and having to reschedule my appointment. I did not want that to happen but I also did not want to wet myself.

We got there. (Living 5 minutes drive from the hospital really has its benefits) I ran in and made my presence known. I asked the receptionist if she had any tips. She smiled and said to not think about it. I think it was beyond not thinking about it. Myles arrived after parking the car and I paced up and down the waiting room. My kidneys and bladder felt like they were bursting.

After an impressively short time (It wasn't even 3 30 yet) the radiologist called my name. I let out a rather audible sigh of relief and Myles tells me there were a lot of disgruntled looking patients in the waiting room. I had only been there about five minutes.

After telling Myles I could not do it the doctor walked in.

"Please lie on the bed" she said and left the room.

I can't. I can't. I can't.

She came back in

"You need to lie on the bed. I can't do an ultrasound when you are standing up." This woman meant business. How many busting preggos had she seen in her days? Hundreds? Thousands? She did not care.

But that was ok. I lay down and she put the sticky goo on my belly. I couldn't see the screen but Myles could. So I watched his face. He was smiling. That meant there was something there. I asked him and he said that he could see something. It made me smile.


I wouldn't sit still. And I was breathing like a maniac. So she let me go to the loo and advised me not to let it all out.

Mmmm... Probably one of the hardest things in the world to do. (Don't say I didn't warn you about TMI)

I felt so so much better and could actually lie still. She kept prodding the wand into my belly and asking me to hold my breath to make it all still. I patiently sat and waited and then at the end she turned the screen around.

She showed me all the bits inside and then showed me the little one. It was pretty special. It didn't look like much but it didn't look like nothing either. There was a little lump of a bump inside of me for all the right reasons. She got me to hold still and zoomed in on the little one. She pointed out the heartbeat. It was like a little Christmas light flickering.

All is well. Our bobbin child is alive and growing. We know it grows. We love it and can't wait to see it in the flesh.

Baby Flicks - Away We Go

This is a film about belonging.

Verona and Burt are having a baby. They see themselves as irresponsible f---ups. But they want to love their little baby and find the perfect place to bring her up. Their parents have decided to move across the country one month before their baby is due so they decide to go on a road trip to find the perfect place with the perfect friends.

Hilarity ensues.

They visit several friends from their past who are all a different kind of messed up.
The definition of a dysfunctional family is one with more than one member.

This movie has a cute quirkiness that I really adore. Verona and Burt are pretty bohemian and seem to have a deep love for each other. They may not be so organised at everything and don't own a house but they love each other and seem to genuinely have fun together. They get horrified at parenting styles together. They go help people together.

Maybe they do things together too much? I think their love is really special and cute but maybe part of life is letting messed up people in. Being able to do life together with other people is a pretty precious thing. Verona and Burt leave each place with things they didn't like about each family in stead of staying because of the good things.

Weighing up the good and the bad its a pretty sweet movie. Pretty sweet soundtrack too.

The baby never makes an appearance so I guess it's not technically a baby movie but that's ok.

4/5


Image Credit: namrataalltheway.wordpress.com

7 weeks 4 days.. lets just call it week 8

Why I love my husband...

The other night I wanted chicken nuggets.


No.


I needed chicken nuggets.

So Myles went out and bought me two packets of chicken nuggets, cooked them and served them with sweet chilli sauce.

Oh yeah it was about 11pm.
He is wonderful.

Books for the Bobbin #3

"La la la la li" comes the call and Ping and his family have to come running and board the boat with the wise eyes on the yellow waters of the Yangtze river.

I remember being read this book so many times.

The last duck to board the boat at the end of the day gets a spank on his tail. One day Ping is the last duck but in stead of going on the boat he hides and has a few adventures before deciding that home is the best place for him.

Its a good book to introduce different cultures as well. I learnt about the Yangtze river and children that live on houseboats. And people who eat ducks!

In one part, Ping puts his beak under his wing to go to sleep. This became a way I would sit on my mums lap. With my "beak" under her "wing." I felt very safe there.

What is really nice about this book is that Ping knows that he has a home and that it is a safe place. The world is a scary place for a little duck and although there is the threat of discipline at home he will not get eaten there. Its the same for children and I guess adults too. While the wide world is a nice place to explore for a while it is always nice to have somewhere to come home to and see the people you love no matter how boring it may be.

Image Credit: Amazon.com