#2984 The end of one era

Well, yesterday was my last breastfeed, and today was the first day there were no breastfeeds at all!

And while this is an achievement I am going to focus entirely on in another future post, and certainly it is also the end of, there is something else I’m saying goodbye to that I’m slightly struggling with.

My daily notes.

Because baby boy’s been a fusspot and routine bub since birth (🤣), as well as a super hungry one, I’ve been keeping notes on him since he was born – initially in paper form up to 3 months, which included his naps, feeds, and nappy output (and maybe some random stuff about how hard/okay the night was 🤦‍♀️)

I still found it hard to let go of this documenting at 3 months, and the feeds were still very, very frequent, FAAAARRRR more frequent than they ever were with baby girl. So I decided in an easier/simpler format, I would do them in my phone.

So since then, I’ve been doing much the same: naps, wake ups and bedtimes, breastfeeds and then solids, minus the nappy output. And I said I would do it up until he stopped breastfeeding, because well, I guess the routine is pretty engrained in me by now, and… yeah.

I mean, I could have stopped earlier, but it’s my whole fear of letting go, missing out on some important detail, making sure I’ve captured this moment in time that may be lost in my mind one day forever, but able to be brought forward and re-lived when I re-read these notes. 🥰

So today, tonight, that’s it. I think I’ll still keep a rough outline on like, start/end nap times (he is a routine boy and so dependent on wake windows, and well for me, old habits die hard), but the thought of tomorrow not capturing all that I have been, letting the day run away from me and disappear into thin air without any sort of recording of it, it’s kinda scaring me shitless and making me quite sad, much more so than the last breastfeed did.

I can’t believe we are here. He is 13 months today. He is still so demanding at times! But we shower him in kisses daily, tickle him and hug him, marvel at his smarts and curiosity and inability to slow down, and then shake our heads at why he still can’t sleep through the night on a consistent basis!

But, life with baby/toddler, right? One phase ends, and another begins… but I hope the next one that ends is this shit sleepless nights phase. 🙏🤞💙😆

#2977 The power of messages

All hail the technology message.

The sms. The messenger chat. The instagram drop. The facebook tag. The whatsapp notification.

All of the text forms. Because I’m at a stage of life, where if I had to speak to people on the phone to communicate, well I wouldn’t be communicating with ANYONE.

Life is so busy. I get messages via all of the above platforms here and there. I text back when I can. When I get a minute of peace.

If I had to call someone? It would never happen! Firstly it’s not silent. So often I am messaging with baby boy napping somewhere nearby, so I really do need to be super discreet.

I sometimes start and stop a message, something that becomes so hard with calls. Or I message, as has become the case this last year or so, at the end of the night, even overnight! I will write back when I’m in bed at the end of the night, or if I’ve just gotten baby boy back to bed and see something, I will quickly text back, depending on what it is.

It is just so easy. And it also keeps me in contact with so many people, and since this whole baby/toddler thing can be so lonely at times, it’s super reassuring to have someone… a text message away. 🥰

Who said technology was bad? I think in life stages like these, we realise how much these interactions can save us. I for one, love my messages. 💖🙏

#2965 Meeting Bluey

(CUE BLUEY THEME MUSIC!)

If you know, you know.

Baby boy has been enjoying the intro to one of the best and most recent Australian kids shows, Bluey, for a while now. I say the ‘intro,’ because although the show will be on, he kinda gets distracted with toys, touching stuff he’s not supposed to and being cheeky, you know, baby life. 🤦‍♀️🤣

The ep itself doesn’t phase him, although he does love seeing the characters on screen. And the theme song, well it IS catchy.

All it is, is the sing-songy shouting of the 4 main character names, and they all do a dance…

“Mum!

Dad!

Bingo!

BLUEY!”

It is awfully cute. 🥰

Anyway, I had learnt of several Bunnings stores transforming into a Bluey type of paradise for the month of February, what with Bluey themed activities, but then there was one store, per state, that was actually having a meet and greet with the real-life characters!

For real life! 🤣

And that store was only a mere 25 minutes away from our house.

We drove today to the Bunnings store in question. We couldn’t actually believe the level of Bluey excitement and hysteria around… there were long lines for face painting, fairy floss (the popcorn line was relatively low) there were drawing, painting and modelling stations, as well as a dance floor with an actual DJ!

For real life! (I can’t 🤣)

Anyway, despite baby boy skipping a morning nap due to a sleep in because he kept waking all night (another story 😫) he was a tad cranky, but when he saw Bluey and Bingo from afar, he was pointing and smiling and doing all the right kid things. 😁

We got our meet and greet, our photos, and I have to say despite the queues and madness, it WAS pretty exciting, even for us as parents, and baby girl got extra Bluey love when she hugged both life-sized characters and got a cuddly hug back! Awwww!

The things you do for your kids. 💖

#2962 Looking outwards

I caught this gorgeous sunset tonight.

I’ve spent so much of the past year looking inwards at my home, my family, myself, that I’ve honestly forgotten about the world, people and environment around me.

It’s something that was apparent this morning after another horrible night’s sleep. I get so awfully down on myself and frustrated, sad and depressed, that I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever feel normal or happy again.

In these moments I fall into an internal funk.

But then there’ll be a change. Baby boy has a great nap, wakes refreshed, or is smiling happily after some food, and I’m reminded that bad moments don’t last forever. They don’t even last all day, even though the baby phase seems awfully littered with too many of them.

But this sunset reminds me of the bigger picture. Of what’s out there waiting for me. I haven’t looked for a sunset often in the last 12 months, but I feel like my gaze heads outwards a bit more nowadays than it has been…

I hope I’m starting to remember everything else, and that I can unhinge myself from looking too deeply at these long and difficult days, and instead move towards the views out the window… reframe… think of perspectives. ❤

#2961 The lost rosary

I was looking for a certain fave toy of baby boy’s this morning, and I just couldn’t find it anywhere. I decided to stop searching for that one, and grab another one on our way out the door, when lo and behold, I saw his fave toy was peeking out from underneath another toy.

I thought of how often this happens: we’re searching for something, and cannot for the life of us find it. Then when we seemingly give up, that’s when the thing appears.

It’s like we need to let go, for it to find us.

That kinda happened to me in a bigger way, also today, but with like 9 months between letting go. 🤣

I’d been super confused you see… I guess pregnancy followed by long-term sleep deprivation does that to you. For my cousin’s wedding last year, I had been desperate to give her a borrowed item, as per a little female-made family tradition that had created itself.

See, I believed (just go with me here) that my sister had given me a little wedding pouch/bag for my wedding day ‘new,’ and I had then given my cousin’s older sister for her wedding day, that same pouch to be her ‘borrow’ – of course being a gift from my sister I wanted to keep it, hence the borrow intention.

I then wanted to find that same bag, and give it to my cousin (the younger sister) for her wedding last year… and for the life of me I couldn’t find it. I so desperately LOVED the idea of a bag linking our two families, two sets of sisters, across such beautiful celebrations, across decades! But no matter how hard I searched, I came up with nothing. 

And this was during the newborn phase! I had limited time to do anything, and here I was going through cupboards and boxes and drawers and looking in corners I hadn’t touched in years. I realised I hadn’t seen the ‘bag’ the entire time we had lived in this house, which made me turn things over even more, because surely it was in a spot I had missed.

I don’t lose things. Which is why giving up was so difficult, especially for such a sentimental occasion. I bought a wedding charm for my cousin’s wedding day and gave it to her, but I was very disappointed that I had misplaced the bag.

Today I used an inner zip of my baby bag – a bag I’ve started using again since baby boy was born, as I used it daily when baby girl was a baby and toddler. I had to put something valuable away while out (out with that toy I had found this morning) and noticed this zip that I realised I hadn’t noticed at all since using the bag again.

Anyway, I stashed my stuff away, and then at home opened this zip to retrieve it.

That’s when history and my memory re-jigged itself entirely.

It wasn’t a wedding pouch that was lost.

It was a blue rosary. 💙📿

Alongside my valuable, there were receipts, some old vouchers, some feminine items (lol) and then, the blue rosary. And like gentle waves lapping against the ocean’s shore, each meeting of surf to sand has been nudging my memory in the correct direction all day as the truth came slowly back.

There had never been a wedding bag to find, although in truth there was one. My sister had given me a pouch to ‘borrow,’ because it had been her bag on her wedding day, and since there were 15 years between our weddings, it had been an ‘old’ too. 

And within that pouch had been the rosary – both ‘new’ and ‘blue,’ mine to keep. And the truth was that this rosary had been in my borrowed pouch on my wedding day, and I’d given it to my cousin years before on her wedding day, to borrow.

The reason why I never found a wedding pouch, was because there never was one to find! It’s my sister’s after all. I had meant to look for the rosary, but memory had failed me.

I’ve been shaking my head at myself all day. I even wore the rosary in the late morning for a while, and I’m surprised baby boy didn’t grab for it as it dangled from around my neck.

My new spot for it? Where it always used to live, something I totally forgot about, but that is so clear to me now.

My every day bag. Even before I had a baby bag, the rosary lived in the bag I took with me on our honeymoon as a layer of protection… then it stayed there, and moved from bag to bag throughout the years.

I’m going to think about the timing of this find, and the significance as I search for answers in other parts of my life now… maybe when I let go, the answer will find me. 🙏❤

#2953 Disbelief

It’s this time of year, and it will be this time of year, every year now, that has me in a state of utter disbelief and happiness.

Photo memories on my phone remind me that I was so close to meeting this new little angel this time last year.

I remember things from the big day, the pain, the anticipation, the sheer joy.

I look at him now, today. Watch him charging across the room, fall to his knees to crawl, and then get up again to try walking.

He does not give up. Just like me for all of those years.

Tonight was the first night I didn’t carry him into the bathroom for his bath… I led him with his hands, as he walked.

He is growing, and getting more curious and independent and confident, so confident! With every day, every moment.

I complain that I can’t hold him anymore because of how heavy he is – it hurts my stomach, my back.

But a few hours pass and I can’t handle it. I want to hold him. Cuddle him, nuzzle against his neck. Breathe in his sweet baby scent, his hair.

He drives us crazy so many times a day, and yet I can’t imagine him in any other way.

I rocked him to sleep tonight. I’m breaking all the rules.

I kinda don’t care.

I am still in happy disbelief at this beautiful boy that is in our lives. 🥰🙏💖💙

#2948 The recognition of love

I recognise I’m in love nearly every moment, of every day.

When I’m in pain from holding him, but then he gives me a drooly grin.

When I have yet another sleep deprived night and my soul aches for bed, but then he looks up at me in awe and curiosity.

When he cries for my attention, and as soon I pick him up he stills, he softens, he is calm.

There are so many difficult moments of the day with a baby, moments that make you question if what you’re doing is right, if what you’re doing is enough…

But when all they want is you, and you are the only thing that makes them happy…

Well I must be doing something right.

Because every day baby boy tells me that he and I are one, and as exhausting as that sometimes is, I find myself in these tiring and sore moments, rocking him in my arms, kissing his head and nuzzling against his neck, while a voice whispers to me in the background “this won’t last forever.”

And so the recognition of love isn’t so much punctuated throughout the day, rather it’s a background constant, the air that is always there, the ground that keeps us humble, the light that keeps us moving on and on and on. 💖

#2942 A catch up day

It’s been a while, but I really enjoyed having a catch up day today.

You know, one of those days where you potter around, get stuff done, and just make the house look nicer? 🤣

It’s been so long, what with christening planning and new baby life. In my day-to-day, I only really get to do the bare minimum – daily cooking, dishes, washing, and the end of day tidy-up.

But today, I did extra washing and storing and tidying up, throwing out a bunch of other things, even finding a pile of toys baby girl was happy to donate, making her room a bit cleaner in the process.

It really is true that your external environment impacts your internal state, and so it doesn’t come as a surprise that my mind is feeling a lot lighter at the end of the day.

Can’t wait to tackle more tomorrow! 🤞

#2932 The packing up sunset

I don’t spend a lot of time on our balcony lately, nor do I get a chance to just stare out our windows at the watery horizon beyond.

And this week is a hectic week for us, the week leading up to baby boy’s christening. Things are crazy busy with an 11 month-old and10 year-old, without throwing a special once-in-a-lifetime event like this in the mix (because whereas other things happen time and time again in a lifetime, a baby is christened only once, you see).

So it wouldn’t surprise you that I have been trying to pack up Christmas stuff for over a week now. 🤣 I always wait until after Orthodox Christmas, but I have waited extra (accidentally, lol) and today I finally got everything packed up and away, yay!

One of the last things to go was the outdoor lighting. I have lights hanging off the balcony, and following dinner I went upstairs to sit on the planks and de-thread them from the balcony wire.

Baby girl, Hubbie and baby boy joined me there, and were even talking to me from ground level below. They were pointing out the water, the sky, the sun reflecting off the water… even though I was busy busy busy, I stopped, for only a second.

It sure was beautiful.

And no, I have no picture, (I was too busy, remember) the picture is in my mind. A partly cloudy/sunny day, the sun directly shining on the water, summer in the air, and ease all around.

I love this place. I will always try and enjoy it, even when I’m crazy busy like today.🙏🌅

#2899 2 baby teeth

Mum brain is rife.

I was looking at the calendar today trying to work out pay cycles, when my eyes fell on today’s date.

It read: ‘dentist 4:30pm.’

Under baby girl’s column.

It was 4pm.

I had forgotten!

We got ourselves into gear and made it there only 5 minutes late. I shared how baby girl had lost lots of teeth since her last appointment, just 3 in this month of December.

As they started counting they could see I was right.

The dental assistant was smiling at baby boy, and after asking his name I said, he only has two teeth! He was smiling at her too so she could see that!

It was a brief check-up, all was well with baby girl’s teeth with a couple small pointers, and we were also told that she only has two baby teeth left!

We were shocked at that info, she has come so far, our big girl! But as the afternoon went on I realised the symmetry of the situation…

Baby girl only has two baby teeth left.

Baby boy only has two baby teeth!

Baby girl is running to the mirror and waiting for the tooth fairy when one comes out.

Baby boy is screaming at night because he feels everything, especially teeth coming in!

Ahh, two baby teeth, in two completely different stages!