My family

We took some photos of the three of us the other night. Lolly was so rapt we both got down and put our heads next to her. I think she even struck a funny photo smile, the kind that becomes a little kid's trademark (mine was always a very demure cocked head, like Lady Di used to do - it's difficult to find a photo of me pre-15 years old without it). She turned from Steve to me, over and over, and made all those breathy, awestruck baby sounds I've waited years to hear from my own baby but have always made do with getting close to nieces/nephews, kids at Creches where I worked in my younger days, etc.

When we uploaded the photos to the computer, I was so overwhelmed by them. To me, they are awesome. To anyone looking at them, we are the picture of a happy family with their first little bub. All the time in the world to actually get down there and take that snap. And here's where the familiar taste of bittersweetness hits me.

Do I ever have to let go the fact that this is not my whole family? The sum total of "us" is there physically on that play mat in that picture, for all anyone who doesn't know us or our story knows or cares. But there is one very special, achingly distant big ol' soul who is a part of us yet never there, forever just out of tangible reach. Will I ever get to a point where I introduce me, Steve and Lauryn as "my family" and drop the explanation that we also have a big sister, Ellanor, who died as a baby? It pains me every time I have to bring her into it, do I add her to cards at Christmas time especially now we have Lauryn? I feel like, to make her existence real to Lolly, I would surely have to include her as a part of our family.

But it's also uncomfortable to do so. I am certain there are some people (probably through their own discomfort) who would assume it's me "not coping" - that ridiculous turn of phrase which I despise so much in the way it's used as a blanket term - and not letting go. And yes, it is true I shouldn't worry about what other people think. It's not that I worry so much as the fact that I would dearly hope everyone gets the fact that Ella is ALWAYS going to be included in our everyday lives (although she's not spoken of very often, as such, but she's just interwoven into our family just like any family member whether or not you spend your days talking or thinking about them). That it is always going to be extremely difficult on holiday/family occasions for us, despite the fact we have a second child now. I am keenly aware of Father's Day coming up. A day I have said before that, like Mother's Day, is not an important day in this household - it's a gimmick day if you ask me or Steve - but we recognise it as special to other parents in the family and also feel the pressure to attend celebration of those two days.

I'm suspecting the assumption this year will be that we'll be so ecstatic that we now have Lauryn to share these days with. But to try and explain that it just makes them so very much harder because we should be receiving hand made cards from an excited 2 1/2 year old now would make me sound like I'm a glass half empty kind of person.

If I look hard enough, I see Ellanor all over this photo. In the whole series of them we snapped giddily with our little Lolly so excitedly looking at our faces so close to hers. Every time a moment like this happens, I will be jerked back to a feeling of loss. Of immense pride and love. And loss. It will never be shaken or grown out of. Not distance nor years nor new memories will ever erase it. Ella lives alongside us. Forever 4 weeks old. But also forever Lauryn's older sister. As Lolly gets older and older, day by day clocking up new milestones, so too does my feeling of Ellanor - I think of her as being older than Lauryn despite the fact that she is now almost two weeks older than her sister was before she left this Earth.

And here endeth the ramble. Before I overthink it all.

These are the posts which get me thinking I really, really need to make my lunch date with Alliecat. Soon.

A good change is not necessarily a quick change...

Ok, so it was one of *those* moments.

Ever bursting with wonder at the miracle of that little single cell which grew into something that not only put a second line on a wee stick, and many many more lines on my stomach, but stole my heart long before I saw her, it can still happen. That moment you just want to end. The moment of tending to your little cherub that is making your back ache, your melted heart break and quite frankly, regret that you didn't pause the live stream of the Emmy Awards with your Foxtel IQ button (ahhh, magic button, where have you been all my life?).

My reasons are thus:
Miss Lolly was in her Monday best, a) because we were going to visit the Homeopath - that man I almost had a blarney with in all my hormonal haughtiness, and b) because it's probably the last time she'll fit in that top and those pants. All went smoothly. We came home. She slept in her *nice* clothes, sans the jacket, and I got her up on queue. It all went to shit, literally, after that.

I decided that, as she is getting over a case of nappy rash and wondering if perhaps I'm leaving her in her nappy too long, I would get her up and change her. This would be fine if she wasn't used to being changed in between her feed and NOT when she had a raging empty stomach. I know that.... now.

Foolishly, I began to change her, dry and lather up with barrier cream that red, sore bottom and even do a quick-draw McGraw change into a more comfy growsuit. She did her usual "Ooooh, my nappy's off! I'll take a whizz now!" and so the cloth nappy I put under her butt was wet before I could even do it up. But apart from that, it all went relatively smoothly.... except that part with her going purple with indignation that I wasn't taking her order to the Kitchen.

The moment over, we went out and she fed while I just thanked the cosmos for the silence and peace restored, and she made some whopping great noises while she was feeding. It wasn't until I got her up to burp her that I discovered she had managed to blow out the top of her disposable, right through the new bodysuit and growsuit she had on (we use sleeveless bodysuits with snaps at the crotch as singlets in this house).

So I realised with much angst that I had to take her, kicking and screaming if that's how she wanted to do it, back to the change table to do it all again. It went relatively smoothly... the first bit. I changed her and cleaned her up and got to the part where you do up the new nappy - a cloth one this time - when I noticed she was wet on the outside underneath. These modern cloth nappies are so good that, even when I undid it and checked the part that was touching her skin, it felt dry. I cocked my head on the side *aruh?* and then realised that, yes, she had managed to wet through another nappy in that short space of time. So. Off it came.

During this, she possitted from the other end and wet the top shoulder of her singlet suit. This also had to come off. Again. But a new nappy had to come first. While she was laying there as I grabbed another nappy, and removed the terry square nappy from under her that she'd wet too, she weed directly on the change mat. And all up the back of the fresh growsuit and singlet I'd laid under her. So out all that came. Again.

New nappy positioned and secured, I was then able to redress her. Now all this time, she was not a happy customer - the verbal equivalent of banging your knife and fork ends on the table, I'm sure. I got her arms, now getting quite rigid and not accommodating as they were the first then the second time I had to change her, through and then tried to do up the snaps at the bottom of the suit. She has outgrown it. There was a split second of flat panic from me, with my aching heart that wanted to help her (by putting her to the breast), arguing the pro's and con's of leaving it on and just being done with it. But that was until I saw that I had had to pull it down so far that she now had an alluring off-the-shoulder look happening up the top end. Damn her father's tall genes!

So the poor wee darling has gone through more costume changes than a can-can dancer on opening night. So pooped she was that she fell asleep before she finished her feed. And that was after waking from a good 3.5hrs+ snooze. I've not heard a peep. She's probably too scared to call me in, for fear I'll make her wardrobe up again.

The count stands, in one lot of awake time, at:
Nappies = 5
Bodysuits = 3
Pants = 1 (the "good" pair)
Top = 1 (the one that goes with the "good" pair of pants)
Growsuits = 2 (complete with a stain even Mr Hart What A Mess would be impressed with)

The day the dog put in the wrong teeth

Pop quizz

We've tried all of the below. Your question, should you choose to answer it, is:
How does one ensure a certain little Lolly drops off to sleep successfully during the day (as in, stays asleep for more than 15 minutes)? Is it:

A. Don't make a peep, don't touch a thing anywhere in the house for fear of creating a noise?
B. Allow a little bit of noise but only after she is well and truly zonked?
C. Same as B but with a cd of classical music on repeat in her room?
D. Dry your hair with a 150 decibel hair dryer, keep the laundry door open with the washing machine going and swap that classical cd with a good mix of repetitively-played not so quiet songs you used to listen to constantly when she was but a tadpole?

Answer will be in the next instalment.

Track wars

Curtain tracks, that is.

I love my husband. Don't get me wrong. I adore him. We fit well, we have fun, laugh loads, we're on the same wavelength, yada yada yada. Before you think I'm getting trippy on the happy hormones of motherhood, let me put some "howevers" in there.

Steve took five weeks off work to meet and greet Lolly. The first week, before she arrived, was great and we got along as good as usual. The first days in hospital were fine. We were still connecting well. By the last day in hospital, that's where my wheels started to fall off. I say mine, because his couldn't surely even be wonky....

So by the end of these past five short (but loooong) weeks, I am happy to say Steve is safely back at work. Where I can love him and miss him and really appreciate him when he comes home.

Among all the other quabbles, I was really getting so sick of the curtains open/curtains shut thing. Anyone who's ever had a brother or a boyfriend or a husband they've lived with for any length of time will know what I mean. It's that incessant penchant men have for blocking out all chance of vitamin D so they can watch *insert tv program/sport/loud movie, the more blokey the better* or play their *insert game console of choice here*

Today, it's a fresh 17 or so degrees, beautiful warm sun streaming in, a nice fresh breeze blowing through the house and the curtains, the blessed curtains, they're open! I don't CARE if there's glare on the tv. I feel so liberated.

I do miss Steve. He just needs to not be here so I can love him again.

Guess who's been experimenting with clichéd poses

I don't believe it. Even Steve's hands are photogenic.

But those little skinny legs.... the lucky girl had better hope she gets to keep those. Things I wish for my daughter #3998: that she has her daddy's metabolism.

My husband ... the alien?

Forget the cocked eyebrow... who said it wasn't noticeable that he was a forceps birth? Bwahahahaha, now that's just being downright mean.

I took this photo in '99 on our honeymoon, somewhere out the back of nowhere in the wolds of England, we were lost, it was raining hard, we were retracing our steps back to a B road after being cut off by a flood (we tried to drive through it but decided against it when we went so far into it that the brakes started smoking on the hire car) and Steve jumped out of the car in the rain to pose for this shot.

I'd say by now he's the full 4/4 cracked, by the way. He's been with me almost 14 years after all.

You had me at bottom burp

One of the many perils of the after-effects of a vaginal birth (with tearing, an episiotomy and stitches), as follows:

"Do you think we'll ever do it... like... ever again? Without it hurting?"
"Mmmm *pondering, hesitantly* Yeah..."
"When?"
*big pause, putting a sympathetic hand on my knee*
"When you can let Fluffy off the chain without crying."

Oh who am I kidding...

I need to show her off. As often as humanly possible. You'll have to bear with me for the next while, til I get this out of my system and go back to the banal shit.

So without further ado.... here's the latest photo exposé of The Girl:

Watching the music

(there's a world of spinning black, white and coloured things twirling above her head....but she finds watching the speaker where the music comes out far more interesting....)

Safety

Ohhhhwwwwww, how those cheeks just kill me. Every day.

Lovin' the Ergo Carrier

Bliss is...
hanging out with mummy under a plush blankie.

Getting there

I promise I am working on the story of Lolly's very dicey entrance into my arms.

I think I'm a little scared of going there again. I actually caught a bit of Bringing Baby Home or one of those birth shows on Discovery channel just this morning.... when the narrator said 'Tanya's epidural was wearing off and she felt *some* pain with each contraction', whilst showing *poor* Tanya crying as she awaited for the next instruction to push because she couldn't actually feel the need, I had to hold back my tears. And also the undeniable urge to put a fist through Tanya's face on the screen.

So. I have some serious things to work through apparently. I will get there though. By writing it out, I'm hoping I can start to actually overcome some of my emotions about it. I think it may actually have got in the way of my feeling anything for Lolly (Lauryn!) for the first week or two, over and above the normal factors that all new mothers face - I realise many mums don't 'feel the lurve' and have that instant bond. I don't know if I was expecting that. But I was expecting to feel more than I did. I spent most of my time in hospital literally unable to separate Lauryn from Ella. They were like one baby to me and I struggled very hard to rewire my thinking, as the last thing I ever, ever want for our new baby girl is to feel like she's being overshadowed by The Perfect Forever-Baby in our family.

More later.

Meet our new dog!

Her name is Libby (otherwise known as Liberty Taker, a.k.a. Libby for short).

She thinks that because there are new bright, colourful and plush squooshy floor blankets in the house, they are hers for the lying. So we've had to get wise to the Libby and have taken to covering everything in towels that belongs to the baby, before letting her and her friend Pepe le Pissed Off At New Baby in at night. So they're lulled into a 'business as usual' comfort zone. Which isn't happening. Because there's something.... something breathing and squawking in That Room We're Not Allowed In.

No flies on our dogs.

Or the new dog that looks straaaangely like Jazz.