Somewhere, over Jen's rainbow

Steiner Playgroup

2011-05-08T12:18:00.000+10:00

For the most part, I've been pretty blaze in regards to thoughts of where our child would be educated, after all.....that's ages away, the official bits of his education, and in the mean time I'm all for living in the now.

A recent visit from my Aunty, down from Qld, had made me aware of something that probably should have been what I knew all along.....we were already setting out our families education path. We may not have been signing up "baby x" onto a private school waiting list as they snuggly grew inutero, we may not of even checked out where kinders are these days(though we grew up here, there's been closures and openings). But what we have done, from day dot of our awareness of a belly bean being nurtured in my womb, is instinctively included him in every faze of life's happenings, no matter how trivial, things are explained to him, whether he'll understand what we're guiding him in yet or not, who knows, but we've never baby talked, sugar coated, told him he's not old enough for anything....just tried our best to help him make sense of his new and foreign world.

My Mum took JackJack along with her during her outings with my Aunt, to give me some helping time to pack up our old house in the move, and the more he was present in their time together, the fonder my Aunt seemed of him.....Jack really does have this amazing effect on may who come to cross his path....he has an awareness about himself, wise beyond his time.

When my Aunt came for afternoon tea at Mum's, while I was there, she asked if I knew of the Rudolph Steiner way of education. She herself is a retired primary school teacher, with much experience with the Steiner stream, and expressed her delight in how much we unknowingly follow the stylings already!

I was bittern with curiosity. I had vaguely looked in Montessori education, though warned by others that it is more an independent, rather then nurturing, form of education. So, given our instinctual/attachment parenting style, the Steiner ways seemed far more suitable.

Within days of returning home to Qld, My Aunt had sent down a special little package for our fella, with left over supplies of the crayons and pencils that she had in her Steiner resources.

I just went on a hunt through my pics on lappy, I know I've taken a pic or 2 of him doing drawings with these, but cant see the pics for now.

After seeing how keen and my Aunt was of how we raise our son, I decided it was high time to join the rest of the parents out there who've already planned their kids educations, and looked into what was available Steiner style around us. A search online found a lovely little website, who' facilitators run a baby/parent group, playgroup, 3 & 4yo kindy and with hopes of a primary stream starting with preps in yr2012!

After emailing back and forth, working out a generous payment plan to make it possible for us to afford, JackJack is now a member of the Wurru Wurru Steiner Playgroup!!!

Nanny got the honour of the maiden voyage to this new activity, gracsiously stepping in while Muma is recouping in hospital. Under the circumstances, the lady who ran the playgroup allowed Mum to take photo's to show me, as long as no other children appeared in them.

Mum had finished off the correspondents with the group, finding out what to bring and how to get there, and left Tyler with instructions to dress Jack in bright colours, no darks(luckily no problem in our lil fella's wardrobe anyhoo, but what a funny combo Daddy came up with!)

All the toys there are wooden or woolen, felted.....reminds me of our friends Lauren and Danny's girls toy area in their home, it all looks so beautiful....cept in my home I cant help but squish lotsa rainbow amongst all of Jack's things! lol

Seems to be no photo proof of this, but Nanny took great delight in telling me of my sons ill knowledge of house hold appliances.....picking up a wooden toy clothes iron and declaring it a boat!!! Ha ha Buggered if I know when the last time I ironed was.....but then Nanny's not a fan of the ironing either ;)

Beautiful woolly/felted dolls in a wooden dolls house

Nanny hadn't explained this pic to me, but I think it looks like a seasonal table, showing off the joys and creations of Autumn.

Raw wooden building blocks

How much cooler does this climbing frame look then it's similar version of metal that most playgrounds have?!

Pots, pans and baskets as tools for imaginative play in the sand pit

Cubby house

Nanny explained that during a story time reading and morning tea, all the children were gathered around a candle that was during these moments, how sweet. We light candles in our bedroom every night and watch them flicker for a bit of calming before blowing them out to say goodnight, so I know the candles there would have delighted JackJack.

Nanny said that he sat so intensely watching the story teller, and even trying to mimic her actions along with the reading ;)

For Morning Tea, each family was asked to bring along a piece of organic fruit.....each week the parents will rotate cutting these up and dishing them up to the children in their own little pots. They also got a glass, not plastic, but glasses of water. Followed by a piece of grained bread spread with honey(a fave for our lil man who asks for "honey funny honey" on his lunch!), and then....the sweetest little touch, but proving to timid an experience yet for Jack- each child got served a little cup of raspberry tea!! It all sounds so sweet ;)

I cannot wait to be up and about and join him there!! Nanny will be needed primarily for the next few weeks, and then perhaps for a few more after with me being able to go and see how much I can get involved.

And here is a luscious sight in the car park upon leaving playgroup....this gorgeous pink wattle blossom, with playful Rosella's singing away in it!

Thanks for taking special care of our little fella Nanny, words cannot express enough just how much I appreciate you being his carer, the closest in being intuned to him outside of his own parents, we are very blessed xxxxx

Trooper JackJack is awesome, while Muma's stuck in hospital!

2011-05-06T23:40:00.000+10:00

Tomorrow, Mother's Day, shell be marking day 11 of Muma being in hospital :(

I rightly fooked myself up, over the simplest thing too....sitting on the floor, pulling some tightly squished clothes outta my chest of draws and felt a pop in my back.

That was the morning of Wednesday 27th May.

For the rest of that day, it niggled, I struggled a little to get in and outta the car, but was still able to help lift things to get stuff done with our move. But by the arvo, I got myself stuck on Mum's couch, layed down and couldn't get back up.....had a painful flop onto all fours onto the ground, to try pushing up, but got stuck there like that for some time too.

Mum ended up driving Jack and I home and helped me get him ready for bed, then we fully expected all this silly back stuff to be settled by morning.....boy was I wrong :*(

I woke up around 4am-ish, in full back spasms.....if it weren't for those recent fertility testings, I mighta started thinking I was in back-pain-labour, like, I reckon I coulda tolerated JackJack's swift painful labour over this!!

I laid there in hot and cold sweats, trying not to move coz moving provoked the spasms more. Trying not to stir Jack, coz he was trying for booby and his hot little body on me made me nausea's, so hard to not hurt his feelings while trying to stop my own hurt.

I woke Tyler for help, asking him to calm JackJack, we compromised by getting him to cuddle into the body pillow next to me and just boob with minimal touching. I had to keep thinking of him coz I needed to go to the toilet just prior and he woke and followed me, scared for what was going on, as I could barely manage a crawl to the bathroom, then winced and screamed through getting up and down off the toilet.

Tyler, always taking me for an overeacter, took a bit of upsetting convincing to come get Jack from the hall, so I could move myself as best I could back to bed, ad start making him relax.

Meanwhile, I shared my concern with Tyler that I felt I needed to go to hospital.

He crazily ran around the house, trying to find my stash of panadeine forte and I took a few and layed as still as I could, further hoping it'd be all fine by morning.

Come morning time, the spasm woke me up, I screamed for Tyler to get Jack off me(so hard to push my babe away), and told him straight out, I need to get to hospital, this was like nothing ever before.

Mum came around to help get Jack ready, and I called my SiL to come get Jack, deciding that at the time, she'd have more space in her car then my sister, given we'd be at hospital a while and school pick-up of the cousins had to be thought about.

By this stage, I'd lost the ability to pick myself up to a crawl. Couldn't even get off the bed.

Our beautiful new two storey house was suddenly a huge problem :(

It took me over and hour, to get off the bed and pull myself along the floor.....Mum dressing me as I could move(after a rather silly idea to try have a bath while Jack was eating breaky downstairs, I could barely get back out and then was left naked in our cold bedroom).

One hour later, took us up til about 1pm, by the time I was at the base of the stairs, and Mum had nicked home for her walking stick to help me stand long enough to get to the car.

Note here- An ambulance wasn't called as I couldn't bare the embarrassment of them roughly trying to toss around a woman with a weight issue to get me down the stairs-turned out to be a good call coz the hospital had about 10 ambulances waiting to hand over patients when we got there!

Mum went into the triage and got a wheelchair brought out to take me in, and we waited a further 3-4hrs before being taken through to see a doctor. In the meantime I was able to have some mild pain relief and anti-nausea, plus hold a nausea bag, the pain was heating me up and making me on the verge of vomiting.

An x-ray was ordered, which was so freakin hard to get from the wheelchair to the x-ray bed, and it revealed nothing. WTF??

They had then put me in a gown, slid me over to another bed and I spent the night in the ER, awaiting an MRI scan in the morning. Blood tests were taken, these showed elevated swelling so the doc started to piece together theories.

The next day, Friday, I was moved to the Acute Observation Ward.

Jack had been forced into a circumstance of having his first sleep over, at my brother and SiL's.....we had not boobed since Thurs morning, he was put to sleep on their couch, and I am not sure what sort of comfort he was offered through the night.....my heart is breaking with each long night apart we have spent.

Trying to focus on JackJack, I suggested that Nanny or Daddy get him to bring me in his Dr Bear....the bear he got to look after him during his newborn surgery, and that he lent to Nanny during her cancer treatment. Dr Bear, and his little team of Nurse Quacktologist and Dr Koalogist had become good comfort to those needing it in our family!

Just as I had left our premmy babe in his special care nursery crib, with a droplet of boob juice on his Butterscotch Bear's nose, I now had Dr Bear to cuddle up to and sniff in my sons delicious scent ;)

Daddy managed to get himself onto day shifts at work, so that Nanny had Jack during the day, and go home to sleep with Daddy.

Each visit, they both boasted how well he was coping! Each arrival brought a bigger and bigger looking fella, his hair looks thicker, he looks a little taller and a whole lot wiser.

He takes Dr Bear and they have a chat about how Muma is doing, and when she will come home to him.

Jack is being so spoilt in Nanny's company, with Arny Ciny visiting them more for the twins to play, and Daddy has had to assume Muma's position wrapped around him in our co-sleeper bed at night.....trading replays of Buzz for the lesser and lesser asked for booby(oh how it scares me that this is our weaning, our not so gentle weaning)

Jack arrives for a visit with Nanny in the afternoons, and after a quick check over Muma, the little fella is so secure that he sits and eats special snacks, pulling away my hand outstretched to caress him, as he thought I was just gonna pinch his teddy bikkies! Cheeky man ;)

Daddy had the need to go up to work to consult his change of hours with his boss, so JackJack got utterly spoilt at the bowling centre, playing ten pin with much better skill then Muma(not hard, mind you!), and riding the arcade cars and bikes. They brought home 2 little yellow characters off a movie we had just recently seen, so I suggested he take one home and I have one, and we can cuddle them together at the same time. I tell you, this little dude is blowing me away with how much he's taking Muma's need to be in here in his stride....seemingly secure in his own little knowledge that we're all working towards getting me back home. Mum even tells me that during morning drop off now, he turns to Daddy and waves him off straight away saying "bye bye Daddy, you go work now!", all set for his day with Nanny and Papa! I think he's having a little too much fun for the most part of this! ha ha

So there you go, to all the knockers of our parenting, who said bad things to my face and worse behind my back.......what say you to this secure little mans upbringing now, hmm??!!!

Jack is so instinctual of Muma's limitations right now, it's taken a fair bit of coaxing to let Nanny lift him up next to me for a soft cuddle....then he quickly gets gently off again, afraid he may break me :( I yearn for his touch, he is so cautious though.

The MRI revealed I have 3 mildly slipt discs. Now, not like what Tyler heard this, "mildly" doesn't mean "not bad at all", there is different degrees of slippage, and so far I looked hopeful for a non surgical approach, phew!

Other problems arose though, with no feelings of wanting or needing to use my bowels or empty my bladder, so a catheter was placed after an ultrasound revealed my bladder was in fact over full, and a few different forms of bowel medications was added into the cocktail of tablets I was already on for pain management.

After a few nights in the AOW, I was taken up to the 5th floor.....full of elderly, and a few dementia patients....one particular who took to wondering in and sitting at the window and playing with Jack's toys we kept with me ;) Funnily enough, also named Jack, so I tell my family when "Old Man Jack" has come in for a play with "Lil Jack's" toys ;) Course, I have resisted telling Old Man Jack that these toys belong to a little Jack, just incase he thought that I meant they were his own! Lucky here for some experience in dementia through mine and Tyler's Grandma's.

Upon first arriving in hospital, I ha no control of my legs and very little of my arms too....scary times, I had in my mind that this may be the 2nd time in my young life already that they may suspect a stroke, I was braising for the worst while telling Jack I'm all ok.

After getting some strength back in my arms, I decided some art therapy might do the trick....baring in mind that Jack would see these, I've mostly outwardly projected places I'd rather be but here....just one or two in a bad light so far.

Another move, still within the 5th floor, gave Jack a highlight, a cool view down to a stretch of back road around the hospital that we could spot some trucks regularly going by, even some choppers in the sky, and in the early hours I spotted some pinkish cotton clouds dancing over the gum trees of the botanical gardens.

Still waiting on a visit from the pain management specialist, in walks this dude Charlie, last Tuesday the 3rd of May. He brought with him a wheely walker and a determination to get me out and onto my feet....my heavy jelly feet.

Another view for JackJack!

It's bloody hard work to get myself to the edge of the bed, much less anything extra, ugh(note to self- try to anticipate such injuries in the future and go on a mad arm strengthening weights program! ha ha)

Here I go, day 3 of wheely walker, Nanny came especially to take pics of progress, I giggled to Jack through the pain that he can walk better then Muma.....though he was a little pre-occupied of the scary thought that Charlie was taking me away from him and was not at all comfortable watching this. He was there when I got shifted to another room and this too frightened him.

Day one of the wheely walk, while in the other 5th floor room, I did an agonising wobbly walk to the door of my 4 bed room and back. Day two, in my current room, around the corner and to the edge of the nurses station and back.

Day three, halfway around the nurses station and back. It didn't feel any easier, but Charlie assured me I looked more confident(maybe coz my brave Muma face was on, for the sake of my lad)

Checkout my fashionistar leggings! Ha ha, pressure socks, that have holes at the toes so that the nurse can roll them off my feet to help me grip the ground better. I'm needing to wear these and have a nightly anti-clotting injection due to the lack of mobility, to help my circulation.

Ugh, it is bliss to see my bed coming closer into view, my arms are killing me, trying to lug my frumpy body around on the wheely walker.

Charlie suggests I go sit in a chair by the window for lunch, but I struggle to keep my Muma cap on and think f fast tracking it outta here, instead I want to go back to bed and pass out for what felt like a marathon effort!

Twuck JackJack!!!!

As news spread, thanks to my Mummy, keeping the face book community updated, some much needed visitors started coming!

Firstly Autumn and Moni....which was actually when I was till pretty out of it down in AOW, high on drugs, brief visit-I'm sure coz I just was totally not with it!

Ciny and Chris brought the babies in too, and I asked them to bring the bigger kids after school(I'm never one for a restriction on kids, you can feed off their energy!). Daddy, my Daddy-Jack's Papa, had also come in with Mum over the weekend-night shift worker like my hubby, so haven't seen him again til today.

Then also my MiL Helen popped in, and Tyler brought Dan my BiL and Jack's fave uncle in....cheering us both up!

Then starting from the 5th floor, Kint, who dropped in on Wednesday night after her work day at the ABA drop-in centre...smelling rather nice of perfume, and we had a cheerful little goss that really pepped me up ;)

These sweeties came from Lozzie and lil River Man.....the cupcake soft marshmallowy lolly pop for JackJack, but so far he loves it as a wand! And I tried the choccy for the first time today, as my appetite is normalising, and they are divine!

She shared some stories of her and Autumn and families recent trek up to Confest over the Easter weekend. River keenly kept and eye on Jack and having another kid there really cheered Jack up!

Helen came for another visit one arvo, not sure what day now! And came baring goodies!

A royal wedding mag(love me some royal wedding goss!), some little craft kits to try my hands at, and a rainbowy rattle giraffe....that I suspect will be overtaken by the lil fella when we get home as he was pretty keen on her!

Mum's been bringing little trinkets in to cheer my space up.....firstly the "J" angel, which is now propping up a pic she brang in of JackJack, and this cute wooden nurse dolly, to work along side Dr Bear! he he

Daddy also has lent me his radio to listen to, and Mum brought in a magnet pic of Jack that sits on the radio. Today, when Daddy came to visit, he brought me some dusty old covered books.....dug up from his collection, so I cant wait to see what titles he selected for me!

I asked Tyler and Nanny to get a small collection of new play vehicles, especially for JackJack to play with here, and they live on the windowsill between visits.

Mum's blue tacking my pastel drawings to the part of the window that only gives a view of the brick side of the building.....the second one is our lovely new backyard....where Jack is playing in his cozy coupe, while lots of birds frolic around our lovebirds cage hanging out on the line, and the gorgeous Morning Glory vine winds itself around much of our fence and trees, one with a tyre swing hung by Daddy and Uncle Dan ;)

Dr Bear and his little team, the little yellow dude from Daddy's work, and a gorgeous butterfly balloon that JackJack chose for me from the Pink Ladies stall downstairs

Sarz has been my bestest visitor yet, coz she totally surprised me on coming!!

She had said she couldn't come as her little fella's are ill, but after luck of Remo coming home early, she came in....complete with her usual cheek of greeting me with "get outta bed ya lazy thing!" hahaha

I especially loved her visit coz I learnt that, this time, I managed to keep my lippy's shut and she has let the world know now that there's a new belly bean growing inside her!!!!! Yay, exciting times ahead for a friend who truly deserves it ;o)

She very thoughtfully brought me some brain grazing exercise books, of colouring ins and crossword puzzles, and Jack has taken rather a shine to the ducky on the card, oh and the textas too!

My sisters first visit brought with them the 3 little cupcakes, that Chris picked, but thought they were candles.....better yet, they're scrummy lip glosses and my lips were cracking in here, so totally perfect!

They also later brought me a big supply of tictacs, for the dryness again, and Millie also chose me a lip gloss, which has a mirror down the side of it....something I could see her mummy liking!! he he

And the clock, Chris brought me this clock coz I hate when you wake in a strange place and have no idea what time of day it is, it lights up blue and green when you turn it, and even has a temp gage....according to that, it's always 22c in here....no wonder I'm always needing the blankets off!

A favourite thing for Jack to do at home too.....eat afternoon tea out of the back of his trucks!

JackJack is very fascinated with Muma's treatment...even supervising my anti-clotting needles!

A needle into tummy or thigh every night, leaving some lumpy ouchy bruises.

More bruises to my arm too, with 3dys in a row of bloods taken....checking inflammation markers, kidney function and such.

Catheter came out on Thursday or Friday morning, hurt like hell coming out, which they say is not usual, but the bloods showed I had a UTI so that may explain that)now some anti-biotics to add to the drug cocktail!! Oh and a small bonus of them giving me hospital supply of my antidepressants, save me a few bucks and keep mine for later!)

Jack missed this by not even half an hour! I woke from an arvo nap to these window washes outside.....lucky my bottom was covered up! ha ha

Yesterday, the pain management doc finally came to see me, one week and one day after arriving here. Upon examining, he feels that the SI joint(related to my AS) is actually the more acute pain, gahhhh.
He also informed me that as of today he's away for 2 weeks :(
So his plan, to try and get a radiologist to inject my SI joints....something needing doing under xray, early next week. After mobility is improved, I'll then be transported to a rehab centre, for 2wks of intense physical strengthening exercises. Then when he returns, he believes an epidural into these 2 slipped discs would also help. Not like a labour pain epi, this is short term numbness, long term pain relief.....like, he boasted cases of patients going 10yr pain free stints!!
Meanwhile......I miss my boys. I miss my husband, who I can yet figure out if he thinks I'm "putting on" some o this(garrrr), is just to afraid to face facts and be serious that we're looking at a long few months of recovery or that he's just damn tired with working and solo parenting to have any ounce left to give to me!
I miss my JackJack.....my booby tot, who has not once asked me for boob in here, and barely cried for it at home. My boobs aren't engorging and everyday the liquid I can squeeze out is looking clearer. This is not the gentle weaning I foresaw. I'm hoping our home environment will get us back there, even just for a bit longer, a gentler goodbye to that faze of our relationship. I miss his happy face in the morning, with the cheeky "Get UUP Muma!!" after he's decided snuggle time is over and it's time already to get out into the backyard and then eat our breaky as we spy the school kids walking past our kitchen window view of the street.
Polly, my dear little pup, is not coping so well.....stressfully plucking at her hair, ripping herself painful bald patches :(
Sophie, I hope is being looked after properly, by the not so keen cat owner in Tyler.
And he says our fish aren't looking so great after the move to the new house, we lost half in the transition. and he better be remembering to water and seed change our lovebirds!!
No visit from my brother and his family yet :( Dunno what that's about but I'd love to see them.
After happily announcing about our flight to Qld, Mum has now been busy trying to arrange the airline to allow us to postpone til the end of the year, along with a doctors letter, to show my condition and that Mum will need to be my carer while Tyler's at work.
We're also luckily enough to get a bed lent from friends to set the lounge up for me to sleep in before I can start navigating the stairs again....I dare say this will present an challenge for our steps loving tot, who'll surely choose sleeping with me over climbing the steps, but be very disgruntled about not ascending them as much! he he
Anyhoo, it's almost midnight and again these sleeping tablets aren't doing anything.....
It's Mother's Day tomorrow, and I shell be excitedly counting down the hours til the family come, after their lunch time picnic.....PLEASE JackJack, give Muma some delicious cuddles for our special day tomorrow!!
One month approx in total I'll be away from home....what a strong little boy we're raising in this fella, he amazes me so much in his strength through this strange period of our lives apart.
Bless you Jack Leo xxxx
And bless all that have visited and helped with our son and are thinking of us....I feel it all and appreciate everyone of you!!!

Quicky of an update....

2011-04-25T22:12:00.000+10:00

Dude, there's so many awesome pics of adventures we've been on, big and small, while I've been absent from cyberspace....and I totally cant wait to flood you with them all!!

But, these pics take a heck of a time to edit and all that goes along with getting them on here from my crappy slow lappy, that in the mean time I shell just word vomit all our news!!

Soooo.....lots has happened, besides the baby situation, and I'm kinda bored with so much of my focus being given to the whole fertility issue that we'll just shelve that for now, ok? Cool.

Firstly, we've moved!!

Our rental property has been put up for sale, luckily we're no strangers to this, coz unluckily this is how we've left all of our rentals. Three times, it gets tiring!

We got the news around the start of the year, but then after crappy advertising on their part and lack of signing off from the second owner(two separate people owned the property), they notified us that it was now to be sold upon vacation of tenants, sold empty, so bye bye us. I loved this news, was hoping for this news, I hated that house!

We moved to that house in desperation, when JackJack was 8mths old, having had to live apart, staying at our parents(Tyler at his mums, Jack and me at mine), and we took what we could get. We had the idea that we'd not stay long, didn't unpack non essentials such as our books and ornaments, good crockery's and such....expecting to be able to put them back on the ute and get outta there soon enough. But, along with the slum of a house, my husband got in a slum, and we went no where....so the real estate kicking us out was music to my ears!!! I couldn't wait to leave!
Being back on the rental market was scary, or so I thought, I was under the belief that it was even harder now then it was 3yrs ago. Other friends who were looking were having loads of rejection, but, thanks to our brilliant cover letter-along with a picture of us to put a face to the applicants- we were in!! Our first application and we had a house!!! Not just a house, but a home. We were so unbelievably lucky. Still in the same estate that we already lived in, halving what was already a short walk to my parents house, halving our walk to the awesome local playground, a two storey house with steps that totally blew JackJack's little mind with how exciting they were to go up and down, and a load of cast off spare tyres in the back shed that we told the owners they could leave....coz our car mad son couldn't wait to play with them!!! This place is awesome, it feels warm, with heart. It's backyard is a wide open space, with 2 garden sheds and a beautiful purple flowered vine that lines most of the fence line. A tree up the back that Uncle Dan and Daddy have hung one of the tyres off to make a wickedly fun tyre swing! The clothes line is the most accessible of all the rental properties we've been at, and I've gotten so good at hanging all my laundry loads out for the sunshine to dry....getting rid of all those terrible black balloons from the carbon footprint of our dryer. speaking of the clothes line, omg one day mum and I were sitting in the yard watching JackJack play, and I had my lovebirds cage hanging on the clothes line and 14 rosella's came and sat on the line!! 14!!!! What an awesome sight!! Having grown up with our backyard backing onto a golf course, where we often saw kookaburras and rosella's singing in the trees, along with lizards and other rarer visitors such as echidna's.....I am sooo excited to see that the plants around our new home is attracting some wonderful wildlife for my boy to meet!
Two toilets, one in the bathroom upstairs and one off the laundry downstairs, means offensive smells need not permeate my bedroom when hubby needs to "drop the kids off at the pool" as he vially says! We have a big window in the kitchen and JackJack loves to watch the school kids on foot and work traffic drive by as we eat our breaky, and especially exciting to see the garbage truck pick up our rubbish on bin day, plus in the arvo we see the postie bike. At first I thought the openness of the front yard, lack of high fence, would be lack of privacy....but the openness is proving so entertaining for our vehicle mad boy!
Oh, and the neighbours, we've gone from not knowing anyone in our last street and having a backyard mechanic next door who revved the crap outta cars and power tools, too......the other half of our two storey(duplex? semi detached?) is my childhood lollypop lady at primary school, the other side is an ex-member of the local SES where Tyler and I met, and across the street is my best friends parents house! Plus, one of the families left an Easter card in our door to welcome us to the street!
Ok, nuff bout the house, more news....
I have a new car!!!
We had a Ford Territory, a car I thought would be awesome, but it was full of problems and most of all, (with the sucky fertility crap) it felt so monstrously big coz I never got to fill it full of kids. So we down graded, back to a hatch, but the prettiest hatch I ever did see!!! It's....PINK!!!! So so pretty pink, like a musky pink, so funky. And easy peesy to park, tiny car that fits anywhere I wanna get it into ;) Love love love! Tyler jokes that now that we have a tiny 4 seater car, we'll end up gettin twins in meh belley...hahaha funny thing is the medical crap we gotta do has a high rate of twins, haha....I'm too attached to my gorgeous Flossy(my cars name!), we'll have to squize 'em all in somehow ;)
JackJack is starting his journey in the world of Steiner education this term!!!!
While my Aunt was down visiting last month, she chatted to me about how much the Steiner format of education would suit my little families beliefs and lifestyle, she is actually a retired primary school teacher with experience in Steiner schools. So, after the seed was planted, I looked into it and found a playgroup on the Peninsula, who's organisation is hoping to build up a Steiner primary school, starting with prep in 2012, Jack is due to start prep in 2013, perfect!!!
And finally, we're going on holiday!!!
Mum had booked herself flights to go stay with my Aunt in Qld for a week next month, and after many failed attempts of talking Dad into joining her(he wont stay with relo's...think of all the holidays they've missed out on coz of that), we were chatting and I joked I'd go with her...and omg I am! Haha it all happened in a whirl, called Tyler to see of we could juggle funds to get the cheap flights Mum had found(not as cheap as we first thought after tax and luggage and such, but still), we're going! Argh!!!!
This will be my first time out of the state!!!! Haha, just before I turn 29yo, finally! JackJack is getting to do it way younger ;) I'm so freakin excited, I'm writing down addresses to send postcards to, yay I love postcards!!!
Anyhoo, that's about it right now..... xxxxx

Dusting off the cobwebs...

2011-04-20T22:55:00.000+10:00

Been a while....

I've been shying away from the cyber world....no blogging and no facebooking.

It's been maybe a month now, since we've had our answers given to us about our secondary infertility.

All along I'd kept my blog updated with what was going on, put it in statuses on facebook, but now I just need to pull back.....

We have answers. I'm not sure it's ok for me to share them, it's not just my story, it's ours.

The answers aren't the end, they're the beginning of a bigger picture, a long road ahead, and we need to ready ourselves emotionally, physically and financially. To create life, born from mine and my husbands genetics, we now need to involve medical procedures.

We have had many a chat, discussion, debate, yelling match, crying, silence, numbness, avoidance....over this.

I chose to take a step back from my cyber life and most of my social interactions, because this space was needed for my husband and me alone. I felt I owed it to our lives together to sit with it and bite my tongue, bide my time, until it felt ok to be open with him on how I was feeling and listen and comfort him on how he feels.

We're not out the other side yet.....so I'm not ready to step back into the swing of life, just here to check in, and let everyone know we have heard through my mum and friends, that you've been thinking of us and sending love. I want you to know, I'm not hibernating and curled up in the fetal position as such! Far from it, I chose to step back so that I could fully focus on just us, and that when the dust settled and we figured out our next move, I could take comfort in the fact that it was me who got me through!! Ya know? Sometimes we lean too much on others, and the outcome can make us feel that we only got through because of the other people, I need to feel that I am strong and I am capable. It is extremely liberating to me (coming from a background of self harm), to see how I have dealt with this in the last few weeks. I have not bottled up emotion, but I certainly have dealt with it in a far healthier way then prior occasions ;-) I also felt too, that in past times that I have shared things on facebook, the comments of well meaning friends can sometimes turn your little mole hill into a mountain of worry, I didn't want others inputs, opinions and least of all, pity. I hope we are not provoking pity. Please don't feel bad or sad when you think of us, we will get there, our turn to expand our family will surely come ;-)

Taking this time has also been full of lessons. A wonderful lesson of how biding your time can have much benefits! I usually am passionately speaking my mind up front, but before I give my mind the chance to articulate into words what I'm wanting to portray, and this has often got me into a pickle....once someone hears you say one thing, they don't want to hear you try to explain yourself if they didn't like what first came outta your mouth....ha something that's happened to me a few times lately ;-S

Sitting on this and not acting first up, has seen us have some fantastic conversations. Open and honest and compassionate chats! Less of the blame game, the silent treatment, no shutting down on either side.

Another lesson learnt, we are learning, is that a one child family we are not meant to be!!

In taking time out of socialising, we've had extra time for internalising attentions into our little family. The attentions we have given our son, our funny cheeky little man, is proving too much! haha To intense is our love, my love, for him. I have to much, too much love for but one child, he has made it clear in moments, that I need to spread it over other little humans too ;) Likewise, he was never meant to be an only child. He thrives so exquisitely in the company of other children, his little cousins that he dotes over and his big cousins that he idealises. He craves the companionship of a sibling just as much as I yearn for more babies, for my family to expand into the luscious loud circus family that I dreamt of!!!!!

Anyway, I'll leave it there.

So much more news to catch up on, soon!

We've moved house(still on the tail end of the hideous clean up of the old place and unpack of the new place), and I'm going on an exciting adventure next month, that'll tick off two of my long awaited life goals!!!

This is our life, and it's a good life. We have a son and he is so completely lighting our path to many more joyous moments to come;-)

xxx

It's Relay For Life Day!!!

2011-03-05T12:17:00.000+11:00

Today's the day....Relay For Life is on!!!!!

My team will be keeping the baton going around the track all night long as you all sleep in your beds(and me too....our family is ill so I cant attend the relay)

Please help us reach the tip top of our goal of $5,000 for the team, we're almost there!!

My goal, of $500, is no where near reached, and it would be so lovely to reach it.....do you have any dollars you could help us with?

You can donate here! On my personal page ;)

Thank-you muchly to Moni McAlpine and the team at Birthsong for your contributions!!

Please donate!! Your moneys could be exactly what helps cure Sam's cancer!!

My own Mum was diagnosed with cancer, within the time of me signing up to the relay team, but she has been overwhelmingly fortunate to have been declared CANCER FREE in the last few days!!!

Our family is ecstatic! The support and treatment Mum received during her journey with cancer was helped by the public support of cancer research and treatment funds.....these funds need your support so other families like ours can feel supported through these hard times.

Please donate!!!!!

Don't leave...

2011-02-02T23:56:00.000+11:00

I know you'll read this, and it's probably bloody selfish of me to put it out there, you're in the thick of it, you shouldn't be thrown any more your way. But I need to, need to vent, need to tell you, but I cant coz you'll cry, I'll cry, I wont get out what I need to say, and I want to say it, you're my go-to person, who else do I say this to?
So here goes...
As I sit here, at your computer, you're snoozing on the couch, you're not energetic, you're not greatly mobile and you're so fragile like a child, yet I'm your child.

Don't leave me.

Don't leave us.

I know it's out of your hands, only fate has the answer, but I can't loose you.

Don't make me a motherless mother.

I know how damn lucky I am, not just to have a mother, but a bloody good mother.

I know I've had you longer then you had your own mother.

But I know how bloody hard it has been for you to be a motherless mother.

No mother to ask for advice, just memories to look back on for answers.
Not all questions get answers and you fumble in the dark.

Don't let me know what that feels like.

I know I can do this mothering thing on my own, I know I'm going ok, but it's with you guiding me.

I am who I am coz you were right there, don't leave that spot, not yet.
The boys have for warned of this for so long, worry of my closeness, worry that I am dependent on you. I've always thought it didn't matter if it were true, it's not so bad to be an adult child and still need your mother, is it? Not when your mother is you!
You're my mother and you rock at the gig, you're my mentor, my confidant, my conscious, my best friend.
Fight this, fight it hard, don't let your premonition come true. I hate your premonitions, to hell with your premonitions, I need you.
Dad needs you.
How is he going to go on without you?
Who will hold his hand in the shops so he doesn't get lost in his wanderings?
Who will make sure the public toilets are marked out in his journeys?
Who will know that his face is just a public front and let him think he gets away with his hiding in his room and the garage when it all gets to much?
Who will keep the door open for visitors when he's hermitting himself away?
Don't leave.
Don't go, we're not done with you yet.
You haven't seen all the grandchildren yet.
Don't go.
Wait.
They will come, I promise you, they will come.
They will come and shine such a light on you that you will never want to leave.
Which is good, that's what I want.
Don't leave.

Sausage Mama photo challenges

2011-01-31T18:08:00.000+11:00

Sausage Mama has begun dishing out photo challenges, with our results being uploaded onto Flickr. I'm new to the world of Flickr, I opened an account especially to do these challenges.

So far there has been two challenges....

A day in the life of us which turned out pretty eventful for the day I did!

And...

10 fave things in our home I ended up having to narrow my faves down from about 15 things I photographed! lol

The next challenge is 10 fave things outside the home, which I hope to do tomorrow,

This is a great warm up for me, I'm planning on doing a 365day project, commencing on my birthday in June, a count down to my 30th birthday in 2012!!

Jack and Sage, a crazy daisy love story

2011-01-31T15:32:00.000+11:00

There very first meeting, at Women's Circle, July 2010.

How much they have already grown since that pic!

They sat on the step there together and rang the bells together, the first of many cute moments ;)

At Sage's Muma's blessingway, Sage tentatively approaches Jack for a hug

Bouncing there hearts out, at Simi's birthday party

Sage belongs to a family of 5 children, all of which love JackJack, here she shares Jack's attention with big sister Aaliyah

Trying to spin together in a hula hoop, crazy daisy's!

The littlest bike and a scooter that they walk beside, but they both insist on having helmets on, cutey patooties!

Jack- "Lemme show you round my local stomping ground Sage, this is the field where my Daddy plays ball with me"

Pull up a piece of rock and lets sit together in the shade xx

Sage shows Jack her local stomping ground, complete with a duck pond!

Jack is excited and thinks he's at the beach, so Sage's big bro Caelan explains the difference between the beach and a lake ;)

Sage doesn't want Jack leaving her behind, so she jumps in the trailer and hitches a ride!

Co-creating little pastel masterpieces

Sage- "Cuddle JackJack!"

Running, falling, spinning, twirling, jumping, cuddling....all together

Collapsing into fits of giggles

Peekaboo through the trampoline

Hugging all the love into each other, cuddled to the ground!

If one's doing something, the other wants to do it too ;)

And Caelan's plan is working!

If he couldn't have a brother just like JackJack, Jack needs to be married into the family, so they can be bro's ;) lol

Disconnected

2011-01-31T14:36:00.000+11:00

Somethings in the air, it's fucking with my mind.

I'm loosing you, you're distant, I want to hit rewind.

I'm choking here, in this space, the darkness fills the room.

The love and fun I sought in you is dwindling into doom.

Here you stand, yet miles away.

You don't get me, not today.

I want you to see me, yet fear rejection.

So it stays like this, feelings of disconnection.

I'm tired of this, needing to retreat.

Will I ever know, what it's like to be complete?

I try being helpful, funny, or pleasing.

You don't appreciate it, and wonder who I'm deceiving.

Deep connection, beyond the surface, is what I'm craving.

The wall goes back up, you don't find me fascinating.

I'm always to late, the best of you is taken.

It seems like I'm the 3rd wheel, if I'm not mistaken.

Tired of how you see me, wrongful assumptions.

Why I crave your mateship, surely is a conundrum.

You speak ill of others, behind their back.

How do I know, I don't get that same attack?

This two faced you, it ain't pretty.

You seem to think, you're being witty.

Love to their face, but loathing behind.

It frustrates me that others think you're so kind.

You don't seem to need me, like I need you.

I don't feel wanted, just a bit used.

I want to be free, to be open in every way.

But you don't get me, not today.
A breakdown, is in the air, but do I have time?
Always putting your needs first, but this is real and it's mine.

Through the children's eyes...

2011-01-15T22:36:00.000+11:00

This is what you get when you have your camera taken over by the littlies....

Lala - self portrait

Lala's shadow

Lala's hand, doing shadow puppets

The air con that keeps us cool

Me, helping JackJack and Sage do spinning in the hoop

The comfy cushions we sit on at Birthsong

Lala's pic of her parents and baby sister

Yummy sweet bikkies

The refreshing water and hot urn, that helps Lala make the scrummy chai tea she made for me!

Sage and Jack, triking and scooting, with good head safety!

I took this one.....Birthsong is near the airport, and JackJack gets so excited when the planes fly over, just look how low and big they look!!

Self portrait Sage- pucker up ;)

Nannon is very proud of their sunflower - an accidental growth from the rabbit food!

And a gorgeous little fairy guards it ;)

Yay, Nannon found Caelan hiding away inside!

JackJack thought this garden gnome was Santa! lol

Caelan captures JackJack looking at his beloved moon

Caelan thought this pic was really cool....JackJack turned out red! haha

1st Women's Circle 2011 and wrapping rainbow babies

2011-01-08T23:17:00.000+11:00

We had our first Women's Circle of 2011 last night and golly was it good!!

Firstly, let me show you some special presents.....

For Sheree and new baby Myah, I made a rainbow baby wrap, coz she's a fellow rainbow lover! And seen it is Sage's 2nd birthday this weekend, I made her a matching dolly wrap.

Here's JackJack and I modelling them......

I have a doll around the size of an 12mth old in mine and Jack has a doll the size of a newborn, which his his little mate Leo ;)

It's ok baby, pat pat pat ;)

Side view

Jack was getting concerned for Leo in the heat of the day, he wanted to offer Leo his booby to cool him down ;)

Back view

Note-If I were carrying a real bub, it would be much neater/tighter, but I just rushed putting it on to get the pic before Jack decided he'd had enough!

Sheree helping Sage try hers on.

Note-If you get your own child to model something, make them their own too!! I do have the pieces cut out for Jack's own, but it's not sen yet.

He was very disappointed when he asked to have baby on his belly today and he couldn't :(

Courtney, holding her daughter Taioma, and Myah, who she witnessed being born as her muma's doula

Gorgeous Lala(Aaliyah), doing a drawing for me

Tada!

I did the circle rainbow, showing Lala how sliding the pastels together makes a rainbow in one go.

She gave this to me to take home, and I told her to look for it on our fridge when she comes for a sleep-over later this month ;)

We made ourselves vision boards for the topic of Circle.

The top one is Jacks, which I helped him with, full of vehicles, playschool and happiness!

When he was done, he grabbed my hand and high-fived me and exclaimed "team work!" soooo freakin cute!!

Sage, Jack and Lala playing in the yard

Their big bro Caelan said that seen he didn't get a brother just like JackJack(when Myah was born), then Lala will have to marry Jack so that they are related that way!! haha Kids are so funny! ....but seriously Jack, their family freakin rocks and you have 4 options in a wife amongst them *wink wink hehehe

Lala starts to show Jack how to gently touch Myah....but then she gets a bit excited and does a cartwheel over the top of the tiny bub and I had to quickly grab Jack to stop him from following!

Lala, admiring Jack, admiring Myah....love triangle ;)

Another love triangle going on with Sage and Lala admiring Jack....he's hot property! hehe

These two were being such cuddle monsters! Wrestling each other to the ground in a hugging embrace, coming at me together for a delicious big group hug....aah cuteness!

Yum yum yum

Lucky am I, to have received these homemade goodies from Courtney.

I tried the chutney on my steamed chicken for dinner tonight and woooaaah it is sooo delish!!!!

Home made stuff, whether it be preserves or sewing or whatever else, is making a delightful comeback in our generation....love it!!

Cheeky rainbow!

2011-01-06T22:39:00.000+11:00

I got the most awesome present ever for Christmas, and it's extra awesome for the fact that it was a Kris Kringle....and, lets face it, how often do we get crapola in a kk present?!

This is the most simplest yet most special.....my very own rainbow!!!!!!!

It's a little projector that flashes a rainbow across the wall in a dark room.

It was a present from my buddy Kinty, but JackJack has claimed equal ownership....as you can sorta see in the pic above, he dances under the rainbow ;)

The projector sits on a tallboy at the end of our bed, it beams a gorgeous rainbow up the side wall, over the ceiling above our heads, and comes down the wall behind us, and.....Daddy is at the end of the rainbow!!!! lol

Rainbow Muma

Rainbow ceiling

And the rainbow has attracted JackJack's eyes up to the digital clock hanging on our wall, the first time he's noticed it, and now he's excited to see what numbers the "sticks"(digital numbers) say when he looks at it, lol.

The projector is ran on batteries, a cord can be bought for it to run off electricity which would keep it on all the time, but with the batteries it's on a 10min timer. If Jack's still awake when the 10mins is up, he says "cheeky rainbow!" and goes and turns it back on!! ;)

Thank you for brightening up our lives Kinty xxx

A very special gift

2011-01-06T20:49:00.000+11:00

Recently, one of our friends cleared out some old things of her deceased mothers, and kindly passed onto me some sewing things....fabric scraps, needles, cotton, wool, buttons and other odds and ends.

Jack and I had a great time looking through it all, and straight away I had an idea of something really special to make out of bits in there. At the end of December was our friend's daughter's birthday, her 2nd birthday, and she never got to meet her grandma, so I thought I would make her something to treasure out of the scraps we got.

I finished it only today, the velvet fabric was hard to work with and frustrated me and I had to keep putting it down for a rest! lol

Tyler was helping her husband today, so has taken this along for their daughter.

A rainbow haired dolly!!

She is fully made out of things I found amongst the sewing scraps, except for the eyes and nose embroidery and the cotton from my machine that stitched it all together ;)

Her skin is made from a scrap of chocolate brown velvet, which will be beautiful to cuddle up too, but bloody hard to turn those tiny limbs into the right way after stitching!

I was in the middle of embroidering her a mouth, then my eyes caught sight of a little piece of pink velvet ribbon, so put this as her mouth over the top of what I had started.

She's also got a wooden bead(that was my own), stitched behind her nostrils to try and make her nose shaped.

I really loved this turquoise stretchy fabric, and thought it would look great against dolly's brown skin, and then they are trimmed with this piece of gold ribbony stuff(mostly to hide the attachment stitching!)

Her skirt is made from one of the denim jeans cuffs in the fabric scraps, and trimmed with this black floral silk(again, mostly to tidy up the stitching!)

Her top is made from a scrap of this gorgeous purpley woven fabric, I thought it rather looked like something a grandma wood knit for her granddaughter ;)

The very first thing that caught my eye in the scraps was all this ropey woolly colours, and when I thought of making the doll I knew this would make some pretty spunky hair!

And just as I went to wrap her up, I almost forget....

She has lacy knickers! lol

This fabric kept calling me as I stitched her body together, and I remembered how my nieces and nephews like their dolls to have undies on, so I've given her some modesty and made her a little pair of knickers ;)

This dolly, though challenging, was such a pleasure to make....knowing just how treasured it has the potential to be as it's a piece of her grandmother in the doll.....making presents has not only given me such a creative outlet, but made me appreciate the gift givers side of the present more and hope that my handmade presents are more appreciated, they all are made with love xxxx

Note- It took Tyler 3 days to hand this over(gah, men!) so I couldn't publish this til I knew she had it! lol

2010 reflective

2011-01-02T20:16:00.000+11:00

HIGH LIGHTS-

-St Kilda, my beloved footy team, playing the grand final, especially the draw that made for a second grand final!!!

-Adopting a sponsor child. This is something I have felt strongly that I wanted to do for years, and having my own son made it all the more important to me. We welcomed 3yo Joshua David from Nicaragua into our family, through sponsoring him via World Vision.

-Making up with my sister and spending more time with her and her tribe.

-Lots of aunty duties.....babysitting, sleep-overs, school concerts, play dates.

-Women's Circle....best damn leap of faith I ever took! It's held past the City, over an hour away, at night and I take Jack with me as Tyler works, ran by a woman I had only met through facebook. All those factors made me so nervous, yet I felt pulled to it. Now I know why, it's just what I needed in my life, soul nourishing and character building ;)

-The new friendships and strengthened friendships. All the women at Circle have become so close, and the many of the friendships I made in 2009 are now my close community.

-Our trip to Melbourne for our Anniversary, especially coz it was the 3 of us.

-Dad's birthday...the family present of a fish tank that the grand kids hand prints were painted all over the cabinet.

-New pet family members! This year we've adopted a pair of lovebirds, Twinkle and Toot, a tank full of fish at our house, plus the fish for Dad, and Mum and Dad have a new cat, Max.
-Starting shiatsu and acupuncture treatment with Steven, I feel each treatment has helped my body, even if there's no fertility fix yet, it feels amazing and leaves me so relaxed ;)
-Starting Mini Maestros with Jack at the start of the year, most funnest music class ever.
-Getting into Soccer Time Kids for Jack, mid way through the year. It's very popular, it took us 3 terms to get in from when we 1st applied, and it is so freakin awesome!!
-Hand making about 95% of the presents we gifted this year, it feels so good to be creating something personalised for the receiver and to give from our hearts ;)
-My birthday celebrations....best..birthday..ever!!
-About 95% of our gift giving this year was home made presents!
-Cooking with Jack. This year we discovered our sons love for "cookcook" and we've enjoyed making loads of yummy things together.
-Gardening. We also discovered Jack has a mighty green thumb and loves helping Nanny in her garden and we've set up a potted garden on our porch at home.
-Kint teaching me how to knit
-Spending part of our Christmas Day volunteering as a family, hopefully starting our own little families tradition, of not focusing all the day on receiving!

LOW LIGHTS-

-Clocking over to 2.5yrs of trying for another baby, officially viewing ourselves now as having secondary infertility.

-Others conceiving a 2nd baby, when they started ttc after us and some have already birthed their babies in this time, yet hearing them bang on about how hard conception was for them! This baffles me!!

-Jack's health. It has felt like he has been ill so much this year, especially when Tyler pointed out he missed terms 1/2/3 final swimming lessons where they get to play with inflatable pool toys. The croup in September was really scary for us. And we feel his bowels aren't what they should be yet, though remain undiagnosed and the paed assures us the bowel was fully repaired and fine in the hernia operation he had at birth.

-Loosing Zoie, my sisters cat, the family cat coz he lived with our parents, 12yrs of him being with us was hard to say goodbye to.
-Friendships ending, especially those that ended with explosive nastiness.
-Being stuck in limbo with finances. Hate my car, hate our rental property, but not in a financial position to fix either situation.

WHAT I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO-

-2011 AFL season....especially with the Sainters training out of my home town!!

-Our ttc#2 journey actually getting somewhere ;p

-Jack's activities starting back...they've just stopped in this last week but I already feel lost without them and he has so much fun! We do a soccer playgroup, swimming lessons and music class.

-More words from Jack...we take our speech for granted, yet each new word out of children is such a pure delight!

-Women's Circle, expanding our deepening connections
-More shiatsu and acupuncture, coz it freakin rocks!
-Opening up to more natural therapies, for instance, I plan to start seeing a naturopath in the new year to get fertility help.
-Our Relay For Life!!!
-Confest!!!! Soooo hoping to make it to Easter Confest in 2011 ;)
-Finishing my 1st piece of knitting, a beanie for JackJack, in time for winter hopefully!
-Sneaking some new pets into our family! ;-)

Operation 30 before 30

2011-01-02T19:04:00.000+11:00

Today, I'm launching a new adventure, Operation 30 before 30!

Nup, it's not a list of 30 things to do before I'm 30 years old, but a challenge to get rid of 30kg before I hit 30yo....that's 18mths away, so as long as I keep my will power in check, the time line is completely doable, I hope!!!!

This was me this morning, feeling totally pleased with myself for jumping outta bed with the first waking sign of the sun....around 5.45ish(mind you this was coz of a certain lil booby monster who robbed me of most of my nights sleep through swapping boobs every few mins all night! Gah).

Last year(or year before??) I took part in a 10 or 12wk boot camp that was hosted on the beach 2 mornings a week. I was the only one stoopid enough to have signed up with no physical fitness behind me, but the more I stuck with it the more the physical activities were achievable for me. With this in mind, I've decided to start running. Ha! never would I have thought, without boot camp behind me, that I could ever run(especially at the size I am), but while it's not a pace I could win any race with, it's a start....and it's getting active!!

At the end of our street is a soccer oval, so I grabbed a water bottle and took off down to it.... My plan for today was to gt around it 5 times.

Half way around the first lap, I needed to slow for a walk, so I told myself I could do half a lap of running then half a lap walking. The third lap, I found myself struggling to make the running last til half way, and with that and the 4th and 5th lap I think I did walk more then run, but it's a start yeah ;)

This is me as soon as I got home! lol

Exhausted, short of breath, little gaggy with all the gross phlegm coming up, hot and damn asthma came on......note for tomorrow take asthma puffs before beginning!!

Nothing like exercise to whack you in the face with just how unfit you are.

It took several hours after that for my asthma to completely go away, and during the actual run I kept feeling like I could go a chuck, blurh. But I was being my own coach, as I got around the oval I was pep talking myself ;) lol

"Just a bit more Jen!"

"You can so do this Jen!"

"Come on, just to that pole, go go go!"

And as I watched the grass under my feet, I joked to myself that I shell burn a dirt track around this oval in no time!

I need to find something that I can have for breaky still though, disaster struck today in meh belleh when I decided to have oats and bran sticks.....oh em gee, racing to the toilet all dayyyyyy, blurh. Fibre ain't my friend, I knew that already and dunno why I ate that! Carbs ain't my friend with the PCOS, so hmmm....lotsa fruit? Oh but they're carby too :( Hmm, meal replacement shake? Sure solves the issue on the days when my belly doesn't feel like stomaching foods in the morning.

Any breaky suggestions?

Dinner I will be eating steamed chicken or tuna with steamed veggies, and chick peas....something Jack loves to eat too ;) I wanna keep rice in our diet every now and then too, but it's carby so need to cut down.

Lunchish foodies prob salad and tuna or something like that....trying to cut out the carbs means no sandwiches where possible.

So.....this is for me, for me to be a better muma, more active and energetic, and to give my fertility a good kick in the ovaries!!!!!

Wish me luck!!

Grandma's quilt

2010-12-30T22:49:00.000+11:00

After seeing some of the quilts I had taken part in creating for blessingways, Mum came up with an idea of making Grandma a special quilt to brighten up the bed in her nursing home, made up of pieces done by our families women.

She asked my sister Ciny, my SiL Deb and I to create one square and also find other pieces of patterned fabric to make it up.

I Grandma's dementia is pretty advanced now, and she is not unlike a child these days, so we sourced characteristic pieces- fairies, butterflies, horse carousels, farm animals, cars/boats/planes, flowers- and various textures for touch sensation- furry, silky, rippled, velvety and bumpy.

I spent the arvo and evening madly sewing it together....madly time wise and madly stitch wise- I'm such a crooked sewer! Whoopsy ;)

Anyway, here it is......

Our individual pieces are.....

A teddy bear, by me!!

If you look at the completed quilt....yes this is at the top, but no it's not coz it's mine but because of it's furry factor ;) I placed all the nice touchy feely pieces up the top, imagining them to be perfect for Grandma to stroke as she lays under her quilt in bed ;)

The fabric the fluffy bear is on is corduroy, adding more to the sensory goodness!

A country farmhouse scene, by Mum.....how beautiful it is, yet she claims to not be a sewer!

Notice too....it has a RAINBOW!! lol

I found all the embroidery lovely to run my fingers over, I'm sure Grandma will too ;)

A fairy, done by my sister Ciny.....she chose a fairy as she always calls her daughter Millie her fairy girl ;)

This is all felt, another nice touchy piece.

And a butterfly, made out of buttons, made by my brothers wife Deb.

She got the idea from a cushion she saw at a craft shop.

Plenty of nice touchy feely here too ;)

Grandma was such a joy to watch as she opened it!

Mum had warned me not to get disappointed if she thought nothing of it....but just have a look, will you?!

Just the wrapped present alone delighted her! lol Much like a little kid, she kinda looked like perhaps she thought it was a big colourful ball! She had to be guided by Aunty Pam and Dad to actually open it!

This is the backing fabric, Mum chose.....I'd love something made out of this myself, rainbowy!!

Everyone trying to get a look at it!

Jack was happy to see it again, he had been ducking in and out of Nanny's craft room as I sewed it, supervising me, in between playing with Nanny and Papa.

Gosh we did an amazing thing here, our family's women, made such a special treasure!

Relay For Life- update

2010-12-30T20:05:00.000+11:00

Yesterday Sam gave me my shirt for our Relay For Life team, it's a gorgeous green colour and long sleeved(which will be good coz the relay is overnight!)

Please take some time to go to our page, you will see the link at the top right of my blog.

Donations on the sight are taken via credit card, but please let me know if you would like to contribute and don't have a credit card, I can do it for you with a direct deposit into my bank account and a receipt will be sent to you via email(donations over $2 are tax deductible, so feel free to be generous!)

All moneys raised goes to the Cancer Council and will help with research in finding a cure for cancer....your money will help prolong Sam's life, every cent is a huge help!

Secondary Infertility, pulling strings

2010-12-29T23:19:00.000+11:00

Sometimes, it really does help to blab your stuff across facebook....it's thanks to this that one of my facebook friends, who is an old school mate, found out about our fertility issues and offered to help us!

She works at a hospital that has a fertility clinic, and when I initially had the referral for the gynaecologist, she asked me to email it to her to see if she could get us into the clinic.

Well, today we got news of an appointment!!!!!!

I'm so incredibly grateful, and thankful from the bottom of my ovaries!!

What's more is, it's only a few weeks away, awesome stuff ;)

Secondary Infertility, going natural

2010-12-21T00:07:00.000+11:00

For the past few months I have been having treatments with Steven from Seven Star Shiatsu. Each session has been a combination of shiatsu and acupuncture.

This has been really eye opening for me about natural therapies, as I have really felt the effects of it(yep, I was some what sceptical before experiencing it!).

After our first session, my cankles(ankles that are as wide as your calves) visibly went down! I wondered if I'd imagined that, but my Mum noticed it too ;)

I've also have experienced, at the last few sessions, an ache in my abdomen (similar to period pains), and Steven said this is a very good sign....there is a shift happening within!

Our last session was an interesting one, the first after learning of the PCOS, and so I had some acupuncture that worked on fluid retention. Steven explained that fluid retention makes more of the cysts develop, so he worked on draining fluid. There were several needles placed in each foot, and also a needle at the top of each shin/base of knee. As soon as the left needle was placed, I felt an electric shock type of feeling shoot down to the needle at the top of my foot, I exclaimed this to Steven and he said that that is a good thing and that it is working fluid out in the direction of down my legs. I noticed that the right one wasn't giving off this feeling, but when I said this, Steven said that the needle was wobbling which shows him it is working. How weird is that?! The needles wobble!

As well as my monthly treatments with Steven, I am also going to begin seeing a Naturopath in the new year. Something I've been curious about for some time, but money was the factor that stopped me, but I think it's time to re prioritise and find a way to have money for my health!

I've also included crystals into my life, wearing necklaces made of crystals that are said to promote fertility ;)

And, thanks to some rather hideous photo's taken of me recently, I shell be starting the new year with a new food and exercise plan. I am so disappointed to be looking down on my body again, after entering 2010 with better body image and learning to except my body for how it was, but I am excited and looking forward to making some life style changes.

We are not junky eaters, but many of my foods are carbs and we have gone from having cola as a treat drink to having it in the house all the time. I know that the carbs and the cola are addictive additives that my body has come to rely on, because I notice the crappy feelings if I haven't had bread or cola. That's bullshit and I want to cut that out!!!

Relay For Life

2010-12-16T00:58:00.000+11:00

This is my cousin Steve and his wife Sam....

Last year, Sam was diagnosed with breast cancer. She has undergone surgeries and chemotherapy, it has been a rather rough year for her, though she has been courageous and strong and has such a positive outlook!

This cancer has since spread, she is having strong treatments to keep the ever growing tumours at bay, to stay positive through this whole situation has been a true inspiration.

Steve and Sam have 3 young children.

Sam runs her own business, Personal Best, as a personal trainer.

They have a great life and so much to live for, so much more to give, to their children and to their community.

Sam signed herself up to the Cancer Councils Relay For Life, it is a 17hr Relay which the community can sponsor and donate to. She has been talking about it through facebook for some time now, and each thing she has said has made me feel more and more like I wanted to do something to help.

The whole time Sam has been ill in fact, my family have wanted to do something to help....I guess you feel helpless when a family member is struck with a disease that is not easily fixed. Sam does have a wonderful community around her, she has been very well supported by her local friends and neighbours.

Last week, Sam had a status on facebook about the relay again, mentioning where she was going to be for that weekend in her fundraising efforts. Her words struck a cord... "come and see me in the street sat morn 9 till 12...buy a raffle ticket or ask how u can join our team to help us raise $5000 for much needed cancer research...ur support or $$ may just be what cures my cancer..:)..lets work together for a cure!". Yes, the money her and her community are raising just may be the money that funds the finding of the cure for her cancer. How powerful a statement is that?!!

I was so moved by her words, never before have I made such a strong connection between moneys raised for charity and that money actually helping! This money really could be responsible for allowing Sam to live a long life! Wouldn't that be amazing?!

I asked Sam if I could join in the relay, she was very happy for me to jump on board, and instructed me in how to join.

If you look to the left of my blog, I've put a link up for everyone to check out my home page where you can leave supportive messages and make a monitory donation.

Anything helps, every cent counts, even the cost of a coffee could be helpful towards our total, please help us help Sam and many other cancer victims in Australia.

The relay is being held on the 5th of March 2011.

Between now and March I shell be engaging family and friends and my own local community in trying to raise funds. I have set myself a goal of raising $5oo, our team Personal Breast has a goal of $5000.

Please help us reach our goal!

Pink bits

2010-12-14T19:57:00.000+11:00

I have pink bits!!!!

Today my mate Ebby put some pink in my fringe, and it looks pretty rad I reckon ;)

Excuse the crap photo quality, it's just off my mobile

This is my fave I think ;)

Ebz tried to comb a section of it, hahaha, freaked her out! lol

It's really weird and jelly feeling when wet, and waaaay to hard to comb when dry....just DON'T comb it! haha

And I like it like this, bit tied into the pony tail, bit out, funky!

My aim is to buy a tube of fudge in every colour and have a rainbow down one side at the front, it'll be awesome!!

Ebby said it's totally recked, yeah yeah, and that it needs fully chopping off, yeah yeah....I said I might go shave it all off then!! haha But the alternative, and preferred- seen it took so long to grow, is to dread it...and I'm a bit excited about that coz I've been pondering dreads for ages!!! And hey, if they don't work out, I can always shave then!!

Oooh and beads....gonna put a heap of cool rainbowy beads through it ;-D

Blonde birds nest

2010-12-12T23:38:00.000+11:00

So the hairs starting to settle in and I'm really loving it!

Infact, I'm really hoping to not need to cut it, coz I think it's really funky, cept for this.........

It's a real birds nest at the back! lol

I haven't been able to run the comb through it without it breaking, so I've jsut not brushed it, haha. And I've not washed it since washing that bucket load of conditioner out, trying to give it a rest. But that means it's been getting pretty messy!

The back is just a shamozzle, but the rest of it looks funky beachy hair, kinda the start of dreads...which would be cool coz I wanted to try dreads anyhoo! (A friend said today that she had an urge to put beads in my hair, lol)

Messy messy!

I've been tying it up when I go out, folding all the ok looking hair over the nesty hair, and it looks ok then ;)

Pony tail, hiding the mess

Neatish looking hair

It actually looks really cool when it's down, if it weren't for the mess in the back! lol

I figure I'll try put a heap of conditioner in it next time I wash it and try get these knots out while it's in

Re-connecting the Circle

2010-12-12T23:02:00.001+11:00

Women's Circle had taken a break, as the lovely Sheree went into hibernation in preparation for the birth of her 5th child, and then enjoyed a baby moon.

A meal tree had been happening for Sheree's family, but as I don't venture oer that part of town usually, I promised to bring some baked goodies for the freezer.

Here are the 5 trays of un-cooked biscuits that JackJack and I made, the green stars are peppermint and pink stars are rosewater with a chocolate button on top, ready to be baked as the family wants them ;)

First cuddles with baby Myah, who is simply divine!

We also gave Lala her birthday present, as we missed her party coz it was the day we went to see Grandma for her birthday.

We made a rainbow necklace and bangle, which I felt very appropriate for Lala as she drew us a rainbow picture one night at circle ;)

Lala is coming for a sleep-over at our house over the holidays!! She asked her muma if she could come for a sleep-over at mine and Jack's house, out of the blue one day, lol, and she has been talking about it and she really is allowed to come, which is great coz I'm excited!!

A close up of the bangle, as modelled by JackJack

Also modelled by JackJack, the rainbow necklace

All the kids were happy to see each other again, they get along so well.... Caelan even told his muma once that he'd love a brother just like Jack!

Jack wanted his new mate to join in playing, trying to give Myah a car to hold

Whoops....Jack shows Myah how tasty the cars are ;-S

After talking in the lead up to Circle about how we all felt we didn't wanna cut our wrist bindings from Sheree's blessingway, feeling we wanted to keep the connection, we decided to do a binding of the Circle!

I brought along this rainbow wool, coz I thought that we would be hopeful to keep these on longer then a blessingway one, so make it a prettier one!

As we did it, with 5 of us there and throwing it to and from women across the circle, rather then going around it, we formed a star! Which was pretty cool...didn't get a pic though.

And as we stayed connected as we continued chatting, Jack came up to one of the cross-overs and entwined himself into it too! So cute.

This night was spent just chatting, catching up on news of each other and purging all our worries out....it was exactly what we all needed and made us all feel we were leaving a lot lighter then when we arrived ;)

Dumb blonde

2010-12-08T23:08:00.000+11:00

So, a few months ago, I decided I wanted to go back to being blonde for summer.

Not much moneys and such for hairdressers so I jumped on it when a friend offered her bleach kit that she already had(not naming her here so she's playing no part in my own stupidness!! lol)

Anyhoo, ages ago I found this chic on flicker with rainbow hair, and she had instructions on how she does it....no I'm not going the full rainbow, but wanted a white blonde then put some rainbow in a stripe down one side. I couldn't find the link I had saved, and I thought I recalled that she wore her bleach to bed overnight.........holy freakin moly, I was soooo bloody wrong!!!!!!

Gawd, I had my hair all wrapped up in cling film and ready to go to bed, was sitting in the lounge room watching telly with Tyler for a bit.......

.......as he stared and laughed at his "cone head" wife! lol

I felt the plastic and noticed it was warming up, was feeling some ouchy spots, but then figured it was just my psoriasis and it's a bit icky with any normal dye, then.......holy moly schmoly....raaaaaaan to the bathroom, the friken thing was burning, like on fire feeling, faaaar out it hurt!!!!!!

This is take 1....I say take 1 coz I wasn't happy with the results and did more.

Coming from red dyed hair, it turned very yellow, though the regrowth went a nice whitey blonde ;)

Side view of take 1.

I ended up doing another lot the next morning, and this finished up the powder and 40vol I was given....lotsa hair there to dye.

Again, my lovely husband found a negative to say, claiming my hair looked like it was on fire or that I look like a troll doll! He's so lovely to me ;-S

I again wasn't happy with the results, and another friend suggested getting a packet dye, for the toner...so I went off to the shops and got 2 packets, thought the goopier the better with my lotsa hair.

I kept the packet dye in for about 3hrs, again thinking the longer the better....I had been told during the developing time of this one that it probably stops developing after an hour, but I had to wait for my mum to get here as Tyler had gone to work and I didn't want Jack anywhere near the dye as I washed it out and he loves getting in the shower with me ;)

As I rinsed it all out, running my fingers through my hair resulted in clumps of hair coming out ;-O Wasn't to concerned as this had happened to me before, during pregnancy, and I have so much hair that it didn't make any difference looks wise.

I was in the shower for over an hour and couldn't get the stuff fully washed out, same happened with the bleach treatments, and when my hair dried from that I had little stiff bits where the stuff was still in. After getting out of the shower, I tried blow drying it, after it had been towel dried for a while, but it wasn't drying really. I tried combing it, and the comb was pulling lots of strands out!

I remembered that the chic from the link I had wore conditioner to bed overnight, so I thought that might help. Smothered a heap of conditioner on and put a shower cap over it.

That stayed in for about 4hrs, then I felt like the headache that I had might be coz of how I had my hair stack up on my head, so decided to go wash it out.

This is the current look.......

It is looking heaps better colour wise, but it seems with the breaking of the hairs that I need it chopped according to my mates :(

I'd been growing this all year :( Bum bum bum

Haven't even tried to comb it, though it was easy to finger comb in the shower, it seems to feel knotty like now. The conditioner helped get rid of most of the crap still in it, but touching it now(still wet), it feels like if you've just shampooed and no conditioner, like rough feeling.

If it doesn't keep falling out, I think it looks ok now, and I wont have money for a haircut til next week anyway.

We have Jack's Christmas concert for Mini Maestro's tomorrow....I have a Santa hat out ready to hide my hair under if it looks crap in the morning! lol

Crafty Christmas

2010-12-08T19:43:00.000+11:00

We've been getting crafty with our Christmas tree decorations.....

Polystyrene balls, scrapbook paper cut up with scrap booking shape cutters and some paper scrapbook flowers too

Small flowers and big flowers

This is my fave! Rainbow corrugated sun shapes

Patchwork sun shapes

This are larger balls, with cool rainbowy striped circles

I got these photo balls from a craft shop and put some pics in them

Other side of photo balls

Christmas outfit for JackJack

2010-12-08T16:59:00.000+11:00

Yesterday, my friend Kint taught me how to sew shorts, and I made JackJack his Christmas outfit!

The tshirt is a bought one, that I sewed the star onto, cut from a fat quarter.

The green star shorts was a length of fabric, and the Santa vehicle shirts were a blue and a green fat quarter.

This will be JackJacks Christmas day outfit

I knew Jack would love this fabric, so thought a second pair of shorts would be handy for other Christmas events

Green star shorts

The star fabric matches some of the stars in the shorts

Trying on the outfit....he spotted the other shorts and wanted to hold them coz he loved them!

They fit, but waist is hard to get up as it's a bit tight, may have to add a stripe down the sides to widen them

Loving his vehicle shorts!

Need a tshirt for these still ;)

Mozi madness

2010-12-06T11:46:00.000+11:00

My golly, the mozi's are so bad this summer!

I'm covered in itchy bites, after being outside for hours saturday night for my brother's birthday party.

The itch is driving me insane, eek!

This is just the bites I copped on my left foot alone.....

Even on my toes, all the way up my legs, arrrrr, itchy itchy itchy :(

Merry Christmas to our sponsor son!

2010-12-05T23:10:00.000+11:00

Recently, we were sent a Christmas card to fill out and send back to World Vision for our little fella Joshua David, our sponsor child.

Here is the card.......

It says "Merry Christmas" in Spanish inside the card, as this is Joshua David's language. The card will come with a translation for him of what we wrote.

As well as the card, he will be receiving a present, a book about our country, an A-Z of Australia. It's a really cool book, so I took photo's of each page.....

And then the last page has a little questionnaire to fill out about us, I filled it out based on JackJack, as I want all the interaction with Joshua David to be with our own son.

On the back page was space for a photo, so I put a family pic and wrote all our names so Joshua can learn who JackJack's family is!

Who's behind Santa's beard?

2010-12-04T16:47:00.000+11:00

'Tis Christmas time and Santa's are everywhere in retail land.

It's very different to when we were kids though, it used to be about going to say hello and letting Santa know what you'd like for Christmas and having a nice little chat with him about his reindeers and elves, as this was going on his helpers would ask mum or dad if they were interested in having a photo of this moment.

Now, it's all about the photo. It's all about making money off these children's beliefs. It's a quick sit on his knee, pose for a pic, and get off for the next kid to get on.

I know, because before I was a muma I once was Santa's helper. I sought this job out, thinking it was going to make for the best Christmas ever, but it broke my Christmas spirit.

Sure, I got to hang with lots of excited kids all day, I also got to hold a baby for the very first time(we're the youngest cousins in the family so no baby experience here!), as her muma set her 4 older sibling up for the photo. But, I was upset each day by how much I was encouraged by the supervisor to hurry each family along....Santa had a little book to hand each child as a present to them and encouraging this quickly was sending the cue to the parent to move along. Sad. So sad. It was just business. The joy was zapped out of it. And further still when I was taught "the tricks" of getting the kids to face the camera....it was all about getting them to look, didn't matter happy or sad, just looking. So many photo's were printing through our digital machine, many a child's face looking shocked, upset, fearful even....but we got the shot, right?? They saw Santa, right?? So all's good?? *sigh*

This experience made me feel a bit ick about the whole Santa visit.

After Jack was born and we went to children's events with various mascots, I began to have another reason to hesitate with the Santa visit....just WHO is behind the beard??

Each mascot we have had pics with has made me more and more aware of this feeling, of exactly WHO is behind the mask??

I worry about this for a good reason. We have a relative who is, well, I suppose I'd label him a pedophile. Not convicted though, not for lack of trying, but he got off. This relative, as he had no criminal record, was able to take on the role of "lollipop person"-children's crossing supervisor. In his case, he was posted to an isolated area, down a track that allowed kids to cut through and shorten their journey home. This track was given a supervisor after it became the scene of a school girls murder. The track needed someone responsible there, to make sure each child got through there safely, and the council appointed a pedophile because they knew no better. I was in high school at the time he was first appointed, I brought it to the attention of my school, and they were powerless to do anything as he had a clean record in the eyes of the law. It made me sick. This is the reason I know feel ick about Santa's and other mascots, just WHO is able to get these jobs that may be of not a great background? This relative, for example, could very well be the local shopping centre Santa, who knows??

As you can see from the photo above, we have done the Santa pic. But we do it with compromise. This Santa is a visitor to a shop for one day, the day of their Christmas campaign launch, and I know who is behind this beard. I don't know the man personally, but my mum used to work at the shop and she knows who it is, and he is of good character. Plus, this pic has an extra bonus of being FREE! lol No paying for a whole package of awkward looking photo's, just one free copy...then we print it and hand it out to keep the grandparents happy ;)

Secondary Infertility-ANGRY update...

2010-12-03T18:52:00.000+11:00

This fuckin post is highly fuckin likely to contain a lot of fuckin swearing coz I is fuckin mega fuckin angry, mmk?!!!

So today we had our appointment with the second gyno.

I decided to seek this second opinion after the first gyno, the gyno I've had since a teen, seemed to pass me off on the day of my appointment.

My GP had gone through the results with me, and led me to believe the worst. While hoping for the best, it was playing on my mind all this time, and I couldn't help but feel we were about to face bad news.

I'm angry....yeah yeah, I got GOOD news today, but I'm fuckin angry, so so angry, for many reasons.

I'm angry that this makes me second guess my GP, the doctor I have felt very comfortable with since I was a child. I'm angry that while my heart wants to stay with my GP, my head is telling me I must move on, especially considering i trust this doctor with my sons well being too.

I'm angry that I spent 3 weeks frightened that we were going to be facing a serious medical condition, even a death sentence. Oh fuck yeah, course it's friken great news that all is good...but you have no friken clue what head space that shit put me in.

I'm angry that my belief that my ultrasound results should have been taken more seriously led me to question the health care of my gyno. I already knew he was brief in his consultations, it was never the briefness that shocked me that day but the fact that I thought the ultrasound was showing something dangerous that he was passing off.

The gyno I saw today was pleasant, I spose, but fuck he has some shocking bed side manner.

One of his FIRST questions was how much do I weigh....umm, what about asking why I'm here to see you first?? Then commented that I could do with some weight loss. THEN asked me why I was there. Once I'd given my story he ran through all these things rather quickly-water works, bowels, sex life, all normal? Ok, yeah yeah, normal questions I guess, but the way he put it, left me a bit baffled! Then he asked when the last time I had "a smear")pap smear), I said 6mths after Jack was born, so he said he'd do it today, and not long after he asked me to strip my bottom half and hop under a sheet on the bed while he was outta the room(why do docs leave the room for this when they're gonna come back and look right up your vagina??) He came back in the room and started with feeling all over my stomach, asking if it was tender anywhere, being sure to throw in a few more "loosing weight would help" as he went. He then told me to put my knees up and apart....this was the only instructions he gave, only thing he informed me of, yet.....after the metal contraption and scrape bit he said "that's the smear done" and I thought I was only laying there til he left the room again for me to re-dress(coz, ya know, after him having birds eye view of my vagina I still have something to blush about??), then he comes back, lubing up a gloved hand, and before I could even finish the thought in my head of "omg what's he doing with that?" he had 2 fingers up my vagina. Fuck man, this doctor with no warning of what his intentions were just inserted his fingers in my vagina???? Holy fuck sticks, what the hell??

While he was out of the room, for me to re-dress, Mum said that was an internal exam and haven't I had that before? Umm not that I know of, I'm sure I'd recall fingers up my vagina!

Thank heavens Tyler wasn't there for that one, he was shocked enough at the sight of the internal ultrasound wand being inserted into his wife, golly knows what he woulda made of this when I myself was clearly not ok with it!

Once back at his desk, he wrote up a request for bloods....the same bloods as my original gyno wanted. He also said we could look into my husbands fertility, to see if he is infact still fertile too, as things can change to make that different just as much as a woman.

He also took yet another chance to advice me that weight loss would be helpful(duh, like I didn't know that? But it ain't that easy)

He ended with asking me if I had any questions, so I told him how I was led to believe that the mass that was found would need to be surgically removed. He started with saying that at my size surgery is not a good idea....fucking what??? There's plenty bigger women out there then me arsehole, and plenty bigger people then me get operated on. Then he said "we feel it's a fibroid" WE? Who's WE?? Pfft whatever, anyway it turns out my original gyno was right, as far as they are concerned it seems to be a large fibroid and will not get in the way of a baby and we are fine to continue ttc...so why the fuck would I wanna give this little fuck stick my money, better off using the bulk billing gyno. Grrrrrrr

So, next steps....

Well, this gyno said that as I have a regular period, the pcos is not so bad in my situation....must be why my original gyno passed over that too.

This doc said blood test anytime, where as my original gyno said around day20 of cycle, and that is still a week away, so I'll go do his test.

Arrrrrrr. Why don't I feel good right now?

It was good results, for heavens sake!

But, it still leaves us with no answers for reasons we're having trouble ttc.

It's left me in a head space that takes longer to get out of then get into.

It's left me feeling angry for all the worry I've put everyone else through too.

All the sleepless nights I had, all the sleepless nights my family had. My Mum was with me at each appointment and she too believed we were in for bad news, so it was not me over reacting. We were really left to feel we were facing some heavy shit.

Fuck I'm mad. Gah, I'm mad at myself for being mad, when I should be able to just let it go and be thankful and happy.

Oh and one more thing, FUCK.

'Tis the season!

2010-12-01T22:02:00.000+11:00

It's the 1st of December, time to break out the Christmas decorations!!!!!

Do you like JackJack's addition to the tree? lol He put his hula hoop on it while the branches were still closed up.

Tyler got this tree FREE from his work, score!!

It's 8ft, which is awesome coz I love trees taller then me ;)

It's also fiber-optic....and for the 5mins the lights worked it looked pretty magical! lol Hopefully when Tyler gets home, he can fix that.

JackJack helping Muma sort out the balls

Great little helper, passing up the decorations for Muma to put on the tree

Ta da!!

Polly gets into the Christmas spirit.

Sophie getting into the Christmas spirit!

Merry Christmas to all out there in cyber space xoxoxo

Secondary Infertility- a microbe of an update....

2010-11-29T17:18:00.000+11:00

Got an appointment with a local gyno, this friday arvo.

Also have emailed my referral/ultrasound results and brief of medical history off to my school mate who offered to try and get me in to a clinic where she works.

Secondary Infertility, smidge of an update...

2010-11-27T01:33:00.000+11:00

So I thought I'd blog this, to remember it, as a record.

A new symptom.

New?

Or just noticing it more now I know what's there?

Day 3 of my cycle, and I've been experiencing extreme period pain.

I know this pain has been happening for more then just this cycle, it's familiar.

It's location is also something important to note....it's on the right, it's most likely where the mass is, I'm guessing.

It's an excruciating stitch feeling that's radiating ache around it.

It's been present all day, but I didn't actually notice that it's epicentre is at the right until I sat here in the silence of the night, without my tot on me.

I now wonder how long this has been happening?

It's a familiar feeling of my most recent menstrual cycles, but when it began I cannot pin point.

I'm also aware that heat intensifies it....my tot sitting on my knee, leaning his warmth onto my belly. Even eating warm foods, gives off a sort of braxton-hicks type of feeling.

I also noticed that breastfeeding is giving this feeling too during my period.

I am wondering if my uterus is contracting and around the mass is tight during the contractions??

Panadeine extra did bugger all to curb the pain too.

It's actually making me feel nausea's, I felt as if I could have vomited after I ate dinner tonight and now again, I'm sitting here awake at 1.30am because I feel awful.

Anyhoo, this is just to record this down to remember it....

not having a pity party.....

lalala, happy face, smile, rainbows and fairy floss ;)

Globally, these miners lives are minor...

2010-11-26T21:02:00.000+11:00

This week in New Zealand, 29 miners lost there lives, following 2 explosions while they were underground.

Many tributes have spread across the news and social media, as it should, as they deserve, but do you know how many lives were lost this week on Earth?

I'm putting this out there, to challenge the thoughts of those so focused on how devastating this one incident is.
These miners knew the risks they took everyday, their families too surely knew that each time they said goodbye there was a chance it would be the final time, it's a dangerous job these men did....and they got paid accordingly for those risks!
Yes, it's a huge tragedy, more so even for the younger miners who had barely lived life yet, more so for the miners who left behind a family of young children, but what about all the other lives lost this same week?
One night this week, while all the leading reports on the news were based around this situation in NZ, 380 people died in Cambodia and at least 750 more were injured. This news piece was buried in the half hour news report on television, as if barely rating a mention. But these Cambodians, unlike the NZ miners, didn't start their day with the possibility of danger being a risk of their activities. They were attending a celebration, a water festival. Certainly not expecting danger.
380 deaths occurred at a happy occasion, yet barely news worthy.
Why? I ask.
Is it a racial situation?
Were these Cambodians over looked because of the colour of their skin? Their country of birth?
As the NZ tragedy was spread over pages and pages of the morning newspaper, a teeny tiny little snippet in the corner of one of the pages reported that in Columbia there is 9 miners currently trapped, after a similar explosion to NZ, not yet known if alive.....blink and you miss that little piece, and I can't even find a link to it online, that's how news worthy journalists think that is *eye roll*
While searching for the story of the Colombian miners, I did however find a news piece from may this year of 30 deaths in a Siberian mine, with more missing. Anyone hear about that one? I know I didn't.
We did hear about the 33 Chilean miners rescued after 69 days of being trapped underground, but I guess this is a feel good story right? Not deaths.
Why are the stories of these many deaths going so unnoticed?
Why has these 29 NZ miners deaths made people look at and appreciate their lives, yet the 380 Cambodian deaths seemingly not effected people?
Why is the net being flooded with tributes for these New Zealanders, yet not for the Cambodians?
What is the difference?
Why does it seem the miners deaths are more of a shock then the festival attendee's deaths?
The miners knew they faced danger every single time they entered that mine, the festival attendees didn't. To me, it's far more shock to be killed at a celebration then at a work place.
What is the difference?
Is it the colour of their skin???

Secondary Infertility update...

2010-11-26T11:37:00.000+11:00

Yesterday was my gynaecologist appointment, I had been anxiously waiting for this moment for 2wks. The gynaecologist has been seeing me since early teens, having done my previous laproscopies and D&C's, I walked into the appointment nervous of what his treatment options would be, but completely confident in him as my doctor.

What a fucking mistake that was.

He skimmed over the report from the scan, mumbled that he already knew about the fibroid from the last laproscopy, said "nothing to worry about" and went onto writing up a request for bloods to check for fertility markers.

Hmmm.....in my head I was questioning-Had I just spent the last 2wks worrying over nothing? Did my GP over=react to the reported findings? Why am I not feeling relieved that the gyno's not worried?

I realised it wasn't sitting right with me, it wasn't ok.

I asked him "what about the mass in the report"...he skims the report again and arrogantly says "argh I already knew about the fibroid" (the report mentions the little fibroid we knew about, but it also mentions the pcos and the mass-neither of which he acknowledged), I tried several attempts of saying "not the fibroid, the mass, in the report", he kept brushing me off....gave me the blood request paperwork and told me to come back in 4wks, as I walked out he said something about "so we need to get one more baby out of you huh" and I turned and said "no, heaps more, I want lots of babies!"....and for the first time in that whole consult he looked up and made proper eye contact with me and told me I was looking good and smiled(was that coz he suddenly registered that he had potentially many more years of consults out of me with my hopeful heaps of babies??)

One lucky thing is that he bulk bills, so that waist of time didn't cost me a cent! lol

But when I went to walk out, I knew it didn't feel right, so I asked the receptionist if I could see my GP(who's in the same office), she buzzed him and he said I could wait and be seen next.

Turns out my gyno has a hit and miss reputation, just that luckily for me he was a hit in the past. My GP said he is finding his extent of treatment depends on the mood he's in on the day, musta caught him on an off day, great!

I asked my GP for a referral for a 2nd opinion(or 1st really), he was happy to oblige and gave me an open referral so that I could ask around for a recommendation from friends.

This afternoon I went to the office of one of the recommended gyno's, it was kinda weird....I had to take in my report and letter, then after the doctor had a look at them I had like a consult with a lady(practice manager? patient liaison?) and she explained that this doctor's public surgeries are performed at the Royal Women's Hospital in the city and there is no continuity of care so he may not even be the doctor to perform the operation. She suggested seeking a gyno who works at our local public hospital, though wasn't helpful in suggesting who they are!
So I have a few more recommended doctors to call today.
I also have a school friend who has offered to show my reports to doctors where she works, in the hope that I may be able to be seen in the public system there, she works at a hospital not far from my suburb. I have to scan my reports and type up my own letter explaining the condition, to extend on the very brief referral letter from my GP and email to her.
Meanwhile, all appointment making aside, things are pretty much in limbo here with even trying on our own with our fertility now. Tyler has decided that until we know more about what the mass is, we are not "trying" for a baby, because it would be just our luck that the baby would finally be conceived only for us to find the mass is needing removal and the baby can not stay....a decision he knows I could not cope with.
Umm so what are the positives here?
OK.....
-Enjoy JackJack in his toddlery goodness, all of our focus on him alone, and relish in all of his awesomeness.
-Being able to do activities that would not be possible if I were pregnant(mental note-explore this one more and DO some activities to really make this time count!)
-That when we will finally be blessed with another babe, our little fella will be at a great age to join in and help look after baby, he is so gonna be an awesome bro!
Umm, yeah, that's all I got for now....plenty more negatives I don't wanna be focusing on though.
-

Jumpin on the JB wagon

2010-11-22T11:37:00.000+11:00

So now I'm not gonna be confusing all the JB peeps I meet, who already think I am one of them coz I hang with so many of them.....I've jumped on board!

Joyous Birth is a forum many of my mates have been on for years, initially about homebirth and all things birthy, but also full of lots of great info and ideas for natural approaches to parenting and your health.

It was suggested to me to try there for help with the pcos, learn more about it and natural ways to approach kicking it in the butt ;)

I started last night on there and have already joined in a few threads....lets see how I keep this up, I'm not forum savvy, not computer savvy even! lol

I did sway off track from the pcos already....reading threads about treating tooth ache and infection....my golly, every time I come across natural health approaching type peeps, it makes me question every thing I learnt in my job as a dental nurse, the things they say about the dental treatments are a real eye opener.....as I'm sure I'll find a lot of things on JB will be ;)

Anyhoo, back off to read more over there......

First cut is the deepest....

2010-11-14T18:09:00.000+11:00

Well, no actually, it's probably not much more then a graze in your skin as you're not sure of the strength in your hand to create harm to yourself, not sure that the pain you're inflicting on yourself is actually gonna help, but....then it does.

It helps.

It unexplainably helps.

It dangerously helps.

And with each cut, it gets deeper.

With each cut, as the skin opens up, so too does your emotional wounds....releasing the pressure, hurting less inside.

That cut gives you focus, detracts away from the internal combustion of hurt that you can't bare to feel anymore. Gives you a pain that is justified in hurting, when you can't make sense of the hurt going on in your head.

Self harm.....the addiction.

It becomes addictive because that pain, that pain you can control, unlike the pain inside.

Other's may not make sense of it, may not even try to "get it", they fear it, fear what you're doing and how far you'll take it.

It's not something you do in front of anyone, of course not, it's not a show off tactic, it's a coping mechanism. You don't display your wounds for anyone to question.

If you do it, you do it safely.....a clean, dedicated blade....nothing blunt, rusty or dirty that could risk you infection.

You don't do this as a lethal act, it's not to stop feeling, it's to start feeling. No sense to that sentence, you were feeling plenty in your head, but what was happening in your head was not feelings you could deal with. Feelings from a physical wound are more straight forward and easier fixed then feelings from an emotional wound.

Speaking out, sharing this.....

To hold yourself accountable.

To stand up and not be afraid.

There's others out there, and they hide away, as you did many times before.

But, when you hid, you had no idea they were out there, and it makes you feel crazy.

You're not crazy.

This should not be an issue hidden away.

More people come to harm because we hide away our taboo topics....self harm, depression, miscarriage, etc....other people need to hear about it, not shun it, because it just might mean saving a life by speaking out.
The above post has been sitting, unpublished....the date on it is earlier this year, so it's been some time. But given recent news, news that possibilities I don't want to think about, to feel, to hold.....it's time to publish this.
My skin is free of cutting right now.
I do not think lethally when cutting thoughts come over me.
I definitely, with no doubt in my mind, do not use the knife on anyone but myself....my son is in no danger.
I can not promise this is not going to take me over again.
I publish this in the hope that on some level, you may understand.
I publish this in the hope that on some level, having spoken out about it, may make me second think it, now that loved ones may be looking for the signs

Secondary Infertility

2010-11-12T23:44:00.000+11:00

So, I finally faced facts and decided it was time to look beyond the "breastfeeding acts as a contraceptive" and get further checks. I went to my GP last week and asked him if he could refer me for an ultrasound, I told him I felt something wasn't right, I felt my cycles weren't feeling normal and that I needed to know it was all working as such.

Just on a side note too...I started doing ovulation tests this month, with expert fertility friends in my ear about checking if I was actually ovulating.

Anyway, I had an internal ultrasound done and was told to call for a follow up appointment in about 3dys. Day 3, my gp's office called me. THEY called ME. Heart in throat, that's not good. They said I needed to come in to discuss results, hmm...discuss, so something was found....my mind flashed back to the ultrasound procedure, the synographer pressed on the right side of my stomach a lot as he was doing the internal scan, asking me if it was tender or hurt. I asked him if he had found something, he said he was just making sure both the ovaries weren't tender. Both....yet he didn't do that to the left side.

Mum came with me to the appointment, I couldn't get a time that Tyler could come to. The receptionist handed me the scan films to take in with me and as we sat in the waiting room I got curious and checked for a report.....didn't like what I read, but I guess we were only a few minutes off hearing it anyway! *sigh

My GP is lovely, I've been with him since early teens and he always starts with a little chat, these days mostly remarking on how big Jack is getting and that he doesn't hide in my sling anymore! lol

He went through the report bit by bit with me. Firstly that there is a 1-2cm fibroid on the uterus wall, which we already knew about from before Jack was in there and small fibroid are fine. Then he noted that both Fallopian tubes had a large amount of follicles.....I read this bit in the waiting room and thought this was a good thing, after all, my friend who had to do IVF got super excited when she produced follicles....wrong. Too many follicles are not good, he said, and indicates a hormone imbalance, this indicated that I have PCOS- poly cystic ovarian syndrome. Not sure clearly what that is yet, but I have friends who have suffered it(and conceived!), and they have been starting to educate and support me in it ;)

So far, some pluses of PCOS is that I can apparently blame my weight gain and non budging of the flab on it. Woot to that, ha ha

There was something else though.....the something that I thought was found on the right hand side. I had asked Tyler after the scan if he saw anything on the screen-anything the synographer may have been measuring, and he said no, but in all honesty my poor hubby looked mortified that another man was putting something inside his wife's vagina(never having been present for previous internals I've had), all be it medical....he was giving the man daggers! I doubt he looked at the screen.

The scan showed a mass. It is solid, not a cyst. It is attached to the wall of the uterus, near the opening of the right Fallopian tube(unclear as to whether it is in fact blocking/covering the Fallopian tube, but if it is that has also been halving our pregnancy chances), and it moves with the uterus. It is the approximate size of a squash ball. A squash ball, if you're not familiar, is bigger then a golf ball but smaller then a tennis ball. He said it may be a very large fibroid, but for a fibroid it is massive and at that size it needs to come out, unlike the other small one. Then he went on to say other possibilities....sinister possibilities that start with the letter C. I cut him off, told him to shut up! lol Lucky he knows me so well and it wasn't taken as rudely!

He referred me to my gynecologist, who I've also been with since teens(he has done most of my previous laproscopies and D&C's). He only practices there once a fortnight, and was there that day, but finished up already, so I've got an appointment in 2wks time....though I said to my mum today that I might call his other office to get in earlier...the less wait the less thinking time, thinking of worst case crappy scenarios(I dreamt last night they gave me a hysterectomy). The mass will need cutting out, so surgery, hopefully just day stay surgery and not taking me away from JackJack. I guess it will get tested once out, but we will know more once we see the gyno.

Big breath! *in *out *in *out calm calm calm ok ;)

Lets get the squash rackets out and smash this fucker up and get on with making a gazillion babies!

Hospital stay for JackJack

2010-11-08T14:47:00.000+11:00

This actually happened mid September, just after his cousins birthday, but I hadn't finished it and posted it yet......

We've had an interesting few days. Saturday night as we settled into bed, Jack developed a cough outta no where. The cough was unlike any I had heard before, kinda sounded like it was being stifled in his throat, like a puppies yappy bark.

The strange cough was all he had, no runny nose, temp, didn't seem slowed down at all....so we continued on with our plans for the day, Jack's cousins birthday party.

Jack had the cough a bit at the party, but still, not seeming slowed down and sick as such. I'm guessing, looking back, that no one has had this before in our family, as no one else suggested anything about this cough....other then that it sounded "cute" coz he was loosing his voice with it.

Back at home later that arvo, I was growing concerned, the cough was more frequent and he began choking as he coughed. At this point though, Tyler felt I was over reacting, especially when it was too late to go to a medical centre and our only option was going to our local hospitals emergency department. I was wondering if he was trying to dismiss me simply out of exhaustion, we were all tired and in need of an early night, but muma instinct was not gonna give in here so we left for the hospital.

We were triaged pretty quickly.

As Jack sat on his Daddy's knee, the cough became more frequent and huskier, going from puppy yap to big guard dog sounding bark, and straight away the two nurses were talking Croup. Having no idea what croup is, other then that I'd seen many muma friends mentioning their children suffering it on their facebook statuses, I was thinking we were gonna be sent home being told it's nothing serious.

The triage nurse gave him a dose of panadol to help with the temp he now had, and let us into the children's waiting room...a nice playroom with books, toys, tv and video games.

We were waiting in there for hours, and I was still convinced we'd be dismissed and sent home, so the wait wasn't concerning me from the point of view that he wasn't being treated, more that I'd have egg on my face with Tyler, who didn't want to bring him in the 1st place.

Those thoughts were pushed out quickly though, Jack progressed fast.....he had fallen asleep, then woke up choking, not catching any breath. I had him on my knee, trying to sooth him, so I asked Tyler to go get the triage nurse..... He was checked over, and they looked on the computer to see how far up the list he was....still at least 4th on the list(crazy busy that night, 4 lots of ambo's were waiting along the corridor to hand over their patients).

The waiting was made slightly more bearable with volunteers working in the waiting room, offering drinks and even yogurt, which was so much appreciated as we arrived before we'd had dinner.

A doctor finally came to see Jack, at about 11pm. By this stage his top was stripped as he'd been sweating, but then he was under a blanket he had asked for and he was dozing.

The doctor started asking us questions as he peeled back the blanket off Jack's chest, and I was mortified at what we saw....As he breathed, his breast bone was being sucked in so deep, it looked like it went 3/4 to his back! The doctor disappeared and re-appeared within minutes, telling Tyler to scoop Jack up and follow him, he led us to a bed....at this point we really realised things were serious, a nurse was walking an adult patient towards the same empty bed and started to argue it was hers, but the doctor dismissed her, saying our child needed urgent treatment. The doctor was heavily accented(maybe German?) and lots of what he said was extra hard for my muffled hearing to understand, so I wasn't fully aware of what was going on, but next thing I knew our son had an oxygen mask on his face.

The sinking in his chest was getting deeper and longer, rattly noises were coming out as he struggled to breath and I was trying my damnedest to smile at him and tell him he looked so cool with the mask on...all the while stifling my own tears.

Greatly timed as well, we had miss placed my antidepressants script and spare tablet sheet and I was experiencing horrible withdrawals physically and emotionally as I hadn't had my meds.

The nurse swapped the face mask for another one that had a bottle attached to it that they had filled with liquids, adrenaline in saline that was breathed in as steam. The doctor was lovely and encouraged me to get on the bed and have Jack sit on me, the more touching the calmer he would become.

Heart monitors were also put on Jack's chest and after the adrenaline was through the other oxygen mask was put back on. The doctor hovered closely and there was talk of transferring to a bigger hospital if the adrenaline didn't calm the stridor within half an hour - the "stridor" is the noise the throat was making and the sinking of the breast bone, and Croup was explained to us that it was to the throat what asthma is to the lungs, constricting and making it a fight to get air through.

The adrenaline gave Jack the shakes, as the doc had warned, so I held his hands as the sight of them shaking seemed to be distressing him.

Closer monitoring was happening, he was being constantly watched by two nurses and the doctor came by between each patient he saw....making it scarily very serious, we'd never had that much attention here before.

We heard the staff trying to get a bed at the other hospital, and they were not able to take anyone.....closer monitoring still, talk of what to do. Usually you commonly come across some rough handling by emergency room docs, but this one was so insistent on gentleness, asking the nurses not to do anything they didn't need right in the moment, such as creaming his hands and arms up with numb cream for "just in case" needles, just leave him to settle on his muma and watch from afar.

I tried for as long as I could to hold my bladder, finally he seemed relaxed enough (or rather out of it enough) to cope with us swapping over and Tyler got on the bed with him while I nicked off to the loo.

I thought it best to leave the boys together on the bed and not disturb Jack too much, so I sat down beside them.

The pic above was trying to capture the horrible suck in of his chest....what you see there is actually the furthest his chest was puffing out, the camera on my phone wasn't going off at the right time to capture the suck in...but you can imagine, with that image being his chest puffed out, yet it's sunken, just how terribly caved in it actually was.

Time passed as they continued to just watch and listen. I was starving and we didn't have any cash with us for the vending machines, meanwhile the emergency department staff were having some sorta supper party right there at the desk in the middle of all the patients....selfish much? Starving carers, nausea's patients, and they're all feasting!!! Arrrr! We started to try and make some light hearted jokes between us, Tyler and I, joking of ninja moves to go grab some food,

They decided at about 2am that Jack was stable enough not to be transferred, but needed to be monitored, so would be admitted up to the children's ward. Damn my bladder getting me off the bed, Tyler got the free ride up there! lol

When the nurse on the ward met us at the entrance she said she could only see Tyler at first and thought it funny what a big kid she was receiving! haha

Jack was put into a bed, as appose to a cot, after they asked Tyler what he sleeps in.

I was confused by this though, and so friggen annoyed, as the nurses were dead against co-sleeping, which present us with a number of issues.

Firstly, I was told I could lay with him to nurse him off to sleep, but then the nurse came and told me to get out of the bed before Jack was asleep. Then every time I tried to get off the bed and get my arm from under Jack, he woke back up, so I laid him down and knelt over him and lowered my boob into his mouth....this followed by weird looks by the nurse as she walked passed, then the doctor came in the room and watched on as if they thought I was harming my child. I gave up and sat up in the chair and cuddled him and nursed him. Needless to say, my eyes were popping by the time Tyler came in the morning!

One of the nurses had mentioned getting him something to cuddle to sooth him so I went and asked about it and they pointed to a box of knitted teddy's that I could choose from. I choose this one coz all the others were anorexics with floppy heads, this one seemed the most cuddly, no matter that it's pink ;-P

We weren't prepared for an overnight stay and ran outta nappies, the children's ward only had the old square cloth nappies to use, which made for an interesting time for Muma.... I had no idea how to fold them, lol, despite having done these nappies while we had our newborn stay in hospital for his operation, I'd clean forgotten and wasn't about to ask the nurse for assistance coz she was snooty enough when I asked for the nappy. She brought 3 nappies to me, so I used 2 at once, one in a big triangle and the other folded into a rectangle for the middle. She did eventually bring pins, but by then I had tide the nappy up, so left it like this. She didn't offer any form of pilchers though, so I was hoping for Tyler arriving real soon coz if he wee'd it would soak through his clothes, eek. Funny thing is, not being our nappy we didn't have to clean it, and he pooed in it...hahahahaha Even funnier, Jack had eaten his cousins birthday cake the day before, which had food dye in it, and he had done green poo, which panicked the nurse! lol We had to explain about the food dye ;)

How cute is this?! JackJack's toast for breaky came cut into teddy bears ;)

Shame though, he didn't have an appetite at that stage.

After breaky I took Jack down to the playroom.

He found the car garage straight away and we sat on the floor running some cars down it's ramp. Jack momentarily stopped to go grab the dolls and teddy that were in a little cradle, really cute, he set them all up to sit with him as he played ;)

Once Daddy got back to hospital, we were offered to bath him.

I would love this bath at home!!

It's bigger then an average bath, and it's hydraulic, able to have it's height adjusted.

I took a little break to go get myself some food downstairs, tried to find some car mags for the boys to look at, which totally went down a treat with JackJack! Found a car imports mag and dirt bike mag....which the boys eagerly thumbed through. We had to keep him doing low energy activities, even playing cars in the playroom earlier had got him worked up.

The mags were still a hit when Nanny came in to visit, so he settled down with her to show her all his favourites!

The roof view outside our window was brightened up by this gorgeous mural

Jack particularly liked this end of it, where he could see the "moooooon" and a "boo"(cow)

Later in the arvo Jack got really distressed and we couldn't calm him, which was aggravating the croup, so the nurse ran him another bath to see if that helped.

Thank heavens for big boobies, lol, the combination of sitting in the water and boobing from the edge finally chilled him out enough to calm the croup.

As visiting hours were called to a close, Nanny and JackJack had been in the playroom. He wasn't ready to finish up yet, enjoying cookcook with some play dough, so I took him back in after saying goodnight to Nanny and Daddy. Muma made "J" on a plate for Jack, and he enjoyed putting it into the oven.

All of the lights had stars around them, which excited our little star obsessed boy!

This pic was taken at about 4.30am on night 2....JackJack woke up coughing, not being able to settle again, he decided it was playtime and we went back to the playroom ;)

The nurse who came to check on us gave him some panadol, and when Jack wanted booby after taking the medicine, she exclaimed how prescious it was and that her 2yo is still on mummy's chest ;) Gawd that was refreshing to hear...all the other nurses had some pretty negative ways of describing our nursing, "He seems to be able to feed when ever he wants!" translation- "No sign of weaning here at all?" , "Jack is still breastfed and feeds aloooot" translation- "Does that muma ever put her boob away?", and upon a nurse spotting yet another feed, she exclaimed "It's really more a comfort thing at that age, isn't it!"

Oooooh. My. Gawd.

This hospital is supposed to be accredited in the "Breastfeeding Friendly Initiative". Perhaps they need to look further into this, after our experience it feels like perhaps their "Friendly" may faise out in the toddler years. Yeah, I get it's not the norm in society, but within an accredited hospital it should be.

Back in the playroom after breaky, and on this day, tuesday, there was a facilitator working in there and she had the easel out to do drawings and extra toys and fresh play dough with biscuit cutters....which Jack delighted in, pressing "toletoos"(turtles) all over his piece.

Day 3, after 2 nights staying in hospital we got to break free!!!

The morning doctors rounds, we were lucky enough to get Jack's own paediatrician for the 2nd day(seeing us the day before as well). The nurses reported Jack having a stridor at rest overnight, as well as approx 1 in 20 heart beats pausing. Our paediatrician checked him over and felt that at this stage it was safe to be discharged, where his familiar home environment would further help recovery, also adding that he didn't want to catch Jack back in here!!

Back home and sleeping as he likes it....cuddled into Muma with booby in mouth and cars in hand ;)

Jack and his new ted bear, showing off their matching knitted beanies, which muma got from the ward desk display for $2 each! She doesn't have a name yet, every time I ask Jack, he says "naaaamme!" lol

It's now a week since he was admitted. The croup has gone! We had our follow up with our GP on friday, and he is happy with his progress, just like having a bad cold now, normal sounding cough and runny nose.

Welcome to the family, son!

2010-11-07T21:27:00.000+11:00

JackJack and I would like to share with you all our new family member.....

This is Joshua David, he is 3yrs old.

He lives in Nicaragua Central America, he is an only child and just like Jack, his Muma is a SAHM and Daddy is a Carpenter.

They're language is Spanish.

I have always wanted to take on a sponsor child, but never felt the timing was right(especially finance wise), but then when a world vision lady came door knocking it felt so right. She was a compassionate lady, well trained with the gift of the gab! No matter, we were ready for our child. Our finances are appalling for our own nations standard of comfort, but these kids live on nothing, and spare change can make such a huge difference to them.

I figured, like anything else I manage to justify in spending, I'd find a way to make these payments, and taking on a sponsor child opens the way up for teaching JackJack so very much.....about another country, how other children live, to appreciate and value what we have in our own lives, compassion and caring for others, and even things like money management as he gets older and can help me with saving our dollars and contemplating how our funds will help Joshua David.

We have been told that correspondence will be slow, due the language barrier everything needs translating, but at both Jack's and Joshua David's tender ages I figure exchanging of drawings would be a great start!

Rainbow play

2010-11-07T21:06:00.000+11:00

Ok, so I haven't blogged about Papa's fish tank birthday present yet, but in the meantime....look at our gorgeous discovery, because of it!

Some little rainbows have been streaming into Nanny and Papa's lounge room, via the sunlight going through the 2 glass walls at the corner of the fish tank

In the afternoon, the sun streaming in through the backdoor brightly shines through the front corner of the tank

How gorgeous is this?!! The rays of light break up into a rainbow...this is on a towel

Here, I managed to sit in front of the towel, but then you can also see another rainbow in the background, on the couch

Rainbow hand!

Lol JackJack wonders what is on him!

My rainbow boy!

Rainbow JenJen!!! haha

Cloth Nappy Expo

2010-11-07T19:46:00.000+11:00

This weekend, we attended a cloth nappy expo at a nearby town.

Jack and I went last year and it was when we were new to cloth, so finding out more about the different types was my main aim, though we also discovered some gorgeous fare trade toys(where we bought Jacks beloved banana and grapes soft toys from) and I blushed at the thought of muma pads and skipped all those stalls! lol

Well, 12mths on and I was keen to check out the range of muma pads on offer, having been a convert for around 8mths now!

We also got Tyler to come along with us, and just as well coz the lucky ducky won a door prize.....this dude's always winning prizes, he balances out my crappy luck.

Tyler got to choose from a table full of goodies, including nappies, wet bags, toys and clothes.

He chose this gorgeous soft toy cockatoo, which he had obviously been eyeing off on the way in the door coz as soon as his name was called he said he wanted the bird! ha ha Bit excited he was ;)

Our friend was running one of the nappy stalls, but she was so successfully busy today that we didn't even get a chance to say hello!

We did however come away with some awesome bargain goodies.....

These gorgeous hand knitted finger puppets, made by a grandmother of a stall holder, 10 for $10! We got Thomas the Tank Engine, Noddy, Bert & Ernie, Big Bird, Banana in Pajamas, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch, a cookcook lady, and Dorothy the Dinosaur.

Sample bag of soap nuts, which I cant wait to try, $4.

And grey transport babylegs $2!

We also had a quick looky at a local carboot sale, where we stopped coz I spotted a rainbow umbrella, but alas it wasn't for sale :( But we did come away with some super delicious sausages in bread from the sausage sizzle!!!! Mmmmm love a good sausage sizzle ;)

Soccer babe...

2010-11-07T19:32:00.000+11:00

Last term, we started JackJack in a new activity, the bestest most funnest activity he's tried so far! I hadn't blogged it yet coz it took them a while to get the uniforms in(yep, uniforms!) and they just complete the cuteness factor ;)

It's Soccer Time Kids, and it's a fun based playgroup style parent/child soccer lesson.

It's hosted on the weekend, which means it's a Daddy friendly activity, and most of the tots do it with their Daddy's.

They start the session off with a little boogy to nursery rhymes

Warming up as they jump and stomp and shake their arms around

Then go for a run around the hall, throwing in some aeroplane arms and jumping and stopping to touch toes and sit down and twirl around on their bottoms

Then from sitting down with their parent, a run up to Coach and a high five to her, and run back to Daddy

Sometimes JackJack needs encouragement to go back to sit down, he really loves his coach!

Then it's on to little one on one activities with Daddy, with Coach coming around to check how they're going.

In the above pic, Jack learns to kick backwards, using a pod to aim for

Now kicking backwards, and learning colours, by being asked by Daddy to kick the blue/yellow or red skittle

His coaches call him "Smiley"!

Now kicking the ball backwards into a pyramid of skittles

And Coach says when you hit your target or get a goal you put your arms in the air and go "Yeeeeaaah!" coz you're a soccer champion!! ;)

All the skittles are put everywhere and the tots are shown to snake through and around them, then coach calls out a colour and they have to go knock the colour over

Picking up beanbags and balancing on their heads

Sleeping lions in between the goals.....

Then the balls are tipped out and the tots stand up and kick as many goals as they can!

Coach helps Jack aim for a goal

Stretching over the hurdles in an obstacle course

Balancing beem....how funky is it?!

Kicking a goal through giraffes legs

Through the hoop and into the rainbow circle(how funky would these blocks look around a sandpit?!!)

Then they finish with some more nursery rhyme dancing and some special stickers off Coach

And they have a certificate to put their weekly stickers on ;)

Booby tot knows what's best!

2010-10-05T17:48:00.000+11:00

Yep, our 27mth old tot is still breastfed! lol

And he sure isn't looking like he's giving up any time soon, and that's totally fine with his Muma and Daddy, he'll let us know when he's ready ;)

As parents, it makes us so very proud to see our tot modelling attachment parenting, as he sees us do it with him. He has been known to try to comfort other babes, seemingly being left to "cry it out", even once hugging a baby monitor at a friends place because he could hear the baby crying! lol

This week, he has started to model breastfeeding.......

He lifted his top up and offered his knitted doll "dat booby"

Very proud of his efforts ;)

Now "udder booby"!

And finish with a lil burp *pat pat "boorp?"

I also love that his older cousins are learning about breastfeeding, even though they were all weaned too young to remember their own experience....when they hear JackJack cry, they say "Aunty Jen, he needs your booby"!

It's also lovely to know how supportive of breastfeeding Tyler is, it's a pretty awesome feeling when your hubby comes home and tells you a story....that at his first aid course last weekend, Baby Dummy's head came off and when it was put back on, Tyler positioned Baby Dummy onto Mummy Dummy and announced "this baby needs booby juice!" lol

Oh, where's JackJack?!

There he is!!

Gorgeous lil fella xxx

Spring has sprung!!

2010-10-04T20:50:00.000+11:00

It's the second month into Spring and the weather has finally come to join the party!!

The last few days here have been nothing short of awesome, park weather, BBQ weather, beach weather.

Unfortunately, we're back in hibernation, so much sickness and injuries have hit our little family....we've barely seen any of our mates and I really didn't like our crappy rental house before this, now I'm so sick of the sight of this place I could scream! lol

Anyway, we have managed some backyard play, which is fantastic coz the gorgeous wisteria is blooming out there and it smells Divine!

Bee's bum! haha

Insects playing and busily working, amongst the beautiful wisteria

Another bee's bottom, poking outta the wisteria

Busy little bee

How awesome is this shot?!!

I have the most basic of cameras, yet look at the details of the bee you can see, amazing!

JackJack and Muma in front of our gorgeous wisteria.... Jack is not well here :(

Excitedly searching for bees!!

Found a stripey worm under the lemon tree

Yay, one of my boys is keen to mow the lawn....pity it's not the one with the real mower!

Cherry blossoms in our front yard

More cherry blossoms

Flowers in Nanny's garden

Nanny's garden

This is my fave succulent, both Nanny and us have it in our gardens, which we struck from clippings we took from Grandma's garden before her house was sold

Flowers at the base of a rosemary bush, gifted to Nanny from my bro's family

One of many happy daffodils that JackJack helped Nanny plant in her garden.

Happy Spring everyone!!!

Welcome Earthside Logan William...

2010-09-10T00:10:00.000+10:00

Tonight, Loz and I went to meet Ebby's brand new baby!!

Logan William, born yesterday

Sweet lil fella, can't get enough of his Divine muma

Awww the love is oozzzzing outta their being's

Our newest little buddy for our kidlet tribe....one little cheeky monkey down in the corner there, hello Loki!

Ooooooooh my aching womb....cluck cluck cluck!

Logie Bear, all cozy on top of his almost cooked playmate in Loz's belly ;)

Loki checking out what little bro's are like

Ebby's blessingway binding bead sitting on Logie's teddy

Ebby's gorgeous blessingway beaded necklace, put together by Kinty, made up of beads all of Ebby's women gave her

The front panel of the wrap I made for Ebby(hug-a-bub style)

My fabric square for Ebby's blessingway quilt.

The muma's skin is lining of my maternity skirt.

Buba's skin is from my maternity singlet.

Rainbow bra is from fabric Kinty gave me.

Muma's hair is from a tshirt of Jack's.

Pink bit of hair is from baby wrap material.

The backing material with the fairy's is cut from my maternity dental gown.

The finished blessingway quilt....filled up with love, all from Ebby's women, sewn together by me

MC Peninsula Birth Support - August....

2010-08-25T00:58:00.000+10:00

This months meet has been the best so far, with guest speaker Steven Booth of Seven Star Shiatsu, who is partner in crime and love of the wonderful Sheree, leader of Women's Circle.

He happily demonstrated many of his talents....firstly with some much welcome shiatsu on Vicky, our almost ripe muma ;) Showing us how working on pressure points in the shoulders can help to relieve and relax the whole body, which can help the body prepare for birth.

It wasn't until Jenni stepped up as his next guinea pig that I thought to grab my camera out though.

Jenni had some cupping performed on her shoulders.

Steven did this with glass cups that looked like mini fish bowls, creating heat inside them by soaking some cloth in metho, lighting it on fire, and swirling it around inside the cup and then immediately placing the opening of the cup onto the skin. As soon as the cups created a seal on Jenni, the heat drew her skin into the cup, like a bubble.

A cup was placed onto each shoulder

You can see in the pic above, it sucked Jenni's flesh right up into the cup!

This treatment is said to remove toxins from the body.

The mark left behind on Jenni's shoulder, after the cup was removed

Next, Steven talked about acupuncture, and handed around disposable needles for us all to look at and try. I was so keen to rip mine out of the packet(lol, evil dental nurse who loves playing with sharpies! mahahaha), I didn't get a pic of it in it's package or the application guide.

We were shown how they are inserted into the skin tissue, and invited to try inserting our own!

It actually comes inside a plastic tube, that's like a position guide, placing the tube vertically on the acupressure point and then a quick push of the head of the needle inserts it into the skin....relatively painless(coming from a touch sensitive here!), less then a mozzy bite ;)

The wrist point Steven chose to show us, he said worked on(amongst other things) infertility, so when he offered the sharps box around to discard our points I begged him to leave mine in for longer!! lol

This little statue man is marked with all the acupressure points.

(as I loaded this front view onto my lapi, JackJack pointed at him and said "pesin!" lol, which is his way of saying "penis")

The back view of acupressure man.

Interestingly, Steven said that while there is even an equine acupressure statue available, there is not a female version, let alone pregnant female version(oh my, wouldn't the feminists have a field day with that one!)

After I said I wanted my wrist acupuncture needle left in for longer for fertility help, Steven asked me to take off my shoe and he inserted another needle in my foot to also aid the fertility......work my pretties, work!!!!

As Steven first explained the way spirituality works in with shiatsu and acupuncture, I asked him if the person needed to have a belief in the treatment in order for it to work, he said no.

I don't think I'm a non believer, but have been bordering on sceptic in my curiosity about it's effectiveness in the past. As I pulled out my two needles at the end of the session, I honestly felt like I had been feeling an inner shift, a calmness as they had been sitting in my flesh.

Vicky showing off the traces of the henna from her blessingway, looking rather like spiderweb style stretchmarks! lol

Oh, and the white stick in her hand is a packaged acupuncture needle, not a smoke!! haha

This stuff in the cigar shape above, which name escapes me, is something you light up and hover over a body part....Steven showed us to do it on our ankle....and it circulates energies and rids of toxins.

He also showed us some Chinese herbal tablets, that I didn't actually photograph, that can be used to aid the afterbirth process. A tablet can be swallowed to help decrease bleeding, or the capsule can be opened up and powder applied to grazing to help stop bleeding and promote healing. He passed the powder around to smell, and taste if we wanted....I was the first game and it was bitter and had a bit of a bite, and left an effect on my tongue like minty toothpaste does, that when you breath in the air feels cold. Loz had a try after me and thought it tasted like dirt, yuk.

Posters of the acupuncture points

And the ripening belly babes get together again as their lovely muma's chat and compare bumps and aches and pains....not long now gorgeous women!!

Gorgeous bargain blanky....

2010-08-23T00:05:00.000+10:00

This picture of a gorgeous blanket popped up last week on a groups face book sale.

The caption said that the pic didn't do it justice, but it looked pretty spesh to me!

I didn't, as usual, pay attention to it's measurements, so when it's price popped up I held my breath and thought about it before I entered "sold" underneath, wondering whether $22 was worth it for a second hand blanket.....

Well, I'm sure glad I did!!

Look below at how huge it is!!!!

I was picturing a baby blanket, smallish, but this is massive....imagine all the work gone into making this....

JackJack loves it just as much as I do, in the pic above he's actually crawling underneath it. We use it to warm ourselves before resorting to the heater in the lounge now, it's so cozy

Gorgeous detail and eclectic colouring....