How many words?

So, if a picture is worth a thousand words, how much for a video? How much for THREE videos? (ok, two of them are from the same event, but meh...)

Here is one of Beth dancining. She turns the stereo on and off, and plays with the volume. Sometimes to startling effect:


The next two are from dinner last night. She was digging her blueberries. The first one is just general super-cuteness:



But in the second one, she does a few of her party tricks, including "Brrrrrr", "Pretend Sneeze", "Clapping", and the infamous "Wear a Blueberry as a Hat". We are very proud:

Ta

This is what a fabulous first birthday looks like. We had a great time, Beth charmed the socks off all and sundry, and made out like a bandit in the present stakes (birthday right after Christmas has its downsides, yes, but then there is the fact that your presents come from the SALES and are roughly TWICE AS GOOD as usual). There was also chocolate cake: see cherub face above.

Beth has had a very busy few weeks, mastering cruising, walking with her trolley for amazing distances, the world's fastest proper crawl, going down steps backwards (including a whole flight of steps - heavens!), putting everything on her head, being so helpful when dressing that she's about five seconds off doing it herself, dipping foods in sauces, advanced cockatoo dancing, giving things away when you say "ta" and according to her grandmother, saying "ta" herself (dubious). If anyone doubts that developmental spurts cause sleep regressions, they can come visit at 3am.

She has also been for a number of rides on Daddy's bike, and loves it:

Hello, freedom!

Wurk has picked up again, and I almost had a normal workload the last couple of days, which has been a very welcome change and which I am choosing to regard as an excellent sign, GFC be damned.

I haven't made any exciting New Years' Resolutions because if I did I would break them, but I have signed up to an organic veg delivery service and vowed for Beth's sake to whoah back on the processed foods and the bread with every meal, and I AM GOING TO RIDE TO WORK DAMMIT (just as soon as I've fitted a pannier rack, and lights, and...NO I AM JUST GOING TO DO IT), I WANT to get more writing done, and generally to live life in a more thoughtful, less bare-survival way, and hopefully reduce the faffing about on the Internet. Oh wait.

Birthday girl

And Grant managed to bend space and time to get her her birthday presents in time, so now she's the proud owner of a Tonka truck.


We had a nice play in the back yard with it today. I was trying to teach her the "lean on it like a walker" trick, but no dice. She does like pushing it around though.

Also today we passed a pleasant hour or so with a bucket and some bath toys on the lawn. Beth seems to splash a lot more if she's not in the water herself, or it seems like that, anyway. She managed to stand up by herself for a few seconds, too, but hasn't tried it again since. It was a nice day.

Then and now

Then:
Now:

Then:
Now:

How all this all began

Beth is one today. One! And we forgot to get her birthday present in time. And she and I have spent most of the morning doing housework. Don't tell her any of this on her 21st, please.

How all this began is ...well, it was in England, but that's the grown-up part of the story. Otherwise, this all began with Beth's birth, and that began on 6 January 2008.

About two hours after this photo was taken, in fact.

Beth had been due on the first or the fourth, depending on calculations (in our hospital in the UK, the ultrasound and prenatal wards were at war on the subject), and I was frankly fairly huge and puffed up. It was a really hot day. I had spent it out, including a long walk on the foreshore with Mum and Nanna (Mum kept asking me to check if Nanna's feet were in her wheelchair, but she wouldn't slow down when she asked, and I couldn't move fast enough to get in front to check), and later a milkshake with some old schoolfriends. Melissa insisted that Beth had dropped, and I launched into a tirade about how NOONE WAS TO TELL ME THE BABY WAS IMMINENTLY TO BE BORN BECAUSE CLEARLY SHE WAS NEVER, EVER COMING OUT.

I think we had a roast dinner for tea at Mum's. We went to bed quite late; after 11pm. And I lay down and felt a tiny pop, and immediately started having contractions almost exactly four minutes apart. When we came back to Australia, we had planned to have Beth at the low-intervention Belmont Birthing Centre with Grant's aunt, who is a midwife there, as I wanted someone we knew with us and wanted noone buggering around with my innards. Unfortunately that plan went awry with that tiny pop, as when I went to check in the bathroom, my waters had broken and they were stained swampy green with meconium. This ruled us out of Belmont's policy. Aunt was kind enough to ask us to come out to check if Beth was OK (she was hoping I would against all the odds have a super fast birth before anyone noticed I wasn't supposed to be there), but that meant we had to be admitted to hospital in early labour rather than wait until things were well and truly going as we had intended. That and the meconium also scared the hell out of me, which led to an adrenaline burst, which stalled things. So overnight my contractions grew further and further apart for the next 7 hours and then stopped (while having been close enough together all night to stop me sleeping), and then the real fun started when we were transferred to John Hunter, to a labour ward room that looked like an operating theatre, and
a nice fat drip full of syntocin to "augment" (ie restart) my labour was jammed in my arm and a permanent foetal monitoring belt attached. Thereafter I had contractions about every 2-2.5 minutes, of a lovely nasty back labour kind, as Beth was posterior. I was also chained to the bed with the monitoring equipment and the drip so could do nothing more than stand and shuffle and vocalise and bang my stress balls for pain management. Thankfully my friend the masseuse was with us, and she did very little other than massage my back for the next twenty hours or so. Between Grant coaching me with vocalisation and focus and Deirdre's massage I think we did remarkably well for a syntocin/posterior combination torture treatment. Humorously, after getting me to the maximum syntocin dose, the hospital kept wanting to ramp it up. Because if the maximum dose isn't working, obviously what you need is MORE.

On syntocin, one is supposed to have cervical dilation of 1cm every hour. Because of Beth's posterior presentation, I managed a cm about every 3-4 hours, and I had already been awake since 7ish the day before. Because I was dilating so slowly, I was still technically in pre-labour after having had contractions for 18 hours, which meant that the only pain relief option the hospital would offer was morphine. I remember I was cold and my legs were shaking in a way that felt like shock before I eventually gave in at about 6pm on the 7th, and had a dose of morphine. It brought immediate relief. My legs stopped shaking and I felt much warmer. After that I managed to lie down and dose for an hour or so, but then the contractions were unmanageable again and I had to move around. The midwife showed us a Belmont trick of turning a baby by propping your leg on a chair and pushing your belly against it with a contraction, which was excruciating, but may or may not have helped. A few hours later I had another dose of morphine, which frankly made me off my face without really helping with the pain. This was about 11pm, I think, although I don't remember the passage of time very well. At that point I had finally managed to get to 5cm dilation, which entitled me to get the epidural I had never ever wanted but could not manage without, as I really needed a rest.


The epidural was slightly ballsed up in that it only really worked down my back. They kept topping it up and all it did was give me a numb bum and back of legs while I could still feel the contractions through the front, but as most of the pain was in my back anyway it did help. I had another lie down, and when they came to check me half an hour or so later I was almost fully dilated. I frankly did not believe the doctor when he said this. At this point, everyone was still arguing about whether Beth had fully turned or was still posterior; the consensus was that she had turned kind of sideways. I remember a really weird feeling of quiet expectation, and I asked the midwife what a pushing urge felt like the minute before I had an enormous one. She told me not to push, as they didn't think I was fully dilated, but then she checked again and gave me the go-ahead.

I wanted to turn over rather than push up-hill from sitting, and Grant and Deirdre helped me turn over, even though my legs were quite numb. But pretty soon after that the syntocin drip ran out, and my contractions stalled again. This is not supposed to happen in second stage labour, but my body really, really did not want to be in labour, possibly because I was so alarmed by the hospital environment and because I really had very little to eat (discouraged more than once by midwives but I suppose I wasn't that hungry anyway) and was so tired.

They got the drip and the contractions restarted and rolled me back over to pushing uphill position, citing the epidural as the reason I had to do it that way (in hindsight this really ticks me off, as Grant can lift me over his freaking head, and could have held me in whatever position would have twisted Beth out the best). I think I had a few more pushing urges, but after that they stopped. The midwife asked me when I had last eaten, and I remember thinking "well, now we're f___ed." After that I pushed for about another 2 hours with nothing to help but worn-out contractions and engine fumes. It got to a point where pushing was agonising, like my pelvic bones were jammed somehow; pushing hurt both front and back. I think I was getting nowhere because Beth had failed to turn completely from posterior to anterior (only got halfway) and therefore I was having a lot of trouble pushing her head around the "U bend" at the last minute. Then the midwife basically called it, as I had been pushing for 2.5 hours by then and apparently there is some sort of benchmark for the permitted time for such things. I suppose I was sort of relieved because I didn't have anything left to put into the birth, but it also seemed like permission to quit trying which probably didn't help matters.

Beth's skull was mashed up from enduring such frequent contractions for so long, although the miswife preferred to blame us for this because I had had the temerity to stand for pain relief rather than lying down (!). This meant ventouse was not an option, so forceps were planned. Unfortunately the hospital won't do forceps these days outside an OR, so we had to consent to a C-section before they could try forceps. It took them a while to arrange this, I think, as in the end my second stage went for 4.5 hours before Beth was delivered, and I remember the contractions while that was happening were doozys as the epidural had largely worn off by then. They shaved me (undignified) and gave me something to drink to neutralise my stomach acids in case they had to do the surgery, which made me throw up - nice of them not to warn me about that, I thought. Then they wheeled me into surgery and did a full spinal block anaesthetic which hey, actually worked. They hoiked my legs up into stirrups like in all the tv shows and slung up a sheet so we couldn't see my belly, only the faces of the doctors. It was completely surreal.

They will only do a forceps delivery in fairly perfect conditions due to the risk to the baby. I was pretty sure I was going to end up cut, and after all that time trying! But then the obstetrician and consultant looked down behind the sheet, and they had huge smiles on their faces. "The baby's so low!" on of them said. I had gotten her to +2 station, apparently (which makes me think maybe someone should have given me a lolly and a huge pep talk and got me to have another crack at it, but anyway). Forceps went in; I couldn't really see. Then they asked me to push. For the first time the whole labour, a medical professional complimented my pushing efforts, and a few seconds later she was out. It was 5.50am on Tuesday, 8 January 2008, about thirty hours after the first contraction.

But that was only really the start of the bad part.

They passed her over my chest as if to put her on my chest, but she was pretty grey and not breathing, so they rushed her to the side of the room. It took a long time for her to cry, and it wasn't really the lusty cry you hope to hear. They put her in my arms and she was staring at me, but every time she tried to breathe her lungs were deflating and she was making a horrible squeaking noise.
I was fairly disconnected right then. There was no instant bond. I was really worried for her, but I didn't love her yet. It didn't seem like she was mine, I suppose; for ages, I thought they had just yanked her out of me - "taken birth" - which didn't help the connection, I guess. It wasn't until Grant showed me the photos with the forceps removed that I realised that they had certainly helped, but I had pushed her out.

Beth was taken to the NICU with respiratory distress after only a few minutes with me. I sent Grant with her (and later she had visits from Mum, Deirdre and I think Sue while I was still in recovery), while I was wheeled into the recovery ward and basically left to my own devices for an hour or so (helping my recovery how I wonder?) while everyone rushed around the woman in the screened off bed next door, who I think may have been dying. Mum came in to see me, and Grant brought pictures of the baby, as he had sent Deirdre to sit with her while he came to see me. Beth looked in such bad shape. It felt like my fault. It still does, even though in hindsight and with further reading I know that two major causes of respiratory distress are syntocin and early clamping of the umbilicus, both of which of course were done. And that even though morphine is also a cause of respiratory distress, I had been put in a situation which was not really survivable without it.

Apparently as a special favour, rather than take me straight to the maternity ward, a maternity ward midwife met me in the NICU in my giant hospital bed with my paralysed legs, and I got to see Beth for the first time properly. I couldn't hold her, as she was covered in tubes. She knew my voice though. She turned her head towards me when she heard me, even with all the tubes.


That made me feel a bit better.

Then it was back down to a ward of 5 women who all had their babies with them, while mine was in NICU. Mum made me a cheese sandwich. I still wasn't very hungry, but it was the first thing I'd eaten in days. Aunt Sue helped me express some colostrum, so she could take it up for Beth. I think I slept for about an hour, my first sleep in three days, and then I went back up to the NICU in a wheelchair, as the anesthetic still hadn't properly worn off. I got to feed Beth for the very first time of thousands.


She was a natural, which is just as well, as there was noone there to help us get started.

But after this we had to leave her behind, as once a baby gets into the steely jaws of NICU they will find a reason to hang onto her. In fact, the way I knew I had finally bonded to my beautiful girl was when she was a month or so old and I started bawling my eyes out, because it was suddenly intolerable to me that we had had to leave her, with strangers, a brand new baby who knew nothing of the world except my voice and my smell, stuck in a freaking hospital ward by herself, without the slightest thing to give her comfort.

Beth had had a high lactate reading at birth from the long labour, so was at risk of hypoglaecemia, so even though her blood sugar readings which were all 2.8 or above were considered normal by the maternity ward (above 2.5), they weren't by the NICU (2.9 or above), so she had to stay while I dragged my wounded self up three floors rom the maternity ward to the NICU to feed her every three hours and at one stage every two hours (all while trying to recover from a 30 hour labour on top of a 16 hour day awake), even though it seems to me that the best way to elevate a baby's blood sugar would be to, I don't know, MAKE IT EASY FOR THE MOTHER TO BREASTFEED THE BABY. If I weren't such a stubborn bugger, she would have been on formula; the miracle is that anyone leaves the NICU breastfeeding.

After that, she had borderline bilirubin levels and therefore ended up in a light bed for a day. But finally, finally we were allowed to have her in our room, and a day after that we were the hell out of there, and home at Mum's.


And after that we didn't leave her anywhere by herself, ever, and anyone who has a problem with that can put themselves through all of this before they pass judgement.

Some months later the hospital finally sent me my discharge papers. They look like a train wreck. Meconium staining, augmentation, hypertension (apparently my blood pressure started skyrocketing during labour, so of course they decided to make the situation even more comfortable by adding a blood pressure cuff to the mix), forceps, respiratory distress, hypoglaecemia, jaundice, the whole shebang. And it made me cry, because that "maternal exhaustion" seemed such a glib way of passing off what I had made it through. But I'd do it all again tomorrow, for Beth. And I'll keep cuddling her to make up for it as long as I live.

Damn hot...

Seemingly summer has decided to finally make an appearance... and with gusto.

I took Beth to SOPAC for a paddle and to sign up for lessons, but as the security guard so eloquently put it "it's hot, so the queue is 1 1/2 hours long". I went home.

But fortunately I have a bucket and a hose:

Christmas pix

A first Christmas* looks roughly like this, I believe:

Christmas morning at Nanna Em's

Christmas afternoon at Nanna Jan's and Poppy's, with rocking cow

With Dougie, looking at Little Puss

The Poopsmith!

Second trip to the beach; world's roughest surf at Bar Beach

And a Mummy's first Christmas looks like this:

Isn't it beautiful? Isn't Grant the best husband ever?

* Christmas = Christmas + ensuing days

Ding a ling

We acquired a WeeRide for Beth for Christmas, and she's had a few short jaunts around the yard on it with Grant. She loves it, and will reliably hit the "sleeping pedestal" to indicate "MORE!", but as she HATES her bike helmet, our options for longer trips are limited for the time being.

This brings me to the cute story, however. Grant was putting the WeeRide base crossbar on his bike yesterday in the back yard, and Beth was helping. By way of entertaining her, Grant dinged the bike bell. A few minutes later he heard it ringing again. Beth had worked out how to stretch up to the handlebar and ding away!

She's also managed to extrapolate the operational methods of her now massive collection of Little People toys. Most have a button to press that plays a song, and it's easier to press with a figure seated on it. Grant had taught Beth how to do this with her aeroplane, and yesterday she tried it with a train she had never seen before. Clever clogs.

I think we are heading into slight temper tantrum land as Beth has had a few meltdowns this week for no apparent reason. Breakfast this morning was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. However, I took her across the road to the park (THANK GOD FOR THE PARK) and she perked right up. And started climbing the wallclimbing/ladder thing. Saints preserve us.

Will pop some pix up soon.

A new day

Before we go ahead and do a year-in-reflection type thingy, I just need to write this down:
109.7kg.

Adequate, not outstanding, but probably 10kg less than this time last year (and I think about 8kg from my birthday). So I'm happy I have not gone back up to what I was, and particularly as the only real exercise I have been doing is riding to work 3 days a week, but it is time to put some focus back into fitness. Beth will be walking soon, and I will need to be able to keep up!

So starting today, the Wii Fit is coming back out, and I am going to aim to go jogging 3 times a week. Add in the cycle commuting, and that should help me somewhat. Lets see how long it takes to dip below 100kg...

Life's a beach - Christmas #1

Beth had her very first Christmas, with a truly impressive present haul, most of which makes loud noise and is trying to teach her the alphabet. She seemed to like it a lot, while the real big hit was of course the cellophane wrap.

I still win the Christmas 2008 smackdown because I got this. Sooooooooooooo pretty, and rather fast even despite my wobbly jelly calves. I am planning to commute to work 2/3 of the time this year when I go up to three days in a probably vain effort to get some regular exercise and regain my former cut legs, oo er. So far I have only managed the Fernleigh track and Memorial Drive though (steep!). I must point out that this present is also evidence that I won the best husband award as well as Christmas 2008, as he not only managed to get this spunky 2008 model instead of the truly hidjus bamboo print 2009 model but also got a handsome discount to boot. And all of this in exchange for a couple of CDs. I love you, Grant! sorry your Christmas present sucked!

We have been hanging out in Newcastle and Beth has had lots of time with her grandparents, and with the cousins and aunties and uncles. She's really enjoyed having so much kid time, so New Year's Resolution #34534 (after buy Grant better presents) is to get her into a playgroup in our new neck of the woods.

Now that Summer has sort of finally hit, we are doing a lot more water stuff. Grant has been taking Beth to the Olympic Park pool, and she had a swim in the Manning River at Wingham, and a paddle at Horshoe Beach on Saturday (in the rain, no less) and yesterday had her first proper beach swim at Bar Beach. We put her down on the sand at the water's edge in her rashy with a naked butt, and she played with the wet sand for a while, then got hit with a wave, looked surprised, and promptly started crawling towards the water for more. There may have been some gleeful squeals, too. She was "swimming" (with our assistance of course) between both of us and really getting the kicking going. In short, she had a lovely time, and so did we. And afterwards we waited by the kiosk for fish and chips for several hours but they were good when they finally showed up. While we waited, Beth had another play in the sand with Susan, and apparently good times were had there too.

If you are after a family restaurant of the sort that provides free balloons and replaces same without being asked when your baby chews them until they pop (question - if she didn't then react to the noise, is this a sign she is a psychopath?), may I recommend the formerly oo er but now meals-come-with-crayons Blue Water Pizza on Queens Wharf in Newcastle? You're welcome!

Holidays with family have been lovely but we are not getting quite as much "nuclear family" time as we are used to, which feels a bit odd. We are heading back to Sydney tomorrow, so I guess then we will go back to the usual routine of cooked breakfasts and daytime naps!

Milestones

Today Beth and I managed to get organised enough to go and get Beth's very first PHOTO WITH SANTA! She seemed utterly unfazed by the experience. I however was kind of freaked out by the thought that we would be going through this for years. I am not entirely sure on the lying to offspring about source of gifts thing, not least because really, I am not entirely sure on the whole gifts thing itself. Why can't we just give gifts when we would like to, and more importantly, when we come across something that would be perfect for a person, rather than what I am currently experiencing, aka Christmas 2008: Revenge of Christmas, what with quite a lot of shopping at gunpoint at the last minute.

If I didn't know what to buy you, you are getting a tin of biscuits. You're welcome.

Anyway, the Christmas pix turned out rather well, especially if you ignore the fact that Beth has a tiny bit of apple on her bottom lip in them. I feel that it adds authenticity. Really I am just impressed that with transport to and from the shops and a trip to IKEA as well as Santa and the bookshop, Beth sat on her butt contentedly snacking for 2+ hours without getting narky at all. Well, she did insist I buy her another rattle when I stupidly showed her the one I was getting for Wendy's baby (AWESOME RATTLE, might I add, so I don't really blame her).

On which topic: to date I have been rather smug about the modest amount of toys Beth has. I have only just realised that this is because she has neither had her first Christmas nor her first birthday, and she is about to have one immediately after the other. I suspect this is going to mean HELLO, PLASTIC CRAP! But since she has a marked fondness for plastic crap I will probably get over it in time and let go of my irrational prejudices against petrochemicals and other endocrine disruptors.

Other than the obtaining of biscuits to put in tins and of course the interminable wrapping process, I think I might now be just about finished with Christmas. Since I hadn't even started until Wednesday, the relief is immense.

I have had a reasonable week before Christmas. We haven't had the usual pre-Christmas rush at work at all, which is terrifying, but we're still partying away as if the GFC did not loom rack and ruin over our shoulders. I had a very swank client lunch on Wednesday, which Jan very kindly came down to mind Beth so I could attend. They apparently had a very nice time, but while Beth enjoys a tuna and cream cheese sandwich as much as the next gal, I think my lunch was probably better.

In other news, Beth has spent this week working on proper crawling and on cruising. She's now very solid at standing now. She still holds on to things for support, but doesn't need to lean on them, and can do it with only one hand. She's very pleased with herself and we're very impressed! Her proper crawling is quite slow and wobbly compared to her speedy commando crawl, but she is becoming more proficient and I am making sure to put her on as many uncomfortable surfaces as possible to demonstrate the wisdom of getting one's belly and elbows off the ground.

We're back in Newcastle for ground zero of the festive season and then back in Sydney for some well-earned relaxation time.

Proof of Life

When Loz went back to work, I started taking photos of Beth with my phone to keep her in the loop throughout the day. Flicking through the photos, there are some quite cute ones in there. Not the best quality, but ok...

Here are some of my favourites...

UPDATE: for some reason, the right side of the photos have been cropped by Blogger, but you get the idea.

Beth at the top of the jungle jim in the park across the road, chuffed with herself for making it up the "climbing wall":


Trying to break out, or trying to break in?:

Peekaboo! (still one of her favourite games):




Beth falling asleep on the way back from the pool:
Crawling UP ON HER HANDS!:
Just looking so goddamn cute:
Admiring her awesome food platter:




Her first taste of Hungry Jacks ("not food"):
"Well, no, I am not actually asleep!":
"I'm coming to get you...":
Climbing Daddy jungle jim:
Beth tries to share her food...:

At the Donnelly family Christmas party, Beth received this plane from Richard and Carol. I wasn't sure if she would like the noises it makes (she's scared of the barking noises her Lamaze dog makes). Turns out I needn't have worried, she loves it!:



The full gallery can be found here.

You'll note that the severe majority of photos are of food or her eating. This is because it's the only time she is still and secure. The second most common theme is Beth coming to get the camera...

Oh, and there is this little beauty:

Loz had mentioned she had a nice lunch at the cafe, so I had to show her the laksa I got for my lunch...

Anyway, I'm still working through the "proper" photos, sorting and uploading, so hopefully I'll post about those soon.

11 months

That's a smile, I swear

Beth is eleven months old. The astute will realise that that is 12 months - 1. In other words, HOLY CRAP. So many people told me in Beth's early weeks (aka nurse-a-thon 2008) that it went by so quickly. I thought they were just trying to say This Too Shall Pass but as it turns out they were just telling the truth. It seems like just yesterday that she smiled for the first time, that she was born (so happy and such a sad time for all of us, stuck in that hospital), that I was pregnant, that we were in England, that we were swanning about bits of Europe with her just a tiny passenger, not even a bump.

And at the same time, it feels like she has been with us forever. We are so proud of her. I should get her birth certificate framed or something because I am WAY more smug about that than the four testamurs now gracing the dining room.

Let's see, recent developments:

• Beth babbles "dada" specifically, to Grant. He may have lorded it over me about this for a while, but...
  
• Last weekend, she started babbling "mummum" and almost immediately started doing it specifically, to me. Now I will admit she doesn't do it as often as "dada" and really only does it when she wants something, but since she only previously made the "mum" noise while screaming, I'll take it.
• She can now pull up very quickly on just about any object, and has started to lean less. She's also started to cruise along things like her cot, but not very quickly.
• She has two new teeth (top outer middle).
• We have travelled every weekend for the past 3, and she still hates portacots, probably exacerbated by the teeth.
• She is always very excited to see her grandparents, and has now started leaning towards them from me for cuddles.
• She is getting way more interested in toys. She gave her Lamaze chime garden a real workout this afternoon, and monkey puppet continues to be a favourite, and she has been looking at her books in her bedroom periodically all day.
  
• Contemporaneously with the above, she is getting much better at entertaining herself, albeit not so much today as the teeth are making her a bit of a sooky pants.
• She's hovering around the 10kg mark, which since she was 9kg at 6 months isn't particularly impressive, but she is a freakishly tall 77cm or so.
• She has an array of smiles, from winsome to the above, which shows off all six chompers and is usually accompanied by a growl. Don't mess with Beth, peoples; she may bite (OK, she DOES bite, I have a mark still healing).
  

Off to Newcastle-Wingham-Newcastle this weekend. The Wingham Country Club is being temporarily renamed Wingham House of Donnellys for the occasion. Should be fun!

How have you been?

7 things

Apparently I have been tagged for a meme, and while I am unfamiliar with the etiquette, I am informed that this means that I have to write 7 weird/random things about myself. Ahem:

1. Approximately 10% of people seem to think that I am from the US, the UK or Canada when they first meet me, including a woman in London who, when I said I was from Newcastle (forgetfully), exclaimed: "Oh, I thought you sounded Northern!" Northern?
   
2. I have two first class Honours degrees (= three testamurs), a Master of Laws with Distinction (highest UK rank) and the Evatt Medal for the best graduating student from my law school. I missed out on a University Medal in Arts by .4 of a GPA. Oh, and I technically have a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice too, with a bare credit average, but I never bothered picking it up from College of Law, although I might do if we ever run out of toilet paper.
   
3. An hour of my professional time will cost you $450 (excluding GST of course), but I'm worth it.
4. Despite the above, I'm currently proudest of the fact that I can pump 230ml of milk in one pumping session of half an hour (enough to feed my daughter all day). On one view that means Beth's milk costs my wurkplace about a grand a litre, but as I can often bill while pumping it probably evens out.
   
5. I've moved five times in two years, twice intercontinentally, twice while heavily pregnant and twice with a young baby. And because of this...
6. I don't know where my practising certificate is, although I am obliged by law to display it in my office. I also don't know where 90% of our other stuff is, including the Best Coat of All Time and the Best Cookbook of All Time but no doubt they will show up eventually. Did I mention I hate moving, and even though the current place has (huge) defects and is (hugely) expensive I am strongly tempted to stay here forever just to avoid ever packing again?
7. We currently live across the road from the first house we rented in Sydney. Fortunately it was detonated and replaced with a McMansion, or I might accidentally walk into the wrong house.

Bonus #8 - I am rarely, if ever, the mother I want to be, but fortunately Beth seems to like me anyway.

What the hell is a Meme?

Apparently we have been memed. I believe Karen cheated by tagging both Lauren and I, but here's mine anyway. I suspect this will mostly be a revelation of my OCD traits...

Rules: Link the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links. Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. I don't believe there are ANY convicts in my family history.
   
2. I like to chew my food evenly on both sides of my mouth - you know, 7 chews left side, 7 chews right side, whatever. This has actually become less of an obsession lately.
3. My front teeth are as sharp as razor blades. They are half-caps. They broke off after being embedded in my parents' (ancient) stereo when I was about 12. Long story, suffice to say my brother was getting revenge. The original teeth were re-attached by a very excited emergency dentist. They were subsequently replaced by caps in 2 different incidents - one involving a eucalyptus lolly, and the other a forward somersault. It is these fake caps that have worn down to razor sharp incisors.
   
4. I almost always have a pair of baby socks in my pocket. You never know when Beth's feet will be cold.
5. I own 5 bikes, including a very sophisticated folding bike and a VERY high end dual suspension mountain bike, and yet the only one I have riden in the last 3 months is the steel single speed.
   
6. Beth assures me that my monkey impersonation is both impeccable, and hilarious.
   
7. My wife earns more money than me, I work part time and look after our daughter the rest of the week, and there is a chance I will become a full time stay at home dad - and I am more than ok with all of that :)

And now I shall terminate this chain-letter type thing here. Partly on the principle of the thing, but mostly because I don't actually know 7 bloggers...

Not going to win any updating awards, are we?

Maybe we were eating mulberries. I confess nothing!

Hi all

Clearly I am the world's least organised person, but in lieu of more regular updates:

1. wurk has been strangely quiet this week. Too quiet. Clearly they are plotting something.
2. my Blackberry continues to rule my life, however, even if it is just relaying information on the kind of muffins available in my wurkplace today (not that I ever buy the muffins, but it is important to stay abreast of these kinds of things).
3. I am probably going to be moving up to 3 days a week in the near future, which might make things at the wurk end a little easier to manage in terms of workflow, I think.
   
4. Grant has been riding to work every day since we moved back to Sydney, and has dropped something like 7kg in two months, which is a pretty good effort as well as partially justifying his extensive bike expenditure over the years. Go Grant!
5. Beth has been very busy in the last month or so, including:

• mastering hands and knees. Not crawling properly yet, but probably doesn't feel the need to bother as she goes like the blazes commando-style (of course, commando crawling is pretty harsh on the clothes, but eh)
• kneeling unsupported.
• pulling up to standing on every available object, which means I get pantsed several times a day. Note so self: no elastic waistbands!
  
• actually allowing us to feed her with a spoon reasonably often, and feeding herself with a spoon pretty well, although she hasn't quite go the hang of which way the spoon needs to face for this to work so wears quite a bit of it.
• being a bit more interested in solid foods and a bit less interested in the Mummy Milkbar. In fact, she ate a whole nectarine herself the other day. Put anything in a wrap and she will eat it.
  
• getting more independent! Grant warned me about this from his two days with her this week, but I didn't quite believe him until we went across the road to the park and she promptly crawled away from me like a shot rather than attacking me and nagging to be picked up per usual. She then proceeded to pull up on the fence around the play equipment, then to play in the dirt making "dirt angels" with her arms and generally (a) having fun and (b) getting incredibly dirty. Because there is no (a) without (b) as we all know.
• being generally more interested in toys. I bought her a monkey hand puppet last weekend, as she loves it when Grant makes monkey noises at her. Not only does she adore the puppet, and laugh hysterically when Grant gives her "monky kisses" with it, but she took it off Grant and held it up in front of the mirror, faced it at herself, then at Grant, then at the mirror, and looked at its face in the mirror, so clearly she's a genius, or at least a budding puppeteer.
  
• sharing. She keeps offering us pieces of her food. Sometimes she is quite forceful, like when naughty daddy declined to eat her banana in the backyard and therefore had it jammed into his mouth. Possibly a commentary on our slightly less patient moments of feeding her solids, too.
• really getting into her books. Grant reads to her every night, and she loves it, especially everyone's favourite daddy-knows-best book "Papa's Song," which I recommend, and her DK "peekaboo" books, ditto.

And now I believe I may need a nap!

Stuff

I fear that inertia will destroy this here blog if I don't post about something, so I am going to post about:

(a) Wurk

Wurk has been good lately. I am a month into return-to-office territory for 2 days a week, and while at first I didn't really have enough to do, or when I did get enough to do was getting it too late in the two days to get it done without risking an aneurysm, I have managed to bill 6+ hours a day for the last four days in the office. Which makes me feel well chuffed. Of course, the only reason I am billing that is because I am doing additional work from home while Beth sleeps, but eh, given that my job used to be a 10 hour day and now I'm only working 9-5, it's fair enough.

Wurk gets extra points for being in the silly season, with parties and free lunches right left and centre (so long as they are on Monday or Tuesday, of course).

(b) Beth (who else?)

Beth has been giving her daddy a run for his money this week, as she seems to have decided bottle = evil. While I seem to make about 250ml during the day, based on what I pump at lunch at work, she's currently only taking about 150ml on her days with Grant. This makes her hungry and because she's my daughter, YOU DO NOT WANT TO SEE HER HUNGRY.

However, I am hopeful it is just a passing thing, as she has been doing some heavy developmental work this week, including:

• pushing up to hands and knees
• mastering the gentle art of pushing up to kneeling
• trying to pull up to standing
• going from kneeling/sitting and from sitting/crawling
• feeding herself with a spoon from a bowl (CUTEST THING EVER, she sort of stirs the bowl to get food on the spoon) although I confess to helping with the spoon loading process. I am very glad of this as while she could feed herself with a spoon at 6 months, she lost interest shortly thereafter which made us have to get far too creative with finger food, as she is still a BETH DO IT SELF kind of girl.
  

I have had a lovely day at home with her so far, although we have done very little other than hang out in the backyard. One of the nicest things about being back at work, apart from the cold hard cash, is how much I enjoy spending time with Beth these days. It doesn't feel like a job anymore!

(c) Grant

I happen to be married to this very sweet (but manly!) man, who changes nappies without a peep (if one disregards the retching noises we have both been prone to since Beth starting hitting the MEAT), will reliably get up at the crack of dawn with Beth if she wakes up early, invents hilarious baby games such as "couch jungle gym" and "face sucker," does the bath and book shift every night - and in addition to it all is a deeply romantic gentleman who never fails to pay nice compliments, even while I am, objectively speaking, a saggy, greasy-haired and mildly chewed up wreck. This life would not be half so fun without him and this parenting caper might be downright scary. HI HONEY!

By the way, Grant has been riding to work every freaking day since he started back 3 days in the office, including when it was 15 and when it was 36. But I might still win, because I once rode home from the city in 42ish temps. Grant has not however been doing any Wii Fit, and FOR SHAME. How am I going to get addicted again if he doesn't first?

(d) Travel

We got brave and took Beth to Brisvegas for Grant's brother's wedding, which was lovely. Travelling with a baby not so lovely, but she did sleep quite well in the Pram of Sleeping +8, just not in the Portacot of Doom.

How have you all been?

YOU!

Beth has three new tricks this week - getting onto her hands and knees, pulling up to kneeling, and POINTING LIKE THE EVIL MONKEY FROM "THE FAMILY GUY":

Beth shows off new skillz; Monsieur le Frog observes upside-down

I defy you not to explode at the cuteness.

Oh wait, there is actually a fourth developmental leap that has been around for a bit, as the "hamming it up for the camera" gene has now been activated: see above.

I had my first two-day week at work this week. It was a little easier actually to get work done, I must say, although I think we have a ways to go before I am as useful to my generous employer as I want to be. Beth was less angelic for Grant this week, though, and both evenings after work and for the days I have been with her, she has been frequently declaring her PASSIONATE LOVE FOR THE BOOB. Sometimes this kind of looks like when almost-weaned puppies ram their mother and cause her to fall over so they can feed. Still makes me feel all special, though :)

Back to wurk

Beth likes eggs, and lurves Daddy

So last week I returned to economically productive capacity in the formal sense, ie went into the office. And it was grand. There was cake. There was secretarial support of the first order. There were interesting matters and intellectual stimulation and grown-up conversation that did not centre around the feeding and care of Beth. AND I got to leave at 5pm, which I have never ever done before, and no-one questioned this. IT WAS AWESOME!

Beth stayed home with Grant and I have it on good authority, supported by Tara, that she had a lovely time. Adventures were had, I believe:

Grant, unlike me, can take Beth out of the house without packing for arctic expedition

Certainly she seemed very cheerful when I got home, before she saw me and started whingeing to nurse, then affixed herself for the next 2 hours or so. I must say that my return to work was about as stress-free as it could possibly have been - no childcare run or preparation of Beth required; all I had to do was get up, feed her, and leave. And of course after several weeks of silly buggers sleep habits, she slept beautifully for him (or slept "like someone else's baby" as he put it), between being sunny and cheerful and adventurous and fun. Grant said I couldn't have planned a better first day of full-time parenthood for him. He is now addicted and I may yet persuade him to stay home full-time while I go out and slay savage beasts to feed the family. Or actually, both of us working part-time will I think be wonderful, not to mention nice for sanity.

Grant sent me the following two pictures as "proof of life" while I was in the office. I defy anyone not to become all squooshy:

Oh yeah, I'm cute

Mum visited last week to knock the garden into shape, and it is now looking almost neat in some parts. She was visiting on Weds/Thurs, so Friday was my first day home alone with Beth last week, and until I locked us out of the house in the evening, we had a lovely time hanging out in the backyard. She only ate a healthy modicum of dirt, too.

Plus, I like the money.

The only downside of work was lactation-related. Our pumping facilities are a bit abysmal. As in, give that our offices are glass-fronted and therefore unsuitable for the modesty of a good corporate lawyer, I was offered two options for pumping, but #1 which used to be the "family room" for sick kids is now someone's office and also the kitchen for the whole floor, #2 is the sick room with a hidden power point and no desk space to work on while playing cow, and both are, of course, unlockable. This would have been OK if a "do not disturb" sign was efficacious, but I got walked in on in #1 despite do not disturb sign. On the other hand, I used to be shy about pumping despite not minding breastfeeding in public (of course, Beth DOES mind breastfeeding in public), but as I have now had to tell about a million people that I was pumping and have a million others either see me do it or see me dealing with the output, I am pretty well over that. Also, I can now pump while working, which is handy as I would otherwise have difficulty justifying 40 mins out of a shortened workday. But I might try to get a bigger table for the sick room.

In short: I am back. Not bigger and better than before, since I'm now effectively only working a weekend, but it's lovely just the same.

Crawling revisited

Also, Beth totally has the commando crawl down pat now. Proof:

The new place has a lot more space for her to crawl around in, so we expect to see the development of very buff crawling muscles indeed shortly.