A sneaky peek and more artwork.

There's nothing more fun than teasing people who know they are receiving something with little sneaky peeks at what they are getting.

So these 2 knitted 'somethings' are for Harriet...I wonder what they are???





And what's a mummy blog without lots of bragging. Some more pics by Jet done this afternoon.
Lots of shapes!

Recommended Reading ;)

I may not have been blogging much myself lately but there are 2 blogs in particular that I have been enjoying following and for anyone who happens to be looking for something crunchy, inspiring, and just really interesting, as well as really getting you thinking, I highly recommend Harriet's Mama's 2 blogs :)

First there is
The Musings of Harriet's Mama
The Life & Mind of a Lotus-Water-Freebirthin', Co-Sleeping, Non-Vaccinating, Baby Wearing, Cloth Nappy Using, Elimination Communicating, Lactivist, Feminist, Mum of One.

And her second blog, serving as a sort of diary for her family's journey with Elimination Communication (you might not want to read it while eating though, I learnt that from experience, LOL).

See A Cue? Catch A Poo!
This is where I keep track of our elimination communication (EC) journey. EC is the practice of learning and watching for a baby's elimination cues and catching her poo and wee rather than leaving her to soil herself. It's about strengthening communication between baby and parents and keeping baby in touch with her instincts

My little artist :)

The blog is being a little neglected right now...sorry bout that...oops!

Thought I would make it look a little interesting by sharing some pics I took this morning of Jet's artwork. I have been a slack mummy when it comes to rescuing a keeping his artwork before he and Indy decide that ripping paper is fun, oops! So when I saw this mornings pictures, I jumped on them!

Here we have an E and an F


a Z and a 4


Lots of I's an A and I think an L


And my favourite, a person!



And here is a pic of the fingerless gloves I made for a fellow Woolaholic for the I Love Lace swap, I hope she likes them!!


I have also been busy knitting a few baby items, not for my bub, but for Harriet...I can't show pics of them yet cos I want them to be a surprise for her mumma ;)


Not much else is new around here...still battling the nausea, gah, I can't believe it... 23wks+(ish, LOL) and still feeling awful. No vibes to what the gender is yet, though I have been told by a few people that they think I am having a boy. Is that because I have 2 already??? I'd say they have a 50/50 chance of being right, hahaha.
Maybe there's one of each in there...

Jet's 3rd Birthday!

Yep, that's right, my biggest little man is 3! It was Jet's 3rd birthday on Thursday and I am still recovering, LOL. Seriously though was a little tough for me emotionally being the anniversary of a trauma and all, being pregnant and actually allowing myself to feel it makes me kind of mourn the birth that I could have had, and I think reinforces the decision I have made to have a homebirth this time and not just go for the caesarean again like I did with Indy, something I don't think I should have done. Oh well...homebirth, homebirth after a caesarean, its still just a birth!

Jet got a dollhouse and a sandpit and is totally loving them both. Sand is being spread around the backyard as I type.....

Here are a few snaps to reminisce, and one from the day itself....

At birth

First birthday

Second birthday

Night before his birthday

Enjoying cake!

remember me?

Yes I am STILL battling the dreaded morning sickness...its getting a bit ridiculous at 17wks!! Hopefully it eases off soon because it is so so so SO tiring! (Not to mention bloody annoying!)

So I just wanted to post to say I am still around! Still here!
Have been a little busy of late working on a new little project and I hope you will all come and check it out....

Hathor Birth Haven

Hope you are all well, and hopefully I'll be back blogging, knitting and crocheting as much as I would like to be really soon :)

Pooh Bear...literally....

So you think your day really can't get much worse...

You been woken up by a crying toddler, walk to his room and open the door to be met by the love scent of POOP. Think hmm, that's weird (he's normally a mid-morning to early afternoon pooper) and on closer inspection you find that there is poo up said toddler's back, on his shirt, singlet, shorts and doona. Great. Not the start to the day I had in mind.
After putting him in the shower I go back to inspect bedding to make sure that the poo was only on doona as first thought. Yep. It appears the rest of the bed escaped poop.

Finally toddler is clean, and has calmed down.
We go off to find almost toddler has gotten into the pantry and is now crawling around with a AAA battery in his mouth. Nice.

Fast forward to the afternoon.... Almost toddler is sleeping, so I am dragged by toddler off to bedroom to read books on his bed. I am ordered to lie down on the pillow (I won't argue! I'm buggered!) So I am lying there, reading and thinking....I can smell poo....I look around...I can't see any. I lie there for awhile longer, maybe I am imagining it? Nope. The smell is still there.

I look around grab random toys.... Elephant, clear. Zebra, clear. Other zebra, clear. Giraffe, clear. Pooh Bear, POO!!! Gross, gross, gross! Pooh Bear has poo on his ears and quite appropriately, his butt (LOL).

And on closer inspection, the bed has suspicious marks on it...hmm.....and ewwww, I was lying on it!!!

Must be a Jet thing....

An afternoon at the playground :)

Have been feeling a bit guilty of late about the little time that the boys get to spend outside and active... We don't really have much of a backyard, and the side that is easily fenced and accessible to them is all concrete so is not exactly ideal. And the other thing that doesn't help is the weather!! On most, if not all, of Jamie's days off the weather has been awful, so not exactly going out weather. Not to mention how difficult I find taking them out on my own...one not walking and the other prone to doing runners/tantrums/dropping to the ground in not very good places!!
I haven't yet mastered getting Indy into the Ergo on my back yet on my own...but yesterday I gave it a bash and after about 1/2hr or more, a sore back and a stuffed wrist (not to mention an unimpressed Indy) I managed to get him in there (and swore never again).
So off Jet, Indy and I went, to a little playground a 5 min (well...15+min with a toddler iykwim) walk away from our house... I was quite disappointed.
The playground was full of climbing things, big slides etc, not really appropriate for a 2yr old. There was one slide that Jet could manage to get to own his own but the drop at the end was so big his feet didn't reach meaning that he would fly off the end and THUD onto the ground... He got the hang of grabbing onto the side to stop himself, but then decided to go down with his drink bottle in one hand...and flew off the end...and whacked his head on the slide, OW!!!

So I don't think we will go back there again...

Today turned out some beautiful weather! I went off to Spinners and Weavers this morning, as I do every second Tuesday, only to find out that there was no meeting today...and there won't be anymore for the rest of the year, DOH! They were spring cleaning ready for the Christmas party on Saturday so I decided to come home instead and seize the opportunity to spend some time in the great outdoors with my boys :) (Not incredibly impressed at not being told that there was no Spinners though...wasted time, petrol, money etc, not to mention that I could have slept in a bit longer LOL!!)
So this afternoon we packed some drinks, a few nibbles, some knitting (well duh!) and the picnic blanket and off to the playground we went. This time to one down near the beach, a bit more suited to Jet. And I even remembered the camera!! Yay.
Jet had lots of fun going down the slide, as did Jamie, LOL. And Indy even went down a few times with Jamie, when he wasn't crawling after seagulls, LOL!!

Here's some pics from our lovely afternoon out :) (If you click them you can see a bigger pic)


Jet and Jamie going down the slide.

Jet sliding, such a crack up!

Racing off for another turn!

Poke! Very hard to get a pic of Indy without him trying to poke the lens.

Indy sliding with Jamie.

And our friends...Indy was chasing them and sharing his food with them, LOL.

Hoping to do it all again tomorrow!!

Broken???

Had to share this 'conversation' I had with Jet today. (He's still not incredibly verbal, but as you can see he gets his point across...)

We were in the toilet, I had to pee. While waiting for me he started pointing to body parts for us to name them (and can I just say it has helped his vocabulary heaps!) so we were doing arm, leg etc and then we moved onto penis and testicles (we are ditching the kiddy labels of balls and doodle and embracing body parts for what they really are) which he pointed out...
Well...then he had a look at me, kinda peeking into the toilet, I assume looking for my penis?? Obviously I don't have one ;)

He frowned at me, pointed and declared 'broken'

....yeah thanks...LOL

Photos of the boys!

I am on a bit of a roll today huh...
Well, in my defense the progress posts were done through flickr and I had to do them separate...



I forgot I had taken these photos until I uploaded the crafty pics. These are from a week or so ago when the weather was actually warm enough for the boys to be outside playing in water!

The baby's nighttime plan

This was emailed to me by Carla. I love it!


OK, here's my situation. My Mummy has had me for almost 7 months. The
first few months were great-- I cried, she picked me up and fed me,
anytime, day or night. Then something happened. Over the last few weeks,
she has been trying to STTN (sleep thru the night). At first, I thought it
was just a phase, but it is only getting worse. I've talked to other
babies, and it seems like it's pretty common after Mummies have had us for
around 6 months. Here's the thing: these Mummies don't really need to
sleep. It's just a habit. Many of them have had some 30 years to sleep--
they just don't need it anymore. So I am implementing a plan. I call it
the Crybaby Shuffle. It goes like this: Night 1--cry every 3 hours until
you get fed. I know, it's hard. It's hard to see your Mummy upset over
your crying. Just keep reminding yourself, it's for her own good.
Night 2--cry every 2 hours until you get fed. Night 3--every hour.

Most Mummies will start to respond more quickly after about 3 nights. Some
Mummies are more alert, and may resist the change longer. These Mummies
may stand in your doorway for hours, shhhh-ing. Don't give in. I cannot
stress this enough: CONSISTENCY IS KEY!! If you let her STTN (sleep
through the night), just once, she will expect it every night. I KNOW IT'S
HARD! But she really does not need the sleep, she is just resisting the
change. If you have an especially alert Mummy, you can stop crying for
about 10 minutes, just long enough for her to go back to bed and start to
fall asleep. Then cry again. It WILL eventually work. My Mummy once stayed
awake for 10 hours straight, so I know she can do it.

Last night, I cried every hour. You just have to decide to stick to it and
just go for it. BE CONSISTENT! I cried for any reason I could come up
with. My sleep sack tickled my foot. I felt a wrinkle under the sheet. My
mobile made a shadow on the wall. I burped, and it tasted like pears. I
hadn't eaten pears since lunch, what's up with that? The cat said "meow".
I should know. My Mummy reminds me of this about 20 times a day. Once I
cried just because I liked how it sounded when it echoed on the monitor in
the other room. Too hot, too cold, just right--doesn't matter! Keep
crying!! It took a while, but it worked. She fed me at 4am. Yippee !!
Tomorrow night, my goal is 3:30am. You need to slowly shorten the interval
between feedings in order to reset your Mummies' internal clocks.

P.S. Don't let those rubber things fool you, no matter how long you suck
on them, no milk will come out. Trust me.

I don’t get it.

Controlled crying that is…and crying it out for that matter…its all one and the same though isn’t it?

I ‘get’ that its *supposed* to make the baby sleep ‘better’, longer, through the night, or whatever the hell the parent wants. But I don’t get why on earth you would want to put your child through that…not even a child, a little baby!

Yes, I have had to on occasion put down a crying baby and walk for a few seconds or minutes to regain composure and self control but that is vastly different to leaving a baby screaming in order to make it do something it obviously doesn’t want to do and something that only serves the parent’s needs.
Does it sound ridiculously selfish yet???

You work hard, sometimes for months or longer, to get pregnant, to have the little baby you longed for, I would have thought all the hard work would inspire a little more nurturing than oh… scheduled feedings, strict sleep routines (can’t have that baby sleeping in our arms now can we, don’t want to have to put too much effort into parenting now…) and when the sleep routines don’t go as parent plans, baby must cry, no, scream itself to sleep…alone, in a dark room. Maybe in pain? Maybe sick? Maybe thirsty? Maybe just wanting a cuddle from Mummy and Daddy to feel loved? But it doesn’t matter! Parent just wants baby to sleep! Away from them, with no assistance, never mind the psychological damage they could be causing…after all they have parent so much during the day they deserve a break at night don’t they??
Um, hello, parenting is a 24/7 job…fuck it, its not even a job. Its your life!! it’s the lives of your children!!!!

Sleep deprivation is a bitch and I know it! I am living it, every single day! Yes I am tired, but that’s really not a very good excuse for poor parenting choices, disrespectful parenting choices even.

Let me tell you about a typical night with Indy. He is 13mths old, always been a shocking sleeper, always been helped to go to sleep. (A stark contrast from Jet 2.5 who has always self settled and slept through from something ridiculous like 12/13 weeks of age.)
Indy is rocked to sleep, he has a bottle (we are working on slowly weaning, its at about half a bottle atm) and if he isn’t asleep already we keep rocking (in a rocking chair) or just holding him even (he has a dummy too) and he goes to sleep. It all happens super quick these days, when he was younger it would take forever, and then sometimes when you went to put him down he would wake up and you would have to start the rocking all over again. Now it takes maybe 10 minutes? 20 minutes tops I reckon. Once he is asleep we generally sit for a little bit, just holding him, not because he needs it, but because we like it, who wouldn’t want to drift off to sleep in a moment of tenderness?
Then he is placed in his cot and off we go.
This happens around 7pm, sometimes later if we are a bit slack.

Sometimes he sleeps great and it might be, oh, 4 or 5 hrs before we hear from him, other nights it can be as soon as half an hour…
Of late it has been about 4 hrs till he wakes…and oh boy are we in a bitch of a stage atm!!!
Previously he would just need to have the dummy put back in and maybe moved back under the covers. On odd occasions we would have to resettle him completely by rocking, other times he would come into our bed, snuggle in and settle straight away.
But currently, after those 4 or so hours sleep, when he wakes up, he wakes up!!
How to put it…he is, standing up-jumping-dancing-climbing-laughing-babbling-looks like he has had a caffeine hit-kind of awake…and it generally lasts about 3hrs, yep, 3hrs in the middle of the night Indy is up and ready to party.
We of course are not.
If we leave him in the cot he cries, so of course he comes into our bed, where he does all of the above mentioned.
I won’t lie, it is really really hard, some nights you could just clobber him, but we don’t…we remember we chose to nurture our children’s needs and that this is just a stage. It won’t last forever, and soon midnight cuddles will just be a fond and funny memory of the past. (And we plead with him to sleep…he just laughs, LOL!!)

I have blogged about my childhood memories before, they have a huge impact on my parenting choices, as well as the love I feel for my children and not wanting to cause them pain or discomfort.

Would you want you child to grow up with memories of being left alone to cry in the dark? Feeling alone and like no one cares? Feeling like their needs are irrelevant? (And to have very little, as little as possible, to do with you? As I do now with my parents...)

I sure as hell don’t.

*Previously posts on CCing here here and here *

The story so far.

If you had told me a few years ago that come late 2007 I would not only be planning for a third baby, but a homebirth too I think I would have fainted or laughed or just thought you were plain crazy.
Birth is horrible and dangerous dontcha know!?

Its useless to look back and think if only I had have done blah blah blah…if only I had seen a psychologist sooner and had help or something. Its all irrelevant now… Sad yes, but moving on and looking forward to a new chapter that will hopefully give me some closure on the chapter just gone.

I have read that you can’t ‘cure’ a bad birth by having a good birth…maybe not, I don’t expect the memory to disappear completely, but I NEED a homebirth. I need to see and feel a birth free from unnecessary intervention and disrespectful treatment. Quite frankly, I need to know that I can birth a baby.
That’s it.
I want know what spontaneous labour feels like, what it feels like when waters break of their own accord, what it feels like when the baby’s head is crowning and what it feels like to actually push a baby out!

I’d like to actually enjoy pregnancy too, that will be a big goal for me with the next pregnancy!!
Its quite probable that I will puke my guts up again, but I want to try and see the positives, marvel in the wondrous experience that growing a baby is.
With Jet I was sick and I just hated it, I think it was so easy to hate it all. The pain of an unstable pelvis…the constant nausea the whole way through…the fluid retention…
Indy’s pregnancy while it had the above similarities, with a lot more puking, was a whole other story. Oh boy. Now that is an experience I hope no one else ever has to go through, and I hope I don’t go through anything like it again. (It would be dishonest of me to say I’m sure it won’t. I have no idea what effect being pregnant will have on me, I am confident that I have come a long way since then and learnt so much, as well as having a lot more support that it isn’t likely, but it still worries me and scares me all the same)

I can’t say exactly when Jet’s birth started effecting me and to what extent. I do know that before I got pregnant with Indy I knew I wanted a c/s (because dontcha know a c/s means controlling the situation (ugh) and all the pain of labour could be avoided…sigh) and I know by later on in the pregnancy I was experiencing flashbacks. I think I told anyone who would listen that labour and birth were horrible and c/s’s were the answer (I truly shudder when I think about that now, I was so stupid!!).
I wasn’t counting on the Obs to be so anti-c/s, from what I had heard Obs are happy to slice and dice (I still don’t know why they weren’t keen to do it to me…) and I think that just made everything a lot more intense for me. I was terrified of going into labour, petrified! I thought that I would rather die than go through the hell that was labour, and I was for much of late pregnancy, suicidal.

The Obs didn’t care that I had been through such a traumatic experience, it was nothing to them. No one wanted to know about it all, I think if anyone had (which they didn’t) I wouldn’t have told them anyway…I was suspicious of my GP for suggesting counseling because I felt that his motivation was to talk me into having a vaginal birth, which in a guess a way it was, but probably not in the horrible way I had thought at the time.

Eventually I got a psychiatrist on side, I had been seeing him off and on since I was about 20? He wrote a letter to the Obs and after that they let me have a c/s. Why the shrink didn’t diagnose PTSD I have no idea…but I plan not to return to him again. Not only for that, but for other poor advice that I am thankful I was educated enough to not follow.

Fast forward a few months after Indy was born… Said shrink diagnoses me with PND (what a crock!) and refers me to a psychologist because he felt that the level of attachment I felt with my kids was abnormal or something like that. I had mentioned something like that I sort of felt trapped because I wanted to spend time away from them, but at the same time I couldn’t bear to, throw in the fact that I hate anyone holding my kids, especially as newborns.

Somehow, somewhere, in one of the appts with psychologists I come clean…
I had for so long hated, absolutely hated anyone that said how much they loved their birth experience etc…
But deep down I didn’t really. I was just so very envious.

Before I got pregnant with Jet I assumed everything would go to plan, I would have a fabulous birth, breastfeeding would just happen and I would be the most fabulous mother ever! I had wanted to be one of those ‘lucky’ birth loving women.

I think I still have a chance at that.

A few months ago I somehow found out that there are in fact 2(!!) Independent Midwives where I live, before that I had been considering freebirthing. And so now the ball is rolling.

Previous c/s irrelevant. I’m not planning a HBAC, I’m not even planning a homebirth, its just another birth.

Revisiting old stuff...and sibling rivalry issues!!

I feel like its been ages since I did a decent juicy post, lol, something more insightful than a quick, oh btw I have a support person…look what I have knitted….aren’t my children gorgeous…kind of post.

I know I have been getting a few Google hits to previous posts on the LLETZ procedure I had done, as well as the articles I posted links to on why you shouldn’t let you baby cry it out, so I think I want to go back there again and re address it…. Not to mention talk about the HBAC journey a little more ;)

And before I forget…. To all you wonderful mummies that read my blog, I need some help!!!!!
We are having some sibling rivalry (I so nearly typed Ravelry then, LOL!!) issues at the moment and it seems to be getting worse…. We have gone from pushing to hitting and it is driving us nuts!!! Any suggestions to how we can deal with this in a gentle guidance kind of fashion? Some times it feels like Indy spends the whole day crying…and its simply because Jet has spent the whole day pushing him over and slapping him!! I hate to see when Indy starts walking or even trying to!! All this business has only really started since Indy started pulling to stand and cruising….

Ideas, suggestions, solutions, ANYTHING(!!) welcome (so long as it has nothing to do with smacking or time out thanks)

Photos of my gorgeous boys :)

I think its been a while since I dedicated a post to showing off my little spunks, so here is one :)


Indy my littlest cutiepie :) Shame about the dummy I know, but I think his eyes just look beautiful in this photo. (Standing at the table...since when can he reach up and grab things off the tablle!?! Too tall for my liking, lol)

Getting up to no good in the fridge...

Looking weary after a long day, but look at those 2 chompers! (And where on earth are your others?? These 2 popped up 3 months ago and nothing since!!)


And Jet, Jamie and I love these photos!! We think he looks like a little rock star.... a pic for comparison ;)

Yep, looks like a little Jon Bon Jovi to me, lol.

And being a cheeky little chop with Mummy's sunnies. Every cool rock star needs a decent pair of shades, hehehe.

a quicky update for my neglected blog

LOL!

Ugh, so tired of late, Indy's sleep has just gone nuts... I think he has been listening to us talk about the possibility of #3 so is trying to act as contraception!

I have finally finished the longies for little Zakai....I cast on the night before he was born!! LOL, must have known something
But then in between Indy not sleeping, me being stuffed and trying to be a good support for my sis I only just finished them yesterday.... They should have only taken a few days, but the biggest set back was picking them up half asleep, making an error on the cuff, trying to fix it and wrecking it some more.....and then cracking it and frogging back to the start of the leg.
NEVER KNIT HALF ASLEEP!!!! It's dangerous!!

I have also finally picked up the Juliet again, it has been neglected for a few weeks as I piss farted around trying to decide on a shawl, or a blanket, or a something?? For my sister/Zakai and then at the last minute settled on longies so that I would have at least something to give her when he was born....well, that was the plan anyway!!
So last night I cast off the sleeves, yay! Now I just have to continue on in the garter for awhile because I'm doing the longer version

Finally settled on a blanket to do for little Zakai. Decided I didn't have the patience for a shawl, but that I need something I can sink my teeth into, something a bit of a challenge so....you may, or may not, remember this blanket that I did for my nephew Jack for his 1st birthday. Well, its going to be along the same lines as that....same kind of idea (ie, stash buster,), colourful, nice pic, and his name..... Now just to find some time and brain capacity...
With any luck it will be done before Christmas!!

A bit late but....

My little sister had a baby boy on Monday

Welcome to the world little Zakai!!! 6lb 7oz

Birthday snaps!

What a cutie! My big 1yr old....

Happy Birthday Indy!!!!

One year old already....where has the time gone??

quicky update....

So my poor blog has been neglected for awhile as we ride the crazy rollercoaster ride that is parenting, with a huge dose of sleep deprivation, a dash of teething and a splash of sickness...oh the joys
But...I have finished the sock swap!!!!! At long last!! Many apologies to my swappeeee...life has just really gotten in the way atm
I hope to send them this afternoon...all going well

Just fluff really....

Just wanted to share a few pics....

A few of my always beautiful Indy



And sneak peeks at Charli's surprise something....