If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all, right?

So quick update. More to follow when we have time, as to which: see below.

1. We went to New Zealand and had a lovely time. Beth was an absolute champ, and being on Sydney time in Auckland meant we could have her up until 10pm local time and GO OUT FOR DINNER, WOOHOO! We managed far more than I would have thought possible - Art Gallery, Albert Park, Museum, The Domain (a bit), Mount Eden, Mission Bay/beach (BEST DAY EVER!), Zoo (recommended), Devonport (pissing down raining and not at its best, but nice Hunza Pie), Victoria Park (excellent play equipment) and Victoria Park Markets (LAME) and some drives here and there (visit Clevedon and buy pies from the deli, you will not be sorry) as well as Regan and Jace's wedding and surrounding events (congratulations Regan and Jace! it was a privilege to be there!). We stayed on the main drag into town, which in hindsight was not the world's greatest idea, but it was very convenient to everything.
   
2. Beth started walking on the second day we were there, and has now got it down pat, and is very pleased with herself.
3. Three days after we arrived home, we got a fabulous letter from our real estate agent saying that our landlord was not renewing the lease and we had to be out in three weeks. There are never more than 2 properties available for lease in the area, and if we move Beth drops off the childcare waiting lists we are on. Also, we have moved 6 TIMES IN 2.5 YEARS ALREADY. So, you know, not happy.
4. We found a new place within a week (nicer than this one but smaller, and still no dishwasher, and alas further from the train station) and the big part of the move is tomorrow. Fortunately it looks like we can get away with only 4 days lease overlap. I am steeling myself for jolly arguments with the current real estate agent about the condition of the property, given that it was absolutely filthy when we moved in and there is no way I am paying for it to be professionally cleaned in view of same. Of course, real estate agent for the new place annouced it would be cleaned and the lawns mowed before we moved in, and when we got the keys it was also filthy (although unlike this one - no rat or mouse poo, so there's that) and the lawns are knee high - all this for a paltry $500/week. Must remember that these people are SCUM. Except Claire, our Newcastle real estate agent, who was lovely.
   
5. We've now had so many places that we are running out of acronyms. However, the plan is now to avoid similar horrific events in the future by buying a place, so perhaps we can call the current one Temporary Accommodation.
   

So that's us, and that's the most recent excuse for not updating. Bye bye, Narnia. We hardly knew ye.

Oh, and...

13-months-and-change addendum:

Beth can say "Daddy" (her first word, at 10 months), "Mum" (although usually in the form "mum mum mum mum" and usually when she wants something, eg. boob), "Ta" (when giving something away or asking for it back) and "Bob" (thanks to Nanna!).

I THINK she's also trying to say "Dougie" - Mum's dog's name - as she sort of says "da" repeatedly when she sees him. She also sort-of said "up" the other day, but she hasn't repeated that one so it might have been a fluke.

She can sign "finished" (hands straight up in the air) and "milkies" (one hand opening and closing). She has also used the milkies sign a couple of times when she wants a drink of water, so it might be of more general application! This week she used this sign a few times when we were reading her book about eating, which has a picture of a baby breastfeeding, and we thought she was terribly clever.

Did I mention a tree fell over in our back yard and took most of the clothesline with it? Grand. Landlord is going to cut it up next weekend, or so I am told.

Catalogue of 13 months

Beth is now nearly 14 months old. Amazing!

She weighed in at 11.2kg at our nurse visit last week, putting her at the 90th or 95th percentile depending on which charts you use. However, she's had a lot of pain from her teeth over the last week and has been off her tucker and hitting up the mummy buffet something fierce day and night, which has also seemed to add to the sack of potatoes factor as breastmilk is basically a high-carb protein shake (BEEFCAKE! BEEFCAKE!), and we weighed her at 11.5kg a few days after that. Don't know if the extra grams will stick though. She's 78cm, which is 95th or 97th percentile depending on the charts.

Beth has quite the sense of humour these days. Favourite jokes include hiding, stealing daddy's glasses and putting them on mummy, play-biting my chin and Grant's elbow, and any form of peekaboo, especially around the couch. Grant is excellent at ducking down behind it, around the side, and popping up where she least expects it.

She is an excellent climber. She can climb the climbing wall up to the play equipment in the park across the road most but not all times, and can now go down the slippery dip by herself (on her tummy, feet-first). She reliably turns around and goes down steps backwards, and can also do that off our bed, although she has had two mighty tumbles from failing to turn all the way around!

She finds flights of stairs great fun, so it's a lucky thing we don't have any :)

She adores the great outdoors. She can amuse herself for hours in the backyard, poking at dirt and clambering around, with the odd attempt to eat toxic oleander. We have been to various beaches on the Parramatta River lately and seems to get a real kick out of the mud.


And just like Daddy, she LOVES the rain.


The great thing is that our back verandah is so holey that one can experience the rain indoors!

She can't walk by herself yet. However, she can go quite a distance with us just holding one of her hands. She can squat and stand very well with her Donnelly calves, and Auntie Tara taught her a game of down (squat) - up that has really helped with her standing and that she thinks is hilarious.

Grant has been taking her to swimming lessons once a week, and I am told she has a great time, and is also twice the height of the other babies.

She's been having a lovely time with her grandmothers on Wednesdays. She is always very excited to see them. She has been a little sooky and clingy on the first days I have at home with her each week (Thursdays), and usually wants to nurse a lot on that day. However, I am choosing to think of this as a nice thing - as GrandEm says, there is no harm in having a favourite!

And other than that, the only thing I can think of about our lovely big girl is that she never met a peg she didn't like, but she prefers the red ones (and will rip them off the clothesline if it is in reach).

Raspberry proof

Observe:
(a) the awesome raspberry technique and
(b) the giant white floppy belly, proving that while I am size 12 now and was size 12 before I was pregnant with Beth, those? Are not the same size 12s! On the plus side, I think the floppiness improves the raspberry results.

I know mothers are supposed to say this kind of thing, but...

My daughter can blow the best raspberries (aka zerberts) on PLANET EARTH. Seriously, her technique is immaculate. My tummy is her preferred canvas, which is more flattering than one might think, especially as she generally refuses to raspberry her dad :)

MUMMY FOR THE WIN!

Where's Spot?

Beth is OBSESSED with her "Where's Spot?" book. As in wanting it to be read to her three times tonight and still trying to get it back into her hot little clutches after the third go-through obsessed. She is generally a huge fan of reading, and several times a day gets a book out and flips through it herself. Kudos to Grant for this, as he diligently reads to her every night, but I think we both supplied the DNA for the bookworm tendency!

Apparently babies are supposed to have trouble choosing between multiple toys, but Beth is all in favour of dragging toy after toy out of her drawers and playing with them, and was multitasking two musical toys and a trolley today. That would be my DNA, I guess :)

I went grocery shopping twice this weekend, and we had a box delivery of organic veg, but we STILL don't have enough ingredients to assemble an actual meal. That kind of lack of coordination requires real effort to achieve.

Stinking hot all weekend, but we have been getting good use out of the clamshell wading pools, and the cool change has hit just in time for me to ride into work tomorrow. Woohoo!

For the sake of posting

It's kind of warm here, and we have gone from playing in a bucket of water in the backyard to keep cool, to filling the shell wading pool to keep cool, to filling one half shell in the morning and the other in the evening, because the morning one is too hot by then. And also full of yoghurt, but that's another story. The afternoon one got full of tuna/potato/cheese ball (recipe below) detritus and an apple, which is another story again.

We have been invaded by an invisible biting bug, possibly as a result of tree lopping across the road. It/they have bitten the crap out of Grant and I and are very very itchy, but Beth seems immune, thank God. I have done 8 loads of washing in 2 days and as much vacuuming as possible (limited, as Beth is mortally afraid of the Dyson). I THINK we are making headway, but it is fairly hard to fight an enemy you can neither see nor identify. Perhaps there are analogies in the middle east. Never get involved in a land war in Asia, or a pest eradication effort against a mystery pest!

Grant and Beth have been going to swim classes on Tuesdays, and I am told she loves it. Grant thought all the other babies were much younger than her, but it turns out that she's just still hulkingly tall. Grant has been riding her over in the WeeRide, which since we are so close to Olympic Park is faster than driving.

Beth has really been working on the walking problem of late. She still can't do walk, but she can stand unassisted for short periods of time, really kicks her legs around a lot, is cruising beautifully, and can "walk" if you hold onto only one of her hands quite well. She's putting less and less weight on things when she leans on them for support. She's not going to win any early mobility awards but we are very impressed with her anyway.

She also religiously goes off any elevated surface backwards, but sometimes sideways and backwards, which doesn't work out so well.

Her new trick is fake sneezing (HILARIOUS), and putting things on her head, including blueberries.

And did I mention she is so beautiful and smart and funny, and we are the luckiest people around?

Work 3 days a week is going pretty well. We have a bit more work on now. The alternating grandmother arrangement is going BRILLIANTLY. Beth has a lovely time on her nanna/Grandem days and is happy as a clam to see them.

Other news: I am riding to work 1 or 2 days per week, which is a 30km round trip. Aren't you impressed with me? It nearly killed me the first two times but I am gradually getting in better shape. I love the new bike, but it's fairly high geared and will be a while until I am strong enough to push its capabilities, I think.

TUNA, POTATO AND CHEESE BALLS
1 cup leftover mashed spud
1 small tin drained tuna, flaked
1 grated carrot
About 1/3 cup grated cheese
1 egg
Pinch salt

Mix together and fry in balls, sausages or patties. For grownups add about 1-2 teaspoons curry powder. Not bad.

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?