We're off on a little holiday

Alex and I leave tomorrow for my sisters. We will be back on Monday. She is up near Sale which is about a 3 hour drive. I am a little scared of the journey - mainly because most of it is highway that doesn't have any areas to stop at so if Alex is screaming or something I am going to have to pull off the highway to some small town to tend to him. I am going to try to time it straight after a feed so I can hopefully get to Traralgon (about 2 hours away) before his next feed. I am also hoping to stop at Bunyip to drop in on a friend for a brief stop.

So until we return here are a few cute pictures of Alex taken at the shop.

This first one is of Alex bouncing up and down on the big roll of filter wool we have (which makes excellent bouncing material).


This is where Alex sleeps when he is at the shop - behind the counter with us.


Close up of sleepy boy:

I am doing ok - been knitting heaps which has me feeling good - this is a picture of part of the front of the jumper that I am knitting for Alex -

I am eating better most days although after eating beautiful yesterday I have the worst headache today. Not good when Alex is having a needy day and wants cuddles all the time and I am trying to pack for us to go away. We also have mother's group this afternoon and I am considering not going.

Anyhow - hope you all have a few good days while we are away. Until we are back.......

Yes - there is more to life than Wriggles hehe

Howdy all - I do hope you are all well. I am blogging from the shop in a quiet moment - yay!

Wriggles has been good - although Friday he/her discovered my bladder and were either constantly sitting on it or kicking it - It took about 2 hours for me to get them to shift to another spot. Luckily that hasn't reoccurred. I love the kicking - omg I love the kicking so much. In fact I am so totally in love with being pregnant. I told hubbs I would happily stay this way forever. (the only thing I do not like is that a girl at work has to mention every single day that I waddle, either that or she imitates me "look I am waddling like bugsy is" - Grrrrrr I am so ready to tell her which cliff she can waddle off).

We have been buying more things - we got the car seat, and a really cool porta cot with a remote control (hubbs said we needed that!) - it has a light, vibration and music via the remote and comes with a inner layer for newborns so they aren't down so low, and a change table that sits over the top. We are thinking it will be good for the shop. I also lashed out today and bought a nappy wrapper type bucket thingy that was on special (although I am not totally convinced of their merit.). I am pretty sure I will be doing a combination of the cloth nappies and disposables. I also bought a 10 piece cot linen set which is awesome and has so much in it. Very cool.

My sister's dog had puppies this week! Puppies! They are German Shep pups and adorable. The poor mummy dog though - she had 16 puppies! It is her first litter and they were expecting maybe 6 to 8 pups - certainly not 16. Unfortunately 3 were stillborn and 2 didn't survive the first night (they were very small and weak). 11 are still going strong though. Mummy dog is struggling with so many and has an infection that is being treated so her milk production stopped. All 11 pups are currently being bottle fed every 2 hours until Mum's milk comes back (which the vet said will happen once the antibiotics kick in). My sister is very very tired but says she loves them all. Aren't they cute!



Mummy dog frets if they are not with her all the time, and she counts them to make sure they are all there. My sister has started giving me "new mother" advice saying things like "you have to sleep when they sleep" etc. I do hope they do well. At least I know everything is being done to try to make sure they thrive. A friend who is also a wildlife carer comes by every day to help with the feedings and they have heat pads to ensure they are warm enough.

I have also been increasing my yarn\books stash. I bought two books I have been longing to get off ebay - yay - so excited I finally have these books.



About time I reckon. I also had to laugh. one of the lovely sellers of this book also sent me a thank you note and I just loved the notepaper it was written on - just check this out:

Does that mean I finally qualify to join this group? hehe just gorgeous.

I also, after being persuaded by Katt, bought some yummy sock wool. Check these out!

So my stash is well and truly enhanced. I just love all the colors in all of these.

I have started knitting a little cardigan for wriggles (since I haven't got the tools I need to start summer's lovely shawl and I never seem to have the time to go get any shopping other than baby or stuff for the shop). In 2 weeks I have cast it on and knitted one row. Pathetic! My life consists of getting up and going to work, leaving work and going to the shop, leaving the shop at 11pm and going home, falling into bed only to repeat the routine the next day. Weekends are spent at the shop and if I am lucky I get to throw the clothes in the washing machine before we leave (or at midnight).

But all is about to change. Today is the last day we will be spending any extended time after hours at the shop. Hubbs and I agreed that we need to get a room sorted out for wriggles, so from tomorrow onwards I am going straight home from work to cook dinner and he is locking up the shop and coming home to start on the baby room. I hope before this bub is born we actually have a place for him\her to sleep and easy access to a change table, clothing and nappies. That would be soooooo good. Let's see what actually happens shall we? I keep reading that we should be enjoying this time together and relaxing, taking long drives, holidays etc while we still can - Ha! unlikely to happen with everything we have going on.

um - have I told you everything I wanted to tell you? Yeah I think so. If I remember more I will post again.

Take care all and have a great weekend (what is left of it). It is back to cleaning shop stuff I go.

Wriggles!

Something I hadn't mentioned until now was that I booked in for another scan. I just wasn't 100% happy with the last scan at 20 weeks and my OB gave me a form for another scan and said that if I wanted to do it I could, but that I didn't need to as there was nothing to indicate (from what they saw) that there was any issues.

So Hubbs and I decided that if I could get an appointment for the scan soon (as doc said it would have to be done in the next couple of weeks or it would be useless), then I would go for it. I called and they said they were booked out for 5 weeks. Then they said they had a cancellation for Tuesday so I grabbed it.

Instead of Hubbs closing the shop, and coming with me, I decided to brave it on my own, then changed my mind and called my sister 200kms away and asked her if she wanted to come with me. She cried and said "yes yes yes", which I think means she wanted to come. So yesterday we went to the scan together. I knew wriggles was still alive as even in the waiting room I was getting kicked so much, but I still hate scans and I waited for something bad to come out of it.

Anyhow, we got in and he started the scan and we could see wriggles so much better than last time. Still not fantastic, unfortunately due to wriggles being a long way back and me having a good layer of fat on top that is hard for the scan to really see through properly. He tried his very best to scan me thoroughly. But the good news is that the things he couldn't see last time (the left arm and hand and the kidneys) were visible this time and are all perfect! Scan man said stuff like "lovely heart blood flow" and "the blood going to the placenta is beautiful" and used the word "Normal" a lot. I even have a great picture of blood in the chambers of the heart that he said was "just perfect".

We got better video and a better picture: (head on the left, body on the right and I think that is an arm waving about. Anyone hazard a guess as to whether that is knees or something on the far right?).Wriggles is about a day behind in size, which is fine for this stage, and he said it was very good considering I have diabetes, so luckily I do seem to have been able to control it fairly well so far (although my levels have been pretty bad lately, no matter how I try so I think it will be reviewed next time I go to the specialist and probably upped). He estimates wriggles is 822grams right now.

I feel better about wriggles being fine and Hubbs is happy too. Wriggles has learnt a new trick too - now when wriggles is practicing his/her ninja skills I can actually see my stomach move - it is sooooooo cool. I love it. I stop work just to gaze at my stomach. lol everyone at work thinks I am a nut. I am either looking intently at my stomach or trying to type with one hand on my belly feeling the kicks. You have never seen a happier person I tell you.

Shop is going well, but unfortunately there are still far too many late nights for my liking. I have scaled mine back a fair bit and usually I am home by 10pm (after working a full day then heading straight to the shop). Tonight it was midnight but that is a rarity. Hubbs is rushing to get everything done and hasn't hardly been home before 2 or 3 am every day now. We agreed last weekend that we had two more weeks we could do this, then we had to concentrate on the room for wriggles (speaking of whom has just woken and decided to kick the crap out of me - or is just practicing cycling skills or something!).

I have heaps more to show you - like the yummy sock wool I bought recently, but I haven't taken any pics of it yet so it will have to be another day.

Anyway, I had better get to bed before the alarm goes off to get up again for work. Having a treat tomorrow (ummm, make that tonight), work is shouting us to see Spiderman 3 followed by dinner at the pancake parlour (the whole IT department plus partners at their own expense) because we have had a lot of compliments from the business lately on the work we are churning out. yay a night out!

have a good one everyone.

It is definately going to be one of those days.

Before I start, everything is fine with me and wriggles. Wriggles is moving a fair bit and obligingly usually gives me a kick if I say "haven't felt you for a while, how about a kick?". My clothes are a bit of a struggle to keep fitting into now. I am going to have to start buying some a size bigger or something.

The shop is doing okay. We have started getting more stock in, and got a huge order in last night of pet products, aquarium accessories, etc, and got some water plants in yesterday as well. Our first order of fishies should be in Tuesday! yay. Guppies on Tuesday Steff!

But today the shop is closed. It is very unfortunate but unavoidable. Hubbs is best man at his friends wedding today and whilst I offered to keep the shop open today for him and miss the wedding, the bride asked me to also help out making sure the groom, hubbs, and her two eldest boys (7 and 10) got dressed and were at the wedding by 2:30pm today. So we decided the only thing we could do was close for the day. oh well.

So the shop has kept us busy and I left there at midnight again last night after helping hubbs put away some of this large order we got in. He came home at 4am after telling me he "wouldn't be much longer" and me reminding him he is best man at a wedding the next day and "please don't be much longer as you need to be fresh for tomorrow". Hmmmmm

I woke this morning with the wedding stuff going through my head and thinking "ok I have to make sure the Mums flowers are there and get taken with us, the boys have to have their suits on but have to be fed lunch first. I wonder if they have an iron or should I bring mine...." etc etc.

Then it dawned on me.

We haven't bought them a wedding present!

O. M. G.

So I am currently trying to wake a very sleepy hubbs (well I didn't make him work until 4am did I, knowing full well he was best man at a wedding the next day!), and trying to work out where we can rush out to to get a wedding present. We don't have a lot of time - it is almost 9am already and we both have to get ready for the wedding ourselves and then head over to the grooms, make sure the boys are fed lunch, and start getting them ready too - then make sure I get them to the wedding itself by 2:30.

Holy crap I don't have much time. Why am I blogging instead?

(Probably because Hubbs is unwakable and I have to get my frustration out somehow. I have even resorted to opening up my cupboards and looking to see what I can give them as a wedding present! (nothing remarkable in there that i am willing to part with unfortunately).)

ok better go! Busy day ahead.

Happy Mothers Day

I'm still alive - well barely.

You are right in thinking that we have been busy with the shop. It seems neverending and every night has been a very late one. The earliest I have left the shop at night is 11pm - the latest 2am. 2 nights ago I reached my limits and after driving home again at midnight, I cried all the way home. Last night I cracked it again when Hubbs delayed leaving there once again and it was 3 minutes to midnight before we got home. I have had it. There is so much to do there, so much cleaning, organising, doing. But it can't all be done today!

I know why Hubbs is insisting we work so hard on it now. It is because he knows how much work we need to do to start setting up the baby's room, and that we haven't been able to do any of it so far. yes we bought a cradle but it is still sitting in bits in a back room. The baby's room is so full of other crap right now that you open the door and you are literally lucky if you can step foot in the room. it needs serious work. Partially why we haven't started on it yet is because a lot of the stuff in our garage has been going down the shop. Now that we can see some space in our garage, we can start bringing the crap we really want to keep from the baby's room out of that room to store in the garage. Our house is just too small!

I go back to work tomorrow so I cannot have a late night tonight. I have also stayed home this morning to do exciting things like the washing! (how excitement). So tonight will hopefully be a semi-earlier night, although having said that we still have to get the grocery shopping done and somehow fit in visiting MIL for Mother's Day (Happy Mother's day by the way to everyone).

Tomorrow before work I am seeing the OB again for our regular visit. I am going to ask about redoing the scan and what she thinks. Wriggles has been kicking away daily so all has been good there. Hubbs felt more kicks yesterday too - so he is happy as well.

oh and I forgot to tell you - last Thursday I met up with the beautiful Andrea. Andrea and I went through IVF cycles together. We both got three eggs collected and whilst I had two fertilise, Andrea only had one. But we were both blessed - and she is due three days before me. It has been great to go through this with someone who is going through the same thing. We met for lunch (which was quite entertaining as there was a very sad case of a drunk woman chatting up any men in the bar saying stuff like "can you dial this number for me on my mobile - I just want to check that my sex line is still working"). Eventually we decided to leave after she came over to me and said that one of the guys wanted my phone number (Hello! big fat pregnant woman here - do I LOOK interested?). But still it was a lovely lunch and it was good to compare pregnancies. Although I am sure the sight of two women waddling through the shopping centre would have been a treat. hehe. We met at doncaster shopping centre (give it a miss for the moment - major construction going on and parking is a nightmare).

ummmm anything else I have to tell you? I don't think so. Other than everything is fine and I have put my foot down about any more late nights. Hubbs can stay there and work as long as he likes but I just can't continually do it. It is killing me and is so unfair to wriggles. I feel guilty about him having to do all the work himself but I so don't want to go into early labour or anything and I need to take care of myself for Wriggles sake.

p.s. Still love every second of being pregnant. I can't stop touching my belly. I smile at every movement felt. My heart swells with love for this little person growing inside me. I must do new belly shots soon - I can't even believe how I have really popped out in the last couple of weeks. My heart aches for all my friends who so desperately want this experience too. I yearn to be able to grant that wish for you - if only I had the power. A part of me feels guilty for telling you all how blessed I feel but please don't think I am boasting. I so understand the position that my fellow infertiles are in - just because I am pregnant now does not mean I don't consider myself infertile any more. I will always be that way. I just got extremely lucky with the help of modern medicine. I pray every day that nobody else ever has to go through infertile hell. May your dreams come true.

p.s.s. Still waiting on new live stock for the shop so no guppies at the moment, and little of anything else. if you were thinking of dropping in for fishies - hang off until I let you know that the stock has arrived.

Just for the kicks of it

Thank you all for your well wishes on our new venture. We open the doors tomorrow for the first time (I never knew how much paperwork it was to get everything in place so you could legally trade!) We have been working so hard on it. cleaning, changing things etc - last night we were there until 1:30am hoping to get ourselves into a position to start trading today but at 1:30am we called it quits for the night. Today we were so exhausted, we didn't get everything finished until about 3pm and decided that tomorrow was a great day to have our first business day. We should be getting some new stock in shortly too - Steff - How funny that you know our shop! Hubbs said you are welcome any time! Clare - you will be more than welcome if you do come visit (but during the week I will be at my main job - weekends I will likely be at the shop though)

Hubbs had to go to his best friend's bucks night tonight, so we couldn't work back late tonight. (I dropped him off a little while ago with a "don't forget about your wife and child" (since I know there will be 2 strippers there tonight - ohh and before you ask why 2 strippers and not 1 - I asked that question and found out with 2 strippers there is all that girl on girl action! I had no idea. go figure).)

Anyhow I dropped hubbs off, went to the supermarket and came home and made hokkien noodles with pork and veggies in a chinese bbq sauce and finished off with fresh pineapple chunks for dessert (chopped up from half a pineapple by yours truly) - yummmo

23 weeks! Yay Katt - I got this far. Today wriggles was kicking up a storm. He/She was kicking so much I could feel it by touching my stomach. I called hubbs over and he put his hand on my stomach too - and got 2 good kicks out of it - I was soooo excited that he got to share this incredible experience. You should have seen the smile on his face too (and look of astonishment at what he actually felt) when he felt those kicks. hehe. You would have thought we had just discovered Gold up my nose or something.

I absolutely love being pregnant. I love everything about it. I even rejoice in the constipation, the stretch marks and the pelvis that separates and hurts if I walk too much.

Every second of every day I am amazed and excited at the feeling of this baby growing inside me. The kicks get stronger every day and I love the changes I am seeing. Like when I play classical music I get nothing, yet if I put on rock or heavy metal - I get kicks galore. If I stop the music, the kicks stop. If I play a slow song, the kicks stop but if I play one that has a really strong beat the kicks start up again. It is so incredible. I am trying so hard not to take any of it for granted, and not to forget any of the feelings and experiences. I have even taken to shortening Wriggles name to just "rigs" lol.

4 doors down from the shop is the most incredible pizza place I have ever had the privlege to eat from. Wriggles loves pizza. The mere mention of the word has wriggles kicking up a storm. One bite of this heavenly delight and wriggles is in wriggling nirvana. I have tried to limit my intake though - it was getting beyond a joke after we had eaten our third pizza in three days!

3 doors down from the shop is a lovely cafe - The owners wife is there most days - except when she is working. She is a midwife and I love chatting to her - she is so lovely. She thinks, with my diabetes, that this bub will be born around mid August. I am in two minds about wanting that to come true. My Dad died on the 15th August (D - I know that is your birthday too!). I think however, I would prefer bubs being born on that date than a day or so before or after. I am struggling however with what it would mean if bubs was a boy and born on the day his grandfather died (16 years later). Hubbs is more fatalistic about all this - he said "wriggles will be born when he or she is born".

Ok better finish this drivel that has probably totally bored you all to tears and go put my feet up while I can. My ankles are a little swollen today and I have had them raised at the shop most of the day, while hubbs worked hard. I have to stay up until I get the call to go pick hubbs up from this bucks night, so plan on just sitting back on the couch with my feet up until I get that call. (of course I should be putting washing away, doing the dishes and 10 million other things but my feet come first!).

night all. - blessings to you all.