To assist in trying to get Maisie to re like pizza (she had it once about 2 years ago and was sick, and hasnt eaten it since), I decided to make some home made ones tonight. We chopped everything up and then the girls put what THEY wanted onto their own pizzas.
They really didnt eat very much of them – but it was fun anyway.
Alice Joy Whitbourn knocked one of her bottom teeth out last night. We are waiting to go to the dentist at lunch time today, but after speaking with one last night, we are pretty sure that there is nothing that can be done and she will just have a gap until her adult teeth come thru. Here are the before and after shots…
Two big chompers
Ouchies
She is fine now – and was pretty good last night. She keeps putting her fingers in there and doing weird things with her tongue. We know that this is just the start of injuries that will happen to the girls over the next 20 years, but it does take you by surprise when something happens.
I really dont know what to put into her baby book now – there is no page for “tooth fell out on this day”.
Here is the pictures of the tooth – just in case you were wondering what a 9 month old tooth looks like out of the mouth…
Today I sat in my bible study group and listened to our Growth Works DVD about idle moments that we have every day that we could be doing so much more with.
Spending the day thinking about it further, I realised I do have many idle moments throughout the day that I could be using better – like reading, writing, talking and just being with God.
Changes need to be made, I know it wont happen overnight, but it will happen.
He will order my days from now on.
I spent New Years day in bed quite ill and by late afternoon when I still could not drag myself out of bed I decided it was time to call some people to get some info on what I should do. The outcome was to head over to the emergancy dept to get a script and get to the chemist to get some medication.
In my head I was just going to die by spending the rest of my life in bed in pain. I felt like I would never ever be well enough to remove myself from my room. The night before was bad – I was hot and cold and didnt sleep well. I could hear Cade and the girls playing and having breakfast in the morning but it was all blurry and weird. I sent them off to Grandma and Grandpas house so they could hang out with their cousins for a bit whilst I slept the morning away.
Today is a much better day, the medication has started to work and I have been up for most of the day and feel a lot better. It has made me very thankful for all of the doctors and nurses and chemists and other health care professionals that work on public holidays to help look after those who are sick and are in hospitals and nursing homes.
Today we headed off to Church for the first time as a family of five. We were all organised and ready to go and got there early! All the girls behaved well and we headed home for lunch time sleep time. Naa and Poppy Phil were awaiting us when we got home and Alice was presented with gifts bath related just in time!
The girls then all had a sleep and then we had a visit from Grandma and Grandpa before Maisie went off to help Great Grandparents Bert & Mary put up their Christmas tree and have a swim whilst Cade and Tali went to get the shopping done. When everyone got home it was dinner time so we ate and then woke up Alice for her dinner and then Maisie and Tali went to get ready for their bath.
I havent had the conversation with Cade yet, but I did hear him say to Tali from the bathroom “this is the wettest nappy I have ever seen Talia Mersey”… which got me thinking about Tali and if she had been changed at all today.
This is to say I am very sorry Tali. It will never happen again.
has been the question that I have asked myself on a number of occasions about topics regarding personal issues and things that the kids do or my wonderings about certain things. What will people say or think about what is written is the first thing that comes to my mind – which after 28 years, I really shouldnt worry about. So, this is a part of what has been going on with us over the past few months..
After our 20 week ultrasound that sounded and looked fine, we were told that #3 had “delayed growth of the femur and humerus bones”. I learnt this as I was leaving a clinic appointment by the midwife announcing in front of a full waiting room of people that “there is a problem with the scan”. I, naturally being dramatic, went straight home and “googled” what she had told me. Every single listing came up with reference to Down Syndrome with the short bones being a soft marker. To say I was shocked is an understatement. I sat on the floor and cried for my baby and more selfishly cried for myself.
The hospital said that we needed to see a specialist, which we drove to Canberra for. They confirmed the growth was delayed – it was measuring 4 weeks behind the rest of the measurements of the baby. The professor told us that it could be 1 of 6 different things – some bone problems, it would just resolve itself, down syndrome or it could just be a short baby. They offered for us to have an amnio test done, which would determine if the baby had down syndrome or not – but we declined. There was no other testing that they could do to figure out what the problem might be, so we began a waiting game that has seen some days become a lot longer than other days.
It has taken me almost 20 weeks to try and get my head around what will happen if the baby is born with anything “different” from all the other babies born every day. The pressure that society puts on babies being “healthy & perfect” is unfair and this is really the first time I have ever thought about it. I always just assumed that everything would be fine. The unknown stuff is the hardest stuff to try and get your head around – because we feel that we have the right and the power to be able to “know” everything and try and correct it if it seems like its not “normal”.
I have always found it hard to leave things in Gods perfect hands – but this last 20 weeks has really taught me that there is nothing that I can do and whatever the outcome, it doesnt matter. Everyone is born differently, raised differently, taught differently and loved differently. All that we can do is pray for the strength to be the best parents that we can be and pray for and love all of our children unconditionally.
Our baby will be born in a few weeks time and will be a precious gift from God no matter what.
I am not one that really understands all the carbon footprints that we are making and the positions our country on global warming or how driving greener cars really makes a difference and all these “new ways” of trying to make the world a better cleaner safer place.
I signed up to get our electricity turned on at the new house and the company offered a special deal of using “green power” instead of “black power” at only a $1.00 more a week in which I would be saving the environment by using the “green power” and somehow offsetting 70% of my carbon footprint.
So, I thought about it and said yes, I would be happy to sorce my “green power” from windmills and other environmentally friendly things and then when she was done connecting both the gas and electricity I said “So, will my gas and electricity bill come on the same bill because they are now both thru the same company” and she said “umm, no they wont they will come as separate bills”. So I asked “Well, can I have them emailed to me” and she said “ummm, no, they will come in the mail”.
Back in my day saving the amount of paper that we used seemed like an important thing to do and recycle recycle recycle was the message that we got drummed into us, but now it looks like there are “better” ways of making the world a better place – and it comes at a cost of $1.00 per week…
So, a little while ago someone told me that their sister (or sister in law or cousins sister or someones sister) had trouble fitting three baby car seats across the back seat of their car.
I took that information on board, told Cade that we should measure it up, and then didnt do much else about it until last weekend when Cade washed the car and we thought – what a great time to trial the 3 seats across the back seat. What we learnt was that there was no way that we were getting three car seats across the back seat of our car.
So, we did a bit of researching and what we found was basically you have to buy special slim line car seats (which lets just say are not very cheap and we would have had to buy three of them) OR get a car that does fit three car seats across the back seat.
So – introducing new/old car that does successfully fit three normal car seats across the back seat and has other cool things like auto windows and cruise control. Its a 2006 Holden Commodore VZ Wagon that has 10cm more back seat than our old car – yes thats right 1o whole centimetres.
Special shout out to Kenny the car guy from Hillis Ford Wagga Wagga who helped us out with the purchase and trade in. He will ever be remembered as the man who “took” our old car and gave Maisie a blue balloon. Special times.
This morning the girls woke each other up at about 6:20, which is the earliest either of them have been awake in a very long time. Its also the earliest that I have had to get up in a long time.
Whats weird is that Cade gets up at 6 every morning, and has been telling me how light it is getting and I smile and agree – as I know I dont ever want to see it- but this morning I finally know what he is talking about. Not that it makes it any easier to get out of bed!
Usually (this is most, not all) we Whitbourn girls get up around 7:00-8:00am. Now, there are occasions when its both of them up early or both of them up late, but more recently it is one or the other up so I can get away with staying in bed longer with one of them by my side having a snuggle time.
I have never been a morning person, I dont think I ever will be. I got Cade to “drop” Maisie into our bed this morning as she had woken up at 7:20am and I couldnt pull myself out into the cold morning air. As we lay together snuggled under a pile of blankets I was telling her about when she was a little baby and I used to bring her into Mummys bed in the morning after Daddy had gone to work and we would play and sing and then have another sleep before getting up for breakfast. She lay there listening to me with a tiny little grin on her face – and I couldnt help but wonder what she was thinking about… We lasted in bed until 7:50am, when she sat up and announced that it was “time to get out”, so my morning then finally had to start.
Now – I am not complaning at all – as I am very well aware of children (im talking about you Eli!) that feel the need to wake BEFORE 7am – which is really just punishment! I am thankful for any extra sleep that I can squeeze into my mornings and I do enjoy having a snuggle with my precious girls – as I know that it has a limited time frame!
I fell over on the tiles at our front door after chasing my nephew thru the door whilst trying to kick him in the backside.
I am happy to admit what a stupid thing it was to do – not only because I have a history of falling over when least expected, or that my nephew can clearly outrun me (and pbly out kick me as well), but that I am even more likely to fall whilst pregnant as I have no balance at all. This would equal about 4 pregnant falls over my 3 pregnancies.
The way I fell was straight onto my backside – at the time I thought to myself “wow – thats gonna hurt tomorrow and how embarssing to fall in front of most of my husbands family, lucky I am behind a wall and most of them cannot see me”, but I never thought that 5 WEEKS LATER it would still be sore.
Now, it is on the improve. It is much better than the first few weeks, but I cannot understand how it is still sore. I have to sit weird still and when I try and hop up from sitting on the floor, it aches like nothing else.
Of course, I did tell the midwife about it at my last appointment, and she said that there was nothing that they can do for me – that it sounded like I had either brusied, cracked or broken my tailbone but they couldnt do an xray due to my pregnancy and that I would just have to wait it out.
So I am a bit over it all now – I just want the pain in my backside TO GO AWAY already.
I have learnt my lesson. Dont chase your nephew around on tiles whilst trying to kick him…. (catch him first and then kick him)
These shoes were a present from my friend Emma at my baby shower for Maisie. She joked at the time that she didnt know what size shoe to get, and the funny thing at the time was that I didnt know either…
Well, the joke is now over, cause the “baby” nikes finally fit!! Thanks Em – she loves them!
So we wont go into details here, but over the summer months we have been “encouraging” Maisie to go to the toilet – just letting her know that its there for her to use if she so wishes.
We had two weeks of dry days with “knickers” on, but then we moved house so we went back to nappies. Now she is at the stage that if she is in the mood, she will ask to go to the “toooilllet”, which proves very interesting.
Tonight I had her on and off 6 times during bath time and then again after she was in bed. This happened last week as well, and she was succesful – but it took a while. I think it will be a while before we can get rid of the nappies – but she seems keen enough.
I spend so much time now sitting on the floor in the bathroom… Anyone have any games that I can play in my head whilst the waiting game continues?
Remember
Note to self.
Everything that we do or say, we have little sets of eyes and ears watching and listening and learning…
Enough said.
In 4 easy steps.
Step 1. Give up in frustration trying to find the auto tune button on your TV remote control.
Step 2. Give your toddler the remote control to play with.
Step 3. Turn your back for a minute to do something else.
Step 4. Turn back around when you hear the TV tuned in correctly.
I can’t guarantee it’ll work for you, but it sure worked for me. And I still can’t find what button Maisie pressed – but whatever button she pressed was surely the right one.
So it seems Talia is a little confusing to pronounce at first. It’s mostly due to all the name variations – Taliah, Tahlia, Thalia, Tayliah etc, each with their own pronunciation variation. Even Lisa and I have been confusing ourselves, although Lisa earns the prize for the biggest confusion so far – calling her new daughter Talianna! (Surely the mother has the right to call their child whatever they want? Although a little more consistency would be nice).
This is all to say that although we are sticking to the name and pronunciation we’ve chosen, we are not too concerned if people don’t get it right. And we won’t be correcting people too often if they happen to get it wrong.
In fact, Tali is a perfectly good abbreviation and a great name to call her and is probably a lot easier to consistently pronounce correctly. So feel free; we know we’ll probably be sticking mostly to Tali from now on.
Are Lisa and I the only people who had never noticed that ABC and Twinkle Twinkle share the exact same tune?!
Lisa made the shocking discovery last night whilst trying to think up alternative verses to Twinkle Twinkle. Maisie seems to find the tune very soothing but there’s only so much wondering you can do about a little star.
Do you find conversation with your partner boring and mundane? Do what we do – sing your thoughts to each other, to the tune of ‘Twinkle Twinkle’.
“What-are-you-planning-on-doing-to-morrow?”
“I-don’t-know-maybe-doing-some-washing”
Etc.
After a pretty crazy couple of hours last night, I learnt that it is okay to not be in control of every situation and I am able to give Maisie to her Dad whilst I sit on the bed and sook. Then, I learnt that even though Maisie may cry for ages and not want to go to sleep, that she would end up being so tired that she would sleep for 5.5 hours which is the most sleep I have had in a row for over a month. This is a skill that I hope Maisie excels at in the coming weeks – because sleeping skills are awesome.
My daughter has a wonderful father. Although he took a crazy amount of photos of her in her first few days of her life and put them up on the world wide web and has given her the nickname “crater face”, I am sure she will learn just how wonderful her father is and what great fathering skills he has.
I have a wonderful husband. Although he has decided to always remember me getting upset at the bookcase not being built right and that he purchased dirty potatoes instead of the clean ones, I have learnt that he is a wonderful husband, and I love that he has so many skills – like looking good in more outfits than one and his crazy huuuumour.
Next week, Cade and I will have been “together” for nine years – and I have learnt that even though you think you know someone really really really really well, they can always surprise you with being even better than what you could ever imagine.
Had our first trip to the Early Childhood Health Centre. The Child and Family Health Nurses’ official assessment: Healthy newborn.
She’s stacked on the grams – up 600g since discharged from the hospital. Now weighing in at 3930.
She’s had lots of visitors in the past week or so, including an introduction to her first Whitbourn relatives. She’s met her grandparents on one side and a few other relatives and friends. And she’s been spoilt rotten with lots of girly clothes and accessories.
She’s also gotten herself into a very manageable routine of feeding every 4 hours (most of the time). Hopefully this will slowly stretch out to longer intervals during the night.
P.S. Don’t try to empty the water out of the baby bath and answer the phone at the same time. Something (or somebody) is going to get wet!
