Category Archives: Pregnancy

Life

Well… um…

No comments on the last post! At all. That kind of reminds me why I don’t lay my heart out very often. I’ll just pick it back up off the blog floor now and go back to ‘safe’ posts. Or maybe I’ll just pretend you all forgot the way here and no-one read it. Yeah. That’s it.

OK, no more feeling sorry for myself, I promise. After I finished writing that post and went back to bed (yes, it was really that time here… not sleeping well of late), one Small person decided to have a party in my belly and remind me in her infinite wisdom that in the eternal cycle, life follows death just as certainly as death follows life.

Her! Yes, I said her 😉 ! See, you knew I wasn’t going to keep that secret for long, didn’t you? Yes, Small is a she-Small. She in fact has a name now, but in the interest of keeping something for later, I’ll keep that to myself.
(Also in the interest of just-in-case-the-sonographer-is-wrong… in which case we will of course name him ‘Sue’!)

20_weeks_profile
Check out the mugshot… check out that huge head! Yes, just like both of her parents, she needs a giant head to keep her giant brain in :giggle: Anyway, as the measurements came through (at 20 weeks, measuring about 21), my hopes of having a ‘normal’ birth began to fade. Either way, I will of course be happy, as long as she’s OK, but I really was hoping to avoid a second caesarian.

In other brief news, the three 2½ day cram is about to begin. I haven’t been able to focus on studying effectively for Monday’s exam, so tomorrow I’m running away to Mum’s place, sans family, to stick my head down and get it under control. You won’t notice I’m gone, of course… not because no-one visits my blog anymore (sob!), but because I have a fascinating post lined up to auto-post itself while I’m gone. Apart from that, I shall report back on Monday night.

PS. Ahh, now, you see, I look silly. I just get through posting this, then Annette left me the most lovely comment on the last entry. Thankyou Annette, I am humbled by your appreciation.

Halftime

Yes, I edited this post. Very ‘1984’ of me, I know 🙂 The self-indulgent whine I had annoyed me too much, so I got rid of it. All is well in the world…

Twenty weeks today, twenty weeks today… yay us for making it this far! We’ll be finding out on Thursday (two more sleeps) if Small is a heSmall or a sheSmall… though I’m not sure we’re going to be telling the world this time. (Yeah, that’s what we said last time! Finn was named from that day forth, and everybody knew about it). Finn and I went off to buy a video to record the scan for posterity today, and he was convinced that this means we’re “taking Small out” on Thursday. Ha! I wish :giggle:

Jingle Bells, Santa Smells

I have nothing against Christmas Carols, really, I don’t. Though I am otherwise unwaveringly secular, and refrain even from singing hymns on the rare occasions I am present in a church, I quite like Christmas Carols. They put a bit of pep in my step and make shopping centres at Christmas time (almost) bearable. But I do have a limit. And my limit, it has been breached.

Given that I spend an unfortunate amount of time in public restrooms, what with pregnancy and the diminutive bladder of a 3-year-old to contend with, I think I am qualified to make the statement:

CHRISTMAS CAROLS PIPED INTO PUBLIC TOILETS ARE OVER-STEPPING THE LINE PEOPLE!!!

Apart from that little peeve o’mine, festive goings-on have been low-key but enjoyable this year. We have A REAL TREE. Yes, a real, living tree died for our amusement this year 😛 Though I feel slightly guilty in a tree-hugger kind of way, I have to confess, I love the smell of pine in the house. We’ve gone back to breakable ornaments this year, as Finn is not particularly grabby, and understands ‘gentle’. We figure it will be back to the more durable set next year, with a 6 month old around. The unbreakables are red and gold, not my preferred colour-scheme. This year we added some purple into our blue and silver mix, and the tree looks great. There are some photos hiding out on my camera, I’ll get to posting them some time. The gift wrapping is all in purple and silver, and looks faaaabulous! My hand stitched ornaments have not yet emerged, but I had planned to prop them against cards on the mantelpiece – someday I’ll have enough to do a whole tree, but not yet.

We waited an hour in the middle of the night (almost) to see the Myer Christmas windows, because that, apparently, is what you do when you have a child. The display was, well… okay, I suppose. Some newfangled Christmas story I’ve never heard of. Finn was somewhat underwhelmed – I think the anticipation was more enjoyable than the actual event. (Like Christmas as a whole, I’ve always found!) He was much more excited the night we drove around seeking Christmas lights – the Boulevard in Ivanhoe always has wonderfully lit houses, but we found others in pockets about town. I enjoyed that a whole lot more too.

In other news, there isn’t any, really. Still tired, tired, tired, tired, tired. Not a whole lot of stitching going on, though I have made some progress on Chatelaine’s Xmas freebie mandala garden, which was begun shortly after last Christmas. Again, I will post a picture… sometime. Along with a pic of my framed WFS, which now awaits some appropriate wall-colour upon which to hang. Moving into 2nd trimester, hoping for a serious energy injection any day now…

Alien Child

I was planning to show you our first pic of BabeMkII. But decided I shouldn’t, because frankly, I wouldn’t want to scare you. You might think I was planning to give birth to Alien Child!

Seriously. We got a tragic picture of Finn at the first scan, too. Why are the ultrasound techs (or in this case, the doctor) so uninterested in getting us a good picture? Sigh.

But. We saw fingers (5, on at least the hand we saw. Good sign, right?!), and a heartbeat, and what little else you can see at 11 weeks. It was all rather cute. Apart from the Alien-Child-ness of it all :giggle:

BBJam
So, instead of showing you a work in progress, let me present a HD instead. Ta Da! Blackberry Jam is done, done, done. It was a lot of fun… mostly. Perhaps with the exception of all that backstitching. Which made me stall for a while, but yesterday I finally decided to buckle down and finish. So click through for the whole kaboodle, and enjoy!

Morsels

Morsel 1
So apparently by the time I posted last night, the ‘incompetents’ had actually won the match on a penalty shoot out and “we’re” going to the World Cup. Yay us. Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oi Oi Oi. There. No one can accuse me of being un-Australian now 😉 The most amusing thing for me is that OtherHalf fell asleep and missed the excitement. Ha!

Morsel 2
We have a washing machine! The guy who installed it raved on about the brand as he ran me through the workings of this new model. I rolled my eyes. I must say though, I am honestly happy with the larger size, despite what we’ve been through to get it. It seems the company will only honour the original warranty, which expires in August ’06. That’s what I expected, but it would have been nice to have a few months added to the warranty in compensation, if not an entirely new warranty for the new machine. But hey.

Morsel 3
Last week’s SBQ. I can’t really flesh it out enough to be a post of it’s own, so:

When comparing large projects versus small projects, which do you get more excited about finishing?

Without a question, it’s large projects for me. I like finishing small projects, for sure, and they certainly make the numbers add up faster. But for me, nearing the end of a large project (and I’ve only finished two) brings a tangible excitement, and once I’ve actually finished, I find I can’t tear my eyes away from it for at least a week!

Morsel 4
Want to know what made my day today? I retrieved a man’s walking cane for him as I waited in a checkout line… and he responded with “Thank you, my lady”. My lady! That is 500% better than ma’am. Which I hear all too often… and it’s been far too long since I heard a ‘Miss’. I say we return to ‘milady’, and to hand kissing and jousting for favours, too! What fun :giggle:

Morsel 5
What didn’t make my day today was a $50 parking fine. OK, my own fault, I deserve it. I thought I looked at the parking sign, but I somehow saw only the time restriction, and not the fact it was paid parking. D’uh! I was at a perfectly wonderful toyshop while unwittingly parking illegally, but somehow my toy shopping expedition feels a little tarnished now 🙁

Morsel 6
Lastly and leastly, though I answered her already, the answer to Cathy’s question of a few posts ago is that I am due June 20th. Just reached the 9 week mark this week. I would put a countdown over on the side bar there, but I don’t want to be tempting fate just yet, no no no.

The Occasional Blogger

Have been in a bit of a funk lately. I seem to have developed a case of the baby-blues – only about 7 or 8 months too early. Having been sick (non-pregnancy related, I’m lucky enough not to get morning sickness), not to mention all of the stresses of last month, has caused me to slip into my own private doldrums. But the good news is, I am clawing my way back out, I have a bit more energy this week, and in the meanwhile, I’m stitching, which is a capital-G Good Thing.

I also received a most lovely RAK from Tami Lynne on The Wagon yesterday – Legends of the Dragons, which just cheered up my day no end. And today I bought myself and the babe-to-be this stunning book (this is the US cover art – as is so often the case, it has a much nicer cover over here :giggle: ). This book is just lovely. Everyone should go and buy a copy – kids or no kids – buy it for yourself as a meditation aid or something. The artwork is gorgeous, and I am in love with the beautiful simplicity of the book. Yes, it is ‘just’ a kids’ ABC book, but trust me on this!

In further good news, after much grinding of teeth and waiting on hold, I got through to someone with half a clue on the washing machine issue today, and it would appear that we are getting a new machine at 8am tomorrow! Stay tuned… hopefully a happy dance and much laundry will happen in the very near future.

Oh… and look out for a retrospective post sometime in the next few days – dated November 11, which was our 5th wedding anniversary (no, we won’t ever forget 😉 ). I thought I’d pull out a couple of photographs and a recap of ‘the day’ for you.

But now… must go to bed. OtherHalf (usually completely uninterested in Sport apart from that involving cars), is swearing at the incompetence of the Australian Soccer Team. Fer crying out loud – am I the only person in Australia who hasn’t got on this bandwagon?!

PS. I just noticed my blog is not adjusted for Daylight Savings time. How interesting! Will do something about that when I get a chance…

Stale BBQ Shapes

We live in a suburb with no laundromat.

I find it incredibly odd that we have no laundromat in our suburb. Or in the next suburb. Or the next! I had to drive 3 suburbs over just to do my washing tonight.

From that, you may also deduce that the problems with our washing machine are ongoing… after two months :grr: I’ve been sparing you the endless spleen-venting over that, and you should be thankful. Today, however, we finally received news that the company will now replace the machine – with a newer and larger model, what’s more. Hoo-bloody-ray, at last. I expect it will take them another week or ten to deliver it though.

Anyway, back to the laundromat. With the help of a phone call from OtherHalf, who unlike me had the presence of mind to look it up in the yellow pages, I found our ‘nearest’ laundromat, and threw a week’s worth of washing in the biggest machine they had. Super-duper-hooper machine, that one. I want one!

Then I made a hasty retreat as there were two weird guys in there that I did not wish to be near. There are always creepy guys in laundromats. Why is that? Anyway, I sat in my car and stitched a little on my Christmas exchange (it’s nearly done, hooray!) When daylight grew scarce, I sat in my car and ate stale BBQ shapes.

I ate BBQ shapes because I’m pregnant and I crave junk food. The fact that they were stale had nothing to do with laundromats or pregnancy, but it did serve to make me want never ever to eat another BBQ shape :ill:

And that, my friends, is the most roundabout way for anyone to anounce a pregnancy to the world. Don’t you think?!