Leach

Long time in coming

2007-03-06T03:41:00.000-08:00

Well, I'd almost given up this blog, but just received Peta's today and I thought it was so nice to get all that info and photos. I thought while I had the energy (it's 10.40pm) I should update.

Manny is pulling himself up on everything. 3 days ago he started letting go and standing for a few seconds. Still no balance, so walking should be still a fair way off. Thank goodness. I feel that my little one still has a few things to learn before he starts walking. 5 teeth in the last 3 months. Manny loves to have a bit of a chew on my shoulder while I hold him. I tell him no and he gets upset, but then tries again, crazy kid. We also have some waving happening, beating of the chest ( I certainly didn't teach him that), lots of babbling first thing in the morning when he is FULL OF BEANS yessiree.

Anyhoo, enough of the text, I'll post some photos. I am too lazy to write captions, as it has taken me soooooo long to upload all of these. Suffice it to say they cover from Christmas to the present, family and friends, the beach and Paterson, New Zealand and the local park.

2006-11-26T20:42:00.000-08:00

Well, the news is we've bought a house. Hmmm. From nothing to baby + house + mortgage in so little time. Surprising for us all. The house is two bedrooms plus studio (with bathroom) and, as many others would have it, gamesroom/weights room/guesthouse/study/cabana/just a bloody garage with the roller door blocked off. Needless to say, we are all very chuffed and looking forward to moving in and seeing all of you on your visits to OUR house to use your gamesroom/weights room/guesthouse/study/cabana/just a bloody garage with the roller door blocked off. You all know who I'm talking to.

Meanwhile, Manny seems to be teething (no teeth yet - but boy, can he bite hard) which is being accompanied by the usual rotten moods that go with such a state of what I can only imagine to be nasty annoying toothy head pains. He's still rolling, and how! So much more dexterous each day. He can now get up into the charming 'humping' position, but much prefers to go all the way to legs straight and head ploughing into the carpet position. I've told him that he'll never get anywhere doing that, but he likes it all the same. It's about style, not movement.

We (Manny and me, no Matt :( ) recently spent some time with Chris and Peta and Louka at my Mum and Dad's unit at Port Macquarie, which was really lovely. Peta and Chris were so great to me and gave me a pedicure and manicure (not personally, a lady up the road did it) and looked after Manny for nearly two hours! Chrisso was also personally involved in giving Manny his first bottle (my milk, not formula), although Manny did manage to hold the bottle himself for a bit. We are in training for this weekend, when Penny and Scott come to Sydney to mind Manny for a whole near 24 hours, while Matt and I have a night off to go to the lovely Tony and Angela Maria's wedding. Bit nervous though, as ever since the Chris-Manny bottle bonanza, Manny has steadfastly refused to entertain the idea of my milk in a bottle. Last night we had success with some very watery juice in a bottle and some (gasp) formula in a bottle, but my milk is only good taken from the source. Funny, cause he'll quite happily attempt to eat other things that are not tasty at all (paper, string, fluff, leaves, hair etc) but the thing he loves the most is conditional on the container it comes in.

Rolling not Crawling

2006-10-25T16:58:00.000-07:00

Decency and safety stops me from posting the cute photos I have of Manny in the buff almost crawling, but suffice it to say that he is NEARLY there! Well, who knows. With his nappy off, he is anyway, very mobile. Rolling with gay abandon from front to back and back to front. I never know where I will find him in the night time when I go in to check or feed him. And I don't care what people say, I just can't tuck him in, it's all too scary. I have already found him upside down with head under the covers (and yes you SIDS nazis, he is put to bed with his 'feet to foot') whilst the covers have been still tucked and probably a little too tight for comfort. One of his great inner qualities is wriggliness, and you just can't do nought aboot it.

Matt and I bought him a crazy jumpy contraption a few weeks ago, and now everytime he is help on anyone's lap he jumps like a little frog. Aaaaah, so hilarious, cute and yet SO tiring (for me, anyway - he could go all day)!

Other baby news: Harun (the little Findian) has 4 teeth and is now crawling and 'bear walking' (YAY!) and Louka is laughing and smiling. Here are just a few cute photos of all the little (and big) boys from the month gone:

Harun the wonder crawler and Manny with Matt;

Manny's best side and Harun with Manny in his awful jumpy machine (which he LOVES);

Smiley Louka and Manny on the rug;

Boys BBQing on Peta's birthday
Chrisso and Matt with sleeping Louka.

A few other photos:

I hope these photos work

2006-09-27T15:42:00.000-07:00

Manny

Suz and Poppy and Liam

Hugo in his hat on the trampoline
Pretty smiley Poppy doing her thing

Liam loving it up for the camera

Manny in his hoodie

Manny and Matt

Poppy and Manny down on the floor at Gunning. Poppy has recently started to crawl - backwards! She is so clever!

I have so many more photos..but I guess I will have to try next time as I can't seem to get them to work. Aggrh! This blog thing is very handy for keeping you all informed, but very, very excruciating to use.

Monkey Suits and the Joys of Sleeping

2006-09-01T14:48:00.000-07:00

Well, this will give me a chance to post the rest of the photos I tried to post a few weeks ago, and to tell everyone the most exciting details of my life that I neglected to tell before.

First of all, to anyone who might care and all of you who might have forgotten, it was Matt's birthday on the 15th of this month. He turned 31. Usually we might have a very small barbeque, but usually we don't do anything. You see, my beautfiul husband is one of those people who gets depressed when you mention that they have acquired another year. Why are people like that? It's so morbid! What are they thinking? - "Crap. There goes another year. One year closer to being dead"? Why not think - as many of us do - about the attention, the free drinks and the presents? ANYhoo, my aim in telling everyone is not to try and depress Matt more by having everyone we know congratulate him on his age, but to try and make it an exciting event where people are celebrating him, because, lets face it - there's no point in getting depressed now at the 31st birthday when there are worse birthdays to come.

Here is my Dadda with Manny a couple of weeks ago.

The very lovely Charne new Louka, the new wonder kid and Charne's very first nephew!

Jani and his birthday twin.

Well, surprise surprise, the server or whatever it is seems to be having trouble uploading anything, so no more photos here.

On to the next topic at hand: Matt and I have been looking for a house to buy. We've had a mortgage broker over called Brent who told us we could borrow a LOT of money if we really wanted to. It's very scary, actually. I am sure people DO regularly borrow a LOT of money. Brent, the good man that he is (bit like an old, wise koala), advised us a limit within which to borrow, and we shall stick to what he says.

The house searching has likewise been scary, sad, joyful and quite a learning experience. We made a few offers for a house in Rozelle, that were, as it turns out, too low. Matt let me take control of the whole process, because he is a bit scared of the old monkey suits. Matt is like a small shivery mouse in the eyes of a monkey suit. He feels he will squeak away all our monetary secrets and pay them whatever they want because they are bigger and wear suits and are distant (but so close!) relatives of that other well-known scary predator of the big city jungle - the second hand car meer cat.

I know I should be nicer about real estate agents, after all, probably some of you know some people who are monkey suits and actually think they are lovely people and not at all like monkeys in suits. But when you are the potential purchaser, let me tell you two things: monkeys and suits. That's what they turn into - silly tricksy animals who spruce up their antics with a nice suit and a shiny second hand (or possibly new) BMW, and you can't rely on their word for a moment. One of the monkey suits I spoke to argued with me FOR 45 MINUTES about the folly of comparing the our offer (too low of course) with the price of a property down the road near a park (which SHOULD cost more), because it was right next to a 'looney bin' and 'basically, let's put it this way' he would 'not be happy at all' having HIS kids play there. Turns out said 'looney bin' to be a place where harmless old men are borded, and he doesn't even HAVE kids. I can't even begin to convey his snakey monkey voice over this blog, so I wont try.

Anyway, we're kinda into it now. I figure the best tactic is to appear to be a bit cool and non-commital (the giraffe tactic), or overly enthusiastic and dumb but rich(the Irish Setter tactic), depending on how we feel about the property. It's always fun. Matt now appears to be less like a shivery mouse around the monkeys, and more like a playful young puppy with a touch of scratchy kitten. We'll stop with the animal comparisons there, but suffice it to say he's feeling a little more confident, and I can be very tall if I want to. We found a house we LOVE last night and are just hoping that those other home hunters Joey and Baerin aren't bidding on it too, because my giraffe and Matt's puppy would be slain by their majestic lion/lioness cunning and knowledge of the big scary jungle meet, the auction. Ok, no more animals.

Manny has gone through leaps and bounds in development in the last week. When we went to Gunning to stay with our beautiful Suzie, Liam, Hugo and Poppy, he was not rolling over very much (or trying), or being as verbal. This week, he wakes up every moring ready to regail me with song and story and squeaks and screams, and without the old nappy on has become pretty good at rolling over from tum to back. He is trying, but not succeeding, to roll the other way too. He sure succeeded the other day though, when I left the side of his cot off and he rolled on to the floor. Quite shocking for both of us. I now know how quickly these things can happen.

I am not getting as much sleep as I used to, because Manny has now started to wake up at 545am instead of 630am, and wake joyfully for a chat sometimes at 3am as well, and I look very terrible. Day sleeping for me - a boring and irksome task for me since I was about 2 years old - is now an activity that I engage in with jealous and uncertain joy. Thank god for YSL's Touche Eclat for those days where I want to appear a little less haggard, even though I'm probably not fooling anyone because I feel rubbish and obviously for the cluey lady at the baby shop down the road I might as well have pencilled bags under my eyes with a number 6B pencil. Oh well.

As I said before, Manny and I left poor Matt and went down to stay with Suz and her crew in Gunning, which was an excellent holiday that we will be repeating hopefully sometime soon. Poppy, the littlest, is just beautiful and smiley and gorgeous and clever. Liam is two and very FUNNY and, as Suz says, quite contrary. I asked Liam when he was upset if he would like to use my mobile phone to call someone, anyone, even the man in the moon, and he said no, because he wouldn't like him. So CUTE. And Hugo is just the man about town and so SMART and active and excited. They are very cool kids and I love them so much. Must remember to get more pointers on How Not to Nearly Kill Your Child and Make Them Lovely Human Beings when I next see her.

Ok, now to publish and see if the next time I can get some photos in. x

Weeks roll into months

2006-08-30T19:07:00.000-07:00

It seems that it has been a whole three months since Manny was born! Time really does go quickly. I wont bore you all with details, but he really is a delight and I'm sure he's very smart and handsome. Speaking of smart and handsome, the very cute Louka Buddy Alexopoulos has arrived. Siiri and Peta and I with our three boys are a quarter have our very own little mother's club. We also take up all of the footpath with our prams and make a mean breastfeeding trio. Here are some photos of the boys and other people we've seen recently.

Again, have more photos to show, but the system just can't handle it.

Those Photos

2006-08-07T18:02:00.000-07:00

Very Social

2006-08-06T18:50:00.000-07:00

We have been very social this week. Here are some pictures of people we've seen and things we've done.

This weekend we were in Canberra catching up with: the Amazing and Much Loved Patrick and Suz, the Wonderful Liam and Hugo (aka Oscar and Batman) and the New Star Poppy (who is VERY smiley and beautiful and cuddly);

Hilly the Clever and Intrepid Canberra Uni Fine Arts Teacher;

the Very Pregnant yet Still Organised Peta and the National Cardiology Conference Paper Giver Chris and Matty Alfredson the Gracious Canberran Host and All Round Great Guy.

For some reason this stupid website won't let me post the rest of my photos. I will try and post them later.

Home again, home again

2006-08-02T01:34:00.000-07:00

We're back! In Australia. Have found a new place to live, and whilst small, is fine for what we need it for - shelter, warmth, a place to put a bed etc. It's all a bit crap, what with being used to living in the Howard Street Palace, with two bathrooms, three toilets, 4 bedrooms and a new kitchen - but it will serve our purposes nicely. It's a bit like being back in studentville though - we really have been spoiled by Sheila and Gerard, who let us live at Howard St for years - our skylight leaks, our bathroom has inconveniently placed washing machine taps (right in front of the toilet, so that if you hook up the washer you can't use the toilet), the carpet used to be cream, and the kitchen is really just a room for the sink (not much else fits). And there's a cat from somewhere down the street who thinks HE owns the joint. I was startled to wake up the other night to the sound of him head butting the bedroom window trying to get in (he has his special custom cat hole in the flyscreen, but the window was sadly closed), and he stared at me for a good half hour today through the kitchen door, and when I opened up to say hello he hissed at me and tried to smack me with his paw.

Manny is doing really well and we are starting to get him into some semblence of a routine. He has grown - as you can see from the photos. He now weighs somewhere around 5.6kgs and has outgrown nearly all of his socks and bootees - save the ones that Joey and Baerin gave us, which are cute little ug boots and perfect for this chilly weather (ta guys!). Have discovered (much to the chagrin of the anti-dummy brigade - of which, I must admit, I used to be part of) that Manny quite likes a dummy, which is great for us all - he is happy and we don't have to listen to a crying baby. Also, if I wrap him so tightly that he can't move, it's like anaesthesia. Thanks, Tans (who told me that I HAD to wrap the baby).

We have just received a new pram from Matt's ma and pa and aunty Fiona, for which we are very grateful. Prior to this, we had been using a pram that Dad had found on the side of the road, and while perfectly good (aside from a spot of dirt, non - swivel turning, a wayward wheel and a turning circle the size of a semi-trailer), it is nice to have a new one. Up the street from where we live, people had not seen a pram like the old one since about 1984. All things in fashion being cyclical, we are probably due for a bit of 1984 pram fashion-action, so I am keeping it just in case (Dad would only find it again if I put it out on the road - other things are cyclical too).

Well, there isn't too much to say. Even though a lot has happened for us in the past 3 weeks, much of it is hardly noteworthy, mostly about getting back into the groove. We are starting to look for a house to buy... all very grown up.

Manny Manny Manny

2006-07-09T11:02:00.000-07:00

Leaving Ol' Blighty

2006-07-08T04:52:00.000-07:00

Can't believe it. We are only 4 days away from being back in Australia. I am pretty excited, but also a bit sad. London is just so nice in the Summer, it seems a shame to leave when everything and everyone is at their best. Shame that England lost out in the whole World Cup - it would have been really nice for everyone had they won.

Matt is doing one last job - flying to Greece on Sunday to pick up some sick person. Meanwhile, I keep finding things we haven't packed and have no room for. We have four ENORMOUS bags, one of which weighs a whopping 33 kilos. We are well overweight for the flight, but hoping that we can blame it all on the baby. Hopefully Manny will cry on cue if they go to charge us excess, and if that doesn't work, all three of us will have a crack at it (crying).

Back to Matt, he will probably not thank me for posting this on here, but it's all a bit weird and too funny not to tell you all. Matt's last flying - doctor type job took him to the lovely white shoe brigade paradise of Menorca, Spain, where he went to pick up a 58 year old man with manic depression and take him back to Glasgow. 'Ah-hah', I hear you say, 'a depressed Glasweigan - nothing out of the ordinary there' - and to that I say, yes, you're right, possibly there IS nothing out of the ordinary about a depressed Glasweigan. After all, it's very cold up there, people headbutt you out of nowhere, there are only 15 dentists to every 2000 people and the national dish is fried Marsbar - plenty to be depressed about. But this Scotsman is weirder, and for our hero Matt, much more terrifying.

Matt picked up the Manically Depressed Scottish Man and his wife from hospital. Said patient happened to have a mainc episode where, amongst other things, he prayed in a cave on the beach, had been taken hostage by people (possibly born again christians) who dressed him in a golden cape, and made him run down the aisles of a maternity ward making strange noises. He confessed to Matt that although it sounded a bit weird, that's what had happened. It was also bad for his wife, who had woken up and not known where her husband was for hours. Matt wrote in his notes something like 'patient delusional, but has some sense of normalcy and seems lucid'.

This may have lead our hero to think it was ok for the guy to have a few bevvies and watch the football the next night at the hotel. After all, he seemed pretty normal, what, apart from the manic episode, which was a bit out of character really. So our hero and the Manically Depressed Scottish Man partook in footy and a couple of beers. The man opened up and told Matt (nearly) all his problems - which included another manic episode 12 years earlier involving nudity and a very long swim, and problems with his wife of 15 years - and drank what seemed like a LOT of scotch. Time to go to bed (as they had an early flight to catch) so they go to the elevator. Safely alone together in the lift and Manically Depressed Scottish Man decides it's time to get Real Friendly with our hero. Manically Depressed Scottish Man grabs Matt's bottom and tries to kiss him. Our hero gets out at the next stop and Runs Away Very Fast, to Hide in the fire escape and Call His Wife in a Very Panicky State at 2am. I suggest that Manically Depressed Scottish Man is actually a Manically Depressed Gay Scottish Man, who is in such a state because he has never told anyone about being Gay. The next day at breakfast, this MDGSM does not bat an eyelid, and goes on to annoy our hero all the way back to Glasgow, by sitting next to him on the plane and shaking him awake eveytime something vaguely interesting appears out the window. Matt was very pleased to get home.

Well, only 2 more days today. I am taking myself off to a baby store tomorrow to buy a sling so little Manny will hopefully sleep soundly in the plane and not annoy everyone terribly. He doesn't seem to like sleeping in the moses basket we have for him at the moment, so can't see that a little bed in a plane is going to be any different.

Manny can: bear all his own weight if supported
support his own head
wriggle like a worm
almost turn over - he can turn on to his side
smile at me!

See you all soon! xoxox

Wimbledon

2006-07-03T01:04:00.000-07:00

We've been to Wimbledon. Manny and I didn't really see much tennis, but I partook of traditional cream and strawberries and had a Pimms or two in the shade of a big oak tree, while lots of old ladies whispered amongst themselves that 'that baby is too young to be out'. God forbid we should TAKE our child anywhere! But then it WAS a WHOLE 28 degrees, which as we all know is terribly hot for British babies. We had a great day. Check out the security dude behind Matt who obviously thinks Manny is a bomb of some sort.

2 weeks 1 day

2006-06-28T15:24:00.000-07:00

Out and about

2006-06-24T11:58:00.000-07:00

We have been out and about. Japanese restaurant in Penge yesterday (does anyone know how to pronounce that? Matt thinks it's Pengy and that sounds a bit wrong to me), Crystal Palace Park (a bitter disappointemnt), Blue Mountains cafe for breakfast today, the Magdala pub for the Ireland vs Australia union match. I think that's pretty good for a new family with the youngest at only 11 days.

Manny loves to sleep in the sling. Today he was very happy to be out for 5 and a half hours, as long as he was fed when he wanted. He's still feeding constantly, by which I mean every 15 to 20 minutes really, when he's awake. The community midwife came yesterday and weighed Manny, and to my relief he has put on more weight. He now weighs 4.320kg, which is a whole 820grams in 11 days! Again, so glad that all this feeding is doing SOMEthing.

2006-06-22T01:16:00.000-07:00

Yay! The baby is OUT

2006-06-22T00:13:00.000-07:00

13.06.06 after a long time of contracting uselessly, I pretty much begged them to cut Manny out. Which they did, very nicely and not before time either. Manny was occipital posterior and was not advancing down the birth canal. Well, he was, but really, really slowly. His little crown was out into the world almost, but the rest of him was begging to differ. I was hooked up to a FHT which showed his little ticker going sometimes at 185 bpm. Matt kept assuring me that you should only really worry when his heart rate goes way down, up is fine. Manny was clearly not enjoying labour. And neither was I by the 10th hour.

Anyway. So here I am 8 days post baby being wrenched from my uterus. We are all doing well - Matt is a champion father, he is great at getting Manny to sleep and loves to have cuddles and chat with Manny. Manny is feeding really well and sleeping (up until last night at least) amazingly. Manny has put on 500grams in 8 days - which is unusual - the midwife tells me that babies usually lose weight in the first week, so Matt and I are very happy. Perhaps he is going to be really tall. My c-scar is great, no pain relief needed for 5 days now. My tummy is shrinking and on last weigh in I have only got to lose 5 kilos to get back to my pre-preggers weight. Yay!

I love to sit and watch the fleeting expressions rushing across Manny's face. Where does he get them from and what do they mean? I know most of the world has done this having a baby thing before, but it's all so new to us. I keep looking at Manny and I can't quite believe that we made him.

Well, after a truely monsterous night of pretty much no sleep last night, I have finally managed to convince Manny that bed is a nice place to be and I really should sleep while he is too. Was just writing to Dan Blenkorn before about the joys of parenthood and multitasking and wishing that I could learn how to sleep and not sleep at the same time.

Waiting...

2006-06-11T03:14:00.000-07:00

Here we are waiting for the child to arrive. I have had pesky false labour all last night which kept me awake (those false labour contractions are still ouchy). Just when, after 4 fours of monitoring contractions which were lasting for 1 minute each at 4 minute intervals, I thought that it could be time to ring Matt at work and wake up the Mums (Sheila and Cathy) and say WOOHOO, they petered out and I went to sleep. Very annoying.

Met a lady down the street today with a little one, and after some brief chit chat about how big I am, due any day now, actually OVER DUE, I asked her about false labour and, as it turns out, she had 2 days of it before true labour started for her. Well, at least it's a sign. I am hoping he will come tonight or tomorrow morning, as Sheila has togo home on Wednesday, and I will feel terrible if he doesn't make an appearance before then. I am also highly irritable, fluidy and fat and uncomfortable. It doesn't help that the weather has decided to be warm all of a sudden, which has turned my ankles into cankles and has reduced the level of feeling in my fingertips to 4/10. Woe betide the occupants of this house if they even so much as swallow too loudly when I am contracting!!!

Meanwhile, in the non-pregnant world, the World Cup soccer has started, and the general population here has gone a bit, well, fruity. That combined with some reasonably cheery weather has every man, woman and dog in tiny back yards with nary a shred of clothing on save some underwear slaving over these weird 3 pound disposable 'barbeques' they have here. Everyone is mighty cheerful and a little hung over seeing as England won their first match last night. There are more St George's flags in this neighbourhood than you can poke a stick at, and it is de rigeur to have a 'twin set' of window mounted flags on your car which either makes your vehicle look (depending on the size of the flags) like a dog with flappy ears or just plain ridiculous. Never the less, I feel privileged to be here while everyone is in such fine spirits. It's a bit like being in Sydney with that weird super nice euphoria that happened when we had the olympics, except no one is singing on the bus or stopping anyone to ask if they are lost or need directions, because if you can't find the nearest pub showing the latest world cup match then you are obviously aren't worth talking to.

Well, hopefully the next time I write it will be to spread word about our fabulous, smart, good looking and totally amazing son.

2006-05-28T15:48:00.000-07:00

Here I am at nearly 37 weeks. Nice and rotund.

Sick of Sharing

2006-05-27T02:52:00.000-07:00

Wow, this is my first ever blog. All very exciting - set up for us by the fantastic and ever organised Peta. Needless to say, even though this is OUR blog (Matt's and mine), Matt thinks writing anything is inherently nerdy and you wont be hearing from him.

This month has been incredibly long. I have finished work, put my feet up and then recently decided that my feet are very bored. I know that before the spawning of one's children it is both traditional and smart to relax. People think it is funny to tell me that I 'better enjoy this rest now' because I 'wont be getting another one for 12 years'. Am trying to remember all the really annoying things that people have been saying to me through this period of body sharing, and trying to remember never to say them to anyone else.

Also sick of being pregnant. It's been lovely, but I'm really over it now. I am puffy, carpal tunnely, tired, I snore constantly (sometimes even when I'm awake - but more on that later), my hips are a little painy, I can't eat as much as I want to, and just want Dongle out. Today would be fine, then when I do sleep, at least it will be silently and on my tummy. Not to say that Matt and I aren't VERY excited to be coming into parenthood, and really excited about seeing our son, it's just that we are very happy for it to be now and not very much later (oh please, please).

And this snoring thing. It's true - my membranes are all swollen up and if I relax too much I'll have a little snort when I'm fully awake. It's all glamour here in pregnancy land. Don't let anyone tell you any differently.

Wales

2006-05-25T18:17:00.000-07:00

2006-05-25T18:14:00.000-07:00

26 Weeks