General busy-ness!

What a busy month January always is! Always lots of out-of-town (and this time, out-of-country) visitors... umpteen dozen birthdays... the usual trying to get back into the swing of everyday life... dealing with horrendous humidity that saps you of your energy... and that sort of thing. It's all in a day's work of course, but to me, January always seems to fly by.

On Saturday morning, Aunty Meaghan got back from her 5-week trip to Europe, bearing lots of gifts for us all! She brought Anthea little clog slippers from Holland, a double-breasted duffel coat from London, a dress-up flamenco dress from Barcelona (for later on!), beanies from Prague, a necklace from Switzerland.... amongst other things!!! :) The Swiss chocolate was sooooo good... and she even brought back a beautiful woollen coat and Swarovski crystal earrings for me! How generous she is! I love her, and missed her terribly, so am looking forward to her visit tomorrow immensely! :)

Anthea is continuously a joy to us... not that we don't have our unsettled difficulties and such, but on the whole, she's really good. She rolls over now - all the time. No more lying on her back playing happily with her toys, if she's put on her back, that's the cue to start rolling. Problem is, she can only roll from her back to her front, not the other way... and she doesn't like lying on her tummy! So I put her down, and before I get two steps away, she's on her front, and she starts to grizzle...

The other day she was down for her afternoon nap... and when it was about time for her to wake up, we heard her cooing and laughing, so went up to say hello.... and found this:




















How cute does she look with her "monocle" on?!?! :)

Here she is on Daddy's shoulders... having the best time!




















And lately, she's enjoyed sitting in the highchair while I do dishes or whatever......




















So generally, my days are full and busy, and I love being a Mummy. :) I have 10 more units to go to finish my Certificate 3 in Community Pharmacy, so I'm really really really trying to get them done.... but it's not happening. :( And I'm not really sure how to put more hours into my day to do them, either! I'm flat out getting washing/dishes done and trying to do some dusting or vacuuming! And by the time Annie goes to bed at night, I'm ready for bed too! Any ideas???

Today I rang a friend with whom I hadn't spoken for a while, so it was lovely to catch up with her and hear what she's been up to..... and I was able to ask questions like "My hair is falling out in clumps, I think I'm going to go bald! Did that happen to you and does it ever stop?!?!" Then, what a surprise, she emailed me a bunch of photos of her kids so that I could see how they've grown. :) She reminded me that I hadn't blogged in a while, so I particularly hope she enjoys these pictures. :)

Random thoughts

And so Lachlan arrived on Wednesday 28th... and thus far, his visit has been different from what I expected. We went and stayed the weekend of 30th/31st/1st at Mum and Dad's so that he could spend lots of time with Annie, but I think I had unrealistic expectations for the weekend... I thought we'd do more sitting around talking and chilling together. But he's madly practicing most of the time... when he sits down, he's got his laptop with him... and when he talks, it's as though he's using a megaphone - all the time. And he slams doors when Anthea's asleep... and answers the phone really loudly... and I found it all a bit hard to deal with. Times have changed, and I guess we've all changed too...

Besides that, we had a trip to ED for Alastair after the steak he ate on New Year's Day attacked him... far out. You'd think he could just chew his food. :P No, it's okay, I still love him. :) That happened mid-arvo, and we went to emergency just after 8pm, got home just before 3am - wow, it's a whole 'nother world there at that time of night!!! That was very confronting.... the swearing druggo, the girl who's threatened an overdose so the cops have taken her 9 month old baby from her, so she's screaming and kicking the place down, swearing at the security guards (called in for our protection, I think)... far out. So I was very tired the next day. I'd gone home at about 9pm to feed and put Annie to bed (since we'd been told it'd be about a 2 hour wait before we could see a doctor), and Mum and Dad minded her for us, so that was very helpful, and at least she'd had a reasonable sleep.

I completely do not understand the poo thing with babies. We are still going at least 48-72 hours between poos at the moment, which is really weird. It's scary as you come up to the 48+ hour mark, and as every nappy change goes past without a poo, you wonder where she's putting it all and how massive it's going to be when it finally DOES come!!! As at this minute, we haven't had a poo since 11am Sunday......... eeeek..... it's scary going out with that hanging over you too - because often the poo that comes after 3 days warrants a bath to clean up - so if it happens while you're out... um... yeah.

Anthea just loves her showers with Daddy... I take her in to the bathroom all nudie, and she has a big grin on her face... then when she hears the water, she starts squealing and laughing, and the arms and legs start going - it's so cute!!! Meaghan's away, and when she heard that Annie had rolled over last week she was most upset, and said she'd better wait til she's home before she starts sitting up... hehe..... I'm sure she will, she's only just gone 4 months.

So I've just re-read all that, and it's a jumbled lot of random thoughts, isn't it! Oh well...