The pregnant belly dance

Boy Baby is posterior.  He is head right down in my nether region (making me feel an incredibly strong urge to pee every time I stand up), but his head is facing out.  Not in, like they are supposed to.  That, of course, means that his little strong legs are also facing out, towards my belly button, and you can physically see limbs moving across my stomach from time to time.  I can tickle a whole foot.  Judging by the strength of these movements, I’m actually kinda glad that he’s not facing inward.  I think my intestines and internal organs will thank him for it later.  Of course his spine is on my spine, so my spine thinks otherwise.  And my legs.  He seems to pinch some nerves from time to time, making me nearly fall over mid-stride, legs unable to work, and in great pain.

But look on the bright side, without a posterior baby, I wouldn’t get footage like this (taken yesterday @ 35 weeks pregnant):

Don’t forget to vote once per day to keep me in the top 5 (pretty please!!)

Can a toddler have her own artistic style?

Hannah loves to paint.  The other day, when she was supposed to be napping, she noticed where I’d stashed her Dora pencil pouch containing her precious finger paints.  I have to hide it or she wants to paint all day every day, and would unzip that hot pink Dora case, flip open the paint caps herself, and paint anything and everything in her path.  Sigh. We hadn’t actually done any painting in a very long time.  I couldn’t even remember where I’d put the paints.

I could hear her through the baby monitor “Hannah want THAT!  Hannah want THAT!”  I thought she’d just thrown one of her toys outside of her cot and couldn’t reach it.

When I went to get her up, she immediately pointed her chubby little baby (fine, toddler, she’s growing up so fast!) finger towards the top of the closet , shouting “HANNAH WANT THAT!” with way too much glee/excitement.

I got it down as she ran off to her toy bin, scooping up her art smock that she has only worn about one time in her entire life.  “Hannah need this too.”  She told me.  How did she know that??  Seriously, it’s been months since we’ve done any painting, and we don’t draw or colour with the art smock on.  Ever.

I got her colouring book out and pulled out a page with a girl on it.  She told me she wanted to paint a girl.

“Which colour do you want?” I asked her.

“Blue.”

“Where do you want it?”  As if I was going to let a 22 month old squeeze her own paint out of the bottle.  I’m pretty sure the entire bottle would have ended up on the page.

“There.”  She said, pointing to the girls face.

She coloured it in with a combination of her left index finger and her paintbrush.  And then she was done with that one.  She wanted a different one.

We repeated the entire exercise.  Over and over again.  She always wanted blue, and she only wanted to paint people’s faces.  Then she was done.  Once she painted a girls hands blue too, but only once.

So I’m wondering, can an under two-year-old toddler have her own artistic style already?  I guess I’ll have to just draw a whole bunch of faces for her to paint.  Otherwise, we’ll be going through way too many colouring books….

Bears face had to be blue (what’s up with this image? Seriously, nightmares anyone?)

Man’s face had to be blue

Trolls or gnomes, whatever they are, faces are blue too

This one got blue hands too. She is clearly special.

Yeah, paint all over her face

Girl had to have a blue face too

Don’t forget to vote every day.  I don’t like being back in 6th place 😦

The sound of silence

I think it’s good to let toddlers play by themselves sometimes.  It develops creativity and imagination.  I like to close all the doors in the house except the one leading to her room, and of course the kitchen which leads to the playroom.  That way she can run around the hallway to her heart’s content, and if she feels like playing in her room by herself, then by all means, she can go for it.

She loves going in her room and pulling all of her shirts off the hangers, pants off the shelf, and singlets out of the drawer.  Mostly she just puts them on the ground, but she loves trying to put them on too.  Often when she comes out of her room, she is running, giggles coming out of her mouth, 5 shirts around her waist, and a pair of underpants on her head.

Sometimes she sits in her room and pulls half the books off of her shelf, looking through each one as she goes.  Upside down, right side up, it doesn’t matter, she looks at them just the same.  She talks as she points to the pictures in her books “OH!  Kangaroo!  BIG Kangaroo!”

Usually I can hear her in her room, having a great time, giggles here, sentences there, thuds as pulls books off the shelves.

But the other day, it was quiet.  She’d been in there for a while.  Last time she was in there for a while being quiet, she had shut her door so I wouldn’t know what she was up to (CHEEKY!) and somehow managed to get a hold of her wipes, pulling nearly all of them out of the packet.  When I went in, she jumped a little, knowing she isn’t meant to be getting out all the wipes.  “Just one.”  She told me nodding her head as she tried to take one more to wipe Mickey Mouse’s bottom.  He was nicely laid on the change mat, ready for a nappy and a bottom wipe.

I went in her room, totally expecting to find an entire packet of wipes scattered about her room, a cheeky look on her face.  As I approached the door, she started giggling.  And jumping.

“How did you get in there?!”

More giggling.  More bouncing. She was clearly very proud of herself, excited at her new feat.

She loves climbing in there now.  She does it all the time.  We asked her to do it for the camera last night, so here it is, little miss cheeky doing her new trick.  Just keep in mind that despite being 22 months old, she is very small, at least 2 inches shorter than all of her friends, and she only weighs 10 kilos, so this isn’t really easy for her.

Just so you know, I only had a roll of masking tape around my wrist because I was in the middle of getting Baby Boy’s room ready for trim painting…..

Please vote for this blog, click on the banner below once per day 🙂

Where does the bin man live?

Today I took Hannah to Bunnings to get some new heat lights for the bathroom.  It is FREEZING in there!  The current bulbs have been in there at least 20 years and when they died, no one ever changed them, they just left them in there, all dead and useless.  Humph.  I like to be warm, rather than cold, wet, and bedraggled and on the verge of getting frostbite when I step out of the shower ,thank you very much.

Anyway, I spotted a pink set of drawers that would be great for Hannah’s socks and things for the bargain mark down price of $15 bucks.  Done.

We got it home and Hannah decided she wanted to open it.  She ran to her playroom and fetched a little pink and blue plastic toy knife.

“Need a knife!” she told me.

Trying to open it with her little plastic knife

She poked and prodded at the plastic packaging with the “knife”, unable to free the lovely pink drawers inside.

She flipped it over and tried the other side.  No luck.

She flipped it on its side.  No luck.

She got frustrated and wanted a real knife.  I opened it for her with my finger nail instead.

“Hannah open it!  Hannah need a knife!”  She yelled.  It was nearly nap time, so she was starting to get cranky.  She somehow snapped her toy knife in half.

“Oh no, broke the knife!” She told me with a sad look on her face, tears threatening to escape. “Mommy fix it.”

“No sweetie, it can’t be fixed, we’ll have to throw it away.”

“Put it in the bin!”  Hannah said excitedly.  She really likes putting things in her bin (that’s garbage can for those Americans reading this).

Hannah: “Bin man take it.”  FYI, the bin man is the garbage man.

Me: “Where’s bin man going to take it to?”

Hannah: “Bin man’s house.”

Me: “Where does the bin man live?”

Hannah: *points to cupboard* “in THERE!”

Me: “Oh, he lives in the cupboard?”

Hannah: “YEAH!!!  In the cupboard!”

Me: “Where does Daddy live?”

Hannah: “In Daddy’s cupboard!”

Kids are so funny!

P.S. don’t forget to visit Pencils of Promise and help me raise money to build schools for underprivileged children in developing countries CLICK HERE

And when you’re done with that, please vote for my blog!

Wordless Wednesday: Family portraits

I don’t have anything profound or hilarious to write about today, (or maybe I just can’t be bothered) so I’m going to do what a lot of people do and go with Wordless Wednesday. What? It’s not Wednesday? Meh, merely details. Plus, I may not be in the U.S. but I am from the U.S., and guess what?  It’s Wednesday there!!  What?  There are words in this post?  Whatever, I don’t think I could ever have a post with no words at all….

Anyway, we have been meaning to do some family portraits for many months now, but we were kinda lazy and didn’t do it until last Saturday.  Or Sunday.  Can’t remember.  We have a couple of sponsor kids from Indonesia, and we were supposed to send them a letter and family photo quite a while ago.  I guess we suck as sponsor parents because we haven’t yet done it, due to needing a current family photo.

I finally remembered to ask The Jess (aka The Sister-in-Law) to come over and take some lovely photos (in addition to helping paint Baby Boy’s ceiling).  So, here they are (taken at 26 weeks pregnant):

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Don’t forget to vote for me every day (click banner below)!  Thanks!!! 🙂

The gastro chronicles

I now know what it’s like living in fear.  Every strange sound makes me weary.  Every pained/sad/scared look freaks me out a little.  Every cough makes me skiddish.  I love getting hugs from Hannah, but her motives frighten me.  I turned the baby monitor’s sensitivity up as high as it will go (it’s usually on the lowest setting).  I can hear her every yawn, fart, sneeze and accidental hit on the cot rail.  I can hear her if she breathes too loud.  But that’s not why I turned it up.  I need to hear if she vomits.  Ick.  Vomit….  Sigh.  Hannah has gastro.  At least that’s what the after hours doctor said the night before last when I called and he came to our house at 9:30pm.  Bulk billed by the way (I didn’t have to pay anything, medicare pays it all.  How I love Australia’s health care system).

I don’t deal well with vomit.  I never have.  I’m not a vomiter.  Before my last pregnancy, I hadn’t vomited in 1o years.  That’s right people, 10 years! 10 beautiful, vomit free years.  I don’t even like the word vomit.  Or throw up, or chuck, or any word that even remotely relates to that horrid stomach action.  Yes, I have emetophobia (what, I googled it, it’s a real thing, and by golly, I’m not the only one who has it!).  Fear of vomiting.  Not just me vomiting, but also anyone even remotely near me.  The very thought of it freaks me out.

The other week, Aaron, or The Jess (can’t remember which, they both enjoy asking random would-never-happen-hypothetical questions) asked me which would I rather, if I had to be in the way of poo or vomit.  Most people wouldn’t hesitate (so I’ve been told), they’d say vomit.  They’d much rather have vomit on themselves than poo.  I thought about it a second.  “Poo.”  I said.  They looked at me like I was a complete nutbag.  “Well, poo can be just a little nugget that falls on your shoe and then rolls off.  vomit is never like that.  Vomit gets all over you.  Seriously, it depends on the particular poo or vomit.”  Emetophobic….

But now I’m a mum.  I have a toddler.  Toddlers get sick.  Toddlers do, on occasion, vomit.  Not like when they are babies and spit up milk, that’s not really vomit-y.  That doesn’t smell like vomit, doesn’t look like vomit, doesn’t really bother me (of course Hannah hardly ever spit up, so I guess I’m not really a good judge on the matter).  No, no, toddlers vomit just like adults.  I don’t know how they fit it all in those little tummies of theirs, but they vomit a lot.  And Hannah has this tendency to want her mommy right before she vomits.  She wants my comfort, she wants me to make her better.  I want to run the other way, screaming.  Now that I know she has gastro, I’m extremely weary of her.  What if she vomits on me?  I don’t even want to think about that.

It all started on Tuesday night.  She was happy.  Happily playing in the foyer of a dance studio where we were going to watch The Jess do her end of term performance.  And then it happened.  “Mommy,” she said to me all sad-like, jumping into my arms.  A second later, the eruption started.  Lucky for me, I have fast reflexes.  Without any thought, I immediately turned her around, away from me.  The vomit went all over the leather lounge.  Everyone stared at us, not knowing what to do or say.  The smell was overwhelming.  I put her down and ran over to the receptionist’s desk.

“I need some clean up over here!”  I frantically yelled like a mad woman as she was on her phone call.  I didn’t mean for her to clean it up, I just wanted something to clean it up with.  I’m sure it didn’t come across that way though.  I looked around the room like a chicken with my head cut off, desperately trying to find something to clean it up with.  Meanwhile, YaYa picked up Hannah and she started vomiting more.  There was vomit everywhere.  I finally noticed the bathroom sign and ran in to get some paper towels.

YaYa and I cleaned it up while everyone looked on, thoroughly disgusted.  Clearly none of these people had kids.  YaYa cleaned up most of it for me (phew) while I watched Hannah, made sure she didn’t kneel down, put her pointer finger on the floor and swirl around all the vomit.  For some reason, toddlers like to do that.  Strange little people….

The next morning she threw up again.  This time though, I knew she was sick.  I recognised the signs.  I held her over the sink and it all went straight in.  Easy clean up, no mess.  Still disgusting though.

She was hungry that night, and she perked up a lot.  She wanted blueberries.  She begged for some.  Aaron gave them to her.

The next morning, Aaron went in her room when she woke up and she handed him a now dry, regurgitated blueberry.  I’m so glad I wasn’t the one to get her up.  She’d vomited in the middle of the night, and then went back to sleep without complaint.  Or maybe she did it in her sleep, I’m not sure.  Either way, it was disgusting.  There was dried blueberry vomit all through her hair, her blankets, her sleepy suit, her bunny and her bear.  I put her straight in the bath, pulling out blueberries as I washed her hair.  Ick.  By the time I was finished, Grandma had already fixed her bed up (thank God for Grandma).

She didn’t vomit all day or night that day.  She was very happy, playing, energetic.  I only gave her bland foods, diluted apple juice with electrolytes (she won’t drink the electrolyte stuff by itself), no milk.

The next day she was also happy.  She desperately wanted some milk.  She seemed better, so I gave her a little.  For dinner, she had some kids ravioli, and then a little bit of milk.  She played happily.

But then she looked at me strangely.  And she erupted.  It was bad.  I’m pretty sure every single thing she ate and drank that day came up at that moment.  The rug in her room was vile.  The smell was horrid.  Puke was everywhere.  “Grandma!  She vomited!”  I grabbed a towel and tried to clean it up.  The smell was overwhelming.  I turned my head.  I could feel the contents of my stomach start to creep up.  I swallowed before they got too far up.  Grandma must have seen my torment and quickly came to my rescue.  I bolted out of that room with Hannah and stripped her clothes off, rinsed them and put them straight in the washing machine.  She was happy as Larry.  She wanted to help with the washing and played the whole time in the vomit-removal clean-up bath.

It just wasn’t like her.  Last time  she was sick (which was all the way back in September), she wasn’t happy, or playing.  She was miserable.  She sadly laid her head on my shoulder in misery until she got better.  She slept half the day.  No, something wasn’t right.

I called the after hours doctor who came a couple hours later (they were pretty busy) and checked her over.  No fever, clear ears, clear chest, no sign of heart failure (phew, I’m always scared of that when she’s sick, since she has a hole in her heart).  He listened to her tummy.  “Lots of noise going on in there!”  He told me.  “You can probably hear it just by putting your ear next to her stomach.  Yep, it’s gastro.”

“How long does it last?”  I asked him, “I mean, she first vomited on Tuesday.”  (that was Saturday by the way).

“It can last for 2 weeks.”  He told me.  Sigh.  He told me to keep her hydrated, give her lots of electrolytes, bland food, and no milk.

So now, every time she so much as looks at me funny, I silently freak out a little.  But I hug her anyway, because that is what I do.  I am her mom, and even though vomiting is petrifying to me, I love her, and it’s my duty to be there for her no matter how much it scares me.

UPDATE: 1 week after the first vomit – Hannah ate a lot today (all bland, rice bubbles (Rice Krispies), toast, rusks, mashed potato and tofu, grated apple, banana, and of course lots of electrolyte drink).  It’s almost bed time, and so far, no vomit today, thank goodness.

Please vote for my blog once per day to help me get to #1 (click banner below)!

Your plane isn’t good enough

Dad's airplane

A few years ago, my Dad had his I’m-getting-so-old-what-can-I-do-to-make-me-feel-younger mid-life crisis.  I think at that stage, most men buy a swish shiny sports car that goes really, really fast.  My dad bought a plane.  He loves his plane.  He took flying lessons, got his flying licence, and often flew my Mom somewhere for the day.  He hasn’t flown in a while, but he is still proud of his plane.

Naturally, he wanted to show his see-I’m-still-young plane to Hannah.  She has been saying “air-pane” ever since we got here.  Not really because she likes them, but because she knows that is how we got here, and thus how we will eventually get home.  I keep telling her “not yet, the big airplane isn’t ready for us.”  Sometimes she looks at me rather seriously and then says “bus.”  I suppose in her mind that makes sense.  I mean a bus does get you places.  Just not from the U.S. to Australia….

We pulled up to the little air field where Dad keeps his plane and Hannah was all excited.  Dad got a phone call, so we sat in the car for a bit while he talked and somehow managed to hear the person on the other end, despite Hannah’s constant,

Hannah in the cockpit

enthusiastic chants of “Air-pane! Air-pane,”  no doubt thinking she was about to go home.

Dad put her in the cock pit of his plane. “NO!” Hannah said, rather disgustedly.  I took her out.

Immediately, she started pointing at the plane next to Dad’s “this one!  This one!” She told us, running towards it.  When we got there, she wanted in that plane.

“No Hannah, that’s not Grandpa John’s plane.  We can’t go in this plane.”

“This one! This one!” Clearly, a 20-month old doesn’t understand the laws of ownership.

“Hannah, did you like Grandpa’s airplane?”  he asked her on the way back to the car.

"THIS ONE!"

“No!” she pointed to the one next to it as I carried her along. The one she ran to in delight. “THIS one!”

I think my Dad’s ego may be slightly bruised.  I, on the other hand, thought it was HILARIOUS!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Please vote for my blog!  Clicking on the banner below votes for me. Thanks, you rock!

 

Belly’s getting bigger, pants are getting tighter

Lately, I’ve been finding myself unbuttoning my shorts whenever I sit down.  I seem to have ‘popped out’ recently, and when buttoned, my daks tend to strangle my belly upon sitting.  Sure I could buy some maternity clothes, but it’s February.  It’s still too hot to wear pants, but soon it won’t be (I hope anyway).  So I don’t want to buy summer maternity clothes, just to wear them for a couple of weeks. And, I’d surely die of heat exhaustion if I were to wear them right now anyway.  Shorts unbottoned when sitting it is.  Makes sense to me.  I could, of course, wear the belly belt (a pants extender of sorts.  It has a slit on one end to go over the button, the other is a button for the slit end of the pants to go on), except I can’t seem to find it.  Plus, you have to have shirts long enough to cover it and if your shirt happens to come up a bit, say, when you sit down or something, it’s “hello, here’s my undies,” and then everyone knows you are too fat to button your pants.

Anyway, I went to Kmart the other day to get some hair dye as I was feeling kind of ugly with my scraggly long hair (baby seems to be leeching all of my nutrients), and glasses (have to wear them in this pregnancy as I can’t seem to tolerate my contacts for some reason.  Plus my eyesight keeps changing with all the hormones), so I decided to do something different.  A chop and and dye.  Awesome.

I went into Kmart with Hannah, found some dye and started off on my merry way.  On my way out, I saw someone I used to work with nearly 5 years ago.  We’ve run into eachother at Kmart before.  Kmart is a great place to go when you have a toddler and need to get out of the house.

“Is it congratulations?”  She asked me as she walked over, looking at my belly.

“Yeah, I’m glad it’s finally looking like a baby bump, rather than just a fat belly.”  Really, I was elated.  I mean, to me it looks like a baby bump, but to other people, who knows, they may just think I’ve had a few too many beers down the pub.  Not that I drink beers, they taste disgusting, but you get what I’m saying.

We chatted for a bit, and then Hannah and I went to the car.  I went to unbutton my pants in preparation for sitting to drive.  Oh. Snap.  I’d been walking around Kmart that whole time with my shorts undone.  Darn you baby brain!  No wonder she felt ok asking me if I was pregnant.  Only a pregnant woman would walk around with her pants undone.

 

The sneaky meat

I’m sure you’re all aware that Hannah refuses to eat anything that remotely resembles meat.  Or fish.  Or eggs.  Anything protein really.  I’ve tried different tactics, some of which have worked for a little bit, some that have failed miserably.

Yesterday, I had a brainwave (what, someone with baby brain can have brainwaves?).  Hannah LOVES those little kids yogurts that come in squeezey packs.  But what if I gave her a squeezey pack that contained not yogurt, but meat.  Of course there are other things in there too, like vegetables, but what ever, there’s meat in there!  Usually when I slave over the stove, making her healthy wonderful home made food, she takes one look at it, turns her nose up and says “Done!”  Or, to add more insult to injury, she looks at it, refuses to sit in her chair, flaps her arms and legs, makes like a wiggle worm, and starts yelling “NO!!” as if I’m about to put her in a pool full of sharks.

I couldn't find a photo of the meat ones, but this is a squeezey pack. Photo courtesy of Rafferty's Garden

So what if she can’t see the meaty goop she is about to ingest?  Sure those wonderful, foul smelling squeezey packs of baby food are for babies from 6 months old (due to being pureed…), and not really for toddlers, but who cares, they contain MEAT!  She could actually get some protein into her diet.

As I arrived in the baby aisle at Coles, I found that the meaty squeezey packs were on sale.  Score!  I grabbed 4 different packs (beef and something, chicken and apricot, chicken and something else, and tuna and something.  Seriously, you can’t expect me to remember all of them, I have baby brain).  Hannah, cheeky monkey that she is, saw me put her beloved squeezey packs in the trolley (cart) and yelled “yogurt, yogurt!”

Ok, what the heck, I gave her one then and there.  She seemed to want it more than anything else in the entire world at that moment in time, so why not go for it?  When I handed her the opened squeezey pack of wonder, she started making her over-excited giggle noise that pretty much sounds like a nanny goat and is one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

She went at that squeezey pack with vigor, squeezing and sucking its guts out.  She didn’t take a sip and then pull that this-is-the-most-disgusting-thing-i’ve-ever-had face and say done, or no.  Quite the contrary, she had some, made the nanny goat noise, then had some more.  She ate nearly the entire pack.  She probably would have eaten all of it if she hadn’t had breakfast (with seconds, she loves breakfast.  This morning, she had Special K for breakfast) only 2 hours earlier.

When we got home and she found the other squeezey packs of wonder in the shopping bags, she wanted more.  Hopefully this trend will continue, and she will eat whatever I give her out of a squeezey pack.  In a week or so, when she is used to the taste of the meat, I will try putting the contents of a squeezey pack on some pasta, or some rice.  If she eats that, I will put some little chunks of meat on it too.  If she eats that, I will make everything from scratch again, in hope that she will be used to the taste, smell, texture, and whatnot of the meat, and actually devour it happily.

This is the plan.  Wish me luck.

How many bubbas?

I must have drawn about 50 bubbas yesterday.  Every day Hannah wants me to draw her bubbas.  And by bubba, she means herself.  We’ve been calling her Bubba since she was born.  She comes up to me carrying her magnetic draw (that’s the knock off version of a Magna-doodle) and tells me “Bubba. Bubba.”  Recently she has been more specific “Bubba Hannah. Peeeaaaasssss.”  Of course I draw one for her.  When she says please, it’s the most adorable thing ever.

As soon as I’m finished, she promptly gets one of the magnet shapes and colours over the bubba.  Then she erases it and asks me to draw her a bubba again.

It’s not just the knock off Magna-doodle, she asks me to draw bubbas on pieces of paper.

When we’re outside, she asks me to draw bubba with her sidewalk chalk on the cement under the awning.

Only while we’re out there, she branches out and asks me to draw Daddy, Mommy, Grandma, Jess, Jim, and/or YaYa.

Once, she asked me to draw her a deer.  Actually, I’m pretty sure she said ‘Oh dear’ (Grandma’s influence), but in my mind, she totally wanted me to draw her a deer.

On a couple of occasions, Hannah asked me to draw her a car.  But then she said Bubba, so I drew her in the car.

Sometimes I draw her a chicken just to shake it up a bit, but then she gets upset and asks me to draw her a bubba.

When we get the duplo out, she asks me to make her a bubba.

“Hannah, if you’re Bubba, what are we going to call the new bubba when it’s born?”  I asked her (after drawing the 50th bubba for the day).

“Gone. Be gone.” Yeah, she actually said that.  Oh snap.