just plodding along

all our babies

1. Guido is 33 weeks and 2 days. And I am pretty huge.

2. Howie got his new baby today - his new MacBook Pro. It is still to be named.

3. Our two little buddies got presents galore from mummy and daddy today. Firstly, we've removed the divider. So provided they behave and don't bite each other, it shouldn't be needed again. And secondly, we bought four feeder fish to get some super fresh food in their tummies. Although they didn't really get it, so it seemed. But a few hours later, we can only find three fish, so perhaps at least one of them has figured it out.

fleeting technology

i have two pieces of technology that i think are quite past their use-by date, but still both work perfectly fine.

are you interested?

1. Sony Discman with rechargable batteries and charger, and manual. Still works fine, and has served me well. But with a shuffle, I don't really use it anymore.

2. HP iPaq PDA with all it's cables, charger and in original box. Still works fine as well, but as a mac family, it's not really compatible to us so I was only using it to play jawbreaker. Ok, so technically it's Howie's PDA, but as if he will ever use it again either.

both amazing pieces of technology (in their day).

what do i do with them?

rounding it down

my great grandfather's full name was Nicholas Thomas Arthur Victor Micah Cornwall Mayne. that's five middle names. in the end he was known as Arthur.

maybe my great great grandparents knew he would be an only child and so put all their eggs in the one basket.

feeling hot and yuck

with jam and cream

i was trying to think of things i could bake the other day that don't involve egg. things that i can have ingredients on hand at all times. because eggs aren't high on our household shopping nor consumption list.

and i thought of scones!

so tonight i baked some scones. i've never made scones before. but they looked and tasted right, so that is exciting. and there are like 13 left over. i hope tom is hungry when he gets home tonight.

next time i might dabble with sultanas and/or dates!

miele marvel

i love when you wash sheets and towels and every single piece of laundry ends up wrapped up inside your queen fitted sheet by the end of the cycle. so convenient.

fair trade fair

today howie and i hung out at the fair trade fair at morling. we had a bunch of TEAR resources as well as Useful Gift Shop cards to sell. we did a modest business. we had decided that selling one card was our sales target. we achieved above and beyond. see, you've got to set low standards.

i reckon the fair is a great idea - just needs more people to come!

i didn't buy anything this time around from other stalls - places like oxfam, tribes and nations, baan handicrafts. it's all good stuff, but i don't need any more fairtrade bags or toys at the moment.

i thought it was cool that maxine mckew came along, although i missed most of what she said while i went to get howie some lunch from oporto (we enjoy some level of irony by having oporto for lunch - better than maccas).

anyway, it was a lovely day in the sun, good to see a few people who tend to enjoy such events.

and it was super lovely to come home and have a nap.

i don't really have anything interesting to say at this moment in time.

the simple things, not so simple

i may need to invest in some slip on shoes. laces are not my friends at the moment. i can't reach them easily!

forget to get me a present?

do i have the solution for you...

richard hammond and jeremy clarkson!

to register your interest in sending me and howie along, please leave a comment and we will get back to you with suitable dates, times and ticketing options. please include an indication of your willingness to babysit.

26 ticked off

i am 27 years and one day old today. i don't know whether i think 27 is old. i don't really feel old. although i am tired and sore and sometimes grumpy. but i can attribute that to the 32 week old baby inside of me. that's my prerogative!

yesterday was a happy day. howie presented me with presents in the morning - he and the turtles went halves in some DVDs. good on them.

then we had work. i've pulled back from one of the programs on the usual two program day that is tuesday, as part of my gradual pulling back from work, which will probably be complete within four weeks. i was hopeful it would leave me less tired and sore. not sure if i accomplished that or not. but i would think so.

anyway, back to birthday. i found that facebook makes you feel loved on your birthday, in a weird cyber way. traditional smses are fun. and even more, old-school telephone calls (even if i can't answer my phone and have to listen to voicemail later). visitors are even more impressive - good on jane and hannah.

and we finished work 10 minutes early which was exciting.

not sure what to do with the evening, we came home and had some thinking time. then we decided we'd just go to the rsl, because that's way classy. so up the hill we walked. i had gnocci and howie had spag bol.

then it was home to watch some bill bailey (one of the DVDs i was given). it was his debut live show from 1996. he was funny, and a little strange. we still have two other shows to watch from more recent times, which will be fun.

by 10pm i was wasted, so it was bed time. i guess i am getting old!

valentina is amazing

pretty much the title says it all.

valentina made me this amazing cake for my birthday tomorrow - which also happens to be her birthday!

isn't that amazing! i don't know what else to say. thank you valentina! (and thank you steve for driving valentina to drop it off)

i have the best surrogate inlaw family!

celebratories

today we went to my parentals, with the noobs, to have a bit of a birthday lunch for me since tuesday is a write-off. hoorah!

i had tried to make things nice and easy (ish) for my mum by requesting only dim sims, to which she added fried rice. as we arrived we discovered james had added his own request of sizzling steak (which i also love but hadn't asked for).

so what a tops lunch! my mum is clever mum.

then we hung around for a while chatting, eating skittles, and watching howie throw james' iphone across the room as he played bowling (whoops!).

at about 3pm my grandparents, and later auntie sue, came over for afternoon tea. an exciting surprise was that my grandma had gotten her eternity ring off in one piece, and was giving it to me today - part birthday celebration, part first child having. and all free for howie. he hasn't had to pay for any of my wedding related rings. nice form.

but it's a lovely ring. was given to her by my granny, who had it made out of another ring, so i think the story goes.

so my wedding band looks all the more plain now, but the eternity ring goes well with my engagement one (which was also grandma's)

thanks grandma!

s x s

this morning we headed off to the eastern suburbs to check out this years sculpture by the sea.

we decided to try and park around tamarama rather than bronte. our choice of day wasn't the best for getting an easy park - what with it being a saturday and being lovely and sunny.

in the end, we ended up in some random street off bondi road and decided that it was probably easier to just walk however far it was than try find a park elsewhere. so off we trotted. the park we had to go through to get to the tamarama beach looked harmless on the map. but once we got there we realised there was no way we were coming back this way. there were about 30 000 steps!! down, not so much a worry, but for fat wifey, the idea of walking back up them wasn't appealing!

anyway, we popped out just near the beach and the first of the tail end of the exhibition. i bought one of the guide books, and we were on our way

the first sculpture we saw

there was a lot of metal work this year

it really was a lovely day to have as a backdrop for the sculptures

i think the coolest one was the railway track

and with that we continued on to bondi to find some lunch. we weren't sure what offerings there would be - but were satisfied to find oporto open again (it wasn't there last year). so that made for an easy decision.

we then went and sat on the grass in a patch of shade and enjoyed our lunch and the spring breeze.

we also decided that it probably made more sense to walk back to the car along campbell parade/bondi road, than back around the coastal walk and up those stairs of death. and i reckon we both stand by that decision.

we got back to the car and headed back home. we thought it was a nice way to spend our first saturday off together for a month or so. but we did also think that sculpture by the sea is starting to disappoint us. we both like fun things more than abstract sculpture-y things, and miss things like the melted icecream truck, pool in the skip bin, miniature kombi, and giant traffic lights.

once home we had a well deserved nap (which still continues for howie). not sure what adventures tonight may or may not hold!

flashback

tonight lachy came over for some dinner and a dvd. very reminiscent of friday nights earlier this year.

we had some homemade pizza, and watched transformers. oh how i love transformers. oh how i love optimus prime. and oh how i love josh duhamel.

and it was good fun to hang out with lachy again - it had been a while! what a tops start to the weekend. oh how good this weekend is going to be.

the dreaded video

well tonight was the night of watching some birth videos at our prenatal class. it was pretty full on! the first two were 'normal' births, and the last was a c-section. did a good job of freaking me out a bit, but then again i don't have to watch myself doing it. got some good tips though on things to try through labour, which is helpful. but still, it's quite overwhelming.

after the c-section video towards the end (which i didn't watch because i don't do well with surgery type stuff, like RPA) one of the other dads-to-be got up to go to the bathroom and just before getting to the door he fainted! he fell backwards and whacked his head on the floor. it was so loud. as was everyone else's gasps that followed. so crazy! some went off to find some help (fortunately we were in a hospital!) while our teacher looked after him - he was out for a good three minutes. so, that kind of ended the class and he was taken to emergency to have some scans and stuff because he had such a huge knock to the head and had been unconscious for a while.

eventful evening!!

packs

i decided today that in an attempt to not tempt fate, or something, i might start thinking about packing for hospital. sure i'm only 31 weeks, but hey, guido might decide it's fun to come a bit early. although probably good if s/he keeps cooking for a few weeks yet.

i think because there are so many things i won't be able to control when things kick into gear, having a bag packed and ready to go will be of some reassurance to me. or maybe i won't even notice. maybe it's just reassurance to me now!

i think sometimes that the idea of giving birth itself isn't as bad to me as the not knowing of when it's going to happen, how long it's going to take and how my body will respond to it. it's the unknowns, rather than the biology, that gets to me most.

i'm also going to try get guido's room set up. it's a bit all over the place at the moment - it took a back seat to getting the rest of the house set up. which still isn't quite there, but hey. one day.

also, today is finish a la carte day. it's been a bit hard to juggle that along with everything else howie has had to do, and be away for. so fingers crossed!

...ophobe

i'm going to visit tamara today. yesterday she was told she may be discharged on monday. that would be tops. stupid crohn's.

for some reason i've become acutely aware of not touching anything in hospitals. for some part of it, i think it's because my immune system isn't as strong at the moment because of babyness, so i don't want to make myself ill. but i think also i'm becoming a bit of a germaphobe. which i don't want to be. because i want my kid to eat dirt and sand like all kids should. hmmm... we'll have to see how it goes.

good

tomorrow is a good day. it's good because howie comes home. which means it's almost the weekend. which means howie and i get to hang out. and that is good.

today was much hotter than i had expected. in the end i came home at lunchtime to change into something cooler! the strange things pregnant ladies do. i'm also disappointed i didn't take advantage of a warm day to do a load of washing. dear oh dear.

i am hoping the southerly comes through soon so i can watch some lightning and such things. but seems it's not due until later in the morning. although i can hear distant booms. unless someone nearby is watching a movie with good explosions and a good sub woofer. altogether possible.

birthdays

my birthday is coming up. and i have people asking me what i want.

and in all serious, i cannot think of anything. there isn't really anything i need. and i can't even think of anything i want. how unhelpful is that!

the only things i can think of aren't really for me. they are things like cot sheets or a nappy bag. not very birthday-ey are they.

i guess it's kind of good - besides the obviousness of how i have plenty, it's unlikely that my birthday is going to be all that festive after this one. life is no longer about me!

meanwhile, birthdays are a funny thing anyway. you celebrate yourself being born. good in itself. but perhaps birthdays should be a celebration of mum, who gave birth to you. yeh. maybe i should claim guido's eventual birthday as a celebration of me!

1964

i've had a fairly quiet day today - haven't felt all that well. seems to be when i don't feel well that either guido decides it will be the day of awkward positioning, or that i just notice him/her making my uncomfortable more than i usually would. but regardless, the combination isn't all that nice.

so in the spirit of all things slothly, i was mucking around with yearbook yourself. and this is 1964 me

way so hot

impending

sometimes, or a lot of the times, the idea of labour and giving birth can be pretty freaky. at the moment i think i'm still distancing myself from it. happy to talk about, not so happy to think about actually how i'm going to deal with it!

our prenatal classes are pretty good. learning about things that i don't know much about. and i guess just gaining more knowledge that will hopefully help in some way or another once we get there ourselves.

but still, even if all goes completely perfectly, it's a pretty huge thing. completely manageable one way or another, but huge.

i'm not sure i'll get my head around it until i'm in it, and figure it all out for myself.

less than 10 weeks to go.

then just gotta worry about that whole being a mother and raising a child thing. pffft!

checklist

i feel like i have a really big to-do list and i'm not getting much done.

that's not very fun.

my time often seems to be taken up with things that don't matter much to me, but there's nothing i can do about it. and then in my spare time, i'm doing things i want to do, but not things that are on my to-do list. that, or i am being a vegetable because i'm so tired so often.

ah the joys.

but aside from all that things are going ok.

hot or not

it's funny how attractiveness is so subjective. last night howie, tom and i discovered we have quite different tastes in men and women through the wonder of facebook friends.

yes, late nights and tiredness i'm sure will make for many more silly evenings in this household!

32,876

my grandpa turned 90 on friday. that's pretty old!

today my parents and i went over to his and grandma's place for a spot of afternoon tea. the extended family is also going out to lunch in the city on friday to celebrate.

my grandpa is doing pretty damn good for 90. in some ways, he's more with it now than for a lot of my lifetime. because of his hearing, it wasn't really until he got his cochlear implant that you could hold a decent conversation with him. so for much of my growing up, i didn't really get to converse with this incredibly knowledgable, thoughtful and witty man.

32 876 is a lot of days to have been alive. i'm only at 9 847!

i hope that he'll be around for a good number more years.

dining

it's quite a rarity that i go out to a cafe or restaurant for a meal. not really my thing.

but today i went out to lunch with my parents, to check out a potential place for debbie's hens. i had a vegetarian lentil burger thing, and it was so yummy! and it was good to chat with my parents about all kinds of things. my parents are good chaps. plus they paid for me! winner!

good thing too was that it was a good place and so i'm going to make a booking there for all us girls on deb's day. fun.

after having this fancy lunch, i soon headed home and got back to wifely duties - cleaning and vacuuming the house. we're still not quite there with being fully unpacked/set up. hopefully soon though - once howie isn't as busy with work stuff.

cankle me up

a hot day and pregnancy aren't all that good a mix

hot

it was freaking hot today. still is.

i almost died in horsley park. i hope that it isn't too hot over this weekend, or all the blackstump people in tents will fade away to nothing through dehydration! howie and i first headed into glebe to stock the car. that got pretty sweaty to start with, climbing the two storeys of stairs. the office fan got a good work out.

we next enjoyed air conditioning for the drive out west. freaking google maps is stupid through and gives you directions with toll roads even when you ask for not toll roads. so goodbye $3.75 (because i had a US quarter in the mix, so i was short 10 cents, and only had a dollar coin left!).

out at the park it was hot. then we got in the tent and it was hotter. we unloaded and started setting some stuff up. but it was gross. soon enough i'd had enough - i'm not good with heat at the best of times, so a hot, pregnant jenny wasn't all that fun!

so once we'd found we didn't need to hang around any longer it was time for a trip back home for a late lunch, some cooling off, and a brief nap.

in a few minutes we'll head to our classes. at least hospitals should be air conditioned, even if my home and both of my workplaces aren't!

racking up the k's

today we get to travel around the countryside - to gordon, glebe, horsley park and wahroonga. most of it is TEAR related as we prepare for blackstump. there are things to pick up, things to looks at, things to pack, things to drop off.

the wahroonga part is for the first of our pre-natal classes. i'm a little bit nervous, but also interested in what we will be taught. it's all getting closer! 29 weeks yesterday. that means only 11 weeks (give or take) to go. i feel i am getting rather large.

yikes!