Thursday, August 24, 2006

mother's milk

More than a week has passed, which is not at all surprising when you know me and my propensity to put things off, or just to be generally too disorganised to find the time. Such is my life, to paraphrase Ned Kelly. I swear I will be more vigilant when I'm paying to call myself a blogger.

Loving the 24-hour husband thing, with RJ on holidays and all. I think he might be pleased to go back to work for a rest. But it is lovely having him around. We even went to the beach twice in as many days last week.

Meanwhile, I've been reading in last month's Women's Weekly (better late than never) about a plan to create a breast milk bank in a Queensland hospital. It will be the only one in Australia, and will help pre-term babies and those whose mothers for various reasons cannot provide their own milk. I remember thinking, during one of my many sleep-deprived hazes while I was still breastfeeding F, that it would be wonderful if you could go into a supermarket and buy a carton of breast milk alongside the low-fat, no-fat, high-calcium, lactose-free, soy varieties. Wouldn't that be grand? My vision may never be realised, but the vision of at least one Australian breast milk bank for wee bairns is still a worthy one. Go to www.mothersmilkbank.com.au for more info, and details of a CD you can buy to help fund the project. It features The Waifs, Deborah Conway and Women In Docs, among many others. Almost makes me sad I may never call myself a breastfeeding mother again. How quickly we forget the soggy bra straps, baby-vomit shoulders, sudden and indiscriminate 'leaking' in public and boobs like granite. Even as I am writing these things, I realise how much I really do miss it.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

skipping a season


Another day at the office, literally. In fact I'm still at the office, but not for much longer. Home time awaits.

Had a few beautiful days, weather-wise, so much like spring you would swear it's already here. But then I suppose it almost is. Where did those eight months go? Soon we'll be jetting off to the Whitsundays, where we can pretend it's summer for eight glorious days. How very decadent, skipping a whole season.

There are many things I've been loving about the warmer weather - letting F run around bare-bummed outside (so she can quite unexpectedly do a wee and look up at me in amazement as it puddles on the ground), feeling the sunshine warm my hair, opening the windows in the back room and not feeling too cold, listening to Linda Ronstadt (and singing, very loud, pretending to live out my fantasy of being in a Linda Ronstadt tribute band) and picking (and smelling) the beautiful nasturtiums, my absolute favourite, from the back yard and putting them in a vase on the kitchen window sill, where I can still smell them from the other side of the room and be reminded of childhood summers at Lennox Head.

Roll on summer, roll on.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

destination normal

It's all a bit of a blur really. Today was one of those days where having two shiftworkers in the house really takes its toll. I finished work at 10.30 last night and got to sleep about midnight, which was when RJ had to start work. F woke me just after 7 and I blearily prepared breakfast, knowing there was no chance of returning to bed until at least 11 o'clock tonight. RJ came home about 9am and fell into bed, rising again at 2pm when I woke him in time for me to have a shower and come back to work. When I go home I will have roughly 30 minutes in which to catch up with my dear husband (but only if he's awake) before he has to go to work.

Thankfully all this only happens once every couple of months, and after today my working week is over. And the big plus is that from next week RJ is on five weeks holiday! Hooray! We can pretend we're a normal family. Whatever that means.

Tuesday, August 8, 2006

a whole lot

It is as I feared. My life is not interesting enough to maintain a daily weblog. Busy, yes. Hectic, yes. Often fraught with stress. But not terribly interesting in the grand scheme of things. Still, it is my prerogative to continue, even if only to entertain myself.

Two more days of preschool are behind us and two days of work in front of me. Amazing how quickly a week can go by, then two, then before you know it a whole year.

Three and a half years, to be exact, have passed since RJ and I set out to purchase half of our neighbour's backyard, thereby doubling the size of ours and allowing us to stay in our dear sweet corner of sunny wallsend. when the process began we had one child and one cat. We now have two children, one very unfit labrador and one cat (but not the same one). The times are a changin', that's for sure. And as of Friday, our lot has also changed! We are the proud owners of a new backyard! All very exciting, and now I can really start planning our extension, including a new kitchen, knowing that it is completely possible and not just a figment of my imagination.

We have already been to many, many kitchen showrooms (I want to say 'hundreds', because that's what it feels like, but really only about five). Freya has collected her own weight in Laminex samples, which come in so many pretty colours and hang at such an attractive height when you're 18 months old. For anyone else, they are all equally ugly and completely useless in any setting other than a kitchen showroom.

Thursday, August 3, 2006

way out west

Oh dear, another day gone by the wayside. A very cold day, I might add, so better off forgotten really. Today the sun is back, better than ever. And welcome, welcome to little Francis Lou, who arrived on Monday. Can't wait to meet you. God help me if you make me clucky again.





Been listening to a lot of The Waifs lately, which makes me feel like moving to Western Australia and wearing dresses over jeans and not shaving my legs. Just being a lot more relaxed about everything. Just read that both Donna and Vikki, sisters of The Waifs fame, had baby sons within a week of each other in September/October last year. Aaaaahhhh.

Tuesday, August 1, 2006

many taxing returns

Failure to post on day two of website. Bad blogger! Still learning. But hooray! I just lodged my tax return - one of those very time-consuming jobs that never seems to get done but because today the stars aligned and F slept for two hours while E was at preschool, it can be removed from my very long list of things to do when I get around to it.

Happy birthday to all you horses out there (only the ones who can read, of course).