2012 - The Year for Me!

I'm not really one for resolutions or if I do decide to make one, to actually stick to it. However this year I have decided its my year. My year to find me. I have been so lost in all the crapiness and long hours working and well life generally as a mother. This year I plan to sew. Yep, that's right sew. I have always loved sewing and have decided that's what I want to do for pleasure. I have already pulled the machine out of the cupboard cleared a permanent spot for it in the study and started to sew.

So far I have made this:

I even created the pattern myself for this one. :)

and this:

I am absolutely in love with this.

I'm very excited about this journey!

The other thing I'm doing for myself is try to slowly lose the extra weight. I Don't want to go hardcore on it or "diet" because I know I am likely to fall off the wagon. I just want to be aware of my weight and its fluctuations and try to keep it generally heading down to a weight I'm happy with. Before I fell pregnant for the second time I was at my heaviest ever (asides from actually being pregnant). 15months (6 months post birth) I am now 10kgs lighter and at the weight I was on my wedding day. The same weight I was when I fell pregnant the first time - on the honeymoon. While that's a fantastic feeling I still have more to go and a lot of work too to reclaim my body and try to return it to some sort of pre-pregnancy form, at the moment "things just aren't the same"!

Hi there!

Well isn't this a neglected blog. Lets see how I go reviving it.

An Update on us not in order of event but as I thought of them...

• We closed our shop down nearly a year ago.
• Baby #2 has entered our life, a gorgeous little girl, Alison Hana. Born in July.
• I'm settling into and enjoying my role as SAHM, but still looking for that little something extra.
• Chris and I celebrated 12 years together the other week, 11 January.
• Riley has started at a new daycare and is loving it.
• Now that we have some down time we are starting to slowly do some much needed reno's on the house and yard. Starting with tree lopping and removal and a new fence, which can not come soon enough.
• I'm organising my SIL's Baby shower and absolutely loving it.
• We are expecting 2 babies in our extended family in the coming months. My brother's wife (aforementioned SIL) is expecting a little boy. Chris's brother's wife is expecting too. I know the gender but am not aloud to say on a public space because some of their family do not want to know. Either way, I'm excited to see Riley and Alison have more cousins around the same ages as them.

So thats all I can think of at the moment. I'm sure there has been plenty more happen in the last 15 months, but that will have to do. Here's to trying to keep this updated. :)

Inspiration Needed....

I have hit a wall and have lost all creativity with Riley's food. Each week I think to myself I need to get him some more food, more variety, but every time I'm doing the groceries I don't buy much different. In fact, I think I am buying less and hes actually eating more.

I have lost count the number of times he has had baked beans this month. I know I tell myself at least it counts as a vegetable but once he has had it for dinner 2+ nights in a row I think its time to rethink that. Oh and for the record hes having it again tonight. . . I might mix in some left over fried rice tonight, which he actually had last night for a change, shock horror!

I know I need to make him some more food to store in my freezer stock pile, but laziness has come to visit and each time I pull some mince out I don't get around to use it for him and instead cook it up for dinner, because ironically enough I have forgotten to get something out for dinner.

Don't even get me started on the number of mini muffins he has had this week too. In my defence I did make them and I have a heap out of the freezer that NEED eating, and a heap in the freezer waiting. But I guess when your other "fillers" are rice cakes and corn crispibreads its nice to get something that actually has a nice taste.

Things aren't all bad though in our joint. He still eats a lot of fruit. I have even had to start getting the tins out of the cupboard because I'm running out of fresh each week. This week hes decided he doesn't like the grapes I bought him and all the bananas are gone. Blueberries were expensive so I bought some frozen that haven't left the freezer yet (Freezer at work doesn't actually keep things frozen, so I keep leaving them home). I got sick of buying avocados because I went through a stage of getting all crap ones. He ate all the paw paw Grandma had brought over for him, but none of the cherry tomatoes because I don't know what to do with them and feel funny about giving them to him whole (Tomato hater here! - me).

On a plus, for breakfast each morning hes also been having cereal . . . Honey O's or Coco Bombs! Not the healthiest but again at least its something different, or so I keep telling myself. He is still having the token prune which he eagerly eats 1st, although he doesn't have to because its just in the bowl with his cereal and sultanas (which he has decided he doesn't want to eat either this week). So I guess things aren't all bad but when you get to the end of the week and feeding your child sugary cereal, tinned fruit, mini muffin after mini muffin, plain rice cakes and crispibread (which I have now taken homemade jam (thanks again Grandma) up to the shop to put on them) followed buy a nice healthy bowl of baked beans things are starting to look a little dire. Ah some days I just wish to be able to give him a Vegemite sandwich, a chunk of cheese, an apple or - wait for it - some take away, anything where I don't have to think about whats in it 1st.

Do you know these people?

Do you know these people? or can you help find these people?
This picture is one of many found on a memory card in a hotel room and it has photos of the birth of their son on it. Precious memories that the finder would like to return to the owner. So they are using the power of facebook and 6 degrees of separation in hope of finding them.

Click here, take a look, join, and invite everyone!

Mummy Not So Proud!

What better way to follow "Mummy Is So Proud" than with "Mummy Not So Proud!".

Really this post should of been writen on Tuesday afternoon but I had decided against it. Well I have had a repeat of Tuesday's efforts, so decided it now deservs a post.

Riley,
Mummy is so cross with you right now! It has taken all my effort to not smack you and if I thought it would actually do any good (as in make you learn, not just for my own anger release) then I probably would of. Seriously, why must you put poo EVERYWHERE! Please mate, I don't want a repeat, again.
Mum. >:-|

Well as you can guess, he has decided its great fun to take his nappy off (during rest time) and smear it's contents everywhere. Tuesday's efforts were the worse. I had to close the shop up for 1 hour while I scrubbed his toys, plastic fort and trampoline. The trampoline was beyond a wipe down and I had to load it into my car to take it home and hose it. For the rest of the day all I could smell was poo, GROSS!

Today, it only took half an hour to clean up but instead it required stripping him down and giving him a bath in the kitchenette sink. Luckily I had some bubble bath (which we use in the summer, on a weekend  outside, in the empty carpark). I also had to use a cloth nappy to dry him off. ARGH, I really hope he doesn't do it again. I guess it serves me right for putting him in his room for quiet time when I know too darn well he wont sleep, its just so he doesn't bother me for awhile. . .

Mummy is so proud!

Dear Riley,
Mummy is so proud you went to sleep tonight without your bottle, and most importantly without crying. Not even a peep. Love you so much my little man. Please keep it up.
Love always Mummy. 

For those that don't know. . . we started to have some issues with Riley sleeping. He was no longer going down for the night (or day) with his bottle. He would just drink it and want to play. So we decided it was time to get tough on him and teach him how to sleep without it. We had agreed that would only do it while it was working but stop as soon as its not. I never intended to give my baby a bottle to go to sleep with and it was never something I was particularly comfortable with, but when you have a bubba like Riley you will do anything for a bit of sleep.

For a bit of previous history. Riley had/has pretty bad reflux, not so much now days but still at times. He was a very unsettled baby that didn't sleep during the day from VERY EARLY ON!!!! He would scream and scream and scream. It was horrible. We even went to sleep clinic at 3 months old. This is a place where you go with your baby and you have around the clock care to teach you how to get your baby to sleep. The success rate of these style of clinics is high. . . Unfortunately for us, Ri didn't understand this. We officially failed sleep clinic. The nurses wished me luck and said he one tough cookie. That's about the only thing they got right. So for the next 9 months it was struggle street. He would throw in the odd day nap but they were just cat naps and to make it worse he wasn't sleeping to well at night either. Lets just say it was doing my head in. The best way to get him to sleep was to give him a feed.

At around 1yo we made the decision that putting him down with a bottle would be so much easier then trying to hold him and then try and lie him down in his cot without waking him. It was brilliant. I finally got some me time. It worked a charm. He was having 2 day sleeps, 2 good day sleeps, which eventually worked its way to 1 really good day sleep. He was still waking overnight but not always as often (mostly due to his reflux though). I know I know, its not recommend because it could rot their teeth but by this stage I would rather a toothless baby then what I had. But Chris and I made a pack that as soon as it wasn't working or we could make him loose interest then we would take the bottles away.

We had managed at one point to wean him to just a bottle of water to go down with for his day sleep and the night. Then we had a spanner thrown in the works when he got sick and we had to do an overnight stay in hospital. We went back to milk in a bottle because it was the only way we could get him to drink anything. From there he went back to wanting it for sleeps. I tried to not but with the shop I just needed that break and to not have the screaming.

Which brings us to the last week or so. He started not having day sleeps but demanding a bed/bottle but only drinking the bottle and getting back up. Then it started at night too. Enough, it was time to go. The first night we took him for a drive at 9:40 on our 3rd year wedding anniversary just to get him to sleep. There was no way I was doing that the following night when he decided not to sleep. I tried to settle him in his bed a couple of times but it was becoming obvious it was just making things worse, so instead we deployed CIO (Cry It Out). I lied him down and told him enough was enough its bed time and mummy wont be coming back in. He was a little upset (emotional) when I first walked out the door but it quickly changed to just protesting. . . after 30mins he was a sleep.

The second night of CIO, was 30mins again but a lot less crying and not as loud. 3rd night we had a sleepover and we went to bed late so I gave him a sipper cup of milk which he drank half of before going into bed, but he was so tired and demanding bed that he dragged me there and lied himself down. I didn't have the heart to take is cup away (non-spill) and left him with it. Not a peep out of him. Then we come to tonight. I can't believe he actually did it. I'm shocked and so proud. We (Chris and I) went to have peek-a-boo (where we go in and look at him sleeping) it was so wonderful to see him happily a sleep, It brought a tear to my eyes. All the hard work, crap days and nights, they were all worth it. I was so PROUD!!!

And for a side achievement he hasn't had milk in a bottle for 3 days, only in a sipper cup. :)

Daycare!

We have made the decision to withdraw Riley from daycare. It really was needed. We are happy that its the right decision for us, but gosh I'm nervous. The impact of pulling Ri out lies solely on me, ok well maybe not solely Because I will have my mums, mother-in-laws (aka MIL) and SILs help at different times, but it wont be like my 2 days a week of bliss that daycare was providing. In saying that though, by not having daycare I'm hoping we are able to get into a much better groove at the shop. I wont be having Daycare "interrupt" our week and routine.

So today is Riley's last day of daycare. That's it we are all done, but not without its own issues. Grrr that place is so annoying. Firstly, I got asked why I specifically said to Ri's group leader that I didn't want Ri to move up to the next room at all this week and if they were thinking about it to call me and I will get him picked up. I just answered because I didn't see the need of changing what he knows before he was to leave. Then the director tried to tell me I hadn't paid a deposit for the security chip to get into the centre, which I had and she was quite surprised to hear I had the deposit slip in the car for it. So glad I kept that for a year and a half. I think she might have thought I was bluffing, and asked if I could go get it, sucks be her when I have proof. On top of that for some stupid reason our CCB hadn't been estimated this week so she was having "trouble" working out how much we were to be refunded. She even tried to tell me we owed money, YEAH RIGHT!! wow trying to weasel out of paying much? Geez! Then she told me she has to ring the owner to get him to look at it. OMG! So although today was his last day and I was meant to be picking everything up and finalising it all this morning, I now have to go back in tomorrow morning on my way to work and just hope she has finally written the check that should have already been written. ARGH!

Sorry rant over :/