Baby, Baby...

Flynn and i hosted mothers group at our house this morning - and, to my delight, it actually went well. See, i had this dream last night that absolutely nobody turned up, so i was panicking just a little when, 15 minutes after the scheduled start time, nobody had arrived yet. But - phew!- people were just a little late because little babies dont like to let you get anywhere on time. They're either:
a) still sleeping when you need to go ( and you DO NOT wake them up )
b) needing a feed ( and you cant hurry a feed or bubs gets grumpy )
c) they do what is popularly known as a Number Three ( poo poo blowout! )
or d) its actually you running late because your just a frazzled new mum.

We only had a small group today ( Flynn and I and four other pairs ) but thats ok because I only have a small house. We live in a 2 bedroom duplex which, although its kinda on the small side, suits us just fine. For now. Lately i've been daydreaming about the time when we can get a bigger place - a house instead of a duplex - and ( gasp ) having another baby. Yep, Flynn is only four and half months old and i'm already daydreaming about another bubba. Is that weird? Even with the trouble he's been having with his digestion ( which we are going to see the paedatrician for on Monday... ) the last four months have just been such a delight, i cant imagine having only one. And i've always wanted to have at least two, possibly three. Of course, when i mentioned all this to Mick he kind of went white.... thinking about another baby so soon kind of sends dudes into an internal mini-meltdown.

So watching my son interact relatively well with other babies ( i say relatively because he did have a little sook for a while there ) - the little people we already refer to as his friends - just makes me think what it would be like having two kids to look after. Two boys or one of each? How jealous would Flynn get? Would he be a good helper? Is he gonna share? Lord, the things that go through my head and, in reality, another baby is at least 2 years into the future. One thing i know for sure - that bubba is gonna be loved....

Mothers Day Recap

So yesterday, as you would be aware, was my first Mothers Day to celebrated as a mama - and i'm not going to hide it... i was kinda excited! How could i not be with a gorgeous little fella like this to call my own:

Gorgy smorgy!

So, here's how my day played out:

* Woken at 3am for a feed with Flynn. Mick gave me my present - a fluffy pink dressing gown/bathrobe. He later said i looked like Dame Edna in it ( i'm not sure if that was supposed to be complimentary or not ).

*Got out of bed at 7am, when Flynn woke for another feed. I was hoping for breakfast in bed ( whihc is wat i had been told i was getting ) but, due to Micks having " got his beer on " the night before, he kind of forgot thats what he'd promised.

* I got upset and had a little tear or two, at which point Mick redeemed himself by rushing out of the bedroom and apologising. Good man.

* Got read the Sunday paper in peace because Flynn decided he would have an hour long nap. Good boy.

* Showered and went to the mall. Bought a new fleecy hoodie. Since getting big milk-boobs, i dont have much warm that will fit me for winter.

* Subway, Eat Fresh!

* Watched a recorded DVD of this past weeks episode of " The Amazing Race ". I love me some Race, and this was on my wishlist of things i wanted to do on Mothers Day. Flynn had a feed and a sleep while it was on, and Mickey J took himself off for a quick bike ride.

* Went to my mums for afternoon tea ( we had been to Micks mums last weekend. She lives in another town so it was easier to split the visits ). My dad made a lovely zuchinni and sweet potato cake. Good man.

* My sister had bought a puppy and was also visiting my parents, with the puppy. I love puppies!

* Flynn got tired and had a nap on my dads lap which was awesome, seeing as he's been majorly clingy the last few weeks. Good boy.

* Got home and gave Flynn a bath - marvelled at how he marvels at the rubber ducks that he has in the tub. Too cute!

* Mick made me a lovely red penang curry fpr dinner. We figured out earlier that he'd forgot to plan dessert, so i made my own peach crumble. Tinned peaches to the rescue!

* Mick and I settled in to watch " Where The Wild Things Are " ( Flynn had already flaked it and gone to sleep ). It was a really, really sweet movie. Actually, you could probably even describe it as bittersweet. I dont really remember the book so much - although i do know that i read it once or twice as a child - but the whole melancholia of Max and the Wild Things and the beautiful rise and fall of their friendship really touched me.

* Gave Flynn a dream feed .... we've had a full week of him waking around 3am-4am for a feed, when he had been waking at 6am or 7am, so i tried the whole dream feed thing hoping it would get him to sleep a little longer. It totally worked. Good Mummy!

* Went to bed utterly exhausted. I had Friday at the zoo, Saturday at the show and Sunday out and about - by 10pm last night i was well and truely ready for bed.

I really enjoyed my day, even though we didnt do anything spectacularly exciting. I had breakfast, lunch and dinner all prepared for me; i didnt do a single load of washing; i got to take a shower by myself; and i got to snuggle up to my gorgeous fiance in a cuddly, warm, dressing gown whilst nursing my precious son to sleep. What more could a mama want?

Blah Blah Blah, No-one Cares...

So - you may have noticed that i did not blog yesterday, as i promised i would. Then again, you may not have noticed - i was hoping to have a big 300th blog post week and, frankly, its been a bit of an anti-climax. I loved blogging the suggested reader topics ( thanks to the guys who through a suggestion at me ) but i didnt get as much blog traffic as i was hoping for. Gawd, i know, that makes me sound totally shallow and selfish and wah wah wah but.... i like you guys! I like comments and new followers and knowing that people are reading what i've written. But dont get too mad at me - i didnt get all petulant and NOT blog yesterday just because nobody was reading. I'd taken Flynn out to the zoo with some of our friends from mothers group and, after 5 hours of pushing a pram around, i was completely buggered. Shagged. Cactus.

We've been to our annual show today - which cost $20 for two adults to get in, $14 for 2 dagwood dogs and a Coke and $23 for a showbag ( Chuggingtons for Flynn....not for me! ) - so i'm gonna cut this post short too. Very much looking forward to Mothers Day tomorrow so expect a gushing, lovey-dovey, gooey post by Monday afternoon.

Peace out people!

Very Superstitious....

Day four of " What the reader, wants the reader gets "/300thblog post celebration week. Todays post is courteousy of Kylie at The Rockgarden. She wants to know: Do you have any personal rituals or superstitions?

I had to kind of think long and hard about this one - i dont really have any personal rituals ( like wearing lucky underpants or putting on my left shoe first or whatever ) but i am a little superstitious. But why? Why have i picked up some superstitions but completely dismissed others? I suppose it comes down to how you were raised and who by - if you parents and grandparents tell you a certain superstition, i think you're more likely to stick with it.

For the record, i chose that there picture because i DO NOT  ever walk under ladders. I'm sure this one was passed down to me by my nan. Its bad luck standing under ladders you see ( for what reason, i'm not sure... ) so i dont even risk the wrath of the Universe. We quiet often have workmen come to my workplace needing to get into the roof, and the manhole happens to be right above my work station. Well, as long as they have their ladder open there i find something other than paper work to do, because i refuse to stand or walk under ladders, even for a few seconds.

I also:

1.  Never put shoes on the table

2. Cross my fingers when i'm in need of good luck

3. Fork my fingers when a black cat crosses my path and;

4. I was known to spend a good amount of time searching for four leaf clovers when i was young.

So no - no crazy personal rituals that i can tell you about, but a few odd superstitions here and there. Strangely enough i'm one of those folks that DOESN'T think Friday the 13th is bad luck - in fact, every Friday the 13th i go out and buy a lottery ticket, hoping to catch all thegood vibes floating around out there! So what superstitions do you guys believe in? Why ? And anything in particular that makes you feel lucky or unlucky?

Ooh, and only 2 days left of " What the reader wants, the reader gets! " so get your suggestions in!

The First Blush Of Love

Welcome back to my " What the reader wants, the reader gets! " week, to celebrate my 300th post milestone. Todays suggestions comes from Jaded Vixen of The Jaded Gym Junkie who wrote:
I'd love to read a post about your first love! They're always interesting stories! x

Aaah..... young love. I'm always interested to hear other people " first love " stories but, to be quite honest, mine isnt really all that special. My first love - if we're talking about that first boy you ever held hands with/kissed behind the toilets/ wrote " Mrs Amy Blah De Blah " on your notebook love - was a boy we shall refer to as K, and i was around 10 years old. We went to school together and it was of those situations where he got someone else to run up to me and say " K wants to be your boyfriend. Wanna go out with him ? " and i say " Yep. OK ". Of course, at 10 years old, " going out " means nothing more than eating your lunch at the same table, lending him your favourite pen, and walking home holding hands. All of which K and i did. We lived close to one another so we hung out on weekends too ( with other kids around ), down at our local playground and riding our bikes. We were friends. But, as happens with almost all first love, it eventually had to come to an end . I cant remember exactly what happened but i'm pretty sure it just came down to boys are still kind of weird and icky when your 10 years old. Eww, boy germs - gross.

As for my first adult love, well.... truth be told, during high school and the first few years of my twenties, i was a chronically shy and socially anxious kind of girl. I only had one boyfriend and a handful of dates here and there. I told one guy that i loved him but, in retrospect, that was completely misguided and i didnt really mean it ( although i thought i did at the time ). So, i'm happy to say, my first, proper, real, adult love is.... Mick.

                         

We met on an internet dating site, our first date lasted for five hours, i went away for the weekend to visit his family after only two weeks.... and now we're engaged and have a gorgeous, smorgeous baby boy. We tell each other " I love you " every day, several times a day, and i can tell you, for my part, that i mean it every single time its said. All thats left now for us is a wedding ceremony ( which could be at the registery office - its the marriage bit that matters to me ) and more bubbas!

Oh, and PS - if you havent already done so, leave me a comment letting me know what you'd like to see me blog about this week!!

A Labour of Love

So....in yesterdays 300th blog post - which mind you, has been a bit of anti-climax. Where are all my comments? - i asked for post suggestions for this week. Seeing as Brea of Brea's Befuddled Brain is the only ( yet ) to suggest anything, i guess she gets the honour of being todays " contributor ". Brea said:
As a fellow Mummy, I would LOVE to hear about your labour! Was it short, long, emotionally draining...? Did everything go to plan, or did something go wrong? How did Mick cope?

So here's the disclaimer: this post will definately be of the TMI variety. If you are easily offended by birth stories, do not need the mental image of me giving birth scarring you for life or simply do not care to hear about how my son was born STOP READING NOW. Do not read the post, decide you didnt care for it, and then bombard me with abuse in the comments section.

So, that being said - this is not an overly scary birth story. I didnt give birth in my backyard ( shout out to you Lori ) and i wasnt in agonising pain for days on end. Truth be told, i'm lead to believe my labour was on the " good " end of the scale. I'm not saying it was easy - uh, hell no! - but it wasnt as horrible as some other wanna-be-mummas have had to go through. For starters, my son decided that it was going to arrive 15 days before his due date, and contractions started spontaneously. By " spontaneously " i mean a) that i didnt have to be induced and b) they started in the checkout line at Target. Yep - i decided to hit up the post-Christmas sales, December 27th, 11am, and i'm waiting in line to pay for Powderfingers latest album and a set of 3 baby onesies and.... hey, wait, whats that little niggly feeling? Feels like the waistband in my pants has decided to shrink a little, like it wants to squeeze me to death. It wasnt overly painful, just uncomfortable, so Mick and I continued on to my brothers house for a visit.

It wasnt until we left my brothers house that i decided to let Mick in my little secret. I started timing the contractions - 5 minutes apart, lasting 30 seconds - and when we got home i called the hospital. The midwife said that if my water hadnt broken then i probably wasnt in labour, but if a shower didnt ease the pain i could come in. A shower ease the pain ? Uh, nuh. All the shower suceeded in doing was making me lose timing of the contractions and made me extra-squeaky clean. We got to the hospital ( which is literally a 3 minute drive from our house ) just before 1pm and i was 3 cm dialated on examination. I was definately in labour! We were moved into a suite and by this time the uncomfortable sensation was starting to become a little painful. I was still ok but Mick - aww, poor old Mick. He had said the whole way through the pregnancy he didnt want to be in the suite for the birth and i could see why - poor thing was as white as a ghost, and so far all i was doing was walking in circles rubbing my back! He called my mum and waited til she got there, then i sent him away to get himself some lunch, expecting that we would be preoccupied well into the night.

My mum rubbed my back and helped time my contractions, which were getting closer together. I had an " older " midwife come in, maybe in her early 60's and she broke my water - now let me tell you, for those who dont know, that having your waters broken for you is not fun. Its relatively quick, but it hurts. Once the water was broken, the labour stepped up a notch. I got into the spa and started using the gas but it made me feel disgusting - it made me light headed and i threw up twice. ( NOTE: I kind of lost track of time, so excuse the lack of time frame here ). Besides the nausea, the gas wasnt doing jack for the pain so i got out of the spa and tried walking around the room again. Didnt help. The midwife came back and told me it was only going to get worse and i should get back in the spa. Mick came back from his lunch just in time to help Mum get me back in the spa - after which my Mum sent him back out again because he looked like he was going to pass out.

Well - here's where my female bodies natural instincts took hold. It had only been around 4 and half hours since my contractions first began but something, somewhere, inside me was saying " Push! ". I climbed out of the spa, crying and wailing, telling my mum i was going to sit on the loo and i was going to push. She kind of got a little panicked and told me i couldnt do that, it would be hours yet, and i didnt want to hurt the baby. The old midwife came back in and told my mum - " She's being a bit ridiculous. You need to settle her down because its going to be a good while yet ". Ridiculous? Screw you, you old bag, i'm in pain and i'm pushing! ( ok, i didnt ACTUALLY say that, but thats what i was thinking ). After another 20ish minutes of me stalking around the bathroom grunting a young midwife came in and told me that, if i'd come out of the bathroom and hop up on the bed, she'd examine me and see how far along i was. So i did as i was asked, completely panicked and calling out for an epidural. It wasnt supposed to hurt this bad, this early, was it? Seriously, if this was only the beginning i wasnt going to able to cope!

My mum helped me up on the bed, my legs shaking as i let the midwife have a look..... She ducked her back up and said " Sweety, you're absolutely right, you do need to push. The babys ready so whenever you get the urge you push as hard as you can " ( you know, or words to that effect ).So - too late for the epidural then? The first thing i did ? I turned to my mum and yelled " I told you so! ".... and then it was on. I remember saying i wanted to go home, i couldnt do this anymore and, when my mum said she could see the babys head i asked if she could just reach down and pull it out for me. The midwife calmly got herself ready because she didnt think the doctor was going to make it back to deliver the baby, and, even though she said i needed to try and push without wasting my energy on making noise, i screamed and grunted for all i was worth.

And, finally, at 5:05pm i gave one final push and pop! there he was, my little bubba. I say " pop! " because thats the noise it made - i'm going to add in a " woosh! " too because it was like that little dude was coming down some kind of waterslide ( sorry about the mess Dr... ). The doc asked if i wanted to hold him and i was aware enough to answer, but stupid enough to ask " Me? ". Uh, duh, yea Amy.... its your baby. My mum called Mick in after the midwife had cleaned me up and he had the first hold after Flynn had been cleaned up a bit. My dad, with his impeccable timing, had turned up to see how i was getting along, so we let him in too, at which time Mick and I told them that the babys name was Flynn Charlie - we'd manage to keep the name a secret up til then.

So there you be - 15 days early, spontaneous contractions, 6 hours labour, and no stitches - one hell of a first labour if i do say so myself. All of which resulted in this little sprout:

 PS - my apologies to my mother for putting her through an 18 hour labour....
P.P.S Feel free to leave your suggestion for tomorrows post!

I've Reached A Triple Century!

Hello, and welcome to this special, 300th post edition of " New Adventures In Dreamworld ". Yes, thats right, i've reached my 300th post on this version of my blog, and i'm lead to believe this may be cause for celebration. So wooty woot for me!

I was hoping to get an introduction written by my oldest reader for this post, but it seems she may be out of reach ( or so i would be lead to believe by the lack of response. If your reading this Sheena, i still love you... ). I was also hoping i could get some big celebrity guest to pop by and tell you how much they love me - but, unfortunately, i dont actually know any celebrities and turns out i cant afford to buy Johnny Depp/George Clooney/Drew Barrymores adoration. And so, in lieu of having no celebrity spruikers and one missing-in-action reader, i thought i'd trawl through the past 299 posts and bring you my Top 5. These post are either my favourite because i enjoyed writing them, i enjoy re-reading them, you people seemed to enjoy them or they relate to a beautiful memory. In chronological order:

1. You Know That Album? This one was about my favourite album from high school. Music has always mattered to me, but it really meant something during  my high school years. This was also one of my first posts on this blog, and it got good reception from my (few) readers at the time, so this was a post that sticks out in my mind as a "good" one.
2. Amy's Hall Of Attractions A list of the five men i find attractive that illicit a WTF?!? Go on, click the link, check them out.....you  know your curious now. This post was fun to write and it got good comment action. Everyone loves a good list, and theres always debate who's included, who isnt, and who you'd pick instead...
3. International Relations A co-blog with Andy from WildARSChase. Co-blogs rock ( my services are available if anyone is interested... ) and could this one not? We had an American, an Australian and a whole bunch of stupid generalisations. Andy has since gone on to co-blog with much better writers than me but hey, it was fun while it lasted.
4. The Making Of Me: A 10 Year Retrospective This one is exactly what it says it is, so if you've only come to my blog fairly recently, click that there link and you'll learn a whole bunch about little 'ole me. I would have said that you'd learn everything there is to know, but thats not true - a lady has to retain some mystery. That being said, this was a pretty important blog post. It opened me up to my readers just that little bit more, and i think by sharing with you all, some of past lot a bit of its murk. So to speak.
5. How Was It? Can I Get A Woo Hoo! This post features my famous patented dating scale. Why would it feature a dating scale? Because this is the first post that featured my gorgeous ( now ) fiance. Yep, its the post that i made after my first date with Mick, who then went by the mysterious nickname of Mr Gil. And for that reason, this post gets to be in the top 5... it reminds of my lover-boy and everything wonderful thats happened since!

So there you be - check those out if you missed them the first time round. Now, i know its customary to offer some kind of giveaway for blog milestones and, in truth, i did think about it. But, unluckily for you all, i couldnt think of anything that i could get and give away as a prize so...umm...sorry people. However - i love you guys big lots, and i want to make you all happy ( see, thats the people pleaser in me, coming out again ) so.... i want your suggestions. I'm going to post every day for the next five - which, in itself, is unusual - but i want you guys to pick my topics. Take yourself down there to the comments section and leave me a comment with what you'd like me to write about this week. Big, small, scary, TMI...whatever you want!

Also, feel free to leave comments telling me how much you love... i like those.
Oh, and PS: if you can help me make it to 50 followers by my 350th post, that would be muchly appreciated also. Thats my new goal!