So much for updating on Wed.....

Its now Saturday and I had said I'd come back after my MW appt on Wed to update. Oh well, its been one of THOSE weeks. Children not wanting to go to sleep at night, then deciding to wake numerous times overnight and then just other stuff happening as well. I've not felt in a particularly blogging state of mind

So.... all is perfect from my MW appt. Bub has now decided to assume the "go" position and even start engaging - 4/5 above. They're bound to change their mind in the next few weeks on that though! BP, fundal height, foetal heart rate etc all good. No concerns and we're onto weekly visits

Now the negotiations begin for hubby to arrange time off work or working closer to home. The more I think about it the more concerned I am that he's just not going to be here for the birth and we would both hate that. I'm desperately hoping that he can negotiate to work in the city around the time Bub is due - even if it means he doesn't get his week of R&R. At least that way he's only a half hour away - I can cope for that long on my own!

Its been a rather testing week for behaviour with the girls. As mentioned above, sleep at night has been a major issue. We've had nights of them not going to sleep until 9.30 or 10pm which is just ludicrous and daytime behaviour has shown just how tired they are (and me too - I would have to be honest and say I'm not coping with losing my downtime before sleep) I'm not sure WHAT the issue is but they're both out of sorts with sleep. G is all over the place with her day sleeps. I think she's ready to be on one but even getting her to go down for that can be difficult. She's currently been in bed for about 40 mins and I can still hear her chatting and playing. At least she's not upset though. I was hoping that I'd be able to get a better bedtime routine happening this week with kindy getting oh so close. Only 3 more sleeps now! Thank goodness they're only half days the first few weeks so that we can have quiet time in the afternoon to hopefully catch up

And on that note.... all the things I still need to get done ready for kindy start - labelling everything, re-washing and ironing the school dress (I don't iron!) and making sure we have everything ready to go seeing as Monday is daycare/work and kindy starts on Tuesday. Its going to be a busy weekend. Well, it will be if I can ever get motivated to start on stuff!

Other news this week - I'm an aunt again! My much anticipated nephew arrived on Thursday and we went to visit yesterday. He is gorgeous and Miss A is in love with him. She just kept looking at him and saying how cute he was. G was intrigued but mostly didn't really care! It will be interesting to see how they feel about their sibling in about 5 weeks

34 weeks!

I'm not really sure whether I feel this pregnancy is going fast or if it seems to be lasting for ages but here we are with just 6 weeks to go (although that could be shorter or longer depending on which date we choose to work with!)

For the most part I feel this pregnancy has been fairly cruisy. I've had a few mini crises - a scare that I may have GD when I stupidly did a urine test at my hospital booking in appt just a few days after Christmas and still riding the wave of junk food overload, a small bleed very early on and the latest, a baby who feels the need to go transverse AS they are being palpated at my last MW appt.

In general though I can't complain. My heartburn has been less, I have felt mostly able to continue on as normal until quite recently when I've become quite tired (but sleep deprivation and stress will do that to ya) I have, of course, felt too lacking in energy to be able to vacuum or mop - just as well there is a husband about now and then to do these things ;)

Now however, the discomfort and sleep issues are starting to set in. I've found lately that I've been feeling very tired and have often fallen asleep on the couch. Of course, the warmer weather and having so much on doesn't help. I think I'm in the post Christmas recovery period still - and yes, I do realise Christmas was a MONTH ago!

Last night I had a terrible night. I went to bed when I started to fall asleep on the couch, read for a few minutes and was out like a light. Hubby came in some time after me and I heard him come in and turn the light off but that was about it. I then woke at midnight feeling very hot and sweaty and then also heard A wimpering. So I got up to her and managed to get her resettled only to find that I couldn't settle as I was too hot. I ended up getting up again and shutting up the house and turning the air-con on. After that I was pretty much straight back to sleep....

Until 2.30 when I heard A again! She had complained of a sore tummy and was complaining of it again. I opted this time to medicate and gave her some Panadol. 10 minutes later she'd still not settled so I went into her again. Feeling so tired that I couldn't think straight I suggested she come into our bed for cuddles - we were both asleep again within minutes. I was then woken at 5 by hubby's alarm - fly out day! Five minutes later his taxi arrived and the stupid driver tooted the horn! Thankfully, I then slept until 7 when G woke. She came in for her morning cuddle and a feed and we snoozed until 8 when A woke.

I took forever to get my head working this morning and am still feeling quite out of it! I'm also quite tender in my belly and pelvis from tossing and turning so much overnight. Think its time to invest in that crane to help me manoeuvre in bed!

We finally got around to taking a photo of my belly again last night. Its been far too long since the last proper one and boy, do I feel huge when comparing the two. I'm also about the same weight now as I was full term with G but I started quite a bit heavier having not quite lost my weight from my pregnancy with her. So in the long run I've gained less weight. Although, the constantly wanting to eat to stop myself feeling sick could see that change very quickly.

Anyway, photos!

No time to blog

I'm guessing its going to be easy to tell the weeks hubby is home as I won't get in here and ramble. I'm actually sneaking some time to myself while he looks after the girls but not sure how long I will have.

I've made some progress on the nursery front. Ok, so its not a nursery, its just a nursery corner but at least its a step in the right direction. We once again can't really set up our real nursery as we need the spare room for my mum as she'll be up as the girls' support person. Just have to confirm with her the dates she'll be available etc and then make sure there is a proper space for her.

Feeling like the house is a bit chaotic at present but better than it was on Wednesday! We put the girls into daycare on Thursday so that we could go to an appointment and then get some housework done. Its impossible to tidy and clean properly with them around so it was nice to make the most of the day and get the house almost spotless. Thank goodness hubby was prepared to do all the vacuuming and mopping though as I just don't have the energy to get through it all these days.

Anyway... nursery corner. I moved all of the bits and pieces out of our room to the shed. We had for some reason managed to accumulate a lot of stuff in there. I guess that's one downfall of having a large bedroom - too much space to fill. Thankfully there was space in a cupboard in the shed for me to move it all to (sewing, Avon and gift stuff) and then I got stuck into putting up the decal thingy. I'm really pleased with how it looks. I've been wanting to get it up for ages anyway so it was nice to finally get the chance.

They're not the greatest photos but once the corner is fully set up I will post some more

What else was I going to go on about? I have no idea! I know I was going to post some recent photos of the girl though so here we go.....

Loving the piggy tails on them both at the moment. Its very exciting to finally be able to put them on G after so long! I know that we could do them on A WAYYYY before this!

Oh yeah, G is 17 months today. I can't believe how fast that has gone. Why does it make her seem so much older? Is that we're fast approaching another half year? I don't know. Her development of late has been amazing. I know I blogged last week about things but again she has astounded me with her new words that she is attempting. She has tried to say both Adam and Raelene this week! *giggle* Wonder how long it will be before she's using them with attitude to get our attention?!

And there goes Cinderella.... A has taken to role playing at the moment and her favourite role is as any of the Disney princesses. Today seems to be Cinderella's turn and daddy has to play Prince Charming to her Cinderella. She's just bolted past because "its midnight" but then had it pointed out to her that she couldn't be found because she didn't leave a shoe. The great shoe search has begun so I'm sure I will have another room to tidy up again before long.

OMG.... not quite a glass slipper.... an el cheapo Croc style shoe has been left by Cinderella departing the ball

I'm SUPPOSED to be working

But today trying to type sleep studies is making ME want to sleep. Its all copy and paste and data entry (as I didn't bring the template home last week so did just the straight typing then)

Wondering how long I'm going to drag it out and how much time I can make up on it!

I keep going off into day dream land and trying to work out ways to be able to continue to do some work from home once Bub arrives. I think trying to work around 3 kids could be difficult unless this one is a good sleeper and Miss G decides to become one as well (although she is asleep now which is why I'm getting a chance to work on this)

There are always going to be kindy days..... 1 full and 2 half days a week with only 2 kids in the house (and to begin with only one kid in the house)

The delights of......

Ashleigh & Gabriella

I feel like I mostly post on forums about the things my girls are doing wrong so thought it time to post all the positives I can think of about them (and the irony, this may be brief as I can hear them getting up to mischief)

So our "big 4 yee old"
Far too grown up already. Its amazing how much she has developed mentally over the last I'd say 6 months. In the last few weeks alone she has become an adept chatter on the phone. Mum commented the last time they spoke about how wonderful it was that Ashleigh was actually volunteering information as opposed to answering questions. They had a really long chat. Last night Adam rang and I think I ended up speaking to him for about 10 mins.... the phone call was around half an hour! It would appear her attention span is improving markedly

She really is wonderful with her little sister. Last week she changed her nappy for me *wub* I had removed the old nappy already and was letting her have a nudey run but heard Ashleigh comment about getting wipes and a nappy and next thing I know Gabriella has a new nappy on and she'd done a fantastic job - it even survived a sleep!

Her drawing skills have improved a whole heap as well and she now draws people with faces, bodies and limbs as well as being obsessed with them all having copious amounts of curly hair! She can recognise most if not all of her letters and when we read at night we will often choose a book with limited words. We have an initial read and then go through again with her picking out all the letters. She can write her name if reminded of the letters - I'm sure it would have been easier if we'd named her Bob. She will also write other things more than happily if told the letters to make up each word and she loves to make cards/letters for people

98% of the time she has beautiful manners and now rarely needs reminding to use them. She knows exactly how to ask for things but does still forget. Mummy is a bit of a nasty on this and picks her up on it every time if she forgets ;)

We have been working on getting her to be less chatty to strangers as she was too keen to volunteer information. One of our rules is that if mummy or daddy are speaking to someone she is allowed to speak to them. This can backfire though when she finds someone that we've spoken to especially interesting. While away during the week we visited friends who have a French guy there studying farming in Australia. Once I had been introduced to him Ashleigh asked if she could speak to him and proceeded to spend the next hour constantly chatting to the poor guy while he tried to have his lunch break in peace. I'm sure he was glad when we left

She swings between being desperate to have photos taken and flat out refusing to stay still for the camera. Her latest thing is that she wants video taken but its almost always of something silly. I've taken to telling her that we have very little battery left in the camera now ;)

Ashleigh seems to be getting very excited about the new baby and the other day as we walked through Target she told me that she wanted the baby "right now" I suggested that may not work out too well and told her we had to wait a bit longer. She has to go to kindy for a while before the baby is ready to be born. We've been looking at youtube for videos to prepare her for the birth just in case she is awake during it all and I've discussed again with mum (briefly) about being their support person. I'm really quite excited to think that this time my mum could very likely be present as well as our two beautiful little girls but I'm not going to be pushing anything too hard with any of them - its all up to them. I'll already have hubby, my MW and student MW

Its hard to believe that in a few short weeks she will be starting kindy (and there are bound to be many tearful mummy posts about that one)



Gabriella
Nearly 17 months and mostly a total delight. Sure, she is learning nice and early how to crack tanties but I guess that is to be expected when she has a role model

I had honestly forgotten how gorgeous this age is though. Its so amazing watching her learn and try new things. Lately she has been trying to jump and skip and does the cutest little movements trying to keep up with her sister skipping.

Her speech is another thing that has taken off. I wish I'd kept a notebook handy lately as almost every day she comes out with another 2 or 3 words. This morning I asked her if she wanted breakfast and she repeated it back to me (of course I wouldn't have known quite what it was had I not just said the word). She will try to repeat almost anything and is more than happy to try it over and over until its almost perfect

Night sleep is now mostly a wonderful thing. Normal bedtime at the moment is around 8pm but some nights the girls play for an hour or so before finally settling. I'm trying to just go with this as it makes my evening more relaxed but when they're getting loud its hard to leave it be. However, once they are asleep they both tend to sleep well and we're getting through until nearly 7 most mornings at the moment. I would love it to be longer but can live with that

She absolutely adores her big sister and has taken to giving her random cuddles. Unfortunately she can be a little too intent on giving the cuddles and ends up being a little rough but its mostly not intentional. The other day Ashleigh was crying and Gabriella went up to her and cuddled her. It was the sweetest thing

Its obvious that she really doesn't understand about mummy having a baby in her tummy but that's to be expected. She does still love to blow raspberries on my ever increasing waistline though and gets the giggles every time. She also thought I was a great climbing implement the last time my MW came for my check up. We do still have lovely sitting up cuddles with her little belly curved around my belly and her sweet little head resting on my breasts (or more often between them) Thank goodness she still fits on my lap

And now it would appear to be sleep time as I am hearing tears on and off. When we get it at the right time her day sleeps are perfect so I have to keep an ear out for her cues (its taken a long time to recognise them with her)

I might get brave and attempt to post some photos later....

Babble babble

Sometimes I wish I could just switch off from life - stop being an adult and forget all the stresses associated with it. Why can't I go back to being young and carefree and just not having to worry?

This being an adult thing can just be all too hard.

But.... then I look out the window and see two beautiful little girls running around half dressed and half wet and think that to have created those two makes it all worth it. I watered the garden this morning and of course that resulted in some puddles so they've had a ball out there (even though there really wasn't much water to play in)

I'm thinking we need to buy a sprinkler (our retic is stuffed) and water the garden with that as the hose watering is getting to be a bit much and I can't keep carting around watering cans of grey water either. If we only use the sprinkler at the appropriate times then the girls can get out there under it as well. They just adore it. G was constantly trying to get under the hose while I was watering and giggling her little heart out.

Must run though... seems Miss 4 thinks she needs to be talking to Master nearly 3 over the fence today which is resulting in yelling.....

Tis time to blog

This is one of those works that has probably been in progress for a long time and should have been acted upon sooner. Thank peer pressure for it coming to fruition. At least now I can ramble all I want without worrying about boring people or looking at read counts and wondering why noone replies LOL

But as always, this is being cut short as the child/ren are calling. I'm sure that will be a regular occurrence over the course of my blogging.

However, I want to set myself some goals with my blog. The most important one being that I want to record my children's history. This will mean going back through forums and finding posts and copying them to here for future reference. This will be a very long process but very worth it in the long term when I can quickly reference my children in one place

I would also like to see myself post at least once a week with a basic rundown of what has been going on. They all grow up far too fast and I know there are many things that I've not recorded for my second child that I did for my first. Number 3 is probably going to be even more forgotten!