Oh what a night

January 6, 2015 / Renae / 1 Comment

It was 2:30am. I awoke to the sound of the rain pelting down. It was an absolute downpour and an absolute pleasure to listen to. As I started drifting back to sleep, I was hit by a horrible, horrible thought. I’d left the windows down in the car.

Mount Isa is hot. Have I mentioned that? So if there is any possibility that I might be going out again later that day, I leave the car windows open. I had gone shopping around lunch time, and figured that an afternoon outing might be on the cards, hence leaving the windows down.

Absolute torrential rain kept coming down. My mind was swirling with images of the car filling up with water and NEVER drying out properly; of having that manky smell hang around for months afterwards; of the electric windows shorting out and not being able to wind down anymore. I woke Hubs up gently and shared my concern, asking if he thought it was worth going and winding them up. He suggested there wasn’t much to be done.

I was just so annoyed at myself.

Another 10 minutes or so passed, and the rain just didn’t let up. I kept thinking that I should go and try and wind them up, but wasn’t sure if there was any point at that stage.

And then it hit me! We had met Hubs for dinner at the hospital and I had wound the windows up when we got home! WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The relief that flooded through me right there and then was indescribable. I know this is sounding dramatic, but just remember that I was half asleep at the time, which makes everything bigger in your head.

I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but I was too hyped up from the excitement that I hadn’t just flooded our car. And of course, just as I was drifting off, Darby-J woke up for a feed. It turned out to be a bit of a restless night, but I didn’t care. The car was dry.

Oh, and it’s our last day in Mount Isa. This time tomorrow the kids and mum and I will be getting ready to head to the airport. We made it. We survived. We learned things along the way. We made some wonderful friends whom I’m sure we’ll stay in touch with.

We had survived the Isa. And I can’t wait to see what’s around the corner that is 2015.

Happy new year

December 31, 2014 / Renae / 2 Comments

It’s nearly midnight and we’re still awake. And on purpose! Hubs left for work an hour ago and the kids have been asleep since 8. And now it’s time for Mama bear to bid 2014 farewell, thank it for the experiences and the life lessons, and for my darling little boy, and say hello to the new year. A year full of promise for our growing family.

See you on the flip side.

Sometimes 1 decision is enough

December 31, 2014 / Renae / Leave a comment

As I mentioned in my last post I’ve been going round in circles trying to decide on an action plan for us leaving the Isa and getting to Rocky. The problem was that there were too many options and too many variables in each option. I was going to give you some examples but honestly my brain is fried from thinking about it. So I’ll just tell you that Mum and the kids and I are flying to Brisbane next Wednesday and Hubs is staying here another week after that to finish his shifts and supervise the packing and uplift of our stuff.

After that, I don’t know. Like I said, sometimes 1 decision is enough. Hubs starts work on the 21st so as long as we’re in Rocky a couple of days before that, we’ll be right. I have a feeling I might be arriving in a new town on my birthday again, just the way we arrived in Mount Isa. Happy birthday to me 🙂

So for the next week, I’m going to be culling and selling and giving away as much as I can part with. I’m trying to be ruthless, and comforting myself with the knowledge that there are op shops in Rockhampton if I need to replace things when we arrive.

Right now, Mum has taken Chanbe and Quindy to the library, and Darby and Hubs are both sleeping off their night shifts. I should also have a little nap but I’m feeling motivated so I’m going to do some squats (day 1 of a squat challenge) and then take some photos of stuff to sell.

Oh and I can’t believe it’s new years eve! I’ll probably make it to midnight but not intentionally. It will be because of this little man 🙂 Totally worth it.

Feeling the festive love

December 29, 2014 / Renae / Leave a comment

Sorry that I’ve been missing since Christmas. I’ve been in a cycle of broken sleep, girly in-home movie nights with my friend, baking, constantly checking realestate.com for houses in Rocky, checking flights every day to see if they are going up in price as I’m yet to book anything and we might be leaving as early as next week, all the while thinking “I should blog”.

Our Christmas day was lovely. It didn’t exactly feel like Christmas but our little orphans Christmas was very nice and included a swimming pool so that was a bonus.

This is the love I’m feeling at the moment:

To be honest I didn’t really expect to get many Christmas or “new baby boy” cards and I really appreciate all the love that has been sent. It makes us feel closer than the nearly 2000 km away from Brisbane that we are.

Hubs is back at work after almost 3 weeks paternity leave and he finishes up here in 2 weeks. He then starts in Rocky on the 21st Jan – a bit earlier than we initially planned but we’re happy about that. I’ve been going around in circles trying to decide the best plan of action for us to get to Rocky and still haven’t come up with anything concrete. There are just too many options and they all have their good and bad points. One thing that’s making life easier is that the weather has been rather lovely since Christmas day. Lovely cool breezes during the day and very comfortable temps over night. I haven’t put the air con on since Christmas eve!

The kids are doing well. Darby is feeding nicely and packing on the weight and is even sleeping in 3 hour blocks over night! Chance keeps asking if we’re “moving to Rockhampton today” and Quinn is learning to use the potty! Is all happening here!

Now all we need is a house 🙂

Our “little” 2 week old

December 21, 2014 / Renae / Leave a comment

Our little Darby is 2 weeks old today. Except he’s not that little. He is our biggest baby, and the way he is feeding, he’s going to be off the charts just like Chanbe was in his first 12 months. But he’s still our little guy for the time being.

I think the period where they’re under 2 months has the biggest “aaawwww” factor. You can still refer to their age in weeks without sounding pretentious, they still have that newborn look, and they don’t mind being handed around for cuddles. Which means I have another 6 or so weeks of this:

Aaaaawwww 🙂

No 2 days are the same

December 20, 2014 / Renae / Leave a comment

It’s tough being only days old, navigating life on the outside. Darby is doing his best to be a typical newborn, which means he’s sleeping most of the day and being awake, having nice long feeds during the night. Thankfully, with Mum here and Hubs still off work, I’m able to go back to bed once the kids get up, and generally manage to sleep til about 11 before Darby needs another feed. And by this time, Quindy is ready to go down for her sleep, and the house is quite peaceful for a couple of hours. I’ve been using this time to potter about, and have started culling clothes and kitchen stuff for the upcoming move.

I overheard Mum telling her friend on the phone tonight, every day is different, and at this stage, that is certainly true. Yesterday Darby had quite a bit of awake time during the day, so I got a two and a three hour block of sleep overnight. Today, however, he has pretty much been asleep since 9am, only waking here and there for feeds, so we could have a restless night coming up. It’s really hard to say.

Hubs has been pilfering mangoes off various public trees around town, so he has been making delicious mango lassi (basically a smoothie) at least once a day for us to enjoy. For those of you who know me very well, I know you’re thinking “but Renae hates mango!” and it’s true. I don’t like mango on its own, but I have come to appreciate it in certain things like smoothies and daiquiris!

Our very good friends, and Darby’s recently appointment Godparents, Sonia and Felix, come to visit most days which is just lovely. I really love having friends who just pop in and know they can help themselves to a drink and immediately engage with our kids. They have definitely made our time up here much more enjoyable than it would have been otherwise. We will certainly miss having them around next year.

Other than that, we are just trying to keep Chanbe and Quindy entertained during the hot days, and trying to make sure Mum doesn’t burn out from all the work of looking after them a lot of the time! We took Darby to Hubs’ Christmas party at the pub last night and of course he was a big hit. We don’t have a lot planned in the lead up to Christmas, but the countdown til we leave is on.

And of course now that I can hardly keep my eyes open, Darby is wide awake. Aaaah the joys.

The difference a few days can make

December 16, 2014 / Renae / Leave a comment

Darby Jacob. What a guy and what a name.

Hubs and I had settled on a girl’s name a few months ago, and it’s a corker. I’m going to infuriate you by not sharing it here, as it’s still number 1 on our list if we happen to have another girl. Boy’s names on the other hand don’t come so easily to us, and a week before Darby was born, ie his due date, we had settled on a name but it just didn’t pop for us the way the names “Chance” and “Quinn” did.

And we still hadn’t decided on a middle name. Hubs isn’t a fan of middle names in general – probably because he doesn’t have one – and wanted to leave this baby middlename-less. l was not convinced and in fact was quite adamant that I wanted to use another family name.

So I emailed my wonderful mother in law (I think this was 4 days before Darby was actually born) and asked her to share all of the male family names on her side.

Jacob immediately stood out to me and I had it semi approved by Hubs. Now. If you want me to tell you where the name Darby came from, I wouldn’t have an answer for you. It literally popped into my head on Friday the 5th of December and so I added it to my names list on my phone. And do you know when I suggested it to Hubs? About half an hour after our little man was born. While we were trying out other pre-discussed names on him.

Hubs is very hard to please when it comes to names, but he loved it. Well I think he liked it and it grew on him very quickly. It was just one of those names that popped for us and even though I’ve never much bought into a name “suiting” someone, it’s very easy to call him Darby and it just fits.

The point of this little story? If Darby was born on time or even just 4 days earlier, he would have a completely different name and that’s kinda weird for me.

Does he look like a Darby?

Another baby boy

December 11, 2014 / Renae / 2 Comments

Already having a boy and a girl is an interesting position to be in when pregnant with your third child. Everyone asked if I knew what we were having this time around and I’d always have the same response:

“No we’ve never found out. We like the surprise. But if I already had 2 boys I think I’d want to know!” Obligatory laughs all round.

And that was the truth. I’m not saying that I would have found out, but I know that I would want to have a girl if we had 2 boys already. Of course I would love my baby no matter what, and to be honest I don’t know if I’d have the courage to say “I’m really hoping for a girl.” (Or a boy if I already had 2 girls.)

I really thought this one was going to be a girl and I was really excited about the name we had picked out for “her”. Hubs always insisted it was a boy, so when he was born and Hubs said “I told you so” all I could feel was pure joy. We didn’t even have his name finalised (that’s a story for another day) but possibly because our first born was a boy, it was like I was reliving that moment, and what a moment it was. Both times, just as special.

I guess I’ll never know how I would really feel/react in the case of already having 2 babies of the same sex. I do know that I love babies and I want to have more children, and in the meantime, this is the darling face I get to stare at any time I like 🙂

We’re home

December 8, 2014 / Renae / Leave a comment

The doctor’s gave me the go-ahead to come home today. That is the shortest hospital stay I’ve had post-baby, and even though I thought I’d want to stay longer, I was actually itching to come home and get on with our new life.

I’ve unofficially decided to do an unofficial NaBloPoMo for Darby’s first month in our family. I often think back to the first month with Chanbe and Quindy, and really don’t remember much, so it would be lovely to have a bit of a record of what life with a newborn is like; to look back on and reminisce.

So today, we arrived home around 11:30am. Hubs suggested we do the whole “buy a gift for the older kids from the baby” thing which we didn’t do with Chance and Quinn, and to be honest, I think it was just an excuse for Hubs to buy more Lego, but it went down well. Chance is very keen to give Darby lots of cuddles and wants to share his food and toys with him which is just making my heart explode. Quinn on the other hand, hasn’t taken too kindly to the “noisy baby” as she calls him. No doubt she’ll come around, but I can just see the possibility that Chance might be protecting Darby from Quinn in the months to come!

Oh the irony 🙂

He basically just fed and slept today which was lovely to ease into it all. He’s just had a big-ish feed and now it’s off to bed for us all. I have made this an unofficial NaBloPoMo so as not to put unnecessary pressure on myself, but I do plan to post at least most days. Even if it’s just ate, slept, repeat…

Thank you for sharing this lovely time with us!

Welcome to the world

December 7, 2014 / Renae / 7 Comments

Please meet our son, Darby Jacob. He finally decided to grace us with his presence at 12.45am, today the 7th of December. He was born a very healthy weight – 4.32kg (9 pound 8 oz) and is already feeding nicely.

I know I’m completely biased but he is just so beautiful. I’m catching up on sleep today and will go home to start our life as a family of 5 tomorrow. Hubs has time off until Christmas day so we get to hang out a lot over the next few weeks.

Chanbe and Quindy met him this morning. Chance is quite besotted, asking for lots of cuddles and wanting to know when the baby can come home. Quinn was a little unsure about the whole thing but is already walking around saying his name.

For the last couple of weeks, Chanbe has been asking on a daily basis “is it the baby’s birthday today Mama?” It’s so nice to be able to answer him “yes”.