Ever wonder?

Have you ever wondered what IT people do during the day, when you are between tasks and every second person that contacts you seems to be "missing a few sheep in the top paddock", if you know what I mean?

Well - we play with toys.

Here are the toys on my desk - doing a conga line.
and those naughty boy bees trying to "upskirt" wonder woman - (if you know, she was wearing a skirt).

ok - I know - i need a life.

Hope you are all well.

Back at work

I started work full time this week. It's hard. Really really hard. I have to get Alex to daycare before 8am so i can get to work on time and getting everything organised for us all is a bit of a struggle.

But I am getting there. The first couple of days i cried all the way to work, if not for sheer exhaustion then definately for leaving my crying baby at daycare. Boy is that hard!

Alex is settling in well at daycare though, and truth be known, before the car is started, he has already stopped crying and has started playing. They love him and tell me all the time what a great little man he is. He is blossoming there.

But i have seen some things that upset me. Teddy blankie has changed from being something he likes to cuddle at bedtime to an object he has to have with him at all times. A real security blanket. It worries me that he needs it but I am trying to not get upset about it. At home he carries it around a little but soon forgets it.

He has been continually sick since his second day. he got a cold which became ear infections in both ears and an upper respiratory infection and has had to be on antibiotics for a week now. He is very slowly getting better.

One great thing is that they have a doctor visit the daycare centre every monday and you can get her to see your baby if you have anything you are concerned about or for immunisations etc. She is great with babies and children - they love her. She also bulk bills which is really good. So she is going to check him again this Monday to make sure he is on the improve. Poor little man.

He also finds it difficult in the mornings when he wants to continue sleeping and Mean Mummy picks him up, dresses and changes him and puts him in the car with his bottle. The look on his face shows how he just doesn't understand what is going on.

I found the first few days at work a bit of a challenge too - after all it has been a year since i looked at all this stuff and the cobwebs have definately built up. I am back at my old desk and all my stuff is still there, including pens etc. Bit freaky really. But Friday saw me thrown in the deep end with the girl who was doing my job calling in sick and not one but three major disasters occuring during the day that I had to immediately respond to. Something happened and I remembered things i had forgotten. I got them all fixed, in a timely manner and with appropriate notification. My new boss was really happy when I told him exactly what the issues were and how they should be fixed a full two hours before the professionals could diagnose it. I was so busy i never even had time to drink a glass of water, cup of coffee or even have lunch. And you know what? I loved every second of it.

I felt like my brain has been switched on! And bonus - at the end of the day i get to go pick up my amazing son and we play and laugh and cuddle.

I still count the hours to picking up Alex from the moment i get to work, but I enjoy being at work too. It sure helps.

Alex is gearing up for his first birthday. One of the things he decided to do the other morning was read up on what big kids are doing:

hehe what he did was put his hands through the bars and pull in all the books he could get out of the bookcase at the end of his bed. Cheeky bugger.

On the weekends we enjoy a leisurely breakfast where Alex adores his vegemite toast! Yummmm

Hope you are all doing well - take care all.

New world order

I finish work tomorrow - for a whole year. It is kinda freaky. I am having detachment issues. I have been there nearly 7 years and quite frankly, I am struggling to emotionally let go. People keep saying "I guess you don't really care anymore" but the truth is I do care - too much. I haven't slacked off - I have done lots of work, but I have less to do because I have given most of it to my replacement. There is only so much internet searches you can do, and I feel funny doing that at work anyhow, so end up trying to find more work to do.

Finishing work to have a baby? Me? Are you serious? And Sunday I am booked in to have the baby seat professionally fitted to the car - Haha! That is hilarious - why would we need to do that? This early? I mean we have like 6 weeks until we are due. I know this is the only appointment in the next 4 weeks i can get the car seat fitted but surely I am being a little presumptuous - me? having a baby? a real baby? Get real!

The baby room is still being emptied but we hope to be able to start actually putting baby stuff in there soon. We completed our baby classes, and yesterday I did a breastfeeding class. i cried at the video of a new mother learning to breastfeed, (and then noticed I was the only one in the room crying). They gave us all baby dolls to hold while doing the class as they said they found that women enjoyed the feeling of holding the baby while doing the class. I also noticed I was the only one in the room actually cradling my baby. Everyone else was just resting it on their laps or sitting it on the floor next to them.

I am still struggling to believe that this is actually happening. Sometime in say the next 8 weeks I am going to be a mum. Me! A Mummy! A baby is actually going to rely on me - it is going to know my smell, my voice, my presence and I am going to be the most important person in his/her life. Wow - scary stuff,

Wriggles is still wriggling - more these days than kicking and boy can they wriggle. I absolutely love the feeling still. I don't care that i waddle. I don't care that my clothing doesn't really fit. I don't care that I have trouble sitting due to the bundle of wriggling joy that seems to be constantly headbutting my cervix.

People are asking me - are you sick of it yet? The answer is a definate NO. I don't think they really believe me when I say that I would happily stay this pregnant for another year or so. I am going to miss this baby so much when they are out of my belly and in my arms. I so want them in my arms but having them constantly a part of me is something I will definately miss.

Wriggles - Mummy loves you pumpkin - and I am not sick of you wriggling inside me. I love you so much and so does your Daddy who tenderly touches you through my belly every night - who says "hey Wriggles - what you doing in there?" - who says "be good to mummy and go to sleep" during the night when you are active and who every day on msn says "love you two".

Not long now - and we will meet and then the fun will really begin.

In love with a bump

I am such a happy mumma. Just came back from an OB appointment and everything is absolutely perfect. Wriggles is perfect for size, very active, great heartbeat and lying in a perfect position - head down, back on my right, arms and feet on my left. Let's hope he/she stays that way. I am getting bigger and loving every second still. I never knew I could love a child this much. I never knew that I would adore being pregnant the way I do. I will be 31 weeks tomorrow and I love every single second. It is by far the most amazing experience I have ever had and I don't have much time left to wallow in it. I hope sometime in the future wriggles reads this and understands that even when Mummy yells, even when Mummy says "get out of my sight, I don't want to be seeing you right now" that Mummy loved them with every cell in her body, before they were even born. I have mild swelling on my fingers which means I had to remove my wedding ring, but that isn't too bad and my ankles are doing fine. I also have a little bit of pelvic pain but that is all to be expected.

We talk to wriggles a lot. We have developed a bedtime routine where Hubbs comes and lays his hands on my belly and talks to wriggles and wriggles kicks him in response and we have these stupid grins on our faces at every kick. We have discovered that if we are quiet, Wriggles stops kicking but if we are noisy, wriggles kicks a lot. It is cheap amusement.

We have started playing different music to wriggles. Last week I spent the whole week listening to classical music on the ABC - wriggles kicked heaps, whether that was to say they loved it or "get that crap off and give me some good old rock" I don't really know. But I will be forcing lots of things at wriggles just so they get to experience everything and make up their own mind. It is what my Dad did for me and I really appreciated it.

Growing up my parents were not religious at all, but my Dad was determined that we were going to make up our own minds. So he got me into doing a lot of bible study by correspondance and every now and then we would attend a local church just so we were exposed to religion and could decide for ourselves whether we wanted that in our lives. Probably the most interesting one was a bible study course I did that prompted a guy to come round showing us a video of a bible study camp in Waco, Texas. I was invited to go. I nearly went and my parents were keen to support my decision to go should I have decided that. But in the end I just couldn't leave my family , even for a short time. Not long later I saw that camp on the news - this time for a totally different reason. As I watched the news footage of this camp in Waco, Texas where so many people died I thought - I could have been there. Strange how life has a way of taking you on different paths. Imagine that.

We have started baby/parenting class. I joke that I really hope we pass! They are a little boring but we are still going. I hope next week will be better. There are 10 couples in the class. One of the other dads is a neighbours cast member. He is such a nice guy and we all get on really well in the class. He has my sense of humour so we joke a lot. You will be pleased to know that my belly is the smallest in the class (and I thought I was huge).

I am still working hard. I have three more weeks left on my job, but I am also working friday nights, and both Saturday and Sunday (full time) at the shop. This may have to change as we get closer but for the moment it seems okay (except for Saturday when Hubbs and I had a huge fight because he called me lazy saying I would prefer to "play" rather than work! I think I am the most un-lazy person around at the moment - how many other women 7 months pregnant would work a minumum of 57 hours a week plus do all the housework and all the cooking (hubbs is not doing any of it) ? Lazy indeed - it still riles me thinking about it. He did apologise later but the words hurt. )

We have finally started clearing out the spare room for wriggles to move into. I really really had to push Hubbs to get into it, and every day it is a bit of a struggle for me to get him to do a bit more. he wants to come home from the shop and rest, whilst I would be happy for him to work on the room for just one hour a night and then rest. I think he thinks there is a lot of time left and it is frustrating the hell out of me. I am doing as much of it as I can myself - lifting smaller things and doing it bit by bit. I wouldn't mind if we had a weekend or something to work on the room, but the shop is open 7 days a week so our ONLY time is after the shop shuts. Please hope that he gets motivated soon (before wriggles is born preferebly!). To be honest I have done most of the work myself (not that he would acknowledge that). He has just done some of the bigger stuff. Still - I don't care as long as it gets done - soon!

And now for some minor stash enhancement. The three different ones at the back are acrylic specials that were too good to pass up - lovely and soft they were 5 balls for $3 and the three at the front are just carnival 8ply on special for $2.50 each. Some of you know that over the years I have been knitting squares up in cream, and two tones of brown and they perfectly match the triple tone in these balls so i just had to buy them. I am thinking of maybe knitting up some more squares in this and using one ball to join all the squares. One day. Another UFO.

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.