Heartburn Is A Blog Killer

So I've let go another week and a bit without a post - although it seems to me like some of my favourite blogs have also been a bit quiet of late. Suprisingly enough, its those written by women who have either just had a baby ( shout out to Ames  ) or are due to be pushing one out sometime soon ( I'm looking at you Holly and Polly ! ). I'd say there is probably a whole lot we al could be writing about, its just the lack of physical energy that comes with pregnancy and/or a new baby does not equate to a plethora of blog posts.

So, in the grand tradition of pregnant bloggers everywhere, let me just talk about the pregnancy again shall i? Since my last post - a list of stuff i still need to get done before Miss Jelly arrives - i've actually managed to complete 3 things: the cot mattress and bedding is out of layby, the baby clothes are washed, dried, folded and in the tallboy, and i have conquered the Big W Toy Sale.

Mind you, i did NOT conquer it at midnight with the rest of the crazy mamas. Oh no - not only is sleep precious to me but i didnt really fancy getting into a scrag fight over the last Dinosaur Train " Interactive Boris " left on the shelf. No, i did my 9am - 5pm Thursday at work and went afterwards. I was quite pleased that it only took me 40 mins to find everything on my list ( though i did have to substitute one or two things ) and a miraculous 15 minutes in the layby line. Plus, no scrag fighting and i only stole one toy from a child, so i'm pretty pleased. ( Long story short, there was only of the particular Barbie product i wanted left on the shelf, and it was being played with by a little girl. When she squealed " i'm going to go ask mum if i can have this! " and run off to find said Mum, i scooped up that Barbie, threw her in the trolley and wheeled on outta there! )

So the next two things on the agenda are set up the cot and the rest of the babies room, and start and finish my second piece of wall art. All i need to do is nag my husband enough that he caves in and puts the cot back together, and borrow a staple gun from my sister builder boyfriend so i can get creative stapling fabric to a canvas. A pregnant lady with a staple gun? Watch out world!

30 Weeks

So congrats to me - i'm officially 30 weeks pregnant today, which means this little bubba is 3/4 of the way done baking. As of tomorrow i can officially say i have less than 10 weeks til my due date, though i'm hoping that Miss Jelly makes an appearance a bit before that because i dont know if i can hold out another 10 weeks! Maybe my baby brain is preventing me from accurately remembering my pregnancy with Flynn but i dont recall being this achey, heartburn-y or uncomfortable at the 30 week mark last time. Dont get me wrong, the miracle of growing a baby is amazing and i feel very privileged to be lucky enough to do it for a second time.... its just i swear this girl loves shoving her bum right up under my ribs so i cant breath properly, or sit upright comfortably for more than an hour at a time! Just my luck, she's probably stubborn like her mother....

Apparently, thats what Miss Jelly looks like in there!

Anyhoo, aswell as being able to start the single digit countdown as of tomorrow, the 30 week mark is also a time to reflect on the things i still have to do before Miss Jelly makes her arrival. In no particular order:

* Get the cot mattress and pink bedding out of lay by - mattress from Flynns cot unfortunately got a bit mildew-y in the shed and had to be thrown out.

* Set up the cot and and reconfigure the furniture in the babies room. It all got moved around when Flynn went into a " big boy bed" so now i have to put it back into baby formation.

* Make the second piece of fabric wall art i'd like to make. I finished the bunting yesterday ( sooooo excited! I'd love to show you but seeing as it has her name on it i'm going to have to keep it a secret! ) and i'm going to use the remaining fabric stretched over a canvas to hang on the opposite wall to the bunting.

* Brave the Big W Toy Sale, where i may or may not use my burgeoning bump to get me through the hoardes of other crazy mums. I will not , however, be tripping up there at midnight... screw that, my sleep is far too precious in this 3rd trimester to be bothered shopping at midnight!

* Wash, dry and fold all the tiny clothes - i've gone through all Flynns old stuff and kept all the vaguely unisex stuff, but i'm kind of secretly excited by the new pink/purple/red cuteness....

* Pack 3 bags - one for me for the hospital, one for Miss Jelly, and one for Flynn, in case he has an overnight stay with Poppy during the labour.

* Get my chef on - i intend on cooking up some casseroles, curries and pasta bakes to freeze so that we have something nutritious to eat in the first few weeks after bub is born, just in case i dont feel like cooking. ( Which, lets face it, i probably wont, at least a few times ).

Plus, i'm sure there are plenty of other things i'm forgetting, things that seem so trivial that they'll slip my mind until the very last minute... which will, of course, send me into a flap.

Adult Appreciation

After months i've not finishing any novels, i read all three of the books in the " Hunger Games " trilogy in a week. I was a pretty voracious reader as a child/teenager but i think that may be some kind of record for me as an adult. I hadnt really heard of the " Hunger Games " until all the hype for the movie started, but after reading a few articles i'll admit the premise interested me and i promised myself i'd read at least the first one before i watched the movie. However, after starting the first one on a Saturday and finishing it Tuesday night i just couldnt wait to see what else happened so i bought the following two books and finished " Mockingjay " on Sunday morning.

Aside from the moral/ethical questions that the theme of the books throw up ( such as the usefulness of a nanny state, how many innocents lost as collateral damage is too many, and should Katniss choose Gale or Peeta? ) the other question that crossed my mind is - what exactly is considered " childrens fiction " these days? The " Hunger Games " books were, by all admissions, intended as young adult fiction. They were published by a childrens publisher even. But they certainly arent like anything i ever read as a pre-teeen and i read a damn lot. Sure, there are plenty of pre-teens/teens out there who have obviously loved and appreciated the books, but my question is can it really be considered a childrens/teen fiction if the themes are so very adult and fully grown intelligent adults can appreciate and enjoy the work? Yes, the 3 main characters are teenagers themselves, but that doesnt automatically make it a teenagers book. By that logic, " Lord of the Rings " is a Hobbits book and " Lolita " is a book solely aimed at paedophiles.

So, without being all, like, deep and stuff, i would argue that the quality of the writing has a whole lot to do with whether a childrens/young adult book will transition successfully to an adult audience. This clearly not always the case ( " Twilight " i'm talking to you - i flat out refuse to read any of those books because i read one random page in a book store and the writing wasnt, lets say, all that impressive. Plenty of grown ups out there who love them though... ). but for a series like " Hunger Games " or " Harry Potter " i think the combination of theme and quality writing would have a lot to do with it. Writing about a magical boy wizard, or a tough-as-nails teenage girl might just be enough to hold most young readers attention, but to get adults engaged i think its all in the way the story is presented. Lyrical, descriptive language, detailed passages, and the development of some kind of kinship between protagonist and reader is what draws me in.

What about you - are you a big reader? If so, have you read anything that has been considered childrens/young adult fiction and loved/appreciated as an adult?

Leaving On A Jet Plane

Last Thursday night we had a very casual pizza farewell dinner for my parents, who are off on there first ever overseas trip. They'll be touring Great Britain for a fortnight, and to say that they were excited would be a bit of understatement. Ok, maybe not so much for my dad, who is a typical bloke and contains himself quite well, but my mum... she's a whole other story, bless her. Unfortunately for my dad - and to a lesser extent, the rest of us - my mums excitement always seems to manifest itself as fuss and worry. That is, you know she's really excited and looking forward to it, but the closer it gets to the date of a big event, the more little niggly things she finds to worry about, or fuss over. In the past week she had packed her bags twice, and i had unpacked them and packed them for properly once; she'd been to the bank and to Telstra at least once each; she even wanted to pay her council rates and electricity bill in advance in case they came when she was away on holidays! And i have no doubt that this morning she would have checked and re-checked her documents about ten thousand times....

I'm kind of excited for them too, to be honest. Its nice that after years and years raising a family, working their bums off so that we would have enough ( and lots of time sacrificing things they needed or wanted )..... its nice that now that we're all grown that they can go and treat themselves. They can get out and see some more of the world, and live the kind of life they probably dreamed of as 21 and 22 yr old newlyweds. They deserve it, thats for damn sure.

Plus, a cashed up Grandma and Poppy overseas surely means pressies upon their return - and that can only be a good thing, right?

Things I Realised Just Today

Do you know how there are something things that you know, somewhere in the back of your head, kind of all vague and greyish, and then all of a sudden they just dawn on you ? Thats happened to me twice today. Those funny little moments of realisation where you take a mental step back and go " Really? No, seriously.... really ? "

1. The word " elaborate " as in " to elaborate on something " and the word " elaborate " as in " the room was very elaborate " are spelt the same way, but prounounced differently, and mean vaguely different things? Dont ask me i thought about that but let me tell you ... spin out!

2. My counsellor asked me how many more weeks i have left at work. When i replied that i only have 8 weeks left ( or 25 working days! ) it dawned on me that in 8 weeks i'll be stopping work because i'll be expecting a baby not long there after.

Of course i've been following along and counting weeks and everything like that but it just kind of hit me full force that in a bit less than 12 weeks ( or hopefully less ) i will be holding a new bubba in my arms, welcoming new life into our home and accepting full responsibility for that little life for the rest of mine. If the scans are correct and i do welcome a baby girl, i'll be gifted the reponsibility of raising a strong, self assured, ethical, smart, capable daughter into womanhood. I'll have to  give her the strength to see through nasty bitchy bullshit, to ignore societies ideas of what is and isnt beautiful, and the confidence to see there will be plenty more fish in the sea. God knows there is no way i can ever shield her from those things, and nor would i want to - i want my daughter to be a girl, and then a woman, of grace and confidence, to know who she is and who she can be, even when she isnt quite sure of the whys or the hows.

So much to take on board, to ponder and plan, in the next 12 weeks. Or less. Heaven help this child should she decide to appear late!

Sweet Slumber

It really is amazing what lack of sleep can do to a person, what it can do to a relationship. I think all new mums have been there before - the sleepless nights, the precious few moments of sleep stolen during the day, never quite enough to be fully refreshing but just enough to sustain you ( and see that you dont slip into complete insanity ). But its not even that level of sleep deprivation i'm talking about..... even a few nights of broken sleep is enough to make the best of us crabby.

And by the " best of us " i mean Flynn and I. The last two weeks at our house have been torturous for me ( and i'm betting they havent seemed like a picnic to him either ). With the arrival of the cold weather came the arrival of Flynns seasonal asthma, and the poor little dude copped a cold on top of of it. That meant not only a hit of Ventolin a few times a day, but also that that horrible, hacking asthma cough was never far away.... and meant that Flynn was getting very broken sleep at night, which in turn meant so were Mick and I.

At first i was ok with it - i knew the poor little fella wasnt feeling well, that he was, in his words, " yucky ", so i let him have plenty of cuddles and daily naps on my ever-swelling lap. It was warm, and snuggly, and comforting for him to be so close to me, where he could lie his head on my chest and stroke my ponytail, so i let him stay there for hours even though it was quite uncomfortable to me. Thats being a good mum right - sacrificing a bit of what is good for you so that your kids get whats good for them?

But after a few days of it, of Flynns behaviour becoming progressivley sookier and brattier the less sleep he got, of me being used as a human bean bag so he could steal some precious sleep of an afternoon... i'm ashamed to say i started to become a bit stressed. Anxious. Resentful even. Yes i knew he wasnt well, but that didnt stop me from starting to feel a bit used.... the more i gave him physically ( the hours spent on my lap were becoming so painful i cried a few times ) the worse his behaviour seemed to become. I have spent almost the majority of last week being screamed at, squealed at, hit, kicked and headbutted, everytime my previously adorable monster didnt get his way. I tried counting to 3, tried taking away his toys or shutting him in his room, but nothing helped. The aggressive behaviour kept up and i got more and more upset and stressed as each day passed. My counsellor has had me writing in a journal every night and ranking my day ut of 10 - i dont think there was one day last week that ranked above a 5/10, and certainly no day last week where i didnt spend a good portion of it in tears.

Until yesterday.... Sunday Flynn missed his afternoon nap ( and put on quite the performance when we visited a friend ) so we put him to bed half an hour early. After a few minutes of crying and screaming he eventually gave into temptation.... and slept 11.5hrs overnight for the first time in a few months. No 2am wake up asking for Daddy to get into his bed, no coughing - just blissful silence from his room until 7am Monday, when he came bounding into our room smiling and wishing us good morning. Yesterday, the bratty, sooking, coughing terror i had been putting up with for a fortnight disappeared and i had my gorgeous boy back. We were mates - we played trucks; he sat me in a bean bag and gave me a haircut; he watched " Mr Maker " for the 10 millionth time while i read a bit of the " Hunger Games ". Neither of us lost our cool with the other one.... it was heaven.

I marvelled at how even broken sleep was enough to turn my normally charming, funny son into a horror, but how one night of peaceful slumber was enough to bring him back. He slept the same 11.5 hrs last night, and though I am at work and he is at daycare, i'm pretty sure we're both feeling much better and closer to normal than we have for a while. Even though i am destined for many restless nights to come ( hello 3rd trimester! Oh yea, followed by new baby.... ) i'm hoping Flynn can get back into his normal sleep routine and we can go back to being " best friends ". Importantly, his words, not mine....

Smash!

Just a quick one tonight - just had to share with you all a very cute video starring my own little superstar extraordinaire, Flynn! My photographer friend - the same one who did my wedding photos and other pics of Flynn - asked if she could borrow my handsome boy to be in a promotional video for her business. She does " cake smash " photo shoots ( apparently popular for little ones birthdays ) and was wanting to offer a video of the session along with her usual packages.... she just needed to an available super gorgeous child to be her guinea pig for the first video....  which you can find on my " New Adventures in Dreamworld " Facebook page!

However, just to tide you over until you make over to my Facebook, and so you can see evidence of just how gorgeous my son is becoming, here's a sneaky peek photo from the shoot:

(Late) Friday Flip Offs

Its been a long time since i've done a " Friday Flip Offs "-  a list of things that have irked me over the past week - but after the week i've had this week i'm feeling the need to get a few well earned flip offs of my chest!

* To the last 3 unfinished clues in my otherwise perfect crossword puzzle - you annoy me. Why must you star eup at me from the otherwise well finished page? I probably wont sleep now because i'll be racking my brain to think of the answers.... FLIP OFF!

* To the lack of affordable maternity wear in this town - i do not have bucket loads of money to spend on clothes i will only wear for a few months. Why isnt there more on offer at the two leading department stores here ( a shout out to you Big W and Target ). I have found a few things i like and have just bought a size or two bigger than normal, but then this brings up the problem of approriate length to fit over my ever-expanding bump. Either get some more nice stuff for pregnant ladies - in more colours than just black, white and grey! - or.... FLIP OFF!

* To my beautiful son, whom i love very much, but who is very heavy - Mummy loves you, and i know you've been feeling a bit yucky this week... but i just cant have you sitting on my lap for hours at a time anymore. You're getting too heavy to sit on top of me, on top of my bump and after 6 days of it my hips/pelvis/stomach are absolutely killing me. I've cried a few times because its hurt so much. I love you baby but could you possibly either a) snuggle with Daddy for a while, b) learn to snuggle next to me instead of on top of me or c).... FLIP OFF!

* To the firm of electricians who charged me way too much - its not fair to take advantage of me because i wanted the work done quickly, and because your a bigger firm and thus have more people to pay. All i wanted was 2 powerpoints and a tv point installed and now i find out you charged me 3 times as much as another local electrican could have done it for. If i hadnt been so desperate to get a powerpoint in Flynns new room so he can put a heater in there i definately would have told you to.... FLIP OFF!