just plodding along

unfortunate names

Retired airman Stan Still, 76, from Cirencester, Gloucestershire, said his name had been "a blooming millstone around my neck my entire life".

"When I was in the RAF my commanding officer used to shout, 'Stan Still, get a move on' and roll about laughing," he said.

"It got hugely boring after a while."

From here

restocking

our "pantry" isn't very exciting at the moment. there's all the usual stuff, but nothing that says "i'm awesome, eat me!". in some ways it's been easier to shop recently. there's always an excuse to walk to woolies or coles and grab a few things. the 'big' shop never happens though. which at the moment probably doesn't matter. i would love to get to the point where there is a plan for the week, and the shopping is done in one big hit. but i'm not sure that will ever happen in our household. ah well. it's nice to dream.

pricked

the little buddy had to have his two month immunisations today. so off to the doctor we toddled after half a feed. once we got there, we remembered that i'd forgotten oscar's blue book, which you have to take to everything. so off i went back home, after asking how many people were in front of us. two.

once i got back, howie said oscar had been crying - probably a combo of hunger and tiredness. so i stood outside with him while howie sat and waited. eventually oscar tired himself out and fell asleep on me, so i went and sat down.

and eventually it was our turn. only one hour late.

paul did all the measurements (again, since we'd just had them done on monday. he's 62cm - he's grown 10 cms in 9 weeks). oscar woke up and cried, and cried more as he had some oral immunisation, but the nurse made him smiley again. that wasn't to last long. simultaneously paul and the nurse jabbed him in a thigh each. he screamed, and then cried. i must be a bad mum because i didn't have any urge to cry myself. apparently a lot of mums do.

after a bit more of a cry, he fell asleep in the car on the way home.

and has been just as smiley and unsettled as normal through the afternoon!

the worst thing was taking off the two bandaids. i did it during his bath. his skin doesn't like bandaid removal much. he had big red marks.

he's asleep now, and hopefully that will last the usual amount of time. and there won't be any fevers.

caged cat

when we moved in here, the next door neighbours had a dog. quite a loud dog. it would bark at all hours and for many hours. and the neighbours never did anything about it.

some time ago, the barking stopped. i must admit i didn't notice. but howie and tom did.

soon after, there was a bit of building work going on in the neighbours yard.

seems they now have a cat. a cat they don't want to come into contact with anything that lives outside.

what a big effort to allow a cat outside time!

wonder what happened to the dog.

two adventures

this mornings adventure was to the pediatrician. ok, that's not much of an adventure, but oscar is all good. weighs 5.3kg now. the doctor commented that he's grown an extra chin which is good news.

then after some lunch for everyone, we trained it to epping to go on the new train line for our second adventure of the day.

oscar's first ever train trip was on a gross intercity train. lucky him.

once at epping it was down two lots of escalators (naughty not taking the lift) to platform 5

and we discovered that oscar was going to get to travel on an oscar, on the day of the oscars. cool

an adventure photo just for josh - oscars first!

yep, oscar was pretty excited about it all!

groundhog day

it doesn't much feel like i'm living life at the moment. all i'm doing is passing time between feeds. at night i do that by trying to sleep. in the day i do that by trying to minimise oscar's crying. every day is the same, even if i have different things to attend or do.

it's a strange place to be.

west wing

i'm powering through! having three or four hours in the daytime of sitting with a little thing attached to your chest gives ample opportunity for west wing viewing.

i'm in the middle of the last episode of season four. i've steamed ahead of howie, who has apparently been distracted by studio 60 and six feet under. i shall not let any other tv series deter me. i'm in for the long haul with the west wing. although it probably won't take me all that long.

once i'm finished, i might catch up on the episodes i missed in the first season.

last night

i could have slept for 7-8 hours in a row last night. but noooo. my bladder had to wake me up after 3 hours. my itchy bites had to keep me awake for another hour or so. my brain had to not shut up giving me patchy sleep for another few hours. my son had to be fed, but that's ok because he'd waited 10 hours (and was SUPER hungry when he did wake up! so very funny). then my brain had to not shut up again giving me patchy sleep for another few hours when i could have had another 2-3 hours sleep.

i could have had a solid night's sleep!! argh!

new is new and old is new

today mr install-screen-door-man came and installed our new screen door. he had a bit of trouble because the house is a bit crooked. but he got there. he also had a bit of trouble with some other client, as we overheard a rather heated phone conversation, punctuated with a bit of "i'm not in the bloody mood for this" and after being hung up on he continued to mutter and called the guy a prick. he then continued on our door, rather loudly hammering and bolting and whatever else he was doing. we were a little worried he might take his anger out on our door, but it all ended good, so no worries. and he was perfectly nice to us.

i'm excited to have more air, more light and less bugs in our lounge room. and in a case of irony, after it was installed my leg was bitten by a mosquito three times in the dining room.

now for the old is new - one of our many next door neighbours put an outdoor setting out on the side of the road. as we all know, anything left on the side of the road is fair game. so we assumed he was getting rid of it, and thought it didn't look to bad. so we pocketed it ourselves.

shall work well for when we ever entertain again.

almost eight weeks

oscar is eight weeks old tomorrow. as always, time is a strange thing. seems to take forever, but flies at the same time. it's lovely that he's so small and cute (at times) but i am looking forward to time flying by a bit more.

oscar and his dad

having a good old 'laugh'. i am so hilarious that i don't even have to make jokes and he smiles his head off and noiselessly laughs.

my grandma told me i shouldn't be using pink towels for him, because he's a boy. it's ok, we have blue ones too.

cops aren't always tops

upon returning from our IKEA adventure today, i drove down our street as per normal. we rolled down the hill, and suddenly a cop car pulled out from the side street in front of me oblivious to our presence, forcing me to slam on the brakes, hit my horn and slide and screech down the road. i was rather concerned that i was about to hit a police car, but fortunately i didn't. luckily we had been travelling rather leisurely.

i wondered if we had hit them, if it would have been my fault from the insurance companies point of view, as i would have run into the back of them. and that's the default at fault.

so besides a cop car pulling out of a street without looking to see if any cars were coming, to top it off, there was no apology wave. that peed me off! rude!

snapshot

as a surprise Christmas present the inlaws got me this

way cool. particularly since my camera often needed a smack to turn on.

thanks david and mumary!

000

since the weather took a turn and the rain set in (which i am grateful for after the heat) i've had to make my first clothing purchases for oscar. we had a few second hand pants that fit him, but no long sleeve tops/jumpers. so on the way to mothers group last thursday, while he was snuggly wrapped, we stopped in at target to buy a jumper. then because he got vomit on that on friday, yesterday i stopped in at kmart to buy two long sleeve one-pieces. hopefully those three purchases will keep him covered until he fits into stuff that he was given when he was born. or until the weather gets hot again and he can just hang out in a singlet and nappy.

i can totally see why people go crazy with baby clothes. lots of cute stuff. but it can also be so expensive. i don't often spend that much on my own clothing!

ouchies

i'm feeling very sorry for oscar at the moment. he is having a fair bit of trouble with his insides today. which means very loud and urgent bursts of crying, and longer bouts of inconsolable crying. not very fun for us either. but can't be good fun for him. also as it tires him out so much, but when he does drift off, he wakes up a few minutes later to cry because of the pain.

as this is not an isolated incident, i am very much hoping he will not be a reflux baby. the idea of that fills me with dread.

lovey dovey shmovey

i think that valentine's day this year may be a non-event.

not that it's usually much of an event any other year. we're not valentine's day people. whatever i mean by that.

leaf it alone

on a scale of one to ten, i rate leaf blowers as a sixty million in annoyance and unnecessityness.

firstly, get a rake.

and secondly, i have a baby trying to sleep (or more precisely, he is trying NOT to sleep and i am trying to get him to sleep) and your leaf blowing isn't much of a sleeping aid.

prediction

this week will not be a good week for the drying of washing.

lock and load

we haven't been using our front door for a few days. mostly because we can't shut it from the outside. we'd had the same trouble a few weeks ago. so keith fixed it. then howie fixed it again. but the combined handyman-ness of tom and howie couldn't do it this time.

so 'dr lock' has arrived - and not 5 minutes after tom made the phonecall!. here's hoping his healing hands do the trick this time. he sounds much more professional than using paddlepop stick solutions, literally (no offense howie or keith)

as an aside, whats the protocol when home with tradies? do you leave them to do their thing? do you stand aside and observe? do you flit in and out doing pointless busy work but remaining somewhat present?

fortunately its not my concern today as tom is the point of contact.

top gear live

today was the day.

after leaving debbie, noob and oscar to play happy families, our happy family of three entered the world of promotion.

you see, what struck me most about top gear live... the subtle product placement.

walking through the gate, we were handed a shell petrol voucher, and made our way past lots of sponsor stalls into the foyer of acer arena.

there were a bunch of cars to look at. but i went and used my life savings to buy a drink.

after sitting down, with our carsales.com.au 3D glasses, we watched a loop of car related commercials on the big screen as we waited for the show to begin.

the lights went down, and we watched live commercials involving cars for shell v power, navman, audi and probably other car and car related things as we waited for the show to begin. but which were counted in the 75 minute length of the show.

then the show began as jeremy and richard drove in. what followed was a mix of good, bad and lame. i liked the car soccer. i liked the drifting, to a point. i liked some of the one liners. i liked seeing stig. i liked our seats. i liked the big fire shooter thingys.

the list of things i didn't like is longer.

but hey, i'm glad i saw it and didn't die wondering. i still love the tv show. so that's good.

the man himself

"oh cock"

tomorrow is top gear live. oh boy oh boy!!

it's going to be awesome as.

my turn

there are a lot more photos of oscar with howie than with me. often because i'm the obsessed mother taking all the photos.

anyway, here is one of the few of me and the bub

stimulated

seems we'll be getting at least $950, possibly $1900, with this new stimulus package.

the difficulty for me is that my instinct is to save. which is not what this package is about. but there isn't anything i want to be spending $950 on. i'm sorry Mr Rudd.

woo!

happy birthday tom!

hope you like your present, which you'll have to wait until the end of the day for.

forgetmenot

i'm on antibiotics at the moment because of a small infection with my scar. i have to take one capsule three times a day, with food. i am good at the breakfast time one. but the rest of the day i'm a shocker! my lunch time one i tend to have closer to 3pm when i remember about it. the dinner one if often just before bed time. i think it's mainly because i haven't eaten lunch or dinner at the dining room table for weeks, and that's where i'm keeping the tablets so i at least remember them at breakfast.

and i reckon cephalexin capsules smell like egg fart. that's always appetising when you pop it out of the packet and into your mouth.