The new house

When we moved into the dodgy 2 bedroom rented apartment, I was 37 weeks pregnant and had a toddler in tow.  We (er…Aaron and friends) did all the moving ourselves and it took us about 12 hours.

This time, we didn’t kid ourselves and hired removalists. There was no way we would have been able to move all of our stuff whilst keeping the kids entertained and inside the houses despite the doors being wide open.  Plus, we had the brand new large fridge and a very steep set of stairs to get down.  Still, it took 7 hours, and that was after we brought a boot load of boxes to the new house every day for a week. It was pretty much just the furniture left, with a few boxes.

I seemed to have inadvertently hired the old lazy removalists.  One of them stayed on the truck arranging the things the other slowly brought down.  I would have imagined that someone that moves things for a living would be able to carry a decent amount of goods.  When I saw him carrying things like one fan down the stairs at a time though, I my imagination is far more imaginative than I thought.

The kids and I played with the minuscule amount of toys I had in a backpack for entertainment during moving purposes, but they quickly got bored.  An hour and a half or so in, I resorted to watching Peppa Pig on the iPad just to keep them from running out the very inviting wide open front door.

Hours later, the removalists were finished with all of the inside stuff.  I somehow managed to keep them entertained the whole time.  Moving things out of the garage was much easier, they just got on their bikes and rode around the apartment complex garage area and jumped up and down in muddy puddles that they made with the water tap.

Finally, we were able to leave, driving the 4 or so kilometers down the road in NSW to our new house.  Entertaining the kids at our new house whilst the movers unloaded was much easier.  Their room was already filled with their toys.  There is a backyard for them to run in, complete with a tap for them to make their favourite muddy puddles.

$700 later, the removalists were done.  A great big smile stretched across my face.  We did it.  We were in our very own house.  The kids have room to play, inside and outside.  No more landlords, no more real estate agents, or dodgy apartments.  We can do whatever we want.  We can paint the walls, put nails in to hang up heavy pictures, replace carpet with wood, make a vegetable garden, etc.  Not that we will do all of those things, but we can if we want to, and that feels fantastic.

If you’re moving to Victoria, why not check out the new Eucalypt village?

*This post was brought to you by Stockland

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Busy mommy

Hannah is recovering from pneumonia.  The third and fourth kinds of antibiotics and a trip to the children’s hospital seemed to do the trick.  She is her cheeky happy self again without the fever and the doc. can no longer hear congestion in her lungs (or whatever it is they hear in there).

I have been busy doing a scientific report for my biodiversity class at uni (who knew just the reference list would take so long to write up in the proper Harvard style format?), and preparing a debate for my scientific literacy class.  I will be debating  the topic abortions should be legal to 24 weeks.  On the against side.  Obviously.

We move at 7:30am tomorrow morning and the house is still full of stuff that needs to be packed.  We are very behind since Hannah was sick over the long weekend.  The long weekend that we had planned to spend packing and moving all of our non-furnitures items into the new house.  Now it’s a race against time.

Needless to say, you probably won’t hear from me for a bit.  I was all smart and organised the internet (ok, got Aaron to organise it) to be installed in the new house before we moved in so that it would be ready when we got there, but Aaron got an email from them this morning saying that there may be a problem with the line and they will find out within 24-48 “business hours.” Sigh.  I’m going to be pretty annoyed if we have no internet for a while.  I kind of need it since my Scientific Literacy class is external.  Meaning everything is online.  Except the debate, that will be in person.  In two weeks.  Goodness, I’d better get cracking.

Don’t forget to vote.

If you enjoyed reading this, please vote for my blog. All you have to do is click the link below. That’s it… Clicking the link brings you to the Top Mommy Blogs home page. You don’t have to do anything else. Any clicks from my site to theirs is a vote.  THANKS!

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Copyright 2013 Sheri Thomson

The smoking bathroom

We LOVE our new place.  Sure, we went from a 4 bedroom house with a yard to a 2 bedroom apartment.  But it’s ours.  Well, we don’t own it, but you know, only our little family lives in it.  It’s cozy.  I can prepare dinner on the large kitchen bench that overlooks the living/play/dining room while Hannah happily plays.  I got to organise everything in the kitchen just the way I like it.  If I have to pee in the middle of the night (who am I kidding, I’m 39 weeks pregnant, it’s more like when I have to pee in the middle of the night), I can roll out of bed and walk to the bathroom naked.  No clothes needed, I’m not going to run into anyone except for Aaron, and he likes it when I’m naked anyway (I’m sure he’s blushing as he reads this…).  There is a big bathtub and a modern spacious kitchen.  The list goes on and on.

Even Hannah loves it here.  Whenever we go elsewhere, she looks at me all serious-like and says “Hannah go home now to new house.”  Never in a million years did I think she’d take to a new place so well, especially since it meant leaving Grandma and YaYa behind.  I guess she thought it was too crowded too.  Plus now the big screen TV is in the same room she plays in, so she gets to watch Mickey and Dora on it; something she never got to do before.  She even said she wants to share her room with Baby Brother.

The move probably would have been a lot smoother if Hannah didn’t get sick soon after and end up in the hospital, but that’s a whole ‘nother story….

The only problem with the new place is the smoking.  We don’t smoke.  Yuck.  I’ve never even tried one.  Ick.  Just the thought makes me cringe!  But our neighbours all seem to smoke.  Except maybe the other new tenant across the way who also has a 2 year old girl.  And smoke travels.  There is no smoking allowed inside the building, so everyone goes just outside their doors and smokes there instead.  I can smell smoke like no ones business.  Sigh.  It comes under our door and assaults my nostrils.  Smoke that has been in someone else’s body comes in my door and enters my body.  Ew. Just because you want lung cancer doesn’t mean I do…. I think I need to buy a door snake.  Maybe that will help.

Fair enough, I can see why the smoke comes in under the front door.  That makes sense.  But a some of the time, there is a strong smell of cigarette smoke in the bathroom.  Yeah, the bathroom.  The bathroom that has a closed window, is on the second story of the apartment building (with the rest of our apartment of course), has no common walls with any other unit, and has a bunch of trees right out side it (so no one can stand under it smoking).  I can’t for the life of me, figure out why the bathroom smells like smoke.  How did the smell get there?  It’s not like Aaron or I am hiding out in the bathroom chain smoking.  It’s certainly not Hannah. Are all the vents connected and someone is cheekily smoking in their bathroom?  But then wouldn’t I see smoke coming out of them? Maybe it’s like Toy Story and our bathroom fixtures all get together and party while we’re out. Hmmm…..

The long hug good night

Today is the last day we’ll have the internet for a little while.  Sure, I’ll have the internet on my phone, but I have enough trouble hitting the right buttons with my fat pregnancy fingers when just trying to type a text message.  There’s no way I can do a whole post from my phone.

Yes, we are moving tomorrow!  HOORAY!!!!!  I’m not going to think about the fact that the last people who lived there failed to clean the place.  The carpet hasn’t been vacuumed, kitchen floor not mopped, a years worth of dust is still chillin’ on all the window sills (sils?), the laundry sink has been drained and then left with a ring of crap around the bottom.  Sigh.  Nope, not thinking about all the cleaning I have to do at 37 weeks pregnant when it should have all been done before we got the keys.

Instead, I’m thinking about the shower.  The wonderful, more-than-a-trickle, you-can-have-hot-water-AND-water-pressure shower that awaits me in our new apartment.  The shower here is atrocious.  I dread showering every single day.  I’m not exaggerating at all when I say you can have a warm/hot shower, OR, you can have water pressure.  I opt for the warm, it’s like 2 degrees in the morning, I can’t have a cold shower!  Then when you get the temperature just right, it decides to burn you instead.  So then you turn the cold up just a tad, and it freezes you.  Mean while, the shower door is broken, so it doesn’t shut (letting out all that warm steam that usually keeps one warm whilst showering.  Since you’re only under a little trickle of water, one side of you is nice and warm while the other side, is hanging out of the shower stream and freezing cold.  Yes, I HATE that shower.

And we’ll have the place all to ourselves.  No waking up in the middle of the night to pee (side effect of being 37 weeks pregnant of course), only to find someone else in there and have to pop a squat in the freezing cold backyard in the rain while trying not to fall over or knee myself in the baby.

I can arrange my pantry any way I want.  No one is going to put a can of pasta sauce in the tuna row.  Or flour on the snacks shelf.

Yes, I can not wait!!!

Moral of the story though, we haven’t arranged the internet connection yet, and these things usually take way too long in the first place.  So, I’m not sure when I’ll be able to post again, but I will be back.  Maybe with a baby, maybe still pregnant.  I don’t know, but I’ll be here, surely with plenty of amusing stories when I’m back.  In the mean time, please keep voting for me, and I’ll try to keep my legs crossed so baby boy doesn’t make an appearance on moving day.

don’t forget to vote for me every day, even when I can’t post due to lack of internet (I still want to stay in the top 5!!!!!) Please please please!!!

The reason for lack of posts

As I said before, I was doing something far more important in my during-Hannah’s-nap free time.  Well, I was trolling the internet for houses/apartments for rent.  As I said before, three grown women, all moms, all thinking they are the mom of the house (FYI, I am the mom, I am the one with a small child….), all strong willed, stubborn, and butting heads all of the time, doesn’t work.  So, Aaron, Hannah, and unborn Boy Baby and I are moving.  Relief sigh.

Yeah, I’m 36 weeks pregnant.  So maybe we’re a little crazy, but it’ll be better for everyone, and I’ll be way less stressed when the baby comes if we have our own place before hand.

Hannah said she already has a house and doesn’t want another one.  It nearly broke our hearts.  But then we took her to have a look at some places and she ran around them all excited-like and said she liked them and she’d like to live there.  She also said she wants to share a room with Baby Brother, which is good, since we’re moving to a two bedroom apartment.  Bit of a change, but we can save for a deposit and get good loan benefits on our own place that way.  Plus, we like it North of Sydney and North of Sydney is expensive.  Houses out there cost a million dollars plus, so we’ll have to buy an apartment if we decide to buy out that way.  Going from a 2 bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom in a way nicer area will be a big step up.  Going from a house with a yard to an apartment would not.  So it makes sense.  To us anyway.

We’ll be moving next Saturday, so I’ll be attempting to pack and not go into labour before that.  Blog posts will probably be sporadic before and after then (gotta unpack too, and get the internet hooked up when we get there!!), but I’ll be back to regular posts before you know it.  At least that is the intent.  Of course I am about to have another baby, so….

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Hannah the great

Time since birth: 11.5 months (she’s almost 1!!!)

Stopped at a stoplight on the way to drop Aaron off at the station, something on the vehicle in front of us caught my eye. I did a double take. The truck in front of us had testicles. That’s right, testicles. Why on earth someone would attach a pair of testicles to a vehicle is beyond me. Not only that, but why would someone design, manufacture, and sell such an item? Wouldn’t you be embarrassed to drive around with plastic testicles on your truck? When the light changed to green, the truck was off. The testicles started swaying back and forth at an alarming rate. Just like staring at a fire, I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Surely they are some sort of driving hazard as well as being super bogan-y. How could someone not look at a pair of plastic testicles vigorously swaying back and forth on a truck? Only in Penrith.

A couple of days later, stopped at the very same set of lights, but on the other side of the road, I saw something else one would only see in Penrith: there on the car in front of us was a sticker. “Vaginatarian.” Seriously, someone actually put that on their car? I bet the occupant of that car gets no dates. Maybe he gets dates, but then he brings them to his car to transport them to date spot, they see the sticker, think “wanker!” to themselves and then pretend to be sick and not go out with him.

There was so much work to be done when we moved in here. That was to be expected since we were moving in with a hoarder. Not like the I have to much trash I can’t find my pet cat kind of hoarder, but a hoarder none the less. I started with the kitchen. Looking in the cupboards, I found 2 toasters. Not to mention the one that was out and being used. I also found no less then 6 dinner sets, 2 different sandwich presses, and oh the list goes on. Grandma told me that her Mum always said “If you keep something for long enough, you’ll always find a use for it.” I guess that motto stuck with Grandma. Lucky for me, I coaxed her into getting rid of some of it. Otherwise there is no way our stuff would have fit in the cupboards at all. I found a cupboard full of platters, none of which I’d ever seen being used (and I used to live across the road from Grandma, so I was over a lot).
“Can I give this away Grandma?” I could see her mind working. “How long have you had it?”
“20 years.”
“how long since you’ve used it?”
“20 years. Ok, you can give it away.”

Next I started on the pantry. The pantry was choc-a-bloc full of stuff, most of which I thought rather questionable. I went through every single item in that pantry and checked every single expiration date. I actually found food that expired in 1992. That’s right, it was EIGHTEEN years out of date. I’m not sure which is more shocking, that there was food in there 18 years expired, or the fact the 1992 was 18 years ago. I’m getting old!

I can hear you screaming inside, “what about Hannah?!?! How is Hannah going, what is she doing?” She is GREAT! My little wonderful baby has been walking for a month now, and she is getting cheekier every single day. She has a little hand puppet with a duck on each finger that she loves to carry around and tell everyone that it is “DUCK!” We often ask her where duck is and she’ll stop what she is doing, look all around, locate it, yell “DUCK!” and then trot over and pick it up. I bought her a little (well, compared to her size, it’s big) purse to put some toys in and take with us when we go out. She loves to carry it around even when we’re at home. In fact, she doesn’t just like to walk around, she prefers to walk around while carrying something. Preferable something big and heavy like my purse or Aaron’s 1 litre water bottle full of water. Sometimes even the washing basket.

Everywhere we go, she wants all eyes on her. Hannah will squeal loudly until some random person in the supermarket looks at her, and then she will smile and bounce and giggle at them. One day a lady was talking on the phone when Hannah started her cheekiness, and the lady got so distracted by Hannah that she told the person on the other end of the phone that she would have to call them back as “this really cute baby keeps smiling and giggling at me and I just can’t think at the moment.” We went to a newcomers dinner at church the other night (we’re not really newcomers as we went to the same church for a long time last time we lived in this area, but I suppose we were away for 3 years), and once again Hannah was up the her mischief. Right when the minister was addressing everyone, telling people about the church, etc. Hannah decided that she wanted the spotlight instead. She kept walking up to people, getting them to look at her, and when they did, doing a really funny, loud, fake laugh while smiling. Of course everyone then looked at her, which only egged her on more. She is so cute though, how can you not laugh and smile when she does such things?

Now that this is the length of a novel, I’ll stop writing. But don’t worry, we have the internet now, so you will hear about the antics of Hannah every week.

The Ringlet

Time since birth: 9 months Yeah, I didn’t write last week. We’re moving next week, and I’ve been flat out packing, organising, etc. Not to mention it takes twice the time to pack when you have to clean every single thing you pack to make sure that no mold/mildew comes with us. Dirty, dirty apartment (I won’t miss you). I don’t really have time to write proper stories and things this time either, so I’m just going to tell a little of what’s been happening: Hannah figured out a few weeks ago how to pick up very small objects and accurately get them into her mouth (she could pick them up for a while, but getting them in her mouth when the little object was in her fist rather then between her fingers was proving difficult for her), which is good when she is feeding herself peas and corn (both of which she loves, and loves to feed herself), but very bad when she’s attempting to feed herself dust bunnies, and random bits of who knows what that she finds anywhere and everywhere. Who knew there could be so many tiny pieces of string all over the floor? Where do they come from? Even after I just vacuum, she finds things. I’m sure she’s eaten her fair share of random stuff, I often see her chewing but can’t pry her little mouth open to remove whatever it is she had before she swallows it. Or maybe she didn’t actually get anything into her mouth but thinks she did, so she makes chewing motions. Or maybe she is punking me. Hannah’s fourth tooth is now free of her gums (much to her delight), and she now enjoys biting even more then she used to. Especially Daddy’s nose. She has been biting Daddy’s nose since the day she was born (there is photographic evidence of this), but now she does it and then gives a cheeky little “ha ha Daddy, I got you!” grin when she’s done. Often she will crawl over to me for cuddles and then bite my shoulder. Or try to eat my hair. She goes in for the cuddle, then when she pulls back again, she has a mouth full of my hair and a very accomplished look on her face. I bought Hannah her first little pair of shoes. It’s getting cold and she refuses to keep socks on (or if she does, she eats them while they are on, so then they are all wet and I’m sure her feet are then colder then they would have been without any socks at all). I know it’s crazy to pay $50 for a pair of baby shoes, but that is exactly what I did. They had cheaper ones, but wouldn’t you know it, she got my wide duck feet and couldn’t fit in any of the cheaper ones. She also had to have the T-bar style ones as her also fat feet stuck out of the other ones too much (again, just like me when I was a baby. I’ve heard stories about my fat little feet not fitting into the baby shoes. Plus I looked like I ate other babies for breakfast). The T-bar ones only came in gold, so now she has bling feet. On the plus side, she can now wear socks and she can’t get them off because there are shoes over them. Booyah. Oh, and she can stand by herself for up to 10 seconds at a time. When she realises, she can’t stand anymore. I took some photos of Hannah’s ringlet. Yes, just the one. Well, I guess there could be more, but all of her long hair just goes into one giant ringlet down the middle of her head. It kinda looks like a ringlet mohawk. Anyway, I put some photos of it in this post for viewing pleasure. She sure doesn’t get that from my side of the family (if you’ve seen photos of me, my mom, or my dad with curls, it’s only because at some point in our lives, we have all had perms. Yes, even my Dad (haha, your secret is out!). If only I had those photos…). Ok, so I didn’t mean to write so much, but, stuff happens.

Might not hear from me next week, still so much packing and stuff to do!! At least I won’t be also running around getting the car inspected for rego (um…that is short for “registration” for you non Aussie’s), finding the cheapest CTP greenslip (Compulsory Third Party insurance that you must have before you can actually register or renew your car’s registration), and transfer of title papers. On an annoying note, you’d think that “comprehensive” car insurance would cover everything, right? Well, not here. Here, you have to have your CTP greenslip, which ONLY covers you for third party injury liability, then if you want any other kind of insurance, that is separate. “Comprehensive” does not include compulsory third party liability insurance. Highway robbery? I think so. And how much does a CTP greenslip cost (I know you are wondering)? Well, for us and our car, it’s $639 for a year. How much does comprehensive cost on top of that (if we want it)? Another $600 something dollars. How much does third party property damage (like if we hit another car and their car was damaged) cost? $100 something. How can they call it “comprehensive” when clearly, it’s not. RUDE!!! Ok, going now, really, I am.

29 weeks

Pregnancy: 29 weeks 2 Days
Total weight gain: not sure, too busy packing, moving and unpacking….
Baby size (head to butt): 26cm (10.23in)
Baby weight: 1.15kgs (2.53lbs)

Just a word of warning with this post: If something doesn’t make any sense at all, or if I’m rambling about anything or nothing, it is because I’m very very tired from working like a mad woman packing/moving/unpacking for the last week. I know I should have a rest, but there are things to be done darn it! Aaron said to me yesterday “you know you only work 4 hours per day because you are pregnant and need a rest right?” Me: “Yes, but I NEED to unpack everything!” Apparently I don’t understand that things don’t all have to be done at once, and can take my time. I’ll work on that. My feet are still swollen from all the packing (I packed while Aaron was at work), and unpacking (again while Aaron is at work), but the sleep last night helped. I’ll have a nice bath and a nap (not at the same time of course…) when I get home.

Our new place is lovely (can’t remember if I told you about it last week, so here we go again if I did. Sorry). Wait, I think I did describe it last week, so I won’t do it again. I could just look at the blog for myself, but I can’t be bothered. We did find out that there are lots of cockroaches in our new place. Had we found this out when we first got the keys, we could have roach bombed it, but now it’s too late. I don’t want to be breathing in fumes that kill things. I don’t think Mushi would appreciate that very much! The cans say you can re enter a room after 2 hours, but of course, the can doesn’t allow for paranoid pregnant women. Instead, we put out a lure’n’kill in every room. They seem to be doing the job quite nicely (although a lot slower then the bomb). I spent all day last Friday scrubbing the inside of the cupboards which were filled with roach dander and poo, as well as more spiders then I think I’ve seen my entire life. Not poisionous ones (I don’t think anyway. They looked like daddy longleggs to me. Oh dear, I just spelled leg with 2 gg’s. Special…).

Yesterday I unpacked pretty much everything that was left to unpack (Aaron and I got a lot of it done on Sunday, and I got the kitchen pretty much done on Saturday). After unpacking every single box, I discovered a problem. Where are all the bowls? I’m not talking about just the small bowls, or just the large ones, I’m talking about every single bowl that we own (apart from the one that was in the dishwasher that I remembered to bring last minute). How do you lose an entire large box full of bowls? I looked in the car, in every room of the house, everywhere, but still, the bowls are nowhere to be seen. So how do you lose a box full of bowls? Well, you get a pregnant woman to do the packing, that’s how. I’m pretty sure I forgot to pack them at all. I think they are still sitting happily in the cupboard at the old unit. I thought I remembered packing them, and was adamant that I had. But then, I really thought about it, and my memory was putting the large fruit bowl stacked with the other large bowls after washing it. I was assuming that was stacking it in a box, but the more I think about it, the more I’m sure it was the cupboard and not a box. Darn pregnancy brain! Luckily I’m going there today for the final inspection, so I can have a look. Unluckily, I will have to explain to the real estate agent why there is a cupboard full of bowls, and that I will need to keep my keys for one extra day to get said bowls when Aaron returns home from work. I can’t exactly lug an entire box of bowls on the bus (or on the walk to the bus).

We had our second antenatal class on Thursday. The infamous knitted uterus made it’s first appearance, complete with fake back, and knitted placenta and umbilical cord. I hope that’s not what my uterus actually looks like (or baby for that matter!). We were given some homework as well, a photocopied sheet of a crying baby. Now we should have done the homework straight away, but of course, we didn’t. I can’t remember now if we are supposed to list reasons why babies cry, or what to do when they do cry. If we chose one and then it turns out to be the other, we are going to look very silly indeed.

Quite a few nights last week Mushi was having his party at 3am. I think he was trying to reproduce the get down tonight video from YouTube (see below). That’s what it feels like anyway.

That’s all for now, see you (well, write) next week!