Out of the fog

Ahh... cup of tea in hand, baby in bed for her afternoon nap... it's an overcast, cool day, our dinner (casserole) is in the slow cooker, and I actually have time to feel cosy and blog. :)

This week has been good so far. It started with being encouraged at church by the lovely early childhood nurse at church, to just do what I think is the right thing to do as far as Anthea is concerned. My cherub has, for the last two weeks, been quite out of sorts, not sleeping through the night (argh! she's slept through since she was about 6 weeks old - what's happened?!?!), and I've been a bit disillusioned with the whole Joy of being a Mummy. I thought maybe she was hungry, surely that's why she was waking in the night! If I could just get her to eat some food, we'd be okay again - right? Not right. She wasn't interested, and I was getting frustrated trying to force it in. I'd also been told that by 6 months, babies should be on about a 4-hourly routine, so I was trying to change her routine too. TMI, we used to say... Too Much Information. I think that's what can so easily happen to new mummies, when we feel out of our depth and that we don't know enough, we second-guess everything and then just trying anything that might work. And there are so many sources of information and advice.... so it can all get very confusing. Plus, we seem to have been through another layer of skin on my nipples this week - excruciating. No fun at all. How does that happen, after the baby has been feeding with no worries for months?!?!

So anyhow, Monday morning saw me start Annie back on her 3-hourly routine with no solids. I put her to bed when I saw her tired signs and knew she was tired, even if she hadn't been up as long as she "should have been". She had three good sleeps that day. I gave her a dream-feed on Sunday and Monday nights. Tuesday I was also fairly strict with her, put her to bed when I thought I should, and didn't offer solids. By her 9pm feed on Tuesday night, I had decided to skip the dream-feed... and she slept through til 7am. I was so ridiculously pleased with myself... it had worked! I knew what was best for her, because I am her mummy! And the Joy came back. :)

I guess that may be one reason I feel like I've come out of the fog. For some reason, looking back over the time since Anthea has been born, the whole lot feels like a fog... but now, looking forward, it's like the sun has come out and I'm optimistic about what lies ahead - I can do it! In God's strength and with Alastair's help, of course. But even though the day is dreary, I'm not just moping about, getting bogged in monotony... I'm doing things and striking them off my To Do List! :) Last night I even did the ironing while Alastair was at bible study. :)

Tuesday was our 2nd wedding anniversary, so that was pretty exciting. :) We went out for dinner to the local Indian restaurant, and it was really yummy. Anthea came too... we strapped her little seat to the chair and she chewed on a rusk... and some teaspoons... and a napkin... and was very good for her first time in a restaurant. :) We dressed her up all pretty too, so everyone thought she was just a little darling. :) We have decided (at this stage - it may change, but for now), that since Alastair's family has been through the trauma and horror of divorce, that we want our anniversary to be a special occasion that our whole family (even though it's little at the moment) looks forward to and celebrates together - the fact that the mummy and the daddy love each other is a special gift, and it's a gift that not every family has. We can go out for dinner as a couple at other times, but feel that this is a really important thing for our kids to be aware of, and to celebrate with us!

Yesterday, Annie and I visited an elderly friend, whom I know from my pharmacy assistant days - oh so long ago! :) I had only been to see her when Anthea was quite small, so she was thrilled to see how much she's grown. Mrs. Woollard is a beautiful 88-year-old Christian... one of those people that it doesn't matter what she's talking about, she will always find somewhere to insert a "the Lord is so good to me, I don't know what I'd do without Him!", or an "I'm so very blessed", as she tells me how she was praying for all 15 of her great-grandchildren before I arrived, asking God to bless them, to keep them, and to bring them to Himself. She is frustrated by a little bit of memory loss since a recent flu she had, but was asking about how Alastair is, and how our church is going.... just a shining light she is. I always feel warmed by her presence.

This week I've also.... (drumroll please)... cleaned my house! :) Yay! Well, nearly. I haven't cleaned the kitchen sink or changed the sheets... but the rest is done! I am nearly delirious with excitement, because as of this morning, my basin is clean at the same time as my shower! Cleaning the shower is one of my least favourite jobs... made even less favourite when the baby starts to scream in the middle of the job.... and the absolute WORST part of it is getting the hair and gunk out of the grate on the drain - that bit always makes me heave. :( Made all the worse, of course, because I am losing so much hair at the moment - I'm going to be bald soon, I just know it...

Speaking of hair - I went and got a haircut. :) It's up to my shoulders, with a fair bit of layering, and now that I'm used to it, it's okay. :) I just needed a bit of a change - and I've been wearing it out with just a headband, so that makes me feel different and that is nice. :)

The other exciting thing is that I've finally finished my Community Pharmacy workbooks!!! Maybe that is also part of why the fog seems to have lifted - I no longer have that hanging over me... it was such a burden! It's not completely finished, I still have a last appointment with my trainer (not til mid-April) to finalise the last of everything, but the study part of it is done, and that's the main exciting thing. :)

Okay, so this is very long and maybe not everyone was interested in all that. :P I think I was writing it as much for myself though, so not to worry. Next time I'll have to post some more photos... OH, THERE WAS ANOTHER EXCITING THING! I nearly forgot!!! Anthea can sit up now!!!! On her own! :) It was pretty special to witness that. :) She's gone from size 0 Bonds wondersuits to size 1 this week too.... mmmm.... :) my chubby bubby.

Point form to recap...

So my last post was on the 29th of February, and now here it is the 22nd of March... oh well, you know what they say about time flying... :)

To recap on the whole month is proving a bit of a daunting task, as is evidenced by my procrastinating about blogging, lest I don't have enough time to do a good job on it! So I think I'll just put down a few points about what's been going on.

• The beginning of March saw me find some wardrobes on eBay, and Alastair and Dad going over to North Sydney to pick them up! Since we've lived here, we have only had a small rack to hang things on, and it just always seems dusty and untidy to me, so this has been a wonderful blessing - being able to iron clothes and hang them in a wardrobe is a luxury! :)
• We celebrated Alastair's Dad's birthday on the 5th of March.... it was a Monday, so we went around after work with a cake and pressies to surprise him.... much to his disgust, unfortunately. It went down like a ton of bricks, and made me feel wretched and awful. :(
• During that next week I suffered from a bad neck/shoulder/back problem... probably brought on by my very healthy daughter. :) We turned her car seat around so she now faces forwards, to hopefully reduce the strain on me as it was very hard to lift her over the straps while she was rear-facing. I went to the osteopath and that helped a bit.
• The next weekend we spent a lovely couple of days with our dear friends the Axelbys, and Anthea got to meet lots of new friends. :) We thoroughly enjoyed our time with these beautiful people, drinking lots of tea, talking, watching movies, talking, drinking tea... you get the picture. :)
• On the Sunday of that weekend, we were able to arrange to catch-up with the lovely Hornsey family, for a picnic in Canberra! It was great to be able to spend time with them, and for Alastair to get to know them better. Their Daniel and our Anthea are two months apart (he's older), and it was sweet to see our babies together. :)
• So after a weekend like that, the next week was a bit of a write-off. :P Anthea had begun being quite unsettled before we went away, and didn't get back to normal during that next week.... which made me quite anxious and wondering what on earth I was doing wrong. I even rang Tresillian to ask for advice. She wasn't interested in the solids I was trying to feed her, and she was waking several times through the night. It wasn't until last Sunday at church, that I was greatly encouraged by talking to a lady who is an Early Childhood Nurse (or whatever they call them now), who told me just to go with my gut and do what I thought was best. Since then, I've gone back to my fairly strict routine, and when I feel that she's tired, I put her to bed. It's worked wonders, and our happy baby is back! :)
• During last week, we also made wills - having not done that before. Alastair has been doing some IT work for a lawyer who is setting up his own firm down here, and so when Alastair asked about how much wills cost and how do we go about sorting one out, he said he's been really impressed with Alastair's work, and that he'd like to do them for us for nothing!
• Last Saturday afternoon I was able to catch up with two old friends from my FGYO days, neither of whom had met Anthea yet, so that was special and we had a lovely time.

And then we get to this week.... that's another post, I think.

And a cup of tea... :)