Month: November 2005

How good is this word?

quidnunc \KWID-nuhngk\, noun:
One who is curious to know everything that passes; one who
knows or pretends to know all that is going on; a gossip; a
busybody.

And look, while I originally posted this on Obgynorama, I can’t resist raising it here. I’m just wondering if the God-awful red ITCHY rash that now marks the top of my legs (I know you know where I am talking about), my ankles, behind my knees, and sporadic outbursts on my legs is more attractive than the Bulgarian egg farmer hairiness that was there before. For our Bulgarian readership, I have it on good authority the egg farmers are particularly hairy. Robbie told me so.

Here are some pics from today. One is of my half sister, Hayley, holding Jasper and the other of my natural father, Len, doing the same. Despite my shocking inability to contact them in the 40 weeks preceding his birth and the 5 weeks after it, and the fact it was they who rang me apologising for the lack of contact and that on asking me how I was and me saying “we had another boy” and them replying something like “boy what?” (I was sure I had told them) , they dropped in this afternoon and brought cake.











Oh, and this morning – I got my first almost giggle out of the little guy. 🙂

It’s here, it’s finally here…

THE KITCHEN.

Some of you already know how long we have been waiting for this to happen. Forget the first design consultation back in June. Forget the complete re-design consultation in August. Forget the Final Order Confirmation in September…

In reality, this kitchen has been in-waiting ever since the twins started crawling and we realised that, in our wildest dreams, this little house could not sustain five mobile humans in its then configuration.

They crawled pretty early (much to the surprise of the baby health nurse who kept insisting on ‘age-adjusting’ them back three weeks because they were born at 37 weeks instead of 40 which? Hello? IS full-term for twins [especially twins who EACH weighed over 3kg or 7 pounds and had 9 and 10 Apgar scores; shit I hated that nurse, look how parenthetical she’s made me!]) so that means almost three long years have passed during which time the Prof and I have considered:

  1. getting a new house
  2. turning bedroom 3 into a kitchen and knocking out a wall
  3. getting a new house
  4. turning bedroom 3 into a lounge and retaining the wall (did it)
  5. leaving three children to sleep together in one room forever because pre-twins, the Pea Princess used to hit us with her ‘I’m the only one who has to sleep aloooooone‘ cry at bedtime
  6. leaving three children to sleep together forever as punishment for the Pea Princess daring to grow older and need her own space (dammit, why can’t the Mummy get HER own room, hmmm?)
  7. getting a new house
  8. renting a new house and keeping this one to rent out to other, smaller families
  9. adding a new storey
  10. getting a new house, and, finally
  11. getting a new kitchen at the opposite end of the room it was in, bashing out the back wall, currently clogged by old kitchen, creating masses of space and light and a Tardis-like effect where suddenly it becomes feasible to have kitchen dining and lounge all in one 5m by 4m room…

Looking back, and knowing the Prof and myself fairly well by now, I am not really surprised that we took the most idealistic approach and made it happen by sheer willpower. Oh, and more debt.

The surprising thing is, it appears to be working.

I feel my adjectival skills are not up to the task of describing the Jack London snow white-ness of the cabinets, the dwarvish mithril silver of the handles, the lionwitchwardrobe-ness of the size of the corner pantry… So I will just promise to get new batteries into the digital camera today, and post a proper update a little later on.

mtc

Bec

One month and one week

I was deliberating on doing the whole “the baby is one month” kinda blog, but seeing as Bec is still refining her 100 things about her and seems to have gone into posting exile as a result, I guess I can fill the gap.

While the first two weeks just flew by in a flurry of pain, bleeding, engorgement and “oh my god, now this is tired” with the little sprocket everyone kept saying looked like AB’s Nana, I don’t have much to report.

Then I sort of started resurfacing – ie, occasionally answering the phone, sometimes returning phonecalls and using shampoo.

The last two weeks have been a blast. He’s getting chubby and started smiling. I mean really, if the child isn’t made in my likeness at least he behaves like me. How many people do you know have probably put weight on after the birth rather than lost it???

We had last weekend’s hiccup of mastitis during which I became a blubbering mess and not much use to anyone. God bless friends who are midwives, frozen peas, heat packs and the world of homeopathy.

But seriously, he’s losing that fragile woggly newborn look and moving fast into that realm where I really do know short of becoming a drug addled lunatic it’ll be pretty hard for me to kill him. The other thing I’ve found is that – whereas with the other two I had NO idea what cry meant what, as far as I was concerned the kid was crying. All that guff about different cries and learning what they meant drew a blank for me. It was in that mystery land of motherhood with letdown, another phenonmenon I’ve only experienced and recognised with number three. But seriously, he has a hollow ‘I’m tired’ cry, a ‘oh the pain’ cry, and a ‘for the love of god get that breast over here now’ cry. I haven’t got it down pat, but I’m pretty good at picking it. Do you know what that does for your confidence and sense of control at a time two such feelings normally flee my body? It’s really quite lovely.

We’ve also had a weird return to cooler weather. This makes me inordinately happy as well, heat and humidity make me cranky, while rain and cold bring a smile to my face and a sense of contentedness to my being. It also means I get to dress the little guy in long sleeve all-in-ones and wrap him in lovely soft flannel wraps and gaze at him looking all snugly in bed. Sigh.

WHile the smiles have been around for two weeks, this morning, at around 4ish (when we were STILL up (from 3) as he either wanted to play or was preparing the poo that appeared at 7, and let me tell you, it had to have needed preparation to be what it was…) I got the biggest, longest and most stunning smile from my little munchkin.

The landmarks – or is that milestones?:
10 Nov – first smile
21 Nov – started clasping hands
23 Nov – slept 9.30pm to 4am
27 Nov – first giggle

And that, as they say, is that.

This morning I’ve only got one boy and no mad rush to get them to tennis due to the rain. Felix has gone off on a play date with his best friend Liam – a first, and then a party afterwards. I think that means it’s time to bake…

Well…

even the baby is shocked…
sometimes I am appalling in my ability to keep in contact with people. It comes from a general phone phobia (I’m adding that as 117 to my list) and just a bad habit of well time passing and me thinking “I must ring them, just after I do/go/finish…”.

Sometimes the appallingness of this outshines all other appallingness.

Such as the fact neither of my birth parents knew I was pregnant, let alone the fact they are now grandparents for the THIRD time even though they’re only 46 and 48 respectively. I’m not kidding. They were really naughty teenagers.

But, back to what I was saying. How BAD is that. Appalling.

My birth mother, Helen, and I had a chat the other day, and my birth father Len and his awesome wife Sharon rang me tonight – about an hour and a half ago – and we just got off the phone.

This is my way of making the most public apology possible. Sure, they weren’t ringing me either, but I was pregnant – which is sort of worth picking up the phone and sharing with others.

There is so much I could write about the whole adoption/reunion thing, and will, but it just takes an energy that needs time, and pace and room.

Now, because it’s been a few days:

1 month old

and just quietly, between friends… last night the cutest baby in the world, he slept from about 9.15pm to 4am. Which would have been even more blissful had Felix not woken at 1am (he NEVER wakes in the night) and Oscar at 3am.

Outings

This morning I had to go to Chef’s Nana’s community club monthly meeting. With heaps of thanks to Chef’s Nana, because she put in for Oscar’s support service, Lifestart, to be allocated some of the money they raise. So today, I got to stand on stage in front of a bazillion 80+ year olds, witness more many lucky door prize/raffle draws than I thought I’d see in my entire life and meet Jean Hay, the woman who runs the Northern Beaches, and talk about my kid. Can you imagine me any more like a pig in mud? The only thing better would have been in the Manly Daily photographer was there, because as everyone knows, if you make it into the Mazza Dazza you have made it.

Anyway, considering I had:
a) showered
b) blow-dried my hair,
c) put make-up on – including lipstick and
d) ironed my pants and shirt

I had to capitalise on such industriousness. So we went into work to show him off. Where he proceeded to do two poos, need a feed, scream r.e.a.l.l.y loudly and generally put all the women of child-bearing age off doing so for a good few years to come.

It was so.much.fun. Weird huh, how on one hand I can not WAIT to get back, and on the otherhand, leaving my little guy is going to break my heart big time.