You CAN stop progress

I had a cool picture for this post but I can't get it on here because I am in Te Aroha, and I am on my Mother-in-laws computer, in other words I am in dangerous territory just posting from here. The picture was of the half finished Unicorn puzzle that I brought Merenia at the Sally Army shop a whiles back. It was only $4 and the puzzle is actually shaped like a unicorn and comes with a bonus extra unicorn puzzle also shaped like a Unicorn... what I didn't really take note of when I brought it was that it is 1000 pieces for the big guy and 200 for the little. And what I could never have know till I opened it up was that those 1200 pieces are all mixed up together and there is no telling the what and the where of anything!
We finally got the puzzle out on Boxing day and discovered this. We forged on despite it all going the traditional puzzle route- finding all the 'edge' pieces if this in fact is what they are (I can tell you that some of them aren't!) On completing this task we discovered that is was completely the wrong approach to go with this puzzle especially if you want to make any progress. And that is something we didn't do for a full 2 weeks after that. Then I decided on a different approach and I had been going really well till we had to pack up and come here, Te Aroha.
Esentially we are here so Les can finish painting his sisters house... normally we would have stayed with Helen as well, but as Will has a habit of snuggling up to me most mornings around 2am, and I would have been on a single airbed it just wasn't the way to go. So we are at the Mother-in-laws. Hmmmm. We are also here to introduce Will to the family, and so that's what we have been doing. For a change they have been coming to us- at Helen's which is nicer than having to get around all of them which is the traditional approach.
Anyway I had to stay up late to make this post without supervision... you never know when one may get an email with red or hearts in it... and we all know that they contain a virus... you didn't know? Perhaps I should tell you, oh about 50 odd times??? You want me too? I can read your mail over your shoulder while I do. No? Oh ok that's good because that sort of experience would be quite annoying, I think. So as I said it's late Will will be calling soon... although not till 2:30am if his current habit is continued. (Way cool he's dropped the midnight feed!)
I won't post again till we get home (Saturday I think- Bring it on!!!!) it's just too hard.

33% More!!

Will had his last appointment with the midwife yesterday. She's lovely, and while I'm sure she says it to all the babies, she's very convincing when she is adoring of Will. She was very proud of him because he's put on a whole kilo in the 5 weeks since he was born. She says she doesn't see that much anymore as most mothers have flagged breastfeeding by this point. I think that's really sad, but I'm not entirely surprised as no one warns new mothers how bloody hard it can be at the start. Everyones like "oooh it's natural" like natural should be easy. Well ladies earthquakes are natural as are tornadoes and hurricanes and they aren't easy and to start off with neither is breastfeeding but it gets easy and it's so worth it. And as for those other mothers who say "I put him on the bottle and he was sleeping through the night at 2 days old" they are lying. And even if they weren't lying, hello? you had a baby, losing sleep comes with the territory, just like dirty nappies and a bunch of other not so fun stuff, deal with it, and focus on the important stuff like how amazing your little person is.

Ooooooo that was a soapbox moment wasn't it... I wasn't planning on going there when I started this post. I just wanted to say Will's 4.23kg and I should have brought him that T-shirt at 'T & T' it said... "I'm a breast man!"

Dickey Ticker or Tickety Boo?

So Tuesday was actually a fabulicious day. Kieley took the kids out to Kelly Tarltons. We have seasons passes and so the kids have been there quite a lot generally they race through in an hour so I figured between that and a trip to the park at Mission Bay etc they'd be back by around 1pm. Will had a good day and I did very little, which makes it a nice day in my books. Les got home first around 4:45 and Kieley and the kids weren't far behind. Yay for the kind of friends who'll take you're kids away for the entire day and let you just rest up an relax with your little babe.

Tuesday evening was another story, all day I had kept having flashes of pressure in the very middle of my chest. I wasn't really too worried because I feel so very healthy and happy at the moment. I had them on Monday as well but only a few. Tuesday I has a heap more... it's hard to describe but it was like a electric shock, or my heart skipping a beat or speeding up just for a second. Because I had had surgery 5 weeks ago and because it happened more often when I was feeding Will (I was thinking of the poor lady who died down south while breastfeeding and then collapsed forward onto the baby smothering him- so sad!!) ... anyway because of all that I rang the midwives and they said go to A & E. Kieley stayed on with the kids while Les, Will and I headed for Waitakere Hospital just after 5pm. To cut a long story short they don't know what it is, but they know what it isn't so they aren't worried and we got home around 10pm. I'm not terribly worried either but it is kind of annoying.

Happy Birthday Caity J

I have lots of interesting stuff to tell... but nothing is more important than the following announcement today. This is the bigger of my two little sisters...


We don't live close by anymore so I miss her heaps. We used to spend every Friday together. We'd go swimming and then hit a cafe in town for hot chocolates with lots of marshmallows and act like grown-up ladies. She's really growing up now and has managed to make a few of those really good teenage mistakes that you make when you are a teenager.... so I worry about her. But she's amazing so I'm sure she'll make it out the other side. And then we'll both be grown-up ladies and we can get together and act like little kids. Despite the age difference....

She has a few years to go yet... but we're down one more today.....

Isn't she a hottie??!! We're not actually blood relatives... that's why I don't have any contributions from that gene pool. :-(

Ready, Set, Stall

This is the appalling state my Scrapbooking table has been in since just before Will was born. It's my sister Caitlin's Birthday on Wednesday and so I need to do some scrapbooking for her, so I tidied it up. And then I did the finishing for the kids pregnancy albums, stuck some photos in Will's First Five years book, sorted the new load of photos...


Then Will woke up and after that it was time to go to sleep. This morning I went in there and tidied and sorted out Will's clothes (been meaning to do that for a month now). And I faffed around doing some other stuff... but have I started Cait's pages... no... I'm having a mental block.. either that or I am just mental. So Cait's if you are reading I suspect your pressie will be late. And don't look at the blog for the next few days... or it will spoil any surprises I might make.

Blissful Impersonations

Will generally has two speeds; asleep/feeding and 'I want to be asleep/feeding' which is generally the louder and more distressed of the two. Yesterday we found his cruise control...

And he was one blissed out wee fella after that!

He also did his best Dr Evil impersonation... (I added the words, he's good but he ain't that good, yet).

Stay in HER good books!

I asked Merenia to shift some of her stuff so I could get in the wardrobe and we found this poor unfortunate doll.

Mum: Oh poor dolly, what did she do to deserve that?
M: Oh, yeah, sometimes I give them time out like that.

Disclaimer: We don't do time out and have never employed face sized pirate eye patches for any type of discipline.

A Month of Fundays

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What a difference a month makes

Cut short.

Before

After...

It's not actually crooked it's just the way she moved... she wanted it much shorter but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Although considering how much easier it is to take care of even this much shorter... it's tempting. But her hair is like her trademark; if she has a $1 for everytime someone told her how lovely it is... she could get that horse she wants and afford to feed it for a least a month.

Monkey Business

It's always nice to have some comparison photos. With Kieran, Les was used for comparison and we took a photo on the 11th of the month, monthly for the first year or so and then yearly until K was 5 I think. With Merenia I was supposed to be the comparison. But some people are less reliable with taking photos and other people get tired of reminding them. So rather than try that again, with Will I decided to introduce a 3rd party....

After an initial meeting on Christmas Day I reintroduced them more properly last week.

There was an bit of argy-bargy at first to see who was the top dog- or top monkey in this situation.

But eventually they became firm friends.

Although even the firmest of friends can tire of each other sometimes.

You may inquire of the Monkey's name, I am afraid Will is keeping that close to his chest, much like the monkey, at this point.
Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of Will and the Monkey when Will was only days old as he was already in wrapping paper (the monkey that is), but they will have their first official session tomorrow... can you believe it he's almost a month old!!!

On the subject of other Monkey business we went shopping for school supplies yesterday... I brought $16 of Glue sticks alone! I know that children aren't the most reliable creatures but I think that the school stationary is aimed at the most unreliable of boys and doesn't really find a balance between that boy (I know his name but it would be inappropriate to print it here no it's not Kieran!) and girl who is the epitome of organised. They just go the boy route... and so I had to buy 5 glue sticks and 12 pencils; for 2 children for one year!!!

And finally I have been monkeying around on Photoshop again.....

I got all our photos sorted and uploaded and ordered prints. (Digitalmax has 5 x 7's for 25cents- score!!!) Considering;

• I haven't done this since August
• Merenia needed photos to make her calendar
• I am addicted to scrapbooking
  
• And Will is the most photographed baby ever (love digital!!!!)
  

It was 'quite' a large order... less the 500 and more than 400 photos... that should keep me going for a while. And yes far flung close family... I did do a 'Granny Lot' and your photos will be posted as soon as I can get to it!

Had Surgery? Wondering what to do next?

Well it's obvious isn't it? Get out of hospital, 4 days post surgery, the obvious thing to do is head to a popular Westfield Mall two days before Christmas to sit on the lap of a big guy with a thing for Red... this is our first and currently only full family photo....

Visual Stimulation

It seems we all like to develop our vision around here; Kieran and Merenia can often be found hanging around the mat when Will is on it. Ruby prefers to lie on it when Will is not on it... she left a few seconds after I snapped this picture. (We wouldn't really leave them on there together anyway.) It's interesting to note that Ruby is slowly changing into her former relaxed self with Jasper gone and is seen around the house much more including daytime sleeps inside- previously unknown. I also think she rather likes the new Ginger intruder- though I am sure she would not admit to it. She was certainly rather concerned about his distress calls early on. Will hates having his nappy changed- screams the house down, Ruby was up on the side of the change table at one of these sessions- acting like a mother cat whose kitten has been removed and is now mewing in the hands of some random human. Very sweet- Ruby cat the mother protector.


I include this picture simply because it's a nice place to record that when he's all wrapped up like this I call him my roly-poly-baby-pudding. Unusually in this picture he is yet to get his left arm out... something that usually happens so fast I took almost 4 weeks to get a pudding picture.

As for the edges I have been fiddling with Photoshop and some mask frames that I found on about.com I think more fiddling is needed but it's a start and a great new thing to learn for today.

NZ Version 2.008?

Overheard while the kids were watching 'Monsters We Met' a TV show about prehistoric animals.

K: Merenia that's Australia.
M: Cool!!!!
K: Old Australia.
M: Oh before it got upgraded.
Mum: ~laughs~
M: What? Why are you laughing?
Mum: Well, what does that mean?
M: Well you know before it had all this 'stuff' and now it's been upgraded like New Zealand. And the playground down the road got downgraded.

(They took away everything but the tamest of equipment- damn safety police!)

Can't help myself...

Beached

Yesterday we headed up to Shakespeare Bay to see Kieley and her friend Janine who have been camping up there. The kids really enjoyed the water, vicious biting octopuses not withstanding, and just generally had a great time.


Kieley was telling us not long after we arrived how there had been heaps of kids around the place. Just as she said it this young boy walked past and I replied to Kieley's comment "I said yeah just like that one; Matt Carter" She thought I was having her on till Matt replied with a rather bewildered hello.



As a teacher you are often likely to run into the children that you have taught... especially when you happen to have your breast out and in the mouth of a small baby. And it's always amusing to see the look on a students face as they are reminded that teachers are real people with a life outside of school.


Today Les has been working at his other job... saving money for Turkey so we have been beached at home and damn it's hot...too hot to have a sticky wee boy snuggled up to your ribs all day. He's looking mighty hot though in his new Baby Gap duds... thanks Aunty Rachel and Uncle Freddy!


By the way there was actually no vicious biting octopus... although Merenia will insist otherwise!

Black, White and Read

I'm very excited because I got to order Will some new books. I am a self-confessed Book-aholic and so new books always make me excited but these ones more so... for one I have wanted them for 10+ years (even though I didn't know till now that one of them even existed). When K and M were babies the first books they were read were 'Black on White' and 'Who are They?' By Tana Hoban. I always wanted the others in the series and now we are getting them!...

The truly groovy thing is we got them from here; https://www.goodbooksnz.co.nz/ This means we didn't have to pay postage yay! And all the profits from our purchase go to Oxfam, super yay!. To be honest I wasn't expecting to find the books on this site and if I did I thought they would be more expensive but they weren't at all- so I am well happy!!

Eyes Wide Open

Just because I haven't lately ... Will in a rare moment; with his eyes open during the day...


Will and Miss Merenia...

Will getting stories from his big brother Kieran... notice Kieran makes his eyes wide open like he wants Will to do. :-)

Damn it, they're all so cute!

W Help...

Last year I made 6x6inch altered canvas monograms for all of us and now obviously I need to add one more. I grabbed the canvas late last year but as Will was unnamed to he was a few hours old I didn't know what letter to grab... now good old Spotlight (Wairau Park and Lincoln Rd) in all their wisdom don't stock the letter size I need. As you can see below the font is similar to Times New Roman. The letter is 10cm high and about 5mm thick. If you see a W anywhere grab it for me and I'll be indebted to you and tremendously thankful!!

As promised...

... Just a little later than promised. These were my last few layouts of 2007. The photos were all taken back in March, I'm just a little behind, but I'm not stressed about it. The photos in the bottom pair are amazing you can see even little detail of Ruby's tongue... I love our camera, (it's a Canon DSLR EOS350), love, love, love it!
Credits to Les for the photos from the RNZAF Open day, and finally yes I do know how to spell 'cat' but I was all out of the letter 'c' so needs must and all that...