#3041 The stage we’re at

So we went out for dinner tonight for our anniversary.

Hubbie, me, and the two kids. 🤣🤣

I do laughing emojis because it is funny going out to a nice dinner with kids in tow.

It was a new place we picked, a bit shit of me to do honestly, you should really only do tried and true when you have fussy kids with you… but of course, me being all “I want to go somewhere nice!” we went to this new-ish place a suburb away, because it looked good.

As we drove by the place this evening, looking for parking, and I saw the dimly lit low-hanging lights inside, I went “uh-oh.”

This placed looked a bit fancy-schmanc, and we can be very loud. 🤦‍♀️

Anyway, we went in, avoided tipping over the table of glasses, removed the butter knife baby boy grabbed in his hands, avoided a scream fest when we first tried to put him in the high chair, and then proceeded to order and eat very, very quickly. 🤣

Look, the place was lovely… but a bit tricky for where we’re at. As we were leaving I said to Hubbie “how different things are as a family of 4!” And Hubbie replied “and I wouldn’t change it for the world!”

And how right he is. We are at a different stage of life, we would have been much better suited for a place like TGIs to be honest… noisy and without anything precious if baby boy were to go adventuring throughout. I had been looking forward to a nice dessert, but then alas ‘fancy-schmanc restaurant’ and we wanted to get out of there before baby boy lost his patience in the high chair, so I just ate an ice cream from our freezer when we got home. 🤣

Yep, life is different, but it is beautiful. You know what was the most beautiful? Coming home, placing baby boy on the lounge room floor, and him absolutely running amok in the house, so happy with himself to be home and amongst his toys.

Hmmm… maybe ‘home restaurant’ would be the best option for us right now?

🤣🤦‍♀️

#3028 Sunday’s Murphy drive-by

You know how often you’re looking forward to something for so long, then Murphy’s Law gets in the way right before the time comes and stuffs it right up?

Well we had a catch-up planned with my bestie and her fam, organised for weeks and weeks now…

Then Mister F needed urgent vet attention this morning. 🤦‍♀️

But it’s OK! We made it work, and still got to catch up with them, just a little later. 🙏

And happily, the catch-up was fantastic and everything I thought it would be. 🥰

So those Murphy fairies didn’t quite get us this time, it was just enough for a scare. 🤣

#2996 Kids and the people you meet

I remember the stage fondly with baby girl. 🩷It’s happening all over again with baby boy. 💙

People just talk to you more when you have a baby/toddler. True story. I don’t know what it is, but something about the innocence and purity of having a young one makes people that wouldn’t normally wanna talk to you, open up and strike a conversation.

I think I mentioned a while ago the sushi lady, and how this usually stone-cold faced lady nearly cracked her face with a wide smile, that’s how much her lips turned up when she saw baby boy as I held him up to the sushi window.

I remember random men and women talking to me years and years ago, when I’d go to the supermarket and shopping centres with baby girl. They loved making comment about their childish ways, imparting some advice, and usually leaving me either grateful, questioning or wondering after the interaction… always in a good way.

I would often think “but don’t they remember how hard it was?” when they commented how precious that stage was and how much they missed it.

I think I’m really starting to get it.

Today for instance, we stopped for a coffee after Hubbie had a morning hair cut. We were at a cafe when a man walking by, hearing baby boy voicing his disapproval at the food not coming fast enough, stopped and said “He’s the boss over here isn’t he?”

We laughed and joked around, we ended up talking about our old neighbourhood because he was from there, our Sea Change, names and where they came from in the family, and even our shared European background and the ‘evil eye’ (I love our seaside locale, but I don’t often hear someone here say to me in a semi-thick accent “You’re wogs yeah?” 🤣)

Then as I was later finishing my coffee, Hubbie was walking baby boy around outside as I also tidied and packed up the pram, and from afar I could see this big man in a bright pink top no less, piercings all over his face and even colour in his beard, talking to Hubbie about baby boy… and I just thought well I’ll be damned. Everyone loves babies.

It brings out the happiness in people, I don’t know… if a little one doesn’t put a smile on your face, I think there is something inherently broken in you… how can you not smile when you see little feet taking little steps, big cheeks, a curious stare, long James Dean hair, and just the confident swagger of a toddler going to take charge, and NOT want to make comment on that sight? 🤣

It’s a beautiful stage, albeit challenging, but I am loving the people we bump into on the daily. 😄💓

#2982 Happiness in photos

Sometimes photos can tell you more, more positive things than words ever can.

So here are two such things from today:

A quick coffee this morning before work and life craziness began.

And a portrait of myself, drawn by my darling daughter. My eyes are like that because I’m looking down at my computer (I was working when she drew it) and I have no nose. 🤣

🥰💖

#2981 When we laugh

When we laugh, baby boy laughs. 🤣

It’s the funniest thing, and when you’ve had a child do this as they’re growing up, you know how funny it is. We’ll be laughing about something, and baby boy chimes in loudly “ha ha ha ha ha!”

And then we laugh more. And he laughs more. And on and on it goes. 😁😁

#2976 Leaping upwards

Well, what did you do with your extra day?

February 29th. Apparently we are given an ‘extra day’ in a leap year, and this year is the one for it. Immediately one feels pressured to do amazing things of course, even more so being a time-poor Mum… but it stayed in the back of my mind as I went about my day, wondering if there was some way I could do something interesting to mark the day.

Well, I didn’t do anything remarkable… but baby boy did. He is able to climb the stairs at home quite easily, but today he decided to attempt using a couch cushion to climb the couch, did so successfully, then when we moved his cushion prop away he still was able to climb the couch…

Like I said in the early days with this one, we are in trouble. 🤦‍♀️

It is terrifying and oh-so-funny at the same time. We literally cannot leave him alone in ANY room. He will climb, scale, eat things off the floor, rip things… name it and he will do it.

And then in another room, he tried to scale that couch too. 🤣

So that was my February 29th. Watching my baby boy do things I can’t believe he can already do, and remembering that we created him. 💙💖

#2955 His 1st Birthday

Baby boy is officially 1. 💙🥰🙏🥳

I was holding him and reminiscing as the time ticked by in the early afternoon to the time he was born, and I remember giving that final push, and then the obstetrician, who had told me all along “you’re gonna tell us what the baby is” (because we were keeping the gender a surprise) asked me “SmikG, SmikG, what is it? What is it?”

And he had to repeat himself because I was over it! I wanted baby to come out, and I was tired, so tired from everything, and I was almost squinting as he was asking me…

I looked down, and I stared, a little in disbelief (there’s that term again) and I said “boy?”

With a question mark, because, was I really seeing what I was seeing? 🤣

And the obstet went “Yes!”

And I was reliving all of this in my mind today, smiling and holding baby boy, breaking out into tears from time to time, hugging and kissing him every chance I got, just so grateful to have reached the 1 year mark.

1 year! I can hardly believe it. With the constant challenges we’ve faced the last year, it felt like the longest time, every time I imagined him turning 1…

And yet here we are. I’ve made it, we’ve made it, and I know that this doesn’t mean the journey is over… why, it’s only just begun! But the hardest year, in many ways, has passed us by. 🙏

We celebrated simply at home. Hugs, walks around the house. A rose has recently sprung up in the front yard, and it’s timely to have done so at this point in time… so beautiful and sweet, a signifier of the most beautiful things in our life.

And then in the evening we went out for dinner. It was quick, it was yum, and we had a beautiful view to match.

Our outlook is bright, and I am so very grateful. 🙏💖

May our baby boy be forever happy and healthy. Thank you for choosing us sweetheart, and in your Dad’s words…

“What took you so long?” 🤣

#2944 Finding the funny

Baby boy loves his yoghurt. He practically climbs up on me as I feed it to him.

Today I said to him as he was almost climbing on me, “you can lean on Mama’s knees.” This is because he was standing up on his own, and then gently swaying there as he stood in front of me, seated on the floor.

So I wanted him to use my knees as his support… but as soon as I said knees, that was it.

He did this cute, addictive giggle, and I knew instantly.

We had found another funny word. That or he was deliriously happy to be eating yoghurt. Even so, I repeated it about 25 times, both of us cacking up laughing, and then baby girl joined in to also say knees 15 times, and we taped the whole thing, but by that stage of course the laughter had waned a bit.

Still, knees. Anything to see him laugh. 🥰

#2931 Watching them play no. 2

The way they play is becoming more involved, more funnier, more meaningful.

It’s such a joy to be witness to. They were both on the floor, rolling around in laughter, playing the simplest game – baby girl would lie down and play sleeping, and baby boy would watch her with this cheeky grin before launching towards her in an attempt to jump on her head/torso/body!

But baby girl would ‘wake’ and immediately roll away laughing, and so on and on the game continued, all while I beamed happily at them.

🙏💖

#2927 No fuss spider

So, today I came downstairs early morning with baby boy to find a nice medium-sized huntsman in the ceiling corner of our family room wall.

Oh damn it.

I watched it. I messaged Hubbie, asking if he could come home earlier and retrieve it (he firmly said he could not 🤣).

I took distant photos of it when Hubbie asked for a pic… we left the house, and immediately checked it was still there when we returned.

As we walked around the house, we kept checking that corner, making sure it was still there, unmoving, still, quiet.

It was.

Sure, it was a bit gross. It ended up half-hiding in those vent things you find in older homes, that are in the wall. You could still see it’s legs sticking out.

Sure, I didn’t want it there.

Sure, I really wanted it gone.

But I found I was far calmer than the me that would have had that spider in the house, let’s say, 3 years ago.

Because as I said to baby girl: “Sure, I don’t like moths or spiders… but I’m not so scared of them anymore. Because I now know there are far scarier things in the world!”

Things like being sick.

Things like being in pain.

Things like not getting enough sleep. 🤣

Honestly, I look back at that version of me, and I realise I didn’t know what real fear, stress and worry was then.

That’s not to discount people and phobias, and like I said, I’m not saying I’m inviting these insects into my home all of a sudden…

But I’m a little more reasonable, a little more level-headed, a little more mature about it all.

If the spider wants to watch us for half the day, then let him. But he better be warned, because come lunchtime Hubbie will catch him in a cup and throw him over the neighbour’s fence. 🤣🤣