Still waiting

I apologise for sounding like a moaning pregnant lady in this blog post, but if i don’t write it down i’ll never remember the feeling of being 39+ weeks pregnant. I’m also aware that if I don’t post this soon, it will be eclipsed by the blog post of the birth!

It’s been another good pregnancy but I think that he’ll be a bigger baby. 

He is ‘sitting’ particularly low so is causing quite confused messages between my bladder and brain. Even though gravity is working on the position of the baby, the rest of my innards continue to feel squashed resulting in heartburn and breathlessness. It is still wonderful to feel his rolling around in my tummy but the jabbing of an elbow or foot can stop me mid-sentence. My feet really ache this time, i think that its the extra weight (predictably, jason says its a lack of circulation and that I should go for a walk). Walking in an afternoon can be an issue as the muscles that have been holding it all together gradually show signs of fatigue.

The above issues are pretty manageable, however the biggy, the one that leaves the other symptoms not even mentionable is the immense tiredness. Laying awake for hours identifying different parts of my body that ache; my back, hip, ankles, ribs… There are only really two positions to sleep – right side or left side, after a while my arm goes numb and i get to try the other side. The pillow that i position between my knees, needs extracting and repositioning each time… and then when I finally drop off, I’m almost immediately awoken with the desire to pee. 

 Rosie is very aware of the near arrival of the baby. She enjoys talking about the boy-baby in mummy’s tummy and counters this with her own discussion about the girl-baby that she is growing in her own tummy. Thankfully she isn’t yet interested with how the baby is going to be extracted. I think that she’s quite unsure about how the new baby will change her life and asks for more cuddles and attention. Rosie is still not a great sleeper and can need resettling 3 or 4 times a night,  I’m unsure as to how we will do this with the new baby needing night feeds. However one night at a time, we will manage. 

For the time being I’ll keep waiting, enjoying time with my girl and trying to get some rest. Its not been all bad as last week I managed to get to the theatre, cinema and pedicure. I’m hoping to get to my hair appointment this Wednesday before we start having some more serious discussions with the obstetrician. 

 

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Older, wiser, happier

This week I had a birthday. Thank you to all of those who wished that it was a happy one… It was; we went down to Rosebud, ate pancakes for breakfast, I had a facial and then relaxed with the family. What doesn’t feel so nice is the age that I turned, instead of rounding down, there is no doubt that this number falls on the wrong side of 35! Which is probably what sparked this year’s gift of a cross trainer, ensuring that I can continue trying to exercise this year. Jason also got a gift for my birthday (don’t quite understand how, since I didn’t receive a gift for his birthday in September) he bought himself a stand up paddle board (SUP), ideal for the calm waters of the bay. Here he is Supping! 

 

Rosie has again spent most of the holidays on antibiotics, she seems to make a habit of falling sick as soon as we pack the car to go on holiday (last year we ended up in Emergency). Anyway, I think that we’re getting better at this parenting thing and we didn’t let it dampen the holiday. Here she is entertaining us at home and all dressed up as an angel for her mainly music christmas performance. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boris Wallis, our affectionally named second child, is growing bigger and we’re starting to get excited about his arrival in May. It has been lovely to have 5 weeks off work in the middle of this pregnancy, although I don’t know how we’ll ever return to the regimental tight ship of last year’s household (I would have lunches and breakfasts ready the night before). I return back to my three days a week of work, and hope to continue until Easter/Anzac Day. Speaking of work, this month Jason has cut back some hours at Eastern Health and picked up two days a week at Cabrini Private Hospital. 

 Here is Rosie exploring my growing tummy.

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Expecting

We have been more than happy with the creation that was Rosie; the design works well and her aesthetics are pretty cute (sometimes she doesn’t quite do as we wish!). So for quite some time now, jason and I have been working on creating Wallis bub #2. We had the twelve week scan the other week and are very happy to announce that we did it! We look forward to introducing Morris/Dorris Wallis in May! 

 

Here’s Rosie turning two, last month. 

I prepared a little speech to break the news to Rosie about her becoming a big sister. At the end of my talk she just said ‘OK’, as if i’d asked her to go and get her shoes. She came with us to the scan and exclaimed that the little being on the screen was a baby turtle.  I think that she will love having a new little turtle to boss around. 

  

The pregnancy has been going well. I am showing much earlier than last time so I’m expecting to be able to post a picture of me with a Christmas bump (not just over eating!) Whilst I don’t tend to suffer from morning sickness like so many of my friends, I’m struggling to shake a common cold and gain usual levels of energy, but couldn’t be happier to be expecting again.

 

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The arrival of spring

Apparently today was the first day over 20 degrees in 116 days. There are promising little buds on the trees, the twittering of excited birds and the start of that niggling thought of end-of-year reports, which must mean that Spring has arrived. Here are a couple of Australian King Parrots who were hanging around our garden last Saturday morning.

 

 

The arrival of Spring also brought about the arrival of my parents back to the antipodes. They are currently living between our house in Mitcham and down at the beach in Rosebud (just under an hour away). This has brought us back into the living-nightmare which is the Australian visa application process (providing certified documentation, answering pages of questions, remembering details of when you travelled in 2008!) Anyway, Rosie loves having Granny and Papa around, lapping up the extra attention from these new play friends (who are easier targets from which to obtain a biscuit). I must also admit that its nice to have someone else who will do the ironing or peel the veggies after a day’s work. 

It is also the arrival of footy finals, of which Jason’s beloved bulldogs are competing in. He is looking forward to bringing along my Dad to the elimination final at the MCG tomorrow evening. 

We have also seen the arrival of ‘the toddler stage,’ where boundaries were made to be pushed and patience was meant to be tested. She will turn two in a couple of weeks and gives me the cutest of looks followed by the wickedest of foot stamps. It was the best day when I cuddled her after her bath and she wrapped her arms around me while declaring ‘I love you mummy!’ It was perhaps a little more embarrassing when I picked her up from child care and she told the other kids to back off as ‘it’s my mummy!’ She still sings songs all the time but won’t let me put her hair up in a pony tail. She still chooses to eat a tin of tuna (on its own) but wont touch fish fingers. She goes crazy over a picture of a dog but hates the real thing. Our au contraire and loveable Rosie! 

 

Dolly comes with us to most places, here we are playing on the deck and going out for brunch for Nanny Wallis’ birthday.

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A winter warmer

My last blog was titled Easter, which means that I am way overdue an update. Returning to work and having reports to write has meant that any child-free time was swallowed up with school work or house work, leaving my blog to collect dust!

Anyway, lots of exciting things have happened. In fact as I write this I am awaiting news from my friend Natalie, who went into labour last night for their second child. Jason and I have finally started to go out again on date nights- here we are at Jason’s work ball. My parents have sold their house in the UK, and in August they will move over to join us in Australia. It will certainly be a change for us all, after 8 years of living in different countries. My sister Naomi, also had the wonderful news of having her second child, Reuben. A very healthy and content little boy who was born in a home water-birth, on May 4th. 

 

 

So during my winter holidays, I left both Jason and Rosie for four days to go and meet my newest nephew and spend some quality time with Naomi and her family. It was wonderful that I could get a morning flight to Auckland and by lunch time I was relaxing and drinking a Marlborough sauvignon blanc by the fire. It was a lovely couple of days eating, drinking, chatting, cuddling Reuben, watching movies and being entertained by my niece Pippa (who is nearly 3). We made a couple of trips onto the beach, but due to a cold front blowing in from the Antarctic, it was much too cold to be outside. So we retreated back to the warmth of Naomi and Jon’s house. We did brave a horse ride which thankfully took us up through the sand dunes and forest. 
 

Jason did a marvellous job of looking after Rosie back at home. They had a lot of fun together and I rather think that he might have a hidden talent for getting her to bed. She’s a happy kid who sings all the time. Her vocabulary is growing, although she usually tells us ‘Rosie do it’ and requests Peppa Pig on the TV. She enjoys playing outside, drawing and running races with Daddy. We’re finally able to give Rosie some dairy yoghurt and cheese but her favourite food remains to be tins of tuna, weetbix, porridge and fruit. Here she is with the meerkats at Melbourne Zoo. 

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Easter

My blogging tool didn’t publish this post from about 4 weeks ago. It was supposed to be posted at the end of our Easter holidays. 

This week it saddens me to be sending my Summer duvet (doona) on it’s six-month vacation to the top of the closet. The footy season has begun, day light saving has ended and term two (the cold, report writing term) is looming. It was this time last year that we were beginning to pack for our European adventure. Whilst we haven’t got that to get excited about this year, there’s still a lot to look forward to, including a trip to see my new nephew in New Zealand, a family holiday to the Gold Coast and we hope that my mum and dad will be over by next Summer. Perhaps the Doggies may even make it to the finals!

We had a fabulous start to our Easter holidays with my Aunty Pam and Uncle Graham visiting, all the way from Cornwall. We had a lot of fun doing all sorts of tourist type things that we wouldn’t have usually done at the end of term; wine tasting, lunch in the Dandenongs and going into the city for evening drinks on the Yarra. Haven’t done this in such a long time.

After our visitors had left we started on Easter, which I think is much more fun to celebrate with children. It’s fair to say that Rosie missed the point of the Easter egg hunt; favouring a turn on the swing while the other children ran around the garden. However once an Easter egg was presented, instinct took over (see pic below)! On Easter morning we joined our friends at Waverley Temple Salvos in Jells Park for breakfast and Rosie coloured in an Easter bag, her hands, her face and most other people and objects within her arm’s reach.

For the rest of the holidays we’ve all relaxed and worked on getting back to good health. Rosie has been continuously plagued by child care infections and we have been in and out of the doctors surgery so many times that I feel like a cartoon character on a revolving door.

This month our gorgeous girl has been perfecting the art of selectively listening to instructions and is keen to impress upon us her dissatisfaction of being told ‘no’. Fun times ahead!

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Back to the Work House

I was reading a friend’s blog from the UK last week, in which she was stating how they are starting to see the first hopeful signs of Spring. Well, we in the Southern hemisphere are cherishing the end of our Summer weather before the cool and shorter days of Autumn roll in. 

I haven’t blogged for a long time and I guess the reason is because I have returned to work. For those who don’t know, this year I am sharing a grade 5/6 class at Silverton Primary School. It feels good to be back and I enjoy the interaction with my colleagues and students. The humungous workload (that only a fellow teacher would appreciate) is tackled cheerfully with some fabulous friends and colleagues. Unfortunately I was ill for our school trip to Sovereign Hills, but it’s like I’ve never been away as I hosted parent/teacher meetings and have recommenced attending PDs. Jason and I are coping with the early starts, childcare drop offs and co-ordinating pick ups. Our only issues arise when sickness ascends, then it appears that we all fall into an exhausted heap of illness and have to ask our wonderful neighbour for some help: thanks Jenny! Since I have no picture of me returning to work, here’s a pic of Rosie posing with her rather unnecessary headband!! 

We have had a few great weekends down at Rosebud recently, made memorable by some free and fun peninsula festivals. We enjoyed a lovely evening sipping wine at the Rosebud Film Festival. Then on the long weekend we took Rosie to the kite festival and met some friends for a picnic at the local Balnarring Races. Rosie and Jason are spending more time together allowing me time to meet up with friends and I managed to see the wedding of Lauren and Sean. 

Rosie has really enjoyed learning new action songs this month; her favourites are the scarecrow song and rock-a-bye the bear. She tells us new words everyday, with a rather cute ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ which we are obviously encouraging!  A couple of weeks ago I took her to see a specialist about her dairy allergy, we are hopeful that we can start reintroducing some dairy into her diet and she should grow out of the allergy by the age of three. 

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summer holidays

After Christmas we went back down to Rosebud for our main family holiday. Unfortunately we didn’t see much of the beach as Rosie became ill with a mystery virus. After her third night of a high fever and no sleep we wearily entered Rosebud Emergency department. Here’s our sick Rosie thoroughly enjoying the attention of the wonderful medical staff. 

Good friends Liz and Chris came to visit us at Rosebud. We were able to have some proper time on the beach, share some lovely meals and enjoyed playing games and drinking wine in the evening.

Early in January Mum and Dad came over to spend a couple of weeks with us. They have been looking into the feasibility of coming to live in Australia and had various meetings to attend. However we did manage to do a couple of nice family outings including, time at the beach, lunch out for my birthday and a trip to Healesville Sanctuary, where we found this friendly parrot.

Rosie has started attending childcare; which she has quickly settled into. I am very impressed by the quality of care and the level of reporting that they do. She regularly returns home with photos and written reports about her day. It was initially quite upsetting to leave her there but I have to admit that I have enjoyed the freedom of going to coffee with friends, gold class cinemas with Jason and getting some work done before school starts next week. Here’s a picture of us enjoying an evening walk at Rosebud. 

Jason did the 28km Two Bays run again this year from Dromana to Cape Schanck. He was satisfied with his time as he had improved on the year before. Jason also had fun competing in the Slam beach volleyball competition with a group of friends. They made it through to the semi-finals despite their interesting fancy dress! 

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Start of Summer

Summer has arrived so we decided to take a weekend out of christmas preparations and headed down to Rosebud. The weather was gorgeous and there weren’t many people around so we had a great time playing on the beach. Rosie rather surprised us with her eagerness to get into the sea; as soon as we were on the beach she ran down to the water and launched herself into it, fully clothed and squeeling with delight. The only thing we could do was strip her down and keep her safe as she waded about in the little waves. We’re really looking forward to spending more time at the beach this summer. 

Recently Rosie made her stage debut, dressed up as a christmas tree and singing with her mainly music group at Box Hill Salvation Army. Being the youngest standing tree, she did well to stay within the vicinity of the stage area for the duration of the singing, although she did turn around to conduct the other children with her bells (I think that she’s born to be a teacher!) 

 

Jason’s PhD is going well. He was recently awarded a substantial research grant to conduct his 5th and final study of his PhD which is due to commence in 2015. For those that are interested, he will be assessing the impact of a walking program for patients with severe ‘bone on bone’ knee osteoarthritis. 

Here Jason is pictured having dinner on the deck with Rosie, some family members may recognise granny’s wine decanter (which arrived this month with our boxes from the UK). I wish I’d taken the picture with the garden in the background and not the shed and driveway!

We have had lots of wonderful news this month. I became an aunty again, this time to baby Jennifer (Pictured below, looking perfect) who is Daren and Jiang’s second child. My good friend Lisa also gave birth (a little earlier than expected) to gorgeous tiny baby Macy. Family Wallis also attended a rather sophisticated garden party, where we celebrated the engagement of our friends Kirby and Alex. Congratulations to all!

This year we will be celebrating Christmas here in Melbourne, Uncle Dick will come to stay and I will be serving afternoon tea for Jason’s family. This is my last post for 2014, it’s been a wonderful year full of great adventures, seeing people that we love and a steep learning curve of parenting. We look forward to everything that 2015 has to offer and hope to share parts of it with you on the blog. For now I’ll finish by wishing you all a very Happy Christmas and every blessing for the coming year. 

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feeling poorly

I haven’t blogged in a while, mainly because we’ve all been sick- not altogether in one convenient week of germs, but spread out over the past month. We’re all well now but I’ll try to keep this blog post short as I realise that it won’t make the most interesting of reads! 

It started with Rosie getting a post birthday fever. We tried to go down to the beach for the weekend, as the British have this thing about sea-air being good for you. Alas this was not to be, as by 10pm we were sick of trying to resettle a grumpy and sick child, we packed up and drove back home. So Sunday morning I took Rosie to a walk-in clinic and waited for nearly two hours, just to be told that there wasn’t much wrong with her and we just had a case of ‘over-anxious parents syndrome’. I knew that this was not the case as that afternoon Rosie broke out in hives. We dosed up with panadol, cuddled and watched cartoons until she returned to normal. However, normal didn’t come for another two weeks as her first two molars started cutting through, turning rosie into a clingy and whiny, insomniac gremlin child. We had started to forget that we once had a funny and sociable little girl. 

It was then Jason’s turn to get sick with a particularly nasty man virus; a kind of pharyngitis which rendered him unable to eat (actually he was quite incapable of doing anything much). After a couple of trips to the doctors, he was signed off for the full week. I also got some of the virus, unfortunately nobody signs you off from work as a mum. So we spent our long weekend drinking soup and feeling quite sorry for ourselves. Here’s Rosie amusing herself by feeding her toys. 

5 weeks ago I thought I’d broken my big toe when Rosie dropped a shampoo bottle on it. Jason decided it wasn’t actually broken but was a little concerned as I wasn’t able to extend my toe. I continued nagging him as the pain did not subside and I’m still unable to raise it. An x-ray this week showed no break although we’re now weighing up if it’s worth paying a few hundred dollars for an MRI scan to further investigate tendon damage.

We’ve also been advised by the doctor to start trying Rosie on some dairy foods. This has increased night time waking with some rather colourful and explosive nappies (sorry for sharing). I’m taking rosie to see a dietitian to see if we can get a better plan of what to do. 

I’ll finish with some better news as this month also saw the arrival of my friend (and bridesmaid) Helen’s baby boy. Welcome to the world Aidan Berger on October 19th (6lb 7oz). I wish i’d taken a photo when we went to visit as he is very cute. 

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