Category: Stuff

Withdrawal

/ Renae / Leave a comment

It’s been 9 days since I’ve been on my laptop and man am I feeling out of the loop. I’ve still been checking my emails on my iPhone, but that’s it. No google reader, no internet banking (and lots of shopping! Oops!), and of course, no blogging. And I’ve really really missed it! I had been having lots of feelings of “could I be bothered with the whole blogging thing” lately, and it turns out that I could. I feel that this blog is a part of me now, and I’ve really really missed it. I need to download the blogging app to my mobile so I can blog on the run! Just something else to add to the to do list.

So I’m back! And I have lots to say! So here goes!

Well, I’m just going to ease back into it, as Hubs and I are going out for a romantic dinner tonight while Gran and Grumpy look after Chanbe. Oh, and I’ve fully weaned the little guy, so you’d better believe I’m going to have more than 1 glass of wine!!! (But probably not more than 2 as I have a very low tolerance for alcohol these days! Plus, you know, I still have to get up to Chance early in the morning!)

Our road trip up was fan-freakin’-tastic! Chanbe was amazing and napped for the morning drives, had a play on our long lunch breaks, and napped again in the afternoon! He has also learned a few new tricks that I can’t wait to share with you all!

So, coming up in the next few days:
– The road trip
– Chanbe turns 1! Another birthday party to report on including THE CAKE!
– The end of Movember 2011 and the great shave
– Cooking and playing with Chanbe’s cousins
– The biggest coffee I’ve ever purchased (and I’ve been to America!)
– Our home for the next 7 weeks
– Chanbe’s new tricks

And lots more as things happen! There’s going to be a lot of this in the next 7 weeks: (can’t wait!)

My idea of “taking it easy”

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Sleeping in today til 9:15am and having a leisurely breakfast with Hubs;
Having morning tea with our neighbour an hour later;
Saying goodbye to Hubs for the afternoon as he heads out to go gliding;
Having 3 people over for dinner tonight;
Going to church tomorrow morning;
Having the Minister and his wife over for an early dinner tomorrow;
Leaving mid-morning on Monday.

And inbetween all of that, I have a 20 point to-do list to get through. So what am I doing? Blogging! And  being very happy that Chanbe has already been asleep for an hour and a half, and am hoping for just a little longer.

Can’t wait to get up to Redcliffe and RELAX! (Yeah right….)

The month/s to come

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We leave MB on Monday, will be staying in Wang for 2 nights, then we’ll be hitting the road for Redcliffe, stopping in Griffith, Sydney and Kempsey on the way. I’m very excited and am busily making my way through our huge to-do-before-we-leave list. I’m not sure what my blogging will look like over the next 2 months as I’m not sure if we’ll have internet up in Brisbane, so I’ll keep you posted as much as I can!

Birthday Boy

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(Warning: This post may contain clichés.)

Chanbe turned one yesterday. Where has the time gone? (I warned you!) Actually, I know exactly where it has gone, and we have enjoyed it so much. Chanbe woke up at 6am yesterday – we all wake up early on our birthday, right? – but I wasn’t quite ready to get up so we had a play in the spare bed and by 7 he had drifted back to sleep! We didn’t get up until 8:30 so we were all rested for our big day to come.

Chanbe had a birthday breakfast of home-made (of course) berry pancakes.

We then headed to church for lots of cuddles and kisses and birthday wishes. And then it was time for the party! Well, just a small BBQ with a couple of families from the medical centre where Hubs works. It had been raining all day Friday and Saturday (and most of the night too!) but Sunday was beautiful. The kids played in the playground (and the mud) and it was so nice to be outside after being couped up for 2 days.

And then it was time for CAKE!!!

Not my best effort, but the cake was delish! We had a gluten-free requirement, so it’s a flourless chocolate cake. Really quite delectable. There were no candles, but there were kids and party hats so that more than made up for it!

And now for the obligatory one-year-old-eating-cake photo.
Oh yeeeeeeaaaaah! Thank you to everyone for their birthday wishes! We look forward to sharing many more with you all!

Night 2 report

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Last time I blogged, I was listening to my baby scream while Hubs tried to settle him, without me intervening with a feed. So many times I nearly went in to “help” but I knew this would just mean a step back in our progress. I lay in bed, reading my Australian Breastfeeding Association book, telling myself that it was going to be okay. I finally tried to go to sleep, with a pillow over my head and was dozing off when I heard Hubs come into bed.

It was 12:30. Chanbe was crying for 2 hours. It was so hard and heartbreaking, but we’re just getting so desperate.

Then last night he was really tired when we put him to bed, and he went down quite easily. We heard him wake up at 9:30pm and Hubs went in. I was ready to go the long haul again, but Chance settled straight away and Hubs was back out in 10 minutes. 10 MINUTES!!!! I know I know. I shouldn’t get too excited. Shouldn’t get my hopes up. But it really was exciting.

Then nap time came (very early) this morning, around 9:15am. He’d been up since 6:15 so it was understandable. It took me 20minutes of wrestling and rocking and patting and singing, but I did it. I was very proud of myself for being so calm.

It’s now 11:25 and he’s still asleep. This is a very good start to the day.

We are heading to Wang tonight til Thursday, then we’ll be in MB for the weekend (Chanbe’s birthday on Sunday!) and all next week, and then we have a bit of to-ing and fro-ing to do before we leave for our road trip to Brisbane on Wednesday the 7th December.

Oh, and Hubs has 2 exams and a presentation to do as well! It’s going to be crazy busy, and it’ll be interesting to see how the sleeping goes while we’re away, but we can only try.

Update: Chanbe slept til 11:55! Woo hoooooo!

The weaning game

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Yes this is a post about breastfeeding. And lack of sleep. Just letting you know.

I have successfully weaned Chanbe off his daytime feeds, with only his post-dinner feed remaining. Night-time feeds, however, have been a bit trickier. He’s used to waking up, getting boob, then going back to sleep. It’s worked for him for almost 12 months now, so why should he expect any change?

Because Mama needs more sleep, that’s why.

I’ve been able to put him to sleep during the day a couple of times without having to resort to a feed, which I’ve been really happy with, but when he wakes up at night, (ie 11pm, 1am, 3am, 5am etc) it’s a different story. So far, I haven’t even tried dropping those feeds, as it would just mean lots of tears (mostly mine) and too much of a disruption to an already crazy routine. The theory is, there will be 3-7 rough nights, but then they learn that they don’t need boob to go back to sleep, and they start to “self settle”.

It’s those 3-7 rough nights that we haven’t been able to commit to as yet.

I just spent 15 minutes trying to settle Chanbe by rocking, singing, patting etc, but he knows what he wants, and doesn’t understand why, after having it for so long, he’s suddenly being cut off. Hubs came to the rescue, and I can currently hear the whistle from the Sleepy Train starting off. I’m really hoping it works, as Chanbe is getting himself into quite a state.

I’m not a fan of controlled-crying, but somehow this is supposed to be different – you’re with them the whole time so you are able to comfort them, but it still breaks my heart. We have committed ourselves to the 3-7 nights once we arrive in Brisbane and have settled in for a few days. The idea is, that Hubs tends to him during the night, and when he realises there’s no boob to be had, he won’t wake up anymore. The reason we can’t do it now, is that Hubs is coming into exams and really can’t afford to lose the sleep.

So the question is, does this really work? Or, more importantly, after a year of interrupted sleep, will it work for us!!??

The long and the short of it

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I’ve had a few hairstyles in my time and have dabbled in colours galour, and have written before about how I missed my long hair. Well, I’m there again. I want long hair. I don’t know what happened the last time I went to my hairdresser. I didn’t mean to get so much cut off, I just got a head full of steam and thought “Yeah! I want shorter hair!!” Thankfully it’s not that short so maybe by this time next year I might have what you would consider “long” hair. I haven’t had real long hair since I was 12. I still remember getting it cut off just before my 13th birthday, and I’ve never really gone back since.

So here’s a before shot

and I will do my best in the next year to let it grow let it grow let it grow 🙂