Hug a Little Tighter

Hug your family tighter.  Time is fleeting and you never know when things could change.  Love one another. 

Laugh together.

Remember to enjoy the small things, they can pass all too quickly.

I am a lucky woman.  I have two beautiful girls who make me smile and a wonderful husband.  Life is good.  The girls are growing strong (and fast).  Miss Barry is four months old and exploring more and more of the world. Miss Squid will be three in little more than a month. Time marches on and life is good.

Christmas is next week and I'm looking forward to enjoying it with our family, especially as Miss Squid is starting to comprehend a little more about it and anticipate it.  Last year she only just started learning about enjoying the idea of presents.  I am looking forward to seeing her realise that there is a group of presents for her.

Mostly, I will appreciate my good fortune in having a happy and healthy family.  I have heard too many stories of loss of a loved one, even children.  Today, I will try to live life for today and take as much enjoyment as I can from each moment.

I Bet You Weren't Expecting This...

Another post... in recent proximity to the last two!

It is amazing what some sleep can do for one's energy levels.  Miss Barry is being an absolute gem and allowing me to get some decent uninterrupted sleep blocks and it is doing wonders for my enjoyment of life.  (Writing this down, however, could be the kiss off death to this good run of course!)

I'm feeling happy, relaxed, energetic and inspired.

I've even been able to focus on myself a little bit and have been exercising, eating better and setting goals. These things have had flow on effects to make other parts of life easier to deal with too.

Life this week has been quite enjoyable. 

Now, on to some planning for Christmas...

My Bucket List

I thought I'd start a list to record & track a list of "I want to do some day" things. 

This is a post I plan to update and re-visit periodically.

• See Aurora Borealis
• See Aurora Australis
• Host a 3 course dinner party
• Visit Japan
• Go on a helicopter ride
• Maintain a vegetable garden for a full year
• Take another cruise
• Spring clean the entire house before spring ends
• 
  

Remembering Me

Hi there,

Remember me? I used to write here a lot more. Then I had children and they took up most of my "spare" time.

This morning I had an epiphany. I need to create, and children are too damn expensive as a creative pursuit despite how well those collaborations turn out.

I have decided it is time to prioritise some time regularly for creative endevours. This might be blogging, card making, painting, sewing or other randomness. I might even showcase some of my efforts on the blogs. Mostly this is a commitment that I will write more often (feel free to hurry me up if you actually read and I haven't posted in a while), but for now I have to return to trying to get Miss Barry to go to sleep.

Never Dull

Life has been interesting, certainly not dull the last few weeks. Many many dramas, some of my own making, some of my family's.

It's consufsing and stressful.

I guess though, there is a status quo in that though and at the very least it is getting a bit harder to keep my head up my own bum. Drama and crisies make it harder to indulge one's own self importance/indulgences. I probably needed that about now. A shift in focus, away from the minutae of my life.

Miss Squid continues to be the shining light in my life, she is chicken soup for my soul when I let her be. She is art, beauty, love, innocence. She inspires me to be better than I am.

Nearly half way through as Barry's host, we find out next week if indeed it is a Barry or a Barry-ette on board, if they care to share with us. I think I have felt Barry move a bit in the last week or so, but nothing super definitive yet. The blubber and the anterior placenta make it a bit hard to tell.

It's dark, only slightly earlier than alarm time, on my day off. I think it might be time to have a cup of tea and enjoy the solitude.

Motivation, My Fickle Friend

Today I feel motivated which makes a really nice change from where I've been very recently.

Maybe it is the effect of trimester 2, although I still tire easily so I'm not really sure. Yesterday and today have been quite productive. Let's hope I can maintain it for long enough to get some stuff done!

Miss Squid is distracting me in the most delightful ways, she is growing so fast and so wonderfully. She is easy to be with and has magical giggles.

I must away, to make the most of my visit from my fickle friend!

The Best of People

Its been a stressful week.

One story that made my day was recounted to me by our neighbour yesterday.

He has a business in the Albion region that was under threat from flood water. He was at the shop with his business partner as they watched the water lap at their bottom step before it receded. The businesses on the other side of the street were not so lucky.

Down the road from his shop were two antique shops, side by side. One shop owner had built a mezzanine floor a couple of years ago and moved all their stock to the higher level as the threat neared. The other shop had a huge shop full of stock that could not be protected in the same way. The owner was staring down the barrel of losing it all. Then a truck arrived.

It was a competitor from the next suburb up the hill's truck. They offered their empty warehouse and truck to help move all the threatened stock. The truck went back and forth before they finished moving out every piece at midnight.

That people are so generous with their resources, time and energy in the face of adversity makes me very hopeful for the world in which Miss Squid lives.

Greetings of the Season

Hiya folks,

Sorry for the lack of posts - life gets busy!

Just wanted to let you know that I was thinking of friends and family at this time.

I hope that this time is filled with peace, hope, love and fun.

Stay safe folks, hopefully we will catch up in 2011.

Love.

Good Morning World

I must be getting more sleep than I was, because today I woke at 3:30 and could not get back to sleep.

After laying in bed some time with my mind ticking away furiously I decided I would be better off with some quiet time before routine imposes itself upon me.

Life has been good. It has certainly not dull, but I feel more centred and able to cope with life at the moment than I have in a long long time.

Days tend to melt into each other with little pockets of change but there is an underlying level of contentment that is very satisfying.

BabyCakes is working hard, and having a frustrating time with a big project, but hopefully one day soon the job will end and we can move on from it and not have to deal with all the drama that seems to emanate from the project.

Miss Squid is growing and evolving in front of our eyes in the most wonderful ways. Her vocabulary is growing and she surprises us almost daily with new words. In the last week we have had some social events with her cousins and second cousins, and have really noticed how tall she is getting. She needs to work on her sharing skills a little more, but I think that is all a part of growing up.

I think all three of us have found a bit of a pattern in life and are glad to maintain the routines, which for my money, are much better than the manic mayhem that tends to develop without them. Some days I do wonder if I'm getting a little boring but I do realise that this is not my life forever, just for now, until something else comes along to move the centre of balance.

I hope I find more time and energy to write again soon.

A Quick Update

Still losing weight :) 4.1kgs to date. Some weeks have had smaller losses than others, but so far a steady downward path. It has been heartening.


This week will be telling, I haven't been counting points!

A Start.

Weigh in is weekly. 1.2kg down.

More importantly, my awareness of portion sizes and the my ability to exercise self control has been re-confirmed. I'm happy with the start.

Now to maintain the programme.

:)

The Edge.

I'm at the edge. The edge of a place I'd rather not be.

Our Wii Fit tells me I'm dangerously close to the "Obese" line, which is interesting given the amount of people willing to tell me "You're not fat". The inanimate software is not afraid to tell me I'm almost obese, it has not rose coloured glasses to soften the blow.

I must say, I tend to agree more with the machine than the well meaning friends. I caught sight of myself in a shop window last week and it horrified me. I looked positively round. It is always confronting when I have one of those "slap in the face" moments. There is a part of my head that thinks I'm at the other end of the "ideal weight" range. It is where I was when I was 23 and I don't feel that much different in my head, mostly. Then I look a bit harder.

I was pretty much a control freak when I was younger. I think I have mellowed a fair bit as I got older. In some ways I like the more relaxed me, I'm not so uptight. The discipline could be better though. It seems like an obvious thing to say, but I think my lack of discipline spilling over into my attitude towards food has had a lot to to with my weight issues. I reactively became a lot more self indulgent when I learned I could be. When my life became less structured, it became *really* less structured.

Unsurprisingly, these changes mirror the time my weight started ballooning. There was also a dalliance with hormonal contraceptive in there too. That's a whole other story though.

So, I think discipline as much as the hand/mouth thing is key to working my way through this to a healthier weight. I have started Weight Watchers and even in few days since I've started things have changed a fair bit. Just the simple fact of knowing I have to write down what I eat makes me more inclined to think about it, let alone the scary prospect of having to assign a point value to it.

The programme itself only has a weekly weigh in so I'll see how that goes on Thursday. I did drag out the Wii Fit today though, and I think I'm in a good spot.

I was talking to a friend about my weight and proposed weight loss and life in general. They very confidently said "I don't doubt you can lose the weight you want, you gave up smoking." A statement that made me think about things completely differently, and much more positively. I was a smoker for pretty much 15 years before I managed to shake it, and I feel quite happy to be an ex-smoker this time round. I have no desire to get close to starting smoking again. The last time I quit was vastly different from any of the times previous - well for a start, I actually did stop and for about 3 years now, which is a pretty big difference really), but other than that, it was surprisingly easy. I didn't really struggle.

I have been overweight for about 10-12 years now, so that's less time, and I feel happy that this time is different. My head is in a different spot, and I really believe I will do this, and be able to make permanent changes to how I eat.

I am ready to walk away from the edge, and never get there again.

This post took about 3 days to write, so I apologise if there are inconsistencies in tense or I repeated too much!

Busy Busy Busy!

It has been too long since my last post, I dare say that there will be no-one left who checks my blog!

On the off chance there are people who still check, I will try to post more regularly!

Also, in an effort to reclaim my identity apart from mother, I have created a blog just for Miss Squid's stories. This is so I have a record independent of Crazy Cat Lady that one day Miss Squid might even take over herself.

Life is good.

I'm starting to re-find myself, having finished up breastfeeding at about 10 months, and losing the last of the baby hormones at that time. I do feel different since losing the hormones. I have lost some of the lingering drive to put aside "the plan" and have another baby sooner rather than later. The thought still lingers, but it is easier to rationalise.

The household is starting to get more sleep and more of a routine, which is WONDERFUL! We're starting to have more energy to take control of our lives and catch up on stuff around the house (even aside from sleep).

Recently we've tidied the spare/computer room and managed to fit a double bed in there to give us more flexibility when we have friends and family visiting. Babycakes has also done a large scale (and much needed) clean up under the house and it looks fantastic.

I've also started on another theatre project as Assistant Director for Catch 22 at the Brisbane Arts Theatre. We're 3 weeks into rehearsal and it is shaping up well. Most excitingly the cast seem very keen and talented. I'm looking forward to seeing how it develops over the next few weeks. I expect we'll have quite an entertaining show come show time!

I will try to write again soon, and now that I'm starting to have more energy, I realistically expect I can do it!

Until then!

The Battle...

On The Move.

Miss Squid is well and truly on the move now...

Easy Like a Sunday Morning

It's Sunday.

The neighbourhood is largely quiet except for the occasional dog barking and bird chirping.

Miss Squid is on the floor, starting to get frustrated that she can't move where she wants. She can move, but so far its not directed movement. She rolls and finds herself off her rug and onto the carpet. She then proceeds to wiggle and squirm in a way which only serves to make her skin red, without managing to get closer to the toys that were once all around her, before she rolled away from them.

I'm torn between giving her what she loudly expresses she wants, and letting her find a way through the frustration to take action and overcome the first of many hurdles she has to face. I settle on repositioning her in the midst of the toys sprinkled on her mat, propping her in a slouched sit. The toys provide the motivation to slowly lower herself to the floor as she reaches for a toy and again she is on her belly and soon doing 360s again as she pulls herself around in circles with her upper body, her legs moving, but very much uncoordinated with her upper half.

It is a simple pleasure, exciting and ordinary all in one as we watch and anticipate the huge leap of independent movement which is happening and about to happen.

Miss squid flashes us her gummy smiles, no sign of teeth despite the huge amounts of food she consumes: cereal, fruit, veggies, yoghurt, toast - all devoured happily, readily and with gusto.

She is growing well.


She makes me smile and I'm glad to spend my time with her.

Afternoon Chat

Squiddley Wiggles and Squeaks

Not great quality, and the noise is quiet, but fun none-the-less.

Busy Doing Nothing....

Life is busy. I'm not feeling particularly constructive at the moment, but I'm busy.

Squiddley is 2 months old now! I'm glad to say that we are still breastfeeding after some stressful times early on, and still using cloth nappies - initially with disposables as a back up, but now have been disposable-less for over a week, and surviving just fine.

My happy hormones have deserted me, which is a shame to say the least. They really did help in coping with the broken sleep and constant demand of another person utterly dependent on you. Don't get me wrong, I haven't fallen off into an abyss of PND, it just means I have to work a bit harder at not being upset at being woken up 2 hours after I'd fallen asleep, or that just when I think it is safe to make a sandwich, have a shower or hang out a load of laundry, not swear too much when a plaintive cry is heard from the bassinette. I definitely have to work a lot harder to be nice to people complaining of being tired when they've had 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep!

Squiddley is growing well and gracing us daily with smiles which are the perfect tonic to the tiredness. She is more and more alert and curious about the world around her. Her movements are getting a bit more deliberate and a little less jerky (she regularly gets fingers/hand to mouth to suck on). She loves bath time and being in the thick of the action. She rarely cries and when she does, we can usually work out what is wrong in a fairly short space of time.

We've moved through the milestones of the six week check ups and the two month immunisations with reasonable ease and are starting to get more social in mixing with others. Last week we had no less than three social outings with different mothers and children, and this week is shaping up similarly. Add in the requisite grandparent visits (two sets local enough to warrant frequent visits) and she is an absolute social butterfly.

Squiddley has even had her first plane flight to canberra for her Uncle and Aunt's wedding (congratulations again to them!). She of course took it all in her stride, spending the entire first flight like this:

I met some lovely people whilst at the wedding festivities and truly regret not saying goodbye whilst in my sleep deprived haze. (Squiddly was in the midst of a growth spurt and decided our first day/night away was a GREAT time to feed every two hours... for those of you smart people without children, that means she had to be fed, burped, changed and put back to sleep within each two hour window before my own sleep could be attempted.)

I got a call a week or so ago that was not unlikely in this ecconomic climate, one of my temp contracts has been finalised due to a restructure. There are several staff moving on from the employer and even more moving within the company to different roles. I was very glad to follow up on the other contract to find that they were as keen as ever to have me back. I plan to follow up on the after hours casual job very soon, as I hope to start back there fairly soon-ish given the astonishing rate of dissipation of the savings. The good part about the temp contracts is that they are willing to do some of the legwork if and when I want more, sure beats scanning the ads myself!

There was probably more to say, but I can't think of it at the moment - lets hope it prompts me to write again, sooner.

I Know How I Could Make Millions...

If I could bottle the effects of the hormones I have coursing through my body right now, I'd be rich.

I feel fantastic.

I'm happy, calm, serene, and all of this on broken, disjointed sleep of a duration less than my norm.

I celebrate poos, wees, burps and farts.

My routine, my life has gone out the window.

The bank balance is dwindling at an alarming rate.

And to top it off, most alarmingly, I would happily be pregnant again tomorrow despite the fact that intellectually I know that is not our plan, nor is it something I'd aspire to.

I'm very happy. This is working for me at this point in time.

I like it.