Nanas Buns

This was my obsession this morning so the boys and I bashed out a batch before they headed off to Play Centre. 10 mins later, sultana buns all to myself, best eaten hot out of the oven, just like I used to make with Nana Hopkirk on our special mornings together before I started school. I'd catch the bus with the other kids but get dropped off at Nanas a mile down the road. We'd bake, feed the chooks, hang the washing, all the very grown up things. This is one of my earliest memories. I wonder, did it only happen once, or was it a regular occurence?

I wonder what the boys will remember of these days in their life. Big Brother is into role playing, and gets right into character. The last couple of days he has been a dog, and refuses to answer to his name. He has bounded around the house on all fours, barking. He's definitely a more obedient canine than child, much less argumentative. The other morning at the beach he spent some time throwing sticks into the sea then fetching them...in his mouth. He also has been a dragon, an otter, a rhino and his favourite one at Play Centre is a flamingo (he calls them maflingos). Each character is well researched, so I am fielding a stream of questions ...Do dogs chase cats and rabbits? What do otters eat? Would a brachiosaurus eat a crocodile? Do rhinos swim? We had tears the other day when he got into an argument with another 4 yr old over what noise a dragon makes when it breathes fire.

Little Brother is largely a willing sidekick in all these scenarios. He has two main points of conversation - Why? and NO! This morning as he climbed into bed with me he kissed the baby belly then said - Look! The baby's got a nose! I explained that its actually just my belly button/ turkey timer. The turkey should be cooked.

Meanwhile the baby has chosen not to be born today. I'm trying not to focus on it. When it happens it will be a memorable event for us all, I'm sure.

Due Date +4

Waiting for Christmas is so much easier than this waiting.
Probably because Christmas day doesnt get to decide when it will come. We dont spend all December wondering if today, when we wake up, Santa will have been round with his bulging sacks, and dispensed his goodies. We know a certain number of days till have to pass until the date specified, and then we will be rewarded.

This baby is my Christmas and its hard to accept that for all my illusory notions of control, he or she has the upper hand. And the upper foot upper under my ribcage. And another foot palpating my diaphragm like a jackhammer on a roadworks site.

I am torn between enjoying what I know from experience will be a relatively calm period before the new born storm, and just wanting to know, just wanting that first cuddle, just wanting (right now) the pain and the euphoria.

Ive been reading some Eckhart Tolle to help me stay 'In the Now'. Ive also decorated the toilets with pretty photos, rearranged the baby room, installed the newly built change table, eaten a fair few hand made chocolates (sorry aunty betty you just dropped off the present list), learned 3 songs on the ukelele, put up a swing in the trees for the boys, started my latest writing project, and cleaned out all the rubbish from that spot under the front car seats where all the discard detritus from the back seats ends up getting squished into.

So if you were waiting sweet baby for any of those things to be completed, then please feel free to use my body as a pre-stretched means of making your grand entrance. Anytime now would suit us...did you have any dates in mind?

All quiet on the western front

D day arriveth.
Finally that day marked in the diary ALL those months ago, after my 12 week scan. How far away it seemed then! 4th december, baby due exclamation mark exclamation mark!

So Ive done what you do on due days....hovered around home, snacked regularly (very limited and rapidly shrinking window of eating for two at this stage so must take full advantage), cleaned the toilets (just incase the baby wont come until toilets are sparkling), and chocolate coated 150 truffles for xmas presents. Well, Mum did suggest getting on with the jobs that I'm not likely to have time for soon. Feeling rather pleased with myself, in a headily chocolato nauseous way. Chances of them lasting til xmas is probably proportional to the number of days I go overdue divided by the factor mentioned before - shrinking window of open ended eating.

We also got photos of me and the boys in profile, with balloons up their shirts.

So, baby, its your move.

2 days to baby due list

Reads something like this.
1. Go into labour
2. Have the baby
3. Get sore nipples
4. Enjoy the miracle of life

I have flicked the switch between happier to have the baby inside (less nappies, more sleep) to would rather it just came now, thanks. Its all to do with the sleep - I'm up and pottering around at night now, sore hips from lying in one place and microbladder are driving me out of bed so often I may as well be doing the baby things too. I want to see my knees again. I want my abdominals back, and to be able to stand up and put shoes on. But mostly I just want to tick off my list... go into labour...have baby.....get sore nipples and spend hours looking at the fruits of all my eyebrow production, and cartilage building, and just be in awe of the miracle of new life.

Dinner at Wagamamas

Just like the old days in London, tonight we celebrated at Wagamamas, perched out on the edge of the harbour at Queens Wharf. Same great food, edamame, katsu curry, raw juice. What has changed in the last 6 years since I last went to one of these great noodle bars is that we now have 2.8 children making swords out of chopsticks and dropping their noodles all over the floor, smearing the windows with fizzy sticky fingers. Also different was the fact we have eaten and are back home in PJs tucked up by 8.12 pm.

6 years ago, or longer. Time goes by. Am a bit nostalgic all round tonight as am on the eve of my 35th birthday. Might be time to invest in a skin care routine and some of that anti wrinkle night paste that's made out of sheep placentas. My eyesight has already gone (been wearing nana specs for 27 years now). I'm not even going to mention my bunions, except to the saleslady in the Kumfs shop. Its probably nearly time to decide what I'm going to do when I grow up.

Perhaps I'm being a little dramatic. Big Brother has been scaring me all day by running around the house screeching in a horrible high pitched voice 'WE'RE GONNA LIVE !' then in the low pitch 'WE"RE GONNA DIE', over and over again. (No idea where he picked that line up, except he's got it a bit wrong and says 'we're gonna lift' - 'we're gonna die'.)

Still, I suppose he is right. Cancel the placenta order, who cares how old I look as long as I'm laughing. No use getting all 'agey' about it now. Heres to the next 35 years of lift-ing.

19 days til baby due list.

Funny how life slips into a routine and the days fly by. Especially when you go to bed at 7.30 pm and get up at 7am, and hopefully fit in a couple of hours quality rest in the afternoon. In my eighth month of pregnancy, this is my main aim - banking sleep.

And of course, completing the jobs on my lists. I hit my stride with the 33 days til baby list - 33 tasks for each myself and my delighted husband. We are now onto the 19 days til baby due list and things are surprisingly getting done faster than expected!

Baby clothes washed, bassinette organised, bag packed incase required for dash to hospital.
New bed built and shelves painted to go into the garden shed (perhaps not quite so critical in terms of a newborn but while I'm nagging about everything else I may as well go to town! Amazing how few people will argue with a woman with a belly like a basketball).

Theres been a few other less than critical jobs to complete - like rolling up the towels to go into the bathroom basket so they look like the ones in hotel toilets. Again dont mess with the pregnant crazy lady - my friends are coming back in a month to see how tidy they are then.

Positive birthing thoughts have been posted on the fridge. This is so everytime I reach for the milk for a cuppa I can think 'The pain has a positive outcome'. Or when diving in for the tomato sauce 'I will be able to surrender to the pain of giving birth'. 'My body is perfectly build for giving birth' - especially when fueled by those late night chocolate raids.

They call it a delicate time but there is also a certain ferocity in my preparations.

Stay there a long long time

After seven months of moving, visiting, packing and unpacking cars, house sitting and camping, we are finally moving into our new (rented) home this weekend. And as Big Brother put it, we are going to stay there for a long long time.

Its going to be lovely - wee cottage by the sea with a big garden. Who would have imagined 12 months ago things could work out so perfectly. Hubbie is happily installed in permanent job (hooray), boys happily settled into play centre, and me, well, I am happily eating everything I can and getting fatter by the day. Just hitting 30 weeks pregnant there is no denying the inevitable now - I absolutely have to sit down to put on my socks.

There's a precious calm after the storm. Do come and visit us sometime for a quiet cuppa sitting on an unpacked box.