In a funk

I haven't been myself lately.  At times I feel overwhelmed, like I'm a juggling clown trying to keep all these balls in the air - working, looking after Ella, doing things around the house, being a good wife and so on.  But lately I feel like all those balls are falling around my feet.  I am definitely in a funk of sorts right now.

I often feel like this though and I can recognise the cycle as it comes and goes.  Everything goes along smoothly and then all of a sudden I start to get restless and lose motivation and everything crumbles.  But, thankfully I can recognise when it's starting to happen. Luckily I have a pretty level head on my shoulders so I can talk myself back around and put things in perspective to see that maybe things just aren't that bad.  Make myself realise that sometimes those balls will fall to the ground inevitably, but that overall I am doing ok.

So today when I knew that things were getting the better of me I decided I would go out and enjoy the sunshine with Ella.  It would do us both good to get out of the house and get some fresh air.  We packed up a little picnic and drove to Cremorne Point.  One of my favourite places in Sydney.

We lay on a blanket together.  Ella drank and played and I ate a cupcake and had a good hard think about what was going on in my head and let go of all the things that didn't matter.  I honestly feel calmer and renewed in a way.  It's amazing what a cupcake and a bit of nature can do for you.

This time last year

As a bonus for a tough and busy work year in 2010 my boss generously gave Tim and I a holiday to Vanuatu.  It was just what we needed - time to unwind after a big year.  We had purchased our first home and spent every weekend for a good few months doing it up before we moved, as well as spending time there after work in the evenings so we had very little down time in the latter part of the year.  I had also just fallen pregnant in October and after such a stressful time in the last quarter of the year at work I was exhausted and just needed to relax.

We booked our holiday for the end of February 2011 and counted down the days until our departure.  We'd had a pretty miserable summer here with lots of rain so for weeks all we did was fantasise about lying near the pool or on the crisp white sand soaking up the sun.

We arrived in Vanuatu in the evening and as we stepped off the plane we breathed in the hot and thick tropical air.  It was teeming with steamy rain.  Little did we know that Cyclone Yasi was lingering just off the coast and would challenge us on just about every day of our week long holiday.

The bungalow where we stayed was lovely.  On the first night that we arrived we were told that we were directly in the path of Cyclone Yasi and that it would likely hit in the next day or two.  We felt a bit excited  at the thought until they came to us the next morning to batten down all the windows and provided us with a supply of water and candles in case the power cut out, which if it did, would likely be out for some time and it was then that it got serious and we got a little worried.

Nothing eventuated on the first day and it was difficult to get updates as to the position of the cyclone and what might happen.  It rained constantly and was extremely windy all day long.  The owner of the resort was a lovely Aussie guy and he came to check on us regularly to see if there was anything he could do to make us more comfortable.  The resort was set amongst acres of beautiful established tropical gardens that had been built up over a decade, with lush ferns and big bright flowers.  He walked around the gardens savouring the beauty and sadly told us that when the cyclone hit, it was all be devastated.

That night when we went to bed, we had our backpacks packed with essential items next to the bed and we slept in our clothes with our reef shoes close at hand in case we needed to make a quick getaway.  I thought it was quite funny, but Tim was very serious about our safety and what might happen.  I think his fatherly instincts to protect had started to kick in.

We listened to the wind howl wildly throughout the night, hoping that the beautiful big palm tree next to our bungalow wouldn't come crashing through our roof at any moment.  We didn't sleep well.  All I could think about were the locals living in the villages in their traditional huts and how they would get through something like this. Each time we woke up and heard the strong wind we were sure that this must be it.  Morning came and when we opened our door there was water and debris everywhere, but surprisingly the cyclone hadn't actually hit, it was still just lingering off the coast and we were just experiencing the mild stuff.

The next few days were much the same and eventually the cyclone changed direction and we were no longer in it's direct path and would not experience it's full force.  Still the rain and wind continued though.  We ended up only having 2 almost sunny days which was a bit of a bummer but it was still nice.

Despite the fact that it wasn't the holiday that we dreamed of, these are some of the things that I loved about our holiday:

On the ready in our reef shoes in case we had to make a run for it at night!  And yes, that is my belly...

Amazing sunsets after the storms in the evening

Marvelling at the fact that I had a baby growing inside me

Snorkelling with Timmy on the one sunny day we had

Relaxing on a sailing boat

Banana pancakes for breakfast (every morning) and fresh tropical juice.  Yum!!!

Visiting the turtle sanctuary and seeing all these cute baby turtles

Tim and his lame jokes, but he still made me laugh

Marvelling at my belly and thinking about becoming a mama again...and again...and again.

Oh, to be on a tropical island right now (minus the cyclone)... maybe it's time we booked another holiday.

Summer Days

We've had a strange summer so far here.  Not a great deal of sunshine, a  lot of rain.  But, today was lovely.  Hot but not too hot so we thought it would be a great idea to break out the little pool that Ella got for Christmas.  She loved it!

If you look closely in the 4th picture, you can see her first little tooth poking through.  The tooth next to it has also just broken through the gum but it's too small to see.

Birthday Cake

My boss' girls turned 14 the other day and have a big party planned tonight.  For the last few years I have made their birthday cake so it has become somewhat of a tradition.  This year, they requested a three tier damask cake.  Very mature for 14 year olds don't you think?  I was a bit nervous about making it because I have never used stencilling before, but I was really pleased with how it turned out.

I had a few difficulties along the way...broken oven door when baking the cake, chocolate splitting when I made the ganache (I had to do it 3 times before I got it right!!), running out of fondant...the list goes on.  I know it's because lately I have been focussing on too many things at once instead of concentrating on the present and whatever I am actually doing at the time.  I do this a lot and I turn into an absolute scatter brain so I am trying to be conscious of it and tell myself to just be present in the moment.  Particularly when it comes to dealing with Ella.  Too often I catch myself getting frustrated and angry lately during certain situations, when really I should just take a breath, focus on the situation in the current moment, instead of trying to  rush through, knowing that I have something else that I should be doing.  I feel so much better in myself when I do this.

Serenity now!

Valentine's Day

I am not that into Valentine's Day.  Sure, it's nice to be spoiled with flowers and lovely gifts from the one you love, but really, I just think it's a waste of money.  They always jack the prices up just for the day and so a small bunch of roses jumps from $20 to $100 or more!  It's ridiculous.

I am not huge on presents in general really.  I love giving gifts to other people but whenever it is my birthday or Christmas and people ask me what I would like, I very rarely have a list.  I am happy with the things I have, I am a pretty simple gal so I don't really want lots of things.  'Things' aren't what make me happy.  So when Tim and I were discussing Valentine's Day after seeing an ad on television I told him to make sure he didn't worry about spending money, just a card would be nice.

My Valentine's Day started off nicely, I got a big kiss in the morning from Timmy along with a lovely card.  But from there everything seemed to go pear shaped.  Ella was upset because of her teeth, Archie ate one of her dirty nappies from the bin and then proceeded to throw up on the carpet, I kicked him outside for being naughty and he walked in the mud outside so when he came back in, said mud was walked all over the carpet...I mean all over the carpet!  I was not happy.  I had to bake a cake but the spring in our oven door broke so I had to prop it open with a broom but the cake wouldn't rise properly!  The list goes on and it was only 10.30am!

Needless to say, I was getting a bit fed up with the way my day was going.  I sat on the computer for a little bit of chill out time and then there was a knock on the door...I must admit I got a bit excited.  I don't get many visitors during the week and jumped to the conclusion that Tim must have organised some surprise flowers for me for Valentine's Day.  How romantic!  I told him not to do anything like that but gee I did feel special.  With a big smile on my face I ran downstairs imagining a delivery guy standing there with a lovely big bunch of red roses and maybe a box of chocolates (I have been craving chocolate lately while I have been on my diet).

I swung open the door...and there stood... a little old Jehovah's Witness.  I felt duped!  No flowers.  No chocolate.  Just a little old man wanting to give me a magazine and talk about God.  I did the polite thing and listened to him but when I closed the door I must admit that I laughed out loud.

It may not have been the grand romantic gesture from my husband that I imagined in my head, but it did make me giggle and pick me up out of my slump!

My card from Timmy (I have a thing for Donkeys!)

And no, Archie should not be on the couch either!!

Chomp Chomp

My first tooth came through today!  Bit difficult to get a photo but it is there!

Selective hearing

The last few weeks have been tough.  I have just started working again and Ella has not been sleeping well at night which means that I had been walking around in an absolute haze because I am exhausted.  I don't even work full time so I hate to think how other mothers are feeling out there who have it harder than I do.

Ella has been screaming so much when we put her to bed each night and it doesn't seem to matter what we do, she just doesn't want to go down.  She is fed, her nappy is changed, she's not hot or cold, she just doesn't seem to know what she wants.  It could be her teeth but teething rings and a bit of Panadol don't seem to do anything either.  She's just as frustrated as we are no doubt.  She used to basically sleep all through the night as well but now she wakes several times and it can sometimes take an hour or more to get her settled again after a feed.  I am sure I jinxed myself some time ago by telling people what a great sleeper she was and now it's come back to bite me on the bum.  

During her first few months she suffered from terrible wind pains even though we burped her vigorously after each feed.  We bought some great natural drops which really helped her but  I don't like relying on giving her things like that all the time though even if it is 'natural'.  I want to know what is causing the problem, not just mask it with a quick fix.  She eventually seemed to grow out of the colic stage which was great but Tim is convinced that she is suffering from colic again and this is what is disrupting her sleep.  He bought another bottle of the herbal remedy the other day and gave it to her before bed the other night.

Fast forward to the morning...Tim jumps out of bed at 6.45am goes into her room and gets her up.  I had no idea what he was doing.  He never gets her in the morning when she stirs.  This is left up to me more often than not.  I could hear him praising her for sleeping all night!  He changed her and brought her into the bed and commented on how he hadn't heard her all night and woke up all worried that something was wrong which is why he bolted out of bed to make sure she was ok.  That colic stuff really works - you could tell he was proud of himself for solving the problem of the sleepless baby.

I burst out laughing.  Surely he wasn't serious.  There's nothing demure about our Ella.  She is big and boisterous and I'm sure the neighbours two doors down had heard her scream all those times during the night, but Tim hadn't heard a thing and he sleeps in the room next to her!  Perhaps the colic remedy would be better off being put in his ears to help clean them out!!

He was very sheepish after that, and before he left for work he thanked me for looking after Ella so well because he realised how tired I was after a night of up and downs.  It was nice to get a pat on the back.

While I was making dinner tonight, Ella was sitting in her high chair banging her toys away merrily and then there was silence...  I had to laugh when I looked over and saw what she had picked up and was reading...

Perhaps now that she's read the book she'll now know how to sleep through the night!  One can only dream.

Ella...6 months old

Baby Ella

You are now 6 months old, and yet again I can't say enough how quickly the time has flown.  Not a great deal has changed since the last update when you were five months.  You have definitely mastered the roll now and amuse yourself by flipping from front to back, back to front and so on all day long.  You are very proud of yourself.  We were hoping that you wouldn't work out that you could do this trick in your cot, but unfortunately about a week ago you did.  Since then, you are no longer our good little sleeper.  Instead of laying you down and you simply settling yourself to sleep, you now have to show off your new skill and inevitably you get tangled up in your blankets or in a position that you can't get yourself out of and then you get worked up so you won't sleep.  You're particularly good at doing this at 3am each morning.  We are very tired as a result!

You are almost sitting up without any assistance.  We play on the bed and sit you up and watch as your little core wobbles until you topple over and then you strain your neck as if trying to get up so you can try it again.  You are a tenacious little thing.

You look at us so much more intently now, really stare into our eyes and study our faces when we hold you.  When we talk to you, your mouth makes curious movements as if you are trying to form words of your own and we can tell that you are just soaking everything into your little brain like a sponge.  You also  love to study your hands.  So many times throughout the day when you are lying quietly and we see you just looking at your hand, twirling and twisting it in wonder.

You still don't have any teeth yet but I'm sure it won't be long before two little pegs appear.

Unfortunately on the day you turned six months old we had to take you to the doctor to get your vaccinations.  You kept everybody in the waiting room amused as you vigorously blew raspberries.  You had your shots and were a true trooper!  You cried for a few short seconds and then after a cuddle you seemed to forget all about.  You're so much more resilient than I realise at times.

Happy half birthday Ella!

You're a happy little soul and we love you so much. xx

Your nanny gave you this dolly for your half birthday
and you love to cuddle her.

Spending time and reflecting on January

Last friday night, after our big lunch out for Tim's birthday, we were still so full that all we wanted to do was sit on the couch in loose pants and relax.  And that we did.  Ella was fast asleep so we decided to watch a movie - In Time, with Justin Timberlake.

It wasn't the best movie I have ever seen but it was entertaining enough and I found the concept of the film really interesting, and once or twice you get to see JT with his shirt off so it can't be all bad.  Basically, the film is set in the future in a time where people are genetically programmed to stop ageing at 25 years of age.  Once you turn 25, you have to 'earn' more time or else you will die within a year.  Time has become currency.  The poor live their lives with only a matter of hours or minutes on their clock and have to do anything they can to earn more time or else they will die, but they tend to make the most of the time they have.  The rich on the other hand, have all the time in the world, live for centuries, can have anything they want and don't have to worry about clock watching.

Whilst time isn't exactly currency in the real world for us, it really made me think.  About how I spend my time.  It's actually something that I have thought about a lot prior to seeing the movie and was part of the reason I started this blog.  For a long time I have been coasting through life, day in and day out, happy enough but when I look back I felt unfulfilled because I really wasn't utilising my time doing the things that made me happy.  I was just doing 'things'.  Things that took up my time and didn't really mean anything to me.

So on new years eve when I wrote my first post, I was making a conscious effort to turn my life around and get back to finding me, to the things that are important to me, the things that matter to me and to spend my time focusing on them.  Spending more quality time with my family and friends who mean the absolute world to me.  Getting back to my creative old self - I've studied art and graphic design, I love to draw, I love to write, I love to make things, but I let all that slip by as I sat on the computer looking at Facebook and Twitter, or by sitting on the couch watching television shows like Lost.  Incidentally, now that really was a bad return on my time investment!  I loved that show, watched it religiously and looked for every little hidden thing that might mean something or tell us what the island really was, and then they gave us that ending.  That crappy, crappy ending.  Yep, definitely a poor investment right there.

Since becoming a Mama I have had to adapt and become more efficient in the everyday - I amaze myself at times with the things that I can do within an hour and a half while Ella is sleeping if I put my mind to it.  Makes me think how much extra time I used to have on my hands before I had a baby and how little I did with that time.

So we're a month into the year and since my resolve to consciously look at how I spend my time in 2012 I have been starting to get back to my old self and back into the things that I love, or more importantly, not focussing on the things that don't matter.  I write here regularly and love getting my thoughts out of my head so it's clear again.  I've started several craft projects including some beautiful long stitches that I intend to hang proudly in Ella's nursery.  I even bought a cute elephant cushion project to sew for our new baby niece - I haven't tackled that one yet because I really have no idea how to sew.  But I intend to learn.

I've also consciously changed my diet, eating habits and stopped wasting so much of the food that we buy each week through meal planning.  I've started exercising again and have already lost over 2 kilo's.

But every now and then I creep back to my old time wasting ways.  Dr Phil still calls me to the couch and I spend too much time stalking on Facebook and playing Bejewelled Blitz.  So after watching the movie, and being reminded again to refocus on not wasting time, I removed the Facebook and Bejewelled Blitz apps from my iPhone and magically I have gained an hour a day to do something constructive with my time.  That's just two small things that have given me time in my day to do something more purposeful.

It's not easy to change old habits, but I'm trying and feel like I'm well on my way to getting my old self back.  I'm making the most of my time and filling it with things I love, and things that will help me become the person that I want to be.  And slowly the things that don't really matter in my life are melting away.